Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess What Will?
Speaker 3: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So I was thinking about how sometimes we forget that
Speaker 1: all these simple things around us.
Speaker 2: Are really music, and what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: Like I was in traffic coming from the airport this
Speaker 1: weekend and everyone was honking, and I remembered how most
Speaker 1: cars actually honk in the key of F or.
Speaker 2: This is another thing.
Speaker 1: When I was in high school, this kid Sean, and
Speaker 1: my jazz band realized that our high school's bell rang
Speaker 1: at I think a G. So when the class was
Speaker 1: over and the first bell rang, everyone would harmonize and
Speaker 1: play a G seven chord on their instruments. It's so nerdy,
Speaker 1: so stupid, but of course I loved it. But this
Speaker 1: week I learned that if you want to get an
Speaker 1: alligator's attention, all you have to do is grab your
Speaker 1: tuba and play a B flat.
Speaker 4: Okay, I like that for this experiment, all you have
Speaker 4: to have You got to have an alligator and a
Speaker 4: tube nearby. But so at what exactly happens when you
Speaker 4: play a B flat?
Speaker 1: It is magical because for some reason, that note arouses
Speaker 1: male gators, and when an alligator hears it, it'll bellow.
Speaker 2: Or call back to you.
Speaker 3: Is this a real thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually got this great origin story. So apparently
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, the New York Philharmonic took a
Speaker 1: field trip to the Natural History Museum and while they
Speaker 1: were warming up there, this alligator named Oscar, who I
Speaker 1: guess was a part of the natural history exhibit at
Speaker 1: the time, he just started moaning.
Speaker 2: And you know, they're all these.
Speaker 1: Scientists there and they were watching, and you know, he'd
Speaker 1: start moaning, and then the instruments would play, and then
Speaker 1: he'd moan, and then he'd stop and it would start again.
Speaker 2: And so you know, the scientists stopped.
Speaker 1: The musicians and got them to start playing different notes
Speaker 1: to see what was specifically causing it. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it turns out B flat was the key to the
Speaker 1: alligator call. Thanks to this great science done by Oscar
Speaker 1: and the New York Philharmonic, plenty of folks have actually
Speaker 1: repeated the experiment and gotten alligators to duet with them.
Speaker 1: But you actually have to remember, not any B flat works.
Speaker 1: You actually have to play the B flat that's one
Speaker 1: octave below middle seed to really get them going. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's just the first of nine wonderful facts we've got
Speaker 1: about alligators today.
Speaker 2: So let's dig in.
Speaker 4: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 4: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 4: friend mangesh hot Ticketter and on the other side of
Speaker 4: that soundproof glass are good Buddy Ramsey. He's giving us
Speaker 4: his best toothy grin.
Speaker 3: All right, mego.
Speaker 4: So it's been a while since we've done one of
Speaker 4: these shows. I know I've actually missed it so much.
Speaker 4: And two things before we can this off.
Speaker 1: One, I promised that if and when we finally started
Speaker 1: doing the show again, we'd give a shout out to
Speaker 1: our listener's son, Apollo, who is a fan of the
Speaker 1: show or was a fan of the show. But Apollo,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, tag us on Instagram. We want to
Speaker 1: see what you're up to.
Speaker 3: What's up, Apollo, This weird.
Speaker 1: Show about alligators is for you. And two, Will, I
Speaker 1: know you've gone to Saint Pete's in Florida so many times,
Speaker 1: but I don't know why you didn't tell me that
Speaker 1: they keep baby alligators in their mini golf places there.
Speaker 4: The only downside to doing this episode is that I
Speaker 4: was hoping to save this for when we both, I know,
Speaker 4: both of us really want to retire to Florida, and
Speaker 4: since we're really bad at most sports instead of golf,
Speaker 4: we were going to retire there to play mini golf.
Speaker 4: And that's when I was going to tell you, Yeah,
Speaker 4: the big reveal.
Speaker 1: So my in laws rented a place there for winter
Speaker 1: break and we took my kids mini golfing. And the
Speaker 1: fact that there were tiny gators that you could feed
Speaker 1: these pellets so crazy. You put alligator food onto little
Speaker 1: fishing and send it down. Honestly, it was the greatest thing.
Speaker 1: And the mini golf was so unremarkable, but the fact
Speaker 1: that my tiny monsters were feeding these tiny monsters was
Speaker 1: just great. So I thought, you know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: learn more about gators.
Speaker 3: That's awesome. And actually you have one more reason, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this one's a little more personal. My dad
Speaker 1: has been pretty ill recently. I know I told you this,
Speaker 1: but he can't really watch things. But he loves you,
Speaker 1: and he has stacks of mental floss in his garage
Speaker 1: and he's a huge, huge, part time genius fan. So
Speaker 1: he and Apollo might be the only ones left off there.
Speaker 1: But I thought hearing us laugh and be goofy and
Speaker 1: sharing facts would make him smile. So thank you for
Speaker 1: making the time to do some more episodes with me.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love your dad.
Speaker 4: This was a no brainer to do this, And it
Speaker 4: makes sense for this topic because when I think of
Speaker 4: your dad, I always think of his love for these big,
Speaker 4: aggressive reptiles. It's kind of like his thing. So it
Speaker 4: makes sense you pick this theme a special for him.
Speaker 4: But we've actually got eight facts to go. So what
Speaker 4: do you say I do the next one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, go for it, all right.
Speaker 4: So I actually wanted to build on your b flat
Speaker 4: fact because bellowing is one of those things crocodiles do
Speaker 4: as a mating ritual. And so the bellow does this
Speaker 4: amazing thing to the water. It's where the alligator just
Speaker 4: raises his head and tail out of the water, so
Speaker 4: his back and belly are still submerged. You know, it's
Speaker 4: almost like if you imagine like a banana curved up
Speaker 4: and so you lower it into the water so both
Speaker 4: ends are sticking out and you know you can picture this, right,
Speaker 4: except instead of a banana, it's a just go with me,
Speaker 4: just just think about it. And so when the gator
Speaker 4: bellows or does its deep grow. These vibrations make the
Speaker 4: water around its body kind of kind of like ripple out.
Speaker 4: It's actually pretty spectacular if you look at this in
Speaker 4: slow motion, and it's very very appealing to female alligators
Speaker 4: of course, And.
Speaker 1: Is that the main way that male alligators like court
Speaker 1: females like They don't dim lights and play smooth.
Speaker 4: Jazz, neither of those things. But this is one part
Speaker 4: of it. So sometimes you'll hear one gator bellow and
Speaker 4: then another male gator we'll try to out below it
Speaker 4: by making its own giant ripples. But gators have some
Speaker 4: of the most amazing and really romantic courting rituals too.
Speaker 4: There was this piece in Wired I was looking at
Speaker 4: and they like quote head slapping on the water's surface,
Speaker 4: snout and back rubbing, and blowing bubbles, you know, the usual.
Speaker 3: It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: That's pretty romantic. So here's one I hadn't realized. I know,
Speaker 1: Cape Canaveral is in Florida, and it's where NASA launches
Speaker 1: and land shuttles, but I didn't realize the land around
Speaker 1: it is actually a wildlife sanctuary. And this is all
Speaker 1: stuff I learned in modern farmer. But in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: NASA bought about one hundred and forty five thousand acres
Speaker 1: of coastal property there, but since they only needed about
Speaker 1: six thousand acres, they turned the rest into this Merritt
Speaker 1: Island National Wildlife Refuge. But according to modern farmer, that
Speaker 1: proximity to wildlife has definitely caused some issues. And I'm
Speaker 1: reading here quote morning commuters have to wait as bobcats
Speaker 1: cross the roadway. Shuttle launches are stalled by armadillo's woodpeckers,
Speaker 1: poke holes, and fuel tanks. But according to the guy
Speaker 1: who manages the island call center, the biggest issue at
Speaker 1: NASA is with, of course gators. And here's how we
Speaker 1: put it. Quote we've got gators blocking doorways, climbing fences.
Speaker 1: We've got little bitty ones to shore big enough gators.
Speaker 1: NASA employees are encouraged to keep alert indoors and out.
Speaker 1: You're never supposed to feed the gators, and always check
Speaker 1: on your cars before hopping in. And since I can't
Speaker 1: get off this b flat thing, sometimes when the shuttles land,
Speaker 1: the gators start bellowing because they're trying to outdo the shuttles.
Speaker 2: Mating call.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: Actually, I think this episode could have just been about
Speaker 4: B flat. We should do a separate one just on
Speaker 4: B flat. But I need you to back up for
Speaker 4: a second. So what are you supposed to do if
Speaker 4: you see a gator?
Speaker 2: I mean, go back inside. I guess that's good advice.
Speaker 1: There's really only one account I read about an employee
Speaker 1: trying to deal with a gator on his own. He
Speaker 1: apparently made karate chopping motions and kept yelling hi yah,
Speaker 1: and the gator hissed and spit, but apparently eventually went away.
Speaker 1: So I guess if you know you have to deal
Speaker 1: with a gator, learn karate.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, I'll think about that. And I actually
Speaker 4: I realized this is off topic. But did you read
Speaker 4: about the guy with the alligator at the drive through
Speaker 4: while you were researching.
Speaker 3: For this episode?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: What was this recently?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: So this was again talking about Florida kind of reminded
Speaker 4: me about this. This is back from I think it
Speaker 4: was twenty sixteen. So there was this kid that apparently
Speaker 4: drove up to a Windy's. He made an order, he
Speaker 4: got his drink, and then of course he tossed a
Speaker 4: three foot gator through the window of the drive through. Yeah,
Speaker 4: thankfully nobody was heard, and he didn't really have a motive.
Speaker 4: Apparently his mom's defense to the local news was that,
Speaker 4: you know, he's just a big prankster and can't help himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pranksters, what happened to him?
Speaker 4: So he got charged with quote assault with a deadly weapon,
Speaker 4: which I guess is, you know, not far off. And
Speaker 4: the judge had some pretty strict terms for him. So
Speaker 4: one of the punishments he's banned from Wendy's for life. So,
Speaker 4: I mean, you gotta really think twice before you throw
Speaker 4: a game through a drive through because you cannot go
Speaker 4: back for that spicy chicken sandwich. And he was told
Speaker 4: that he couldn't frattenize with any animals except his mother's dog,
Speaker 4: which of course makes sense.
Speaker 1: So my son Henry does the worst pranks like he
Speaker 1: is under the mistaken impression that just saying April Fools
Speaker 1: absolves you of anything you do. And two years ago
Speaker 1: he decided to pour some water in our bed as
Speaker 1: a prank, and right before bed he took three giant
Speaker 1: pine glasses of water and poured.
Speaker 2: Them on our mattress.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, I got so mad we had to sleep on
Speaker 1: the guest bed in the living room for two days
Speaker 1: before the thing cried out.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, that's quite the frank.
Speaker 1: But I'm really hoping that he never gets access to alligators.
Speaker 1: So your fact kind of sounds like the most Florida
Speaker 1: headline I've not heard in a while. But but do
Speaker 1: you want to do another fact to make.
Speaker 2: Up for it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, let me see which one I want to want
Speaker 4: to do next. All right, Well, this is something I
Speaker 4: think is super cool. So alligators obviously seem tough because
Speaker 4: they've got that bony armor on their skin and they
Speaker 4: can climb fences like you mentioned and do these death
Speaker 4: rolls and things like that. But even their blood is
Speaker 4: actually tougher than ours.
Speaker 3: So part of the.
Speaker 4: Reason you never see an alligator with colds and flus, Like,
Speaker 4: have you ever seen an alligator.
Speaker 2: With a cold?
Speaker 1: Ango?
Speaker 2: You know, I haven't.
Speaker 3: It's weird you haven't, And that's because it's not them.
Speaker 4: No, it really doesn't doesn't work at all because they
Speaker 4: have this incredible immune system. These scientists in Louisiana have
Speaker 4: actually discovered that the serum and alligator blood can fight
Speaker 4: off viruses and bacteria can actually destroy most of the
Speaker 4: microbes in HIV. It's actually part of the reason that
Speaker 4: when an alligator tail is severed in a swamp, even
Speaker 4: if the water is muddy and dirty, the animals rarely
Speaker 4: get infections. So this discovery is incredible because it has
Speaker 4: all sorts of potential applications for humans. I was looking
Speaker 4: at this article in National Geographic talking about this, and
Speaker 4: it was showing that the resulting medicines could help everyone
Speaker 4: from like diabetes patients with foot ulcers, to burn victims,
Speaker 4: to people suffering from various autoimmune diseases.
Speaker 2: That's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny that something like a bat could
Speaker 1: get as COVID, but an alligator might be the one.
Speaker 2: To cure it.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Your here's a ridiculous one I like just because I
Speaker 1: like picturing it. Apparently alligators have two types of walks,
Speaker 1: a high walk and a low walk or a sprawl.
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Well, the low walk.
Speaker 1: Is cooler, like they kind of drag their belly on
Speaker 1: the ground and they kind of lazily pull themselves along.
Speaker 1: But you know, whether on the move or late for
Speaker 1: a meeting, they high tail it. Literally they raise their
Speaker 1: bellies and half their tail up off the ground and
Speaker 1: they kind of stand upright on all fours and then
Speaker 1: they really move. And I didn't realize this, but according
Speaker 1: to our palas how stuff works, alligators aren't really hunters
Speaker 1: or gatherers. They're more what they call lurkers. They kind
Speaker 1: of just lunge at food, so they're opportunistic and they
Speaker 1: can actually go a few years without eating if they
Speaker 1: need to. But when they decide they're really hungry, they
Speaker 1: can really high walk to a meal. They can apparently
Speaker 1: reach peak speeds of thirty five miles per hour on Wow,
Speaker 1: that's fast. Yeah, but they also tire very very quickly,
Speaker 1: so they're never going to be an antelope in a
Speaker 1: marathon or a half marathon.
Speaker 4: All right, that's another good factor write down. But speaking
Speaker 4: of facts, we've got three more facts to go. But
Speaker 4: let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking all
Speaker 4: about gators today.
Speaker 3: All right, what did you want to talk about next? Mego?
Speaker 1: So, something I think is super cool about alligators is
Speaker 1: that their sex isn't predetermined by genetics. It actually has
Speaker 1: all to do with the temperature you store an alligator
Speaker 1: egg at Actually, just to take a step back, one
Speaker 1: thing that's fascinating is that in the nineteen fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: alligators were nearly hunted to extinction in America. But part
Speaker 1: of the reason they managed to recover is that the
Speaker 1: gators lay a lot of eggs, like thirty to fifty
Speaker 1: of them at one time, so once there were more
Speaker 1: restrictions on hunting, they made a quick comeback. But gators
Speaker 1: make a giant nest like three feet high and six
Speaker 1: feet wide, and then they bury their eggs inside it,
Speaker 1: and the eggs that incubate at around eighty degrees will
Speaker 1: turn out female, but the ones that incubate a closer
Speaker 1: to ninety degrees will be male, and in between is
Speaker 1: just a mix of males and females, which I think
Speaker 1: is kind of remarkable. But the other thing that's interesting
Speaker 1: about alligators is that the moms also stick around to
Speaker 1: protect their hatchlings, which is super rare in modern reptiles
Speaker 1: and more common frankly to birds and some dinosaur species.
Speaker 3: That is really interesting.
Speaker 2: So we're down to two.
Speaker 1: Last facts, and I'm curious, what do you have as
Speaker 1: your final last fact?
Speaker 3: For my final fact, I think.
Speaker 4: The most insane thing I found this week is from
Speaker 4: this article on Smithsonian, and it's called When Kids Played
Speaker 4: with Alligators in Los Angeles, and the piece is all
Speaker 4: about a theme park. As soon as I saw this headline,
Speaker 4: I was like, this is gonna be good. And it's
Speaker 4: all about this theme park. I'd never heard of it before.
Speaker 4: It was called the California Alligator Farm, which I guess
Speaker 4: operated from nineteen oh seven to nineteen fifty three, so
Speaker 4: almost half a century. And for only one quarter you
Speaker 4: could see over a thousand alligators of all sizes. And
Speaker 4: while the gators were exercised and you could you could
Speaker 4: watch them eat live chickens. There were twenty ponds with
Speaker 4: supposedly trained alligators that you could interact with. But the
Speaker 4: photos are insane, Like there's this picture of a baby
Speaker 4: in a pin with thirty hatchlings and no parents anywhere
Speaker 4: to be found there. Yeah, if you really need to
Speaker 4: look this up. There are photos of people writing on
Speaker 4: the alligator backs. There are pictures of picnics in the
Speaker 4: water with people in bathing suits eating meals right next
Speaker 4: to these gators. Gators are actually approaching the table. No
Speaker 4: one seems to be scared by this, And I think
Speaker 4: my favorite fact is that there are photos of people
Speaker 4: watching as adult alligators all climb up a ladder and
Speaker 4: then take a water slide down into the pond for fun.
Speaker 4: Like it is the weirdest thing. It's like a giant
Speaker 4: petting zoo for gators. It makes no sense at all, but.
Speaker 2: It sounds fun for the gators too.
Speaker 4: Yes, that maybe they were having fun so they had
Speaker 4: decided not to attack.
Speaker 1: So I'm definitely gonna look this up. But did anyone
Speaker 1: die there?
Speaker 2: Like that? All sounds so incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: I mean, in that article on how stuff works, the
Speaker 4: editors right how alligators are really instinctual animals because you know,
Speaker 4: their brains are only nine grams and they take about
Speaker 4: half a tablespoon of space, which means there's no such
Speaker 4: thing as a nice gator. I mean, these things are
Speaker 4: programmed to behave a certain way. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 4: there really aren't reports of injuries there, so I'm certain
Speaker 4: there were some that happened. And one thing I do
Speaker 4: know is there were a lot of posted to remind visitors,
Speaker 4: you know, not.
Speaker 2: To punch the gators or throw rocks at them, so don't.
Speaker 3: Don't try that.
Speaker 4: And apparently college pranksters used to occasionally sneak in and
Speaker 4: steal a gator. But other than that, there really isn't
Speaker 4: a whole lot of reporting on, you know, the darker
Speaker 4: side of an alligator farm.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Well, my last fact is kind of fitting.
Speaker 1: I decided to look up the origins of see you later, alligator.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, what did you find out?
Speaker 2: Not much?
Speaker 3: Good, good, Well that does it for today.
Speaker 1: So, as you might imagine, there's no clear origin story,
Speaker 1: like there isn't for a lot of these things. But
Speaker 1: it's really funny. There's a site called word Histories, and
Speaker 1: they looked up early newspaper accounts that reference the phrase,
Speaker 1: and there are all these explainer columns for adults trying
Speaker 1: to understand their kids and why they're talking this way.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen fifty two, there was a column in
Speaker 1: the Honolulu Star Bulletin that explained teenage slang in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: and it reads, quote, many high school students use expressions
Speaker 1: such as tutulu tofu or see you alligator, which I
Speaker 1: might responses like see you soon, goon and hit the
Speaker 1: toad road, which I guess means that in a while,
Speaker 1: crocodile wasn't immediately like the default response yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I never heard that before.
Speaker 1: No, but it gets better. There's also an explanation from
Speaker 1: this guy, Lester Rand in the Baltimore Sun, and this
Speaker 1: is from nineteen fifty four, and he clarifies the alligator
Speaker 1: and see you alligator is an all encompassing term and
Speaker 1: relieves the leaving party of having to recite several names.
Speaker 1: That's great, and in case the Olds needed more explanation,
Speaker 1: it continues. The popular teenage rhyming expressions rarely convey any
Speaker 1: actual meaning and are somewhat confusing, like do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, jelly bean, let me have steak jake
Speaker 1: and have a piece of salami Tommy.
Speaker 2: Right, it feels like a phrase we should bring.
Speaker 3: Brack right, Like yeah, for sure, whatever we.
Speaker 1: Say goodbye tous onone, And I kind of want to say, like,
Speaker 1: have a piece of lobby tommy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a weird one.
Speaker 4: And I think if I was a parent my kid
Speaker 4: kept saying this as he walked out of the door,
Speaker 4: I'd probably be confused enough to want to read an
Speaker 4: article about what was wrong with him. But anyway, who
Speaker 4: do you think deserves the crown for today's fact off.
Speaker 2: Well, I did like the fact that we talked about
Speaker 2: B flat so much.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of B flat.
Speaker 1: Those photos of alligators on water slides, I think have
Speaker 1: to be my new wallpaper. I'm gonna say, you win.
Speaker 1: This crazy alligator farm theme park thing is too good.
Speaker 4: It's so good looking at those photos, so I will
Speaker 4: take it. Thank you very much, I'm honored. That is
Speaker 4: it for today's Part Time Genius. If you like hearing
Speaker 4: the show, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram, drop
Speaker 4: us a line in Apple Reviews, And if you have
Speaker 4: any great gator facts we missed or have a topic
Speaker 4: you want us to cover, be sure to write to
Speaker 4: us about those.
Speaker 1: Two and thank you, thank you, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening, especially you Dad.
Speaker 4: Part Time Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 4: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 4: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.