Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show Lips the lovely luscious lips
Speaker 1: of living and extinct animals. Who has the best pout
Speaker 1: the most perfect kissable lips, from smoochable dinosaurs to some
Speaker 1: of the toughest lips on the planet, or letting these
Speaker 1: critters get lippy with us? Discover this more as we
Speaker 1: answer the angel question if you have a real long tongue,
Speaker 1: pretty keep it. Joining me today to rate these lips
Speaker 1: is producer at iHeartRadio and friend of the show, co
Speaker 1: host of Ethnically Ambiguous, Anna Hosy.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Hi, thank you for having me Always always fun.
Speaker 1: I am so so excited for this one because there's
Speaker 1: big news. Anna. I don't know if you've heard about this.
Speaker 3: The t rex.
Speaker 1: You can kiss t rex. It's it's canon, now, scientifically canon.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna need you to convince me on this one.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you won't die. I'm just saying that they.
Speaker 3: Have all.
Speaker 1: Anced the most dangerous kiss. So our understanding of how
Speaker 1: dinosaurs look like has changed. Over the years, we once
Speaker 1: thought they were scaly, brown or green kind of gaunt creatures.
Speaker 1: They are sometimes scaly. We still think that a lot
Speaker 1: of them were sort of had tough, leathery skin, but
Speaker 1: we also think that they may have been feathery or
Speaker 1: colorful and maybe not as gaunt as they were once depicted.
Speaker 1: This habit of reconstructing an animal from fossil records and
Speaker 1: not including enough fat, muscle, or other soft tissue masks
Speaker 1: is called shrink wrapping, like you've seen you've seen Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where most of my dinosaur knowledge comes from.
Speaker 3: Really, that in Land Before Time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, both very scientifically accurate movies. Land Before Time. You
Speaker 1: know what, Actually I feel like in Land Before Time
Speaker 1: the dinosaurs are They've got a certain heft to them
Speaker 1: and a certain chubbiness that I appreciate.
Speaker 2: They're like children. They're like young kids who haven't lost
Speaker 2: their baby weight yet exactly.
Speaker 1: They are cute and I like that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: do think that it is an interesting depiction of dinosaurs
Speaker 1: visually now, of course, like they probably couldn't talk, they
Speaker 1: probably couldn't go on adventures together among many different species.
Speaker 1: I would love if that were the case, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they might have been more plump than we sort of
Speaker 1: envisioned them. Like in Jurassic Park, t Rex is sort
Speaker 1: of this like very angular, very gaunt creature, very scary looking,
Speaker 1: and its teeth kind of jet out of it, Like
Speaker 1: even when its mouth is closed, you can still see
Speaker 1: it's teeth jetting out of it. And of course there's
Speaker 1: not a feather to be seen in any of the
Speaker 1: Jurassic parks. I don't believe so, right, I haven't actually
Speaker 1: seen the most recent Jurassic parks, but they didn't put
Speaker 1: any feathers in there, did they?
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: I mean I've seen them all, even the ones that
Speaker 2: get like the very bad ratings from the most recent franchises, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no feathers.
Speaker 1: No feathers. That probably would have made them better. I
Speaker 1: think it would have been very important plot points. You know,
Speaker 1: Feathery dinosaurs could have been a thing. You could have
Speaker 1: been bold and done feathery dinosaurs. But they didn't, and
Speaker 1: that's why they missed out on an Oscar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I always say, as well.
Speaker 2: More feathers, Yeah, more feathers.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it, like recent Oscar winners what
Speaker 1: do they all have in common? Feathers? So yeah, often
Speaker 1: t rex is depicted with these menacing teeth, similar to
Speaker 1: like the crocodile, where you know, when the crocodile's mouth
Speaker 1: is closed, you can still see its teeth jutting out.
Speaker 3: Wow, t rexes are kind of ugly.
Speaker 2: It almost looks like they have hair on them, But
Speaker 2: I think that's just texture, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's just texture. I don't know about the
Speaker 1: evidence for t rexes having like it wouldn't be hair,
Speaker 1: it would be like fine feathery down. Potentially there may
Speaker 1: have been some species of t rex like dinosaurs, large
Speaker 1: dinosaurs that had some sort of like basically feathery coating,
Speaker 1: maybe for warmth, and certainly perhaps their offspring had some
Speaker 1: downy fluff on them as well. Maybe when they're younger,
Speaker 1: when they have less body fat, that might have been useful.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know if it is a really
Speaker 1: settled thing about whether adult t rexes had any kind
Speaker 1: of feathers or not. But they do think that they
Speaker 1: had lips, which means that technically they could wear lipstick,
Speaker 1: which I think. You know, you said they're ugly, but
Speaker 1: I feel like you put a little bit of lipstick
Speaker 1: on a little bit of highlighter and you know that's
Speaker 1: a little bit of rouge. Maybe some falsies. Then you're
Speaker 1: you know, look you're working resulting. Yeah, high cheek bones,
Speaker 1: they've got the bone structure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do.
Speaker 2: But it's also unfortunate they have to, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of succumb to like societal beauty standards in order to
Speaker 2: be considered beautiful. It's actually quite sad.
Speaker 3: I think what we're seeing here.
Speaker 1: I think the unrealistic standards for t rexes is a
Speaker 1: shame because I think that they are beautiful even when
Speaker 1: they aren't wearing false eyelashes, and like, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that there should be a whole revamp of the
Speaker 1: whole dinosaur Instagram culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I will say, you know, looking at these photos,
Speaker 2: it's interesting that they have lips. But it's like something
Speaker 2: I would have never really thought about, Like I would
Speaker 2: just assume the area around their their mouth where it opens.
Speaker 3: Is their lips.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So is like.
Speaker 2: What different differentiates that sort of I guess lip area
Speaker 2: from the rest of their I guess exoskeleton, if you will,
Speaker 2: Like what made them be like, no, no, they are lips.
Speaker 1: That's a really good question. I mean, lips are sort
Speaker 1: of a they like. The interesting thing with lips, right,
Speaker 1: is that it is something that in humans and some
Speaker 1: other animals are malleable, right, Like, our lips have this
Speaker 1: fine muscle control and we can move them in this way.
Speaker 1: But this that doesn't have to be the case. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of animal that have lips but do not
Speaker 1: have that kind of fine muscle control over them. I
Speaker 1: think that the sort of general definition of lips is
Speaker 1: just like a fleshy projection that covers the teeth. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it needs to be much more than that.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: The way that researchers determined that t rex may have
Speaker 1: had these lips covering their teeth is that they actually
Speaker 1: took a tooth from a close relative of the t rex,
Speaker 1: this Plotosaurus, another giant frightening predator that looks very similar
Speaker 1: to the t rex, and they bisected the tooth and
Speaker 1: examined the enamel from the fossil and found that it
Speaker 1: had shockingly little wear and tear. So enamel, when exposed
Speaker 1: to the elements or to coffee, can dissolve and wear overtime,
Speaker 1: and so crocodiles and alligators, the modern day examples of
Speaker 1: an animal who don't got lips and have their teeth
Speaker 1: all sticky out cope with this by replacing their teeth.
Speaker 1: Often they go through thousands of teeth over their lifetime.
Speaker 1: And that's a lot of money from the tooth fairy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a lot of money. And I did not
Speaker 2: know they were losing teeth left and right.
Speaker 1: They yeah, it's it's a lot of teeth that they
Speaker 1: go through. But t rex teeth likely took too long
Speaker 1: to grow to be so easily replaceable. That, plus the
Speaker 1: evidence from the t rex's close relative indicates to scientists
Speaker 1: that t rex could have had lips covering their teeth,
Speaker 1: which would have served the purpose of protecting their teeth
Speaker 1: from the elements. I mean, it's an interesting thing, right,
Speaker 1: like why do we have lips? One of the reasons,
Speaker 1: perhaps the key reason originally is that it helped protect
Speaker 1: our teeth.
Speaker 3: Okay, I thought it was for kissing.
Speaker 1: Grow up anna geez, or for talking.
Speaker 2: Don't lips do us the tongue as well? But I
Speaker 2: guess like lips help enunciate certain words.
Speaker 1: But absolutely, they absolutely do they help us talk. They
Speaker 1: help us enunciate kissing, all of these sort of social things.
Speaker 1: But we didn't originally evolve lips to talk. Perhaps lips
Speaker 1: did help, but like we started to evolve much more
Speaker 1: flexible lips in order to be able to have more
Speaker 1: unique vocalizations, right like our primate ancestors, But you know,
Speaker 1: using our lips to really shape sound and stuff. That
Speaker 1: came quite a bit later in our evolutionary history. Okay,
Speaker 1: So yeah, for the t rex that probably the lips
Speaker 1: that they had were unlikely to be as poudy and
Speaker 1: flexible as human lips are. It was probably just sort
Speaker 1: of a tough, sort of fleshy protuberance that as part
Speaker 1: of their face, probably quite leather that covered their teeth
Speaker 1: and protected them from the disintegration of their enamel when
Speaker 1: exposed to the elements. So, I looking honestly at the
Speaker 1: illustration of te rex with lips versus without lips, I
Speaker 1: think with lips it looks like a more serious animal
Speaker 1: for some reason. Without lips with its teeth kind of
Speaker 1: sticking out to me, now that looks goofy hmm.
Speaker 2: Okay, I feel like the classic look is teeth out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I feel like it looks now that I
Speaker 1: see them with the lips on, it looks wrong. Without
Speaker 1: the lips it looks silly.
Speaker 2: It looks like they don't have teeth like them. That
Speaker 2: be like like they lost all their teeth basically, is
Speaker 2: what it looks like with the lips on. Yeah, lips
Speaker 2: on just looks weird.
Speaker 1: Huh No for me, like the lips on makes sense
Speaker 1: to me, And with the with the teeth sticking out
Speaker 1: the teeth, it makes me feel It makes me think
Speaker 1: this has sort of like an overbite, and I'm just
Speaker 1: imagining it with braces on and being kind of silly looking.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know, because like
Speaker 1: with the with the lips over it, there's a mystery
Speaker 1: to it, right, like how many teeth do you have?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's being coys, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: mystery until I'm in that mouth getting eaten. To me,
Speaker 1: that's intimidating, Okay.
Speaker 2: I you know, personally, I need to see the teeth
Speaker 2: before I get scared, because I'm like, well, what are
Speaker 2: we working with here? You might just be a nice guy, right,
Speaker 2: Teeth always is like if you're showing teeth, oh I'm
Speaker 2: out of here. Yeah, I'm not interested in seeing your teeth. Okay,
Speaker 2: then I know you mean business.
Speaker 1: This is how we know you wouldn't make a good dentist,
Speaker 1: because as soon as someone comes in your office and
Speaker 1: they show you their teeth, it's like, well, I don't
Speaker 1: want to.
Speaker 3: See your teeth. I'm out of there.
Speaker 1: You're out of there, right, So Anna, earlier, we were
Speaker 1: talking about how lips are not just used for protecting teeth.
Speaker 1: They can also be flexible and used to shape sounds.
Speaker 1: And so I want to talk about the beluga whales.
Speaker 1: So are you familiar with belugas? Uh?
Speaker 3: Yes, I am.
Speaker 1: Uh you sound very like it sounds like your best
Speaker 1: friend is like a beluga you were.
Speaker 2: You kid. I mean, they're they're just they're very viral animals.
Speaker 2: I've come across a beluga in my day.
Speaker 1: You know you've dealt with a beluga, believe me.
Speaker 2: I mean like they're out here. People will be like,
Speaker 2: look at this beluga whale playing soccer and you're like, whoa,
Speaker 2: you know, they got like the perfect little head that's
Speaker 2: like I'm here to play.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sound like fun guys.
Speaker 1: They are fun guys. They're actually very interesting because they
Speaker 1: are of the whales sort of the most expressive and
Speaker 1: like human like whale. One reason is that their neck
Speaker 1: can turn, so they can turn their neck and actually
Speaker 1: look at you in a way that is unusual, Yeah,
Speaker 1: unusual for whales. They also have highly flexible lips, so
Speaker 1: their facial expressions I think are a little more like
Speaker 1: uncannily maybe not exactly human, but they are more human likes.
Speaker 1: So they actually have that curve, Yeah, that little sort
Speaker 1: of like lip curve that makes them being like, oh why, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they definitely really yeah, they definitely have the why kind
Speaker 1: of look. They are very cute, very kind of goofy looking,
Speaker 1: but quite intelligent. So they use those highly flexible lips
Speaker 1: on their face to suck in prey, which is unlike
Speaker 1: both to the whales. So they kind of use their
Speaker 1: lips as a vacuum, which is really interesting. Oh really
Speaker 1: like yep, yep, they can suck and suck their prayer writeing. Uh,
Speaker 1: just like they're eating spaghetti. Uh. They also use their
Speaker 1: lips in social ways, so we were earlier, we were
Speaker 1: talking about kissing.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: They will make mouth to mouth contact with other Belugas
Speaker 1: in a friendly gesture. Now this doesn't necessarily connote any
Speaker 1: kind of like romantic intention. It is just sort of
Speaker 1: a friendly like almost like a handshake, but with.
Speaker 4: Lips, right, they're kind of like, oh exactly, They're they're
Speaker 4: very European tree European, you know, like hello, and just
Speaker 4: like greeting you with a little little kiss, which, trust me,
Speaker 4: is taking me a little bit to get used to.
Speaker 3: Uh so with all that kiss and you're doing over
Speaker 3: there with.
Speaker 1: All the belugas I have to kiss in Europe so
Speaker 1: many so. But one of the reasons I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about belugas is they have a secret set of lips.
Speaker 1: They have phone located below their blowhole in their air
Speaker 1: passage so you cannot really see these from the outside.
Speaker 1: These lips are located next to the beluga's flexible melon.
Speaker 1: So the melon is this fatty ball in their forehead
Speaker 1: that the beluga can change the shape of using muscles,
Speaker 1: which can change the shape of sounds that the beluga makes.
Speaker 1: So you know how that beluga has that kind of
Speaker 1: like lumpy, fatty forehead. It looks cute, it looks squishy.
Speaker 1: It is cute and squishy, and then these phonic lips
Speaker 1: that are in its air passage way can kind of
Speaker 1: work similar to human lips and shape the sound that
Speaker 1: the beluga makes, and in fact, it is so good
Speaker 1: at doing this that it can somewhat mimic human sound.
Speaker 1: And it is so there is this really wild story
Speaker 1: from the seventies about a beluga oil that seemed to
Speaker 1: be able to mimic human speech. Okay, as most animal
Speaker 1: stories start off, it happened with a Navy kidnapping. So
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, the navies, the Navy kidnapped belugas
Speaker 1: from the Arctic.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Some were so young that they spent most of their
Speaker 1: life in the Navy's care, which was the case for
Speaker 1: a calf named Knock. So the Navy had this whole
Speaker 1: like pipe dream where they were training Belugas for surveillance.
Speaker 1: So they kidnapped a bit I do recall this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they like kidnapped a bunch of like baby Belugas
Speaker 1: and then we're training them for military purposes. I think
Speaker 1: belugas are still used by various countries for military usage, which.
Speaker 3: For me is like a Russian thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly for me as a pacifist and someone
Speaker 1: who cares for belugas, not a big fan. But Knock
Speaker 1: spent so much time with trainers that he may have
Speaker 1: started to see them as his family. There is a
Speaker 1: recording made of Knock seemingly trying to mimic human speech.
Speaker 1: So there are no real words being spoken, just a
Speaker 1: mimicry of the general sound and cadence of a human
Speaker 1: conversation happening. So I'm gonna play this for you, Okay,
Speaker 1: here is the sound of Knock the beluga seemingly mimicking
Speaker 1: human speech. So why do you think Anna does that
Speaker 1: sound like a person? Isn't that crazy? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Crazy?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So there's no words there, right, but his cadence,
Speaker 1: frequency and patterns seem to match human speech. And they
Speaker 1: actually sort of tried to break it down and like
Speaker 1: break down the timing of it and make sure that
Speaker 1: it's not just that we kind of think it sounds
Speaker 1: like human speech, but that it's the frequency, these patterns
Speaker 1: that it has certain like vocal patterns that are very
Speaker 1: similar to human speech. So obviously it's really hard with
Speaker 1: like a sample size of one traumatized beluga to like
Speaker 1: really do a study of like, is this bluga actually
Speaker 1: trying to mimic human sounds? It's it's hard to know,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it's such a it is a
Speaker 1: really strange sound. I don't know how we could study
Speaker 1: this without being highly unethical, because then you would what
Speaker 1: would you do, like kidnap war baby whales, Like I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want that to happen.
Speaker 2: So then put a room together and be like talk. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so it seems like the Navy gave this beluga.
Speaker 1: I mean, if this is really this beluga trying to
Speaker 1: mimic human speech, maybe this beluga basically had like Stockholm syndrome,
Speaker 1: identified with its captors, loved its human captors. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's evidence of this. Uh Knock was once released from
Speaker 1: captivity by animal rights activists and he swam outside for
Speaker 1: a bit, but then just of his own volition like
Speaker 1: returned to his captors because he just you know, it's
Speaker 1: like his human family. He's never known anything else. He's
Speaker 1: never like gotten the experience of living with other belugas.
Speaker 1: So the I don't know the fact that he may
Speaker 1: have been trying to mimic the sound of his captors
Speaker 1: is like, this is a really disturbing story to me
Speaker 1: because it's like he's trying to communicate with people who
Speaker 1: he can never really communicate with.
Speaker 2: No, and he's trying to be like, eh, did I go.
Speaker 2: They didn't mind if I get out of here? Yeah,
Speaker 2: no big deal, I'll stay. I'll stay. But I just yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm a family of friends. Yeah, they're like shut up, bluga, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, imagine if you were kidnapped by aliens and
Speaker 1: they are making sounds, right, like weird sounds, and so
Speaker 1: you try to like mimic the sounds that the aliens
Speaker 1: are making to try to communicate with them, and they're
Speaker 1: just like, wow, look at that cute human. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that they don't crave other human interaction anyways.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 2: I have like no, I mean, it's just so sad
Speaker 2: when it's what it's put trade and like a lie
Speaker 2: where you're like the Buluca's like alp lp, Like it's
Speaker 2: just so sad.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, it's sad, and it's like haunting
Speaker 1: kind of. It's like seems like he's like desperate to
Speaker 1: bridge this communication.
Speaker 2: Yes, but he's yeah, it's like why is he Why
Speaker 2: is he trying to talk to us? Probably because he's
Speaker 2: trying to be like, get me the heck out of here.
Speaker 2: I'm not who you think I am.
Speaker 1: I mean, I almost think it's something almost sadder, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think he can even imagine a life outside
Speaker 1: of captivity. I think he's just desperate for communication, because
Speaker 1: Blucas can communicate with each other and understand each other,
Speaker 1: right like. They it's not it's a you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like a human language, right like where words have
Speaker 1: specific meanings. But Wales often have like calls that kind
Speaker 1: of identify themselves, and they can certainly like they can
Speaker 1: understand sort of the calls and the meaning of these calls.
Speaker 1: And so for this very intelligent creature to be in
Speaker 1: this situation where it's like all it's ever known is humans.
Speaker 1: And sure there were other belugas, like maybe one other
Speaker 1: beluga that it would interact with, but it's another captive Belugas.
Speaker 1: So neither of them have any experience with beluga culture.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like animals do have culture. They can
Speaker 1: teach and pass on knowledge to each other, and so
Speaker 1: it's it's a form of culture, and so they don't
Speaker 1: have any of that. And so with Nak, he's just
Speaker 1: trying to communicate to the only family that he's ever known.
Speaker 1: But he can never he can never fully make himself
Speaker 1: understood or understand what the people are saying. It's really tragic.
Speaker 3: That's so sad.
Speaker 1: It's really sad. Well boy, Okay, so a little upper
Speaker 1: here is talking about camels getting lip fillers, So.
Speaker 2: Okay, go on, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1: So camel's camel lips are really interesting. They have three
Speaker 1: lips sort of, so they have this flexible lower lip
Speaker 1: and a cleft upper lip. So I don't know, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's it's kind of a technicality of them
Speaker 1: having sort of three lips. But yeah, they have the
Speaker 1: lower lip this upper lip, and they're highly flexible. But
Speaker 1: they are also very thick and strong, and they use
Speaker 1: this to eat anything from thorny bushes to cactuses, Like
Speaker 1: camel can literally chow down on a cactus like it's
Speaker 1: no problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I have a very clear vision
Speaker 2: of camel's chewing their lives. Yes, I'm sorry for all
Speaker 2: the people who have mesophonia, this is not the episode
Speaker 2: for you now.
Speaker 1: I also am sorry that nobody got to see you
Speaker 1: doing the camel chew because it.
Speaker 3: Wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: It is very much like that, and there's there's some
Speaker 1: like side to side job motion to.
Speaker 2: Like yeah wow wow, and you're like, wow, it is
Speaker 2: that camel is chewing.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And if you don't have missophonia, the sort
Speaker 1: of high displeasure at hearing mouth sounds. You can check
Speaker 1: out videos of camels eating cactuses and it's not gory
Speaker 1: or anything because they're fine. Inside the camel mouth, they have, uh,
Speaker 1: these conical papillae. So papilla are these rigid bumps, uh.
Speaker 1: And these bumps actually protect their mouth from thorns by
Speaker 1: redirecting the thorns so that they're pointing down in parallel
Speaker 1: to the camel's uh esophagus. So like uh, like if
Speaker 1: you have imagine you have like a bunch of like
Speaker 1: you know, thorns or sticks or something, and if you
Speaker 1: just like sort of push them on a smooth surface,
Speaker 1: they can go in various directions. But if you push
Speaker 1: them on a grooved surface, they're going to go in
Speaker 1: the direction of the grooves. And that's how the camel's
Speaker 1: mouth works and so that it can swallow these thorns
Speaker 1: and have them go down safely down their esophagus. I
Speaker 1: don't recommend trying this as a human. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: work out for you. In fact, camel lips are so
Speaker 1: important for their ability to eat. That thick lips are
Speaker 1: a sign of good breeding, like good health and a
Speaker 1: camel in domesticated camels, which is so important that some
Speaker 1: camel breeders will inject their camel's lips with botox to
Speaker 1: make their lips look bigger. So injecting botox relaxes the
Speaker 1: muscles compressing the lips, and so it makes their lips
Speaker 1: much powdier. And so this is the huge juicing scandal
Speaker 1: and camel contests. You're injecting your camel's lips with botox
Speaker 1: when you're doing like show camels. It's a big scandal
Speaker 1: if someone's found to be doing bowts into their camel's
Speaker 1: lips to make their camel lips seem bigger.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm looking at photos of inside a camel's mouth. Weird,
Speaker 2: I probably gonna say about that. Weird, an odd thing
Speaker 2: to look at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's you know, camels are really interesting. We
Speaker 1: have a whole episode actually on camels that we did.
Speaker 1: But like, uh, they when you get up close to
Speaker 1: the camel though more and more strange they seem, I think,
Speaker 1: is But like the inside of the mouth is weird.
Speaker 1: The teeth are big and strange, the chewing, the heavy eyelids.
Speaker 1: They are just, I mean, honestly runway ready animals.
Speaker 3: That's interesting you say it that way, runway ready.
Speaker 2: Uh, I don't. I don't know if I like, I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm glad they could eat anything, but like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know about any of this.
Speaker 1: You don't know about the whole cactus chewing thing. It
Speaker 1: is it is an unpl like I'll put it this way.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of an unpleasant experience to watch them
Speaker 1: eating a cactus, just because it looks like it should
Speaker 1: be painful. Yeah, it does not look like a good situation. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I mean, but they're fine, which blows
Speaker 1: my mind. It does not look like something you should
Speaker 1: be able to chew and eat with ease. Like obviously
Speaker 1: you can eat cactus right like in like people eat cactus,
Speaker 1: but we get rid of the thorns. We take the
Speaker 1: thorns off. That's a very important part of eating the cactus. Like,
Speaker 1: but eating the cactus with thorns and the sound it's
Speaker 1: making as these thorns are getting crunched and swallowed is
Speaker 1: it's something. It's a type of ASMR I guess.
Speaker 2: I get literally, I guess because I have no idea,
Speaker 2: but yeah, just see it seems so rough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's but they're fine with it. I think
Speaker 1: they're probably less fine with getting botox injections into their lips.
Speaker 1: You know. Again, we were talking earlier about unrealistic beauty
Speaker 1: standards for dinosaurs, and I feel like camels are now
Speaker 1: suffering from sort of the Instagram culture of like, hey,
Speaker 1: everyone's got to have certain type of lips, certain type
Speaker 1: of look. Just leave those camels alone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, unless you know what, I don't want to
Speaker 3: judge them.
Speaker 1: You know, if the camels themselves wanted to get botox injections,
Speaker 1: I'd be fine with that. It's the fact that camel
Speaker 1: breeders are giving them the botox injections. If a camel,
Speaker 1: if a self empowered camel walks into like the plastic
Speaker 1: surgeon's office, it's like, give me an extra hump and
Speaker 1: some lip pillars, like a hump hump modification. I'm cool
Speaker 1: with that. If camels want to do whatever they want
Speaker 1: with their bodies. But but it's the camel breeders that
Speaker 1: are doing or like telling the camels like, hey, your
Speaker 1: lips aren't good enough. We gotta we gotta do some
Speaker 1: work on you. That's what bothers me.
Speaker 3: That is incredibly sad.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know. I'm there's always a new
Speaker 1: at like a new sort of like very specific controversy
Speaker 1: based on a very specific sort of hobbyist thing, like
Speaker 1: camel competitions that I I love learning about incredible controversies
Speaker 1: for a type of competition that I didn't even really understand.
Speaker 3: Before camel competitions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, I mean it makes sense. I
Speaker 1: think that we sort of show off and compete every
Speaker 1: animal we've domesticated, right, Like I think there are cats shows,
Speaker 1: right like you know there's dog shows, but I think
Speaker 1: there's also like catch, which I can't imagine. The cats
Speaker 1: are very compliant with being shown at a cat show.
Speaker 2: No, I feel like a cat show is like the
Speaker 2: most highly trained cats you'll ever see you Because.
Speaker 1: What I had a cat named Mittens, and if I
Speaker 1: tried to take her to a cat show, everyone would
Speaker 1: be missing at least one layer of skin shredded.
Speaker 2: If I took my cat to a cat show, I
Speaker 2: don't think i'd have a cat anymore.
Speaker 3: I think he'd run away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think you'd have a face anymore. No, No,
Speaker 1: So now we are going to talk about another animal
Speaker 1: with fantastic lips. This is the tubelipped nectar bat. It
Speaker 1: is a bat found in Ecuador with an incredible pair
Speaker 1: of lips and a tongue that just goes on for days.
Speaker 1: So this is a small bat which has the longest
Speaker 1: tongue to body ratio of any mammal, with a three
Speaker 1: inch or eight point five centimeters tongue that is one
Speaker 1: and a half times the length of its body. So
Speaker 1: where do you think you put a tongue this long
Speaker 1: in an animal? Right? Like cause like its head, it's
Speaker 1: pretty small. Like where does this tongue go? Oh?
Speaker 2: Boy, that is a good question. Where is there like
Speaker 2: a like a sort of like almost like a fruit
Speaker 2: roll up, Like it just goes, you know, like it
Speaker 2: just rolls back up and then come like it almost
Speaker 2: unrolls when I eat it.
Speaker 1: I love that. I wish that were the case.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: It is actually located in its thorax, so the tongue
Speaker 1: recoils all the way back into its thorax to accommodate
Speaker 1: its length. It'd be like if our tongue started in
Speaker 1: our chest. Uh, And then we could sort of use.
Speaker 1: There's this hyoid bone that it uses to be able
Speaker 1: to eject the tongue out of its out of its chest,
Speaker 1: up it's esavagus, and then finally out of its mouth.
Speaker 1: There might be some sort of tongue compression that's happening.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly like a fruit roll up, but there
Speaker 1: might be some sort of tongue compression happening inside of
Speaker 1: its body. But yeah, it's because it's it has the
Speaker 1: tongue that starts like in its chest, which is you
Speaker 1: know that it's that's a quite quite a French kisser.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, Wow, I don't even understand.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna think too much about
Speaker 1: what i just said. But yeah, so it uh eats
Speaker 1: pullen and insects, but it also uses this incredible tongue
Speaker 1: to sip nectar. So the tongue has these long papillae.
Speaker 1: We talked about papilli earlier. So papilla are just like
Speaker 1: any kind of like bump fleshy protrusion, and it has
Speaker 1: these long papillae that act as a mop for the nectar. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the the these papillai will like dip into the nectar
Speaker 1: and kind of help using sort of the liquid tension
Speaker 1: and stuff in a surface area will help sop up
Speaker 1: the water. So the reason I'm talking about this bat
Speaker 1: on a lip themed podcast is that the or lip
Speaker 1: themed episode We're not always going to talk about lips
Speaker 1: on this podcast, is that the lower jaw has lips
Speaker 1: that extend far past it, thus giving it the name
Speaker 1: the tube lipped nectar bat. Like, if you look at
Speaker 1: an image of this guy, it's got these lower lips
Speaker 1: that just jet way out.
Speaker 3: Okay, yuh weird, that's a weird one he's got.
Speaker 1: You know, like the thing that car tunes do where
Speaker 1: they like uh strum their lower lip with their finger
Speaker 1: or something to make that like noise. This guy could
Speaker 1: do that so good.
Speaker 3: He this is an underbite if I've ever seen one.
Speaker 1: It's an underlip, which is something I've never seen before
Speaker 1: because like it's jaws in the right place, but its
Speaker 1: lip goes right. It's just it's like the lip is
Speaker 1: trying to leave the bat or.
Speaker 2: I can't I can't even explain why I'm looking at
Speaker 2: He's just just.
Speaker 1: Like, hey, yeah, he does. Guy.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's how he would talk because well,
Speaker 2: you'd be like.
Speaker 1: A little bit of a he's got a little bit
Speaker 1: of a what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got like a Marlin, yes, island sort of
Speaker 2: like a Marlin.
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 2: Like I assume he would talk like that, like you'd
Speaker 2: be like me.
Speaker 1: Let me get this real quick. And then this very
Speaker 1: long tongue. Yeah, No, he's definitely a Marlon Brando bat.
Speaker 1: And so that's.
Speaker 2: Lower this if you did a side by side.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm gonna google marw.
Speaker 2: You gotta google Marlon Brando. Godfather though, because Godfather he
Speaker 2: does actually have that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: He does like when he's young, he does have quite
Speaker 1: plump lips. Actually Father Godfather. Yeah no, he's the lower
Speaker 1: lip of the Godfather. Like look what they Look what
Speaker 1: they've done my boy?
Speaker 3: Maybe by.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a yeah. So this bat definitely Marlon Brando vibes.
Speaker 1: And that lower lip that is sort of this tube
Speaker 1: like projection helps catch the nectar as the tongue SOPs
Speaker 1: it up and retracts. So it's got this of like
Speaker 1: the tongue comes in and there's basically this lip that's
Speaker 1: acting like a cup to help catch the nectar. And
Speaker 1: then it is able to drink this nectar, and it
Speaker 1: is able to pollinate highly specialized flowers with very deep
Speaker 1: pitchers containing nectar. So only this bat with its really
Speaker 1: long tongue and weird lip can reach the nectar and
Speaker 1: soap it up, can reach the nectar and drink it up.
Speaker 1: And so as it's doing this, the pollen of the
Speaker 1: flower dusts its head and will allow it to go
Speaker 1: and pollinate other flowers of the same species. So it's
Speaker 1: this really interesting example of coevolution of this bat and
Speaker 1: this flower where only this bat can reach the nectar
Speaker 1: of the flower, and the flower has evolved for that
Speaker 1: to happen so that this bat becomes the personal corrier
Speaker 1: of the flowers pollen and takes that to other flower species.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a I don't know, what
Speaker 1: would you call someone who like facilitates romance between two people,
Speaker 1: Like a matchmaker, Yeah, a matchmaker, but then you're but
Speaker 1: it's a match maker, a romance, a romance. Heer, I
Speaker 1: like that I made that up. It's a good word though,
Speaker 1: But it's sort of more like if you had to
Speaker 1: go between for someone to like collect someone's reproductive genetic
Speaker 1: material and then bring it to you. So, I don't
Speaker 1: know what you'd call that person a romance heer, a.
Speaker 2: Thief, a thief if he's stealing genetic material, I don't know,
Speaker 2: a romance her, or like a sperm courrier. Yeah, like
Speaker 2: a yeah, I don't know, like a genetic I gotta
Speaker 2: think of.
Speaker 1: A genetic genes. Well, uh yeah, there's surprisingly another animal
Speaker 1: called a tubelip, but this is the tubelipped rass. So
Speaker 1: the tubelipped rass is a small, oblong, purple and yellow
Speaker 1: fish that has a set of glossy, well hydrated, luscious lips.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this fish, they are this fish has had Here's
Speaker 2: the thing. This fish has had injectables.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, look, I I'm not gonna say it
Speaker 1: hasn't like, because I just learned that camels get lip injections,
Speaker 1: so why not a fish. So this is found in
Speaker 1: This fish is pouting at me. It's pouting. It's it's
Speaker 1: a pout. It's like a it's what I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: it's still popular. But what used to be very popular
Speaker 1: to do in photos where you stick your lips out,
Speaker 1: sort of the duck face kind of thing. But this
Speaker 1: fish is doing it. It's back in two thousand and
Speaker 1: six doing serious duckface. So it is found in the
Speaker 1: Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. And the tube blipped rass
Speaker 1: uses its poudy lips to eat dangerous stinging coral. So
Speaker 1: the coral they eat is covered in stinging cells. So
Speaker 1: the tublip rass uses these instagrammable lips that are covered
Speaker 1: in mucus with layered membranes, and they press their lips
Speaker 1: against the coral in a kiss and then suck the
Speaker 1: flesh of the coral up. So you know, they're also
Speaker 1: good kissers, these fish.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see that.
Speaker 1: It's just I mean, come on, So researchers believe that
Speaker 1: the unique structure of the lips and the high amount
Speaker 1: of mucus helps protect the fish from the coral stinging cells. So,
Speaker 1: you know, just these glossy, mucusy lips that they press
Speaker 1: onto the coral and then suck the flesh off of
Speaker 1: the coral. I don't know what to tell you. These
Speaker 1: fish are sort of flirtatious with this coral while also
Speaker 1: eating it.
Speaker 2: There is such a pout going on here. Yes, I
Speaker 2: don't even know what to think.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's overdoing it a little, but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean?
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess, are you coming for this poor fish?
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just saying I'm not like these other
Speaker 1: fish that pout to get whatever they want from stinging coral.
Speaker 1: Is all I'm saying. I'm not like the other fish.
Speaker 3: Wow, you've changed.
Speaker 1: I've become so judgmental of fish's lifestyle choices.
Speaker 3: I'm seeing that now.
Speaker 1: Well, Anna, before we go, we gotta play a little
Speaker 1: game called the Mystery Animal Sound game. Guess who's squawking?
Speaker 1: Every week I play a mystery animal sound, and you
Speaker 1: the listener, and you the guests, try to guess who
Speaker 1: is making that sound. Last week's mystery animal sound. Hint,
Speaker 1: if you've got happy feet, this is not a sound
Speaker 1: you want to hear. So Anna, can you guess who
Speaker 1: was making that sound?
Speaker 2: Again?
Speaker 1: The hint is, if you've got happy feet, this is
Speaker 1: not a sound you want to hear.
Speaker 3: Is that an orca?
Speaker 1: Oh that's a really interesting guess, very very close. Congratulations
Speaker 1: to Will p Antibee and Joey P who all gets correctly.
Speaker 1: This is actually the leopard seal, a very deadly predator
Speaker 1: of penguins. So like the orca, it is a serial killer.
Speaker 1: The leopard seal grows up to around eleven feet or
Speaker 1: three point five meters and with loads of sharp teeth.
Speaker 1: The leopard seal is no joke. It is a very,
Speaker 1: I would say, quite a scary, intimidating looking seal. They
Speaker 1: will happily eat anything from penguins, seabirds, fish, smaller species
Speaker 1: of seal, and even krill that they can filter through
Speaker 1: their interlocking teeth. So the vocalizations are often used by
Speaker 1: males in the breeding season to attract a mate, and
Speaker 1: they will hang upside down in the water and make
Speaker 1: this call in the hopes of attracting a female. H
Speaker 1: But if I saw one of these things just like
Speaker 1: this eleven foot seal, with this mouthful of teeth, these
Speaker 1: beaty predator eyes, hanging upside down and making this call,
Speaker 1: I would assume it is calling for the devil to
Speaker 1: come and take my soul.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't like that.
Speaker 2: It was when it sounds like it could be like
Speaker 2: talking to space.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Don't like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, yeah, I like that. It's a good rule
Speaker 1: in general. If it sounds like it's talking to space,
Speaker 1: get out of there.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, thanks.
Speaker 1: No, thank you. Onto this week's mystery animal sound the hint,
Speaker 1: don't call this great animal a peasant? So Anna, do
Speaker 1: you have any guesses?
Speaker 2: What was the clue?
Speaker 1: Again? Don't call this great animal a peasant.
Speaker 3: It's not a peasant. Huh.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit obscure. It's a bit of a
Speaker 1: tough one. Can you guess sort of the type of
Speaker 1: animal that it is?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean a bird. I'm a type of bird.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I will actually give you that. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: a type of bird. So that's an extra hint for y'all.
Speaker 2: Love, I'm going based off the sort of peasant clue,
Speaker 2: and it's in that sort of family. But like he
Speaker 2: doesn't like to be confused for a peasant.
Speaker 1: Interesting, very interesting guesses. Well, if you out there, sorry,
Speaker 1: did you have another? No? Let's well, if you out
Speaker 1: there think you know who is making that sound, you
Speaker 1: can write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also write any questions you have, any cute
Speaker 1: animal pictures, whatever you want or like topic suggestions kinda.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today on this
Speaker 1: very liptacular episode where can people find you?
Speaker 3: Well, first, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: I always enjoy coming and learning the most obscure, random
Speaker 2: stuff that I would never think about ever unless it
Speaker 2: was for you, So thank you. You can follow me
Speaker 2: at Anna host me on Twitter. I have an Instagram
Speaker 2: that's at selling the hosts Meia it's just selling, and
Speaker 2: then my last name that's where I sell myself to you.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, I have a podcast Ethnically Ambiguous that
Speaker 2: you can check out. I have a bunch of stuff
Speaker 2: going on, a bunch of shows I produce here at iHeart.
Speaker 2: Check all those out if you follow me on social media.
Speaker 2: I post about them all the time so you'll figure
Speaker 2: it out. And then oh, I have a substack now
Speaker 2: called selling posner dot subsack dot com. I just write
Speaker 2: a bunch about a bunch of random pop culture stuff
Speaker 2: that like engages anything that I like randomly become obsessed with.
Speaker 2: I read about it nice though, that's fantastic. Subscribe to
Speaker 2: that if you're interested in my musing.
Speaker 1: You're amusing, amusing musings wonderful. Yes, definitely check those things
Speaker 1: out and thank you guys so much for listening. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying the show, and you'll leave a rating or
Speaker 1: a review, I deeply appreciate it, and I read every
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