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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're

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Speaker 1: back with part two of our series on furry fish.

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Speaker 1: We had great fun in the last episode talking about

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Speaker 1: some bizarre myths and legends of fish completely covered in

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Speaker 1: fur or covered in blotches or patches of fur. So

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Speaker 1: we talked about some old reports from Iceland of a

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Speaker 1: so called shaggy trout that lived in the lakes and streams.

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Speaker 1: Allegedly i was said to be covered in fur, was

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Speaker 1: said to be poisonous when eating, or was said to

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Speaker 1: have other strange effects when eaten. Um we talked about

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Speaker 1: Marco Polo's secondhand reports of a giant furry fish found

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Speaker 1: dead in a river near the Chinese city he called

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Speaker 1: Keen Sai. We talked about possible explanations for reports of

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Speaker 1: fish covered in fur, if there is in fact anything

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Speaker 1: these reports are based on. So, for example, the possibility

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Speaker 1: that Marco Polo's furry fish could have been maybe a

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Speaker 1: half remembered report of a decomposing river dolphin, or the

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Speaker 1: idea that some reports of furry fish or fish with

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Speaker 1: furry patches could actually be observations of fish with parasitic infections,

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Speaker 1: such as a water mold called saprolegnia. But today we

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Speaker 1: wanted to start with some more weird reports of furry

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Speaker 1: fish from across the ages furry fish and fish like creatures,

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Speaker 1: So I think the first one we should do today

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Speaker 1: is the Japanese furry fish. And this one is mentioned

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Speaker 1: in a book that I brought up in the last episode.

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Speaker 1: It's a book by a British cryptozoologist named Carl Schucker

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Speaker 1: called The Beasts That Hied from Man and Shooker sources

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Speaker 1: this claim of this bizarre creature to a book called

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Speaker 1: The World in Miniature Japan, which was published in the

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Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds, edited by an author named Frederick Shoberl,

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Speaker 1: and this book records a claim that goes like this. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So the book says there's a river in Japan and

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Speaker 1: it's full of strange creatures that measure about four to

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Speaker 1: five feet in length. They have scaly bodies like fish,

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Speaker 1: but their heads are covered in hair like a human's hair.

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Speaker 1: And these creatures don't sound like a type of fish

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Speaker 1: strictly because they can allegedly leave the water and move

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Speaker 1: around on the banks of the river. And from here

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Speaker 1: I'm going to quote from from shooters summary on the

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Speaker 1: banks of the River quote where they fight or engage

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Speaker 1: in boisterous games with one another, emitting loud cries as

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Speaker 1: they disport in a singularly rowdy, unfish like manner. However,

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Speaker 1: there rombusteous behavior swiftly transforms into savage aggression if they

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Speaker 1: spy any people unhesitating lee attacking and killing their hapless

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Speaker 1: human victims by disemboweling them. Yet they do not devour

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Speaker 1: their bodies afterwards. Okay, so a weird report as usual.

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Speaker 1: There are at least a couple of options you can

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Speaker 1: start with at the get go. One is that this

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Speaker 1: could just be imaginative storytelling. Somebody is telling a yarn

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Speaker 1: based purely on, you know, combining elements out of their imagination.

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Speaker 1: But it could also be some kind of distorted account

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Speaker 1: of something somebody saw in nature. I guess if we

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Speaker 1: want to consider possibilities of of imaginative storytelling, you might

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Speaker 1: want to look for similarities to other types of known beasts, monsters,

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Speaker 1: or creatures from the local mythology. Yeah, and this made

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Speaker 1: me turn to a couple of different things that but

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Speaker 1: one that certainly came up with the Japanese uh Nno,

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Speaker 1: a sort of mer creature described, at least in some accounts,

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Speaker 1: is a huge fish with the head of a beautiful woman. Uh.

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Speaker 1: She's often said to be protective of humans and warns

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Speaker 1: them against dangers. So, in a way, sort of the

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Speaker 1: opposite of of other models of a mirror creature or

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Speaker 1: a siren or what have you. Um and and this

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Speaker 1: is a pretty famous creature in Japanese mythology. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it's even been brought to life in the in the

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Speaker 1: films of Miyazaki. If you've seen Nyazaki's Panio. Uh, this

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Speaker 1: is kind of a cute take on the idea of

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Speaker 1: a ningyo. Yeah. I was reading about the ningyo in

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Speaker 1: an excellent book that I actually own a copy of.

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Speaker 1: It's called The Book of Yokai, and it's by a

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Speaker 1: folklore scholar named Michael Dillon Foster. The book is out

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Speaker 1: through University of California Press. Uh And if you're a

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Speaker 1: fan of of Japanese monster legends, I highly recommend this book.

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Speaker 1: It's really good. So a few facts from Foster's telling

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Speaker 1: on the ningyo So, first of all, though the word

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Speaker 1: ningyo is sometimes translated to English as mermaid or merman,

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Speaker 1: it literally just means human fish. And so, Rob, do

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Speaker 1: you remember how in the stories we talked about in

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Speaker 1: the last episode, how the shaggy trout of Iceland and

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Speaker 1: Marco Polos were bard of the furry fish. They were

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Speaker 1: both said to be poisonous or to kill people who

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Speaker 1: ate them. So Michael Dillon Foster notes that there is

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Speaker 1: a classic medicinal encyclopedia of Japan that notes that the

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Speaker 1: bones of the ningyo, which I think it just reports

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Speaker 1: as if it were any other mundane animal. It's like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: here are the animals you can find. One of them

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Speaker 1: is the ningyo, this half human half half fish. If

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Speaker 1: you take those bones, they can be made into a

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Speaker 1: poison quote with wonderful effect. But he notes even more

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Speaker 1: stories on the other side of the scale, stories of

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Speaker 1: the ningo having exactly the opposite effect. We're eating their

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Speaker 1: flesh or even just looking at one of them sometimes

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Speaker 1: can guarantee you a long and prosperous life. M hmm.

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Speaker 1: That's an interesting detail because on one hand it sounds

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Speaker 1: like medicine in general, right, I mean, there's so many

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Speaker 1: different properties of the natural world that you take it

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Speaker 1: a certain way or under certain conditions or in certain

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Speaker 1: quantities and it's beneficial or potentially beneficial, and then in

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Speaker 1: other quantities or situations it can be deadly totally or

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Speaker 1: different parts of the same animal. Again, I want to

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Speaker 1: be clear, we're not actually saying that, like the bones

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Speaker 1: of a mermaid will make you live forever, don't but

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Speaker 1: Mermaid based on anything you hear in this episode. But

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Speaker 1: I just mean, yeah, yeah, I think you're correct that

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Speaker 1: the logic of it follows the logic of a lot

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Speaker 1: of real properties of of medicines you would find in nature.

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Speaker 1: But there's one thing I wanted to mention that's in

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Speaker 1: the Book of Yokai. So there is this one classic

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Speaker 1: tale about the nemeo U. There is a fisherman who

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Speaker 1: catches one of these things and then cooks it and

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Speaker 1: then offers it to a friend, and the friend doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to eat it because he's weirded out by the

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Speaker 1: fact that it has a human head. You know, even

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Speaker 1: though it might taste like delicious fish and the muscular parts,

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Speaker 1: it's got a human head. So he's like, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, So he takes it home with him, and

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Speaker 1: his sixteen year old daughter eats it. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if some details are lost there, if she's just like

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Speaker 1: not squicked out by the human head like he is um,

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Speaker 1: but she eats it and then as a result, she

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Speaker 1: lives to be eight hundred years old and spends her

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Speaker 1: life as a kind of superhero Nun, traveling the country

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Speaker 1: doing good like a like a fish, human cannibal, holy hulk,

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Speaker 1: and she eventually enshrines her body in a cave by

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Speaker 1: the sea. UM. Speaking of of Yokai, I do have

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Speaker 1: to mention for anyone out there, and also speaking of

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Speaker 1: Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli Films, there's a wonderful film titled

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Speaker 1: pomp Poco that came out from Studio Ghibli many years back,

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Speaker 1: and it is It is a film about Tanuki's, about

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Speaker 1: magical Tanuki's, and there's a there's a full English dub

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Speaker 1: of it. I think you can you can watch this

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Speaker 1: on HBO Max if you subscribe to that um or

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Speaker 1: you can watch it in the original Japanese. But it

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Speaker 1: is it's absolutely fatless. Do not be scared away by

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Speaker 1: the fact that it is um a film about magical

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Speaker 1: Tanukis who do magic with their testicles. Uh or as

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Speaker 1: it is translated into into English, they are raccoons using

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Speaker 1: their raccoon pouch, but we know they're testicles. Um. It's

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Speaker 1: it's a wonderful film. It's totally it's totally for for

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Speaker 1: kids and adults alike. It has a strong environmental message.

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Speaker 1: And there's a whole sequence in it where the tanukis

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Speaker 1: because it's not just Tanuki's in it, there are also

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Speaker 1: fox spirits. And then there's a sequence where the Tanukis

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Speaker 1: create a yokai parade. They take on all of these

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Speaker 1: fabulous yokai forms, all of these various classic ones you

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Speaker 1: may have seen in illustrations, like the giant skeleton and

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Speaker 1: you know, the umbrella creatures, that sort of thing. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it's just absolutely gorgeous. So I highly recommend that

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Speaker 1: film if it's one of those you've you've kind of

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Speaker 1: shied away from because you weren't sure if maybe if

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Speaker 1: it translates, um, you know, to a non Japanese audience.

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Speaker 1: It absolutely does. It's just a beautiful film. Clancy Brown

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Speaker 1: does one of the voices. Really, I haven't seen that one,

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Speaker 1: but now I want to check it. Out, Yeah, at

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Speaker 1: least fast far to the yokai parade. But anyway, going

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Speaker 1: back to that description from the book of this creature

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Speaker 1: in the in the river who has a head full

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Speaker 1: of hair scales like a fish on this body. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can see how that that's sort of similar to

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Speaker 1: the neo tradition, but I'm not sure there's actually any connection.

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Speaker 1: There might just be a few superficial similarities. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to tell, you know. Speaking of fish at yokai, there's

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Speaker 1: another yokai called amaba A, which looks very much like

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Speaker 1: what we just talked about, except throw in a bird's

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Speaker 1: beak and some slightly different feet. And I was reading

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Speaker 1: about this, and interestingly enough, it became something of a

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Speaker 1: mascot for COVID nineteen pandemic measures in Japan um and

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Speaker 1: you'll see posters that say like stop COVID nineteen and

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Speaker 1: will be a picture of this creature. I was reading

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Speaker 1: about it in this uh Anthropology Today article by Claudia

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Speaker 1: Merley titled a Chimeric Being from Cayushu, Japan um and

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Speaker 1: this is the quote from it. Quote presented as a

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Speaker 1: mascot but viewed as an icon of protection. This uncanny

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Speaker 1: little Yochai from southern Japan in the pre modern Edo

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Speaker 1: period addresses our lives as they are caught in a

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Speaker 1: suspension of our usual temporal and spatial dimensions. A monster,

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Speaker 1: a hyper object, and an art effigy of our pandemic present. Okay, anyway,

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Speaker 1: it's also cute creature. It is very cute. It's got like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's got the cute bird face, the fish scales, and

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Speaker 1: then just like a big old, luxurious mane of hair.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, whatever the similarities to these other legendary beings

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Speaker 1: of Japanese mythology. Regarding this one story from from this

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Speaker 1: book The World in Miniature Japan, Shoot Shooker asks, you know,

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Speaker 1: if these stories are based at least in part on

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Speaker 1: real observations, could there be anything that we could figure

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Speaker 1: out they might be talking about? And he passes on

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Speaker 1: an interesting guess that was suggested by a curator of

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Speaker 1: mollusks at the Royal Museum of Scotland who's named David Heppel,

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Speaker 1: and Happel says, what if these stories were laid by

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Speaker 1: show Burl in the hun are based on observations of

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Speaker 1: the northern fur seal or Calorinus or sinus. A seal

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Speaker 1: might kind of fit the bill um, so the stories

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Speaker 1: would have had to have been translated from the sea

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Speaker 1: coast to the river somehow, because fur seals don't usually

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Speaker 1: you know, they're not going to go all the way

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Speaker 1: up the river. I don't know. They mess around in

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Speaker 1: the river mouth, but um. But otherwise a fur seal

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Speaker 1: could partially match the description. It's not scaly, but it

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Speaker 1: does have flippers, so in body it is what Shugar

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Speaker 1: calls superficially fish like, but it is pretty close to

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Speaker 1: the right size to match this story. It does have

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Speaker 1: the notable whiskers on its head and of course fur

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Speaker 1: on its body. They do definitely come out of the

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Speaker 1: water and romp around real good, so maybe possibly UM.

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Speaker 1: As to the the stories about the aggression, again, it's

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Speaker 1: hard to tell if this is based on anything, whether

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Speaker 1: that would be part of the original observation or just

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Speaker 1: an embellishment um with with these fur seals. While they

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Speaker 1: can by northern first, seals do not seem to me

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Speaker 1: to be especially noted for aggression towards humans that they

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Speaker 1: don't have like a disemboweling vertical And of course when

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Speaker 1: you get into disemboweling, and you know, any kind of

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Speaker 1: account of animal um attacks, Like, there's so many additional factors,

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Speaker 1: like did you see this animal disembowel somebody? Or was

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Speaker 1: there a body found and these animals were nearby? You know,

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Speaker 1: this could be the result of scavenging of decomposition. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's so many additional factors to consider, but those are

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Speaker 1: not factors that necessarily impact the myth making in any

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Speaker 1: given scenario, right, So it's hard to tell with this story.

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Speaker 1: I think this is one where it's it's difficult to

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Speaker 1: get a sense of whether this is based on something

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Speaker 1: somebody saw or whether it's more imaginative. But but yeah,

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Speaker 1: I like to think that somebody saw some seals and

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Speaker 1: then just just went wild. I mean seals, like some

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Speaker 1: other creatures will be discussing here. Under the right circumstances,

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Speaker 1: they can look very cute and and noble, but in

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Speaker 1: other situations they can be quite alarming. Uh. If I

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Speaker 1: was in the water once, um, this was what was?

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Speaker 1: This is one of the Wayian islands, and there were

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Speaker 1: some some seals in the water, and of course humans

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Speaker 1: were trying to stay away from the seals, but occasionally

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Speaker 1: a seal is just coming in and then you're you're

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Speaker 1: right next to it, and it can be extremely alarming,

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Speaker 1: especially if they're leopard seals. Don't don't go swimming with those, yeah, yeah, seals.

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Speaker 1: Seals can be quite quite alarming. And then even if,

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Speaker 1: certainly if you've seen footage of of them them froligging

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Speaker 1: about on the on the shore, as alluded to in

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Speaker 1: these potential accounts off seals, then you can imagine how

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Speaker 1: people might decide, you know, it's best to stay away

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Speaker 1: from this. This looks like a situation that might end

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Speaker 1: in disembowling. You know. One more funny story that comes

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Speaker 1: from Shooters book. While we are on the subject of

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Speaker 1: the Royal Museum of Scotland, where that that curator was

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Speaker 1: who had the idea that maybe the story is about seals.

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Speaker 1: The Royal Museum of Scotland also has in its collection

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Speaker 1: a furry fish taxidermied and mounted on a wooden plaque,

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Speaker 1: just like our patron saint big Mouth Billy Bass. And

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Speaker 1: in fact you can look up pictures of this one.

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Speaker 1: It might have been the episode art for the first episode.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure, um, but but anyway, it looks a

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Speaker 1: lot like the photo The hoax photo that we talked

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Speaker 1: about in the last episode where that guy claimed to

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Speaker 1: have caught a shaggy trout in Wisconsin. Yeah, it kind

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Speaker 1: of looks like it could easily be some sort of

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Speaker 1: weird folk art pillow. It looks very soft, very luxurious. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's clearly a fish, but it is covered in thick,

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Speaker 1: luxurious white fur, again like the forearm of a polar bear. Alas,

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Speaker 1: this is not a genuine furry fish but another hoax.

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Speaker 1: The text that is underneath the fish, the mounted fish

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Speaker 1: says that it was caught in the Lake Superior off

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Speaker 1: the is to Ontario and uh and was mounted by

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Speaker 1: a taxidermist named Ross c. Job And it again repeats

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Speaker 1: that allegation we talked about in part one from the

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Speaker 1: other hoax, that the fur is an adaptation to the

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Speaker 1: extreme cold of deep Canadian waters, which almost makes me

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Speaker 1: wonder if it's this is sort of intentionally a joke

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Speaker 1: and is meant to be understood as a joke. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, like the taxidermy as a as a craft

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Speaker 1: and ultimately an art form is going to give way

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Speaker 1: to artistic creations, and we see that throughout the world

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Speaker 1: of taxidermy. Whether you're talking about jackalopes or squirrels and

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Speaker 1: chipmunks that are made to be drinking tea, that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. But at least not everybody was in on

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Speaker 1: the joke, because Shugar explains the story of where this

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Speaker 1: came from, like how it ended up at the Royal

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Speaker 1: Museum of Scotland. Apparently the museum acquired it when a

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Speaker 1: woman brought it into them after she bought it in Canada,

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Speaker 1: thinking it was real, it was a real animal, and

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Speaker 1: then she brings it into the museum and says, hey,

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Speaker 1: I want to know more about this fish. Can you

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Speaker 1: tell me about the furbearing trout. Once she found out

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Speaker 1: it was a hoax, she donated it to the museum. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, the preservation of hoaxes is also important, absolutely

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Speaker 1: because it will help us. It helps us realize what's

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Speaker 1: real and what's fake, and the story of our sorting

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Speaker 1: all of this out, all right, So at this point

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Speaker 1: I thought we might turn to the Americus because we,

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Speaker 1: uh more specifically, we're gonna look increasingly towards Central and

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Speaker 1: South America. I was reading the work of folklore's Carol Rose.

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Speaker 1: She has again those two wonderful tomes of of you know,

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Speaker 1: encyclopedic tomes of mythological and folkloric creatures that I often

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Speaker 1: turned to. And in it, as she mentions the Hoga,

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Speaker 1: this is described as a lake monster in the traditions

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Speaker 1: of Mexico, known in South America as the andura. And

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Speaker 1: this was apparently described as a giant fish creature with

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Speaker 1: the head and ears of a pig and quote extremely

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Speaker 1: long barbs or thick whiskers around its mouth. It also

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Speaker 1: had things. It could also shift colors from red to

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Speaker 1: green to yellow, and it was described as a ravenous

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Speaker 1: beast to be feared by humans. Oh, I like this,

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Speaker 1: So giant fish body, head and ears of a pig,

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Speaker 1: barbs or whiskers on its face, fangs can change colors,

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Speaker 1: might attack humans, right uh And and of course this

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00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:33,439
Speaker 1: instantly brings up a different couple of different possibilities, you know,

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Speaker 1: some that are definitely within the fish world. And we'll

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00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:39,920
Speaker 1: get to some some real life fish that could potentially

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00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:41,720
Speaker 1: match up with some of these descriptions in a bit.

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Speaker 1: But also we're reminded of other, uh, non fish, but

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Speaker 1: fish like forms that we find in the wild. Now.

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Speaker 1: Some of these accounts are based on the writings of

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Speaker 1: of Ambrose Pare, who lived fifteen ten through fifteen ninety.

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Speaker 1: There's a French surgeon, and he mentioned the Hoga legend

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Speaker 1: in his book Monsters and Marvels, writing quote, its head

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Speaker 1: and ears are not different from a terrestrial swine. It

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Speaker 1: has five whiskers a half a foot long, or they're

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Speaker 1: about similar to those of a big barble. It's flesh

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Speaker 1: is very good and delicious. The fish produces live offspring

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Speaker 1: in the fashion of a whale. If you contemplate it

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Speaker 1: while it is disporting itself swimming in the water, you

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Speaker 1: would say that it is now green, now yellow, and

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Speaker 1: then red, just like the chameleon. It keeps more to

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Speaker 1: the edge of the lake than elsewhere where. It feeds

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Speaker 1: on leaves of a tree called Hoga, from which it

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Speaker 1: took its name. It is very toothy and savage, killing

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Speaker 1: and devouring other fish, indeed those bigger than it is.

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Speaker 1: That is why people pursue it, hunted and kill it,

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Speaker 1: because if it entered into the conduits, it wouldn't leave

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Speaker 1: a single one of them alive, whereby the person who

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Speaker 1: kills the most of them is most welcome. Wow, now

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Speaker 1: I've seen connections here between this legend and that of

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Speaker 1: the furry trout. But I can't help but wonder if

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Speaker 1: if this is indeed a natural creature that is being

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Speaker 1: described here where it's the echo of a natural creature

336
00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:08,000
Speaker 1: in in myth and legend, then perhaps we're talking about

337
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Speaker 1: an otter, because certainly you know their their otters have

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Speaker 1: found throughout the America's In South America you have the

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Speaker 1: the the giant otter, the South American giant otter, which

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00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:22,119
Speaker 1: is is quite quite a specimen. They can look really

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Speaker 1: intimidating their apex predators. They've been known to charge at

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Speaker 1: boats uh and um. And then even outside of this environment,

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Speaker 1: you look at a North American and Central American otters

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Speaker 1: and you know they can still be very ferocious, very territorial,

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Speaker 1: and if you take them outside of that cute context,

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Speaker 1: they can be quite impressive. Yeah, Rachel and I were

347
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Speaker 1: having fun googling pictures of South American giant river otters

348
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Speaker 1: the other day, and they very much embody the spirit

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Speaker 1: of uh he protect but he also attacked. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they can look very ferocious. I found a wonderful photo

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Speaker 1: of one eating a fi and it has this this

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Speaker 1: bloody fanged mouth uh and uh and has this kind

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Speaker 1: of almost humanoid looking, uh you know form to it,

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Speaker 1: Like it looks like some sort of a squat creature

355
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Speaker 1: just hanging out in the water eating it's it's bloody prize. Yeah.

356
00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:20,639
Speaker 1: It looks like flipping on a dime between adorable goobery

357
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Speaker 1: dog face to just like beast from Hell with bloody jaws. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I think I mentioned before there's there's an old

359
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Speaker 1: novel by Jeffrey Household, the the author of Rogue Mail,

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Speaker 1: uh titled Dance of the Dwarfs that it has has

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Speaker 1: a very terrifying otter creature in it. Um. It's it's

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Speaker 1: kind of an outdated novel. It has some very colonial

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00:20:43,119 --> 00:20:46,320
Speaker 1: and um and and macho ideas in it, but the

364
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Speaker 1: like the central concept, the central monster encounter, and the

365
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:54,879
Speaker 1: contemplation of of unknown terrors is quite well done. That

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Speaker 1: was the one where the has giant otters that are

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Speaker 1: at first mistaken for humans. Yeah, and I mean I

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Speaker 1: main character begins to think he can reason with them

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Speaker 1: and like leave gifts for them and communicate with them,

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Speaker 1: and then pretty late, too late in the novel, he

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00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:11,320
Speaker 1: realizes that this is not possible, that it's a giant

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Speaker 1: river otter creature that is hunting him and will kill him. Now,

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Speaker 1: as far as their place in Mexican lore, I was

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Speaker 1: reading Otters in Mexico by Juan Pablo Gallo. This came

375
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Speaker 1: out in six and the author points out that the

376
00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:28,320
Speaker 1: Mexico is home to three otter species, though their numbers

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Speaker 1: have declined in modern times. They were known to the

378
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Speaker 1: Aztec and Mayan people's. One popular Aztec ruler was even

379
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Speaker 1: known by the nickname Autosotal, meaning the spiny one or

380
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:45,240
Speaker 1: the otter. And they're there are also emblems of of

381
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:50,280
Speaker 1: this otter in Aztec art, and it's it's quite ferociously.

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00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:51,879
Speaker 1: It was kind of like a kind of like a

383
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:55,840
Speaker 1: lion um, but also you know, has these kind of

384
00:21:55,840 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 1: aquatic dragon like qualities to it. Now, the the Mayans

385
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: knew them as tuzula, or the dog of the water,

386
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 1: because certainly, when you know, when you start observing an otter,

387
00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:09,680
Speaker 1: if you if you don't already have a firm classification

388
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 1: in mind, you might ask yourself, well, what is this

389
00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:14,720
Speaker 1: creature that in many ways is like a fish, in

390
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:18,200
Speaker 1: other ways is like a dog? What is this thing?

391
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 1: Or in k or yeah, may you may even describe

392
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:24,159
Speaker 1: it as having pig like features. Sure, now you look

393
00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: at other cultures and they encounter similar scenario, similar category

394
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:33,199
Speaker 1: confusions regarding the otter. The old Anglo Saxon name for

395
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 1: the otter essentially meant water snake, and and to the

396
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:40,800
Speaker 1: Celts it was water dog. So again we see that interpretation.

397
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:45,880
Speaker 1: And apparently there was debate among um Celtic clerics as

398
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 1: to whether the flesh of an otter was fish or meat,

399
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 1: which would be vitally important if you were determining what

400
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 1: could be eaten uh during Lent, and there were there

401
00:22:56,320 --> 00:23:01,120
Speaker 1: were even some monks, the Carthusian monks of de Gen, France.

402
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 1: They were forbidden to eat meat at all, so they

403
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 1: only ate the meat of the otter as they determined

404
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,879
Speaker 1: that this was fish. Oh no, now this may you

405
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 1: may well wonder, well, what does otter meat taste like?

406
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,679
Speaker 1: And perhaps some of you out there know for certain

407
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 1: and can and can shime in on this, But you'll

408
00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 1: find various claims online that it tastes rather gamey. I

409
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 1: was also reading about it in a dove in pure

410
00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 1: arcs Microscopic Analysis of feather and hair fragments, which cites

411
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: older texts about the taste about the about the taste

412
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: of sea otter. Apparently the Alouette people of the Bearing

413
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 1: Sea described otter meat as having the taste of mud

414
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: and in older times did not eat it, as they

415
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 1: equated the otter body with the human body and used

416
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: as a reference point for human biology. And apparently if

417
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,439
Speaker 1: you did hunt and kill the otter for food, you

418
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 1: had to appease the person of the otter. So there

419
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:58,399
Speaker 1: was this idea that it wasn't only like a physical resemblance,

420
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 1: there was perhaps some sort of like spirit chull connection

421
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: um that had to be appeased if you were to

422
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 1: consume of this flesh, like a like a ritual justification

423
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:13,159
Speaker 1: of the kill. Yeah. Now, Russian fur hunters who encountered

424
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,159
Speaker 1: uh these people in these traditions, they apparently tended not

425
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: to eat the otter either, though some writers have compared

426
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 1: it to tasting favorably the flavor profile comparing favorably to

427
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:28,199
Speaker 1: lamb uh So, Yeah, a lot of these seems to

428
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: depend on preparation and who's who's judging it, But it

429
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 1: does sound like it tended to taste kind of gamey

430
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:39,120
Speaker 1: um and uh and wasn't to everyone's liking now, Otters

431
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: also pop up in Norse and Scottish mythology. In Norse traditions, Uh,

432
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,240
Speaker 1: the god Loki kills the dwarf Odor, while the dwarf

433
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:49,879
Speaker 1: was is in the form of an otter Uh. And

434
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:53,679
Speaker 1: in and then the Scottish tales tell of the of

435
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 1: an otter king who had grant wishes and travels with

436
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 1: this kind of royal guard of seven black otters WHOA

437
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: I like that, and Rose makes mention of this particular

438
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 1: otter as well. Um uh dobehr chew Uh. This is

439
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:13,120
Speaker 1: the the Otter King, a fearsome, monstrous otter, also known

440
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: as the King of the Lakes, and it is said

441
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 1: to not only hunt animals, but to hunt human beings

442
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: as well. And there's apparently a gravestone in County light

443
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: Trim that's said to depict or to or may have

444
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 1: once depicted a fatal encounter with this monstrous otter, with

445
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 1: the King of the Lakes. And I look up a

446
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,360
Speaker 1: picture of it, and Uh, I can't make much out

447
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 1: of it. It It looks like it's very much degraded over

448
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: the years. But supposedly this may have once resembled an

449
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: otter murdering somebody now it appears to be very like

450
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: and encrusted. Yeah. Now you'll find other monstrous otters and

451
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: otter like forms and folklore from around the world, including

452
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: some Native American traditions such as the te hold Stody

453
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: from navajoed or Asians, which is apparently kind of a

454
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,640
Speaker 1: combination of an otter and a bison. And and this

455
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 1: being had a son, and when this sun was abducted

456
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: by the spider woman, the creature shed tears, and these

457
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:17,439
Speaker 1: tears caused a great flood. So again, you know, we

458
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: always have to, you know, acknowledge that there's a fair

459
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 1: amount of creativity and myth making going on that is

460
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: not directly connected to observations of the natural world. But

461
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: I do love the idea that at least some of

462
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: this may be due to just observations of the weirdness

463
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: of the otter. And then and then how this category

464
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:39,199
Speaker 1: confusion is then uh is then launched into the realm

465
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:42,640
Speaker 1: of legend and lore because again I mentioned that the

466
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,120
Speaker 1: the giant otter is an apex predator. But but this

467
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 1: is this is often the case with with any otter species,

468
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: like they tend to not have have have any enemies

469
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: in the wild. Except for human beings. So they're they're

470
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: they're pretty, they're pretty tough little creatures, and sometimes not

471
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: little at all. They are they are wonderful, goobery marvels

472
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:06,120
Speaker 1: of nature. Uh And and while the otter is quite real,

473
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 1: I guess to bring it back to furry fish. I

474
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 1: don't know if we've directly said this so far, but

475
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: maybe now it is time to break the bad news,

476
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: which is that, really I think there is no such

477
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: thing as a furry fish, or that there there might

478
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: only be if you're really willing to be generous and

479
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 1: loose with your definition of furry right, because I think

480
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 1: all of the reports we've talked about so far are

481
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:35,640
Speaker 1: either known hoaxes, or they are stories that could be

482
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: some combination of just like imaginative creative storytelling or misremembered

483
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: reports of other types of animals where there's some other

484
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 1: explanation that seems more likely than the idea of a

485
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,399
Speaker 1: fish covered in fur or hair of the sort that

486
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: we're used to seeing covering the bodies of mammals. And

487
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:56,959
Speaker 1: I think we can be pretty certain of that because

488
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:01,160
Speaker 1: of an understanding of evolution and file out. Genny fur

489
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 1: is a trait of animals that developed along a totally

490
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:09,159
Speaker 1: separate lineage from fish. That doesn't mean that fish can't

491
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 1: have some bits on their bodies that can resemble for,

492
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: but they're not going to have mammalian fur. And so

493
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: I think that should bring us to a section we

494
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 1: should do here about the biology of fur. What is for?

495
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 1: And where do we find it in the animal kingdom?

496
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: And why do we find it there? Uh? And and

497
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: I think that the first question I've got to start with,

498
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: because this is one of those things that's like a

499
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 1: question that's popped into my head a million times that

500
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: I've never looked it up to confirm our fur and

501
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: hair the same thing or are they different? Did you

502
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,479
Speaker 1: have an intuition on this? I mean I always assumed

503
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: that that fur is a matter of perspective. Yeah, yeah,

504
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: the hair on the top of your head is essentially fur,

505
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: but we just treat it differently, think about it differently,

506
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: and label it differently. You are wiser than I was.

507
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: I For some reason, I was thinking there's got to

508
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: be some kind of biological difference. Not really. I mean,

509
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: so fur is made up of hairs, and hairs are

510
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: filaments of protein, primarily the protein keratin. In the case

511
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: of of mammals, primarily alpha keratin. Some people might make

512
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: an informal descriptive distinction between hair and for reserving the

513
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: term fur for like short dense coats of hair that

514
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: cover the whole body of an animal. But there's not

515
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: really a fundamental biological difference between a dog's fur and

516
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: the hair on a human's head. It evolved from the

517
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: same ancestor, and it's pretty much the same stuff. Though

518
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: within that range, of course, these hairs can take very

519
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: different forms and serve different functions, and I'll explain more

520
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: of that in a minute. So fur is one of

521
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: the primary traits of mammals. As an animal class, mammals

522
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: are usually defined by the facts that they are warm

523
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: blooded animals that give birth to live young, secrete milk,

524
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 1: and possess fur, though some mammals, such as whales, have

525
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: evolved to lose most of their hair. In fact, there

526
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: is broadly uh strong biological truth to the simple observations

527
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: that even a child would make to see the distinctions

528
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: between birds, reptiles and mammals. Right, you know, if you

529
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: ask a kid what is the difference between them, I

530
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: might say, well, birds have feathers, reptiles have scales and

531
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: mammals have fur, and that's probably correct with of course,

532
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: you know the exceptions about whales and cases of that sort,

533
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: but yeah, broadly that is true. Those are major differences

534
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 1: between these classes of animals. So I was reading an

535
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: interview that had some interesting stuff in it that was

536
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: for Scientific American an interview with the mammalogist Nancy Simmons

537
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: of the American Museum of Natural History. A mammalogist is

538
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: a zoologist who specializes in mammals. This was done by

539
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: by Kate Wong in the year two thousand one, and UH.

540
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: This brings up an interesting question, which is did the

541
00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 1: mammals that existed at the same time as dinahs oars

542
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: have for now At the time of this interview, UH,

543
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: Simmons didn't know the answer to this question, because, of course,

544
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: it can be difficult to know a lot of things

545
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: about the soft tissues and outer coverings of long extinct animals.

546
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: Hair doesn't generally fossilize, so the paleontological evidence is sparse,

547
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: though of course, you know, you can learn some things

548
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 1: from special fossils that might preserve a kind of imprint

549
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,719
Speaker 1: in in some kind of UH. Substrate or soil, or

550
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: from genomics, maybe you might be able to learn some

551
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: things about the deep past there. I was reading a

552
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: more recent article, uh in National Geographic by Riley Black

553
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: from fourteen that highlights at least one fossil find that

554
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 1: does make it pretty clear that at least some mammals

555
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: had for by the Mesozoic period, because there are some

556
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: impressions of fur left stamped in a in a fossilized

557
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: piece of mud. So I think we've learned a little

558
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: bit more since uh this interview is just talking about

559
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: But another thing that's brought up here is the question

560
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: of what are the origins of for? And I think

561
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: it still seems to be the consensus of of evolutionary

562
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: biologists that hair evolved in correlation with indo thermi, commonly

563
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: known as warm bloodedness. That we've discussed some ways that

564
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: the terms warm blooded and cold blooded, at least when

565
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: used as a binary, can be a little bit misleading,

566
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: But with that caveat, mammals and birds regulate their internal

567
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: body temperature through metabolism to keep the body at a stable,

568
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: relatively high temperature compared to what is achievable by so

569
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: called cold blooded animals like reptiles and fish, And there

570
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: are a number of big evolutionary upsides to endothermy. Endothermy

571
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: allows more powerful and sustained muscular activity, so athletic stamina

572
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: that is not really available to so called cold, cold

573
00:32:55,720 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: blooded creatures. It allows more freedom to occupy different kinds

574
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: of environments, and it even has some very very interesting

575
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: and less obvious advantages. One of my favorite is the

576
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:13,719
Speaker 1: hypothesis that maintaining a stable high body temperature is a

577
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: major guard against fungal infections picked up from the picked

578
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: up from the environment. So these fungal infections just cannot

579
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: tolerate the hot bodies of birds and mammals. I think

580
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:28,719
Speaker 1: this came up when we were talking about some of

581
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: the you know, sort of the fungal hell of the

582
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: post KPg extinction period. But while endothermy gives you all

583
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: these superpowers, you know, lets you be much more of

584
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: an athlete, has stamina, sustained muscular activity, more freedom in

585
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: what kind of environmental niche you can occupy, it comes

586
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: with big costs, great energy costs. You need to eat

587
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: more to maintain that metabolism to keep keep the heat on.

588
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: And so if you imagine you're designing an animal that

589
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 1: maintains a stable, high internal temperature that exceeds the temperature

590
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: of the environment. This means that you're going to be

591
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: constantly fighting against the fact that you're losing heat through

592
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:09,959
Speaker 1: the skin and the breath and everything. It's just going

593
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: straight out into the air. And that heat is very

594
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 1: energetically expensive. So one obvious solution is to get some insulation.

595
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: Just like you would if you know you're losing too

596
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: much heat at the walls of your house, you can

597
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: line them with insulating material to try to keep the

598
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: heat trapped in. This is believed to be probably the

599
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: primary function, definitely one of the primary functions of fur

600
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:37,240
Speaker 1: insulation against heat loss, for keeps precious body heat inside

601
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: by trapping a layer of warm air close to the skin.

602
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: Insulation seems to be especially the role of what might

603
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 1: be called underhair. So if you imagine a the fur

604
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: coat of an in of of a mammal, this whole

605
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: body is covered in for you might see like sort

606
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: of longer, glossier, stiffer hairs up on the top, and

607
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:01,399
Speaker 1: then underneath them sort of shorter, finer hairs. Those those

608
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: underhairs are especially helpful with insulation. Um. But of course,

609
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: while insulation might be the primary driver of the evolution

610
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 1: of for there plenty of functions. For for example, what

611
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: are those other hairs up on the top doing. Well,

612
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: they might do some insulating too, but also they provide

613
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: a couple of various kinds of physical protection. So hair

614
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: can literally protect the skin against cuts and scrapes. It

615
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: might not seem like it offers that much protection, but

616
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: it does something. Um. But also those outer hairs, often

617
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: called guard hairs, these can have a kind of more

618
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: oily texture. Uh. Those can help repel moisture, keeping the

619
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: insulating underhairs from getting wet. Yeah. Like, if you you

620
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:42,839
Speaker 1: look at a cat or I guess a dog too,

621
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 1: you you kind of get a an education in the

622
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: various uses of the hair, because there's a lot of

623
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,800
Speaker 1: difference between like what the whiskers of a cat are doing, uh,

624
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 1: compared to the like the belly hair of the cat,

625
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: which is its main purposes. Uh. Well, of course, to

626
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,439
Speaker 1: to insulate, but also to to tempt the human hand

627
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: closer to the belly, where will then be attacked by

628
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: the sharp, sharp teeth and the sharp clause. Well, I

629
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: like that you mentioned the whiskers because that highlights another

630
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: totally different but also extremely important evolutionary adaptation of hairs,

631
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: which are hairs that provide significant sensory information. These are

632
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: sometimes known as vibrasy v I B R I, S,

633
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: S A E. So these would be hairs that are

634
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: equipped with some kind of tactile receptors or nerve cells

635
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: that help the animal sense something about its environment with

636
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: these hairs, So the whiskers on a cat or a

637
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 1: great example, or the hairs on a naked mole rat,

638
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: you know, this underground dwelling animal. But then of course

639
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: hair and fur can play huge roles in survival and

640
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:50,799
Speaker 1: reproduction just through changing the appearance the outward appearance of

641
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: the animal. So coloration and patterns on the fur can

642
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,640
Speaker 1: play a role in everything from hunting and camouflage, to

643
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: providing warning signs to potential predators, to mating and fitness displays.

644
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: I'm reminded in all this is well of of things

645
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: that seem like hair that may look like hair and

646
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,319
Speaker 1: other animals but are not. For instance, if you look

647
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: at the it would appear to be eyelashes on like

648
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,320
Speaker 1: a ground hornbill um, which is a which is a bird.

649
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: Uh if you don't know what you're looking at, you

650
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: might think, oh, look at those look at those beautiful eyelashes.

651
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: Look at those hairs on the bird's face. Well they're

652
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,320
Speaker 1: not hairs, their feathers, but they do serve a similar

653
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: purpose to u to some of the hair that might

654
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: appear around the eyes of a mammal. Yeah, and so

655
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: there is definitely some convergent evolution across the animal classes.

656
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that's true is if you go

657
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 1: way way back, far enough back, it does seem to

658
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 1: be true that feathers on birds, which is of course,

659
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: are derived from their dinosaur ancestors. Um for on mammals,

660
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: which is probably derived from some kind of dermal structures

661
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: on proto mammals like the synapsids, and then the scales

662
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 1: on reptiles. Those all probably have a common genomic ancestor.

663
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: But that goes way way back. So the truth is

664
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:14,680
Speaker 1: fish don't have fur because they are on a totally

665
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: separate evolutionary line there, on a different branch of the

666
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 1: tree of life than than the mammals that developed the

667
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 1: fur that we're familiar with today. But the fact that

668
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 1: fish don't have for does not mean that there are

669
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,760
Speaker 1: not some there might be too many negatives there. But anyway,

670
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is some fish really look like they

671
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 1: have for And so I figured, now we should talk

672
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: about some fish that have um interesting examples of external

673
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 1: features fibrous coverings or something like that that look like fur.

674
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 1: And we have to add here that when we say fur,

675
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead include like the broader spectrum of

676
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 1: fur also meaning hair, because some of these fish are

677
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,320
Speaker 1: described are are more described as having things like beards

678
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: or more like hair. But in all cases we're even

679
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: with something that may uh seem like for to some observers. Right, So,

680
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 1: the first example I want to mention is the wonderful,

681
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: the glorious, the hairy frog fish, also known as the

682
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: striated frog fish. The scientific name is Antenaria striatus. This

683
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: is a predator within the frog fish family, which is

684
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:26,280
Speaker 1: Antenarity and the frog fish family are ocean dwelling carnivorous fish,

685
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: which I believe we discussed to at least to some

686
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 1: extent in our episodes about the sargassum the seaweed, Right, yeah,

687
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,839
Speaker 1: we did, because there's one type of or at least

688
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: what we were focusing in on one type of frog

689
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: fish that makes its home in the sarcasm um. A

690
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 1: lot of them don't live so close to the surface,

691
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: but they are these are these are fascinating little fish.

692
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 1: Uh I was. I get to visit the aquarium in

693
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 1: Malle and they have some frog fish uh there that

694
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: you can look at, and they're just they're all so

695
00:39:56,200 --> 00:40:00,040
Speaker 1: wonderful because they often they're often this weird mismatch of

696
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: a looking a little bit gross but also sometimes super colorful,

697
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 1: like like bright oranges, you know. And then they'll have

698
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:10,320
Speaker 1: these like little grumpy little faces that in many ways

699
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,400
Speaker 1: seem more humanoid than fish. Like they you know, they

700
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: look like little goblins, like little brightly colored grump as

701
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: goblins that live in the sea. About human faced fish, yeah, yeah,

702
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: Well the hairy frog fish is a beautiful grump as

703
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: goblin um. So these are there are These are a

704
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: species of frog fish that grow up to something like

705
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:36,240
Speaker 1: about twenty centimeters or maybe twenty two centimeters in length maximum,

706
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: and they tend to live along the bottom of the

707
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 1: ocean on the seafloor, sort of walking along like we

708
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: described with other frog fish species um. But the hairy

709
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 1: frog fish or striated frog fish in particular, is matted

710
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: in these bizarre looking fluffy appendages that truly do look

711
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 1: like hair. It's like a big wad of she bag

712
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: carpet just sucking down fish on the seafloor. Now, this

713
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: is not actually hair or fur. These fibers you see

714
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 1: covering the outside of the hairy frog fish are a

715
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: dermal appendages known as spin ules um. They seem to

716
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: be used primarily not for insulation but for camouflage. So

717
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 1: the hairy frog fish is an ambush predator, and it

718
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 1: what it wants to look like something other than an

719
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 1: ambush predator. It wants to maybe look like some kind

720
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: of other massive organic material, maybe blend in with a

721
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,280
Speaker 1: coral reef, look like just some kind of thing sitting

722
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: there stationary in the environment so that fish will get

723
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: close to its big dangerous mouth. And uh, and it's

724
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: worth looking up videos of its hunting strategy. You can

725
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: find these pretty easily online. I found a good clip

726
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 1: from a documentary by the Smithsonian Video Channel, and you

727
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:55,240
Speaker 1: can see this critter. It works. So the hairy frog

728
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 1: fish sits there and waits in this mop of spinules,

729
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:01,839
Speaker 1: and then when prey fish are close by, it can

730
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: suddenly expand its mouth cavity by a factor of about twelve,

731
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: creating this powerful vacuum force that sucks in the prey

732
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: and a split second. And so these creatures are in

733
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:17,760
Speaker 1: many senses, truly fearsome predators. I've I've read it claimed

734
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 1: at least that they can prey on other fish that

735
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:24,279
Speaker 1: are about the same size as them. And I have

736
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,400
Speaker 1: to say this, the one that you shared a photo of,

737
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: it looks like it crawled out of Google deep dream.

738
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: You know, it has this wild it's appendages are yes,

739
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,719
Speaker 1: it's quite psychedelic in multiple ways. So yeah, it's it's

740
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 1: got that abstract quality like it was a hallucination by

741
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:41,240
Speaker 1: a machine elf. But also it is a long haired hippie.

742
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: Uh So this is not a furry fish, not in

743
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: the true sense of mammalian fur. But I think this

744
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 1: is about as close as fish get. This is a beautiful,

745
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: shaggy creature, a predator for the ages. Now here's another

746
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: example of of of something we might well classify as

747
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: a furry fish, and that is the bearded obie or

748
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: pelagic gobi, an Atlantic species of gobi. That it's it's

749
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:07,840
Speaker 1: something sometimes called the bearded gobie but then you also

750
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:12,400
Speaker 1: have the bearded eel gobi, which is also sometimes called

751
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: the bearded gobi. And the names here refers to barbels

752
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 1: under the chin and lower jaw, so barbles. And I

753
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: think that the quote I read earlier um from that

754
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: monster book mentioned barble slightly in describing the physiology of

755
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: of of a purported creature. But barbles are slender whisker

756
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 1: like sensory organs, such as those found in catfish. Uh.

757
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,279
Speaker 1: They are not, of course real beards uh. And they

758
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: can be found in various places on a fish's head.

759
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: But when they pop up under the chin, certainly you

760
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: can understand our urge to say, oh, well, this this

761
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: creature looks like it has facial hair. Um. And you

762
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: see some examples of the bearded gobie, and boy, it

763
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 1: does it looks like it has some sort of like

764
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: a neck beard or a chin strap see Everett Coope.

765
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: Kind of a beard going on. I'm inferring this fish's

766
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: theological opinions yea, from its facial hair. Yeah. Now, these

767
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: are technically mandibular or mental barbels, and generally they're present

768
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: to aid in low visibility food searches. So even though

769
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: they might look like they're not doing anything. They are

770
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: helping the fish define food. Okay, so you could say

771
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:27,400
Speaker 1: that in a way, these are um These are a

772
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: case of something like convergent evolution with the mammalian vibrasy, right,

773
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 1: the you know, the the sensory hairs that might be

774
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: like in a cat's whiskers or something. Uh, these whisker

775
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: like organs. Again, they're they're not exactly hairs, but they

776
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 1: do a similar thing their sensory input. Yeah. Another example

777
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:49,760
Speaker 1: of this is the beard fish of the genus Polymyxia.

778
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: These are found in tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic,

779
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: the Indian, and the western Pacific Ocean. They live in

780
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: the deep and they have these two elongated barbels like

781
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: underneath their chin, and that's where they get their name.

782
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: So it's a it. It looks like a totally different

783
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: sort of beard, but you can understand why it was

784
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 1: referred to informally as the beard fish. It looks more

785
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: like the like I don't know, Romstein fan who has

786
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 1: his his goatee in one long braid. Yes, yes, it

787
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: does look like like a braided gotee kind of a situation. Yeah,

788
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 1: very cool look for a fish. Now, these are just

789
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: a few examples, you know, the most probably most the

790
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:32,879
Speaker 1: most obvious examples of fish being compared often by name,

791
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:36,840
Speaker 1: to beards and fur. But obviously you're gonna have barbells

792
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,879
Speaker 1: occurring with the wide variety of fish. You're also gonna

793
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: have other stuff going on with their fins and other

794
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:46,280
Speaker 1: appendages at times, and they're there are numerous situations where

795
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: one might look at such a creature and say, oh,

796
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 1: well that if I'm going to compare that to my

797
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: own body and the bodies of of terrestrial creatures, then

798
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 1: I might well say that that creature looks furry, that

799
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 1: creature looks hairy, or that creature looks bearded in some

800
00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: fashion or another. Yes, this catfish has a weird beard

801
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: and mustache. Yeah, And we can imagine how like that

802
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: kind of thing, through the echo chamber of of of

803
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: of oral tradition and storytelling and history, could take on

804
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:19,440
Speaker 1: the form of like increasingly hairy or increasingly bearded fish.

805
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 1: And then what happens when that account runs into say,

806
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 1: accounts of otters and seals and so forth. I mean,

807
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: I think ultimately that's that's where I end up landing

808
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 1: and thinking about all of this is that you you

809
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 1: probably have just multiple things going on in the oral

810
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: tradition and then ultimately in the written tradition as well, um,

811
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,439
Speaker 1: and they end up converging and running into each other,

812
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: and you end up with these, uh, these often elaborate

813
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: reinterpretations of what is going on in the natural world. Yeah, totally. So.

814
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:51,359
Speaker 1: There is truly no such thing as a genuine furry fish,

815
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of fish out there with

816
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 1: with glorious shagginess of various kinds. There's some wonderful uh

817
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 1: aquatic and semi aquatic mammals, the otter and all that.

818
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: Uh So you know, once again, nature is stranger than fiction. Yes, now,

819
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 1: we of course we'd love to hear from everyone out

820
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 1: there who has any experience with accounts of harry fish

821
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: and and these other creatures that we've discussed. If you

822
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 1: have accounts or encounters with with otters, I would love

823
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: to hear about them, because otters, I mean, even here

824
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, in a very urban environment, they are otters around.

825
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 1: They're like I one day, I was picking up my

826
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:28,760
Speaker 1: my son from school and there's an otter just because

827
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: there's a body of water close to the school. And

828
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: apparently otters lived there. I had no idea that's metal. Yeah,

829
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 1: I think it's a golf course, so there. I don't

830
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,760
Speaker 1: know how metal a golf course otter is, but stealth

831
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: otters their golf ball retrieving otters. Yeah, so yeah, let

832
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 1: us know if you're you know what, if you have

833
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 1: any intimidating encounters with with with with otters, we'd love

834
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 1: to hear about that strange fish that appear to have

835
00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: you know, interesting bar bowls or things that look like

836
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 1: beards or for if there are other great examples from

837
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 1: folklore and legend and uh, you know, in different traditions

838
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: of send them in. We'd love to review them. In

839
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:10,399
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to check out other

840
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:12,359
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you will find

841
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 1: them in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed.

842
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: We do core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do

843
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 1: an artifact. On Wednesdays, we do listener mail. On Mondays

844
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:23,359
Speaker 1: we do a rerun over the weekend, and then on

845
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: Friday's we do a little bit of weird how Cinema.

846
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: That is our time to set aside most of the

847
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 1: serious matter and discuss a weird film huge thanks as

848
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

849
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

850
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

851
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 1: topic for the future, just to say hello, you can

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Speaker 1: email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind

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Speaker 1: dot com Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: With the iHeart Radio you up Apple Podcasts or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows.