Speaker 1: M Joining me today is filmmaker horror for Sionado and
Speaker 1: writer for the Something Scary podcast and show, Sabina Graves. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. Welcome to our super
Speaker 1: spooky Nocturnal Spectacular. It's actually a lot cuter than I
Speaker 1: expected it would be as I was researching just it
Speaker 1: turns out a lot of nocturnal animals are cute little babies. Sabina,
Speaker 1: what draws you to the horror genre. Oh, it just
Speaker 1: grew up watching a lot of scary movies and being
Speaker 1: very much into, like, you know, the comic book world
Speaker 1: of things. I actually have a really big affinity for bats,
Speaker 1: which I know, like you know, the most known nocturnal animals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love bats too. We actually had a whole episode
Speaker 1: on bats. I think it was called Batty for Bats,
Speaker 1: and yeah, bats are fantastic. They're one of the most
Speaker 1: diverse group of animals in the world. They're just there's
Speaker 1: so many different species. They have this amazing divergent anatomy
Speaker 1: that I absolutely love. Today, we're actually not talking about
Speaker 1: bats as much, so you're gonna meet some new creatures
Speaker 1: of the night. And first I kind of want to
Speaker 1: talk about what being nocturnal means and why. There are
Speaker 1: different types of activity patterns. So there's actually more than
Speaker 1: just being diurnal and nocturnal, So diurnal being kind of
Speaker 1: what us humans do, so being active during the day
Speaker 1: and inactive at night. Nocturnal being active at night and
Speaker 1: inactive during the day. There are other types of activity patterns.
Speaker 1: So there's crepuscular, which is being most active at twilight.
Speaker 1: Not talking about vampire sexy book, so from dusk to
Speaker 1: sunset and from dawn to sunrise. So some examples are
Speaker 1: actually some species of bats aren't really nocturnal, they're more
Speaker 1: crepuscular because they come out during twilight. There's also rats
Speaker 1: and hamsters and jaguars and deer and many other animals.
Speaker 1: So lots of animals love this kind of twilight uh
Speaker 1: period of time because they get to capitalize on having
Speaker 1: some light but maybe being awake at a time where
Speaker 1: other animals aren't quite awake yet, maybe being able to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the temperature being sort of more moderate,
Speaker 1: like not too cold, not too hot. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's an interesting period of time. I think that we
Speaker 1: don't think of that much in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: we think oh, you're either nocturnal or you're awake during
Speaker 1: the day. But there are actually little niches of times
Speaker 1: that animals sometimes capitalize on. There's also cathemeral, which is
Speaker 1: it sounds like a really kind of mystical word, cathemeral.
Speaker 1: It sounds a little bit like a ghostly catheter, but
Speaker 1: it is actually defined as being sporadic activity throughout a
Speaker 1: twenty four hour period. So some primates are cathemeral. There's
Speaker 1: some guesses about early he's being more cathemeral, like we
Speaker 1: would wake up during the night more, we wouldn't just
Speaker 1: sleep through the entire night. Here's a couple of examples
Speaker 1: of animals that are definitely cathemeral. There's the common brown
Speaker 1: lemur found in Madagascar, and the fossa, which is the
Speaker 1: largest carnivore in Madagascar that looks like a cat. It's
Speaker 1: actually more closely related to mongooses, isn't it. It's really
Speaker 1: interesting looking, isn't it. I love its arms and the
Speaker 1: grip on this image and of the stick in this image.
Speaker 1: It's protective and like brave. It looks like it's that
Speaker 1: stick is its staff and it's mystical creature or like
Speaker 1: from Redwall, remember the Red Wall books. I loved the Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's more familiar. We need before turned into like a
Speaker 1: wizard or something exactly. It's actually gripping onto the tree
Speaker 1: branch because these are tree climbing animals. They're of small
Speaker 1: and sleek and really great at jumping from tree branch
Speaker 1: to tree branch, which allows them to hunt lemurs. So
Speaker 1: what's interesting is they're both cathemeral. It is interesting to
Speaker 1: see how predator prey relations can also affect the animals
Speaker 1: activity schedule. Lions, bobcats, and coyotes could also be described
Speaker 1: as cathemeral. So it's this sporadic activity. You're just you're
Speaker 1: basically you are awake and then you take a nap,
Speaker 1: and then you're awake, and then you take another nap,
Speaker 1: and you're awake and then you take another nap. And
Speaker 1: some humans I assume are like to uh, not me.
Speaker 1: I need to sleep a lot, sleeping big chunks of time.
Speaker 1: But so now let's go back to talking about nocturnal animals.
Speaker 1: So why are some animals nocturnal? And there are a
Speaker 1: few reasons. One of them is to avoid predators. Many
Speaker 1: predators use their vision to hunt, so naturally, if you're
Speaker 1: active at night you avoid these predators. Another reason is
Speaker 1: avoiding the heat. So, especially in deserts and places where
Speaker 1: there's extreme climate, being nocturnal is a great way to
Speaker 1: avoid extreme heat conditions. And there's also sort of the
Speaker 1: counterintuitive thing of when you're a prey animal and you're
Speaker 1: going around at night to avoid predators, Well, if you're
Speaker 1: a predator, then you can capitalize on that, and then
Speaker 1: you become nocturnal, evolve these traits that allow you to
Speaker 1: hunt better at night, and then you inhabit that evolutionary
Speaker 1: niche where you are no longer competing with predators during
Speaker 1: the day. You've developed these special night vision and night
Speaker 1: senses that allow you to hunt at night. So you
Speaker 1: can see there's this complex interaction of animals trying to
Speaker 1: escape predation, but then predators trying to take advantage of
Speaker 1: that niche of animals that are only active during the night,
Speaker 1: and so like they basically just evolve them to kind
Speaker 1: of meet that need exactly exactly. It's kind of an
Speaker 1: arms race where you know, you have you have predator
Speaker 1: and prey sort of constantly trying to outsmart each other,
Speaker 1: and and predators to competing with each other and pray,
Speaker 1: competing with each other for resources. So you see, animals
Speaker 1: will basically go into these these niches where they can
Speaker 1: compete be competitive. So in order to become a nighttime predator,
Speaker 1: or even just to be nocturnal, you need to develop
Speaker 1: some pretty interesting adaptations. And I want to talk about
Speaker 1: one of the most famous and iconic nocturnal animals to
Speaker 1: discuss these the owl. So owls are I think when
Speaker 1: you think of nocturnal, I get a sound effect in
Speaker 1: my head that's like, you know, just like the owl.
Speaker 1: And they are incredible animals that are so I find
Speaker 1: them cute. They look like flying kiddies. But I think
Speaker 1: I think if I was mouse size, these would be
Speaker 1: the most horrific monsters you can imagine because they are
Speaker 1: perfectly designed to hunt you down at night. So owls
Speaker 1: have amazing eyesight, and they have huge eyes for seeing
Speaker 1: in the dark. In fact, their eyes are so big
Speaker 1: and take up so much room they can't actually rotate
Speaker 1: in their sockets. So you know how we can look
Speaker 1: back and forth, we don't have to move our heads.
Speaker 1: Owls can't do this. That's why their heads rotate many
Speaker 1: degrees so that they can get that full visual scope,
Speaker 1: so they can rotate their heads two seventy degrees around
Speaker 1: and ninety degrees up and down so that they can
Speaker 1: get that full visual space without having to move their
Speaker 1: eyes in their sockets because their eyes are actually kind
Speaker 1: of tube shaped, so they could there's no they're like
Speaker 1: held in place by bones. They can't actually move them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I know if when an owl swivels its head,
Speaker 1: that's the only way it can see around it. It's
Speaker 1: so interesting because I play Animal Crossing and I actually
Speaker 1: tend to play it a lot at night, So my
Speaker 1: favorite time to play is during the meteor showers. When
Speaker 1: the owl comes on the island does exactly what you describe.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't like move for eyes, it's like
Speaker 1: head moves and its swivels does a crazy like star
Speaker 1: looking thing whenever polls do start, and she's so cool.
Speaker 1: I love Animal Crossing and Celeste and Blathers that the
Speaker 1: two owl characters identify very strongly with Blathers. But I
Speaker 1: saw this meme recently that was like, oh, when you
Speaker 1: have your firstborn child, you must give it to Blathers.
Speaker 1: He must have the first of everything you give. You
Speaker 1: an Animal Crossing, you hunt for bugs and specimens and
Speaker 1: fish and you give them to Blathers to donate to
Speaker 1: the museum. So uh, and then he'll give you cool
Speaker 1: animal facts. We actually had an episode about animal crossing
Speaker 1: where I went through all the Blathers facts in fact
Speaker 1: checked Blathers and it's actually surprisingly pretty good. There were
Speaker 1: some things that needed some elaboration, but yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: love all of the real life facts you can get
Speaker 1: through animal crossing. So, like we're going to go from
Speaker 1: talking about cute animal crossing to some horrifying facts about owls. So,
Speaker 1: the eyes are so big, they're about three percent of
Speaker 1: the owl's body weight, which is kind of crazy. They
Speaker 1: they just like their heads are basically just this holder
Speaker 1: holding space for these massive eyeballs, and the eyes take
Speaker 1: up so much space that in some species of owls,
Speaker 1: such as the northern saw itt owl, you can see
Speaker 1: their eyes by looking through their ear holes, so they
Speaker 1: do they don't have external ears like humans. They just
Speaker 1: have a hole where sound gets funneled in by their
Speaker 1: face shape and feathers. But like if you pull back
Speaker 1: the feathers and you look into their ear whole, you
Speaker 1: can see this oval shaped membrane at the back of
Speaker 1: their eye and you can actually see the back of
Speaker 1: their eye, so yeah, it's you can get prep stuck
Speaker 1: in their eye from their ear that well, yes, but
Speaker 1: they do have feathers covering it, so unlikely. But yes,
Speaker 1: technically I don't like this demensation of like cutting something
Speaker 1: in your eyes. Yeah, Joel, I know, I know. This
Speaker 1: is uh. I'm trying to convince Joel not to hate birds,
Speaker 1: but this is probably not helping, oh, birds the way
Speaker 1: Blathers is about insects. Probably Joel has a problem with
Speaker 1: birds and this is just making it worse, I imagine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was. But yeah, Owls should not use
Speaker 1: Q tips. Actually people shouldn't. This is a thing. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't put shove Q tips in your ears. You can
Speaker 1: hurt your ear drums, but especially if you're an owl,
Speaker 1: because then you can poke your eye. So their eyes
Speaker 1: also have a really dense collection of photoreceptor rods, So
Speaker 1: our eyeballs have rods and cones. Rods are especially good
Speaker 1: at taking in information in low light conditions, so they
Speaker 1: have a bunch of these. They also have a tepe
Speaker 1: um lucidum, which is reflective tissue found in many animal
Speaker 1: eyes that they use to refract light so they can
Speaker 1: see in the dark, so it's why cat's eyes glow
Speaker 1: like a little demon at night. They have this reflective
Speaker 1: eyeball tissue that helps them second light and use it
Speaker 1: for their vision. Owls also use their sense of touch
Speaker 1: to navigate in the dark, so their eyes are specialized
Speaker 1: for far sits, so seeing far in the distance. They're
Speaker 1: not as good at seeing up close, so they have
Speaker 1: a bunch of bristles on their face just like cat
Speaker 1: whiskers that help them sense things in their immediate surrounding.
Speaker 1: Like something makes the bristles on their face vibrate, they
Speaker 1: since that they know something is close, so then they
Speaker 1: are using touch, which is another great adaptation to be
Speaker 1: able to see in the dark. Sound they are highly
Speaker 1: adapted to be very very good at hearing, highly sensitive
Speaker 1: hearing like I was talking about. They have the just
Speaker 1: basically ear holes covered by feathers. Their heads are shaped
Speaker 1: to divert sound into their ear holes, so it's kind
Speaker 1: of this like disc shape that has this way of
Speaker 1: like acoustically funneling in sound into their ears. They also
Speaker 1: have a symmetry in their ears, so some species of
Speaker 1: owl will have one ear hole higher than the other
Speaker 1: so that they can gauge distance and location more precisely.
Speaker 1: So an example is the barn owl's right earhole is
Speaker 1: lower than the left, so it's closer to the ground.
Speaker 1: And what happens if sound is louder in that earhole,
Speaker 1: they know it's coming from the ground, and so they
Speaker 1: use that to be able to precisely pinpoint like the
Speaker 1: little scuttling of a mouse. It's kind of fascinating and
Speaker 1: scary how good they are at exactly pinpointing where something is.
Speaker 1: They're like the most advanced. Yeah. I had a really weird,
Speaker 1: probably terrible dog parent moment recently where um, my husband
Speaker 1: and I went to go look at the meteor shower
Speaker 1: at Malibu State Creek parking lot and stuff, and some
Speaker 1: of the area was a little open, and we decided
Speaker 1: to walk our dog right outside our car and literally
Speaker 1: a barn owl flew right overhead us, like very closely,
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, I probably should not have
Speaker 1: had my my very small dog out in the middle
Speaker 1: of the where taken for a small animal. So what
Speaker 1: kind of dog have a sheet? Yes, perfectly snack sized. Yes.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I am a terrible parent. Like
Speaker 1: that was an awful call, but is majestic. I saw
Speaker 1: the majestic wings above me. I was like, whoa, it's
Speaker 1: the last and it's a meteor shower. But also I'm
Speaker 1: going to put my dog, and it's here to eat
Speaker 1: your little fun sized dog that's adorable and also scary,
Speaker 1: but cute and scary. So a nocturnal el's brain can
Speaker 1: create a complex map based on sound and use it
Speaker 1: to exactly zero in on its prey. And it has
Speaker 1: these really soft feathers that allows it to fly very quietly,
Speaker 1: almost silently. I don't know, did you hear that outcoming
Speaker 1: from far away or exactly? I was just like, whoa, wings,
Speaker 1: And then I was like, oh, all right, ol dog,
Speaker 1: yeah anymore. Usually, the only time I know that an
Speaker 1: owl is nearby is rustling of leaves in a tree,
Speaker 1: like it's landed completely silently, but then the tree kind
Speaker 1: of rustles and I look up and suddenly an owl
Speaker 1: has appeared. So let's let's summarize the owl. It has
Speaker 1: soft feathers so it can glide noiselessly through the air.
Speaker 1: It has incredible vision with giant I tubes that can
Speaker 1: see really far in the dark. It's got hearing that
Speaker 1: has been designed in order for it to exactly pinpoint
Speaker 1: where a sound is coming from. This all creates the
Speaker 1: perfect nighttime killing machine, and they're adorable. How would you
Speaker 1: turn this owl into a monster? Oh my god? Which
Speaker 1: you need to know? I mean, like, I don't think
Speaker 1: I would need to. It's like it hunts your pets,
Speaker 1: you know. I think that's very terrifying long line right there.
Speaker 1: If it was like a horror villain called the Almand,
Speaker 1: the Almand Alman? Yeah, what what what would it be?
Speaker 1: What would be its m O? And what would be
Speaker 1: sort of it's its whole killing pattern? Oh man? I
Speaker 1: mean like I I would like to do some body
Speaker 1: horror with it as well, you know, because I would
Speaker 1: just imagine someone developing like owl eyesight and abilities and
Speaker 1: like sprouting out feathers. So I definitely feel like Cronenberg
Speaker 1: with it a little bit with the transformation, or to
Speaker 1: like the fly um and have them, you know, go
Speaker 1: out and start like hunting for things to eat. Maybe
Speaker 1: I love that like a cryptid similar to like Mothman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: would it have the owl's freaky long ugly legs When
Speaker 1: you lift the owl's feathers up from its butt and
Speaker 1: you lift it up. It actually has really long, strong
Speaker 1: legs because it can take off from basically a sitting
Speaker 1: position and then suddenly take off because it has these
Speaker 1: very powerful legs. So yeah, it has a nice set
Speaker 1: of gams under all those feathers. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: I really like that idea of Sabina. I want to
Speaker 1: see that. I think that's perfect horror thing of Can
Speaker 1: you imagine a human being who can't move their eyes,
Speaker 1: They can only move their head, so it's and then
Speaker 1: they can turn their head two hundred and seventy degrees
Speaker 1: around so their eyes don't move, but their heads twists
Speaker 1: in your direction. Yeah, I did to make it happen,
Speaker 1: and might I might actually I might actually make that
Speaker 1: happen if you do, let me know. And I want
Speaker 1: to want to listen to a radio drama out a
Speaker 1: spooky owl Owl person owl trivia time. Did you know
Speaker 1: that those ear tufts, the feathery bits that stick off
Speaker 1: of an owl's head aren't ears at all, They're just feathers.
Speaker 1: Their real ear holes are actually behind their eyes. The
Speaker 1: great horned owl has an impressive set of feathery tufts
Speaker 1: that certainly looked like cat ears. But they have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with hearing. Why do they have them? Well,
Speaker 1: the scientific jury is out, although there's some speculation that
Speaker 1: these tufts, called pluma corns, are used in social communication
Speaker 1: by lowering and raising them based on the owl's mood.
Speaker 1: Whatever their purpose, these plumic corns seem to help the
Speaker 1: owls in some way, So I guess Owl's well that ends. Well,
Speaker 1: when we return, we're going to discover some nocturnal animals
Speaker 1: from your deepest dreams or darkest nightmares. You be the judge.
Speaker 1: M Imagine you're taking a stroll during the cool, dark night. Well,
Speaker 1: I have some bad news for you. You're not alone.
Speaker 1: There are burrowing, bulging eyed sex craze critters who are
Speaker 1: barking mad, and a furry, flying nighttime creature the size
Speaker 1: of a koala, and a carnivore with long, bony fingers
Speaker 1: and giant, greedy eyes. Zabina. Now, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about nocturnal animals that I will bet you've never heard of,
Speaker 1: and probably a lot of people have never heard of.
Speaker 1: And they seem like they come right out of a
Speaker 1: fever dream. And I feel like you will appreciate this
Speaker 1: is a creative person who likes to come up with
Speaker 1: horror elements. Unfortunately, I find them all really cute. I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but these were all adorable. But still it's
Speaker 1: I think there's like some creepy cuteness that could be
Speaker 1: kind of mixed in, but it love. I'm very excited. Yes,
Speaker 1: So first I want to talk about things that go
Speaker 1: bumping uglies in the night ding do dude do do?
Speaker 1: So we talked about the owl and all of its
Speaker 1: fantastic adaptations, but one adaptation it doesn't really have is
Speaker 1: a sense of smell and taste. But unlike them, reptiles
Speaker 1: like snakes and lizards use special receptors on their tongue
Speaker 1: to quote taste the air, so it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a sense of smell and taste that they use to
Speaker 1: detect things nearby. And this is used by a little
Speaker 1: sex crazed lizard called the barking geck, which uses it's
Speaker 1: tongue to smell and taste the air to help it
Speaker 1: detect predators at night because it likes to use nighttime
Speaker 1: from everything from hunting to a one night stand mostly
Speaker 1: one night stand. It. Yeah, these are they are little castanova's.
Speaker 1: It looks so small about how big would you say
Speaker 1: they are because I see it's head. Yeah, they're pretty small.
Speaker 1: They're only about two inches or five centimeters long. They
Speaker 1: have little stubby heads. They look a little bit like
Speaker 1: a turtle head, and they have these fat little tails,
Speaker 1: and those fat tails actually is a fat store that
Speaker 1: allows them to store up nutrients for later. And they
Speaker 1: are a tan rust color. Often they have little spots.
Speaker 1: They're very cute, and they have these big eyes with
Speaker 1: pupils that can be little slits, and then they can
Speaker 1: dilate to almost encompass their whole eye. So they live
Speaker 1: in hot deserts in southern Africa. They're actually a whole
Speaker 1: genus of small lizards called the barking geckos, and during
Speaker 1: the day they like to stay in their den and
Speaker 1: cover up the entrance to protect them from predators and
Speaker 1: the heat, and they actually dig down quite a bit
Speaker 1: so that they can get down deep into the cool ground.
Speaker 1: And then at night, especially after rain, they'll come out
Speaker 1: and hunt for insects. But being such an introvert is
Speaker 1: a bit of a problem when it comes to reproduction,
Speaker 1: so males are actually too afraid to leave their dens
Speaker 1: in order to search for females even at night, because again,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of night time predators like owls
Speaker 1: and other specially adapted predators that will come and get you,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a cute, tiny little lizard. So they
Speaker 1: will first of all taste the air, check for predators nearby,
Speaker 1: and then they, the males, will stick their little stubby
Speaker 1: heads out of their den and bark, making these little
Speaker 1: chirping noises to seduce females and convince them to come
Speaker 1: to them to mate and lay her egg. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: is that the universal sound of calling a girl or
Speaker 1: potentially you know, like like, I love it. I just
Speaker 1: love the serious little faces popping out of the ground
Speaker 1: going like hey, hey, hey, hey, are you hey? And
Speaker 1: the female is very choosy and selects only the sexiest
Speaker 1: of cat calls coming from these geckos because she has
Speaker 1: to make this pretty perilous journey over to the din
Speaker 1: scrub for the no no, no, no, no, no out no.
Speaker 1: This is not first night auditions on who America's Got?
Speaker 1: I forgot? What's it called? American? What the singing one?
Speaker 1: God damn it? American Idol? American Idol. This is not
Speaker 1: This is not the first night auditions of American Idol.
Speaker 1: She needs a pro, she needs an Adam Lambert of Geckos.
Speaker 1: So once she selects her romantic partner, she will rush
Speaker 1: over to his den. They'll do the business inside of
Speaker 1: his den, and then she kicks him out, like all right,
Speaker 1: this is my din now. Now mind that she has
Speaker 1: done him the favor of coming over to make babies
Speaker 1: with him. He didn't leave it all. He just like
Speaker 1: stayed in his man cave and was like, hey, you
Speaker 1: won't come over, and she's like, great, okay, now this
Speaker 1: is mine. You get out, and so he will oblige.
Speaker 1: He'll leave and go dig himself a new in. And
Speaker 1: so this is kind of it's actually a pretty equitable
Speaker 1: trade off because the female is taking this risk and
Speaker 1: going all the way over to his den. He doesn't
Speaker 1: have to take that risk. But then he does get
Speaker 1: to pass on his jeans by mating with her. And
Speaker 1: so once he's exited, sure like he has to go
Speaker 1: out and expose himself and build a new din, but
Speaker 1: he's already passed on his genes. So he's won. He's
Speaker 1: won the game of evolution already. And then she also
Speaker 1: kind of gets a little bit of a win there,
Speaker 1: because then she gets this nice new din, she doesn't
Speaker 1: have to exit and take an unnecessary risk. I love
Speaker 1: that though, the rapidness of their relationship where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so let's move in together. Actually I'm moving in and
Speaker 1: you're moving out. So so now let's go from the
Speaker 1: scaly nighttime cuties to one of the fluffiest animals I've
Speaker 1: ever seen in my entire your life. It looks When
Speaker 1: I saw this picture, and I've seen a lot of animals,
Speaker 1: I was like, no, this is a stuffed animal, like
Speaker 1: because like that that sometimes happens. There are these viral
Speaker 1: images of an animal and it's like, wow, look at
Speaker 1: this animal. It turns out it's fake. It's like these
Speaker 1: are fake looked into it, no real real animals. So
Speaker 1: this is the Australian Greater Glider and it is looks
Speaker 1: like a fluffy teddy bear plus a koala plus a
Speaker 1: squirrel with a tail that looks like a giant feather
Speaker 1: boa and it looks like a cuddly made up dream animal,
Speaker 1: like an imaginary friend you'd come up with as a kid,
Speaker 1: or like a stuffed animal for a kid. It does
Speaker 1: not It looks unreal speakers are so chunky. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it has huge ears, just big teddy bear ears. I
Speaker 1: guess it kind of looks like a furby. Yeah, total ears.
Speaker 1: And they are actually a nocturnal marsupial found in Australia,
Speaker 1: and they range from being an ashy brown to grayish
Speaker 1: white with very soft, shaggy fur. I will obviously include
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes, but you have to
Speaker 1: see this. Their face kind of looks like a little
Speaker 1: combination of like a mouse and like a bat face,
Speaker 1: so that kind of the v of like a bat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got a pointed snout, little whiskers. Yeah, it's it's adorable.
Speaker 1: And their tails are unbelievable because their tails they are
Speaker 1: longer than their overall body length and they are extremely fluffy.
Speaker 1: So its head and body grows up to be about
Speaker 1: seventeen inches long, which is about forty three cimeters, but
Speaker 1: its tail grows to be longer than the rest of
Speaker 1: it at about twenty inches which is about fifty centimeters.
Speaker 1: And despite being relatively large animals, they are able to glide.
Speaker 1: They are a gliding marsupial, in the largest gliding marsupial
Speaker 1: in the world, so they use their super long tails
Speaker 1: to help them balance and steer as they glide. And
Speaker 1: they have membranes on the sides of their bodies that
Speaker 1: act as like a built in wingsuit, and it stretches
Speaker 1: from their ankles to their elbows that they can extend
Speaker 1: to glide from tree to tree. And they glide by
Speaker 1: tucking their paws under their chin and holding their elbows
Speaker 1: out as they glide, so it's like the cutest thing
Speaker 1: you can imagine. They do a little chin shells, like
Speaker 1: a cute little head shot where it's like, look at me,
Speaker 1: I'm so cute, and I'm going to glide over to
Speaker 1: this next tree. That's magical, yes, And so they are
Speaker 1: not very scary night. They may kind of freak you
Speaker 1: out if you're out at night and you don't know
Speaker 1: what's happening, because suddenly this big thing just swoops through
Speaker 1: the air and lands and all you can see is
Speaker 1: its glowing eyes. But they're actually herbivores. They like to
Speaker 1: eat eucalyptus leaves. They are totally harmless. I think if
Speaker 1: I actually saw one, I would think I was high
Speaker 1: or having a dream, having a lucid dream of cuteness.
Speaker 1: I mean honestly, like just their pose, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: are there I need to see videos of this, and
Speaker 1: also if they could be like Instagram influencers. But that's
Speaker 1: the thing. Because they're nocturnal, it's actually really hard to
Speaker 1: get good videos of them or get good images of them,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, it's it's they are very shy, even
Speaker 1: though they are very grammable. Yeah, too bad. So the
Speaker 1: next nighttime creature that absolutely looks completely made up, it
Speaker 1: looks like it comes from a dream is the tar siar. So.
Speaker 1: Tarsiars are deadly carnival ris predators with huge eyes and
Speaker 1: long fingers that murder their prey at night by pouncing
Speaker 1: on them. And you're making faces because this is actually,
Speaker 1: despite my description, incredibly cute. Yes, so they are very small.
Speaker 1: They're one of the smallest primates. They're extremely adorable unless
Speaker 1: you are an insect, a spider, a small bird, batter lizard.
Speaker 1: Because they are one of the only completely carnivorous primates
Speaker 1: in the world. They eat exclusively meat, whether it's an
Speaker 1: invertebrate or a small vertebrate. Cute but deadly. They have
Speaker 1: soft brown fur, long fingers and toes, very good at
Speaker 1: giving tickles. They have stubby, little mouse like ears and
Speaker 1: enormous eyes. Their head and body grows to be about
Speaker 1: six inches long, so that's fifteen centimeters, and they have
Speaker 1: this really long, long, thin rat like tail that grows
Speaker 1: up to about ten inches or long, which is kind
Speaker 1: of disconcerting when you see it because the rest of
Speaker 1: its body looks adorable like a cute little little mouse
Speaker 1: monkey thing, but then it's got this long rat tail.
Speaker 1: And they are voracious. They will eat up to ten
Speaker 1: percent of their body weight every day, so their eyes
Speaker 1: are much bigger than their stomach, and actually their eyes
Speaker 1: are bigger than their brain, so their brain is literally
Speaker 1: smaller than their eyeballs, and their eyes are huge, which
Speaker 1: allows them to see in night at very low light conditions.
Speaker 1: And much like the owl, they have trouble actually moving
Speaker 1: their eyes in their heads, and instead of that, they
Speaker 1: just move their heads so they can move their heads
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty degrees around instead of moving their
Speaker 1: eyes in their sock it. And they also have an
Speaker 1: extremely keen sense of hearing. Like as cute as they
Speaker 1: are to us humans, if you're a little invertebrate, these
Speaker 1: are little monkey rat demons that can swivel their heads,
Speaker 1: like Linda Blair, can hear and see you in the dark,
Speaker 1: and they can grab you and pounce, and they have
Speaker 1: these really long fingers to get in little crevices so
Speaker 1: they can just snatch you right up. So yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of horrifying, but to humans, very cute, very cute, but also,
Speaker 1: like you know, I think it is prestworthy looking and
Speaker 1: but I'm also not surprised that they can get very
Speaker 1: hansy and dangerous. They're found in Southeast Asia, typically on islands,
Speaker 1: and they are arboreal, so they live in trees and
Speaker 1: they are small, so they are prey to many predators.
Speaker 1: But they don't. As cute as they look and innocent
Speaker 1: as they look, they do not make themselves easy prey,
Speaker 1: so they typically live in groups with one male and
Speaker 1: multiple females. But when it comes to fending off predators,
Speaker 1: they will join forces like the end of Avengers and
Speaker 1: Game and just gang up on this predator and shrink
Speaker 1: at it and attack it. So unrelated groups of Tarsiers
Speaker 1: will come together and kick predator butt and scream at
Speaker 1: it and attack it. And it's I love that they
Speaker 1: just look so cute and unassuming, but they take no
Speaker 1: bullshit how would you incorporate the tarsier into a horror story? Okay,
Speaker 1: so for the tarsier, you know, I just would like
Speaker 1: this idea of distilling the certain like abilities from these
Speaker 1: nonclernal animals for like a like a scary thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's so freaky that it is so small
Speaker 1: and so cute, but is like vicious and carnivorous. So
Speaker 1: I mean also would be fun to like see what
Speaker 1: would happen if like this animal was you know, blown
Speaker 1: up to be bigger size version of it would eat human.
Speaker 1: I would, oh, absolutely it would. I love that idea
Speaker 1: because that reminds me a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: these b horror movies, like The Killer Shrews I think
Speaker 1: was one of them, Just these movies where the premises
Speaker 1: you take an ordinary sized animal and make it big
Speaker 1: and now it's killing everyone. But absolutely these would be
Speaker 1: horrifying because they could find you in the dark. They
Speaker 1: have super hearing, super site and these very long fingers,
Speaker 1: long skeletal looking fingers, yeah, they and then these really
Speaker 1: long rat like tails. I also imagine sort of a
Speaker 1: like a human version of this with a giant eyes
Speaker 1: head that rotates a hundred eighty degrees and really long fingers. Again,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a crypted sort of thing, like
Speaker 1: you know the tarsier Yeah, a group of people that
Speaker 1: win a trip to this island. Yeah, and this island
Speaker 1: is inhabited by all of these like humanoid uh, nocturnal
Speaker 1: and kind of a sci fi or fantasy book where
Speaker 1: it's like humans being forced to readapt as being nocturnal.
Speaker 1: I feel like we would potentially have these adaptations like
Speaker 1: get huge eyes and long fingers and like maybe sort
Speaker 1: of weirdly placed body hair and whiskers to like be
Speaker 1: able to sense things in the night, and we would
Speaker 1: a lot of clicking sounds to mate midnight cat calls.
Speaker 1: Tarsiers are a strange sort of primate, not only due
Speaker 1: to their looks but their brains. Their brains are so
Speaker 1: structurally different from other primates, including lemurs, monkeys, and of
Speaker 1: course apes. Neuroscientists suggest that these little guys are a
Speaker 1: blast from the past and independently evolved line of primates
Speaker 1: from one of the earliest primate ancestors. It's too bad
Speaker 1: they're not more evolved, but because those long fingers could
Speaker 1: play the hell out of the piano when we return,
Speaker 1: we're going under the sea because the night's better downward,
Speaker 1: its wetter. In the night sea from Cathulu to the Kragan,
Speaker 1: there are many terrifying beasts we imagine coming from the
Speaker 1: depths of the ocean. But what really happens in the
Speaker 1: ocean at night? Is it dark and full of terrors
Speaker 1: or a glowing wonderland. I think one thing that is
Speaker 1: not exploited that much in both in terms of like
Speaker 1: horror movies and when we think about the night and
Speaker 1: nocturnal life is the ocean. We think about nocturnal animals
Speaker 1: as like some kind of cat lurking in the dark
Speaker 1: with the shiny eyes, But thinking about what happens in
Speaker 1: the ocean at night is it's just not as imagined
Speaker 1: as much. And I think part of that is it's
Speaker 1: so hard to study the ocean at night because it's
Speaker 1: so hard to get any light down there. It's very dark.
Speaker 1: I feel like there aren't that many horror movies that
Speaker 1: actually deal with the ocean at night. I know that
Speaker 1: there's Jaws, but they didn't really focus on the nighttime
Speaker 1: aspect of it. What else is there? There are a
Speaker 1: lot of shark movies, There are a lot of like
Speaker 1: I think there are maybe a couple of films that
Speaker 1: do go into like you know, deep oceanic aquatic monster work.
Speaker 1: I mean there's always you know, like the really in
Speaker 1: sort of thing, um any of like the giant shrimp, shrimps,
Speaker 1: Giant shrimps are sure I got giant trump from maybe
Speaker 1: I'm imagining what I like for dinner later, um, but
Speaker 1: giant Spid's um. One of the most recent films that
Speaker 1: did kind of do a little bit of like a
Speaker 1: deep sea creature he sort of monsters was Aquaman, which
Speaker 1: is which was really by James want More in like
Speaker 1: a comic book form. So I don't really think they
Speaker 1: are too like true to the real like horrors of
Speaker 1: the deep, but it did give a really fantastical interpretation
Speaker 1: of the sort of creatures that are, you know, just
Speaker 1: way down that terrifying and prehistoric even Yeah, there's even
Speaker 1: there's a specific scene in Aquaman where they're on a
Speaker 1: boat and just a swarm of just like freaky looking
Speaker 1: deep sea creatures are like all around this ship, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was way more awesome gold Creek. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't find sharks that scary. I love sharks. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's partially why I do love the movie Jaws. Sharks
Speaker 1: don't fill me with fear. Obviously, if I was face
Speaker 1: to face with a shark, I would like poop my pants,
Speaker 1: But just conceptually, sharks don't scare me. But the idea
Speaker 1: of being in the ocean at night, not being able
Speaker 1: to see even if you could breathe, like you're in
Speaker 1: scuba gear or like say, or in a submarine. The
Speaker 1: idea of being surrounded by darkness and maybe sensing something
Speaker 1: like creep across your arm and you can't see anything,
Speaker 1: and then just seeing like glowing spots of bioluminescence. I
Speaker 1: love that. And also like if you watch footage of
Speaker 1: deep sea submarines where they just have this one spotlight
Speaker 1: coming from the submarine and then a deep sea creature
Speaker 1: just slowly creeping into the spotlight. It just like I
Speaker 1: get such chills. I love it. It's it's the kind
Speaker 1: of creepy that I love and I want more of
Speaker 1: where it's just like I get such chills thinking about
Speaker 1: that that's like just a beam of light and then
Speaker 1: this this creature no one has seen before just slowly
Speaker 1: floating into into the light. But stuff, I mean even
Speaker 1: of like the scene in Finding Nemo where they're like
Speaker 1: light Finding Nemo had some wonderful moments of marine biology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the deep sea anglerfish luring them in, it was
Speaker 1: a wonderful scene. I love that. So the ocean at
Speaker 1: night is a fascinating place. I think there's so many
Speaker 1: fascinating things that happen in the ocean at night that
Speaker 1: it's surprising to me that it's not more entrenched in
Speaker 1: popular culture. I watched this documentary series called Night on Earth.
Speaker 1: I think it's by the same people who did Planet
Speaker 1: Earth or Life on Earth, and it's on Netflix right now.
Speaker 1: It's gorgeous. It's an absolute beautiful documentary. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: And I got some of my inspiration for this section
Speaker 1: and some of my information from one of the episodes
Speaker 1: where they go look at the ocean at night. It's
Speaker 1: it's fascinating and it's beautiful. You really, you really have
Speaker 1: to look at it. It's gorgeous. But something happens at
Speaker 1: night in the deep ocean that's absolutely fascinating and it's
Speaker 1: not well known, but it is the biggest mass migration
Speaker 1: in the world and it happens every night. So at night,
Speaker 1: Zooplankton these tiny little creatures rise from the bottom of
Speaker 1: the ocean to feed on algae, and they make this
Speaker 1: huge trip. Now, these are zooplankton, which are teeny teeny
Speaker 1: tiny animals. They are real animals, even though they look
Speaker 1: like flex of nothingness. But they are either small animals
Speaker 1: that will always stay that small, or they're actually larval
Speaker 1: forms of bigger animals that will grow to be big
Speaker 1: and in some cases actually quite big. So all of
Speaker 1: these little creatures rise from the deep sea up closer
Speaker 1: to the surface to feed on algae. So the reason
Speaker 1: all of these little zooplankton make this huge trip in
Speaker 1: such a massive numbers is they like to stay deep
Speaker 1: in the ocean, deep down in the depths during the
Speaker 1: day to avoid predation. They're so small, so delicious that
Speaker 1: they go down where there's not as much population of predators.
Speaker 1: The deep sea does have predators who, again, like we
Speaker 1: talked about on the surface, we have these niche predators
Speaker 1: that have these special evolutionary traits that allow them to
Speaker 1: hunt deep in the sea and deep in the dark,
Speaker 1: like the angler fish that we were talking about from
Speaker 1: finding Nemo. But they stand a better chance down there
Speaker 1: because it's harder to evolve to that niche, and so
Speaker 1: they still need nutrition, and the deep ocean is very
Speaker 1: sparse on nutritions, so they have to migrate up closer
Speaker 1: to the surface of the water where there's algae that
Speaker 1: does not exist deep in the ocean because that algae
Speaker 1: requires sunlight in order to photosynthesize. So they go up
Speaker 1: in order to feed on the algae. And so that
Speaker 1: makes the the open ocean at night during this mass migration,
Speaker 1: the largest nursery in the world for these larval forms
Speaker 1: of fish. And they are I'll include a link to
Speaker 1: a photo gallery of some of these fish. But you
Speaker 1: have to look at like you know, you see like
Speaker 1: baby lion fish and baby cephalopods, octopuses and squids and
Speaker 1: cuttlefish and baby jellyfish, and they're these translucent just like
Speaker 1: they look like fit tiny fish ghosts but perfect. In California,
Speaker 1: we recently had a lot of voluminescence on the coast um.
Speaker 1: I even watch a vlogger on YouTube named the Tim Tracker,
Speaker 1: and in Florida he went over to the Indian River
Speaker 1: to do bioluminescent kayaking in clear kayaks. So that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Do you know when it's the New Moons. It's the
Speaker 1: darkest town and you just see like them just like
Speaker 1: pulse around the boat as you're going through. And it's yes,
Speaker 1: a ripple, yes, well, yeah, we did just have one
Speaker 1: in l A. It was in May, right, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was early in the days. But yeah, it's beautiful. Like
Speaker 1: the waves literally glow with bioluminescence, and that type of bioluminescence.
Speaker 1: Now there's a whole bunch of bioluminescent animals in the ocean,
Speaker 1: but that specifically when it makes the water glow, that's
Speaker 1: caused by bioluminescent dinoflagelets, so tiny, tiny little creatures, and
Speaker 1: they use this bioluminescence to ward off predators. And so
Speaker 1: that's why when you disturb the water, either with your
Speaker 1: hand or a wave or a kayak, they flash at
Speaker 1: you and it's an attempt to scare off or ward
Speaker 1: off predators. But for us humans it's beautiful. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's just so you can literally walk through the water
Speaker 1: and your your footsteps will glow, and you move your
Speaker 1: hand through the water. Every time you move it, they
Speaker 1: will glow off because they're responding to being agitated and
Speaker 1: they'll give off this. Basically they're piste off at you,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter because they're they're beautiful. So, like
Speaker 1: I said, sometimes these zooplankton aren't just permanently tiny like
Speaker 1: dino flagelets are always going to be small, but sometimes
Speaker 1: they are these larval forms of these bigger animals, and
Speaker 1: they can go from being teeny tiny to being one
Speaker 1: of the biggest fish in the world. So, ocean sunfish
Speaker 1: have you ever seen, well, you've played animal crossing, so
Speaker 1: you've seen the ocean sunfish and animal crossing. Right. They
Speaker 1: are one of the heaviest bony fishes, so bony fish
Speaker 1: meaning they have, like you know, baically this bone rigid
Speaker 1: bone skeletal structure, which excludes sharks um. However, actually sunfish
Speaker 1: are interesting because even though they're technically a bony fish,
Speaker 1: their skeletal structure is heavily supported by cartilage, which allows
Speaker 1: it actually to grow so big, and they do grow enormous.
Speaker 1: They weigh over two thousand pounds, which is a thousand kilograms,
Speaker 1: and they can grow up to ten feet tall, which
Speaker 1: is three meters. They are very strange looking. They're like
Speaker 1: these big disks. It looks like you took a giant
Speaker 1: fish and flattened it into a pancake. And despite growing
Speaker 1: to be so large as adults, when their babies a
Speaker 1: little freshly hatched, they are only point zero nine inches long,
Speaker 1: which is two point five millimeters, absolutely tiny, tiny zoop
Speaker 1: LinkedIn And I think it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: it's like, obviously we all, all of us start out
Speaker 1: really tiny when you think about it, you know, we're
Speaker 1: just a sperm in an egg. But to see this
Speaker 1: little gooby fish, this little tiny goober because they because
Speaker 1: they hatch and they swim around at this size and
Speaker 1: they may somehow really by yeah, I mean their eyes
Speaker 1: are big as adults, but just compared to its body.
Speaker 1: But they just look like these little tiny beans with
Speaker 1: eyes and fins, and then they get to be gigantic.
Speaker 1: It's I'm granted a lot of these guys are not
Speaker 1: going to survive. It's a law of large numbers for them,
Speaker 1: but it is incredible. So it's like you see this zooplankton,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, it's just like these little small things,
Speaker 1: you know, but some of them grow up to be giant,
Speaker 1: which is incredible. But the ocean at night is not
Speaker 1: just filled with little cutie's. It is also filled with
Speaker 1: tiny murders. So I want to talk about the spiny
Speaker 1: tiger shrimp, which is one of the tiniest serial killers
Speaker 1: in the world. Uh. Spiny tiger shrimp are beautiful colorful
Speaker 1: shrimp there orange and black. They only grow to be
Speaker 1: about point eight inches or two centimeters big, but two
Speaker 1: small prey. They are frighteningly deadly predators at night. They
Speaker 1: are a very rare species that live mainly in this
Speaker 1: very nutrient rich straight called the Limba Straight, which is
Speaker 1: off the coast of Limba Island in Indonesia. It's this
Speaker 1: area that's just so flush with nutrients due to the
Speaker 1: way the tides kind of like churn up nutrients from
Speaker 1: the ocean into this area. It's got this huge amount
Speaker 1: of biodiversity. These little tiny tiger shrimp are actually like
Speaker 1: little tigers, not just in how they look but their behavior.
Speaker 1: So at night they are incredibly good predators. First of all,
Speaker 1: each of their eyes can move independently and detect distance,
Speaker 1: so they have an incredibly complex visual system in their brains.
Speaker 1: So they can take two images from these eyes that
Speaker 1: can both separately assess distance and make pictures. And then
Speaker 1: all This information goes into their little brains and they
Speaker 1: create a full map around them, which is impressive for
Speaker 1: such a tiny animal. It has scales on its body
Speaker 1: that can detect pressure waves from fish, so if they're
Speaker 1: incredible eyesight doesn't do it. If it's an especially dark
Speaker 1: ocean night, they can find fish and almost total darkness
Speaker 1: like a son So they have these like pressure plates
Speaker 1: on their body, and then as something comes in like
Speaker 1: basically a fish moves around, it changes the water pressure
Speaker 1: and then it hits there's scales they know where that
Speaker 1: fish is and sonar. Meanwhile, you're actually sending out it's
Speaker 1: it's what dolphins and bats use, where you're sending out
Speaker 1: a pulse and it bounces off something and comes back
Speaker 1: to you. This they don't even have to send anything out.
Speaker 1: They just passively wait for vibrations in the water to
Speaker 1: hit these these pressure scales on their body. So they
Speaker 1: can also strike extremely quickly and act as ambush predators
Speaker 1: where they sneak up on a fish and then just
Speaker 1: grab them like their tiger namesake. So they are Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're teeny tiny, deadly tigers that can not only see
Speaker 1: in the dark, but they can literally feel you in
Speaker 1: the dark, and then one last nighttime ocean animal I
Speaker 1: want to talk about is maybe the funniest to me.
Speaker 1: It's extremely funny because they look like angry demon fish.
Speaker 1: And these are called flashlight fish. It is a nocturnal
Speaker 1: family of fish, and they have a pouch of bioluminescent
Speaker 1: bacteria under its eyes that glow, and it looks like,
Speaker 1: you know, like how the Spider Man mask is where
Speaker 1: it has like these glowing like he's got kind of
Speaker 1: glowing angry eyes on his mask. It looks like that
Speaker 1: Spider Man fish. You look like Spider Man. Yes, Spiderman
Speaker 1: into the spider Bird. They look so angry because it's
Speaker 1: basically like it's a half disk under their eyes. But
Speaker 1: you look at it, it it looks like these mad little
Speaker 1: demon glowing fish or even like venom. Yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 1: does look like venom. Yeah. So these glowing spots are
Speaker 1: likely used to either communicate, attract prey or award off
Speaker 1: predators because these aren't huge fish. They're about they're a
Speaker 1: little bit. They're they're like less than the length of
Speaker 1: like a human hand. Um. They look incredibly menacing, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's it's I don't know if it's entirely
Speaker 1: known why they have these glowing spots other than sort
Speaker 1: of the the guesses of it's probably to tract prices,
Speaker 1: probably to communicate. It's probably to ward off predators. My
Speaker 1: guests would be it also implies a much bigger animal
Speaker 1: because they look like huge eyes. You're like, oh man,
Speaker 1: you you must be a big animal. So like in
Speaker 1: the dark, you just see these pair of angry, huge
Speaker 1: eyes coming at you. They tend to travel in groups
Speaker 1: or like solitary lee you know. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think in this image we do see a few of them,
Speaker 1: but that might just be because they're captive ones. I
Speaker 1: don't think they necessarily clustered together like that in the
Speaker 1: wild because just just squad of demon fish. But when
Speaker 1: they're not in the dark, like in there in the
Speaker 1: full light, they actually look pretty doofies. So they are
Speaker 1: no longer look like little demon fish. They just look
Speaker 1: like a doofy little fish with a little bug eys,
Speaker 1: and they look kind of like they've been found out,
Speaker 1: like when you try to spook someone in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night and then you turn on the light
Speaker 1: and it's just like someone with glow sticks going like whoo,
Speaker 1: calding glow sticks under their eyes. So, now that we
Speaker 1: have discovered all of these incredible nocturnal animals, what is
Speaker 1: your idea for your next horror story? I actually really
Speaker 1: do not want to create some sort of owl creature
Speaker 1: that you know, can't like move their eyes, so it
Speaker 1: is just staring and like, you know, can move its
Speaker 1: neck in the crazy amount. I love that spooky creepiness.
Speaker 1: Actually think we are currently working on something that could
Speaker 1: lend itself to that for our animations. So I might
Speaker 1: like circle back to my animator and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: can we make this creature do this really owl thing?
Speaker 1: I love? I love that. I love to be the
Speaker 1: inspiration for horror stories. Yes, so yeah, well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining me today. Speaking of your creations,
Speaker 1: do you have anything to plug? Sure? So, I'm a
Speaker 1: writer for the Something Scary podcasts and show on YouTube,
Speaker 1: which is hosted by Marquia McCarty based on the show
Speaker 1: created by Sapphire sandalo Uh. It is women lead and
Speaker 1: written and it's spooky campfire stories where all we'll do
Speaker 1: like videos and animations inspired by its things like cryptids
Speaker 1: or just strange things that are happening on the internet.
Speaker 1: Of like scary news and stuff um. And we have
Speaker 1: you know, the weekly video that drops every Tuesday as
Speaker 1: well as a podcast with which has additional stories that
Speaker 1: are fans submitted, and we kind of just celebrate all
Speaker 1: things scary. Um. And it's a it's a good time.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That is right down my alley. And there's
Speaker 1: like for me in general, I love like all kinds
Speaker 1: of spooky things and animals, and you know, like there's
Speaker 1: always this misconception of like, oh, spooky animals there, you know,
Speaker 1: like scary or bad or whatever or like related to
Speaker 1: like the double but that's not always true, you know,
Speaker 1: I really sometimes they are related to the devil fire bat,
Speaker 1: you know how the other bats bad? No, fine Empire
Speaker 1: bats are great. They don't kill nobody. They're just they're
Speaker 1: just like a little blood. And there's only one species
Speaker 1: of vampire bat that's ever been known to feast on
Speaker 1: human blood, only one, and there's so many other ones.
Speaker 1: I did have a question though, about the giant bat
Speaker 1: that has shown up on viral like videos and pictures,
Speaker 1: the the Indian flying fox. I think or like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's in the Philippines or Indonesia where
Speaker 1: there's like a bat that's like four ft tall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a flying fox. They are frugivores, so they will
Speaker 1: eat fruit. Totally harmless. Bats are a vector of some diseases,
Speaker 1: so you don't necessarily want to eat them, but they
Speaker 1: are as big and foreboding as they look. They are
Speaker 1: typically typically they will eat fruit, and that is a yeah,
Speaker 1: but I find them extremely cute. You can look up
Speaker 1: a fruit bats eating banana. It's a great video fruit
Speaker 1: bats swaddled in blankets eating a banana. Yeah. For me, culturally,
Speaker 1: my family's from Michiko, so you know, bats are so
Speaker 1: important to to us as just like fertility, and you know,
Speaker 1: like the Mayan's regarded them in such a way that
Speaker 1: they are a part of life, you know, like because
Speaker 1: of them. Uh, we have things like tortillas or the
Speaker 1: amazing tequila because they Yes, they're huge pollinators in Mexico
Speaker 1: and uh in South America, it's there are some bats
Speaker 1: that are such good pollinators that they will actually become
Speaker 1: completely covered in pollen, so they look like little yellow poofballs.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you, Mayby, We can find me
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter talking about speaky things. And things
Speaker 1: like bats and adventures I have with friends. My Twitter
Speaker 1: is at Sabina has No R. You can find me
Speaker 1: on Instagram at that Lady Greaves. And you can find
Speaker 1: us on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Creature feet Pod. On Twitter, that's f e A T,
Speaker 1: not f e ET. That is something very different. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden g O
Speaker 1: l D I in just by Katie thoughts you know
Speaker 1: about the general state of the world. So that's fun,
Speaker 1: all right, you guys, Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the show and you want to leave
Speaker 1: a rating or review, I read all of them and
Speaker 1: I really enjoy everything everyone says and all the feedback
Speaker 1: you've given, And that also really helps us because it
Speaker 1: teaches those algorithms that people are people are listening. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much to the Space Classics for their super
Speaker 1: awesome song Exo Alumina. Creature features a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one You Just Heard,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heard Radio ap Apple Podcasts or guess well,
Speaker 1: where have you listen to your favorite shows? See you
Speaker 1: next Wednesday.