Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of My Heart Radio. Creeta feature.
Speaker 1: It's greet You Cringle Times, Oh Holiday Special, look about
Speaker 1: our furry friends. Today we'll go into the distant past
Speaker 1: and find out Pool poll keep santas Late Imagination Station.
Speaker 1: Real life unicorns join us as we learn exploring them.
Speaker 1: Early friends were really really rare, and horses used to
Speaker 1: be like you were boys. Greeta feature the Holiday Special.
Speaker 1: But we will not be singing the whole time. I
Speaker 1: promise stay here placed, don't go. Welcome to Creature Future
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. I'm your host of Many Parasites,
Speaker 1: Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today
Speaker 1: on the show, we're talking about Caveman Santa and who
Speaker 1: would have got it as like Happy Creature, Creingle, Happy Creature, Cragle,
Speaker 1: Happy Creature Crest whoa. So we are going to be
Speaker 1: sacking Santa's reindeer and replacing them with my favorite contenders
Speaker 1: from Christmas past, way past, millions of years in the past,
Speaker 1: from a real unicorn to a horse small enough to
Speaker 1: fit in Paris Hilton's purse. These ghosts of Christmas Past
Speaker 1: are ready to spread joy to all the world's children,
Speaker 1: or cave children or apes. When we go far enough
Speaker 1: back does scover this and more as we answer the
Speaker 1: angel question, if you've got a shovel for a mouth,
Speaker 1: how do you kiss under the mistletol Joining me today
Speaker 1: is Front of the podcast host of Secretly incredibly Fascinating
Speaker 1: and jolly Human, Alex Schmidt. Welcome. I have so deeply
Speaker 1: jolly after that song. Yes, I felt like we were
Speaker 1: both clay made a an hon a sled going through
Speaker 1: a wonderful land. That was great. Yeah, our hair kind
Speaker 1: of flopping around as it's not quite animated correctly, and
Speaker 1: like you can see like fingerprints on the clay that
Speaker 1: kind of like style, you know, real rough, real rough
Speaker 1: claymation going on here. Yeah, they made it in a
Speaker 1: hurry and they had to. Yeah, you can see a
Speaker 1: hand in one of the frames. There's like clear wires
Speaker 1: and threads sticking out. But that's what makes it special.
Speaker 1: So today we are we are actually talking about animals
Speaker 1: that do look like they are for m crappy claymation
Speaker 1: from the fifties, like for real, and I am so excited.
Speaker 1: These are prehistoric, extinct animals who I think would be
Speaker 1: quite impressive guiding Santa's sligh. That's very exciting. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's start out, I think with a unicorn. Alex. Do
Speaker 1: you believe in unicorns? Oh? I don't believe in them.
Speaker 1: I just really like the concept that was like, that
Speaker 1: was some really clever. I wonder if people were ever
Speaker 1: like cryptid believing in it type people about unicorns. I
Speaker 1: think it's a very fun, fantastical idea. I think so.
Speaker 1: I think people did just probably because they found fossils
Speaker 1: they couldn't explain and they were like, well, that's a unicorn.
Speaker 1: Or they found a narral tusk and they're like, that's
Speaker 1: a unicorn. That's yeah, that's true. I guess, especially when
Speaker 1: you're digging, if you just find a whole horse and
Speaker 1: one horn from any horned animal, it's an easy mistake
Speaker 1: to make. Yeah, exactly. But what if I told you
Speaker 1: there really was a unicorn and it's very fantastical looking,
Speaker 1: I'd be thrilled. I'd want to ride first. First, I
Speaker 1: was in a claymated sled, very thrilling. Now I'm going
Speaker 1: to ride a unicorn. I've gotta I've gotta listen to
Speaker 1: that like Happy Unicorn power song from that one game
Speaker 1: like the platform or from the internet. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: a good description of it, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So first, in order to discover this unicorn, I want
Speaker 1: you to imagine a rhino, just a regular rhino, got it?
Speaker 1: Is it in there? Now make it bigger, like, way bigger,
Speaker 1: and now make it fluffy. Is it fluffy? Oh fantastic? Yes?
Speaker 1: Now reimagine the rhino's horn. Uh, and to the horn
Speaker 1: of a giant magical unicorn coming right out of the
Speaker 1: middle of its forehead. That's true, the forehead horn. That's
Speaker 1: got to be such a different experience from the nose
Speaker 1: horn right right, like your whole head balance and everything
Speaker 1: that that seems like a maybe small change at first,
Speaker 1: but when I really think about it, boy, totally differently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there aren't really many animals, are any that I can
Speaker 1: think of that really have that single forehead horn. Our
Speaker 1: current day rhinos do sometimes have a sort of nose
Speaker 1: horn and then maybe a forehead horn. The two horned rhinos,
Speaker 1: and some of them just got through the nose horn bump,
Speaker 1: but one horn just right out in the middle of
Speaker 1: the forehead. Really struggling to think of any mammal that
Speaker 1: has that situation going on. Yeah, shoot, I wish they
Speaker 1: were still here. This is prehistoric, right, it's a it's
Speaker 1: departed in an age long ago. It has they have
Speaker 1: gone on a big spaceship and gone to that great
Speaker 1: planet that of the Siberian unicorns in the sky. So, yes,
Speaker 1: this is the extinct Siberian unicorn a k a allasam
Speaker 1: Ethereums sibericum, that once thudded along the grasslands of your
Speaker 1: asia long ago. So Alex, you have it in your imagination,
Speaker 1: and now look at those pictures that I've provided for
Speaker 1: you as well. Yeah, I'm bullet it up. And this
Speaker 1: is an extra good time to me because there's like
Speaker 1: an illustration first and then a physical mock up somebody
Speaker 1: made second. And I think the physical mock up the
Speaker 1: horn gets even bigger if I'm seeing this right, like
Speaker 1: they just I feel like every person who imagines this
Speaker 1: is exaggerating like a fish story with the horn. At
Speaker 1: some point the horn is just so big. It's this
Speaker 1: little little rhinoceros dangling off of it. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: horn itself. We don't I'm going to be real with you,
Speaker 1: we don't really know how big this thing was, the
Speaker 1: size of it is estimated based on the skull, because
Speaker 1: I don't think they have like, um that much in
Speaker 1: turn of full intact horns of like adults. So the
Speaker 1: like it's like there's this indentation on the school that
Speaker 1: seems to be where the horn would have grown out of,
Speaker 1: and then they estimate the size of the horn based
Speaker 1: on other aspects of this thing. So I am a
Speaker 1: little skeptical of the one where it just seems like
Speaker 1: it is this massive horn that is almost I mean,
Speaker 1: it's bigger than its head in circumference almost. Not sure
Speaker 1: if that's true, but it would be cool cool if true.
Speaker 1: I think I think you're right. I think this drawing
Speaker 1: the first version it's and it's still quite a horn,
Speaker 1: and it also seems a little more proportional. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm way into it. And it's so far up on
Speaker 1: the head there. You're right, it's just kind of got
Speaker 1: a snout in the nose area. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: chunky unicorn. It's a thick, thick unicorn. So the Siberian
Speaker 1: unicorn when extinct a little under forty thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: so technically humans may have crossed paths with these fellers
Speaker 1: at some point Uh, it was huge. It was larger
Speaker 1: than any living species of rhino and larger than it's
Speaker 1: contemporary uh, the wooly rhino. So it weighed around four
Speaker 1: tons or two toyota tacomas. Um my favorite unit of measurement. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was mid teen feet or four point five meters long.
Speaker 1: It was also over eight feet or two point five
Speaker 1: meters tall. So is a big boy. Wow. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love with a prehistoric stuff. They do that little
Speaker 1: little scale diagram where it's just a silhouette of a
Speaker 1: little human next to whatever it is. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: know that human would be very dwarfed. Yeah, be a
Speaker 1: little just a little little bitty human. I mean, riding
Speaker 1: one of these things, you'd look like a hobbit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's very like somebody on a giant eagle and learn
Speaker 1: of the rings that scale the eagle is much bigger. Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is. It is shockingly huge. I think
Speaker 1: that it is. And it's funny because it is like
Speaker 1: it's like a very metal unicorn. So like you know,
Speaker 1: you have a unicorn, and people may tease you like,
Speaker 1: oh you like unicorns. That's like, you know, that's weak.
Speaker 1: That's something that manly. You know, I don't even know
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity, but like this, this is a unicorn who
Speaker 1: would thoroughly trounce you. That's I guess forgotten that a
Speaker 1: little bit. There is that gendering of how we assume
Speaker 1: people will like unicorns, Like we think all horse girls
Speaker 1: will also like unicorns, and then boys will be too
Speaker 1: busy with tanks and this animal sort of a tank.
Speaker 1: So it's funny to me that unicorns is seen as
Speaker 1: this is like feminine kind of like um, non tough
Speaker 1: thing because it is a horse that has a spear
Speaker 1: on its forehead. Yeah. Yeah, Like put it together, folks, Right,
Speaker 1: a horse on a bad day can wreck you, right, Like,
Speaker 1: a horse can already wreck you. It can stomp you,
Speaker 1: it can toss you, it can kick you. It's already serious.
Speaker 1: And then you add a weapon to its head and
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, that's you know, that's that's weak, Like
Speaker 1: that's that's silly, and that's for girls. And it's like,
Speaker 1: first of all, uh fine, like if girls have to
Speaker 1: claim unicorns, that's fine. Good luck with your non weaponized horses, fellas.
Speaker 1: That is funny. About a month ago, I rode a
Speaker 1: horse for the first time. Really was it scary and
Speaker 1: scared of horses. It I think it was a very
Speaker 1: well trained horse, but it also had a lot of
Speaker 1: different ideas from me about how we should be proceeding
Speaker 1: in the ride, where we should go, how fast we
Speaker 1: should go. It's like every time I told it to
Speaker 1: do something different changes. It was like okay, fine. But
Speaker 1: also I had learned how to talk to this horse
Speaker 1: like two seconds before getting out it, so I did
Speaker 1: not feel in control at all. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I just hope being perched on this works out. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like I would be very easily
Speaker 1: bossed around by a horse. I love horses. I have
Speaker 1: never ridden a real horse. I've written a pony before
Speaker 1: as a kid, but I thoroughly respect them. And they
Speaker 1: scare me a little bit, like they are so huge,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you are just by your good nature
Speaker 1: not turning my face into a concave bowl like I
Speaker 1: you know, And and I think that they are quite impressive,
Speaker 1: and they the idea of like be like, well, now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hop on you. It's like that seems rude.
Speaker 1: Maybe the horse is fine with it, but I don't
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, and I would just let that board,
Speaker 1: I would let the horse take charge. Really, it's just like, look,
Speaker 1: don't ignore me, do what you want. I'm I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm even here. You want to carrot, don't
Speaker 1: don't kick me? Yeah, should have Bret Carrots. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: and you know, I made it back to shout out
Speaker 1: to Bud. Bud was the name of the horse. But things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a nice guy. But it's it really is. It's
Speaker 1: like you're it's like you're on a motorcycle, but if
Speaker 1: you're also on top of a cliff, and then a
Speaker 1: fire animal can throw you off of the cliff at
Speaker 1: any time if it wants to. It's a motor a
Speaker 1: tall motorcycle with feelings. Yeah. Well, anyway, I want to
Speaker 1: ride this animal. So anyways, this is like a mega rhino,
Speaker 1: also with a huge spear on its head, so good
Speaker 1: luck with that. The horn on its head is thought
Speaker 1: to have been massive of and likely required the Siberian
Speaker 1: unicorn to grow a large muscular hump on its back,
Speaker 1: sort of like a bison. Um. Yeah, and you love bison,
Speaker 1: so I thought you'd like this this guy too. Fantastic.
Speaker 1: It is unknown like I said, how big the horn
Speaker 1: really was, but based on a large Indian found on
Speaker 1: its skull reconstructions, imagine this unicorn is being longer than
Speaker 1: its head and very very thick. Um. I would say
Speaker 1: some of the thickest models of it may be exaggerating
Speaker 1: a little bit, but it even with the more toned
Speaker 1: down the toned down illustrations of it still look ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Like it is like a thick It's like a bison
Speaker 1: mixed with a rhino make a huge and then ama
Speaker 1: like not just like one of those sort of thin
Speaker 1: you know, you know corn horn is a big one.
Speaker 1: It's a chalker. Yeah, when you when you said the
Speaker 1: scientific name before, I think the phrase like there gum
Speaker 1: was part of it. And I'm pretty sure I learned
Speaker 1: from this great show. I first learned about megatheriums, and
Speaker 1: ever since then I've been like, Okay, theorium is probably
Speaker 1: a big animal phrase. I should be like, oh mega too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want the theorium room means thee um? Does
Speaker 1: that mean? Oh? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know Latin.
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't learn Latin at some point because of
Speaker 1: the animals, but I didn't um. But yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is yeah, this is a Lasmothereum sibericum um. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Despite looking like they could easily shish kebab you and
Speaker 1: roast you over an open fire, they were big, old herbivores,
Speaker 1: likely grazers who munched down massive amounts of grass, and
Speaker 1: their dependence on the grasslands may have been what led
Speaker 1: to their downfall. There's not really evidence that we like
Speaker 1: into them to extinction or anything like that. It seems
Speaker 1: to be more that because they were so huge and
Speaker 1: they needed so much grass that as grasslands shrank after
Speaker 1: the ice age, they simply were not able to get
Speaker 1: enough grass to sustain their populations. That makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this definitely seems like it needs to be chomping into
Speaker 1: and all of the time to buil it more horn,
Speaker 1: but also to keep going. Yeah right exactly, so that
Speaker 1: that temperature change really kind of screwed them. Um So,
Speaker 1: in terms of why I think the Siberian unicorn would
Speaker 1: be a good candidate for Santa Cave Santa to bring
Speaker 1: back from uh uh from the I guess from the extinction,
Speaker 1: although I guess if it's Cave Santa case, Santa would
Speaker 1: have been contemporary with this guy, so uh, one is
Speaker 1: that there is huge horn to break ice or to
Speaker 1: fight off grunches. Uh. The Siberian unicorn is also vegetarian friendly,
Speaker 1: it only scrass. It is also fluffy, cold proof, and adorable.
Speaker 1: And it's a literal unicorn, so I feel like it
Speaker 1: is already probably infused with magic. What do you think, Alex?
Speaker 1: I agree with all that, And I'm thinking of that
Speaker 1: like traditional picture of what is it eight reindeer pulling
Speaker 1: the sledges, and I feel like it's like a two
Speaker 1: columns of four reindeer. Is the general arrangement like two
Speaker 1: two two two. These guys would need to work out
Speaker 1: being positioned directly behind each other with an enormous horn,
Speaker 1: And I could do it because like reindeer have those
Speaker 1: huge handlers, they're not sticking up each other's butts all
Speaker 1: the time, you know, so so these guys can probably
Speaker 1: figure it out. But the handlers are a little less
Speaker 1: forward facing than this horn, so I guess they need
Speaker 1: they need some personal space there to avoid a very
Speaker 1: unfortunate situation if like the one in front breaks very suddenly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think maybe a bunch of paving, like yeah, wind
Speaker 1: of socks sort of structure stick a little like ball
Speaker 1: of styrofoam on the top of that point. There could
Speaker 1: be going to work cutting and they put a huge
Speaker 1: one of those foam microphone covers over their horns. It
Speaker 1: could be festive, little festive pom poms, a lot of lights.
Speaker 1: You can put so many Christmas lights on. Wow, that
Speaker 1: you could paint it like a giant candy cane. Gosh. Yeah, So, Alex,
Speaker 1: I know what you're wondering. I know what you're thinking.
Speaker 1: What do you get when you cross a snow shovel
Speaker 1: with an elephant? Man? Finally, here I am on on
Speaker 1: a horseback in the woods, wondering that question, and the
Speaker 1: horse is like, I don't know, man, And I keep
Speaker 1: asking the horse what do with a snowshovel and an elephant?
Speaker 1: It's one of the great unanswered questions of our times. Well,
Speaker 1: I have an answer. It's the platty belladon the world's
Speaker 1: due feist extinct elephant. He looks so dumb. Hooray oh
Speaker 1: I pulled up the picture. Wow, great, very good. This
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite extinct animals. It is one
Speaker 1: of the animals that got me interested in evolutionary biology
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, because I got like a
Speaker 1: what was it, I don't remember the brand of magazine,
Speaker 1: It might have been a Zoo Books, but it was
Speaker 1: like a free magazine we got in the mail that
Speaker 1: was about the Prehistoric Freaks Weekly. That was one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. It was like it was like the evolution
Speaker 1: of the elephant and it showed, uh, just a bunch
Speaker 1: of weird, weird elephants, and I was fascinated by that,
Speaker 1: and it really, I mean I was already I already
Speaker 1: loved almost I think I was already probably addicted to
Speaker 1: animals at that point, but this was this was amazing
Speaker 1: and um so the Playbilla Don was one of the
Speaker 1: world's doofist extinct elephants, possibly the world's dufius looking animal.
Speaker 1: It looks like a Star Wars animal, but something that
Speaker 1: is so silly looking. Even George Lucas would have had
Speaker 1: to edit it out of his films, and he is
Speaker 1: notorious for having doofy things and not knowing how to edit.
Speaker 1: I know, if people don't know really like bison me
Speaker 1: the bison emoji also variants of stuff like elephants, and
Speaker 1: I think just like large mammals or like big yeah,
Speaker 1: and like when those when those deluxe editions of the
Speaker 1: original Star Wars movies came out, I was pretty excited
Speaker 1: about the do backs. I think that whole school of animals,
Speaker 1: I'm like, pretty good. But do backs are also, as
Speaker 1: you say, much more conventional. These guys would be just wacky.
Speaker 1: It would be like, why are the Stormtroopers on a
Speaker 1: comedy animal? Silly? Yeah, so they do have a bit
Speaker 1: of a charger being situation going on the yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So the Platybelodon is a genus of extinct relatives of
Speaker 1: elephants that lived during the Miocene epoch ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: million years ago in Asia and Africa. So imagine an elephant,
Speaker 1: but it's actually a bit smaller. Sometimes when we go prehistoric,
Speaker 1: the animals are bigger, like giant sloths, and this giant
Speaker 1: unicorn rhino is sometimes a smaller you know. Uh so
Speaker 1: this one's a little bit smaller. Now, turn its trunk
Speaker 1: into a giant shovel like it's almost kind of like
Speaker 1: duck bill thing with a couple of buck teeth sticking
Speaker 1: out of the lower jaw right on the tip of
Speaker 1: its mouth. In addition, it still has tests on the
Speaker 1: side of its mouth like modern elephants. So there has
Speaker 1: been a lot of debate about exactly what this thing
Speaker 1: looks like. So there are some depictions of it that
Speaker 1: are a little more far fetched than others. All of
Speaker 1: the depictions of it are bananas bonkers, so don't worry
Speaker 1: like there's there's no a depiction of it that makes
Speaker 1: it look normal, like a reasonable animal. Some are just
Speaker 1: a little more wild than others. The depiction that is
Speaker 1: my favorite, but possibly the least accurate, is the one
Speaker 1: where it has like stretched out daffy duck uh like
Speaker 1: bill with like buck teeth on the bottom. So it's
Speaker 1: hard to know exactly what they look like because we
Speaker 1: only have the like fossil records. We don't have the
Speaker 1: soft tissue records, so like, we don't know what like
Speaker 1: any of the sort of soft tissue would have looked like.
Speaker 1: We can only guess based on the the skull, the
Speaker 1: lower jaw, what the upper fleshy part of their um
Speaker 1: essentially like it's this elongated proboscus would have looked like.
Speaker 1: So with a modern elephant, you have a elongated nose
Speaker 1: that acts as this big proboscis and has all these
Speaker 1: muscles very fine tune control, and its mouth is way
Speaker 1: back um, you know, like it's like it pulls. It
Speaker 1: doesn't eat with the tip of its trunk. It can
Speaker 1: breathe with the tip of its trunk, but it you know,
Speaker 1: can pull up grasses or vegetation and bring it up
Speaker 1: to its mouth. And you've probably seen an elephant eat,
Speaker 1: you've probably seen it drink. It also doesn't drink like
Speaker 1: through its nose. It sucks that water in and then
Speaker 1: dumps it into its mouth. So so it's thought that
Speaker 1: the Platybellodon had a similar situation going that it didn't
Speaker 1: like have a weird mouth at the tip of its proboscus,
Speaker 1: but unlike the unlike the elephant, it had a low,
Speaker 1: elongated lower jaw. Now this is pretty pretty definitive based
Speaker 1: on the fossil records. We have the fossil records of
Speaker 1: this really long like weird scooper shovel shovel like lower
Speaker 1: jaw that probably had these like two sort of like
Speaker 1: buck teeth or like weird uh, just like two tusks
Speaker 1: together that's stuck out at the bottom. So definitely had
Speaker 1: a long lower jaw. Now the upper one, like it
Speaker 1: could have been more like a modern day elephant tusk, right,
Speaker 1: because the idea that it was more like an elephant
Speaker 1: tusk is that its mouth again, like, how is it
Speaker 1: going to get stuff in its mouth like like sort
Speaker 1: of scoop things up and then like toss its head
Speaker 1: all the way back and hope that it all falls in.
Speaker 1: Probably not uh with that. If it hasn't easily manipulatable
Speaker 1: upper proboscis, then it could like you know, pick things
Speaker 1: up and then place it back into its mouth, which
Speaker 1: is like you know, sort of like the the the
Speaker 1: bits where it would be able to chew and eat
Speaker 1: stuff is not at the tip of that proboscus or
Speaker 1: even at the tip of that jaw. It would be
Speaker 1: in like deeper. I mean, like it's weird to think
Speaker 1: about because our mouths are so like self contained. But
Speaker 1: for this, for this thing, it can't like chew with
Speaker 1: the front bits of its lower jaw or its long proboscus.
Speaker 1: It's got to get it back there somehow. So like
Speaker 1: the depictions of its mouth is more like a weird
Speaker 1: I don't even know, just like a weird kind of
Speaker 1: like beak thing that like closes all the way. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: then this, that upper thing would have to somehow get
Speaker 1: stuff in that deeper into its mouth, and it's a
Speaker 1: little unclear how it would do that with such a long,
Speaker 1: unwieldy duck like proboscis. But you know, it could have
Speaker 1: been flatter than a modern day elephants trunk, but still
Speaker 1: could manipulate things like still grab things and manipulate and
Speaker 1: push it back, so I get I. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: probably the most accurate model would be elephant with this
Speaker 1: ridiculously long lower jaw with the two buck teeth sticking out.
Speaker 1: So that's still good. That's still there. Oh yeah, we're
Speaker 1: not losing that. The top part of it probably a
Speaker 1: flatter but still relatively recognizable elephant trunk on top of
Speaker 1: it's not quite like a weird duck bill, but still
Speaker 1: a a a flatter, a little bit thicker and flatter
Speaker 1: elephant trunk. That's my unprofessional opinion that that's making me
Speaker 1: think of obviously all the cartoon ducks you mentioned total fit,
Speaker 1: and then I'm thinking of the Disney character Goofy, Like
Speaker 1: if you put those two teeth of his on the
Speaker 1: bottom and set the top, that's kind of the mouth
Speaker 1: we're looking at, which I don't. I don't want to
Speaker 1: see him eat at all out of the cartoon. It's
Speaker 1: it's very even the most reserved reconstructions of this are
Speaker 1: wild and very very strange. Looks like a fever dream
Speaker 1: of an elephant. Um now, uh, they're so like. There
Speaker 1: used to be this theory about this elephant that kind
Speaker 1: of informed the illustrations of it, which is that it
Speaker 1: used its mouth as a shovel and kind of like
Speaker 1: would live in sort of swampy areas and then shovel
Speaker 1: up sort of swamp grasses and then like you know,
Speaker 1: kind of let it sort of drop in the backs
Speaker 1: of their mouths. But modern researchers think that it's more
Speaker 1: likely given the shape and characteristics of those low or
Speaker 1: buck teeth that just jut out. God, it's just it's
Speaker 1: so weird. It's like a big spoon with like these
Speaker 1: two like a fork at the end. I don't even know, man,
Speaker 1: it's look this thing up. Please look it up, and
Speaker 1: don't look at just the first result. Look at many
Speaker 1: different reconstructions. So the thought is that, um uh, that
Speaker 1: they used this lower jaw not to like as a shovel,
Speaker 1: but actually as like a tree trimmer. So uh, it's
Speaker 1: like basically the wear patterns on this seem to indicate
Speaker 1: that it was used to strip off bark and leaves
Speaker 1: off of trees. So basically it would use his lower
Speaker 1: jutting jaw to like tree trim the tree, and then
Speaker 1: its upper trunk to take that stuff it just trimmed
Speaker 1: and then push it back into its mouth. I yeah,
Speaker 1: like a bucket for catching. You're like an ounce yielder
Speaker 1: is amazing. Yeah, yeah, so it's I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: like you can imagine this thing shred and stuff with
Speaker 1: its weird lower jaw and then picking it up with
Speaker 1: its upper trunk thing and then putting it in its mouth.
Speaker 1: Just I mean, there's no no matter how one reconstructs this,
Speaker 1: this elephant, it was preposterous. Yeah, some for some reason.
Speaker 1: I actually some comedy sketch where like a tree has
Speaker 1: a mind like a human, and it's like, look at
Speaker 1: that dumb animal. Definitely eats marsh stuff, doesn't me, it's
Speaker 1: getting closer to me, don't need to worry about it.
Speaker 1: Getting even closer to me, doesn't matter. Stupid marsh mouth.
Speaker 1: Definitely that oh no, definitely a tree drivers about No.
Speaker 1: So this is why I think the Platybelodon would be
Speaker 1: a good candidate for Santa's sligh team. So even though
Speaker 1: it may not have used its mouth as a shovel,
Speaker 1: I think it still could so emergence the snowshovel mouth
Speaker 1: for efficient rooftop landings, as long as the roof is
Speaker 1: structurally stable enough to handle the weight of a small elephant. Uh.
Speaker 1: But in addition, those buck teeth would be useful for
Speaker 1: tree trimming, so cutting down uh Christmas trees, trimming them
Speaker 1: all great? Uh? Proboscis could the elephant trunk part of
Speaker 1: it could be used to help tie Christmas presents? Uh sorry,
Speaker 1: creature Kringle presents. I want to be clear here. This
Speaker 1: is for Creature Kringle Times, a nondenominational holiday for all.
Speaker 1: Uh so yeah, so creature creature of a creature Kringle
Speaker 1: Times presence um also Santa at least our creature Kringle
Speaker 1: Time Santa Cave. Santa is a kind magical man who
Speaker 1: knows not to ride on top of the platty Belodon
Speaker 1: because platty Belodon, like modern elephants, had, probably had a
Speaker 1: skeletal structure that means they can't bear the weight of
Speaker 1: a human writer and that can hurt them. So Cave
Speaker 1: Santa would know this because he's you know, magical and
Speaker 1: would use magical slight powder to help the platty billad
Speaker 1: on fly and there would be no pressure on its back.
Speaker 1: And they're probably friends. So that's canon. Yeah, that's that's true.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. I like that we're thinking so much
Speaker 1: about how this animal eats. Yes, it's making me think
Speaker 1: about Santa. Like there's so much Santa Laura about how
Speaker 1: Santa eats and drinks as this night goes on, Like
Speaker 1: he has a couple of billion helpings of milk and cookies.
Speaker 1: So I want the Christmas stuff to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: kids like Santa will come have milk and cookies. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: his platty belladons are eating the trees outside our house.
Speaker 1: That's a fun break to me. That's a good good
Speaker 1: stopper snacks. Yeah, make sure to plant a lot of friendly,
Speaker 1: deciduous edible trees for the Plotty Belladon, the Creature Kringle
Speaker 1: Times Plotty Belaton. You're like, oh, what a wonderful set
Speaker 1: of presents. Anyway, time to go outside and all the
Speaker 1: trees are just gone, Like you can just see for
Speaker 1: miles you know, right, I mean you gotta pay the piper,
Speaker 1: in this instance an extinct elephant relative. Yeah. Just a
Speaker 1: lot of rooftop damage too from the magical platybelod On
Speaker 1: thumping down onto the roof. I feel like reindeer reindeer
Speaker 1: would cause a good amount of damage anyways, So that's yeah.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of especially kids are like, oh,
Speaker 1: all hoofed animals are on like pony logic where it's
Speaker 1: tiny in a way I want it to be, but
Speaker 1: those things are huge, like they would definitely break through
Speaker 1: a lot of roofs and jingles and stuff. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of tiny pony logic, when we return, we are
Speaker 1: going to stop with the big and start thinking small.
Speaker 1: So tiny pony time, Tiny pony time, Tiny time, the
Speaker 1: tiny any time. It's like tiny tim but tiny pony,
Speaker 1: May I have some ponies. It's like, I'll give you ponies.
Speaker 1: I'm actually very nice surprised. So so far we've gone
Speaker 1: with huge animals who could probably take over, like the
Speaker 1: whole reindeer team, to be honest, like the platty belled
Speaker 1: On the Siberian Unicorn, both quite huge megafauna. But what
Speaker 1: about microfauna keeny tiny adorable animals. So let's look at
Speaker 1: the world's first horse. Uh, number one, horse number one,
Speaker 1: Like once we started making these horses very different from
Speaker 1: from the horses today. So when we think about like
Speaker 1: the world's first x y Z, it's it's like kind
Speaker 1: of tricky, right, Like, well, what truly was the world's
Speaker 1: first horse? Well, it's more like this is the first
Speaker 1: sort of common ancestor of all horses. And that's essentially
Speaker 1: what we would say, like, you know the first horse,
Speaker 1: and the first horse was so teeny and tiny inch ball. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's so wonderful. Um. The first horse was the
Speaker 1: Pripis Sandre, which was a genus of teeny tiny, itty
Speaker 1: bitty baby horses who lived in Wyoming over fifty million
Speaker 1: years ago. So it was the size of a chihuahua
Speaker 1: around eight pounds or four and a half ms. It
Speaker 1: was smaller than a modern horse's head. So this kind
Speaker 1: of horse, I feel like I could confidently boss around.
Speaker 1: It's true, isn't it? Is this the horse from the
Speaker 1: question about the duck sized horses or the horse sized
Speaker 1: duck is right? But I wouldn't want to fight these
Speaker 1: guys because they're so cute. No. No, And also anytime
Speaker 1: people ask that question, I'm like, why are you battling animals?
Speaker 1: They're so nice? Like, I don't know, but I feel
Speaker 1: like if the duck sized horses want to fight you,
Speaker 1: you've done something to deserve it. Absolutely all a hundred
Speaker 1: of them can't be wrong. So the main difference between
Speaker 1: it and modern horses, other than obviously the fact it's
Speaker 1: the size of a lap dog, is its feet. So
Speaker 1: while horses have one fused toe, the safripis had multiple toes. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it's like a teeny tiny horse with little tootsies. Cool. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll bet that's I'll bet that's helpful for walking. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a little more control, grip, etcetera. You're not
Speaker 1: just on a stub. That has to be one thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's a trade off, right like
Speaker 1: you are sort of. Um, the hoof has some great
Speaker 1: properties in terms of like sort of suspension, weight distribution,
Speaker 1: things like that, uh, toughness of the feet and the
Speaker 1: fact that this thing like continually the horse hoof like
Speaker 1: sort of continually grows and makes it very tough and
Speaker 1: so a horse can uh in a wild horse can
Speaker 1: sort of trample over rough terrain and like shoes, you know,
Speaker 1: natural shoes, growing shoes. The reason we actually have to
Speaker 1: shoe horses that are domesticated is because they are on
Speaker 1: harder surfaces, so like streets, cobblestone, things like that, and
Speaker 1: you kind of like paved thing is gonna be too
Speaker 1: hard on the hoofs and we'll wear them down too quickly.
Speaker 1: But wild horses are on softer terrain, but still having
Speaker 1: those like hooves uh does protect their feet and legs
Speaker 1: from the stress of like galloping and running. And they
Speaker 1: don't really need the other toes uh for things like
Speaker 1: they don't use them for other things. So that is
Speaker 1: why generally speaking, like you would have something like a
Speaker 1: hoof form, but for this little tiny light animal, it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily need the hoof structure so much to like
Speaker 1: you know, offer that cushioning that protection as it's like running,
Speaker 1: and the toes might be useful for something like digging
Speaker 1: things up. In fact, like some ungulates, not all ungulates
Speaker 1: have like horse hoofs. Some are like have multiple toes,
Speaker 1: and some have things like cup shaved hoofs, like caribou
Speaker 1: or reindeer have these like cup shaped hoofs uh, that
Speaker 1: can actually like dig up vegetation. So yeah, they're all
Speaker 1: sorts of interesting hoof structures. But yeah, the first the
Speaker 1: first horse ancestor genus, like they had multiple toes, they
Speaker 1: didn't had not yet had those all fused into that
Speaker 1: one hoof. Wow, that's also interesting. I didn't know much
Speaker 1: of any of that, especially like cup shaped hooves. That's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems very handy, very very handy. R hoofy uh,
Speaker 1: I'm so human centric, Like those are probably bad and
Speaker 1: hands are the best, is my perspective. Interestingly, scientists are
Speaker 1: looking at how the prepose responded to climate change to
Speaker 1: predict how species might be impacted during our current anthropogenic
Speaker 1: climate change. So in the past there's been climate change, right,
Speaker 1: like natural climate change. Currently, the climate change we're experiencing
Speaker 1: is increasing at a rate unprecedented, and it's anthropogenic caused
Speaker 1: human cause. Like, there's a bunch of research on this.
Speaker 1: So like when people were like, oh, well, you know
Speaker 1: there's been climate change in the past, like is different. Um,
Speaker 1: but even in the past climate change did have a
Speaker 1: huge impact on the world. So, um, there was a
Speaker 1: period of rapid heating during the Paleocene Eocene thermal maximum,
Speaker 1: which was around fifty five million years ago, where global
Speaker 1: temperatures rose by almost twenty degrees fahrenheit or eight degrees
Speaker 1: celsius and lasted around two hundred thousand years. And the
Speaker 1: paleontologists have found that this caused this A Rippus species
Speaker 1: to get small, going from around twelve pounds to eight pounds,
Speaker 1: so they started off and when even more teacup size,
Speaker 1: it's possible then that researchers speculate that maybe modern animals
Speaker 1: will adapt to global warming by getting smaller, if they
Speaker 1: don't just go extinct. So yeah, like global warming today
Speaker 1: is happening at an alarming leak fast rate, So the
Speaker 1: worry is that it's happening too fast for animals to adapt.
Speaker 1: Um that is just going to like cause sort of
Speaker 1: extinctions rather than you know, a more gradual natural selection.
Speaker 1: But it's possible that animals will become smaller in response
Speaker 1: to global warming, and that's not necessarily good thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: but you know that's such a man I never thought
Speaker 1: of that being a way things can go though. Even
Speaker 1: that's amazing, And I guess we have these ancient examples
Speaker 1: of some non human cause stuff that can be a guidance.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah, I mean again, it's very different because
Speaker 1: this is a different kind of global war warming that
Speaker 1: is happening in a much shorter time scale than historic
Speaker 1: periods of global warming. But yeah, it's it's still possible
Speaker 1: that we would see there be some selection for smaller animals. Um,
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to know exactly. But anyways, let's talk
Speaker 1: about how we could get this if Frippis to uh
Speaker 1: uh told Santa sleigh h Also, can we can we
Speaker 1: celebrate the name zef Rippis? Come on, folks, well, actually
Speaker 1: it's got the acronym of your podcast in there. S
Speaker 1: I f r H I P p U s so
Speaker 1: s I f secretly in incredibly fascinating. This is the
Speaker 1: horse of your podcast. That's right. I'm sitting on one
Speaker 1: every time I tape. It's doing fine. It can it
Speaker 1: can handle it. It kind of like made me think
Speaker 1: of like some old timey way of like writing, sir,
Speaker 1: and I'm reading it as like some media medieval like
Speaker 1: s Frippis like you know, some kind of honorific. So, uh,
Speaker 1: let's say that Frippis gets the same magical properties, same
Speaker 1: physics of the nine reindeer that Santa has. And remember,
Speaker 1: reindeer are real animals, also known as caribou. They are
Speaker 1: quite hefty. Santa's reindeer are likely female because male reindeer
Speaker 1: shed their antlers in the winter, while females keep their
Speaker 1: antlers during the winter and shed them in spring. So
Speaker 1: all all those prancer d answer, they're they're all ladies, okay.
Speaker 1: I Also, I when when I was thinking about like
Speaker 1: how this sleigh is arranged, and I was thinking of
Speaker 1: eight reindeer, I think I fully forgot about Rudolph. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is definitely the most famous one. Uh. I'm the
Speaker 1: one who has been through the Alex is the one
Speaker 1: that was denying Rudolph those reindeer games. So direct your
Speaker 1: hate towards Alex. Yeah, it's four on four man, what
Speaker 1: do you want? What we gotta do? You can't have
Speaker 1: an odd number. Yeah, And also it's eight ladies. You're
Speaker 1: a guy, that's fine, but you know, we kind of
Speaker 1: have a thing. I mean, it's interesting because Rudolph is
Speaker 1: sometimes depicted as not having antlers, like having little nubs,
Speaker 1: so he could actually be the only male. Wow, right,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, Santa Santa is so he just has a
Speaker 1: lot of personnel decisions going on that we don't understand.
Speaker 1: We're not privy to it. You know, how do I
Speaker 1: get in that meeting? So? Uh, females way around two
Speaker 1: pounds or female reindeers, so uh times nine rain year,
Speaker 1: that's like eight hundred pounds of pure reindeer. So obviously
Speaker 1: there's probably more biophysics that goes into this in terms
Speaker 1: of like muscle capacity, pulling capacity, skeletal strength. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do any of that. It's creature kringle nous.
Speaker 1: We don't have time. So how many seff rippists do
Speaker 1: we need to equal this amount of reindeer heft? Sef
Speaker 1: Rippis are only around eight to twelve pounds, so you'd
Speaker 1: need a hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five sef rippis tiny ponies to equal nine reindeer. So
Speaker 1: you would get to hear the little toe toe steps
Speaker 1: of two hundred tiny horses pulling uh Cave Santa's sleigh
Speaker 1: or at least like these were not these were like
Speaker 1: around fifty million years ago. Humans were not around at
Speaker 1: this time, so Cave Santa would have to do some
Speaker 1: kringle Man magic to bring this guy back. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: And and I guess the naming situation is fun. You
Speaker 1: get to pick a lot of names. Maybe it's too
Speaker 1: many to pick right, there's you know, Clarence one, Clarence too,
Speaker 1: Clarence three, Clarence four, the first name we pull. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're all clarances. I can't, I can't. I guess it
Speaker 1: would eventually be like NASA where they just start numbering
Speaker 1: the asteroids, you know, like there's too many asteroids. Man,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? Tiny horse? Just one serial numbers, yeah,
Speaker 1: just serial numbers on their butts. Poor poor little horses.
Speaker 1: Maybe they don't want to Maybe they don't want to fly,
Speaker 1: creature kringle time slamming. They just want to hang out,
Speaker 1: chill out and grasslands and skip around. I also, I'm
Speaker 1: just really saying how pretty that herd probably is. It
Speaker 1: probably looks like a flackup birds or something. Just that
Speaker 1: made little guys, just a little guys, just a little
Speaker 1: like just great, just so cute. I would love to
Speaker 1: have a lap horse like this, just had it keep
Speaker 1: in my lap, feel a little baby carrots, because that's
Speaker 1: all could have because it's so small. I do I
Speaker 1: want to see one try to pick up a whole
Speaker 1: carrot and just thud. Little baby, little baby. It's so cute.
Speaker 1: I love tiny horses. I love tiny horses. Bring back like.
Speaker 1: I know that we have a bunch of like extinction
Speaker 1: projects and stuff, and maybe it's unethical, but I don't care.
Speaker 1: Bring back this horse. Yeah, do it. Come don't worried
Speaker 1: about it. Come on. My My proposal for like government
Speaker 1: funding is come on, tiny horse. Done just at the
Speaker 1: the at I h or some huge government organization. You're
Speaker 1: just poking somebody at the desk, like standing behind poke,
Speaker 1: poke about. Well, before we go, we gotta play a
Speaker 1: little game, and that game is called ghost Who Squawking
Speaker 1: the Mystery Animal Sound game. Every week I choose mr
Speaker 1: Animal sound, and you the listener, and you the guests,
Speaker 1: try to guess squawking. The rules are it's any animal,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's the rules. You gotta gets last week
Speaker 1: mystery animal sound. The hint is this am I asking
Speaker 1: a lot for you to guess this sound. So Alex,
Speaker 1: can you guess who is making that sound? That is?
Speaker 1: Spis it's a lot? Brought it back at such I
Speaker 1: feel like it's doing something really busy with its hands
Speaker 1: while it's doing that. That was the vibe I got. Um,
Speaker 1: So I'm yeah, I'm imagining like tiny you know, you know,
Speaker 1: like any especially of rodent that's good with its hands.
Speaker 1: That's my guess. Interesting, it's wrong, but it's interesting. So
Speaker 1: this is an axel attel. Congratulations to Jared im, Tiffany
Speaker 1: In and Christina are who gets correctly. So this is
Speaker 1: kind of a tricky one because axel attels aren't really vocal.
Speaker 1: They don't even have vocal cords. So how it makeing
Speaker 1: this squeak? Well, it can do a little squeak when
Speaker 1: it comes to the surface to get a gasp of air.
Speaker 1: So axel attles are aquatic. They're actually the neotonous form
Speaker 1: of a salamander. They retain their juvenile characteristics throughout their
Speaker 1: whole lifespan, never sort of more metamorphosized into adults. And
Speaker 1: uh so they have gills, those like fluffy sideburns that
Speaker 1: you see on an ax lottle. You know what an
Speaker 1: ax a lottle looks like, right, Alex, Yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: it's an amphibian, right or something. But yeah, it's got
Speaker 1: that like low head and the little frills. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so like it actually spends all of its life
Speaker 1: in aquatic environments. But it does have a very sort
Speaker 1: of simple set of lungs and it can like gulp
Speaker 1: in air through its mouth. It's not very good at it,
Speaker 1: but it will do that if it like kind of
Speaker 1: needs a little extra air. Maybe that's not getting as
Speaker 1: much air as it needs or enough oxygen as it
Speaker 1: needs in the water, or it just kind of feels
Speaker 1: like doing it, so it'll come up and get a
Speaker 1: little gasp of air. And so the sound of that
Speaker 1: squeak is that of air bubbling out of its mouth,
Speaker 1: like when air comes out of a balloon or squeaky toy.
Speaker 1: So it's not an intentional sound. It's just purely incidental
Speaker 1: to the ax a lottle getting a little breath of air.
Speaker 1: But it's like it is actually functioning like a little
Speaker 1: squeaky toy. This is so there's a future episode of
Speaker 1: secretly incredibly fascinating coming about rubber ducks. And so I've
Speaker 1: had like little squeaky bath toys really out of my mind.
Speaker 1: Now I want an excel attle toy. That would be great.
Speaker 1: Axcel Attles are the bath toys of the animal Kingdom.
Speaker 1: Just don't squeeze them. Don't squeeze them. They won't like that.
Speaker 1: Latm squeeze themselves exactly onto this week's mystery animals sound
Speaker 1: the hint this is one cool chick, So Alec, can
Speaker 1: you guess who is making that sound? One cool check? Okay,
Speaker 1: I should have known you'd bring up fair down typical
Speaker 1: Katie with the birds. Uh, but yeah, it's so like
Speaker 1: that noise it almost sudded likes or sounds. I know
Speaker 1: that's not what it is, but it was like, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. Yeah, probably a baby version of
Speaker 1: some kind of tropical bird. Maybe that's not specific enough,
Speaker 1: but you know, is that your final answer? Yeah? That is. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tell you if you're right or wrong,
Speaker 1: because you'll find out on next episode of Creature feature
Speaker 1: the world's Biggest cliffhanger. So, Alex, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me today. Where can the people find you?
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me? It's always great. Uh, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope people enjoy my podcast Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, which
Speaker 1: also should have a recent episode about snoopy Yeah, featuring
Speaker 1: guest Katie Golden. That's out and that's me that's you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's history and science and stories about why
Speaker 1: something seemingly ordinary is amazing. And I'm also glad Patron's
Speaker 1: picks Snoop because you know, folks love Snoopy. And also
Speaker 1: it turns out there was a lot more there, a
Speaker 1: lot of snoopets out there. Yeah. I think this show
Speaker 1: is fantastic. I highly recommend it if you like this podcast.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I've been on a guest on it a
Speaker 1: few times now. And yeah I am on the Snoopy
Speaker 1: Snoopy Verse episode, so do check that out. Uh, and
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: the show and you want to leave a rating or review,
Speaker 1: hey they Hey, I would love that. I read all
Speaker 1: of them and they make me happy. And uh, if
Speaker 1: you have an answer to this week's mystery animal, sound
Speaker 1: game or question or picture of your pet, you can
Speaker 1: write to me at Creature Feature pot at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And thank you so much to the Space Costics for
Speaker 1: their super awesome song excel Alumina. Creature Feature is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the
Speaker 1: one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or Hey, guess what where have you listen to?
Speaker 1: Your favorite shows and and people, happy, creature cringinal times.
Speaker 1: Enjoy it. See you next Wednesday. Okay m.