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 some animals that you should not have as a
Speaker 1: pet unless you want to become extremely dead. From innocent
Speaker 1: looking beach beauties to our lovable goofy and deadly cousins,
Speaker 1: these creatures would sooner destroy you than cuddle. Discover this
Speaker 1: and more as we answer the age old question when
Speaker 1: does a kangaroo become your Kanda Doom? Joining me today
Speaker 1: is the Internet's zoologist TikTok Star and author of the
Speaker 1: book one Hundred Animals that Can backing End You. Mama,
Speaker 1: do welcome. I just want to say that was your
Speaker 1: radio voice. That was amazing. I want to be able
Speaker 1: to do that one day. Well, but thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This is really exciting. You're very welcome. That's about for
Speaker 1: my radio voice. The rest of the show is just
Speaker 1: in my normal voice, because uh, I don't have written
Speaker 1: out for me what I say. So, Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: your content. I love how you make evolutionary biology relatable, exciting,
Speaker 1: fun and scary. It's it's definitely the kind of thing
Speaker 1: I'm super into. Well, thank you, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: My whole thing without what I do is I kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to make the type of content that I
Speaker 1: myself as a kid would have really liked. Um not
Speaker 1: necessary for people that don't necessarily watch the hour long
Speaker 1: documentaries or they're not exactly Animal Planet like junkies the
Speaker 1: way I was I they can still get something out
Speaker 1: of the content because of just the way I present information.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's entertaining, it's funny, but you can
Speaker 1: also come away and with it and learn something and
Speaker 1: you know, have a bunch of things you can like
Speaker 1: take to your friends and start conversations and you know,
Speaker 1: just being able to foster an interest in the environment
Speaker 1: the way that I do. Yeah, I think that's kind
Speaker 1: of the main goal of like the platform that I have,
Speaker 1: and that's been going pretty well so far. I think
Speaker 1: it's the absolute best use of TikTok because tiktoks have
Speaker 1: very addictive but I love just having these little, like
Speaker 1: little cookies of information that you get and there it is.
Speaker 1: It does remind me of when I was a kid
Speaker 1: and i'd watch Animal Planet, one of my favorite shows.
Speaker 1: I think was like the World's most Extreme and they
Speaker 1: do like a countdown of the most extreme animals, and
Speaker 1: that was always so fun. I watched that show religiously
Speaker 1: me too, just every day after school, and it was like,
Speaker 1: it was so exciting for me. And so I love
Speaker 1: how you capture that excitement of like looking at some
Speaker 1: of the most intense animals that that blow your mind
Speaker 1: that they even exist. Honestly, Yeah, even if you watch
Speaker 1: that show and you watch my content, you can definitely
Speaker 1: see like where I like took inspiration from it, Like
Speaker 1: that show was. As a kid, I wasn't really allowed
Speaker 1: to watch TV on the weekdays. I was a rule,
Speaker 1: but I was able to get around that because Animal
Speaker 1: Planet Discovery Channel it's technically educational, so um, I was
Speaker 1: able to get away. So I was watching The Most
Speaker 1: Extreme all the time I had. I even had blank
Speaker 1: CDs and I had my mom burned like eplisodes on
Speaker 1: the disc, so let's watch it whenever. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: that show. We would have been friends in school because yeah,
Speaker 1: that I was all about that show. That was amazing.
Speaker 1: And so today we are doing kind of the most
Speaker 1: extreme animals in terms of how surprisingly deadly they are.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are not the deadliest animals in the
Speaker 1: world are the most dangerous. These are animals that you
Speaker 1: would not think are as dangerous as they really are.
Speaker 1: Animals that we love, that look innocent, that look beautiful,
Speaker 1: and definitely don't seem like they would pack the punch
Speaker 1: that they really do. Yeah, definitely. I feel like everyone
Speaker 1: can easily identify what animals are dangerous. Aligns the tigers,
Speaker 1: the bears. But a lot of times these animals that
Speaker 1: people like kind of take for granted that people just
Speaker 1: assume because they're cute, Um, they kind of put human
Speaker 1: characteristics onto them. The answer size them and to be fair,
Speaker 1: I do that a lot of my videos. But I
Speaker 1: feel like when people like take that like out into
Speaker 1: the real world, that's when people like really get hurt.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know what the exact numbers are, but
Speaker 1: I know the animal that causes the most like injuries
Speaker 1: um in America. More than like the cougars and the bears,
Speaker 1: it's like bison because people will walk right up to
Speaker 1: these bikes and these two thousand pound bison because they're
Speaker 1: like gossile, They're pretty common around people. If you like
Speaker 1: respect or space, people will go right up to them
Speaker 1: and take pictures of them, and then at least once
Speaker 1: a year somebody to get sent to the hospital because
Speaker 1: they get gored and just things like that. It's like, um,
Speaker 1: it's fun to like free people out with animal facts,
Speaker 1: but just also to like make people aware that you know,
Speaker 1: these are still wild animals and you know you wouldn't
Speaker 1: say like that in that like an animal went crazy,
Speaker 1: it just did what it yeah, exactly. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think there is this misconception that herbivores are harmless, that
Speaker 1: only carnivores you have to worry about. But herbivores have
Speaker 1: a tough life. They have to defend themselves, and so
Speaker 1: they're some of the most dangerous animals can be herbivores.
Speaker 1: I mean, like hippos are much more dangerous than lions,
Speaker 1: and they are herbivores, but they are much more aggressive,
Speaker 1: much more dangerous. You're much more likely to be injured
Speaker 1: by a hippo than you are by a lion. And
Speaker 1: it is, yeah, it is. It's just respecting nature, um,
Speaker 1: not always thinking you can like stroll right up to
Speaker 1: an animal, pick it up, touch it without there being consequences. Definitely.
Speaker 1: Something I would always say is that like, when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with a carnivore, you have to you just convince
Speaker 1: it that you're not worth the calories. But for a herbivore,
Speaker 1: it assumes that you're trying to kill it, so it's
Speaker 1: trying to come after you first. Like that's why moose
Speaker 1: are like a pretty big problem, like more so than
Speaker 1: bears and wolves and cougars. It's the herbivores, like you said,
Speaker 1: like moose and bison, and even like deer. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the hospital and a deer
Speaker 1: sent them there. So you know, it's just understanding that
Speaker 1: these animals have been around for like millions of years.
Speaker 1: They have developed these like ways to survive in like
Speaker 1: pretty harsh climates. And well they're not exactly they're not
Speaker 1: like you can respect them from like a distance, but
Speaker 1: once you like enter, like they're like environment, you can
Speaker 1: be conceived as a threaten. That's that's where things get
Speaker 1: bad for people. Yeah, yeah, it's all about respect. You
Speaker 1: always have to respect nature, respect dear, and they won't
Speaker 1: they won't come hunt you down, find you. Uh. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so first we are going to talk about an animal
Speaker 1: that looks very harmless in fact, like You may be
Speaker 1: on the beach spot one of these and think literally
Speaker 1: nothing of it other than it's pretty and something that
Speaker 1: maybe you would want to collect as a beach comber,
Speaker 1: But you should never do that because they're extremely dangerous.
Speaker 1: And these are the cone snails. They're one of my
Speaker 1: favorite surprised dangers of I remember learning about these a
Speaker 1: long time ago and just being horrified at the idea
Speaker 1: of them. So, cone snails are a group of beautiful
Speaker 1: marine mollusks with these spectacular cone shaped shells, and there
Speaker 1: are many different species. There's over nine hundred species. They're
Speaker 1: found in warm tropical waters all over the world. And
Speaker 1: they look innocent, right, Oh, they definitely do. And I
Speaker 1: feel like just snails in general are just something cartoons
Speaker 1: teach a lot of people that snails are like harmless
Speaker 1: and slow and just. But these cone snails, one thing
Speaker 1: about them is they are what they are incredibly venomous.
Speaker 1: But it's not just one toxin. A lot of cone
Speaker 1: snails have different combinations of toxins up to fifty and
Speaker 1: like you said, there's nine hundred different types of cone snails,
Speaker 1: so there isn't one specific venom that one uses. That's
Speaker 1: why if you get stung, there is really no anti venom.
Speaker 1: All they can really do is manage your symptoms and
Speaker 1: keep you from like, you know, like gets flatlining. But
Speaker 1: and to be fair, like the chances of you dying
Speaker 1: from a cone snail with like media medical attention, you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna be fine. But like, all they can really
Speaker 1: do is manage your symptoms and keep you breathing because
Speaker 1: it's just so many toxins that they use. And another
Speaker 1: thing is they are ironically one of the fastest things
Speaker 1: on the planet. I don't know the exact number, but
Speaker 1: they strike faster than you can blink. They are incredibly
Speaker 1: fast because they obviously they can't move, so like whenever
Speaker 1: a prey item like a fish, gets anywhere near them,
Speaker 1: they have like a split second to like just ensnare
Speaker 1: them and just engulf them. So that's what like, if
Speaker 1: you're anywhere near them and you think like they really,
Speaker 1: they can strike you faster than you even have time
Speaker 1: to recognize what's going on. So yeah, and it's incredibly
Speaker 1: painful that no one wants to do with that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: con ses, do you see them on the beach, do
Speaker 1: not do not pick. That's the problem, right, because they're
Speaker 1: so colorful, and a lot of people take that as
Speaker 1: a sign to pick them up. Their color is designed
Speaker 1: to tell you not to pick them because anything that
Speaker 1: isn't trying to actively hide from you, there's a pretty
Speaker 1: big reason for that, Like the poison dart frogs. The color,
Speaker 1: they're not trying to camouflage. There's a reason why they're
Speaker 1: like standing up somewhere. So yeah, yeah, not pick them up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Epi Semtism is when an animal has a bright color
Speaker 1: or pattern that is a warning to potential predators that
Speaker 1: it is toxic, poisonous, or venomous. And yeah, these cone
Speaker 1: snails are indeed very venomous, and like you said, you know,
Speaker 1: they move slowly in terms of locomotion, but they are
Speaker 1: able to strike extremely quickly like some kind of gun slinger.
Speaker 1: And they are not like your typical innocent little snail,
Speaker 1: marine snail. They are predatory carnivores and they are armed
Speaker 1: to the teeth. In fact, that uh, that injection, the
Speaker 1: venom that they do is a modified tooth that is
Speaker 1: turned into a harpoon, and it literally looks like a
Speaker 1: miniature harpoon, like a man made harpoon, just like tiny
Speaker 1: it's hollow, and it is attached to a venom snack
Speaker 1: and it shoots that out like you said, at an
Speaker 1: incredib dorble speed. It sticks into its victim, it injects
Speaker 1: the venom, and it uses this for both hunting and
Speaker 1: for self defense. So when it's hunting, this is great
Speaker 1: because it basically, uh just ambushes its victim with this harpoon.
Speaker 1: It paralyzes it with these many like these conotoxins, like
Speaker 1: you said, many many different compounds. That's why it's we
Speaker 1: don't have a good anti venom, but a lot of
Speaker 1: these toxins are designed to like incapacitate its prey. So
Speaker 1: it basically, you know, just like freezes the prey and
Speaker 1: then that allows it to engulf it and eat it
Speaker 1: and get that business done. And I love there's this
Speaker 1: technical name of the harpoon, which I actually just learned
Speaker 1: researching for this, called the toxic gloss and radula. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a name, but yeah, it it does have
Speaker 1: certain species of cone snails like I mentioned earlier, there
Speaker 1: are many different species, but the lar your ones do
Speaker 1: have enough toxin to potentially kill a human. Now, like
Speaker 1: you said, it's very rare. The cases where it has
Speaker 1: killed people. It's like sometimes like a freak thing, like
Speaker 1: someone picked up I think two of them kind of
Speaker 1: held them up for a photo and they both got
Speaker 1: them right in the neck and that was fatal. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you do not, especially with children. That's why. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the smaller you are, the faster it's gonna get through
Speaker 1: your blood stream and it's higher concentration. That's not good. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, even if it's not fatal, it's very painful.
Speaker 1: So you do not want to, uh to mess with
Speaker 1: these guys. So the the method of action of these
Speaker 1: conotoxins are like a lot of neurotoxins. Each species has
Speaker 1: its own fun cocktail of deadly chemicals, but it will
Speaker 1: sometimes block the receptors of your neural cells or sometimes
Speaker 1: interfere with nerve channels, which is bad for us in
Speaker 1: terms of remaining alive or not being in extreme pain.
Speaker 1: But interestingly, the cone sales can also use different cocktails
Speaker 1: depending on the situation, So like defensive harpoonings, the ones
Speaker 1: that were probably more likely to receive are going to
Speaker 1: be designed to be more painful, whereas hunting venom can
Speaker 1: actually include like pain killing properties and paralytic because they
Speaker 1: don't want their victim that they're hunting to freak out.
Speaker 1: They want them to just like go still become subdued
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. Yeah, their whole thing is just
Speaker 1: just incapacitating you as quickly as possible, even if it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean killing you. It's the same mechanism as
Speaker 1: a like box jellyfish or like especially that you're canji,
Speaker 1: which people can automatically identify as dangerous. But with the
Speaker 1: box jellyfish, they can't afford to have their pretty struggles
Speaker 1: since they might snap one of their tentacles. So they're
Speaker 1: just laced with all these millions of staking cells like
Speaker 1: harpoo likes things, cells that inject this neurotoxin that will
Speaker 1: paralyze you. That's where the intense pain comes from, just
Speaker 1: to like have keep their prey from struggling. And it's
Speaker 1: the same thing with the combe snails, since they really
Speaker 1: only get one shot to like subdue their prey. If
Speaker 1: the prey breaks away, then there is no second attempt
Speaker 1: and they have to find somebody else. So it's really
Speaker 1: designed to just just take their prey down as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. And that's where like the pain comes in.
Speaker 1: And that's why depending on where you get stunned, Like
Speaker 1: if you get stung on the hand or the leg,
Speaker 1: you'll probably be fine with medical attention. But if it
Speaker 1: is one of those rare cases where you managed to
Speaker 1: get stung in the neck, that's where you can like
Speaker 1: that's where they're first of all, that's incredibly painful, and
Speaker 1: once the once that venom gets anywhere near your heart, like,
Speaker 1: that's how you can go into like cardiac re But
Speaker 1: of course those are like really extreme cases. A lot
Speaker 1: has to go wrong for it to get to that point,
Speaker 1: but you still don't want to take that chance. No, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, like the like you said, even if it's
Speaker 1: not fatil the pain alone should be enought to stop
Speaker 1: you from picking up these guys, because it's not not
Speaker 1: something new. I mean, it's like if you look I'll
Speaker 1: include this in the show notes, but if you actually
Speaker 1: look at that um the barb that they shoot out
Speaker 1: it does it looks like a tiny weapon and that
Speaker 1: goes into your skin. So that is and then on
Speaker 1: top of that the painful venom. It's not something you
Speaker 1: want to mess with. But there are medical uses for
Speaker 1: these cono toxins because it does uh interact with neural pathways,
Speaker 1: with pain pathways, often in a bad way for you
Speaker 1: if you're stung by one. By modifying these cono toxins,
Speaker 1: they can actually potentially be um a pain reliever. So
Speaker 1: there are studies going on to see like using not
Speaker 1: necessarily I'm not saying like, hey, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a pain reliever if you inject yourself with it kung
Speaker 1: snails natural toxins, that's not true. But by studying these
Speaker 1: toxins figuring out how they work, researchers can actually derive
Speaker 1: potentially pain killers that would be able to block or
Speaker 1: interfere with pain receptors, which you know, there may be
Speaker 1: some discoveries in terms of pain management thanks to the
Speaker 1: cone snails. And like you said, it's about just being
Speaker 1: able to isolate the pain killing properties. It's it's pretty
Speaker 1: interesting the way all these applications for all these like
Speaker 1: different venoms that normally you wouldn't want to touch at all,
Speaker 1: Like I was reading the other day, like with box
Speaker 1: shelly fish. Historically people have been trying to isolate certain
Speaker 1: properties of their venom to create like a form of
Speaker 1: botox of all things like from one of the most
Speaker 1: venomous things on the planet people trying to use it
Speaker 1: to I guess look younger. So that's always interesting, I do.
Speaker 1: It is something about humans, isn't it. We find something
Speaker 1: in nature that's like incredibly dangerous or deadly, it's like,
Speaker 1: how can we capitalize on this? Like should I stick
Speaker 1: this in my face? Should I put it in my mouth?
Speaker 1: It makes you wonder about the first person I ever
Speaker 1: tried it? Yeah, yeah, I mean like there are a
Speaker 1: variety of things that are good, like you know, like
Speaker 1: spices and stuff, hot peppers, and you wonder about the
Speaker 1: first person who like put that in their mouth. Aiden
Speaker 1: It's like, oh this is bad or actually maybe good.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I'm pretty sure like the whole reason
Speaker 1: behind like the spice of certain things it's to be
Speaker 1: a deterrent to keep animals from eating them. And then
Speaker 1: we came that we like the pain. Yeah, no, that's
Speaker 1: exactly right. That you know, the spices of like a
Speaker 1: hot pepper, it's it's a deterrence for like insects or
Speaker 1: other animals that would eat the peppers. Um. But humans
Speaker 1: are like, hey, this is great, I love this. Give
Speaker 1: me more pain than they didn't. These plants did not
Speaker 1: calculate that humans are so massochistic that we would intentionally
Speaker 1: inflict delicious pain on our mouths and then they have
Speaker 1: no answer for that stuff. But we like them so
Speaker 1: much that it ended up being good for them, or well,
Speaker 1: I guess neutral for them, because we kept we we
Speaker 1: started cultivating them, so they did end up surviving, at
Speaker 1: least in a form that uh that we find delicious
Speaker 1: input on our food. So we're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break, but when we get back, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about a animal that is very jumpy, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's intimidated by you. So one of the
Speaker 1: most iconic animals in the world is the kangaroo, and
Speaker 1: they're they're such a goofy animal. I think like they've
Speaker 1: got these long ears, these big feet, they hop around.
Speaker 1: They're associated with Australia, and they're this big marsupial. They're
Speaker 1: so they're so strange and funny and wonderful and cute too,
Speaker 1: Like they've got these kind of cute faces that they
Speaker 1: seem they don't seem like they would be dangerous. It
Speaker 1: seems like you could open a beer, throw an arm
Speaker 1: around one and just have a good time. Yeah, kangaroos.
Speaker 1: I have a theory of working theory about kangaroos, and
Speaker 1: it's that they have gotten cocky. Basically like Australia doesn't
Speaker 1: really have a dominant apex like a predator or at
Speaker 1: least a land predator. I mean you have like dingos
Speaker 1: impacts and you might have large monitor lizards, you have
Speaker 1: your going this, but there isn't like a large big
Speaker 1: cat or there isn't like anything like that. So these
Speaker 1: kangaroos are kind of I guess they're like they got
Speaker 1: drunk off success. They didn't really earn once you get
Speaker 1: like especially the big bread kangaroos, the ones that can
Speaker 1: be six ft tall, nothing can really you know, affect them.
Speaker 1: So now they just I don't know, I just see
Speaker 1: so many videos of kangaroos just starting problems completely unprovoked,
Speaker 1: like they're honestly like what deer are here, That's what
Speaker 1: kangaroos are in Australia, only they actively seek out cars.
Speaker 1: Like I think I read something about maybe nine out
Speaker 1: of every ten animal related car accident in kangaroo was
Speaker 1: caused well, I said in Kane group in Australia was
Speaker 1: caused by a group, and a lot of times they
Speaker 1: just walk away from it while your car is just
Speaker 1: like done. For insurance from like in cartoons exactly, you
Speaker 1: know what, there has to be kangaroo insurance down There's
Speaker 1: no way they don't prepare for that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's Australia is so full of these dangerous animals.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine they don't have different speed like insurance
Speaker 1: for many different species, like this is for kangaroos, this
Speaker 1: is for getting a koala dropped on your head and
Speaker 1: scratching your eyes out. There's got to be insurance for everything.
Speaker 1: There has to be. I mean, even like something like
Speaker 1: there are rushtail possums. They become like invasive in certain places.
Speaker 1: And every once in a while something a picture will
Speaker 1: go viral of one just breaking through the wall and
Speaker 1: sitting there like I've seen like pictures of just their
Speaker 1: polishes hanging out a dry wall. Or in one case
Speaker 1: this was really funny, one broke into like I think
Speaker 1: it was a bakery and they found him like in
Speaker 1: a bosom, and you was just that picture. It's the
Speaker 1: it's I've already won. You can't take anything from me
Speaker 1: for I am victorious. Yeah, I love that picture. That's
Speaker 1: like I feel like that is an embodiment of my
Speaker 1: attitude sometimes where it's like, as long as I have
Speaker 1: a pastry, no matter what has happened to me that day,
Speaker 1: it's like if I get some pastries in me, it's
Speaker 1: like you can't win bad luck. Like I've one today.
Speaker 1: I ate a bunch of pastries and I'm covered in it.
Speaker 1: I love it. There his eyes at all and I
Speaker 1: couldn't even see his people when you can see it,
Speaker 1: no remorse, remorseless pastry thief in my hero. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so so kangaroos are I love your way of phrasing it.
Speaker 1: They have kind of grown too cocky or maybe cocky
Speaker 1: enough because they are the largest mammal in Australia. They're
Speaker 1: also the largest macropole odds, So macropods are these large
Speaker 1: marsupials like kangaroos, wallabies and possums and um. There's actually
Speaker 1: a recent news story about a man who quote unquote
Speaker 1: owned a kangaroo was keeping a wild kangaroo as a pet,
Speaker 1: and this kangaroo actually killed him. And I think that
Speaker 1: it is I mean, it's sad when I hear this
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I feel bad because I think
Speaker 1: that if people were taught more, learn more that like you, really,
Speaker 1: if an animal seems okay, like a wild animal doesn't
Speaker 1: seem on its surface that dangerous, that does not mean
Speaker 1: that you can turn it into a pet, because that
Speaker 1: is going to, you know, potentially be quite dangerous for you.
Speaker 1: And this is not This doesn't happen very often, so
Speaker 1: kangaroo fatalities are relatively rare. The last reported attack was
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six. Um, So they don't they don't
Speaker 1: want to murder you, or at least they don't try
Speaker 1: to murder you that much. I can't say what they want,
Speaker 1: but they will do it if they feel like they
Speaker 1: must do it. So yeah, keeping a wild kangaroo as
Speaker 1: a pet not a good idea. So this kangaroo that
Speaker 1: that killed this man was a So it was a
Speaker 1: western gray kangaroo and a male. So males are gonna
Speaker 1: be in general, a little more feisty than the females.
Speaker 1: Females can be feisty, especially when they are protective of
Speaker 1: their joeys, But males, I think, are the ones that
Speaker 1: tend to just kind of randomly seek out confrontation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: See with male kangaroos there the whole thing is they
Speaker 1: have harems and they have to fight for control of
Speaker 1: the harem. And then if you lose, then you don't
Speaker 1: you lose the right to like reproducer. There can be
Speaker 1: really intense competition. Even if that competition isn't there, that
Speaker 1: instinct always will be. So if it sees you as
Speaker 1: a threat, like it really doesn't take much for a
Speaker 1: kangaro to hurt you. A lot of people see the
Speaker 1: cartoons with you know, the kangaroo in the boxing ring.
Speaker 1: It's not the punches you have to worry for. Like,
Speaker 1: what they'll do is they have powerful forearms. They'll hold
Speaker 1: you in place and try to kick you. And they
Speaker 1: have a long, like sharp like middle toenail that can
Speaker 1: easily disemvalue, can cut through flesh. They've killed dogs that way,
Speaker 1: especially since dogs are you know, lowered to the ground.
Speaker 1: So if it cuts like a crucial artery like anywhere
Speaker 1: near the neck, or if for a human, if it
Speaker 1: cuts like ephemeral artery, that's where you can get in
Speaker 1: a whole lot of trouble because you will bleed out.
Speaker 1: And that's like that's how they injure each other. Like,
Speaker 1: kangaroo fights aren't just like punching and kicking. They cause
Speaker 1: like massive damage to each other where the loser often
Speaker 1: sometimes just dots, just can recover from those injuries. So
Speaker 1: that's like, that's why, well, kangaroo attacks on humans are rare.
Speaker 1: When they have been they can be pretty like catastrophic. Yeah, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes you might see like a photo of
Speaker 1: two kangaroos and it looks like they're hugging, like it's
Speaker 1: like cute they're hugging. No, no, they are having a
Speaker 1: fight because the males will, like like you said, they'll
Speaker 1: hold onto each other, lean back on these strong, powerful
Speaker 1: tails and kick and scratch at each other. And they
Speaker 1: have claws both on their forearms and on their hind
Speaker 1: legs that they can use in with extremely powerful kicks
Speaker 1: and armed with a claw that can be very very
Speaker 1: dangerous and so like. So the western gray kangaroos, which
Speaker 1: I believe are some of the most common kangaroos in Australia.
Speaker 1: They're fairly large. They can weigh around a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds or sixty eight ms for the males. Females
Speaker 1: are a little smaller um. Some have been known to
Speaker 1: way up to two hundred pounds or with Those are
Speaker 1: sort of the big boys, but so much of that
Speaker 1: weight is like muscle, and so much of that muscle
Speaker 1: is distributed to their extremely powerful legs. So that is
Speaker 1: not something you want to mess with. And they are
Speaker 1: not even the largest kangaroo you mentioned earlier, the the
Speaker 1: red kangaroo, which is the largest kangaroo u and it
Speaker 1: is quite big. They can be, like you said earlier,
Speaker 1: six ft tall or one eight meters or even taller
Speaker 1: in in certain circumstances. They can weigh around two hundred
Speaker 1: pounds or nine and they can run over thirty seven
Speaker 1: miles per hour or sixty kilometers an hour, and they
Speaker 1: have three hundred degree vision. So if you think that
Speaker 1: you can escape an angry red kangaroo, it's that you
Speaker 1: you could not. If they were determined to catch up
Speaker 1: to you and find you, they definitely would. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: the scary part is the way their legs are in
Speaker 1: the way they like move, they actually expend less energy,
Speaker 1: Like the faster they're moving when they're just when kangaroos
Speaker 1: are kind of like at leisure and they're like razy, Uh,
Speaker 1: they actually spend more energy doing that than when they're
Speaker 1: in a full out bound going the thirty five miles
Speaker 1: per hour, they can like max out at um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and with the guy obviously it's like tragic. But with
Speaker 1: like a male kangaroo, like the like I said, the
Speaker 1: fights can cause serious injury, and no kangaroo wants to
Speaker 1: deal with that, So they have these ways to communicate
Speaker 1: that they don't want to fight that they're like kind
Speaker 1: of letting the other guy like you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: the alpha, that's fine. Uh. They'll do things like they
Speaker 1: will make Obviously eye contact is usually just bad with
Speaker 1: any animals, especially like predator based. Um, they'll try to
Speaker 1: avoid eye contact. They'll do this thing where they'll cough,
Speaker 1: Like that's kind of like an admission of like submission
Speaker 1: where you're like basically giving up before you like can
Speaker 1: potentially get hurt. Um. So I'm guessing with this man,
Speaker 1: he raises kangaroo, and a lot of people raise these
Speaker 1: animals like humans, So things that like things like eye contact,
Speaker 1: things like being loud. They they're doing that with these animals,
Speaker 1: and eventually, if that animal fels threatened and you do
Speaker 1: those same behaviors, it's going to see that as a
Speaker 1: threat no matter what you tried to teach it throughout
Speaker 1: his life. And I'm guessing I don't know the story
Speaker 1: with this man, but it feels like the kangaroo was
Speaker 1: like standing up to them. The guy was like not
Speaker 1: backing down in the kangaroo song as a threat and
Speaker 1: just did with like instinctually they've been doing for like
Speaker 1: a while. So it's just it's sad, But those are
Speaker 1: like reminders that these are wild animals and they don't
Speaker 1: like not it's only a matter of time before they
Speaker 1: like revert back to like their actual wild behavior, right,
Speaker 1: and we don't speak their language, so, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you see this a lot in various animals. They don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to engage in conflict all the time. They
Speaker 1: will if they feel that they need to, but especially
Speaker 1: with like male and male sort of like rivalries, they
Speaker 1: will often have this like if the winner is really clear,
Speaker 1: this is when they can back down from a fight.
Speaker 1: Like if it's not so clear who would win this fight,
Speaker 1: then you may have quite a violent fight. But if
Speaker 1: you have like a male who's like, oh, I cannot
Speaker 1: take you on, and I do not want to fight you,
Speaker 1: they have a communication system for that because it is
Speaker 1: costly to have a competition between two males. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that probably it sounds about right, probably what happened. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, especially if someone raises an animal
Speaker 1: from a uh, from a baby, like from a young animal,
Speaker 1: they may be surprised when that animal reaches maturity and
Speaker 1: their hormones kick in and their behavior suddenly changes because like,
Speaker 1: mature male is going to be much different from an
Speaker 1: immature male. I mean the same thing with female animals
Speaker 1: in many cases. But yeah, once they reach maturity, their
Speaker 1: behaviors are going to be quite different, and it can
Speaker 1: be more aggressive because you know, this is the point
Speaker 1: at which they have to compete for females, and so
Speaker 1: behaviors you may have had with like a baby kangaroo
Speaker 1: with the joey that the joey didn't you know, get
Speaker 1: upset by the adult kangaroo may get upset by And again,
Speaker 1: if you don't know that much about kangaroos or you
Speaker 1: don't speak kangaroo language, then you're not going to see
Speaker 1: that coming, that that change in behavior where they no
Speaker 1: longer think you're just playing around, they think that you're
Speaker 1: actually a threat or threatening them. Yeah, when a joey,
Speaker 1: when it goes from a Joey to a boomer, that's
Speaker 1: when that's when things change. That's when the picking order
Speaker 1: changes in the house. Yeah. Yeah, and it can be
Speaker 1: quite violent. I mean this is half, I would say,
Speaker 1: half myth, but there is a truth to it, which
Speaker 1: is the idea that kangaroos will try to drown you.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you I'm glad you brought that up. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So there's this, um, i don't know what you'd call it,
Speaker 1: old wives tail, internet rumor that kangaroos will lure you
Speaker 1: into water so that they can drown you, or lure
Speaker 1: a predator into water so they can drown you. The
Speaker 1: intention to like the luring part of like, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to get you to come in the water so
Speaker 1: that they can drown you. That's not true. Care as don't.
Speaker 1: They're as as um sort of pugnacious as they are.
Speaker 1: They don't have like a premeditated murder mindset where it's
Speaker 1: like I'm going to get you in the water so
Speaker 1: that I can drown you. But it is true that
Speaker 1: herbivores have a strategy where they go into water when
Speaker 1: they feel threatened. And this is not because they're planning
Speaker 1: on drowning you. This is because often predators maybe don't
Speaker 1: want to follow you into the water. Like you know,
Speaker 1: it's more difficult terrain for a lot of predators. They're
Speaker 1: suddenly at a disadvantage because you know, they especially shorter predators.
Speaker 1: It's like now you don't have any terra firma, any
Speaker 1: ground to like be able to stabilize yourself against. So
Speaker 1: a predator might just give up at that point. And
Speaker 1: that's what the kangaroos do. But if a predator does
Speaker 1: follow them into the water, they're going to defend themselves.
Speaker 1: And for a kangaroo, this may mean drowning that predator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially as bipeds. Again, they can be pretty tall, so
Speaker 1: like and I think they're biggest predator might be dingoes,
Speaker 1: especially if they're like being hunted in pacts. So again,
Speaker 1: like it's a natural prey response to like retreat into water.
Speaker 1: Plenty of animals do it, buffalo like that, but especially
Speaker 1: um with kangaroos, Like they'll just go to the deepest point. Now,
Speaker 1: if the animal happens to follow them into the water again,
Speaker 1: like you said, they'll use their forearms and try to
Speaker 1: shove them like underwater until they either retreat or they
Speaker 1: just end up drowning them. And that's why since they
Speaker 1: like had to deal with dingos for so long, they're
Speaker 1: basically what I called like dog racists. So like anything
Speaker 1: that looks like a dog, a kangaroo is probably going
Speaker 1: to attack or attempt to drown. So like, if a
Speaker 1: kangaroo like runs into water, that's kind of its last
Speaker 1: stand because again it's not actively trying to like or
Speaker 1: people in like, because that's still bringing conflict to itself
Speaker 1: and no animal really likes that. But they do have
Speaker 1: ways to, like, um, defend themselves if they do get
Speaker 1: falled into the water. But it does remind me of
Speaker 1: like this other myth where like the people would say that, um, well,
Speaker 1: for the longest people thought the komodo dragon it was
Speaker 1: the bacteria in its mouth that killed its prey, but
Speaker 1: really it's it's betom The problem is they do have
Speaker 1: like a septic bite, and what do buffalo do if
Speaker 1: they've been attacked, they'll like run into the water. And
Speaker 1: then when you have like when you have this unclean,
Speaker 1: unsanitary water around this open womb, that's when they can
Speaker 1: develop like a bacterial infection, and that's when these buffal
Speaker 1: look and have these slow, painful deaths. And uh, that's
Speaker 1: how the commodo can end up tracking them, especially with
Speaker 1: their sense of smelts. They they're like leather blood outs.
Speaker 1: They can smell you at almost any point in the island.
Speaker 1: It's they're actually they're legitimately terrifying. There's no point you
Speaker 1: can go where it come out. I will eventually track
Speaker 1: you down. But um, I think that's where the whole
Speaker 1: bacteria thing came from. But like almost prey animals have
Speaker 1: like an inclination to like get into the water, since
Speaker 1: most mammals have just the natural ability to swim, so
Speaker 1: they just feel safe for in the water. That's what
Speaker 1: they do, and it behooves. You're not to follow them
Speaker 1: in there? Yes, yes, absolutely, you know they come out
Speaker 1: a dragon. Put it like that. It reminds me of
Speaker 1: the movie It follows just like this, this very like
Speaker 1: this slow and steady predator that's like inescapable. It's just
Speaker 1: tracking you and as soon as you slow down, it's
Speaker 1: gonna get you. It's so scary, it really is, because
Speaker 1: that's almost exactly how they operate once, like they think.
Speaker 1: Another thing is that people believe the komodo will bite
Speaker 1: once and then let you get away and then track you.
Speaker 1: Not really, because obviously if one komodo can track you,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch can. The thing is they have the
Speaker 1: one bite, and if you do manage to escape, they
Speaker 1: have such a developed sense of smell that they can
Speaker 1: track you wherever, to the point where people would say,
Speaker 1: like women that are in their venturel cycle are they
Speaker 1: should stay inside if they're anywhere in Komodo country because
Speaker 1: they really can get tracked by a komodo dragon. And um,
Speaker 1: I don't know how often. I imagine it isn't too often,
Speaker 1: but there have been cases of komodos like digging out
Speaker 1: human graves and eating corpses inside there like apex. So
Speaker 1: literally they can beat anything, like including each other, like
Speaker 1: to the point where young komotos will often hide in
Speaker 1: trees where adult komotos can't get them because adult komotos
Speaker 1: will eat baby komotos like without hesitation. They're like truly
Speaker 1: like they're pretty much like a relic from like back
Speaker 1: when we had dinosaurs and everything, especially with like Megalania.
Speaker 1: Megalania was just basically komodo dragon three times bigger. That's
Speaker 1: truly terrifying. Yeah, that is, that is there's it's it's
Speaker 1: how methodical they are, how thorough they are. They're like
Speaker 1: the scariest serial killer where they can find you anywhere.
Speaker 1: They have a great sense of smell, and then they're
Speaker 1: so tenacious that they have the patients to continue after Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will be days, days, they'll come after you. Oh
Speaker 1: that's so scary. Well, we're gonna take another quick break
Speaker 1: while I hyperventilate about Komodo dragons. But when we're when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're going to talk about actually one
Speaker 1: of the for me, it's one of the scariest animals,
Speaker 1: though I also love it um as. Yes, yes, it's
Speaker 1: I love them, but they terrify me in a way
Speaker 1: that I think no other animal really does. And so
Speaker 1: we will talk about that right after the break. So
Speaker 1: I finally got to see Nope, it's it's I don't know,
Speaker 1: of all the horror movies, I feel like this one
Speaker 1: really scared me in a profound way that other ones
Speaker 1: don't really get at. I don't know. Maybe it's maybe
Speaker 1: it's because I love evolutionary biology so much and there
Speaker 1: are so many references to evolutionary biology in it, and
Speaker 1: it's like it like touches on my deepest, darkest fears. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's the realism that really got me. Especially I don't
Speaker 1: want to give away too much to anyone who hasn't
Speaker 1: watched it yet, but certain things in that movie, so
Speaker 1: the scariest scenes those happened like in real life, especially
Speaker 1: with one of the animals we're going to talk about. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: there have in some pretty horrific like attacks, and ironically
Speaker 1: you don't even see it in the movie, but like
Speaker 1: you get you see just how catastrophic that kind of
Speaker 1: thing can be. Yeah, absolutely, it's I mean, yeah, the
Speaker 1: the whole it does touch upon and I don't think
Speaker 1: this will spoil anything, but it will. It does touch
Speaker 1: upon these sort of unconquerability of nature in certain ways
Speaker 1: where it's like we think that because we're you know,
Speaker 1: we have our human civilization and we you know, kind
Speaker 1: of have insulated ourselves a lot, we feel sort of
Speaker 1: all powerful in a way, but when it comes down
Speaker 1: to it, we are not. And that is a little
Speaker 1: bit humbling and scary to think about. So the most
Speaker 1: terrifying animal, I think, which is also an animal that
Speaker 1: I really love, and that's chimpanzees. So they are they're adorable,
Speaker 1: they are amazing, There are close relatives, and they you know,
Speaker 1: are highly intelligent, and they're absolutely terrifying in a way
Speaker 1: that I mean, it's like, I guess it is because
Speaker 1: they're so close to being human that they're so scary,
Speaker 1: because there's a certain like with when you know, if
Speaker 1: a line eats you, it's just being a lion, it's
Speaker 1: just trying to you know, get its next meal. But
Speaker 1: a chimpanzee, like they could be kind of sadistic in
Speaker 1: a human way, and that is there's something very uncanny
Speaker 1: about that. So they are they they they kind of
Speaker 1: scare me not you know, like obviously I I still
Speaker 1: really love them because they are they are incredible and
Speaker 1: incredible species, but they you know, in the same way
Speaker 1: that I love humanity. But humans can be the scariest
Speaker 1: things in the world to me. That's well said. I
Speaker 1: definitely mean too. I love chimpanzees. I think they're really fascinating, intelligent,
Speaker 1: complex creatures. But uh, there's a couple like there's a
Speaker 1: few misconceptions about them that I feel like people kind
Speaker 1: of like overlook one is the whole people believe there's
Speaker 1: like this myth that they're like five to eight times
Speaker 1: stronger than any given man. It's more like one point
Speaker 1: five to time stronger. The thing is they have they're
Speaker 1: just riddled with extra fast witch muscles so they can
Speaker 1: react faster. Um. There, they basically have four hands, like
Speaker 1: their legs function just the same. They're incredibly strong. They
Speaker 1: have a really powerful bite force. Um. And number two
Speaker 1: is that chimpanzees are predators. They're not like they're not
Speaker 1: like the her befores that a gorillas are that orangutan
Speaker 1: fans are. Uh. They actively hunt other animals like Columbus monkeys,
Speaker 1: and Columbus monkeys aren't small, they're like pretty big seeing
Speaker 1: them in person, bush babies, they've been known to use
Speaker 1: spears to hunt bush babies. But yeah, and they hunt
Speaker 1: almost the exact same way. Well not, it is the
Speaker 1: exact same way we did. Like they have drivers animals
Speaker 1: that will the chimps that will go in and like
Speaker 1: freak the animals out and stape and then they have Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have got they have a chimp stations, specifically the
Speaker 1: more experienced ones in the group that will ambush the
Speaker 1: animal and like just like cut off. It's cut it
Speaker 1: off its path, and once it catches it, they all
Speaker 1: like home in on it and just literally just tear
Speaker 1: it to shreds. But the part that really freaks me
Speaker 1: out about chimp's they will they can like commit calculated
Speaker 1: and coordinated acts of violence the same way humans do. Like, uh,
Speaker 1: it's rare for it to be within a troop, but
Speaker 1: that can happen where basically chimps are like people. They
Speaker 1: form alliances, they form friendships, but everything is calculated. So
Speaker 1: if they feel like one chip might be a threat
Speaker 1: to it, especially in the hierarchy, because chimps are like
Speaker 1: male dominated, they can get they can get good with
Speaker 1: some guys in the truth, and they will jump this
Speaker 1: other chimp. And that's it sounds it might sound funny
Speaker 1: the way I'm describing, that's literally what will happen. There
Speaker 1: are videos, obviously they're pretty graphic, but well of chimps
Speaker 1: just committing like acts of violence against their own, tearing
Speaker 1: them apart, and they don't just kill them. They know
Speaker 1: what's important to a chimpanzee. They know the same thing
Speaker 1: with a human. They know it's important to a human.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like they draw out like the way
Speaker 1: they torture you. And that's why with chimp attack victims,
Speaker 1: the ones that survived that is, they all have the
Speaker 1: same like injuries. They have a disfigured face, they're missing fingers,
Speaker 1: if not entire hands, their feet. They go for genitals
Speaker 1: because they know that that's important. They know what that does,
Speaker 1: they know the implication of losing that. So they like
Speaker 1: if you see like a rival chimp that was attacked
Speaker 1: by other chimps, it's usually missing it's genitalia. And that's
Speaker 1: just how it's just these guys can be. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it reminds me of like human warfare. Like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember. I think it was some god
Speaker 1: it might have been some kind of Greek thing. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I'm getting getting it wrong, but there was something
Speaker 1: where there is some some ancient war and basically they
Speaker 1: cut off the enemies genitals to like prove that they had,
Speaker 1: you know, defeated this enemy. And it's yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that you're exactly right that it's the ability
Speaker 1: for these animals to kind of calculate things that is
Speaker 1: so unsettling. Like they, like you said, they can form
Speaker 1: these alliances so male chimps were arranged in this dominance hierarchy,
Speaker 1: with dominant males sometimes violently enforcing their authority, but sometimes
Speaker 1: the weaker males will form these alliances and to together
Speaker 1: they can take down a more dominant chimpanzee that otherwise
Speaker 1: they would not be able to take down. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so they can like basically form a coalition, decide to
Speaker 1: either murder or intimidate another chimpanzee and enact that plan. Um.
Speaker 1: But they're also like kind of fickle, so they can
Speaker 1: back stab each other. So if a better opportunity arises, um,
Speaker 1: they can totally turn on each other. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure the the drama that happens in a chimpanzee
Speaker 1: troop is something that could be put on you know, HBO.
Speaker 1: It can get very very messy, messy drama and also
Speaker 1: very violent drama. You know, they are they are highly social,
Speaker 1: so they're not constantly attacking each other. There can be harmony,
Speaker 1: there can be you know, like they like to groom
Speaker 1: each other to sort of affirm social bonds. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, they can be quite violent, and they can
Speaker 1: even be violent within the same group. The worst violence
Speaker 1: is like out of outside of their own group. There
Speaker 1: can be these really really vicious I mean, they're it's
Speaker 1: basically wars, like wars with other groups over territory, just
Speaker 1: like humans do. So I would say it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think chimpanzees are evil, but they are unnervingly
Speaker 1: like humans. You know, there are so they're they're that
Speaker 1: kind of the capacity for violence and their motivations for it. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's similar to humans. Although I'd say humans, we uh
Speaker 1: did evolve to become more gentle, to become more cooperative. Uh,
Speaker 1: And so that is that's good news for us, that
Speaker 1: that we are not quite so um grumpy, I would say,
Speaker 1: as chimpanzees are, which which is good, Which is probably
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that we have been so successful.
Speaker 1: Is that greater cooperation and more capacity for being gentle
Speaker 1: and less being less prone to fly into a rage
Speaker 1: than chimpanzees are. Yeah. I think that's probably the most
Speaker 1: eerie thing about them is just that they share nine
Speaker 1: of their DNA with humans and you can see it.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, if you there, they will, like
Speaker 1: like I said, they'll commit these coordinated attacks against other
Speaker 1: troops if you see if they you see it, happen,
Speaker 1: like they walk in single file lines, and once they
Speaker 1: leave their territory, they go completely silent. Every once in
Speaker 1: a while they'll stop and just listen for other chimps
Speaker 1: and try to gauge how many other chimps are in
Speaker 1: this rival group. And once the leader like says gives
Speaker 1: the go ahead, they just go in attack. They'll take
Speaker 1: like sticks and like bang them against the base of trees.
Speaker 1: They'll scream and shout, trying to make themselves seem like
Speaker 1: there's more of them than they actually are, and they
Speaker 1: will specifically go after the children, and like it can
Speaker 1: get incredibly like grizzly, to the point where they will
Speaker 1: tear apart like infant chimpanzees and then just cannibalize them
Speaker 1: and just share them with the rest of the troopings.
Speaker 1: That part might not be too human or no won
Speaker 1: humans now, like they have theories about caveman and what
Speaker 1: their diets consisted of. I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: talk about that here, but it's you'll see it. But like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the whole thing with chimp's And the thing is chimp's,
Speaker 1: like like humans, they have different personalities. They're not all
Speaker 1: like raising psychopaths, but like they are humans, but without
Speaker 1: the social construct, there is no jail, there is no like,
Speaker 1: there's just survival and act and just acting in your
Speaker 1: best interest, like not selfishness. It has like a negative connotation,
Speaker 1: but like in the you have to be selfish, like
Speaker 1: in the wild. And that's what you see with chimps
Speaker 1: and the way they'll form these alliances, the way they
Speaker 1: can backstad each other, the way they can decide they
Speaker 1: don't like another chimpanzee. Like there was one one of
Speaker 1: the worst like chimp attacks that I'd like to seen,
Speaker 1: Like it was on YouTube. It got like taken down
Speaker 1: a while ago, but it was just it was it
Speaker 1: was a u within the truth too. There's just one chimpanzee.
Speaker 1: He just seemed to have the wrong like type of personality.
Speaker 1: He was like very outgoing, very ambitious, but he also
Speaker 1: wasn't like it's weird to say people person but he
Speaker 1: wasn't great at forming alliances with the other chimps. But
Speaker 1: he was also acting like he was like higher up
Speaker 1: than he really should have been. They didn't like that,
Speaker 1: and one day, maybe like ten to fifteen of them
Speaker 1: just converged on him and beat him down. To the
Speaker 1: point where one of the older, like higher ranking mails
Speaker 1: stepped in and like stopped it. But by the time
Speaker 1: they did, he was mortally wounded. It was clear and
Speaker 1: he wasn't welcoming the troop, and like two days later
Speaker 1: researchers found his body. That's that's not super like common
Speaker 1: within the troop, but like chimpa chip homicide is, like
Speaker 1: that's the thing, and it's really it's ugly when it
Speaker 1: happens that humans. You see just how strong and a
Speaker 1: motivated chip can be. Yeah, that is yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: think so. So wild chimps don't tend to attack humans.
Speaker 1: They are pretty smart in terms of avoiding humans because
Speaker 1: we know we are bad news. Um, but captive chimps
Speaker 1: are the ones who are the most dangerous, even though
Speaker 1: like it's it's ironic, right because it's like, if we've
Speaker 1: raised a chimpanzee and like quote unquote tamed it, it
Speaker 1: seems like could be safer than a wild chimpanzee, but
Speaker 1: it's not because it's actually bolder because it's not afraid
Speaker 1: of humans, and it also has more opportunity to attack humans.
Speaker 1: So so captive chimp panzees are actually quite a bit
Speaker 1: more dangerous than a wild chimpanzee, because wild chimpanzee is
Speaker 1: probably just gonna like run away from you. It's not
Speaker 1: necessarily going to want to. I mean, the chimp attacks
Speaker 1: do happen in the wild, but they generally want to
Speaker 1: avoid people if they can, if they feel that they can. UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the these scariest attacks have been from pet chimpanzees.
Speaker 1: And I say pet in sort of the loosest possible
Speaker 1: version of the term. I do not think that pretty
Speaker 1: much any primate really can be kept as a pet.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I mean, strictly speaking, people do it, but
Speaker 1: it's not you know, they are not domesticated animals. Uh,
Speaker 1: their lives with a human aren't going to be fulfilling
Speaker 1: for them. And it is especially for something like a
Speaker 1: chimpanzee that's very smart, has a lot of social needs,
Speaker 1: and is very very strong. That's like a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned something earlier that I think is really interesting,
Speaker 1: so that the that chimpanzees, No, they're not like five
Speaker 1: times as strong as a human, but they are pound
Speaker 1: for pounds stronger than us, and they're about one and
Speaker 1: a half time stronger than us. Um even though they're
Speaker 1: only like there maybe about five ft tall, a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty centimeters tall, maybe fifty pounds. They're not that huge. Um.
Speaker 1: But you said you mentioned those, um, those fast twitch
Speaker 1: muscle fibers, So those are the more powerful muscle fibers,
Speaker 1: but they fatigue more quickly, so they are able to
Speaker 1: kind of go into this like a berserker mode, whereas
Speaker 1: humans don't have as much density of these fast which
Speaker 1: muscle fibers. RS are actually a little better for endurance,
Speaker 1: which has actually suited us really well, It's been very
Speaker 1: successful for humans. UM. But yeah, we don't have as
Speaker 1: much of that like sort of instant access to you
Speaker 1: this like incredible strength that chimpanzees do. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: and if it's a chimpanzee versus a human, um, often
Speaker 1: the chimpanzee will come on top um and it is
Speaker 1: it is very scary, like they are capable of a
Speaker 1: lot of damage. And yeah, it's you know, like like
Speaker 1: you mentioned, I think when these famous cases of chimpanzees,
Speaker 1: like they can you know, destroy your entire face, amputate
Speaker 1: your hands. Uh, it is, it's very it's upsetting, and
Speaker 1: I think it is it is a kind of harrowing
Speaker 1: reminder that these are not pets. These are not fun,
Speaker 1: goofy little like trainable, you know, circus pets that we
Speaker 1: can just have and feel this sort of entitlement over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something people forget a lot. Like
Speaker 1: they are predators, Like owning a chimp is really no
Speaker 1: different from owning like a grizzly bear, Like it is
Speaker 1: an incredibly intelligent predator that cannot be tamed. And I
Speaker 1: think the most famous chimp attack of vault was definitely
Speaker 1: what happened with Charlotte Nash with Travis back in a
Speaker 1: thousand nine. People that don't know there was this lady
Speaker 1: Santra nats Um No uh Sandra Herald. She had a chimpanzee, Travis,
Speaker 1: that she raised as a baby. Um just she raised
Speaker 1: him as a human, uh, taught him. He knew how
Speaker 1: to drive cars. He would drink out of wine glasses
Speaker 1: with drink actual wine. Actually, um, it's part of the family.
Speaker 1: But the thing with chimps is um they are in
Speaker 1: terms of strength, they are about they might be the
Speaker 1: same or slightly inferior to humans up until about five
Speaker 1: years old. Once they start to hit like puberty, especially
Speaker 1: the males that's when things change. They become a whole
Speaker 1: lot stronger, their attitude changes because around that time they
Speaker 1: probably be fighting for like their place in the hierarchy
Speaker 1: in a troop. Uh, that's when they're like, um, there's
Speaker 1: that's when their sexual maturity hits. UM. So with Travis,
Speaker 1: he was raised around humans his entire life, never saw
Speaker 1: another him, so he's not engaging in any of those
Speaker 1: like natural instincts that he still has. He obviously there's
Speaker 1: no female ship for Travis and UM. Eventually, unfortunately, Sandra,
Speaker 1: his owner's husband, passed away. Uh. He was affected by that.
Speaker 1: Travis he exhibited signs that he was like depressed and
Speaker 1: like breathing, but Sandra was also depressed and she couldn't
Speaker 1: really take care of Travis the way that she was before. Also,
Speaker 1: he had some incidents outside where people believed it wasn't
Speaker 1: safe for him to really be outside, although since he
Speaker 1: was around and everyone was familiar with him, nobody thought
Speaker 1: to have him taken away. So now he was confined
Speaker 1: to the house. After seeing after being allowed to be outside,
Speaker 1: he was confined into the house. He was well overweight
Speaker 1: UM eventually that he was put on Zanex to deal
Speaker 1: with like his u Yeah, emotional issues that he had.
Speaker 1: It was it was a matter of time and like that,
Speaker 1: like he was going to it was gonna happen eventually,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately it happened with with Charlotte Nash and like
Speaker 1: the worst possible way. But like with chimps, they have
Speaker 1: two ways of really hurting you. One is like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess three, but so one would be just bludgeoning
Speaker 1: you with their arms, and again there's so much stronger
Speaker 1: than people, so like it. It feels like imagine if
Speaker 1: somebody hitting you full force, like not holding back at
Speaker 1: all with their like four arms or their elbows. They're
Speaker 1: like kicking you and that's like multiplied because this ship
Speaker 1: might actually be trying to kill you. Two is that
Speaker 1: they'll bite. They'll bite at the face. They have powerful
Speaker 1: again their predators, they're not just herbivore, so they have
Speaker 1: teeth designed to like tear through flesh and they'll do that.
Speaker 1: They go for the face because they know that's how
Speaker 1: to really conflict damage. Sometimes they'll go out of their
Speaker 1: way to gauge your eyes out, uh. And then three
Speaker 1: would be they have hands and they'll just tear at you.
Speaker 1: With chimps it's like, like you said, you made a
Speaker 1: good point that chimps they have all the muscles, best
Speaker 1: switch muscles, but they're not really built for endurance. You
Speaker 1: can see that in those differences and how we hunt.
Speaker 1: We were long distance runners, so we would just chase
Speaker 1: prey and no matter how far I would run, eventually
Speaker 1: we will catch up. It would get exhausted, and then
Speaker 1: we would hunt them. Chimps focus all their energy into
Speaker 1: one like explosive like charge to like catch their their
Speaker 1: prey off guard. So with chimps, a lot of times
Speaker 1: they'll attack you and then kind of just rest a
Speaker 1: little bit while you're there, and then especially if it's
Speaker 1: if it's a group um attack, one chip will like
Speaker 1: make this a long call and they'll like kind of
Speaker 1: just initiate it all over again. Like these chimp attacks
Speaker 1: can if there it's not put down, it can last
Speaker 1: a very long time where it's not killing you, but
Speaker 1: it's like slowly chipping away. It's taking time to like
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's truly awful and it's like um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's never pretty when the chimp's involved.
Speaker 1: And for the chimp, it's like a miserable way to live.
Speaker 1: You know, if there's something that intelligent, Like that's another
Speaker 1: conversation you can have about whether chimps really can be
Speaker 1: in captivity. It is an animal that intelligent, that has
Speaker 1: a level of self awareness, and the fact that it's
Speaker 1: like behind a cage or like it lives a certain way,
Speaker 1: and it sees people in rats with people, but it's
Speaker 1: like from behind the glass, it's they're probably there's probably
Speaker 1: a lot going on in its head to the point
Speaker 1: where like now they they're there's actively like trying to
Speaker 1: act out or they're engaging in like delicious like acts,
Speaker 1: because that's kind of what boredom can do. That's why
Speaker 1: I like animals in captivity are much more dangerous than
Speaker 1: once in a while, Like workers are the best example.
Speaker 1: While dominant apex predator like of the world, like not
Speaker 1: just the ocean of the world never killed a human
Speaker 1: in the wild, multiple like um kills like captivity. Same
Speaker 1: thing with tigers. Most tiger deaths these days, Well I
Speaker 1: guess that might not be true, but like there's a
Speaker 1: high density of tigers in America. I think there's more
Speaker 1: tigers in America than in the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: Like combined. That's where like most of her especially like
Speaker 1: more captive than yeah, than they exist in the wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is. I think it's also I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason. I mean that I feel
Speaker 1: that it's it's not just fear when it comes to chimpanzees.
Speaker 1: There's something deeply unsettling about it. And I think it's
Speaker 1: the empathy that I feel for them, because you know,
Speaker 1: they have, like animals have minds, chimpanzees have a very
Speaker 1: very intelligent mind and so they can have you know,
Speaker 1: mental health um needs, and if those mental health needs
Speaker 1: aren't met, they can suffer mentally. And then but on
Speaker 1: top of that, they don't have the same moral reasoning
Speaker 1: that humans have. And so a chimpanzee who is suffering mentally,
Speaker 1: like I think it sounds like Travis was um. You know,
Speaker 1: they can act in a way that is, you know,
Speaker 1: basically an expression of their suffering or their anger or whatever.
Speaker 1: But they don't necessarily understand exactly what they're doing, so
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily have the moral reasoning of thinking like oh,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm gonna like do something bad to
Speaker 1: this person or something. They don't necessarily you know, we
Speaker 1: we don't know how Obviously we can't step into the
Speaker 1: consciousness of a chimpanzee, so we don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: they're thinking. But I don't think that they have the
Speaker 1: same meta cognition that a human would. And so there's
Speaker 1: something like I don't know. I mean, I can't say
Speaker 1: anymore without spoiling the movie. Nope, but I would say,
Speaker 1: if you have a capacity for watching horror movies and
Speaker 1: this idea of you know, of having empathy for an
Speaker 1: animal that's also kind of scary, like, you should definitely
Speaker 1: watch the movie. But it's yeah, it is. I think it.
Speaker 1: It's such a it's such an important thing to respect
Speaker 1: animals in terms of not just in terms of how
Speaker 1: they can be dangerous towards us, but also in terms
Speaker 1: of like their their emotional needs, their emotional state, and
Speaker 1: that an animal who does something that's terrifying to us,
Speaker 1: like maulling a person, like, well, let's find out why
Speaker 1: they did that, not blaming the person who was mold necessarily.
Speaker 1: But there is a problem I think when we um
Speaker 1: when we try to, when we have sort of the
Speaker 1: hubris to think that we can incorporate wild animals neatly
Speaker 1: into our human lifestyles that I think we need to
Speaker 1: kind of kind of face and realize that it's not
Speaker 1: a wild animal is intelligent, they have a mind, they
Speaker 1: have emotions, but they aren't necessarily they're not you know,
Speaker 1: little furry humans that we can like you know, bring
Speaker 1: into our our society and then like have you know,
Speaker 1: have them perform tricks for us and you know, have
Speaker 1: as a form of entertainment. Yeah. I really think it
Speaker 1: just goes back to people just placing human traits on animals,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times people will do that's kind
Speaker 1: of rationalized exploiting them, whether it's exploiting them as a
Speaker 1: house pet that has no business being there or in
Speaker 1: Travis this case, he was used in commercials, TV shows
Speaker 1: things like that. These animals don't really have the understanding
Speaker 1: that you do. So like if an animal is upset
Speaker 1: and like you're reacting in a certain way, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna rationalize that, Okay, it's you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So like that's how these attacks can happen. So a
Speaker 1: big example that I'd like to use, are you familiar
Speaker 1: with Grizzly Man? Yes, yes, I am Timothy Treadwell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So basically Uh. The important thing is he wasn't like
Speaker 1: a zooalgist or a biologist or anything. I think he
Speaker 1: was like a failed actor or something. He went down
Speaker 1: like bad path. One of his friends introduced him to
Speaker 1: the landscape of I believe it was Alaska. He went
Speaker 1: to Alaska and he witnessed brown bears, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of like this epiphany that he had that he
Speaker 1: wanted to study these bears, which is great, but the
Speaker 1: way he went about it, he would uh but I
Speaker 1: think it was about thirteen years that he would just
Speaker 1: go camp out in the Alaska wilderness. He would get
Speaker 1: really close to these bears and he claimed to like
Speaker 1: have their trust, that they had an understanding. And again,
Speaker 1: you can't really you can't tame a predator. You never
Speaker 1: you never can. But he got away with it for
Speaker 1: so long that people thought there was some truth to
Speaker 1: like what he was doing. And I will give him
Speaker 1: credit for he was He actively tried to be an
Speaker 1: advocate for these bears, trying to have people see them
Speaker 1: as other than like killing machines. Um. But eventually that's
Speaker 1: kind of that went like he went so far in
Speaker 1: that direction and he kind of like did a three
Speaker 1: sixty and then like kind of like made it worse
Speaker 1: for them. So basically like he started getting cocky with
Speaker 1: these bears. He was getting really close to bear cubs,
Speaker 1: really close to them around um. I think that's what
Speaker 1: when it happened. So like bears, obviously they have to hibernate,
Speaker 1: so they have to they have to basically go on.
Speaker 1: They pretty much bulk the most part they quoth were
Speaker 1: they've taken as many calories as possible. Obviously resources, the
Speaker 1: competition for resources gets really intense, so that's like the
Speaker 1: worst time to be around like in bear territory, especially
Speaker 1: if it's around males. So he went around that time
Speaker 1: right the maybe two to three months before hibernation were
Speaker 1: there at their most like irritable when people told him
Speaker 1: not to. Not only that, like but he also he
Speaker 1: placed his tent around a well known bear trail to
Speaker 1: the point where if a bear wanted to access like uh,
Speaker 1: I guess it was like a stream where they can
Speaker 1: get sam and it would have to walk right past
Speaker 1: his tent. I think he even brought his girlfriend with him,
Speaker 1: and she was afraid of but he's been he had
Speaker 1: been doing it for like thirteen years. I guess she
Speaker 1: trusted him, so it was I remember the day, it
Speaker 1: was October five. I think he sent like either a
Speaker 1: message or a call whatever. He said to a friend
Speaker 1: talking about the landscape. He was like, yeah, the bears
Speaker 1: are great. Uh they're acting a little bit weird, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay here anyway. This is amazing. The very
Speaker 1: next day they found their bodies halfy and uh the
Speaker 1: first part was right when the attack started, a camera
Speaker 1: was rolling, the legs was on. You can still hear it,
Speaker 1: so like, there was this six minute audio of this
Speaker 1: man being eaten alive by a grizzly bear that I
Speaker 1: can't remember if it was a bear that he actually
Speaker 1: knew of her. It was just some freaking it was.
Speaker 1: I think it was a bear he was not as
Speaker 1: familiar with, but he still tried to approach. It was
Speaker 1: not yet another sort of mistake he made among many, Yeah,
Speaker 1: among them exactly. And uh yeah, a six minute audio
Speaker 1: of him just slowly that because that's the thing with bears,
Speaker 1: like big cats, still kill their prey, usually take it
Speaker 1: somewhere where they don't have to worry about competition from
Speaker 1: other predators. Uh, Animals like bears, like wild dogs, hyenas,
Speaker 1: they just tear into you, like whether you're alive or not.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened. Like the bear incapacitated him and
Speaker 1: just ate him, and his girl was there. She's screaming,
Speaker 1: So what happens next The bear comes after her. And
Speaker 1: the audio never was released. People say they've heard it,
Speaker 1: they've heard re enactments re enacting. Yeah, because I think
Speaker 1: I didn't. Wasn't it or Herzog who like listened to
Speaker 1: the audio and decided because like he was listening to
Speaker 1: it for the family to to try to determine whether
Speaker 1: they should hear it or not, and he was like,
Speaker 1: nobody should hear this. It's it's like this would be
Speaker 1: too traumatizing. So it's never been Thankfully, you know, it's
Speaker 1: never been released. I think that's that's a merciful thing
Speaker 1: for the family not to not to have that out there.
Speaker 1: But god, yeah, it's I remember when I read about that,
Speaker 1: I had nightmares that I was like listening to the audio,
Speaker 1: but of course it doesn't exist, but the imagination can
Speaker 1: can fill in the blanks in a very terrifying way.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this was true, but I heard
Speaker 1: a report saying that he were a cant of saying
Speaker 1: that he kind of wished that he had released it
Speaker 1: just to like have people understand just what theirs are
Speaker 1: capable of, because I feel like people still haven't really learned. Um.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, like, and this is where I kind of
Speaker 1: have to take back the credit I gave him. He
Speaker 1: said he tried to be an advert for these bears.
Speaker 1: All he did was like he got himself like killed
Speaker 1: by a bear. So and what happens to the bear
Speaker 1: that they had to hunt the bear down kill it,
Speaker 1: And now people are hearing about this horrific bear tyme
Speaker 1: that happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because once a bear like
Speaker 1: kills a human, they it's like, well, you the bear
Speaker 1: can't see humans as a source of food and go
Speaker 1: and hunt someone else down. So then they have to
Speaker 1: go and euthanize it. And it's I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: it's bad, bad news all around. I mean, it's such
Speaker 1: a horrifying thing to happen to anyone, um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's just we we I think it is
Speaker 1: this like sense of we're so insulated as humans because
Speaker 1: we've protected ourselves with our society, with with all of
Speaker 1: our sort of innovations and our intelligence that um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that sometimes that can lend itself to this
Speaker 1: idea that we are not prey anymore. We're not we're
Speaker 1: not in danger. You know, We're not you know, nothing
Speaker 1: could view us as pray, right because humans were like
Speaker 1: on top of the food chain and that is not
Speaker 1: not true at all. Yeah, And whether it's with Travis
Speaker 1: or the bear, or Siegfried and Roy and their tiger
Speaker 1: montoc or it's just there's like a level of arrogance
Speaker 1: that some people can get where they feel like they
Speaker 1: have complete control over this wild animal. And really it's
Speaker 1: like we are where we are at because of intelligence.
Speaker 1: Mostly because of intelligence. There's obviously physical attributes that we have,
Speaker 1: like being able to run for a really long period
Speaker 1: of time, being able to I think we might be
Speaker 1: one of the no we are We we can throw
Speaker 1: things with accuracy that other animals don't have, just based
Speaker 1: on like us having thumbs and hands and the way
Speaker 1: our shoulders are placed. But ultimately, like one on one,
Speaker 1: we can't do anything with these predators, especially something like
Speaker 1: a bear or a tiger or a chimpanzee, things that
Speaker 1: hunt for a living, you know, So there's like it
Speaker 1: if you can raise them as a baby, you can
Speaker 1: try to, like you can't. They're not human though, And
Speaker 1: all it takes is like one moment of them referting
Speaker 1: back to their predatory instincts. It doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be a predator, but just that's when like things can happen,
Speaker 1: and ultimately that animal gets put down because of it,
Speaker 1: exactly in our language doesn't align with them. Like for chimps,
Speaker 1: like with humans, eye contact and smiling is a nice thing.
Speaker 1: It's you know, showing the other person like, hey, I'm friendly,
Speaker 1: how's it going. If you do that to a chimp,
Speaker 1: you're basically telling it like hey, you know, like you
Speaker 1: man like, and it's like a confrontation because like eye
Speaker 1: contact and showing your teeth is very confrontational for a chimpanzee.
Speaker 1: So like you can't walk up to a chimpanzee act
Speaker 1: like a human and have it understand what you're trying
Speaker 1: to say, what your what your body language means, because
Speaker 1: it can mean something very different. And I think in
Speaker 1: cases where we successfully have pets, like with dogs and cats,
Speaker 1: these are cases, and I mean especially for dogs, we
Speaker 1: have selected over thousands and thousands of years and co
Speaker 1: evolved with them to the point where our styles of
Speaker 1: communication can interlock. So like we can communicate with a
Speaker 1: dog when we see a dog. We although sometimes people
Speaker 1: can mistake body language of dogs, for sure, a lot
Speaker 1: of the dog's body language is readable by us, and
Speaker 1: they can actually read our body language fairly well. They
Speaker 1: can read our facial expressions are intonation. So it's like,
Speaker 1: this is why dogs and also cats, you know, are
Speaker 1: quite good pets, whereas something like a chimpanzee, a grizzly bear,
Speaker 1: a kangaroo. These you know, they can't really you know,
Speaker 1: they can only be tamed inasmuch they can be habituated
Speaker 1: to humans, but they can't really be tamed. They can't.
Speaker 1: They are not pets. Uh. And you know, we we
Speaker 1: can't make them into pets unless we had some kind
Speaker 1: of like you know again try to uh selectively bread
Speaker 1: them over thousands and thousands of years, which I don't
Speaker 1: see the point in doing that either. Yeah. My favorite
Speaker 1: line in the entire our movie, no spoiler, but he's um.
Speaker 1: They said something about you can't tame a predator. Is
Speaker 1: the best you can do is enter an agreement with one, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that a lot of people
Speaker 1: forget and that's when these incidents happen. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's it is such a good movie for
Speaker 1: evolutionary biologists, but it's also such nightmare fuel because like
Speaker 1: all of it, it's just because they did their research
Speaker 1: for that movie, I can really tell. So it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's very it's very good. But because they were
Speaker 1: so thorough with the research and it is so realistic,
Speaker 1: that is it's it makes it quite scary. Oh definitely.
Speaker 1: So um before we go. At the end of every episode,
Speaker 1: I'd like to play a little game called Guess Who's Squawking?
Speaker 1: It's a mystery animal sound game. Every week I play
Speaker 1: a mystery animalsound now called gets who Squawking? But it
Speaker 1: can be any animal in the world, not necessarily a bird,
Speaker 1: any animal. Uh and uh, you the listener and you
Speaker 1: the guests, try to guess who is walking so uh.
Speaker 1: Last week's hint was there's nothing deadly or sinful about
Speaker 1: this cutie. Uh. And this is a sound. I honestly
Speaker 1: had no idea this is what this animal sounded like
Speaker 1: until I googled it. So here it is. Ah ah, Well,
Speaker 1: can you guess he's making that sound. Ver if I
Speaker 1: heard this, is it? Ah? I get hints. Well, the
Speaker 1: hint is there's nothing deadly or sinful about this cutie. Um,
Speaker 1: do you need any anymore? Like? You can ask me
Speaker 1: a question and I can answer, is yes, not domesticated?
Speaker 1: Is it? Can I hear it again? Yes? You can.
Speaker 1: It is good job you are. You're like an encyclopedia
Speaker 1: for animal knowledge, so I'm not surprised that you got this.
Speaker 1: But yet I was wondering where I heard that from.
Speaker 1: There's compilations of like babys off like it's like pre serotonine.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I recommended anyone yourself. It is iron
Speaker 1: ear medicine for the soul. It's wonderful. Yes, I had
Speaker 1: no idea this is what they sounded like until I
Speaker 1: just out of curiosity googled, like, hey, what does slaw
Speaker 1: sound like? These are baby two toad Slavs. They are
Speaker 1: slaves found in Central and South America. I don't believe
Speaker 1: the adults make these sounds. I think this is just
Speaker 1: the babies because they are bleeding for their mothers, so
Speaker 1: they spend their first nine months of lives constantly attached
Speaker 1: to their mothers. And so when they're at like a
Speaker 1: rescue rehabilitation animal center, they will often be given teddy
Speaker 1: bears so they have something to hold onto to comfort them,
Speaker 1: which is really adorable. Also a little sad um, but yes,
Speaker 1: they will make this bleating noise until somebody picks them
Speaker 1: up or they get to cuddle a teddy bear, which
Speaker 1: is a door rble and makes me want to cry.
Speaker 1: And that is your wholesome fact for the week after this,
Speaker 1: after this show where we talked about animals eating your face,
Speaker 1: adorable baby sloth. So there you go, the shot and
Speaker 1: then the chaser. Congratulations to Julie P, Lily H, and
Speaker 1: Grant W the three fastest to correctly gives sloth, although
Speaker 1: maybe I should have rewarded the three slowest guessers given
Speaker 1: that you know it's sloth anyway, suggestion next one should
Speaker 1: be Koalas asked them play play what they sound like
Speaker 1: and then see if they can guess it, because if
Speaker 1: they've never heard it before, they will never in a
Speaker 1: million years guess that the huntingly, angry banshee screaming of
Speaker 1: a koala. Yes they are, they are. They're interesting. I
Speaker 1: understand why people like why Australians have the drop bear
Speaker 1: mythos just based on when Koalas are screw mean angrily.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, there's like a hundred different types
Speaker 1: of cryptids in Australia and I'm so sure half of
Speaker 1: them originated from koalays. Yeah. Absolutely. It's like, how probably
Speaker 1: all the cryptids in the US are either sandhill cranes
Speaker 1: or coyotes with mange, and that's it, like all yours disappointed.
Speaker 1: I remember as like, in like seventh grade, I saw
Speaker 1: that video that went viral at the well, I guess
Speaker 1: at the time of like that chupacabre. Then I revisited
Speaker 1: it because I randomly this was curious about it ten
Speaker 1: years later and I was like, oh wait, it's a coyote.
Speaker 1: Coyote with maine. It's always a coyote with maine. Pretty
Speaker 1: anti climatic. Yeah. Also, sometimes listeners send me in pictures
Speaker 1: of like is this, like what species is this? Like
Speaker 1: I found this and it looks like some kind of
Speaker 1: you know, novel species in North America, and it's like
Speaker 1: it's either coyote with mange, maybe a fox with mange.
Speaker 1: When an animal gets mange and it messes up there
Speaker 1: for it can make them like almost unrecognizable and look
Speaker 1: very very creepy. But unfortunately it's just, you know, just
Speaker 1: a sick animal. It's nothing scari or creepy, just sad um.
Speaker 1: But onto this week's Mr Animals sound. The hint is
Speaker 1: they sound like drunks on land and alien spaceships in
Speaker 1: the sea, but they're always chill. Mm hmmmm h m
Speaker 1: h m hm. That's them on land if it's the obvious,
Speaker 1: So now this is them under the water. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have actually thought honest, so they're amphibious. Then, yes, they
Speaker 1: were both. They spend time both on the land and
Speaker 1: under the water. Oh, they are mammals. Yes, so that's
Speaker 1: another free hint because the obvious one would be whales.
Speaker 1: But then you said on land, so huh interesting Uh
Speaker 1: okay sometimes cel c Line, I'm gonna say, oh it
Speaker 1: is you're absolutely correct. Okay, okay, okay, because that's okay. Yes,
Speaker 1: So you'll the listeners out there, you'll have heard a
Speaker 1: cute little duck quack over what Mama do said. But
Speaker 1: he did guess it correctly, and you'll have a chance
Speaker 1: to guess it. If you think you know the answer,
Speaker 1: you can write to me at Creature feature pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. But I am very are impressed by
Speaker 1: your animal sound guessing abilities. I don't think I could
Speaker 1: have done that. Thank you. Took a couple of guesses
Speaker 1: and a lot of hints. But uh yeah, definitely definitely
Speaker 1: in an interesting one day. You would have to hear
Speaker 1: it before to like guess that, Like I would not
Speaker 1: have been able to guesst that. Just no no I
Speaker 1: and like I had a listener from I think as
Speaker 1: fair as Jabber who came on and recommended this animal
Speaker 1: noise as one that is is quite strange, very otherworldly.
Speaker 1: It sounds like underwater, they sound like aliens, like alien spaceships.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of haunting in a way, but definitely
Speaker 1: is uh. I don't know if I'm allowed to say
Speaker 1: this part, so I guess you could like leap this out,
Speaker 1: but it's actually, uh, they used that to like find
Speaker 1: like the little like breathing holes because they can like freeze.
Speaker 1: Oh maybe I should, Well, basically they use them to
Speaker 1: find breathing holes that they might not have access to
Speaker 1: because of where they live. So it's like I can't
Speaker 1: describe it further without giving it away. You you just
Speaker 1: have to go see it on the next sure and
Speaker 1: then YouTube it because it is freaky. Yes, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think this is a hard enough sound that getting
Speaker 1: some more hints is definitely fair. Um. But yes, it is.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's such an unexpected sound. Also, I'll say,
Speaker 1: for such a cute animal where it sounds like there's
Speaker 1: a there's there's a haunted ocean, but then you see them,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you're just a little cute, aren't you. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate having you on. You are an incredible font of
Speaker 1: animal wisdom. Uh And I think people, if you like
Speaker 1: this podcast, you will definitely like Mama Dow's TikTok. He's
Speaker 1: also got a book out called um Animals that Can
Speaker 1: End You UM, so if you like to the topic
Speaker 1: of this episode, you will definitely like that book. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on. Where can people find you?
Speaker 1: They can find me on TikTok dot MGI underscore ninety seven.
Speaker 1: They can find me on Instagram at the exact same
Speaker 1: user name. I also have a YouTube channel. Realizing not
Speaker 1: a lot of people know that UM or at least
Speaker 1: not as many people that know me tikesfer Instagram, but
Speaker 1: I do have a YouTube channel where I make longer
Speaker 1: form content casual, geographic and uh yeah those are that's
Speaker 1: pretty much the big three TikTok Instagram in a YouTube. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for reaching out to me. By the way,
Speaker 1: it's also stoked to be like fight it here. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to have you on this is this is wonderful.
Speaker 1: This is so fun. Uh and thanks to you guys
Speaker 1: for listening to the show. If you're enjoying it, uh,
Speaker 1: do leave a rating or review. I read all the reviews.
Speaker 1: I appreciate all the writings and as always, appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys listening. Um and uh yeah, if you if you
Speaker 1: think you know this week's mry animal sound or you
Speaker 1: have any questions, you can write to me at Creature
Speaker 1: Feature Pod at gmail dot com. I'm also on twy
Speaker 1: are at Creature feet Pod. That's f e a T
Speaker 1: not e E T head is something very different. Uh
Speaker 1: and thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome
Speaker 1: song Exo Lumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio.
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Speaker 1: next Wednesday,