Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show Don't Judge
Speaker 1: a Book by its horrible Jaws, were talking about sharks,
Speaker 1: spiders and other creepy crawleys that go bump in the night,
Speaker 1: and we're finding blah, they have a sweet side. We'll
Speaker 1: get to know these nasty nashers by a slightly different
Speaker 1: side of themselves, and we'll answer the age old question,
Speaker 1: can you hug the shark? Maybe not, I wouldn't do it,
Speaker 1: but you know, could you? Joining me today to make
Speaker 1: friends and finfluenced people as hosted the podcast Lour After
Speaker 1: Hours in George Center, Christie, I'm a Gucci mane. Hello Katie,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me again. I would absolutely hug a shark.
Speaker 1: Did you To get that out of the way. Given
Speaker 1: the opportunity legally speaking, legally speaking on this podcast to
Speaker 1: legally and dimnify ourselves, I would say, don't hug a
Speaker 1: shark because it could bite you. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think there are I mean a whale shark. Honestly, I'd
Speaker 1: hug a whale shark. Oh absolutely, And like what's another Like,
Speaker 1: I feel like a nurse shark is probably okay, we
Speaker 1: might nip at you. I feel like it's kind of
Speaker 1: up to the shark. Yeah. I think like if the shark,
Speaker 1: if the shark is not too dangerous, like a whale shark,
Speaker 1: but if it doesn't want to hug, I don't want
Speaker 1: to hug a shark that doesn't want to hush. Sure, absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: Consent is key there. Uh. And if the shark gives
Speaker 1: you permission to hug it, then sure, right. But if
Speaker 1: a great white shark is saying like, come on, bring
Speaker 1: it on in here, then I would be a little
Speaker 1: hesitant because I prob got like a bib with a
Speaker 1: little human thing on it, like a human icon on it,
Speaker 1: like a lobster bib. Exactly. It's it's it's it looks
Speaker 1: just like you know, going to eat long John Silver's
Speaker 1: or something like a knife. And he's licking his lips
Speaker 1: in a cartoonish fashion. He's like, yeah, give me a
Speaker 1: human exactly, or or a baby shark. I will say,
Speaker 1: like I have not I don't think I've ever hugged
Speaker 1: a shark before, but I've definitely you know, pet a
Speaker 1: shark like a you would a cat or a dog
Speaker 1: or something like the touch tank at an aquarium. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a baby. Sharks are some of the cutest little
Speaker 1: things in the world. They look like I don't know,
Speaker 1: they look like angry little kiddies to me, but with Finns,
Speaker 1: I think. Uh. Peter some years ago was trying to
Speaker 1: start a campaign where they changed Basically they were trying
Speaker 1: to get the public to refer to fish and sharks
Speaker 1: as sea kittens. Yeah remember that. Yeah, and uh, you know, good,
Speaker 1: good effort. I'm not not going to knock Peter. I
Speaker 1: don't want them angrily exactly. I don't want them coming
Speaker 1: after me or anything. Um. But yeah, not all fish
Speaker 1: I think deserve to be compared to kittens, but definitely
Speaker 1: some of them, and I think sharks are are included
Speaker 1: in that. Have you ever seen a baby salmon shark?
Speaker 1: They are, I don't think, really adorable. They got big
Speaker 1: old eyes. They're super cute. Oh my god. Okay, I
Speaker 1: have seen this picture before, but I did not. I
Speaker 1: thought it was like a baby great white or something. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's a baby salmon shark. Wow, Oh my god, that's adorable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks it looks like a like an anime version
Speaker 1: of a shark or something. Have you heard of there's
Speaker 1: a there's a forum on Reddit called I Think soon
Speaker 1: dairy Sharks. Have you seen that where they turned the
Speaker 1: sharks into like anime characters that blush and and they're
Speaker 1: like biting the the the whole of a boat and saying,
Speaker 1: notice me sentpie. Yeah exactly, I forgot about that. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: so in our imaginations, sharks are very cute. Of course,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily advocate going up to a shark. I
Speaker 1: think most sharks just kind of want to be left
Speaker 1: alone by humans. And I'm joking about great white sharks,
Speaker 1: you know, wanting to eat humans. Typically they just want
Speaker 1: to avoid us. In fact, there's that drone footage that
Speaker 1: shows a lot of sharks off the coast of California,
Speaker 1: more than we thought further inland or or closer to land,
Speaker 1: and it really demonstrates that these sharks, including great white sharks,
Speaker 1: just don't really want to have anything to do with humans.
Speaker 1: They don't want to eat us necessarily, they just don't
Speaker 1: want to interact with us. We're not their typical diet,
Speaker 1: and they just kind of want to leave us alone
Speaker 1: and be left alone. But that doesn't mean that all
Speaker 1: sharks are just kind of loaners. In fact, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of sharks that do love to have ends. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's not us that they want to be friends with,
Speaker 1: but they do want to be friends with each other.
Speaker 1: They are not just soulless predators with black eyes like
Speaker 1: a doll's eyes. Uh. They recognize the power of friendship.
Speaker 1: It's so cute, it's adorable. So new observations of multiple
Speaker 1: species of sharks seems to indicate that they form long
Speaker 1: term friendships with each other. So yeah. Study tracking the
Speaker 1: movements of gray reef sharks in the ocean near Hawaii
Speaker 1: has found that they seem to prefer to spend time
Speaker 1: with specific individuals, which indicates some kind of sharky friendship.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I had no idea that they like that
Speaker 1: they have the the I guess. I don't want to
Speaker 1: knock the intelligence of a shark. I know creatures are
Speaker 1: intelligent and in all sorts of different ways, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know that they had like the kind of brain
Speaker 1: capacity need to really recognize other shark friends long term. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I get it, because you know, I think about intelligent
Speaker 1: see animals, I think of maybe whales and dolphins. I
Speaker 1: don't think of a You know, typically don't think of
Speaker 1: a shark as being an intelligent animally. You think of
Speaker 1: it as sort of this like swimming kill machine. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, they they they have the capacity. They have
Speaker 1: the memory to recognize their friends for years, and they
Speaker 1: have the emotional capacity to seek out that friendship. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some species of sharks, like great white sharks,
Speaker 1: who aren't that friendly with each other. They don't really
Speaker 1: form friendships in this way. It does, at least not
Speaker 1: our observations up to this point haven't really seemed to
Speaker 1: indicate that. Um. But yeah, gray reef sharks, uh, which
Speaker 1: are They are an intimidating looking shark. They're very sort
Speaker 1: of sharky looking shark. They grow up to be about
Speaker 1: six ft or two meters long. They're fairly aggressive when
Speaker 1: it comes to other shark species. They'll defend their territory,
Speaker 1: but they are very friendly with their own species. And
Speaker 1: the observed friendships between two individual sharks has been shown
Speaker 1: to last four years. The only reason we don't know
Speaker 1: how long it lasts is that the batteries on the
Speaker 1: shark tracking devices ran out, and yeah, so that's what
Speaker 1: I want in a friendship When that lasts longer than
Speaker 1: a shark tracking device battery, what do you think? Like,
Speaker 1: so you think these sharks like, uh, do recreational activities
Speaker 1: with each other as well? Like, are they they hunt
Speaker 1: with each other? They hang out? Like? Okay are sharks?
Speaker 1: Is a group of sharks called a school or is
Speaker 1: it something else for for sharks? You know, that's a
Speaker 1: good question. I think it is school. So these these
Speaker 1: like long shark friends met in school perfectly good, yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to give a little backstory to
Speaker 1: these shark friendships. Um. So they they met in school,
Speaker 1: become lifelong friends, they have similar interests, um, and then
Speaker 1: human observers get real weird and put tags on them. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they outlast the human batteries the tags. That's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just love that's so it's so poetic. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you've got shark number one going like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be friends longer than this battery on
Speaker 1: this tag last. I think it's conceivable that these could
Speaker 1: be lifelong friendships. We just don't know. Because our dang
Speaker 1: batteries don't last as long as sharks love for each other.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. I love this so much. I love this
Speaker 1: so much. Now, great reef sharks are those Atlantic or
Speaker 1: Pacific or just kind of like all over they I
Speaker 1: think they're pretty cosmopolitan, meaning they're all over, but I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there in the Indo Pacific, they can be uh
Speaker 1: they can go as far west as South Africa or
Speaker 1: as far east as the Eastern Islands, so so yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of in that that region. I I something that
Speaker 1: I've I've learned recently is just how like like great
Speaker 1: whites in particular are literally all over the world. Like
Speaker 1: I don't think there's an ocean, or there might be,
Speaker 1: but uh that great whites don't travel through They swim
Speaker 1: such long distances. And I wasn't sure if if that
Speaker 1: was unique to that species or if if a lot
Speaker 1: of other sharks did the same thing. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of sharks do do cover wide
Speaker 1: areas of territory. I mean, the great shark is one
Speaker 1: of these, Like if you look at a map at
Speaker 1: their their territories, they're like you can see them off
Speaker 1: the coast of Australia, off the coast of India, off
Speaker 1: the coast of Africa, off the coast of like Pacific Islands.
Speaker 1: So so, yeah, they have quite a quite a wide
Speaker 1: range and they can travel pretty good distances. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the things they love to do together is
Speaker 1: they surf together. They ride waves in groups, especially with
Speaker 1: their friends, so they can relax and even get some
Speaker 1: sleep while traveling great distances together. So they're boogie boarding
Speaker 1: with each Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. I love this so much.
Speaker 1: There's just a bunch of bros. Certain it's so cool.
Speaker 1: Like I so, I grew up and still live here
Speaker 1: at the beach, and it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: that like you always know when you're you know, swimming
Speaker 1: out in the surf. You were talking about that Gerne
Speaker 1: footage earlier, you like, there are sharks around you all
Speaker 1: the time. And it's it's once you understand that and
Speaker 1: you realize I've never never had an encounter with one,
Speaker 1: you realize how much they do to stay out of
Speaker 1: the way of of humans. They are not after you.
Speaker 1: You are not fish. They know you're not a fish. Um,
Speaker 1: And it takes a very large like these these shure
Speaker 1: you said, they get up to about six ft long. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: like that's that's a perfect size for like a shark
Speaker 1: that like looks intimidating but really poses no threat to you.
Speaker 1: What they don't want to tangle with you. Their diet
Speaker 1: is is fish and definitely not human sized fish. These
Speaker 1: guys really, I mean, they really don't pose that much
Speaker 1: of a threat to humans. They might they might bite you,
Speaker 1: like if you are really get in their face and
Speaker 1: you really threaten them. But I think most of these
Speaker 1: species that I'm talking about in terms of like because
Speaker 1: there are more, it's not just the gray reef sharks
Speaker 1: that that form friendships. Uh, they tend to really not
Speaker 1: pose that much of a threat to humans as long
Speaker 1: as you're not like really aggravating them. In fact that
Speaker 1: most of the time they just kind of want to
Speaker 1: get away with you and go hang out with their
Speaker 1: shark buddies. Can I tell you a very weird shark
Speaker 1: story that I have. So when I was like probably
Speaker 1: eight years old, Um, as I said, I grew up
Speaker 1: you know, fishing around here. Uh, growing up at the beach.
Speaker 1: We went a couple of miles out in the ocean,
Speaker 1: and my dad ended up landing a hammerhead shark. And
Speaker 1: it was the scariest thing that I had ever experienced
Speaker 1: at that point because this thing was probably about seven
Speaker 1: foot long, um, maybe longer uh And I don't know
Speaker 1: the exact species of hammerhead, but he landed it. We
Speaker 1: went to clean it that night because we ate everything
Speaker 1: that we caught. We didn't do this for sport or anything.
Speaker 1: And I would never endorse anybody catching sharks now, but
Speaker 1: this was like, Yeah, the the fear, the fear of
Speaker 1: sharks as well as them being like in a lot
Speaker 1: of I guess dishes that are are highly sought after
Speaker 1: makes them targets for for hunting. People don't often don't
Speaker 1: have empathy for them because they think of them as
Speaker 1: just these monsters and they're they're not. They're you know,
Speaker 1: Jaws really painted a horrible picture of them, which is
Speaker 1: not for sure. Well, we we took that shark home,
Speaker 1: we cleaned it. But when we cleaned it, or when
Speaker 1: my dad cleaned it rather, I was, like I said,
Speaker 1: I was completely freaked out thrashing around on the deck
Speaker 1: of this you know, small grady white boat. Um it
Speaker 1: had babies inside its stomach and rich is very sad
Speaker 1: and not to bring down your listenership, but uh, we
Speaker 1: were fascinated by it. We went and got alcohol and
Speaker 1: preserved these baby sharks and like gave them to our
Speaker 1: family members for like presents and stuff. And I had
Speaker 1: a uh, basically an embalmed baby hammerhead shark in my
Speaker 1: room for the longest time. That is really cool and sad,
Speaker 1: and I it is. You have to show it. It
Speaker 1: deteriorated long ago. This was like twenty five years ago
Speaker 1: at this point. Yes, so it's it's long bit. You know,
Speaker 1: we weren't professional, you know, scientists embalming these these specimen
Speaker 1: back then. But yeah, I had one frame a very
Speaker 1: long time. So that's my weird shark story. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: Don't catch shark. Uh, if you hook one by accident,
Speaker 1: throw it back and pet it on the head first
Speaker 1: if it if it allows you, and then throw it back.
Speaker 1: They hid to your buddies for me and then and
Speaker 1: then toss it back. In terms of threats to humans,
Speaker 1: so so the gray reef shark is probably the most
Speaker 1: aggressive of the sharks we're going to talk about. They
Speaker 1: do they will attack humans. Like I said, they're they're
Speaker 1: pretty aggressive towards other shark species, and they defend their
Speaker 1: territory and they'll do the same with with humans, and
Speaker 1: they can do like uh serious, you know, attacks on people.
Speaker 1: I don't really think they tend to be deadly though.
Speaker 1: It's just like you don't want to you don't want
Speaker 1: it just doesn't take a chunk out of you. It's
Speaker 1: like a dog licking you, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're just wanting pets, that's all it is. They just
Speaker 1: want to hug. No, no, they they will they will
Speaker 1: bite you. They're sort of like a imagine a giant chihuahua,
Speaker 1: undersea chihuahua with much sharper powerful teeth, and you've got
Speaker 1: a gray reef shark. It's like a Peter would call
Speaker 1: them a sea chihuahuaa exactly with their friends exactly boogie
Speaker 1: boarding for some attention. That's it. But so that's gray
Speaker 1: reef sharks. But sand tiger sharks are another group of
Speaker 1: cutie's who hold fins and make friends together. Well okay,
Speaker 1: maybe they don't like hold fins, but they will huddle
Speaker 1: together with their friends. So, sand tiger sharks are fairly
Speaker 1: big sharks that can grow over ten feet or around
Speaker 1: three meters long. They were observed during their migration along
Speaker 1: the coach of the Eastern US and appear to have
Speaker 1: complex social behavior and form friend groups. The groups tend
Speaker 1: to be sex based, with females hanging out with each
Speaker 1: other and males kind of hanging out with each other.
Speaker 1: So like a middle school dance where you have all
Speaker 1: the girls on one side and all the boys on
Speaker 1: one side. I don't know if that's the case anymore.
Speaker 1: Maybe the younger generations have fixed that sort of issue.
Speaker 1: But I know when I was in middle school, you
Speaker 1: would have like these two groups of scared kids where
Speaker 1: you had all the boys huddled together and all the
Speaker 1: girls huddled together, and sometimes you dare someone to go
Speaker 1: out and try to ask a boy for a dance.
Speaker 1: But as the as the stepdad of of three boys
Speaker 1: that have uh, you know, come up through middle school
Speaker 1: not too long ago, Uh, it's still very awkward. It's
Speaker 1: it's still like that. I think the kids have not
Speaker 1: solved that. Not we they have to solve that before
Speaker 1: they solve like global warming and all the ill that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think that might be. I think
Speaker 1: that might be just a thing that lasts for time eternal,
Speaker 1: like when we're in robot bodies, and we have the
Speaker 1: female and male robots, or probably we'll have all sorts
Speaker 1: of different fluid genders of robots, because we'll we'll have
Speaker 1: will become much more advanced in our society. But then
Speaker 1: we'll we'll still it will still be like be boop,
Speaker 1: this is awkward. Yes, uh, we will. We will have
Speaker 1: our utopia in the future, except for that, except for me,
Speaker 1: we'll have completely advanced in our views on gender, except
Speaker 1: for middle school dances, where where we'll still find it
Speaker 1: very awkward. But yeah, so so sharks, you know, have
Speaker 1: very awkward middle school dances. But they the reason that
Speaker 1: they tend to make these sext based groups is because
Speaker 1: the females are probably evading mating pressures when they don't
Speaker 1: want to mate, so they just avoid of dudes. Um.
Speaker 1: And when sand tigers do mate, they nibble at each other,
Speaker 1: which I guess is cute. It's a little weird, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very good idea on the the lady
Speaker 1: sand tiger sharks. Uh, you know, it's a good idea.
Speaker 1: They've got the right idea there. Just just avoid the
Speaker 1: guys all together. It makes makes life simpler and uh,
Speaker 1: and and less pressure film and all that all that
Speaker 1: good stuff. Yeah, just just have a girls stay out,
Speaker 1: just you know, doing a feeding frenzy with the girls exactly.
Speaker 1: I love feeding frenzy with the gals. They really are
Speaker 1: cuddling though, Like this one's got it's it's lower it's
Speaker 1: it's got its lower jaw resting on the dorsal fin
Speaker 1: of another sand tiger shark. It's so cute. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they huddle together. They they basically do everything except hook
Speaker 1: their little fins together and and skip through a field
Speaker 1: of see flowers of seaweeds. Right. Yeah, but these guys
Speaker 1: also even though their teeth look really like you you
Speaker 1: can see that picture of their teeth, they they look
Speaker 1: quite intimidating. They really don't like to attack humans. They
Speaker 1: tend to keep their distance. They're not they're not very
Speaker 1: aggressive obviously with any shark. Like you don't want to
Speaker 1: just like go up to a shark and if you're
Speaker 1: not like an expert and poke it on the nose
Speaker 1: because it might bite you. Because it's like, hey, get
Speaker 1: out of my face, like you're not you're not my buddy.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, they they're they are much more gentle
Speaker 1: than they look, which I think is really sweet. Uh.
Speaker 1: And lemon sharks are another species of shark. They sound
Speaker 1: like they would be really cute little lemon shaped sharks,
Speaker 1: but they are actually really big and just sharky looking.
Speaker 1: So they grew up to around eleven feet around three
Speaker 1: point five meters long, and they are found in the
Speaker 1: Western Atlantic and they have very complex social lives. They
Speaker 1: like to form groups. Usually their groups are based on
Speaker 1: similar age or size, although sometimes young sharks like to
Speaker 1: hang out with the bigger sharks to learn from them.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like someone in middle school trying to
Speaker 1: hang out with the high schoolers, like, yeah, I'm one
Speaker 1: of you. Do you want to see my pokemons? Oh,
Speaker 1: we're not playing with pokemon's anymore. I'm sorry. I love
Speaker 1: Is that so that that's how lemon sharks sound. That's
Speaker 1: little lemon sharks like little baby lemon sharks trying to
Speaker 1: hang out with bigger lemon sharks Like, hey, guys, you
Speaker 1: wanna to see my pokemon's Now we're eating fish. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I can eat a fish, But if you
Speaker 1: want to see my pokemons later, I got a binder
Speaker 1: full of pokemons. I'm trying to think of what what
Speaker 1: one of these what a little lemon sharks like Pokemon
Speaker 1: starter would be, uh, probably the on what was a
Speaker 1: squirtl or like a garro dose or something? Yeah, or
Speaker 1: like magic harp Yeah, magic harp definitely. But they're carr
Speaker 1: Card's got a few bites taken out of it because
Speaker 1: they're kind of hungry. I can't I don't know my
Speaker 1: pokey man's h well enough to know if there's a
Speaker 1: shark one. Um, but there's gotta be. There's gotta be.
Speaker 1: Oh I spelled it wrong. It's Pokemon. Yeah, there's lots
Speaker 1: of sharky Pokemon. Sharpedo. That's that's a torpedo shaped shark
Speaker 1: Pokemon who is a dual water dark type Pokemon introduced
Speaker 1: in generation three. That's perfect. That's perfect. And at Katie
Speaker 1: on Twitter with your Pokemon recommendations for a little little
Speaker 1: shark kids playing Pokemon. Yeah, I mean I got I
Speaker 1: got my my my shark anime. Have you seen shark
Speaker 1: anime soon? Darius Shirts, Hey guys, where are you going? Guys?
Speaker 1: But trail huh, that's pretty cool. You. I will sit
Speaker 1: here and let you do that as long as you want.
Speaker 1: I love that voice, so so yeah, lemon sharks a
Speaker 1: bunch of little cuties hanging out little sharks, sometimes hanging
Speaker 1: out with the big sharks, trying to learn learn how
Speaker 1: to play sharks games with them, and this group living
Speaker 1: can be beneficial to the sharks in terms of safety
Speaker 1: and hunting. But there's some evidence to suggest that they
Speaker 1: form friendships and social groups out of a desire for companionship,
Speaker 1: even when controlling for the practical benefits of being in
Speaker 1: a group. So basically, this research is trying to demonstrate
Speaker 1: that regardless of whether they would tangibly benefit from being
Speaker 1: in this group, they still form these groups because they
Speaker 1: just want that companionship. And it's similar when you think
Speaker 1: about humans, like when we form companions trips for normal people,
Speaker 1: non sociopathic people. When people form a friendship, you think
Speaker 1: about like you're not thinking, Okay, what is this friend
Speaker 1: gonna do for me? Like how am I going to
Speaker 1: get stuff out of this friend? Hopefully in in good friendship,
Speaker 1: ideally right, ideally, and you you form these connections because
Speaker 1: you generally want to hang out and sometimes you do
Speaker 1: benefit each other, right, Like you do it's like oh, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I know this great place to eat or something,
Speaker 1: and you get benefits from each other, but it's not
Speaker 1: You're not forming a friendship just to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to form this friend I am going to
Speaker 1: hang out with them in the hopes that they find
Speaker 1: a good restaurant for me to eat at. And that's
Speaker 1: your only if that is you need to think, actually, friendship.
Speaker 1: I think I've probably gone into a friendship with that
Speaker 1: motivation before. I'm not gonna lie is like this person
Speaker 1: probably knows where the good foods at or or I
Speaker 1: know that they have a background in cooking or something,
Speaker 1: and like I'm I'm just trying to you know, snag
Speaker 1: an invitation for dinner one night. Like, no shame in
Speaker 1: that as long as you also give as well as
Speaker 1: taking that friendship. But you when we hang out with
Speaker 1: people and we form connections, it's an emotional thing. Like
Speaker 1: we don't we don't necessarily think of all of this through,
Speaker 1: but we do end up benefiting. And this is in
Speaker 1: our evolutionary history. We are motivated by emotion to hang
Speaker 1: out with each other and it does end up benefiting
Speaker 1: us in the long run in our evolutionary history. But
Speaker 1: we form these social groups not purely out of sort
Speaker 1: of a cold calculation typically, and this is what these
Speaker 1: researchers are starting to think is the case with these sharks,
Speaker 1: is that they are forming these groups not out of
Speaker 1: like some kind of shark calculation of like if I
Speaker 1: hang out with this group, there's more fish. It's like
Speaker 1: an emotional bond that they have that It's kind of
Speaker 1: like when you your cat. You know your cat has
Speaker 1: an emotional bond with you. Of course they just want
Speaker 1: food out of you, but they actually do form an
Speaker 1: emotional bond with you. Sure, they're little, they're little satanic demons,
Speaker 1: I get that, but they do they do have the
Speaker 1: capacity I to have an emotional bond with you, even
Speaker 1: though they are technically speaking just trying to get food
Speaker 1: out of you. It is I think they have this
Speaker 1: genuine feeling they want a companionship. That so they'll come
Speaker 1: up and want to get pets and stuff from you
Speaker 1: even when they're not hungry, even when they don't need food.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing with these sharks. They want
Speaker 1: companionship even when they don't. It's like not not directly
Speaker 1: benefiting them in the long term. Evolutionarily speaking, it does
Speaker 1: benefit them, but it comes from this place of emotional
Speaker 1: desire potentially, which if that's the case, this is really
Speaker 1: revolutionizing our understanding of sharks because we don't think of
Speaker 1: them as being emotional, as as being able to have feelings.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like they've got black eyes, like a
Speaker 1: doll's eyes. So yeah, I mean, just the name shark
Speaker 1: is synonymous with like a person that is cold and
Speaker 1: calculating and and you know, doesn't show emotion and is
Speaker 1: kinda i mean just kind of a bad person, you know,
Speaker 1: unless unless you're thinking of like a pool shark. But
Speaker 1: even then they're like coming in to take your money,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, uh, so yeah, it's it's, uh,
Speaker 1: there's no reason that we should have that preconceived notion
Speaker 1: about these animals. But you know, because of human language
Speaker 1: and us needing analogies for things all the time, we
Speaker 1: we uh wrongfully give people names of animals when they
Speaker 1: don't necessarily represent that animal whatsoever. Yeah, exactly, And I
Speaker 1: think especially with sea animals, marine animals, we they've evolved
Speaker 1: so separately from us. Not I'm not talking about marine
Speaker 1: mammals because obviously we share an evolutionary history with them,
Speaker 1: but marine other marine animals like sharks, fish, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: cephalopods like squid and octopuses, which again we've we've learned
Speaker 1: that octopuses and have potentially very complex emotions and intelligence,
Speaker 1: but they don't have We don't see their body signals
Speaker 1: are so different from any mammal. Like we can kind
Speaker 1: of read the mood of a dog. We've co evolved
Speaker 1: with a dog. We can kind of intuitively understand what
Speaker 1: mood a dog is in. We can even read the
Speaker 1: mood of something that we haven't maybe co evolved with
Speaker 1: as much. If you see like a lion or something,
Speaker 1: you can kind of get a sense of the lion
Speaker 1: what the lion is feeling. Maybe maybe not always accurately,
Speaker 1: but but we can read their expressions somewhat. A shark
Speaker 1: they're unreadable to us. They're so alien that looking at
Speaker 1: a shark face, they don't have expressions. They don't really
Speaker 1: have facial expressions that we can read. Their body expressions
Speaker 1: are inscrutable, so we kind of just assume, I guess
Speaker 1: that they don't have emotions, when of course that's probably
Speaker 1: not true. They probably do have an emotional life. Especially
Speaker 1: I think carnivores predators are off and more intelligent because
Speaker 1: they have to be. They have to have some intelligence
Speaker 1: to hunt. Hunting is difficult, So I think it would
Speaker 1: be surprising if one of these main predators of the
Speaker 1: ocean is not intelligent and doesn't have any emotional intelligence.
Speaker 1: I think that would be much more strange than than
Speaker 1: something that has to hunt in and and you know,
Speaker 1: have this complex behavior just like being an empty kind
Speaker 1: of like soulless robot. That that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I Uh, from now on, I'm going anytime I see
Speaker 1: a shark wagon's tail wagon's tail fan, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: assume it's happy, just like a dog, Just like I
Speaker 1: would a dog. I'm gonna extend that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: credit to the shark that it's in a good mood
Speaker 1: and it wants a hug from me. Because this podcast
Speaker 1: is not responsible for loss of limbs encounter during the
Speaker 1: assumption that you should rub the belly of a shark
Speaker 1: even if it looks super cute, I want to rub
Speaker 1: the belly of a shark so bad, also like the
Speaker 1: lemon shark. You're right, like the names for these creatures
Speaker 1: do so much heavy lifting as far as our preconceived notion,
Speaker 1: because these things are massive and the sand like a
Speaker 1: sand tiger shark sounds bad ass, like it just sounds
Speaker 1: like it is going to hunt you down. Same thing
Speaker 1: with like a thrasher shark, and a thrasher shark might
Speaker 1: I don't know what the temperament of a thrasher is.
Speaker 1: But like these names again there they give these preconceived
Speaker 1: notions of of these creatures and in reality we know
Speaker 1: so little about them. Yeah, thrashers are actually they're thrashers,
Speaker 1: which I don't know that. I don't know why it
Speaker 1: does sound like thrasher though. And they they look intimidating
Speaker 1: because they've got this really long spiky tail, and they
Speaker 1: they leap out of the water really like they can
Speaker 1: do these incredible leaps. But yeah, they're they're no threat
Speaker 1: to humans at all. Really. See. But the name and
Speaker 1: and you're absolutely right, it is a thresher shark. I
Speaker 1: grew up thinking it was thrasher shark because that's understandable, right,
Speaker 1: because what's threshing? I don't know is that is that
Speaker 1: an actual is that like some scientists name or is
Speaker 1: it like is it a verb of some sort? Let
Speaker 1: me see if I can look that up, because I
Speaker 1: have no idea where that came from. I don't I
Speaker 1: have no idea. Why is Why is it called a
Speaker 1: thresher shark? Oh? Okay, so it's the I see. So
Speaker 1: it's the name for their Their tail looks like a
Speaker 1: scythe which I guess is like threshing when you're like
Speaker 1: cutting down wheat or something of like threshing or a thresher.
Speaker 1: So since its tail looks like a thresher like a side,
Speaker 1: that's why they're called thresher sharks. That's super badass. It's
Speaker 1: very badass. They look really cool. They look like scary,
Speaker 1: but they really are not. That's what death carries, right,
Speaker 1: he carries a Yeah, yeah, we should just call him
Speaker 1: scythe sharks. That's that's metal a f love it, love it, Christie.
Speaker 1: What is your attitude towards spiders? I love them, absolutely
Speaker 1: love them. I love all critters for the most part,
Speaker 1: except for like the giant cockroaches that we have here
Speaker 1: in southeastern North Carolina that are like this big um.
Speaker 1: Those get a little annoying, especially when they fly right
Speaker 1: at your face when you're like on the back porch.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to spiders, I will not kill
Speaker 1: a spider. I will let them live in my house.
Speaker 1: I always trap them and then re home them outside. Um,
Speaker 1: because they're they're little spider bros. They're just trying to
Speaker 1: keep my house insect free, you know. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: like a size limit of spiders all lit stay in
Speaker 1: in the in the house. It's sort of the opposite
Speaker 1: of like a carnival ride. You must be this tall
Speaker 1: to right, it must be this small to stay in
Speaker 1: my house. But if they're under like if they're smaller
Speaker 1: than like a quarter, then it's like, yeah, no, you
Speaker 1: can hang out in here. And and if they're larger
Speaker 1: than a quarter, I do try to catch them and
Speaker 1: put them outside. I have once instinctively like stomped on
Speaker 1: a spider that was larger, and I felt so bad.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, I'm sorry, but it was
Speaker 1: dead man. I'm gonna I feel like I just keep
Speaker 1: bumming out your listeners. But like I stepped on a
Speaker 1: wolf spider one time and by accident, and just like
Speaker 1: hundreds of babies like that, we're riding on her back,
Speaker 1: just like it was like you killed bambies mother too?
Speaker 1: Did I did? Sorry to reveal that, um, but gives
Speaker 1: the back to every Disney movie involving animals. I killed
Speaker 1: Charlotte's I killed Charlotte and but and and her babies
Speaker 1: parachuted away. Um what else did I kill? Um? No?
Speaker 1: The but just like the the immediate kind of like again,
Speaker 1: I love spiders, but the immediate visual horror of like
Speaker 1: a hundred of them suddenly like you know, ralling in
Speaker 1: all directions. It's it's uh, it'll it'll make you do
Speaker 1: a double take. No, I love spiders, but like I have,
Speaker 1: I still like have that instinct of if I see
Speaker 1: a spider, I have I have a startle reflex, which
Speaker 1: is why unfortunately, smoosh that poor little spider baby, rip
Speaker 1: and piece, you were too good for this world. Pour
Speaker 1: one out. But I understand, like being afraid of spiders
Speaker 1: is nothing to be ashamed of. It's I think are
Speaker 1: we are very instinctively afraid of of spiders and snakes
Speaker 1: and things that could potentially bide us and cause some problems,
Speaker 1: although most spiders are completely harmless. But are there any
Speaker 1: spiders Because for the most part, spiders just want to
Speaker 1: avoid us. They don't even the venomous spiders don't really
Speaker 1: want to have to bite you. They do that out
Speaker 1: of a defense. Mechanism. They don't, you know, chase after
Speaker 1: you to bite you. They are basically they want to
Speaker 1: be left alone. They want to leave you alone. They
Speaker 1: don't really want to do much with humans. They just
Speaker 1: want to snack on bugs and and spend time alone.
Speaker 1: But there is an exception to this, and that there
Speaker 1: is a spider that just wants to have a big
Speaker 1: old party with other spiders and with humans. And it
Speaker 1: is the cutest little thing. The winner of Miss Congeniality
Speaker 1: Amongst Spiders. Chickunia build A who is a small heart
Speaker 1: shaped spider from Bali, who is a sweet little cutie
Speaker 1: who wants to give you big hug eight times with
Speaker 1: each of its arms. I love it. That's a heck
Speaker 1: of a name. Chickuna build A It so okay. I
Speaker 1: see the little baby spiders around it, and that is
Speaker 1: a weird. I don't think I've ever seen an abdom
Speaker 1: in shape like that like it. It's it comes to
Speaker 1: like almost a spike at the end, but it has
Speaker 1: these two It's got Katie spiders have got some curves
Speaker 1: on it, not to not to get weird about the spider,
Speaker 1: but real spiders have curves. They absolutely do. Um Man,
Speaker 1: that is a weird looking that's a bizarre looking critter
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, it's like it's abdomen is kind of
Speaker 1: heart shaped, although it's not quite got like the divot
Speaker 1: at the top. It's sort of like a like a
Speaker 1: tear drop shape where the pointy end is at the
Speaker 1: most posterior point and then it kind of bulges out
Speaker 1: and then it has the the thorax uh that is
Speaker 1: much smaller than it. Yeah, it is very strange looking,
Speaker 1: and it looks a little intimidating perhaps sometimes like the
Speaker 1: that it comes to such a sharp point. I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of cute, but it is completely harmless to humans.
Speaker 1: So these little guys are very tiny. They're only about
Speaker 1: three to four millimeters big. They have a shiny black
Speaker 1: or black and brown abdomen that is that like interesting
Speaker 1: like teardrop pointy kind of heart shape, and they not
Speaker 1: only like to hang out with their own species, but
Speaker 1: similar species as well. So many spiders are not social.
Speaker 1: They will actually cannibalize each other, or at least they'll
Speaker 1: cannibalize other species of spiders, but Chickuna building likes to
Speaker 1: socialize not only with their own species, but with their
Speaker 1: close cousins. And they like to hang out in human
Speaker 1: areas because they like to eat our pests. So they
Speaker 1: will actively seek out human habitations, so gardens or agricultural areas,
Speaker 1: and they will eat the pests that plague our plants
Speaker 1: and our crops. So this is a true like definition
Speaker 1: of spider bro exactly. This is the most browest of spiders.
Speaker 1: That's that's incredible, love it. I didn't realize. So these
Speaker 1: things really are tiny though, like they are are are
Speaker 1: almost microscopic. Well you can see them, they're like yeah, yeah, ye,
Speaker 1: not not very well probably with my eyesight, but I
Speaker 1: mean three to four millimeters. It's like it's bigger than
Speaker 1: an ant. So it's like the size of like a
Speaker 1: baby button, like a little tiny button that you have
Speaker 1: on like a baby onesie. Okay, okay, that's an interesting
Speaker 1: unit of measurement. I don't know that I know how
Speaker 1: big a baby baby button is, but I will. I
Speaker 1: will look it up after all, button button, gotcha? Gotcha?
Speaker 1: So what makes these spiders so interesting compared to other
Speaker 1: social spiders, because there are social spiders that will form
Speaker 1: these big like communal webs and hang out together, is
Speaker 1: not is that they don't just coaxst peacefully with themselves
Speaker 1: but related species, and they hang out together, they eat together,
Speaker 1: but they don't breed with this close closely related species,
Speaker 1: this cousin species. So they are not hanging out thinking that, oh,
Speaker 1: this is just my own species. It's not a mistake.
Speaker 1: They don't breed with them because they recognize this is
Speaker 1: not my own species. Uh, and they don't need them
Speaker 1: for reproduction or anything. They stay within their own breeding
Speaker 1: group of their species, but they still hang out with
Speaker 1: this other species to hunt and to find food and
Speaker 1: safety numbers. So it's really interesting. And even when their
Speaker 1: population gets overly dense and food starts to get more scarce,
Speaker 1: they still don't resort to cannibalism. So this is like, uh,
Speaker 1: because I hang out with people that aren't necessarily you know,
Speaker 1: that aren't really my speed. A lot of times I
Speaker 1: enjoy the company of all sorts of different different folks,
Speaker 1: different types of friends and stuff. So like that's basically
Speaker 1: what the spider is doing is kind of uh, has
Speaker 1: a variety of a social circle, if you will, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And then it's like, oh, you're not you're not my species,
Speaker 1: but you're like a close cousin to my species, Like,
Speaker 1: let's team up, why not, you know, let's just cooling
Speaker 1: out together. It'd be like if we saw some bonobos
Speaker 1: and instead of destroying their habitat, were like, hey, what,
Speaker 1: we're very similar, let's hang out exactly like or or
Speaker 1: like Jane Goodall did with the chimpanzees, right, exactly like that. Man,
Speaker 1: that's fascinating. It's like, you know, with I mean, we
Speaker 1: kind of did that a little bit with Neanderthals, although
Speaker 1: there's some debate as to whether we killed off Neanderthals
Speaker 1: or just the right exactly, but we did sort of
Speaker 1: breed with them a lot, and so so there is
Speaker 1: still Neanderthal DNA in our DNA. But it'd be as
Speaker 1: if we just hung out with Neanderthals and we're like, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys are cool. We just hung out and like
Speaker 1: there was no conflict because like, we didn't evolve from Neanderthals.
Speaker 1: We were like cousin species, right, right, we co evolved
Speaker 1: alongside each other, we had a common ancestor, right, we
Speaker 1: had a common ancestor. We split off, and uh but
Speaker 1: but they aren't like we didn't like evolve from the Neanderthals.
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, so we kind of like killed our
Speaker 1: either killed our own cousin species off or bread them
Speaker 1: out of existence. You're either a cousin kisser or a
Speaker 1: cousin killer. Again, it's a great way to look at humanity.
Speaker 1: And these spiders don't just stop at being friends with
Speaker 1: their cousin species. They also care for their own offspring.
Speaker 1: They feed their offspring while they're young. This is rare
Speaker 1: enough in spiders. But not only do they feed their
Speaker 1: own offspring, they take care of their neighbor's offspring as well.
Speaker 1: They baby sit and they feed these other babies. They
Speaker 1: have communal caretaking of their young, which is just the
Speaker 1: sweetest thing. That's so bizarre. Like I, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's rare enough and like the larger animal kingdom for
Speaker 1: animals to do this, like to care for their young
Speaker 1: through like particularly non mammals, especially insects. Yes, yes, sexts
Speaker 1: don't tend to They don't do as much parental care
Speaker 1: as other species. Right, they lay in egg sack and
Speaker 1: then they've a mouse, you know they're out of there, uh,
Speaker 1: and then they have two hundred children that you know
Speaker 1: immediately have to either become prey or hunt prey. So
Speaker 1: that is absolutely fascinating that these things babysit and so like,
Speaker 1: is it because you know, like with the shark things
Speaker 1: or with the with the shark population, they they might
Speaker 1: have complex emotions that we just can't comprehend. With spiders,
Speaker 1: is there like a benefit to like there being a
Speaker 1: part of a larger spider population as far as food
Speaker 1: goes or or defense. Absolutely, yeah, No, they are definitely
Speaker 1: benefiting from forming a communal area because there it's probably
Speaker 1: easier to get prey because they can find an area
Speaker 1: and team up against against this prey. And like if
Speaker 1: they if they can't find food for their offspring, and
Speaker 1: neighbor maybe could find food for their offspring, and they
Speaker 1: can build a web together, so like they can have
Speaker 1: a bigger web that can catch more things. Also, by
Speaker 1: being together, they are safer, you know, safety in numbers,
Speaker 1: and they can fend off other spiders more easily, some
Speaker 1: something that may not be as friendly. So there's definitely
Speaker 1: tangible benefits to them being in this group together. Whether
Speaker 1: this is coming from a place of emotion like we
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, with like sharks and with humans,
Speaker 1: we do have tangible benefits by forming community and in
Speaker 1: form forming friendships but we do it out of emotion.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say because spiders are very very simple
Speaker 1: there there. They don't have the same kind of brain
Speaker 1: that's say a human or shark has. So to say, like, well,
Speaker 1: spider forms these these connections out of emotion, I think
Speaker 1: is potentially a step too far. I just it's hard
Speaker 1: to see. It's impossible to know exactly what goes on
Speaker 1: in a spider's teeny tiny little brain. I don't know what.
Speaker 1: They may have some kind of reward system, though, and
Speaker 1: it's hard to know, Like what is the distinction between
Speaker 1: like say a reward system that a spider has and
Speaker 1: like emotion in a more complex creature. And that's a
Speaker 1: that's a question I don't really have an answer to.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when you have a robot that
Speaker 1: you program to kind of have a reward system or
Speaker 1: something or want to seek out something, At what point
Speaker 1: is that robot sentient? It's the same question with with
Speaker 1: an Like we know we are sentient, and we have
Speaker 1: a pretty good guess that things like apes and dolphins
Speaker 1: and elephants are sentient. Like it's I think that's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: But then as we start to get two more simple animals,
Speaker 1: Like we get two sharks and it's like, I think
Speaker 1: they're sentient. I don't know how much emotion they feel
Speaker 1: or or what is the depth of their emotion, but
Speaker 1: I think they do feel it. I think that's that's
Speaker 1: a safe guest. But then you can start to get
Speaker 1: to insects, it's like, well, I don't know, I just
Speaker 1: don't know what the depth of their feeling is. I
Speaker 1: would guess there maybe they they feel existence to some degree,
Speaker 1: but it's very limited. It's like a very just kind
Speaker 1: of very limited existence. So it's really hard for us
Speaker 1: to even conceive of what's that's like because we it's
Speaker 1: almost like we're too complicated to understand what that would
Speaker 1: be like to experience. It's like, you know, uh Man's
Speaker 1: um comparison of us too, being that would could be
Speaker 1: considered a god, you know, an omnipotent, omnipresent. It's it's
Speaker 1: the same equivalent as a cockroach to us, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as like the complexity levels. You know, not
Speaker 1: that one is more important than the other, but just
Speaker 1: the level of complexity there is is something that the
Speaker 1: cockroach cannot comprehend, just like we could not comprehend being
Speaker 1: Uh that powerful. Well, I'm going to uh just assume
Speaker 1: that these spiders are having barbecues and cookouts with each other,
Speaker 1: and exactly it's the same thing as like inviting your
Speaker 1: neighbors over for a cookout. Everybody brings a dish, you
Speaker 1: know that way, like one person is not supplying all
Speaker 1: the food. It makes things easier. Um, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: basically like a pot luck kind of thing situation going on,
Speaker 1: and they're having a good time. They probably listen to
Speaker 1: music of some sort that we can't comprehend because we're
Speaker 1: not spiders. Um, there's a little spider manning to grill
Speaker 1: with a little apron that says like, um, regurgitate food
Speaker 1: for the cook Exactly, he's got a spatula and all
Speaker 1: eight legs. He's flipping flipping spider burgers. Many little they
Speaker 1: eat mosquitoes and white fly, which are super annoying pests
Speaker 1: for humans. But he's just got a bunch. He's making
Speaker 1: much of white fly burgers and flipping everything. They're also
Speaker 1: they're also apparently very docile and they don't bite people,
Speaker 1: so like they they tend to be handled pretty well
Speaker 1: if you're very gentle. They just a perfect spider cannot
Speaker 1: buy these online and just release them in my house.
Speaker 1: That leg I don't think so. Unfortunately. I think you'd
Speaker 1: have to travel to Bali to be able to meet
Speaker 1: one of these little guys. But suitcase horrible. Then you're
Speaker 1: responsible for new invasive species exactly exactly. Who could blame you? Right?
Speaker 1: But maybe a less charismatic insect that is a lot
Speaker 1: less cute, a lot less fun to look at is
Speaker 1: the earwig. Now, there are a number of insects that
Speaker 1: even I am grossed out by, and earwigs are one
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, I I don't. I don't like to
Speaker 1: look at them. I don't like to encounter them. They're
Speaker 1: kind of one of my Uh they're they're kind of
Speaker 1: blacklisted from from my home. You know. I have a
Speaker 1: few like cockroaches, uh, silverfish and earwigs have You're just
Speaker 1: not on the list. Sorry. I check a tiny little
Speaker 1: clipboard and I'm like checond and I'm saying, I'm sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't see you on the list. They are, they don't.
Speaker 1: They don't look great. Let's let's be honest. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sugarcoat it. They've got pincers on their butt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've got they've got butt, pincers, pincers. They are long,
Speaker 1: shiny black, sometimes sort of brownish. They move in that slithery,
Speaker 1: unsettling manner because they're segmented and they kind of have
Speaker 1: a little bit of the centipede movement. But but they
Speaker 1: also have but pincers and yeah, no, I I they're gross.
Speaker 1: We've got so we have the European earwig here in
Speaker 1: North Carolina that we get in the house sometimes and
Speaker 1: they're they're also like the one that you've got here
Speaker 1: in front of me has like some cool coloring to it,
Speaker 1: like the it almost looks like a a fiddler crab claw.
Speaker 1: The pincer on the button, you know, it's got it's
Speaker 1: got like a like the bright red to it. And
Speaker 1: then it's back is like silver. But this kind in
Speaker 1: North Carolina is like, I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: see that. No, it's blurring it it's like brown. It's
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, yeah, it looks like a cockroach to
Speaker 1: begin with. Then it's got like you said, the centipede
Speaker 1: wiggly nous of it's like segmented. Uh was that thorax?
Speaker 1: So yeah, they've got they've got is the upper body
Speaker 1: that is the lower body. Okay, so that that weird, uh,
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know what to compare that too,
Speaker 1: but but it like has that wiggly notion to it.
Speaker 1: And then those those pinchers do those pinchers I will
Speaker 1: not bite because it's not their mandible. So is that
Speaker 1: what you call They can use them. They can use
Speaker 1: them to bite, they use them to defend themselves if
Speaker 1: it feels threatened, and they use them to hunt. So
Speaker 1: they definitely use them as pincers. Wow, it kind of inefficient,
Speaker 1: like usually things attack the front, I feel like, but
Speaker 1: if you're a predator, I guess you bite wherever you
Speaker 1: want to. And if those it doesn't matter where those
Speaker 1: pincers are directly. It can curl its backside sort of
Speaker 1: like a scorpion, you know, have a scorpion has a
Speaker 1: stinger on its backside, so it curls up and can
Speaker 1: sort of strike at things or defend itself. So that's
Speaker 1: that's how it uses it's horrible, horrible butt pincers. And yeah,
Speaker 1: they they the that picture that you're looking at is
Speaker 1: actually a Saint Helena or your wig of the Western gots.
Speaker 1: It's a I think one of the coolest looking ones.
Speaker 1: It also looks like it crawled right out of hell
Speaker 1: because it's got those right right, uh, red pincers, a
Speaker 1: black abdomen, and then a silver thorax. It super metal looking,
Speaker 1: very very intimidating. But if you see those pincers, it's
Speaker 1: actually kind of a good sign if you're worried about
Speaker 1: them being parasites, because any earwig that has pincers is
Speaker 1: not a parasite. They can bite you, and they will
Speaker 1: if they feel threatened, but they aren't. They will only
Speaker 1: do it in self defense. They do not crawl in
Speaker 1: your ear and lay eggs in your brain. That's a myth.
Speaker 1: They despite being called earwigs, they really don't want to
Speaker 1: have anything to do with your ears. The only time
Speaker 1: they would go in your ear would be by on accident,
Speaker 1: just like not realizing, and so they they if they've
Speaker 1: got pincers, they're not parasites. There are some species of
Speaker 1: earwigs who are parasites, not on humans, but actually on bats,
Speaker 1: but they do not have the butt. Pincers actually just
Speaker 1: look like weird large ants. Uh. They kind of look
Speaker 1: like a between like a Jerusalem cricket and an ant.
Speaker 1: So that's a that's an earwig I'm looking at right
Speaker 1: above it. Yeah, okay, I would have never guessed that. No,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have. They don't have the look. They don't
Speaker 1: look like. They don't look creepy in the sense that
Speaker 1: earwigs do. But those are actually creepier because they are parasites.
Speaker 1: We don't have anything to fear from them. But they
Speaker 1: do feed on bats, which I think is sad because
Speaker 1: leave the bats alone. We love serious that so much.
Speaker 1: Despite earwigs, the one the non parasitic earwigs with the
Speaker 1: devil's tongues coming out of their butts. They have. Devil's tongues.
Speaker 1: Is such a good name for that, the devil's tongues. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. It's true they might bite you if you
Speaker 1: handle them, but they just think that you're trying to
Speaker 1: kill them and they're probably not wrong, so you know,
Speaker 1: self defense. And other than their bad reputation, they're actually
Speaker 1: pretty sweet. They're amazing and loving mothers. So like we
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, most insects are not that interested
Speaker 1: in caring for their young, even like other arthur pods
Speaker 1: like arachnids, tend not to care for their young, unlike
Speaker 1: the species we talked about earlier, the sweet little friendly
Speaker 1: heart shaped spider um. But yeah, a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of insects, a lot of arthur pods don't don't
Speaker 1: take care of their young. Now, there are examples of
Speaker 1: arthur pods who do take care of their young, the
Speaker 1: the heart shaped spider being one of them that we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier. Scorpions famously carry their young on their back,
Speaker 1: and uh some insects do as well, including the earwig,
Speaker 1: and they tend to be very very caring mothers. So
Speaker 1: earwig mothers are very dedicated to their young mom of
Speaker 1: the Year award. They will fast for months, not eating
Speaker 1: just so they can look after their nest. They will
Speaker 1: constantly clean their eggs, and if they detect pathogens in
Speaker 1: their environment, they will clean their eggs more often and
Speaker 1: be even more vigilant around their nests. So if they're
Speaker 1: chased away by a predator and they detect that there's pathogens,
Speaker 1: they will run back to their nest as soon as
Speaker 1: possible to start cleaning their eggs again because they do
Speaker 1: not want their eggs to become infected. And this is
Speaker 1: really important because earwigs can be the victims of parasitic
Speaker 1: fungus and uh so, yeah, they they are meticulous, just
Speaker 1: constantly cleaning. They'll even move their entire nest of eggs
Speaker 1: away if they are in danger, so pick everybody up
Speaker 1: and move it away, which is an incredible feat. And
Speaker 1: even even after the eggs hatch, the earwig others continue
Speaker 1: to care for their young, so they'll help them hatch.
Speaker 1: They regurgitate food for the young hatchlings, and they will
Speaker 1: care for them for months until the babies are really
Speaker 1: ready to strike out on their own. There's nothing like
Speaker 1: a mother's love and that can't be expressed more clearly
Speaker 1: than regurgitating food for you're young. Honestly, it's the most
Speaker 1: beautiful thing that nature has to offer. It's it's it's this. Uh,
Speaker 1: most animals do it. Humans are kind of weird ones
Speaker 1: for not not you know, regurgitating food as a sign
Speaker 1: of agree Any moms listening out there, if you truly
Speaker 1: love your kids, you will chew their food up, swallow it,
Speaker 1: then throw it back up for them to make it
Speaker 1: easier for them to digest. This podcast is not responsible
Speaker 1: for people who actually try to do that. I feel
Speaker 1: like I do nothing but say irresponsible stuff on your show.
Speaker 1: I apologize, Kadium, sorry, it's fine. We just need you
Speaker 1: to sign here and multiple waivers documents responsible for any
Speaker 1: vomit slash shark hugging lawsuit that we that we get.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, it is it's something where you look
Speaker 1: at this thing, this earwig looks like some nightmare that
Speaker 1: Satan came up with as he was tossing a salad
Speaker 1: with his with his tongues and and and it's they
Speaker 1: they are just sweet, loving mothers who care for their
Speaker 1: their babies. Of course, like I said earlier, it's hard
Speaker 1: to know. You know, this is probably mostly instinct, Like
Speaker 1: these are little little mom bots that do these things
Speaker 1: out of instinct, probably not a lot of forethought about it,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's it's I think it's still adorable
Speaker 1: and cute despite what they look like too. I love it.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned earlier, Christie that you love bets. I
Speaker 1: do absolutely love bats um. I uh grew up just
Speaker 1: seeing them around my house all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: like playing basketball in the street at night, and uh
Speaker 1: you could you could basically throw rocks up at the
Speaker 1: street light and they would swoop down after the rocks,
Speaker 1: and it was just a cool thing to see. We
Speaker 1: never harmed them or anything. I don't have any sad
Speaker 1: stories arding bats, nothing like that. But they're absolutely adorable.
Speaker 1: There's so much cuter than people give them credit for.
Speaker 1: And again, and I think, obviously this is the theme
Speaker 1: of your episode, like bats have such a bad reputation.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, I don't know if it's because of
Speaker 1: Dracula or the whole like spooky aspect of them around Halloween,
Speaker 1: but they get a bum rap and they shouldn't. They
Speaker 1: absolutely should not. Yeah, we talked about this on our
Speaker 1: episode called the Origin on the Origin of Feces, where
Speaker 1: we had we had a Rodrigo Medaine who is a
Speaker 1: professor of bat ecology at the University of Mexico, and
Speaker 1: he's known as the Batman of Mexico because he's done
Speaker 1: so much for the conservation of long nose abouts. And
Speaker 1: that's if you love bats, please listen to that episode.
Speaker 1: It's a great interview. He's a wonderful, fascinating guy, and
Speaker 1: and we talk about like he loves bats and he
Speaker 1: wants to uh talk about like the benefits of bats
Speaker 1: to humanity and how they truly get an undeserved reputation.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the species of bats who
Speaker 1: kind of get gets like the worst reputation of the
Speaker 1: bats is the vampire bats. And you know, despite being
Speaker 1: only there there's over a thousand species of bats, only
Speaker 1: three species of bats are vampire bats that that actually
Speaker 1: drink blood, and everyone, for whatever reason, this is the
Speaker 1: most sensational kind of thing people have this idea that
Speaker 1: most bats drink blood. The majority of bats do not
Speaker 1: drink blood. Most of them are frugivores, meaning they'll eat fruit, insectivores,
Speaker 1: they'll eat insects, and there are a few species that
Speaker 1: are carnivores. Those are more rare, but none of them
Speaker 1: are danger to humans other than you know, the rare
Speaker 1: cases of rabies and so on. But the the vampire
Speaker 1: bats themselves, I think, really get an undeserved bad reputation.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, we've we've talked about them a
Speaker 1: little bit on the show before the fact that vampire
Speaker 1: bats really don't tend to drink human blood. There's only
Speaker 1: one species that has been found to drink human blood.
Speaker 1: This is the hairy legged vampire bat of South and
Speaker 1: Central America and southern Mexico. And they're absolutely adorable. It's
Speaker 1: to me they look like just like like Stitch from
Speaker 1: Lelo and Stitch. Uh, that's exactly what it looks like.
Speaker 1: They're they're so cute. They got these big eyes, they
Speaker 1: got this cute little little smile. They they're furry, they've
Speaker 1: got little ears. These I would absolutely let this bat
Speaker 1: drink my blood if I knew there was if this
Speaker 1: bat has like he got his rabies test and when
Speaker 1: he's fine, like, you can absolutely have some of my
Speaker 1: but blood, you a little sweetie. I would I feel
Speaker 1: the exact same way. And these things, these these vampire
Speaker 1: bats are tiny too. Write there. They're little guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: little tiny guys. They just fit in your hand, like
Speaker 1: in the palm of your hand. They're not And they
Speaker 1: when they drink blood even when it's like these guys,
Speaker 1: the hairy legged vampire bats tend to drink blood from
Speaker 1: birds like chickens. Most vampire bats will tend to uh
Speaker 1: drink blood from cattle like cows or pigs. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they just drink a little bit of blood. They do.
Speaker 1: They never suck their prey dry. That's a total myth.
Speaker 1: They don't kill their prey. The time their prey dies
Speaker 1: is during the inadvertent transmission of something like rabies, which
Speaker 1: is pretty it's still pretty rare. It's like people think
Speaker 1: that most bats have rabies. That's not true. The majority
Speaker 1: of bats do not have rabies. It's just that the
Speaker 1: ones who do you might there's sort of a confirmation
Speaker 1: bias because if there's a sick bat that you find
Speaker 1: on the ground kind of struggling and who lets you
Speaker 1: pick it up, like, that's more likely to have rabies
Speaker 1: than your average bat because it's sick. Um. So I
Speaker 1: still do not advocate, you know, you still be very
Speaker 1: careful around bats. Don't just pick up a random bat
Speaker 1: you find on the ground. Not a good idea. But
Speaker 1: most bats do not have rabies. That they're not just
Speaker 1: a bunch of you know, disease things flying around. But
Speaker 1: in the same goes for vampire bats. So they don't
Speaker 1: kill animals by drinking their blood. And they really they're
Speaker 1: all about stealth. It's like a little stealth mission. They
Speaker 1: they you know, wait until they see, you know, since
Speaker 1: a a nice blood filled animal nearby, and they drop
Speaker 1: down and quickly scamper over to their usually an ankle
Speaker 1: or something, and just do a little incision with their
Speaker 1: tiny needle like teeth and they actually have really fascinating
Speaker 1: noses that have these little divots that can detect blood flow.
Speaker 1: So they find the they'd be great doctor's assistance to
Speaker 1: help them find a vein to to do an infusion,
Speaker 1: because they have these amazing little little detection organs. But
Speaker 1: they find where they can get a good blood flow,
Speaker 1: do a little incision, just sip a little bit of blood,
Speaker 1: and it really it's not especially when it's like something
Speaker 1: like a pig ora or a cow, like they're they're
Speaker 1: not going to hurt them by drinking their blood. They're
Speaker 1: not taking enough blood. The animals don't even notice. Probably yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah most of the time, Like it might be kind
Speaker 1: of irritating sometimes, but that's probably probably the worst, Like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So they're really not scary at all. In fact, they
Speaker 1: are very sweet and they will in terms of bat society,
Speaker 1: they are very caring about each other and they will
Speaker 1: share their food with their friends. So bats make friends too,
Speaker 1: just like sharks. Just like people, they will form companionships
Speaker 1: with specific other bats, and so bats in general have
Speaker 1: very rapid metabolisms, especially vampire bats, and going without a
Speaker 1: meal for too long can kill them. So it only
Speaker 1: takes three nights of missing meals for a vampire bat
Speaker 1: to die of starvation. Yeah, so that's the saddest thing
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. Well, don't be sad for too long,
Speaker 1: because bats will help out and neighbor in need. Bats
Speaker 1: will share food with other bats. If there's a bat
Speaker 1: who's hungry, one of their friends will regurgitate a bit
Speaker 1: of their blood meal for the needy bat. And then
Speaker 1: in the future this bat will reciprocate feeding other friends
Speaker 1: that need food and will help them out in hard times.
Speaker 1: They'll pay it forward. They'll pay it forward. They have
Speaker 1: a bat social safety nut. They're more advanced than the US.
Speaker 1: That's more than can be said for most of the
Speaker 1: fifty states and our federal government for the most they
Speaker 1: don't even make the bats like sign up for food
Speaker 1: stamps and there's no means testing. It's just like that thinks.
Speaker 1: There's no shaming, there's no you're hungry, Yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 1: just come and get a little bit of blood vomb.
Speaker 1: You know, that's amazing, that's amazing. Do do these bats?
Speaker 1: I'm meant to ask you when when they do the
Speaker 1: little incision, is there anything in their saliva that's like
Speaker 1: kind of a coagulation agent, like an anti coagulant. That's well,
Speaker 1: I didn't know, like like, yeah, an anti coagult I
Speaker 1: guess that would be the term that I'm I'm thinking of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have an anticoagulant. I don't think they have anything
Speaker 1: that like numbs the area, but they do have an
Speaker 1: anticoagulant that makes the blood low a little easier. These
Speaker 1: things are so highly evolved, they're so so incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there. It's it is pretty amazing too that that
Speaker 1: they have their little noses have these tiny pores that
Speaker 1: they can detect heat coming from veins, so they can
Speaker 1: get blood flow pretty easily, so that they can you know,
Speaker 1: so they're not they are surgical. They're like little little
Speaker 1: tiny blood sucking doctors and and so uh. It's in
Speaker 1: a lot of species of animals, like parents who often
Speaker 1: regurgitate food for their offspring, and in use social insects
Speaker 1: like bees and ants, they will regurgitate food for adults,
Speaker 1: but it's within this colony of like sisters of relatives.
Speaker 1: But it's extremely unusual in the animal kingdom for unrelated
Speaker 1: adults who are not interested in mating with each other
Speaker 1: to regurgitate food for each other purely out of a
Speaker 1: sort of like friendship bonding thing that is that's rare,
Speaker 1: that is quite rare, and they will form these these
Speaker 1: close friendships with each other. And researchers have studied these
Speaker 1: vampire bats and they they've found that they form these
Speaker 1: bonds by they take it slow. They like to take
Speaker 1: it slow and build up trust over time. So it's
Speaker 1: not not just like this unthinking like I will feed
Speaker 1: you and then you feed me and then we're good
Speaker 1: capeche like. They will slowly build up trust over times.
Speaker 1: So they'll start off with smaller gestures. Maybe they'll do
Speaker 1: a little bit of grooming. They're like, you know, check
Speaker 1: for parasitesaw on each other, and they'll groom each other.
Speaker 1: And then and then after they've done some grooming gotten
Speaker 1: to know each other, then maybe they'll share a little
Speaker 1: bit of a blood meal with their new friend. And
Speaker 1: then the first the first date, at the first date.
Speaker 1: But it's it can what's so incredible is this can
Speaker 1: be completely platonic. They can have no interest in mating,
Speaker 1: and it can be purely just a friendship where you know,
Speaker 1: where you just regurgitate blood for your friends and yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly everybody. You know, that's that's a normal thing to
Speaker 1: do when your friend needs some regurgitated blood and you've
Speaker 1: got some despair exactly. And uh yeah, so they so
Speaker 1: basically if they are getting they make these small investments
Speaker 1: early on in the friendship basically to make sure that
Speaker 1: you know, this is a mutual friendship, that that they'll
Speaker 1: they'll it's a give and take. And then they start
Speaker 1: to invest more in their friends. And then it gets
Speaker 1: to the point where basically like they will you know,
Speaker 1: give them a good amount of food just like when
Speaker 1: they are in need, and then they'll get reciprocated. And
Speaker 1: so it forms this this this safety network, this this
Speaker 1: it's mute bat mutual aid. It's it's very cool. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's amazing. That's uh yeah, like the obviously these
Speaker 1: these uh, these bats live in these huge colonies, and
Speaker 1: I never I never realized just the uh complexity and
Speaker 1: the intricacies of the I mean, they're really societies almost,
Speaker 1: you know, like like you could you could call them.
Speaker 1: They might not uh look like what we think of
Speaker 1: as a society, but when you have complex interactions like that,
Speaker 1: when you have basically bats getting to know each other
Speaker 1: and making sure the other one's cool and and uh
Speaker 1: and helping, like you said, bat mutual aid. That's a
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty that. I can't it can't be stressed
Speaker 1: enough how highly evolved these things are. And then and
Speaker 1: it's not just vampire abouts. There are lots of different species.
Speaker 1: But that's of course, it depends on the species. There's
Speaker 1: some species that are more solitary. But but a lot
Speaker 1: of species of bats will form these big groups and
Speaker 1: they all they all huddle together in in caves or
Speaker 1: in trees, and they and they form these like big
Speaker 1: communes and they are of of a lot of these
Speaker 1: species of like imunal animals are very like pacifist with
Speaker 1: each other. There aren't really that there's not that much conflict.
Speaker 1: They're very chill, low drama animals. Well, when you're that cute, like,
Speaker 1: you can't you can't get mad at that face. Look
Speaker 1: at the little baby. I one of my favorite pictures
Speaker 1: of a vampire bat. It's a I think this is
Speaker 1: a white, white winged vampire bat. It's it's absolutely it's
Speaker 1: just got a little smile, well turned up nose, yeah,
Speaker 1: well turned up nose. The big ears, yeah, they're adorable.
Speaker 1: If I could have if I could have one mulligan
Speaker 1: on like an unethical pet, like a pet that I
Speaker 1: really shouldn't have, it would be a bat. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I've seen video of those golden flying fox bats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those giant ones, and like I've seen I don't know
Speaker 1: if people are illegally keeping them as pets or if
Speaker 1: it's in a sanctuary or what. Those things are the cutest,
Speaker 1: Like they're cuter than like a lot of dogs that
Speaker 1: I see, you know what I mean, Like they're they're
Speaker 1: just seeing them eating a group. Yes, yes, it's it's
Speaker 1: the most adorable thing in the world. It's like it's
Speaker 1: it's the cutest video you can imagine. But they're huge too.
Speaker 1: I don't understand the physics and the aerodynamics. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're as big as small dogs. Basically they have
Speaker 1: there well they're little. They're actual bodies minus their wings
Speaker 1: is going to be smaller than smaller, smaller than the
Speaker 1: small dog. It's it's gonna be. Uh. Their wingspan though,
Speaker 1: is gigantic because in order to hoist up like even
Speaker 1: even something that's like bigger, they're like a little They're
Speaker 1: they're actual body sizes maybe a little bigger than a
Speaker 1: rat um, like a large rat so they need a
Speaker 1: massive wingspan to keep them aloft. So like when you
Speaker 1: look at them wings and all, they're truly giant. I
Speaker 1: also like that they're called megabouts. The biggest megabouts is
Speaker 1: the great flying fox. Megabat is such a yeah, and
Speaker 1: they can. They They only weigh about a little over
Speaker 1: three pounds or one point six ks, so pretty small
Speaker 1: in total. But their wingspan is almost six ft or
Speaker 1: almost two meters long, so yeah, it's huge. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so they But it's what you're asking, like, how do
Speaker 1: they even get in the air. That's the answer. They're
Speaker 1: pretty lightweight, but they have a huge wingspan because the
Speaker 1: bigger you are, the bigger wings you need to be
Speaker 1: able to get up in the air. This has been
Speaker 1: the most educational experience I've ever had with bats since
Speaker 1: ace Ventura too. Don't where he eats? Yes, exactly, this
Speaker 1: is This has been so much fun. Well, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: glad to be in the company of a fellow bat appreciator.
Speaker 1: I love them, so obviously we shouldn't keep bats as pets.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, if I could have one Mulligan on
Speaker 1: an unethical pet. It would be bad because they're so cute.
Speaker 1: But don't don't have bats as pets. I might. It's
Speaker 1: illegal in North Carolina to own a raven, but I
Speaker 1: think that might be my mulligan because of how intelligent
Speaker 1: those things are, and I love them so much. You
Speaker 1: would be it would be like living with a two
Speaker 1: year old who can claw and bite at you. Though
Speaker 1: intelligent birds. As much as I love intelligent birds, I
Speaker 1: would never want one as a pet because they would
Speaker 1: It's like a little dinosaur that has the brain of
Speaker 1: a two year old and and know and knows how
Speaker 1: to inflict pain. I have a friend who knows exactly
Speaker 1: what it's like taking care of like a cockatoo, and
Speaker 1: and ravens are quite intelligent as well. I'm gonna show you.
Speaker 1: I'll send you a YouTube video of someone who takes
Speaker 1: care of a bunch of big birds in a is
Speaker 1: like a bird sanctuary, and she has a raven and
Speaker 1: she's like, she's basically, this is not my pet. This
Speaker 1: is a raven who has decided to be my tenant
Speaker 1: in this this aviary. You know, we have to come
Speaker 1: to basic agreements. But if she doesn't want to do something,
Speaker 1: she's not going to do something. So they are very
Speaker 1: independent and so I feel like if if I was
Speaker 1: if I was to have an unethical familiar, I'd want
Speaker 1: a bat because I think they'd just be real chill.
Speaker 1: I probably need more than one bat, though, because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to isolate them from from their companions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you have to have bat friends, and that's live
Speaker 1: in a cave with a bunch of bats. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that's under the same mulligan though, Like exactly, you don't
Speaker 1: need a bunch of individual Mulligan's for that, Like a
Speaker 1: flock of bath exactly exactly. And I let them all
Speaker 1: drink by blood and I could probably pass out. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you're not iron deficient or anything like that. Up get
Speaker 1: anemia and I'd go to the doctor. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you have severe anemia. It's like, Katie, has anything recently
Speaker 1: changed in your life? Any any major? Uh? You know?
Speaker 1: I adopted a flock of vampire bats, which to no dairy.
Speaker 1: It's probably the no dairy. It's probably the no dairy thing. Yes, exactly, exactly. Well, Christie,
Speaker 1: I am a Gucci mane. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being on the show today and for highlighting the sweet
Speaker 1: cute sides of some animals who are unfairly in theligne. Uh.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you? You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Wapple House w A P P L E
Speaker 1: h O U s E UM. That's the easiest way
Speaker 1: to keep up with me and other shows that I host,
Speaker 1: like Hour after Hours in George Center. UM, and that's
Speaker 1: basically it. Let's listen to those shows if you're a
Speaker 1: fan of Dan Lebottard show, UM kinda sports radio UM
Speaker 1: type of type of thing. If you're a fan of
Speaker 1: his show. We do a podcast that kind of revolves
Speaker 1: around that universe called Hour after Hours. And then George
Speaker 1: Center Pod is me and uh four of the funniest
Speaker 1: people I have ever met or heard. They're just lifelong
Speaker 1: friends of mine and blood into their mouths. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I have many times, um, usually after a long night
Speaker 1: of drinking, uh, you know, doing doing drugs and stuff.
Speaker 1: You know it it Uh, it's it's a good hangover
Speaker 1: remedy basically, is what I'm saying. But you know the
Speaker 1: saying like, uh, friendships are great if they outlast the
Speaker 1: battery and a shark tracking device or and or if
Speaker 1: they vomit a little bit of blood in your mouth,
Speaker 1: you know. I think I have that on a cross
Speaker 1: stitch hanging up in the hallway. I think my grandma
Speaker 1: made made one of those for me when I was
Speaker 1: very little. So I've got one of those wood burnings
Speaker 1: that's like live, laugh, let your friendships less longer than
Speaker 1: a shark tracking device, and vomit letting your friends male.
Speaker 1: It's a little corny, but yeah, I mean it's is
Speaker 1: it long winded? Sure? But is it? Is it? You know?
Speaker 1: Is it a life? Is this saying that we're very
Speaker 1: familiar with for a reason, Yes, because it's true. It's
Speaker 1: very true, one of those eternal truths. Well, you can
Speaker 1: find the show on the internet at Creature Feature Pod
Speaker 1: on Instagram, at Creature feet pot on Twitter. That's Eppy
Speaker 1: eating something very different. And of course, uh you can
Speaker 1: send in emails at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com where you can send in all your questions, your
Speaker 1: pictures of your cute little doggies and kiddies and pets.
Speaker 1: And uh, I'm also Katie Golden on the internet at
Speaker 1: Katie Golden on Twitter. Uh. So, yeah, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you
Speaker 1: have like just a minute to spare, you could press
Speaker 1: that the star buttons give it a rating. If you
Speaker 1: have even a little more time and you give it
Speaker 1: a review, I will read it. I read all the reviews.
Speaker 1: They absolutely make my day. They make me smile. Thank
Speaker 1: you for doing that, and thanks for the space concerts
Speaker 1: for the super awesome song. Ex Alumina Creature features a
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