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, we're talking
Speaker 1: about glam rock animals, animals who are glamorous and glitzy
Speaker 1: and on occasion also tough as a rock. From the
Speaker 1: shiny and splendiferous scale worms of the deep to scuba
Speaker 1: diving lizards, these animals all have one thing in common.
Speaker 1: They are on glam Discover this Morris Ma answer the
Speaker 1: asual question was that rainbow Fish Children's book of Body Horror.
Speaker 1: Joining me today is Front of the pod podcast person
Speaker 1: frequent voice on Fake Doctor's Real Friends DJ and twitch
Speaker 1: Man Dan L. Goodman. Hi, how's it going good? Do
Speaker 1: you mind if I call you twitch Man? Twitch Man?
Speaker 1: That is perfect? Twitch Man is excellent. I'm I'm honored
Speaker 1: by the title. Yeah, yeah, I'm a pod woman. I
Speaker 1: feel like I missed the times where it's like like
Speaker 1: Blacksmith or you know, can't you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like when we have these these names like lamp lighter
Speaker 1: or you know, like like we have podcaster, but like
Speaker 1: what about pod smith. I was just thinking, how fun
Speaker 1: pod Smith would be, Yeah, it sounds like real work,
Speaker 1: which it's not. I go to the kilns of pro
Speaker 1: tools and craft strong by hand. Had handblown podcast technically
Speaker 1: true because you know, you breathe out with your mouth
Speaker 1: as you make mouth sounds. Anyways, we are talking about
Speaker 1: glam rock animals, animals who are glamorous, incredible looking, the
Speaker 1: rock stars of the natural Kingdom, and they're glitzy and
Speaker 1: glamorous appearance have probably real reasons for it, actual survival
Speaker 1: reasons which we will discuss. What do you think of
Speaker 1: when you think of glam rock in general? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there was definitely I'll tell you a very
Speaker 1: short story. The very first vintage T shirt that I
Speaker 1: ever got at this place on Lebrey called jet Rag
Speaker 1: was an old Poison T shirt, a Poison Tour T shirt,
Speaker 1: and on the back I think it said rock the
Speaker 1: Funk Out. And my mom didn't see that at the time,
Speaker 1: so she let me buy this shirt that said funk
Speaker 1: on it, and I was like, so I think of
Speaker 1: that shirt, but I think of hair, I think of Neon,
Speaker 1: I think of Sparkles, I think of like yeah, so
Speaker 1: I think of a lot of like you know, we're
Speaker 1: talking wall of sound, we're talking big. So I thought
Speaker 1: that's what I think. Everything big hair, big, eyeliner big,
Speaker 1: you know, mega big, the hole on the ozone from
Speaker 1: the Hairspray big. Perfect. But yeah, So the first animal
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about is the Elvis war Um,
Speaker 1: which has is named after the King of Rock, Elvis,
Speaker 1: because it is iridescent and glitz and glamorous and also
Speaker 1: kind of an asshole. Oh yeah, I mean it's not
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think they named it after
Speaker 1: Elvis because it's an asshole. But I think it's fits
Speaker 1: right because he was kind of an ass wasn't he.
Speaker 1: That is my understanding. Yes, you know, I'm look, I'm
Speaker 1: keeping it real. I'm not saying Elvis. It's not cool
Speaker 1: to like Elvis, but you know he had he had
Speaker 1: a big sound, but also a big ego. That is
Speaker 1: what I hear. Is my understanding as well. Shout out
Speaker 1: to listener Vincent Jourgensen for this idea that I don't
Speaker 1: know why I have not talked about these on the
Speaker 1: show before, because they are incredible. They have this rainbow
Speaker 1: and purple shimmer. Now, Daniel, I want you to look
Speaker 1: at this, this little little cutie I haven't pulled up
Speaker 1: right here, And this is a shimmery is a shimmery
Speaker 1: looking little worm. How big is this worm there? You know? Um,
Speaker 1: i'd say about like palm sized. Oh that's that's big.
Speaker 1: I guess so not that big. Well, fair fair play,
Speaker 1: but to be this is and this is truly an
Speaker 1: error on my part. But looking at this image just
Speaker 1: on the just on the raw, just like stark black
Speaker 1: of it, it almost felt like a slide. I was
Speaker 1: ready to be looking at like a microscopic worm here.
Speaker 1: I was ready for you to say, oh, you could
Speaker 1: fit about a thousand on your hand right now. I'd
Speaker 1: be like, you know, not not not super huge. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they are definitely like not. They are not microscopic. They
Speaker 1: can can see him with the naked eye. Hold them
Speaker 1: in your hand, you know, let him crawl all over you.
Speaker 1: I would get the I would get the willies. I
Speaker 1: believe it's the willies. I get the willies very quickly.
Speaker 1: I call I call it the Jimmy skin. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that works too, that's very funny. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so they are absolutely beautiful. They look like holographic nail
Speaker 1: polish or you know, the most the glittery, most glittery
Speaker 1: glam that you could find. They were discovered by a
Speaker 1: team of researchers at Scripts Institute of Oceanography at UCSD.
Speaker 1: Shout out to my dad who works at Scripts Institute
Speaker 1: of Oceanography. He's actually in the ocean Physics group, so
Speaker 1: they deal with the physics of waves. Not necessarily the critters,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you know, got it. Good, good job, guys.
Speaker 1: Can't wait to see all for a beer. And I'll say, hey,
Speaker 1: good work on that worm, you know, good, good work
Speaker 1: on that worm. Good good warming you guys. Oh got me.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this worm also, and it reminds me
Speaker 1: remember that book The Rainbow Fish. Yes, yes, oh oh man,
Speaker 1: I love that book as a kid. Just very similar
Speaker 1: color scheme of just like that, you know, super iridescent
Speaker 1: glowy but also like some solid color but also looks
Speaker 1: like there's just like super flexive rainbow everywhere. Just trying
Speaker 1: to just trying to paint as as vivid stone to
Speaker 1: picture as I possibly can of this world I look
Speaker 1: at at right now. You know, man, it's like that
Speaker 1: book The Rainbow Fish, because it's like they had this
Speaker 1: like iridescent glittery scales on this fish was so fun
Speaker 1: as a kid because you could like touch it and
Speaker 1: like feel like emboss Yes. It was also I felt
Speaker 1: kind of sorry for the rainbow fish because it was
Speaker 1: like he's got all these rainbow scales on him, right,
Speaker 1: and like his fish friends who don't have those are jealous.
Speaker 1: So he it's a book about sharing, like you share
Speaker 1: this with others and generally speak I'm very pro sharing,
Speaker 1: you know, pro sharing or resources with others. But it's
Speaker 1: part of his body. So a little strange, right of
Speaker 1: a weird message. It's like if you are hanging out
Speaker 1: with friends and you're like, oh, I really like your hair,
Speaker 1: and you're like, you do it and then you just
Speaker 1: like cut off a big tree here you go, rip
Speaker 1: it off. And that's the thing. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: with kids that are unpredictable. It's like they'll take the
Speaker 1: note to the letter. So it's like, I know the
Speaker 1: story of the rain it's about sharing. They're like, okay,
Speaker 1: so I like rip off my skin for my friends,
Speaker 1: Like no, no, no, no, no, no no no no
Speaker 1: not quite that. Well, you know that is a horrible
Speaker 1: kindergarten scene that I do not want to see. But
Speaker 1: so yeah, these do look these do look like the
Speaker 1: rainbow fish. They are They are in fact a worm.
Speaker 1: I know, like sometimes we call things worms but they
Speaker 1: aren't really, but they are. They are warm. They're actually
Speaker 1: a type of scale worm, uh and which is actually
Speaker 1: related to very distantly related to earthworms, a little more
Speaker 1: closely related to bristle worms. You may know some bristle worms,
Speaker 1: like there is We've talked about some of them on
Speaker 1: the show, like the bobbit worm. This horrifying tremors, Like
Speaker 1: did I were you on the show and I talked
Speaker 1: about the bottom I think, Wow, I love it. I
Speaker 1: love how somehow that worked out because I did not
Speaker 1: plan for that. I was gonna say, I feel like
Speaker 1: we talked about like I remember you describing something because
Speaker 1: a tremor's like worm, and I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I just well, I'm flattered either way. But like if
Speaker 1: it was if it's a worm that lives under the
Speaker 1: sand at the bottom of the sea, it lunges out
Speaker 1: of the sand and we'll grab onto an unsuspecting fish
Speaker 1: and pull them back down, sort of like a tremor's
Speaker 1: worm or like a sarlac. But it's also very shiny
Speaker 1: and iridescent. Now it's it's not super closely related to
Speaker 1: this one, but fairly it's it's a bristle worm, so
Speaker 1: they are, you know, so scale. But this the elvis,
Speaker 1: it's actually called p elvis idea kinda gotta have it
Speaker 1: sound scientific. I was gonna say it's to sound that
Speaker 1: sound good, but yeah, they did name it that because
Speaker 1: of its sort of glittery, glamorous look that they thought
Speaker 1: looked flashy like elvis. And um, so here's what it
Speaker 1: looks like. So it's not it doesn't actually look super
Speaker 1: like a worm like you think of an earthworm. It
Speaker 1: has a series of interlocking scales on its back that
Speaker 1: are shiny like that. It's like it looks like plate armor.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of flat, very shiny and earduscin. And
Speaker 1: underneath it has these gold shiny bristles jutting out of
Speaker 1: it that you might mistake for legs, but aren't actually legs.
Speaker 1: They're just these these bristles. Um and at its head
Speaker 1: it has these things that look a little bit like pincers.
Speaker 1: They're actually not quite pincers. They're called pelps. So pelps
Speaker 1: are these appendages at the heads near the mouths of
Speaker 1: m Arthur pods. You can see them in spiders and
Speaker 1: insects as well. Um, so those are its palps and
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's it's kind of but it's it's rather
Speaker 1: flat looking and it's kind of oval shaped and so
Speaker 1: like you know, it's kind of alien and bizarre looking.
Speaker 1: But it gets way weirder than what you can just
Speaker 1: see at a glance. So being on being on this show,
Speaker 1: you know, I will say I wasn't entirely surprised by
Speaker 1: that potential, but like I'm excited. Please go on. When
Speaker 1: you said that, I was like, you know, I had
Speaker 1: a feeling you were gonna say, Well, you know, there's
Speaker 1: always something hidden underneath the surface for these animals. So
Speaker 1: like these are found in the deep sea near like uh,
Speaker 1: hydrothermic vents, as well as on the carcasses of fallen
Speaker 1: sea creatures, including whales. So when whales die, it's certainly
Speaker 1: sad for for the whales, but it's a great moon
Speaker 1: for all of these underwater Arthur pods. Uh, these deep
Speaker 1: sea creatures that will feed on the whales carcass and
Speaker 1: it can feed a hell of a lot of animals
Speaker 1: in life. I have a question. Isn't there a term
Speaker 1: for like the kind of like minor or like micro
Speaker 1: ecosystem created by a whale carcass? Am I thinking, am,
Speaker 1: I could be I may I may just be this.
Speaker 1: I could be pulling this all the way out of
Speaker 1: my ass right here. But I felt like there was
Speaker 1: some word for like the micro eco system created ecro
Speaker 1: micro ecosystem created by a dead whale in the ocean,
Speaker 1: because like, yeah, you're right, feel that. I feel that,
Speaker 1: I feel like there is. I mean, I thought it
Speaker 1: had a specific I mean I think it's called like whalefall,
Speaker 1: actual walefall. I think that's it. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: That's it. You're right, whalefall. That's it. Nice that whalefall. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for reminding me that that term exists. It
Speaker 1: is a cool like whalefall. Yeah, so, I mean it's
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward. I guess it's what a while full too,
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is. It's something where there's something kind
Speaker 1: of grim and ghoulish about it seeing this to kaing whale,
Speaker 1: But it's also incredible how much life that can support.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when a tree falls, a huge
Speaker 1: tree falls in the forest. There's something sad about that, right,
Speaker 1: this this ancient tree falling and in decaying. But then
Speaker 1: that tree feeds so many animals, In fact, an animal
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about later on the show. A
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of these glamorous animals like to
Speaker 1: feed on dead things. But hey, look, you know it's
Speaker 1: a living so they will feed on things like whale carcasses.
Speaker 1: I know that the research team that collected some of
Speaker 1: these specimens actually found them on a whale carcass, so
Speaker 1: that must have been a fun treat. You're like zooming
Speaker 1: around looking at this whale carcass. It's all it's all
Speaker 1: strange and kind of creepy. And then you see this
Speaker 1: like glitters glamor or this little uh scale where I'm
Speaker 1: going like, hello, I'm here, and here I am eating
Speaker 1: a dead whale. I don't know how Elvis sounds, you know,
Speaker 1: just like you, I was transported. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: the dead whale. That's a little better. Okay, words, that
Speaker 1: was funny. Um, But like I said, like Elvis, not
Speaker 1: only in appearance, but a little bit assholy. They like
Speaker 1: to bite each other when they're not biting on some
Speaker 1: delicious whale fall carcass. So they that is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that they have these scales is for protections.
Speaker 1: Protection not only from other animals and predator, but from
Speaker 1: their competition literally from each other. Yeah, from each other
Speaker 1: and when they bite each other. It's fascinating. So I
Speaker 1: want you to before I say anything else, just take
Speaker 1: a look at that picture that I've provided for you.
Speaker 1: I uh, I mean, I'm horrified, obviously this This is
Speaker 1: a terrifying picture of I'm seeing a demon of the
Speaker 1: soup with it's almost like, um, I want to say,
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, okay. It looks like a faceless worm
Speaker 1: with a with a like a bird's beak coming out
Speaker 1: of the center, but it's surrounded by like a statue
Speaker 1: of liberty of like it's just outward appendages, Like I
Speaker 1: know they're not horns, but it looks like a wreath
Speaker 1: of horns sticking out around a bird's mouth coming out
Speaker 1: of an eyeless worm. Demon. Yeah, that's about right. They
Speaker 1: actually have a proboscus that they can avert. So proboscis
Speaker 1: is basically like a fleshy probe. It can mean like
Speaker 1: a nose, it can mean a variety of different things,
Speaker 1: but it's basically a flesh probe, which flesh probe, it's
Speaker 1: not really that's not really a am rock name is
Speaker 1: it could be a song though, could be a song.
Speaker 1: I feel like this show is good at producing metal
Speaker 1: names more than glam rock names, like flesh probe. That
Speaker 1: would be a name, so they can avert it, which
Speaker 1: means basically like pushing it out from inside of them.
Speaker 1: And then in this proboscis, what you're seeing is a
Speaker 1: set of jaws, set of sharp jaws that they can
Speaker 1: use to snap at their food source like a dead
Speaker 1: whale or each other if they if they're feeling feisty. Okay,
Speaker 1: so just you know, like in Aliens, like how the
Speaker 1: alien shoots out a smaller alien tongue with a set
Speaker 1: of jaws. It's just like that. It's like boop, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna snap you up. Another similar feature of the of
Speaker 1: the Bobbitt Warm where they can just basically shoot out
Speaker 1: a thing and like snap up. So uh do do
Speaker 1: check out this video. I'm also including all of this
Speaker 1: in the show notes as always, but there is a
Speaker 1: cool video of them to video fighting. Okay, oh that
Speaker 1: they are well, yeah they are. They are pretty their
Speaker 1: sizeable there. Oh yeah, you'd see them. They're they're real.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, you just stuck his tongue out. What are
Speaker 1: the other one's gonna do it? I bet Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, he's so patient. Goodness, you gotta grit.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm whoa. In fact, their fights can be so
Speaker 1: violent that they can rip the scales off of each other.
Speaker 1: So a pretty like dark reboot of The Rainbow Fish
Speaker 1: where it's just violently ripping off each other's scales. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: my scale, No, my scale. But yeah, that thing that
Speaker 1: looks like a tongue like it's going like boop, that's
Speaker 1: actually it's proboscis. And it has that gnarly set of
Speaker 1: jaws in the center of it that it's using to
Speaker 1: bite that other elvis worm. That is a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a lot right there. Oh my gosh. I bet
Speaker 1: you're wondering why they're so iridescent and shiny and beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's that's I mean, that's you know, that's on the
Speaker 1: list of questions mostly I I wonder it too, but
Speaker 1: I don't know, and nobody knows. Isn't that fun When
Speaker 1: I'm just like, hey, you wonder this thing. Sorry, nobody knows.
Speaker 1: It's a literally don't you wish you could just ask them, like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's up? Why are you guys so angry all the time?
Speaker 1: What's with that weird like mouth boop thing that you do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, so they are actually blind. There's no reason
Speaker 1: for them to need this eardescence for like com specific communication,
Speaker 1: So like it's probably not for sexual selection or anything
Speaker 1: like that because they can't see it. It's possible it's
Speaker 1: for some some way of cryptsis, I suppose, seems unlikely.
Speaker 1: It seems like it would just make them stick out. However,
Speaker 1: in these deep sea and ironments, you never know, Like
Speaker 1: how that I wonder, like maybe it interacts strangely with bioluminescence.
Speaker 1: It's that's a possible thing, Like the refraction of bioluminescence
Speaker 1: may have some advantage. My suspicion is that it actually
Speaker 1: serves no purpose the actual visual of it. Rather, it's
Speaker 1: just a byproduct of forming these tough scales. So like
Speaker 1: having these very tough maybe crystalline structures and its scales
Speaker 1: um the nature of having them really tough at this
Speaker 1: molecular level also affects like how light um is refracted
Speaker 1: off of the surface of these scales, so that would
Speaker 1: be sort of my uh my gifts is just a
Speaker 1: byproduct of making sure that these scales are really tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like you think about how like a diamond
Speaker 1: is really tough and it's beautiful and it's ring glittery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes sense absolutely by with you. And I also
Speaker 1: like that, you know, it's it's it's really subverting expectations,
Speaker 1: like to be tough, you have to be glamorous, to
Speaker 1: be first first, you mu Shine. Speaking of the bobbit worm,
Speaker 1: twenty million year old fossilized tunnels have been discovered beneath
Speaker 1: the ocean floor, over seven ft or two meters long,
Speaker 1: but only a couple of centimeters wide in diameter. It's
Speaker 1: thought that these were once home to an incredibly long worm,
Speaker 1: perhaps the ancestors of the bobbit worm, as there's fossilized
Speaker 1: imprints made by these worms that seem to indicate they
Speaker 1: use these tunnels to drag their prey to an extra
Speaker 1: deep in watery grave. When we return, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about a thought provoking intersection of fashion and entomology.
Speaker 1: So Danial, you know that animals and humans have a
Speaker 1: weird relationship sometimes. Yeah. I mean, for instance, like my dog,
Speaker 1: I think only sees me as like the peanut butter provider.
Speaker 1: You know, at least the peanut butter warm blanket, right,
Speaker 1: that's true, a warm blanket, peanut butter human radiator, a
Speaker 1: butt scratcher and peanut provider, peanut butter provider. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: king butt scratcher. I'll tell you what I feel like.
Speaker 1: That's what I feel like that if I'm being real.
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, oh, that's a trick with dogs. They love
Speaker 1: getting scratched on the butt. Like, at what point is
Speaker 1: it not a trick anymore? It's like, oh, of course
Speaker 1: a dog loves a good butt scratch right there. That's
Speaker 1: just you know, that's it. That's that's baseline baseline dog
Speaker 1: knowledge are they say, It's like it's like a Konami
Speaker 1: code for a dog. I feel like the dogs are
Speaker 1: really obvious about what I mean. Like my dog, Cookie,
Speaker 1: Cookie will literally walk up she does this every day
Speaker 1: all day, like this is her favorite thing to do,
Speaker 1: not joking, walk up to you, turn around so her
Speaker 1: butt is near you, and then look over her shoulder
Speaker 1: as you know, like kind of look between you and
Speaker 1: the butt like exactly you're doing it? Yeah, thinking about this, Yeah, scratch.
Speaker 1: You can like hold your hand out and start wiggling
Speaker 1: your fingers and she will come over and sort of
Speaker 1: like dock her butt under your fingers and then so
Speaker 1: you can scratch it. That is a that is a
Speaker 1: smart that's smart Cookie you got raised there. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: smart whenever it serves her own answer. I love that.
Speaker 1: A purpose like a purposely smart and stupid dog. That's like, Cookie,
Speaker 1: we need to do this right now. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm a dog. I don't And then I say, do
Speaker 1: you want to get your butt scratched? She knows that
Speaker 1: she knows what that means. Oh, I want to get
Speaker 1: my butt scratched at hearing that's what she knows what
Speaker 1: a chicken pill is. When I she has these like
Speaker 1: chicken flavored, chicken flavored to hip point supplements and if
Speaker 1: you want to you want a chicken pill, she knows
Speaker 1: what that means. When I say you gotta sit, you
Speaker 1: didn't know what that means. That suddenly doesn't know what
Speaker 1: that means. Have you seen that Simpson's episodes like the
Speaker 1: Thing that Translates Baby talk, but are like translates animal talk,
Speaker 1: like what is your animals saying it's like this leash
Speaker 1: demeans us both a great I wait for that day.
Speaker 1: I wait for that day where we get that where
Speaker 1: we get the translation device. And Cookie was just saying, look,
Speaker 1: I sit on my own schedule. Okay, right right, you
Speaker 1: shall provide me with but scratch, cheese and peanut, But
Speaker 1: are your services for anything else? Are not required? Not required?
Speaker 1: But so that's all to say that I want to
Speaker 1: talk about something that it's both really interesting and it
Speaker 1: provokes a lot of thought in conversation. I think about,
Speaker 1: like our relationship to animals, because we're talking about insects,
Speaker 1: and are our feelings towards insects as a species can
Speaker 1: range from like they are delicious food too they are
Speaker 1: gross and I don't want anything to do with them,
Speaker 1: to their beautiful jewelry. So I think one case that
Speaker 1: really exemplifies this complex relationship we have with insects are
Speaker 1: the beautiful bejeweled living beetle jewelry originating from the Yucatan
Speaker 1: Peninsula in Mexico. So these living brooches are called mckesh
Speaker 1: so they are beetles of the Zopharis genus, which is
Speaker 1: a group of species of beetles who are kind of
Speaker 1: long um with this very like thick exoskeleton. Um. They're
Speaker 1: kind of shaped like bowling pins a little bit um.
Speaker 1: In fact, they're exoskeleton is so tough. There is a
Speaker 1: species called the ironclad beetle. And if you're trying to
Speaker 1: mount them as a specimen, you know how like you
Speaker 1: have like a butterfly specimen where you stick a pin
Speaker 1: in it. They do that for all all sorts of insects. Um.
Speaker 1: You actually have to drill a hole into them because
Speaker 1: you can't just push a pin through it. They're they're
Speaker 1: ship yeah, they're They're exoskeleton is that tough? So um,
Speaker 1: they are flightless. They have this little stubby head around thorax,
Speaker 1: so the thing that actually kind of looks like their
Speaker 1: head is actually their thorax. And then they have a
Speaker 1: long oval abdomen and they range in color from black
Speaker 1: to sort of a black and white pattern, uh, lots
Speaker 1: of other different colors. They also come in this like
Speaker 1: really pretty gold color, not not a shining gold, but
Speaker 1: kind of a matte gold. And it's this species this
Speaker 1: kind of gold so fiter a species that is often
Speaker 1: used for mckesh jewelry. So the jewelry is made by
Speaker 1: taking a living beetle and gluing like rhinestones on it
Speaker 1: or a variety of jewels or decorations on it, or
Speaker 1: something like colorful thread or other ornaments. So there's like, um,
Speaker 1: some adhesive is used, like some kind of glue, uh,
Speaker 1: and then like you you bedazzle the beetle, and then
Speaker 1: they attach a gold chain to the beetle just by
Speaker 1: gluing it um. And then that's attached to like a
Speaker 1: pin that you pin to your blouse, and the beetle
Speaker 1: crawls around on your blouse. It's it's still alive and
Speaker 1: just kind of like crawls around with all of this uh,
Speaker 1: this sort of bedazzlement, and it's it's hard to know
Speaker 1: like when the tradition started. There's a lot of like uh,
Speaker 1: sort of mixed information on it. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think that I'm comfortable, you know, saying anything
Speaker 1: definitively because it doesn't seem like it's been studied definitively
Speaker 1: in terms of like the orgins of the cultural practice.
Speaker 1: This particular beetle, the mccash is actually the name of
Speaker 1: the jewelry. But the zo faris beetle chosen because it's
Speaker 1: got this kind of slow, sluggish nature. It's pretty chill um,
Speaker 1: it's got that that pretty exoskeleton. But it can also
Speaker 1: survive for months without food or water. So yeah, I know, so,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's like, it sounds pretty creepy. So
Speaker 1: we'll get two more of that. But first I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the beetles in the wild. So in
Speaker 1: the wild, the beetles live in dry forests and feed
Speaker 1: on rotting wood starches. So we're talking about earlier. You know,
Speaker 1: like the whale fall, well with tree fall he gets
Speaker 1: tree fall is great for a lot of organisms and
Speaker 1: forest environments. Uh, these beetles are one of them. They
Speaker 1: have a metabolism that allows them to survive on small
Speaker 1: amounts of starch and very little water. So in theory,
Speaker 1: if you treat a mckesh beetle right like you have
Speaker 1: a terrarium, and you provide them with some starch and
Speaker 1: just like a little bit of water like a moist sponge,
Speaker 1: you can keep them alive for their whole lifespan of
Speaker 1: about three years um. But of course there's a few
Speaker 1: catches to this, as there are for most things when
Speaker 1: we when we're talking about using animals for our own purposes,
Speaker 1: First and foremost is that they can spew formic acid
Speaker 1: out of their anus. Great. I mean actually, to me,
Speaker 1: that's like a benefit. Like I want a brooch that
Speaker 1: like you know, like I kind of poke it and
Speaker 1: it just like sprays out formic acid. That's that's a
Speaker 1: great James Bond weapon. That is a great James Bond weapon.
Speaker 1: Very like, Now, what are the what are the effects
Speaker 1: of that kind of acid on on your skin? Or?
Speaker 1: Is it smelly? Is it? Is it? It's unpleasant? It
Speaker 1: gives you Yeah, it could give you a bad skin rash,
Speaker 1: like not a fun time. Yeah you should you shouldn't,
Speaker 1: you know, try not to get it. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: want to get it on on you. Um. Traditionally, that
Speaker 1: issue has been solved by making the Beatles very tiny diapers,
Speaker 1: like a little cloth. Yeah, like a little cloth diaper
Speaker 1: that goes near their backside and just sort of absorbs
Speaker 1: up that thing, the the formic acid. Unfortunately, I was
Speaker 1: reading something that seemed to indicate I don't know how
Speaker 1: true this is, but there was some like rumor about
Speaker 1: like how some vendors will use glue to actually seal
Speaker 1: up the the anus and then that's bad, like you
Speaker 1: can't do that, it's it'll it'll kill the beetle um.
Speaker 1: And so of course, I think the the issue that
Speaker 1: is probably on a lot of people's minds is like, well,
Speaker 1: is this cruel? Is this cruelty towards these beetles? And
Speaker 1: I think it's really it's a really complex issue. And
Speaker 1: I think whenever there's like a different cultural practice than
Speaker 1: our own, it's really easy for us to go like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is cruel or this is this is strange. It's
Speaker 1: like too strange, because you know, it's like it's not
Speaker 1: normalized in our society, so like like in the way
Speaker 1: that a lot of our practices towards animals are like
Speaker 1: you know, so I think that the fact like it's
Speaker 1: living jewelry is so such an unusual concept that I
Speaker 1: think it's easier to think of it as like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: that's unnecessary and kind of cruel. But then you think
Speaker 1: about a lot of the things that we do in
Speaker 1: our culture. We kill insects all the time, and not
Speaker 1: super nice ways. We also you know, just in our homes,
Speaker 1: like we kill pests all the time. Look, I'm not
Speaker 1: above killing you know, ants who try to eat all
Speaker 1: my cereal. I would be lying if I said I
Speaker 1: hadn't killed a bug before. That's it's foolish. I I
Speaker 1: do my best to be you know, sympathetic, especially to
Speaker 1: our spider friends who do a lot of the bug
Speaker 1: killing for us. But like, look, I've I've smashed the flies.
Speaker 1: I've smashed them bugs. That's just no matter. I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not innocent. I try to relocate spiders whenever I
Speaker 1: find them, But I have to admit, like a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, I saw a pretty big spider and just
Speaker 1: instinctively stomped it, like I didn't even think. And then
Speaker 1: immediately after some I was like, oh, I'm so sure
Speaker 1: that immediate us. So, you know, we we kill insects
Speaker 1: all the time, and so you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: this aspect of like, oh it's really cruel to do
Speaker 1: this is somewhat relative. The other argument would be like, well,
Speaker 1: but you know, we kill insects maybe out of necessity.
Speaker 1: Keeping them as an ornament in this way like seems
Speaker 1: sort of unnecessary. It's like, well, we also have things
Speaker 1: like we have state fairs where we have food animals
Speaker 1: there for you know, entertainment purposes, and like we'll we'll
Speaker 1: have like petting zoos with animals that will eventually go
Speaker 1: and be used for food. So I guess my point is,
Speaker 1: like they're certainly complaints you can have about certain cultural
Speaker 1: practices when it comes to animals, but I'm always hesitant
Speaker 1: to like point the finger at another culture or it's like, ah,
Speaker 1: see this this thing that they do that we don't do,
Speaker 1: Like that that's super that's super weird, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's I think
Speaker 1: that's completely fair. My only complaint would be that I
Speaker 1: think the I mean, maybe it's you know, and and
Speaker 1: as I explore the culture of this a little bit more,
Speaker 1: and I see in your picture down here, there's definitely Katie.
Speaker 1: But by the way, for all the listeners, Katie has
Speaker 1: provided excellent resources for the for the guests to look
Speaker 1: at it and and get familiar with and just like
Speaker 1: see what is what what we're talking about. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: these people aren't going further with the bug itself, like
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, like at a little top hat
Speaker 1: or yeah, or just like it. Maybe it may it
Speaker 1: might just be the video, but it's like this seems
Speaker 1: pretty like Ryan Stones on gold chains kind of ship
Speaker 1: when we could get some real like I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if this is a cultural thing here, I could see
Speaker 1: some like Swarovski ass like really glitzed up, glitzed up
Speaker 1: bugs crawling around on your chest, premium bugs. Premium bugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that. I mean, these aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: super super fancy things, like they you know, they often
Speaker 1: sell them for not that much money, like it could
Speaker 1: be like chin us dollars or something. Uh, and you
Speaker 1: know it's it's also often sold to tourists, so I'm
Speaker 1: not super clear on how much of it is directed
Speaker 1: towards tourists to the area, and like how much of
Speaker 1: it is that locals do just sort of as a
Speaker 1: local tradition. So it's you know, I can't pretend to
Speaker 1: be a cultural expert on this, and I couldn't quite
Speaker 1: suss that out in my research. But there is one
Speaker 1: thing that that the artists who do this do seem
Speaker 1: to try to do is they don't like inhibit the
Speaker 1: Beatles movements, so they keep it like to the backs
Speaker 1: of the Beatles, So they don't like put it, you know,
Speaker 1: like on their actual heads, Like it looks like it's
Speaker 1: on their heads, but that's actually their thorax and they
Speaker 1: don't like put it on their legs or anything. So
Speaker 1: they can because like the point is for them to
Speaker 1: still be able to move around as long as they're
Speaker 1: not putting glue on the butt. I don't think I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that like the bejeeling of the Beatles isn't
Speaker 1: great for the Beatles, but I don't think it necessarily, Um,
Speaker 1: is that all that harmful again because they have that
Speaker 1: really thick exoskeleton. Uh, the harmful thing would be, of
Speaker 1: course if you don't like feed it or or you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, actually keep it in a terrarium, if
Speaker 1: you just kind of like keep it in a drawer
Speaker 1: for a few months until it dies like that, then
Speaker 1: the beetle will not survive. That For me, I guess
Speaker 1: like the main the main issue I think that needs
Speaker 1: to be explored by ecologists, which I mean is they
Speaker 1: are doing. I'm not scolding them like a cologists get
Speaker 1: on this, but is whether or not like this is
Speaker 1: sustainable for the beetle population, because like on a local level,
Speaker 1: it's probably fine, but if it gains a huge amount
Speaker 1: of popularity with tourists, um collection of the beatles may
Speaker 1: exceed their ability to reproduce. The beatles are really like
Speaker 1: they have a very slow lifespan compared to other insects
Speaker 1: like they they it takes them a long time to
Speaker 1: reach sexual maturation. They don't lay a huge amount of eggs.
Speaker 1: It's hard to estimate their population size because they like
Speaker 1: to live under logs, like under leaf litter and logs,
Speaker 1: so like, actually finding them is kind of difficult. So
Speaker 1: getting a good sort of census of how many of
Speaker 1: these beetles are out there is actually quite tricky. Um
Speaker 1: But because they don't seem to reproduce that rapidly, there's
Speaker 1: fear that without some regulation, like, there could be over
Speaker 1: collection of the the beatles and that would endanger their population,
Speaker 1: which I think just kind of shows how like it's
Speaker 1: really important for ecologists and biologists to work with people
Speaker 1: who study human culture to be able to come together
Speaker 1: and research things together so that we can like figure
Speaker 1: out ways to both preserve human culture but also preserve nature.
Speaker 1: Teamwork makes the dream work. I couldn't have said it
Speaker 1: better myself. The mckeesh is not the only insect worn
Speaker 1: as jewelry. In ancient Egypt, scared of beetles were worn
Speaker 1: by soldiers to offer them spiritual protection. And in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, fashion designer Jared Gold included giant hissing
Speaker 1: cockroaches in his collection, basically copying the style of the
Speaker 1: mckesh broaches by bedazzling his cockroaches with Swarovski crystals and
Speaker 1: keeping them on a golden chain. These runaway ready cockroaches
Speaker 1: came with instructions of how to care for them and
Speaker 1: could live for over a year. Personally, I'm content to
Speaker 1: just admire the natural beauty of hissing copproaches from nature photographs.
Speaker 1: When we return, we're going to investigate a lizard. There's
Speaker 1: aquatic fashion is all about function. So now I want
Speaker 1: to talk about an extremely glamorous lizard that I think
Speaker 1: gifts like David Bowie a run for his money in
Speaker 1: terms of like how incredibly shiny they are and also
Speaker 1: just how I don't know, you know, how like like
Speaker 1: the Space Odyssey thing. Well, these lizards like to go
Speaker 1: under the water and be a little little diver diverman, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the what's the David Bowie thing. It's like Rocketman, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: rocket Where is that? Dalton John? You think of the
Speaker 1: ziggy Stardust? Yeah, I mean like that's very Yeah, David
Speaker 1: Bowie is super super glam. Elton John glam rock not
Speaker 1: really is he. I'm gonna google is Elton John glam rock?
Speaker 1: This is very important for an evolutionary biology podcast to
Speaker 1: know whether Elton John or not. I would say so
Speaker 1: other performers associated with British glam I see, I see,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it depends on whether you're using
Speaker 1: the phylogenetic classification system or the Linnean classification system of
Speaker 1: glam rock. I mean, I'll say this. You know, look,
Speaker 1: the only people who are going to get mad at
Speaker 1: you about someone being or not being glam rock are
Speaker 1: the Yeah, exactly aggressive glam rock. British glam was very
Speaker 1: strictly different from US glam rock, and I think that
Speaker 1: needs to be noted. It actually fits more in the
Speaker 1: mod category. Thing keep very much, but he's certainly glamorous
Speaker 1: and certainly a rocker. We'll go. We'll definitely go with that.
Speaker 1: Instead of spending time in outer space in a space suit,
Speaker 1: these lizards like to spend time underwater in a water
Speaker 1: suit or an air suit anyways, a diver suit, a
Speaker 1: diver suit. So these are water annolies a k a.
Speaker 1: Scuba diving lizards. So, water annolies are a species of
Speaker 1: small lizards found in Costa Rica in Central America. They're
Speaker 1: pretty small. They're about the size of a thumb. They're brown,
Speaker 1: although males do have this brilliant yellow dew lap. So
Speaker 1: what's a dow lap. It's a flap of skin under
Speaker 1: their chin they can fan out, which they use to
Speaker 1: attract females and intimidate males. What I mean, have you
Speaker 1: ever seen a lizard like like kind of stunt in like,
Speaker 1: you know, flapping out lap? For sure? For sure? You know,
Speaker 1: for a second I thought, so, I'm you know, not
Speaker 1: skipping ahead, per se. But I'm looking at this picture
Speaker 1: and I thought for a split second that it's dow lap.
Speaker 1: Was the clear thing coming out of its nose, which
Speaker 1: is an air bubble, that is bubble. He's got the
Speaker 1: dow lap on the top of his head. Now it's
Speaker 1: clear and you can breathe it. I think I forgot
Speaker 1: to include an image of the dow lap, but it's
Speaker 1: very pretty. It's like brilliant yellow. The ladies love a
Speaker 1: dow lap. The ladies loved but because these little lizards
Speaker 1: are such tasty little snacks, not just for the females
Speaker 1: of their species, but um, you know, for predators, and
Speaker 1: they're not like the fastest lizards in the land. They
Speaker 1: will take to the water to escape predators. They'll literally
Speaker 1: leap off of a rock and billy flop into the water.
Speaker 1: And so once underwater they are safe from a lot
Speaker 1: of terrestrial or airborne predators. But they need to breathe
Speaker 1: because you know, they can't can't breathe water. These are reptiles.
Speaker 1: They are They do not um although you know, there
Speaker 1: are some reptiles like um turtles who do do gas
Speaker 1: exchange near an area near their cloaca a k. Their
Speaker 1: butt hole. Um. But these lizards cannot. We have no
Speaker 1: evidence to suggest that these lizards can breathe through their
Speaker 1: butt holes like turtles. I know, darn it. I hate
Speaker 1: it when I'm like swimming and I'm like, wait, let
Speaker 1: me try, let me try it for a second. Can't
Speaker 1: I can't do it. I can't breathe through my butt
Speaker 1: So they have a problem because they either stand or
Speaker 1: water and drown or they go above the water and
Speaker 1: get eaten by a predator. So there is recent observations
Speaker 1: of these lizards that seem to suggest that they can
Speaker 1: create a wetsuit made out of air and form a
Speaker 1: bubble around their head that they can breathe through. This
Speaker 1: is I you know, truly again, your research is so good.
Speaker 1: You've vided videos. I could not even imagine what this
Speaker 1: would look like, but now I have a video to
Speaker 1: look at, and it is extraordinary. I'm like blown away
Speaker 1: that they're able to, like what is holding the water
Speaker 1: to their face this way? That's a really good question.
Speaker 1: And while I haven't been able to find studies that
Speaker 1: are really exact about it, I would say that it
Speaker 1: is very similar to other times that we see water
Speaker 1: adhering to animals underwater. So with their diving bell spiders
Speaker 1: that can actually go underwater and water, they will also
Speaker 1: form these kind of underwater For the spiders, it's like
Speaker 1: this diving bell that this little bubble that surrounds them
Speaker 1: that they can do gas exchange through. And the for them,
Speaker 1: the air sticks to these teeny tiny little hairs all
Speaker 1: over their bodies. Um, So the air literally sticks to
Speaker 1: these really small fine hairs. For these lizards, I don't
Speaker 1: think they rely on hair. Rather, I think it's the
Speaker 1: skin texture. So I think they have these probably these
Speaker 1: really tiny st ructures on their skin, like these little tiny,
Speaker 1: probably microscopic indentations and texture on their skin that actually
Speaker 1: traps air on their skin and holds onto it through
Speaker 1: sort of a manner of surface tension. I mean, even
Speaker 1: like when you dive underwater, sometimes little bubbles can stick
Speaker 1: to your skin and you can see little air bubbles
Speaker 1: still sticking to you. Um, But like for these lizards,
Speaker 1: their skin is such that I think it's probably have
Speaker 1: really small structures on their skin that that uh is
Speaker 1: able to really cling onto this water such that you
Speaker 1: look at these lizards and underwater it looks like they
Speaker 1: have this whole silvery sheen all over it, like their
Speaker 1: skin is made out of a mirror like material, and
Speaker 1: that's all that trapped air all over their body, reflecting
Speaker 1: light underwater like a mirror. That's so cool. Yeah, they're like,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's beautiful. It's one of those things were like, wow,
Speaker 1: why do they look this cool? And then they come
Speaker 1: out of water and you're like, okay, hey, you know
Speaker 1: what I'll save it, save it for the underwater crowd.
Speaker 1: You know, if they want to be less less shiny
Speaker 1: on top, the underwater crowd, they deserve it more. They're
Speaker 1: not trying to eat you as much. Yeah. Um. So
Speaker 1: they can form this bubble around their head. And while
Speaker 1: this the research on this is by no means complete,
Speaker 1: so this is all conjecture at this point, there's this
Speaker 1: idea that their heads have this kind of concave structure
Speaker 1: just so this air bubble can form, like this pocket
Speaker 1: can form um over their nostrils and when they like
Speaker 1: breathe out, it kind of bubbles up and they breathe in,
Speaker 1: and then it kind of bubbles down. So it's like
Speaker 1: this little bubble going up and down as they breathe.
Speaker 1: That's that's so wild. Again, if I didn't have this video,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to put it together. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I can understand and imagine, but it's just
Speaker 1: like it's truly a bubble coming off of their face
Speaker 1: and then just sucking back in, right, you know. Wild,
Speaker 1: Like have you ever like blown a bubble with some
Speaker 1: bubble gum and instead of just like blowing the bubble,
Speaker 1: you kind of like breathe in and out. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: when you do like a Darth Vader and voice like
Speaker 1: I'm sure to chop off hands and chew bubble gum
Speaker 1: and I'm all out of bubble gum? Could you imagine?
Speaker 1: I want to see that re cut? But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean your reaction is kind of similar to researchers who
Speaker 1: discovered this because they just incidentally discovered that they that
Speaker 1: they seem to breathe this way through observations. They put
Speaker 1: underwater cameras down there because they noticed that some of
Speaker 1: these lizards would like dive underwater and then they would
Speaker 1: pop up a few feet away, but some of them
Speaker 1: would dive underwater and then just disappear, and they're like,
Speaker 1: now that can't be right, Like that can't be a
Speaker 1: good survival strategy to just drown yourself whenever a predator
Speaker 1: comes at you. So sure enough, they they found that
Speaker 1: these guys can spend up to about fifteen minutes underwater,
Speaker 1: and using these underwater cameras, they found this this behavior
Speaker 1: of like them seeming to breathe through these bubbles. Now
Speaker 1: it hasn't been like scientifically proven that they are actually
Speaker 1: breathing through these bubbles. It's just observation, like you looking
Speaker 1: at this video, um, but it seems fairly likely that
Speaker 1: that's the case, because that seems to be what's going on. Hm.
Speaker 1: And also because they can last so so long underwater,
Speaker 1: it seems like this helps them last longer without having
Speaker 1: to hold their breath the whole time. Wow, these are
Speaker 1: These are fascinating little beasts right here. They really are.
Speaker 1: You've really done it. And they're so shiny. I love
Speaker 1: how just like they have like mere skin, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean totally the shine especially like again of
Speaker 1: that it's primarily for the underwater crowd. It's like they're
Speaker 1: just so so so shiny and it am I almost
Speaker 1: feel like you would mistake it. I mean mistaken, but
Speaker 1: like you might think that there's like a small like
Speaker 1: pocket knife in the water if you were to look
Speaker 1: and see just like the body of one of these
Speaker 1: long guys down, they're just like whoa that is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: my gosh. I do. I Also, I do like the
Speaker 1: idea that like above water, it's like yeah, but underwater
Speaker 1: it's like Miley Cyrus turning into Hannah Montana. That's where
Speaker 1: they shine. But yeah, it's like Miley Cyrus whatever, just
Speaker 1: normal girls, and then she turned into Hanna Montanna. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: I think we I think we've done it. I think
Speaker 1: we've found some of the coolest glam rockers in the
Speaker 1: annual Kingdom. These are truly glamorous animals you have shared
Speaker 1: with me today, Katie. I'm touched. These are awesome. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I do before we go, I do want to address
Speaker 1: a listener question. So listener IZZYB writes in and says, hey,
Speaker 1: creature peeps, There's been a meme Twitter thread popping up
Speaker 1: now and again claiming that the Uncanny Valley exists as
Speaker 1: a deep psychological remnant from our early hominid ancestors interspecies
Speaker 1: competition for resources. So frequently these conversations use the idea
Speaker 1: that animals, even our own pets, don't experience the Uncanny
Speaker 1: Valley as proof, but that rings false to me. I
Speaker 1: am a puppet maker and have lots of Sorry. I
Speaker 1: love it. I love this email so much. I love
Speaker 1: it when you guys right into me. Um. When I
Speaker 1: when I was reading this and then I got to
Speaker 1: I am a puppet maker, Like, I almost screamed in excitement. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue reading this, but like sorry. I
Speaker 1: am a puppet maker and have lots of experience of
Speaker 1: dogs and cats absolutely losing their their quack in terror
Speaker 1: of puppets, usually human based puppets, but sometimes those based
Speaker 1: on other animals. What is this if not the uncanny valley,
Speaker 1: the mental rejection and innate fear of something that resembles
Speaker 1: the familiar but doesn't achieve a fully believable resemblance. As
Speaker 1: someone familiar with animal psychology, I was wondering if you
Speaker 1: had any thoughts on the matter. On a completely different
Speaker 1: note of the arc of the universe bending towards crab,
Speaker 1: one of our latest puppets is a massive crab dragon.
Speaker 1: Although it fails to copy the evolutionary perfect crab body plan,
Speaker 1: it is painted to look like a coconut crab. We
Speaker 1: were even listening to the Carsonization episode while painting her.
Speaker 1: Here are pictures, Izzy B. Thank you so much. Izzy. These.
Speaker 1: When you said you were a puppet maker, I was excited.
Speaker 1: I love puppets. I it's I mean like but I
Speaker 1: was expecting a small puppet, which I was still excited for.
Speaker 1: I was still really excited for. This is a life sized,
Speaker 1: freaking dragon. It's massive, it's three people are operating this thing.
Speaker 1: It's a huge, actual real life dragon puppet, the size
Speaker 1: of a freaking real life dragon, and and it is
Speaker 1: painted like a coconut crab. It's absolutely beautiful. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: and I, if possible, I am going to include a
Speaker 1: link to these photos in the show notes. It's I'm
Speaker 1: so blown away by this. This is a beautiful puppet.
Speaker 1: I actually like a note about the Uncanny Valley before
Speaker 1: I get into answering the question. I actually love the
Speaker 1: Uncanny Valley, Like I actively seek out feeling that feeling.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a fun, exciting feeling for me. It's like, now,
Speaker 1: I don't like roller coasters, Like I hate roller coasters.
Speaker 1: They scare me. Um, But I imagine the feeling that
Speaker 1: other people get when they go on a roller coaster,
Speaker 1: of like that it's like kind of scary but exciting,
Speaker 1: real that thrilled. That's what I get from like looking
Speaker 1: at weird animatronics or Uncanny Valley things. I love animatronics,
Speaker 1: I love puppets. I just love that feeling of like
Speaker 1: there's a certain sort of awfulness to this thing. It's
Speaker 1: like not quite a human, but it's almost a human
Speaker 1: like I really it's just thrilling for me. So this
Speaker 1: is a really exciting thing for me. This is an
Speaker 1: incredible puppet These are these are true. This is truly
Speaker 1: you know, I would totally expect to see this at
Speaker 1: the front of a very well produced parade. This is
Speaker 1: like or you know of a like it's a puppet show.
Speaker 1: Not like a puppet show though, but like like a CC. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a circlet production. Yeah. No, it's it's the
Speaker 1: centerpiece right here. This is like The Dark Crystal, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I loved by the way I
Speaker 1: love The Dark Crystal loved I al feel like the
Speaker 1: year the reboot, the remake or not remake with Yes,
Speaker 1: I haven't checked out there, it's good. I liked it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you liked the the original one, you'll definitely like
Speaker 1: the remake. It's or not remake. It's just a reboot,
Speaker 1: but it definitely recaptures sort of the it's it's all
Speaker 1: practical effects. It's really really beautiful. In terms of the
Speaker 1: question about whether animals feel the Uncanny Valley, I actually
Speaker 1: really agree with this listener. I think that we don't.
Speaker 1: While we don't necessarily have evidence that says that animals
Speaker 1: definitely do, uh feel the Uncanny Valley. It's like hard
Speaker 1: to you know, uh quantify what an animal is feeling.
Speaker 1: I definitely think that animals would have the capacity to
Speaker 1: feel that based on uh certain animal behavior. So some
Speaker 1: of the things that we know, like, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: this is maybe not super scientific, but I've definitely seen
Speaker 1: a lot of videos of cats on like TikTok and
Speaker 1: stuff reacting to their owners having a like a cat
Speaker 1: filter on their face, you know, like a snapchat or
Speaker 1: it's like a cat a cat face like filter on
Speaker 1: their face. So it looks like the human has a
Speaker 1: cat face on the phone, and the cats like look
Speaker 1: at the phone, look really startled, look back at their
Speaker 1: human and look at the phone and like run away. So, uh,
Speaker 1: that's that's interesting to me, that the cats get really
Speaker 1: freaked out, um by humans wearing like a cat cat
Speaker 1: makeup or or having that like cat filter. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's totally anecdotal. Uh less anecdotal, I think,
Speaker 1: is well now I guess it still anecdote. Anyways, Another
Speaker 1: thing that we've seen is like there's this TV show
Speaker 1: called Spies in the Wild where they put like animal yeah,
Speaker 1: Spy in the wild. It's they it's it's hilarious but
Speaker 1: also a great nature documentary. They create these animatronic versions
Speaker 1: of animals so that they can have cameras like watching
Speaker 1: the animals up close. But it's also kind of funny
Speaker 1: because like most of the camera work in the show
Speaker 1: isn't from the animatronic animals. It seems like that's something
Speaker 1: of a chemic, but it's still really interesting. I think
Speaker 1: the most interesting part of the show is not like
Speaker 1: the up close shots that these animatronics get, but it's
Speaker 1: the reactions that the animals have to the animatronics. So
Speaker 1: a lot of animals don't seem to really think anything
Speaker 1: of it, but once you start to get to primates,
Speaker 1: their reactions are very interesting. There are these langers that
Speaker 1: were very tentatively playing with this animatronic linger, and then
Speaker 1: it fell down and like broke and stopped moving, and
Speaker 1: then a bunch of Lingers all came over that this
Speaker 1: uh Lingers are a type of monkey, and they came
Speaker 1: and surrounded this thing, like like twenty or thirty of them,
Speaker 1: just like looking and like carefully touching it and looking.
Speaker 1: It was almost it looked like they were holding a
Speaker 1: funeral almost, but it was like I think they were
Speaker 1: just so freaked out and fascinated by what this was,
Speaker 1: where like it seems kind of like a dead monkey,
Speaker 1: but they weren't sure what it was, but they were
Speaker 1: fascinated and and it seemed kind of freaked out. So
Speaker 1: I think that And you also look at like things
Speaker 1: that we have done research on where dogs seem to
Speaker 1: pay particular attention to human faces on the side of
Speaker 1: the face that's more expressive, Like we're not our expressions
Speaker 1: are not completely symmetrical, Like there's usually one side of
Speaker 1: the face that is a little more expressive, and the
Speaker 1: dogs seem to prefer that side of the face. Um,
Speaker 1: And so I think that that kind of like facial recognition.
Speaker 1: And it's the whole kind of concept of this idea
Speaker 1: that like only humans would be in some sort of
Speaker 1: like competition with other hominids. That doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: Like there are so many species who have very similar
Speaker 1: species that they are in competition with. I mean, like
Speaker 1: you know, canines like you like wolves and other canads
Speaker 1: would be in competition, you know, I mean like a
Speaker 1: dog in a coyote like Kyo will often kill dogs,
Speaker 1: so like they have to be very careful around each other.
Speaker 1: Different kind of feline species like uh, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: cheetah is no friend to like a lion. So it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's um, they're all sorts of competition amongst
Speaker 1: species that maybe don't look exactly like each other, but
Speaker 1: are somewhat similar. So this idea that the uncanny Valley
Speaker 1: evolved in humans because we were competing with other species
Speaker 1: and we had to be aware of like ones that
Speaker 1: were kind of off. It's like, well, I would say
Speaker 1: that would apply to you know, most most intelligent social animals. Great,
Speaker 1: I support that entirely. I don't. I obviously do not
Speaker 1: have a professional opinion on the matter, but I would
Speaker 1: like to think that, like you know, obviously language is
Speaker 1: something that is created by humans for humans. Um, but
Speaker 1: I think for to be for the suggestion to be
Speaker 1: that dogs and and you know, certain animals don't have
Speaker 1: the capability to semi recognize something or have to wrestle
Speaker 1: with something is recognizable or not. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: to say, do they experience the uncanny Valley? It's like, well,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't call it that, but they know
Speaker 1: when something is there and doesn't it's like, this is
Speaker 1: not quite right, this is not I'm confused by this.
Speaker 1: I support you entirely. I think it's I think it's
Speaker 1: in fact, there there's a study, uh, there's a study
Speaker 1: of machex that looked at their eye gays of like
Speaker 1: computer generated images of macax and like ones that were like, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of realistic, actually kind of cartoonists. They sort of
Speaker 1: looked at a little bit, didn't really seem to care.
Speaker 1: They're real photos they looked at for a long time
Speaker 1: because they were interested. But ones that were almost exactly
Speaker 1: realistic but not quite they were like c g I.
Speaker 1: They didn't like to look at it all. They like
Speaker 1: spent as little time looking at it as possible, which
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's hard to know exactly how to
Speaker 1: interpret those results. But one way of interpreting them is
Speaker 1: that they did not enjoy looking at that that c
Speaker 1: g I version of the the macaque, and so they
Speaker 1: would avert their gaze because they found it unpleasant, which
Speaker 1: is how humans experienced the Uncanny Valley. So I would
Speaker 1: say this has not been researched enough to really say definitively,
Speaker 1: but I think all the research that we have as
Speaker 1: well as general trends and animal behavior, I think would
Speaker 1: indicate that, yeah, this could definitely happen for animals, and
Speaker 1: I don't see any reason to rule it out for animals. Right,
Speaker 1: That's why my dog hates Polar Express movie. I thought
Speaker 1: it was just because she hated Tom Hanks, but I
Speaker 1: think it's all those all those weird kids. It's all
Speaker 1: those weird looking kids. That's funny, that's wonderful. Also, when
Speaker 1: I make a weird noise, she gives me such a look,
Speaker 1: like she does a little head turning things. But like
Speaker 1: if I do sort of a weird whistling noise, like
Speaker 1: where I'm kind of sucking errand through my teeth or
Speaker 1: something in a weird way, or or if I blow
Speaker 1: across a bottle and it makes that like weird hoot
Speaker 1: you noise, like she just like she looks at me
Speaker 1: like I've been possessed, and she's clearly she's like she's interested,
Speaker 1: but she's concerned. I've been bewitched. Totally totally different noise,
Speaker 1: I'm unfamiliar. And she hates it when people ride on
Speaker 1: bikes or skateboards, like really just it's something like about
Speaker 1: the human going faster than they should that, like she
Speaker 1: loses her mind over she hates so much. Like you're
Speaker 1: a human but way too fast. This isn't right. Why
Speaker 1: is one part of you moving but the other parts
Speaker 1: of you are not? What's up with that? It's a
Speaker 1: bicycle human centaur? Evil? I'll bite off its legs. What
Speaker 1: the devilment is this? Yeah? Amazing? Well I think that'll
Speaker 1: do it for today. Thank you so much for this email.
Speaker 1: Love the pictures of the puppet. I will share those.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you haven't have a question and you
Speaker 1: want me to answer it, uh, send an email to
Speaker 1: Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and I will
Speaker 1: either try to answer it over the email or even
Speaker 1: on the show. So yeah, thank you so much for that.
Speaker 1: And Daniel, thank you so much for being on here today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. It's
Speaker 1: such a great show, one of my favorite podcast. Honored
Speaker 1: to be included. Oh my goodness, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: You used to you used to engineer the dang thing.
Speaker 1: Did used to engineer the dank thing. But then we
Speaker 1: got so you know, I got so big and busy.
Speaker 1: They spread spread us all out there. They're like, Danny
Speaker 1: can't do that anymore, you gotta go do this other thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like that. But the bright side is now we've
Speaker 1: got Zack. Hear you, guys, he's um, he's actually he's
Speaker 1: actually shrouded by waves. He's actually he's actually adolphins, so
Speaker 1: he can only speak in squeals and ease yes and
Speaker 1: the confettia emotions saying saying yes, I engineered lovely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you? You can find me on Twitter at dj
Speaker 1: Underscore damil and you can find me on Twitch at
Speaker 1: the same twitch dot tv slash dj Underscore d A
Speaker 1: n L and check it out. We do fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and listen the podcast shoot listen to Creature feature. I
Speaker 1: mean you're already here, so great job. Check out the
Speaker 1: other podcast on the network. Yeah, check out other podcasts
Speaker 1: on the network. Uh, thank you guys so much for listening. Um.
Speaker 1: You can find us on the internet at Creature Creature
Speaker 1: Pod on Instagram at Creature feet Pod on Twitter. That's
Speaker 1: et that is something very different. Uh and as always,
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Golden. You can find me on Twitter just
Speaker 1: for my Katie thoughts and uh, yeah, thank you so
Speaker 1: much to the space Classics for their super awesome song
Speaker 1: x Alumina. That song is great. I know it's so
Speaker 1: good it can get Can I get it? A corny
Speaker 1: joke before we leave? Do it? Do it? Do it?
Speaker 1: Since sind you said creature feet, You're like, no, it's
Speaker 1: create your feet. F e A T, not f e T.
Speaker 1: That's a different website. That website is only Finns than you.
Speaker 1: Don't never apologize. Thank you so much for that. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, thank you so much. Creature Feature is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio for more podcasts like the
Speaker 1: one you just heard because at the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast or Hey guess what where have you listen
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