Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied
Speaker 1: psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, Hey,
Speaker 1: is your refrigerator running? Will you better go catch it
Speaker 1: and stop the appliance, singularity and uprising that will lead
Speaker 1: to our inevitable downfall. That's right. Today, we're taking all
Speaker 1: your prank calls as long as you're a bird. Animal.
Speaker 1: Pranks aren't always just for fun. They can be crucial
Speaker 1: for survival. We're going to fall down a web of lies, deceit,
Speaker 1: and outright mockery. Discover this and more as we answer
Speaker 1: the angel question. You can pick your nose, you can
Speaker 1: pick your friend's nose, but can you pick a monkey's nose?
Speaker 1: Joining me today to start our own YouTube prank channel
Speaker 1: is co host of Gamefully Unemployed Devious Friend of the Pod.
Speaker 1: David Bell. Hi, thanks for having me on. I love
Speaker 1: pranking animals. It's what I do. It's it's it's one
Speaker 1: of my my favorite hobbies. Yes, yes, we know all
Speaker 1: the pranks you play on your cat, like the fake vomit.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a payback though, because you your
Speaker 1: cat lays out real vomit for you. That's true. So yeah,
Speaker 1: when she's sleeping sometimes put her paw and a little
Speaker 1: bowl of warm water and then she peas and then
Speaker 1: I have to clean it because she's not going to
Speaker 1: do it. Sounds like these these pranks are sort of
Speaker 1: a piric victory. Yeah. We're also joined by our wonderful producer,
Speaker 1: Joel Monique. Hi, guys, how are you ready for some
Speaker 1: some pranks? Some Ashton Kutcher. What was that show called
Speaker 1: pranks Pump? I'm a prank. I gotta tell you, I
Speaker 1: wish somebody would come around here and prank me with
Speaker 1: some water balloons or something. It is scorching. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to hear about the antics of others because I just
Speaker 1: feel like I'm yeah, yeah, I actually we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about some watery pranks. And it did just
Speaker 1: make me jealous that I wasn't the one getting pranked.
Speaker 1: Have you guys seen these like prank YouTube channels sure,
Speaker 1: where it seems like they just the whole premise of
Speaker 1: it is they go around being mean to people and
Speaker 1: then they call it a prank, like prank like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I think there's a clear distinction
Speaker 1: between like a good natured like oh you fell for it,
Speaker 1: and a person whose feelings are legitimately hurt. That's why
Speaker 1: the best genre on YouTube is pranks gone wrong, where
Speaker 1: someone does a prank and it goes really bad for them.
Speaker 1: Ye are we thinking of the same video? Possibly the
Speaker 1: one where the guy like throws a tiny net on
Speaker 1: someone and runs through them all and a guy karate
Speaker 1: kicks him. It's like, don't go run around? Well, what
Speaker 1: can you say? You know? The one I was thinking
Speaker 1: of was a guy dressed as like a Yeti or something,
Speaker 1: hid in a trash can and sprung out of the
Speaker 1: trash can and the guy that he startled just punched
Speaker 1: him right in the face. I love that. I love
Speaker 1: it because it's like it's a perfect example to teach
Speaker 1: people about fight or flight responses, because a lot of
Speaker 1: people are going to have the flight response of like
Speaker 1: jump back, run away. This guy had the fight response,
Speaker 1: which was punched this thing right in the face, immediately move.
Speaker 1: I gotta respect somebody who's always on their toes. And
Speaker 1: it looked like he knock him out cold, like that
Speaker 1: guy drops into you. It's not nice, right slumps right
Speaker 1: back into the trash. The only time I feel sorry
Speaker 1: for people who wear that, Like the fight or flight
Speaker 1: thing kicks in when like you're trying to spook someone.
Speaker 1: Is like, if you're at a haunted house and you're
Speaker 1: an employee of the haunt house and you spook someone
Speaker 1: and they punched, It's like, dude, you're you're in a
Speaker 1: haunted house. You should be expecting this to happen, Like,
Speaker 1: don't do that, right, that's literally while you're there, right,
Speaker 1: it'd be weird if you were there by some accident
Speaker 1: you did not. As a scaredy cat who loves being scared, uh, frequently,
Speaker 1: I have been dragged places that are too scary for
Speaker 1: my own good, and then I feel overconfident and I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I totally got this, not at all afraid, And then
Speaker 1: I scream in someone's face like a child because I've
Speaker 1: really been startled. And I've definitely seen people who are
Speaker 1: like I had a friend Hannah growing up, who was
Speaker 1: scared of just anything. We would watch terrible horror movies
Speaker 1: and she would scream like shrill, screaming one was stabbing
Speaker 1: her at nothing like the fake jump everyone can call.
Speaker 1: She's screaming I would love to take her to haunted
Speaker 1: places because it's fun to watch people who are afraid
Speaker 1: be afraid. You know. Maybe maybe give her a pair
Speaker 1: of like those big inflatable sock em boppers on her
Speaker 1: so that she can punch as many people as she likes,
Speaker 1: but just won't hurt anyone. And that would be fun.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be fun? Like you go to like a
Speaker 1: ghoul house, like a haunted house, and you get like
Speaker 1: a pair of sock'm bompers. Sorry, sock'em boppers adds a
Speaker 1: really fun element of like a person dressed as a
Speaker 1: ghoul jumping out at you, and you're just like body.
Speaker 1: Steal Katie's idea and make the nineties sock 'em boppers
Speaker 1: commercial but with the outtakes from the horn sock'm boppers
Speaker 1: was like a ghoul and a scared person. I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm really here for this. So our first animal prankster
Speaker 1: really perfected these sneaking up on its victims and startling them.
Speaker 1: In this case, it is to kill them, to be honest,
Speaker 1: So I don't it's like prank I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: constitutes I'm gonna say, isn't it? I mean, but It
Speaker 1: has all the elements of a prank, like the sneakery
Speaker 1: and sort of the subter few which it's just it
Speaker 1: does actually end in a murder. This is like slashing
Speaker 1: someone's tires and being like, I pranked you. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you you just vandalized. Smacking someone with a baseball bat
Speaker 1: pranked you. Lord. Well, one of the smartest, most wise
Speaker 1: crack and spiders in the world is named Porscha. And
Speaker 1: she said lovely. Yeah. Also you put you immediately put
Speaker 1: the image of a spider laughing with like wise cracking,
Speaker 1: like there's I assume there's no spiders in nature that chuckle.
Speaker 1: I think this one probably does, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of spider way maybe a sort of
Speaker 1: a wiggle of the chillis arrae probably, But yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a genus of jumping spiders that are some of
Speaker 1: the most clever and sneaky spider hunters in the world.
Speaker 1: And they have to be so clever because they actually
Speaker 1: feed on other spiders and they have to really dupe
Speaker 1: them into becoming prey, and they will hunt spiders many
Speaker 1: times their size. We're going to talk about one of
Speaker 1: these in particular called the fringed jumping spider or Porsche Fimbriata,
Speaker 1: which is a lovely, lovely gal. She's got these long
Speaker 1: gams with these it's she almost looks like she's on
Speaker 1: stilettos because the rest of her body is fluffy, kind
Speaker 1: of the the you know, the little fuzzy jumping spider.
Speaker 1: But then she's got these long stilts on the end
Speaker 1: of her legs that allow her to move sort of
Speaker 1: in this more like careful motion. But it is she
Speaker 1: looks she definitely looks like she's rocking eight pairs of
Speaker 1: Platform's what we're trying to say is she's a model. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she looks like she's compensating for her like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: it looks like a little twitter is what I like
Speaker 1: about it. So it looks like a spider that's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm too short and like broke off some twigs and
Speaker 1: it was like I love it. Right. And they're pretty small.
Speaker 1: I would say they're about like can they fit in
Speaker 1: your ear? Yea, of course your size the classic ear sauce.
Speaker 1: They could get right in that ear. They're about um,
Speaker 1: they're about five millimeters long, so in relation to the ear,
Speaker 1: how how big is that is? It a snug fit.
Speaker 1: Can they fit several in your ear? They're about six
Speaker 1: millimeters long, which is about point three, so you know,
Speaker 1: they're about like the size of a fingernail, So definitely
Speaker 1: can fit in your ear. Just snug fit, a snug snuggle,
Speaker 1: sort like earbuds, except that your buddies and they're little spiders,
Speaker 1: saying I don't like this way of describing the side
Speaker 1: of spiders. They're deeply disturbing. They get right in that
Speaker 1: ear and then they give in your ear like instead
Speaker 1: of have earbuds, having a spider friend that's just in
Speaker 1: your ear, going like spiders spiders. This might be prejudice,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I could be friends with a spider.
Speaker 1: I don't think that we would be good buddies. I
Speaker 1: feel like we're too different. They're creepy and crawley. They
Speaker 1: got lots of eyes, and they terrified me. Even if
Speaker 1: she's a stunningly intelligent and brave spider, I will honor
Speaker 1: by acknowledging her greatness very very far away. What about
Speaker 1: like the Charlotte's Web spider. No, even Charlotte's horrifying and
Speaker 1: probably would be killed immediately in my house. A spelling spider.
Speaker 1: Now it's intelligent. Can it hold a grudge like Ravens?
Speaker 1: It's out, We're done across the line. That's well. Unfortunately, Joel,
Speaker 1: you may not be a big fan of this Porsche
Speaker 1: spider because they are extremely spookily intelligent. So so there
Speaker 1: are a few ways that these Porsche trick other spiders
Speaker 1: into becoming their prey. One is to hop onto the
Speaker 1: web of another spider and then carefully pluck the strand
Speaker 1: like they're playing a harp to entice the spider out.
Speaker 1: Because the spiders rely on this sense of vibration to
Speaker 1: know that their their web, which acts as a net
Speaker 1: to catch prey, has worked. So they feel the web vibrating,
Speaker 1: They're like, oh great, there's I caught a tasty fly
Speaker 1: or something. They go down. No, it's portion she's going
Speaker 1: to eat you. It's literally a siren song. Get out.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of the Treehouse of Horror where Bart
Speaker 1: if they do the fly spoof and Bart gets caught
Speaker 1: in the web and does the help me and then
Speaker 1: the spider shows up. It flee flies away and goes
Speaker 1: sucker like flies away and the spider lifts. It's a
Speaker 1: little spider legs like, oh yeah, it's actually just like that,
Speaker 1: except that Bart would murder the spider and then and
Speaker 1: then suck out its juices. Yeah. So the Porsche Spider.
Speaker 1: One of the really cool things about it is it
Speaker 1: is able to improvise. It is an improv master, which
Speaker 1: you know, it's just one other reason I guess to
Speaker 1: be afraid of spiders always trying. They're like, hey, you
Speaker 1: want to come to my improv shows. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen. Could you just bite me instead, please?
Speaker 1: But they will like, say, the spider shows up as
Speaker 1: it's strumming the web and then it's huge, and the
Speaker 1: Porsche spars like, oh the spider could actually like kill me.
Speaker 1: It starts to do this very gentle, mesmerizing stroke of
Speaker 1: the web, almost playing the song for it, that lolls
Speaker 1: it into this falseness of security. And then the Porsche
Speaker 1: of spiders, it's really good at moving in these like
Speaker 1: very slow jerky motions, kind of like a chameleon. And
Speaker 1: so it just like strums the web really soothingly takes
Speaker 1: one step. The big spiders like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: this is. This is interesting, It's like my food is
Speaker 1: playing me a song and it seems fine. I think
Speaker 1: I'm okay, and then it's just strumming and getting closer
Speaker 1: and closer, and then it fights it and that's game over.
Speaker 1: Because it has extremely potent venom that especially affects other spiders,
Speaker 1: so it's actually not that potent against like insects, but
Speaker 1: with spiders. It has this incredible effect. What an amazing jerk.
Speaker 1: I know, it's great, Like I I love that it
Speaker 1: has it sees a bigger spider and it has a
Speaker 1: situation for that. I'll just do a confusing dance and
Speaker 1: while it's sitting there like wondering what the heck I am,
Speaker 1: I'll bite it. Real it's a great D and D character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a fighting tech totally. Yeah. Researchers think it may
Speaker 1: have the most diverse repertoire of hunting techniques of all
Speaker 1: animals except for humans and higher primates, which is quite
Speaker 1: impressive for an animal that has a brain the eyes
Speaker 1: of a head of a pen and only about sixty
Speaker 1: thousand neurons. For comparison, humans have around eighty billion neurons.
Speaker 1: So yeah, teeny tiny brains, and despite the simplicity, it
Speaker 1: is capable of very complex and improvisational behaviors. There are
Speaker 1: a few more hunting techniques that it does. Do you
Speaker 1: guys remember the weeping angels and Doctor Who? Yes, who
Speaker 1: could forget their horrified It's this thing in Doctor Who
Speaker 1: are there these angel statues that couldn't move if you
Speaker 1: were looking at them, but when you turned away, they
Speaker 1: could like move towards you, so like you would look
Speaker 1: at them, blink and then it would be like five
Speaker 1: ft closer to you and looking more menacing, like the
Speaker 1: hedge animals in the novel version of The Shining there's
Speaker 1: no there's no hedge maze. It's animals. Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: like just the idea, the idea of something stalking you
Speaker 1: and you turn around and then it's like a little closer.
Speaker 1: You turn to look like a cat. You're describing a cat.
Speaker 1: That's what these spiders do. They will freeze in place
Speaker 1: when it's prey sees it, and then the prey, which
Speaker 1: isn't probably another spider, is like I'm like, huh, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess it's fine. It turns around and then it
Speaker 1: stocks closer and closer and he's like wait a minute,
Speaker 1: and then like freeze in place until it gets close
Speaker 1: enough to bite right, or in the case of humans,
Speaker 1: nozzles in their ears just because closer and closer. Because
Speaker 1: they're like cute little kitty spiders. Though, yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like if I was peta, I would name these spiders
Speaker 1: octo kittens because they have so many legs, a little
Speaker 1: tiny octobidy kittens cute. So another thing they do is
Speaker 1: they pretend to be a male spider from another species
Speaker 1: of jumping spider. This other species of jumping spider, the
Speaker 1: males will construct a nest for the females out of leaves,
Speaker 1: and so if the female sees like a spider rustling leaves,
Speaker 1: it's like lured out because like, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: male showing off his construction skills. Like maybe we should mate,
Speaker 1: but no, it's Porsche. She's tricked you and then she
Speaker 1: eats you. That's a classic bugs bunny move. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like an inverse bugs Bunny because she's like, yeah, her,
Speaker 1: here are I'm going to do some construction work for you, ma'am.
Speaker 1: Just here to colean your pipes, ma'am, and then you
Speaker 1: come out. It's like what like each other? I wonder
Speaker 1: if the black Widow feels like Porsche is really feeling
Speaker 1: her thunder here. Uh yeah, I feel like all of
Speaker 1: the scary wife's seductress tactics. Uh yeah, por she's got
Speaker 1: him nailed. I love this inversion of the trope though,
Speaker 1: because she's seducing other females. It's like it's dare I
Speaker 1: say it feminist, but I would love I would love that,
Speaker 1: Like oh Man, Marvel writers people, comic book people. If
Speaker 1: you're listening, do like, if you want to do like
Speaker 1: a villainous to pair with black widow, color poor Sha
Speaker 1: and have her do all of these things. I think
Speaker 1: that would kick ass. You know well. It reminds me
Speaker 1: of another Scarlett Johansen character and Under the Skin, which
Speaker 1: is I don't know if you would enjoy it. It's
Speaker 1: about an alien, maybe automaton, maybe um species, just luring
Speaker 1: men into being like slowly digested. It's Scarlett Johansson like
Speaker 1: cruising around in a van talking to guys and I
Speaker 1: won't go on a tangent, but they a lot of
Speaker 1: it was shot like improved on the street, with real
Speaker 1: guys that she would call over and talk to. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a very fascinating film. It's fantastic. I love this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should watch it. Everybody should watch it. All you
Speaker 1: animal fans can watch it. Under the skin. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's amazing. I mean, like it really is. The like
Speaker 1: this porschea spider would be a perfect horror villainous Like.
Speaker 1: Another thing that the spider does is they have this
Speaker 1: very jerky gate. It's meant to mimic the appearance of
Speaker 1: light coming through the forest canopy, you know how like
Speaker 1: when light comes through leaves and like the trees kind
Speaker 1: of blowing the wind. The spider moves in that way
Speaker 1: to make it literally look like light coming through canopy.
Speaker 1: But it's it's the spider. Yeah, it's It's totally amazing
Speaker 1: how adept they are at being the perfect spies. And
Speaker 1: researchers wanted to see how intelligent these Porsche spiders were,
Speaker 1: so they tested P. Fimbriata, the ones that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about, that specific species, and they made little tiny
Speaker 1: spider deserted islands. So they stranded Porsche on this little
Speaker 1: island in the middle of like this moat of water,
Speaker 1: and so to escape, the spider had to either jump
Speaker 1: and swim or just swim like it was too far
Speaker 1: for it to just jump out of the island. Also
Speaker 1: they gave it like a little teeny tiny volleyball and
Speaker 1: the spiders are like was there was there like a
Speaker 1: spider polar bear and like a really convoluted spider plot
Speaker 1: that no one understood. That's a lost reference. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: gave up on loss like after the first episode on
Speaker 1: You Spide Yourself many years. So these littles on their
Speaker 1: little deserted spider islands with like a tiny I imagine
Speaker 1: like a little tiny palm tree that the researchers put
Speaker 1: in just to make it convincing for the They trained
Speaker 1: the spiders to use a specific technique of escape. So
Speaker 1: basically the spider can either swim the whole way or
Speaker 1: like take a flying leap and then swim. So researchers
Speaker 1: would try to encourage them to use one technique over
Speaker 1: the other by like wiggling the water so it creates
Speaker 1: a little wave pool. So basically, like say they want
Speaker 1: the spider to swim when the whole way. Anytime the
Speaker 1: spider jumps, they would create waves in the water. So
Speaker 1: as far as like what what and has to go
Speaker 1: back to the island, And they were actually able to
Speaker 1: successfully train these spiders to use the escape technique that
Speaker 1: they wanted to assign to them. So it shows that
Speaker 1: they adapt their techniques based on their environment, based on
Speaker 1: learning like what works and what doesn't, which is extremely
Speaker 1: impressive for such an idy bitty spider. It also proves,
Speaker 1: like a lot of these studies, that scientists seem very bored.
Speaker 1: They scientists kind of are jerks, aren't they. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't. I love scientists and I love science. This
Speaker 1: podcast would not exist without the work of evolutionary biologists
Speaker 1: and behavioral researchers. But you gotta admit it's a little rude,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And like if you told if you
Speaker 1: told the spiders like, so we learned this, they'd be like, great,
Speaker 1: why do you need to know that? What was the
Speaker 1: point of that? We were very stressed out. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we could have told you we rule already. We could
Speaker 1: have told you were smart. Was that really necessary? I mean,
Speaker 1: if the spiders are actually talking, the study really is
Speaker 1: not necessary because we have genius spiders. There's like spelling
Speaker 1: out like Charlotte's webs, spelling out these webs like you bastard.
Speaker 1: Maybe the scientists were getting revenge on the spiders because
Speaker 1: they were spelling out webs that were like NERD four
Speaker 1: eyes just bullying scientists. Oh this is a funny thing
Speaker 1: I read in one of the studies on this um
Speaker 1: these PORSCHEA spiders is this? I was reading this line,
Speaker 1: I was like, wait what? Uh? So here does I
Speaker 1: say these spiders should be able to focus accurately on
Speaker 1: an object at distances from approximately two centimeters to infinity? What? What?
Speaker 1: That was my affection? Yeah? I was like, wait, what
Speaker 1: do you mean these spiders can see for infinity? And
Speaker 1: this led me on a deep hole of trying to
Speaker 1: understand how lenses work and and uh vision and and
Speaker 1: basically the the physics of of sight and light travel,
Speaker 1: which is kind of outside of my wheelhouse. So I
Speaker 1: might get this a little wrong, but apparently infinity focus
Speaker 1: is a thing that is really common, which is like,
Speaker 1: it's not that the spiders can see for infinity although
Speaker 1: we don't know they can't, um, but that their islands
Speaker 1: is can achieve infinity focus like a camera or a telescope. Basically,
Speaker 1: if the lens is at the right angle compared to
Speaker 1: the light source, and the light source is able to
Speaker 1: reach you, you can see it. And so apparently this
Speaker 1: is the case for a lot of animal eyes, including humans,
Speaker 1: Like healthy human eyes have a focus from twenty cimeters
Speaker 1: to infinity. But like, as I was reading this, like
Speaker 1: for a split second, I was like, these spiders can
Speaker 1: see for infinity, right, they can see if your time?
Speaker 1: What just this like spider like staring up at the
Speaker 1: stars and like violent music playing just space and zooming
Speaker 1: in Werner Herzog voicing, Like these spiders can see into
Speaker 1: our souls, into the very beginnings of the universe. Anyways, Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, guys, if you scroll down, there's a cool
Speaker 1: spider on the next page there. I just want you
Speaker 1: to take a look. See at that that cool spider.
Speaker 1: What am I? What am I seeing here? I see
Speaker 1: something eating a bird? I am speechless. I have no
Speaker 1: words what I can feel? My nightmares? What's going on here?
Speaker 1: Does this all right? So? Will this fit into an ear? Does?
Speaker 1: They will not fit into an ear? I will say
Speaker 1: that much. But I want you, guys to try to
Speaker 1: because like I know what this is, but I want
Speaker 1: you to try to explain what you're seeing someone who
Speaker 1: doesn't know, like what is going on? Here's my guess
Speaker 1: is that My guess is that the first uh Jeff,
Speaker 1: that you have here is whatever whatever uh is? Uh
Speaker 1: is a spider of some sort crawling on a snake,
Speaker 1: and a bird trying to eat the spider, and the
Speaker 1: snake eating the bird. So my guess is that, oh, wait, no, no,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm seeing. I'm seeing it's it's entirely
Speaker 1: a snake, and it's got a dumb tail designed to
Speaker 1: attract birds to try to eat it. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: it eats the birds. It looks like a rock. It
Speaker 1: looks like a bug crawling on a rock. The bird
Speaker 1: swoops down and it gobbles the bird. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The caption says, here's a cool spider. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: I was like, the hell the snake with the tail,
Speaker 1: that's what That's what pen and Gillette Wait, Penengella, that's right,
Speaker 1: that's what pen and Teller call a miss direction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think your description was perfect there. It's you know, weird.
Speaker 1: The tail is kind of spiny. At first, I thought, oh, like,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a millipede working in tandem with the snake.
Speaker 1: Is it's a dual prank. But then I see in
Speaker 1: the second one that it's not just a very effed
Speaker 1: up tail. What the hell. So this is an Iranian
Speaker 1: spider tailed viper that hunts birds by pretending its tail
Speaker 1: is a spider, and its tail is shaped like a spider,
Speaker 1: like it looks like one of those little rubber spiders
Speaker 1: you get around Halloween time, right like, and it's just
Speaker 1: wiggling it around, like its tail has a bulb on
Speaker 1: the end that looks like a spider's abdomen, and then
Speaker 1: all these legs coming out of it, these fake legs,
Speaker 1: spines coming out of it, so it looks like just
Speaker 1: a whole spider with legs attached to its tail. And
Speaker 1: then it wiggles it around like a lure for birds,
Speaker 1: so it does like sky fishing for birds. And then
Speaker 1: the birds come down and the viper is disguised as
Speaker 1: a rock because it lives in these mountain ranges in Iran.
Speaker 1: And then it's like the bird is none the wiser
Speaker 1: and it goes for a juicy spider, but it gets
Speaker 1: it gets eaten. Yeah, it's it's so mean to eat
Speaker 1: something that's hungry like that feels it's like it's like
Speaker 1: a cotton candy machine eat us, you know, like your
Speaker 1: last thought is excitement for something to get to eat.
Speaker 1: And then you just get eaten. I mean, but if
Speaker 1: you don't know what hits you, right, like, yeah, the worst. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think this bird knew what hit it.
Speaker 1: That's probably actually true from what you're showing me here. Uh,
Speaker 1: it looks like I mean, it's a whole bird, and
Speaker 1: we're not talking about like an anaconda here. It's it's
Speaker 1: like the bird could maybe win this fight in the
Speaker 1: right conditions, but does not know. I don't think this
Speaker 1: bird is going to win this particular fight. I would
Speaker 1: say no, no, no. I say this with much pain
Speaker 1: in my heart as someone who loves birds. But yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, I gotta hand it to the snake. Though.
Speaker 1: This is ah. It's not just that its tail looks
Speaker 1: like a spider, but the puppeteering of it is really professional.
Speaker 1: It's like a Jim Hinson style puppet shaped like a burger,
Speaker 1: like like a McDonald style burger Mayor of Cheeseville, whatever
Speaker 1: his name is, and he's like, hey, kids, come over here,
Speaker 1: and then and it's like this happy muppet burger and
Speaker 1: I'll you like skip after it. And then it's just
Speaker 1: attached to this giant demon that I'm imagining the Swedish
Speaker 1: chef getting this in as like an ingredient like they
Speaker 1: were gonna. I love Swedish Chef, but I can't do
Speaker 1: his voice. I'm terrible at it. He's just like around
Speaker 1: the table trying to catch a bird. Beautiful board board.
Speaker 1: Remember the first SpongeBob SquarePants movie where it's like basically
Speaker 1: Um Hillenburg, the guy who made SpongeBob used to be
Speaker 1: a marine biologist. So a lot of the jokes in
Speaker 1: SpongeBob show and understanding of marine biology, and one of
Speaker 1: them was like basically a spoof on the deep Sea
Speaker 1: Anglerfish where it was this giant monster who's lure was
Speaker 1: shaped like a little old lady offering them ice cream.
Speaker 1: A classic, and the joke there is like the specificity
Speaker 1: of being able to evolve basically to look like a
Speaker 1: little lady offering ice cream. But this is essentially that,
Speaker 1: Like it's it gets that complicated. It's amazing, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I mean, it really looks like the second picture. It
Speaker 1: looks like a damn spider is like clung onto its tail.
Speaker 1: It's one horrifying thing revealed to be another. This is
Speaker 1: definitely a damn nature you crazy moment. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think about the evolutionary like path of how he gets
Speaker 1: his steal. It's how I would evolve because this snake learned,
Speaker 1: you know what, I want to just not move, let
Speaker 1: the food come to me. I want to move as
Speaker 1: little as possible. I just want to I want to
Speaker 1: bait something and then gobble it up immediately got what
Speaker 1: it wanted. Yeah, is there a Pixar film and a
Speaker 1: lonely spider befriending another spider that turns out to be
Speaker 1: the snake's tail and the snake feels like it doesn't
Speaker 1: want to tell the spider because then the spider will
Speaker 1: be portrayed. Well. I like this. It's sort of a
Speaker 1: Cyrano de Bergerac kind of story where like the snake
Speaker 1: think like the spider falls in love with the snake's tail,
Speaker 1: and the snake falls in love with the spider, but
Speaker 1: it's afraid that if it reveals that this is just
Speaker 1: a form of aggressive mimicry, that then the spider won't
Speaker 1: love it anymore. But then it turns out at the
Speaker 1: end the spider really did love the snake the whole time,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter that they're two entirely different species.
Speaker 1: It's like a less tragic ending to the squirrel saga
Speaker 1: and the Sword in the Stone that broke my heart.
Speaker 1: The little squirrel. Yeah, like in Merlin, Merlin turns a
Speaker 1: child version of King Arthur into a squirrel, and a
Speaker 1: little squirrel falls in love with him, and then he
Speaker 1: turns back into the human and she cries. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: has to break up with a squirrel, imagining having to
Speaker 1: do that. What I wanted to happen is for Merlin
Speaker 1: to turn the squirrel into a human, but with the
Speaker 1: squirrel brain. So the squirrel is just like a romantic Katie.
Speaker 1: It's just like, no, they move all together, right, right,
Speaker 1: But then the squirrel just has like a squirrel brain,
Speaker 1: and and she's just like chewing on nuts all the
Speaker 1: time and like it, like and this is Queen jenever Chip,
Speaker 1: why not? I mean, why not? When we return, we're
Speaker 1: actually going to talk a little bit more about squirrel hijinks,
Speaker 1: speaking of which, so we will be right back. That's
Speaker 1: very promising. A classic prank is putting out a fake
Speaker 1: spider to startle someone, which is a done prank. But
Speaker 1: what else can you expect from a prank that involves
Speaker 1: spreading anti spider propaganda. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, is
Speaker 1: very common phobia, and treating phobia's involves exposure therapy, where
Speaker 1: you're introduced to your fear incrementally. But treating or acnophobia
Speaker 1: can be tricky. After all, it's hard to train a
Speaker 1: spider to sit still while someone gets used to its presence.
Speaker 1: But some researchers are looking into how virtual reality may
Speaker 1: help people with our acnophobia by having them explore digital
Speaker 1: worlds with digital spiders. Personally, the concept of a spider
Speaker 1: with AI scares me more than a regular, fluffy, real
Speaker 1: world spider. But hey, maybe Sunday I'll welcome our virtual
Speaker 1: spider overlords. When we return, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the pranks that squirrels pulled that are driving me nuts.
Speaker 1: So we were just talking about that horrible, traumatizing scene
Speaker 1: in the Sword in the Stone Disney film where the
Speaker 1: squirrel falls in love with the transformed king Arthur, who
Speaker 1: was like, or I guess he's not a king yet,
Speaker 1: just a little brat who gets turned new squirrel. They
Speaker 1: fall in love, and then Merlin's like, no, we gotta
Speaker 1: turned back into humans, Like screw these squirrels, and it's
Speaker 1: horrible and the squirrels are sad, right because back in
Speaker 1: the day kids movies wanted to traumatize us on many right, right,
Speaker 1: like you gotta you got any parents you love? Oh,
Speaker 1: don't worry, we'll kill them. Oh yeah, oh those parents
Speaker 1: are going down, Mickey Mouse, just with like a bloody
Speaker 1: baseball back going like nice parents you got. There would
Speaker 1: be a shame of anything happened to them. But yes,
Speaker 1: squirrels lead a very complex life, even without the hijinks
Speaker 1: of an insane wizard. So squirrels like to hide nuts,
Speaker 1: such as the durn gray squirrel. But there are a
Speaker 1: lot of nut hiding species of squirrels and they need
Speaker 1: these nuts stashes to survive the winter, so it's very
Speaker 1: important for them. A problem, though, is that other squirrels,
Speaker 1: when they see one squirrel hiding a nut, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just gonna take that nut. Though there's no
Speaker 1: squirrel law, there's no there's no squirrel code of honor.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's a it's a squirrel nut nutty
Speaker 1: squirrel eat nut nut world, a nutty nutty nutty world.
Speaker 1: So squirrels are will bury these nut caches um and
Speaker 1: in order to stop other squirrels from stealing their nuts,
Speaker 1: they will kind of have this arms race of deception.
Speaker 1: So squirrels will scurry over to a location, dig a hole,
Speaker 1: shove something inside the whole bury it, cover it with leaves,
Speaker 1: and then if you're that squirrel stalker and you dig
Speaker 1: this up, you're going to find a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: nothing because you just got squirrel pranked. Oh is it?
Speaker 1: Is it at least like like a little a little
Speaker 1: squirrel message, like a little yeah, it's a little note. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a little note and says I owe you
Speaker 1: one nuts, sucker. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And so they
Speaker 1: will sometimes do this multiple times just to throw these
Speaker 1: other squirrels off their tails, basically like oh, you think
Speaker 1: I'm putting my nut in here? You think it's going
Speaker 1: in here? No, no, it's not. And then they scurry
Speaker 1: off to another location. So they really try to trick
Speaker 1: each other into digging up the wrong nut. The squirrel world,
Speaker 1: it sounds like every squirrel is living out their own
Speaker 1: version of the film No Country for Old Men, where
Speaker 1: like he has the suitcase full of cash and he's
Speaker 1: trying to he's trying to keep it away like every
Speaker 1: everything is just The more I learned about squirrels, the
Speaker 1: more it seems like all they think about is nuts,
Speaker 1: and everything everything that they do in life revolves around
Speaker 1: the importance of nuts. It does. Yes. Actually, in college,
Speaker 1: for one of my classes, I had to go and
Speaker 1: observe squirrels nuts, which may as you can imagine as
Speaker 1: a freshman in college, like trying to make new friends
Speaker 1: is really good for sort of my social profile, Like oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there there's someone sitting next to squirrels, muttering like, go on,
Speaker 1: get the nut, get the nut, pick it up. Go on,
Speaker 1: pick it up, your little bastard, pick it up. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you had to mutter, yeah, but was
Speaker 1: the muttering was optional? Dave, you know nothing about observational studies. Anyways,
Speaker 1: The point of this, like class exercise, I think, was
Speaker 1: to see, like we basically planted these nuts that had
Speaker 1: a little some of them had little holes in them,
Speaker 1: some of them had um no holes. And it was
Speaker 1: basically to see like when a squirrel suspects there's a
Speaker 1: worm inside of acorn, like a larva eating the inside,
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll choose to immediately eat the nut because if
Speaker 1: they bury it and there's a larva growing inside. The
Speaker 1: larva is gonna like eat the nut and then hatch
Speaker 1: into a moth and the squirrel gets nothing. But if
Speaker 1: the squirrel eats it right, then gets the nut and
Speaker 1: also a little extra protein in the right exactly so
Speaker 1: bost right and or and In another study much like
Speaker 1: that one, where other students were also sent out to
Speaker 1: sabotage their own social life by staring at squirrels all day,
Speaker 1: they would try to dig up like, uh, nuts that
Speaker 1: squirrels had buried to like study like these seeds and
Speaker 1: stuff to see like what kind of seeds they're bearing.
Speaker 1: But they had a lot of trouble actually finding these things,
Speaker 1: even after seeing a squirrel dig up a little cash
Speaker 1: and then like barry stuff and they're like, well, there's
Speaker 1: nothing in here, And it's the squirrels were tricking this
Speaker 1: students because the squirrels were paranoid that the students were
Speaker 1: going to dig up their seeds. I guess it's not
Speaker 1: really paranoia if it's true, because it's right. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was legitimately an anti squirrel conspiracy. So the squirrels
Speaker 1: were right. The squirrels are watching like I don't think
Speaker 1: humans don't normally watch us this closely. I think those
Speaker 1: humans are up to something right, right, They weren't wrong,
Speaker 1: they were not wrong, And so they tricked the students
Speaker 1: and then so that the researchers of this day were like, huh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. They're onto us. You gotta move to a
Speaker 1: new town, Fellas. They're onto us. The squirrels are onto us.
Speaker 1: And then they did another study where they actually just
Speaker 1: like intentionally made squirrels paranoid and found that when researchers
Speaker 1: would dig up the squirrels nuts in sight of the squirrel,
Speaker 1: the squirrelled panic, run over to another nutt head buried,
Speaker 1: dig it up, and go berries it's somewhere else, Like,
Speaker 1: this is so much extra stress on these four squirrels.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to make sure they have enough food
Speaker 1: to survive. Yeah. I think the lesson of this episode
Speaker 1: is that the real pranksters, the real jerks, were us,
Speaker 1: the scientists the whole time. I love that there was
Speaker 1: a study that boiled down to we're gonna bother squirrels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make them paranoid. Yeah, let's let's annoy squirrels.
Speaker 1: And I love that squirrels are like little addicts, like
Speaker 1: they're just like gotta get the nuts, gotta go, oh god,
Speaker 1: oh god, there after my nuts. I gotta dig up
Speaker 1: the nuts. Oh my goodness. Their whole world is nuts.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine this devastation that like like you take
Speaker 1: a nut away from a squirrel, you steal its nuts,
Speaker 1: Like that's its whole world, it's its tove. Most like
Speaker 1: accurate portrayal of an animal in an animated film was
Speaker 1: really Scritch from ice age. Oh yeah, the prehistoric squirrel
Speaker 1: like animal that just all it wanted was that nut,
Speaker 1: and it's spent all four or five movies or whatever
Speaker 1: continually trying to get the nut. In one movie like it,
Speaker 1: I think it like almost died and went to heaven,
Speaker 1: but then it was resurrected, and it was so sad
Speaker 1: because heaven was full of nuts, so it was willing
Speaker 1: to die if it could be with with nuts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that is at a moment of sweet release into
Speaker 1: the nut realm and then was ripped from it into
Speaker 1: nut valhalla. Yeah. Now I want to talk about another
Speaker 1: sort of prank situation in order to get food, and
Speaker 1: this one is much more devious than these poor little
Speaker 1: squirrels just trying to protect their nuts. So Joel, I
Speaker 1: have a bird for you too, and you're allowed to
Speaker 1: dislike this one because this is a devious, devious little guy.
Speaker 1: This is called Africa's forked tailed drawn Go and it
Speaker 1: is a black, shimmering bird with red eyes and a
Speaker 1: forked tail like the devil itself. It's literally the devil.
Speaker 1: It literally the devil guy. It looks mean as hell.
Speaker 1: It's got that strong like anime evil brown right above
Speaker 1: its red, bloody red eye. It's small, but you can
Speaker 1: tell that that doesn't condense the amount of hate it
Speaker 1: has for the world. It looks like it's possessed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like this is the earthly form that Satan
Speaker 1: has chosen. Yeah. It reminds me of the Omen or
Speaker 1: the Witch when whenever Satan shows up in the form
Speaker 1: of an animal in a movie, that's what this animal
Speaker 1: looks like. It looks like James Bond's best dressed villain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like a real jerky and it is so
Speaker 1: the the fork tailed drawn go uh will do these
Speaker 1: alarm calls that warns everybody in the region that a
Speaker 1: predator is coming. So they are found in desert regions
Speaker 1: in South Africa, and birds in general will often issue
Speaker 1: alarm calls to warn other birds, and it's like a
Speaker 1: it's a way to sort of like protect each other. Um.
Speaker 1: And other species of animals like mere cats will also
Speaker 1: issue alarm calls to warn everyone that something's coming. It's
Speaker 1: this this evolutionary trait that a lot of animals that
Speaker 1: find themselves as prey will use in order to protect
Speaker 1: each other from predators. It's citizenship, it's it's camaraderie and
Speaker 1: like having each other's back. I respect it. Now the
Speaker 1: drongo does this, Wrongo, sorry, and I had to. I
Speaker 1: had to do it. You hate to see it, but
Speaker 1: I had to do it. So um they will sometimes
Speaker 1: they do actually warn, do legitimate alarm calls. So something's coming,
Speaker 1: like a predator or a hawk or something, and they'll
Speaker 1: issue this alarm call and it's legit. But once they've
Speaker 1: gained your trust, that's when they start crying wolf. So
Speaker 1: if a drongo sees a mere cat like with a
Speaker 1: tasty little meal, it can issue a false alarm calls,
Speaker 1: so the mere cat will panic and run away, and
Speaker 1: then the druga swoops in and gets a free meal.
Speaker 1: It's like, uh impersonating an officer and breaking up like
Speaker 1: a high school party for free beer. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: it's like. That's exactly what that is. Yeah, it's something
Speaker 1: I've never done now of course, not how else would
Speaker 1: like why would you have such a specific example like that. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it makes total sense. Yeah, so it's like and it
Speaker 1: also in order to keep animals from catching onto the grift,
Speaker 1: they have developed more sophisticated strategy, so like they will
Speaker 1: learn the alarm calls of other species of animals and
Speaker 1: switch it up so that these these poor little mere
Speaker 1: cats and other animals don't catch on. If the dranga
Speaker 1: would only do its own alarm call, eventually they'd stop
Speaker 1: listening to it. But if it imitates your alarm call
Speaker 1: in another animal's alarm called, then it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: tell when they're crying wolf. So that way it keeps
Speaker 1: it fresh, keeps it mixed up, always changing the grip,
Speaker 1: that's the key. Yeah, this is what Steve Bannon didn't
Speaker 1: realize when he did his whole You always gotta be
Speaker 1: switching up to the grift, right, Like, you can't just
Speaker 1: like stick to one grip because people catch on you
Speaker 1: know why wasn't catch me? If you can, you know
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta your doctor one day. Next day
Speaker 1: you're boat Captain. I don't remember that movie, but you
Speaker 1: know it was captain right exactly. Um. Also another bird
Speaker 1: species who's kind of a jerk. Blue Jay's just straight
Speaker 1: up pretend to be hawks. So they will make a
Speaker 1: hawk call and it makes innocent birds scatter, and then
Speaker 1: they very smugly stroll up to whatever seeds and stuff
Speaker 1: the other birds have left behind to eat them at
Speaker 1: a leisurely pace. So what you're saying, if you ever
Speaker 1: see a blue jay get eaten by a hawk, it's
Speaker 1: it's just justice, right, I guess. So any way to
Speaker 1: think about it, I do. I feel like the evolution
Speaker 1: of these birds as they started by going like hey,
Speaker 1: watch out, like they were just snitches. I'm sure the
Speaker 1: predators never appreciate it where they're like, come on, bird,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to eat too. Yeah, And then they learned
Speaker 1: after a while and they're like, hey watch everybody, watch out.
Speaker 1: People would scatter and they're like, oh, there doesn't even
Speaker 1: need to be a predator here. Like it's like I
Speaker 1: warn you, I get a prize and then uh, and
Speaker 1: then it was like, oh, I can just get the
Speaker 1: prize whenever. I mean, I think that's exactly how this
Speaker 1: behavior came about, Dave. And it's it's interesting because you
Speaker 1: do see like you can't have to like in the
Speaker 1: story like of Crying Wolf, if you can't have that
Speaker 1: alarm be too false, otherwise they stopped listening to you.
Speaker 1: So it's this really interesting kind of interplay of like
Speaker 1: switching it up also doing real alarms, like if they
Speaker 1: never actually alerted to real danger, this old scheme wouldn't work.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like it's kind of like gambling
Speaker 1: like a casino. Casinos are very they're created to prey
Speaker 1: on human like reward systems, like our brains, giving us
Speaker 1: reward and dopamine for like seeking prizes. But basically they
Speaker 1: have to pay you out sometimes otherwise you don't want
Speaker 1: to keep playing. So it's the same thing with these birds.
Speaker 1: These birds like have to pay out sometimes have to
Speaker 1: actually have a correct signal otherwise they would get ignored. Right,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's the casino on average is making more
Speaker 1: money than it's giving out. I assume this bird is well, no,
Speaker 1: this bird doesn't even need to worry about that. It's
Speaker 1: just when it's hungry. Whenever it's hungry, it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll do a fake one right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder if they're nervous, like the first time somebody
Speaker 1: shops lives and they're like, oh god, if I should,
Speaker 1: it's definitely not morally okay, but I kind of really
Speaker 1: need this lift. Have you guys seen seagulls shoplifting? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they they like strolling really casual, like, hey, what's up, Hey, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: how's it going? How's it going? Yeah? Just looking just
Speaker 1: looking at the chips here, just looking at the chips,
Speaker 1: just taking one of these chips, getting out, get out,
Speaker 1: get out. They look like they know what they're doing
Speaker 1: is wrong. They know that they could get caught. Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they understand that it is morally wrong.
Speaker 1: Also isn't morally wrong? I don't know. It depends on
Speaker 1: the story. You know, if they were in if they
Speaker 1: were in lame Is, like we would these would be
Speaker 1: heroes and they would be played by Wolverine. So what
Speaker 1: if they startently they haven't eaten in envo goal? Like,
Speaker 1: come on, what if though? What if it's like a
Speaker 1: gateway thing where like then they're running bigger griffins, right,
Speaker 1: first artists, then it's bugles, then it's pring goals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't know where to stop. Then they're stealing like vehicles,
Speaker 1: just a swarm of seagulls, like stealing people's cars. Tank
Speaker 1: We don't know how. Then they can't be stopped. No,
Speaker 1: once they get a tank, it's all over for us.
Speaker 1: Seagulls are very intelligent in terms of like being grifters.
Speaker 1: They're very good at um stealing things. They also seagulls
Speaker 1: will have alarm calls that they used to warn each other.
Speaker 1: They also do mobbing behavior, so a group of seagulls
Speaker 1: will bully other birds or bully other predators in order
Speaker 1: to get their way. So there, they really are just
Speaker 1: like mobsters seagulls. Yeah, I don't. I don't think seagulls
Speaker 1: are aware that they are the dominant species on this planet, right,
Speaker 1: Like they must assume they're in charge because they are.
Speaker 1: I mean they are to a theme park, the park
Speaker 1: seagull that is a bad seagull, That is a seagull
Speaker 1: that's seen at all. It's also kind of incredible because
Speaker 1: all of our attempts to destroy the world, like all
Speaker 1: of our trash. The seagulls are like, yeah, yeah, do it,
Speaker 1: do it, yeah yeah do food. Waste idiots will eat
Speaker 1: it like sure, yeah, Like you're destroying the planet, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna be here. I mean, you're all gonna die.
Speaker 1: But seagulls were doing fine. Yeah, smoldering waste land and
Speaker 1: above it seagulls. Yeah yeah. The crime wolf effect is
Speaker 1: found all throughout animal behavior and human psychology. One area
Speaker 1: of interest in studying human psychology is alarm fatigue, which
Speaker 1: describes how after too many false alarms, people will stop
Speaker 1: paying attention from weather alerts to medical device alarms and
Speaker 1: safety alarms. Getting too many false positives or too many
Speaker 1: alert signals in general may train us to be less
Speaker 1: responsive to alarms. Maybe we could learn from animal models
Speaker 1: to understand how to calibrate alarms such that we find
Speaker 1: the correct balance between false positives and false negatives. That
Speaker 1: is to say, studying animal pranks could potentially help improve
Speaker 1: human lives. When we return, we're going to take a
Speaker 1: look at some less consequential pranks and general monkeying around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we will in fact be talking about monkeys too. We'll
Speaker 1: be our back. Why do humans like pranks, at least
Speaker 1: the good fun pranks, not just bullying labeled as pranks.
Speaker 1: Maybe it has something to do with learning deception in
Speaker 1: a way that's playful rather than truly insidious. Or maybe
Speaker 1: it's just to see what we can get away with
Speaker 1: while still remaining friendly. But pranking isn't exclusively human, as
Speaker 1: some of our distant hairy relatives demonstrate. So far, we've
Speaker 1: talked about pranks that seem to be mostly for survival
Speaker 1: and like for basically getting food hunting, And now I
Speaker 1: want to talk about pranks that don't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: do with survival. It's just animals, you know, being silly,
Speaker 1: being your being, your Saturday Morning DJ's, you know, like
Speaker 1: beepers and and the and the and the cheese. You know,
Speaker 1: remember beepers in the cheese, Beepers in the cheese, Beepers
Speaker 1: and the cheese. Saturday Morning Radio Classic Classic Beepers in
Speaker 1: the cheese. Everybody, I Love, I Love the cheese is
Speaker 1: bit where he like he calls, like calls the pizza
Speaker 1: place and he's like, can I get it with extra cheese? Right?
Speaker 1: And then they say you got cheese? You just got cheese,
Speaker 1: and then the person working at the pizza place like, wait,
Speaker 1: did you know on a pizza? Or I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't get the joke? What right, classic, classic, classic, beeper
Speaker 1: in the cheese. Yeah, So some of the some of
Speaker 1: the best pranksters are primates. And first I want to
Speaker 1: talk about Capucheans or those are like the fluffy things,
Speaker 1: the weird hairy ones. Yeah, they're the ones that are
Speaker 1: They're little monkeys. They are really fluffy. They're brown and
Speaker 1: white with sort of like the white poops on their faces.
Speaker 1: They are very cute and they will play these harmless
Speaker 1: but kind of annoying pranks on each other. So Capucheans
Speaker 1: in Costa Rica will play a lot of pranks on
Speaker 1: each other, and behavioral researchers have been really befuddled by
Speaker 1: their behaviors. So they'll do things like pull each other's hair,
Speaker 1: they'll put their fingers in each other's noses, and then
Speaker 1: they'll pry open each other's mouths, just like little sibling
Speaker 1: peak annoyingness hm. And they are trying they were trying
Speaker 1: to figure out like why they would do this, and
Speaker 1: they're like studying this one monkey named Napoleon who would
Speaker 1: like to go around ripping out tufts of other monkeys fur,
Speaker 1: and then he'd stuff it in his mouth for no
Speaker 1: apparent reason, and then the other monkeys would try to
Speaker 1: pry open his mouth to get their fur back, even
Speaker 1: though it's like once they get their fur back, there's
Speaker 1: nothing they can do with it. It's fur right, right,
Speaker 1: you just took my my butt for like, give it back.
Speaker 1: Many groups of Capuchein's exhibits some of this behavior, but
Speaker 1: there's a particular group in Costa Rica, in Lomas Barbudal
Speaker 1: that displays them with the highest frequency, the most diverse
Speaker 1: repertoire of pranks and intensity, which means that these specific
Speaker 1: groups of Capuchin's have a prank culture which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from Sarah brawsnan primatologist who was interviewed
Speaker 1: by National Geographic quote. There's almost a visceral reaction when
Speaker 1: you see one monkey shove their fingers up another monkey's nose.
Speaker 1: It was markable to me that the one who is
Speaker 1: having it done to them was perfectly happy to just
Speaker 1: sit there. That suggests that to them it's important somehow, Otherwise,
Speaker 1: why would they do it I love I love it
Speaker 1: when scientists are confused and don't know what's going on,
Speaker 1: because it's like, there's gotta be a reason why these
Speaker 1: monkeys are shoving their fingers up knows otherwise why would
Speaker 1: they do it. Anyone who's watched it two year old
Speaker 1: knows there doesn't need to be It's the Simpsons with Stampy,
Speaker 1: where they're like, some animals are just cherks, you know,
Speaker 1: like primates are just there, are I right, Like they're
Speaker 1: just they're us at the most basic forum. So it's
Speaker 1: a combination of wanting to do like cool goofs and
Speaker 1: maybe bite faces off, and it's like that's really all
Speaker 1: we have in us too, but we've just found more
Speaker 1: sophisticated ways to do it. We've, through our many many
Speaker 1: thousands of years of evolution, have invented YouTube where we
Speaker 1: do where we shove our right set people's noses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I've seen a prank channel. Again, I don't really
Speaker 1: approve at all of prank channels unless they're actual nice
Speaker 1: pranks that you do with your friends. The old like
Speaker 1: get someone in a box that says like but um
Speaker 1: cream on it, and they open it up and it's
Speaker 1: like a Nintendo switch. That's a fun prank. That's a
Speaker 1: fun prank. Yeah, because then you're like, but like, but
Speaker 1: but cream, Like I okay, I guess great, thank you
Speaker 1: for the butt cream, and then you open it up
Speaker 1: and it's something you actually want. But what if they
Speaker 1: were like, oh my thank god, but cream. I didn't
Speaker 1: know you knew. Oh oh my god, can I tell
Speaker 1: I was so afraid to tell you guys about this.
Speaker 1: But I have the worst hemorrhoids and my life has
Speaker 1: been a living hell. Yeah, I'm so grateful that you
Speaker 1: thought to do that. This is life changing. It's like
Speaker 1: it's a switch. Oh okay, I'm sure I'll have lots
Speaker 1: of fun. I'm in so much pain. But one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that researchers and primatologists think they might be
Speaker 1: doing this is they are maybe just like humans. They're
Speaker 1: testing each other's social boundaries in a relatively safe way.
Speaker 1: So it's like seeing like how much do you like me?
Speaker 1: How much do you trust me? Kind of like siblings,
Speaker 1: like when you know you bother your sibling, I want attention,
Speaker 1: and I also want to see like how you react.
Speaker 1: How much are you willing to tolerate? My sister used
Speaker 1: to every time when I'd stand up if I was
Speaker 1: sitting next to her, she'd kick the back of my
Speaker 1: knees as I'm standing up, so I go right back here.
Speaker 1: It works. It works very effectively. I mean, look, I
Speaker 1: do it to her too, so it's you know, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that's still a thing that happens in our household.
Speaker 1: I used to like eat some candy and then like
Speaker 1: trying to perfectly arrange the candy rapper so it looks
Speaker 1: like it's full, and then like hand it to my
Speaker 1: brother and be like, you want some candy? And he
Speaker 1: was like, oh sure, and this is empty, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's like you just got pranked me. I know it's mean.
Speaker 1: I would give him real candy afterwards, though, break it
Speaker 1: was funny because I kept doing it even after my brother,
Speaker 1: Like every time I had handed He's like, it's you're
Speaker 1: handing me an empty thing candy. No, But then he
Speaker 1: knows he's going to get real kid, so you're conditioning him.
Speaker 1: So another thing that these capuchans d is they will
Speaker 1: pass useless objects back and forth to each other, a
Speaker 1: game that seemingly has no purpose other than to test
Speaker 1: their relationship. To see how much the other monkey is
Speaker 1: willing to like buy into it. It's right, you just
Speaker 1: described capitalism boom roasted got him? Yeah, I mean, what
Speaker 1: are we doing really like right now? What do we think?
Speaker 1: We're hassen useless objects back and forth? That's all. That's
Speaker 1: all it is. My head is spinning. I think I
Speaker 1: think you just I think he just roasted all of humanity, Dave,
Speaker 1: I did. I just solved. I solved everything. We're all
Speaker 1: just like right now us doing this podcast like it's
Speaker 1: it's if aliens watched us, and they'd be like, they're
Speaker 1: doing it for like no reason, right, They're like flapping there,
Speaker 1: They're flapping their mouth folds into this useless object for
Speaker 1: no reason. And then other people put these orbs inside
Speaker 1: their ears and listen to the flapping of their mouth
Speaker 1: folds for no reason reason. Yeah. Uh So. One more
Speaker 1: primate trickster is the chimpanzee, who you know, they're quite
Speaker 1: intelligent and they're kind of jerks. So observational research has
Speaker 1: shown that chimpanzees will hide projectiles and wait until the
Speaker 1: time is right to throw these projectiles at zoo visitors.
Speaker 1: Projectiles do you mean poop? It's not always poop, it's there, right, No,
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes it's chunks of concrete. Oh no, that's not it.
Speaker 1: That's like when you put rocks in a snowball, not
Speaker 1: a bring. Not funny. I am a d on their
Speaker 1: side though with this, because they're in they're in jail.
Speaker 1: They're in there in so like if I was in
Speaker 1: an animal jail. Yeah, if I was in a like
Speaker 1: a jail, that also, like visitors would get to watch me.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I'm I'm pelting as many things as
Speaker 1: I can. These people, it's kind of hard to blame them, right,
Speaker 1: I mean and so, but it's also interesting because they
Speaker 1: show an immense amount of planning in foresight, which I
Speaker 1: love that we learned so much about primate intelligence just
Speaker 1: based on their pranks. Like they're putting so much thought
Speaker 1: into these pranks. So they'll hide cases of things to
Speaker 1: throw at zoo visitors. So they'll like get hay and
Speaker 1: create a pile of hay and then hide like rocks
Speaker 1: and fruit or something underneath it and put it in
Speaker 1: a position where they easily grab something out of it
Speaker 1: and quickly throw at visitors. And this is a dominance behavior,
Speaker 1: like throwing stuff at people. But there is this individual
Speaker 1: chimpanzee uh named Santino of brew vic Sou in Sweden,
Speaker 1: and he seems his whole goal isn't just a dominance display.
Speaker 1: It seems like he really wants to be in these visitors,
Speaker 1: like he wants to hit him because like it's a game,
Speaker 1: because he'll like sit there pretend like he's not doing anything.
Speaker 1: Like he'll have an apple, he kind of casually takes
Speaker 1: a bite out of it, and as a visitor approaches,
Speaker 1: he'll like quickly throw it at them to hit them
Speaker 1: because he's learned that like they back up, Like if
Speaker 1: he holds something in his hand and he looks like
Speaker 1: he's about to throw it, they actually back up, and
Speaker 1: he's like huh interesting, And so now he like hides
Speaker 1: the objects right before he's about to throw it or
Speaker 1: pretends like he's not up to anything, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: throws it and smacks them. This is this has like
Speaker 1: serious uncle energy too, of like snowballs or something where
Speaker 1: it's like you learned after a while that the child
Speaker 1: if they see it coming void you, so you have
Speaker 1: to like surprise throw it at them. Yeah, I get it,
Speaker 1: but it's not just mammals and primates that are capable
Speaker 1: of these shenanigans. Octopuses are an incredibly intelligent animal that
Speaker 1: is capable of pranking in this really delightful way. So
Speaker 1: they can squirt jets of water out of their tank
Speaker 1: at people or anything they want to squirt, so um,
Speaker 1: they will squirt the water at like marine biologists, handlers,
Speaker 1: at aquariums, anyone that walks by, grad students. They just
Speaker 1: it's like if anyone's coming by and they want to
Speaker 1: prank them or they are annoyed by you, they will
Speaker 1: squirt you. And they've actually had to put like barriers
Speaker 1: up to keep octopuses from squirting people in aquariums because
Speaker 1: they do it with such a frequency. And they even
Speaker 1: have learned in some cases to use jets of water
Speaker 1: to cause power shortages so that they don't have these
Speaker 1: lights on. So octopuses don't necessarily like bright lights. So
Speaker 1: in this one New Zealand lab, this octopus would so
Speaker 1: routinely squirt water at light bulbs and short them, and
Speaker 1: they had to get so many replacement light fixtures that
Speaker 1: it was so expensive to keep this octopus they had
Speaker 1: to release it back into the wild. Won like you
Speaker 1: can't keep me chained down. Yeah. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: it's like in Finding Dory the octopus escaping, except even
Speaker 1: I feel like this is even more clever than the
Speaker 1: plot in Finding Dories. It's right, just I'm going to
Speaker 1: destroy your lab until you release me. It's also a
Speaker 1: show for them where they learned, like check this out.
Speaker 1: Every time I squirt this lightbulb, the whole thing happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like someone comes out. They look disappointed and frustrated. They
Speaker 1: have to call somebody who shows up with a ladder
Speaker 1: or like with a with a new light bulb, and
Speaker 1: it's like a whole show. Yeah, and it's they're just
Speaker 1: like rubbing their tentacles together, just going like lights camera
Speaker 1: or wait, sorry, no lights camera. Action. Octopuses are the
Speaker 1: most suspicious creatures on this planet. They look like they're
Speaker 1: up to something. I mean, they are really know what
Speaker 1: they're doing down the well. And we learned a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago that they just die after giving birth sometimes
Speaker 1: is committing suicide. It's crazy. No, I agree though, before
Speaker 1: like if they because they have such short lifespans and
Speaker 1: they are similar Paris, so they die shortly after reproduction.
Speaker 1: They gotta they gotta live while they can they gotta
Speaker 1: yolo it up? You only octopus once, right, they gotta
Speaker 1: short some aquarium lights. Yeah. Another thing they do is
Speaker 1: they like to sneak out of their tanks and steal
Speaker 1: fish from other tanks and aquariums. And this can be
Speaker 1: a big problem, Like fish just go missing, and it's
Speaker 1: now have this fish go missing, and they look over
Speaker 1: to the octopus tank and it just burps and like
Speaker 1: a fish skeleton rises to the surface because like they'll
Speaker 1: they'll go, we'll like they'll sneak out and then return
Speaker 1: to their tank. They're so sneaky, it's it's really incredible,
Speaker 1: especially considering that octopuses have evolved, like their brains have
Speaker 1: evolved entirely separately from like our sort of like evolutionary
Speaker 1: branch essentially, so that basically like it's inevitable. Pranks are inevitable,
Speaker 1: like once you have intelligent life. This is the one
Speaker 1: piece of evidence that maybe convinces me that some of
Speaker 1: these UFO alien encounters are real, because there could be
Speaker 1: an alien race that just like pranks the crap out
Speaker 1: of us. I convinced this person that I probed them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe aliens do prank us. Maybe octopuses are the
Speaker 1: alien prank, right, They just threw a bunch of octopuses
Speaker 1: at our planet and we're like trying to figure that.
Speaker 1: Isn't that like the plot of Watchmen, like like like
Speaker 1: rains octopuses in that show, rains squids. But I mean
Speaker 1: technically the plot was, will bring a giant squid on Earth?
Speaker 1: People think there's aliens and because there'll be another enemy,
Speaker 1: like all humans will fall in line and like agree
Speaker 1: to be friendly because now there's an an apex predator
Speaker 1: out there for But the truth is that it was
Speaker 1: just a human pulling essentially a frank on the worlds
Speaker 1: for peace. But it killed millions of people. It's there's
Speaker 1: layers and it's not good. I wish what had happened
Speaker 1: is that the humans then teamed up with the cephalopods
Speaker 1: in the ocean, because basically this was an atrocity against
Speaker 1: both humans and cephalopod right, because like raining squid from
Speaker 1: the sky like that kills the squids too. So if
Speaker 1: we had teamed up with the cephalopods, like look, humanity
Speaker 1: and cephalopods now have this common purpose, which is these
Speaker 1: stupid as superheroes that are like destroying our lives and
Speaker 1: we team up. You've got aquamand down there, like running
Speaker 1: them up, being a total snitch, and like interfering in
Speaker 1: your fish business. Let's team up and form the Human
Speaker 1: Cephalopod Coalition. M let me here for it. This is
Speaker 1: my pitch for not just a movie, but what we
Speaker 1: should actually do in real life. It's a new way
Speaker 1: of life, a new movement starting right now. You heard
Speaker 1: it here first, Well, thank you so much you guys
Speaker 1: for joining me and getting pranked. I feel like a
Speaker 1: good way of ending the episode would have been play
Speaker 1: an actual prank on you guys, but it's I feel
Speaker 1: like the biggest prank right now is just real life. Yes,
Speaker 1: we are all. I don't feel like it's fair for
Speaker 1: me to add to that, so I will just genuinely
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on. This is thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me first of all. But also, it's
Speaker 1: generally not a time to prank people, right, That's good advice,
Speaker 1: unless the prank, again is like a nice prank, like
Speaker 1: I got you butt cream. Turns out it's switched, but
Speaker 1: also butt cream in case you do need it, like
Speaker 1: that would be the that's like the best prank, right, Like,
Speaker 1: here's a box full toilet paper that I bought you
Speaker 1: and it is actually toilet paper? Is that even a
Speaker 1: prank anymore? Because like it exactly it's like gold right
Speaker 1: right now. If you TP someone's house, they're going to
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, like like that is like a nice prank. Now,
Speaker 1: like here's some free toilet paper than you. So thoughtful.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I had to be my trees,
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna come clean. Yeah, no toilet paper
Speaker 1: toilet paper like if you and like if you, if
Speaker 1: you like TP a tree and like a public park,
Speaker 1: then it's toilet paper for everyone. Yeah, don't do that though.
Speaker 1: It's a waste of t P and also vandalism. I mean,
Speaker 1: people have got to get it down. It's a big
Speaker 1: annoying thing. But just have the modern day t peeing
Speaker 1: just be you give TP to people in need and
Speaker 1: then you can still act like a jerk about it,
Speaker 1: be like yeah, you got t P and then you
Speaker 1: skateboard away and they're like thank you. And also like
Speaker 1: unused unused t people who used are like I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: I'm very is that like should specify. I don't know
Speaker 1: that we needed to, well we did. I don't think
Speaker 1: we did, though, I don't think we should need to.
Speaker 1: I know you did. I don't think we needed to.
Speaker 1: I feel like there was a tacit understanding, you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm like, hey, we need to get some new
Speaker 1: toilet paper, not followed up by new or used, right,
Speaker 1: that's fair? Yeah, I mean yeah, it's just like a
Speaker 1: conversation around the house. I'm just saying, like podcast instructions
Speaker 1: of the world, I guess. I guess for legal reasons,
Speaker 1: we should be as specific as possible. Like a Genie
Speaker 1: wish gift people with toilet paper, but it's not been used,
Speaker 1: and it's not so much toilet paper that it like
Speaker 1: drowns them or something. I guess, you know, no wishmaster,
Speaker 1: no wishma exactly. No, like monkeys paw toilet paper like
Speaker 1: it's toilet paper, but it was like made out of
Speaker 1: sand paper. Sand paper got well, at least she'll be exfoliated. Anyways, UM, guys,
Speaker 1: do you have anything to plug other than toilet paper?
Speaker 1: I'll plug my Patreon for gamefully Unemployed patre dot com
Speaker 1: slash gamefully Unemployed. You can check it out. We have
Speaker 1: we have all sorts of podcasts. Um and if you
Speaker 1: meet a spider, be nice and let it, let it
Speaker 1: get right in that ear. Yeah. Uh, no, banished fighters
Speaker 1: from your ears. I'm gonna sleep with ear plugs tonight
Speaker 1: because now I'm terrified. Uh. If you guys are watching
Speaker 1: the new HBO series Love Paft Country and if you're
Speaker 1: interested in some behind the scenes what did that mean
Speaker 1: or where did that come from? You can follow me
Speaker 1: on the ap club as I recap that series. So
Speaker 1: much fun. I'm really enjoying it. Uh. It's only the
Speaker 1: one episode right now so far. Yeah, the second episode
Speaker 1: comes out if you're listening to this podcast, it came
Speaker 1: out last and Okay, I'm so excited. I'm both like
Speaker 1: excited for the show and I'm also so excited to
Speaker 1: read your take on it. Go. Yeah, me too. I
Speaker 1: really like the first episode. I'm very excited. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it yet, so don't spoil it for me. But
Speaker 1: it's good good. Yeah, it looks really good. Okay, great. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you can find us on the internet at Creature
Speaker 1: Feature Pod on Instagram at Creature feet Pod. On Twitter
Speaker 1: that's f A t. Not epet that's me, and you
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden where you
Speaker 1: know I just have my Katie thoughts and as always
Speaker 1: I am at pro bird rites where I argue is
Speaker 1: birds people? Yes, birds is people. Birds is people. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much to the Space Classics for their super
Speaker 1: awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For a more podcast like the one you
Speaker 1: just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or hey, wherever you listen to your favorite shows. See
Speaker 1: you next Wednesday, m HM.