WEBVTT - From the Vault: Blood Squirting From the Lizard’s Eye, Part 2 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:08.840 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.840 Robert Lamb and Hey, today's Saturday, so we have another 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:15.120 repeat for you. This is an older episode, this one 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.840 originally published eight fifteen, twenty twenty four. It is Blood 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:24.400 Squirting from the Lizard's Eye, Part two. We hope you enjoy. 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:31.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:36.839 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:37.840 name is Robert. 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.159 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.599 Part two in our series on the horned lizards of 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:48.000 North America, also known sometimes as horned toads or horny 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.480 toads if you prefer, though they are in fact lizards 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.000 and not toads. The horned blizzard, of course, is a 0:00:55.160 --> 0:01:00.720 genus scientific name Freno soma, meaning toad body, which contains 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.440 about twenty one species which have different geographical ranges, but 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.720 they're all found in western North America, from the southern 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.679 tip of Mexico up through parts of western Canada. Now again, 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:13.759 this is part two of the series. In Part one, 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:19.360 we focused mainly on the horned lizard's relationship with various 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:26.640 predators and their fascinating anti predator defense strategies which include camouflage, spikes, 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.040 and armored scales, which can make them difficult and in 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.640 some cases quite dangerous to eat. We talked about some 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:37.399 eating related mishaps from various predators, and then finally, they're 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.959 weaponized blood jets, the adaptation that allows them to shoot 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:46.160 streams of apparently foul tasting blood out of their eyes 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.840 when threatened by a dog. Robin, in your words last time, 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.520 a way of deterring predation with the most aggressive and 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:57.360 unpleasant free sample in the world. That's right to refer 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.200 back to something that came up last time, that we're 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.600 still interested in this question of why the blood apparently 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.840 tastes so foul to dogs, and I read in some 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:11.359 cases maybe also cats, but not noticeably so to humans, 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.760 and certainly not to predators such as birds. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:15.839 Now I want to throw in right here at the top. 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.840 We described the horned lizards in detail in the last episode, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:21.760 and I hope that everyone has had a chance to 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:26.079 check out some footage or images on their own. At 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:27.800 this point in our research, I've looked at a lot 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.720 of images, a lot of footage, and I do have 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:35.160 to give them props for just being tremendous splooters, you know. 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:39.560 They certainly the squirrels can splute like like none other. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.880 You know, cats are great splooters. But man, I have 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.360 to say the horned lizard isn't natural as well. 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.520 Wait, I'm not understanding the word splute, then I thought 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.640 you were. You were meaning like squirting, like squirting the 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:53.639 blood out of the eye. That's all what it means. 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.920 They're tremendous squirters as well. But spluting. Spluting is when 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:58.760 if you ever it's a hot day and you look 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.440 out and you see a squirrel like laying on its 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.840 belly like splluted out, you may see you can't do 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.360 much the same. Various other organisms will splute. This is 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:12.160 an unofficial terminology for what they're doing. But I feel 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.280 like that the horned lizard has this down as well. 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.360 Splute seems like a variation on display when the whole 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:21.239 body like flat against the ground, all limbs outstretched exactly. 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.200 Yes, but the kind of PLoP to it as well, 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.120 You know, like there's a certain you got the organism 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:31.400 really needs to have a certain amount of like semi 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.440 liquid solidness to it to really deliver it. You got 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.000 to have that toad body or you got to have 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.880 that slightly soft mammalian body to pull it off. 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.600 Oh, that's right. And of course the toad body, as 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.360 we talked about last time, is part of the horned 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:52.400 lizard's defensive camouflage strategy. Like the splluting is indeed part 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.720 of what keeps them safe from detection by predators. They 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.600 try to lay flat against the ground so as not 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.200 to cast a shadow and to make it harder for 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:05.920 a predator, say a bird flying overhead, to see their outline. Also, 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.280 since we're just talking about reviewing the tape on the 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.200 horned Lizard since the last time we talked, I was 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.920 watching just more blood squirting footage since we recorded the 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:20.480 previous episode, And I don't know if I emphasized enough 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.479 how much it really looks so alarming. If you haven't 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.480 seen this, look it up. The blood that the jets 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:31.520 out of the eyes somehow looks darker and thicker than 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.760 I expected. And it's also just weird how much blood 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.680 is coming out compared to the size of the animal, 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.400 which is quite small. It doesn't look like something that 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:42.520 should be happening. 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:47.000 Yeah, it is quite alarming. It's redder and bloodier than 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.320 I think I was anticipating it feels like a cut 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:51.480 scene from Event Horizon. 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.520 Yeah. Now, to get into the meat of today's episode, 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.440 I wanted to address just a few more lingering biological 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:04.080 facts about horned lizards, biological and ecological facts that we 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.400 didn't quite have time to get into last time. And 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.520 the first thing I wanted to talk about is the 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:14.479 horned lizard's relationship to water. Of course, horned lizards generally 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.559 live in dry places, deserts and semi arid ecoregions, where 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.279 the sun cooks you, the rain is scarce, water is 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.720 hard to come by, and horned toads, like all animals, 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.480 of course, need water to live, so much of their 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:33.040 biology has gone still suit mode. They are very efficient 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.880 at sourcing and preserving water. There is a great passage 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.960 about the horned lizard's relationship to water in a book 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.599 that I referred to in the last episode. That book 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:48.160 is Introduction to Horned Lizards of North America by Wade C. Sherbrook. 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.000 This was published by the University of California Press in 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:55.000 two thousand and three. The author, Wade Sherbrook, was director 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.080 of the Southwestern Research Station of the American Museum of 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.960 Natural history, So of course, losing water is just part 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.279 of having a body. It is impossible to avoid losing 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.360 some water content through ambient interface with the air. We 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.720 lose some water vapor from our lungs when we breathe, 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:17.160 we lose some water through evaporation from our skin, and 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:21.400 the same is true for horned lizards. To reduce water 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.720 loss to evaporation, horned lizards have some behavioral adaptations. For example, 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.240 sometimes they burrow underground or partially bury parts of their 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.360 bodies in the soil. This can reduce water loss from evaporation, 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.440 but they also have some clever ways to source water 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.440 from their environment. They will, of course just drink free 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.920 standing water when they can get access to it, if 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:45.680 there are puddles after a rainstorm or something like that. 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.160 They will drink dew that collects on plants in the morning. 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.760 But much of the water that they get from external 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.320 sources comes from food like juicy juicy harvest or ants. 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.839 But here's where Surbrook gets into. Something I found really 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:03.960 fascinating of these strategies they have for sourcing water is 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.400 that some species of horned lizards use their own backs 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:13.400 as what Sherbrook calls a rain harvesting surface. So he 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.320 singles out three species as examples, the Texas horned lizard, 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.560 the round tail horned lizard, and the desert horned lizard. 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:26.600 And when these animals sense that rain is about to fall, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.360 they do the opposite of what humans usually do. You know, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.480 we go inside. They go outside. They run out of 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:37.240 cover into the open and stand with their backs sort 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.200 of cupped like they raise up there. They raise up 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.240 on their legs, they flatten out their backs, and they 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.640 lower their heads. Now what does this do. It turns 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:51.440 the lizards back into a kind of combination rain barrel 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.200 and whatever you call that. You know, the beer drinking 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.720 helmet where you got the beers on the sides and 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:58.960 it's got a straw running to the mouth. So you 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.880 combine that with the rain barrel concept. Their back collects 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.760 water over the widest possible surface area, which is the 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.800 lizard's flattened out dorsal scales, and then it funnels the 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.040 water to the edge of its mouth for drinking. So 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.000 like my body is a catch base and my mouth 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:18.000 is the receptacle. 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.040 I'm glad we're getting into this because as I was 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.520 looking into the culture of the horned lizard. I was 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.520 hoping to find an example of cowboy poetry about them, 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.520 but my search came up largely empty. But I did 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:32.920 find an interesting blog post by Charlie Buck of the 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.680 University of Arizona Poetry Center about an elementary school exercise 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.200 where they brought in a herpetologist to talk about horned lizards, 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.560 and then a poet led the class in filling out 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:48.079 horned lizard worksheets with descriptive text to create concrete poems 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.640 or visual poetry. So it's like an outline of a 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.640 horned lizard, and then you fill in with text. And 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.280 I included one example of this in our outline here. 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.040 Joe and folks can look up the blog post and 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.560 see an example. This is well and for instance, written 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.320 by one of the students in the head is a 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.160 horned lizard eats ants. I babysat horned lizards. I can't 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.679 read the rest of it. I spit my blood out 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:16.840 of my eye at snack. I drink water from the sky. 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.000 And then like later on one of the legs, it 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.360 says I eat ant every day. And then there's also 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:26.920 a part of the anatomy that says I drink water 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:31.960 from my back. So I read that before I actually 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.400 got to that point in reading about their biology. So 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.559 I was like, I wonder if that's true. Gonna have 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:37.959 to fat fact check this child. 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.960 Yes, this child's poetry passes fact check. The horned lizards, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.439 at least some species do drink water from their backs. 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.679 And it's interesting the way Sherbrook describes it. It's not 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.200 just like you know, water randomly running off the back 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:52.920 and some of it sort of getting into the mouth. 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:56.720 It seems like it has a fairly sophisticated system of 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:01.440 like this sort of this matrix of layers underneath in 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.760 between the scales absorbing water and then routing it by 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:09.040 capillary action down to the edges of the mouth where 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.120 the where the lizard then sort of sits there, opening 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.360 and closing its jaws slowly to drink the water as 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:18.880 it trickles in from the corners of the mouth. And 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:23.200 so it's got a fairly sophisticated top topography on the 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.400 back there to get the water to the mouth. 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.280 It's a great system. You can't follow them. 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.640 Another interesting way that horned lizards can serve water They 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.160 do not urinate. Now, how is that possible? They're animals. 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:40.240 Surely their bodies produce and collect waste products like excess 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.640 salts and the nitrogen bearing compounds that are the byproduct 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:49.839 of animal metabolism, like uric acid common in reptiles. Well, 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.680 they do still have to purge these waste products, but 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.240 they purge them not as liquid urine, but as a 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:02.120 semi solid substance rather than dissolved in water. So Sherberch writes, quote, 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.040 water carrying uric acid from the kidney is reabsorbed in 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.319 the kloaca. From here, the uric acid, mixed with some 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.440 insoluble crystals of urate salts, is voided as a white 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.360 mass attached to the end of the fecal pellet. And 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:20.959 I thought this was interesting because in just a minute, 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.800 I want to mention, there was a video I was watching, 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:29.280 like a short documentary about some conservation efforts with horned lizards, 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.680 and it was showing some of their feces that the 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.120 researchers were finding in the wild. And yeah, their fecal 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.200 pellets did have these interesting little white caps on them. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:43.439 So apparently that is what the lizard releases instead of 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:48.840 liquid urine solid P and some in solidness crystals of 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.080 solid P. Also, as we have discussed with some other 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.559 reptiles in the past, horned lizards can sometimes remove excess 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:01.400 salts from the body, not by urinating, but by sneezing. 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:07.560 So salts accumulate in glands around the nostrils where they 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.840 are secreted as this hyper concentrated salty brine in the nose, 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.520 which you can then you just hank it right out. 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.800 And Sherbrook says that you can find horned lizard individuals 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:23.079 with noses covered in this salty white crust from the process. 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.400 So the moral of the story is when you don't pee, 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:32.120 you poop, and you sneeze. Different other anti predator considerations 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:33.679 that we didn't have time to talk about in the 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:39.000 last episode, we were talking about the advantages of the 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.240 horned lizard's armor for self defense, you know, the tough scales, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:48.200 but especially the sharp bony spines around the crown of 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:53.880 the horned lizard's head. That these pieces of armor increase 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.880 the risk a predator has to take in trying to 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.920 eat one of these lizards. The predator has to make 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.760 judgment call, is it too big for me to survive 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.800 swallowing this? Will the head spikes split open my throat 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.400 or puncture my organs that can actually happen. But in 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:14.200 the context of looking at another predator prey relationship that 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.280 we didn't talk about last time, Sherbroke had some interesting 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.439 thoughts on the evolution of these head spikes. So Sherbrooke 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:26.359 is talking about the southern grasshopper mouse or ani Comis torridus, 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:30.880 and this animal will prey on some smaller horned lizard 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:36.280 species by biting the skull right over the eye socket. 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.559 So this is before you get to the crown of spikes. 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.560 This is the skull above the eyes. And when the 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:48.280 grasshopper mouse attacks other prey animals, most other vertebrate prey, 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.320 it bites in a different place. It bites at the 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.839 back of the neck, near the base of the head, 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.960 attempting to damage and sever the spinal cord. And this 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:02.760 is apparently a common attack area for predators to target. 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:05.600 I was actually kind of thinking, I know, I've read 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.680 about big cats often targeting the back of the neck 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.480 and the base of the skull in those rare cases 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.240 where they happen to attack humans, and I was trying 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.640 to remember where I came across that fact, and finally 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.000 I realized It was from Mary Roach's book fuzz When 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.640 Nature Breaks the Law, which we interviewed her about on 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.200 the show. That was one of my favorite interviews we've done, 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:28.240 and it's from the part of the book where she's 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:33.120 talking about taking the class learning to identify different common 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.840 wound patterns from different types of animal attacks. And so 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.840 for example, she talks about how when a grizzly bear 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.160 attacks a human sometimes a lot of the injuries are 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.000 sort of face on. They're like to the face in 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.040 the front of the head, almost as if the bear 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.560 is fighting a human the way it fights a rival bear, 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.040 where they're both kind of like biting at each other's faces. 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.640 Whereas cougars are used to killing their prey with a 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.600 power bite to the back of the neck, which they 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.440 in these rare cases where a cougar attacks a human, 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.600 they will sometimes target the same sort of place on 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:10.880 the body, like the back of the neck, base of 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:12.119 the back of the head. 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.320 I believe in Jurassic Park this is also how the 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:21.400 velociraptors are depicted as preying on humans biting the back 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:21.880 of the neck. 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.880 But anyway, coming back to the relationship between the Southern 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:30.480 grasshopper mouse and the horned lizard. So these mice will 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.080 try to prey on the lizards, especially the smaller ones, 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.920 but they don't bite where they bite most prey because 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.200 in the lizard's case, this is right where the head 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.640 horns grow. So the mouse doesn't even bother trying to 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.160 attack this well defended area. Instead, it's got to kind 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.880 of like awkwardly chew with the head over the eyes 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:53.000 and Sherbrook speculates that these horns could have evolved from 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.320 what was originally a more modest kind of bony defensive 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.000 ridge at the base of the skull designed to protect 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.880 against this kind of attack to the back of the neck, 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:09.240 and studies have shown that the spines do protect against 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.560 predator attacks. And you can measure this because the size 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:17.680 of the spines around the head actually matters, like research 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:21.360 has shown that lizards killed by birds tend to have 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.680 shorter spines around the head than lizards of the same 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.440 species in that area, So the ones that are picked 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:41.000 off the most tend to have the shortest head spikes. Now, 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:42.960 there's one more thing we brought up in the last 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:44.920 episode that I did want to make sure we came 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.960 back to today because I wanted to clarify something about it. 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.920 This was when we were talking about the relationship between 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:57.480 horned lizards and the red imported fire ant or solenopsis 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:01.440 in Victa. It came up that non native fire ants 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:05.000 in North America are thought to be a reason for 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.679 some horned lizard population declines, and this does appear to 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.240 be true. There are a number of horned lizards whose 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:14.919 ranges have been shrinking in recent decades. There are places 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.200 where you used to find them, you don't find them anymore. 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.439 Many of their populations are in decline, and in the 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:23.920 case with the case with a lot of these species, 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.359 does seem to be that the fire ant is playing 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.719 a role there, especially because the lizards have such an 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:34.200 important relationship with the native harvester ants, which are sometimes 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.280 sort of driven out by the fire ants. So while 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.440 it's true that the fire ants appear to be playing 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.360 a role in population and range declines for these horned lizards, 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:47.240 they're not thought to be the only factor, or necessarily 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.119 even the main factor everywhere. 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.280 That's very much the case. Yeah, and reading about the 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:58.439 Texas horned lizard like urbanization vast urbanization and Texas is 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.840 often singled out as one of the prime imary factors 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:01.760 there exactly. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.880 Yeah, so the fire ant, the imported fire ant, seem 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.280 to be one factor among many. And this came up 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.399 when I was watching a short documentary video that was 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.840 just delightful. I recommend people look this up. A documentary 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.480 video produced by Texas Parks and Wildlife in twenty twenty 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.480 one called Horned Lizard Homecoming. You can find this on YouTube. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.400 It is a video specifically that's focused on an attempt 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:30.960 by the San Antonio Zoo to breed Texas horned lizards 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.439 in captivity and then release them back into areas from 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.359 which they have largely disappeared since the nineteen seventies. Just 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.960 one of the many charming things in this short documentary 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:46.320 is that the conservation biologists are working with a lizard 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:51.000 sniffing dog. So you know, imagine the canine unit at 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.800 the airport, but instead of a drug sniffing dog or 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.840 a bomb sniffing dog, it's a dog that is trained 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.359 to find Texas horned lizard in the wild and not 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:03.640 to bother them by the way, not go like pick 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.040 them up in the mouth and harass them until they 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.760 get a blood squad. Just to signal from a safe 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:10.200 distance that they've found one. 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:11.880 Ah, that's awesome. 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.000 It's also very cute that the lizard sniffing dog in 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.640 the video is sort of wearing shoes as it goes 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.320 about its business. I think this is probably because there, 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.840 you know, it's a very scrubby area, and there's probably 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:24.800 a lot of like thorns and stuff that can get 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.679 stuck in a dog's paw around there. But anyway, the 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.800 conservation biologists and the parks and wildlife workers they interview 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.439 in this video, they talk about a few other things 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:39.760 that are affecting the range and population of Texas horned lizards. 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.920 For example, human attempts to eliminate harvester ants from large 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.320 areas of land. Of course, again, Texas horned lizards need 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.040 to eat harvest or ants. Without the ants, the land 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:54.040 cannot sustain the lizards. And then also things like replacing 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.960 native grasses with different grass types, so you replace what 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.639 are called bunch grasses with turf grasses. This is not 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.000 what the lizards are adapted to and they can't really 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.919 survive in it. Of course, as you mentioned, Rob, just 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.080 general urbanization and reformatting of a lot of land area 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.879 roads cutting through natural land ranges, which interferes with movement 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.120 back and forth. But there's another thing I just wanted 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.600 to mention from this video because I found it hilarious. 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:24.199 There's a part where they're showing a lab at the 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.920 San Antonio Zoo where they're trying to breed lots of lizards, 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:30.680 so it's sort of it's a lizard's sex lab, and 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:34.440 they are trying to facilitate mating, and they will put 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.720 a male lizard into a female lizard's tank. And there's 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.879 one part where the technician is explaining that the head 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.000 movements that we are seeing back and forth between these 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.760 two lizards indicate that they are both interested in mating. 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.560 But it totally looks like two lizards on a log 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.159 just nodding back and forth at each other, like yep, yep, 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.879 it's great. It's a very Texas kind of nod as well. 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.880 Yeah, you can image like the little cowboy hats being 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.360 on their heads, right yeah, all right, Well, at this point, 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:09.639 I'd like to get back into some cultural connections to 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.399 the hornet lizard, and in the last episode, we teased 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:17.760 out some connections in Navajo culture among the Dnet people, 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:20.840 and I wanted to get into some of that so 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.960 there are several mentions of the hornet toad in the 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:28.680 nineteen forty four book Navajo Witchcraft by Clyde Kluckhohn, who 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.640 lived nineteen oh five through nineteen sixty. I've talked about 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:33.600 this text a little bit on the show before. The 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:35.600 version I have is from nineteen eighty nine with some 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.200 additions made to it, and there are several mentions of 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:40.880 the horned toad's use as a key ingredient in various 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:45.240 alleged spells in Navajo Witchcraft, which I want to stress 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.439 the term witchcraft is used here as shorthand, not for 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:55.840 mainstream religious rituals and practice, but rather for what is described, 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.880 as described by Kluckhohn as quote Navajo ideas and action 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.720 patterns concerned with the influencing of events by supernatural techniques 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:06.320 that are socially disapproved. 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.080 Right, So what would be viewed by the people as 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:13.080 a sort of illicit, outsider form of magic. 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:17.399 Right right, And it's my understanding as I understand it, 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.680 these are not necessarily things that were practiced, but were 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:25.040 believed to be practiced by these few individuals. So the 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:29.040 book outlines various alleged curses, including the placing of a 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.720 personal item or a bit of clothing from a man 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.000 you want to death curse inside a grave, or inside 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.439 the mouth of a dead man, in the cursing of 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.000 a pregnant woman, a personal item is placed inside the 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:44.159 body of a horned toad or a horned lizard, or 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:45.879 a purse made from its hide. 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:48.160 Oh interesting, and so. 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.200 That these would again, these would be specialized alleged uses 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.920 practiced by these you know, these outsiders that are practicing 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:57.760 this kind of like co or said to be practicing 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.879 this kind of like negative magical system. But there is 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.159 a fragment of a story shared late in the book 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.159 that is indeed a reference to a major Navajo story 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.320 about the horned lizard, and it does get into some 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:13.240 aspects of its biology, as we've discussed. So this is 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:17.240 the quote that is included in Navajo Witchcraft as a 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:23.199 commentary on something else that's referenced in the book quote. 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:26.440 The story is about the holy toad who eats ants 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:29.719 that give him power. One day he was swallowed by 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:33.240 a coyote who he had kindly given of his best corn. 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:36.840