Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: A Many Parasites Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show I'm Trash, we're talking about
Speaker 1: all the animals who intentionally make themselves look like garbage.
Speaker 1: These animals want you to just ignore them because they're normal, littered,
Speaker 1: nothing to see here. Those some have sinister purposes. Discover
Speaker 1: this and more as we answer the age old question
Speaker 1: why do so many bugs want to look like poop?
Speaker 1: Joining me today is friend of the show, comedian and
Speaker 1: producer of the City Council Show podcast, Polavie good Loland. Welcome.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm super excited to be on this episode. Yes,
Speaker 2: I like, I feel like so many people also disguise
Speaker 2: themselves as trash exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I sometimes like you just want to kind of appear
Speaker 1: like trash. You can float through the world and not
Speaker 1: have any anyone interacts.
Speaker 2: Do you I have a question, do you ever feel
Speaker 2: like a plastic bag?
Speaker 1: Wow? That's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Did you come up with that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Just now, I just that's that's.
Speaker 1: Such a beautiful sentiment. I love that. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I do sometimes feel like like tarash. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm how I'm approaching that word, but I feel
Speaker 1: like trash sometimes.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited to see like a fish that looks
Speaker 2: like a Dorito's bag, you know, just like trash. I
Speaker 2: was like picturing like human trash, and I was like,
Speaker 2: that's crazy that there's a like a lizard that looks
Speaker 2: like a water bottle. That's the wild I mean, give.
Speaker 1: Them, give them like a few more million years of
Speaker 1: evolution and it'll happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So we are talking about animals to disguise
Speaker 1: themselves as garbage for a variety of fun reasons. The
Speaker 1: first one I want to talk about is the cockatoo
Speaker 1: wasp fish, also known as a Blabby's tinodus.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was gonna be like, fish, get your own
Speaker 2: animal name, because it's like cockatoo wasp fish, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. I feel like it's appropriating very many
Speaker 2: different animal cultures, and it's good to know it has
Speaker 2: its own name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a Blaby's tin nionodus. Yeah. It is
Speaker 1: a six inch or fifteen centimeter fish found in the
Speaker 1: West Pacific near Japan, Australia, and Fiji. They are typically
Speaker 1: found on the sandy seafloor or in seagrass, and they
Speaker 1: basically their whole lifestyle is don't mind me, I'm a
Speaker 1: dead piece of gross kelp ignore me.
Speaker 2: Mm calp the trash of the sea, right, other than
Speaker 2: the trash that we also put in the sea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's also trash. It's like, yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: KELP is sort of like the.
Speaker 2: Dead leaves of the sea's trash.
Speaker 1: Nature's trash, and it they really commit to the bit, uh, Paul.
Speaker 1: I've provided you with a couple of YouTube links if
Speaker 1: you like, be so kind of check those out.
Speaker 2: That'd be so weird if I clicked on this YouTube
Speaker 2: link and I started getting ads from fish new kel
Speaker 2: they're all heavily Oh whoa, there was one in the
Speaker 2: foreground that I didn't even see, right, Wow, they're very
Speaker 2: good at it. And they're doing the whole like lazing
Speaker 2: around getting moved by the water. Yeah, water, which is
Speaker 2: wind of the sea.
Speaker 1: The wind of the sea water.
Speaker 2: Yes, damn. That's such a chill life, just like and
Speaker 2: just relaxing and trash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's they are doing a method acting
Speaker 1: of the of the dead.
Speaker 2: KELP really going for who was the succession guy, Jeremy
Speaker 2: what's his name, Jeremy Strong could never. Jeremy Strong could.
Speaker 1: Never, Daniel day Lewis, who else does wishes? Yeah, like
Speaker 1: Jared Letto, Lito.
Speaker 2: Jared, A bunch of strangely ego tripping.
Speaker 1: Men, right, more like Jared Lefo this guy there we go.
Speaker 2: But yeah, watching the second clip one second?
Speaker 1: Do they.
Speaker 2: Like kelp is different colors?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, I mean brown green mostly, So I'm.
Speaker 2: Wondering if like the kelp in the area wherever these are, like,
Speaker 2: if they if they reflect the color of the kelp there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably I would imagine, so like there's there's a
Speaker 1: great deal of this color of brownish sort of reddish
Speaker 1: brown kelps, so they would blend right in with the
Speaker 1: kelp force near where they are. And yeah, I really
Speaker 1: just appreciate how committed they are to acting like kelp.
Speaker 1: They swim in a way where they kind of make
Speaker 1: it seem like they're drifting, so it looks just like
Speaker 1: their kelp kind of floating in the current, but they
Speaker 1: are intentionally moving, so like their swim styles, like I
Speaker 1: just kind of swim over here like they're floating. Uh,
Speaker 1: but they are covered in poisonous spines. Oh my god, Yeah,
Speaker 1: venomous spines. So unfortunately they if you step on one
Speaker 1: of these, they have a bunch of venomous spines. And
Speaker 1: it's fun because they make themselves intentionally look just like kelp.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and then you're gonna spine me.
Speaker 1: Are you checking me?
Speaker 2: It's a my.
Speaker 1: Fault, right, Good luck with that. And even like more
Speaker 1: toxic of them is that they're predators and they will
Speaker 1: each shrimp and small crustaceans, and this form of mimicry
Speaker 1: is not just to evade detection from it is to
Speaker 1: evade detection from their prey. So they just act like
Speaker 1: a dead piece of kelp float along and then ambush
Speaker 1: some unsuspecting victim and suddenly this kelp is trying to
Speaker 1: eat you.
Speaker 2: That would give me so many like I would have
Speaker 2: so many trauma responses to vegetation after that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it. You don't expect like basically
Speaker 1: the limp salad of the sea to attack you. That's
Speaker 1: the last place you would expect violence from, like essentially
Speaker 1: sea salad. So essentially, the only clue you have that
Speaker 1: this thing is not some dead kelp drifting on the
Speaker 1: seafloor is its eyes, and their eyes are really weird
Speaker 1: because I don't know if you noticed in that video,
Speaker 1: but they kind of like stabilize, like as they're floating,
Speaker 1: their eyes remain kind of like gyroscopically stable, so they
Speaker 1: can continually scan their surroundings for prey.
Speaker 2: It's like in those videos of like people like moving
Speaker 2: chickens arounds and their heads to in the same spot.
Speaker 1: It's exactly like that, except the chicken is covered in
Speaker 1: venomous spines and looks like sea salad.
Speaker 2: Maybe they would do better on land if they did
Speaker 2: look like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess, I mean, I guess we would,
Speaker 1: like that would be very effective. Camouflage for a chicken
Speaker 1: is like a salad, because then meat eaters are like,
Speaker 1: ew a salad. I don't want that.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, oh, tasteress like chicken. I hate myself.
Speaker 1: Pullavi. Is it just me? Or do you ever just
Speaker 1: like dress up in garbage when you don't want to
Speaker 1: be bothered, Like you put on into Yeah, just like
Speaker 1: the word you're most off putting sweater or jeans like
Speaker 1: an intentionally placed marinera sauce stained somewhere just so you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was intentional sure.
Speaker 1: Art artfully designed stains so that when you go outside
Speaker 1: people will give you like a wide berth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean that's like when I walk
Speaker 2: my dogs, I'm always just like dressed in whatever I'm
Speaker 2: at in at home, and it's very like not attention.
Speaker 2: It's like it's unfortunately attention grabbing it the wrong way,
Speaker 2: like in that it's like so mismatched. But luckily in
Speaker 2: Hollywood nobody care, right, But yeah, I have a lot
Speaker 2: of my whole, my whole that's like this the Billie
Speaker 2: Eilish thing where she wore a bunch of like baggy
Speaker 2: sweatpants and stuff so people wouldn't look at her body.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, it's just sometimes you don't want
Speaker 1: to be noticed. And it's frustrating because I live in
Speaker 1: Italy and people actually dress very nicely a lot of
Speaker 1: the time, and everywhere.
Speaker 2: Except the US people dress very nicely a lot of
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: It seems that way.
Speaker 2: Yes, I go to and yet I'm like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: going out to dinner. Usually in the US, I would
Speaker 2: just like wear a T shirt and they were like,
Speaker 2: you would wear just a T shirt outside of your home?
Speaker 2: And I was like yeah, and they're like, that's disgusting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When I went to an Italian language class, I
Speaker 1: like was in there with like jeans and a hoodie
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, did you just come back from
Speaker 1: the gym, And it's like, no, I'm just wearing clothes.
Speaker 2: You're welcome that I'm here.
Speaker 1: But the kind of the commitment to lounge wear, to
Speaker 1: wearing garbage so that you're not noticed is done by
Speaker 1: the humble crab who I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 1: of this idea of carsonization where animals repeatedly evolved to
Speaker 1: be crab shaped. But all I'm saying is we are
Speaker 1: sort of headed towards crab form eventually. And so isn't
Speaker 1: that what the.
Speaker 2: That movie was about? The crab or the lobster? What
Speaker 2: was it that Jake jillen All.
Speaker 1: Movie, No idea. I've never heard of this, but I
Speaker 1: would love it if there's a Jake Jillenhall movie called
Speaker 1: the Crab.
Speaker 2: Farrell, they're kind of the same to Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Colin Farrell, wasn't a movie called the Lobster?
Speaker 2: That's what it was?
Speaker 1: Where you have to like I think you have to
Speaker 1: like find you have to marry someone or you turn
Speaker 1: into an animal when you turn like forty or something.
Speaker 2: And that's where we're all going. A single woman, this
Speaker 2: is exactly where I'm headed. I'm about to turn into
Speaker 2: this crab.
Speaker 1: I think going crab is not so bad. Honestly, you
Speaker 1: can scuttle a lot more. Scuttling's nice, it's a good
Speaker 1: it's a good form of locomotion. Anyway, I would I
Speaker 1: would dig a crab lifestyle, especially decorator crabs, because decorator
Speaker 1: crabs are basically Yes, they're basically like, I am small
Speaker 1: and cute and edible, so I'm just gonna put a
Speaker 1: bunch of junk on my body so nobody notices me.
Speaker 2: So they decorate themselves.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 2: How come it's called decorator crabs and not like defender crabs.
Speaker 2: It's because they're cute.
Speaker 1: Toxic femininity.
Speaker 2: Their life, their survival skills or little arts and crafts
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Right, scientists, pinterest crabs. Yes, so there are at least
Speaker 1: fifteen species of crabs known as decorator crabs, who will
Speaker 1: pick up junk they find from the seat and place
Speaker 1: it on tiny, little velcrow like hooks on their bodies.
Speaker 1: They're literally covered in velcrow and oh wow, yeah, so
Speaker 1: they can just pick Yeah, that's crazy. The hooks are
Speaker 1: called cetae, and cetae are just it's just as science
Speaker 1: see word for like hair like bristles. So they can
Speaker 1: basically pick up any kind of seed junk that could
Speaker 1: stick to sort of a sticky velcrow thing. They'll use
Speaker 1: things like kelp, broken bits of coral shells, pebbles. Some
Speaker 1: species of decorator crab even choose to attach toxic bits
Speaker 1: of scrap onto their bodies like little anenemies. I said
Speaker 1: that wrong. Anemonies. That's that's a word that does not
Speaker 1: feel good in my mouth. So it's thought that the
Speaker 1: anemonies may benefit by being able to taxi around and
Speaker 1: find food, while the crab benefits from the anemones toxins. Hmmm.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's like having like one mean friend. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like they benefit because they get access to all the
Speaker 2: places you go because you're nice, But then you benefit
Speaker 2: when that goes down and you need to like throw
Speaker 2: that mean friend at the situation.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. It's like your mean friend is always sort
Speaker 1: of strong arming in you into driving them around, but
Speaker 1: then you need them to really release some they will
Speaker 1: for you, they will right exactly. I love that. I
Speaker 1: love this friendship for them. So decorator crabs will use
Speaker 1: whatever they find in their environment, which makes sense because
Speaker 1: they want to blend in best where they are. But
Speaker 1: that means that if a decorator crab finds itself near
Speaker 1: human garbage, it will cover itself in human garbage.
Speaker 2: So sad, so sad. Good. So there are little Dorito's
Speaker 2: bags wandering around the ocean pretty.
Speaker 1: Much, pretty much so. A crab found near a sump
Speaker 1: system by photographer Michael Bach at a research station was
Speaker 1: covered in little pieces of plastic and netting that was
Speaker 1: in a filter system he had crawled into. So thankfully
Speaker 1: this wasn't like pollution in the ocean. There was like
Speaker 1: a filtration system that was to keep stuff from getting
Speaker 1: out into the ocean. But this little crab got in there.
Speaker 1: It was like great free junk and he put him
Speaker 1: on all on himself.
Speaker 2: One's man, one man's trash is another decorator crabs. Michaels Art.
Speaker 1: Michaels is like the number one generator of just stuff
Speaker 1: and junk. Like there's I feel like in a few
Speaker 1: if we last a few more, one hundred thousand years unlikely,
Speaker 1: But if we do, there's just gonna be like a
Speaker 1: fine sedimentary layer of like Michael's stuff, like sequin yeah,
Speaker 1: fillers yeah, yeah, felts, eyeballs, those little like weird styrofoam shapes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Unfortunately, this habit of wearing human trash is not
Speaker 1: only found with decorator crabs. It is a found with
Speaker 1: hermit crabs. So hermit crabs will wear trash if they
Speaker 1: end up finding that instead of an adequate seashell. So
Speaker 1: hermit crabs will use the abandoned shells of other marine
Speaker 1: life rather than producing their own shells. And as they grow,
Speaker 1: they need to move into bigger shells, so they're always
Speaker 1: on the hunt for a nice cozy shell.
Speaker 2: Sustainable kings look at them, Yeah, using whatever they have incredible.
Speaker 1: Reuse, recycle, literal green houses is what they're doing, right,
Speaker 1: Scuttle reuse, recycle crab life. So finding the right sized
Speaker 1: shell is difficult, So if they're surrounded by human garbage,
Speaker 1: they will wear that garbage like bottle caps, broken light bulbs.
Speaker 1: This photographer Sean Miller captured a bunch of photos of
Speaker 1: hermit crabs on a litter covered beach. In Okinawa and
Speaker 1: they're just there with their little bottle caps and ran
Speaker 1: garbage that they're wearing, like it's no big deal.
Speaker 2: But it's if we're not going to use it, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it makes me.
Speaker 2: So sad that you see that. That is like so
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, we're like we don't need to. We've
Speaker 2: we've made we're such consumers. We've like endowed the consumer
Speaker 2: lifestyle and the capitalist culture onto crabs. They're like they're
Speaker 2: they're like work pilled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, yeah, they're going to be shopping at
Speaker 1: Cole's next. It's it's a problem. It's a big problem. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it is a problem though, because trash is
Speaker 1: on the whole not helpful for crabs. First of all,
Speaker 1: it's not an ideal home for them. But also there
Speaker 1: is something called a cascade of death that can happen
Speaker 1: to hermit crabs, which I do. I mean, this is bad,
Speaker 1: but I do like the name of it. I love
Speaker 1: it when scientists are just like, this is a cascade
Speaker 1: of debt death, this is a whirlpool of suffering.
Speaker 2: It's like a scientist who didn't get into writing school.
Speaker 1: Right, you know what, I mean this is what you're
Speaker 1: one shot, Yeah, exactly. So this cascade of death can
Speaker 1: happen to hermit crabs who get stuck inside plastic bottles
Speaker 1: that they're rooting around in. So they can sometimes go
Speaker 1: inside a plastic or glass bottle because they're looking for water.
Speaker 1: They think maybe it's a home, but it turns out
Speaker 1: just to be a big bottle. But then they can, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they can get stuck inside because the sides are
Speaker 1: so smooth, they don't get traction with their little hermit
Speaker 1: crab feet, and so it's unable to get out, and
Speaker 1: so it'll die. And then it emits a smell that
Speaker 1: other hermit crabs can detect in which lets them know
Speaker 1: that there's a dead hermit crab around. And when other
Speaker 1: hermit crabs smell that, they know there is an available shell,
Speaker 1: and so they yeah, yeah, no, normally what this means. Normally,
Speaker 1: this means that it's just the hermit crab going to
Speaker 1: the dead hermit crabs estate sale, doing a little bit
Speaker 1: of harmless grave robbing and getting a nice new home.
Speaker 1: But what happens now when they are inside this bottle
Speaker 1: is that these other crabs go in smelling the like hey,
Speaker 1: free home, I'm dead smell and then they get trapped too,
Speaker 1: and then they die and then another crab smells them,
Speaker 1: and it's just this vicious cycle of crabs dying and
Speaker 1: sending out like I'm dead now, come take my shell
Speaker 1: sent out to other crabs until these bottles can be
Speaker 1: like full of dead hermit crabs.
Speaker 2: Okay, how do we do this? But with like billionaires
Speaker 2: lure them immediately, like how can we weaponize this? I'm
Speaker 2: better than other people.
Speaker 1: Lure them into buying social media companies and dunk on
Speaker 1: them more and more.
Speaker 2: That that they're like, it's affecting so many hermit crabs.
Speaker 2: It makes me so upset. And it's also like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, like people are always like, oh, like marine
Speaker 2: life gets trapped, and it's like you don't think about
Speaker 2: the little like insect like creatures too. People think about
Speaker 2: like turtles and stuff. It's really like the whole the
Speaker 2: whole food chain is affected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the little guys too. I love hermit crabs.
Speaker 1: I had a pet terrestrial hermit crab when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, and have.
Speaker 2: The best pets, but that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not great pets. I own a lot of
Speaker 1: pets as a kid that like as an adult, I
Speaker 1: would advise against because, yeah, partially because it's like they're
Speaker 1: not great pets, and also it's not necessarily the best
Speaker 1: life for them to be manhandled by a child.
Speaker 2: Your your hermit crab. You had that chimp that ate
Speaker 2: someone's face, I don't talk about anymore. Yeah, you had
Speaker 2: a whole slew of pets.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Uh yeah, but this, this hermit crab did
Speaker 1: try to eat my face, or at least my armpit.
Speaker 1: It like crawled into my armpit one time and then
Speaker 1: just clamped down really hard and I couldn't get it
Speaker 1: and it was.
Speaker 2: Just so painful. It sounds like it was very painful.
Speaker 1: I was conscientious as a kid, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to like rip it off because I was worried I
Speaker 1: would hurt its little arm. So I just was like, well,
Speaker 1: this is my life now, and I had to wait
Speaker 1: until it decided to let go. I just had a
Speaker 1: hermit crab in my armpit for like half an hour.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, what if you had like a cascade
Speaker 2: of death from that, like you accidentally and then it died.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, all these hermit crabs
Speaker 2: like appeared out of your apartment and it's.
Speaker 1: Like and then it's like someone's like, wow, it smells
Speaker 1: like a bunch of hermit crabs crawled up and died
Speaker 1: in your armpits.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well about.
Speaker 1: That, about that, And that's why Paula VI, I'm sure
Speaker 1: we both experienced the feeling of just feeling like crap
Speaker 1: and sort of like, you know, just just dressing like crap,
Speaker 1: just sort of embracing being craped for a day, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, similar to this trash theme.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's like there are days where, like,
Speaker 1: at least for me, I sometimes just like I feel
Speaker 1: kind of crappy and I just go with it. It's like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm having a crap day. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: be crap today. That's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, lots of arthropods also love to be crap. In fact,
Speaker 1: they are very committed to looking exactly like poop. So
Speaker 1: this is something that happens in multiple different like insects
Speaker 1: and arthropods, and it is some of them like it's, yes,
Speaker 1: it is kind of gross looking, but it's also ridiculously
Speaker 1: the elegant evolution.
Speaker 2: So it's very gross looking, but it is like you
Speaker 2: have to be really good at mimicry to do it exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is it's like, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's high like when in like really high fashion,
Speaker 1: sometimes they do this like disheveled look where it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: that outfit looks like garbage, but it's very fancy and
Speaker 1: well thought out garbage.
Speaker 2: I guess. Yeah, it's like the casual look. It's really
Speaker 2: well crafted.
Speaker 1: Actually right, it's the sloppy bun. I've never been able
Speaker 1: to like, I've never been able to do a sloppy bun.
Speaker 2: Why is a sloppy bun? Okay, but a frizzy bun
Speaker 2: isn't like let me, let me be a frizzball. I
Speaker 2: not come into fashion style.
Speaker 1: Come on, I have extremely frizzy like Girl before the
Speaker 1: Makeover and teen movies hair.
Speaker 2: Literally literally in middle school. I after, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: still sticking with me. This is how much it's a
Speaker 2: like a chip on my shoulder. I went to swimming
Speaker 2: class because we had like the gym rotations, and one
Speaker 2: of them was like swim learning how to swim, and
Speaker 2: then afterwards one of my male friends was like, you
Speaker 2: look like the before picture and Rachel looks like the
Speaker 2: after in a shampoo commercial.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: First of all, but I didn't know how to articulate
Speaker 2: that at the time. No, everybody just laughed and I
Speaker 2: was like ha ha okay, because I didn't have like
Speaker 2: a voice at that point. You know, I was by
Speaker 2: all these white people in Utah, but I was. I
Speaker 2: literally like in the morning, like I won't One thing
Speaker 2: that I do love about myself is that I won't
Speaker 2: look in the mirror in the mornings, and I like
Speaker 2: go walk the dogs and just like leave immediately. So
Speaker 2: I have no idea what I look like. And I'm
Speaker 2: just like if I tie my hair up, it's like
Speaker 2: frisball Frisball, Like it's just like there's no I can't.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to put condition on my hair when
Speaker 2: my dog needs to take you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, big same. I When I try to
Speaker 1: do sloppy bun, I look like a Victorian era woman
Speaker 1: who's been like put in the asylum by her husband
Speaker 1: for speaking her mind. We're supposed to getting a lobotomy
Speaker 1: right exactly on Someday's post lobotomy. On Someday's pre lobotomy.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just it doesn't look great. So I
Speaker 1: feel like with the with the like stylish, messy bun.
Speaker 1: It's something that I have to imagine people work at
Speaker 1: this craft. Similarly, the bird poop spiders great segue perfect.
Speaker 2: So you're so gross looking, this is so disgusting.
Speaker 1: They really do look like bird poops. So spiders love
Speaker 1: to pretend to be poop, and there are actually many
Speaker 1: species who do it.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: For example, there is the Selenia excaveta, or bird dropping spider,
Speaker 1: who lives in Australia and looks literally like a little
Speaker 1: globule of bird poop. It is a splotchy white and
Speaker 1: brown and it's disconcertingly glossy on the.
Speaker 2: White part, very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks literally like a bird dropping Uh.
Speaker 2: Do they smell like them too?
Speaker 1: I don't think these ones do. There are some bird
Speaker 1: poop imitators who do emit a foul odor to really
Speaker 1: sell it.
Speaker 2: Talk about a cascade of death.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they also. Daniel day Lewis ith they method
Speaker 1: act by holding their legs tucked in and staying still
Speaker 1: to really give it that authentic poop performance.
Speaker 2: And some in law and order as a corpse right now,
Speaker 2: I would love it.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, if we like lived in a magical
Speaker 1: world where animals, you know, like in the Flintstones, where
Speaker 1: animals were all employed as stuff, and like you had
Speaker 1: to have like bird poop in a movie, so you
Speaker 1: cast one of these as the bird poop and then
Speaker 1: you paid them a fair wage. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the.
Speaker 2: Most unrealdcast, right, the most unrealistic part of that scenario
Speaker 2: is someone being Yeah, were like, what a dream of
Speaker 2: fair wage? What a dream?
Speaker 1: I mean, sentient spiders, Maybe we'll get there soon. Fair
Speaker 1: wage not a chance? So so yes, Uh. They grow
Speaker 1: to be about half an inch or a little over
Speaker 1: a centimeter wide. So while they're not like super teeny tiny,
Speaker 1: they're definitely prey for birds. So what better way to
Speaker 1: keep a bird from eating you than looking like a
Speaker 1: piece of poop? Yep, So they are hunters as well
Speaker 1: they are spiders, and they actually go from day to
Speaker 1: night using a different kind of mimicry. It's like, day
Speaker 1: look is poop, night look is something else.
Speaker 2: So I mean, who amongst us, you know, when we
Speaker 2: go out at night, right, look much different than the
Speaker 2: poop look during the day.
Speaker 1: Exactly. So they hunt for their favorite food at night,
Speaker 1: which is moths. And at night it's not so much
Speaker 1: that they change their appearance, but they definitely put on
Speaker 1: a deceptive perfume. So the bird dropping spider releases a
Speaker 1: pheromone that mimics that of a female moth, So the
Speaker 1: horny male moths will come right up to the spider,
Speaker 1: who smells like a sexy female, and then the spider
Speaker 1: eats the male.
Speaker 2: I think the female moths are in on it. I
Speaker 2: think they're the ones who are like, They're like, here,
Speaker 2: take this perfume and then murder my husband.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean yeah, I think, yeah, like, would this
Speaker 1: this male moth just made fun of my antenna. Here's
Speaker 1: some perfume. Do what you will.
Speaker 2: This is like the Chicago movie, like but moth and
Speaker 2: birds and oh I would.
Speaker 1: I would definitely pay to see an insect version of Chicago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you met like Catherine Zada Jones is like a spider.
Speaker 2: That'd be great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it goes from being a piece of poop
Speaker 1: during the day to a femme fatale at night, which
Speaker 1: I love. It's what we all dream of. Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: So there are many other spiders and insects who use
Speaker 1: the poop defense. So, uh, one other type of insect.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about our moths. So the Drea's
Speaker 1: book You'd Rise, I have no Oh my god, You'd raise,
Speaker 1: You'd Raise. Grata moths aka beautiful wood nymphs found in
Speaker 1: the US have white, brown, black and green splotches on
Speaker 1: their wings, and when their wings are actually wide open,
Speaker 1: they are quite lovely m They look like pretty moths.
Speaker 1: They don't look like anything gross or strange. But when
Speaker 1: they fold their wings and they splay out their front legs,
Speaker 1: so their front legs are kind of fuzzy, like covered
Speaker 1: in like white fuzz, which is cute. But when they
Speaker 1: like splay them out and fold their wings up, they
Speaker 1: look like a bird poop splatter.
Speaker 2: It's because it like goes from white to like slightly
Speaker 2: green to brown. Yeah, it looks like how a bird
Speaker 2: poop like crusts over. Yes, And so when they're like
Speaker 2: folded up like that, it looks like a drip of
Speaker 2: bird poop in like the positioning and then also in
Speaker 2: like the grady end. But then when they're open they
Speaker 2: look so pretty.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that. I love that they can transform
Speaker 1: from pretty moth to like. Nope, I am a splatter
Speaker 1: of nasty, crusty bird doodo.
Speaker 2: Moths contain multitudes indeed.
Speaker 1: And uh, there's another moth known as macrosilics Maya, found
Speaker 1: in Malaysia, and they are perhaps the most impressive bird
Speaker 1: dropping mimics. Uh. Their wings actually feature an entire painting
Speaker 1: not only of splattered bird poop, but what seems to
Speaker 1: be a couple of flies eating the poop.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, holy that looks crazy, right. It looks
Speaker 2: like a cartoon, like somebody drew it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But also the bird poop also looks like a penis,
Speaker 2: like that part of it because it's like symmetricals right,
Speaker 2: so like when they pull it right and a penis
Speaker 2: coming up along the spine.
Speaker 1: It's it's the first known of mimicry and pornography.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So not much is known about why this moth has
Speaker 1: this impressive mimicry, but it is likely it's to ward
Speaker 1: off predators who are not particularly interested in a bunch
Speaker 1: of bird poop and a couple of flies eating that
Speaker 1: bird poop.
Speaker 2: Do you think flies get tricked too? You know what?
Speaker 1: I bet they do? I bet they like go up
Speaker 1: to this moth's ass and they're like, hey, what's going
Speaker 1: on here?
Speaker 2: And it doesn't smell like they wanted to smell.
Speaker 1: Right, it's just not it's not working out for them,
Speaker 1: it is. I really there's like surprisingly not that much
Speaker 1: research on these things, and I really want there to
Speaker 1: be more because this is so it's so ridiculous. Like
Speaker 1: you can see the outline of the flies, you can
Speaker 1: see their little red heads, you can see sort of
Speaker 1: different segments of their bodies.
Speaker 2: It's sort of really crazy, right, Like it literally looks
Speaker 2: like a cartoon, Like it's wild. Do you think there
Speaker 2: are other moths that we haven't discovered with like other
Speaker 2: things on their wings that would make you averse to
Speaker 2: coming up to them, Like a moth with a a
Speaker 2: drunk bachelor repe party scene on their wings, like you know,
Speaker 2: like a moth with like a red maga hat.
Speaker 1: Right, a moth with the guy doing street magic. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I think I think definitely there are moms like that
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 2: We have to we have to do the research to
Speaker 2: find them.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. That'd probably be like that would be my
Speaker 1: choice for like you, like, if we could wear camouflage
Speaker 1: city camouflage that's just like things that would keep you
Speaker 1: away from you, like, oh, if you just wear this
Speaker 1: is mean because I do like green peace. But if
Speaker 1: you wear like a sweater sweatshirt with green.
Speaker 2: Peace on it, people who clipboard.
Speaker 1: And have a clipboard, people will leave you alone because
Speaker 1: everyone like dodges out of the way.
Speaker 2: But then there's like that one weirdo who really wants
Speaker 2: to talk about it, and then you're the mark, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Right, And then that and that weirdo is me. It
Speaker 1: was me the whole time.
Speaker 2: I think that's a you and me discovering that we
Speaker 2: have the ability to wear whatever we want, you know, right,
Speaker 2: this full episode is that being like, let's take inspiration
Speaker 2: from these inxects. Yeah, express ourselves how we want to
Speaker 2: express her belt. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean if I wear a shirt with a bunch
Speaker 1: of bird duty printed on it, then I can get
Speaker 1: pooped on by a bird and it won't make a difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds like a Mentos commercial. Actually, it's like
Speaker 2: remember the ones where he like he sits down on
Speaker 2: like a painted bench and he's like, oh no, and
Speaker 2: then he makes us pinc stripe suit out of.
Speaker 1: Oh oh Yeah. That was like a really old one.
Speaker 2: Birds. Oh yeah, that one all the time, because it's
Speaker 2: like in my memory.
Speaker 1: Yes, like a mentos. You sit on bird poop and
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of like just a bird poop covered
Speaker 1: bench and you're like, oh man, I got bird poop.
Speaker 1: And then you roll around and then someone's like nice
Speaker 1: a Jackson Pollock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we figured out fashion. We figured it out.
Speaker 1: Uh, pack it in Milan, pack it in Paris. We've
Speaker 1: got the fashion down and the fashion is bird crap.
Speaker 2: So mimicry, animal mimicry exactly. Follow me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today. Tell the
Speaker 1: people where they can find you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I do have a podcast called City Council
Speaker 2: and it's spelled co o u n s e l.
Speaker 1: Is my genius way of telling city council.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like counselor like we all need to counsel
Speaker 2: the city. But yeah, so that's my podcast. I have
Speaker 2: a Patreon for it if you want to support patreon
Speaker 2: dot com the coort slash City Council Show and you
Speaker 2: can find that everywhere podcasts are found. You can find
Speaker 2: me at Pallaviganalan p A L l A b I
Speaker 2: g U N A L, A N everywhere, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm doing shows again. I write for love it or
Speaker 2: leave it. I am just chugging along here in LA
Speaker 2: while you're in a very cold but beautiful place.
Speaker 1: And thank you guys so much for listening. You can
Speaker 1: find me, you know, on the internet. I'm so bad
Speaker 1: at social media, but you know I'm on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Creature Feet Pod. That's f eight, not feet that is
Speaker 1: something very different. I'm on Instagram at Creature Feature Pod.
Speaker 1: And again, if you think you know the answer to
Speaker 1: the mystery animal sound game or you have a question,
Speaker 1: you can write at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com.
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