Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas,
Speaker 1: and monsters. In time, countless variations of the vampire have
Speaker 1: emerged from our popular culture, fed by the blood of
Speaker 1: global myths, folk tales, and legends. Some are sparkly and sexy,
Speaker 1: other sinister and dangerous, others altogether monstrous. The Nosforatu vampire
Speaker 1: has come into its own, a pale, emaciated body with
Speaker 1: ghoulish features, batlike ears, and a pair of elongated incisors
Speaker 1: for piercing the skin of their victims rather than the
Speaker 1: elongated canine teeth found in so many other vampire depictions.
Speaker 1: While not always completely devoid of humanity, they tend toward
Speaker 1: the purely monstrous end of the vampire e spectrum. They
Speaker 1: have been consumed by their unnatural thirst, and this may
Speaker 1: leave them in a primal state, or one in which
Speaker 1: their human memories have faded gossamer then naturally. This monster
Speaker 1: dates back to the nineteen twenty two silent German expressionist
Speaker 1: film Nosferatu A Symphony of horror, which in turn has
Speaker 1: been reimagined many times, including in the Werner Herzog nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine film Nosferatu the Vampire. I find the Nosferatu
Speaker 1: particularly engaging in light of what we know of obligate
Speaker 1: sant guovar's in the natural world, particularly vampire bats. It
Speaker 1: is a highly specialized diet blood and not at all
Speaker 1: an easy survival path. Unlike their insect and fruit eating relatives,
Speaker 1: vampire bats cannot hibernate or migrate. They lack the fat store,
Speaker 1: so instead they must feed every night, lapping up fifty
Speaker 1: of their body weight in order to survive. So too,
Speaker 1: the Nosferatu seems shackled to its thirst. In the fifth
Speaker 1: edition of Dungeons and Dragons, the Nosferatu merits its own
Speaker 1: monster manual entry, separate from all the other blood drinkers,
Speaker 1: with a level eight challenge rating. It's no pushover, but
Speaker 1: it's both powerful and in some ways fragile. Hyper sensitive
Speaker 1: to sunlight. It has a few different attack actions at
Speaker 1: its disposal, including blood disgorge, in which quote the Nosferatu
Speaker 1: vomits blood in a fifteen foot cone. In doing this,
Speaker 1: it inflicts necrotic damage on any hapless hero in its way.
Speaker 1: In the natural world, scavenging vultures are known to disgorge
Speaker 1: their meals when threatened, perhaps to bribe the attacker or
Speaker 1: to lighten their load for an escape flight. This would
Speaker 1: be a fit in comparison for the nosferatu, but the
Speaker 1: Texas hornet lizard boast an impressive defense as well. While
Speaker 1: it's camouflage is generally quite effective, it can also shoot
Speaker 1: a stream of blood out of its eyelids with a
Speaker 1: range of up to five ft. According to the Oklahoma
Speaker 1: Department of Wildlife Conservation. The blood also contains a bitter chemical,
Speaker 1: possibly derived from ants and the lizard's diet, which predators
Speaker 1: such as coyotes find particularly distasteful. The lizard can use
Speaker 1: up to a third of its total blood supply in
Speaker 1: this counter attack, but it gets the message across. Tune
Speaker 1: in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week.
Speaker 1: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind It's production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
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