Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're talking
Speaker 1: about interspecies, buddies, friends, pals, comrades, and chumps who don't
Speaker 1: see speciation as a barrier to friendship. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: the difference between mutualism and commence alism, why every birdie
Speaker 1: loves a cappy barra, and how the beaches of the
Speaker 1: Galapagos are a great place for friendship and also the
Speaker 1: only time you want to be inside the mouth of
Speaker 1: a giant moray discover the some moore. As we answer
Speaker 1: to the angel question, do some animals actually enjoy getting
Speaker 1: crap from their friends? Just so you know, our producer
Speaker 1: Joel Monique will return in a few weeks, so we'll
Speaker 1: get to hear her lovely voice again soon. Today on
Speaker 1: the show, I've invited my good friend, artist and filmmaker
Speaker 1: Randall Maynard. Welcome, Thank you. Do I talk now? This
Speaker 1: is where I talk. You talk now, This is where
Speaker 1: you talk. This is how all of our this is
Speaker 1: how all of our conversations go. Where I have to
Speaker 1: tell Randall like, this is where you talk now, this
Speaker 1: is where is this? What's what's going on? I say,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Where am I? And then you explain
Speaker 1: the situation. I'm so confused, but I just go along
Speaker 1: with it because it's like, why, let's just let's just
Speaker 1: go ahead. That's that's fine. I'm talking about animals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about animals. I just want to let you
Speaker 1: know that I came prepared by bringing a tiny plastic
Speaker 1: turtle that I'm shoving into the webcam. And it's also
Speaker 1: unrelated to every animal we're gonna be talking about in
Speaker 1: this episode mostly. But yeah, no, I appreciate the turtle,
Speaker 1: the turtle drop as we like to I don't feel
Speaker 1: like you do, but I thank you for lying. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now that's what keeps, Honestly, what keeps friendships afloat are
Speaker 1: nice lies, kind lies like yeah, that's great that that
Speaker 1: plastic turtle you're showing me. I love it. Oh, but
Speaker 1: you did give me a very nice gift. You gave
Speaker 1: me a Creature feature podcast action figure of me surrounded
Speaker 1: by various like scorpions and horn toads. It's very lovely.
Speaker 1: I will be posting that to the Creature Feature Instagram,
Speaker 1: which is at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram. So check
Speaker 1: that out to see. It's definitely on the shelves at
Speaker 1: every store. You know, It's at Target and Walmart and
Speaker 1: Price Co and Toys for Kids remember that are us,
Speaker 1: we are toys. Yeah, but that thank you for I
Speaker 1: couldn't think of a toy store that was currently open,
Speaker 1: either to uh just closing in general or because of
Speaker 1: the pandemics, so wherever toys are found. But it basically
Speaker 1: has just like a fistful of plastic creatures jammed into
Speaker 1: the package with you, which I thought was the best
Speaker 1: representation of your relationship with animals. Were just to be
Speaker 1: literally surrounded by them, Yeah, in a closed type quarters
Speaker 1: in a transparent bubble. Yeah. Could you could you make
Speaker 1: these like they're like action figure these sort of special
Speaker 1: action figures where it's you know how it has like
Speaker 1: the plastic box that it's in and then the cardboard
Speaker 1: backing and then it says Creature Feature Podcast Special. So
Speaker 1: it's very very lovely you've made all sorts of these
Speaker 1: two Um will definitely plug those later, you're Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is I just I'm gonna yeah, it's gonna just lead
Speaker 1: to the whole episode is gonna be talking about toys
Speaker 1: that I make. Yeah yeah, and co opting your podcast
Speaker 1: to talk about toys. But also no, because because I
Speaker 1: will be arrested by the podcast. Try funeral for for DV.
Speaker 1: And you know, today we're talking about friendship and I
Speaker 1: feel like there is a lot of complexity between animals,
Speaker 1: and often we just kind of called them symbiotic relationships.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people get confused about like symbiosis, because often symbiosis
Speaker 1: is just a general term for animals who work together
Speaker 1: or benefit from each other, when in fact, symbiotic relationships
Speaker 1: describe any linked relationship between two animals. So it can
Speaker 1: be positive, it can be negative, it can be deadly.
Speaker 1: Um So, parasitism is a symbiotic relationship, and that is,
Speaker 1: of course where one animal leaches off of another to
Speaker 1: its detriment or even death. There's a movie about that
Speaker 1: called Venom that if you can watch that, and it'll
Speaker 1: tell you all you need to know about symbiosis. It's
Speaker 1: where an alien attaches itself to Tom Hardy and it
Speaker 1: becomes a big monster, and it's just it's a perfect
Speaker 1: example of what you're talking about. Let me go through
Speaker 1: the terms and you tell me, what is symbiote and
Speaker 1: Tom Hardy's relationship in that movie, because there is there
Speaker 1: are positive symbiotic relationships such as mutualism where both organisms
Speaker 1: benefit and commence ali is um where one benefits but
Speaker 1: the other is neither harmed nor hindered in any way.
Speaker 1: So it's it's kind of a lopsided relationship, but the
Speaker 1: one of the animals just like it's totally indifferent. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter at all. I actually haven't seen what's that?
Speaker 1: What's the movie? It's called Venom? Venom? Yeah, how would
Speaker 1: you describe Tom Hardy and the goose suits relationship. It's parasitic,
Speaker 1: But it's confusing because I think it combines a few
Speaker 1: of those things where it's there is a there's a
Speaker 1: mutual benefit also, but there's also there's a parasitic nature.
Speaker 1: But I think once it's I think, honestly, like if
Speaker 1: if I'm being totally candid and respect to the creator's venom,
Speaker 1: I think, once the it's it's just I'm just parasitic.
Speaker 1: But then once it it gets on a certain host
Speaker 1: and it becomes cool that it's it's not a danger
Speaker 1: anymore in the sense of for the sake of drama.
Speaker 1: The parasitic part only comes back if it's necessary. Otherwise
Speaker 1: it's a mutual, beneficial sort of thing where they're they're
Speaker 1: helping each other. I guess yeah, so um yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's combining. It's kind of like it's it's rolling
Speaker 1: through all the levels of friendship, yeah, where it starts
Speaker 1: off as a sort of parasite and then turns into
Speaker 1: mutualism as all healthy relationships. I was gonna say, just
Speaker 1: like our friendship, where I started off where I was
Speaker 1: very you described me as very parasitic, but then eventually
Speaker 1: came around to finding it to be mutual, and then
Speaker 1: now have evolved in to complete indifference. Just exactly at
Speaker 1: first sucking all of my blood. Then I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I had too much blood anyways, too much blood floating around.
Speaker 1: I'm glad he got rid of some of it. And
Speaker 1: then now it's just like I don't care whether or
Speaker 1: not my blood is gone. Just take the blood. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters. It's who cares well. So
Speaker 1: our first group of animals we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: are on the Galapagos Islands, which is home to really
Speaker 1: incredible creatures that have evolved in very difficult evolutionary niches.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's the famous place that Darwin went and
Speaker 1: farted around in and wrote his silly books about. But
Speaker 1: it really is incredible not just to see like the
Speaker 1: cool animals, but also to see how their relationships are
Speaker 1: with each other. And I think the best demonstration of
Speaker 1: this is the seaside friendships along the coast of the
Speaker 1: Galapagos Islands. And let's start with the marine iguana, because
Speaker 1: the marinea iguana is very interesting animal who has a
Speaker 1: bunch of friends. So the marine iguana is it looks
Speaker 1: very dragon like. And this is the really mean description
Speaker 1: that Charles Darwin had for marine iguanas that I think
Speaker 1: is kind of unfair. So he said, quote, the black
Speaker 1: lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large two
Speaker 1: to three foot or point six to point nine most
Speaker 1: disgusting and clumsy lizards. They are as black as the
Speaker 1: porous rocks over which they crawl and seek their prey
Speaker 1: from the sea. Somebody calls them imps of darkness. They
Speaker 1: assuredly will become the land they inhabit. Did he say
Speaker 1: somebody called them that? Like he heard that? Yeah, real
Speaker 1: weasel words. Darwin just like insult them to their face,
Speaker 1: not be like, oh, somebody said you're an imp of darkness.
Speaker 1: I heard out there that they're calling him. It's not me,
Speaker 1: it's it's you know. That's just what I hear. This
Speaker 1: is a that's word on the that's word on these
Speaker 1: the word on the beach, word on the beach, on
Speaker 1: these rocks, is that you guys are called imps. Who
Speaker 1: else was there that was calling him that? Nobody? He's
Speaker 1: he doesn't even want to is he's scared of He's
Speaker 1: scared of disparaging these creatures, even in writing, like taking
Speaker 1: a finch and giving it a swirly gonn to cancel, Darwin.
Speaker 1: He's just angry and just calling animals ugly. That's not scientific.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, this one's really dark and ugly. Look
Speaker 1: at that piece of ship. It's an imp of darkness.
Speaker 1: And the poor little Maria Bile just like I know,
Speaker 1: he's just minding his own business, trying to regulate pal.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get some thermal regulation. Didn't ask
Speaker 1: for your opinion. You're interrupting some really good therma regulation
Speaker 1: just to spew your hatred, Darwin. And to be fair,
Speaker 1: what's sad is that Darwin missed out on an opportunity
Speaker 1: because this, I want to clearly has a better relationship
Speaker 1: with a rock that it does with a human, and
Speaker 1: being that visited the island, they could have could have
Speaker 1: had a great time with the partying with the iguanas.
Speaker 1: I mean seriously, like, if Darwin hadn't been so judging,
Speaker 1: probably would have had a great time with these iguanas
Speaker 1: because they are really cool, cool reptiles. So they are
Speaker 1: indeed ashy, black, are kind of chunky, they have sort
Speaker 1: of a snub face, um, they have spines running along
Speaker 1: their backs, they have long, thick tails, and they're about
Speaker 1: the size of a small to medium sized chihuahua. And
Speaker 1: they do like to hang out on the lava rocks
Speaker 1: on the coast of the Guapagos Islands because they are
Speaker 1: cold blooded, which doesn't mean that their blood is always cold.
Speaker 1: It just means that they are ectothermic, meaning that they
Speaker 1: have to warm themselves up by sitting in the sun
Speaker 1: and cool themselves off by being in the shade or
Speaker 1: in the water. And so when they aren't hanging out
Speaker 1: on the rocks heating up, they're actually often diving into
Speaker 1: the water because They are excellent swimmers, and their diet
Speaker 1: is made up mostly of algae, so they're very they're
Speaker 1: just little vegetarians. They nibble off of rocks this algae,
Speaker 1: or they dive underwater and swim very gracefully, like some
Speaker 1: kind of sea dragon. And one of the consequences of
Speaker 1: them eating algae is that they take in so much
Speaker 1: salty water with their diet they have to expel some
Speaker 1: of the excess, which they do with these like salty
Speaker 1: wet sneezes. So yeah, just like a seed dragon, except
Speaker 1: they snort out salt water instead of fire of fire.
Speaker 1: It's just this horrible right sling. It's not saltwater everywhere mucus.
Speaker 1: That's projection as human. Sorry, that was that was That
Speaker 1: was very darwinianen of me to just so judgment salt.
Speaker 1: Now it's really just like a spray of salt water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's gotta be grosser, it's gotta be awesome at the
Speaker 1: same time. Uh. I don't know why, just because it's
Speaker 1: like an experience. I don't know why not. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. I think I sneezed dragons a little shot
Speaker 1: of like vizzy, you know, clear out your yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's you're problem, Like, you haven't had that names of
Speaker 1: spray that helps clear the sciences. Just shove one of
Speaker 1: these marine iguanas under your nose and there you go.
Speaker 1: Go find an iguana. Find it clear you right up.
Speaker 1: Don't actually do that because they're actually they'reguas. They're not dangerous.
Speaker 1: We're dangerous to the iguanas. We can actually like they
Speaker 1: are they lit humans pick them up. They just because
Speaker 1: I just don't think they understand how much danger of
Speaker 1: human poses. So they're pretty chill, especially when they're lethargic
Speaker 1: and they haven't warmed up on the rocks yet. They
Speaker 1: get very sleepy. So when you pick one up, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of like chills out. But you shouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, they could potentially bite you, but more importantly,
Speaker 1: you carry pathogens that could hurt the iguana. So don't
Speaker 1: do it. Leave those iguanas alone. As we've learned this year,
Speaker 1: the one thing Americans care about the most is not
Speaker 1: hurting each other with I mean, it's funny because like
Speaker 1: on the Galapagos Islands, they tell people to stay like
Speaker 1: six ft away from the iguanas. So already we've tried
Speaker 1: to get people to social distance from the vulnerable. So right,
Speaker 1: and so the iguanas does standard chance. But we still
Speaker 1: love them. They're great, Darwin dar No matter how much
Speaker 1: should Darwin talks about these, they're fantastic, right, And a
Speaker 1: lot of animals do love the iguanas, so they actually
Speaker 1: have um. They do have a few predators, so they
Speaker 1: will be kind of snippy when disturbed to protect themselves,
Speaker 1: but otherwise they're pretty chill, and they will be extremely
Speaker 1: permissive of little visitors who come to them. So among
Speaker 1: their friends there are Darwin's finches and sally lightfoot crabs
Speaker 1: who come over to the iguanas and pick off mites
Speaker 1: and ticks and dead skin and basically give them free
Speaker 1: skincare in return for just being able to eat whatever
Speaker 1: they find. So it's not in common to see crab
Speaker 1: crawling all over an iguana picking at it, and the
Speaker 1: iguana is perfectly happy to let this happen because this
Speaker 1: is a case of mutualism. The iguana gets free skincare,
Speaker 1: gets its parasites taken off of it, and the crab
Speaker 1: gets a tasty meal of skin junk. Yeah it's uh
Speaker 1: and and and to be h to paint a picture
Speaker 1: of this. It looks horrifying, and I would assume, as
Speaker 1: a human that that I would need to intervene if
Speaker 1: I saw something like this, because it looks like an
Speaker 1: iguana is being eaten by a swarm of crabs, and
Speaker 1: I would be like, no, don't, I gotta save us
Speaker 1: iguana and broom he. I guess as much as a
Speaker 1: lizard can show happiness on there with their limited facial expression,
Speaker 1: I would say it's more of a contentment, like he
Speaker 1: looks he doesn't. He doesn't seem alarmed. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: alarmed that he's covered in crabs. However, if I woke
Speaker 1: up covered in crabs this way, this would be terrifying.
Speaker 1: But so yeah, I guess. I guess the lesson to
Speaker 1: take away is let creatures eat things off your skin
Speaker 1: if you want, exactly. That's the lesson of the day.
Speaker 1: If you see if you see an iguana covered in crabs,
Speaker 1: don't freak out and bring a broom and start sweeping
Speaker 1: them off because they're doing their own thing. You gotta
Speaker 1: let let animals do their own right exactly. And another
Speaker 1: thing you should not be alarmed if you see is
Speaker 1: an iguana wearing a little lizard as a hat. So
Speaker 1: there are these little tiny lizards called lava lizards that
Speaker 1: are just like a few inches a few centimeters big,
Speaker 1: so they are literally like smaller than the head of
Speaker 1: one of these iguanas. But they will climb up on
Speaker 1: the iguana for a better vantage point when hunting flies.
Speaker 1: And this doesn't necessarily help out the iguana because I
Speaker 1: don't think flies are able to really pestor the the
Speaker 1: iguana have such thick skin that the flies can't really
Speaker 1: bite them, it can't really get bother them. But the
Speaker 1: lava lizards don't bother them either, so they just ignore
Speaker 1: the little lava lizards let them crawl all over and
Speaker 1: catch flies from this great vantage point. And it's it's
Speaker 1: very cute to see because it's this tiny lizard. It's adorable.
Speaker 1: It's a lizard hat. And it's funny because the lizards,
Speaker 1: like I have the high ground, but it's at the
Speaker 1: top of the head of another animal, which is a
Speaker 1: little bit confusing to me. I think it would find
Speaker 1: there's probably higher things to get on top of, but
Speaker 1: they've just decided that unless it's alive, they're not gonna Technically, though,
Speaker 1: there is a taller perch that they do use, which
Speaker 1: is the sea lion who welcomes the little lava lizards
Speaker 1: because the lava lizards eat up these flies, and the
Speaker 1: sea lions are actually pestered by these flies. Seem much
Speaker 1: more bothered by them than the iguanas do, probably because
Speaker 1: they you know, they get in their eyes and and
Speaker 1: they kind of like bother them. They get they can
Speaker 1: get on their fur and it's annoying. So the lava
Speaker 1: lizards will just crawl over these sea lions and jump.
Speaker 1: They literally leap in the air and snap the flies
Speaker 1: right out of the air. As the sea lions seems
Speaker 1: very content to have this happen because it's a personal
Speaker 1: fly swatter going around getting rid of all the flies.
Speaker 1: I'd be stoked if I could have a setup like that,
Speaker 1: I know, right, just your personal fly hunter going around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. Put them on your put them in
Speaker 1: your ear like a like a flower or a bluetooth
Speaker 1: little headset, and you get a little lizard there and
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, buddy, right, anybody just hang out right here,
Speaker 1: don't even worry about it. And then if you see
Speaker 1: a fly, just get that thing exactly. And the sea
Speaker 1: lions and the marine iguanas also co exist peacefully, so
Speaker 1: they don't really help each other, but they don't really
Speaker 1: bother each other either, And the sea lions even allow
Speaker 1: the marine iguanas to kind of crawl on top of
Speaker 1: them because you know, there it just doesn't they don't
Speaker 1: really compete, they don't have many conflicts, so you have,
Speaker 1: um uh, you know that. This just very interestingly how
Speaker 1: you can see all sorts of different relationships between animals
Speaker 1: living on this shoreline. Where you have mutualism where the
Speaker 1: sea lions like the little lizards snap up flies around them.
Speaker 1: You have commence alism where the lava lizards snap up
Speaker 1: flies around the marine iguanas even though the marina iguanas
Speaker 1: don't really need the help. And you have mutualism of
Speaker 1: the crabs eating the skin and parasites off of the
Speaker 1: marina iguanas. It's just it's really cool. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: this big old beach party of all these animals. Gonna say,
Speaker 1: there's a whole shoreline culture that's outstanding because it's just
Speaker 1: creatures crawling all over each other, freely, using each other
Speaker 1: as mountains they watch whatever. It's basically it's bay watch
Speaker 1: with lizards. Don dun dun dun dunt John. And by
Speaker 1: the way, we edit that out of the show because
Speaker 1: that we can pitch that right right, I'm just imagining
Speaker 1: a lizard running across the beach and slow motion. Definitely
Speaker 1: not imagining a lizard with boobs. That's not happening. So
Speaker 1: don't god lizard and a mikini. Don't think about a
Speaker 1: lizard in a bikini, do you think about it? Think
Speaker 1: about a lizard covered in crabs and how that is okay?
Speaker 1: And it's beautiful. Actually it's horrible looking. It's a beautiful
Speaker 1: it's friend. It looks like monsters eating each other. But
Speaker 1: we should we should think of it as a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: I blame Darwin for this feeling that I have this
Speaker 1: this bias that I have against the lizards, and and
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like this this set off a
Speaker 1: chain reaction because he comes back, he writes his book.
Speaker 1: By the way, you can find all his writing. Darwin
Speaker 1: did about the shoreline of uh can you edit in?
Speaker 1: That sounded like I know what I was talking about
Speaker 1: here in the O the Virgin Islands speak the Cayman
Speaker 1: Islands or whatever. Lava Town, USA, Lava Town. It's actually
Speaker 1: just called lava Town. Yeah. When he's Darwin write about
Speaker 1: his lizard adventures and all this ship talking. You can
Speaker 1: read about that in his book Lizards are bullsh by Darwin,
Speaker 1: and it's just a lizard with the middle finger pointing
Speaker 1: at it on the cover. You can't miss it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think that led directly to Godzilla and a
Speaker 1: stigma to lizards. I have read that the lizards are Bullshit.
Speaker 1: It's actually kind of a required reading and most evolutionary
Speaker 1: biology courses it's considered the seminal text on evolutionary biology.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I am familiar with with that famous work.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I wasn't questioning it. But that's okay, you
Speaker 1: can go ahead and just just go ahead and brag
Speaker 1: about that. And then his his sequel to lizards are
Speaker 1: Lizards are Bullshit? Two? Oh, it turns out we all
Speaker 1: are lizards. We all came from lizards. Right. It's like, sorry,
Speaker 1: it's a redaction mostly, but it's it's fine, what do
Speaker 1: we know? Lizards are bullshit? There's no way we're related
Speaker 1: to them. Part two? Whoops, we are sorry, but that
Speaker 1: turns out by Darwin, and that's why, you know, That's
Speaker 1: an important thing about science. It's constant evolution of theories.
Speaker 1: Gross I'm editing. People are wrong a lot, No, no,
Speaker 1: leave it in it all stays in the Galapagos Islands
Speaker 1: are not always such a friendly place, especially for babies.
Speaker 1: As soon as marine iguanas hatched from their eggs, they
Speaker 1: are immediately cast into the most dangerous peril of their lives,
Speaker 1: running from their hatchery towards the coast to escape the
Speaker 1: jaws of the swift, merciless Galapagos race or snakes who
Speaker 1: love to pick off hatchling iguanas. The iguana sprint as
Speaker 1: soon as they hatch, trying desperately to outrun and dodge
Speaker 1: the many snakes who congregate to feast upon them. It's
Speaker 1: amazing that these poor little iguanas grow up to have
Speaker 1: such a mellow disposition. When we return, we're going to
Speaker 1: visit the reigning champion of chillness, the most bodacious buddies
Speaker 1: of the animal kingdom, the cappy baras. Who's the biggest
Speaker 1: rodent of them all? Is it the rat? Not by
Speaker 1: a long shot? Is it a spiny porcupine? Close but
Speaker 1: not yet. How about a beaver who can topple trees
Speaker 1: and capnee. Nope, the biggest rodent in the world is
Speaker 1: the capa bara and it is one of the most
Speaker 1: laxed animals in the world. Now, as I've been saying this,
Speaker 1: Randall has been holding a dinosaur in the camera and
Speaker 1: making it talk, which I feel like I have to
Speaker 1: um just sort of inhabit the space, the mental space
Speaker 1: of the capybara to be able to ignore the shenanigans
Speaker 1: going on with the dinosaur. So thanks for the dinosaur interlude.
Speaker 1: But now we are going to talk about the capybara,
Speaker 1: which is the largest rodent in the world that lives
Speaker 1: in South America near bodies of water in Savannah's and forests.
Speaker 1: And it is a big old guinea pig and and
Speaker 1: most famously the pet of the Tick from the animated
Speaker 1: series The Tick where he thought he found a dog
Speaker 1: that could talk, but he was hallucinating and it turned
Speaker 1: out he stole a capybara from the jungle and it
Speaker 1: was in very terrible shape. Yes, yes, I I too
Speaker 1: remember that episode of the nineties famous popular TV animated
Speaker 1: series The Tick. Yeah, but now they are actually kind
Speaker 1: of the size of a dog, like imagine a guinea
Speaker 1: pig just sized up to be bigger than a golden retriever.
Speaker 1: It weighs about seventy two hundred and forty pounds, so
Speaker 1: that's thirty two to sixty four and they grow to
Speaker 1: be almost five ft long one point five meters and
Speaker 1: two ft high point six meters, so g D huge
Speaker 1: is what terms are chunk masters, they're they're they're just big.
Speaker 1: They're big, they're chunky, and they're funky and so yeah,
Speaker 1: they are like guinea pigs in a lot of different
Speaker 1: ways to other than just their appearances. They are very
Speaker 1: chill social animals. They are living groups from about ten
Speaker 1: to up to a hundred, and they um like guinea
Speaker 1: pigs and rabbits and other rodents. Uh, they eat their
Speaker 1: own feces or it's actually a special type of poop
Speaker 1: that they eat called the Sika trope that has undigested
Speaker 1: fermented sugars in it, which sounds great. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: if it's sugar even then why not? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you know what I say, If it's sugary, why if
Speaker 1: it's sugary and it comes out of your butt, sure
Speaker 1: why not? Yeah? Yeah great? Yeah, So you know, they
Speaker 1: eat their sugary duties, so they are actually semi aquatic
Speaker 1: as well. They are extremely good swimmers with webbed feet,
Speaker 1: and they can take naps in the water to stay cool,
Speaker 1: so they just float in the water with their snouts
Speaker 1: resting against the shore and just sleep. They're like the
Speaker 1: surfer dudes of the animal Kingdom, except they mostly lived
Speaker 1: near freshwater sources. But yeah, they're just like very the
Speaker 1: very definition of chill. Like you look up chill, you
Speaker 1: just see a capybara sitting eyes closed, chilled, chilled out.
Speaker 1: A capabara capabara always looks like you just smoked and
Speaker 1: j and he's like, what's up, man's let's go on.
Speaker 1: What do you want to do? Yeah? You want you
Speaker 1: want to eat some of my sugary poop I just had.
Speaker 1: I just I just dropped some for you. And you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to be rude, but you
Speaker 1: gotta be like, I'm not gonna do that, but thank you, No,
Speaker 1: d it's fine, pooped enough for both of us, head
Speaker 1: in and out. Now that's and there's like, that's okay,
Speaker 1: I already. Me me poop is too poop, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know me me dukie is sued dukie as they say,
Speaker 1: as they say, as the Cathy Barra says. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are very calm animals, and they have a lot
Speaker 1: of cool bird friends. Who doesn't like to have coolbird friends?
Speaker 1: So many cool birds and they are all friends, coolbird friends,
Speaker 1: cool bird friends. Coming this Saturday on Saturday mornings on
Speaker 1: Fox Fox Kids, which doesn't exist anymore, because that's a
Speaker 1: hundred year old reference. Yeah, coming a bird friends. So
Speaker 1: black vultures, Jukana's cowbirds and many other birds perch on
Speaker 1: capa baras and clean ticks and other parasites off their skin.
Speaker 1: So again a bit a bit like the light footed
Speaker 1: crabs cleaning off ticks and junk off of the iguana.
Speaker 1: These birds will sit on the capa bara and clean
Speaker 1: ticks and stuff off of them. Let me also just
Speaker 1: point out, by the way this objectively, if you saw
Speaker 1: a capa bara laying down on land and the vulture
Speaker 1: was on top of it pecking at it, right, you
Speaker 1: would not assume that was a positive symbiotic relationship. It
Speaker 1: would look like you just ran into the corpse of
Speaker 1: a capa bara being eaten right, just viciously, mercilessly devoured
Speaker 1: by a vulture, and you'd be like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And then it's like and then someone would, hopefully someone
Speaker 1: would explain to you, perhaps the spirit of Darwin would
Speaker 1: come to you and say, do not be afraid. It
Speaker 1: is a chet friendship therein what Darwin would what Darwin
Speaker 1: would say would be God, damn, that is an ugly dog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd be like, look at these ugly animals. That's stupid
Speaker 1: giant pig am I right, and try to ghost hie
Speaker 1: five you and you'd be like, get out of here.
Speaker 1: It looks like hell. Earth is hell. That's what That's
Speaker 1: what Darwin said. And Darwin's my favorite quotes. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying Earth is hell. And then right before he died
Speaker 1: the Origin of Species, a book of total ugoes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Darwin was a mean It was a mean, mean girl.
Speaker 1: So the capa bara will even allow birds to write
Speaker 1: on them like they are the bird's noble steed. And
Speaker 1: birds not only clean parasites off the capa bara, which
Speaker 1: is a mutualistic relationship, they also will perch on them
Speaker 1: as a cappa bara trots around and wait for insects
Speaker 1: to get stirred up from the grass that the cava
Speaker 1: barra is striding in and then they will go off
Speaker 1: and snap up the insects. So basically they are like
Speaker 1: hunting on capa bara back and the cappa bar is
Speaker 1: happy enough to let them do it. It doesn't really
Speaker 1: get anything out of that specific relationship, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: they're just very chill, they're all right with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: birds kind of trade them like horses. I would say
Speaker 1: this was the parasitic exploitation if if I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's part of the thing, but I would I
Speaker 1: would add that on there, onto the one of those levels,
Speaker 1: because they're not parasitic exploitation. Yeah, because this is just
Speaker 1: a bird going like, oh look an animal I can
Speaker 1: hang out on, and if it rides around then I
Speaker 1: don't have to fly or walk or anything. That's cool. Well,
Speaker 1: but if it doesn't negatively affect the capa bara, which
Speaker 1: it doesn't, then it's just commence ali is um. Because
Speaker 1: the bird benefits in the capa bar is like whatever,
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's cool. That's true because it has course
Speaker 1: for it's got that. It's got like the layers of fur, right,
Speaker 1: because it's because since since it goes in the water,
Speaker 1: it's got that what it's called the water hair for
Speaker 1: and they don't really you know, bird feet don't really
Speaker 1: bother them that much. I don't think the bird feet
Speaker 1: are really bothering them too much. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's like you could pick it all apart and say,
Speaker 1: like this bird is kind of an asshole, right, like
Speaker 1: if it picks too hard at it, like that bird
Speaker 1: specifically maybe in a hole, but yeah, in general, like
Speaker 1: the relationship with the birds, like it either helps the
Speaker 1: cap of barrow because the bird is cleaning their fur,
Speaker 1: or it just it's fine. It's like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: got a bird on its back. Now, who's going to complain?
Speaker 1: That looks badass. One thing I'm really resentful for when
Speaker 1: I see nature and I see how far we've disconnected
Speaker 1: ourselves from animals, because I really I love animals and
Speaker 1: I don't want to brag, but I eat plant based.
Speaker 1: I don't need any I don't need animals love it.
Speaker 1: Uh uh they're the best. And the thing that bums
Speaker 1: me out is how in nature animals just land on
Speaker 1: each other and they're super cool. And I wish as
Speaker 1: humans we had evolved to just be super chill with
Speaker 1: animals and landing all over us where we like to
Speaker 1: land on us, like the most Quito, the noblest that's
Speaker 1: a little different, Yeah, the dynamics a little different. And
Speaker 1: then there's other animals that that that try to grab
Speaker 1: us and it's horrific, like the like the condor which
Speaker 1: tries to just grab a human and just lifted off
Speaker 1: the ground to go. Do you think this happens, Oh,
Speaker 1: I've heard all of it. It happened. I like how
Speaker 1: you just casually drop this, like you know, like how
Speaker 1: condors go and grab you. You know how that happens
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know that's
Speaker 1: what they're doing out there. But this pro bird behavior
Speaker 1: with Cappa barros means that in captivity they lit ducks
Speaker 1: just walk all over them. And I provided a video
Speaker 1: which I will include in the show notes that shows
Speaker 1: ducks just trouncing all over this poor capa bara who
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to mind they are eating. I think they
Speaker 1: are eating like parasites off of the capa bara, So
Speaker 1: I think it's getting some benefit. But it does look
Speaker 1: like it's a gang of ducks just bullying this capa barbing.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do about it? I'm sitting on
Speaker 1: it I'm sitting on you. What are you gonna do
Speaker 1: about it? Nature? So far, aren't you? You just come
Speaker 1: over here, lazy boy, let me sit on you now.
Speaker 1: But the ducks, the ducks are actually helping him by
Speaker 1: cleaning his fur. Yeah, I see, that's so they're they're cool.
Speaker 1: And the capavar is cool with everything, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: He's like old school chill. He just doesn't he doesn't
Speaker 1: care about anything. The baby capa bears, by the way,
Speaker 1: if you see one, we'll just melt your heart. That's
Speaker 1: that should be a good test of like whether or
Speaker 1: not someone is capable of empathy or some sort of like, right,
Speaker 1: the new psychopath test baby capybara. And if it doesn't,
Speaker 1: if they don't go, oh my god, oh that's the
Speaker 1: cutest thing I've ever seen. Oh, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what to do. Then there it's like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like blade runner. Then you just got to shoot them
Speaker 1: whatever they right, right, I forgot you forgot holp. You know.
Speaker 1: They just you know, if you don't cry when you
Speaker 1: see a capabara, you have no soul. That's what science says.
Speaker 1: That's the takeaway. Yeah, well, so I want to talk
Speaker 1: about another instance of an animal being surprisingly chill when
Speaker 1: another animal just kind of like sits on it goes
Speaker 1: all around. And have you ever heard of this thing
Speaker 1: where like it's actually a myth of birds sitting inside
Speaker 1: of crocodile mouths and picking cleaning their teeth. The idea
Speaker 1: is that these Egyptian plovers will sit inside a nile
Speaker 1: crocodile's mouth and clean meat from their teeth without getting
Speaker 1: eaten by the crocodile. Like their nature's little dentist. I
Speaker 1: guess it's like one of those factoids that gets spread around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the ostrich with the head and the sand
Speaker 1: kind of right, right, Like there's just not that the
Speaker 1: evidence of it is paper thin. So it's just something
Speaker 1: that like probably some like old dude noted in some diary,
Speaker 1: like yeah it was it was all a nile crocodile
Speaker 1: and it had buds in its mouth. Who would have fought?
Speaker 1: And we just take that as fat But he's really
Speaker 1: just tripping balls on opium or something. Yeah. Right, it
Speaker 1: was about on my journey is and I I began
Speaker 1: to see a bird and I'm sure it was some
Speaker 1: sort of dentist bird. I mean, that's that much, we
Speaker 1: can surmise confidently. Then in the sun turned into a
Speaker 1: baby's head. But there is an actual, real instance of
Speaker 1: something like this happening that to me is even more impressive.
Speaker 1: And you have to go under the sea, you know,
Speaker 1: like the screen wipe wher it goes all like and
Speaker 1: there's like bubbles and so it looks like you're going underwater.
Speaker 1: Imagine that happening like water. Yeah, that's how it sounds.
Speaker 1: Wooboy booby, that's really good. Fully work. That's very good,
Speaker 1: fully work. Thank you. That's so buddy. But so under
Speaker 1: the water, there are these cute little fish called cleaner rass,
Speaker 1: and they like to dart in and out of the toothy,
Speaker 1: demonic smile of large moray eels that could easily just
Speaker 1: snap the little fish right up like it's nothing and
Speaker 1: just slurp it up like it. Have you seen more
Speaker 1: a eel before, just like hanging around like in person
Speaker 1: or uh yeah, like when you get picked up and
Speaker 1: they drafted me into the water. Yeah, when I fight
Speaker 1: it off and I landed into the shore, Yeah, then
Speaker 1: I like I'm like, oh, the eels carried me to safety.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that's of course, of course. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before. I don't know how many times
Speaker 1: I have to tell you about it. Yeah. No, they're
Speaker 1: flotsam and jetsam. In Little Mermaid they're mores. That's a more.
Speaker 1: And so the Little Mermaid the flotsam and jetsam, they're
Speaker 1: the eel. They're the eel things that are Ursula's pets,
Speaker 1: the companions. Oh I forgot that part? How could you forget?
Speaker 1: The Ursula and those eels were the whole movie? To me,
Speaker 1: I could give less of a Cara Aeriel and her
Speaker 1: whole like teenage drama, Like there's a cute bool, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna abandon my tire ecosystem just for this
Speaker 1: cute boy. But no, like where it's at is octopus,
Speaker 1: Ursula and her cool more friends, she's I don't remember.
Speaker 1: The bird combing is feathers with a fork, And that
Speaker 1: was my big takeaway from the movie was that birds
Speaker 1: don't know a bit about combing the hair. Well, they
Speaker 1: do know about like grooming their hair, just not with forks.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not with forks. Yeah, you can't. You
Speaker 1: can't learn everything you need to know about being a
Speaker 1: human through birds, especially through seagulls. You cannot trust seagulls.
Speaker 1: I think that is the other lesson. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 1: trust seagulls. You may think this is unrelated to what
Speaker 1: we're talking about if you're listening to this, but and
Speaker 1: it is not, because it comes back full circle. So
Speaker 1: don't trust seagulls. So don't never trust back to the eel,
Speaker 1: because always trust an always always, because they're they're honest
Speaker 1: and they don't eat the little fish that go in
Speaker 1: their mouth. Right. Well, what happens is the more is
Speaker 1: actually a client of the cleaner rass who goes around
Speaker 1: the more's mouth and its lips and its head and
Speaker 1: picks off little parasites and cleans their mouths. So it
Speaker 1: is acting as like a little fish dentist and dermatologists
Speaker 1: all rolled into one cute little package. And these cleaner rests,
Speaker 1: they're little fish. They have this blue streak or another
Speaker 1: bright colored streak along their side that actually signals to
Speaker 1: fish that these are the cleaner rast So it's like
Speaker 1: this dark band on their side, and then it's it's
Speaker 1: branding essentially that fish learn that if you live, these
Speaker 1: little cleaner wrasts clean you up, then you're you will
Speaker 1: get a nice bit of free skincare. It's not just
Speaker 1: more a eels. They will offer free parasite removal for
Speaker 1: mini fish and they actually have little cleaning stations where
Speaker 1: fish literally line up like they're at a car wash.
Speaker 1: So the one accurate thing in that terrible movie what
Speaker 1: was it, like a shark tail is sort of trying
Speaker 1: to ride on the coattails of finding Nemo. Nobody remembers
Speaker 1: had an eye right right, but they didn't. I don't know.
Speaker 1: All I remember is the fish like making sex faces.
Speaker 1: And then also like they had a fish car wash,
Speaker 1: and that is actually accurate. So yeah, and so like
Speaker 1: you'll have fishes lining up to get serviced by these
Speaker 1: cleaner rass and get get fully detailed, and the cleaner
Speaker 1: rass get to eat parasites from the fish. And we've
Speaker 1: actually talked about this before on the show, how there's
Speaker 1: this whole really interesting kind of economy of fish and
Speaker 1: cleaner rass where the cleaner rass, if they start to
Speaker 1: nibble at the fishes flesh itself, where like at their
Speaker 1: stress coat, the fish will boycott the cleaner rass. And
Speaker 1: then if the fish like eat a cleaner rass instead,
Speaker 1: of just patiently allowing the pickoff parasites, the cleaner rass
Speaker 1: will ban them from their services and a northm so
Speaker 1: other cleaner raps will be like, no, you ate my friend,
Speaker 1: I'm not your you know, no no shoes, no shirt,
Speaker 1: no eating my friends. Please, you ate with cleaners. So
Speaker 1: it's like if you rob a bank and you get
Speaker 1: that exploding ink on you version of that he except
Speaker 1: it's like you we all saw you eat Fred. You
Speaker 1: can't come back. You can't come back to bow Jangles.
Speaker 1: You ate, one of our waiters. Speak from experience, but
Speaker 1: just something to be clear about because when these little
Speaker 1: fish are called cleaner rass and it keeps sounding like
Speaker 1: cleaner ass and it's cleaner rass w R A S
Speaker 1: S E, and it could sound like either cleaner rats,
Speaker 1: which you don't want to get confused. You want people
Speaker 1: to be confused with rats and fish. It happens all
Speaker 1: the time, and that's that's terrible. And then cleaner ass
Speaker 1: just sounds like that's not we should all strive for
Speaker 1: to be honest. But right, but but but I mean
Speaker 1: that on its own time and its own podcast. Although
Speaker 1: with the cleaner wraths you could get a cleaner ass
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. Yeah, so if anyone, if we
Speaker 1: can mark this down, is host creature, your future host
Speaker 1: Katie Golden Uh endorsing that you put fish into your butts. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: let's let the lawyers come at me. I don't care.
Speaker 1: So I feel like the trust between the cleaner wraths
Speaker 1: and the more a eel is more impressive than the
Speaker 1: alleged relationship between birds and nile crocodiles, because al right, first,
Speaker 1: I gotta put this in perspective, because more eels, there
Speaker 1: are many different species and more eels, but the big
Speaker 1: ones get huge. So the largest more A, the giant
Speaker 1: more which lives in the Indo Pacific Ocean in coral reefs,
Speaker 1: can grow to be nine ft long or three meters
Speaker 1: and sixty six pounds or thirty whereas cleaner wrath tend
Speaker 1: to be around four inches or ten centimeters long, so
Speaker 1: teeny tiny compared to the more a and more eels.
Speaker 1: When you're a little fish faced with this more eel,
Speaker 1: they are have a more terrifying set of jaws than
Speaker 1: a crocodile because they actually have two sets of jaws.
Speaker 1: The teeth that you see as they open their mouths,
Speaker 1: but inside their mouth, near their throat, they have a
Speaker 1: second set of jaws, a smaller set of jaws called
Speaker 1: fairyngeal jaws, which looks like the little alien that comes
Speaker 1: out of the alien mouth and alien. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: just gonna say, it's like the alien mouth. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you imagine, you think you're going to escape the
Speaker 1: jaws of a more a eel and then it's like, oh, sorry,
Speaker 1: there's a second mouth inside. Go freak yourself. You're still
Speaker 1: getting eaten exactly if you're a little turtle to his
Speaker 1: mind in your own business over there, Right, that's good.
Speaker 1: It's good to like he's holding up a blue plastic turtle,
Speaker 1: And it's always good to like incorporate prop comedy in
Speaker 1: an audio medium. But I like to do I like
Speaker 1: to do a lot of visual aids and right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are visual learners and they are not listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast. But imagine if we were scuba diving, all right,
Speaker 1: imagining it. Ah, the water is so cold burr. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: there we go where I hope everyone I forgot to
Speaker 1: do the roder water we're scuba diving. I'm ignoring the
Speaker 1: fact that I'm terrified because I'm basically hydrophobic. Normals water
Speaker 1: roader water. And then we both do bain impressions to
Speaker 1: each other the entire time. But most importantly, I point
Speaker 1: out this horrific giant eel that I don't know about
Speaker 1: it because and I go, oh my god, what's that?
Speaker 1: And you go, that's a more clap clap clap clap, night,
Speaker 1: good night, good night. That was a long that was
Speaker 1: a long walk or that, and it's totally worth it.
Speaker 1: I regret nothing. Friendships are a wonderful thing in the
Speaker 1: animal kingdom, but sometimes there's a little stinker trying to
Speaker 1: take advantage of mutual friendliness. Giant mores may not seem
Speaker 1: to risk much when allowing a tiny cleaner rasp into
Speaker 1: their mouths, but the cleaner rass could nip at the
Speaker 1: morays flesh instead of at parasites. The rass knows that
Speaker 1: these sorts of actions can get punished and typically stick
Speaker 1: to gentle cleaning. However, there are other species of fish
Speaker 1: that can take advantage of this trust, such as the
Speaker 1: tiny and terrible saber tooth blinny fish. This little deviant
Speaker 1: impersonates the cleaner rass and tricks the more into trusting
Speaker 1: it long enough to get a good bite out of
Speaker 1: the moray before quickly darting away from its shocked mark
Speaker 1: when a saber tooth blinny hits your eye like a
Speaker 1: big pizza pie that somewhere Anyways, when we return, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about some animals who share their meals,
Speaker 1: or well what used to be their meals. I guess this.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. Ants. You may be familiar
Speaker 1: with these resourceful little insects making a pest of themselves
Speaker 1: at picnics, are in your own kitchen. They are often
Speaker 1: indomitable conquerors, but sometimes they are little heroes or should
Speaker 1: I say anti heroes. You get a randal anti anti
Speaker 1: heroes because they're talking about ants anti anti heroes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for the laugh. Ye, I'm waiting for the
Speaker 1: last year. Where is still? Is there a delay? Is
Speaker 1: there a delay? Didn't hear me laugh? I think there's
Speaker 1: of the lay. There must be some sort of interference.
Speaker 1: My microphone is I'm picking up the cut off when
Speaker 1: you were like busting a gut. Yeah, it clipped, it clipped.
Speaker 1: Is too loud? The laughing was so loud it clipped
Speaker 1: the laughter we're going to talk about meat ants. Bump
Speaker 1: bump umb. I'd like a good threatening name for an ant,
Speaker 1: meat ants, meat ants. I like the idea that these
Speaker 1: were named meat ants because we used we farm them
Speaker 1: for meat. Like these are some media and succulent ants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it's a weird name, and it's it's for
Speaker 1: the worst reason. Little ants on a skewer, just like
Speaker 1: like an ant kebob. These are the media stunts I've
Speaker 1: ever had. No. Meat ants are relatively normal looking ants
Speaker 1: found only in Australia, so you know, some weird stuff's
Speaker 1: about to go down. So they of course, of course
Speaker 1: they're Australian. I knew it. They're so horrific. So meat
Speaker 1: ants do eat meat, typically from carcasses, but they do
Speaker 1: attack and successfully defeat large prey such as the cane toad.
Speaker 1: And the cane toad, as we've discussed before, is a
Speaker 1: horrible toxic, invasive toad who is devastating the local fauna
Speaker 1: of Australia. And meat ants are actually immune to the
Speaker 1: cane toads toxin and they can attack the toads and
Speaker 1: devour them. So they are little Australian heroes defeating the
Speaker 1: horrible toads get at their anti heroes, so I think
Speaker 1: there's a delay is that anti heroes get it. And
Speaker 1: they're also helpful to farmers because they clear away animal
Speaker 1: carcasses and they can actually skeletonize an animal carcass over
Speaker 1: the course of a few weeks. So that's that's cool.
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty cool. I like the words skeletonized.
Speaker 1: That's like that really takes the murder out of it.
Speaker 1: They didn't murder the animal carcass with it. Was the
Speaker 1: animal killed or was it just skeletonized. I think in
Speaker 1: the case of really big animals, it's that they don't
Speaker 1: kill the animals. It's that the animal is dead and
Speaker 1: the ants come in and helpfully turn it into a
Speaker 1: skeleton and you can hang it up as Halloween decorations
Speaker 1: instead of just having a moldering animal. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I respect that you know what you're talking about, because
Speaker 1: I don't. But I'm just gonna say I've seen some okay,
Speaker 1: and I've seen I've seen an aunt killer guy. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, is this the same day that you got
Speaker 1: picked up by a condor and got thrown into the ocean.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot going on. One thing we know
Speaker 1: about nature is that it's completely unscientific and its total
Speaker 1: mystery and that anything can happen, Like I just have
Speaker 1: to trust you when you say you saw an aunt
Speaker 1: kill a guy. There's no way to confirm exactly. There's
Speaker 1: no way to confirm it, no way to deny it,
Speaker 1: and definitely can't prove a negative. No, never been done,
Speaker 1: So it will back to science. Thanks, thank you for
Speaker 1: your very inventive anterlode, But back to science. So the
Speaker 1: ants actually dabble in farming because they form symbiotic relationships
Speaker 1: with tree hopper nymphs, which is actually so nymphs are
Speaker 1: like young forms of insects, so they can go through
Speaker 1: sort of these different metamorphosis and so the nymphs stage
Speaker 1: is a like baby stage of the metamorphosis usually after
Speaker 1: like their larval form, So like these baby tree hopper
Speaker 1: insects such as the jacid tree hopper. And that's actually
Speaker 1: what you see in that image which also included in
Speaker 1: the the show notes. It looks like a looks like
Speaker 1: a wingless b that is red and black but with
Speaker 1: no stripes, if that makes sense. But it's actually plant
Speaker 1: hoppers and tree hoppers will attach themselves to a branch
Speaker 1: or a stem and shove their proboscis inside of the
Speaker 1: plant and suck out some of the sugary juices flowing
Speaker 1: through the plant and get a nice meal there. But
Speaker 1: sometimes but they suck out so much sugary juices that
Speaker 1: sometimes they can't process all of it, so some of
Speaker 1: it uh comes out of there, but as something called
Speaker 1: honey dew, which is this sugary fluid, and so ants
Speaker 1: love to eat this like sugar poop. So they will
Speaker 1: protect the tree hopper nymphs by acting as shepherds, and
Speaker 1: they actually do this with a number of young insects
Speaker 1: such as caterpillars, which are the larval forms of moths
Speaker 1: and butterflies. At a pillar can also excrete honey dew
Speaker 1: as a byproduct of eating leaf material, and the ant
Speaker 1: can also partake of the caterpillar. So they're basically like
Speaker 1: shepherd's protecting the tree hoppers and caterpillars and harvesting their
Speaker 1: sugary butt juice. Nothing wrong. That is a really nice
Speaker 1: way of describing a human centipede like scenario between ants
Speaker 1: and these things just spring sugar and the I literally
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was looking at at this
Speaker 1: reference photo. I'm looking at an image of a creature
Speaker 1: that looks like a rejected like concept dark from a
Speaker 1: rejected David Cronenberg movie. And then it's it's springing something
Speaker 1: sugary and an ant is on its but eating it
Speaker 1: right out of it. But as they're on this branch together,
Speaker 1: so they're they're creating this, this this chain of horrific
Speaker 1: insect interaction. What sort of this is this benefit? Is
Speaker 1: parasitic beneficial? No, no, it's not parasitic at all. Parasitic
Speaker 1: is only when one animal is harmed and the other
Speaker 1: gets something. So this is actually mutualistic. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean to to me. I mean to me, not
Speaker 1: to the bugs, because I'm learning something. But it's parasitic,
Speaker 1: so it's taking away from I see. Yeah, it's painful,
Speaker 1: but it's hurting me and it's taking away from my
Speaker 1: my soul. But but then I yeah, but then I
Speaker 1: learned something. So in terms of evolutionary biology or feelings
Speaker 1: aren't actually valid. But this is a mutualistic relationship because
Speaker 1: both of the insects benefits. So the aunt, you know,
Speaker 1: it gets the crappy end of the deal. But that's
Speaker 1: what it likes the crab, and then it protects the
Speaker 1: tree hoppers and caterpillars. So another beautiful friendship that is
Speaker 1: based around food is dolphins and birds and how they
Speaker 1: come together to screw over fish. So there is this
Speaker 1: fascinating relationship between the Great egrets and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins
Speaker 1: who both inhabit the tidal marshes outside of Savannah, Georgia
Speaker 1: in North America. So basically what a tidle marsh is,
Speaker 1: it's a marsh land that is connected to the sea,
Speaker 1: and so as the tide goes out, the marshes like
Speaker 1: get really shallow, and then the tide comes in and
Speaker 1: the marshes get really full. Uh, And they're all these
Speaker 1: like winding snakelike pathways that the water can take. So
Speaker 1: it's it's really pretty when you look at it, but
Speaker 1: it's all it's it's all saltwater marsh, and dolphins can
Speaker 1: actually go up these winding paths up the marsh, and
Speaker 1: they will do it during low tide, which seems really risky,
Speaker 1: like why because it almost seems like when the tide
Speaker 1: gets really low there can be only like a few
Speaker 1: inches of water in certain places, So it seems like
Speaker 1: they would be risking stranding themselves, but they actually have
Speaker 1: this really interesting hunting tactic that they do at low tide,
Speaker 1: where it'll be a group of like three to four
Speaker 1: dolphins all coming together and then suddenly just all three
Speaker 1: or four of them rush onto the shore like they're
Speaker 1: just trying to like shore themselves all at once, but instead,
Speaker 1: what they're doing is they're forcing fish up onto the
Speaker 1: shore that they've corralled, and the fish are then stranded,
Speaker 1: and the dolphins just lie on their sides snapping up
Speaker 1: the fish as they fall back into the water. And
Speaker 1: the dolphins haven't completely beached themselves so they can still
Speaker 1: like get back into the water, so they're fine, but
Speaker 1: the fish are definitely not fine. But then these great
Speaker 1: egrets and other birds have taken notice of these dolphins
Speaker 1: doing this hunting tactic, which this is the only in
Speaker 1: these marshes in Georgia. These are the only place, this
Speaker 1: is the only place that these dolphins have been observed
Speaker 1: doing this hunting tactic where they force fish to like
Speaker 1: become stranded on the shore on these mud banks. But
Speaker 1: the birds, well classics, but these birds will watch the
Speaker 1: dolphins and wait for them to do this, and then
Speaker 1: they go and they start eating up the fish that
Speaker 1: the dolphins can't reach that have like flipped out of
Speaker 1: you know, just like the excess fish. So they just
Speaker 1: kind of like some of the egrets that observe dolphins
Speaker 1: doing this have become so dependent on the dolphin hunting habits,
Speaker 1: they like basically stopped hunting for themselves and they just
Speaker 1: wait for these dolphins to do this interesting hunting. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. And so this I would say this is
Speaker 1: a case of commence alism because I don't think the
Speaker 1: dolphins are negatively impacted by the bird's presence unless the
Speaker 1: birds are like eating fish that they would have otherwise gotten.
Speaker 1: But I don't think so, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of these fish gets shoved like way up the shoreline,
Speaker 1: so they're not going to get them anyways. And we're
Speaker 1: sure they're not blocking the dolphins and eating them. No,
Speaker 1: they're definitely no, they could be like annoying them. I guess,
Speaker 1: like the dolphins. This is like they didn't ask the
Speaker 1: dolphins if they could eat with them, and they're just
Speaker 1: like bothering them, and like, you mind, if I mind
Speaker 1: if I grabbed some salt, That's how I imagined that
Speaker 1: conversation going between those animals. It's especially funny because they're
Speaker 1: in saltwater, so you don't really need anymore. You see
Speaker 1: the humor, it's a it's salt saltwater, marsh salt. Right.
Speaker 1: I appreciate what you did there, that's fine. But this
Speaker 1: is like, this is like a nation of It started
Speaker 1: out as feeling like a World War two story where
Speaker 1: I was just like captivated and like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe what's happened. And then and then it
Speaker 1: turned into like when people tell they tell you not
Speaker 1: to feed bears because you're gonna like domesticate or you're
Speaker 1: gonna make them depend not domesticate, but you're gonna depend
Speaker 1: make them dependent on human sandwiches and beef jerky picnic baskets,
Speaker 1: and they want to wear a little bow ties. You know,
Speaker 1: where else you get a lunchable out there, it's devastating
Speaker 1: to the bear population. And they get picnic baskets. And
Speaker 1: then they like start wearing bow ties and just like
Speaker 1: they have no survival skills and they have to be
Speaker 1: put down. They have to be put down. Like when
Speaker 1: once they start wearing bow ties, they've actually got to
Speaker 1: be put down, so and the hats hats and little
Speaker 1: tie like they wear like actual ties and collars, but
Speaker 1: they don't wear shirts, which doesn't make any sense, and
Speaker 1: it's really sad, and they do have to be euthanized,
Speaker 1: and they don't have jobs, so they're just mocking winds
Speaker 1: and capitalism. Basically, the zoomers that are listening to this
Speaker 1: are like, I think, really into Yogi bear content. So
Speaker 1: I think this is a good move to bring in
Speaker 1: the Yeah, it's it's very timely, So this is great,
Speaker 1: this is this is great. I have more references from
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago that are going to go over fantastic,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it is it isn't like that.
Speaker 1: I think that's an actually very good point, which is
Speaker 1: that these dolphins are because they are creating this different
Speaker 1: dolphin culture where they do this specific hunting tactic. These
Speaker 1: other animals are becoming dependent on the dolphins hunting. And
Speaker 1: it actually happens in the ocean as well, where dolphins
Speaker 1: will create these bubble nets where they force fish up
Speaker 1: to the surface out in the open ocean, and these
Speaker 1: birds will watch for that and come and descend, and
Speaker 1: they get a lot of their food just from taking
Speaker 1: advantage of dolphin ingenuity and could you who's smarter though
Speaker 1: in this situation, the dolphins doing all this work or
Speaker 1: the birds who work smarter not harder, And just you know,
Speaker 1: the birds are like the c e O s in
Speaker 1: this situation where they let the dolphins do all the work.
Speaker 1: I was just about to say that the dolphins are
Speaker 1: the workers. And then the Jeff Bezos of the of
Speaker 1: the scene comes down and takes all the fish and
Speaker 1: is like, well, maybe if you would work harder, you
Speaker 1: would have had more fish, Jeff birds, and you're like
Speaker 1: son of the birds. Yeah, yeah, I which there's like
Speaker 1: a do you do sound effects on this? Could be
Speaker 1: like a little ding or something there? What kind of
Speaker 1: ding like like like I want want want is that
Speaker 1: the ding that's not a ding? What I mean like
Speaker 1: a bell? Like a like a bell sound like a
Speaker 1: ding dong sound? I need to know what sounds just
Speaker 1: like a dan like if you know, if you go
Speaker 1: to a place and they're like ring the bell for service,
Speaker 1: just like ding. You know it's like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I'll put it. Hang on, you're doing this on purpose?
Speaker 1: Go on for half an hour about bells, No that's fine.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put a right about now. Did you hear
Speaker 1: it in the future because I put it in there. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's spooky. Why is this speaking now? Well, this is
Speaker 1: part of this is the spooky segment. We're talking about
Speaker 1: ghost dolphins. Well, now that we've started talking about ghost dolphins,
Speaker 1: I think that's a good time to end the podcast,
Speaker 1: to stop recording the podcast, Like, let me go ahead
Speaker 1: and stop you right there, let me go ahead. We've
Speaker 1: done it. We can't do any more podcast now that
Speaker 1: we've sort of jumped to the ghost shark here. Um no,
Speaker 1: but yeah, thank you so much for joining me today, Randall.
Speaker 1: It has been really fun other than the ghost part.
Speaker 1: You know that that part is bad and I didn't
Speaker 1: like it was too spooky. I was scared by it.
Speaker 1: I was not a fan of what you said. Scientifically,
Speaker 1: my feelings don't matter. But that's like, you know why,
Speaker 1: because this episode is about friendship. Yeah, that's true. It's
Speaker 1: friend and when your friends say they don't acknowledge your feelings,
Speaker 1: what do you say back? That's perfectly fine. I don't
Speaker 1: care anymore. Yeah, that's the ghosts of my feelings leaving
Speaker 1: my body and leaving me a husk of a emotionless
Speaker 1: friendships all about friendships, also about letting your friends plug
Speaker 1: things on your podcast. So you've got anything, I got
Speaker 1: so much going on? I got you can. You can
Speaker 1: find my custom toys and merge at Perfect Retro U
Speaker 1: with a c K on Perfect on both Instagram and
Speaker 1: on eBay, you can buy stuff. So feel free to
Speaker 1: follow me, look at what I'm doing, and then buy
Speaker 1: things if you want to, and maybe support an artist
Speaker 1: maybe if you want, you know where you want to do,
Speaker 1: that's up to you. And then I'm also on this
Speaker 1: website called the Twitter dot com. Twitter. There's it's on
Speaker 1: that Twitter Twitter bird. It's like a little blue bird,
Speaker 1: but they call it Twitter, and then they put up
Speaker 1: the you write things on there. You put up like
Speaker 1: little messages, tweets. So I'm on there and I go
Speaker 1: like if you go to uh as my name my
Speaker 1: first and last name, random manner, so it's the ad sign,
Speaker 1: you know that little the little appreciate at random manner,
Speaker 1: Twitter to or dot and the Twitter dot com. So
Speaker 1: then like you just go there and then I'm on
Speaker 1: there and then you can click follow and then you'll
Speaker 1: see all of my and then you know, right, so
Speaker 1: like if you want to do that, if you want
Speaker 1: to do that, fel I like the site. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's a good way to express feelings and you know,
Speaker 1: I have really nuanced conversations and all that stuff. It's great.
Speaker 1: It's great Twitter dot com at random Maynor to Twitter, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: great at random Mayer at Twitter, Twitter dot dot com.
Speaker 1: The website, and I'll on your on your web. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll post a picture of the creature feature action figure.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately it is not available for sale anymore. It has
Speaker 1: been recalled or isn't it is actually has been like
Speaker 1: just spontaneously come busting. I've heard like it just like
Speaker 1: suddenly gets like it just goes up. Well, it was
Speaker 1: filled with real wasps, right, I hope you let them out,
Speaker 1: which right, which was I thought a cool feature. But
Speaker 1: parents have been complaining also the head, like the head
Speaker 1: of the dolls like turning around three sixty degrees and
Speaker 1: saying like like I'm your Ii'm your best friend, and
Speaker 1: then like a laugh and and like fires, good, a
Speaker 1: lot of fires, which was actually not a defect, like
Speaker 1: we that was that was a feature that we'd advertised. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand why parents have a problem with it,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 1: you did just acknowledge a supernatural though which is a
Speaker 1: huge hurdle for the podcasts and not for it, just
Speaker 1: for you as a person, just finally admitting that that
Speaker 1: it's not haunting. It's not haunted. Its yeah, it's branded
Speaker 1: by you know, yeah, Demonic Grantic, come on, get with it. Well,
Speaker 1: you can find us on the internet at Creature Feature
Speaker 1: Pod on Instagram, at Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. That's
Speaker 1: f E A T not f E T M something
Speaker 1: very different. And you can find me on the internet
Speaker 1: as well at Katie Golden GEO L D I N
Speaker 1: and you could just hear my Katie thoughts. And then
Speaker 1: also as always I am at pro Bird Rights where
Speaker 1: kiss what birds are. Birds are just better than all
Speaker 1: of us, is what I'm saying, because you can just
Speaker 1: find that out right there on the bird website at
Speaker 1: bird Rights. And thank you for listening. I appreciate it
Speaker 1: very much if you leave a rating or review, I
Speaker 1: super appreciate that. That really helps us out with the
Speaker 1: robot algorithms, and the robots are like beat boop, this
Speaker 1: is a good show. Boot Bop and then I also
Speaker 1: read all the reviews and I really appreciate it for
Speaker 1: so thank you for writing those. They make my day
Speaker 1: when I read them. And if you want to send
Speaker 1: in episode ideas or questions, you can also write to
Speaker 1: Creature Feature Pod at Gmail. That and that is Creature
Speaker 1: feature the Gmail. So Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's how that's how mail. Webmail works. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: send send a webmail over there. Can they email you
Speaker 1: some money? Can they email you the podcast money? But
Speaker 1: you can't put money in the computer. That's dumb. That's
Speaker 1: a dumb question. Thanks to the spaces you can't put
Speaker 1: money in a computer. Everyone knows that. Thanks to the
Speaker 1: Space Classes for their super awesome song x Alumina. Creature
Speaker 1: features a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hate just between you and Me.
Speaker 1: Anywhere you get your podcast doesn't matter if I don't judge.
Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday.