WEBVTT - Blood Squirting From the Lizard’s Eye, Part 2 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:07.120 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.160 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:16.079 name is Robert. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.479 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.920 Part two in our series on the horned lizards of 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.320 North America, also known sometimes as horned toads or horny 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.800 toads if you prefer, though they are in fact lizards 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.320 and not toads. The horned blizzard, of course, is a 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:39.280 genus scientific name Phrenosoma, meaning toad body, which contains about 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.960 twenty one species which have different geographical ranges, but they're 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.240 all found in western North America, from the southern tip 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.000 of Mexico up through parts of western Canada. Now again, 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.080 this is part two of the series. In Part one, 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:57.640 we focused mainly on the horned lizard's relationship with various 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:04.960 predators and their fascinating anti predator defense strategies which include camouflage, spikes, 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.360 and armored scales which can make them difficult and in 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:10.960 some cases quite dangerous to eat. We talked about some 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.600 eating related mishaps from various predators, and then finally, their 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.280 weaponized blood jets, the adaptation that allows them to shoot 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:24.479 streams of apparently foul tasting blood out of their eyes 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:28.160 when threatened by a dog. Rob in your words last time, 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:30.840 a way of deterring predation with the most aggressive and 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:35.680 unpleasant free sample in the world. That's right to refer 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.520 back to something that came up last time, that we're 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.920 still interested in this question of why the blood apparently 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.120 tastes so foul to dogs, and I read in some 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.680 cases maybe also cats, but not noticeably so to humans, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.080 and certainly not to predators such as birds. 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.160 Now I want to throw in right here at the top. 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.280 We described the horned lizards in detail in the last episode, 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:00.080 and I hope that everyone has had a chance to 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.400 check out some footage or images on their own. At 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.160 this point in our research, I've looked at a lot 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.040 of images, a lot of footage, and I do have 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:13.360 to give them props for just being tremendous splooters. You 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.840 know they certainly the squirrels can splute like like none other. 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.560 You know, cats are great spluters, But man, I have 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:23.680 to say the horned lizard isn't natural as well. 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.840 Wait, I'm not understanding the word splute, then I thought 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.919 you were. You were meaning like squirting, like squirting the 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:30.720 blood out of the eye. 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.240 That's all what means they're tremendous squirters as well. But spluting. 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.600 Spluting is when if you ever it's a hot day 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.040 and you look out and you see a squirrel like 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.600 laying on its belly like spluted out, you may see 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.400 it can't do much the same. Various other organisms will splute. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.880 This is an unofficial terminology for what they're doing, but 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.119 I feel like that the horned lizard has this down 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:52.600 as well. 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.680 Splute seems like a variation on display when the whole 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.640 body like flat against the ground, all limbs outstretched. 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.520 Exactly, Yes, but the kind of PLoP to it as well. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.480 You know, like there's a certain you got the organism 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.760 really needs to have a certain amount of like semi 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.760 liquid solidness to it to really deliver it. You got 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.320 to have that toad body, or you got to have 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.200 that slightly soft mammalian body to pull it off. 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.880 Oh, that's right. And of course the toad body, as 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.680 we talked about last time, is part of the horned 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:30.720 lizard's defensive camouflage strategy, like the spluting is indeed part 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.040 of what keeps them safe from detection by predators. They 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:36.920 try to lay flat against the ground so as not 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.520 to cast a shadow and to make it harder for 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:44.240 a predator, say a bird flying overhead, to see their outline. Also, 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.920 since we're just talking about reviewing the tape on horned 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.960 lizards since the last time we talked, I was watching 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.160 just more blood squirting footage since we recorded the previous episode. 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.440 And I don't know if I emphasized enough how much 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:03.560 it looks so alarming. If you haven't seen this, look 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.160 it up. The blood that the jets out of the 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:11.040 eyes somehow looks darker and thicker than I expected. And 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.920 it's also just weird how much blood is coming out 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.120 compared to the size of the animal, which is quite small. 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:20.840 It doesn't look like something that should be happening. 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:25.320 Yeah, it is quite alarming. It's redder and bloodier than 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.680 I think I was anticipating. It feels like a cuts 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:29.800 scene from Event Horizon. 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.880 Yeah. Now, to get into the meat of today's episode, 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.760 I wanted to address just a few more lingering biological 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.400 facts about horned lizards, biological and ecological facts that we 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.680 didn't quite have time to get into last time. And 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:47.839 the first thing I wanted to talk about is the 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:52.799 horned lizard's relationship to water. Of course, horned lizards generally 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:56.880 live in dry places, deserts and semi arid ecoregions, where 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.599 the sun cooks you, the rain is scarce, water is 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.040 hard to come by, and horned toads, like all animals, 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.760 of course, need water to live, so much of their 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:11.360 biology has gone still suit mode. They are very efficient 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:16.159 at sourcing and preserving water. There is a great passage 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.320 about the horned lizard's relationship to water in a book 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.920 that I referred to in the last episode. That book 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:26.480 is Introduction to Horned Lizards of North America by Wade C. Sherbrook. 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.279 This was published by the University of California Press in 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:33.279 two thousand and three. The author, Wade Sherbrooke, was director 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.400 of the Southwestern Research Station of the American Museum of 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.240 Natural History. So, of course, losing water is just part 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.600 of having a body. It is impossible to avoid losing 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.680 some water content through ambient interface with the air. We 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.080 lose some water vapor from our lungs when we breathe. 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.480 We lose some water through evaporation from our skin, and 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.680 the same is true for horned lizards. To reduce water 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:05.040 law to evaporation. Horned lizards have some behavioral adaptations. For example, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.560 sometimes they burrow underground or partially bury parts of their 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:12.680 bodies in the soil. This can reduce water loss from evaporation. 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.720 But they also have some clever ways to source water 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.760 from their environment. They will, of course, just drink free 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.240 standing water when they can get access to it. If 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.000 there are puddles after a rainstorm or something like that, 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.480 they will drink dew that collects on plants in the morning. 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.080 But much of the water that they get from external 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.640 sources comes from food like juicy juicy harvest or ants. 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.840 But here's where Sherbrook gets into something I found really fascinating. 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.160 One of these strate strategies they have for sourcing water 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.000 is that some species of horned lizards use their own 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:51.600 backs as what Sherbrook calls a rain harvesting surface. So 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.640 he singles out three species as examples, the Texas horned lizard, 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.880 the round tail horned lizard, and the desert horned lizard. 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:04.920 And when these animals sense that rain is about to fall, 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.680 they do the opposite of what humans usually do. You know, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.800 we go inside. They go outside, They run out of 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:15.560 cover into the open and stand with their backs sort 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.520 of cupped like they raise up there, they raise up 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.560 on their legs, they flatten out their backs, and they 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.960 lower their heads. Now what does this do. It turns 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:29.720 the lizards back into a kind of combination rain barrel 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:32.520 and whatever you call that. You know, the beer drinking 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:35.000 helmet where you got the beers on the sides and 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.240 it's got a straw running to the mouth. So you 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:41.200 combine that with the rain barrel concept. Their back collects 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:45.080 water over the widest possible surface area, which is the 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:49.120 lizard's flattened out dorsal scales, and then it funnels the 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.360 water to the edge of its mouth for drinking. So 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.320 like my body is a catch basin and my mouth 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:56.320 is the receptacle. 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.360 I'm glad we're getting into this because as I was 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.720 looking into like the culture of the horned lizard, I 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.000 was hoping to find an example of cowboy poetry about them. 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.800 But my search came up largely empty. But I did 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.200 find an interesting blog post by Charlie Buck of the 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:15.000 University of Arizona Poetry Center about an elementary school exercise 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.480 where they brought in a herpetologist to talk about horned lizards, 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.880 and then a poet led the class in filling out 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:26.400 horned lizard worksheets with descriptive text to create concrete poems 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.960 or visual poetry. So it's like an outline of a 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.960 horned lizard and then you fill in with text. And 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.600 I included one example of this in our outline here. 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.360 Joe and folks can look up the blog posts and 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.280 see an example of this as well. And for instance, 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:42.840 written by one of the students in the head is 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.199 a horned lizard eats ants. I babysat horned lizards. I 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.800 can't read the rest of it. I spit my blood 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:54.480 out of my eye at snack, I drink water from 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.200 the sky. And then like later on one of the legs, 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.400 it says I eat ant every day. And then there's 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:04.960 also a part of the anatomy that says I drink 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.800 water from my back. So I read that before I 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.600 actually got to that point in reading about their biology. 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.840 So I was like, I wonder if that's true. Gonna 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:16.280 have to FA fact check this child. 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.280 Yes, this child's poetry passes fact check. The horned lizards, 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.760 at least some species do drink water from their backs 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.000 and It's interesting the way Sherbrook describes it. It's not 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.520 just like you know, water randomly running off the back 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:31.240 and some of it sort of getting into the mouth. 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:35.000 It seems like it has a fairly sophisticated system of 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.720 like this sort of this matrix of layers underneath and 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:44.000 between the scales absorbing water and then routing it by 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.360 capillary action down to the edges of the mouth where 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:51.440 the where the lizard then sort of sits there opening 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.679 and closing its jaws slowly to drink the water as 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:57.200 it trickles in from the corners of the mouth. And 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:01.800 so it's got a fairly sophisticated topography on the back 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:03.720 there to get the water to the mouth. 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.640 It's a great system. You can't follow them. 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.959 Another interesting way that horned lizards can serve water they 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.440 do not urinate. Now, how is that possible. They're animals, 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.559 Surely their bodies produce and collect waste products like excess 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.959 salts and the nitrogen bearing compounds that are the byproduct 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:28.160 of animal metabolism, like uric acid common in reptiles. Well, 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.000 they do still have to purge these waste products, but 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.559 they purge them not as liquid urine but as a 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:39.079 semi solid substance rather than dissolved in water. So a 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.040 Schrberch writes, quote, water carrying uric acid from the kidney 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:47.760 is reabsorbed in the kloaca. From here, the uric acid, 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:52.040 mixed with some insoluble crystals of urate salts is voided 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.120 as a white mass attached to the end of the 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.640 fecal pellet. And I thought this was interesting because in 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.600 just a minute, I want to mention, and there was 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.360 a video I was watching, like a short documentary about 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:08.560 some conservation efforts with horned lizards, and it was showing 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.280 some of their feces that the researchers were finding in 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.400 the wild. And yeah, there fecal pellets did have these 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:18.160 interesting little white caps on them. So apparently that is 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:24.199 what the lizard releases instead of liquid urine solid P 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:29.080 and some solidness crystals of solid P. Also, as we 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.400 have discussed with some other reptiles in the past, horned 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:37.000 lizards can sometimes remove excess salts from the body, not 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:43.920 by urinating, but by sneezing. So salts accumulate in glands 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.600 around the nostrils where they are secreted. As this hyper 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.400 concentrated salty brine in the nose, which you can then 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.480 you just hank it right out, and Sherbrook says that 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.800 you can find horned lizard individuals with noses covered in 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.640 this salty white trust from the process. So the moral 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.720 of the story is when you don't pee, you poop, 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:10.640 and you sneeze. Different other anti predator considerations that we 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:12.880 didn't have time to talk about in the last episode. 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:18.400 We were talking about the advantages of the horned lizard's 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.960 armor for self defense, you know, the tough scales, but 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.720 especially the sharp bony spines around the crown of the 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:32.400 horned lizard's head. That these pieces of armor increase the 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.480 risk a predator has to take in trying to eat 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.360 one of these lizards. The predator has to make a 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.080 judgment call is it too big for me to survive 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.120 swallowing this? Will the head spikes split open my throat 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.720 or puncture my organs? That can actually happen. But in 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.520 the context of looking at another predator prey relationship that 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.600 we didn't talk about last time, Sherbroke had some interesting 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.720 thoughts on the evolution of these head spikes. So Sherbrooke 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:04.760 is talking about the Southern grasshopper mouse or ani Comis torridus, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.199 and this animal will prey on some smaller horned lizard 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:14.600 species by biting the skull right over the eye socket. 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.880 So this is before you get to the crown of spikes. 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:21.880 This is the skull above the eyes. And when the 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:26.600 grasshopper mouse attacks other prey animals, most other vertebrate prey, 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.640 it bites in a different place. It bites at the 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.160 back of the neck near the base of the head, 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.280 attempting to damage and sever the spinal cord, and this 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:41.079 is apparently a common attack area for predators to target. 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:43.920 I was actually kind of thinking, I know, I've read 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.000 about big cats often targeting the back of the neck 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.800 and the base of the skull in those rare cases 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.560 where they happen to attack humans, and I was trying 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:54.960 to remember where I came across that fact, and finally 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.320 I realized it was from Mary Roach's book fuzz When 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:00.960 Nature Breaks the Law, which we interviewed her about on 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.520 the show. That was one of my favorite interviews we've done, 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.560 and it's from the part of the book where she's 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:11.440 talking about taking the class learning to identify different common 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.160 wound patterns from different types of animal attacks, and so 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.160 for example, she talks about how when a grizzly bear 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.520 attacks a human sometimes a lot of the injuries are 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.320 sort of face on. They're like to the face in 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.360 the front of the head, almost as if the bear 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.880 is fighting a human the way it fights a rival bear, 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:33.360 where they're both kind of like biting at each other's faces. 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:38.000 Whereas cougars are used to killing their prey with a 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.920 powerful bite to the back of the neck, which they 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.760 in these rare cases where a cougar attacks a human, 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:46.880 they will sometimes target the same sort of place on 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.160 the body, like the back of the neck, base of 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:50.440 the back of the head. 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.600 I believe in Jurassic Park this is also how the 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:59.640 velociraptors are depicted as preying on humans, biting the back 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:00.200 of the neck. 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.240 But anyway, coming back to the relationship between the southern 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.800 grasshopper mouse and the horned lizard, so these mice will 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.440 try to prey on the lizards, especially the smaller ones, 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.240 but they don't bite where they bite most prey because 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.480 in the lizard's case, this is right where the head 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.960 horns grow, so the mouse doesn't even bother trying to 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.280 attack this well, defended area. Instead, it has got to 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.200 kind of like awkwardly chew with the head over the eyes, 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:31.320 and Sherbrook speculates that these horns could have evolved from 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.600 what was originally a more modest kind of bony defensive 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.360 ridge at the base of the skull designed to protect 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.200 against this kind of attack to the back of the neck. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:47.560 And studies have shown that the spines do protect against 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.880 predator attacks. And you can measure this because the size 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:56.000 of the spines around the head actually matters. Like research 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.640 has shown that lizards killed by birds tend to have 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.000 order spines around the head than lizards of the same 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.760 species in that area, so the ones that are picked 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:19.320 off the most and to have the shortest headspikes. Now, 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.280 there's one more thing we brought up in the last 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:23.240 episode that I did want to make sure we came 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:27.280 back to today because I wanted to clarify something about it. 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.240 This was when we were talking about the relationship between 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.800 horned lizards and the red imported fire ant or Solenopsis 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.760 in Victa. It came up that non native fire ants 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.320 in North America are thought to be a reason for 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:48.000 some horned lizard population declines, and this does appear to 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.560 be true. There are a number of horned lizards whose 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.240 ranges have been shrinking in recent decades. There are places 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.520 where you used to find them, you don't find them anymore. 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.720 Many of their populations are in decline, and in the 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.560 case the case with a lot of these species does 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:04.800 seem to be that the fire ant is playing a 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.480 role there, especially because the lizards have such an important 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.760 relationship with the native harvester ants, which are sometimes sort 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.760 of driven out by the fire ants. So while it's 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:17.919 true that the fire ants appear to be playing a 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.640 role in population and range declines for these horned lizards, 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.560 they're not thought to be the only factor, or necessarily 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.400 even the main factor everywhere. 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.600 That's very much the case. Yeah, and reading about the 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:36.800 Texas horned lizard, like urbanization vast urbanization and Texas is 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.080 often singled out as one of the primary factors there exactly. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.240 Yeah, So the fire ant, the imported fire ant, seemed 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.600 to be one factor among many. And this came up 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.720 when I was watching a short documentary video that was 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.159 just delightful. I recommend people look this up. A documentary 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.800 video produced by Texas Parks and Wildlife in twenty twenty 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.959 one called Horned Lizard Homecoming, you can find on YouTube. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.720 It is a video specifically that's focused on an attempt 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:09.280 by the San Antonio Zoo to breed Texas horned lizards 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.800 in captivity and then release them back into areas from 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.639 which they have largely disappeared since the nineteen seventies. Just 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.240 one of the many charming things in this short documentary 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.640 is that the conservation biologists are working with a lizard 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:29.320 sniffing dog. So you know, imagine the canine unit at 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.119 the airport, but instead of a drug sniffing dog or 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.160 a bomb sniffing dog, it's a dog that is trained 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.679 to find Texas horned lizards in the wild and not 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:41.960 to bother them by the way, not go like pick 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.359 them up in the mouth and harass them until they 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.040 get a blood squirt, just to signal from a safe 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:48.520 distance that they found one. 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:50.200 Ah. That's awesome. 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.320 It's also very cute that the lizard sniffing dog in 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.960 the video is sort of wearing shoes as it goes 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.280 about its business. I think this is probably because they're 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.159 you know, it's a very scrub area and there's probably 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.160 a lot of like thorns and stuff. That can get 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.000 stuck in a dog's paw around there. But anyway, the 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:10.120 conservation biologists and the parks and wildlife workers they interview 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.720 in this video, they talk about a few other things 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:18.080 that are affecting the range and population of Texas horned lizards. 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.240 For example, human attempts to eliminate harvester ants from large 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.640 areas of land. Of course, again, Texas horned lizards need 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.359 to eat harvest or ants. Without the ants, the land 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.360 cannot sustain the lizards. And then also things like replacing 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:36.280 native grasses with different grass types, so you replace what 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.960 are called bunch grasses with turf grasses. This is not 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.320 what the lizards are adapted to and they can't really 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.240 survive in it. Of course, as you mentioned, Rob, just 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.320 general urbanization and reformatting of a lot of land area 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:54.200 roads cutting through natural land ranges, which interferes with movement 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.440 back and forth. But there's another thing I just wanted 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.879 to mention from this video because I found it hilarious. 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:02.440 There's a part where they're showing a lab at the 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.240 San Antonio Zoo where they're trying to breed lots of lizards. 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.000 So it's sort of it's a lizard sex lab, and 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.760 they are trying to facilitate mating, and they will put 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.040 a male lizard into a female lizard's tank. And there's 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.200 one part where the technician is explaining that the head 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.320 movements that we are seeing back and forth between these 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:26.040 two lizards indicate that they are both interested in mating. 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.840 But it totally looks like two lizards on a log 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:32.479 just nodding back and forth at each other, like yep, yep, 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:37.200 it's great. It's a very Texas kind of nod as well. 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.200 Yeah, you can imagine like the little cowboy hats being 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.680 on their heads, right, yeah, all right, Well, at this point, 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.960 I'd like to get back into some cultural connections to 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.720 the hornet lizard, and in the last episode we teased 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:56.080 out some connections in Navajo culture among the Dnet people, 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.159 and I wanted to get into some of that. So 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.199 there are there several mentions of the horned toad in 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.480 the nineteen forty four book Navajo Witchcraft by Clyde Kluckhohon, 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.720 who lived nineteen oh five through nineteen sixty. I've talked 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:11.720 about this text a little bit on the show before. 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:13.760 The version I have is from nineteen eighty nine with 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.480 some additions made to it, and there are several mentions 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.680 of the horned toad's use as a key ingredient in 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:23.119 various alleged spells in Navajo witchcraft, which I want to 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:27.359 stress the term witchcraft is used here as shorthand, not 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:33.359 for mainstream religious rituals and practice, but rather for what 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:37.800 is described, as described by Kluckhohn as quote Navajo ideas 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.560 and action patterns concerned with the influencing of events by 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.640 supernatural techniques that are socially disapproved. 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.400 Right, So what would be viewed by the people as 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.320 a sort of illicit, outsider form of magic. 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:55.720 Right, right, And it's my understanding as I understand it, 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:59.000 these are not necessarily things that were practiced, but were 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:03.359 believed to be practic by these few individuals. So the 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:07.359 book outlines various alleged curses, including the placing of a 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.040 personal item or a bit of clothing from a man 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.320 you want to death, curse inside a grave or inside 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:15.760 the mouth of a dead man, in the cursing of 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.320 a pregnant woman. A personal item is placed inside the 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.480 body of a horned toad or a horned lizard, or 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:24.320 a purse made from its hide. 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:26.320 Oh, interesting, and. 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:29.960 So that these would again, these would be specialized alleged 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.840 uses practiced by these you know, these outsiders that are 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:35.639 practicing this kind of like co or said to be 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:40.080 practicing this kind of like negative magical system. But there 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:42.119 is a fragment of a story shared late in the 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.000 book that is indeed a reference to a major Navajo 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.480 story about the horned lizard, and it does get into 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.439 some aspects of its biology, as we've discussed. So this 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.480 is the quote that is included in a Navajo Witchcraft 0:22:55.240 --> 0:23:00.119 as a commentary on something else that's reference to the 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:03.919 book quote. The story is about the holy toad who 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.359 eats ants that give him power. One day, he was 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.639 swallowed by a coyote who he had kindly given of 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:14.160 his best corn. So while inside, he asked the code 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:17.520 what all the things he sees are for, and finally 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:20.400 comes to the back brain and asked what it was for, 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.120 and the coyote said, that is what I live by. 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:26.280 Leave it alone. So the toad cut it into, killed 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:28.280