Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show Why the Long Face, animals
Speaker 1: whose faces defy typical proportions, snouts, jaws, and eyeballs that
Speaker 1: look like they're about to break the graphics engine on
Speaker 1: the Planet Earth video game. Discover this and more as
Speaker 1: we answer the age old question what's in Echidnas Deal?
Speaker 1: Joining me today is friend of the show Coldbrew Got
Speaker 1: Me Like Podcast, author of The Advice King Anthology, Chris
Speaker 1: crofton Welcome.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's up, Katie. It's fun to be back on
Speaker 2: the show. I can't wait to talk about snouts.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. It's these are all these animals. What
Speaker 1: they have in common is they got long faces in
Speaker 1: some kind of direction for some kind of reason. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just love it when an animal is like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is your typical face that that someone might have. No,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go in a different direction with this
Speaker 1: body part.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then they've also accidentally, you know, provided you
Speaker 2: know the joke, the why the Long Face jokes? Humanity
Speaker 2: exactly incredible, What a gift on top of being weird
Speaker 2: looking and and and also yeah, they just also gave
Speaker 2: a great joke to everybody.
Speaker 1: This is how I feel about horses is they just
Speaker 1: keep giving to us, right, Like they give us something
Speaker 1: to ride. They're fun and sweet, they had they Yes,
Speaker 1: they sometimes kick us, but let's be honest, we deserve it.
Speaker 1: But they give us horse jokes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not enough in my opinion, right should be kicking
Speaker 2: more people.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, strong agree, horses should be kicking more people.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So today we are going to talk not
Speaker 1: about horses but animal other animals who have long faces.
Speaker 1: So first we're going to talk about the sling jaw rass.
Speaker 1: Now that is a strange name for a thing. The
Speaker 1: sling jaw rass is a fish. At first, it's a
Speaker 1: relatively normal looking fish. Females are brown or bright yellow,
Speaker 1: and males have white faces and yellow orange and green bodies,
Speaker 1: so they just kind of look like tropical fish. They
Speaker 1: grow to be around twenty inches or fifty four centimeters long,
Speaker 1: and they are found in tropical coral reefs of the
Speaker 1: Indo Pacific. So far, so good. They just kind of
Speaker 1: look like a typical tropical fish, but they can transform
Speaker 1: from a normal looking fish into a horrifying hell demon
Speaker 1: in a matter of seconds. So, Chris, I want you
Speaker 1: to take a look at this animated or giff of
Speaker 1: this fish and tell me what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it right now. It's like a kind
Speaker 2: of like a you know those step stools, like you
Speaker 2: know that your grandmother has, like those ones where you
Speaker 2: can pull out the ones that have stairs, Like it's
Speaker 2: like a stool, but then has that little staircase that's inside.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like that reminds me of like it's
Speaker 2: like the fish looks like a normal fish, and then
Speaker 2: you pull out this like reverse staircase. That's just it's
Speaker 2: like you know what I mean. It's like it's it's
Speaker 2: like maybe like a step down from a you know,
Speaker 2: like a van that has like a step down from right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the elderly or something like the elderly need like an
Speaker 2: automatic like the jaw drops down. Yeah, it's like a
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, it looks like a regular fish, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, this like extender it's a
Speaker 2: slightly different color too, like drops down and then people
Speaker 2: can walk up easily easier to the fish's mouth.
Speaker 1: I guess exactly. This is like an accessible fish. It's
Speaker 1: gotta step down so you can walk.
Speaker 2: Up to the Yeah, it drops down a step.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's but it's like it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a tube, which is interesting.
Speaker 2: It even won't work. Yeah, it won't work as a step.
Speaker 1: I mean you could kind of climb up it.
Speaker 2: But don't let don't let grandma trying get in the
Speaker 2: van using a sling jaw rass.
Speaker 1: I mean, has it ever been tried? Do we know
Speaker 1: it wouldn't work well?
Speaker 2: And that's not sure. You have to get a big
Speaker 2: sling jar. I don't know what size these fish are about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this so they're only about twenty inches long, so
Speaker 1: it'd have to be like a small grandma.
Speaker 2: A little Yeah it's very small, Yeah yeah, grandma. So
Speaker 2: also it looks like one of those like it's like
Speaker 2: it looks like a regular fish. Looks kind of like
Speaker 2: a piranha to me. And then it like and then
Speaker 2: it also has like you could also describe what falls
Speaker 2: out of its when its jaw descends. It looks kind
Speaker 2: of like one of those shoots that comes out of
Speaker 2: an airplane, an emergency choote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it does look like that it's like it goes,
Speaker 1: it goes from sort of fish to an ant eater
Speaker 1: snout on a fish. But it's like it like, just
Speaker 1: is it this extendable thing that pops out.
Speaker 2: Of Oh, it does extend. I was thinking it drops.
Speaker 2: It really just extends. But it has this sort of
Speaker 2: has this sort of like ledge on it. I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's it's a very It looks like a dust buster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a dustbuster, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, but at first it looks like a piranha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like a dustbuster, and it kind of
Speaker 1: acts like a dust buster. So when it is hunting,
Speaker 1: because this is carnivorous, it eats a small, small other
Speaker 1: fish or invertebrates, it can shoot its jaw forward like
Speaker 1: an extendable tube, and then it vacuums up its prey. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when the jaw is extended, it is around half
Speaker 1: as long as its entire body, so it is ridiculously
Speaker 1: long compared to its body length. And yeah, so it
Speaker 1: will try to suck up this these little, poor little
Speaker 1: animals from crevices in the coral reef. So typically these
Speaker 1: are small crustaceans or fish and they're trying to hide
Speaker 1: in the little nooks and crannies of the coral reef.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons coral reefs are so popular
Speaker 1: amongst fish and crustaceans. Is there a lot of areas
Speaker 1: for them to hide. But then this fish just goes
Speaker 1: into vacuum mode and sucks them right up. That seems unfair.
Speaker 2: It's terrible, It's absolutely terrible. It's not right at all,
Speaker 2: this this thing, I mean, what kind of evolution is this?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: What one are you going to tell me? Here's this
Speaker 2: is Katie. You can fill me in on this a
Speaker 2: little bit. So you're gonna tell me that some fish
Speaker 2: that just accidentally had a loose jaw like some you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, like, and then all of a
Speaker 2: sudden that fish started getting more food than the other fish,
Speaker 2: so then everyone had a loose jaw like. I don't
Speaker 2: just certain parts of evolution I just sound fishy to me.
Speaker 1: No part you think there's like a fish god trying
Speaker 1: to make I don't know, yeah, I know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it seems very strange, right. One thing to remember
Speaker 1: is this is happening over a ridiculous timescale of millions
Speaker 1: and millions of years.
Speaker 2: So there were lots of vacuum fish that had a
Speaker 2: short vacuum that didn't work very well. Yeah, like a
Speaker 2: million years Yeah, and they were just trying to vacuum
Speaker 2: up the reef. But they all this, this sucks. I
Speaker 2: was this is longer, and the fit crabs were all happy.
Speaker 2: Million years later the crabs were like, oh Frank, these
Speaker 2: things got oh man, these things are long and they
Speaker 2: work now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it's using mechanisms right that are
Speaker 1: part would be somewhat part of a fish without this adaptation,
Speaker 1: so like the way that a jaw that can kind
Speaker 1: of move forward when you look at a normal fish.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much you watch fish. I used
Speaker 1: to own an aquarium before I moved, and I would
Speaker 1: watch my little fish. They'd eat their little their little foods,
Speaker 1: and they do kind of have to like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: because you have to use a little bit of suction
Speaker 1: if you're a fish to get food out of the water.
Speaker 2: I never thought of that.
Speaker 1: I never thought of it because like, you can't if
Speaker 1: you just bite down right, like it could push that
Speaker 1: it could push the food away because it's in the world.
Speaker 1: So you have to use a little bit of section.
Speaker 1: And so when they're doing it, they kind of they
Speaker 1: do protrude their lips a little bit and then like
Speaker 1: kind of suck it up. And so that's a typical
Speaker 1: behavior of most fish. And so this is just an
Speaker 1: extreme exaggeration that this fish has. So you can imagine
Speaker 1: it's fish ancestor that didn't have this adaptation. Maybe it
Speaker 1: just protrudes its jaw a little more and that's a
Speaker 1: little more effective, and then that gets passed on until
Speaker 1: you get to this point where it has this highly adapted,
Speaker 1: ridiculously long jaw. So you have these traits and animals
Speaker 1: like the neck of a giraffe, right, you don't you
Speaker 1: don't go from sort of a normal like antelope type
Speaker 1: of animal to directly to a giraffe. But over time,
Speaker 1: the ones with the longer necks tend to be able
Speaker 1: to get that food better than the other ones. And
Speaker 1: so they they especially because like there's so much competent
Speaker 1: titian in a coral reef. A coral reef is sort
Speaker 1: of like the New York City of the aquatic world.
Speaker 1: It is just this incredibly dense, highly populated area. And
Speaker 1: so if you can have a special adaptation that allows
Speaker 1: you to like get sort of a niche like get
Speaker 1: food where other fish can't get food. That's going to
Speaker 1: help you be successful because there's just so much competition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, uh, that makes sense. And then imagine
Speaker 2: if a giraffe came down started messing around coral coral reef,
Speaker 2: you could get stuff out of the very bottom of
Speaker 2: this just like I mean, obviously the draft will be
Speaker 2: attacked by these these whatever they.
Speaker 1: Are, these fish. Well, if you gave a giraffe, if
Speaker 1: you gave a giraffe like a really really long snorkel, right,
Speaker 1: it has to be it had to be a super
Speaker 1: long snorkel, then yeah they could they could wreak some
Speaker 1: havoc out of corn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'd like to see that. I'm supprised they
Speaker 2: don't have a TV you show where they do.
Speaker 1: That TV show where they give land animals snorkels.
Speaker 2: And just like improper it's called like improper ecosystem, right, right.
Speaker 1: Let's get a giraffe. Wet is the name of the.
Speaker 2: More Exciting, More Exciting Ecosystem, hosted by Joe Rogan's.
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan would do that? That is that is that
Speaker 1: totally would Yeah, just like he'd put a shark on
Speaker 1: land and be like, hey, we gave this shark a
Speaker 1: helmet full of water. Let's see how this shark does
Speaker 1: on the plane.
Speaker 2: You're right, You're right, yeah.
Speaker 1: And a lion underwater.
Speaker 2: Joe Rogan would try and fight, he'd.
Speaker 1: Try to fight. He well, he put a shark in
Speaker 1: a wrestling ring, right, yes, and then try to fight it.
Speaker 1: But it'd be unfair to this shark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's no good. I think maybe it should be
Speaker 2: like we got to get I'm sorry I mentioned Joe
Speaker 2: Rogan because he was trying to fight the animals.
Speaker 1: I do always need an apology for anyone who ever
Speaker 1: mentions Joe Rogan.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't like to mention it either. It ruined
Speaker 2: my morning already. But but you know, like maybe just giraffe.
Speaker 2: Introducing a giraffe is the name of the show or
Speaker 2: something like that. Just a giraffe, the new giraffes in
Speaker 2: ecosystems where they don't belong.
Speaker 1: Right, just like see where you can put a giraffe.
Speaker 2: It's just see what happens.
Speaker 1: It's obviously exploitative of the giraffe. But you know a
Speaker 1: lot of reality TV is exploitation.
Speaker 2: Gosh, oh my goodness, you think anybody have a problem
Speaker 2: putting a giraffe in. It's a weird situation for TV rating,
Speaker 2: No way, not.
Speaker 1: These days, not in today's, not days back in the day,
Speaker 1: a day.
Speaker 2: Like when people are diving horses off.
Speaker 1: Of plan I feel like it's like, yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's the opposite. We were more likely to have
Speaker 1: giraffe TV back in the day where you made it
Speaker 1: like probably people would make like a giraffe fight a
Speaker 1: chimp or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, and the giraft can't even see the chimp.
Speaker 2: It's just looking at sky. Yeah, the draft like clouds
Speaker 2: and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, yeah, you got it on the Johnny
Speaker 1: Carson Show.
Speaker 2: This giraffe and the draft, Like the draft doesn't see
Speaker 2: the Johnny Carson Show. It just sees like the.
Speaker 1: Light trust right, it gets it keeps hitting the boom,
Speaker 1: trying to meete with the boom, and the boom operator confused.
Speaker 2: You forget that drafts don't see stuff a ground level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, this sling jaw rass can shoot out
Speaker 1: its john just a fraction of a second. You can't
Speaker 1: normally see it almost doing it because it's so fast.
Speaker 1: But there have been slowed down videos so you can
Speaker 1: see it in all its wonderful weirdness, shooting its jaw
Speaker 1: out and sucking up.
Speaker 2: I wonder who like saw that first. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: gotta be you got to catch it in the act
Speaker 2: because it looks like a normal fish. It looks like
Speaker 2: a normal fish until like someone scuba diving had to
Speaker 2: like kept a pretty cool s eye on that thing.
Speaker 2: Thank God for people who take these take the time
Speaker 2: to look at these animals.
Speaker 1: Absolutely no, I mean it takes so much patience to
Speaker 1: find to do like sort of observational research where you're
Speaker 1: looking at these But yeah, I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: the ocean animals. We know the most about our animals
Speaker 1: that inhabit coral reefs because we can reach them, right,
Speaker 1: We can relatively easy go there and watch them. You
Speaker 1: can snorkel, you can scuba dive. It's easy. Like, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff about animals in the ocean we
Speaker 1: don't know, and that's usually in like the deep ocean,
Speaker 1: out in the open where like it's really like a
Speaker 1: lot of whale behavior even though they're so huge. You'd
Speaker 1: think we'd know everything about say like a blue whale,
Speaker 1: but we don't because we're simply not over there. And
Speaker 1: it's really hard to like get a person or even
Speaker 1: a camera and watch them enough to know exactly what
Speaker 1: they're doing at all times.
Speaker 2: Because they'll kick your a.
Speaker 1: Blue whale just like flexing and smack, they'll.
Speaker 2: Kick your acts. You're not going to see our secrets nowt.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2: I twifounds, I will kick your as.
Speaker 1: I remember that Joe Rogan thing where Joe Rogan tried
Speaker 1: to wrestle a blue whale and he just.
Speaker 2: He was yeah, totally yeah, and he was trying.
Speaker 1: To like, yeah, yeah, trying to do this. You ever
Speaker 1: heard of Joe Rogan half Nelson. Yeah, that's why Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan is no longer alive. So another fun fact about
Speaker 1: these fish is actually that and this is the case
Speaker 1: for a lot of species of fish, so they are
Speaker 1: not unique in this, but females can turn into males
Speaker 1: if the conditions are right, and will change into the
Speaker 1: male's colors. So I get yeah, I mean this this
Speaker 1: happens with a number of fish where when they're when
Speaker 1: the population conditions are favorable for them to turn into
Speaker 1: a male to mate, they will turn into males. And
Speaker 1: I mean this is yeah, yeah, and there are fish
Speaker 1: that turned from males into females. It's it is a
Speaker 1: lot a lot more fluid of a situation than we
Speaker 1: might assume, get it, fluid of a situation water, And
Speaker 1: that is like.
Speaker 2: That's pretty pretty uh telling as far as you know
Speaker 2: what's going on politically. Just this idea that everything's I
Speaker 2: mean either or it's not. It's not true.
Speaker 1: I mean I often so the thing is like, in
Speaker 1: terms of human gender expression, right, like animal we don't
Speaker 1: we shouldn't need like oh this, you know, animals have
Speaker 1: these these behaviors because it's a human thing, right, it's
Speaker 1: a cultural human thing. We don't need. It's sort of
Speaker 1: like saying like, well, we should be able to have
Speaker 1: marriage because birds sometimes are monogamous, right, Like, well now
Speaker 1: we should be No, No, I know that's not what
Speaker 1: you mean. But I'm saying like we don't need to
Speaker 1: look to animals for justification. But you do see a
Speaker 1: lot of people say like, well, it's just biology or
Speaker 1: like try to biologiar like it's not natural exactly.
Speaker 2: No. The argument they make is, yes, that the fucking
Speaker 2: Matt Walsh's of the world, that there's like this strict
Speaker 2: you know, you know, of course, in their view, you
Speaker 2: know that it came from God, that God made these
Speaker 2: very specific types of things, you know, and that's just
Speaker 2: not true. God did a lot of very out there
Speaker 2: and vague and interesting stuff. And then and it's the
Speaker 2: idea that things are rigid is just this religious made
Speaker 2: up thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people will claim like, well, it's just a biological
Speaker 1: fact that you see in every animal, and it's just like,
Speaker 1: well that is categorically false. It's not true at all.
Speaker 2: That's incredible. Yeah, it's just it's just a yeah, it's
Speaker 2: just an argument about like if they're going to argue
Speaker 2: that God made things, then you know they're just not
Speaker 2: being honest about.
Speaker 1: Then we should then we should like dislocate our.
Speaker 2: Jaws right exactly, and you know that, you know, there
Speaker 2: might be somebody doing somewhere we just can't see because
Speaker 2: they won't let us get close enough.
Speaker 1: All right, that's a good segway. Next. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: are going to take a quick break, but when we
Speaker 1: get back, we are going to look at another animal
Speaker 1: with a very long face. So we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about the long beaked echidna. So the long beaked
Speaker 1: echidna are a species of monotorum found in New Guinea.
Speaker 1: So have you ever seen an echidna before, Chris, I
Speaker 1: think so, but.
Speaker 2: I didn't necessarily, I don't think I knew. No, I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess I have, but I didn't know they had long,
Speaker 2: long noses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so some of them do. So there are
Speaker 1: a few species of echidna, and the long beaked echidna
Speaker 1: have these enormously long snouts. So it has a stout body,
Speaker 1: body covered in thick hairs and spines. It looks a
Speaker 1: little bit like a hedgehog with thicker, more stump like
Speaker 1: legs and just this a really long tube like snout
Speaker 1: and tiny head, which its head is so small it's
Speaker 1: kind of laughable, like it just it looks more like
Speaker 1: just this little peanut head and then this really long snout,
Speaker 1: tiny beady eyes. So there are three species of long
Speaker 1: beak to kidna, the Eastern, Western, and Sir David's long
Speaker 1: beak to kidna, named after David Attenborough because that guy
Speaker 1: is everywhere. He just he's got he's got his hands
Speaker 1: on every animal.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, but yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Puts his name on it, just like he cooked. I
Speaker 1: think he goes around and just points to animals and
Speaker 1: he's like, that's mine. That's also mine, that one's mine.
Speaker 1: But you know, in his in his in his British accent.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, he's a monster now.
Speaker 1: Noted conservationist, beloved, beloved conservationist, naturalist, animal lover. Uh who
Speaker 1: like he's basically like the Gandolf of evolutionary biology. Everyone
Speaker 1: loves him. He's sweet. He's a monster.
Speaker 2: Though, I mean yeah, it's like Jacques Cousto didn't like
Speaker 2: name the reef like a reef, like he didn't name Jack.
Speaker 1: He didn't name it a Jacques. Yeah, yeah, okay, Jacques
Speaker 1: Cousta's yeah, he didn't discover. To be fair, David Attenborough
Speaker 1: didn't name this echidna after himself. It was the researchers
Speaker 1: named this echidna after David Attenborough. So he's not good. Listen, David, Well,
Speaker 1: we named kidna after you. How about it?
Speaker 2: They want to go to parties as house do?
Speaker 1: I mean? He does throw a wild party? Is David Attenborough?
Speaker 1: You know it?
Speaker 2: So this is David Attenborough's a kidnap. That's one kind.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have a long nose that they have.
Speaker 1: It has a long nose as well, So there are
Speaker 1: three species of long beak to kidna, and Sir David's
Speaker 1: long beak to kidna is one of them. The other
Speaker 1: ones have the sort of less exciting names of Eastern
Speaker 1: long beak to kidna and Western long beak to kidnap
Speaker 1: because one is found in the eastern region and the
Speaker 1: other is found in the western region of.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you one thing, I bet you man, when
Speaker 2: old David saw this his first echidna, he must add
Speaker 2: quite a shock because he came around. If that thing
Speaker 2: came around a corner and you'd never seen one before,
Speaker 2: you would definitely freak out. Oh good heavens, especially if
Speaker 2: you're stoned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we all we all know that David
Speaker 1: Attenborough's probably.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was He deserves it.
Speaker 1: He's worked hard.
Speaker 2: So what do you what if you're looking at that
Speaker 2: many animals? I mean, come on, come on, So the
Speaker 2: guy spent his whole life looking at animals. The guy's stone.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're not saying definitively for legal reasons, but
Speaker 1: he own monster.
Speaker 2: He's a monster and he stone.
Speaker 1: We're getting sued by David Attinborough. No, So I when
Speaker 1: you think of an echidna, I mean if you do
Speaker 1: think of a kidness, which I hope you do, you
Speaker 1: might be thinking of a smaller animal like a platypus.
Speaker 1: Like I think people's perspectives of what a pat like
Speaker 1: how big a platypus is, at least for me, I
Speaker 1: always thought of a platypus as being kind of bigger.
Speaker 1: But they're actually quite small. They're like they sort of
Speaker 1: just like fit in maybe two hands. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: they're actually quite little. But a kidness, yeah, they're very
Speaker 1: as long as they don't sting you with their venomous spike.
Speaker 1: The male platypuses have a venomous spike that they can
Speaker 1: jab you with.
Speaker 2: Which Jesus yep, David's David spike.
Speaker 1: David spike, Sir David's spike, please put some honor on
Speaker 1: his name.
Speaker 2: Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the echidna, I've always thought of a kidness
Speaker 1: as being pretty small, but echidnas, some species of kidneys,
Speaker 1: can be quite big. So uh, they range in size,
Speaker 1: but the western long beaked echidna is the largest and
Speaker 1: grows to be around thirty five pounds or over sixteen kilograms.
Speaker 1: So like it's a it's like a it's a huge yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a large pug almost. It's it's too much.
Speaker 2: That's too much kidnap for me.
Speaker 1: You can take about half that amount of a kidnap.
Speaker 2: I don't want that much a kid in the coming
Speaker 2: at me, not with a snout like that. This thing
Speaker 2: looks like a It looks like an elephant, but it's
Speaker 2: like the elephant got like covered in prickers and like
Speaker 2: got its nose hardened. I mean, it's a it's an
Speaker 2: interesting animal. But I mean, like, all right, so I
Speaker 2: want to know, Katie, Well, go ahead, you keep going.
Speaker 2: I just want to know why it's noses.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So they live in forests and they eat insects,
Speaker 1: and they use their extremely long snouts to root up
Speaker 1: and slurp up earthworms like spaghetti through like a long
Speaker 1: vacuum attachment. Yeah. Their beak also has electro receptors, which
Speaker 1: are speculated to allow them to detect the faint electrical
Speaker 1: signals that come from the muscle movements of earthworms, so
Speaker 1: they can locate them and just hoover them up. Like
Speaker 1: it's like a vacuum and a metal detector all in one,
Speaker 1: except it's detecting earthworms.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, And it can insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's nuts. It's like it has a probe
Speaker 1: that it can use to find earthworms and then slurp
Speaker 1: them up. It's functional and stylish.
Speaker 2: That's you know like that. Yeah, I mean it's just
Speaker 2: I kind of think of animals like I always think
Speaker 2: of everything like the politics or so in my head,
Speaker 2: and I always think about like people just like just
Speaker 2: freaking out humans just being so broken in this way
Speaker 2: where they they can't stop worrying and trying to dominate
Speaker 2: each other, and meanwhile there's somebody just slurping up earthworms
Speaker 2: and having the time of their lives.
Speaker 1: I mean this, I this is a lesson I think. Yes,
Speaker 1: like when the world really gets to when you're getting
Speaker 1: stressed out, when you feel like, oh we're all we're
Speaker 1: all so much at each other's throats, just remember there's
Speaker 1: this little weird, prickly guy in the forest slurping up
Speaker 1: earthworms that it's really long tube snout.
Speaker 2: Yeah, having the time of his God.
Speaker 1: Just enjoying it, enjoying life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And we always say like, oh, they don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, humans are always like, oh they don't they
Speaker 2: don't have fun, they don't know that it's fun. But
Speaker 2: you don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think they have fun. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously to us, maybe worms are a little
Speaker 1: bit gross. But imagine if spaghetti, right, or lasagna, you
Speaker 1: could just found that find spaghetti on the ground and
Speaker 1: go around slurving up spaghetti on the ground.
Speaker 2: I haven't had I haven't had breakfast yet. Sound pretty good, like.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I if only I had no dignity,
Speaker 1: I and I'm close, I'm close to having no dignity.
Speaker 1: I would definitely enjoy just dropping a plate a nice
Speaker 1: spaghetti on the ground and slurping it up. That would
Speaker 1: be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, humans are too uptight to do any of the
Speaker 2: fun stuff.
Speaker 1: I know, I know. Just the fact that our culture
Speaker 1: doesn't allow us to have floor spaghetti, it really gets me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So again, it's like.
Speaker 2: Call David. They call it David spaghetti.
Speaker 1: Third day it spaghetti. Excuse you?
Speaker 2: I like you trying to cover cover yourself because you're
Speaker 2: afraid of the losses.
Speaker 1: He's very litigious. He will get you.
Speaker 2: He will love I love that man.
Speaker 1: I do too.
Speaker 2: He's no, I don't know, I don't have an opinion
Speaker 2: about him, but I'm sure he's nice, he's very I mean,
Speaker 2: if he's discovering animals, he's way. He's part of the good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a conservationist. He's a good got a good voice,
Speaker 1: a lot of good things. And maybe maybe he's like
Speaker 1: I'm not saying if he does or doesn't slurp up
Speaker 1: spaghetti on the ground, I won't I won't come on
Speaker 1: either side of that.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm not gonna think of that.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say he does or doesn't do it.
Speaker 2: I'm what if he does get crazy?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: What's next. You know, he's got his head in a
Speaker 2: reef and he's trying to suck stuff.
Speaker 1: If he does, he's allowed to do that because because
Speaker 1: he's got Sir David's Sir David's a kid now, I think,
Speaker 1: not a provingly his assistants.
Speaker 2: Like, hang him upside down. Probably David wants to slurp
Speaker 2: the reef.
Speaker 1: Get the harnessed, Sir David wat, Oh my god, already
Speaker 1: get in position. Maybe it's important for conservation for him
Speaker 1: to understand what it's like to slurp a reef. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I wish he's a hero.
Speaker 2: He's a hero.
Speaker 1: What other what other night of the Queen's Order would
Speaker 1: slurp a reef for conservation? David Attenborough would because he's.
Speaker 2: Not your McCartney.
Speaker 1: No, no, he wouldn't. He wouldn't want to ruin his
Speaker 1: hair by going underwater. I don't know much about.
Speaker 2: You're right about that, No, no, you're right, Okay, exactly right.
Speaker 1: So echidnas, like other monotremes such as platypuses, lay eggs,
Speaker 1: so the females have a pouch where they incubate the eggs,
Speaker 1: and the eggs hatch and the young are called, which
Speaker 1: is adorable.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: These puggles will lick up milk that oozes from their
Speaker 1: mother's underside without the help of nipples. So monotremes typically
Speaker 1: don't have nipples. Instead, the milk just kind of seeps
Speaker 1: out through pores, and they're young just kind of lap
Speaker 1: it up. Uh, because they don't have any dignity, which
Speaker 1: I think is very free.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, that's weird.
Speaker 1: It's it.
Speaker 2: No, I wonder why they concentrated so much on the
Speaker 2: nose and forgot the nipples.
Speaker 1: They forgot, they just forgot.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's a lot it's a lot to think about. Uh.
Speaker 1: The males do have spurs on the back of their
Speaker 1: legs like platypuses, but in achidnas they are not venomous.
Speaker 1: They have lost their venoms. So echidnas, despite looking maybe
Speaker 1: a little more menacing that a platypus, is I think
Speaker 1: less scary because they're not gonna jab you with that
Speaker 1: venomous spike. They also have kloacas, which I like to
Speaker 1: call the hole that does it all, just like birds
Speaker 1: and reptiles. So uh yeah, it is. A kloaca is
Speaker 1: a hole which through which everything from urinating, defecating and
Speaker 1: sex stuff happens, which I think is very efficient.
Speaker 2: Wow, what's it called cloaca?
Speaker 1: Wow? Birds have it?
Speaker 2: I bet I bet you anything. There's a death metal
Speaker 2: band called whatever that is.
Speaker 1: Let's see, I want to find out.
Speaker 2: There must be cloaca. Yeah, like that's a good name
Speaker 2: if you're starting, like a thrash metal or grind.
Speaker 1: Core band, right, Cloaca core because.
Speaker 2: They like to explain it on stage what it is like.
Speaker 2: They probably go like welcome work and in case you
Speaker 2: didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: So there's a kloaca group in London.
Speaker 2: Yep, and there's a taken Cool.
Speaker 1: Formed in two thousand and five in the UK. It's
Speaker 1: atmospheric sludge metal. Yeah, that's my favorite kind of metal.
Speaker 1: Atmospheric sludge.
Speaker 2: That's one of the best kinds.
Speaker 1: So uh. Fun fact about a kidnas A kid does
Speaker 1: have four headed penises.
Speaker 2: So oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like a little high five. So they
Speaker 1: don't urinate out of their penis. That is actually what
Speaker 1: the kloaca is for. They use the penis exclusively for mating,
Speaker 1: and they store the penis in the kloaca and like
Speaker 1: have it kind of like flop out whenever they're ready
Speaker 1: for mating. Store it. Yeah, you know, it goes in there.
Speaker 2: Goodness. Wow.
Speaker 1: Interesting like socks in your sock.
Speaker 2: Drawer storing your penis.
Speaker 1: Sure. Uh, some animals would think it's weird that we
Speaker 1: don't do that.
Speaker 2: Where do you keep your penis?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just leave it out hanging out there really all
Speaker 1: the time. Wow. So they Yeah, it looks like a
Speaker 1: weird little like I don't know, it looks like a
Speaker 1: weird little hand timmy.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, it's not the prettiest looking thing to
Speaker 1: look at, but you know.
Speaker 2: It's horrifying looking I'm you're I feel like you're under
Speaker 2: playing what a nightmare thing is. This looks like absolutely,
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't even it looks extremely gross. I
Speaker 2: mean it looks like Okay, well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sure not to them. I mean, I'm sure it
Speaker 2: looks awesome to them. I think, you know, obviously, but
Speaker 2: it looks like a you know, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: say what it looks like, but it's a very meaty
Speaker 2: and raw looking thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks a little bit like some kind of
Speaker 1: weird role Deli meats.
Speaker 2: But that's what it looks like. You're right. It looks
Speaker 2: like three four rolls of Deli meat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. So. They can only use two heads
Speaker 1: of the penis at the same time when they were mating,
Speaker 1: and it's thought that having multiple heads allow them to
Speaker 1: mate more frequently without break time. Uh but yeah, that
Speaker 1: is the wonderful echidnap with its a worm detecting snout.
Speaker 1: It's sleaky, milky belly laid eggs as a foreheaded penis,
Speaker 1: and it's crazy the size of like a hefty pug.
Speaker 2: Do they does any Well, I'm just I guess you
Speaker 2: couldn't keep that as a pet. I mean people probably
Speaker 2: try and keep everything you probably wish you you're not
Speaker 2: supposed to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't think it'd be great. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've seen it's wiener.
Speaker 2: Like, that's what I'm saying. You don't want to start
Speaker 2: your day looking at that foreheaded, foreheaded deli Deli.
Speaker 1: Meat thing exactly. They've got they've got a natural anti
Speaker 1: poaching method, which is just like, have you seen my wiener?
Speaker 1: It's really weird. You probably don't want to deal with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are kind of cute, though.
Speaker 1: They are cute. They're very cute. I love them. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want one as a pet, but I do love them,
Speaker 1: and I would like to hug it. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: at a zoo. I've seen them, but no, I have
Speaker 1: not personally had the honor of hugging and a kidnaped.
Speaker 2: I just realized that's that the head of an echidna
Speaker 2: with that nose is what those plague masks.
Speaker 1: It does kind of look like I don't know if
Speaker 1: they were meant to look like an echidna, but they
Speaker 1: do definitely look like them a lot. Like Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely the cutest, the cutest little plague doctors out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very cute. I mean, like imagine they had
Speaker 2: no they don't know that they have so much going
Speaker 2: on either. They're just like, I'm minding my business. Stop
Speaker 2: looking at my talking about where my milk comes from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just minding their own business. Snorful.
Speaker 2: It's not my fault. I don't have any nipples. I
Speaker 2: don't know about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I'm trying to.
Speaker 2: Get some worms. I'm trying to eat some worms. Stop
Speaker 2: photographing me.
Speaker 1: Just trying to live their life, stay in their lane
Speaker 1: and snorrefl up ground spaghetti, and we keep talking about
Speaker 1: their lack of nipples.
Speaker 2: It's right.
Speaker 1: I hate this Instagram culture where we're like talking about
Speaker 1: like who does or doesn't have nipples and just you know,
Speaker 1: it's yes.
Speaker 2: And like they're yeah, and they're looking at us like,
Speaker 2: you know, you think you're normal looking buddy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a matter of perspective. It's a matter of yeah.
Speaker 2: Your penis only has one head. Loser.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break and when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about the last animal of today's show
Speaker 1: that has a long face in another direction. So far,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about long faces that shoot forward? What
Speaker 1: about long faces that go side to side or I
Speaker 1: guess that would be a would that be a wide
Speaker 1: face or a long face. I guess that'd be a
Speaker 1: wide face, like a horizontal face.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to find whatever this is. Oh, here it is. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: this is like oh wow, that's a okay, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: like a yeah, that's like a long wide looks like
Speaker 2: a barbell, looks like as a bud on its teeth,
Speaker 2: like a huge or a double headed match, like a
Speaker 2: double headed match.
Speaker 1: Mouth, yeah, like a baton or something. Yeah. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: is the Telopsis dalmani fly or Malaysian stock eyed fly.
Speaker 1: It has a ridiculously wide set face with long eye
Speaker 1: stalks that jut out perpendicular to the fly's head. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they like to hang out around streams any rotting vegetation,
Speaker 1: so they have a chill life. They live on the
Speaker 1: roots of plants that dangle near streams, and they have
Speaker 1: a whole, the whole social life where males will compete
Speaker 1: to establish their territory on these root systems, and if
Speaker 1: they are successful, they will be able to accumulate a
Speaker 1: harem of females. The females will choose which mate they
Speaker 1: wish to join on their little root area, and it
Speaker 1: seems like a lot of the female's decision is based
Speaker 1: on how long the male's eye stalks are.
Speaker 2: Wow, these that's not fair though. What about the other
Speaker 2: ones that have short eyestalks? What are they? What are
Speaker 2: they supposed to do? Plants? Suck on plants all by themselves.
Speaker 1: I just go suck on planet all by yourself, all
Speaker 1: by your lunesome sucks.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I think those short I think
Speaker 2: it's okay if your eyes aren't four feet from your head,
Speaker 2: their eyes are like seriously like they're like, there's like, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like if you had two your eyes were like
Speaker 2: two like two sticks coming out of the size of
Speaker 2: your head, and your eyes are on the ends of
Speaker 2: the sticks. So you're looking at not you're looking like
Speaker 2: it way you're looking at You're not seeing what's right
Speaker 2: in front of your face. You're seeing things that are
Speaker 2: like four feet to either side of your face.
Speaker 1: It's like if you had, yeah, two selfie sticks attached
Speaker 1: to your face permanently with eyeb on the end. That's
Speaker 1: probably what's you know, Brave New Future everybody with selfie sticks.
Speaker 1: Are people still using selfie sticks? I actually don't know.
Speaker 2: We don't hear about them as much. I'll tell you
Speaker 2: that there's too much in the news. There's too much
Speaker 2: in the news cycle these days for selfie sticks to
Speaker 2: get a spot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our twenty four hour news cycle really pushed selfie
Speaker 1: sticks out of there. But yeah, these are like selfie
Speaker 1: sticks on the sides of their heads, so they these
Speaker 1: istalks are so long they can be longer than the
Speaker 1: fly's body length itself, which is a little absurd, a
Speaker 1: little bit interesting to invest that much of your body
Speaker 1: into your eyestalks. So females do also have the exaggerated
Speaker 1: eye stocks, so it's not a trait that has only
Speaker 1: evolved in males to attract females. Females also have them
Speaker 1: there usually not as as exaggerated maybe as males, but
Speaker 1: researchers have found that males also select for female with
Speaker 1: wide eye stocks as well. So apparently both male and
Speaker 1: female stock eyed flies really like long eye stocks for
Speaker 1: some reason. And there are actually many different species of
Speaker 1: flies that have these long eye stocks. In fact, there
Speaker 1: are eight families of flies that have these long eyes stocks,
Speaker 1: so it is not an like one time accident that
Speaker 1: happened with one family of flies, when like evolutionary oopsie,
Speaker 1: this keeps happening for some reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do they know? Why does anybody know why they have?
Speaker 2: Why are those helpful for it to see? Or is
Speaker 2: it more like predators don't want something that looks like
Speaker 2: you know, that's carrying like a.
Speaker 1: Wand I mean it's still it's still somewhat of a
Speaker 1: debate why this is the case. But the main thing
Speaker 1: seems to be sexual selection, where they are selecting mates
Speaker 1: that have this trait. Now, maybe originally that's so interest
Speaker 1: maybe you're i know, like maybe originally having those eye
Speaker 1: stocks probably did help with their vision, right, like give
Speaker 1: them a wider range of vision. But then they started
Speaker 1: it seems like this might be a case of runaway
Speaker 1: selection where they started to select for like, well, you
Speaker 1: have long eyetocks and therefore that helps you see, so
Speaker 1: you're better mate. But then like it kept getting more
Speaker 1: and more exaggerated. There's some of the some of the
Speaker 1: theories are things like it is costly to have such
Speaker 1: long eye stocks, so you have to be really fit
Speaker 1: to be able to have such long eye stalks. There
Speaker 1: there are multiple theories, but the main thing seems that
Speaker 1: seems to be driving this extreme length of the eye
Speaker 1: stocks is is mate choice sexual selection, which is always
Speaker 1: I think sexual selection produces some of the weirdest traits
Speaker 1: because it just is like an aesthetic trait that keeps
Speaker 1: getting more and more exaggerated because these an are not
Speaker 1: necessarily selecting it based on practicality, but because they like
Speaker 1: how it looks, because it for some reason it is
Speaker 1: triggering their would be.
Speaker 2: Like a bodybuilder. Yeah, if a person was a bodybuilder
Speaker 2: and they got their muscles so big that they couldn't.
Speaker 1: Even use them basically, yeah, I mean that, yeah.
Speaker 2: But that would get them. Yeah, somebody would find that attractive. Definitely.
Speaker 2: I mean there's definitely people who like really outlandish muscles,
Speaker 2: but they don't really serve a purpose because then you
Speaker 2: can't move.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no exactly. I mean I think about how like
Speaker 1: we have fake eyelashes, right, that's not really practical anymore.
Speaker 1: Our eyelashes are meant to kind of help shield our
Speaker 1: eyes from things like dirt and stuff. And then and
Speaker 1: then you start putting a fake eyelash on there that's
Speaker 1: really big, really exaggerated, and it is you know, it's
Speaker 1: this attractive thing, but it's it's not it's something that
Speaker 1: we have. You know, well, everyone has their own taste
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: But I just thought about it. I just thought of
Speaker 2: Attenborough's eyelash. I'm still.
Speaker 1: Sir Sir David's eyelash, how many times?
Speaker 2: Uh, I'm trying to provoke him. Is he alive? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course he's alive.
Speaker 2: I just provoked him.
Speaker 1: He's like five hundred years old, but he's alive.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at an animal right now.
Speaker 1: That's so much his brand.
Speaker 2: I've never been so alive. I'm looking at something that can.
Speaker 1: He's he's it's all that. It's all that slurp, but
Speaker 1: on coral reefs. It's really good for your longevity. So
Speaker 1: many antioxidants down there.
Speaker 2: He does it every morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah morning, it's very refreshing. So the stock eye, so
Speaker 1: the stock eyed fruit fly found in China has ridiculously
Speaker 1: long eye stalks as well. The males will compete for
Speaker 1: females by lining up their eye stocks together to see
Speaker 1: who's as bigger. So wow, yeah, it's just this like
Speaker 1: competition for who's got the longest eye stalks. It's really interesting.
Speaker 2: Crazy, you're crazy, because you think you think of these
Speaker 2: bugs looking at at a person, looking at a bug
Speaker 2: looking at another bug, and like judging the eyestocks like
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess, you know, we would be we
Speaker 2: would be led to believe by scientists that they just
Speaker 2: do it instinctively, so they're not in there, they're not
Speaker 2: actually being like I like those eyestocks better, but I
Speaker 2: mean they still have to have some I mean, that's
Speaker 2: such a selection. Is such a strange thing, and an
Speaker 2: animal that's supposed to be operating on instinct, like, but
Speaker 2: there's a certain amount of attraction which we take all
Speaker 2: the sexual you know, it's just instinct, it's just instinct.
Speaker 2: But I wonder, you know, I always wonder whether they
Speaker 2: could just be like you know, they could be on
Speaker 2: the right track. Like maybe who knows if ey stocks
Speaker 2: might be the hottest thing in the world. We just don't,
Speaker 2: you know, we might need them.
Speaker 1: We don't even know, you know, we don't have But
Speaker 1: I'm not saying we need to get eye stocks, but
Speaker 1: maybe they're onto something.
Speaker 2: I mean, who knows. If I'm not on ey stocks
Speaker 2: right now, walk down the avenue.
Speaker 1: You'd be you'd be the bill of the ball. You'd
Speaker 1: be the talk of the town. I mean over It's true,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to go to a china shop and
Speaker 1: knocking over to people go to an antique store. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: But I mean it is interesting because yes, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that in general, like a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that we have that make us feel human, like
Speaker 1: emotions and judgment and stuff. It originally, you know, originally
Speaker 1: as we started out, like we did start out similar
Speaker 1: to something like insects, where you know, we maybe a
Speaker 1: lot of our quote unquote emotions are sort of more instinctive.
Speaker 1: But then the line between like when do our instincts
Speaker 1: and stuff and our our our impulses become emotions. It's
Speaker 1: it's not clear to me when exactly that happens. Like,
Speaker 1: I feel like mice probably feel emotions. Do are there
Speaker 1: insects that feel emotions? Maybe it's just how do you know?
Speaker 1: You can't get it. They they are very very simple,
Speaker 1: so it's hard to imagine that they have very complex emotion.
Speaker 1: But yeah, maybe there's maybe there's some joy that they have.
Speaker 1: Look at a real long set of eye stalks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and their perception of time might be different so people, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they live such a short time but they for them,
Speaker 2: it might be eons, you know, they might have like
Speaker 2: a very full life in like one day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We actually on the show we've talked about before
Speaker 1: this uh flicker fusion rate where it's uh the oh
Speaker 1: basically brain processing time. So some it's speculated that things
Speaker 1: like flies have this, uh it's a very slowed down
Speaker 1: flicker fusion, so that they are able to basically like
Speaker 1: if you're if you're trying to swat a fly, they
Speaker 1: see things potentially in this very very slow motion, very
Speaker 1: high frame rate. Yeah yeah, so like yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: one way to catch a fly is actually if you're
Speaker 1: really slow, they may not be able to detect your
Speaker 1: movement as well because you're going so slow that they
Speaker 1: don't even really notice that you're moving. So you can
Speaker 1: kind of like sneak up on a fly that way.
Speaker 1: I bet you're wondering how do they, like, how do
Speaker 1: they grow these things? How do they emerge out of
Speaker 1: these like where do how do they grow these enormous
Speaker 1: eye stalks? So when the icetock fruit fly first emerges
Speaker 1: out of their shell from their pupil stage, their ice
Speaker 1: stocks are actually short, but over the course of two
Speaker 1: hours with a lot of rubbing and maneuvering. The ice
Speaker 1: stocks get longer and fill with fluid, and at first
Speaker 1: they are really wiggly, they look like a scrunched up
Speaker 1: pipe cleaner. But eventually they straighten out, they darken, they
Speaker 1: harden into the adult set of ice stocks. So I'm
Speaker 1: sharing with you and all, including the show notes, the
Speaker 1: most ridiculous set of photos I've ever seen from a
Speaker 1: scientific journal of this newly hatched ice stock fruitfly, and
Speaker 1: it's istocks growing into its adult proportions, and you can
Speaker 1: see like it's just it's wild, like it looks like
Speaker 1: at first it's just these wiggly squiggly things, and then
Speaker 1: it gets longer and longer and then straighter, and then
Speaker 1: finally it has these ridiculously long eyestalks.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it right now, and I just reminded
Speaker 2: me of the bottom left photo. Looks like Daniel Johnston's.
Speaker 2: You know, Daniel Johnston, the musician. No, oh, he's a
Speaker 2: he's he's considered an outsider artist. But he he painted,
Speaker 2: and he painted like Antenna's with eyes on the end,
Speaker 2: just like that.
Speaker 1: Oh, interesting, very.
Speaker 2: Very that was his he I made I wonder if
Speaker 2: he was aware of these animals, these bugs. I mean
Speaker 2: he often drew these these creatures with with like long
Speaker 2: hoselike things coming out of their head with eyes on
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 1: Daniel Johnston painting drugs.
Speaker 2: See yeah, bugs, he does like uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah that little frog thing, yeah right, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I see it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just reminded me very much of the bottom
Speaker 2: left hand corner of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I totally see that. That's really interesting and.
Speaker 2: I didn't notice it until you see the color. That's
Speaker 2: just like his thing. Yeah, I wonder they're very beautiful.
Speaker 2: I like the before the growing into the eyestalks is
Speaker 2: a very fun looking experience, Like it's kind of fun
Speaker 2: when they're droopy and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's all squiggly.
Speaker 2: They are, as opposed to when they get like stiff,
Speaker 2: then they just look hot.
Speaker 1: Well, on that note, before we go, I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: a little game called the Mystery Animal Sound Game Guess
Speaker 1: Who's squawking? Every week I play a mystery animal sound
Speaker 1: and you the listener, and you the guest, try to
Speaker 1: guess who is making that sound. Uh. Last week's mister
Speaker 1: animal sound was a tough one. The hint was this
Speaker 1: this Madagascar native is named after the following alarm call.
Speaker 1: All right, you hear that little like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know what that is. Sounds
Speaker 2: like a bird. Is that a bird?
Speaker 1: It is not a bird. It does sound a little
Speaker 1: bit like a bird. I might have guessed bird if
Speaker 1: I didn't know what this was. A no. This is
Speaker 1: a type of lemur found in Madagascar called the she fuck.
Speaker 1: Congratulations to Anti B, Marion D and Emily M for
Speaker 1: guessing correctly. So there are nine species of she fuck.
Speaker 1: They have white fur on their backs, brown fur on
Speaker 1: their bellies, and black skin on their faces, hands and feet,
Speaker 1: and yellow eyes. I think they're adorable. They have a
Speaker 1: long tail and their feet are optimized for leaping from
Speaker 1: tree branches, and they are so optimized for living in
Speaker 1: trees and leaping and climbing that while they are on
Speaker 1: the ground, they can't really walk, but instead they leap
Speaker 1: to get around. So they kind of do this like
Speaker 1: jumping sachet sort of movement just to get around.
Speaker 2: That sounds nice.
Speaker 1: It is fun. When I was little, I took ballet
Speaker 1: and we learned how to sachet, and so I would
Speaker 1: just do that through the house because it's actually a
Speaker 1: pretty easy way to get around, is more fun than walking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we limit our we limit ourselves.
Speaker 1: Skipping is fun in an interview efficient, if we didn't
Speaker 1: have so many hang ups about skipping, I think it'd
Speaker 1: be a fun way to get around.
Speaker 2: Yep. So eating spaghetti, eating spaghetti, eating spaghetti off the ground,
Speaker 2: Sasha in around the.
Speaker 1: Things I would do from out from under society's crushing
Speaker 1: expectations exactly. So. They are such good climbers that they
Speaker 1: are able to climb limestone spires to look for vegetation
Speaker 1: that grows on these perilous natural flowers, and their cushioned
Speaker 1: toepads allow them to navigate sharp thorns without injuries. So
Speaker 1: they are tough little guys. They're adorable and they are tough.
Speaker 1: And that sounds you just heard was a she fuck
Speaker 1: calling out to its friends to help locate each other.
Speaker 2: So it's a cute sound.
Speaker 1: It's very cute. It's like a little chuck. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: onto this, So onto this week's mystery animal sound. The
Speaker 1: hint is this, don't be too bitter if you can't
Speaker 1: guess this one.
Speaker 2: Hm m hm hm.
Speaker 1: So Chris and he guesses as to who is squawking.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I mean no, No, that's crazy sound.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a that sounds like the sounds like
Speaker 2: a car going by with a lot of bass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like to me, it sounds like someone's
Speaker 1: blowing on top of a bottle, you know, doing that cool?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's I have No, I mean bitter, bitter,
Speaker 2: don't get bitter the toad? Is it a toad?
Speaker 1: It's a good guess, but you'll find out if you're
Speaker 1: correct on next week's episode of Creature Feature. If you
Speaker 1: out there, think you know who is making that sound?
Speaker 1: Right to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Chris,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me for talking about
Speaker 1: animals with a long face. I hope you don't have
Speaker 1: a long face after listening to this. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Thank you so much, Katie. It's always fun and
Speaker 2: I find out stuff I'd never ever would know. And
Speaker 2: you can find me on at the Crofton Show on
Speaker 2: Twitter and Instagram, and I created a TikTok account, but
Speaker 2: I haven't put anything up on it right, And you
Speaker 2: can go get my book, The Advice King Anthology, which
Speaker 2: came out. I'm Vander Billet University Press last year, and
Speaker 2: you can listen to my awesome podcast Coldbrew got Me Standard.
Speaker 1: He's a real deal. He's drinking coldbrew right now if
Speaker 1: you like. If you think it's just like a marketing strategy, no,
Speaker 1: Katie said she saw it.
Speaker 2: We're on zoom, you know, because yes, I just and
Speaker 2: she was like, it is that iced tea? I kind
Speaker 2: of almost like iced tea? Almost got angry screened.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding through it against the camera.
Speaker 2: I'm a I'm an old time doc worker. I took
Speaker 2: black coffee.
Speaker 1: Ahead, check those things out. Be forewarned that cold brew
Speaker 1: or bus It's never iced tea, always cold brew.
Speaker 2: I got. You know, it's like I just switched. You know.
Speaker 2: I used to drink a lot of alcohol, and now
Speaker 2: I don't drink any alcohol. So I screw and it's
Speaker 2: so much better, I gotta say. But it does interrupt
Speaker 2: your sleep, so you gotta be careful people. No matter
Speaker 2: how long your ey stocks are. You might feel like
Speaker 2: you've got some long eye stocks and you can handle it,
Speaker 2: but but it'll interrupt your sleep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta brew the cold but built with the
Speaker 1: cold brew. You great, Yeah, that's it. Well, thank you,
Speaker 1: guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show
Speaker 1: and you leave a rating and review, I that means
Speaker 1: so much to me. I read every single one of
Speaker 1: your reviews and it really helps me out. Uh and
Speaker 1: thank you so much to these space Cossics for their
Speaker 1: super awesome song XO. Lumina Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or hey, guess what, alright
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. I don't care. Whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do. See you next Wednesday.