WEBVTT - The Fish Had Fur, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:15.520 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.840 This is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:22.880 back with part two of our series on furry fish. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.080 We had great fun in the last episode talking about 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:30.760 some bizarre myths and legends of fish completely covered in 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.879 fur or covered in blotches or patches of fur. So 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.800 we talked about some old reports from Iceland of a 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.400 so called shaggy trout that lived in the lakes and streams. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.080 Allegedly i was said to be covered in fur, was 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.680 said to be poisonous when eating, or was said to 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.160 have other strange effects when eaten. Um we talked about 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.480 Marco Polo's secondhand reports of a giant furry fish found 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.080 dead in a river near the Chinese city he called 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:01.440 Keen Sai. We talked about possible explanations for reports of 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:03.880 fish covered in fur, if there is in fact anything 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.240 these reports are based on. So, for example, the possibility 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.480 that Marco Polo's furry fish could have been maybe a 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.800 half remembered report of a decomposing river dolphin, or the 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.039 idea that some reports of furry fish or fish with 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:23.400 furry patches could actually be observations of fish with parasitic infections, 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.840 such as a water mold called saprolegnia. But today we 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.839 wanted to start with some more weird reports of furry 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.040 fish from across the ages furry fish and fish like creatures, 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.800 So I think the first one we should do today 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.560 is the Japanese furry fish. And this one is mentioned 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:43.720 in a book that I brought up in the last episode. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.319 It's a book by a British cryptozoologist named Carl Schucker 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.800 called The Beasts That Hied from Man and Shooker sources 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:56.000 this claim of this bizarre creature to a book called 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.560 The World in Miniature Japan, which was published in the 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.440 early eighteen hundreds, edited by an author named Frederick Shoberl, 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.040 and this book records a claim that goes like this. Okay, 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.320 So the book says there's a river in Japan and 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.919 it's full of strange creatures that measure about four to 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.880 five feet in length. They have scaly bodies like fish, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.600 but their heads are covered in hair like a human's hair. 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.560 And these creatures don't sound like a type of fish 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.160 strictly because they can allegedly leave the water and move 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.920 around on the banks of the river. And from here 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.520 I'm going to quote from from shooters summary on the 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.680 banks of the River quote where they fight or engage 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.600 in boisterous games with one another, emitting loud cries as 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:47.359 they disport in a singularly rowdy, unfish like manner. However, 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:52.360 there rombusteous behavior swiftly transforms into savage aggression if they 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.840 spy any people unhesitating lee attacking and killing their hapless 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:01.639 human victims by disemboweling them. Yet they do not devour 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:06.320 their bodies afterwards. Okay, so a weird report as usual. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.560 There are at least a couple of options you can 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.680 start with at the get go. One is that this 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.920 could just be imaginative storytelling. Somebody is telling a yarn 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.000 based purely on, you know, combining elements out of their imagination. 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.800 But it could also be some kind of distorted account 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.880 of something somebody saw in nature. I guess if we 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:31.440 want to consider possibilities of of imaginative storytelling, you might 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:37.040 want to look for similarities to other types of known beasts, monsters, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.840 or creatures from the local mythology. Yeah, and this made 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.400 me turn to a couple of different things that but 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.680 one that certainly came up with the Japanese uh Nno, 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.520 a sort of mer creature described, at least in some accounts, 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:54.120 is a huge fish with the head of a beautiful woman. Uh. 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.760 She's often said to be protective of humans and warns 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.360 them against dangers. So, in a way, sort of the 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.800 opposite of of other models of a mirror creature or 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.720 a siren or what have you. Um and and this 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.080 is a pretty famous creature in Japanese mythology. In fact, 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.040 it's even been brought to life in the in the 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:16.840 films of Miyazaki. If you've seen Nyazaki's Panio. Uh, this 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:18.760 is kind of a cute take on the idea of 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.400 a ningyo. Yeah. I was reading about the ningyo in 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.880 an excellent book that I actually own a copy of. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.239 It's called The Book of Yokai, and it's by a 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.960 folklore scholar named Michael Dillon Foster. The book is out 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.000 through University of California Press. Uh And if you're a 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:38.240 fan of of Japanese monster legends, I highly recommend this book. 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.800 It's really good. So a few facts from Foster's telling 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.279 on the ningyo So, first of all, though the word 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.600 ningyo is sometimes translated to English as mermaid or merman, 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.599 it literally just means human fish. And so, Rob, do 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.359 you remember how in the stories we talked about in 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.640 the last episode, how the shaggy trout of Iceland and 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.719 Marco Polos were bard of the furry fish. They were 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.880 both said to be poisonous or to kill people who 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.719 ate them. So Michael Dillon Foster notes that there is 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.680 a classic medicinal encyclopedia of Japan that notes that the 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.120 bones of the ningyo, which I think it just reports 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.719 as if it were any other mundane animal. It's like, yeah, 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:20.440 here are the animals you can find. One of them 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.800 is the ningyo, this half human half half fish. If 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.000 you take those bones, they can be made into a 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:30.640 poison quote with wonderful effect. But he notes even more 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.479 stories on the other side of the scale, stories of 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.680 the ningo having exactly the opposite effect. We're eating their 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.400 flesh or even just looking at one of them sometimes 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:43.680 can guarantee you a long and prosperous life. M hmm. 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.240 That's an interesting detail because on one hand it sounds 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.360 like medicine in general, right, I mean, there's so many 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.200 different properties of the natural world that you take it 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.120 a certain way or under certain conditions or in certain 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.800 quantities and it's beneficial or potentially beneficial, and then in 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.359 other quantities or situations it can be deadly totally or 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:06.880 different parts of the same animal. Again, I want to 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.000 be clear, we're not actually saying that, like the bones 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.359 of a mermaid will make you live forever, don't but 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.880 Mermaid based on anything you hear in this episode. But 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.320 I just mean, yeah, yeah, I think you're correct that 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.360 the logic of it follows the logic of a lot 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.640 of real properties of of medicines you would find in nature. 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.279 But there's one thing I wanted to mention that's in 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.880 the Book of Yokai. So there is this one classic 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.080 tale about the nemeo U. There is a fisherman who 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.400 catches one of these things and then cooks it and 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.920 then offers it to a friend, and the friend doesn't 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.240 want to eat it because he's weirded out by the 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.760 fact that it has a human head. You know, even 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.000 though it might taste like delicious fish and the muscular parts, 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:48.800 it's got a human head. So he's like, yeah, I 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.240 don't know, So he takes it home with him, and 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.560 his sixteen year old daughter eats it. I don't know 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.760 if some details are lost there, if she's just like 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.719 not squicked out by the human head like he is um, 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:00.800 but she eats it and then as a result, she 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.200 lives to be eight hundred years old and spends her 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.839 life as a kind of superhero Nun, traveling the country 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.920 doing good like a like a fish, human cannibal, holy hulk, 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.240 and she eventually enshrines her body in a cave by 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:20.560 the sea. UM. Speaking of of Yokai, I do have 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.360 to mention for anyone out there, and also speaking of 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.920 Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli Films, there's a wonderful film titled 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.520 pomp Poco that came out from Studio Ghibli many years back, 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.520 and it is It is a film about Tanuki's, about 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.920 magical Tanuki's, and there's a there's a full English dub 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:39.400 of it. I think you can you can watch this 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:42.520 on HBO Max if you subscribe to that um or 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.160 you can watch it in the original Japanese. But it 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.040 is it's absolutely fatless. Do not be scared away by 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.320 the fact that it is um a film about magical 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.800 Tanukis who do magic with their testicles. Uh or as 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.920 it is translated into into English, they are raccoons using 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.720 their raccoon pouch, but we know they're testicles. Um. It's 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.960 it's a wonderful film. It's totally it's totally for for 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.600 kids and adults alike. It has a strong environmental message. 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.120 And there's a whole sequence in it where the tanukis 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.000 because it's not just Tanuki's in it, there are also 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.320 fox spirits. And then there's a sequence where the Tanukis 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.600 create a yokai parade. They take on all of these 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.360 fabulous yokai forms, all of these various classic ones you 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.360 may have seen in illustrations, like the giant skeleton and 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.560 you know, the umbrella creatures, that sort of thing. Uh. 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.400 And it's just absolutely gorgeous. So I highly recommend that 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:35.880 film if it's one of those you've you've kind of 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:37.720 shied away from because you weren't sure if maybe if 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:41.160 it translates, um, you know, to a non Japanese audience. 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.679 It absolutely does. It's just a beautiful film. Clancy Brown 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.280 does one of the voices. Really, I haven't seen that one, 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.280 but now I want to check it. Out, Yeah, at 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.200 least fast far to the yokai parade. But anyway, going 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.760 back to that description from the book of this creature 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.320 in the in the river who has a head full 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.839 of hair scales like a fish on this body. I mean, 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.160 you can see how that that's sort of similar to 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.560 the neo tradition, but I'm not sure there's actually any connection. 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.800 There might just be a few superficial similarities. It's hard 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.200 to tell, you know. Speaking of fish at yokai, there's 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.720 another yokai called amaba A, which looks very much like 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.079 what we just talked about, except throw in a bird's 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.560 beak and some slightly different feet. And I was reading 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.840 about this, and interestingly enough, it became something of a 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:32.320 mascot for COVID nineteen pandemic measures in Japan um and 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.079 you'll see posters that say like stop COVID nineteen and 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.800 will be a picture of this creature. I was reading 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:42.440 about it in this uh Anthropology Today article by Claudia 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:48.920 Merley titled a Chimeric Being from Cayushu, Japan um and 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.840 this is the quote from it. Quote presented as a 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.600 mascot but viewed as an icon of protection. This uncanny 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.640 little Yochai from southern Japan in the pre modern Edo 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.840 period addresses our lives as they are caught in a 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:06.480 suspension of our usual temporal and spatial dimensions. A monster, 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:13.040 a hyper object, and an art effigy of our pandemic present. Okay, anyway, 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.960 it's also cute creature. It is very cute. It's got like, yeah, 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.000 it's got the cute bird face, the fish scales, and 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.000 then just like a big old, luxurious mane of hair. 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.319 But anyway, whatever the similarities to these other legendary beings 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:33.200 of Japanese mythology. Regarding this one story from from this 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.680 book The World in Miniature Japan, Shoot Shooker asks, you know, 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.320 if these stories are based at least in part on 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.760 real observations, could there be anything that we could figure 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.760 out they might be talking about? And he passes on 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.400 an interesting guess that was suggested by a curator of 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:54.760 mollusks at the Royal Museum of Scotland who's named David Heppel, 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.400 and Happel says, what if these stories were laid by 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:02.040 show Burl in the hun are based on observations of 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:07.040 the northern fur seal or Calorinus or sinus. A seal 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.000 might kind of fit the bill um, so the stories 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.280 would have had to have been translated from the sea 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.040 coast to the river somehow, because fur seals don't usually 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:17.320 you know, they're not going to go all the way 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:19.400 up the river. I don't know. They mess around in 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.840 the river mouth, but um. But otherwise a fur seal 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.760 could partially match the description. It's not scaly, but it 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.959 does have flippers, so in body it is what Shugar 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:34.600 calls superficially fish like, but it is pretty close to 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.400 the right size to match this story. It does have 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.480 the notable whiskers on its head and of course fur 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.120 on its body. They do definitely come out of the 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:48.240 water and romp around real good, so maybe possibly UM. 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.480 As to the the stories about the aggression, again, it's 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.880 hard to tell if this is based on anything, whether 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.240 that would be part of the original observation or just 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.640 an embellishment um with with these fur seals. While they 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.520 can by northern first, seals do not seem to me 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.480 to be especially noted for aggression towards humans that they 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.959 don't have like a disemboweling vertical And of course when 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.760 you get into disemboweling, and you know, any kind of 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:17.280 account of animal um attacks, Like, there's so many additional factors, 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.760 like did you see this animal disembowel somebody? Or was 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.360 there a body found and these animals were nearby? You know, 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:28.600 this could be the result of scavenging of decomposition. Uh, 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.440 there's so many additional factors to consider, but those are 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.840 not factors that necessarily impact the myth making in any 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.120 given scenario, right, So it's hard to tell with this story. 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.520 I think this is one where it's it's difficult to 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:42.760 get a sense of whether this is based on something 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:47.360 somebody saw or whether it's more imaginative. But but yeah, 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:49.880 I like to think that somebody saw some seals and 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.400 then just just went wild. I mean seals, like some 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.040 other creatures will be discussing here. Under the right circumstances, 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.040 they can look very cute and and noble, but in 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.959 other situations they can be quite alarming. Uh. If I 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:09.480 was in the water once, um, this was what was? 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.000 This is one of the Wayian islands, and there were 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.640 some some seals in the water, and of course humans 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.760 were trying to stay away from the seals, but occasionally 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:20.959 a seal is just coming in and then you're you're 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.240 right next to it, and it can be extremely alarming, 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:28.320 especially if they're leopard seals. Don't don't go swimming with those, yeah, yeah, seals. 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.800 Seals can be quite quite alarming. And then even if, 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.360 certainly if you've seen footage of of them them froligging 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.280 about on the on the shore, as alluded to in 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:43.760 these potential accounts off seals, then you can imagine how 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.920 people might decide, you know, it's best to stay away 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.000 from this. This looks like a situation that might end 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.440 in disembowling. You know. One more funny story that comes 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.679 from Shooters book. While we are on the subject of 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.640 the Royal Museum of Scotland, where that that curator was 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.320 who had the idea that maybe the story is about seals. 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.000 The Royal Museum of Scotland also has in its collection 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.640 a furry fish taxidermied and mounted on a wooden plaque, 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:16.679 just like our patron saint big Mouth Billy Bass. And 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:18.800 in fact you can look up pictures of this one. 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.360 It might have been the episode art for the first episode. 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.440 I'm not sure, um, but but anyway, it looks a 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.680 lot like the photo The hoax photo that we talked 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.720 about in the last episode where that guy claimed to 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.280 have caught a shaggy trout in Wisconsin. Yeah, it kind 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.280 of looks like it could easily be some sort of 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.920 weird folk art pillow. It looks very soft, very luxurious. Yeah, 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.800 it's clearly a fish, but it is covered in thick, 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:50.040 luxurious white fur, again like the forearm of a polar bear. Alas, 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.520 this is not a genuine furry fish but another hoax. 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.280 The text that is underneath the fish, the mounted fish 0:14:57.360 --> 0:14:59.720 says that it was caught in the Lake Superior off 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.240 the is to Ontario and uh and was mounted by 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.640 a taxidermist named Ross c. Job And it again repeats 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.560 that allegation we talked about in part one from the 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.360 other hoax, that the fur is an adaptation to the 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.920 extreme cold of deep Canadian waters, which almost makes me 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.960 wonder if it's this is sort of intentionally a joke 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.480 and is meant to be understood as a joke. Well, yeah, 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.160 I mean, like the taxidermy as a as a craft 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.120 and ultimately an art form is going to give way 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.920 to artistic creations, and we see that throughout the world 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:37.160 of taxidermy. Whether you're talking about jackalopes or squirrels and 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.680 chipmunks that are made to be drinking tea, that sort 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.040 of thing. But at least not everybody was in on 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.120 the joke, because Shugar explains the story of where this 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.080 came from, like how it ended up at the Royal 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.480 Museum of Scotland. Apparently the museum acquired it when a 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.840 woman brought it into them after she bought it in Canada, 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.880 thinking it was real, it was a real animal, and 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:00.920 then she brings it into the museum and says, hey, 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:02.680 I want to know more about this fish. Can you 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.840 tell me about the furbearing trout. Once she found out 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.960 it was a hoax, she donated it to the museum. Well, 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.840 you know, the preservation of hoaxes is also important, absolutely 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.520 because it will help us. It helps us realize what's 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.040 real and what's fake, and the story of our sorting 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:26.720 all of this out, all right, So at this point 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.800 I thought we might turn to the Americus because we, 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.040 uh more specifically, we're gonna look increasingly towards Central and 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.720 South America. I was reading the work of folklore's Carol Rose. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.520 She has again those two wonderful tomes of of you know, 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.200 encyclopedic tomes of mythological and folkloric creatures that I often 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.800 turned to. And in it, as she mentions the Hoga, 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.560 this is described as a lake monster in the traditions 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.520 of Mexico, known in South America as the andura. And 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.200 this was apparently described as a giant fish creature with 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.680 the head and ears of a pig and quote extremely 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.480 long barbs or thick whiskers around its mouth. It also 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.960 had things. It could also shift colors from red to 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.400 green to yellow, and it was described as a ravenous 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.000 beast to be feared by humans. Oh, I like this, 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.160 So giant fish body, head and ears of a pig, 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:26.119 barbs or whiskers on its face, fangs can change colors, 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.399 might attack humans, right uh And and of course this 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.439 instantly brings up a different couple of different possibilities, you know, 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.640 some that are definitely within the fish world. And we'll 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.920 get to some some real life fish that could potentially 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:41.720 match up with some of these descriptions in a bit. 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.919 But also we're reminded of other, uh, non fish, but 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.840 fish like forms that we find in the wild. Now. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.560 Some of these accounts are based on the writings of 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.760 of Ambrose Pare, who lived fifteen ten through fifteen ninety. 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:02.080 There's a French surgeon, and he mentioned the Hoga legend 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.400 in his book Monsters and Marvels, writing quote, its head 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.280 and ears are not different from a terrestrial swine. It 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.160 has five whiskers a half a foot long, or they're 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.400 about similar to those of a big barble. It's flesh 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:17.680 is very good and delicious. The fish produces live offspring 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.320 in the fashion of a whale. If you contemplate it 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.560 while it is disporting itself swimming in the water, you 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.199 would say that it is now green, now yellow, and 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.480 then red, just like the chameleon. It keeps more to 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.040 the edge of the lake than elsewhere where. It feeds 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.919 on leaves of a tree called Hoga, from which it 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.040 took its name. It is very toothy and savage, killing 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.119 and devouring other fish, indeed those bigger than it is. 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.639 That is why people pursue it, hunted and kill it, 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.480 because if it entered into the conduits, it wouldn't leave 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.280 a single one of them alive, whereby the person who 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:53.040 kills the most of them is most welcome. Wow, now 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.359 I've seen connections here between this legend and that of 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.920 the furry trout. But I can't help but wonder if 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.000 if this is indeed a natural creature that is being 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.000 described here where it's the echo of a natural creature 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.000 in in myth and legend, then perhaps we're talking about 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.879 an otter, because certainly you know their their otters have 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.920 found throughout the America's In South America you have the 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.960 the the giant otter, the South American giant otter, which 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.119 is is quite quite a specimen. They can look really 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.960 intimidating their apex predators. They've been known to charge at 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:30.960 boats uh and um. And then even outside of this environment, 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.280 you look at a North American and Central American otters 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.440 and you know they can still be very ferocious, very territorial, 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:40.960 and if you take them outside of that cute context, 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.960 they can be quite impressive. Yeah, Rachel and I were 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:49.000 having fun googling pictures of South American giant river otters 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.040 the other day, and they very much embody the spirit 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.200 of uh he protect but he also attacked. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:58.919 they can look very ferocious. I found a wonderful photo 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.439 of one eating a fi and it has this this 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:05.000 bloody fanged mouth uh and uh and has this kind 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:09.359 of almost humanoid looking, uh you know form to it, 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:11.520 Like it looks like some sort of a squat creature 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:16.879 just hanging out in the water eating it's it's bloody prize. Yeah. 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.639 It looks like flipping on a dime between adorable goobery 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:27.240 dog face to just like beast from Hell with bloody jaws. Yeah. Yeah, 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.160 And I think I mentioned before there's there's an old 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.320 novel by Jeffrey Household, the the author of Rogue Mail, 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.520 uh titled Dance of the Dwarfs that it has has 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.280 a very terrifying otter creature in it. Um. It's it's 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:42.919 kind of an outdated novel. It has some very colonial 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.320 and um and and macho ideas in it, but the 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:50.199 like the central concept, the central monster encounter, and the 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:54.879 contemplation of of unknown terrors is quite well done. That 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.080 was the one where the has giant otters that are 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.920 at first mistaken for humans. Yeah, and I mean I 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.720 main character begins to think he can reason with them 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.800 and like leave gifts for them and communicate with them, 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.119 and then pretty late, too late in the novel, he 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.320 realizes that this is not possible, that it's a giant 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.400 river otter creature that is hunting him and will kill him. Now, 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.199 as far as their place in Mexican lore, I was 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:22.440 reading Otters in Mexico by Juan Pablo Gallo. This came 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:25.440 out in six and the author points out that the 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.320 Mexico is home to three otter species, though their numbers 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.320 have declined in modern times. They were known to the 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:35.760 Aztec and Mayan people's. One popular Aztec ruler was even 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:41.000 known by the nickname Autosotal, meaning the spiny one or 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:45.240 the otter. And they're there are also emblems of of 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:50.280 this otter in Aztec art, and it's it's quite ferociously. 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:51.879 It was kind of like a kind of like a 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.840 lion um, but also you know, has these kind of 0:21:55.840 --> 0:22:00.720 aquatic dragon like qualities to it. Now, the the Mayans 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.040 knew them as tuzula, or the dog of the water, 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.000 because certainly, when you know, when you start observing an otter, 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:09.680 if you if you don't already have a firm classification 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.119 in mind, you might ask yourself, well, what is this 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:14.720 creature that in many ways is like a fish, in 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:18.200 other ways is like a dog? What is this thing? 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.240 Or in k or yeah, may you may even describe 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.159 it as having pig like features. Sure, now you look 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.840 at other cultures and they encounter similar scenario, similar category 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:33.199 confusions regarding the otter. The old Anglo Saxon name for 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:37.280 the otter essentially meant water snake, and and to the 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.800 Celts it was water dog. So again we see that interpretation. 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.880 And apparently there was debate among um Celtic clerics as 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.920 to whether the flesh of an otter was fish or meat, 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:52.800 which would be vitally important if you were determining what 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:56.320 could be eaten uh during Lent, and there were there 0:22:56.320 --> 0:23:01.120 were even some monks, the Carthusian monks of de Gen, France. 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:03.800 They were forbidden to eat meat at all, so they 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:06.560 only ate the meat of the otter as they determined 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:10.879 that this was fish. Oh no, now this may you 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:13.600 may well wonder, well, what does otter meat taste like? 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:15.679 And perhaps some of you out there know for certain 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:18.520 and can and can shime in on this, But you'll 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:22.320 find various claims online that it tastes rather gamey. I 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:25.359 was also reading about it in a dove in pure 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:29.240 arcs Microscopic Analysis of feather and hair fragments, which cites 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:33.800 older texts about the taste about the about the taste 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:37.760 of sea otter. Apparently the Alouette people of the Bearing 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.359 Sea described otter meat as having the taste of mud 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:42.840 and in older times did not eat it, as they 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:46.240 equated the otter body with the human body and used 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.800 as a reference point for human biology. And apparently if 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:52.439 you did hunt and kill the otter for food, you 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:55.879 had to appease the person of the otter. So there 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:58.399 was this idea that it wasn't only like a physical resemblance, 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:00.800 there was perhaps some sort of like spirit chull connection 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:04.560 um that had to be appeased if you were to 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:08.160 consume of this flesh, like a like a ritual justification 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:13.159 of the kill. Yeah. Now, Russian fur hunters who encountered 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:16.159 uh these people in these traditions, they apparently tended not 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:19.520 to eat the otter either, though some writers have compared 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:24.240 it to tasting favorably the flavor profile comparing favorably to 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:28.199 lamb uh So, Yeah, a lot of these seems to 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:31.800 depend on preparation and who's who's judging it, But it 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:34.359 does sound like it tended to taste kind of gamey 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:39.120 um and uh and wasn't to everyone's liking now, Otters 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:43.639 also pop up in Norse and Scottish mythology. In Norse traditions, Uh, 0:24:43.720 --> 0:24:47.240 the god Loki kills the dwarf Odor, while the dwarf 0:24:47.359 --> 0:24:49.879 was is in the form of an otter Uh. And 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:53.679 in and then the Scottish tales tell of the of 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:57.160 an otter king who had grant wishes and travels with 0:24:57.200 --> 0:25:00.720 this kind of royal guard of seven black otters WHOA 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:04.560 I like that, and Rose makes mention of this particular 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:09.040 otter as well. Um uh dobehr chew Uh. This is 0:25:09.080 --> 0:25:13.120 the the Otter King, a fearsome, monstrous otter, also known 0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:15.320 as the King of the Lakes, and it is said 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:17.920 to not only hunt animals, but to hunt human beings 0:25:17.960 --> 0:25:22.960 as well. And there's apparently a gravestone in County light 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:25.520 Trim that's said to depict or to or may have 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:30.520 once depicted a fatal encounter with this monstrous otter, with 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:32.679 the King of the Lakes. And I look up a 0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:35.360 picture of it, and Uh, I can't make much out 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:38.160 of it. It It looks like it's very much degraded over 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:42.359 the years. But supposedly this may have once resembled an 0:25:42.359 --> 0:25:45.280 otter murdering somebody now it appears to be very like 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:50.320 and encrusted. Yeah. Now you'll find other monstrous otters and 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:53.600 otter like forms and folklore from around the world, including 0:25:53.680 --> 0:25:58.840 some Native American traditions such as the te hold Stody 0:25:58.920 --> 0:26:01.840 from navajoed or Asians, which is apparently kind of a 0:26:01.840 --> 0:26:05.640 combination of an otter and a bison. And and this 0:26:05.720 --> 0:26:09.159 being had a son, and when this sun was abducted 0:26:09.160 --> 0:26:13.280 by the spider woman, the creature shed tears, and these 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:17.439 tears caused a great flood. So again, you know, we 0:26:17.520 --> 0:26:20.720 always have to, you know, acknowledge that there's a fair 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:23.159 amount of creativity and myth making going on that is 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:26.600 not directly connected to observations of the natural world. But 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:29.320 I do love the idea that at least some of 0:26:29.359 --> 0:26:32.119 this may be due to just observations of the weirdness 0:26:32.119 --> 0:26:35.280 of the otter. And then and then how this category 0:26:35.320 --> 0:26:39.199 confusion is then uh is then launched into the realm 0:26:39.280 --> 0:26:42.640 of legend and lore because again I mentioned that the 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:45.120 the giant otter is an apex predator. But but this 0:26:45.200 --> 0:26:47.760 is this is often the case with with any otter species, 0:26:47.800 --> 0:26:51.560 like they tend to not have have have any enemies 0:26:51.560 --> 0:26:54.840 in the wild. Except for human beings. So they're they're 0:26:54.880 --> 0:26:57.520 they're pretty, they're pretty tough little creatures, and sometimes not 0:26:57.640 --> 0:27:02.760 little at all. They are they are wonderful, goobery marvels 0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:06.120 of nature. Uh And and while the otter is quite real, 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:08.199 I guess to bring it back to furry fish. I 0:27:08.200 --> 0:27:10.720 don't know if we've directly said this so far, but 0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:13.760 maybe now it is time to break the bad news, 0:27:13.800 --> 0:27:16.440 which is that, really I think there is no such 0:27:16.520 --> 0:27:20.480 thing as a furry fish, or that there there might 0:27:20.560 --> 0:27:23.320 only be if you're really willing to be generous and 0:27:23.680 --> 0:27:27.760 loose with your definition of furry right, because I think 0:27:27.800 --> 0:27:30.200 all of the reports we've talked about so far are 0:27:30.320 --> 0:27:35.640 either known hoaxes, or they are stories that could be 0:27:35.680 --> 0:27:42.040 some combination of just like imaginative creative storytelling or misremembered 0:27:42.080 --> 0:27:45.280 reports of other types of animals where there's some other 0:27:45.320 --> 0:27:48.359 explanation that seems more likely than the idea of a 0:27:48.400 --> 0:27:51.399 fish covered in fur or hair of the sort that 0:27:51.440 --> 0:27:54.359 we're used to seeing covering the bodies of mammals. And 0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:56.959 I think we can be pretty certain of that because 0:27:57.400 --> 0:28:01.160 of an understanding of evolution and file out. Genny fur 0:28:01.520 --> 0:28:04.920 is a trait of animals that developed along a totally 0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:09.159 separate lineage from fish. That doesn't mean that fish can't 0:28:09.200 --> 0:28:12.320 have some bits on their bodies that can resemble for, 0:28:12.960 --> 0:28:16.040 but they're not going to have mammalian fur. And so 0:28:16.200 --> 0:28:19.000 I think that should bring us to a section we 0:28:19.040 --> 0:28:22.639 should do here about the biology of fur. What is for? 0:28:22.920 --> 0:28:25.440 And where do we find it in the animal kingdom? 0:28:25.600 --> 0:28:28.280 And why do we find it there? Uh? And and 0:28:28.320 --> 0:28:30.520 I think that the first question I've got to start with, 0:28:30.560 --> 0:28:32.240 because this is one of those things that's like a 0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:34.679 question that's popped into my head a million times that 0:28:34.720 --> 0:28:37.520 I've never looked it up to confirm our fur and 0:28:37.600 --> 0:28:40.920 hair the same thing or are they different? Did you 0:28:40.920 --> 0:28:43.479 have an intuition on this? I mean I always assumed 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:46.440 that that fur is a matter of perspective. Yeah, yeah, 0:28:46.680 --> 0:28:48.880 the hair on the top of your head is essentially fur, 0:28:49.000 --> 0:28:51.520 but we just treat it differently, think about it differently, 0:28:51.560 --> 0:28:54.240 and label it differently. You are wiser than I was. 0:28:54.320 --> 0:28:56.360 I For some reason, I was thinking there's got to 0:28:56.400 --> 0:28:59.360 be some kind of biological difference. Not really. I mean, 0:28:59.600 --> 0:29:03.040 so fur is made up of hairs, and hairs are 0:29:03.200 --> 0:29:07.240 filaments of protein, primarily the protein keratin. In the case 0:29:07.320 --> 0:29:12.680 of of mammals, primarily alpha keratin. Some people might make 0:29:12.720 --> 0:29:17.560 an informal descriptive distinction between hair and for reserving the 0:29:17.720 --> 0:29:20.840 term fur for like short dense coats of hair that 0:29:20.880 --> 0:29:23.520 cover the whole body of an animal. But there's not 0:29:23.720 --> 0:29:27.800 really a fundamental biological difference between a dog's fur and 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:30.320 the hair on a human's head. It evolved from the 0:29:30.360 --> 0:29:33.840 same ancestor, and it's pretty much the same stuff. Though 0:29:33.880 --> 0:29:36.320 within that range, of course, these hairs can take very 0:29:36.360 --> 0:29:39.320 different forms and serve different functions, and I'll explain more 0:29:39.320 --> 0:29:42.040 of that in a minute. So fur is one of 0:29:42.080 --> 0:29:46.680 the primary traits of mammals. As an animal class, mammals 0:29:46.680 --> 0:29:49.840 are usually defined by the facts that they are warm 0:29:49.880 --> 0:29:54.160 blooded animals that give birth to live young, secrete milk, 0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:58.000 and possess fur, though some mammals, such as whales, have 0:29:58.120 --> 0:30:01.120 evolved to lose most of their hair. In fact, there 0:30:01.400 --> 0:30:07.280 is broadly uh strong biological truth to the simple observations 0:30:07.320 --> 0:30:10.760 that even a child would make to see the distinctions 0:30:10.800 --> 0:30:14.560 between birds, reptiles and mammals. Right, you know, if you 0:30:14.600 --> 0:30:17.160 ask a kid what is the difference between them, I 0:30:17.280 --> 0:30:20.880 might say, well, birds have feathers, reptiles have scales and 0:30:21.160 --> 0:30:24.640 mammals have fur, and that's probably correct with of course, 0:30:24.800 --> 0:30:28.080 you know the exceptions about whales and cases of that sort, 0:30:28.160 --> 0:30:31.440 but yeah, broadly that is true. Those are major differences 0:30:31.480 --> 0:30:34.720 between these classes of animals. So I was reading an 0:30:34.720 --> 0:30:37.640 interview that had some interesting stuff in it that was 0:30:38.520 --> 0:30:42.320 for Scientific American an interview with the mammalogist Nancy Simmons 0:30:42.320 --> 0:30:45.360 of the American Museum of Natural History. A mammalogist is 0:30:45.400 --> 0:30:49.120 a zoologist who specializes in mammals. This was done by 0:30:49.240 --> 0:30:52.960 by Kate Wong in the year two thousand one, and UH. 0:30:53.240 --> 0:30:56.040 This brings up an interesting question, which is did the 0:30:56.160 --> 0:31:00.480 mammals that existed at the same time as dinahs oars 0:31:00.520 --> 0:31:04.160 have for now At the time of this interview, UH, 0:31:04.560 --> 0:31:08.280 Simmons didn't know the answer to this question, because, of course, 0:31:08.360 --> 0:31:10.000 it can be difficult to know a lot of things 0:31:10.040 --> 0:31:14.400 about the soft tissues and outer coverings of long extinct animals. 0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:19.520 Hair doesn't generally fossilize, so the paleontological evidence is sparse, 0:31:19.680 --> 0:31:21.680 though of course, you know, you can learn some things 0:31:21.720 --> 0:31:25.320 from special fossils that might preserve a kind of imprint 0:31:25.440 --> 0:31:29.719 in in some kind of UH. Substrate or soil, or 0:31:29.840 --> 0:31:32.040 from genomics, maybe you might be able to learn some 0:31:32.080 --> 0:31:34.760 things about the deep past there. I was reading a 0:31:34.800 --> 0:31:38.400 more recent article, uh in National Geographic by Riley Black 0:31:38.440 --> 0:31:42.880 from fourteen that highlights at least one fossil find that 0:31:42.960 --> 0:31:45.520 does make it pretty clear that at least some mammals 0:31:45.560 --> 0:31:49.200 had for by the Mesozoic period, because there are some 0:31:49.280 --> 0:31:52.840 impressions of fur left stamped in a in a fossilized 0:31:53.000 --> 0:31:55.160 piece of mud. So I think we've learned a little 0:31:55.160 --> 0:31:58.000 bit more since uh this interview is just talking about 0:31:58.040 --> 0:32:01.000 But another thing that's brought up here is the question 0:32:01.040 --> 0:32:04.200 of what are the origins of for? And I think 0:32:04.240 --> 0:32:07.400 it still seems to be the consensus of of evolutionary 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:13.840 biologists that hair evolved in correlation with indo thermi, commonly 0:32:13.880 --> 0:32:17.600 known as warm bloodedness. That we've discussed some ways that 0:32:17.680 --> 0:32:20.720 the terms warm blooded and cold blooded, at least when 0:32:20.800 --> 0:32:23.440 used as a binary, can be a little bit misleading, 0:32:23.960 --> 0:32:28.840 But with that caveat, mammals and birds regulate their internal 0:32:28.880 --> 0:32:33.000 body temperature through metabolism to keep the body at a stable, 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:37.560 relatively high temperature compared to what is achievable by so 0:32:37.640 --> 0:32:41.800 called cold blooded animals like reptiles and fish, And there 0:32:41.840 --> 0:32:46.880 are a number of big evolutionary upsides to endothermy. Endothermy 0:32:46.920 --> 0:32:52.280 allows more powerful and sustained muscular activity, so athletic stamina 0:32:52.440 --> 0:32:55.720 that is not really available to so called cold, cold 0:32:55.720 --> 0:33:00.560 blooded creatures. It allows more freedom to occupy different kinds 0:33:00.600 --> 0:33:05.120 of environments, and it even has some very very interesting 0:33:05.160 --> 0:33:08.360 and less obvious advantages. One of my favorite is the 0:33:08.480 --> 0:33:13.719 hypothesis that maintaining a stable high body temperature is a 0:33:13.800 --> 0:33:19.120 major guard against fungal infections picked up from the picked 0:33:19.200 --> 0:33:23.160 up from the environment. So these fungal infections just cannot 0:33:23.240 --> 0:33:27.040 tolerate the hot bodies of birds and mammals. I think 0:33:27.040 --> 0:33:28.719 this came up when we were talking about some of 0:33:28.720 --> 0:33:31.200 the you know, sort of the fungal hell of the 0:33:31.560 --> 0:33:36.120 post KPg extinction period. But while endothermy gives you all 0:33:36.160 --> 0:33:38.760 these superpowers, you know, lets you be much more of 0:33:38.760 --> 0:33:42.880 an athlete, has stamina, sustained muscular activity, more freedom in 0:33:43.000 --> 0:33:46.600 what kind of environmental niche you can occupy, it comes 0:33:46.600 --> 0:33:49.960 with big costs, great energy costs. You need to eat 0:33:50.080 --> 0:33:53.600 more to maintain that metabolism to keep keep the heat on. 0:33:54.440 --> 0:33:57.200 And so if you imagine you're designing an animal that 0:33:57.320 --> 0:34:01.440 maintains a stable, high internal temperature that exceeds the temperature 0:34:01.440 --> 0:34:03.880 of the environment. This means that you're going to be 0:34:03.920 --> 0:34:07.440 constantly fighting against the fact that you're losing heat through 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:09.959 the skin and the breath and everything. It's just going 0:34:10.040 --> 0:34:12.440 straight out into the air. And that heat is very 0:34:12.600 --> 0:34:18.080 energetically expensive. So one obvious solution is to get some insulation. 0:34:18.200 --> 0:34:19.880 Just like you would if you know you're losing too 0:34:19.960 --> 0:34:22.239 much heat at the walls of your house, you can 0:34:22.280 --> 0:34:25.600 line them with insulating material to try to keep the 0:34:25.640 --> 0:34:28.680 heat trapped in. This is believed to be probably the 0:34:28.719 --> 0:34:32.040 primary function, definitely one of the primary functions of fur 0:34:32.800 --> 0:34:37.240 insulation against heat loss, for keeps precious body heat inside 0:34:37.239 --> 0:34:40.640 by trapping a layer of warm air close to the skin. 0:34:41.400 --> 0:34:44.960 Insulation seems to be especially the role of what might 0:34:45.000 --> 0:34:47.799 be called underhair. So if you imagine a the fur 0:34:47.880 --> 0:34:50.319 coat of an in of of a mammal, this whole 0:34:50.320 --> 0:34:53.160 body is covered in for you might see like sort 0:34:53.160 --> 0:34:56.759 of longer, glossier, stiffer hairs up on the top, and 0:34:56.800 --> 0:35:01.399 then underneath them sort of shorter, finer hairs. Those those 0:35:01.480 --> 0:35:05.640 underhairs are especially helpful with insulation. Um. But of course, 0:35:05.680 --> 0:35:08.480 while insulation might be the primary driver of the evolution 0:35:08.520 --> 0:35:11.799 of for there plenty of functions. For for example, what 0:35:11.840 --> 0:35:14.040 are those other hairs up on the top doing. Well, 0:35:14.080 --> 0:35:16.640 they might do some insulating too, but also they provide 0:35:16.880 --> 0:35:20.120 a couple of various kinds of physical protection. So hair 0:35:20.200 --> 0:35:23.719 can literally protect the skin against cuts and scrapes. It 0:35:23.840 --> 0:35:26.160 might not seem like it offers that much protection, but 0:35:26.239 --> 0:35:30.160 it does something. Um. But also those outer hairs, often 0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:32.759 called guard hairs, these can have a kind of more 0:35:32.840 --> 0:35:37.120 oily texture. Uh. Those can help repel moisture, keeping the 0:35:37.160 --> 0:35:41.120 insulating underhairs from getting wet. Yeah. Like, if you you 0:35:41.160 --> 0:35:42.839 look at a cat or I guess a dog too, 0:35:43.400 --> 0:35:45.680 you you kind of get a an education in the 0:35:45.719 --> 0:35:48.239 various uses of the hair, because there's a lot of 0:35:48.280 --> 0:35:51.800 difference between like what the whiskers of a cat are doing, uh, 0:35:51.960 --> 0:35:54.799 compared to the like the belly hair of the cat, 0:35:54.960 --> 0:35:58.440 which is its main purposes. Uh. Well, of course, to 0:35:58.640 --> 0:36:01.439 to insulate, but also to to tempt the human hand 0:36:01.480 --> 0:36:04.279 closer to the belly, where will then be attacked by 0:36:04.280 --> 0:36:07.680 the sharp, sharp teeth and the sharp clause. Well, I 0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:10.120 like that you mentioned the whiskers because that highlights another 0:36:10.200 --> 0:36:15.160 totally different but also extremely important evolutionary adaptation of hairs, 0:36:15.440 --> 0:36:20.000 which are hairs that provide significant sensory information. These are 0:36:20.040 --> 0:36:23.520 sometimes known as vibrasy v I B R I, S, 0:36:23.520 --> 0:36:25.680 S A E. So these would be hairs that are 0:36:25.680 --> 0:36:28.960 equipped with some kind of tactile receptors or nerve cells 0:36:29.000 --> 0:36:33.520 that help the animal sense something about its environment with 0:36:33.719 --> 0:36:35.920 these hairs, So the whiskers on a cat or a 0:36:35.920 --> 0:36:38.839 great example, or the hairs on a naked mole rat, 0:36:38.960 --> 0:36:42.160 you know, this underground dwelling animal. But then of course 0:36:42.600 --> 0:36:46.520 hair and fur can play huge roles in survival and 0:36:46.560 --> 0:36:50.799 reproduction just through changing the appearance the outward appearance of 0:36:50.840 --> 0:36:54.640 the animal. So coloration and patterns on the fur can 0:36:54.640 --> 0:36:57.640 play a role in everything from hunting and camouflage, to 0:36:58.520 --> 0:37:03.440 providing warning signs to potential predators, to mating and fitness displays. 0:37:04.160 --> 0:37:07.200 I'm reminded in all this is well of of things 0:37:07.280 --> 0:37:09.719 that seem like hair that may look like hair and 0:37:09.760 --> 0:37:12.319 other animals but are not. For instance, if you look 0:37:12.320 --> 0:37:15.040 at the it would appear to be eyelashes on like 0:37:15.200 --> 0:37:18.320 a ground hornbill um, which is a which is a bird. 0:37:18.760 --> 0:37:20.279 Uh if you don't know what you're looking at, you 0:37:20.320 --> 0:37:23.040 might think, oh, look at those look at those beautiful eyelashes. 0:37:23.080 --> 0:37:25.640 Look at those hairs on the bird's face. Well they're 0:37:25.640 --> 0:37:28.320 not hairs, their feathers, but they do serve a similar 0:37:28.360 --> 0:37:30.960 purpose to u to some of the hair that might 0:37:30.960 --> 0:37:33.799 appear around the eyes of a mammal. Yeah, and so 0:37:33.840 --> 0:37:37.560 there is definitely some convergent evolution across the animal classes. 0:37:37.600 --> 0:37:39.319 I mean, one thing that's true is if you go 0:37:39.520 --> 0:37:42.520 way way back, far enough back, it does seem to 0:37:42.560 --> 0:37:46.319 be true that feathers on birds, which is of course, 0:37:46.360 --> 0:37:50.600 are derived from their dinosaur ancestors. Um for on mammals, 0:37:50.600 --> 0:37:54.480 which is probably derived from some kind of dermal structures 0:37:54.480 --> 0:37:58.000 on proto mammals like the synapsids, and then the scales 0:37:58.040 --> 0:38:02.480 on reptiles. Those all probably have a common genomic ancestor. 0:38:02.600 --> 0:38:11.719 But that goes way way back. So the truth is 0:38:11.840 --> 0:38:14.680 fish don't have fur because they are on a totally 0:38:14.680 --> 0:38:18.239 separate evolutionary line there, on a different branch of the 0:38:18.280 --> 0:38:21.120 tree of life than than the mammals that developed the 0:38:21.160 --> 0:38:24.239 fur that we're familiar with today. But the fact that 0:38:24.280 --> 0:38:26.960 fish don't have for does not mean that there are 0:38:27.000 --> 0:38:29.760 not some there might be too many negatives there. But anyway, 0:38:29.800 --> 0:38:32.640 what I'm saying is some fish really look like they 0:38:32.680 --> 0:38:35.759 have for And so I figured, now we should talk 0:38:35.760 --> 0:38:40.600 about some fish that have um interesting examples of external 0:38:40.640 --> 0:38:44.480 features fibrous coverings or something like that that look like fur. 0:38:45.200 --> 0:38:47.640 And we have to add here that when we say fur, 0:38:47.640 --> 0:38:50.400 we're gonna go ahead include like the broader spectrum of 0:38:50.440 --> 0:38:53.759 fur also meaning hair, because some of these fish are 0:38:53.800 --> 0:38:57.320 described are are more described as having things like beards 0:38:57.440 --> 0:39:00.000 or more like hair. But in all cases we're even 0:39:00.040 --> 0:39:06.120 with something that may uh seem like for to some observers. Right, So, 0:39:06.239 --> 0:39:09.360 the first example I want to mention is the wonderful, 0:39:09.480 --> 0:39:12.600 the glorious, the hairy frog fish, also known as the 0:39:12.680 --> 0:39:18.080 striated frog fish. The scientific name is Antenaria striatus. This 0:39:18.200 --> 0:39:21.160 is a predator within the frog fish family, which is 0:39:21.520 --> 0:39:26.280 Antenarity and the frog fish family are ocean dwelling carnivorous fish, 0:39:26.360 --> 0:39:29.799 which I believe we discussed to at least to some 0:39:29.920 --> 0:39:33.960 extent in our episodes about the sargassum the seaweed, Right, yeah, 0:39:34.000 --> 0:39:36.839 we did, because there's one type of or at least 0:39:36.880 --> 0:39:39.040 what we were focusing in on one type of frog 0:39:39.080 --> 0:39:42.840 fish that makes its home in the sarcasm um. A 0:39:42.880 --> 0:39:45.480 lot of them don't live so close to the surface, 0:39:45.760 --> 0:39:48.200 but they are these are these are fascinating little fish. 0:39:48.320 --> 0:39:50.880 Uh I was. I get to visit the aquarium in 0:39:50.920 --> 0:39:54.080 Malle and they have some frog fish uh there that 0:39:54.160 --> 0:39:56.120 you can look at, and they're just they're all so 0:39:56.200 --> 0:40:00.040 wonderful because they often they're often this weird mismatch of 0:39:59.800 --> 0:40:03.200 a looking a little bit gross but also sometimes super colorful, 0:40:03.480 --> 0:40:06.359 like like bright oranges, you know. And then they'll have 0:40:06.440 --> 0:40:10.320 these like little grumpy little faces that in many ways 0:40:10.400 --> 0:40:13.400 seem more humanoid than fish. Like they you know, they 0:40:13.400 --> 0:40:16.640 look like little goblins, like little brightly colored grump as 0:40:16.680 --> 0:40:22.040 goblins that live in the sea. About human faced fish, yeah, yeah, 0:40:22.160 --> 0:40:25.640 Well the hairy frog fish is a beautiful grump as 0:40:25.680 --> 0:40:28.120 goblin um. So these are there are These are a 0:40:28.160 --> 0:40:30.920 species of frog fish that grow up to something like 0:40:30.960 --> 0:40:36.240 about twenty centimeters or maybe twenty two centimeters in length maximum, 0:40:36.280 --> 0:40:39.040 and they tend to live along the bottom of the 0:40:39.080 --> 0:40:41.880 ocean on the seafloor, sort of walking along like we 0:40:41.960 --> 0:40:46.000 described with other frog fish species um. But the hairy 0:40:46.000 --> 0:40:50.920 frog fish or striated frog fish in particular, is matted 0:40:51.120 --> 0:40:57.040 in these bizarre looking fluffy appendages that truly do look 0:40:57.120 --> 0:41:00.400 like hair. It's like a big wad of she bag 0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:04.759 carpet just sucking down fish on the seafloor. Now, this 0:41:04.840 --> 0:41:08.040 is not actually hair or fur. These fibers you see 0:41:08.080 --> 0:41:11.560 covering the outside of the hairy frog fish are a 0:41:11.560 --> 0:41:15.759 dermal appendages known as spin ules um. They seem to 0:41:15.800 --> 0:41:21.000 be used primarily not for insulation but for camouflage. So 0:41:21.320 --> 0:41:24.560 the hairy frog fish is an ambush predator, and it 0:41:24.600 --> 0:41:27.319 what it wants to look like something other than an 0:41:27.360 --> 0:41:30.200 ambush predator. It wants to maybe look like some kind 0:41:30.239 --> 0:41:33.480 of other massive organic material, maybe blend in with a 0:41:33.520 --> 0:41:36.280 coral reef, look like just some kind of thing sitting 0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:39.520 there stationary in the environment so that fish will get 0:41:39.520 --> 0:41:42.759 close to its big dangerous mouth. And uh, and it's 0:41:42.760 --> 0:41:45.560 worth looking up videos of its hunting strategy. You can 0:41:45.680 --> 0:41:48.000 find these pretty easily online. I found a good clip 0:41:48.320 --> 0:41:53.040 from a documentary by the Smithsonian Video Channel, and you 0:41:53.080 --> 0:41:55.240 can see this critter. It works. So the hairy frog 0:41:55.320 --> 0:41:58.480 fish sits there and waits in this mop of spinules, 0:41:58.520 --> 0:42:01.839 and then when prey fish are close by, it can 0:42:01.880 --> 0:42:05.600 suddenly expand its mouth cavity by a factor of about twelve, 0:42:06.280 --> 0:42:10.080 creating this powerful vacuum force that sucks in the prey 0:42:10.120 --> 0:42:14.120 and a split second. And so these creatures are in 0:42:14.280 --> 0:42:17.760 many senses, truly fearsome predators. I've I've read it claimed 0:42:17.760 --> 0:42:20.360 at least that they can prey on other fish that 0:42:20.400 --> 0:42:24.279 are about the same size as them. And I have 0:42:24.360 --> 0:42:26.400 to say this, the one that you shared a photo of, 0:42:26.440 --> 0:42:28.680 it looks like it crawled out of Google deep dream. 0:42:28.800 --> 0:42:32.040 You know, it has this wild it's appendages are yes, 0:42:32.080 --> 0:42:34.719 it's quite psychedelic in multiple ways. So yeah, it's it's 0:42:34.719 --> 0:42:38.239 got that abstract quality like it was a hallucination by 0:42:38.239 --> 0:42:41.240 a machine elf. But also it is a long haired hippie. 0:42:41.920 --> 0:42:44.160 Uh So this is not a furry fish, not in 0:42:44.200 --> 0:42:47.200 the true sense of mammalian fur. But I think this 0:42:47.280 --> 0:42:50.120 is about as close as fish get. This is a beautiful, 0:42:50.480 --> 0:42:55.400 shaggy creature, a predator for the ages. Now here's another 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:58.040 example of of of something we might well classify as 0:42:58.040 --> 0:43:00.520 a furry fish, and that is the bearded obie or 0:43:00.600 --> 0:43:04.560 pelagic gobi, an Atlantic species of gobi. That it's it's 0:43:04.560 --> 0:43:07.840 something sometimes called the bearded gobie but then you also 0:43:07.920 --> 0:43:12.400 have the bearded eel gobi, which is also sometimes called 0:43:12.760 --> 0:43:17.120 the bearded gobi. And the names here refers to barbels 0:43:17.239 --> 0:43:20.160 under the chin and lower jaw, so barbles. And I 0:43:20.160 --> 0:43:23.680 think that the quote I read earlier um from that 0:43:23.760 --> 0:43:29.400 monster book mentioned barble slightly in describing the physiology of 0:43:29.400 --> 0:43:33.200 of of a purported creature. But barbles are slender whisker 0:43:33.239 --> 0:43:36.759 like sensory organs, such as those found in catfish. Uh. 0:43:36.840 --> 0:43:39.279 They are not, of course real beards uh. And they 0:43:39.280 --> 0:43:41.520 can be found in various places on a fish's head. 0:43:41.840 --> 0:43:44.680 But when they pop up under the chin, certainly you 0:43:44.680 --> 0:43:47.040 can understand our urge to say, oh, well, this this 0:43:47.120 --> 0:43:50.200 creature looks like it has facial hair. Um. And you 0:43:50.239 --> 0:43:53.560 see some examples of the bearded gobie, and boy, it 0:43:53.560 --> 0:43:55.040 does it looks like it has some sort of like 0:43:55.080 --> 0:43:59.200 a neck beard or a chin strap see Everett Coope. 0:43:59.280 --> 0:44:02.680 Kind of a beard going on. I'm inferring this fish's 0:44:02.719 --> 0:44:08.680 theological opinions yea, from its facial hair. Yeah. Now, these 0:44:08.719 --> 0:44:13.520 are technically mandibular or mental barbels, and generally they're present 0:44:13.600 --> 0:44:17.040 to aid in low visibility food searches. So even though 0:44:17.280 --> 0:44:20.000 they might look like they're not doing anything. They are 0:44:20.640 --> 0:44:24.080 helping the fish define food. Okay, so you could say 0:44:24.120 --> 0:44:27.400 that in a way, these are um These are a 0:44:27.440 --> 0:44:31.680 case of something like convergent evolution with the mammalian vibrasy, right, 0:44:31.800 --> 0:44:34.719 the you know, the the sensory hairs that might be 0:44:34.920 --> 0:44:38.040 like in a cat's whiskers or something. Uh, these whisker 0:44:38.200 --> 0:44:41.440 like organs. Again, they're they're not exactly hairs, but they 0:44:41.480 --> 0:44:45.320 do a similar thing their sensory input. Yeah. Another example 0:44:45.360 --> 0:44:49.760 of this is the beard fish of the genus Polymyxia. 0:44:50.040 --> 0:44:52.960 These are found in tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic, 0:44:53.040 --> 0:44:56.040 the Indian, and the western Pacific Ocean. They live in 0:44:56.080 --> 0:44:59.520 the deep and they have these two elongated barbels like 0:44:59.560 --> 0:45:02.359 underneath their chin, and that's where they get their name. 0:45:03.000 --> 0:45:05.200 So it's a it. It looks like a totally different 0:45:05.239 --> 0:45:09.040 sort of beard, but you can understand why it was 0:45:09.080 --> 0:45:12.319 referred to informally as the beard fish. It looks more 0:45:12.400 --> 0:45:15.600 like the like I don't know, Romstein fan who has 0:45:15.719 --> 0:45:18.960 his his goatee in one long braid. Yes, yes, it 0:45:19.000 --> 0:45:22.600 does look like like a braided gotee kind of a situation. Yeah, 0:45:23.040 --> 0:45:25.000 very cool look for a fish. Now, these are just 0:45:25.040 --> 0:45:27.920 a few examples, you know, the most probably most the 0:45:28.000 --> 0:45:32.879 most obvious examples of fish being compared often by name, 0:45:32.960 --> 0:45:36.840 to beards and fur. But obviously you're gonna have barbells 0:45:36.840 --> 0:45:39.879 occurring with the wide variety of fish. You're also gonna 0:45:39.880 --> 0:45:42.000 have other stuff going on with their fins and other 0:45:42.040 --> 0:45:46.280 appendages at times, and they're there are numerous situations where 0:45:46.320 --> 0:45:49.600 one might look at such a creature and say, oh, 0:45:49.640 --> 0:45:51.799 well that if I'm going to compare that to my 0:45:51.840 --> 0:45:55.160 own body and the bodies of of terrestrial creatures, then 0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:58.319 I might well say that that creature looks furry, that 0:45:58.400 --> 0:46:02.080 creature looks hairy, or that creature looks bearded in some 0:46:02.160 --> 0:46:05.560 fashion or another. Yes, this catfish has a weird beard 0:46:05.600 --> 0:46:08.440 and mustache. Yeah, And we can imagine how like that 0:46:08.520 --> 0:46:11.200 kind of thing, through the echo chamber of of of 0:46:11.320 --> 0:46:15.400 of oral tradition and storytelling and history, could take on 0:46:15.440 --> 0:46:19.440 the form of like increasingly hairy or increasingly bearded fish. 0:46:19.520 --> 0:46:22.279 And then what happens when that account runs into say, 0:46:22.280 --> 0:46:25.600 accounts of otters and seals and so forth. I mean, 0:46:25.640 --> 0:46:28.160 I think ultimately that's that's where I end up landing 0:46:28.200 --> 0:46:30.080 and thinking about all of this is that you you 0:46:30.120 --> 0:46:33.279 probably have just multiple things going on in the oral 0:46:33.320 --> 0:46:36.520 tradition and then ultimately in the written tradition as well, um, 0:46:36.600 --> 0:46:39.439 and they end up converging and running into each other, 0:46:39.640 --> 0:46:42.640 and you end up with these, uh, these often elaborate 0:46:43.520 --> 0:46:48.120 reinterpretations of what is going on in the natural world. Yeah, totally. So. 0:46:48.280 --> 0:46:51.359 There is truly no such thing as a genuine furry fish, 0:46:51.480 --> 0:46:53.400 but there are a lot of fish out there with 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:57.840 with glorious shagginess of various kinds. There's some wonderful uh 0:46:57.880 --> 0:47:01.319 aquatic and semi aquatic mammals, the otter and all that. 0:47:01.840 --> 0:47:06.920 Uh So you know, once again, nature is stranger than fiction. Yes, now, 0:47:07.000 --> 0:47:08.560 we of course we'd love to hear from everyone out 0:47:08.560 --> 0:47:12.360 there who has any experience with accounts of harry fish 0:47:12.480 --> 0:47:14.759 and and these other creatures that we've discussed. If you 0:47:14.800 --> 0:47:17.920 have accounts or encounters with with otters, I would love 0:47:17.920 --> 0:47:20.560 to hear about them, because otters, I mean, even here 0:47:20.600 --> 0:47:23.960 in Atlanta, in a very urban environment, they are otters around. 0:47:24.040 --> 0:47:26.400 They're like I one day, I was picking up my 0:47:26.400 --> 0:47:28.760 my son from school and there's an otter just because 0:47:28.800 --> 0:47:31.279 there's a body of water close to the school. And 0:47:31.440 --> 0:47:35.160 apparently otters lived there. I had no idea that's metal. Yeah, 0:47:35.200 --> 0:47:36.759 I think it's a golf course, so there. I don't 0:47:36.760 --> 0:47:39.760 know how metal a golf course otter is, but stealth 0:47:39.840 --> 0:47:46.920 otters their golf ball retrieving otters. Yeah, so yeah, let 0:47:46.960 --> 0:47:48.759 us know if you're you know what, if you have 0:47:48.760 --> 0:47:53.719 any intimidating encounters with with with with otters, we'd love 0:47:53.719 --> 0:47:56.319 to hear about that strange fish that appear to have 0:47:56.640 --> 0:47:58.920 you know, interesting bar bowls or things that look like 0:47:59.000 --> 0:48:01.600 beards or for if there are other great examples from 0:48:01.600 --> 0:48:05.400 folklore and legend and uh, you know, in different traditions 0:48:05.560 --> 0:48:08.719 of send them in. We'd love to review them. In 0:48:08.800 --> 0:48:10.399 the meantime, if you would like to check out other 0:48:10.440 --> 0:48:12.359 episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you will find 0:48:12.400 --> 0:48:14.560 them in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. 0:48:14.600 --> 0:48:17.480 We do core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do 0:48:17.480 --> 0:48:20.560 an artifact. On Wednesdays, we do listener mail. On Mondays 0:48:21.400 --> 0:48:23.359 we do a rerun over the weekend, and then on 0:48:23.400 --> 0:48:26.040 Friday's we do a little bit of weird how Cinema. 0:48:26.200 --> 0:48:28.160 That is our time to set aside most of the 0:48:28.800 --> 0:48:32.400 serious matter and discuss a weird film huge thanks as 0:48:32.440 --> 0:48:36.680 always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 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