Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied
Speaker 1: psychology and evolutionary biology, and I'm recording from my living room.
Speaker 1: I've got my DJ dog Cookie on the ones and twos,
Speaker 1: and today I want to take you on a knowledge
Speaker 1: journey to the animal kingdom. Right now, romance can be
Speaker 1: hard for a lot of people, as we're all self
Speaker 1: isolating to keep ourselves and others safe amidst this pandemic.
Speaker 1: So I was thinking we could check in on some
Speaker 1: animals and how their romantic lives are going so we
Speaker 1: can live vicariously through them. Or, as we'll see, maybe
Speaker 1: romance isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Will
Speaker 1: you be wooed by throbbing red face balloons, puffer fish
Speaker 1: art and ce slug congo lines? Discover this and more
Speaker 1: as we answer the Agel question. If your date is
Speaker 1: thirty times your size, how do you make sure you
Speaker 1: don't end up as her appetizer? Right now, dating is
Speaker 1: pretty difficult given the fact we need to self isolate
Speaker 1: to prevent the spread of COVID. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I can't take all of you, my listeners on a
Speaker 1: date right now to the realm of learning romantic nol.
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at some of the weirdest dating
Speaker 1: habits in the animal kingdom. Even within our own species,
Speaker 1: our tastes regarding romance are highly diverse. Some people like
Speaker 1: candlelit dinners, some people like monster trucks or candlelit monster trucks. Personally,
Speaker 1: I tried to my potential mate on our first date
Speaker 1: by telling him all of my favorite weirdest parasites, and
Speaker 1: somehow we're still together. But when it comes to attracting
Speaker 1: a partner, animals truly have us beat when it comes
Speaker 1: to the sheer drama of it all. Joining me today
Speaker 1: to discuss some of these hopeless and sometimes boneless romance.
Speaker 1: Ticks is producer, writer, and also hosts the Rough Stuff podcast.
Speaker 1: Bridge at Greenberg. Hey, it's me. Thanks for having me, Bridget.
Speaker 1: It's so good to have you on. Yeah. I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I feel like I got out easy last time, since
Speaker 1: you were talking about cute animals and I am very
Speaker 1: squeamish about slugs and bugs. That's right, Yeah, I I
Speaker 1: so unfortunately. Yeah, this does actually have slugs in it,
Speaker 1: and I'm just realizing that now. And I remember you
Speaker 1: did tell me you do not like slugs specifically. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: I started writing these notes before I booked you as
Speaker 1: a guest. So, you know, train left the station we're
Speaker 1: doing this. It's got two entirely different species of slugs
Speaker 1: on it. Bridget. Yeah, the slug train is left, and
Speaker 1: we're just gonna have to deal just you know, hop
Speaker 1: on that slimy grass traam. But first, we're actually not
Speaker 1: going to talk about a slug, to your delight, We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about hooded seals. Alright, Yeah, seals are cool.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of a hooded seal? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. Well, that's just wonderful. I'm I always love
Speaker 1: it when my guest does not know about an animal
Speaker 1: because it's so fun to listen to you freak out
Speaker 1: when I tell you cool because I have an idea
Speaker 1: that I like seals. But now I, well, look, I
Speaker 1: like this seal, so clearly you will too. Hooded seals
Speaker 1: are found in the central and western North Atlantic oceans
Speaker 1: and coasts. They kind of look like dalmatians. They have
Speaker 1: light brownish, whitish grayish fur with dark spots, and they
Speaker 1: can kind of they range in color variations a bit,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they're they're they're like the ocean dalmatians. And
Speaker 1: they actually get pretty big. So they can grow up
Speaker 1: to about eight feet long, which is two and a
Speaker 1: half meters, and way up to nine hundred pounds. So
Speaker 1: so these are these are some big bucks, big big
Speaker 1: boys and girls. Yeah, and the boys are bigger than
Speaker 1: the females. Uh. They eat all sorts of sea kritters
Speaker 1: like fish, crustaceans, krill, and squid. They are adept swimmers.
Speaker 1: They're able to dive for about twenty five minutes, although
Speaker 1: some individuals have lasted over fifty minutes in a dive,
Speaker 1: and they can dive from a few hundred to over
Speaker 1: three thousand feet or one thousand meters under the ocean,
Speaker 1: which that's you know, for a mammal, that's a lot
Speaker 1: like a whale, I know, can be under for a
Speaker 1: long time. But that that feels like it's a rival, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's up there. It's a long time. Yes.
Speaker 1: Seals are pretty good swimmers and pretty good divers, especially
Speaker 1: the hooded seal. And I like the idea of being
Speaker 1: an ocean explorer in a little submarine and then just
Speaker 1: like a hooded seal comes right up to you're viewing
Speaker 1: porthole or something. It is just like ha, and like
Speaker 1: it rockets down like you down there. I also like that.
Speaker 1: I also like that some are a lot better than
Speaker 1: others because it makes me feel like there's a seal
Speaker 1: Olympics that happens, like they get competitive with each other.
Speaker 1: Dune dune, did it end? Did it done? Did it done?
Speaker 1: And it's like a harp seal just kind of flopping aimlessly.
Speaker 1: And then sea lions show up and they're like the
Speaker 1: jock bros of the seal Olympics. They're they're the track stars.
Speaker 1: They really are. I mean, sea lions aren't actually seals, obviously,
Speaker 1: they're very closely related, but they can move on land
Speaker 1: a lot better than seals. Yeah, because they've got those long,
Speaker 1: long legs. Yeah, they're the true athletes. Yeah, yeah, they're
Speaker 1: the bros. I think we've actually talked about that before,
Speaker 1: like that sea lions are the jock bros of the
Speaker 1: sort of seal walrus group for sure. And they're like
Speaker 1: they're the most attractive ones, Like they're the hottest ones.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad to hear, like your preference in uh,
Speaker 1: sort of like seals and sea lions and learning about
Speaker 1: your romantic preference amongst those, like, yeah, sea lions, that's uh,
Speaker 1: you know those are straight up hotties. Bridget attracted to
Speaker 1: sea lions. Don't love. Don't love that moniker for me.
Speaker 1: But I said it, so you did say it, and
Speaker 1: we did capture it on on tape, so there is
Speaker 1: no avoiding it. Now. Look here, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: just some free compromise, which is that hooded seals. I'm
Speaker 1: hot for hooded seals. So there you go, like we've
Speaker 1: got yeah, we've got mutually assured destruction here. Yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: are are going to shut off after this gets released.
Speaker 1: So unfortunately for me and my romantic inclination towards the
Speaker 1: hooded seals is that they're typically solitary and they you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're not they're not the most gregarious of seals.
Speaker 1: Their Yeah they've got they've got their hoodie. Yeah they've
Speaker 1: got their hood their hooded because they wear a hoodie
Speaker 1: and they're like, nobody understands me, but that just makes
Speaker 1: me want the more. But they do get together in
Speaker 1: large groups during mating or molting seasons and they gather
Speaker 1: in these big groups to find a partner or shed
Speaker 1: their fur, which sounds great and cool. So the reason
Speaker 1: they're called hooded seals is that males have a weird
Speaker 1: hood on top of their snout. So when this hood
Speaker 1: is flaccid, which is a great word that I love
Speaker 1: to use, it kind of just looks like a flat
Speaker 1: flap of dark skin on top of their muzzles. It
Speaker 1: isn't like super apparent. You're like, okay, here's a here's
Speaker 1: a seal, and he's just kind of got like maybe
Speaker 1: a slightly more prominent muzzle than most seals. But oh boy,
Speaker 1: that's not all it is. Guys can tains multitudes. There's
Speaker 1: a hidden surprise inside these seals because they can inflate
Speaker 1: their nose right up like a big old floffy bubble.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, just yeah, just just just scroll down
Speaker 1: this dock. Just take a box here it oh, it
Speaker 1: looks like it's a oh okay, well, so I guess
Speaker 1: when it's red, that's when it's inflated. Okay, So I
Speaker 1: understand the confusion you're seeing to two different It is
Speaker 1: like a reversible nose here. This is a this is
Speaker 1: a versatile nose balloon. And there are two two modes
Speaker 1: that this nose blue can be in. So the first
Speaker 1: one is when they basically just inflate the nose on
Speaker 1: top of their head and it just looks like they
Speaker 1: have this big, bulbous nose balloon. It's this big floppy
Speaker 1: bubble of skin. It looks like there's another animal like
Speaker 1: saying hi, do it upside down like it crawled on
Speaker 1: its face? Right. What it's like. Imagine if your nose
Speaker 1: was instead of being you know, firm, like was made
Speaker 1: out of sort of a balloon material and you could
Speaker 1: like plug your nostrils and just like blow really hard
Speaker 1: and it blows up like a balloon. And that's basically
Speaker 1: what's happening here. What also happens is that's that's just
Speaker 1: that's just their first form, their first nose form. Their
Speaker 1: final nose form is they can evert the lining of
Speaker 1: their nostrils, so like push out this nasal lining outside
Speaker 1: of their nostrils and blow a big red balloon that
Speaker 1: comes out of their nose. That looks so painful. It's
Speaker 1: I don't think it is because it's designed to do that.
Speaker 1: It does. It does seem like it would hurt, but
Speaker 1: it looks like they're these two. That's just their natural
Speaker 1: that's their resting scream face. But they so imagine like
Speaker 1: when you blow a bubble, like a gu um bubble
Speaker 1: with some you know, let's call it bubblegum um, and
Speaker 1: you blow some bubblegum, like you get this big bubble,
Speaker 1: but you're you're not. You're like blowing it that thin
Speaker 1: layer of gum and filling it with air and blowing
Speaker 1: it out of your mouth. That's what they're doing, but
Speaker 1: out of their nose, and the bubble gum is their
Speaker 1: nasal lining, and it's permanent, like it's like they permanent,
Speaker 1: it's attached to them, thank you, yes, exactly. So it's
Speaker 1: this big red bubble that they blow out of their
Speaker 1: nose and it is made out of their nasal lining,
Speaker 1: and they can inflate it and deflate it as much
Speaker 1: as they want whenever they want, and typically when they
Speaker 1: want to do it is when it comes to mating
Speaker 1: the ladies. Yeah, that's uh, I get I get the appeal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: big old nose bubble, big old nose bubble. And it's
Speaker 1: red too, which is fun. That's a romantic color. I
Speaker 1: feel like you know, like a big yeah. It's like
Speaker 1: one of those. And it's kind of it's almost because
Speaker 1: I guess, like it's sort of weird nose lining. It's
Speaker 1: almost the shape of a heart, you know. It's not
Speaker 1: like a perfectly round spirit's kind of I mean probably
Speaker 1: more closely resembles a kidney bean. But let's say a heart.
Speaker 1: Let's say a red heart. Let's say a heart. If
Speaker 1: these were like money tuns characters, they would for sure
Speaker 1: be a peppe lapew kind of heart. Exactly exactly, yes,
Speaker 1: just this bit like like you know how their eyes
Speaker 1: pop out of their sockets, it's their nose popping out
Speaker 1: of its nose hole, except inside out. Yeah. Anyways, so
Speaker 1: it seems so uncomfortable. I don't think they're okay with
Speaker 1: it though, Yeah, but it does look uncomfortable. It makes
Speaker 1: me feel like if I did that, it would be uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: But again, I'm not a male hooded seal, So there
Speaker 1: you go, if only so, what they do is they
Speaker 1: blow out that big red nose balloon and they flop
Speaker 1: it around menacingly at their rivals for mates, like a
Speaker 1: big yeah, flops around like a big sock 'em bopper,
Speaker 1: and they use. So first of all, it's an intimidating display,
Speaker 1: and because it takes a lot of energy to physically
Speaker 1: fight each other, the way they kind of try to
Speaker 1: minimize injuries to each other when competing for females is
Speaker 1: whoever's got the biggest floppy ist nose bubble is probably
Speaker 1: gonna be the strongest anyway. So then they just they're
Speaker 1: just like, no, you win, you got the biggest nose bubble.
Speaker 1: That's we don't have to come to actual blows. That's
Speaker 1: very kind. Yeah, it's civil, it's very civil. I was
Speaker 1: worried you're gonna say they like fight nose balloons like
Speaker 1: they you said the Rockham stock'em thing. Well, but you know,
Speaker 1: soock'em boppers, I mean they aren't. I well, I really
Speaker 1: wanted Stockholm bopper when I was a kid, But my
Speaker 1: parents I don't think they I don't know, yeah, probably
Speaker 1: too violent, they weren't. They never like put too fine
Speaker 1: a point on it. And I don't think I really
Speaker 1: asked that much because I think I had this sense
Speaker 1: that this would disrupt the peace in the house, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be the one to kind of
Speaker 1: create a war zone in the house, and so I
Speaker 1: let I let the issue subside. But yeah, so they
Speaker 1: are using these as sort of you know, it's like
Speaker 1: a sport. It's like nose sports, but to show their
Speaker 1: they're mating potential and to ward off rivals, and they
Speaker 1: actually also use it to seduce mates. So they wobble
Speaker 1: it around. They create acoustic sounds with these nose bubbles
Speaker 1: that are both can be a threatening warning but also
Speaker 1: kind of like a serenading their potential mate. They play
Speaker 1: wonder Wall exactly. Anyways, here's wonder Wall. What're just like
Speaker 1: every freshman caught like dude in college exactly. It's would
Speaker 1: be like I guess the human analog is if like
Speaker 1: freshman dudes like would blow a big balloon out of
Speaker 1: their nose and then kind of drum it in a
Speaker 1: circle to try to seduce women, but then also like
Speaker 1: try like flap it at each other. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: I think I get it. I've seen it, bridget if
Speaker 1: you want to, if you want to see a video
Speaker 1: of them flapping this thing around, I have highlighted it
Speaker 1: for you and pink there and you can click on it.
Speaker 1: It almost looks like it's eating its own nose bubble whoa, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's so weird. Do you remember those like well weird kids.
Speaker 1: There was that like putty that you would put at
Speaker 1: the end of a straw and it would blow up
Speaker 1: into a balloon. Yeah, yeah, like the yes, yes, I
Speaker 1: do that weird toy that was like the invincient bubbles
Speaker 1: or I don't remember, Like it was impalpable bubble and
Speaker 1: it was just like this putty that you blew up.
Speaker 1: That's what this reminds me of. Oh, look at them fight.
Speaker 1: This is so weird. They're so awkward. They just flop
Speaker 1: at each other essentially like to to try to resolve
Speaker 1: the fight. Everything about them is just floppy. I don't floppy,
Speaker 1: They don't wrestle. Whopping they well, they do have bones.
Speaker 1: We are going to talk about some animals that don't
Speaker 1: have bones, but these guys they've got bones. It's just
Speaker 1: surrounded in a lot of very fidd layer Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of flopping nous. Yeah, they're just fury little sex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's accurate. Yeah. They also can inflate and deflate
Speaker 1: the hood underwater to create threatening acoustic sounds to warn
Speaker 1: off potential rivals or predators. That's metal yes, this is
Speaker 1: a multifunctional nose balloon. Unfortunately, females do not have a
Speaker 1: nose balloon, so I think that's not fair. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: sex is a plane and simple. There's got to be
Speaker 1: like a hooded seal suffragette movement where it's like, give
Speaker 1: us nose balloons please. Yeah, imagine the good they can
Speaker 1: do with nose balloons. Behind every great nose balloon is
Speaker 1: a woman. Is how that goes? Right? And of course, yes,
Speaker 1: what happens if it? Like do they ever pop? I feel,
Speaker 1: you know, that's an interesting question and one I actually
Speaker 1: avoided research. That's fair. I get that it feels like
Speaker 1: a lot of blood, right, I'm not sure I even
Speaker 1: want to know about that, but it seems like they
Speaker 1: run that risk. Yeah, I guess, like maybe if they
Speaker 1: have like balloons of equal size, it's going to be
Speaker 1: like a lightsaber battle. But with balloons, I don't know.
Speaker 1: With lightsaber battle, I don't know. They I like the
Speaker 1: fact that they fight and don't want to go for blood,
Speaker 1: like they're aggressive, but like they don't mean it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really love the creative solutions that a lot of
Speaker 1: animals have come up with to avoid actual fighting. With
Speaker 1: each other. It's it's pretty wonderful, especially the more artistic ones,
Speaker 1: Like we'll flop a big red balloon at each other,
Speaker 1: and whoever's the floppyest and biggest will just assume is
Speaker 1: the winner here, right, And they're like, so I think
Speaker 1: they're so lazy up. They're like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: flop enough to fight you. It's so much exactly have
Speaker 1: you seen a seal try to throw a punch. It
Speaker 1: is honestly kind of pathetic. So, you know, the elephant
Speaker 1: seals will actually fight each other, and it's gruesome because
Speaker 1: they throw their next together. They kind of just like
Speaker 1: slam their thick meeting next into each other and they
Speaker 1: can get really bloodied in it. It's pretty horrible. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I love I love these hooded seals. They've they've come
Speaker 1: up with a real, real elegant solution here by like
Speaker 1: blowing their nose holes out. God if we if humans
Speaker 1: could figure that out, you know, if we could, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, just like sort of ritualized like instead
Speaker 1: of wars, whoever's got the biggest balloon, we're gonna as
Speaker 1: soon wins. That would be great. I love it, which
Speaker 1: so much. Just send out all our best balloon artists exactly, exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we're not artists. Well now, now, Bridget, now, bridget,
Speaker 1: I don't think all clowns are balloon artists. I don't
Speaker 1: think you can generalize like that. I'm sorry, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to the community. You should you should be well. Speaking
Speaker 1: of balloons, I want to talk about puffer fish, who
Speaker 1: have their own very interesting method of seducing a mate.
Speaker 1: And if getting blasted with nose balloons isn't your thing,
Speaker 1: maybe you could be seduced by a puffer fish the
Speaker 1: living balloon, which interestingly, they don't inflate themselves to attract
Speaker 1: a mate, so spoilers. No, it's they don't turn themselves
Speaker 1: into a balloon like a like a hooded seal. They
Speaker 1: actually that that ballooning is a defensive technique and it's
Speaker 1: kind of it's not like fun for the puffer fish
Speaker 1: to inflate itself like that all willie nilly. I think
Speaker 1: it's like slightly traumatic. So they really only do that
Speaker 1: when they feel like their life is in danger, and
Speaker 1: it really does help them avoid predation because when you're
Speaker 1: a big balloon, it's hard to swallow you down. And
Speaker 1: they also have spikes and uh tetra to toxins that
Speaker 1: makes them really deadly sometimes to eat. So they're they
Speaker 1: have really figured out this whole, like I'm going to
Speaker 1: make myself a horrible balloon that you just can't eat.
Speaker 1: They've mastered the art of being unappetizing, because I don't
Speaker 1: want to eat a big poison balloon, and I can't
Speaker 1: imagine animals in the ocean want that either. No. Growing
Speaker 1: growing up by by the bay and the ocean, I
Speaker 1: remember we would see pufferfish and then we would try
Speaker 1: to get them to blow up by I think that
Speaker 1: then it's so mean, And then I learned how bad
Speaker 1: it is, like really it's not good for the fish,
Speaker 1: like it's no, like it is dramatic, and I felt
Speaker 1: horrible about it. Never you know, I thought it was
Speaker 1: fun for them. Yeah, it does. It looks like it
Speaker 1: would be fun to to your credit, it does look
Speaker 1: like it would be fun, because then you would become like,
Speaker 1: you know, like those bouncy balls that we like when
Speaker 1: your kid and you're like, what were those like the
Speaker 1: big super bouncy they look like, yeah, well like or
Speaker 1: the balls that you exercise on as adults, but as
Speaker 1: kids you like sit on and bounce on the yoga
Speaker 1: balls or the ones that you would see in the
Speaker 1: same right exactly, and like so that that seems fun
Speaker 1: as a kid. So for a kid, it's like if
Speaker 1: I could turn into a big bouncy ball, that would
Speaker 1: be perfect. A fish could turn into a ball. How
Speaker 1: could that not be fun for everyone? How couldn't that
Speaker 1: be fun for the fish? But it's not. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you bullied those fish. So unfortunately, bridget, I don't think
Speaker 1: any of these puffer fish are going to try to
Speaker 1: will you, which is a real shame because there you
Speaker 1: really did, and you missed out on one of the
Speaker 1: most beautiful mating rituals in the animal kingdom. Sorry but
Speaker 1: I know. But it's the species of puffer fish off
Speaker 1: the coast of Japan called the white spotted puffer fish
Speaker 1: or and here we go, I'm gonna pronounce this name
Speaker 1: really good and well. It's called the torque wait torque
Speaker 1: wiggan er, torque wiganer albo maco torque wiggener albo maculosis,
Speaker 1: which has been discovered to create elaborate patterns in the
Speaker 1: sea floor to wouf females. But so artistic, it is
Speaker 1: artistic it is. It's beautiful. So the white spotted puffer
Speaker 1: fish is a small puffer about five inches long. When
Speaker 1: they're not inflated, they're kind of a boxy looking fish.
Speaker 1: And the way that puffer fish swim is they flutter
Speaker 1: their fins really rapidly that allow them to hover instead
Speaker 1: of swim. They're kind of like the hummingbirds of the ocean,
Speaker 1: and they've got little beaks and their eyes move independently,
Speaker 1: similar to a chameleon. So actually, puffer fish are one
Speaker 1: of my favorite fish because they have such expressive faces,
Speaker 1: eyes can they're adorable. They have little beaks that make
Speaker 1: it look like they have a little teeth, so they
Speaker 1: have a doofy little expression, and their eyes can follow you,
Speaker 1: and they really they're also very curious fish. I've had
Speaker 1: a puffer fish in my aquarium and they it's like
Speaker 1: the only fish I've had in my aquarium that would
Speaker 1: like follow me as I walk around the room and
Speaker 1: get really excited. I would feed it like blood worms
Speaker 1: and stuff, and you'd get really excited and come up
Speaker 1: to meet me, and it would play in the streams
Speaker 1: I had, like this this jet stream of water that
Speaker 1: was part of the filter system and it would like
Speaker 1: kind of like surf the jet stream and yeah, they're
Speaker 1: just really they're they're really fascinating, uh and fun fish
Speaker 1: as long as you don't bully them, Bridget. But this
Speaker 1: all goes a lot with my narrative. Yeah, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: your narrative of just and and feeling guilty about everything. Yeah, happy,
Speaker 1: too happy to help you along with all that guilt.
Speaker 1: So to attract a mate, these white spotted pufferfish will
Speaker 1: create elaborate crop circles in soft sand on the ocean floor.
Speaker 1: So this is the males creating these designs for females.
Speaker 1: And these designs they kind of look like, um, the
Speaker 1: mandala or something the you know what I mean, like
Speaker 1: the things that the monks draw on the sand and
Speaker 1: then they went yeahs or like some kind of weird
Speaker 1: jello mold made out of sand. So here's here's his
Speaker 1: artistic process. He will clear out the coarse sand, leaving
Speaker 1: just the finest sand in a circular area. And he's
Speaker 1: got it. Since he's a old puffer fish, he's got
Speaker 1: to do this with his fins in his in his beak.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't got no hands. So he also
Speaker 1: clears out shells and places them along the rim of
Speaker 1: his creator, both to clean out the center of it
Speaker 1: and also to decorate the the area outside of his artwork.
Speaker 1: Did you watch Finding Dory? Yes? Yes, how her parents
Speaker 1: like create a line of shells for her to her
Speaker 1: to find. That's what that They stole that from proper
Speaker 1: fish and they do that, but not to find their
Speaker 1: long lost daughter, but to attract the ladies. So a,
Speaker 1: so he will work on his beautiful little mating circle
Speaker 1: for a week, working constantly, otherwise it will get destroyed
Speaker 1: by the currents. So these are like, these are very
Speaker 1: I know, these are such a zen fish though, Like
Speaker 1: they really you know, it's like a zen garden and
Speaker 1: that idea of the impermanence of their art. And they
Speaker 1: work so hard at it. It's it is. They these
Speaker 1: are inspiring little fish. Yeah, just to attract it, just
Speaker 1: to find some love, just to fine love exactly. Think
Speaker 1: about that, you guys. Yeah, they're putting themselves out, They're
Speaker 1: they're making themselves a target exactly. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: times are tough right now for everybody who wants to date,
Speaker 1: but think about these little puffer fish. They got work on,
Speaker 1: They got to work on their design for like a
Speaker 1: week constantly. It's really hard the artists, they're artists. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I feel like with humans, like that's one of the
Speaker 1: worst Well maybe not for everyone, but one of the
Speaker 1: worst things you can do on a first date is
Speaker 1: like show someone your art, like, here's an art I did. Oh,
Speaker 1: I would immediately leave. I would, I would, I think
Speaker 1: I would. Just I don't know. It's even if it's
Speaker 1: good art. There's something about sharing your art with someone
Speaker 1: that is so vulnerable. Is it's I'm not saying it's
Speaker 1: a bad thing. I'm saying it hurts me to think
Speaker 1: about doing it. Like if I like met someone for
Speaker 1: the first time and I'm like, here's an art I did,
Speaker 1: it makes me feel naked in a way that physically hurts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's cringe e that's that's not a thing. These popper
Speaker 1: fish are really wearing their their hearts on their on
Speaker 1: their balloons on the Yeah. Exactly, well said, well spoken. Also,
Speaker 1: there these little these little crop circles or mating circles
Speaker 1: have almost perfect radial symmetry. Oh yeah, I've I've been
Speaker 1: looking at this video, so you've been talking. I've seen it.
Speaker 1: It's so cute. They're so cute. And you see you
Speaker 1: see the finished product, right, like that's big, big crops.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, right, it's beautiful. I it's a I can't
Speaker 1: draw a straight line. I don't know how they're doing this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's unfathomable. It's it's a beautiful design. It's it
Speaker 1: looks like a sunburst or I don't even it's it's
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. And if the female is impressed, she will
Speaker 1: lay her eggs in the of his design. That's like,
Speaker 1: it's so romantic. Yeah, and I'm not I'm not a
Speaker 1: softy per se and that is so sweet. And also
Speaker 1: I'm just very impressed. I want to try to spray
Speaker 1: paint the lines of a soccer field and it was
Speaker 1: a mess. Uh, And these fish, we gotta get these
Speaker 1: fish doing some some work on some soccer fields. My
Speaker 1: boyfriend and I were trying to cut out circles out
Speaker 1: of wax paper to line a baking tin, a circular
Speaker 1: baking tin, and somehow we managed to do every geometric
Speaker 1: shape except a circle. It's impossible. These are I think
Speaker 1: we even we even made like a snowflake, but not
Speaker 1: a circle, a beautiful snowflake a very complex just made
Speaker 1: the mona Lisa out of damn it. But I wanted
Speaker 1: a circle. A circle. This is incredible, But what it's doing.
Speaker 1: Are they all different? I think they're probably all slightly different.
Speaker 1: They're all symmetrical like that, and they all have that
Speaker 1: sort of general design of like what what what it
Speaker 1: is is they move their little bodies through the sand
Speaker 1: and they have it's basically like they have these sort
Speaker 1: of like the the time markers on a clock, Like
Speaker 1: they have these divots all through radially symmetrical in the circle,
Speaker 1: but then in the center they're kind of doing these
Speaker 1: like like swooshies, like these little like almost um waves
Speaker 1: like radiating out from the center like a sun. And it's,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it's it's huge and it's beautiful. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, like ten times twenty times
Speaker 1: larger than the than the puffer fish itself. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's incredible. Yeah, that is I would lay my eggs
Speaker 1: in that circle. Good. Good to hear that. Yeah. Thanks.
Speaker 1: What if crop circles are just aliens trying to woo
Speaker 1: each other and get another alien to lay its eggs
Speaker 1: in the center of it? Oh? Yeah, what or if
Speaker 1: it's just like that creates the alien human species, that
Speaker 1: is our next stage of evolution. Oh god, oh no,
Speaker 1: oh god, oh no. When it comes to romantic patterns,
Speaker 1: a lot of human cultures settled upon the heart shape.
Speaker 1: But where does that come from? It's certainly not very
Speaker 1: similar to a real heart and accurate heart shape is
Speaker 1: more like a lop sided acorn with a bunch of
Speaker 1: veins and chambers and stuff. One theory is that the
Speaker 1: heart shape actually comes from the heart shaped leaves of
Speaker 1: the sylphium plant, which was used as a contraceptive and
Speaker 1: aphrodisiac in fifth century BC and was depicted on silver
Speaker 1: coins in ancient Greece. Turns out we've been horny for
Speaker 1: plants this whole time. Time. Whoops. When we return, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about a little lover with some big problems.
Speaker 1: Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman was a nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: eight B movie about a wealthy heiress who gets turned
Speaker 1: into a giant lady by an alien. As the trailer states,
Speaker 1: she was quote incredibly huge with incredible desires for love
Speaker 1: and vengeance. In evolutionary biology terms, this would be an
Speaker 1: extreme example of sexual dimorphism. Sexual dimorphism is where one
Speaker 1: sex of a species has significant physical differences from the other,
Speaker 1: either in size, color, or other elements of anatomy. Think
Speaker 1: of the colorful male peacock and the more toned down
Speaker 1: p hen or the huge nose and size of an
Speaker 1: elephant seal compared to the smaller, more normal looking female
Speaker 1: elephant seal. Although we often think of male animals of
Speaker 1: being bigger and stronger, this is definitely not always the case.
Speaker 1: Many female animals are larger than their male counterparts, such
Speaker 1: as most species of spiders, many fish owls, the spotted hyena,
Speaker 1: and the blue whale. But sometimes the female is so
Speaker 1: large compared to the male it becomes a bit of
Speaker 1: an unfortunate situation when it comes to mating. I love
Speaker 1: that the entire premise of some horror movies is just
Speaker 1: what if women were huge? It's so really right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's suposed to be scary or
Speaker 1: sexy or like a mix of the two. It's but
Speaker 1: I do love it. I love the creativity that goes
Speaker 1: behind that. Like women but big as a building. It's
Speaker 1: so transparent whatever. Weird, yeah, insecurity or probably mixed together
Speaker 1: little Columbary, Little Columbary. Unfortunately, for the argonau octopus, this
Speaker 1: is not a weird niche fetish. It is a very
Speaker 1: real thing and it's a big problem for the males.
Speaker 1: So argonaut octopus males have a problem, which is that
Speaker 1: females see them as a snack. Not sexually, not like
Speaker 1: a snack as like you are a snack because you're
Speaker 1: pretty and I like you, but frutally because the females
Speaker 1: they want to eat them. And let me give you
Speaker 1: a little bit background on the Argona octopus. They are
Speaker 1: indeed an octopus. They are very interesting cephalopod. They're found
Speaker 1: all over the world in tropical oceans, and the females
Speaker 1: are pretty spectacular looking. So they only grow about four
Speaker 1: inches long or tin centimeters in terms of their bodies,
Speaker 1: but they actually create shells that grow up to almost
Speaker 1: a foot it so these shells that they make look
Speaker 1: like a nautilus shell made out of paper and if
Speaker 1: you look in the dock, actually have a photo of this.
Speaker 1: Oh it really is. It's beautiful and it's interesting. So
Speaker 1: nautilus is are that shelled cephal pod that are actually
Speaker 1: related to octopuses. But this is an instance of convergent evolution,
Speaker 1: not like the argonau octopus didn't like evolved from the nautilus.
Speaker 1: This is this is interesting version of convergent evolution where
Speaker 1: they evolved this shell all on their own. And this
Speaker 1: shell is actually an egg case that the female creates
Speaker 1: and lives inside along with her brood. So this egg
Speaker 1: case is made out of a thin layer of calcite,
Speaker 1: unlike most shells which are made out of argonite, which
Speaker 1: is a fact. I'm sure that the mineralologists out there
Speaker 1: were like, that's not a word mental, it's a geologists geologist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like, is there a difference between those two things. So,
Speaker 1: in fact, the shell wearing females look a lot like
Speaker 1: an extinct cephalopod called the ammonite, which some people may
Speaker 1: know like fossil collectors like those ammonite fossil the shell
Speaker 1: that that they're those like spirally fossils, And it was
Speaker 1: a tentacled creature that resided in a shell. And again
Speaker 1: it's likely that this is another case of convergent evolution
Speaker 1: where yeah, this was an extinct cephalopod distantly related to
Speaker 1: the octopus, but the octopus re evolved forming the shell,
Speaker 1: which is really fascinating, and the argonauts shells have a
Speaker 1: bubble of air in it to keep it buoyant, and
Speaker 1: they're very they're very thin shell, so very very light
Speaker 1: and kind of ethereal looking. But it does provide some
Speaker 1: protection for the female and especially for her eggs, and
Speaker 1: it gives her a little buoyant house to live in
Speaker 1: and makes it easier to swim around. And that's all
Speaker 1: great for the female, but males have a very different situation.
Speaker 1: So they're only a little over a centimeter big, which
Speaker 1: is about one the size of a female with her
Speaker 1: shell on, so that that is real tiny. I got
Speaker 1: a diagram in there to show you the size difference.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it's really cute because like you see this
Speaker 1: female and it's this octopus emerging from a shell, looking
Speaker 1: very strange and very interesting. And then you have this
Speaker 1: like little tiny and that's the male, just this a
Speaker 1: little tiny like dot on it and about the size
Speaker 1: of her eyeballs. I know, it's adorable. It's so cute.
Speaker 1: They're trying, they're trying so hard. But the problem for
Speaker 1: these males is not a sense of inadequacy, but a
Speaker 1: sense of deliciousness, because they make an easy little snack
Speaker 1: for the females. So if they try to mate with
Speaker 1: a female, the female might be just like, hey, you're
Speaker 1: tiny and small and you fit right in my mouth
Speaker 1: and en them and it happens. So in order to
Speaker 1: try to survive this and to actually get the female
Speaker 1: to accept it's uh sperm, the ARGONNT males have perfected
Speaker 1: the art of social distancing sex, which is by detaching
Speaker 1: an arm that holds their sperm um and they rip
Speaker 1: it off and fling it at eligible females like a
Speaker 1: ween or javelin. Oh my god, that's cool, what a
Speaker 1: cool Olympic sport? Exactly ween or javelin. So it's actually
Speaker 1: not their their penis. It is called a hecto caudals,
Speaker 1: which is the it's basically they take their tentacle and
Speaker 1: they put a little sperm packet on it, and then
Speaker 1: they remove that tentacle and toss it at the female
Speaker 1: and the female is like, oh cool. It's like well,
Speaker 1: it's like an arm holding a bunch of sperm, perfect
Speaker 1: present for me. I love it, thank you. It's like Amazon,
Speaker 1: just cool, cool, my children are got my sperm tentacle
Speaker 1: packet today. That's great. They will sometimes even stockpile these
Speaker 1: tentacle sperm javelins in their shell and just disseminate their
Speaker 1: eggs when they're ready. Just hoarding, hoarding, like these these
Speaker 1: weener tentacle sperm things. How many like I guess I
Speaker 1: regrow their their sperm tentacles the male. Yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: can regrow their tentacles. It's it's unclear how often they
Speaker 1: actually have the chance to mate like that, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they in theory, they probably can regrow that tentacle. I'm
Speaker 1: just not I don't think it's known whether or not
Speaker 1: they actually do or if they're just like, well, my
Speaker 1: job here is done and then then pass on to
Speaker 1: octopus heaven. They could regrow the tentacle, and it at
Speaker 1: least means that they were able to get their their
Speaker 1: sperm to the female without the email just eating the
Speaker 1: holding a little guy and not even knowing what she's missing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he could be a great guy. He could have been
Speaker 1: a great guy. Yeah, give him a chance. We've actually
Speaker 1: talked about this method of mating before on this show,
Speaker 1: when I think it was in the episode Aliens, and
Speaker 1: we talked about the blanket octopus. Because blanket octopus males
Speaker 1: will also use the hectocotalists and by tossing their arm
Speaker 1: at the female and piecing out. But I think that
Speaker 1: the in this case just the the absolute urgency for
Speaker 1: these little guys to get away from these huge females
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible as a much more stark but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's an it's an interesting technique, like like take it,
Speaker 1: take my seat, and then run away. Take my seat,
Speaker 1: don't eat me. That's all the sad existence, like here
Speaker 1: you go, here's my arm, just gonna go. Had I
Speaker 1: go here, take my love, be the mother of my children.
Speaker 1: By I want to inspire that kind of intimidation that
Speaker 1: that is a that is a that is a boss girl. Wait,
Speaker 1: boss queen, what is it? Boss boss bas boss boss queen. Yes, queen,
Speaker 1: eat eat as mails you go their little snacks, little
Speaker 1: snacks exactly, that's that's right. And then just put their
Speaker 1: put their sperm arm in your pocket, exactly, collects me
Speaker 1: sperm arms as you can, because your boss. That I
Speaker 1: also I'm super jealous of the idea of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna hang onto this for a later time,
Speaker 1: you know. Now it's not a great time for me,
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, Like on the road. I'm gonna want
Speaker 1: these planning like down really good, just like you know
Speaker 1: you have like a little cupboard full of like this
Speaker 1: one was from Gary. I don't know about Gary. Oh
Speaker 1: this one's from Larry. I did like Larry. I could
Speaker 1: pick the eat. I don't know they are. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they got their own little sperm banks. Yeah they got
Speaker 1: a sperm library. Just check out, check out a book
Speaker 1: whenever you want, pour it over your eggs and there
Speaker 1: you go. You got kids. Oh god, what a convenient
Speaker 1: system for the ladies and a terrifying existence for exactly.
Speaker 1: I do love the convenience of it all. So now
Speaker 1: I want to talk about I'm sorry to say it, Bridget,
Speaker 1: but it's slugs times. So I have done I have
Speaker 1: done you a huge favor, and I have made the
Speaker 1: photo of the slugs I'm going to talk about really tiny,
Speaker 1: so you can choose to zoom in on that if
Speaker 1: you want. That is way too kind, but I appreciate
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. When I say tiny, I made it
Speaker 1: like like a cinameter squared wide. So Bridget doesn't have
Speaker 1: delok at this unless she wants to. It is so
Speaker 1: you are such a gracious house well, these are banana slugs.
Speaker 1: And I think even for people who aren't normally grossed
Speaker 1: out by slugs, these are some intimidating slugs. Yeah they're there.
Speaker 1: I know these because, yeah, they're the ones. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: these are the gross ones. These are the ones that
Speaker 1: made me afraid. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: And I bring them up because we talked about, like
Speaker 1: with the argonau octopus, how they detach their leg and
Speaker 1: throw it at the female by choice. Well, sometimes penis
Speaker 1: isn't meant to be detachable, but animals jail break those
Speaker 1: wieners and attach them anyways. Of course they're monsters. Yes,
Speaker 1: let me tell you the ballad of the banana slugs
Speaker 1: and their unfortunate romantic existence. And sometimes they listen. Okay,
Speaker 1: sometimes they do chew a wiener off. But let me
Speaker 1: before you judge, let me tell you all about the
Speaker 1: noble banana slug. So, banana slugs are large, gooey yellow
Speaker 1: terrestrial slugs. They are according to some people, it's objective.
Speaker 1: There are three species of banana slugs that live in
Speaker 1: North America, so some of my fellow North Americans may
Speaker 1: have had the privilege of seeing them in person um,
Speaker 1: are you one of those people, Bridget? Have you seen
Speaker 1: a banana slug in person? I have, and I was
Speaker 1: physically twitching for like an hour. Where was this? I
Speaker 1: was camping around Big Sir. Of course that's northern Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where that's where they are. Yeah, I love Big Sir,
Speaker 1: but I don't really like it was beautiful and then
Speaker 1: I saw that and the trip is ruined. Well, so
Speaker 1: they do grow up to be around ten inches long,
Speaker 1: or they can grow up to ten inches long, which
Speaker 1: is about twenty five cimeters, and they can live up
Speaker 1: to seven years. They're I don't know why backroased me
Speaker 1: out that they can be old because they can remember you, Bridget,
Speaker 1: come back there, they'll remember you. But yeah, they I
Speaker 1: mean they're their lives bean ranges from one to seven years.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they can look pretty long for it for
Speaker 1: dank slug. And here's here's some cool banana slug facts.
Speaker 1: They need to keep their skin moist to stay healthy
Speaker 1: and to help them breathe via gas exchange. So they
Speaker 1: have a nice thick layer of mucus that they can
Speaker 1: even create a cocoon out of. So they can bury
Speaker 1: themselves in soil or leaves and remain dormant until their
Speaker 1: environment is acceptable moist. Oh god, everything makes it worse. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe this fact will cheer you up, all right, No,
Speaker 1: I'm lying it won't. Actually, if you try, if you
Speaker 1: try to eat a banana slug, your mouth will fill
Speaker 1: with expanding slime and your tongue will go numb. So
Speaker 1: let me explain. You may have heard, I don't know,
Speaker 1: if you live in an area where it's like um there,
Speaker 1: I've heard that people dare each other to lick banana slugs.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was at sixth grade camp and
Speaker 1: we had a camp counselor was like, do not lick
Speaker 1: banana slugs. And if someone if someone dares you to
Speaker 1: lick a banana slug, don't do it because it will
Speaker 1: your mouth will fill with goo and it will just
Speaker 1: like froth up into like this big, these big thick
Speaker 1: sheets of goo. And I thought she was kind of
Speaker 1: just telling tall tales, but no, turns out she was right.
Speaker 1: And the reason this happens is their mucus is made
Speaker 1: out of mucin granules. These are little teeny tiny microscopic
Speaker 1: granules that expand when they come into contact with water.
Speaker 1: So if you look a banana slug. These granules will
Speaker 1: expand in your saliva like tiny microscopic bits of select
Speaker 1: or mucus rice and fill your mouth with slug pudding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hate that term. I hate that term so much.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It's all right. My shoulders are at my
Speaker 1: ears for a bridget I'm really sorry. I did not
Speaker 1: plan to torture you with this episode. Was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I should have bridget on and I'm like, just have
Speaker 1: a lot of slugs in it. Yeah, no, you're doing
Speaker 1: your job. I don't blame you. The slugs are always
Speaker 1: the animator. Yeah, well maybe this this is some some
Speaker 1: solace if you put a banana slug in your mouth,
Speaker 1: is that your tongue won't feel the slime because your
Speaker 1: tongue will go numb because their their mucus contains an
Speaker 1: anesthetic agent. And that is another reason though, animals don't
Speaker 1: really want to eat these guys, because like, if you
Speaker 1: are a predator and your mouth is now full of sliming,
Speaker 1: your tongue is numb, that is not going to be
Speaker 1: a good experience. Oh God, I hate him. I don't
Speaker 1: like them. I Also, there's not enough money in the world. Uh,
Speaker 1: if I was at your camp to like a slug,
Speaker 1: there is not not even a lot, not even a
Speaker 1: little kiss, just to see if they're prints and disguise.
Speaker 1: I had a nightmare about slugs coming out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: I was very young, and I think about it maybe
Speaker 1: once a week. There's a a Japanese comic artist, Genie Eto,
Speaker 1: who does these horror comics, and he has one where like,
Speaker 1: these slugs come out of this girl's mouth. So I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm telling you that, but hey, you're
Speaker 1: not the only one who has that fear. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I that's a good horror. That's yeah, that's a good horror.
Speaker 1: So you can't. You can't kiss a banana slug. But
Speaker 1: what do what do hours banana slugs do? I bet
Speaker 1: you were wondering that bridget, But you're wondering how banana
Speaker 1: slugs romance each other and you want to hear about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess, so that's why I'm here. So banana slugs,
Speaker 1: like all slugs, are hermaphrodites, and they carry both male
Speaker 1: and female organs, So that tongue numbing, expanding slime horror
Speaker 1: also contains pheromones to attract a mate. So once a
Speaker 1: pair of slugs meet up, they will both exchange sperm
Speaker 1: with each other, kind of like how you know you
Speaker 1: meet up, Like we both like you meet someone, you
Speaker 1: both exchange your phone numbers and stuff, except it's sperm
Speaker 1: because they, you know, they both have both male and
Speaker 1: female reproductive organs. But they can't like self fertilize, They
Speaker 1: have to find someone else, so they just exchange stuff
Speaker 1: like here, you take some of my sperm, I'll take
Speaker 1: some of your sperm. We'll see which one works out
Speaker 1: exactly number maybe slightly. Yes. But here's here's a problem,
Speaker 1: which is that once in a while they get a
Speaker 1: little tangled up with with their wieners. And so if
Speaker 1: if a penis gets stuck in the female reproductive tract,
Speaker 1: the penis must somehow be removed so they won't be
Speaker 1: locked together forever, because that is a commitment that goes
Speaker 1: a little too far for these banana slugs. They're like, hey, cool,
Speaker 1: we'll meet up. We'll exchange your sperm, but I do
Speaker 1: not want to be tied to your wiener forever. Sorry. Wait,
Speaker 1: so it always gets stuck? No, no, no, just occasionally,
Speaker 1: just occasionally. God, that would be a poorly designed animal.
Speaker 1: Though I'm sure it happens. I'm sure I'm gonna find
Speaker 1: an animal like that isn't like how I mean? This
Speaker 1: might not be a question. You know, how common of
Speaker 1: an occurrence? Is this enough that it has been noted
Speaker 1: by researchers. I don't know what that means. I don't
Speaker 1: think it happens all the time, but it happens with
Speaker 1: enough regularity that we have observed it and documented it. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: enough enough, that's right. It happens enough once, I feel
Speaker 1: like would be enough. But once this is too many,
Speaker 1: maybe I would go as far as to say, yeah.
Speaker 1: So usually it is the recipient of the weener who
Speaker 1: does the chewing off, though sometimes the owner will chew
Speaker 1: off its own weener in desperation to escape, like a
Speaker 1: wolf chewing off its own paw to escape trap. You
Speaker 1: see what happens. The problem is the female genitals have
Speaker 1: these like muscles that like hold onto the male genitals,
Speaker 1: and sometimes those muscles just work too good and it
Speaker 1: locks on there and then they get stuck together and
Speaker 1: they're like, well, somebody's gonna lose a wiener and it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be me. Oh, they're too strong for their
Speaker 1: own good. Yeah. I mean. The one nice thing though,
Speaker 1: is because they are hermaphrodites and they have both male
Speaker 1: and female genitals. It's like there's not it's not just
Speaker 1: like one. They all run this risk, right, it feels
Speaker 1: sort of equitable. I guess it did. It's not one sided, right, exactly,
Speaker 1: Like they understand what they're getting into. Someone must get
Speaker 1: their penis bitted. Yeah, they probably don't understand that because
Speaker 1: they're not very smart. They've got like kind of tiny brains.
Speaker 1: But you know what, maybe that's a blessing. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: it's good not to have self awareness in that situation. Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: in that situation you kind of just want instinct. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then one one last fact to just kind of
Speaker 1: like with this fact simmer in there. Once the penis
Speaker 1: has been successfully a hundred and twenty seven hours off,
Speaker 1: they typically the one who received the penis will eat
Speaker 1: it as a fun snack because wasted waste, not want
Speaker 1: not is what I say. Oh my god, monsters, they're monsters. Well,
Speaker 1: nothing to convince me otherwise. Well, I mean, but are
Speaker 1: we the real monsters, bridget because we don't. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and and and and not yes,
Speaker 1: and you here right, we are not the monsters. That's
Speaker 1: actually probably fair. You know, Uh, this sounds horrible, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's well, you know, I mean, look, look, it's easy
Speaker 1: to judge when you're not covered in numbing, numbing slime
Speaker 1: and getting your wieners stuck in another person. You know,
Speaker 1: it's easy to judge. Yeah, I guess, I guess I
Speaker 1: have not been have not been lucky enough to be
Speaker 1: in this situation from our law deposition, as a species
Speaker 1: that don't regularly chew off each other's wieners like you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's easy for us to judge, That's
Speaker 1: all I'm gonna say, High and Mighty Throne. Why aren't
Speaker 1: all living animals hermaphroditic? That is, it seems like the
Speaker 1: safest way to ensure the continuation of the species is
Speaker 1: giving everyone both sets of reproductive equipment. Right. Well, to
Speaker 1: answer this question, first, let's talk about how different sex
Speaker 1: is evolved in the first place. Sexual reproduction evolved over
Speaker 1: one point two billion years ago in early eukaryotic cells.
Speaker 1: Eukaryotes are all organism with a nucleus enclosed into membrane
Speaker 1: within the cell. Where eukaryotes. Worms are eukaryotes, plants are eukaryotes,
Speaker 1: mushrooms are eukaryotes. So early eukaryotic cells developed sexual reproduction,
Speaker 1: the exchange of two gamets, each containing a set of
Speaker 1: chromosomes that combined to form a new organism with two
Speaker 1: sets of chromosomes. Sexual reproduction has been the preferred choice
Speaker 1: of reproduction amongst eukaryotes, including most species of plants, animal,
Speaker 1: and fungi. This maybe because sexual reproduction protects species from
Speaker 1: major bad mutations by having two different sets of chromosomes.
Speaker 1: So most plants are actually hermaphroditic, well, just a few
Speaker 1: have two distinct sexes. Meanwhile, most animals are dioecious, meaning
Speaker 1: individuals generally have either male or female organs. One theory
Speaker 1: is that it's costly to have both sexual organs as
Speaker 1: their major energy costs. Producing sperm and gest dating eggs
Speaker 1: both cost resources, so if you're doing both at the
Speaker 1: same time, you may be burning the candle from both ends,
Speaker 1: so to speak. When we return, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about another lovely little sliming hermaphroditic critter who has no
Speaker 1: problem burning that candle from end to end to end
Speaker 1: to end. While we sometimes consider mating to be a
Speaker 1: private affair, that's a very limited perspective. Not all species
Speaker 1: are so inhibited. Some species of frogs gather in huge
Speaker 1: mating mobs that can become so hectic and cramped that
Speaker 1: individuals get smothered to death. In fact, a species of
Speaker 1: Amazonian frog called Ranilla proboscidia is so highly competitive during
Speaker 1: mating they forego the whole till death do you part bit,
Speaker 1: and males will actually harvest eggs from dead females to
Speaker 1: attempt to fertilize them. Other species of frogs have understandably
Speaker 1: shied away from these mass mating events by finding or
Speaker 1: even constructing their own private mating pools so they and
Speaker 1: their partners can mate in peace. See hairs, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, have figured out a way to have very organized,
Speaker 1: but still very public making spectacles. Okay, so, Bridget, I
Speaker 1: do want to talk about another sluggish animal. It's not
Speaker 1: I'm hoping this one, won't. I actually hope you kind
Speaker 1: of like this one. Maybe not, we'll see. Let's let's
Speaker 1: let's just go, let's go on this journey together. Let's
Speaker 1: find out. Yeah, have you you know, generally about like
Speaker 1: sea slugs. Right, Oh yeah, those those still bother me
Speaker 1: quite as much. Good good, good good. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about sea hairs. So sea hairs are actually distantly related
Speaker 1: to banana slugs, and they both belong to the clade Heterobranchia,
Speaker 1: which contains snails and slugs both on land and aquatic. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are yeah, like I said, they are a type
Speaker 1: of sea slug. And actually on the show, we have
Speaker 1: talked about the sea bunny before, which is a related animal,
Speaker 1: and they sea hair. I don't think it's quite as
Speaker 1: adorable as the sea bunny. Bridget actually got to show
Speaker 1: you a sea bunny. This is, yeah, if necessary, because
Speaker 1: that just sounds cute. It's very cute. I'm going to
Speaker 1: show you. Yeah, that's pretty cute. I can't hate that.
Speaker 1: I can't, can't. So this is so sea bunnies, like
Speaker 1: we've talked about before our new to Brinks, and they
Speaker 1: look like little cotton balls with bunny ears and a
Speaker 1: bunny tail. And that little cotton tail is actually their
Speaker 1: lungs that they breathe through. So they breathe through their toshi,
Speaker 1: which is amazing and wonderful. They're one of my favorite,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite animals the sea bunny and sea hairs,
Speaker 1: aren't they. I don't think they have quite the same
Speaker 1: cuteness factor. If you google sea hair you'll see what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Yeah, because bunny. So they're called a
Speaker 1: sea hair because the rhino floors, which are those like
Speaker 1: little fleshy antenna on top of their head, look a
Speaker 1: little bit like rabbit ears. And those those ears don't
Speaker 1: really hear anything. They actually smell and taste the water,
Speaker 1: and they There are many species of sea hair, and
Speaker 1: they are found all over the world's oceans, in coastal
Speaker 1: waters where there's dense vegetation for them to eat, and
Speaker 1: they range in color and size. I think most of
Speaker 1: them look like weird little dumplings. I guess with with
Speaker 1: with bunny ears and they um So. The largest sea
Speaker 1: hair is the California black sea hair, which grows up
Speaker 1: to thirty inches long and thirty one pounds. So that's
Speaker 1: in fourteen ms. That's insane. Yeah, it's that's a little
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a little too much for me. That's that
Speaker 1: might be a little too much sea hair for me,
Speaker 1: even Yeah, that's a big that's a big s that's
Speaker 1: a big sack. Of goo exactly. So another species of
Speaker 1: California sea hair is the A flies Ya californica. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it flies Jah Californica, which eats red algae and consequently
Speaker 1: has a pinkish reddish hue. And not only that, but
Speaker 1: it can like actually ink at predators like a squid
Speaker 1: or an octopus, and it inks purple, purpleish pinkish ink
Speaker 1: in this big plume. So if you scroll down, you
Speaker 1: actually can see this, and I think it's rather pretty that. Okay,
Speaker 1: the ink is cool. The fact that it looks like
Speaker 1: it's coming out of it's open back I don't love,
Speaker 1: but the ink is cool. Right, So what what Bridge
Speaker 1: is looking at is this this sea here, and you
Speaker 1: know how like um, you know how like certain dumplings
Speaker 1: they have, like you you it's sort of a semi
Speaker 1: circle and then the top of it you kind of
Speaker 1: like pinch the edges of the dumplings. So there's like
Speaker 1: these like flaps on the top. Imagine that. But it's
Speaker 1: got a tail and it's also got ahead with like
Speaker 1: a little weird head face tentacles. Yeah. Yeah, it's those
Speaker 1: like flaps are actually kind of wing like of it.
Speaker 1: So the back isn't like split open. Those are just
Speaker 1: those are just like wings that are kind of like
Speaker 1: resting on top of its back. But it it is odd.
Speaker 1: It is an odd shaped animal. Yeah, thinking of that
Speaker 1: as a thirty pound thing, yes, that's all that much.
Speaker 1: Don't love it? Um. I think that it's that's its
Speaker 1: max weight, so that that's at least we know it
Speaker 1: doesn't get more than that. Yeah, But that that purple
Speaker 1: ink that its views out is really interesting because it
Speaker 1: has an ink gland along its back that releases that
Speaker 1: that plum of magenta colored ink, and it also can
Speaker 1: release a sort of white colored ink which is made
Speaker 1: out of opaline, which is a component found in opal,
Speaker 1: which is distasteful to predators. So that's it's really cool.
Speaker 1: It's like there, you know, like that the color festivals
Speaker 1: where you throw around like colorful chalk or something, right,
Speaker 1: or like I guess people are doing it now with
Speaker 1: like baby showers or baby gender revealing. Yeah, let's let's
Speaker 1: stick with the color runs because the other one is stupid. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: where they like I've actually heard like with the So
Speaker 1: so what I'm talking about is at these gender revealed parties,
Speaker 1: which I could launch into a whole thing of like
Speaker 1: I don't know different about that, but that's a different podcast.
Speaker 1: But like they will fire off I guess like colored
Speaker 1: powder where like you, I'm not actually I'm not a pyrotechnician,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how this works. But you like
Speaker 1: it's like a little like smoke bomb, but then it's
Speaker 1: sprays either like pink or blue. But then sometimes, like
Speaker 1: these smoke bombs explode, so it's actually kind of dangerous.
Speaker 1: So maybe don't do it always, except unless you're hired
Speaker 1: pyrotechnic people. I don't know. But if you if you
Speaker 1: do have a if you do want to have a
Speaker 1: pink plume, and you have an un nderwater gender revealed party,
Speaker 1: you could bother a sea hair. Yeah, just get a
Speaker 1: big stick. And now that I say that all out loud,
Speaker 1: all of those words combined, I don't like them. So
Speaker 1: don't do that. Get all your friends scuba licenses right right.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna do something as silly as a gender
Speaker 1: revealed party, you should at least do at scuba diving.
Speaker 1: But but but don't bully a sea hair. I take
Speaker 1: that back. I do not fully see hairs come ups.
Speaker 1: Don't have gender revealed parties. Don't bully puffer fish. This
Speaker 1: has been this has been like an after school special
Speaker 1: show about all the things. Just this is my new brand.
Speaker 1: It's just lecturing my listeners on which animals you shouldn't bully. Hint,
Speaker 1: it's all of them. Just let them be, Just let
Speaker 1: them be. So sea hairs have parapodia, and that those
Speaker 1: are those like weird fleshy ribbons you see that run
Speaker 1: along it's back, and they actually can use them like wings,
Speaker 1: so they like swim sort of like like and flash
Speaker 1: them like wings. They fly in the ocean. I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty. I think it's pretty. Although I guess if
Speaker 1: you think about like a flying terrestrial slug, that often
Speaker 1: does seem yeah, it's not a great idea. But like
Speaker 1: they're terrestrial slug cousins. They are also hermaphrodites, so meaning
Speaker 1: that they have female and male reproductive organs. But they
Speaker 1: are a bit less misanthropic when it comes to mating
Speaker 1: than the sea slug because they hold these big old
Speaker 1: sea hair swinger parties where they formed long mating chains.
Speaker 1: Which yeah, so because they have both female and male genitalia,
Speaker 1: they can basically link up like one long sex congo
Speaker 1: line and d D. So the first in the line
Speaker 1: acts only as a female, the second in line mounts
Speaker 1: her as a male. And then I'm to say, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna use I'm going to say they because again female
Speaker 1: and male genitalia. I don't think obviously these are these
Speaker 1: are animal sex as gender doesn't apply to these guys.
Speaker 1: But for just for clarity, So so the first one
Speaker 1: acts as a female, the second one acts as both
Speaker 1: a female and a male, so on and so on,
Speaker 1: and then the last in the chain only acts as
Speaker 1: a male. And then that's because you see how how
Speaker 1: that works, right, Like you you mount the first one,
Speaker 1: and then your second in line, so you're also getting
Speaker 1: getting mounted, and then the third one is mounting the
Speaker 1: second one, and so on and so forth, and you
Speaker 1: just get a big, long, long, fun congo sex chain. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like the slug at the front and back.
Speaker 1: They're getting the run to the deal. Everybody else, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: gets to do both have both times. Yeah. I mean, actually,
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about it in terms of I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: I'm not hard to person sure of this, but if
Speaker 1: you're think about it in terms of evolutionary cost, I
Speaker 1: would say the one in the front gets the most
Speaker 1: raw deal because laying eggs is costly, and if you
Speaker 1: can pass on your genetic material without having to lay eggs,
Speaker 1: that's cool. So the one in the back is getting
Speaker 1: the best deal because potentially doesn't have to lay eggs.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure, like they may like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: if they only engage in like one sex chain, they
Speaker 1: could do a bunch of sex chains, in which case
Speaker 1: everybody gets a turn swap sex teckically exactly, when they
Speaker 1: do lay eggs, they lay millions of them in long
Speaker 1: spaghetti like strands. And that's cool. That is cool. Uh, gross,
Speaker 1: but cool? What a weird form of like spaghetti cavia,
Speaker 1: you know, being being awfully judge. I think it's beautiful,
Speaker 1: these sex sex calmed congo lines and then they make
Speaker 1: makes eggs spaghetti that turns into babies. Be the circle
Speaker 1: of life, fascinating, the literal circle of life. It's up
Speaker 1: to interpretation, Yes, yes, exactly, how do you feel about it? Look,
Speaker 1: it's the it's it's the majesty of love making amongst
Speaker 1: sea slugs. And I personally I think it's great. I
Speaker 1: think it's beautiful. I was like in middle school and
Speaker 1: everyone was finding out about like grinding dancing. Uh. At
Speaker 1: bar Mitzva's people would everyone would line up and it
Speaker 1: would be like boy girl boy girl in like a
Speaker 1: long chain of teenage dry humping and that's what But wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is kind of that is pretty similar. Again, what
Speaker 1: do you like do you think like the person at
Speaker 1: the front of the grind grindline, like, is that like
Speaker 1: a raw deal? Like that seems kind of like awkward.
Speaker 1: You're just like you're like the only because it seems
Speaker 1: like but then you're like the face of the grindline
Speaker 1: and that seems like weird that you have to kind
Speaker 1: of like if you're at the head of the grind line,
Speaker 1: then like it's you're like the head of the grind line,
Speaker 1: and that's like a lot of visibility and culpability that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't really want. I wouldn't write like are you
Speaker 1: are you the captain of the hump line? And I
Speaker 1: don't want to be like, yeah, it's me the captain
Speaker 1: of the line. That was for the more confident, the
Speaker 1: more confident among us. Yeah, yeah, not me. No, I
Speaker 1: would want to be somewhere in the middle. I would say,
Speaker 1: like somewhere well within the middle of the grind or
Speaker 1: maybe like back middle sort of, and so that like
Speaker 1: nobody can see me being here in the grind line.
Speaker 1: And also like I'm not a good enough to answer
Speaker 1: to have set the rhythm for an entire chain right right,
Speaker 1: or maybe I don't know, maybe maybe back of maybe
Speaker 1: back of the grind line, because then I can leave
Speaker 1: to go the bathroom whenever I want, because like being
Speaker 1: stuck in the middle of the grind line, Like what
Speaker 1: if you have to get the bathroom and then you're
Speaker 1: like stuck in the middle of the grind line and
Speaker 1: you can't break the grind line. You don't want to
Speaker 1: be the one who broke the grind line. You don't
Speaker 1: want to be the one to ruin the grind line.
Speaker 1: It only takes one personally. Yeah, this is this is like,
Speaker 1: this is making me sweat from social anxiety. So I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I feel I feel like this is payback for Bridget
Speaker 1: having to learn about sea slugs, and she's learn about slugs.
Speaker 1: Is like like here, here, here's some social anxiety for you, Katie.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Yeah, don't appallsize I deserve it. No, this
Speaker 1: is this is more than this is very fair phobia
Speaker 1: into the territory. I think what we could all use
Speaker 1: at the end of this episode is to talk about
Speaker 1: big snake sex parties. Right. That's that's that's a good closer.
Speaker 1: That's a closer if I've ever heard. I like to
Speaker 1: end on an uplifting note, and that is big snake
Speaker 1: sex balls. Um. So uh, snakes may seem like unfriendly,
Speaker 1: but some species get really, really very friendly during mating seasons.
Speaker 1: And so let's talk about garter snakes. So garter snakes
Speaker 1: participate in something that is about as opposite of social
Speaker 1: distancing as you could possibly get, because sometimes they get
Speaker 1: they just wind themselves in these big balls of snakes
Speaker 1: that are all trying trying to mate, and it's great.
Speaker 1: And so garter snakes are a sort of smaller genus
Speaker 1: of snakes. They're typically harmless to humans. If they do
Speaker 1: have venom, it's very mild and they can't really effectively
Speaker 1: bite people and inject that venom, so they're they're just
Speaker 1: sweet little noodles and you don't you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about them too much. They come in different colors
Speaker 1: each species, and they are endemic to North America. So
Speaker 1: if you are another North American like me. You've probably
Speaker 1: seen them around. I've seen garter snakes around and there
Speaker 1: they could be quite pretty. So the California red sided
Speaker 1: garter snake is very stunning. It has these red bars
Speaker 1: on its side and a bright neon blue strip running
Speaker 1: down its back. Wow, that's cool. That looks like a
Speaker 1: power Ranger snakes. Yeah, exactly. So some species of garter
Speaker 1: snakes participate in massive sex parties, you know, just like
Speaker 1: Power Rangers. That's a fan fic. I read, yep, yep,
Speaker 1: it's a fan fic. We've all possibly written or read
Speaker 1: all of the We're all equally guilty for that. So
Speaker 1: there's another species of garter snake that lives in Manitoba, Canada,
Speaker 1: and they are called the red sided garter snakes, and
Speaker 1: they do massive mob mating where tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: individuals slithered together in a big, beautiful sex ball that
Speaker 1: is known scientifically as a mating ball, which I was like,
Speaker 1: I wrote these notes as like calling it a sex ball,
Speaker 1: and like that's crue, that's crass. I should look up
Speaker 1: the what they actually call it, and it's just called
Speaker 1: a mating ball. So you know, UM's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, there's not too many words. I don't know
Speaker 1: how more poetically you could put it, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Spear together, spear pile, yeah, yeah, baby making
Speaker 1: pile again doesn't roll off the tongue that well. So,
Speaker 1: because the mortality rate for garter snakes in the winter
Speaker 1: is so high, it's kind of difficult if you're just
Speaker 1: kind of like looking looking in the singles pages to
Speaker 1: find a female to mate with. So their solution is
Speaker 1: forming a giant mosh pit that gives everyone a higher
Speaker 1: chance to mate. And that's great, but it does come
Speaker 1: at a high price other than just grow gross. Uh.
Speaker 1: They can also be fatal to males who basically expend
Speaker 1: all their energy and resources on sperm. So they like
Speaker 1: they're they're doing so much mating, and what what happens
Speaker 1: is like before this mating they actually have, they like
Speaker 1: aren't really eating at this point, so they are just
Speaker 1: on this mating frenzy, mating as much as they can
Speaker 1: without eating. So if you're powering, right, if you're like
Speaker 1: expending a lot of your your resources on these sperm
Speaker 1: packets that you're giving to the females, you're you're losing
Speaker 1: you're losing a lot of resources real quick. So sometimes
Speaker 1: it can be fatal for these males. They literally, you know,
Speaker 1: grind themselves to death. But some male garter snakes have
Speaker 1: developed an interesting trick. So when mating, garter snakes actually
Speaker 1: release pheromones, which males and females can seek out to
Speaker 1: find each other. And females and males each have their
Speaker 1: own brand of pheromone, but some tricky males produce both
Speaker 1: female pheromones and male pheromones and that tricks other males
Speaker 1: to cuddle with them, which seems like why would you
Speaker 1: want that? Well, so snakes are, like like other reptiles,
Speaker 1: cold blooded, meaning that they can't thermoregulate and they have
Speaker 1: to sit in the sun to get body heat. And conversely,
Speaker 1: it's it's not like their blood is always cold, like
Speaker 1: when they get too warm, they have to get in
Speaker 1: the shade to regulate that down. So basically they just
Speaker 1: have to manually regulate their body temperature unlike unlike mammals,
Speaker 1: So if they want to get some cheap, easy heat,
Speaker 1: they can trick other males to cuddle with them and
Speaker 1: get some free warmth. And I don't know, like of
Speaker 1: all the sort of sneaky strategies like the in nature.
Speaker 1: I think getting free cuddles is one of the cutest ones.
Speaker 1: That is the sweetest ones. It seems like a long
Speaker 1: way to just get a cuddle with your brow. But
Speaker 1: I know, right right, like I wish. Yeah, it's so
Speaker 1: much toxic snake masculinity here, just like you know, just
Speaker 1: like cutli or bro, you know, and I know, I
Speaker 1: know that's like right now, we're all self isolating. But
Speaker 1: if you do happen to be isolating with a bro,
Speaker 1: cuddle that bro, you know, cud. We all need cuddles,
Speaker 1: responsible cuddles, though at this point, responsible consensual cuddles, all right, Yes,
Speaker 1: only only cuddle the people you're living with, you know,
Speaker 1: only cuddle the people you've been self isolating with for
Speaker 1: a few weeks. And also, you know, consensually. My roommate
Speaker 1: walked by at that moment, and I said that and
Speaker 1: looked directly at her, and then she left. Well did
Speaker 1: you try making her an intricate mandola out of sand
Speaker 1: or bon? Once we hang up, I'm going to feel
Speaker 1: this apartment with sand in in Florida, there's actually a
Speaker 1: different species of snakes, these water snakes that also form
Speaker 1: do these massive mating balls, and they are so I
Speaker 1: guess enthusiastic about it that, um the the have you
Speaker 1: seen this? Like where the I've heard of this? Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Park management actually warns park visitors of the big snake
Speaker 1: mating balls and like like closes parts of the parks
Speaker 1: off so that these snakes can mate in peace. Yes
Speaker 1: for snake, because I you said the mating ball thing,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I've heard of this for some reason.
Speaker 1: And yes, good old Florida we have those mating balls.
Speaker 1: It's really funny. They're trying to calm people at the
Speaker 1: same time as like trying to educate them where and
Speaker 1: so this was a a Facebook post by officials in
Speaker 1: Florida amidst the snake mating season, and it's they said,
Speaker 1: quote it appears that they have congregated for mating. They
Speaker 1: are non venomous and generally not aggressive. As long as
Speaker 1: people do not disturb them. Once the eating is over,
Speaker 1: they should go their separate ways. So please don't panic
Speaker 1: that the they'll they won't be here in the big
Speaker 1: sex pile forever. Don't worry. Everyone chill, They're just having
Speaker 1: their you know, yeah, yeah, I do. I do like
Speaker 1: the idea though that's so like obviously social distancing rules
Speaker 1: don't have to apply to snakes right now. So like
Speaker 1: as we're all like having to stay home, and I
Speaker 1: feel like the snakes are gonna be like we have
Speaker 1: all the time in the world and all the space
Speaker 1: we want to have big sex parties. So they're just
Speaker 1: gonna be everywhere, like not caring, not worrying, just taking
Speaker 1: over with their big snaky sex ball. Do they get stuck?
Speaker 1: This is a dumb question. It's not a dumb question. Actually,
Speaker 1: I bet some of them, do you know, I think
Speaker 1: not inevitable. I it probably happens, to be honest, I
Speaker 1: don't know, Like I don't know if like researchers are
Speaker 1: going like kind of picking through these snake piles and
Speaker 1: like doing performing autopsies on the dead snakes to see
Speaker 1: what the cause of death was, whether they were like
Speaker 1: crushed to death or something. But I'm gonna go out
Speaker 1: on a limb and say it probably occasionally happens, Like
Speaker 1: if you're in the middle of a sex ball, that
Speaker 1: could happen. I just keep thinking of I think it's
Speaker 1: a thirty right the rat king where like a bunch
Speaker 1: of rats get their tails tied together and yes, yes, oh,
Speaker 1: I see like you're you're thinking they might get like
Speaker 1: tied in a knot together. Yeah, but it's the cartoon
Speaker 1: world I live in in my head. Well rat, well
Speaker 1: rat can do that? Does happen where rats actually like
Speaker 1: their tails get tied in and not and they get
Speaker 1: stuck together like if they're too like too densely populated.
Speaker 1: I think that happens. I yeah, I'm sure, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it happened of snakes. I do think snakes are
Speaker 1: unlike rat tails. I think because snakes have much more
Speaker 1: control over their muscles in their body, probably less likely
Speaker 1: to get super tangled. But I'm sure they at least
Speaker 1: get sometimes, like for a little while tangled, because like
Speaker 1: when they are mating, they do kind of wrap around
Speaker 1: each other. So it seems inevitable that someone's gonna get
Speaker 1: like stuck. It's gonna be like a twister situation where
Speaker 1: you're words sometimes you know, is this my is this
Speaker 1: my snake part? Or is this someone else's snake part?
Speaker 1: And you think it's your tail but someone else's tail? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just gotta laugh it off, you know what, you
Speaker 1: know what happens to everyone. Yeah, it's the beast of
Speaker 1: many many, many, many many many snakes. What they call it? Yep,
Speaker 1: of course, yep. Yeah, snake balls. What horrible balls, What
Speaker 1: a horrible thing to come across. It's like like a
Speaker 1: big ball of yarn, but may out of snakes. I
Speaker 1: don't know why park Range even say don't go near that.
Speaker 1: If I saw a big ball of snakes. Well that's you, though,
Speaker 1: Bridget I think I need that warning personally, because if
Speaker 1: I see a big ball of snakes, I'll be like huh.
Speaker 1: Like I saw a big ball of bees and I
Speaker 1: went up to this ball of bees and I was
Speaker 1: like huh. And only as I approached them, as what
Speaker 1: did I think, like, well, maybe it's not a good
Speaker 1: idea to disturb the be ball. But apparently they so
Speaker 1: they were actually just like searching for a new hive.
Speaker 1: And bees are actually quite doucile when they are in
Speaker 1: that state. So I was not in too much. Obviously
Speaker 1: I didn't go more anything, unlike some Unlike some people,
Speaker 1: I don't bully random animals. But yeah, I would say,
Speaker 1: but I did. There there was a moment where I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, well I do know a lot
Speaker 1: about bees. I'm not a total be expert, so maybe
Speaker 1: I shouldn't approach this be ball. And I would caution
Speaker 1: other people not to approach random balls of bees either,
Speaker 1: because you never know. They could be they could be fighting.
Speaker 1: It could be that they're like chilling and searching for
Speaker 1: a new hive and they're not particularly aggressive, or they
Speaker 1: could be plotting something and you don't know it and
Speaker 1: they're just gonna they're like trying trying to form a
Speaker 1: megatron of bees and you wouldn't know it until it's
Speaker 1: too late. Yeah, you don't want to be near that
Speaker 1: when that comes up. Nope. Well, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me today, Bridget and suffering through all of
Speaker 1: the slug parts. Um, I really, but I promised you
Speaker 1: I did not plan to torch you with this episode.
Speaker 1: It was all I like, well, it's okay, No, you're
Speaker 1: very I mean, you were very cut. You're as kind
Speaker 1: as you could be about it. And I got off
Speaker 1: easy last time I was on the cute episode. Next
Speaker 1: time I'll try to have you on it on a
Speaker 1: cute one again. Well we'll sort of like go back
Speaker 1: and forth like horrifying cute, horrifying cute, I didn't have
Speaker 1: the pupper fish. But yeah, that's true. That's memory. I'll
Speaker 1: walk away with and the sea bunny and the sea bunny.
Speaker 1: I think bunny. Sea Bunny really washes down the I
Speaker 1: finally made peace with a mollusk and that's good. I'll see.
Speaker 1: That's that's wonderful. That's beautiful. Yeah. Well, so do you
Speaker 1: have anything to plug bridget? Uh? Yeah, you can head
Speaker 1: over to a small beans Patreon or you know, Spotify
Speaker 1: iTunes and listen to rough Stuff, a podcast that I
Speaker 1: host where we invite some comedians on and we talked
Speaker 1: about some embarrassing childhood moments. And then also we're have
Speaker 1: another podcast, uh called The Casting the Curious where we're
Speaker 1: reviewing the Fast of the Furious movies. That's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can listen to either of those podcasts or both,
Speaker 1: preferably on the small bean speeds. Yeah. I was on.
Speaker 1: I was on rough Stuff and I talked about how
Speaker 1: when I was when I was a baby, I hate
Speaker 1: snails sometimes, and that's what I learned about bridgets a
Speaker 1: huge problem with malls. Yeah, yeah, immediately, yep. Sorry. You
Speaker 1: can find us on the internet at Creature feature pot
Speaker 1: on Instagram at creature feet pot on Twitter. That's f
Speaker 1: e A T, not f e T. That's something very different.
Speaker 1: You can hear my Katie thoughts on Twitter at Katie
Speaker 1: Golden or of course, as always, I am at pro
Speaker 1: bird rites where I am trying to put the reins
Speaker 1: of the world into the proper wings, not hands of birds.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's about times, about noble cause
Speaker 1: it is noble cause kids, birds, the birds cost sometimes
Speaker 1: some of them do. Anyway, Yeah, this is this is
Speaker 1: a comedy podcast about animals. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Really appreciate it. I hope you're all doing
Speaker 1: doing all right out there. Um, if you're enjoying the show,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, like leaving a review and a rating and
Speaker 1: subscribing and downloading, all those things really help. I know
Speaker 1: it doesn't is you're you're sitting there with something like
Speaker 1: that's not gonna that's not gonna help Katie. That's Katie
Speaker 1: is not going to notice it when I rate it.
Speaker 1: But I do. I feel it. I actually it's like
Speaker 1: it feels like a thunderbolt going on through my heart
Speaker 1: and like somebody rated my podcast. I'm so thankful. It
Speaker 1: feels so good. It's like confetti everywhere. I love it
Speaker 1: and it does actually really help the podcast gets us
Speaker 1: up in the algorithms and that that helps the podcast
Speaker 1: continue to be a podcast. Thanks to the Space Colassics
Speaker 1: for their wonderful song Exolumina Creature features of production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you
Speaker 1: just heard, visit I heeart radio dot com, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Do you
Speaker 1: next Wednesday?