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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: today we thought we would treat you to the beginning

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Speaker 1: of an early nineteen eighties film trailer. Yeah, before we

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Speaker 1: go any further, Uh, take a load of this. For

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Speaker 1: ten centuries it has waited m to be awakened, to

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Speaker 1: be worshiped again, like a god, to fill the skies,

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Speaker 1: to cast its shadow over the earth, to release its fury. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so it's October. You know we're doing stuff related to monsters,

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Speaker 1: horror movies. What on earth was that? Robert? That was

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Speaker 1: a was? It was part of the trailer to Cue

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Speaker 1: the Winged Serpent, released in nineteen eighty two, written and

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Speaker 1: directed by b movie legend Larry Cohen. Oh the guy

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Speaker 1: who made God Told Me To Yeah, also known for

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Speaker 1: It's Alive and the Stuff. This particular film, though, is it's,

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Speaker 1: in my opinion, a real gym because it's it's nine

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Speaker 1: two New York, so it's essentially like late seventies New York. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It it really gets that grimy nous and that doomy nous.

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Speaker 1: I've I've been trying to figure out exactly what it

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Speaker 1: is about, like late seventies New York in movies, where

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Speaker 1: it just there's this grim, fatalistic, doomy kind of cynicism

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Speaker 1: that everybody's got where it's like they know the end

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Speaker 1: of the world is coming soon. Yeah, I mean what

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Speaker 1: part of it is that? I mean, we could do

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Speaker 1: you could do a whole episode, the whole podcast series

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Speaker 1: just on that vibe. I mean, really, the the HBO

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Speaker 1: series The Deuce is kind of attempting to do the

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Speaker 1: same thing, looking particular at particular areas of of the

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Speaker 1: culture during that time. But yeah, I think there's a

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Speaker 1: certain national cynicism, and then there obviously some some major

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Speaker 1: issues going on in New York City at the time. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This trailer adds a little extra issue to that. Heap

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Speaker 1: that being a giant, uh flying serpentine creature that may

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Speaker 1: or may not be an Aztec god that is roosting

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Speaker 1: somewhere in the city and occasionally a soaring down to

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Speaker 1: grab a Sunbathe is off the roofs of New York

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Speaker 1: City skyscrapers and window washers, window washers, cops, anybody who

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Speaker 1: happens to be up there within reach. Now, essentially this

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Speaker 1: creature is a dragon, right, It is a giant, angry

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Speaker 1: looking bird lizard thing. I don't really I don't think

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Speaker 1: it has feathers, does it. No, it's very very smooth,

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Speaker 1: very reptilian. It looks kind of like a winged saua

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Speaker 1: pod with enormous eyes. It's a very strange design. But

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Speaker 1: it's stopped motions, so every moment you spend with it

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Speaker 1: in the film is magic. So this movie is you know,

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Speaker 1: it's got that that grimy, nasty, sleazy B movie quality,

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Speaker 1: that late seventies Larry Cohen kind of thing. But it's

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Speaker 1: also kind of good. It's like, it's got a funny script.

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Speaker 1: There's like a great scene where the cops are about

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Speaker 1: to storm the nest of the of the dragon creature

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Speaker 1: and one of them is just drinking a Budweiser. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it has an ingenious plot because well, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: maybe not ingenious, but it has a clever plot that

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Speaker 1: I really like for a monster movie. Uh, which, just

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Speaker 1: to run through the cast real quick, You've got Candy Clark,

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Speaker 1: you have David Carradine, you have Richard Rowntree, David Carradine

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Speaker 1: Beta Carotene. Why is it every time I say David Carradine,

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Speaker 1: I want to say beta Caroteen. I don't know, he's

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Speaker 1: he's just rich in it, I guess. But most importantly,

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Speaker 1: you have Michael Moriarty, who's just great at playing a

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Speaker 1: down on his luck slee's bag, and he really brings

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Speaker 1: it in this movie. Reviews from the year it came

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Speaker 1: out pretty much agreed with this him and they were like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know about this monster movie, but that Michael

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Speaker 1: Moriarty is fabulous, and he is fabulous in it. He

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Speaker 1: plays essentially, yeah, this New York sleeves bag who I

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Speaker 1: think he's involved in a diamond highst and he flees

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Speaker 1: and he ends up stumbling upon the nest of the

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Speaker 1: of Q the Winged Serpent, because he just happens to

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Speaker 1: climb to the top of the Chrysler building. I don't

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Speaker 1: remember why he does that. He's just like, well, I'm

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Speaker 1: up here now. But he discovers like where the monster

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Speaker 1: that is terrorizing the city is located, where it's egg

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Speaker 1: is located, and so what does he do with this

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Speaker 1: heroic information? He blackmails the city. I was just right,

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Speaker 1: babe me a million dollars and and give me immunity

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Speaker 1: for all my crimes or I won't tell you where

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Speaker 1: the egg is. Yes, and there there's some other elements

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Speaker 1: to the plot that really uh fun as well. That

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Speaker 1: there's one scene, and this is in the trailer where

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Speaker 1: David Decaradine's police officer character's detective character says, this thing

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Speaker 1: has been prayed back into existence. And there's this whole

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Speaker 1: plot with like an az Tec cult and ritual murders. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's a fabulously fun film. Now with the

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Speaker 1: nod to the to the cult and with Q standing

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Speaker 1: in for quetzel Kadal, Uh, it's clear that the beast

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Speaker 1: in this film is a monster ified version of the

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Speaker 1: ancient meso American god ketzel Coadal. And I think it's

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Speaker 1: worth stopping to appreciate that the the original ketsel Coadal,

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Speaker 1: the feathered serpent, is not a monster, but is a

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Speaker 1: holly magnificent god of the heavens. Right, And it's unfair

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Speaker 1: to really do associated with a bunch of blood sacrifice.

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Speaker 1: Though we were discussing this little offline before we came

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Speaker 1: in here. That's often where a lot of people's imagination

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Speaker 1: goes when they are reminded of the Aztec civilization or

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Speaker 1: other meso American or or South American civilizations. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is one thing that I think is is kind of

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Speaker 1: sad and unfair that that ancient meso American religions often

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Speaker 1: get associated with human sacrifice. And it's not unfair because

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Speaker 1: there was no human sacrifice. So there there was, It's

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Speaker 1: pretty clear that that was a feature of some ancient

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Speaker 1: meso American religion. But what's unfair is that it's like

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Speaker 1: meso American religion gets singled out for association with human

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Speaker 1: sacrifice when human sacrifice is just everywhere in the ancient world.

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Speaker 1: There's evidence that the ancient Greeks probably did human sacrifice,

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Speaker 1: the you know, ancient Nordic religions, you know, the Celts

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Speaker 1: and the Scandinavians. I mean, everywhere you look, you'll find

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Speaker 1: evidence of human sacrifice somewhere back in time. So it's

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Speaker 1: not like this was unique to the Mesoamerican religions. So

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Speaker 1: in this episode, we're going to mostly talk about the

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Speaker 1: religious origins of quetzo Quaddle as well as some of

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Speaker 1: the things that it has inspired uh and may have

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Speaker 1: inspired yet we're gonna talk a little bit about serpents

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Speaker 1: that actually sort of fly through the air. We're also

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Speaker 1: going to talk about a particular prehistoric flying creature that

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Speaker 1: has been named in the Quetzo kadals honor. But let's

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Speaker 1: start with the god itself, quetzal Kadal, the plumed serpent.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about this god, Robert. So, in reading a

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Speaker 1: bit about the plume serpent god, a number of things

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Speaker 1: it became really clear. Um. I was one book I

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Speaker 1: picked up was RUDOLPHO Andy as a fictional Lord of

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Speaker 1: the Dawn the legend of Quetzo Kwaddle, which is I

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Speaker 1: say fictional. Basically, what he attempted to do in this

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Speaker 1: book is to provide a narrative, easily read, narrative version

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Speaker 1: of Quetzo Quaddle's story. And I actually saw a really

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Speaker 1: good user review for this where they pointed out, you know,

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Speaker 1: with with Greek myths in particular, it's not just archaeological

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Speaker 1: and anthropo anthropological information that we're exposed to as a kid.

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Speaker 1: We were exposed to the stories themselves. We get to

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Speaker 1: kind of experience the stories as just pure stories. And

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Speaker 1: this particular reviewer was saying, you know, I had trouble

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Speaker 1: finding that with meso American religions, and this book provided that.

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Speaker 1: So in the book itself is is a very good

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Speaker 1: I'll mention a little bit more as we go forward,

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Speaker 1: but there's an introduction in this book from the University

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Speaker 1: of New Mexico's David M. Johnson, and yeah, he does

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Speaker 1: a great job of just just rolling through, like what

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Speaker 1: was quetzo kaddle, what did what did it stand for?

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Speaker 1: And what is our what do we know? What do

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Speaker 1: we not know about it? And he points out that

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Speaker 1: there's a lot that we do not know about the

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Speaker 1: toll Tech Empire. This would be uh, one of the

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Speaker 1: empire's proceeding of the Aztec Empire. He says, he said

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Speaker 1: that we're only we're only talking the Mesoamerican world roughly

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Speaker 1: seven hundred years ago, so we're not going into the

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Speaker 1: the the ancient past really uh. He says that we

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Speaker 1: know more about Athens of two thousand years ago or

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Speaker 1: Hebraic traditions from three thousand years ago. Uh, meso American

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Speaker 1: world against seven h years ago, and there's so much

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Speaker 1: we don't know. And he says this is largely because

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Speaker 1: Spanish friars did what they could to destroy the codices

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Speaker 1: of the Aztecs in the Maya. We have to remember

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Speaker 1: that the most obvious thing here is that this was

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Speaker 1: a world that was invaded by Westerners, by the Spanish,

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Speaker 1: by the Portuguese UH and UH, and that the culture

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Speaker 1: was ravaged for it. On top of this, the hieroglyphic

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Speaker 1: style books of the Aztecs UH were there to apparently

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Speaker 1: aid in the memorization of oral literature. So imagine, perhaps

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Speaker 1: this is my my read on the scenario. Imagine if

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Speaker 1: only the illustrations and the illuminations of Christian stories survived,

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Speaker 1: but the Bible did not, or we had you know,

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Speaker 1: mostly artwork to go by uh in order to figure

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Speaker 1: out what the Greek pantheon consisted of, you know, and

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Speaker 1: what the stories were that were associated with those individuals.

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Speaker 1: I think that that's just a rough example to sort

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Speaker 1: of outline the problems of not having the you know,

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Speaker 1: complete access to the information. But so in general, there's

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Speaker 1: been a great loss of Mesoamerican literature that was in

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Speaker 1: many ways caused by colonialism. Yeah. He pointed out in

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Speaker 1: this that only something like sixteen books survive, three Mayan,

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Speaker 1: six Wahaka books, and that most of what we know

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Speaker 1: about pre conquest culture in Mesoamerica comes from archaeological evidence

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Speaker 1: and postconquest scribes and scholars, but quetzo Quaddle seems to

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Speaker 1: have existed in this pantheon of meso American culture for

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Speaker 1: a while. Is this kind of wind god who creates

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Speaker 1: the earth by lifting up the heavens. And he was

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Speaker 1: probably a very old god emerging from the beliefs of

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Speaker 1: coastal regions associated with shells and wind and sea. The

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Speaker 1: the quet soul part of his name refers to a

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Speaker 1: rare bird with precious green feathers, feathers used in ceremonial dresses,

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Speaker 1: and um At should point out that there you can

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Speaker 1: look up pictures of quets as they are like five

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Speaker 1: different species of quets als and there, and their feathers

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Speaker 1: are quite beautiful. They're found in Mexico in the extreme

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Speaker 1: southern United States. Yeah, I think does the Does the

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Speaker 1: name refer to their long tail feathers? Is that right?

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Speaker 1: I believe so. And these would have been used in

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Speaker 1: uh various religious attire. They are beautiful birds. And now

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Speaker 1: the cowaddle aspect of the name that refers to a

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Speaker 1: snake tied to earth energy fertility in the cyclical nature

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Speaker 1: of life. So in this combo UH, this god, we

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Speaker 1: have a convergence of earthly and spiritual energy. We have

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Speaker 1: a creature of the ground and a creature of the sky,

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Speaker 1: both as one, and he went by other names as well.

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Speaker 1: He was known as Kukulkin in the Yucatan and Guku

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Speaker 1: Mats in Guatemala. In devotion to the feathered serpent spread

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Speaker 1: as far north as New Mexico and south to Columbia, Peru,

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Speaker 1: and Bolivia. And of course outside of this tradition, obviously

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Speaker 1: we have to point to the fact that this is

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Speaker 1: not the only tradition that involves a winged serpent. You

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Speaker 1: encounter feathered serpents and other religions as well, uh and

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Speaker 1: in Europe and Asia. And essentially, as we pointed out

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Speaker 1: with with Q from the movie, it's it's not that

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Speaker 1: different from other ideas of a dragon, a great holy

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Speaker 1: winged creature. Now, I don't want to try to over

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Speaker 1: smooth or overconform the differences between different mythical beasts from

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Speaker 1: around the world, but I am always fascinated by the

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Speaker 1: fact that it seems to me, you know, if if

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Speaker 1: I'm not over you know, over generalizing that so many

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Speaker 1: different cultures have something like a dragon. There's the European dragon,

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Speaker 1: the ancient Near Eastern dragon, the Chinese dragon. And then

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Speaker 1: if we're saying cuetzel Kadal is in many ways kind

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Speaker 1: of like a dragon. Is that? Um? Is that just

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Speaker 1: us seeing patterns and things that are objectively not all

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Speaker 1: that similar or is that really a pattern? And if so,

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Speaker 1: what is it that causes dragon imagery to arise spontaneously

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Speaker 1: in so many different cultures around the world. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean you can also tie in just the serpentine aspect

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Speaker 1: of it. I mean, obviously there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: world servants in mythologies, and there's a lot to be

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Speaker 1: said about our basically, our our encoded response to the

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Speaker 1: side of a snake. Um, if if cats had a

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Speaker 1: god of the sky they worshiped, perhaps it would be

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Speaker 1: a what is it a cucumber with wings in the sky. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And again I yeah, we don't want to over generalize things,

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Speaker 1: but I feel like there are certain creatures of the

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Speaker 1: Earth that humans have a natural heightened response to. And

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Speaker 1: then add you know, several thousand years worth of myth

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Speaker 1: get some curious forms. Well, yeah, I wonder if this

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Speaker 1: goes back to something we talked about, like in our

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Speaker 1: the First Monster episode, where we discussed the idea what

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Speaker 1: types of animal forms would become most embedded in review

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Speaker 1: eared in human consciousness, and you would tend to assume

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Speaker 1: it might be something like an apex predator or some

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Speaker 1: animal representing danger, but then also bringing in qualities that

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Speaker 1: we associate with, like intelligence and human characteristics. But also

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Speaker 1: just a minute ago, I think you mentioned something about

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Speaker 1: the cyclical nature of of the world and of time.

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Speaker 1: I figured that had something to do with with the

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Speaker 1: ancient Mesoamerican theology we're talking about here, right, Yeah, The

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Speaker 1: belief system in ancient Mexico is one in which you

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Speaker 1: had various ages that had preceded our own. Each fallen

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Speaker 1: age was ruled over by an appropriate god. So we

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Speaker 1: at ages of water, ages of fire, each ended by

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Speaker 1: disharmony between the forces that must otherwise exist in balance.

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Speaker 1: And these were not strictly moral dimensions of good versus evil,

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Speaker 1: but forces apparently more akin to Eastern models of yin

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Speaker 1: and yang um. Though there is a timeless struggle at

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Speaker 1: the heart of this, and it is I think very

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Speaker 1: easy to categorize the two players in it into sort

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Speaker 1: of a good versus evil interpretation. But then again that's

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Speaker 1: our Western minds approaching it too right. You might want

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Speaker 1: to put things in the familiar categories and say you've

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Speaker 1: got God and the devil, but it's not quite that

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Speaker 1: case with what Ketzelkadal and tes Catlee PoCA. Yes, tes

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Speaker 1: catlet PoCA, whose name apparently means smoking mirror, referring to

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Speaker 1: the obsidian mirrors used in worship. That's so good, So

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Speaker 1: it's essentially he's essentially the god of the Black mirror Um.

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Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, that black Mirror came up in an episode

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Speaker 1: that Christian and I did on John d the the

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Speaker 1: the English Um really polymath but also sorcerer. He had

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Speaker 1: a mirror that that originated in South America or Mesoamerica.

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Speaker 1: What did he use it for? Well, magic, of course, right,

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Speaker 1: if you're gonna have a an obsidian mirror of of

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Speaker 1: test Catlet PoCA of you're gonna be better be using

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Speaker 1: it from magic. But anyway, these these two beings that

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Speaker 1: they created the world, It's said, by tearing apart a

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Speaker 1: primordial Earth goddess. The world was created from the parts

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Speaker 1: of her body out of remorse from the two gods

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Speaker 1: for the the for her unfortunate death, and they also

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Speaker 1: created man and woman. Um there's an interesting little story

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Speaker 1: where um quetzo Quaddle himself has to has to make

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Speaker 1: a regular pilgrimage into the land of the Dead, into Michlin,

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Speaker 1: and there he has to complete a series of trials

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Speaker 1: for its king and queen so that they'll let him

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Speaker 1: bring the old bones of the dead back up to

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Speaker 1: the surface and then use their ground up substance to

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Speaker 1: create the next generation of humans. Yeah, and uh and

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Speaker 1: and again. In this we see you know, some models

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Speaker 1: here that are present elsewhere in the world, and we're

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Speaker 1: reminded of, you know, the harrowing of Hell or or

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Speaker 1: the descents into the underworld in in the Greek mythology,

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Speaker 1: maybe ice A and o Sirius. Yeah, yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: his story as old as human time anyway. On top

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Speaker 1: of this, um uh Quetzokado is also a culture bringer,

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Speaker 1: so he we associated with architecture, art, and the sacred calendar.

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Speaker 1: Yet another theme we see in religions all throughout the

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Speaker 1: world the the this ancient figure figure from the gods

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Speaker 1: bringing knowledge or customs or culture cultural practices to the humans. Now,

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Speaker 1: according to the Johnson um Quatso Kaddle was a major

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Speaker 1: object of worship from around two hundred to nine hundred

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Speaker 1: sea in the urban center of teoti Wakin, a city

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Speaker 1: of Mesoamerican pyramids and some two hundred thousand residents. So

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Speaker 1: the toll texts would inherit this city and dominate Mexico

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Speaker 1: through the twelfth century, and worship of Katskatdo really took

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Speaker 1: off in the tenth century when we have this case

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Speaker 1: whether the myth really melded with his tree. He became

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Speaker 1: associated with a cultural hero named say A Coddle told

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Speaker 1: Pilsen and so so you get this idea that told Piltson,

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Speaker 1: this historic figure, by some estimates like the the oldest

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Speaker 1: historical figure uh in Mexico. Uh. He becomes merge. We

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Speaker 1: we end up merging Getzok Waddle and to Pilsen into

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Speaker 1: a single entity. He becomes the incarnation of the feathered God.

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Speaker 1: And in doing this, to Piltson becomes a spiritual figure

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Speaker 1: of peace uh. And in doing so he all alienates

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Speaker 1: the more militaristic segments of society that don't want to

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Speaker 1: give up human sacrifice and war, two things that to

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Speaker 1: Piltson is opposed to saying, you know, hey, maybe we

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Speaker 1: don't need to be at constant war with our neighbors.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we don't need to sacrifice human beings. Maybe we

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Speaker 1: can just sacrifice I think it's like butterflies and lizards

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Speaker 1: and whatnot as opposed to to to humans. Uh and uh,

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Speaker 1: And I have to point out and and he's retelling

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Speaker 1: this tale because Rudolpho and I is retelling, really is

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Speaker 1: concerned with this incarnation of cats cooddle. He does a

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Speaker 1: great he has a great way of characterizing this in

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Speaker 1: a very believable way, not a xenophobic, barbarian approach, where

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Speaker 1: you where you'd be like, oh, one guy saying let's

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Speaker 1: not kill everybody, of course, let's do something peaceful instead.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's he's putting in a form that feels

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Speaker 1: very modern in some respects where where the opposing king

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Speaker 1: is saying, look, I mean human sacrifices. What we do.

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Speaker 1: We have to have armies, we have to have firm borders,

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Speaker 1: we need to expand and get more farmland, we have

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Speaker 1: to have war, and uh and uh to Piltson is

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Speaker 1: standing in opposition to that, So it represents chaos right,

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Speaker 1: often peace is represented as chaos. Yeah, so he's a

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Speaker 1: major threat to the establishment. So the story goes that

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Speaker 1: the king conspires with three sorcerers to deal with Piltson,

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Speaker 1: and one this is the militaristic king. Yes, and one

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Speaker 1: of the sorcerers is none other than Ketsok Waddle's arch enemy,

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Speaker 1: uh Tescotli PoCA in human form. So they end up

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Speaker 1: using a black mirror to tempt to pelts and uh

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Speaker 1: they corrupt and in doing so, they corrupt him and

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Speaker 1: make him fully carnal, so he like loses his god nature. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like a gradual thing, Like they show him the

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Speaker 1: mirror and he sees himself and becomes a little vain,

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Speaker 1: and uh, then there's a you know, an additional level.

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Speaker 1: I think it's so very very much like a rule

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Speaker 1: of three type thing. And eventually they bring about his

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Speaker 1: downfall and he's you know, fully carnal. And after that

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Speaker 1: he he he has been defeated. He lays in a

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Speaker 1: stone coffin for four days and then he emerges. He

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Speaker 1: departs on a raft of snakes, and then he emolates

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Speaker 1: himself and the ashes become rainbow colored birds that ascend

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Speaker 1: into the sky, and in doing so ketsok waddle Uh

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Speaker 1: passes away from the earth, but he promises to return, however,

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Speaker 1: to to reincarnate at some point in the future in

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Speaker 1: the year say a Coddle Uh. And this is the

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Speaker 1: the Aztec calendar. Okay, So the result of this though, Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then again we have the situation where the myth

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Speaker 1: and the history are are entangled. But to Pilsen, the

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Speaker 1: individual Uh is brought down and society ends up splittering, splintering,

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Speaker 1: and then the in doing so, the toll Tech dynasty crumbles. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But he remains a messianic figure, driven out in Diosgrace,

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Speaker 1: dying in exile, but prophesies to return. Well, that is

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Speaker 1: a great story. It makes me want to read this

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Speaker 1: book by h. This is this is all from the

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Speaker 1: Rudolpho and I a book. Yes, Like I said that,

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Speaker 1: the introductions fabricst in the book itself is wonderful too.

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Speaker 1: It's short, it's a short read, so I recommend it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've got to check that out. But I guess we

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Speaker 1: need to take a quick break and then when we

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Speaker 1: come back we can explore more about this story. All right,

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Speaker 1: we're back, alright, so we started off by talking about

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Speaker 1: kind of kind of the crude version of the plumed

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Speaker 1: serpent idea as it as it appears in say, slimy

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Speaker 1: b movies from the early eighties. And then we got

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Speaker 1: into the idea of quetzel Coadal is actually this magnificent

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Speaker 1: god from Mesoamerican religion, and Robert you told the story

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Speaker 1: from from this excellent sounding book about quetzel coadls uh

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Speaker 1: coming down to embody this character in in the History

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Speaker 1: of the Empire, and how how all that played out

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Speaker 1: when the hero was betrayed and exiled, and the idea

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Speaker 1: that he might return. So let's pick up from there.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, let's let's jump right in. So one

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Speaker 1: of the issues here is that so far we've been

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Speaker 1: discussing quetzo Coaddle in a pre Columbian since and we

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Speaker 1: say pre Columbian America's were of course talking about before

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Speaker 1: the arrival of Columbus, before the arrival of of the

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Speaker 1: various western colonial powers, the colonial invaders that would subjugate

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Speaker 1: the both continents. And so when this we come to uh,

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Speaker 1: an idea we've discussed on the show before, and that

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Speaker 1: is UH, the idea of an outside context problem. Now,

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Speaker 1: this was a term coined by the late sci Fi

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Speaker 1: author E. N. M. Banks to describe a problem faced

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Speaker 1: by a civilization um that that has no ability to

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Speaker 1: prepare for or scarcely comprehend the problem they're faced with.

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Speaker 1: An o CPS is when they refer to it is

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Speaker 1: often fatal. In most societies or civilizations only ever encounter

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Speaker 1: one of them. The most common example is one civilization

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Speaker 1: suddenly encountering another civilization of far greater technological power, such

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Speaker 1: as humans encountering an alien species that can travel between

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Speaker 1: the stars. But a less extreme version of this, of course,

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Speaker 1: could simply be encountering a civilization has much more advanced

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Speaker 1: weapons of war. Exactly, for example, beings that are encased

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Speaker 1: in iron and traverse the entire oceans and great wooden

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Speaker 1: vessels and capture the power of wind to do so,

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Speaker 1: whose weapons pierced the air like thunder, and whose very

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Speaker 1: very bodies exude a creeping death that cannot be stopped. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And in this we have the conquistadors. We have the

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Speaker 1: armies of her non Cortes, the conquerors of the Spanish

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Speaker 1: Empire that arrived in Mesoamerica. And of course we know

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Speaker 1: that the European colonial invaders brought more than one kind

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Speaker 1: of warfare. It wasn't just the explicit technologies was like steel,

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Speaker 1: armor and swords and guns and stuff. It was also

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Speaker 1: biological warfare. So in the case of the Spanish arriving

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Speaker 1: in meso America, this is obviously a situation where there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of destruction, a lot of cultural descripted destruction.

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Speaker 1: This was a catastrophic event for the peoples of the Americas.

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Speaker 1: So we mentioned the year, say a Coddle earlier, the

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Speaker 1: the year that uh Quetzo ku Waddle was prophesied to return.

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Speaker 1: So that year, that year ends up rolling around once more,

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Speaker 1: and by Western measure, this the year fifteen nineteen. This

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Speaker 1: was the year as well that Cortez arrived. No, so

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Speaker 1: you can understand the confusion, right Uh you look and

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Speaker 1: you say, well, here, surely this is quetzoquad returned to

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Speaker 1: claim his throne, attended to by an unnatural army and

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Speaker 1: arriving on what was described as perhaps floating mountains or

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Speaker 1: even the four mythic temples of quetsok Waddle. Interesting, now,

423
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: I had heard before the idea that when I say

424
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: Cortez and his armies arrived, that that they were perceived

425
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 1: as gods. And I didn't know if that was actually

426
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: historically true or historically likely, or if maybe that was

427
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: like an untrue rumor or Spanish tale. Do you have

428
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,360
Speaker 1: do you have a sense of whether that's actually historically accurate? Well,

429
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: it seems to be. There seems again we don't have

430
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: complete knowledge of everything I went down, but there do

431
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:51,639
Speaker 1: seem to be a few different ways of interpreting this

432
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 1: from what I've seen so far. So you're dealing primarily

433
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 1: with UH, with the the ruler makte Zuma the second

434
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: sometimes referred to monte Zuma and UH. And so he's

435
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: he sees this, he sees what's happening, he sees the

436
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:10,360
Speaker 1: Spanish that have arrived. And you could say that either

437
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:12,439
Speaker 1: oh well, he and his people think there are gods,

438
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: or perhaps just the the the weirdness of this is

439
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: enough to make them hesitate. You don't know how to RESPONCD.

440
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 1: They didn't know how to respond. Yeah, I mean that's

441
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: the problem of an outside context. Problem is that you

442
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: have no context for it, and therefore you don't have

443
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 1: a response. Uh, and readily available at hand. Wisdom is

444
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 1: often prudence holding back and you know, not acting hastily, right, So,

445
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 1: and you also have other factors at work here. We

446
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,360
Speaker 1: mentioned that the disease factor. You also have the fact

447
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: that the invaders are fairly quick to align themselves with

448
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: the enemies of the Aztecs, Like they doesn't take them

449
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: long to figure out like what are the power dynamics

450
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: and how they can exploit the situation. And however it

451
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: ends up exactly playing out. It's clear that, you know,

452
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 1: the Aztec empires is toppled within two years years uh

453
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:05,160
Speaker 1: makta Zuma the second becomes a mere prisoner. But there

454
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: wasn't There's another interpretation of events here that I thought

455
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: was fascinating, and that is that Montezuma the Second uh

456
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: was apparently you know, he's worried by the portents of

457
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 1: doom and in the typical mode of rulers, somewhat paranoid

458
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: about plots against him. And then he meets Cortez and

459
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 1: his Spanish retinue, who were you know, also in awe

460
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 1: of this great city. Uh, and they're also that that

461
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: would be to nok Titlain. Yes, and there and again

462
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 1: they've aligned themselves with with enemies of the Aztec Empire

463
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: and so he ends up presenting Cortes with quote the

464
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: treasure of Quatzokuadle. Okay, so, markte Zuma presents Cortes with

465
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 1: like a a religiously significant piece of raimond a costume,

466
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 1: And as explored briefly in Robert Draper's National Geographic Magazine

467
00:27:55,480 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: article Unbearing the aztec Uh, it's possible too that monte

468
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: Zoom of the second was quote cunningly outfitting Cortez in

469
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: the godly garment of the soon to be sacrificed. So again,

470
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 1: he doesn't really get into this a lot in this article,

471
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: but think back again to the The Rise and Fall

472
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: of Ketso Kwaddle. Ketzoku Waddle is a king prophesies to return,

473
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 1: but also a king whose very story is one of

474
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: sacrifice and death. So perhaps the idea is that montag

475
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,159
Speaker 1: Zuma was maybe not so much a fly trapped in

476
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: the web of symbols and myth, but a spider trying

477
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: one last clever trick to ensnare his enemy within the

478
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: trappings of symbol and myth, to turn the people against

479
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: him by essentially laying a trap of religious belief. Interesting.

480
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find much else on this this

481
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 1: read this theory, but I find that fascinating. It reminds

482
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: me of our our episode on ritual regicide, the idea

483
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: that that even rulers can be trapped within this, uh,

484
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: this myth cycle of death and rebirth. Yeah, I haven't

485
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: thought about that episode much recently, but that was a

486
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: really interesting one. You know, we talked about all the

487
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: traditions of the sacrifice of the king. You often think

488
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: of the king sacrificing like you know, other people captured

489
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: enemies or whatever, but sometimes occupying a position of glory

490
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: also puts a target on you, even a even a

491
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: sacred or religious target. Yeah, so that's that's an interesting read.

492
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: In this scenario, obviously that plan, if that was the plan,

493
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: did not work. So what happens after an outside context problem?

494
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: Will you end up with a struggle for cultural survival? Um?

495
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: I mean that's kind of in a way the best

496
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: case scenario, assuming you're not just completely destroyed decimated by

497
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: the encounter and uh. One of the methods by which

498
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: the old ways may be preserved is within the new.

499
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 1: And we see this tradition of merging the idea of

500
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: Ketzokadal with the apostle St. Thomas from Christian trade editions,

501
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 1: who is said to have traveled far preaching the Gospel.

502
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: And you see this and this is you know, after

503
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: the fact, this is certainly more and say the uh,

504
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, but you see this merging of iconography

505
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: and identity where you have the plumid serpent God essentially

506
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: crossed over with this Christian apostle. And by the seventeenth century,

507
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: writers and priests began to make more of these comparisons,

508
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:22,240
Speaker 1: and the trend ended up dying back down in the

509
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. But but it's but it's it's fascinating to

510
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: look at how these two figures became once more, ketzo

511
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: Quaddle became associated merge with a historic individual. You know,

512
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: I'm tempted to think that, I know, the members of

513
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: the Church Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints believe that

514
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: Jesus himself came and preached in the America's right. Yeah, exactly.

515
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: And so you you do see this trend within the

516
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints of some

517
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: individuals reinterpreting Ketzokuaddle as Jesus Christ. This, oddly enough, though,

518
00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: I have to point out, has no connection to the

519
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: so called Jesus lizard of southern Mexico and Central America.

520
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: Creatures that also bear the name of our previous topic,

521
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: the basilists, right, the basilist lizards that can run on

522
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: top of the water. Apparently I have nothing to do

523
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: with quetzel kattle. Yeah, they're they're real lizards as opposed

524
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: to mythological snake guy. Now, speaking of reptiles, lizards, snakes,

525
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: all all that kind of stuff. One of the other

526
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: avenues we wanted to explore, the idea of the plumed

527
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: serpent in is stepping out of the specific religious context

528
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: of keutzel Coatl himself, also getting away from the weird

529
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: Larry co and monster version and looking at biology. So, Robert,

530
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: do you want to go to a mental place with

531
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: me to close your eyes and imagine. Imagine you're wandering

532
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: through the jungle in Malaysia. In one nearby tree, you

533
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: notice a snake with a speckled body of black, green

534
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: and gold climbing vertically up the trunk of the tree.

535
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: And it uses it's the scales on its underbelly to

536
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: sort of grip the bark and slowly make its way

537
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: up the tree, and eventually it forks off of the

538
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: main trunk to explore a branch, and you wonder, what's

539
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: it doing up there? Is it looking for something? Maybe

540
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: it's looking for a bird's nest to raid or a

541
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: sleeping bat to eat. And it doesn't find anything on

542
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: the branch, but it keeps following the branch farther and

543
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: farther out, and you're like, where's it going. There's not

544
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: that much branch there, right, And then it goes all

545
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: the way to the tip of the branch and there's

546
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: just nothing nowhere left for it to go. Why is

547
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: it doing that? And you might be wondering this when

548
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: suddenly the snake coils its head off the branch and

549
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: kind of a hanging j shape, and then it dives

550
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 1: straight off the branch, straight in your direction. So obviously

551
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 1: you might flinch and take cover right because the snake

552
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: just doves straight at you. But then you realize it's

553
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: not stick. Its path is not following a straight line.

554
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: It's actually not diving straight at you at all, because

555
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 1: immediately after the snake leaves the branch, it stops plunging

556
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: down at a sharp angle and begins to gliding smoothly

557
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: through the air and a kind of horizontal pattern as

558
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 1: its body undulates in an S shape, and then finally

559
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 1: it lands in another tree branch high above your head,

560
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 1: in a different tree. You have just watched a snake fly.

561
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: And these snakes are real. This would I can I

562
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 1: can see, this would be a very alarming thing. Because again,

563
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: if we have an innate fear of snakes and in

564
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:24,959
Speaker 1: all late well, and even if not a fear, at

565
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: least a hyper awareness to them, like realizing that snakes

566
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: can pose a risk to our mortality. And then here's

567
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: one flying through the air like they they should not

568
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: be able to do. They should be creatures of the ground,

569
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: and this one is seemingly a creature of the air. Yeah,

570
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the thing that should not be

571
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: You could not blame someone for reacting with horror and all.

572
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: But one thing I should be clear about immediately is

573
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: that these types of snakes, I believe they are venomous,

574
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: but not especially venomous, so they're not really dangerous to humans.

575
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: I mean, generally we don't want to promote snake fear

576
00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 1: of any kind, but these especially, they're they're not really

577
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: dangerous humans. So there are five species of snake in

578
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: the genus Chrysopelia, native to South and Southeast Asia, including

579
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, India, South China, Vietnam, Cambodia, loose

580
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 1: in other places, generally southern and Southeast Asia. They generally

581
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:20,399
Speaker 1: grow up to about one point two meters or about

582
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 1: four feet long. And Chrysopelia are the flying snakes, or

583
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: perhaps more appropriately the gliding snakes. Because you've got to

584
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: make that important distinction, I would say usually the way

585
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: we use the word flying means to travel horizontally through

586
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 1: the air on your own power. You know, it's self

587
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 1: powered flight in a way that can theoretically continue gaining altitude,

588
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 1: whereas gliding is using existing momentum. The momentum you've already

589
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: got to travel horizontally through the air without losing altitude

590
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: too fast. Airplanes fly, hang, gliders glide, and these snakes glide.

591
00:34:55,920 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: So on average, these snakes can cover a horizontal distance

592
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: of about ten or about thirty three ft from a

593
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: branch at a starting height of about nine meters or

594
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 1: about twenty nine point five feet. Some reports have them

595
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: flying much farther. I read a National Geographic article that

596
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 1: claimed they've been known to glide up to a hundred

597
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,399
Speaker 1: meters horizontally, but I couldn't determine the source of that claim.

598
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 1: It seems kind of nuts, but maybe you know, we

599
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: can take it. So in order to fly like that,

600
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,439
Speaker 1: obviously the snakes they can't flap their wings. They don't

601
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: have wings. So what do they do? How do you

602
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 1: generate the lift to glide like that? And the answer is,

603
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 1: instead of flapping their wings, they turn their whole body

604
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: into a wing. So wings work, and this would be

605
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:42,320
Speaker 1: the simple version, by guiding air flow in such a

606
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 1: way as to generate lift. And generally they do this

607
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:49,319
Speaker 1: by trying to form a relatively flat, horizontal surface under

608
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: which air can flow and push the flying object up

609
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 1: against gravity. So if you're a snake and you want

610
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 1: to turn your snake body into a wing or a

611
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: pseudo wing, one thing you'd probably want to do is

612
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: make yourself as flat and as wide as possible, and

613
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,320
Speaker 1: that's exactly what they do. So in recent years, a

614
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 1: few studies, often associated with a Virginia tech biologist named

615
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 1: Jake Soca, have captured and analyzed high speed video of

616
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:19,240
Speaker 1: the flying snakes, and also made digital and physical models

617
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: based on these analyzes to understand how they glide from

618
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: tree to tree, and what they found is that these

619
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: snakes can literally splay their own ribs out to the

620
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:33,800
Speaker 1: sides and flatten their body into a semiconcave cross section.

621
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: So imagine a snake. You know, you normally imagine the

622
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: skeleton of a snake has got a backbone and then

623
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: kind of a circle of ribs forming almost a cylinder, right,

624
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 1: So imagine that C shape of the ribs. Instead spreading

625
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 1: out like a bird opening its wings, the ribs spread

626
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: out kind of flat, and in doing this, the snake

627
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,959
Speaker 1: can basically double its width. But then it also undulates

628
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 1: in an S shape as it glides with waves traveling

629
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:03,359
Speaker 1: down the length of the body, and this also helps

630
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: keep it aloft. So the whole process begins with a

631
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 1: ballistic dive where the snake reaches off of the off

632
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,360
Speaker 1: of the branch, spreads its ribs and goes flat, gathers

633
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: its body into an S shape, and then it begins

634
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: to wriggle the S shape in large amplitude undulations. And

635
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: this process allows the snake, instead of falling straight toward

636
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 1: the ground, to glide an angle of about fifteen degrees

637
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: to about thirty five degrees until it floats down at

638
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: its target destination. Speaking to the BBC for an article,

639
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: Soka characterized it as sort of like the animal is

640
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: swimming in air. I could see where that just seeing

641
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 1: something like that would open the door from mystical interpretations. Yeah,

642
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: you've gotta wonder if somebody saw that in ancient times,

643
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: how would they not come up with some kind of

644
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: dragon based on it or something. Now, of course, this

645
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:54,959
Speaker 1: is not This is not something that you would find

646
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: in Mesoamerica. So we're not saying that this snake inspired

647
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: the Cutzel Coadal story or anything like that. But you

648
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 1: can see how similar ideas of flying serpents plumed serpents

649
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:09,439
Speaker 1: might be inspired by something like this. Now, of course,

650
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 1: every article about this research also mentions, Robert, can you

651
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 1: guess what it also mentions in the very last paragraph

652
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 1: of every one of these articles, snakes on a plane? No,

653
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 1: what will we use this knowledge of analyzing snake flight

654
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: to do? Oh? Yes, well, that's that's the closing of

655
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 1: any good science article, right, What are the practical applications?

656
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 1: Build robots? Always says, build robots. There's so many of these.

657
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 1: I wish we could just get more science articles that say,

658
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: you know what, it's just great to study snakes, and

659
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 1: they don't have to justify it at the end by

660
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: saying we will use this knowledge one day to build

661
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: weapons snakes that fly into enemy territory in ways you

662
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: can't possibly imagine. Well, But at the same time, I

663
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 1: do understand that, you know you you want to end

664
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: on a really strong aw note with the science article

665
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,320
Speaker 1: and and and off times. That's the future applications, that's

666
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: where you find that gold. But these snakes themselves inspire all.

667
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 1: Look this up. Watch the video as imagine this is

668
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: a snake flying. I mean it's not it's not gaining out,

669
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: but it's gliding tree to tree. It's it's amazing to see.

670
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: This is what's all inspiring. Not to knock people who

671
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 1: make robots. Making robots is great. I didn't mean to

672
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 1: come off overly strong there. I'm all, I'm all for robots,

673
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: but come on, you don't have to justify it by

674
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,800
Speaker 1: making robots. You could just study snakes and that'd be great.

675
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 1: I can get behind that. One more thing, of course,

676
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: to mention is that there are of course also flying lizards. Again,

677
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: if you want to go in the sort of flying

678
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: reptile direction. Again, this would be gliding, not flying. But

679
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: the draco lizards of the Draco genus are also found

680
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia, and they've got rib flaps that fold

681
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: up against the body when not in use, but they

682
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: can be spread out to form a wing and allow

683
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: the lizard to glide between trees. Now, the thing I

684
00:39:57,160 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: was wondering is why would snakes and lizards need to

685
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 1: glie between trees? What's useful about that? And so there

686
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: I think there are a couple of hypotheses. One is

687
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: that once you're already up in a tree and you

688
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 1: want to get in another tree, it might take less

689
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: energy to glide to another tree than to climb down

690
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: and climb back up. That makes sense. But then the

691
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:18,240
Speaker 1: other thing, that maybe the bigger thing, is that crossing

692
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 1: the forest floor exposes you to large predators. The forest

693
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: floor is the danger zone. Once you're up in a tree,

694
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: you're safer. So once you are in the safety of

695
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: a tree, it would be much better if you could

696
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: glide from tree to tree instead of having to go

697
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: back down across the forest floor and maybe get picked

698
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 1: up by a leopard along the way. Now, this might

699
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: not be a factor, but it also seems like if

700
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: something were perhaps following you or stalking you. Um, you know,

701
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:44,319
Speaker 1: this is a great way to escape them. From one

702
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: tree to the other. You can glide and it can't

703
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: if there's a monkey in the tree that wants to

704
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: eat you. You know, you can glide farther than that

705
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: monkey can jump potentially. Yeah, though some of those monkeys

706
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: can jump. Right, all right, we need to take a

707
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,240
Speaker 1: quick break. When when we come back, we will discuss

708
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: the key of the beastly flyers of the ancient past,

709
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: the pterosaurs. Than all right, we're back, Robert, take me

710
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 1: to the pterosaurs. All right, Well, we're talking about one

711
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: particular terras, so we're all familiar with pterosaurs. I think

712
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: at this point these are the the flying creatures of

713
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: the prehistoric world, the flying lizards of the prehistoric world,

714
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 1: not dinosaurs, right, not dinosaurs. You call him dinosaur, your

715
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: six year old will correct you. Um, I have I

716
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 1: have had this happened before, because sometimes that you do

717
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: just sort of like a like a like non scientifically,

718
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: you just refer to everything from the dinosaur age as

719
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: a dinosaur, and uh, yeah, it's inaccurate to call everything

720
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 1: a dinosaur. So the the king or one of the

721
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:53,320
Speaker 1: kings of the of the pterosaurs was undisputably a creature

722
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 1: that is that now bears the name Ketsokadalus, and you'll

723
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 1: never guess what he's named. He's an himed after Ketsoquaddle,

724
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:04,760
Speaker 1: the the the meso American snake god. Robert. You actually

725
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,800
Speaker 1: did a reading from a children's book on the podcast

726
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 1: one time that had a great little, you know, sub

727
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 1: story about Ketzel Coatless and it ended with this this,

728
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:19,800
Speaker 1: I am Ketzel Coatlas. Yes, I forget the author's name offhand,

729
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:21,320
Speaker 1: but if you do a search for I am Ketzo

730
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:26,879
Speaker 1: Coatless or I am I think there's one on Diplodocus

731
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 1: as well, but they're all, like really, they're all really

732
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:33,399
Speaker 1: good children's books about dinosaurs that do not candy coat

733
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: the life and death nature of of a of a

734
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:41,360
Speaker 1: prehistar creature's life. So we're talking about as far as

735
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: Ketzkatless goes. We're talking about the Cretaceous period, and we're

736
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 1: talking about the region that is now known as North America.

737
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:54,280
Speaker 1: First fossils were discovered in Texas in the early nineteen seventies,

738
00:42:54,840 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: and this this creature was apparently just a flying monster.

739
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:04,960
Speaker 1: This thing was incredibly huge. Uh. The estimated wingspan, and

740
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: this is something that's changed over the years, that was

741
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: higher than they kind of kind of scaled back, but

742
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: current data seems to put it estimated at around thirty

743
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 1: three to thirty six ft or ten to eleven meters.

744
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 1: That's roughly the wingspan of a mid sized airplane. For instance, Uh,

745
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,760
Speaker 1: the World War two US fighter P fifty one Mustang

746
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: that had a wingspan of thirty seven ft or eleven

747
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 1: point twenty eight ms. The swept wing span of an

748
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 1: F FOURT Team Tomcat. That's the uh, the fighter plane

749
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:37,759
Speaker 1: from top gun for anybody who can make that connection, Uh,

750
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: that has a swept wingspan of thirty eight feet or

751
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: eleven point fifty five What has swept me? So the

752
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 1: the F fourteen can fly with its wings in a

753
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 1: swept position or in an extended position. I see when

754
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: when it becomes sort of streamlined. Yeah, okay, Yeah. There

755
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: was a great g I Joe toy airplane that was

756
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 1: essentially an F fourteen, uh, and it had wings that

757
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: moved like that. That's my main connection with it. So

758
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: compared to other things that fly and have wings. This

759
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: thing was an absolute beast, absolutely. I mean, even if

760
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: it's on the ground, this was a huge creature. So

761
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: in a bipedal stance, it would have stood roughly three

762
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 1: meters or nine point eight feet tall, and it may

763
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: have scrambled around and like this kind of quadripue quadropedal stance. However,

764
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 1: much like a bat. Have you ever seen it? Um?

765
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: Bats crawled, bats crawl or some of the I think

766
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: there's creepy. Look, it's creepy. Yeah, there's one particular I

767
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: believe there's even one particular species of bad it's primary

768
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:40,719
Speaker 1: primarily ground based. Uh, and it is. It's kind of

769
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: creepy to look at. So this thing might have scrambled

770
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: around like that, But by many estimates, including Ruta and

771
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:50,720
Speaker 1: bent On in Evolution of morpheological Disparity in Terra Sours

772
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: from two thousand eleven, this mighty flying beast would have

773
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: probably stood roughly as tall as a modern day giraffe,

774
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 1: but with just a far larger head. Yeah, kind of

775
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: like giraffe with with like a screwed up lizard like

776
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: pelican head. Yeah, like this great squatting winged beast. Just

777
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 1: imagine that thing looming over you. I feel like this

778
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 1: thing should be right up there with the Tarandosaurus rex.

779
00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:19,319
Speaker 1: You know, people should appreciated them on the same level. Yeah,

780
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I really, it's it's amazing. It is. I mean,

781
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 1: it's it's I mean, certainly all the terosaurs are amazing creatures.

782
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: To look back on this, this evolved mode of flying

783
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: that that again is is a little bit different from

784
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: from birds or bats. It is like we have essentially

785
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 1: three modes of vertebrate flight that evolved, and this is

786
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 1: one of them. And that's talking about powered flight, not correct. Uh,

787
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 1: you know, and thinking about this, you know, like again,

788
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 1: it would have it would have seemed like a god

789
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: if you were able to see it. And uh, I

790
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: can't help but think of Edgar Rice Burrows. Uh pellucidar

791
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: I believe is the pronunciation. Uh, a series of books

792
00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: that's a setting that he did them. I haven't haven't either,

793
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 1: but I was introduced to them just by some of

794
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: the art. Initially, they feature a psychic master race of

795
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 1: flying reptiles called the Mahars, and they pop up. They

796
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: also pop up in the nineteen seventies six movie At

797
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 1: the Earth's Core starring Peter Cushing. Yes, Doug McClure, oh boy,

798
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: and Caroline Monroe. Wow, I've got to see that. How

799
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 1: have I not? Well, I'll tell you. It's actually one

800
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: of the movies in the most recent Mystery Science Theater

801
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 1: three thousands serially season, So that all star cast, that

802
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: all star cast. If you want to see see Peter

803
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: Cushing just totally misused in a film, this is a

804
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 1: great place to find it. Peter Cushing was misused in

805
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: about nine percent of the films he was in, but

806
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: this one especially because you got Doug McClure in there

807
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: to play kind of a goofus, which he did well.

808
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 1: I love Doug McClure. Yeah, he's the classic mid century

809
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: movie lug. Yeah. But then Peter Cushing also kind of

810
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 1: plays a dufus, so it's I think he's a scientist dufus.

811
00:46:57,520 --> 00:46:59,840
Speaker 1: And then you have like two different levels of dufus

812
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: going up against stuff forces they can how should comprehend

813
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 1: How sharp are his cheekbones in it? Does he cut

814
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 1: anything with them? I don't know. They might have been

815
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: dulling a bit by that point, I have to say,

816
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: But but he's still it's still Peter Cushing, So it's

817
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 1: still a lot of fun. But you have these kind

818
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:22,439
Speaker 1: of wretched looking Terra Sar mahar Uh creatures that show

819
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: up in the film. There's also a I think it's

820
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: a Boris file a Jo painting that was done for

821
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:30,879
Speaker 1: one of these book covers that has a of course,

822
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 1: like a scantily clad woman, uh. And there's this terrace

823
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 1: star creature, one of these Mahars creeping up on her

824
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,800
Speaker 1: to snatch her away, because you know, it's Edgar Rice Burrows.

825
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of the plot. And I can't help

826
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,439
Speaker 1: but assume that the Mahars also inspired the Savage Land

827
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,600
Speaker 1: Mutants saw On from the X Men comics. Not saar

828
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: On from Lord of the Rings, but the what is

829
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: essentially like a Terra Saar human ooid that the Mutants

830
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 1: battle in those comic books. Okay, so what else do

831
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: we know out this creature, the quetzal Katlas? All right, Well,

832
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: in a way, it's fitting that the creature is named

833
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 1: for a god with so much mystery around it, because

834
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 1: a lot of mystery remains surrounding this massive, winged prehistoric creature.

835
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 1: And this, of course is part of the course with

836
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:17,400
Speaker 1: fossil remains, paleontologists have to solve the riddle of the

837
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 1: remains as best they can. We have all these you know,

838
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: massive gaps in the in the in the fossil record,

839
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,399
Speaker 1: and that's just part of trying to understand the past

840
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 1: through fossils. We have, I think, based on I think

841
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 1: current data, we have I think only one adult Quetzo

842
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:36,800
Speaker 1: katlas fossil to go off of, and it's only wing fragments.

843
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: The other specimens have been like smaller, like younger um specimens.

844
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: So we we've seen a wide range of estimates than

845
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: regarding the flying or gliding abilities of the Ketzo katlas,

846
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 1: a creature with more of an inland range than many

847
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: of its flying relatives, So we don't know exactly. We

848
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 1: don't know for sure to what extent it flew exactly.

849
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: For instance, Donald M. Henderson went so far in his

850
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: two thousand nine Journal Vertebrate Paleontology article to wonder if

851
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: it could fly at all. He argued that given its

852
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: estimated body mass, this was maybe a flightless creature. Oh yeah,

853
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: it might be like the ostrich of pterosaurs or something. Um. Yeah,

854
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 1: you always have to wonder, because I mean, so there

855
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:28,239
Speaker 1: are limits on the size that an organism could reasonably

856
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: be expected to fly. Right. You know, you might wonder

857
00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: like how come dragons don't exist? What why don't we

858
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: see birds with a hundred foot wingspan? And I think

859
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 1: part of that has to do with like how how

860
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 1: mass scales up with relationship to volume. Right, Like, one

861
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 1: of the reasons you can't get super giant creatures is

862
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 1: that would be cooling problems with like the surface area

863
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: of the giant creature, how much stuff it's got inside

864
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: it um And you would probably encounter similar problems when

865
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: you keep trying to scale up bigger and bigger flying organism.

866
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 1: As the mass keeps going up, it's going to take

867
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 1: more and more power to lift that mass off the ground.

868
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 1: And you know, well you can. You can generate lift

869
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 1: in multiple ways. You can have bigger wings, but eventually,

870
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:16,239
Speaker 1: like you'd run into structural problems like where bones would

871
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:18,360
Speaker 1: not be strong enough to support the wings at a

872
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 1: certain amount of you know, size and weight. Or you

873
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:24,800
Speaker 1: could have more powerful muscles to flap them harder and faster,

874
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:27,360
Speaker 1: but eventually you might run into fuel problems. I mean,

875
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: they're just physics limits on how big a flying organism

876
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:33,320
Speaker 1: can get. And you know, I have to say that

877
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 1: a flightless catsl co outless is terrifying in its own way,

878
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: because here it would be a situation where here's a

879
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 1: creature that is like I don't have to fly anymore

880
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: because I'm enormous, and I will just eat you with

881
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:48,359
Speaker 1: my toothless beak. I would just gobble you up. I mean,

882
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 1: I want this is not based on evidence, is just speculating.

883
00:50:51,520 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could also imagine something like a chicken,

884
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 1: where it's not a flying bird, but it's a bird

885
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 1: that can sort of like use wings to it off

886
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 1: the ground for a short period of time. I mean

887
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 1: you wonder about like maybe it doesn't sustain flight, but

888
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:08,760
Speaker 1: it's sort of like hops up and flies very briefly

889
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,800
Speaker 1: in order to swoop down and pounce something. Right, But

890
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 1: this is not the only argument that you have the

891
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:15,719
Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum, For instance, where a

892
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:21,280
Speaker 1: British paleontologist Mark Witten, working with biomechanics researcher Mike Habib,

893
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 1: modeled the creature in two and argued that he could

894
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: fly up to eighty miles an hour or a hundred

895
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:30,319
Speaker 1: and twenty eight kilometers per hour for seven to ten

896
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 1: days at altitudes of fifteen thousand feet or four point

897
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 1: six kilometers, with a maximum range of between eight thousand

898
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:40,400
Speaker 1: and twelve thousand miles. That's up to nineteen thousand, three

899
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve kilometers. Wow, so that's some range. Yeah,

900
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 1: that is so if you're a flint stone and you

901
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 1: want to ride a dinosaur for like a for a

902
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:52,240
Speaker 1: transoceanic flight, this is the one you want to snag.

903
00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: You know, it's not a dinosaur, sorry, a pterosaur quetzo

904
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: koitles air. But then we also have more balanced to

905
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:03,240
Speaker 1: pro just falling in between these two. For instance, paleobiologist

906
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 1: David Unwin believes that the creatures could certainly fly, but

907
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: we don't really have a lot else to go on. Again,

908
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 1: think to the limited fossils we talked about earlier. He

909
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 1: argues that the distance estimates here might be just premature.

910
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 1: It's also been argued in some of these models that

911
00:52:20,920 --> 00:52:23,040
Speaker 1: the creature, if it could fly, you know, it could

912
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: probably get aloft via a high powered four legged pounce

913
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 1: into the air, which I have to say that is

914
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:33,719
Speaker 1: alone is just amazing to try and envision, imagine this

915
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: massive dump truck of a creature just launching into the air.

916
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 1: And then flapping like crazy and uh, descending a winged

917
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 1: giraffe with a giant pelican head, leaping into the clouds

918
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 1: and then once it's once it's up or or once

919
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 1: it lands again, the question is, well, what does it eat? Well,

920
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: one theory the answer is you, well, yes, if we were,

921
00:52:55,640 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: if we were around, that would that would probably be

922
00:52:57,719 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 1: a possibility. But one theory was that it was a

923
00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:03,359
Speaker 1: scavenger and it used its long beak to like dig

924
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 1: into dino corpses, which would also seem to work given

925
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:10,320
Speaker 1: their inland range. You know, so this is not a

926
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:12,520
Speaker 1: thing that's going out and needing a lot of sea creatures.

927
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 1: But perhaps it's flying over vast distances and encountering dead

928
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:20,719
Speaker 1: dinosaurs and it can go down and feast. Uh. And

929
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: of course flying is an attractive foraging strategy for scavengers, right, Yeah,

930
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:27,480
Speaker 1: you have a tremendous ability to to take in the

931
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 1: surrounding the region. But they also could have skimmed fish

932
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:34,560
Speaker 1: from freshwater lakes and rivers. That's one theory, but it's

933
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:36,919
Speaker 1: also been pointed out that they likely lacked the next

934
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 1: structure and jaw to really carry that out. A more

935
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: likely hypothesis apparently is that they fed much like a

936
00:53:43,239 --> 00:53:48,280
Speaker 1: modern stork, stalking shorelines for large and small prey alike.

937
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: And uh, I have to say that that is a

938
00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:54,760
Speaker 1: terrifying possibility, because if you've ever seen footage of storks

939
00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: engaging in this sort of terrestrial hunting practice, uh, it

940
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,320
Speaker 1: can be it can be pretty horrifying. I accidentally showed

941
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: some footage from a documentary I want to say it

942
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:08,719
Speaker 1: was a Disney's Flamingo documentary, uh, to my son, and

943
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 1: he was younger at the time, and there's a scene

944
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: where the stork just is stalking the shore and gobbling

945
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:18,279
Speaker 1: up live flamingo chicks. Yeah, it's it's absolutely horrifying. After

946
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 1: he saw that, uh, there was some some later point

947
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 1: we'd forgotten about it, and then we tried to show

948
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:26,000
Speaker 1: him a cartoon that has, you know, the typical like

949
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 1: stork and baby motif. It might have been in one

950
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,839
Speaker 1: of the Pixar shorts, and he was instantly not having

951
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: any of it. He's like, I know what storks are about,

952
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: and you're not going to show me this this, uh,

953
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: this short film that involves human babies and storks, because

954
00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 1: I know what's going to happen that baby is gonna

955
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 1: get gobbled. No. I mean we we try to present

956
00:54:45,680 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 1: a level headed view of predation in nature, but sometimes

957
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:52,320
Speaker 1: you just do have a visceral emotional reaction. And I

958
00:54:52,400 --> 00:54:54,440
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're talking about. I haven't seen storks,

959
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 1: but I've seen video of UM. I believe it's in

960
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:02,959
Speaker 1: U some David Attenborough near rated documentary UM that had

961
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:08,840
Speaker 1: not storks but pelicans eating baby birds. Just horrifying. Watch it.

962
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:11,520
Speaker 1: Like the way they don't blink, They just got these

963
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:15,279
Speaker 1: big lower beak areas and they just scoop up the

964
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 1: baby birds in and they're like wings and legs poking

965
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 1: out of their mouth and stuff. Is just horrible, frightful.

966
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:24,959
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry, now I shouldn't apply that moralistic tone

967
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 1: to nature, but like it. It is hard to watch.

968
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 1: But here's the question with the quetzo quatless. Would it

969
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 1: be able to scoop sunbathers up from a New York rooftops.

970
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:35,839
Speaker 1: I would say probably not. I think it would need

971
00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:38,560
Speaker 1: to land in Central Park where it would still have

972
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:41,759
Speaker 1: plenty to eat. It could attack picnickers and like young

973
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:45,920
Speaker 1: people making out on blankets. Um, you know, school groups

974
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:48,759
Speaker 1: that have arrived there to play soccer, whatnot. There's so

975
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:51,240
Speaker 1: much to eat in Central Park. Hey, we've seen pizza

976
00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:55,360
Speaker 1: at now you get pizza ketsel coatlas exactly, just the

977
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:58,200
Speaker 1: junk food. It doesn't need to even deal with live pray.

978
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: All right. Well, as we begin to close thing is

979
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 1: out here, I do want to mention that there there,

980
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 1: Ketzo Quaddle has has survived to a certain extent or

981
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 1: re emerged in culture. It hasn't been like the complete

982
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:14,840
Speaker 1: second Coming that was perhaps prophesized, but he remains a

983
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:18,880
Speaker 1: figure of interest, and sometimes you actually see physical, like

984
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: new physical manifestations of him. There's a really cool Ketzo

985
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:27,040
Speaker 1: Quaddle statue in San Jose, California, for instance. I have

986
00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:29,360
Speaker 1: not seen it in person yet, but I was reading

987
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 1: about it on Atlice Obscura and it points out that

988
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:37,120
Speaker 1: it's downtown, it's very Aztecan style, and it was controversial

989
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:39,680
Speaker 1: back in the nineties as it cost about half a

990
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 1: million dollars. And also some Christian fundamentalists claimed that this

991
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:46,759
Speaker 1: was this was gonna be a place of where you know,

992
00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: people were gonna worship a bloodthirsty god. Oh yeah. They

993
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:52,120
Speaker 1: were saying that they were going to be human sacrifices.

994
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:55,840
Speaker 1: The statue, which, of course, based on everything we've discussed

995
00:56:56,600 --> 00:56:58,719
Speaker 1: regarding this god, that was not going to be the case,

996
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:02,440
Speaker 1: or if it us, it would have been very misinformed

997
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:06,600
Speaker 1: cultist showing up there. Meanwhile, other critics just argued that

998
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:09,319
Speaker 1: it was a religious sculpture on public grounds and then

999
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:12,799
Speaker 1: shouldn't be allowed. But then there's the criticism that they

1000
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:17,320
Speaker 1: say that the sculpture kind of looks like coiled dog poop. Well,

1001
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:20,640
Speaker 1: I guess coiled serpents sometimes do. Yeah. Well, it's pointed

1002
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:23,480
Speaker 1: out on Atlas Obscura, and there is no author attributed

1003
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 1: on this particular article. The positioning here isn't crazy, especially

1004
00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 1: when you look at some of the architectural motifs of

1005
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:34,800
Speaker 1: say the Aztecs of Quetzo, kadal Uh and Uh. It

1006
00:57:34,880 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: also matches up with this description that of the God

1007
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:41,960
Speaker 1: that D. H. Lawrence made in his ninety six novel

1008
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 1: The Plume Serpent, where he describes quote, snakes coiled like excrements,

1009
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 1: snakes feigned and feathered beyond all dreams of dread. I

1010
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:55,320
Speaker 1: have not ventured into that D. H. Lawrence book. Lawrence's novel,

1011
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:58,360
Speaker 1: by the way, concerns the Mexican Revolution and a cult

1012
00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:01,120
Speaker 1: attempting to revive the older legion of Mexico, and he

1013
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 1: apparently wanted to title the book Quetzo Quaddle, but his

1014
00:58:05,160 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: publishers disagreed. I can see why, like nobody's going to

1015
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: be able to pronounce that. Well, it's probably one of

1016
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 1: the reasons. Probably Larry Cohen's film was called Q or

1017
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:18,400
Speaker 1: Q The Wing Serpent, Right. Yeah. One other point of

1018
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 1: possible interest, I haven't wait, wait a minute, do you

1019
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:24,480
Speaker 1: think that Larry Cohen's movie was in any way based

1020
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:28,280
Speaker 1: on the D. H. Lawrence novel. I have not read

1021
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: anything to suggest that it was, um and I would

1022
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:34,120
Speaker 1: say that no, it's probably not, but in it maybe

1023
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: maybe so in a very Larry Cohen kind of way,

1024
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:40,520
Speaker 1: like you picked up on like cultists bringing back an

1025
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 1: old religion. Let's get a giant monster in there, and

1026
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:45,480
Speaker 1: you've got a movie. On another literary note, I'm very

1027
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 1: interested to check out. I haven't read these yet, but

1028
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:51,520
Speaker 1: the author Alliotte de Bodard wrote the Obsidian and Blood Trilogy,

1029
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,120
Speaker 1: a trilogy of books that I've seen described as a

1030
00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:58,479
Speaker 1: like pre Columbian as tech noir. Oh that sounds cool. Yeah,

1031
00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:00,920
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm interested in that out and again I

1032
00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:05,440
Speaker 1: wanna say that an I is book that a reference

1033
00:59:05,440 --> 00:59:07,760
Speaker 1: at the top of the podcast is an excellently read,

1034
00:59:07,880 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 1: is an excellent read and readily available in like you know,

1035
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 1: kindle and physical format however you like to read your books. Awesome.

1036
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 1: I think I'll be checking that one out all right.

1037
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: So there you have it. We've gone from B movie

1038
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:27,480
Speaker 1: monsters to uh meso American gods, two prehistoric creatures, uh

1039
00:59:27,880 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 1: flying snakes. What more could you ask for? Well, you

1040
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:34,600
Speaker 1: could ask for more monster science content, which we will

1041
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:36,240
Speaker 1: be bringing to you for the rest of the month.

1042
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 1: That's right, you can check out all these episodes stuff

1043
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:40,520
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. Dot com that's the mother ship.

1044
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: That's where we find all the podcast episodes. That's where

1045
00:59:43,120 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 1: you'll find links out to our various social media accounts.

1046
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:47,520
Speaker 1: That's where you will find a tab at the top

1047
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:50,040
Speaker 1: of the page that has our store. On a click,

1048
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:52,240
Speaker 1: go to the store, buy some merchandise with our logo.

1049
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: It's a great way to support the show. But if

1050
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:56,480
Speaker 1: you don't want to spend money and you want to

1051
00:59:56,560 --> 00:59:59,120
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1052
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