Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're
Speaker 1: back with part two of our series on furry fish.
Speaker 1: We had great fun in the last episode talking about
Speaker 1: some bizarre myths and legends of fish completely covered in
Speaker 1: fur or covered in blotches or patches of fur. So
Speaker 1: we talked about some old reports from Iceland of a
Speaker 1: so called shaggy trout that lived in the lakes and streams.
Speaker 1: Allegedly i was said to be covered in fur, was
Speaker 1: said to be poisonous when eating, or was said to
Speaker 1: have other strange effects when eaten. Um we talked about
Speaker 1: Marco Polo's secondhand reports of a giant furry fish found
Speaker 1: dead in a river near the Chinese city he called
Speaker 1: Keen Sai. We talked about possible explanations for reports of
Speaker 1: fish covered in fur, if there is in fact anything
Speaker 1: these reports are based on. So, for example, the possibility
Speaker 1: that Marco Polo's furry fish could have been maybe a
Speaker 1: half remembered report of a decomposing river dolphin, or the
Speaker 1: idea that some reports of furry fish or fish with
Speaker 1: furry patches could actually be observations of fish with parasitic infections,
Speaker 1: such as a water mold called saprolegnia. But today we
Speaker 1: wanted to start with some more weird reports of furry
Speaker 1: fish from across the ages furry fish and fish like creatures,
Speaker 1: So I think the first one we should do today
Speaker 1: is the Japanese furry fish. And this one is mentioned
Speaker 1: in a book that I brought up in the last episode.
Speaker 1: It's a book by a British cryptozoologist named Carl Schucker
Speaker 1: called The Beasts That Hied from Man and Shooker sources
Speaker 1: this claim of this bizarre creature to a book called
Speaker 1: The World in Miniature Japan, which was published in the
Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds, edited by an author named Frederick Shoberl,
Speaker 1: and this book records a claim that goes like this. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the book says there's a river in Japan and
Speaker 1: it's full of strange creatures that measure about four to
Speaker 1: five feet in length. They have scaly bodies like fish,
Speaker 1: but their heads are covered in hair like a human's hair.
Speaker 1: And these creatures don't sound like a type of fish
Speaker 1: strictly because they can allegedly leave the water and move
Speaker 1: around on the banks of the river. And from here
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote from from shooters summary on the
Speaker 1: banks of the River quote where they fight or engage
Speaker 1: in boisterous games with one another, emitting loud cries as
Speaker 1: they disport in a singularly rowdy, unfish like manner. However,
Speaker 1: there rombusteous behavior swiftly transforms into savage aggression if they
Speaker 1: spy any people unhesitating lee attacking and killing their hapless
Speaker 1: human victims by disemboweling them. Yet they do not devour
Speaker 1: their bodies afterwards. Okay, so a weird report as usual.
Speaker 1: There are at least a couple of options you can
Speaker 1: start with at the get go. One is that this
Speaker 1: could just be imaginative storytelling. Somebody is telling a yarn
Speaker 1: based purely on, you know, combining elements out of their imagination.
Speaker 1: But it could also be some kind of distorted account
Speaker 1: of something somebody saw in nature. I guess if we
Speaker 1: want to consider possibilities of of imaginative storytelling, you might
Speaker 1: want to look for similarities to other types of known beasts, monsters,
Speaker 1: or creatures from the local mythology. Yeah, and this made
Speaker 1: me turn to a couple of different things that but
Speaker 1: one that certainly came up with the Japanese uh Nno,
Speaker 1: a sort of mer creature described, at least in some accounts,
Speaker 1: is a huge fish with the head of a beautiful woman. Uh.
Speaker 1: She's often said to be protective of humans and warns
Speaker 1: them against dangers. So, in a way, sort of the
Speaker 1: opposite of of other models of a mirror creature or
Speaker 1: a siren or what have you. Um and and this
Speaker 1: is a pretty famous creature in Japanese mythology. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's even been brought to life in the in the
Speaker 1: films of Miyazaki. If you've seen Nyazaki's Panio. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is kind of a cute take on the idea of
Speaker 1: a ningyo. Yeah. I was reading about the ningyo in
Speaker 1: an excellent book that I actually own a copy of.
Speaker 1: It's called The Book of Yokai, and it's by a
Speaker 1: folklore scholar named Michael Dillon Foster. The book is out
Speaker 1: through University of California Press. Uh And if you're a
Speaker 1: fan of of Japanese monster legends, I highly recommend this book.
Speaker 1: It's really good. So a few facts from Foster's telling
Speaker 1: on the ningyo So, first of all, though the word
Speaker 1: ningyo is sometimes translated to English as mermaid or merman,
Speaker 1: it literally just means human fish. And so, Rob, do
Speaker 1: you remember how in the stories we talked about in
Speaker 1: the last episode, how the shaggy trout of Iceland and
Speaker 1: Marco Polos were bard of the furry fish. They were
Speaker 1: both said to be poisonous or to kill people who
Speaker 1: ate them. So Michael Dillon Foster notes that there is
Speaker 1: a classic medicinal encyclopedia of Japan that notes that the
Speaker 1: bones of the ningyo, which I think it just reports
Speaker 1: as if it were any other mundane animal. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: here are the animals you can find. One of them
Speaker 1: is the ningyo, this half human half half fish. If
Speaker 1: you take those bones, they can be made into a
Speaker 1: poison quote with wonderful effect. But he notes even more
Speaker 1: stories on the other side of the scale, stories of
Speaker 1: the ningo having exactly the opposite effect. We're eating their
Speaker 1: flesh or even just looking at one of them sometimes
Speaker 1: can guarantee you a long and prosperous life. M hmm.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting detail because on one hand it sounds
Speaker 1: like medicine in general, right, I mean, there's so many
Speaker 1: different properties of the natural world that you take it
Speaker 1: a certain way or under certain conditions or in certain
Speaker 1: quantities and it's beneficial or potentially beneficial, and then in
Speaker 1: other quantities or situations it can be deadly totally or
Speaker 1: different parts of the same animal. Again, I want to
Speaker 1: be clear, we're not actually saying that, like the bones
Speaker 1: of a mermaid will make you live forever, don't but
Speaker 1: Mermaid based on anything you hear in this episode. But
Speaker 1: I just mean, yeah, yeah, I think you're correct that
Speaker 1: the logic of it follows the logic of a lot
Speaker 1: of real properties of of medicines you would find in nature.
Speaker 1: But there's one thing I wanted to mention that's in
Speaker 1: the Book of Yokai. So there is this one classic
Speaker 1: tale about the nemeo U. There is a fisherman who
Speaker 1: catches one of these things and then cooks it and
Speaker 1: then offers it to a friend, and the friend doesn't
Speaker 1: want to eat it because he's weirded out by the
Speaker 1: fact that it has a human head. You know, even
Speaker 1: though it might taste like delicious fish and the muscular parts,
Speaker 1: it's got a human head. So he's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, So he takes it home with him, and
Speaker 1: his sixteen year old daughter eats it. I don't know
Speaker 1: if some details are lost there, if she's just like
Speaker 1: not squicked out by the human head like he is um,
Speaker 1: but she eats it and then as a result, she
Speaker 1: lives to be eight hundred years old and spends her
Speaker 1: life as a kind of superhero Nun, traveling the country
Speaker 1: doing good like a like a fish, human cannibal, holy hulk,
Speaker 1: and she eventually enshrines her body in a cave by
Speaker 1: the sea. UM. Speaking of of Yokai, I do have
Speaker 1: to mention for anyone out there, and also speaking of
Speaker 1: Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli Films, there's a wonderful film titled
Speaker 1: pomp Poco that came out from Studio Ghibli many years back,
Speaker 1: and it is It is a film about Tanuki's, about
Speaker 1: magical Tanuki's, and there's a there's a full English dub
Speaker 1: of it. I think you can you can watch this
Speaker 1: on HBO Max if you subscribe to that um or
Speaker 1: you can watch it in the original Japanese. But it
Speaker 1: is it's absolutely fatless. Do not be scared away by
Speaker 1: the fact that it is um a film about magical
Speaker 1: Tanukis who do magic with their testicles. Uh or as
Speaker 1: it is translated into into English, they are raccoons using
Speaker 1: their raccoon pouch, but we know they're testicles. Um. It's
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful film. It's totally it's totally for for
Speaker 1: kids and adults alike. It has a strong environmental message.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole sequence in it where the tanukis
Speaker 1: because it's not just Tanuki's in it, there are also
Speaker 1: fox spirits. And then there's a sequence where the Tanukis
Speaker 1: create a yokai parade. They take on all of these
Speaker 1: fabulous yokai forms, all of these various classic ones you
Speaker 1: may have seen in illustrations, like the giant skeleton and
Speaker 1: you know, the umbrella creatures, that sort of thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's just absolutely gorgeous. So I highly recommend that
Speaker 1: film if it's one of those you've you've kind of
Speaker 1: shied away from because you weren't sure if maybe if
Speaker 1: it translates, um, you know, to a non Japanese audience.
Speaker 1: It absolutely does. It's just a beautiful film. Clancy Brown
Speaker 1: does one of the voices. Really, I haven't seen that one,
Speaker 1: but now I want to check it. Out, Yeah, at
Speaker 1: least fast far to the yokai parade. But anyway, going
Speaker 1: back to that description from the book of this creature
Speaker 1: in the in the river who has a head full
Speaker 1: of hair scales like a fish on this body. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can see how that that's sort of similar to
Speaker 1: the neo tradition, but I'm not sure there's actually any connection.
Speaker 1: There might just be a few superficial similarities. It's hard
Speaker 1: to tell, you know. Speaking of fish at yokai, there's
Speaker 1: another yokai called amaba A, which looks very much like
Speaker 1: what we just talked about, except throw in a bird's
Speaker 1: beak and some slightly different feet. And I was reading
Speaker 1: about this, and interestingly enough, it became something of a
Speaker 1: mascot for COVID nineteen pandemic measures in Japan um and
Speaker 1: you'll see posters that say like stop COVID nineteen and
Speaker 1: will be a picture of this creature. I was reading
Speaker 1: about it in this uh Anthropology Today article by Claudia
Speaker 1: Merley titled a Chimeric Being from Cayushu, Japan um and
Speaker 1: this is the quote from it. Quote presented as a
Speaker 1: mascot but viewed as an icon of protection. This uncanny
Speaker 1: little Yochai from southern Japan in the pre modern Edo
Speaker 1: period addresses our lives as they are caught in a
Speaker 1: suspension of our usual temporal and spatial dimensions. A monster,
Speaker 1: a hyper object, and an art effigy of our pandemic present. Okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: it's also cute creature. It is very cute. It's got like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got the cute bird face, the fish scales, and
Speaker 1: then just like a big old, luxurious mane of hair.
Speaker 1: But anyway, whatever the similarities to these other legendary beings
Speaker 1: of Japanese mythology. Regarding this one story from from this
Speaker 1: book The World in Miniature Japan, Shoot Shooker asks, you know,
Speaker 1: if these stories are based at least in part on
Speaker 1: real observations, could there be anything that we could figure
Speaker 1: out they might be talking about? And he passes on
Speaker 1: an interesting guess that was suggested by a curator of
Speaker 1: mollusks at the Royal Museum of Scotland who's named David Heppel,
Speaker 1: and Happel says, what if these stories were laid by
Speaker 1: show Burl in the hun are based on observations of
Speaker 1: the northern fur seal or Calorinus or sinus. A seal
Speaker 1: might kind of fit the bill um, so the stories
Speaker 1: would have had to have been translated from the sea
Speaker 1: coast to the river somehow, because fur seals don't usually
Speaker 1: you know, they're not going to go all the way
Speaker 1: up the river. I don't know. They mess around in
Speaker 1: the river mouth, but um. But otherwise a fur seal
Speaker 1: could partially match the description. It's not scaly, but it
Speaker 1: does have flippers, so in body it is what Shugar
Speaker 1: calls superficially fish like, but it is pretty close to
Speaker 1: the right size to match this story. It does have
Speaker 1: the notable whiskers on its head and of course fur
Speaker 1: on its body. They do definitely come out of the
Speaker 1: water and romp around real good, so maybe possibly UM.
Speaker 1: As to the the stories about the aggression, again, it's
Speaker 1: hard to tell if this is based on anything, whether
Speaker 1: that would be part of the original observation or just
Speaker 1: an embellishment um with with these fur seals. While they
Speaker 1: can by northern first, seals do not seem to me
Speaker 1: to be especially noted for aggression towards humans that they
Speaker 1: don't have like a disemboweling vertical And of course when
Speaker 1: you get into disemboweling, and you know, any kind of
Speaker 1: account of animal um attacks, Like, there's so many additional factors,
Speaker 1: like did you see this animal disembowel somebody? Or was
Speaker 1: there a body found and these animals were nearby? You know,
Speaker 1: this could be the result of scavenging of decomposition. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's so many additional factors to consider, but those are
Speaker 1: not factors that necessarily impact the myth making in any
Speaker 1: given scenario, right, So it's hard to tell with this story.
Speaker 1: I think this is one where it's it's difficult to
Speaker 1: get a sense of whether this is based on something
Speaker 1: somebody saw or whether it's more imaginative. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I like to think that somebody saw some seals and
Speaker 1: then just just went wild. I mean seals, like some
Speaker 1: other creatures will be discussing here. Under the right circumstances,
Speaker 1: they can look very cute and and noble, but in
Speaker 1: other situations they can be quite alarming. Uh. If I
Speaker 1: was in the water once, um, this was what was?
Speaker 1: This is one of the Wayian islands, and there were
Speaker 1: some some seals in the water, and of course humans
Speaker 1: were trying to stay away from the seals, but occasionally
Speaker 1: a seal is just coming in and then you're you're
Speaker 1: right next to it, and it can be extremely alarming,
Speaker 1: especially if they're leopard seals. Don't don't go swimming with those, yeah, yeah, seals.
Speaker 1: Seals can be quite quite alarming. And then even if,
Speaker 1: certainly if you've seen footage of of them them froligging
Speaker 1: about on the on the shore, as alluded to in
Speaker 1: these potential accounts off seals, then you can imagine how
Speaker 1: people might decide, you know, it's best to stay away
Speaker 1: from this. This looks like a situation that might end
Speaker 1: in disembowling. You know. One more funny story that comes
Speaker 1: from Shooters book. While we are on the subject of
Speaker 1: the Royal Museum of Scotland, where that that curator was
Speaker 1: who had the idea that maybe the story is about seals.
Speaker 1: The Royal Museum of Scotland also has in its collection
Speaker 1: a furry fish taxidermied and mounted on a wooden plaque,
Speaker 1: just like our patron saint big Mouth Billy Bass. And
Speaker 1: in fact you can look up pictures of this one.
Speaker 1: It might have been the episode art for the first episode.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, um, but but anyway, it looks a
Speaker 1: lot like the photo The hoax photo that we talked
Speaker 1: about in the last episode where that guy claimed to
Speaker 1: have caught a shaggy trout in Wisconsin. Yeah, it kind
Speaker 1: of looks like it could easily be some sort of
Speaker 1: weird folk art pillow. It looks very soft, very luxurious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's clearly a fish, but it is covered in thick,
Speaker 1: luxurious white fur, again like the forearm of a polar bear. Alas,
Speaker 1: this is not a genuine furry fish but another hoax.
Speaker 1: The text that is underneath the fish, the mounted fish
Speaker 1: says that it was caught in the Lake Superior off
Speaker 1: the is to Ontario and uh and was mounted by
Speaker 1: a taxidermist named Ross c. Job And it again repeats
Speaker 1: that allegation we talked about in part one from the
Speaker 1: other hoax, that the fur is an adaptation to the
Speaker 1: extreme cold of deep Canadian waters, which almost makes me
Speaker 1: wonder if it's this is sort of intentionally a joke
Speaker 1: and is meant to be understood as a joke. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like the taxidermy as a as a craft
Speaker 1: and ultimately an art form is going to give way
Speaker 1: to artistic creations, and we see that throughout the world
Speaker 1: of taxidermy. Whether you're talking about jackalopes or squirrels and
Speaker 1: chipmunks that are made to be drinking tea, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. But at least not everybody was in on
Speaker 1: the joke, because Shugar explains the story of where this
Speaker 1: came from, like how it ended up at the Royal
Speaker 1: Museum of Scotland. Apparently the museum acquired it when a
Speaker 1: woman brought it into them after she bought it in Canada,
Speaker 1: thinking it was real, it was a real animal, and
Speaker 1: then she brings it into the museum and says, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to know more about this fish. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me about the furbearing trout. Once she found out
Speaker 1: it was a hoax, she donated it to the museum. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the preservation of hoaxes is also important, absolutely
Speaker 1: because it will help us. It helps us realize what's
Speaker 1: real and what's fake, and the story of our sorting
Speaker 1: all of this out, all right, So at this point
Speaker 1: I thought we might turn to the Americus because we,
Speaker 1: uh more specifically, we're gonna look increasingly towards Central and
Speaker 1: South America. I was reading the work of folklore's Carol Rose.
Speaker 1: She has again those two wonderful tomes of of you know,
Speaker 1: encyclopedic tomes of mythological and folkloric creatures that I often
Speaker 1: turned to. And in it, as she mentions the Hoga,
Speaker 1: this is described as a lake monster in the traditions
Speaker 1: of Mexico, known in South America as the andura. And
Speaker 1: this was apparently described as a giant fish creature with
Speaker 1: the head and ears of a pig and quote extremely
Speaker 1: long barbs or thick whiskers around its mouth. It also
Speaker 1: had things. It could also shift colors from red to
Speaker 1: green to yellow, and it was described as a ravenous
Speaker 1: beast to be feared by humans. Oh, I like this,
Speaker 1: So giant fish body, head and ears of a pig,
Speaker 1: barbs or whiskers on its face, fangs can change colors,
Speaker 1: might attack humans, right uh And and of course this
Speaker 1: instantly brings up a different couple of different possibilities, you know,
Speaker 1: some that are definitely within the fish world. And we'll
Speaker 1: get to some some real life fish that could potentially
Speaker 1: match up with some of these descriptions in a bit.
Speaker 1: But also we're reminded of other, uh, non fish, but
Speaker 1: fish like forms that we find in the wild. Now.
Speaker 1: Some of these accounts are based on the writings of
Speaker 1: of Ambrose Pare, who lived fifteen ten through fifteen ninety.
Speaker 1: There's a French surgeon, and he mentioned the Hoga legend
Speaker 1: in his book Monsters and Marvels, writing quote, its head
Speaker 1: and ears are not different from a terrestrial swine. It
Speaker 1: has five whiskers a half a foot long, or they're
Speaker 1: about similar to those of a big barble. It's flesh
Speaker 1: is very good and delicious. The fish produces live offspring
Speaker 1: in the fashion of a whale. If you contemplate it
Speaker 1: while it is disporting itself swimming in the water, you
Speaker 1: would say that it is now green, now yellow, and
Speaker 1: then red, just like the chameleon. It keeps more to
Speaker 1: the edge of the lake than elsewhere where. It feeds
Speaker 1: on leaves of a tree called Hoga, from which it
Speaker 1: took its name. It is very toothy and savage, killing
Speaker 1: and devouring other fish, indeed those bigger than it is.
Speaker 1: That is why people pursue it, hunted and kill it,
Speaker 1: because if it entered into the conduits, it wouldn't leave
Speaker 1: a single one of them alive, whereby the person who
Speaker 1: kills the most of them is most welcome. Wow, now
Speaker 1: I've seen connections here between this legend and that of
Speaker 1: the furry trout. But I can't help but wonder if
Speaker 1: if this is indeed a natural creature that is being
Speaker 1: described here where it's the echo of a natural creature
Speaker 1: in in myth and legend, then perhaps we're talking about
Speaker 1: an otter, because certainly you know their their otters have
Speaker 1: found throughout the America's In South America you have the
Speaker 1: the the giant otter, the South American giant otter, which
Speaker 1: is is quite quite a specimen. They can look really
Speaker 1: intimidating their apex predators. They've been known to charge at
Speaker 1: boats uh and um. And then even outside of this environment,
Speaker 1: you look at a North American and Central American otters
Speaker 1: and you know they can still be very ferocious, very territorial,
Speaker 1: and if you take them outside of that cute context,
Speaker 1: they can be quite impressive. Yeah, Rachel and I were
Speaker 1: having fun googling pictures of South American giant river otters
Speaker 1: the other day, and they very much embody the spirit
Speaker 1: of uh he protect but he also attacked. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they can look very ferocious. I found a wonderful photo
Speaker 1: of one eating a fi and it has this this
Speaker 1: bloody fanged mouth uh and uh and has this kind
Speaker 1: of almost humanoid looking, uh you know form to it,
Speaker 1: Like it looks like some sort of a squat creature
Speaker 1: just hanging out in the water eating it's it's bloody prize. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It looks like flipping on a dime between adorable goobery
Speaker 1: dog face to just like beast from Hell with bloody jaws. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think I mentioned before there's there's an old
Speaker 1: novel by Jeffrey Household, the the author of Rogue Mail,
Speaker 1: uh titled Dance of the Dwarfs that it has has
Speaker 1: a very terrifying otter creature in it. Um. It's it's
Speaker 1: kind of an outdated novel. It has some very colonial
Speaker 1: and um and and macho ideas in it, but the
Speaker 1: like the central concept, the central monster encounter, and the
Speaker 1: contemplation of of unknown terrors is quite well done. That
Speaker 1: was the one where the has giant otters that are
Speaker 1: at first mistaken for humans. Yeah, and I mean I
Speaker 1: main character begins to think he can reason with them
Speaker 1: and like leave gifts for them and communicate with them,
Speaker 1: and then pretty late, too late in the novel, he
Speaker 1: realizes that this is not possible, that it's a giant
Speaker 1: river otter creature that is hunting him and will kill him. Now,
Speaker 1: as far as their place in Mexican lore, I was
Speaker 1: reading Otters in Mexico by Juan Pablo Gallo. This came
Speaker 1: out in six and the author points out that the
Speaker 1: Mexico is home to three otter species, though their numbers
Speaker 1: have declined in modern times. They were known to the
Speaker 1: Aztec and Mayan people's. One popular Aztec ruler was even
Speaker 1: known by the nickname Autosotal, meaning the spiny one or
Speaker 1: the otter. And they're there are also emblems of of
Speaker 1: this otter in Aztec art, and it's it's quite ferociously.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like a kind of like a
Speaker 1: lion um, but also you know, has these kind of
Speaker 1: aquatic dragon like qualities to it. Now, the the Mayans
Speaker 1: knew them as tuzula, or the dog of the water,
Speaker 1: because certainly, when you know, when you start observing an otter,
Speaker 1: if you if you don't already have a firm classification
Speaker 1: in mind, you might ask yourself, well, what is this
Speaker 1: creature that in many ways is like a fish, in
Speaker 1: other ways is like a dog? What is this thing?
Speaker 1: Or in k or yeah, may you may even describe
Speaker 1: it as having pig like features. Sure, now you look
Speaker 1: at other cultures and they encounter similar scenario, similar category
Speaker 1: confusions regarding the otter. The old Anglo Saxon name for
Speaker 1: the otter essentially meant water snake, and and to the
Speaker 1: Celts it was water dog. So again we see that interpretation.
Speaker 1: And apparently there was debate among um Celtic clerics as
Speaker 1: to whether the flesh of an otter was fish or meat,
Speaker 1: which would be vitally important if you were determining what
Speaker 1: could be eaten uh during Lent, and there were there
Speaker 1: were even some monks, the Carthusian monks of de Gen, France.
Speaker 1: They were forbidden to eat meat at all, so they
Speaker 1: only ate the meat of the otter as they determined
Speaker 1: that this was fish. Oh no, now this may you
Speaker 1: may well wonder, well, what does otter meat taste like?
Speaker 1: And perhaps some of you out there know for certain
Speaker 1: and can and can shime in on this, But you'll
Speaker 1: find various claims online that it tastes rather gamey. I
Speaker 1: was also reading about it in a dove in pure
Speaker 1: arcs Microscopic Analysis of feather and hair fragments, which cites
Speaker 1: older texts about the taste about the about the taste
Speaker 1: of sea otter. Apparently the Alouette people of the Bearing
Speaker 1: Sea described otter meat as having the taste of mud
Speaker 1: and in older times did not eat it, as they
Speaker 1: equated the otter body with the human body and used
Speaker 1: as a reference point for human biology. And apparently if
Speaker 1: you did hunt and kill the otter for food, you
Speaker 1: had to appease the person of the otter. So there
Speaker 1: was this idea that it wasn't only like a physical resemblance,
Speaker 1: there was perhaps some sort of like spirit chull connection
Speaker 1: um that had to be appeased if you were to
Speaker 1: consume of this flesh, like a like a ritual justification
Speaker 1: of the kill. Yeah. Now, Russian fur hunters who encountered
Speaker 1: uh these people in these traditions, they apparently tended not
Speaker 1: to eat the otter either, though some writers have compared
Speaker 1: it to tasting favorably the flavor profile comparing favorably to
Speaker 1: lamb uh So, Yeah, a lot of these seems to
Speaker 1: depend on preparation and who's who's judging it, But it
Speaker 1: does sound like it tended to taste kind of gamey
Speaker 1: um and uh and wasn't to everyone's liking now, Otters
Speaker 1: also pop up in Norse and Scottish mythology. In Norse traditions, Uh,
Speaker 1: the god Loki kills the dwarf Odor, while the dwarf
Speaker 1: was is in the form of an otter Uh. And
Speaker 1: in and then the Scottish tales tell of the of
Speaker 1: an otter king who had grant wishes and travels with
Speaker 1: this kind of royal guard of seven black otters WHOA
Speaker 1: I like that, and Rose makes mention of this particular
Speaker 1: otter as well. Um uh dobehr chew Uh. This is
Speaker 1: the the Otter King, a fearsome, monstrous otter, also known
Speaker 1: as the King of the Lakes, and it is said
Speaker 1: to not only hunt animals, but to hunt human beings
Speaker 1: as well. And there's apparently a gravestone in County light
Speaker 1: Trim that's said to depict or to or may have
Speaker 1: once depicted a fatal encounter with this monstrous otter, with
Speaker 1: the King of the Lakes. And I look up a
Speaker 1: picture of it, and Uh, I can't make much out
Speaker 1: of it. It It looks like it's very much degraded over
Speaker 1: the years. But supposedly this may have once resembled an
Speaker 1: otter murdering somebody now it appears to be very like
Speaker 1: and encrusted. Yeah. Now you'll find other monstrous otters and
Speaker 1: otter like forms and folklore from around the world, including
Speaker 1: some Native American traditions such as the te hold Stody
Speaker 1: from navajoed or Asians, which is apparently kind of a
Speaker 1: combination of an otter and a bison. And and this
Speaker 1: being had a son, and when this sun was abducted
Speaker 1: by the spider woman, the creature shed tears, and these
Speaker 1: tears caused a great flood. So again, you know, we
Speaker 1: always have to, you know, acknowledge that there's a fair
Speaker 1: amount of creativity and myth making going on that is
Speaker 1: not directly connected to observations of the natural world. But
Speaker 1: I do love the idea that at least some of
Speaker 1: this may be due to just observations of the weirdness
Speaker 1: of the otter. And then and then how this category
Speaker 1: confusion is then uh is then launched into the realm
Speaker 1: of legend and lore because again I mentioned that the
Speaker 1: the giant otter is an apex predator. But but this
Speaker 1: is this is often the case with with any otter species,
Speaker 1: like they tend to not have have have any enemies
Speaker 1: in the wild. Except for human beings. So they're they're
Speaker 1: they're pretty, they're pretty tough little creatures, and sometimes not
Speaker 1: little at all. They are they are wonderful, goobery marvels
Speaker 1: of nature. Uh And and while the otter is quite real,
Speaker 1: I guess to bring it back to furry fish. I
Speaker 1: don't know if we've directly said this so far, but
Speaker 1: maybe now it is time to break the bad news,
Speaker 1: which is that, really I think there is no such
Speaker 1: thing as a furry fish, or that there there might
Speaker 1: only be if you're really willing to be generous and
Speaker 1: loose with your definition of furry right, because I think
Speaker 1: all of the reports we've talked about so far are
Speaker 1: either known hoaxes, or they are stories that could be
Speaker 1: some combination of just like imaginative creative storytelling or misremembered
Speaker 1: reports of other types of animals where there's some other
Speaker 1: explanation that seems more likely than the idea of a
Speaker 1: fish covered in fur or hair of the sort that
Speaker 1: we're used to seeing covering the bodies of mammals. And
Speaker 1: I think we can be pretty certain of that because
Speaker 1: of an understanding of evolution and file out. Genny fur
Speaker 1: is a trait of animals that developed along a totally
Speaker 1: separate lineage from fish. That doesn't mean that fish can't
Speaker 1: have some bits on their bodies that can resemble for,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to have mammalian fur. And so
Speaker 1: I think that should bring us to a section we
Speaker 1: should do here about the biology of fur. What is for?
Speaker 1: And where do we find it in the animal kingdom?
Speaker 1: And why do we find it there? Uh? And and
Speaker 1: I think that the first question I've got to start with,
Speaker 1: because this is one of those things that's like a
Speaker 1: question that's popped into my head a million times that
Speaker 1: I've never looked it up to confirm our fur and
Speaker 1: hair the same thing or are they different? Did you
Speaker 1: have an intuition on this? I mean I always assumed
Speaker 1: that that fur is a matter of perspective. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the hair on the top of your head is essentially fur,
Speaker 1: but we just treat it differently, think about it differently,
Speaker 1: and label it differently. You are wiser than I was.
Speaker 1: I For some reason, I was thinking there's got to
Speaker 1: be some kind of biological difference. Not really. I mean,
Speaker 1: so fur is made up of hairs, and hairs are
Speaker 1: filaments of protein, primarily the protein keratin. In the case
Speaker 1: of of mammals, primarily alpha keratin. Some people might make
Speaker 1: an informal descriptive distinction between hair and for reserving the
Speaker 1: term fur for like short dense coats of hair that
Speaker 1: cover the whole body of an animal. But there's not
Speaker 1: really a fundamental biological difference between a dog's fur and
Speaker 1: the hair on a human's head. It evolved from the
Speaker 1: same ancestor, and it's pretty much the same stuff. Though
Speaker 1: within that range, of course, these hairs can take very
Speaker 1: different forms and serve different functions, and I'll explain more
Speaker 1: of that in a minute. So fur is one of
Speaker 1: the primary traits of mammals. As an animal class, mammals
Speaker 1: are usually defined by the facts that they are warm
Speaker 1: blooded animals that give birth to live young, secrete milk,
Speaker 1: and possess fur, though some mammals, such as whales, have
Speaker 1: evolved to lose most of their hair. In fact, there
Speaker 1: is broadly uh strong biological truth to the simple observations
Speaker 1: that even a child would make to see the distinctions
Speaker 1: between birds, reptiles and mammals. Right, you know, if you
Speaker 1: ask a kid what is the difference between them, I
Speaker 1: might say, well, birds have feathers, reptiles have scales and
Speaker 1: mammals have fur, and that's probably correct with of course,
Speaker 1: you know the exceptions about whales and cases of that sort,
Speaker 1: but yeah, broadly that is true. Those are major differences
Speaker 1: between these classes of animals. So I was reading an
Speaker 1: interview that had some interesting stuff in it that was
Speaker 1: for Scientific American an interview with the mammalogist Nancy Simmons
Speaker 1: of the American Museum of Natural History. A mammalogist is
Speaker 1: a zoologist who specializes in mammals. This was done by
Speaker 1: by Kate Wong in the year two thousand one, and UH.
Speaker 1: This brings up an interesting question, which is did the
Speaker 1: mammals that existed at the same time as dinahs oars
Speaker 1: have for now At the time of this interview, UH,
Speaker 1: Simmons didn't know the answer to this question, because, of course,
Speaker 1: it can be difficult to know a lot of things
Speaker 1: about the soft tissues and outer coverings of long extinct animals.
Speaker 1: Hair doesn't generally fossilize, so the paleontological evidence is sparse,
Speaker 1: though of course, you know, you can learn some things
Speaker 1: from special fossils that might preserve a kind of imprint
Speaker 1: in in some kind of UH. Substrate or soil, or
Speaker 1: from genomics, maybe you might be able to learn some
Speaker 1: things about the deep past there. I was reading a
Speaker 1: more recent article, uh in National Geographic by Riley Black
Speaker 1: from fourteen that highlights at least one fossil find that
Speaker 1: does make it pretty clear that at least some mammals
Speaker 1: had for by the Mesozoic period, because there are some
Speaker 1: impressions of fur left stamped in a in a fossilized
Speaker 1: piece of mud. So I think we've learned a little
Speaker 1: bit more since uh this interview is just talking about
Speaker 1: But another thing that's brought up here is the question
Speaker 1: of what are the origins of for? And I think
Speaker 1: it still seems to be the consensus of of evolutionary
Speaker 1: biologists that hair evolved in correlation with indo thermi, commonly
Speaker 1: known as warm bloodedness. That we've discussed some ways that
Speaker 1: the terms warm blooded and cold blooded, at least when
Speaker 1: used as a binary, can be a little bit misleading,
Speaker 1: But with that caveat, mammals and birds regulate their internal
Speaker 1: body temperature through metabolism to keep the body at a stable,
Speaker 1: relatively high temperature compared to what is achievable by so
Speaker 1: called cold blooded animals like reptiles and fish, And there
Speaker 1: are a number of big evolutionary upsides to endothermy. Endothermy
Speaker 1: allows more powerful and sustained muscular activity, so athletic stamina
Speaker 1: that is not really available to so called cold, cold
Speaker 1: blooded creatures. It allows more freedom to occupy different kinds
Speaker 1: of environments, and it even has some very very interesting
Speaker 1: and less obvious advantages. One of my favorite is the
Speaker 1: hypothesis that maintaining a stable high body temperature is a
Speaker 1: major guard against fungal infections picked up from the picked
Speaker 1: up from the environment. So these fungal infections just cannot
Speaker 1: tolerate the hot bodies of birds and mammals. I think
Speaker 1: this came up when we were talking about some of
Speaker 1: the you know, sort of the fungal hell of the
Speaker 1: post KPg extinction period. But while endothermy gives you all
Speaker 1: these superpowers, you know, lets you be much more of
Speaker 1: an athlete, has stamina, sustained muscular activity, more freedom in
Speaker 1: what kind of environmental niche you can occupy, it comes
Speaker 1: with big costs, great energy costs. You need to eat
Speaker 1: more to maintain that metabolism to keep keep the heat on.
Speaker 1: And so if you imagine you're designing an animal that
Speaker 1: maintains a stable, high internal temperature that exceeds the temperature
Speaker 1: of the environment. This means that you're going to be
Speaker 1: constantly fighting against the fact that you're losing heat through
Speaker 1: the skin and the breath and everything. It's just going
Speaker 1: straight out into the air. And that heat is very
Speaker 1: energetically expensive. So one obvious solution is to get some insulation.
Speaker 1: Just like you would if you know you're losing too
Speaker 1: much heat at the walls of your house, you can
Speaker 1: line them with insulating material to try to keep the
Speaker 1: heat trapped in. This is believed to be probably the
Speaker 1: primary function, definitely one of the primary functions of fur
Speaker 1: insulation against heat loss, for keeps precious body heat inside
Speaker 1: by trapping a layer of warm air close to the skin.
Speaker 1: Insulation seems to be especially the role of what might
Speaker 1: be called underhair. So if you imagine a the fur
Speaker 1: coat of an in of of a mammal, this whole
Speaker 1: body is covered in for you might see like sort
Speaker 1: of longer, glossier, stiffer hairs up on the top, and
Speaker 1: then underneath them sort of shorter, finer hairs. Those those
Speaker 1: underhairs are especially helpful with insulation. Um. But of course,
Speaker 1: while insulation might be the primary driver of the evolution
Speaker 1: of for there plenty of functions. For for example, what
Speaker 1: are those other hairs up on the top doing. Well,
Speaker 1: they might do some insulating too, but also they provide
Speaker 1: a couple of various kinds of physical protection. So hair
Speaker 1: can literally protect the skin against cuts and scrapes. It
Speaker 1: might not seem like it offers that much protection, but
Speaker 1: it does something. Um. But also those outer hairs, often
Speaker 1: called guard hairs, these can have a kind of more
Speaker 1: oily texture. Uh. Those can help repel moisture, keeping the
Speaker 1: insulating underhairs from getting wet. Yeah. Like, if you you
Speaker 1: look at a cat or I guess a dog too,
Speaker 1: you you kind of get a an education in the
Speaker 1: various uses of the hair, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: difference between like what the whiskers of a cat are doing, uh,
Speaker 1: compared to the like the belly hair of the cat,
Speaker 1: which is its main purposes. Uh. Well, of course, to
Speaker 1: to insulate, but also to to tempt the human hand
Speaker 1: closer to the belly, where will then be attacked by
Speaker 1: the sharp, sharp teeth and the sharp clause. Well, I
Speaker 1: like that you mentioned the whiskers because that highlights another
Speaker 1: totally different but also extremely important evolutionary adaptation of hairs,
Speaker 1: which are hairs that provide significant sensory information. These are
Speaker 1: sometimes known as vibrasy v I B R I, S,
Speaker 1: S A E. So these would be hairs that are
Speaker 1: equipped with some kind of tactile receptors or nerve cells
Speaker 1: that help the animal sense something about its environment with
Speaker 1: these hairs, So the whiskers on a cat or a
Speaker 1: great example, or the hairs on a naked mole rat,
Speaker 1: you know, this underground dwelling animal. But then of course
Speaker 1: hair and fur can play huge roles in survival and
Speaker 1: reproduction just through changing the appearance the outward appearance of
Speaker 1: the animal. So coloration and patterns on the fur can
Speaker 1: play a role in everything from hunting and camouflage, to
Speaker 1: providing warning signs to potential predators, to mating and fitness displays.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded in all this is well of of things
Speaker 1: that seem like hair that may look like hair and
Speaker 1: other animals but are not. For instance, if you look
Speaker 1: at the it would appear to be eyelashes on like
Speaker 1: a ground hornbill um, which is a which is a bird.
Speaker 1: Uh if you don't know what you're looking at, you
Speaker 1: might think, oh, look at those look at those beautiful eyelashes.
Speaker 1: Look at those hairs on the bird's face. Well they're
Speaker 1: not hairs, their feathers, but they do serve a similar
Speaker 1: purpose to u to some of the hair that might
Speaker 1: appear around the eyes of a mammal. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: there is definitely some convergent evolution across the animal classes.
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that's true is if you go
Speaker 1: way way back, far enough back, it does seem to
Speaker 1: be true that feathers on birds, which is of course,
Speaker 1: are derived from their dinosaur ancestors. Um for on mammals,
Speaker 1: which is probably derived from some kind of dermal structures
Speaker 1: on proto mammals like the synapsids, and then the scales
Speaker 1: on reptiles. Those all probably have a common genomic ancestor.
Speaker 1: But that goes way way back. So the truth is
Speaker 1: fish don't have fur because they are on a totally
Speaker 1: separate evolutionary line there, on a different branch of the
Speaker 1: tree of life than than the mammals that developed the
Speaker 1: fur that we're familiar with today. But the fact that
Speaker 1: fish don't have for does not mean that there are
Speaker 1: not some there might be too many negatives there. But anyway,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is some fish really look like they
Speaker 1: have for And so I figured, now we should talk
Speaker 1: about some fish that have um interesting examples of external
Speaker 1: features fibrous coverings or something like that that look like fur.
Speaker 1: And we have to add here that when we say fur,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead include like the broader spectrum of
Speaker 1: fur also meaning hair, because some of these fish are
Speaker 1: described are are more described as having things like beards
Speaker 1: or more like hair. But in all cases we're even
Speaker 1: with something that may uh seem like for to some observers. Right, So,
Speaker 1: the first example I want to mention is the wonderful,
Speaker 1: the glorious, the hairy frog fish, also known as the
Speaker 1: striated frog fish. The scientific name is Antenaria striatus. This
Speaker 1: is a predator within the frog fish family, which is
Speaker 1: Antenarity and the frog fish family are ocean dwelling carnivorous fish,
Speaker 1: which I believe we discussed to at least to some
Speaker 1: extent in our episodes about the sargassum the seaweed, Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: we did, because there's one type of or at least
Speaker 1: what we were focusing in on one type of frog
Speaker 1: fish that makes its home in the sarcasm um. A
Speaker 1: lot of them don't live so close to the surface,
Speaker 1: but they are these are these are fascinating little fish.
Speaker 1: Uh I was. I get to visit the aquarium in
Speaker 1: Malle and they have some frog fish uh there that
Speaker 1: you can look at, and they're just they're all so
Speaker 1: wonderful because they often they're often this weird mismatch of
Speaker 1: a looking a little bit gross but also sometimes super colorful,
Speaker 1: like like bright oranges, you know. And then they'll have
Speaker 1: these like little grumpy little faces that in many ways
Speaker 1: seem more humanoid than fish. Like they you know, they
Speaker 1: look like little goblins, like little brightly colored grump as
Speaker 1: goblins that live in the sea. About human faced fish, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well the hairy frog fish is a beautiful grump as
Speaker 1: goblin um. So these are there are These are a
Speaker 1: species of frog fish that grow up to something like
Speaker 1: about twenty centimeters or maybe twenty two centimeters in length maximum,
Speaker 1: and they tend to live along the bottom of the
Speaker 1: ocean on the seafloor, sort of walking along like we
Speaker 1: described with other frog fish species um. But the hairy
Speaker 1: frog fish or striated frog fish in particular, is matted
Speaker 1: in these bizarre looking fluffy appendages that truly do look
Speaker 1: like hair. It's like a big wad of she bag
Speaker 1: carpet just sucking down fish on the seafloor. Now, this
Speaker 1: is not actually hair or fur. These fibers you see
Speaker 1: covering the outside of the hairy frog fish are a
Speaker 1: dermal appendages known as spin ules um. They seem to
Speaker 1: be used primarily not for insulation but for camouflage. So
Speaker 1: the hairy frog fish is an ambush predator, and it
Speaker 1: what it wants to look like something other than an
Speaker 1: ambush predator. It wants to maybe look like some kind
Speaker 1: of other massive organic material, maybe blend in with a
Speaker 1: coral reef, look like just some kind of thing sitting
Speaker 1: there stationary in the environment so that fish will get
Speaker 1: close to its big dangerous mouth. And uh, and it's
Speaker 1: worth looking up videos of its hunting strategy. You can
Speaker 1: find these pretty easily online. I found a good clip
Speaker 1: from a documentary by the Smithsonian Video Channel, and you
Speaker 1: can see this critter. It works. So the hairy frog
Speaker 1: fish sits there and waits in this mop of spinules,
Speaker 1: and then when prey fish are close by, it can
Speaker 1: suddenly expand its mouth cavity by a factor of about twelve,
Speaker 1: creating this powerful vacuum force that sucks in the prey
Speaker 1: and a split second. And so these creatures are in
Speaker 1: many senses, truly fearsome predators. I've I've read it claimed
Speaker 1: at least that they can prey on other fish that
Speaker 1: are about the same size as them. And I have
Speaker 1: to say this, the one that you shared a photo of,
Speaker 1: it looks like it crawled out of Google deep dream.
Speaker 1: You know, it has this wild it's appendages are yes,
Speaker 1: it's quite psychedelic in multiple ways. So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: got that abstract quality like it was a hallucination by
Speaker 1: a machine elf. But also it is a long haired hippie.
Speaker 1: Uh So this is not a furry fish, not in
Speaker 1: the true sense of mammalian fur. But I think this
Speaker 1: is about as close as fish get. This is a beautiful,
Speaker 1: shaggy creature, a predator for the ages. Now here's another
Speaker 1: example of of of something we might well classify as
Speaker 1: a furry fish, and that is the bearded obie or
Speaker 1: pelagic gobi, an Atlantic species of gobi. That it's it's
Speaker 1: something sometimes called the bearded gobie but then you also
Speaker 1: have the bearded eel gobi, which is also sometimes called
Speaker 1: the bearded gobi. And the names here refers to barbels
Speaker 1: under the chin and lower jaw, so barbles. And I
Speaker 1: think that the quote I read earlier um from that
Speaker 1: monster book mentioned barble slightly in describing the physiology of
Speaker 1: of of a purported creature. But barbles are slender whisker
Speaker 1: like sensory organs, such as those found in catfish. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are not, of course real beards uh. And they
Speaker 1: can be found in various places on a fish's head.
Speaker 1: But when they pop up under the chin, certainly you
Speaker 1: can understand our urge to say, oh, well, this this
Speaker 1: creature looks like it has facial hair. Um. And you
Speaker 1: see some examples of the bearded gobie, and boy, it
Speaker 1: does it looks like it has some sort of like
Speaker 1: a neck beard or a chin strap see Everett Coope.
Speaker 1: Kind of a beard going on. I'm inferring this fish's
Speaker 1: theological opinions yea, from its facial hair. Yeah. Now, these
Speaker 1: are technically mandibular or mental barbels, and generally they're present
Speaker 1: to aid in low visibility food searches. So even though
Speaker 1: they might look like they're not doing anything. They are
Speaker 1: helping the fish define food. Okay, so you could say
Speaker 1: that in a way, these are um These are a
Speaker 1: case of something like convergent evolution with the mammalian vibrasy, right,
Speaker 1: the you know, the the sensory hairs that might be
Speaker 1: like in a cat's whiskers or something. Uh, these whisker
Speaker 1: like organs. Again, they're they're not exactly hairs, but they
Speaker 1: do a similar thing their sensory input. Yeah. Another example
Speaker 1: of this is the beard fish of the genus Polymyxia.
Speaker 1: These are found in tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: the Indian, and the western Pacific Ocean. They live in
Speaker 1: the deep and they have these two elongated barbels like
Speaker 1: underneath their chin, and that's where they get their name.
Speaker 1: So it's a it. It looks like a totally different
Speaker 1: sort of beard, but you can understand why it was
Speaker 1: referred to informally as the beard fish. It looks more
Speaker 1: like the like I don't know, Romstein fan who has
Speaker 1: his his goatee in one long braid. Yes, yes, it
Speaker 1: does look like like a braided gotee kind of a situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very cool look for a fish. Now, these are just
Speaker 1: a few examples, you know, the most probably most the
Speaker 1: most obvious examples of fish being compared often by name,
Speaker 1: to beards and fur. But obviously you're gonna have barbells
Speaker 1: occurring with the wide variety of fish. You're also gonna
Speaker 1: have other stuff going on with their fins and other
Speaker 1: appendages at times, and they're there are numerous situations where
Speaker 1: one might look at such a creature and say, oh,
Speaker 1: well that if I'm going to compare that to my
Speaker 1: own body and the bodies of of terrestrial creatures, then
Speaker 1: I might well say that that creature looks furry, that
Speaker 1: creature looks hairy, or that creature looks bearded in some
Speaker 1: fashion or another. Yes, this catfish has a weird beard
Speaker 1: and mustache. Yeah, And we can imagine how like that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, through the echo chamber of of of
Speaker 1: of oral tradition and storytelling and history, could take on
Speaker 1: the form of like increasingly hairy or increasingly bearded fish.
Speaker 1: And then what happens when that account runs into say,
Speaker 1: accounts of otters and seals and so forth. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think ultimately that's that's where I end up landing
Speaker 1: and thinking about all of this is that you you
Speaker 1: probably have just multiple things going on in the oral
Speaker 1: tradition and then ultimately in the written tradition as well, um,
Speaker 1: and they end up converging and running into each other,
Speaker 1: and you end up with these, uh, these often elaborate
Speaker 1: reinterpretations of what is going on in the natural world. Yeah, totally. So.
Speaker 1: There is truly no such thing as a genuine furry fish,
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of fish out there with
Speaker 1: with glorious shagginess of various kinds. There's some wonderful uh
Speaker 1: aquatic and semi aquatic mammals, the otter and all that.
Speaker 1: Uh So you know, once again, nature is stranger than fiction. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: we of course we'd love to hear from everyone out
Speaker 1: there who has any experience with accounts of harry fish
Speaker 1: and and these other creatures that we've discussed. If you
Speaker 1: have accounts or encounters with with otters, I would love
Speaker 1: to hear about them, because otters, I mean, even here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, in a very urban environment, they are otters around.
Speaker 1: They're like I one day, I was picking up my
Speaker 1: my son from school and there's an otter just because
Speaker 1: there's a body of water close to the school. And
Speaker 1: apparently otters lived there. I had no idea that's metal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a golf course, so there. I don't
Speaker 1: know how metal a golf course otter is, but stealth
Speaker 1: otters their golf ball retrieving otters. Yeah, so yeah, let
Speaker 1: us know if you're you know what, if you have
Speaker 1: any intimidating encounters with with with with otters, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear about that strange fish that appear to have
Speaker 1: you know, interesting bar bowls or things that look like
Speaker 1: beards or for if there are other great examples from
Speaker 1: folklore and legend and uh, you know, in different traditions
Speaker 1: of send them in. We'd love to review them. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to check out other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you will find
Speaker 1: them in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed.
Speaker 1: We do core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do
Speaker 1: an artifact. On Wednesdays, we do listener mail. On Mondays
Speaker 1: we do a rerun over the weekend, and then on
Speaker 1: Friday's we do a little bit of weird how Cinema.
Speaker 1: That is our time to set aside most of the
Speaker 1: serious matter and discuss a weird film huge thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, just to say hello, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: With the iHeart Radio you up Apple Podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows.