1
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:15,240
Speaker 2: Hey wasn't too stuff to blow your Mind.

3
00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:18,200
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and

4
00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:21,320
Speaker 3: we're back today with the second part in our series

5
00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:26,280
Speaker 3: on the HeLa monster and its close relatives, the beaded lizards.

6
00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:29,080
Speaker 3: In part one of this series, we talked about the

7
00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:34,280
Speaker 3: basic biology and distinguishing characteristics of these lizards, their armored skin,

8
00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:39,040
Speaker 3: their nest rating behavior, and their awesome and terrible venom

9
00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:42,520
Speaker 3: which they deliver by chewing into the flesh of those

10
00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:45,559
Speaker 3: that dare to threaten them. If you haven't heard part one,

11
00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:47,519
Speaker 3: we would recommend you go back and listen to that

12
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:51,599
Speaker 3: one before you listen to today's episode. But today we're

13
00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:55,440
Speaker 3: back to discuss more about the Heloderma lizards as they're called,

14
00:00:55,640 --> 00:01:02,040
Speaker 3: including traditional beliefs, historical misconceptions, and about their evolutionary history.

15
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:04,840
Speaker 2: Now, a couple of texts that we highlighted in the

16
00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:08,160
Speaker 2: last episode as being two of our major sources. One

17
00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:11,120
Speaker 2: of them is Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians, second Edition

18
00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:15,560
Speaker 2: by Coger and Zwiffel that came out in nineteen ninety eight.

19
00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:17,560
Speaker 2: I think the version I had was two thousand and

20
00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:21,360
Speaker 2: five reprint, but then more essentially to what we're talking

21
00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:24,880
Speaker 2: about here today, Biology of HeLa Monsters and Beaded Lizards

22
00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:28,360
Speaker 2: by Daniel de Beck from the University of California Press.

23
00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:31,240
Speaker 3: That's a good book. And I looked up Daniel Dbeck

24
00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:36,959
Speaker 3: last time. He's a biology professor affiliated with Central Washington University.

25
00:01:36,959 --> 00:01:38,080
Speaker 3: I believe retired now.

26
00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:42,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And certainly our knowledge of HeLa monsters continues

27
00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:45,120
Speaker 2: to expand and grow, and so in this episode, in

28
00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:47,000
Speaker 2: the next episode, in the last episode as well, we're

29
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:50,760
Speaker 2: also drawing on more recent sources. But I wanted to

30
00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:53,360
Speaker 2: turn back the clock here and talk a little bit

31
00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:57,720
Speaker 2: about the helo monsters status as a so called living fossil.

32
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:05,880
Speaker 2: As we mentioned before, we're talking about the helodermatiday lizards here,

33
00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:09,240
Speaker 2: and they've existed as a group for at least sixty

34
00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:12,680
Speaker 2: five million years, going back to the Late Cretaceous, with

35
00:02:12,880 --> 00:02:17,560
Speaker 2: various species calling what is now North America home. The

36
00:02:17,639 --> 00:02:21,399
Speaker 2: direct lineage of the helo monster dealing with Heloderma here

37
00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:27,240
Speaker 2: and its ancestors actually survived the Cretaceous Paeogene mass extinction event,

38
00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:32,240
Speaker 2: the KPg mass extinction event or roughly sixty six million

39
00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:36,639
Speaker 2: years ago. This is the same cataclysmic event that wiped

40
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:43,000
Speaker 2: out the non avian dinosaurs, and the reason for HeLa

41
00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:49,120
Speaker 2: monster helo monster type organisms surviving is probably apparent to

42
00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:51,799
Speaker 2: a number of you already. We've already talked about what

43
00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:54,640
Speaker 2: the HeLa monster does, how the HeLa monster lives, and

44
00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:57,440
Speaker 2: you might well survive how it could survive, say a

45
00:02:57,560 --> 00:03:03,120
Speaker 2: massive asteroid impact that you know, wipes out a huge

46
00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:06,040
Speaker 2: number of species, especially the larger species. Because we're dealing

47
00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:09,960
Speaker 2: with a burrowing creature that loves to eat eggs, specifically

48
00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:12,280
Speaker 2: with the HeLa monsters we know it today, the eggs

49
00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:16,200
Speaker 2: of birds and also of other burrowing reptiles.

50
00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 3: That does mean that at least some of its prey

51
00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:22,280
Speaker 3: species are going to be surviving the mass extinction.

52
00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:25,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. And we'll have a little bit

53
00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:27,560
Speaker 2: more about this in a bit. But but yeah, so

54
00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:32,520
Speaker 2: you have modern beaded lizards and various fossil relatives that

55
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:35,720
Speaker 2: are that are considered to belong to the clade of

56
00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:43,320
Speaker 2: North Northern Hemisphere angamorph lizards known as monster saria, which

57
00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:46,400
Speaker 2: sounds so awesome you might think it's made up and

58
00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:47,920
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, it is made up. It's made up

59
00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:51,080
Speaker 2: by scientists, but this is this is the terminology and

60
00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:56,000
Speaker 2: basically monster Saria. They've existed since the Cretaceous, and not

61
00:03:56,040 --> 00:04:01,240
Speaker 2: only in North America, historically throughout Eurasia. The oldest fossils

62
00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:06,720
Speaker 2: were actually found in Japan. Among these different monster Saria species,

63
00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:12,280
Speaker 2: you have the so called giant Paleosenewa canadensis, which would

64
00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:15,880
Speaker 2: have been smaller than a contemporary komodo dragon. At it

65
00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:17,800
Speaker 2: was like one to two meters, so somewhere in the

66
00:04:17,880 --> 00:04:20,880
Speaker 2: range of three foot three inches to six foot seven inches,

67
00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:25,200
Speaker 2: but still sizable. And it's called canadensis because it was

68
00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:29,160
Speaker 2: found in what is now Alberta, Canada. Another species, more

69
00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:32,520
Speaker 2: recently discovered and also sized like a large non komodo

70
00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:36,960
Speaker 2: monitor lizard, is the species bog Amandal, found in what

71
00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:40,680
Speaker 2: is now Utah. And yes, it's fully named after the

72
00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:41,760
Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings. Stuff.

73
00:04:41,920 --> 00:04:43,920
Speaker 3: That's amazing. I was going to say before you even

74
00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:45,800
Speaker 3: got to that, like it sounds like the name of

75
00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:49,440
Speaker 3: the fortress of the Necromancer is like dol Gadour or something.

76
00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:51,240
Speaker 3: It's where the witch king lives.

77
00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:53,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's you know, we love some word of

78
00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:55,960
Speaker 2: the Rings content on this show, So let's break it down.

79
00:04:56,440 --> 00:05:00,479
Speaker 2: The genus Bog comes from the Orc chief to Bulk

80
00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:04,160
Speaker 2: of the North, son of Azog. In The Hobbit, this

81
00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:07,000
Speaker 2: is a major figure at the Battle of Five Armies,

82
00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:10,520
Speaker 2: and if you watch Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies you might

83
00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:13,800
Speaker 2: remember him. It has this. I think he's entirely a

84
00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:18,159
Speaker 2: CGI created being, but an imposing one, kind of like

85
00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:22,200
Speaker 2: a gray skinned almost I don't know, almost like sort

86
00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:26,000
Speaker 2: of like large shaved chimpanzee style Orc.

87
00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:28,479
Speaker 3: I don't think I ever made it that far in

88
00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:31,080
Speaker 3: the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies. I love his Lord of

89
00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:33,520
Speaker 3: the Rings movies. I think I got about halfway through

90
00:05:33,560 --> 00:05:34,520
Speaker 3: the Hobbit trilogy.

91
00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:38,360
Speaker 2: It is. I think many people would agree too much

92
00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:42,600
Speaker 2: movie for that adaptation. Two fine, three may be a

93
00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:44,680
Speaker 2: little bit too many, but you know, your mileage may vary,

94
00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:47,039
Speaker 2: and maybe, folks, maybe in time we'll come back around

95
00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:51,719
Speaker 2: to those. Okay. The species name here, though, Amandal is

96
00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:54,839
Speaker 2: this is also Lord of the Rings reference. I'm just

97
00:05:54,839 --> 00:05:58,880
Speaker 2: gonna read from the paper here titled new Monstrosar Specimens

98
00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:04,159
Speaker 2: from the Chai Parowitz Formation of Utah reveal unexpected richness

99
00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:07,480
Speaker 2: of large bodied lizards in Late Cretaceous North America. This

100
00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:09,840
Speaker 2: came out in twenty twenty five by Woolly at All.

101
00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:14,640
Speaker 2: They explain that amandahal quote is derived from the fictional

102
00:06:14,839 --> 00:06:18,480
Speaker 2: Elvish Sindarin language and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit,

103
00:06:18,520 --> 00:06:21,360
Speaker 2: The Lord of the Rings, The Similarian and other works,

104
00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:27,280
Speaker 2: a combination of ammon Elvish Sindarin for mound and doll

105
00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:32,160
Speaker 2: Elvish Sindarin for head, named for the mound like fused

106
00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:36,680
Speaker 2: osteoderms that cover the skull. We talked about this, you know,

107
00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:41,160
Speaker 2: with modern helo monsters today, the little bone like nuggets

108
00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:43,760
Speaker 2: that are in their skin that serve to give them

109
00:06:43,760 --> 00:06:48,120
Speaker 2: this added protection, it actually fuses with their skull, creating

110
00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:52,880
Speaker 2: these very sinister looking, as you describe them, pinhead style skulls. Yeah.

111
00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:55,039
Speaker 3: And in a way, that's what the name of the

112
00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:59,640
Speaker 3: genus means in Greek, so that the Heloderma lizards derma

113
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:03,880
Speaker 3: skin Helo comes from the Greek word for nail or studs,

114
00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:07,320
Speaker 3: so they are like nail skin lizards, I think, referring

115
00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:09,080
Speaker 3: to sort of the flat heads of nails, but that

116
00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:12,160
Speaker 3: would be Yeah, These bone beads that are embedded in

117
00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:15,000
Speaker 3: their skin and eventually fused with their skull. It forms

118
00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:17,760
Speaker 3: a kind of armor. But also because they're sort of

119
00:07:17,880 --> 00:07:21,680
Speaker 3: round and separated, less densely packed in some parts of

120
00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:23,720
Speaker 3: the body than others that do kind of have a

121
00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:24,679
Speaker 3: pinhead pattern.

122
00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:28,880
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so I solute the naming here of this creature.

123
00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:35,880
Speaker 2: So many monstersary species were indeed specialized nest raiders. With

124
00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:38,760
Speaker 2: the larger ones and this again we're talking about, you know,

125
00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 2: pre KPg extinction, these would have been the larger ones

126
00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:47,200
Speaker 2: that raided dinosaur nests, so they would then specialized dinosaur

127
00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:51,840
Speaker 2: nest raiders, which is pretty crazy to think about. But

128
00:07:51,880 --> 00:07:55,960
Speaker 2: then after the KPg extinction event, the larger species, these

129
00:07:55,960 --> 00:07:58,400
Speaker 2: are going to be the ones that go extinct, and

130
00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:01,000
Speaker 2: that makes sense because the eggs they're depending on the

131
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:05,920
Speaker 2: nests that they're rating those species are extinct now as well,

132
00:08:05,960 --> 00:08:09,120
Speaker 2: so they quickly die out. But the smaller ones, they're

133
00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:11,320
Speaker 2: the ones that are able to survive, to survive based

134
00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:14,679
Speaker 2: on their burrowing lifestyle and their dependence on the nests

135
00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:19,360
Speaker 2: of the surviving species and the nests that they're raiding,

136
00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:22,720
Speaker 2: the burrows that they're living in, like these would constitute

137
00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:28,840
Speaker 2: sheltered micro habitats. So you know, it's like the creatures

138
00:08:28,840 --> 00:08:32,160
Speaker 2: who are thriving at living underground to some degree had

139
00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:35,760
Speaker 2: at least that going for them in this cataclysmic period

140
00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:37,240
Speaker 2: following the extinction event.

141
00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:39,640
Speaker 3: I feel like this has come up several times on

142
00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:43,439
Speaker 3: the show recently, but always interesting to see this pattern

143
00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:49,720
Speaker 3: that lineages that survived the KPg extinction often were burrowing

144
00:08:49,800 --> 00:08:53,160
Speaker 3: species and species that at least spend part of their

145
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:55,080
Speaker 3: life digging in holes underground.

146
00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:59,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it seems to be. You know, it's

147
00:09:00,120 --> 00:09:04,880
Speaker 2: there are all sorts of different niches that organisms will

148
00:09:04,880 --> 00:09:07,320
Speaker 2: find themselves in, but some are going to be more

149
00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:10,400
Speaker 2: vulnerable to events like this, and others are going to

150
00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:15,200
Speaker 2: provide some degree of protection. So in the book Biology

151
00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:18,240
Speaker 2: of HeLa Monsters and Beaded Lizards, Daniel de Beck points

152
00:09:18,280 --> 00:09:23,720
Speaker 2: out that our modern Monstersoria specimens share a more recent

153
00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:27,880
Speaker 2: common ancestor with snakes than they do with most other lizards,

154
00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:31,520
Speaker 2: and he drives this home with this nice little tidbit

155
00:09:31,559 --> 00:09:34,320
Speaker 2: I'm going to read here quote more like snakes on legs,

156
00:09:34,679 --> 00:09:39,280
Speaker 2: Helodermatid lizards are indeed a walking contradiction. These lizards probably

157
00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:42,560
Speaker 2: shouldn't still be here. Most other genera on the Earth

158
00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:45,200
Speaker 2: twenty three million years ago have either moved on to

159
00:09:45,320 --> 00:09:50,040
Speaker 2: extinction or evolved into new lineages. In this driving home,

160
00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:52,800
Speaker 2: of course, the fact that HeLa monsters have remained essentially

161
00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:58,080
Speaker 2: unchanged for thirty million years, like living time capsules from

162
00:09:58,280 --> 00:09:59,360
Speaker 2: a prior age.

163
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,320
Speaker 3: Interesting to see the connection to snakes, even though you know,

164
00:10:03,520 --> 00:10:06,640
Speaker 3: you'd think the big morphological difference would would mean that

165
00:10:06,640 --> 00:10:10,560
Speaker 3: they're very far apart. Snakes have no legs and heloderma

166
00:10:10,679 --> 00:10:13,080
Speaker 3: do have legs. But you can see the connection with

167
00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:16,440
Speaker 3: the venom, can't you that? You know that like unlike

168
00:10:16,559 --> 00:10:20,360
Speaker 3: most other lizards which don't have venom, the heloderma do.

169
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:26,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, so it's yeah, interesting to make those connections here.

170
00:10:35,320 --> 00:10:38,560
Speaker 2: All right, let's begin to get into some of the

171
00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:46,000
Speaker 2: kind of a broad selection of different, largely false ideas

172
00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:48,559
Speaker 2: about what helo monsters are all about and what they

173
00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:52,360
Speaker 2: are up to. We're going to be getting into folk beliefs,

174
00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:56,440
Speaker 2: traditional beliefs, mythologies, and this covers a lot of ground.

175
00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:59,960
Speaker 2: We're gonna be talking a little bit about indigenous belief

176
00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:02,760
Speaker 2: about the helo monster and traditions about the helo monster.

177
00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:07,240
Speaker 2: Some of which do cross over into the realm of

178
00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:12,240
Speaker 2: the imagination, and then others actually line up rather well

179
00:11:12,240 --> 00:11:14,439
Speaker 2: with what we see, you know, and what is observable

180
00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:16,839
Speaker 2: about the nature of HeLa monsters. And then we're also

181
00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:18,839
Speaker 2: going to get into a lot of like so when

182
00:11:18,840 --> 00:11:21,280
Speaker 2: you get into the colonial era, you're gonna have settlers

183
00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:23,760
Speaker 2: coming in and they're going to have their own layers

184
00:11:23,800 --> 00:11:27,720
Speaker 2: of misinformation and ideas about what Helo monsters are all about.

185
00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:31,320
Speaker 2: Some of this is going to be taken from indigenous beliefs,

186
00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:36,000
Speaker 2: other stuff may have other sources entirely. So this is

187
00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:37,880
Speaker 2: going to be a fun area to get into. And

188
00:11:38,240 --> 00:11:42,880
Speaker 2: let's begin with with some of the indigenous beliefs and

189
00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:47,120
Speaker 2: ideas about the HeLa monster. Several of these were profiled

190
00:11:47,320 --> 00:11:51,839
Speaker 2: in Beck's book about the HeLa Monster, and a lot

191
00:11:51,840 --> 00:11:55,959
Speaker 2: of a number of these do involve the indigenous people

192
00:11:55,960 --> 00:11:58,280
Speaker 2: of the Scenarian Desert that we've talked about before on

193
00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:03,000
Speaker 2: the show before the Thought of Them, and he Beck

194
00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:06,160
Speaker 2: outlines some of the following bits of lore here from

195
00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:09,079
Speaker 2: this group as well with some other groups. He points

196
00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:14,040
Speaker 2: out that the particularly here, the Oftum, believe that an

197
00:12:14,120 --> 00:12:16,680
Speaker 2: encounter with a HeLa monster could cause an outbreak of

198
00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:19,600
Speaker 2: sores on the feet or body, and that it could

199
00:12:19,600 --> 00:12:23,439
Speaker 2: cause nursing mothers to lose their milk. These sibstance symptoms

200
00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:26,200
Speaker 2: could then be magically treated by tying a red cloth

201
00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:28,920
Speaker 2: around the lizard or a fetish of the lizard that

202
00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:31,880
Speaker 2: had been carved from the rib of sowaru. And then

203
00:12:31,920 --> 00:12:35,400
Speaker 2: there was also a special use of song that could

204
00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:40,400
Speaker 2: be used in treating the outbreak. So, I mean, as

205
00:12:40,520 --> 00:12:43,360
Speaker 2: you know, as far as ritual beliefs go, nothing too

206
00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:45,920
Speaker 2: out of line there. I mean, we can imagine some

207
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:49,000
Speaker 2: sort of I can imagine some sort of scenario where

208
00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:52,440
Speaker 2: one might have I don't know, tread on some of

209
00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:56,480
Speaker 2: the spent venom of the HeLa monster. Not impossible to

210
00:12:56,480 --> 00:12:59,000
Speaker 2: get that on your feet, certainly not impossible to get

211
00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:00,719
Speaker 2: that somewhere on your body. I don't know about the

212
00:13:00,800 --> 00:13:03,680
Speaker 2: nursing mothers, but you know, things of this nature do

213
00:13:03,800 --> 00:13:09,520
Speaker 2: factor into a lot of the myth and lore surrounding

214
00:13:09,800 --> 00:13:14,840
Speaker 2: venoms and toxins in different native belief systems.

215
00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:17,840
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, as we talked about last time, it's certainly

216
00:13:17,880 --> 00:13:21,320
Speaker 3: true that the venom of the heal A monster is

217
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:24,720
Speaker 3: not just a simple venom with one effect. It is

218
00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:31,160
Speaker 3: a potent, complex cocktail with tons of different bioactive agents

219
00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:35,160
Speaker 3: in it, all having different ranges of effects. So yeah,

220
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:38,680
Speaker 3: you can imagine that there would be there could be

221
00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:41,040
Speaker 3: different effects of the venom that are not even part

222
00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:44,360
Speaker 3: of the normal list of things that manifest you know,

223
00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:47,560
Speaker 3: that are most often documented, like pain and you know,

224
00:13:47,679 --> 00:13:50,720
Speaker 3: low blood pressure and sweats and things like that.

225
00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:52,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're gonna you're gonna end up like we

226
00:13:52,840 --> 00:13:58,119
Speaker 2: talked about, how with Western commentators and biologists and naturalists

227
00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:02,439
Speaker 2: you've had so much disagreement for so long about whether

228
00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:06,280
Speaker 2: they were even venomous. So you can imagine sort of

229
00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:10,960
Speaker 2: a similar disconnect existing even in indigenous people because I

230
00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:14,040
Speaker 2: think for the most part, if I'm judging everything correctly here,

231
00:14:14,640 --> 00:14:17,000
Speaker 2: people would know to be wary of the HeLa monster,

232
00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:20,000
Speaker 2: would maybe not seek it out. How many people were

233
00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:22,040
Speaker 2: actually getting bitten by it, and then if they are

234
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:24,400
Speaker 2: being bitten by it, how much venom is being delivered?

235
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:26,800
Speaker 2: And this is going to be sort of your body

236
00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:31,680
Speaker 2: of evidence out of which to build on your expectations. Yeah, yeah,

237
00:14:31,760 --> 00:14:35,000
Speaker 2: not counting into effecting sort of like the magical and

238
00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:37,800
Speaker 2: religious layers that end up being put on top of

239
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:41,160
Speaker 2: everything as well. Let's see. Beck also mentions that the

240
00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:45,720
Speaker 2: Pema people, who I think are also called the acamel Authem,

241
00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:49,600
Speaker 2: they had a belief that if a prospective father killed

242
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:53,200
Speaker 2: a Helo monster, his baby could become feverish and then

243
00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:56,320
Speaker 2: a song remedy would be necessary to heal the child.

244
00:14:57,800 --> 00:15:01,280
Speaker 2: And let's see, then we also have the people also

245
00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:04,080
Speaker 2: known as the Siri, and they believe that the bite

246
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,800
Speaker 2: of the HeLa monster was in fact dangerous, but also

247
00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:10,160
Speaker 2: held that it could spit as well at a range

248
00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:11,600
Speaker 2: of four meters or so.

249
00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:16,040
Speaker 3: This spitting will show up again in different branches of

250
00:15:16,080 --> 00:15:18,960
Speaker 3: hel A monster lore. But this is not an isolated belief.

251
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:20,560
Speaker 3: There have been a lot of people in history that

252
00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:24,480
Speaker 3: thought that like a you know, a spitting snake or something,

253
00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:26,480
Speaker 3: that they could spit venom at you.

254
00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:30,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's quite quite interesting again getting into the

255
00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:33,520
Speaker 2: snake connection here, because we of course do have venom

256
00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:37,280
Speaker 2: spitters in the reptile world, but they're the spitting cobras

257
00:15:37,280 --> 00:15:41,320
Speaker 2: of Asia and Africa, remarkable creatures. I was actually just

258
00:15:41,560 --> 00:15:45,560
Speaker 2: researching them over the weekend for a different project, and

259
00:15:45,920 --> 00:15:48,840
Speaker 2: I remember how we said that while snakes generally use

260
00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:53,000
Speaker 2: their venom offensively, while the beaded lizard venom serves a

261
00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:57,080
Speaker 2: defensive purpose. Well, spitting cobras are kind of an exception

262
00:15:57,200 --> 00:16:00,000
Speaker 2: to that snake rule we outlined. They can still administer

263
00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:03,080
Speaker 2: to their venom via a bite, but they've evolved to

264
00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:06,239
Speaker 2: be able to spit their venom as well, with remarkable

265
00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:10,720
Speaker 2: accuracy and via like, it's not one of these situations where, oh,

266
00:16:10,720 --> 00:16:13,960
Speaker 2: they learned the trick of spitting their own venom. No,

267
00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:18,560
Speaker 2: they've evolved special teeth, special venom apertures that are different

268
00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:23,240
Speaker 2: from that of non spitting cobras, and then the snake

269
00:16:23,320 --> 00:16:27,080
Speaker 2: venom itself changed as well over the course of their evolution.

270
00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:31,040
Speaker 2: So snake venom often targets the nervous system and or

271
00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:36,800
Speaker 2: the heart, with some also boasting tissue destroying properties. Spitting

272
00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:41,440
Speaker 2: cobras have evolved a venom that maximizes intense pain and

273
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:46,400
Speaker 2: tissue destruction over everything else as a defensive weapon, seemingly

274
00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:51,119
Speaker 2: against mammals and arguably maybe even against early human hominine species.

275
00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:57,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the spitting mechanism itself makes sense if you

276
00:16:57,680 --> 00:17:01,000
Speaker 3: just imagine, like, what kinds of situation that behavior would

277
00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:04,200
Speaker 3: be most effective. That makes sense. As a defensive behavior,

278
00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:07,040
Speaker 3: you can you know, try to keep something away from you.

279
00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:10,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like I can bite you if we

280
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:13,720
Speaker 2: need to do this a close range. But if we

281
00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:16,800
Speaker 2: tangle it close range, you know, there's a chance you're

282
00:17:16,840 --> 00:17:19,639
Speaker 2: going to break my spine. And I don't want to

283
00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:23,440
Speaker 2: just bite you, and I want to be able to

284
00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:26,880
Speaker 2: escape as well. So let's handle this at a distance first, which,

285
00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:29,239
Speaker 2: of course is what's going on with all sorts of

286
00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:33,320
Speaker 2: defensive displays and so forth. So anyway, the idea of

287
00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:39,159
Speaker 2: spitting your venom at an adversary certainly not unprecedented in

288
00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:42,160
Speaker 2: the reptile world, but it would be quite an upgrade

289
00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:45,960
Speaker 2: if HeLa monsters were actually doing this, and to be sure,

290
00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:48,919
Speaker 2: they are not. Now where does it come from? You know,

291
00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:51,320
Speaker 2: we'll get into this, but you know, on one hand,

292
00:17:51,359 --> 00:17:54,240
Speaker 2: you have things like exaggeration just in you know, like

293
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:56,560
Speaker 2: this is a creature that can buy you. What if

294
00:17:56,560 --> 00:17:58,560
Speaker 2: it can spit too? And then how much of this

295
00:17:58,640 --> 00:18:01,720
Speaker 2: is anthromorphism, because what do we do? We spit all

296
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,479
Speaker 2: the time, especially if you watch Cowboy movies. People out

297
00:18:04,520 --> 00:18:06,560
Speaker 2: in the desert, they love to spit. So why not

298
00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:10,800
Speaker 2: have a lizard with venom? And its mouth spitting at

299
00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:14,040
Speaker 2: anything that's getting in its way. Or is this like

300
00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:16,960
Speaker 2: a misreading of what the HeLa monster is doing with

301
00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:22,600
Speaker 2: its defensive mouth opening display. It's interesting too. I want

302
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:25,520
Speaker 2: to mention that Beck sites in this particular version of

303
00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:28,679
Speaker 2: the myth that the HeLa monster can spit at a

304
00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:32,080
Speaker 2: four meter range, which is beyond but not too much

305
00:18:32,119 --> 00:18:34,919
Speaker 2: more beyond the range of actual spitting cobras, so like

306
00:18:35,160 --> 00:18:37,200
Speaker 2: for as far as venom spinners go, like that would

307
00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:40,439
Speaker 2: be reasonable if this was what this creature was actually

308
00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:45,160
Speaker 2: capable of. Let's see other indigenous beliefs that Beck outlines

309
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:48,960
Speaker 2: in his book. This one's also really fascinating. HeLa monsters

310
00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:52,200
Speaker 2: could control the weather by communicating with the storm spirit,

311
00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:55,680
Speaker 2: and that spotting one was a sign of impending rain.

312
00:18:57,160 --> 00:18:59,760
Speaker 2: Now you know, we can't comment on any actual communication

313
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:05,200
Speaker 2: between HeLa monsters and deities or supernatural beings, but helo

314
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:08,880
Speaker 2: monsters are more active during monsoon season and will surface

315
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:13,800
Speaker 2: on cloudy, humid days. I was reading some various news

316
00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:19,240
Speaker 2: articles from Arizona that also outlined this as being essentially true,

317
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:21,920
Speaker 2: that if you see a helo monster, it could very

318
00:19:21,960 --> 00:19:25,200
Speaker 2: well be an indicator that seasonal conditions are right for rain.

319
00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:26,600
Speaker 3: Interesting.

320
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:30,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Beck says that the Apaches believe this is well,

321
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:35,080
Speaker 2: and he shares an interesting indigenous account of the Helo

322
00:19:35,119 --> 00:19:38,200
Speaker 2: monster's hide. I'm just going to read a quote here

323
00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:42,000
Speaker 2: from him this time. He says, the thauna Athum explained

324
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:45,800
Speaker 2: the origin of Helo monsters brightly colored osteoderms as an

325
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:49,359
Speaker 2: outcome of the first Soaru Wine Festival. We talked about

326
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:52,000
Speaker 2: this in our episodes on the Soaru. This it would

327
00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:54,920
Speaker 2: be like a seasonal harvesting of the fruit where the

328
00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:59,040
Speaker 2: food fruit is consumed and made into various food products

329
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:02,240
Speaker 2: consumed on this and also made into a ritual wine.

330
00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:05,880
Speaker 2: He said, this the outcome of the first Soaru Wine Festival,

331
00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:09,680
Speaker 2: held long ago. Humans and animals alike were invited and

332
00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:12,960
Speaker 2: everyone wanted to look his or her best. HeLa monster

333
00:20:13,119 --> 00:20:16,960
Speaker 2: came festooned with bright pebbles gathered to make a colorful

334
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:20,280
Speaker 2: and endurable coat, which is still worn to this day.

335
00:20:20,600 --> 00:20:21,399
Speaker 3: Oh that's cool.

336
00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:25,320
Speaker 2: He also there's another little bit that he shares. He

337
00:20:25,359 --> 00:20:28,320
Speaker 2: says the quote, the bony osteoderms of the HeLa monster

338
00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:31,320
Speaker 2: have earned it the title of well armored warrior of

339
00:20:31,359 --> 00:20:35,880
Speaker 2: the Navajo Old Navajo warrior tales tell of mortals who

340
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:40,240
Speaker 2: wore flint armor and looked like the Heela Monster the protector.

341
00:20:41,080 --> 00:20:44,440
Speaker 3: Interesting, and I like that both of these accounts can

342
00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:46,679
Speaker 3: look at the skin of the Heela Monster, at the

343
00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:50,880
Speaker 3: bumps or the beads and have different readings on them.

344
00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:54,399
Speaker 3: That one story is about them being decorative, that it

345
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:58,919
Speaker 3: is a creature trying to appear colorful and beautiful for

346
00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:03,359
Speaker 3: the festival, for the Sowaro wine festival, and then the

347
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:06,720
Speaker 3: other one is about armor. Right, it's ready for war.

348
00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 3: And either interpretation kind of makes sense because the Heel

349
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:14,680
Speaker 3: Monster is both. It is both decorated with these color

350
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:17,639
Speaker 3: patterns that we talked about last time, which can have

351
00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:20,280
Speaker 3: multiple uses. You might think of them as camouflage in

352
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:23,160
Speaker 3: one sense, but also warning markers and you know when

353
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:27,200
Speaker 3: you're looking up closer. But also the bumps are literally armor.

354
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:29,440
Speaker 3: The osteoderm serve protective purpose.

355
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:37,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, pretty fascinating here. Let's see regarding Mexican beaded lizards.

356
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:42,240
Speaker 2: Apparently there are full traditions that its tail is powerful

357
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:46,119
Speaker 2: and capable of summoning lightning strikes. I don't know if

358
00:21:46,119 --> 00:21:48,159
Speaker 2: there's actually anything to that. It's kind of hard for

359
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,120
Speaker 2: me to imagine a scenario where that could be accurate.

360
00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:54,640
Speaker 2: But again, getting into this idea that all of these

361
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:58,240
Speaker 2: beaded lizards are going to have similar lifestyles that they're living,

362
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:01,840
Speaker 2: and they are going to be tied monsoon season emergencies

363
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:05,760
Speaker 2: and humidity. So there is this connection to rain and storm.

364
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:07,640
Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, So they're more likely to come out

365
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:10,800
Speaker 3: of the burrows when conditions are right for rain to happen.

366
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. And therefore, if you're out and about and there

367
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 2: are a bunch of beaded lizards walking around, you might

368
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:19,080
Speaker 2: think it's possible there's a lightning storm brewing. Maybe I

369
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:23,920
Speaker 2: should seek cover. And then finally, I've ran across this

370
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:29,680
Speaker 2: particular creature on a website titled a Book of Creatures

371
00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:33,959
Speaker 2: that I've come across before, looking up mythological beings and

372
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:37,959
Speaker 2: so forth, a cool website, and the author of this

373
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:43,720
Speaker 2: website cites this supposed mayan tradition of a beaded lizard

374
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:49,080
Speaker 2: known as es shown peds kinskin, and the idea here

375
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 2: is that this beaded lizard can give you a headache

376
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:57,199
Speaker 2: like a severe migraine, just by biting your shadow. And

377
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 2: the author here. It's a sided article a couple of

378
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:03,879
Speaker 2: older sources from nineteen nineteen, nineteen thirty one, but outside

379
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:06,160
Speaker 2: of those sources, I couldn't find anything else about it.

380
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 2: But still an interesting concept here, because again, all these

381
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,719
Speaker 2: beaded lizards are going to have similar properties. And I

382
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:14,919
Speaker 2: love the idea. I mean, I love the idea of

383
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:19,240
Speaker 2: any kind of magical creature interacting with the shadow. We've

384
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:21,720
Speaker 2: talked about these on the show before. But it also

385
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 2: is a great way of thinking about the venom. The

386
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 2: venom is so potent that it doesn't even even have

387
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 2: to bite you to deliver it. It could just bite your

388
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 2: shadow and you're going to be stuck with some symptoms.

389
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 3: That's amazing. Well, actually that is a good segue, if

390
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 3: you're all right, moving on to talk about some fumes

391
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 3: and odors to yeah, to get into this next section

392
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:47,120
Speaker 3: I looked into, and that is about HeLa monster breath

393
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 3: and HeLa monster fog. So I started looking into this

394
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 3: because of a funny passage I came across. This was

395
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:59,159
Speaker 3: in an article published in Scientific American in September nineteen

396
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 3: o six by an author named D. A.

397
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:02,359
Speaker 2: Willie.

398
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 3: The article is just called HeLa monsters, and it rehashes

399
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:12,439
Speaker 3: some points of the at this time still ongoing debate

400
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 3: about to what extent the creatures are venomous. We talked

401
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 3: about this last time. There was this back and forth

402
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:21,480
Speaker 3: for a long time about whether they're venomous or not. Finally,

403
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 3: by about the nineteen twenties it was fully settled. Everybody

404
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 3: agreed they were venomous. But at this point it's still

405
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 3: nineteen oh six, and Willie describes their osteoderms. He's sorrying

406
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 3: about their armor, few other biological behavioral facts, and then

407
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 3: eventually gets to the following passage. I'm going to read

408
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 3: from da Willie quote. When angered, it emits its breath

409
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 3: in a succession of quick gasps. The breath is very fetid,

410
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 3: and its odor can be detected at some little distance

411
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:54,880
Speaker 3: from the lizard. It is supposed that this is one

412
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 3: way in which the monster catches the insects and small

413
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 3: animals which form a part of its food supply, the

414
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 3: foul gas overcoming them. Oh wow, yeah, So it's a

415
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 3: little unclear exactly what he's saying there. Is he just like, oh,

416
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 3: the gas is so stinky that it, I don't know,

417
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,719
Speaker 3: paralyzes them and then the monster can get it. Or

418
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 3: is it that it literally has poisoned breath, that its

419
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 3: breath kills these things and then the lizard can eat

420
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 3: at its leisure. I don't know. It's a little bit vague,

421
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 3: and I think that may reflect the fact that there

422
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 3: was significant variation in the underlying lore that Willy is

423
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:34,160
Speaker 3: referring to here.

424
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if true, this would be amazing, right,

425
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 2: because this would be unlike any natural world organism that

426
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 2: I'm instantly thinking of that's using some sort of an

427
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 2: actual chemical projectile from its mouth as an offensive weapon

428
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 2: to bring down prey.

429
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,440
Speaker 3: Well, not a liquid chemical like a Yeah, that's using

430
00:25:57,480 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 3: actually like projected like gas.

431
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a dragon if it were, Yes, if

432
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 2: it were just lit a flame, it would be a dragon. Yeah.

433
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 3: Unfortunately this is not true, but it was very interesting

434
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 3: to me as a belief, so I went looking to

435
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 3: see if I could find any credible sources addressing this

436
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 3: claim in more detail, and I did so. This is

437
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 3: the subject of a very good section in a book

438
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 3: from nineteen fifty six called The HeLa Monster and Its Allies.

439
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,399
Speaker 3: The relationships, habits, and behavior of the Lizards of the

440
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 3: family Helodermatidy by the American herpetologist Charles M. Bogert and

441
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 3: the Mexican herpetologist and ornithologist Raphael Martin del Campo. This

442
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 3: was published by the American Museum of Natural History, and

443
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 3: again it was nineteen fifty six. So the book as

444
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:49,159
Speaker 3: a whole is mainly focused on biology, but Bogert and

445
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:52,360
Speaker 3: del Campo have a whole section where they track the

446
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 3: history of popular beliefs and misconceptions about these lizards. Among

447
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 3: the beliefs they look into are one. We just talked

448
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 3: about the idea that the helo monster spits venom Not true.

449
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 3: It is venomous, but it doesn't spit. That it does

450
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 3: not have an anus, That's what I said. No anus

451
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 3: for helo monsters. Also not true, or I mean maybe

452
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 3: slightly true, in that it doesn't have an anus like

453
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 3: a mammal has a cloaca, you know, yeah, what a reptile. Technically, yes,

454
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 3: the kloaca is the all purpose, the all purpose back

455
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 3: door for a reptile. So the kloaca handles urine, feces,

456
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 3: reproductive material. It's the it does it all but anyway,

457
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 3: so but that's not true. These lizards do have a cloaca.

458
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 3: But the other myth that they look at is that

459
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 3: it emits pungent or even poisonous fumes, particularly through its breath.

460
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 3: According to the author's, stories about the breath and odor

461
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:57,920
Speaker 3: of the HeLa monster are among the earliest stories appearing

462
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 3: in the literature. So let's just run through some of

463
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 3: the examples they talk about. They discuss an author named

464
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 3: Sumacrast who mentions not the breath but the odor in

465
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 3: papers appearing in three different languages. So these are papers

466
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 3: in French, Spanish, and English, two of them in eighteen

467
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 3: sixty four, one in eighteen sixty nine. The paper that's

468
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 3: in English has a passage that says, quote, the body

469
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,959
Speaker 3: of the heloderma usually exhales a strong and nauseous odor,

470
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 3: the intensity of which increases at the period when the

471
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 3: two sexes seek each other for the purpose of copulation.

472
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 3: Bogert and del Campo say that there may be some

473
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 3: truth to this claim. They say that helo monsters do

474
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 3: possess scent glands under the base of the tail, which

475
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 3: discharge smelly contents through the cloaca, again further proof they

476
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 3: really do have cloaca, folks, it's really there, So it

477
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 3: could be true that they emit some kind of smell

478
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 3: that is attractive to the opposite sexes of the lizard,

479
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 3: maybe plays some role in reproduction. But then sometimes claims

480
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 3: about the odor of the HeLa get entangled with claims

481
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 3: about venom and toxic breath. So an author named Douges

482
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety nine mentions the odor of the HeLa

483
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 3: but attributes the odor to the lizard's saliva, and he

484
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 3: says that when Ahila quote bites with fury, one can

485
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 3: perceive an odor that is quote fetid and repugnant. Another

486
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 3: author around the same time, Vin Dinberg, in eighteen ninety eight,

487
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 3: mentions the fetid breath of the lizard. There's another account

488
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 3: they get into that is attributed to a mister tw

489
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 3: Parker of Phoenix, Arizona in eighteen seventy nine. At some

490
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 3: level this account is anonymous. I don't know if it was.

491
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 3: I think maybe published by an anonymous author attributing the

492
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 3: story to Parker. I think that might be right. But anyway,

493
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 3: so Parker is considered the source at some level on this,

494
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 3: and this account is talking about what happens when the

495
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 3: HeLa monster is threatened. So they say that the threatened

496
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 3: HeLa monster quote stands as erect as possible and blows

497
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 3: at its antagonist, sending forth a stream resembling fog and

498
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 3: believed by the natives to cause instant death. So I'm

499
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 3: trying to think, what is the author picturing here, Like

500
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 3: you can see the fog coming out of his mouth?

501
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 3: Is it visible fog? Is it like Godzilla's radiation breath?

502
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I'm picturing. I'm picturing something that

503
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 2: looks like imagine what this effect would look like in

504
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 2: a nineteen eighties science fiction movie, you know, just it's

505
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 2: just the smoke pouring out of the out of a

506
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 2: rubber reptile's mouth.

507
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 3: I mean, if it is poisonous gas coming out of

508
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 3: the lizard's mouth, It's hard to imagine it really being

509
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 3: directed very effectively like the you know, the beam breath,

510
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 3: because if it's really gas, it's going to quickly start

511
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 3: spreading and diffusing. It's just going to go in all directions,

512
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 3: isn't it.

513
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, it would have to be pretty potent, I

514
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:09,720
Speaker 2: would imagine to have any kind of an effect.

515
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 3: So this account the same one attributed to or sort

516
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 3: of at least second and associated with the account by T. W.

517
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 2: Parker.

518
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 3: It goes on to describe a fight between a heel

519
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 3: monster and a snake, which the snake survives, is badly hurt,

520
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 3: but survives, and then slithers away from proving that the

521
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 3: poison breath was not fatal or effective at paralyzing snakes.

522
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 3: And then the story goes on to say, quote a

523
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 3: saloon keeper of his meaning Parker's acquaintance, captured a monster

524
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 3: alive and kept it for the amusement of his customers.

525
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 3: It was tied in it, that's horrible. It was tied

526
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 3: in a corner. And as the floor was of earth,

527
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 3: as in all houses in those parts, as was the

528
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 3: custom at the time, the reptile burrowed a considerable whole

529
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 3: as a hiding place. One day, mister Parker does not

530
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 3: say that he witnessed the affair. A mouse ventured near

531
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 3: the hole. The monster sent forth a stream of poisoned breath,

532
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 3: and the mouse fell paralyzed. The monster then seized and

533
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 3: devoured it. One cannot wonder that with so favorable an opportunity,

534
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 3: no one had the wit to test the truth of

535
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 3: the popular belief as to the poisonous character of the

536
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 3: monster's breath by submitting to it a variety of small animals.

537
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 2: I cannot believe that these drunken cowboys in this saloon

538
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 2: did not have the wit to conduct a few scientific experiments.

539
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, to just send a gauntlet of small creatures at

540
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 3: this monster for it to breathe its fumes.

541
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 2: Upon, and then publish, then share this knowledge of the world.

542
00:32:51,240 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, come on, don't you care about science? Okay? Some

543
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 3: more so. In a story attributed to a Colonel A. G.

544
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:12,479
Speaker 3: Tassin published by an author named Garman in eighteen ninety

545
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 3: one in the Overland Monthly, they're talking about the breath

546
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 3: of the heel a monster, and Tassin says that the

547
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 3: breath quote in hissing is offensive and issues from a

548
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 3: wide open mouth in puffs of black vapor or smoke.

549
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 2: So now it's black, Yeah, black.

550
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 3: Smoke coming out of the mouth.

551
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 2: Before it was white fog. Now it's black smoke. Now

552
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 2: it's like what movie did we watch for weird House

553
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 2: recently where there's like a black smoke that creeps out

554
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 2: envelops someone.

555
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 3: Oh, I know what you're talking about, but I forget folks.

556
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 3: We just had to do an aside for a minute

557
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 3: here to look up what movie this was, because I

558
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 3: couldn't remember, but Rob you found it. It was in

559
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 3: I Married a Monster from Outer Space. That's right, Yes,

560
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 3: Tom tryan he you know, he pulls the car aside

561
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 3: and he is investigating something I think, maybe something lying

562
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 3: in the road. And then suddenly you see this fog

563
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 3: like creep in from the side of the picture and

564
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 3: it envelops him and then he becomes the root ball face.

565
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:19,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, like creeping black smoke void. And that's what I'm

566
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:21,720
Speaker 2: imagining here. This is a fantastic description.

567
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 3: Yes, so this guy is saying, Colonel Tassin says, Yep

568
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 3: opens up its mouth, puffs of black vapor or smoke

569
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 3: come out. The account attributed to Tassin goes on to say,

570
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 3: quote the Mexicans I have questioned all told me that

571
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 3: it was exceedingly poisonous, as much so as the bite,

572
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 3: if not more. Well, many of the Americans thought it harmless.

573
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 3: Having myself seen a chicken and a small puppy killed

574
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 3: by the hissing of one in their faces, I am

575
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 3: inclined to think that it is best to keep from

576
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 3: coming in contact with it. And then, reflecting on this story,

577
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:00,399
Speaker 3: the authors Bogert and del Campo have an the side

578
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 3: where they say it is to be doubted that Tassin

579
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,359
Speaker 3: ever did I think, meaning come in contact with it,

580
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 3: or that he ever saw a heal a monster.

581
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 2: So there's so much truth in the last portion this

582
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 2: segment here, because you get the idea. It's like, so

583
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 2: much is going to be based again on what is

584
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 2: the sample size for your information? You know, like these

585
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,760
Speaker 2: newer voices are not sure or don't think that it's venomous.

586
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 2: Maybe some deeper source material indicates that they are, and

587
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:34,839
Speaker 2: then most people are just not encountering them, or there's

588
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 2: enough evidence out there that people are going to be like,

589
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to keep my distance, and by

590
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 2: keeping your distance, maybe you also don't drastically enhance that

591
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 2: sample size to fully understand what's going on.

592
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:49,760
Speaker 3: Well I like that. Yeah. In some of these stories,

593
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 3: you have competing accounts that are both wrong. You have like,

594
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:56,800
Speaker 3: on one hand, it seems to be like an argument

595
00:35:56,880 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 3: between one person who thinks that the breath is poisonous fog,

596
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 3: that it spits out black smoke, and then the other

597
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 3: people are like, no, it's not even venomous, and like, no,

598
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 3: the truth is it is venomous but it's just the bite. Yeah,

599
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 3: so yeah, anyway, So I'm not going to read all

600
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 3: of the accounts that they go into in full, just

601
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 3: to summarize a few others that were interesting. There's a

602
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:25,359
Speaker 3: story reported in a homeopathic I think medicine journal that

603
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,359
Speaker 3: a man fell asleep in a sleeping bag at a

604
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:31,879
Speaker 3: camp in the mountains near Tucson, Arizona. He never woke up,

605
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 3: so in the morning, his companions find him dead. There's

606
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 3: a HeLa monster beside him, and they look all over

607
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 3: his body and they never find a bite. So this

608
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,320
Speaker 3: proves that the HeLa monster killed him with its breath.

609
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,399
Speaker 2: This heava monster breathed on him, and that is why

610
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:47,919
Speaker 2: he is dead.

611
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 3: Oh that's right.

612
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:48,919
Speaker 2: Yeah.

613
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 3: Bogert and del Campo obviously do not believe this. There's

614
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 3: a story in which somebody claims that a heela monster

615
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 3: at a zoo in Cincinnati, Ohio killed all of the

616
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 3: snakes that were kept in the same cage as it

617
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,239
Speaker 3: by opening its mouth and breathing poison fog at them.

618
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 2: Okay, if they were in separate cages, that would give

619
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 2: me more room to wonder. But ye, why did it

620
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 2: surely just bit them or something else? Happened, or oh,

621
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 2: the snake's just died in captivity.

622
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 3: There's a common belief, apparently that the breath of the

623
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 3: HeLa monster could wither all of the grass and a

624
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 3: six foot radius around the lizard, or could turn the

625
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 3: grass brown.

626
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 2: Well, there are a lot of six foot radius spaces

627
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 2: in their habitat that have no grass, so that's true.

628
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 2: I guess there's evidence for that.

629
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:38,959
Speaker 3: However, you know, this is not believed by everybody who's

630
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 3: writing about HeLa monsters at this time. So there's skeptical

631
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 3: descent from an author named Garman in eighteen ninety one

632
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 3: who wrote that quote, the breath is no more colored

633
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 3: than that of human beings. Neither is it, nor could

634
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 3: it be any more offensive in its odor than the

635
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 3: incense wafted from the lips of multitudes of the representatives

636
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:05,720
Speaker 3: of proudy humanity. In regard to the breath being venom laden,

637
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 3: that of the specimen before us certainly was not so.

638
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 3: Here again, it would be no very difficult undertaking to

639
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,400
Speaker 3: select an army of men with whom a comparison in

640
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 3: this respect would undoubtedly prove complimentary to the monster.

641
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 2: This date, ha smelled some ripe breath before Y's clear.

642
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,359
Speaker 3: I wonder if he was a dentist. But as he's saying,

643
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 3: not only is the breath not poisonous, it's not even

644
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 3: that foul smelling. Human breath smells worse on average. By

645
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 3: the nineteen forties, herpetologists were regularly publishing rebuttals of this

646
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 3: poisoned breath belief. Lab tests and observation repeatedly showed that

647
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 3: the heel monster does have venom in its bite, but

648
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,879
Speaker 3: it does not spit its venom, and it certainly does

649
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 3: not breathe its venom as a toxic gas. Opinions differed

650
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 3: on exactly how stinky its breath was. Some authors were like, yes,

651
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:03,320
Speaker 3: it is stinky. Helo monster has halatosis, but they generally

652
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 3: attribute this to its diet. Like some authors said, maybe

653
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 3: it has bad breath because it eats rotten eggs. This

654
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 3: is an egg eater. But experiments by Durham in nineteen

655
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 3: fifty one found interestingly that helo monsters tend to reject

656
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 3: rotten eggs. They prefer fresh eggs.

657
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is a nest raider, so it

658
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 2: would it would seems like in some cases you might

659
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,399
Speaker 2: get a nest that has been neglected, but generally you're

660
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 2: dealing with eggs that are either cared for or left

661
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:32,280
Speaker 2: in a position to thrive.

662
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, from their own experience and research working with helas,

663
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 3: Bogert and del Campo say most HeLa monsters, whether captured

664
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:45,880
Speaker 3: in the field or kept in captivity, are not especially

665
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 3: foul smelling, though they do give off a typical characteristic

666
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 3: reptile odor that is not specific to Heloderma. It's just

667
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 3: kind of that. If you've ever smelled that snake tank smell,

668
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 3: you know there is a reptile odor, and there can

669
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 3: also be a pretty foul odor when reptiles are kept

670
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 3: in unsanitary conditions. But if they're kept in clean you know,

671
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 3: cages that are cleaned, they say there's nothing all that

672
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 3: stinky about heal monsters. They say that indeed, if a

673
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 3: HeLa monster becomes agitated or threatened, it can, in these

674
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 3: situations have suddenly a more foul smelling breath. What's up

675
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 3: with that if it's not emitting clouds of venomous fog.

676
00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 3: They give a different explanation. They say regurgitation under stress.

677
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 3: They cite multiple accounts of HeLa monsters under attack or

678
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 3: under threat vomiting up the contents of their stomach sometimes

679
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 3: while they are biting the offending animal. Can you imagine that,

680
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 3: So it's like biting you, it's inflicting again if you

681
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 3: haven't heard the last episode Helo Monster Bites because of

682
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 3: the inc incredibly painful venom, it's usually described as the

683
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 3: most painful experience people have ever had when they've been

684
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 3: bitten by a HeLa. You know, the venom is just excruciating,

685
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 3: and it's like maybe puking on your hand while it's

686
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 3: biting you.

687
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

688
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:18,319
Speaker 3: So yeah, this, so it's vomiting up its stomach contents.

689
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 3: I think this doesn't happen all the time, but can

690
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 3: happen sometimes. This lizard vomit obviously smells bad and the

691
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:27,840
Speaker 3: smell is not venomous, but it smells bad and the

692
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 3: bite is venomous.

693
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:34,320
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, this kind of like stress regurgitation or threat vomiting.

694
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 2: We've talked about this with various other organisms before. Where Like,

695
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 2: there are different ways of interpreting it, and it's kind

696
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 2: to vary from species to species. But yeah, sometimes it's

697
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 2: about create something, produce something foul smelling. You know, we

698
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 2: can imagine if you were threatened on a bus and

699
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 2: you did this, it might give you an advantage. Sometimes

700
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 2: with the flying creatures, like vultures, sometimes it has been

701
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 2: hypothesized that it could be sort of like lightening the

702
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 2: load for flight. You just gorge yourself in a whole

703
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:04,800
Speaker 2: bunch of rotten flesh, but now you need to move quickly.

704
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 2: Maybe you lighten the load. The other is that sometimes

705
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 2: you have an animal that's looking to eat you, it

706
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 2: wants a meal, and you say you essentially bribe them

707
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,359
Speaker 2: and say, I would prefer you not eat me. How

708
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 2: about I give you what I just ate. Maybe this

709
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 2: will interest you consolation prize. Yeah, yeah, but this seems

710
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 2: to at least to me, this suddenly makes a lot

711
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 2: of sense because if we have this threat vomiting occurring

712
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 2: even some of the time with HeLa monsters like that

713
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 2: seems enough to sort of confuse the scenario and encourage

714
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 2: some of these interpretations that we've talked about with foul breath,

715
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 2: but also the supposed spitting of the venom, because they're

716
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 2: not spitting the venom, but they might be spitting up

717
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 2: and then you can sort of combine those two into

718
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 2: one interpretation.

719
00:42:55,480 --> 00:43:08,240
Speaker 3: Possibly. Yeah, are you ready to look into the next

720
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 3: historical misconception.

721
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this was one I had not heard of

722
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 2: until we started putting together ideas for this episode. Yeah.

723
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 3: I came across it because of a blog post that

724
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 3: you sent me, So I'll lay out the story here.

725
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 3: This one took some digging to try to sort out.

726
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 3: But in a few blog posts, including an article you

727
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 3: sent me from the Utah Museum of Natural History and

728
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:36,239
Speaker 3: then also an article cited by that article, I came

729
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 3: across references to an alleged historical practice of pioneer members

730
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 3: of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints

731
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 3: aka the Mormons, claiming that they used helo monster bodies

732
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 3: to brew sacred potions or oils which were used for

733
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 3: religious purposes. Now I'm gonna go ahead and give you

734
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 3: my conclusion that I think this is almost certainly not

735
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 3: historically true. But I at least wanted to run this

736
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 3: lead down and figure out, like, where's this coming from,

737
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 3: what's the deal? So here's the best I could piece together.

738
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 3: The story originally appeared in a newspaper called the Poche

739
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 3: Daily Record or the Poche Record. Pyosh is a town

740
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 3: in eastern Nevada. The version that other sources usually cite

741
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:36,359
Speaker 3: is a reprint in the Tombstone Epitaph out of Tombstone, Arizona,

742
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 3: in June eighteen eighty one. So I went hunting in

743
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 3: newspaper archives because mostly this is just presented as an excerpt,

744
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 3: and I was like, I've got to be able to

745
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 3: find the full text of this article and figure out

746
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 3: what if I can get any context, Like, what's it

747
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 3: talking about. So I went hunting in newspaper archives and

748
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 3: had trouble finding either of these two articles that are cited,

749
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 3: but I eventually turned up a different reprint, one appearing

750
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,759
Speaker 3: in the Laredo Times on August third, eighteen eighty one,

751
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:12,320
Speaker 3: under the title novel use of HeLa Monsters. Are you

752
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 3: ready for this?

753
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 2: Rob Let's have it.

754
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,800
Speaker 3: The story reads in full on Sunday afternoon, a couple

755
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 3: of men who were walking through the meadow at Panaka,

756
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 3: this is another town in eastern Nevada, had their attention

757
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 3: attracted by the antics of a couple of HeLa monsters,

758
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 3: as they are called in this section, amusing themselves playing

759
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 3: in the sun. Now they're about to do some science facts.

760
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 3: These HeLa monsters are an amphibious reptile similar in form

761
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:46,400
Speaker 3: and action to an alligator, but different in color and

762
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 3: weigh from seven to nine pounds. They are not very

763
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 3: numerous in the vicinity of Panaka, owing to the fact

764
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 3: that the Mormons kill them for the purpose of obtaining

765
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 3: oil from their fatty flash.

766
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:06,280
Speaker 2: I mean a lot to unpack there to state the obvious.

767
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:09,919
Speaker 2: They are not amphibious, and they are not like alligators.

768
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 3: Not really, no, I mean except I mean they got

769
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 3: four feet and the tail.

770
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 2: Very broad and sense you could compare it to an alligator,

771
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 2: I guess.

772
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 3: But they have a head with teeth and two eyes,

773
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 3: you know.

774
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:22,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

775
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 3: So the story goes on to say, immediately after these

776
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 3: curious reptiles are killed, they are sent down to Saint George, Utah.

777
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 3: And I looked this up. I didn't know this already,

778
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 3: but Saint George was the location of a major LDS

779
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 3: temple at this time. It was the first one constructed

780
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 3: in Utah, dedicated in eighteen seventy seven. So the story says, yeah,

781
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 3: after the Mormons kill these lizards, they take them down

782
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 3: to Saint George, Utah, and their bodies quote are deposited

783
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,800
Speaker 3: in the basement of the temple or house of worship,

784
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 3: where a huge boiler stands ready to receive them. Here,

785
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 3: they are kept boiling for two or three days, the

786
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:08,320
Speaker 3: oil in the meantime being skimmed with a wooden ladle

787
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 3: resembling a spoon in its construction. This oil is then

788
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 3: placed in earthen jars, which contain three gallons each and

789
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:20,399
Speaker 3: are hermetically sealed. When this is accomplished, the jars are

790
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 3: removed to the baptismal hall when it is ready for

791
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 3: baptizing and anointing Latter Day Saints.

792
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:31,319
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a lot. That's a lot to take in.

793
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 3: Do you have the same feeling that I do when

794
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 3: I'm reading this? It just has the word to word

795
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 3: prose feel of somebody making something up, Like the part

796
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:46,800
Speaker 3: about how the wooden ladle. They use a wooden ladle

797
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 3: resembling a spoon in its construction. It just kind of

798
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 3: feels like I need some kind of physical detail here

799
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 3: about how they skim the oil off of the vat.

800
00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, it's like we know what the

801
00:47:58,480 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 2: ladele looks like.

802
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 3: So, based on my own additional research, I do not

803
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 3: think this story is true. The Latter Day Saints do

804
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 3: have rituals that involve anointing with oil. From everything I

805
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 3: was reading, this is usually olive oil. It might be

806
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 3: olive oil prepared in a special way. I could not

807
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 3: find any sources by Mormons themselves talking about doing this

808
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 3: with HeLa monsters, and I couldn't find anything else, even

809
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:32,720
Speaker 3: by non Mormons, documenting this, except for one more article

810
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 3: in Western newspapers from around the same time, which I

811
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 3: think might be a variation or expansion on the same

812
00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 3: article I just read. I'll come back to that in

813
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 3: a minute. So you've got the lack of corroborating evidence.

814
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 3: On one hand, I would also place this in the

815
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 3: historical context of how in the eighteen eighties it seems

816
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 3: to me that it was common for Western US newspapers

817
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 3: run by non Mormons to print stuff that was just

818
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 3: designed to make Mormons look bad and to stir up

819
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:08,880
Speaker 3: fear and hatred against them. So you get sensational stories

820
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 3: about polygamy and secret rituals taking place in the basement,

821
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:15,919
Speaker 3: often with sexual implications. I think, to make it more

822
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 3: sensational and get people read in the papers. And so

823
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 3: these anti Mormon rhetorical practices could include like taking a

824
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 3: story that is basically true and then dwelling on or

825
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 3: exaggerating it if it's something that would make people think

826
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:36,400
Speaker 3: badly about Mormons generally, or it could include wholesale fabrication.

827
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 3: And though I can't be one hundred percent sure, I

828
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 3: suspect this story is more like the latter it's some

829
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 3: kind of case of fabrication of a calumny against Mormons.

830
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 3: And of course this same kind of propaganda is still

831
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 3: very common today, used to stir up fear and hatred

832
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 3: against minority groups of various types. You can think about

833
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 3: fabricated stories about immigrants and refugees eating people's pets, a

834
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,080
Speaker 3: similar kind of principle at work. You're just trying to

835
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 3: animate people, stirring them up against against a minority group

836
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 3: of some kind.

837
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, focus on the things that are legitimately different

838
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:17,360
Speaker 2: in beliefs, practices, and lifestyles, and then further drive the

839
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:21,320
Speaker 2: wedge by adding in exaggerations and just purely fabricated information

840
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 2: as well.

841
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, in the case of this particular story, my

842
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 3: best guess is that it is a concoction and the

843
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:32,760
Speaker 3: main ingredients are true knowledge that the Latter day Saints

844
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:35,799
Speaker 3: practice some form of anointing with oil they do that

845
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:41,799
Speaker 3: belief that HeLa monsters are disgusting, fetid, vile creatures as

846
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 3: they were often described at the time, and then just

847
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 3: kind of putting these things together and being like, yeah,

848
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 3: Mormons probably would use like rotten lizard oil in their

849
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:51,840
Speaker 3: in their blasphemies.

850
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:54,760
Speaker 2: And also tying sort of like people to place here right.

851
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah. So adding to my reasons for belief

852
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 3: that this is fabricated, there is another more detailed version

853
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 3: of the story that appears to be like the same article,

854
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:09,760
Speaker 3: or at least an article from around the same time,

855
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 3: making similar claims, which I have found floating around in quotation.

856
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 3: I haven't found the full text of this one, but

857
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:20,880
Speaker 3: this comes from a post on a website called history

858
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 3: Net by an author named Richard Lapidas from twenty eleven,

859
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,759
Speaker 3: and the post is titled the HeLa Monster had a

860
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 3: Killer Reputation. Lapidas says he is quoting a reprint of

861
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:35,320
Speaker 3: the same story I just read from the Posh Daily Record.

862
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 3: The reprint he's he says he's quoting, appears in the

863
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 3: Tombstone Epitaph June sixteenth, eighteen eighty one, but while it

864
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 3: is on the same subject, it has totally different language

865
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 3: and some different claims. So this excerpt reads, quote, Mormons,

866
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 3: stricken with remorse, congregate from different parts of the Utah

867
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:58,759
Speaker 3: territory to this Saint George Temple during the conference, then

868
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 3: may be seen the which is religiously preserved cast on

869
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:06,879
Speaker 3: the water by the officiating bishop, while poor deluded men

870
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 3: and women avail themselves of its efficiency, as they imagine,

871
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:14,640
Speaker 3: by entering this tank and bathing in it, thus believing

872
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 3: by so doing that they are entitled to a corner

873
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 3: in heaven.

874
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 2: So yeah, so this is just this reads like, you know,

875
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 2: like made up accounts of Satanic rituals.

876
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 3: Yes, so yeah, yeah. The in this version, it's more

877
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 3: obvious based on the language that the author is trying

878
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:38,320
Speaker 3: to just insult Latter day Saints, saying they engage in nasty, stupid,

879
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 3: religiously illegitimate practices. So the authorial intent does not one

880
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 3: hundred percent prove that the claim about boiling Helo monsters

881
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 3: is untrue, but I think it even further reduces the

882
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 3: credibility of these couple of newspaper stories, which again are

883
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 3: the only sources that I could find. So my best

884
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:01,279
Speaker 3: guess is that nobody ever did this. But assuming that

885
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 3: I'm right about that, I think this does still say

886
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 3: something interesting about historically how helo monsters were thought of.

887
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:10,800
Speaker 3: That if you're trying to make up like a weird

888
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 3: slander against a group of people, you'd be like, oh, yeah,

889
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 3: they they boil these disgusting, vile lizards and they use

890
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 3: their oil in rituals that they do in their temples.

891
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 3: But I was also like actually trying to think about

892
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 3: what if this were true, how many lizards would you

893
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 3: have to boil to get like to fill up all

894
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:35,560
Speaker 3: these these gallony free gallon earthenware jugs with just lizard oil?

895
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 3: How much oil is in a single lizard. I have

896
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 3: not done the meat math on it, but I'm a

897
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 3: little skeptical, like how many hel monsters are there and

898
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 3: would it really would the population support that kind of harvesting?

899
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:50,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have it. Yeah. And then also like the

900
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:52,360
Speaker 2: whole bit about oh, you don't see many helo monsters

901
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:55,239
Speaker 2: around these parts because they've been harvested for oil. I

902
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 2: mean like that's one of those things where it's like,

903
00:53:57,280 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 2: look around you, do you see any helo monsters? Well?

904
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,320
Speaker 2: Probably not, because, as we mentioned, they spend the vast

905
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 2: majority of their lives and their burrows and you're not

906
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 2: going to see them around. So it's like they, you know,

907
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,560
Speaker 2: just through the normal course of their of their lives,

908
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 2: they can support nonsense like this because they're not out

909
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 2: and about.

910
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:19,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Until you said that,

911
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 3: I didn't actually connect it back to the claim in

912
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:24,800
Speaker 3: the article that the heel monsters are not very numerous

913
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:29,359
Speaker 3: in the vicinity of Panaka. But it doesn't actually say

914
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:31,880
Speaker 3: that there's been like a reduction in their numbers. It

915
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:34,279
Speaker 3: just says not very numerous. I mean, that's got to

916
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 3: be because the Mormons are killing them all.

917
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:38,239
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also not knowing off the top of my head,

918
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:40,840
Speaker 2: what the you know, the environment of the Panaka and

919
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 2: the surrounding region happens to be. Yeah, I mean it

920
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 2: could in theory be an area where they're just they

921
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 2: just don't live there anyway. I don't know, due to

922
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:51,399
Speaker 2: differences in elevation, humidity, and so forth. Yeah, it could

923
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:52,880
Speaker 2: be out getting arranged for all I know.

924
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 3: Like, it doesn't say like they used to be numerous

925
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 3: and they're not anymore. It's just like they're not very numerous.

926
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:00,080
Speaker 3: We all know what that means.

927
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:04,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I think we can we can safely

928
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:06,240
Speaker 2: then file this one away as false.

929
00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 3: Right, I am pretty sure this never happened, But I

930
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 3: would be interested to get actual evidence to the contrary,

931
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:14,839
Speaker 3: Like if there are Mormon sources talking about doing this,

932
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:17,400
Speaker 3: I'd want to know, like what, what's the logic behind it?

933
00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:20,840
Speaker 3: What are they thinking? Yeah, that would be interesting, but

934
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 3: I am I have extreme doubts about yeah.

935
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, because animal based products do factor into various religious

936
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:33,239
Speaker 2: traditions around the world. So like if if this was

937
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:37,360
Speaker 2: like setting aside, like you know, the anti LDS slander

938
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 2: involved here, if this were the case, it wouldn't actually

939
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 2: be that weird compared to anything else that's done in

940
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 2: any other religion, Like it's just lizard oil they're talking

941
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:51,719
Speaker 2: about here. So but again, does not seem to be

942
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 2: the case. But this will This will be an interesting

943
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:56,880
Speaker 2: place to cut off this episode because in our next episode,

944
00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:58,720
Speaker 2: we're gonna be one more episode about the Heala monster.

945
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:02,239
Speaker 2: We are going to it into the very real role

946
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:07,439
Speaker 2: that helo monsters have played in modern pharmacology. So we're

947
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 2: going to be talking about helo monsters and medicine and

948
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 2: if there are any indigenous medical medicinal practices that involve

949
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:19,719
Speaker 2: the Helo Monster, we will likely mention them in that episode.

950
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 2: All right, well, we're going to go ahead and close

951
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:24,359
Speaker 2: out this episode, but again, we'd love to hear from

952
00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 2: everyone out there. You know, we haven't finished the series

953
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,360
Speaker 2: on the Helo Monster yet, but if you have anything

954
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:34,200
Speaker 2: you want to share about the Helo Monster experiences you've

955
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:38,360
Speaker 2: had with Helo Monster sightings that you've had out in

956
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:41,360
Speaker 2: the natural world or even at zoos and so forth

957
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:44,000
Speaker 2: right in we would love to hear from you. Just

958
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:46,320
Speaker 2: a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily

959
00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 2: a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays

960
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:52,840
Speaker 2: and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays.

961
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 2: We set aside most serious concerns to just talk about

962
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:58,640
Speaker 2: a weird film on Weird House Cinema. We would ask

963
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 2: that wherever you get the podcast, if you have the

964
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:05,440
Speaker 2: ability to do so, rate, review, subscribe if you are

965
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:08,440
Speaker 2: watching on Netflix, which is an option these days for

966
00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 2: the newer episodes, give us a thumbs up, give us

967
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:14,320
Speaker 2: two thumbs up, and also hit that remind Me button

968
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:17,439
Speaker 2: so that you can be reminded of future episodes of

969
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, and we appreciate you listening

970
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:25,120
Speaker 2: or viewing whatever floats your boat, whichever way you prefer

971
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:27,480
Speaker 2: to consume the show. We are grateful that you have

972
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:30,080
Speaker 2: lent us your ears and maybe.

973
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 3: Your eyes huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer,

974
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 3: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch

975
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

976
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:39,800
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

977
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:42,520
Speaker 3: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

978
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com.

979
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

980
00:57:54,880 --> 00:57:57,640
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

981
00:57:57,800 --> 00:58:15,439
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your Fabe Rick shows.