Speaker 1: Hey, guys, today's episode is going to discuss the fires
Speaker 1: in Australia. We'll still have a lot of fun talking
Speaker 1: about some crazy, incredible animals from Australia, but I do
Speaker 1: want to talk seriously about the enormous cost to humanity
Speaker 1: and wildlife that these fires are causing, and the fact
Speaker 1: that this is not a random disaster but one due
Speaker 1: to climate change, and the failure of people in power
Speaker 1: to take seriously the danger that our planet is in.
Speaker 1: Just to note, as we make jokes on the show,
Speaker 1: we're trying to use humor to cope with this very
Speaker 1: awful situation, but my heart is truly broken by the
Speaker 1: destruction to both human communities and animal habitat and the
Speaker 1: loss of irreplaceable life. I will also include some information
Speaker 1: on how you personally can help. Thank you guys so much.
Speaker 1: I know this is a topic that is extremely important
Speaker 1: and close to the hearts of many of my listeners
Speaker 1: out there. Welcome to Creature future production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied
Speaker 1: psych oology and evolutionary biology. I'm pro bird, writes on Twitter,
Speaker 1: and I'm definitely a human and not a sentient flock
Speaker 1: of birds. Today on the show, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about Australia, home to some of my favorite animals in
Speaker 1: the world. As you may know, Australia is facing a
Speaker 1: human and ecological crisis right now as fires ravage across Australia,
Speaker 1: especially in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia's southeast coast.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the cause of these fires, how it's
Speaker 1: affecting humans and animals in the area, and how human
Speaker 1: activity has influenced this disaster. Then we'll talk about one
Speaker 1: of Australia's most iconic animals, the koala, as well as
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other incredible animals found only in Australia.
Speaker 1: Discover this and more as we answer the age old
Speaker 1: question does Mom's poop taste the best because she makes
Speaker 1: it with love? So? The Australian bushfires have had a
Speaker 1: monumental cost. At least twenty five people have been killed,
Speaker 1: over two thousand homes have been destroyed, and thousands of
Speaker 1: people have been displaced. Hundreds of millions of animals have
Speaker 1: died in the fires, and over eight million hectares of
Speaker 1: land have been destroyed. To visualize this, imagine about a
Speaker 1: fifth of California being burned while wildfires due corregularly during
Speaker 1: Australia's fire season. The scale and duration of these fires
Speaker 1: are shaping up to be the worst on record. But
Speaker 1: this is no random happenstance. Australia is experiencing its highest
Speaker 1: temperatures and driest weather on record, a trend that has
Speaker 1: been predicted by climate scientists as being a result of
Speaker 1: climate change. Despite all this, and the fury of Australians
Speaker 1: who are seeing their homes burning before their eyes, the
Speaker 1: response of the current administration has been shockingly aloof Australia's
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, Scott Morrison of the right wing Liberal Party,
Speaker 1: is getting a lot of, let's say, strong criticism for
Speaker 1: his inaction regarding the fires, in climate change in general.
Speaker 1: Joining me today to talk Koala's Kangaroos and inept government
Speaker 1: responses to ecological crisis is criticis crices? Crises is Comedian
Speaker 1: plat Let's lover hosted The Junk Show and The Space
Speaker 1: Cave podcast David Hauntsberger, WHOA I never know how to
Speaker 1: pronounce I don't like the word crisis. Prices always feels
Speaker 1: like it's missing one thing. Crises something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm happy, help me. I'm in the middle of a crisises.
Speaker 1: I do like crisses. It makes it sound a little,
Speaker 1: it brings a little levity to it. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how much you want to reveal to your listeners,
Speaker 1: but you're really doing Someone used this term recently. I
Speaker 1: don't fully know what it means, like Yeoman's work, and
Speaker 1: I feel like you're really as far as putting out
Speaker 1: a podcast really Um, hopefully they appreciate how much effort
Speaker 1: you are putting into, like battling an illness. You can
Speaker 1: do all this reason. I think they can maybe hear
Speaker 1: me coughing, so they probably do know, um that I
Speaker 1: am sick. I also, I mean, my voice is slowly
Speaker 1: getting better. But yeah, last time, I think I sounded
Speaker 1: a little. It's a little raspier than normal. I actually
Speaker 1: kind of like it, um, when not coughing, the voice
Speaker 1: having that kind of raspy thing. I've always felt like
Speaker 1: I sound normally kind of mouse like, So like getting
Speaker 1: that raspy voice makes me feel a little more mature. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every you need a break from your own voice every
Speaker 1: now and again, you know, right. Gruff version there's a
Speaker 1: cool version of me. Well, so, typically this podcast isn't
Speaker 1: super like politics focused, but I feel like we kind
Speaker 1: of have to talk about some of the politics around
Speaker 1: the Australian fires because it's just it's so right now
Speaker 1: in the world, as as we're going through climate change
Speaker 1: in massive ecological destruction. It's I can't disappoint to the
Speaker 1: fires and be like, wow, look at those fires. Those
Speaker 1: are weird. Huht. Anyways, almost a billion animals are dying,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that kind of to start off,
Speaker 1: I want to give just the unadulterated opinion of the
Speaker 1: Australian firefighters. This is, I think, in a extremely important
Speaker 1: opinion and very well stated. Here we go, hell the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, it go and get from Nelligan. We really
Speaker 1: enjoy doing this. He so yeah, I think that is
Speaker 1: some well placed anger. And and then there's another firefighter
Speaker 1: who gives her opinion as well, Jacket that govern give
Speaker 1: knew this coming. It's been coming for a few years.
Speaker 1: You have been probing or a problem and now we're
Speaker 1: wearing you're all problems. So you know, I think that
Speaker 1: they have a point. I think the the anger at
Speaker 1: the current administration is I think it's like that aloofness
Speaker 1: that that people are sensing of, like, you know, this
Speaker 1: is a big deal. People are losing their homes, they're
Speaker 1: losing their lives, Animals are in devastating numbers dying, and
Speaker 1: yet the Australian government kind of doesn't seem too fussed
Speaker 1: about it. Um and it's it's also over so the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Scott Morrison, it's been pretty lackluster, let's say,
Speaker 1: over climate change in addressing the fire season. So but
Speaker 1: that's not to say that Australians as a whole are
Speaker 1: not don't care. They do very much. So in December,
Speaker 1: over twenty thousand Australians took to the streets in Sydney
Speaker 1: wearing masks to protect themselves from smoke pollution to protest
Speaker 1: the government's refusal to address climate change. And you'd think
Speaker 1: that Australia, of all countries, would be very concerned with
Speaker 1: client change because it's basically a big tinder box. It's
Speaker 1: the California of the world and things are going great
Speaker 1: here as far as fire as we hardly have them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I have a big box of face masks
Speaker 1: with that filter out particulate matter for just for fashion,
Speaker 1: for no particular reason, get it, no particular reason exactly. So,
Speaker 1: despite the seriousness of climate change, Australia was ranked last
Speaker 1: on the list of fifty seven countries regarding climate change policy.
Speaker 1: Guess who was just like they were right behind. You'll
Speaker 1: never guess. This is tough. It's definitely not US. We're
Speaker 1: pretty good. I mean it's not US. It's actually pronounced
Speaker 1: us um. So yeah. Anyways, welcome to our roast of
Speaker 1: Australia's Prime minister. Something I'm sure people were expecting to
Speaker 1: hear on an animal's podcast. But again, this is extremely
Speaker 1: important because I think that we need to point out
Speaker 1: that when you have you know, hundreds of millions, perhaps
Speaker 1: even a billion animals have died, it's not just it's
Speaker 1: not just like a random thing like well, I guess
Speaker 1: this happens. That human activity can make a big impact.
Speaker 1: And uh, you may think like, well, what can you
Speaker 1: do about wildfire? Those are natural? How could you prevent it? Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of people saw this coming. So first of all,
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rejected calls to combat climate change.
Speaker 1: He does not want to shift from coal to renewable energy,
Speaker 1: and he's threatened to outlaw forms of environmental protest. He
Speaker 1: is trying to ban protesters from pressure and companies to
Speaker 1: stop doing business with the coal industry and other industries
Speaker 1: with high carbon costs to the environment. So basically to
Speaker 1: ban boycotts or to band like like a peaceful form
Speaker 1: of protest, he said, quote new threats to the future
Speaker 1: of the resources sector have emerged. A new breed of
Speaker 1: radical activism is on the march. Apocalyptic in tone. It
Speaker 1: brooks no compromise, it's all or nothing. And this is
Speaker 1: really ironic when you think when you see Australia burning,
Speaker 1: the skies are red, and it's like new threats to
Speaker 1: the future of the resources sector. And then it's like
Speaker 1: you just see country burning down. I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's an insane kind of misplacement of
Speaker 1: where your concern should be where It's like, these climate
Speaker 1: activists are like, hey, you know, we want to live
Speaker 1: in a planet, and you're like, but what about the
Speaker 1: coal industry. He brought like a lump of coal to Parliament.
Speaker 1: He's like, this is coal, don't be afraid of it.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, my kind of guy. I
Speaker 1: like that. He puts like Google eyes on the coal.
Speaker 1: He's like, look at me. I'm I'm Calvin the coal,
Speaker 1: and you want to be in me. No, but close.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem that crazy or far fetched. If you're
Speaker 1: willing to bring it in to begin with, the voice
Speaker 1: might have happened. It seems like, don't be in me.
Speaker 1: I'm just a little cool fluck. I'm just living down there.
Speaker 1: It's so dark. Thank you for breaking the line. Oh man,
Speaker 1: oh god, yeah, we're we're all going to die anyways. Um,
Speaker 1: some of these guys think, sorry to know you continue
Speaker 1: that though, But it feels like some of these people
Speaker 1: who are trying to impress the co industry, the fossil
Speaker 1: fuel world, I feel like, maybe in a future not
Speaker 1: that far off, maybe not even that many people are dead,
Speaker 1: but the landscape, the environment is ravished. It's just devastated.
Speaker 1: But everyone's standing there with bags of money and there's
Speaker 1: just smoldering ashes everywhere around us. Do they feel like
Speaker 1: people will be psyched at that point? Built will rebuild
Speaker 1: the trees out of money. That's a good point. Money trees,
Speaker 1: just like big stacks of bills with branches, will will
Speaker 1: build money. Koalas with two quarters for eyes. And then
Speaker 1: when people say money doesn't grow on treats, like we
Speaker 1: know they are trees, right, they are just they are trees.
Speaker 1: It is the trees. And then we all die because
Speaker 1: we don't have any Now we learned how to breathe
Speaker 1: money just this whole new ecosystem. I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: consider the possibility that money could just, you know, rather
Speaker 1: than being carbon based life forms, we could just be
Speaker 1: cash based Zuckerbuck based life forms. Bitcoin. I like it. Yeah. Anyways,
Speaker 1: So Australians are also angry at the Australian government for
Speaker 1: ignoring warnings about how bad this fire season was going
Speaker 1: to be and lots of people, lots of experts, and uh,
Speaker 1: we're warning them about this for a long time. Former
Speaker 1: Fire and Rescue New South Wales Commissioner Greg Mullins said
Speaker 1: that the Prime Minister ignored a group of thirty retired
Speaker 1: emergency services leaders who back in April of nineteen called
Speaker 1: for more funding in preparation for what they wore, what
Speaker 1: they warned would turn out to be a terrible fire season. Well,
Speaker 1: thank god they weren't right about that. Have you seen Chernobyl?
Speaker 1: I I can't deal with it. I've actually read. I
Speaker 1: read a whole thing about Chernobyl and in the effects
Speaker 1: of radiation poisoning in people's skin falling off, so I
Speaker 1: can't watch it. It's just as visceral to I mean,
Speaker 1: it's worth what you just thought of when you read that.
Speaker 1: It's just seeing the visual representation of that. That's essentially
Speaker 1: what the show is. But there is such a perfect
Speaker 1: scene of the CATASTROPHEUS happened. There's a helicopter being dispatched
Speaker 1: by the head people, you know, the head of the
Speaker 1: government Russian authority, sending one of their administrators, basically a
Speaker 1: lead physicist, and then just a pilot of the helicopter.
Speaker 1: The pilot is us humanity, just the average the public,
Speaker 1: and then the other person is dictated by money and
Speaker 1: or doing what they're told to do. And then the
Speaker 1: scientist is just screaming like, do not fly over that
Speaker 1: smoke peopill kill us all, and the money guys going
Speaker 1: just go have fly right over it. And then we
Speaker 1: are the pilot like, well, this guy seems like he
Speaker 1: knows what he's talking about, but I'm I'm paid by
Speaker 1: this guy. And it feels like whenever these stories happen,
Speaker 1: that is hopefully humanity has gone soon because we're just
Speaker 1: atrocious to the planet. And I always ask people on
Speaker 1: my podcast if you could press a button that just
Speaker 1: instantly removed humans, we you press it and most people
Speaker 1: say no almost but wait, but I'm wait in a minute.
Speaker 1: This Australia story is just a little diluted sample of
Speaker 1: what all of the end of it is going to be.
Speaker 1: Where we're going to be in real chaos and the
Speaker 1: people that are against it right now, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: going You should have said something. I hate that when
Speaker 1: every single day sharing articles. I think that's what these
Speaker 1: fire rescue people are feeling now as they say, you know,
Speaker 1: they tell the Prime Minister to go duck himself. You
Speaker 1: know that's h or sorry, go get ducked. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that guy. So, I mean, I know he's
Speaker 1: in I don't want to make fun of the very
Speaker 1: valid pain that he's in there, but I just that
Speaker 1: is it's like poetry to hear him say that. So
Speaker 1: I mean, as I'm talking about the aloof response of
Speaker 1: the Australian Prime Minister and government, just imagine a slide
Speaker 1: show of all those koalas with the their pause burned
Speaker 1: and with the little um bandages. I'm sorry, I know
Speaker 1: it's a downer, but it it's just the juxtaposition of that.
Speaker 1: And so these um fire rescue experts wrote to the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister and asked for a meeting, but he and
Speaker 1: his group were completely ignored. And four years ago, the
Speaker 1: Aerial Firefighting Center they may know something about firefighting, it
Speaker 1: is in the name. They asked for funding to create
Speaker 1: a national large air tanker fleet to combat the increasingly
Speaker 1: serious bushfires. The government turned them down, saying, quote, the
Speaker 1: Australian Government does not support this recommendation, noting that bushfire
Speaker 1: responsibility is a matter for each state and territory. Well,
Speaker 1: isn't that nine. That's perfect cool, that's not our problem.
Speaker 1: That seems like it will be likely happening here. Remember
Speaker 1: what was it the bears your monument in Utah? They
Speaker 1: removed federal protection from just the state, saying and then
Speaker 1: the clock is just ticking until X mobile makes some
Speaker 1: sort of catastrophic error there it is. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: happening that the and these uh protected lands are removing
Speaker 1: their status of protection. Endangered species are losing their status
Speaker 1: is protected species? Uh you know, blink and you'll miss it,
Speaker 1: like it's it's happening here too. I think that this
Speaker 1: is not like me wagging my finger at Australia going shame,
Speaker 1: because like, it's happening here too. It's it's happening in
Speaker 1: in South America and in Brazil. It's happening all over
Speaker 1: the world. So this is this is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Australia is sort of the koala in the coal mine
Speaker 1: or the so to speak. Um. But yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: not something we can feel high and mighty about. He
Speaker 1: just a couple of other things to to make you
Speaker 1: hate this Prime Minister. He refused to pay volunteer firefighters
Speaker 1: for their massive extra efforts. And he also just went
Speaker 1: on a vacation to Hawaii and then lied about it
Speaker 1: and said he wasn't there, Like while he was there,
Speaker 1: his office was like, no, he's not in Hawaiian. Maybe
Speaker 1: he's like instagramming himself. He was like loving it here
Speaker 1: in Hawaii. Um, but it doesn't sound remotely familiar, sounds
Speaker 1: like sounds weird. Nothing. I can't imagine being led by
Speaker 1: someone like this conversation is literally killing me. You're really
Speaker 1: a trooper just muscling. I have to do it. For
Speaker 1: the koalas. My suffering is for the koalas. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the old kind of thinking. And this is my old
Speaker 1: I mean five or ten years ago that once it
Speaker 1: got to sort of charismatic megafauna, then that's when people
Speaker 1: kind of care and he stepped prior to that. Oh,
Speaker 1: I guess we don't need that little insect or whatever
Speaker 1: it was that was in that ecosystem that's gone. Now.
Speaker 1: That's an incredibly good point and it's something that we
Speaker 1: do talk about on the podcast, which is that people
Speaker 1: don't necessarily care about, say, you know, insects and vertebrates, um.
Speaker 1: Then a step up from that reptiles, fish, snakes, even
Speaker 1: like like birds like it doesn't which offends me on
Speaker 1: a deep level. I'm a huge leve of birds. But
Speaker 1: then once you start to get to these iconic species
Speaker 1: like the koala, people see that, and I think it
Speaker 1: really you know, I think it sinks in with people
Speaker 1: once they see the koala, maybe you know, leaving the planet,
Speaker 1: you you try to imagine a planet without the koala.
Speaker 1: It's like it's easy to imagine the planet without a
Speaker 1: species of insect that you've never even heard of, you know,
Speaker 1: the the five footed blue bumble snout bug, which is
Speaker 1: actually integral to our ecosystems. Without it, we'd all be dead.
Speaker 1: But um, but you know, you think about, okay, what
Speaker 1: about a world with new koalas or you know, no
Speaker 1: no pandas or you know like these things, and it's
Speaker 1: going to happen like we're going probably within our life
Speaker 1: lifetimes where we'll see it a species, not necessarily the koala,
Speaker 1: but um an iconic species go extinct. That it will
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, be a huge blow. But I
Speaker 1: think it's important to recognize that because it's like maybe
Speaker 1: maybe there will be some good from this and that
Speaker 1: it'll actually kind of shake some people out of their stupor.
Speaker 1: And I'm really hoping. Um, So let's let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about Australia's ecology and what is at risk here.
Speaker 1: Like I said, the estimates of animals that have died
Speaker 1: ranged from five million to a billion, which is I
Speaker 1: can't even picture that. It's uh. And you know, animals
Speaker 1: include also not just like kality sized animals, but all
Speaker 1: sorts of animals ranging in size and and so you
Speaker 1: know that it's also something where a lot of animals
Speaker 1: might die after the fires because of drought, loss of habitat,
Speaker 1: lack of resources, so they can they can actually die
Speaker 1: of thirst as well or die of their injuries later.
Speaker 1: So I don't even I don't even think we know
Speaker 1: what the cost is right now. So the bush slams
Speaker 1: of Australia are home to some of the most iconic
Speaker 1: and important species of animals and plants, and they're of
Speaker 1: huge cultural significance to Australians. It's just it's that it
Speaker 1: is Australia. The bushlands. They aren't called the bush because
Speaker 1: there it's just a bunch of bushes. They're defined as
Speaker 1: being land that is a remnant natural area, meaning it
Speaker 1: contains undisturbed native flora and fauna. The bush can refer
Speaker 1: to both forests with trees and also scrub land. Sevent
Speaker 1: of Australia is made up of forests. So there are
Speaker 1: eight main national forest types in Australia, named after the
Speaker 1: predominant trees found in each forest. So there's the acacious
Speaker 1: uh Calitras uh Kazarina eucalypt which that's kind of the
Speaker 1: iconic one, the ones that Koala's love, mangrove and Mala luca,
Speaker 1: and rainforests and other I love other trees, you know,
Speaker 1: the famous other trees and sort of indescribable generics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I carved my initials into another tree when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, and I like to go back and yeah,
Speaker 1: just check it out. They've turned into other initials. But
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, it's the vagaries of these
Speaker 1: trees that's so beautiful. Yes, So Australia is also home
Speaker 1: to eight percent of the world species of living living beings.
Speaker 1: So of their flora, of their mammals, and of their invertebrates,
Speaker 1: and fort pent of their birds are endemic to Australia. Now,
Speaker 1: endemic sounds like a bad word. It sounds like you're
Speaker 1: going to get sick from this word, but it actually
Speaker 1: just means life that is found only in that area.
Speaker 1: So koalas are endemic to Australia um and they're not
Speaker 1: found anywhere else in the world. So they have three
Speaker 1: thousand unique species of vertebrates and eighteen thousand unique species
Speaker 1: of plant. It's it's brimming with with life. It's a
Speaker 1: really wonderful, uh bio diverse area. And like we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, just a battle here, folks fighting her
Speaker 1: way through this episode it's it's actually I'm getting in
Speaker 1: character as a koala who's in handling smoke. Sorry. Sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's important to note that it's not just the famous
Speaker 1: animals like the koala and the cuddly, cute, iconic animals
Speaker 1: that are at risk. So lots of reptiles, insects, um,
Speaker 1: things that maybe you don't think about, are at risk
Speaker 1: of extinction. We we don't even know. We have no
Speaker 1: idea what's happening with a lot of these endangered and
Speaker 1: threatened species right now. It's it's a pretty scary position
Speaker 1: to be in. But the endangered bog skink is a
Speaker 1: type of lizard who is at risk of extinction in
Speaker 1: the wake of the fires. These skinks are a really
Speaker 1: cool species of lizard that gives birth to live babies. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's that's pretty neat. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that could happen. Yeah, how is that possible? Well,
Speaker 1: they they poop poop them out alive. They're egg based. No, no,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of you know, reptiles and fish
Speaker 1: can give live birth as well. So it's a I know,
Speaker 1: I always like to think of this is like a
Speaker 1: far side thing or something. But two species of reptile
Speaker 1: meeting each other and being like, oh you you think
Speaker 1: about having kids and then then being like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you gonna do it? We're an egg family,
Speaker 1: so like alive, have you tried going plus cential? It's
Speaker 1: just marvelous. Just there's mammals are onto something. I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: There's also the endangered corobory tree frog that is threatened
Speaker 1: with endangerment or extinction. Um. These are colorful yellow poison
Speaker 1: as frogs. And you know you've seen a poison tree frog.
Speaker 1: Beautifully vibrant, not good to eat, um, not good to
Speaker 1: touch necessarily. But these ones are unique in that they're
Speaker 1: able to produce their own poison rather than making it
Speaker 1: from the food they get, which is different from most
Speaker 1: other species of poison tree frogs. So they're proud of that.
Speaker 1: I feel it's like it's like I got your got
Speaker 1: your poison from from your food? Huh, Well mine is homemade.
Speaker 1: Going off to eat some food to make poison, I'll
Speaker 1: be here making it on my I like how I
Speaker 1: like your lore of these reptiles and amphibians sort of
Speaker 1: being like, uh like sort of like yuppy millennial couple,
Speaker 1: sort of sort of going around Westwood or I'm like, hmm, yes,
Speaker 1: so I make my own poison that small batch. That's cute.
Speaker 1: We did that a few years ago. But yeah, even
Speaker 1: species that don't go extinct will suffer massive population losses,
Speaker 1: which will reduce their genetic diversity, and that's really important
Speaker 1: for their survival because that makes it harder for them
Speaker 1: to cope with disease, habitat loss, drought. Now they're just
Speaker 1: unpredictable environmental problems. So it's you know, but this is
Speaker 1: the fun comedy podcast about cute animals. How much do
Speaker 1: you get into the philosophical side of things on this show?
Speaker 1: I mean to deal with this. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on what this means? I think, well, my feeling is,
Speaker 1: and of course this seems very bleak, and it is
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie to you, but I think that
Speaker 1: we need to kind of confront the reality of it,
Speaker 1: the problems that are happening, that the sad things that
Speaker 1: are happening, understand them, understand what's going on, and then
Speaker 1: not try not to hang onto the sadness, try to
Speaker 1: hang on to the fact that these are incredible animals.
Speaker 1: We have an incredible planet, and we actually can turn
Speaker 1: things around, Like these wildfires weren't inevitable. Like wildfires and
Speaker 1: general are they happen, They're not necessarily bad. But the
Speaker 1: we didn't know about these wildfires that they were going
Speaker 1: to be especially bad. We could have made preparations. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: it's too late this season, but it's not too late
Speaker 1: for next season. I think that we have to confront
Speaker 1: the bad and celebrate the good and then kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, keep keep going like I don't want people
Speaker 1: to listen to this and just feel really discouraged and
Speaker 1: devastated like this we aren't yet at the point of
Speaker 1: no return. We can definitely help out. And we'll also
Speaker 1: talk about Koala's and how cute they are, so don't
Speaker 1: hold hold onto your butts people, it's gonna get a
Speaker 1: lot cuter um. But yeah, I mean, Koala's have suffered
Speaker 1: massive losses um. And the area that's being burned is
Speaker 1: very important to the Koala in New South Wales. It
Speaker 1: represents a huge, very important part of their habitat um.
Speaker 1: And there's um. Well, come to cough cast where you
Speaker 1: just hear my esophagus get torn up. There aren't enough
Speaker 1: cough podcasts cough casts. Yeah, it's it's too bad that
Speaker 1: true crime is kind of like soaking up the market
Speaker 1: for the cough cast industry. I like a certain number
Speaker 1: of crime podcasts otherwise, but not enough coughing. Not enough coughing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so well, well we're gonna we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about those little fuzz balls in just a minute, and
Speaker 1: I don't there's there's some encouraging news about it, some
Speaker 1: things that are scary, but all in all, they're very cute.
Speaker 1: And we're going to also talk about their poop, which
Speaker 1: is exciting. I heard you say something about mom's poop.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into it. We're thing. I thought that
Speaker 1: was a weird non sequity. There's no non sequiturs here.
Speaker 1: Can ecosystems come back after fires? Often the answer is
Speaker 1: actually yes. Wildfires are a natural occurrence and can even
Speaker 1: help forests regrow. Aboriginals in Australia have used firestick farming
Speaker 1: and cold fire controlled burns for thousands of years, which
Speaker 1: is thought to help thin out the bush and prevent larger,
Speaker 1: more destructive fires from occurring. However, the planet is changing
Speaker 1: and the hotter temperatures, drier climates, and larger, uncontrollable infernos
Speaker 1: due to climate change presents a bleak picture. Research indicates
Speaker 1: that forests that were once able to bounce back after
Speaker 1: a wildfire are no struggling. Forest sites with no signs
Speaker 1: of regrowth have doubled since the year two thousand, which
Speaker 1: is attributed to hotter temperatures and increasing droughts. Animals may
Speaker 1: also face greater challenges and surviving wildfires, and may not
Speaker 1: be able to have the same success stories as they
Speaker 1: have in the past. For instance, the agile antiqu kindness
Speaker 1: and Australian marsupial, who looks like a little shrewd, suffered
Speaker 1: a seventy drop in its population following the two thousand
Speaker 1: nine fires, but over three years it managed to completely
Speaker 1: regrow its population. However, with hotter, more destructive fires and drought,
Speaker 1: animals who survived the fire may find too much of
Speaker 1: their habitat has been destroyed and there are too few
Speaker 1: resources for their populations to completely recover, and survival techniques
Speaker 1: such as the brush tail possum, who hides out in
Speaker 1: tree hollows during fires, will no longer be viable, as
Speaker 1: repeat destruction weakens trees to the point that these shelters collapse.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to sound like too much of a
Speaker 1: debby downer, but I think it's important to know that
Speaker 1: while nature can be extremely resilient, we can't take that
Speaker 1: ability to recover for granted, or assume that the natural
Speaker 1: world will be able to bounce back after repeated blows.
Speaker 1: That's why it's so critical that we take action to
Speaker 1: help Mother nature out. Think of it like Rocky. It's
Speaker 1: been a great fighter getting back up after multiple blows.
Speaker 1: But we've got to be like Mickey and have its
Speaker 1: back and prop it back up and cut open Mother
Speaker 1: Nature's big, old, gross busted eye. All Right, maybe that's
Speaker 1: a bad analogy, but you get the idea. When we return,
Speaker 1: we're going to learn some quality facts. You're gonna learn
Speaker 1: koal of what there is. We're talking about koality. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing now. I want to spend some
Speaker 1: couality time talking about one of Australia's most iconic animals,
Speaker 1: the koala. Koalas are one of the many animals being
Speaker 1: threatened by Australia's bushfires. You may have heard that koalas
Speaker 1: are functionally extinct, but I'm happy to say that reports
Speaker 1: of their extinction have been greatly exaggerated. Koalas are being
Speaker 1: threatened by these bushfires. That much can't be overstated. Their
Speaker 1: conservation status is listed as vulnerable, meaning they're not yet endangered,
Speaker 1: but they are on their way down that path if
Speaker 1: things don't change. As frightening as this is. I think
Speaker 1: it's also important to highlight some of the wonderful things
Speaker 1: humans are doing in an attempt to help out the koala.
Speaker 1: People all over Australia and all over the world are
Speaker 1: trying to save this much love Marsupial through rescue efforts,
Speaker 1: including some real a cute ones. Quilters in the Netherlands
Speaker 1: are making protective mittens for koalas whose paws have been
Speaker 1: burned in the fires, and pouches to serve as a
Speaker 1: home for orphan koalas. Families have been loading their cars
Speaker 1: full of injured koalas to drive them to animal hospitals.
Speaker 1: People have been offering dehydrated koala's drinks from their water bottles,
Speaker 1: and koala rescue organizations have been tirelessly treating injured and
Speaker 1: bird koalas. While it's true that each action alone is
Speaker 1: not enough to make up for the damage done to
Speaker 1: the koala population, I think this outpouring of concern and
Speaker 1: help shows that most of us really do care about
Speaker 1: the world around us. Now, if we can get enough
Speaker 1: people on board, we may be able to learn a
Speaker 1: lesson from this devastating event and realize how important it
Speaker 1: is for us to agitate for ecological protections to save
Speaker 1: these wonderful animals. So let's learn a bit about this
Speaker 1: noble koala, who is as fascinating a creature as it
Speaker 1: is adorable, and we will definitely get into discussing their food.
Speaker 1: So don't worry about that great so kouala. What are they? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you have so Koalas are marsupials endemic to Australia.
Speaker 1: Uh they Their closest living relatives are the wombats. Another
Speaker 1: doofy bumbly looking animal. You've ever you've seen a wombat?
Speaker 1: Right now? Oh? Boy, you got to see a wombat?
Speaker 1: I know the name a lot? Uh you got no
Speaker 1: shape is coming to mind? Here's the shape? Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I've seen that. It's the shape is how would you
Speaker 1: describe that shape? Like a I like when? Um, if
Speaker 1: you ever trying to design like characters for a cartoon
Speaker 1: or something, you just you have to have certain anthropomorphic qualities,
Speaker 1: so you know, uh, and then teddy bear esque kind
Speaker 1: of things. This feels like a jam pack of certain
Speaker 1: like kind of a bare body, a little bit of
Speaker 1: poo bear. Yeah, like a bare body, kind of a
Speaker 1: al one in the chipmunk's head. But then the head
Speaker 1: also has like Pomeranian qualities or something. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a very cute, cute animal. And do you know what
Speaker 1: a koala looks like? Yeah, koala, I'm more familiar. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: they've got that nice cute it's not really a button knows,
Speaker 1: it's more of a big old honker, but it's it's
Speaker 1: very cute. They got those big tufted ears and they
Speaker 1: look like sleepy little balls of flu from that is
Speaker 1: essentially what they are. So that's what I want an animal, right,
Speaker 1: just where people that have like hairless cats, they would
Speaker 1: defend them and be like they're great, certainly not diminishing
Speaker 1: your love or the the hairless cat in general. However,
Speaker 1: I think there's something that is invoked in more people
Speaker 1: than others, which is like cuddly, chubby fluffiness. Right, it's adorable.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the difference between to me like a
Speaker 1: nice soft couch, and like a leather couch that your
Speaker 1: legs get stuck to, you know, Like the leather couch
Speaker 1: can be sort of regal and nice to look at,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to sit on it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to go collapse into that fluffy thing. If if
Speaker 1: I if, I would rather have a couch made out
Speaker 1: of koalas than a couch made out of hairless cats.
Speaker 1: But don't make couches out of koalas. I just the
Speaker 1: cruella devil of koalas. My bumper sticker says, I like
Speaker 1: my couches like I like my koalas, and then it
Speaker 1: doesn't have a finish. People know they can kind of
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, although you could also be like, what like
Speaker 1: your couches like eucalyptus anyways, so they can wag up
Speaker 1: to about thirty pounds, so they're they're big boys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: big boys and girls. And they grow up to thirty inches,
Speaker 1: so you know they're they're handful. Yeah. What I'd love
Speaker 1: is if they could walk around on their hind legs
Speaker 1: and act like it wasn't a big deal. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: like Karen little briefcases. They can get up on their
Speaker 1: hind legs it. When they do it, it is a
Speaker 1: big deal, very big. They look around, they do the
Speaker 1: little applause. If you had to choose between owning a
Speaker 1: wombat koala, which would you go with? Owning wild animals?
Speaker 1: Is wrong, David. This is a different world, the better
Speaker 1: world than this one where you don't even own it.
Speaker 1: It just kind of lives in your house and doesn't
Speaker 1: pay rent. Honestly, I won't. It's a good question. I
Speaker 1: I think maybe. Oh god, it's so hard because on
Speaker 1: one hand, wombats poop and little cubes, and that would
Speaker 1: make cleaning up after them really fun because you could
Speaker 1: make like sort of a lego structure out of the
Speaker 1: poop and that'd be super fun. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: Koala's sleep all the time, so I feel like it'd
Speaker 1: be really easy to take care of them because they
Speaker 1: just like sleep about eighteen to twenty two hours a day.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I don't know. I could do both, like
Speaker 1: bring them on, give me both of them. So, like
Speaker 1: I said, koala sleep for most of the day. Because
Speaker 1: their diet of eucalyptus leaves are extremely difficult to digest.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting choice in terms of it being their
Speaker 1: main diet because they are super toxic those leaves. So
Speaker 1: eucalyptus leaves are very toxic. Likely it has developed as
Speaker 1: a defensive weapon against insects. It's basically saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: these leaves aren't good, don't eat them. And koalas are like,
Speaker 1: hold my, hold my beer. Yeah, I'll show you what's
Speaker 1: hard to eat. Yeah. Uh. And koalas have adapted to
Speaker 1: neutralize eucalyptus leave toxins. So first of all, they're kind
Speaker 1: of picky about which tree they pick. So some trees
Speaker 1: are more toxic than others, depending on the soil they
Speaker 1: grow on. So a koala will SNIFFI leave and be like, no,
Speaker 1: this isn't for me. What I love about this process
Speaker 1: is that they must be I procrastinate quite a lot, right,
Speaker 1: but I don't have the benefit of needing eighteen hours
Speaker 1: of sleep per day to really lean on. But a
Speaker 1: koala can get into one, maybe two trees smelling leaves
Speaker 1: and then see one a little bit away. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tag you tomorrow. It's ambitious for an animal that sleeps
Speaker 1: most of the day. I would say, really need to eat,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to get to that one tomorrow now,
Speaker 1: when I when I sleep most of the day, let
Speaker 1: me say I'm a little less finicky with my food.
Speaker 1: I get up and basically the first thing my hand
Speaker 1: touches I put in my mouth. Sometimes it's food and
Speaker 1: that works out well for me. The genome in the
Speaker 1: koala that codes for detoxifying proteins in the digestive system
Speaker 1: is twice as long as in other mammals, so they've
Speaker 1: got a serious situation set up to deal with these leaves.
Speaker 1: It also is represented anatomically, that's yeah, anatomically. Uh. Their
Speaker 1: fiber digesting organ in the intestines, called the secum, is
Speaker 1: much longer than in other mammals, including humans. We do
Speaker 1: have a secum, but we cannot eat Eucalyptus leads. We
Speaker 1: just we are sikum is real wimpy compared to a koala.
Speaker 1: Would you trade, say, like a really cool secum so
Speaker 1: you could have like a party trick can go any
Speaker 1: party and like how old that pizza? Give me that?
Speaker 1: Or would you rather have a hairless cat? Oh the
Speaker 1: scum definitely? Yeah, yeah, I think so, because then I
Speaker 1: mean the hairless cat is cool. They're there, but you
Speaker 1: also have to really be careful cleaning them in the maintenance.
Speaker 1: But with a secum, I could just be a garbage
Speaker 1: disposal as I've always dreamed of being. Same. This scum
Speaker 1: is also it's like a big old balloon of helpful
Speaker 1: bacteria that breaks down the plant fibers. So but they
Speaker 1: still have to sleep a long time to digest all
Speaker 1: this food. So that's why they sleep so long, because
Speaker 1: they're just they're eating garbage and digesting garbage all day long.
Speaker 1: If you think of things being designed from like a
Speaker 1: code standpoint, like writing out DNA and Okay, these ones
Speaker 1: are gonna need this much sleep. They're gonna walk on
Speaker 1: two feet and all right, send it out. This packaging
Speaker 1: is ready. It feels like the Koala is kind of
Speaker 1: like a model you wouldn't enjoy. It's interesting you would
Speaker 1: mention that because I'm not a professional code or I
Speaker 1: don't know too much about it. But it does make
Speaker 1: me think of like a coder who's like, okay, and
Speaker 1: then I'm going to add this, and then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: like steal some code from this and add that on.
Speaker 1: It's like there was not like a sleek design from
Speaker 1: the beginning. It was sort of like and maybe different
Speaker 1: developers working on it to like many different developers working
Speaker 1: on the koala, and then like all the notes are
Speaker 1: messed up and like missing brackets everywhere. Because this is
Speaker 1: an interesting animal. It seems like they've definitely if they
Speaker 1: had a deadline, they were like, are you getting closely in?
Speaker 1: How you doing? Like you wouldn't believe how great this
Speaker 1: um digestive system is. Put in some work like cool?
Speaker 1: What else? Hey, it's I mean it coold some a
Speaker 1: little cool ears. And then because I put some switch work,
Speaker 1: it needs to sleep basically its whole life right And also, oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention, Yeah, we're going to have to
Speaker 1: make the ab crawl from the vagina to the pouches.
Speaker 1: That cool? H So why kangaroos their babies, which are
Speaker 1: called Joey's, are born tiny pinking about the size of
Speaker 1: a kidney bean, and they have to crawl from the
Speaker 1: vagina up the koala into the koala's pouch. So it's
Speaker 1: a real It's like the most activity they'll do in
Speaker 1: their entire life. I learned some of that stuff about
Speaker 1: marsupials in the last couple of years. It was a
Speaker 1: thought I'd never really had, Like what's that pouch doing
Speaker 1: born in the punch, so they have to make and
Speaker 1: the mom doesn't go, let's get you in this pouch
Speaker 1: just like scoop it up. No, it's gotta it's gotta
Speaker 1: really pull itself up by its bootstraps. Buy it some
Speaker 1: biblical cord. Yep, why don't we make our newborn babies
Speaker 1: work that hard? You know, just like just like pull
Speaker 1: yourself up by your biblical cord. I you start a
Speaker 1: college fund when I have the doctor set it up,
Speaker 1: you set you set it on the floor, crawl to meat,
Speaker 1: get over here, you get over here. It's like like, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you push for a change out there? So
Speaker 1: they will stay in the pouch for up to seven months. Uh.
Speaker 1: And while they're in the pouch, they do drink milk
Speaker 1: from the mother, but they also eat their mother's poop
Speaker 1: and it's a special poop made with motherly love. So
Speaker 1: the look of joy on your face currently, this is
Speaker 1: my favorite fact about them. It's it's so messed up
Speaker 1: and it's so wonderful at the same time. It's heartwarming
Speaker 1: and disgusting. So I like, go, ah, but you look
Speaker 1: like you're telling someone about an off menu item at
Speaker 1: a very delicious restaurant. This is exactly what that is,
Speaker 1: off off menu, off off off menu. So the joey
Speaker 1: will stick its head out of the pouch blankets brilliant
Speaker 1: blue eyes into the world, and then stick that face
Speaker 1: right against its mom's but so it nuzzles its mother's butt,
Speaker 1: and the mother releases a special poop slurry called PAP
Speaker 1: which is full of proteins and helpful bacteria that helps
Speaker 1: the joey grow and to develop its gut flora for
Speaker 1: digesting eucalyptus leave. So it's basically like a protein shake.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much you believe in reincarnation and
Speaker 1: things like that. And we see koala's think they're so cute.
Speaker 1: But imagine you go from being a human and then
Speaker 1: you're in some sort of weird middle space and then
Speaker 1: you you re emerge and you kind of it's like
Speaker 1: the birth canal and you come out like this looks
Speaker 1: like the bush. Did I think this means I lived
Speaker 1: a good life. I'm like out in nature, I'm getting rewarded.
Speaker 1: And then you're just buried in kala, you know, And
Speaker 1: then it gets worse than than poop starts coming as
Speaker 1: simply lifestyled down towards you, and you like, I eat this.
Speaker 1: Who I didn't kill anyone in my last life. I
Speaker 1: can think of worse, worse lives that actually, but it's
Speaker 1: not a winner. Maybe it is the sleep though maybe
Speaker 1: later like if I okay, so payment for being able
Speaker 1: to sleep twenty two hours a day eating a little
Speaker 1: bit of mom poop that tastes good, and it probably
Speaker 1: tastes great to them. They're probably like, this is the
Speaker 1: best mom poop I've had ever. I guess they're here.
Speaker 1: Are people that that that is a sexual activity? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: well you know, but this is a wholesome poop eating activity.
Speaker 1: This is a this is a from a mother's love, Joey.
Speaker 1: I used to think that the grossest thing was birds
Speaker 1: vomiting into their children's but this is ten times more.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a matter of perspective, a
Speaker 1: matter of perspective puns. I do it to hurt people
Speaker 1: because I hurt so um. Speaking of well, weird things
Speaker 1: that happen with koalas um like other marsupials, male koalas
Speaker 1: have a two pronged penis, and that's a marsupial thing.
Speaker 1: Just a marsup just marsupial. Things to do you do
Speaker 1: you have a two pronged penis, then you might be marsupial.
Speaker 1: If you have two prongs, then if you have three vaginas,
Speaker 1: you might be a marsupial. They don't have three vagina.
Speaker 1: What is going on with these multiple Well, remember when
Speaker 1: we were talking about like the writing the code for
Speaker 1: the Koala and you have different developers. Well, one developer
Speaker 1: was like, all right, we need somewhere to put the
Speaker 1: Koala plumbing, like the urinary track and all all that plumbing.
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, I don't have any room for it.
Speaker 1: We got to run it through the vagina. And so
Speaker 1: what happens, and this is the case with other Marsupials
Speaker 1: as well, is that the vagina can't fuse into a
Speaker 1: single vaginal canal because the the urinary plumbing runs right
Speaker 1: through it. So they it's got it's basically like like
Speaker 1: building a bypass right through and it's excuse me, and
Speaker 1: got a round the pipes. Have you ever like seen
Speaker 1: a really poorly designed house, Yeah, that's what this sounds like. Gentlemen,
Speaker 1: if you're remodeling this room, I need room for two
Speaker 1: mor zubial penises, so do not in any way you
Speaker 1: end up with like bathrooms running right through a wall.
Speaker 1: It's like what, it's very it's like perpendicular to the wall.
Speaker 1: What's going on? Uh yeah, it's like that. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you may be wondering why males have that bifurcated penis
Speaker 1: that means the penis nut splits off into two. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, we're not sure. Um, but
Speaker 1: it could just be because like you know, the females
Speaker 1: have two vaginal canals. Is like, hey, you know, it's
Speaker 1: so it's got it's got two vaginal canals that branch
Speaker 1: off and go into the uterus, and then it has
Speaker 1: one middle canal as well, and so like maybe it's
Speaker 1: just like you know, like hey, you know, two guns
Speaker 1: for two jobs. I don't know, maybe it only needs
Speaker 1: one of them to be efficient for reproduction. But a
Speaker 1: kind of like door number one and it's like a
Speaker 1: it's like a wheel of fortune situations, just sort of
Speaker 1: a guessing game. My left portion of my bifurcated when
Speaker 1: the correct place they go right right. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of kind of headge your bets when it came What
Speaker 1: if though? What if it is reincarnation style, the best world.
Speaker 1: You get delicious poop, you sleep all the time, you
Speaker 1: have this cool digestive system. They can right, and then
Speaker 1: you get double sex and you get a puzzle vagina.
Speaker 1: It's great. Um. So they also have two thumbs per paw.
Speaker 1: I'm leaning back now towards this is just a rushed
Speaker 1: homework assignment. This is an animal that I would have
Speaker 1: designed in the third grade. But yeah, those extra thumbs
Speaker 1: help them climb. Well extra who extra? That is actually
Speaker 1: good idea. Can you like, uh, there's like a robot.
Speaker 1: Oh there's this, Um, it's not a robot. It's like
Speaker 1: a it's a robotic attachment that can give you an
Speaker 1: extra thumb. That give me that. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: it's like maybe to help people who have mobility issues,
Speaker 1: but I kind of just want it. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: hell yeah. I mean think you're getting out of your car.
Speaker 1: You grab your keys. They are between your thumb and
Speaker 1: index finger, and then you go, oh, right, I have
Speaker 1: that bag of food or something groceries. You use two
Speaker 1: fingers in the middle and the ring. Now you've got
Speaker 1: the bag, your keys in the bag. You're stupid. Pinky
Speaker 1: is just wait and then you look over the pinky
Speaker 1: is the world's greatest mistake. I mean, if that was
Speaker 1: a thumb, give me the thumb. There an extra thumb. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and then and there's like there's a kettle bell, and
Speaker 1: I go, no problem, I got two thumbs. Boom, great
Speaker 1: for gaming for so many things. Jealous of these koalas,
Speaker 1: But what if they are they right next to each other?
Speaker 1: Where are these thumbs? You know they're on opposite side.
Speaker 1: It's like calabunga. Dude, why do they call ours opposable thumbs?
Speaker 1: Those are true opposable thumbs. Ah ah, that's good. Well,
Speaker 1: don't be too jealous of koals because on the count
Speaker 1: of all the rampant clumb idio I have heard of this,
Speaker 1: well you heard it because I was talking about it. No,
Speaker 1: I people don't want to pick them up. In the
Speaker 1: last however many years, there was like maybe I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of lice. There was something where like koala's look really cute.
Speaker 1: You should never touch them. You shouldn't pick them up
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons. Um, so let's say I grab a
Speaker 1: koala and I'm showing off. I'm walking around like jogging
Speaker 1: out like a pet. We were friendly and then I
Speaker 1: touched my eye. Could I get chlamydia in my eye
Speaker 1: from doing that? Just talking? You might be you might
Speaker 1: be able to. Yeah. So chlamydia and koalas is different
Speaker 1: from the chlamydia in humans where it's just just STD.
Speaker 1: But then it can be transmitted through touch, it can
Speaker 1: can be it can be transmitted through mating, and it
Speaker 1: can also be transmitted as baby qualas eat that poop
Speaker 1: shake from their moms. So, and thank you for not
Speaker 1: saying qual media quala media. Oh damn, and I should
Speaker 1: have said that, thanks for thanks for bringing that Jim
Speaker 1: into the world. Qualamidia. Yeah, one of the I think
Speaker 1: you're actually right. So one of the reasons you should
Speaker 1: not pick up kualas as you you can get this chlamydia.
Speaker 1: And then you would have to like go to a
Speaker 1: doctor and be like, yeah, I got chlamydian. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: where'd you get it from? Koala? And and that's you know,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a pregnant pause there. Doctor is going
Speaker 1: to slowly pick up a phone and call nine one one.
Speaker 1: You know what I would do, I would wear a
Speaker 1: Mormon missionary outfit into the doctor. So then they'd be like,
Speaker 1: is this true, and I'm big. Yeah, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: saving myself. This is Koala chlamidia. Oh no, but yeah,
Speaker 1: So so it is on one level it's it's funny,
Speaker 1: but on another level, it's extremely bad for um. It's
Speaker 1: a very serious specterial infection. It can lead to blindness, infertility,
Speaker 1: and death in Koala's. Researchers think that the recent surge
Speaker 1: in chlamydia is not due to Koala is just like
Speaker 1: descending into sin advice. They have a lot of spring breaks,
Speaker 1: but it could be due to retrovirus Koala retrovirus type B,
Speaker 1: which is compromising their immune system, so similar to like HIV.
Speaker 1: How that compromises the immune system and the Koala's diet
Speaker 1: of eucalyptus leaves is actually kind of a complication when
Speaker 1: it comes to treating calamydia. So so their ability to
Speaker 1: break down and flush toxins from their system can also
Speaker 1: cause them to flush out medicine. And conversely, some some
Speaker 1: medications like antibiotics, can actually compromise their ability to break
Speaker 1: down toxins, meaning that they can't eat eucalyptus, which is
Speaker 1: bad because all they do is eucalyptus. So I don't
Speaker 1: want to end on such a dismal note, because there's
Speaker 1: some research research that has found that there's a bacteria
Speaker 1: that's been discovered that could help koalas survive antibiotic treatments.
Speaker 1: And I think we should have known the answer all along.
Speaker 1: To save in Koala's is make koala is even more filthy.
Speaker 1: Put more bacteria in them. Make these these dirty boys
Speaker 1: even dirtier. And girls and girls, these these dirty guys
Speaker 1: and gals just like filth them up, and that'll help
Speaker 1: them filthy, filter the equivalent to this thing that's just
Speaker 1: adorable and cuddly looking. And then you get up close,
Speaker 1: it's like penguin teeth just heinous. Yeah, and you and
Speaker 1: penguin opens its mouth, it's full of these little barbs.
Speaker 1: They're not not exactly teeth like a human. If a
Speaker 1: penguin smiles at you with human teeth, that's a demon
Speaker 1: penguin run away. But a normal penguin they'll just have
Speaker 1: bunches and bunches of spines in their mouths and that's normal.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about that. Let's sing and so gross. And
Speaker 1: a koala is kind of a cuddlier version of the
Speaker 1: right to me, this just makes them more of a
Speaker 1: treasure in my eyes, but fact they eat poop in
Speaker 1: there full of chlamydia. I mean it's a it's look
Speaker 1: at you, little buddy. My Dave is rufus and um
Speaker 1: I wanted to call you an informia that you have chlamydia.
Speaker 1: You touched my head. You know, I'm that koala that
Speaker 1: you petted. Remember last last week? Yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: magical time. Anyways, you might want to get checked. If
Speaker 1: you're wondering how you can help out Australia's koalas, I'll
Speaker 1: include a link to some wildlife foundations in the show notes.
Speaker 1: There's also the Koala Hospital of Port Macquarie in New
Speaker 1: South Wales, to whom you can donate and give money
Speaker 1: to adopt a koala. Among these a koalas you can
Speaker 1: adopt with your dollars are Barrington, Xavier, crescent Head, Jimmy
Speaker 1: and Oxley Twinkles, which does the best names ever. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think we should adopt one. Here reach your feature.
Speaker 1: I'll set up a poll online on Twitter and you
Speaker 1: can help me decide which one I should adopt as
Speaker 1: our own personal creature feature. Koala all install a eucalyptus
Speaker 1: tree in the studio, all koala proof, all the microphones
Speaker 1: and all all right, I'm being told by our producer
Speaker 1: that we're not allowed to have a koala and that
Speaker 1: by adopting a koala through the Koala Hospital, it's a
Speaker 1: symbolic gesturement to raise awareness and to donate money to
Speaker 1: a good cause. Well god dang it, I already bought
Speaker 1: a onesie for our quality that says I Love Youcalyptus.
Speaker 1: Oh well, it's still a good idea. Check out that
Speaker 1: Twitter pool. I'll include a link to it in the
Speaker 1: show notes and we'll pick out a coal to adopt.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm rooting for Oxley Twinkles. Oxley Twinkles. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. But I mean, you know, you should check
Speaker 1: out their bios, you know, scroll through. See they're like
Speaker 1: little me, I walk eaten eucalyptus, I do he media.
Speaker 1: While the Koala is iconic, Australia is home to many
Speaker 1: of the world's greatest biodiversity hot spots, and the Queensland
Speaker 1: and New South Wales areas host two incredibly important ecological
Speaker 1: hot spots, with some of the greatest diversity in the country,
Speaker 1: with rare and threatened creatures, including the greater long eared bat,
Speaker 1: the jewel butterfly, the glossy black cockatoo, the long nose
Speaker 1: podoro spot tailed calls Coxon's big parrot, to name just
Speaker 1: a few. In all of Australia, there are one hundred
Speaker 1: forty species of marsupials, the greatest diversity of marsupials in
Speaker 1: the world that rivals that of the America's, the other
Speaker 1: home to marsupials. So let's discuss some of these incredible animals,
Speaker 1: some of which you've probably heard of, some of which
Speaker 1: may be new to you. Some of them are cute,
Speaker 1: and some of them leak milk out of their pores.
Speaker 1: The first up you'll probably enjoy because I want to
Speaker 1: talk very briefly. I'm gonna there's a lot of animals
Speaker 1: to discuss. I'm just gonna do a do a couple
Speaker 1: of things about each one. But the platypus. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: like these guys, right, I do. I When I think
Speaker 1: it was in the second or third grade, I went
Speaker 1: to great detail to draw one and this was pre Google,
Speaker 1: so I had to like go get a book and
Speaker 1: then kind of I don't think I traced it maybe,
Speaker 1: but I remember, you know, looking at the eye and
Speaker 1: then the and they look so to me, a platypus
Speaker 1: should be like a really big house cat. But they're tiny.
Speaker 1: They're so small. Yeah, they're pretty. They're not They're not
Speaker 1: as big as a house cat. They're like, um, they're
Speaker 1: a little smaller there m hm, loaf of bread. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And to me they were like the biggest house cat.
Speaker 1: As I was drawing it, I was like it was
Speaker 1: like a huge Yeah, totally, like this is like a
Speaker 1: twenty pound thing, kind of fat, kind of scary. Actually,
Speaker 1: a huge platypus just only that little hook thing on
Speaker 1: their back they have that. They have the barbed barbs
Speaker 1: on the back of their hind legs can deliver a poison,
Speaker 1: which or sorry, a toc toxin. Poison you eat. Toxins
Speaker 1: are well so okay, So venom is what gets in
Speaker 1: you and hurt you that way. Poison you eat. Toxins
Speaker 1: are both poisons and venoms. Oh that's how you remember it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't rhyme as well as i'd like, but no, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's poison is the thing you eat. Toxin is weight No,
Speaker 1: hang on, poisons the thing you eat venoms. Venom in
Speaker 1: youa poison poison sauce anyways, platypus. Uh, they are monotreams.
Speaker 1: Who So that's a very sort of ancient form of
Speaker 1: mammals because they still lay eggs and they don't got
Speaker 1: no nipples. What that's what a monotream is. Yep. They
Speaker 1: they don't have nipples. They lay eggs. I'm the opposite
Speaker 1: of a monotrem. You uh do not lay eggs and
Speaker 1: you have nipples. Correct. Wow, that's it's good to know,
Speaker 1: thank you. Um. And they actually they just sweat milk
Speaker 1: right out of their bodies is how they feed their young.
Speaker 1: It just kind of okay, I do sweat milk. Well
Speaker 1: that's um. I was going to say that something you
Speaker 1: should get looked at, but it seems that you've embraced it.
Speaker 1: I like it. Cry milk as well. Okay, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can never so when you spill milk, you just just
Speaker 1: sort of an endless cycle of milk household. And whenever
Speaker 1: milk is spilled, that one looks at me like I'm
Speaker 1: trying to cover something up because I'm sobbing. I see
Speaker 1: milk and spilled, just lose it and then you spill
Speaker 1: that milk, so you correct milk. Yeah, and they don't.
Speaker 1: They're kind of oil and watery. It's very strange. My
Speaker 1: tears get in there with regular milk and then there's
Speaker 1: kind of like a yeah, I don't an interesting kind
Speaker 1: of milk. I'm not sure I'm going to replace that
Speaker 1: for the milk on my cereal. Though not drinkable. Not drinkable,
Speaker 1: it does melt cereal, okay, but if you have it
Speaker 1: just straight out of like a shot glass, it's it's okay,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like almond milk. And then uh and
Speaker 1: what's sort of the the percent of the proof on that. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's high in fat content. That's where this is. And
Speaker 1: it's non pasteurized, so it's sort of a solid, right,
Speaker 1: it's like it comes out it's kind of a gel.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move the conversation away from this. So achidnas
Speaker 1: are the only other living species of monotream. They're covered
Speaker 1: in spines and they also laygs, so that those are
Speaker 1: the two monotreams and they both live in Australia. And
Speaker 1: the other sort of a famous I would say animal
Speaker 1: coming out of Australia is the kangaroo, and the red
Speaker 1: kangaroos are the largest marsupial in the world, and they're
Speaker 1: pretty darn big. They're about as big as a big
Speaker 1: old dude. Yeah. And the buff ones, yeah they got
Speaker 1: They are swollen. They can get very small. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe they're stealing some koala protein butt shakes, but they are.
Speaker 1: They are swollen, and they can leap up to twenty
Speaker 1: five ft in distance and jump up to six ft high.
Speaker 1: So you don't really want to get on a kangaroo's
Speaker 1: bad side. I don't think Carl lewis long jumped. I
Speaker 1: think so, not particularly scared. Uh So. Kangaroos, like the
Speaker 1: koalas and other marsupials, have three vaginas and two r dresses,
Speaker 1: and they actually use that weird structure to have sort
Speaker 1: of a Joey assembly line that they can be kind
Speaker 1: of constantly pumping out Joey's Yeah, that's what you want.
Speaker 1: Always just be is full. Use my other one, always
Speaker 1: be making Joey's um. And then the males have the
Speaker 1: two headed penis as usual. That's what I've grown to
Speaker 1: assume most marsupials have. They do there it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it'd be real tough there it is. Wallabies are sort
Speaker 1: of like the Kangaroo's kid cousin. They're similar to kangaroos.
Speaker 1: They are related, but they're smaller and more compact for
Speaker 1: a denser forest. And that's you know, Rocko from Rocco's
Speaker 1: Modern Life. Remember that cartoon. I remember the name. I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I remember. He's a wallaby, not a kangaroo.
Speaker 1: Pop culture fact. Only nineties kid will get this. Only
Speaker 1: nineties kids. I was alive in the nineties, but I
Speaker 1: think I was what were your a kid at heart? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I would get home in like grade. What
Speaker 1: do you know, I'd watched like Dark Queen Duck and
Speaker 1: I remember feeling like dark one duck. Little known fact
Speaker 1: also a wallaby. No, he's a duck and you know
Speaker 1: it all right? Well you got me there. Bandicootes of
Speaker 1: Crash bandicoote fame is a small marsupial who kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a cross between a bunny and a rent
Speaker 1: w Yeah, like a tail. Yeah, let's show you bandicoot
Speaker 1: this bandicoot. I picture what was the name on? Like?
Speaker 1: Was it ducktails? Like crash Bandicoot. Crash Bandicoot is video
Speaker 1: game character? What was this thing on one of those
Speaker 1: shows like there was a Bandicoot character that was had
Speaker 1: like a scarf and goggles on. It was like a pilot.
Speaker 1: I always there was a Bandicoot. Well, Crash Bandicoot has
Speaker 1: like Jenko jeans and sneakers. If if that's a totally
Speaker 1: totally different guy. Um, but yeah, it's it's a doesn't
Speaker 1: like to gotta say Crash Bandicoot doesn't quite look like
Speaker 1: the real thing. It's Uh. First of all, I don't
Speaker 1: think bandicoots wear Jenko jeans, but um, you know, creative license,
Speaker 1: he's like a Bandicoot. I see yeah on on that
Speaker 1: sweet Koalist the Koala Protein Shakes. He's on pap He's
Speaker 1: on pap you, pap bra pap. So we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about wombats earlier. Uh, and just a quick mention.
Speaker 1: We we talked about this on the Weapons of ass
Speaker 1: Destruction episode. But they've got armored butts and they will
Speaker 1: sit on you if you're being naughty. I like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: spine or a little hook thing on my leg versus
Speaker 1: spines all over my body versus a really destructive But
Speaker 1: how do they go the cool? But I can sit
Speaker 1: on people with Yeah, no, I'm I'm saying yeah, the cool.
Speaker 1: But you can like and they can also like beat
Speaker 1: it against so like if a if a predator is
Speaker 1: trying to get at them in their din, they can
Speaker 1: like crush their skulls with the butts. Yes, it's very good.
Speaker 1: Give me that. So if someone's breaking in your house
Speaker 1: and there the doors kind of opened, like in a hotel,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to get the chain and grab that,
Speaker 1: and then you just jump and crush them with your butt,
Speaker 1: that's empowering. Its great, like I mean, you know, instead
Speaker 1: of like those home security since like things, you just
Speaker 1: get a big butt and use it to smack people around. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: does it help chewing the cough drops no, um, nothing
Speaker 1: seems to help. But I do it. Yeah, I've been.
Speaker 1: I've been coughing up a storm. I'm probably going to
Speaker 1: edit those out so you guys don't have to hear
Speaker 1: them all, but you know it's been. It's I do
Speaker 1: it to bring you the koala is alright, So it's
Speaker 1: true dedication. So not quite koala is. But quolls are
Speaker 1: a different type of marsupial. They look like a cat
Speaker 1: and a rat had a baby. They have cute little
Speaker 1: spots um but don't live there. What if we had
Speaker 1: quets quite an obnoxious name Koala's and quols get out
Speaker 1: of here, come up with a cooler name. I think
Speaker 1: coals is kind of cool because then you can say
Speaker 1: that's a cool cool Nope, not worth it not it's
Speaker 1: not nope. Quality. It makes me like this, like see
Speaker 1: all of my words, like couality, calls, wanting, that's one,
Speaker 1: quality calls cool. Now your favorite calls us favorite qual spot,
Speaker 1: qualities coln for quality qualls uh, quality director qual, I
Speaker 1: am a qualm. Qulling you about my qual your qual
Speaker 1: who owns a qual Yes? Correct? My name is Steve Kual.
Speaker 1: This is this is madness, this is this is this
Speaker 1: is where the podcast descends into madness. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is a coal and they they're very, very cute,
Speaker 1: very let's read name them. Let's call them squeams something
Speaker 1: like that. It's totally different than Koala. Kind of fits them,
Speaker 1: kind of spots. I vote for squeap. I mean what
Speaker 1: I do like is the adventures of a qualm name Squeams. Squeams. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is Squeams and friends. Come on, party never ends
Speaker 1: and Squeams and friends. And he's like, I hate ling. Oh, man,
Speaker 1: that's so us squeams. That's man, that's so squeams. But
Speaker 1: all of those qualls like Linguini because you came up
Speaker 1: with squeams on the podcast. That's that's now my I
Speaker 1: p so, don't come looking at me for Squeams royalties.
Speaker 1: Maybe put together some sort of an initiative. I guess
Speaker 1: this is it's offensive because there might not be any
Speaker 1: qualls and or squeams left. But if we if they're
Speaker 1: running ahead, count after the destruction is over with and
Speaker 1: they're walking through and like, okay, they've got nine kangaroos left,
Speaker 1: We've got ten of those guys, what is that? And
Speaker 1: then hopefully someone listens to your show it's a squeap.
Speaker 1: That's so that we can kind of rebrand. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: a rebranding. It's rebrandom and squeams start like a Nickelodeon
Speaker 1: show about squeams, so lovable scamp squems the scamp and
Speaker 1: and I think this that'll do it. That'll solve global warming. Well.
Speaker 1: Another another Australia favorite is the Tasmanian devil Um. Those
Speaker 1: are those pugnacious, little carnivorous marsupials and one fun fact
Speaker 1: about them is they pee on food once they're done
Speaker 1: with it out of spite, so other other things can't
Speaker 1: eat it. Same same Uh. The brush tail possum is
Speaker 1: arguably cuter than opossums found in North America. So in
Speaker 1: Australia it's the brush tail possum. In North America it's opossum.
Speaker 1: In Ireland it's os it's not they don't live there. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is a marsupial like America's opossum. Uh. It's about
Speaker 1: one to two ft long ways up to nine pounds,
Speaker 1: so you know they're not not huge. Um. Both males
Speaker 1: and females excrete red goo out of their chests that
Speaker 1: they used to mark territory, every animal they have down there.
Speaker 1: It's like a grosser version of something we kind of have.
Speaker 1: Or hear me out better at skincare, I had I
Speaker 1: had a reast for him. You're going to say cooler,
Speaker 1: and then you're waiting quite a while. You're you're moisturizing.
Speaker 1: I excrete my own moisture. Answer from my chest, from
Speaker 1: my chest. Don't hug me. You're you're buying store bought
Speaker 1: go I think my own. G God, I want a
Speaker 1: brush tail, you know how like Gwyneth Palchow has goop
Speaker 1: just like brush tail possum like goo, and it's just
Speaker 1: like it's like things like fifty recipes to make with
Speaker 1: your own chess goo. You know, your own chess goo
Speaker 1: can be a natural sun block. I use it as
Speaker 1: that using chess go in your car. Uh. And as
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, in the two thousand and nine Black
Speaker 1: Saturday Fires and I'll Australia, a lot of these brush
Speaker 1: tail possums survived by hiding out in tree hollows, which
Speaker 1: very resourceful, dangerous. I mean, it's not like fire is
Speaker 1: going to ignore those trees. No, it gets very very hot.
Speaker 1: But yeah, some of them did survive using that technique.
Speaker 1: Like I also mentioned earlier, that technique is gonna not
Speaker 1: work so good as more and more trees get burned
Speaker 1: over and over again, because it's just they're just not
Speaker 1: it's like, uh kind of whittling it down to they're
Speaker 1: just gonna like hold a little leaf over their head
Speaker 1: and be like, well here it goes. Everyone hoped tight
Speaker 1: would we click our heels together, which we oh god,
Speaker 1: oh it's not working. I like the idea, and this
Speaker 1: is maybe a little too dark for this show. But
Speaker 1: the idea of a of a single trait being eliminated
Speaker 1: from a species, the chance that is a little dark,
Speaker 1: but it would be nice, right, I mean, say you
Speaker 1: have a type, say in our culture, someone who's ultra aggressive.
Speaker 1: Men and women run around telling everyone to do bashing
Speaker 1: people over the heads, looking before following me. And then
Speaker 1: they go to the top of the trees. And then
Speaker 1: there's more of a reserved, kind of calculated, thoughtful group
Speaker 1: and they go underground, and then the top of the
Speaker 1: trees people get scorched. It's the ones who asked for
Speaker 1: directions out of the forest who survived, Like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I got it, I got it. I've got it on
Speaker 1: Apple Maps right now. No, no, no, that's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 1: I ate a breakfast with a friend this morning, and
Speaker 1: when we were leaving, there was a giant hummer parked
Speaker 1: in a handicapped spot, very crooked, and I would love
Speaker 1: it if all of those people and it was full
Speaker 1: of possum. Sorry, continued, Well, the possums would hopefully get
Speaker 1: out in this fire, but that guy would drive straight
Speaker 1: in the Google work just this summer, trying to fit
Speaker 1: in a tree hollow. And it's like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get shelter. I'm hunkering, hunker everyone hunger were over the car,
Speaker 1: throw the fire off our trail. So, speaking of the
Speaker 1: brows of nature, let's talk about dangos, Bros, dingos. You
Speaker 1: don't like you think I think about a dingo. I
Speaker 1: think about the dingo going like, hold me back, bro,
Speaker 1: no way. Yeah. Dingoes are like, dude, are you talking
Speaker 1: to me? They're very like I think they're chill. I
Speaker 1: just think they're very quick. What that's always the picture
Speaker 1: right there, that's a that's a species of bro though, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess what what what? What? What? They look like
Speaker 1: domesticated dogs, but they're wild animals of a completely separate species. Um.
Speaker 1: Fun fact about dingos their paws can rotate and their
Speaker 1: necks can rotate a hundred eighty degrees. So sleep well
Speaker 1: knowing that exorcist. Dingos can open your door knobs. They
Speaker 1: have some cool features. I feel like down there, just
Speaker 1: the coder's got a little more leeway, like throw in
Speaker 1: some stuff. These are like elon musk coated. Because it's
Speaker 1: like we're going to have the dingo and it's head
Speaker 1: is going to rotate d eight degrees. Why did you
Speaker 1: do that? Sorry? Why did you give it a one
Speaker 1: degrees rotating head? What? Yes, well, because we could. You
Speaker 1: know how dingoes always want to look at their own
Speaker 1: paw and they just can't watch this one. They'd be
Speaker 1: so good at raves to like. So now onto the
Speaker 1: long nose podoro, which I guess you're wondering what a
Speaker 1: podorou is. Well, it's a type of rat kangaroo. If
Speaker 1: you're wondering what a rat kangaroo is. Kind of what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. It's a marsupial that looks like a
Speaker 1: mouse in a rabbit and a wall to be kind
Speaker 1: of just glorped together into one. What size are we
Speaker 1: talking about with one of these small I'd say, like
Speaker 1: rabbit size. So let me show you there we go,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, be a little smaller than a rabbit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of our mice here hop around anyway, kangaroo mice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that thing could throw I was expecting. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I was expecting, more of like a pronounced pouch
Speaker 1: or something. Right, But look at the little nose. I
Speaker 1: think it's got a good it's got a distinctive nose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's longer. It seems like one of the characters in
Speaker 1: uh like Fible Goes West, where they'd be like, we're
Speaker 1: just stretching the bounds of what a mouse or rat
Speaker 1: really looks like. We've given this mouse sideburns? Is that cool?
Speaker 1: Don Bluth? Yeah, there's a little Don Bluth. I don't
Speaker 1: think mice have sideburns, Don Bluth, both animator or yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and our director animator guy, Yeah, And I don't think
Speaker 1: mice have hair. Well, you'd be surprised. They also wear
Speaker 1: little round bifocals. And I've I've done extensive research in
Speaker 1: the Southern hemisphere and it's pretty common, right, I see,
Speaker 1: I see, yeah, yeah, that was five old five Al
Speaker 1: goes West is one of the unsung heroes of American cinema.
Speaker 1: Um So they also dropped fungal spores in its poop
Speaker 1: on account of all the fungus it eats. So and
Speaker 1: it's got a prehensile tail. So are all these things
Speaker 1: included there? Or do you dig further from what your
Speaker 1: preliminary findings are to get specifics on their poop? I
Speaker 1: got me, you got me. I just love my Google.
Speaker 1: But what about their poop? Great? I understand what they
Speaker 1: look like, their size, what they eat when they sleep.
Speaker 1: What do they know? Well, this one I don't have
Speaker 1: any information on their poop. So this is the Kuka barra.
Speaker 1: And you may remember the Cuca barra as being a
Speaker 1: bird with that that sound that it makes, the cuca
Speaker 1: barro sound. I'll play it for you just in just
Speaker 1: afo jumps around and as the cool like kind of dance.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of birds that do that. If
Speaker 1: it's true, you know, uh, here we go. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a very like let's get what turned up? You know.
Speaker 1: There's a YouTube video of a cover of lit The
Speaker 1: bodies hit the floor with a drowning pool um and
Speaker 1: heavily utile. It's an all animals cover and it heavily
Speaker 1: utilizes the cooka bara. So it's in the Kingfisher family,
Speaker 1: but despite its familial name, it doesn't actually do all
Speaker 1: that much fishing. It's their carnivores. They eat small mammals,
Speaker 1: small birds, reptile snakes, pet goldfish, and meat from barbecues.
Speaker 1: If you're not careful, Oh man, the guys are scavengers. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll crash your barbecue. Part. It's like, yeah, did
Speaker 1: you bring something to this party? Brought some beers. Which
Speaker 1: beer did you bring you? You know an I p
Speaker 1: a uh yeah? And that that call um can be both.
Speaker 1: It can be a territorial call to mark their territory.
Speaker 1: Can be done during the mating season as well. Um.
Speaker 1: Another cool bird hailing from Australia are pink robins. Now,
Speaker 1: they look like regular robbins, but guess what they're distinctive characteristic?
Speaker 1: Is there? Blue? Jeez, you're so dumb. God damn it.
Speaker 1: Why did I have you on? I'm sorry, I'm not
Speaker 1: good at guessing. Oh my god, all right, so this
Speaker 1: is what they look like. Um. They are a just dashing, vibrant, pocking,
Speaker 1: shocking color of bright hot pink um. They have black
Speaker 1: heads and bright hot pink bellies. Both males and females
Speaker 1: have pink coloration, but males are the ones that really
Speaker 1: take it to the next level, like really vibrant. That
Speaker 1: hot pink color is to used to attract females and
Speaker 1: it is it. I will include a picture of it
Speaker 1: in the show notes. But it is spectacular. Looks like
Speaker 1: it looks like you ran a robin in the washing
Speaker 1: machine with a red sock. I got a real joy
Speaker 1: on your face. Like again, off menu happiness. Well that
Speaker 1: I did do a pro bird rights tweet to that effect,
Speaker 1: which people found hilarious. So they're so another bird this.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of birdies on our menu here,
Speaker 1: not not on our We're not We're not gonna eat
Speaker 1: these birds. Story. The lyre birds are large ground dwelling
Speaker 1: birds with beautiful, fancy tales. They're gray and brown, and
Speaker 1: their tails form a fan of multiple earth hues. Um.
Speaker 1: They can grow from two to three feet long, so
Speaker 1: they're they're big, but they're not like huge. Um. Don't
Speaker 1: you think it's weird that if if birds could talk,
Speaker 1: as cartoons have let us to believe, they should be
Speaker 1: able to in human voices. Anytime you said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that bird is gorgeous, their response from the bird would be, hey, thanks,
Speaker 1: it's funny, funny, yeah, well yeah, And I mean it's
Speaker 1: really interesting because with birds almost across the board, the
Speaker 1: males are the ones that are the fanciest, the prettiest,
Speaker 1: with the most spangles and the brightest coloration. And it's
Speaker 1: uh thought to be mostly because through sexual selection that
Speaker 1: females find that nice to look at, and that's why
Speaker 1: they're so fancy. And it's so charming to me that
Speaker 1: it's like, Hey, why is this bird got a curly
Speaker 1: queue on its head and like pink stuff on its button.
Speaker 1: It's like because the female flows cool, yeah, but they
Speaker 1: have to try hard. It's very flipped of what It's
Speaker 1: kind of like women or female birds are kind of
Speaker 1: like the dad body of just Cargo shared with the shirt.
Speaker 1: Oh cool, I like to look at that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, it's very flipped from us. It seems
Speaker 1: like my friend Chad Daniels has some funny jokes about
Speaker 1: that special um it's called dad channels. That's in and
Speaker 1: you and you criticize me for my puns. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting you would say like that they would just like
Speaker 1: talk in a in a voice because liar birds are
Speaker 1: notable for their ability to mimic sounds and uh. During
Speaker 1: the peak of mating season, they sing for many hours
Speaker 1: every day and they craft complex songs by mimicking the
Speaker 1: sounds of other birds or sometimes just other sounds. Doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be birds. It can be other animals and
Speaker 1: it can even be human created sounds. Let me play
Speaker 1: very Michael Winslow of the bird world, remember him, he
Speaker 1: can police academy. Yes, yes, yeah, it's actually very similar.
Speaker 1: Let's give it a listen here in the original list
Speaker 1: shut up David addenbrow. No, I don't mean and I
Speaker 1: love you David addenbro. But that's it. Impersonating a cooka burrow,
Speaker 1: which we just heard. Let's let's get another. You see
Speaker 1: if I can get another. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: end game. There is songs that he has in the Funnest.
Speaker 1: That is the liar bird impersonating the I think that's
Speaker 1: actually a shutter, camera shutter. They have been known to
Speaker 1: imitate a gun. Sounds like bollets. Yeah, let's get another.
Speaker 1: Another sound in here that was a camera shutter and
Speaker 1: again okay. They're kind of like a person that just
Speaker 1: walks down the street and goes Toyota, oh, subway, taco bell. Okay.
Speaker 1: You know when I when I was in college, I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but there were squirrels all over the campus.
Speaker 1: And every time there's a squirrel and just be like, oh, squirrel.
Speaker 1: I could be in the middle of a conversation just
Speaker 1: say oh yeah, squirrel. It's like, yeah, there's squirrels everywhere.
Speaker 1: But I had to I was like, hey, squirrel, this
Speaker 1: is like your own little private bit you were doing. No,
Speaker 1: like a tick. It's sort of like a tick. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like you know, the dog and up kind
Speaker 1: of situation where I just was like, oh, yeah, squirrel,
Speaker 1: Like I don't get what this bird is trying to
Speaker 1: get out of this that you do the coca barracabra,
Speaker 1: and then um, an opposite of that sex comes over
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, what's up? I got you. I'm
Speaker 1: not even the same same season as you. I mean,
Speaker 1: we love stand up comedians that can do impersonation like
Speaker 1: well what's to do? Yeah, but they don't stand in
Speaker 1: the mall, off in the corner and do like alright, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: and then people run over and go what I got?
Speaker 1: That would be a wonderful world for comedians, though if
Speaker 1: they did. You've never you've never tried to pick anyone
Speaker 1: up by doing personations. I don't think so, at least,
Speaker 1: not like that's something you would remember or not remember.
Speaker 1: That sounds you're like a dodging like I can't recall. Oh,
Speaker 1: I certainly have not done it where I was like
Speaker 1: down a hallway in the in a mall, just doing
Speaker 1: like some sort of voice of some specific denial. Yeah. Wait,
Speaker 1: are you saying like, have I been on a date
Speaker 1: and then done my just aces? Impersonation of whoever? Right?
Speaker 1: Like that would make sense. And I'm looking at them
Speaker 1: going like, hey, have you not? And so talks this way?
Speaker 1: But to be like hiding Mr High and mighty over
Speaker 1: the liar bird does impressions on dates are how are
Speaker 1: you different? How is this different? Well, no one named
Speaker 1: me the liar person. I guess that's different. It's not
Speaker 1: liar like it lies to you. It's exactly no, it's
Speaker 1: liar like the instrument. It's not. It's not the bird
Speaker 1: like this is a bird that this bird tells only
Speaker 1: the truth, and this liar bird tells only lies. Line
Speaker 1: as birds lying about like hey, I'm a shutter on
Speaker 1: a camera and then people go, you are Ca'm a
Speaker 1: liar a liar bird as pretending to be a couca burra.
Speaker 1: I'm not that either. So that's a car alarm that
Speaker 1: it's doing and another doing or lying about. So. The
Speaker 1: Australian magpie is another one of Australia's greatest songbirds. Um
Speaker 1: They can mimic over thirty five species of birds, as
Speaker 1: well as dogs, horses, and man made noises. As kind
Speaker 1: of a poignant thing. I guess like a there was
Speaker 1: a magpie recorded during the bush fires mimicking the sound
Speaker 1: of an emergency vehicle. So here's what this sounds like.
Speaker 1: That is an appropriate young man? Is a serious situation? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's really poignant, but it's also at the
Speaker 1: same time this bird making sirens sounds it's haunting, and
Speaker 1: then at the same time as this bird mocking us
Speaker 1: definitely is. So I want to finish up the show
Speaker 1: just by saying that you can definitely help out. There
Speaker 1: are lots of organizations that are fighting the fires that
Speaker 1: you can donate to, you can signal boost. I'm going
Speaker 1: to include links to all of those in the show notes.
Speaker 1: And again I'm gonna have a poll on which Koala
Speaker 1: we as Creature Future, should adopt, So check that out
Speaker 1: and I'll get that in the show notes as well. Um.
Speaker 1: I also want to do a shout out to Laney
Speaker 1: from Memphis. So, a fan of the show wrote in saying,
Speaker 1: my six year old daughter Laney is a huge fan
Speaker 1: of the show. Her favorite episodes are the Cryptozoology Epps.
Speaker 1: She wanted me to leave alike for the Creature Show
Speaker 1: and she wanted to tell me to tell you to
Speaker 1: please include the Rugaru in a future episode. It's basically
Speaker 1: a Cajun werewolf and they have a statue of one
Speaker 1: at the New Orleans Zoo, which is something I didn't
Speaker 1: know and that's really cool, and watch out for that.
Speaker 1: She he's actually very scared of mythical monsters, which only
Speaker 1: increases her fascination with them. Please give her a shout
Speaker 1: out in an episode. It would absolutely make her whole year. Uh,
Speaker 1: And thank you so much for writing in, Laney from Memphis.
Speaker 1: What a cool little fan I got there. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: greatly And thank you for telling me about this, this
Speaker 1: really cool crypto crypto zoology fact. I will I'm certain
Speaker 1: I will have an episode where I bring that up.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much, Laney. And thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the show. What a what a sweet message. Um.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, you got got it. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today, you got thanks for having
Speaker 1: me this week. I'm in Winnipeg at Rumors Comedy Club
Speaker 1: and then and that's Tuesday through Saturday, every night I
Speaker 1: think at eight pm, and then some later shows on
Speaker 1: Friday and Saturday as well. And then if you live
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles January. I will be at the Dynasty's
Speaker 1: Typewriter recording were filming the set and love to have
Speaker 1: an audience there here in town. You can get a
Speaker 1: more information at David Hansburger dot com And as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I do a podcast called This Base Cave and find
Speaker 1: out on where we get podcasts, and then I also
Speaker 1: do a monthly show here in l A. All that's
Speaker 1: on David Onnsberger dot com. Anyway, thank you for having me,
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, Thank you so much for joining you. Sorry,
Speaker 1: this was a little bit of a bomber open episode,
Speaker 1: but at least we got to learn about quality. While
Speaker 1: I'm we're humans, we cause all them. Yeah. Thanks to
Speaker 1: the Space Classics for their extremely groovy song ex Alumina.
Speaker 1: Creature features a production of I Heeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. See you next Wednesday.