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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to an Eimalia stupendium. My name is Argomandanes, Professor

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Speaker 2: Emeritus at the Silk School of Wizardry, Transfiguration, enjoyer and

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Speaker 2: tireless creature chronicler. Alas, as you well know, mere monsters

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Speaker 2: hold no mystery for me. These days, cyclopsies are half

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Speaker 2: as fun as they used to be, and eatons are

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Speaker 2: twice as dull. Thus I turn my attention once more

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Speaker 2: to the strange fauna of a land called Earth. Travel

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Speaker 2: with me, gentle reader, as we consider the musk deer

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Speaker 2: common name musk dear scientific classification eight species of the

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Speaker 2: genus Marcius, frequency and range mountains of South Asia, size

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Speaker 2: between fifty to seventy centimeters twenty to twenty eight inches

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Speaker 2: at the shoulder. Diet mostly leaves, flowers and grasses, treasure horn,

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Speaker 2: highly prized scent gland or musk sack challengating two. As

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Speaker 2: you well know, my own world is one of intensely

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Speaker 2: magical creatures. And while you may find dragons and centaurs

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Speaker 2: intensely interesting to me, they are not only old hat

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Speaker 2: they are illogical. Their study reveals nothing about the world

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Speaker 2: of nature. Instead, these studies reveal only the world of

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Speaker 2: human magic and invention. And while Earth has certainly known

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Speaker 2: the corrupting touch of human invention, it is at least

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Speaker 2: thus far free of actual magic, and that, in my opinion,

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Speaker 2: is its beauty. I, for instance, find more beauty in

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Speaker 2: a mule here than in a manticore. And thus word

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Speaker 2: of the musk deer initially horrified me. A diminutive deer

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Speaker 2: said to carry a sack of valuable perfume, and despite

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Speaker 2: its herbivorous diet, a pair of protruding fangs, and so

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Speaker 2: I ventured into their alleged epode vampire slaying kit. At

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Speaker 2: the retty, I had no choice, I thought, but to

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Speaker 2: eradicate these deer from Hell, these blood sucking traffickers of

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Speaker 2: strange sense, before they could corrupt this world any further.

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Speaker 2: Turns out I was wrong for starters. The musk sack

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Speaker 2: in question is actually an abdominal hair covered gland found

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Speaker 2: only on adult male musk deer. The word musk actually

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Speaker 2: stems from the word for testicles in two prominent Earth languages,

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Speaker 2: Sanskrit and Farci. Because the sack was indeed long mistaken

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Speaker 2: for male gonads. The males use the musk inside, distributed

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Speaker 2: via its urine, to mark territory, attract females, and communicate

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Speaker 2: with rivals. Humans came to prize the pungent contents of

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Speaker 2: the musk sack, using it for traditional medicinal purposes and

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Speaker 2: eventually as an ingredient in various perfumes, though synthetic options

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Speaker 2: have helped to lessen the strain on these now endangered deer.

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Speaker 2: Now I say deer, for such is their name, and

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Speaker 2: they do look like deer of a smaller stature, but

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Speaker 2: genetically they are closer relatives of cattle, sheep and the

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Speaker 2: all mighty goat. Ah. But let us solve the mystery

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Speaker 2: of those impressive fangs. Yes, there is no hint of

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Speaker 2: vamporism here. They do not need an invite to enter

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Speaker 2: your home. Garlic will not discuathe them, and holy symbols

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Speaker 2: of a dozen dire gods will not banish them into

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Speaker 2: the night. Though they do tend to be nocturnal and

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Speaker 2: crepuscular in nature. No, no, no, The tusk like downward

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Speaker 2: protrusions occur only in the males of the species, and

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Speaker 2: are indeed actually elongated canine teeth. They reach lengths of

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Speaker 2: seven to ten centimeters nearly four inches, or one length

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Speaker 2: of a wizard's pin. Lacking horns or antlers, the males

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Speaker 2: use these cruel teeth in aggressive displays against competitors, raising

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Speaker 2: their heads, snorting, wriggling, and allowing thick spittle to drip

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Speaker 2: from their elongated teeth. This display, or the display of

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Speaker 2: a competitor, may be enough to prevent combat from occurring,

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Speaker 2: but if not slashing damage, they'll charge, slashing at the

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Speaker 2: competitors hindquarters and flank, lashing out as well with their

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Speaker 2: front hoofs. They'll even pursue a weaker rival, driving them

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Speaker 2: from their territory, and these attacks may tear flesh and

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Speaker 2: in extreme cases even damage internal organs with possible fatal ramifications. Diminutive, yes,

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Speaker 2: but fierce in their own way. Now there are more

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Speaker 2: mysteries concerning the musk deer to consider, but for now

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Speaker 2: I must retire my wizard's quill and allow my familiars

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Speaker 2: some level of respite. But I shall return with even

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Speaker 2: more wonders of the natural world.

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Speaker 3: Hi, this is Robert Lamb. Thanks once more to the

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Speaker 3: wizard Augo Mantanes for joining us in this episode. Sources

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Speaker 3: for this episode included this stinky substance is eight times

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Speaker 3: the price of gold and harvested from one of the

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Speaker 3: world's rarest creatures by Sheena Harvey, Discover Wildlife twenty twenty five,

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Speaker 3: Quantified analysis of regression patterns in a captive population of

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Speaker 3: musk deer by Ming at All Annals of Animal Science

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Speaker 3: twenty twelve, and The Farming of Musk Deer by B. L.

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Speaker 2: Zang and F. M.

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Speaker 3: Dang, published by Agricultural Publishing Company, nineteen seventy. Thanks, as

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Speaker 3: always to the excellent JJ Possway for producing this episode.

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Speaker 3: If you wish to contact Argomanines with recommendations for future episodes,

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Speaker 3: you can send an email to contact at stuffable your

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Speaker 3: mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.