WEBVTT - The Science of Necrophilia 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:16.800 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.480 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Sager. And 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.680 you did read the title right. This is our necrophilia episode. 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:25.439 So we want to throw out just a couple of 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.760 quick disclaimers before we move forward. Um, not everything in 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.839 this episode is going to deal with human necrophilia, but 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:36.800 a lot of it does. So there is some some 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.879 of the information we're covering here is going to be 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:44.080 a little sexual in nature. Um, certainly graphic, certainly graphic, 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.240 and a little at least a little disturbing. Now we're 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.080 you know, we're not gonna go all in on the details. 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.640 You know, we're gonna keep it reasonable here, but still 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.160 we're just gonna throw that disclaimer out there. So proceed, 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.800 Uh maybe not at your own risk, but hey, you know, 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:02.640 if this is not your thing, that maybe you should 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:04.240 just skip to the next sepisode. Yeah, And I just 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.240 want to also acknowledge that, you know, we we didn't 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.680 choose this solely to be gross, but that, like there's, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:11.560 as you will find throughout this episode, there's been a 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:16.039 ton of research into it. But also that human beings 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:20.959 are naturally fascinated by the concept of necrophilia. Uh, and 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.000 it seems to be maybe we'll get to the heart 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.000 of this by the end of the episode, but because 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:29.119 it's pretty much the ultimate transgression, because you know that 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.920 almost anybody that you pose this too is going to 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:37.839 be horrified by it. Yeah. Uh, you know, unless they're 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.440 like secret cults of necrophiles that you know, are able 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.479 to talk about it with one another. It's pretty much 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.400 a solitary habit in human beings. Yeah. And it's and 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.840 it occupies such a weird space in our psyche because 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.280 it also draws in these elements of this body has 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.360 died and this body is no longer the person that 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.880 it was, you know. I mean certainly we've spent the 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.320 entire to give human history grappling with that. So it's 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:09.320 it's uh, it's it's a troubling topic on several different levels. 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.280 But I think I think it's a great topic for 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:13.160 this show because it kind of gets to the heart 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.880 of of of something that has to you know, the 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.280 science of being human first of all, or of just 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.440 being alive in the world. As we're going to discover, 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.480 there are lots of animal necrophiles, and that at the 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:29.680 at the heart of it, this is something that happens 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.840 on a regular basis, more often than we'd like to think. 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.240 But that it, you know, I think for cultural reasons 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:38.960 that we kind of keep taboo and try not to 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.680 think about or talk about, Yeah, except except when it happens, 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.880 and then the media will exactly feast on it. It 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.320 is a it's very click bait, yeah, and that that 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.360 is not again, not why we chose to do this. Alright, 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.120 So we're gonna start off by just by discussing necrophilia 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.239 in the animal kingdom. I mean it generally, that's the 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.400 way it goes with these things. We can talk about 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.880 a simpler model of what's going on with the animals 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.840 before we dare throw in the complications of the human 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.119 mind and human culture. And what I was the most 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.320 shocked about with this as we did the research was 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.880 how prevalent it is. I mean, We've got at least 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:18.520 what like five or six examples of different animals that 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:23.160 practice necrophilia today, and I'm sure there are dozens more 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.720 out there that have just not been cataloged. In fact, 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.519 as we'll find with the penguin, it was and then 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:33.120 that research was redacted basically for cultural reasons. It was 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.240 just too shocking to share. I mean, but essentially you 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:37.800 could sum it all up in a bumper sticker like 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.720 necrophilia happens, and yes, and the more you you just 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.880 sort of acclimatized to that reality, the easier going everything else. 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.600 Is that it's not something that is not necessarily an 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.320 act that is just a defilement before the gods, as 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.000 much as a thing that occurs in the natural order 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.400 of things, and often as an accident. But accidents happen, 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.520 and and uh, and then human culture just makes it 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.200 a little more complicated. You know. What just occurred to me, Robert, 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:10.560 is that we're assuming that our audience automatically knows what 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:14.200 necrophilia is. That's true. Yeah, so maybe we should just 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.200 i mean throw out a very basic definition which is 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:19.880 in fact, and this was one of the things that 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.040 surprised me doing the research. In the case of necrophilia, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.960 it is not the act of having sex with a 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:30.600 dead body with a corpse. It is the desire to, right, Yeah, 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.920 just the desire to alone. The fantasy of necrophilia is 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.560 enough to classify one as a necrophilia um. And the 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.560 term itself is actually pretty new. Necrophilia is an entirely 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.279 nineteenth century term, but of course the practice it describes, 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:50.679 the sexual abuse of courses. It's quite ancient myths, going 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.200 back as far as human memory, probably because it, you know, 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.080 it gets down to a lot of the key problems 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.159 of dealing with death. Um. But of course you have 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.680 to sort of define what is sex too before we write, 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.920 because of course, human intercourse is essentially the physical act 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:12.360 that allows the exchange of genetic information to mix everything 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.320 around and create a new organism as offspring, right, Yeah, 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:18.719 And that's what makes our first example in sort of 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.960 the quote unquote animal world interesting because it's so alien 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.360 to how we understand intercourse. It almost seems like it 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.359 wouldn't be categorized as necrophilia technically, but it's referred to 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:33.320 as such in the literature, right And I'm sure in 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.880 the science headlines I didn't. I mean, maybe not yet. 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:37.880 But it's just waiting for the right paper to come 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.000 out and then all the various science blogs will really 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:46.960 run with the headline that will include the phrase bacterial necrophilia. Um. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.720 Of course, bacteria, they don't actually need to engage in 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:55.000 intercourse in order to reproduce. Instead, they tend to swallow 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:57.560 up DNA from other bacteria just as they move around, 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.680 and they'll even absorb it from dead acterial cells. They 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.560 exchange new DNA fragments from the dead with their own, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.520 and then by shuffling all this around, they're essentially mating 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.119 with the dead, uh, in a way that most higher 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.359 creatures fail to achieve. Yeah, the stuff that I read 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.680 about this in particular, I'm going to be honest, was 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.120 so dense that I had a hard time understanding it. 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:27.920 It seems like it's its own very special niche field, uh, 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.120 that that has its own language, and that I don't 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.320 know necessarily that they're using necro file or necrophilia sort 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:37.360 of in the same way that we understand it when 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:39.560 we're applying it, certainly to human beings but also to 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.240 other animals. But it is how it is described in 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:46.359 the literature. Yeah, it is a genetic exchange between the 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.760 living and the dead. Um. So, yeah, it's almost its 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.799 own thing because it doesn't really match up with most 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:56.520 of the models of of biological higher organism. Necrophilia, but 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:58.800 it's important to include here especially. I think it's a 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.719 it's perfect to include a the top but if you 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.680 want to move on, we can get into what what 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.160 Robert has coined here as the duck of death. And 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:08.839 I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with this 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:13.360 one from the Ignoble Prizes, particularly the the Ignoble Prize 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:17.680 for Biology in two thousand three. Now just to rehash, uh, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.880 the Ignoble Prizes, this comes out, These come out every year. 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.000 This was new to me, and you explained it to 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.480 me before the podcast. Yeah, it's uh, it's easy to 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.000 to mistake it for like a mockery, but it's really 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.320 a celebration of of weird science papers and some you know, 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:37.240 science papers that study the strange or just the just 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.160 the the the weird minutia that often gets you know, 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.600 and and is inherently picked up in scientific literature. As 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.560 as science expands like a slime mold through the labyrinth 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.240 of of existence, you know you're gonna pick up some 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.320 weird topics. And they celebrate these topics. And so the 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:58.520 two thousand three award went to um Keys Moniker Um 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.840 who's a Dutch writer and rader of the Natural History 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.080 Museum in Rotterdam. Uh and he well, he won this 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:09.400 the paper for his u his recorded uh, his first 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:14.320 scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the Mallard duck. Yeah. 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.320 And before we get into the details here, there's I 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:17.760 want to back up a second because one of the 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.840 things that I read was that apparently mallards in the 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:26.480 Netherlands are particularly known for what are called attempted rape flights, 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.480 and that this isn't necessarily from from what I was reading, 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.000 it's not necessarily heterosexual or homosexual. It's just more like 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.800 these ducks just go for it while they're flying, and 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.160 it's somewhat regardless of gender. But one in ten of 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.840 these attempted rape flights is homosexual, and that it's two 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:49.160 mail ducks, uh. And that basically what we're looking at 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.880 here in this example from Mullicker is that one of 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.960 the ducks died midflight, either from injuries to due to 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.840 their struggle, or maybe it ran into something, and the 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:05.360 other duck just landed and kept going. It's ending. It's 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.000 hard nut. I laughed, a little bit, so it's hard 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:09.160 not you know what. I think it's okay for you 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:11.439 to laugh. I think it's okay for the people listening 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.120 to lad you got to have a little bit of 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.600 literal gallows you with with this in order to get 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.640 through it. Yeah, I mean the artist ducks in this 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.880 case doing what ducks do to each other. Yeah, and 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.520 as we're gonna find too. You know, this kind of 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.360 uh sexual behavior is fairly common in a lot of animals, 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:35.520 birds especially, but yeah, these ducks. Um, it seems like 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.400 I didn't get the impression because I read the actual 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.840 account for Mulliker. I don't know that he knew how 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:44.520 the first duck died. It sounded like maybe it crashed 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.720 into something, But basically there was this this duck corpse, 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.800 and he saw the second duck mounted and begin to 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.079 peck at it and proceed for quite some time. I mean, 0:09:56.080 --> 0:10:00.040 he recorded pretty precisely how long everything lasted, and I 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.640 believe it was like I don't have it in the 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:04.040 notes here, but I want to say it was like 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.480 forty five or seventy five minutes or something like that. 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.920 So it wasn't like this duck didn't realize what was happening, 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:14.040 then realized it's you know, it's a partner was dead, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:18.120 and stopped it really, you know, made a habit of it. Yeah, 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:20.800 And I think That's one of the reasons that the 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.559 the paper won the ig Nobel Prize and was so 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.280 that everyone enjoyed it so much. Is that it is 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:30.160 this meticulous look at this horrible thing then that you know, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.520 most people might want to turn their eyes away from. Well, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.640 that's the thing about it, right, is that Mullicker sat 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.040 there and watched this for let's say seventy five minutes, 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.120 and I'm assuming, with like a pad of paper and 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.880 just wrote it all down. And he actually, from what 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.079 I was reading, it was after that, after the second 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.600 I believe that this there were two instances of it 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.160 with the same deceased duck. Uh. He kind of shoot 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.960 away the other bird and finally took the corpse of 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.600 the mallard and you know, brought it inside, and that 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:06.480 other duck hung around kind of making noises for a 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:10.600 while afterwards. So it's an interesting case. I would not 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.840 be the person who would be so intent upon, you know, 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.120 cataloging this that I would be able to hang out 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.240 there for seventy five minutes. But yeah, it's an example 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:24.880 of the unflinching gaze of science. Now our next case, though, 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:26.520 is it is more of an example of the the 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:31.120 definitely the Flinch. Yeah. George Murray Levic, Yeah, he was 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.800 the medical officer on Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition to 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.599 the Soft Pole in nineteen ten, and he recorded the 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:43.080 sexual activity of the Adeli penguins uh in in detail, 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:47.240 and he was he was somewhat shocked by much of 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.120 what he saw, and a lot of this really has 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.600 to do with with him falling into the trap of 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.040 seeing penguins as little people. You know, they were little 0:11:55.080 --> 0:12:00.160 people in tuxedos instead of just bipedal birds. Do you 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.280 know what this movie? Do you know what this article 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.520 made me think of? Have you ever seen that movie 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.360 March of the Penguins narrated by Morgan Freeman. I have 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.520 not seen any of the various penguin related movies that 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.760 have come out. I I saw it, gosh, must have 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.120 been eleven years ago now or something like that, whenever 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:19.839 it first came out. I saw it in the theater. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.240 Is the one where they serve right? No? No, no, 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.760 this is like a documentary. This isn't the c g 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.319 I happy I think you're thinking of happy Feet that 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:30.760 came from what's his name? Director of Mad Max. So 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:35.640 oh oh yeah, that's right, George Miller, that's true. Yeah. Well, anyway, 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:37.920 for those of you out there who have seen March 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:39.679 of the Penguins, and I think there is a whole 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.679 kind of genre of documentary film about penguins. One of 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.400 the things that bothered me about that movie at the 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.360 time is how much it personified the penguins. And clearly 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:53.040 from reading this like Levick, they must have left some 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.240 of the more animalistic behaviors of penguins out of the 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.880 cut so that it fit the sort of humanized narrative 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.400 that they established. As Morgan Freeman read to us, you know, 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.120 over the over this very nice footage of penguin's Yeah, 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.720 there's an article that came out on the BBC in 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.160 two thousand twelve titled depray of sex Acts by Penguins 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.880 Shock Polar Explorer, and uh it's it's a wonderful little 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:17.440 read on include a link to it on the landing 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.760 page for this episode. But uh, there's a quote there. Um, 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.160 they interviewed Douglas Russell, who's curator of eggs and nests 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.600 at the Natural History Museum, and uh, he says, what 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.960 is happening here is not in any way analogus to 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.320 necrophilia in the human context, it is the male seeing 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.040 the positioning that is causing them to have a sexual reaction. 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.199 They are not distinguishing between live females who are awaiting 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:45.000 congress in the colony and dead penguin's from the previous year, 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.760 which just happened to be in the same position. And 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.839 so um. As the article lays out, George George Murray 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.880 Levic In writing about these penguins, was so shocked that 0:13:55.040 --> 0:14:01.120 the the stuff about necrophilia, he essentially redacted only some 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.880 of his peers and the individuals that they shared it with. 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:10.960 We're able to read the full unedited account of penguin atrocities. Yeah, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.439 and in fact, like that, it goes beyond just the 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.559 necrophilia too. I believe these penguins, similar to the mallards, 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:22.160 you know, sort of engage in in like a habitualized 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.640 gang rape, is what it sounded like, because there's lots 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.480 of these male penguins surrounding female penguins, and what ends 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.240 up happening in these situations situations is they're so brutal 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.840 that they accidentally killed the partner. Yeah, I mean, really, 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.240 it should come as no surprise, right that in a 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:44.680 brutal environment, creatures will behave brutally in order to survive um, 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.360 which leads us to HP Lovecraft. Yeah, this was I 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:49.680 don't know about you, but when I when I was 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.880 reading this, I started thinking about At the Mountains of 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:59.080 Madness is novella, which I just reread sometime in the 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.480 last couple of years, so it's kind of fresh. It's great. 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.080 That's one of my favorite Lovecraft pieces. It's a little 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.120 bit longer than his other ones, but yeah, yeah, one 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:10.400 of his later works. Definitely definitely science fiction. It's it's 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.720 a work that he connected a lot of scientific research for. 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.320 He was Lovecraft of the guy who if he were 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:17.960 around today, you know, he would be hitting all the 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.720 science blogs. Who would be reading some of the journals, 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.640 he'd have a subscription to to several of the magazines. 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.160 He's probably have a podcast at How Stuff Works, I 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:30.200 would hope so. And uh he uh. But he makes 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.920 several mention mentions of the penguin, like numerous mentions of penguins, 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.600 often describing them as grotesque penguins. And uh, he probably 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:43.640 would have have read about about about Levis thoughts on 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.640 the penguins. I mean, probably not the unedited content, but 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.440 he certainly makes reference to Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.120 in the story. Yeah, and if I remember correctly, in 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.280 that story, those penguins were somewhat gigantic, right, there was 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.520 something to do with that. They were sort of like 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.720 prehistoric holdover penguins. And we know, I believe from what 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:07.440 I've I've read an other research instances that that's a 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.560 thing that that penguins did used to be considerably larger 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.680 than they are now. Yeah, I almost feel like they 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.760 come off more repellent in that story than like the 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:20.080 show gofs. Oh yeah, they're they're they're terrifying. Um, so 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.800 let's move on to reptiles. Yeah. So we've got a 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:31.000 bunch of examples of of reptiles in action performing necrophilia. 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.240 And one of the first ones that I found was 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.360 from an article called It was published this year called 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:43.440 corpse Bride Irresistible, A dead female tagu lizard courted by 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.800 males for two days at an urban park in southeastern Brazil. 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.360 It's very specific that title. I love the pool quote 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.440 on this one from a zoologist who observed this act 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.440 and process. It's very similar to the the Mallard duck. 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.880 This guy just sat there and watched quote. I felt 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.920 a sense of wonder, Well, I'll go through this and 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.160 then we can hit upon some of the other lizards. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.040 He provided a very detailed account of what happened here 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.920 with this tagu lizard. Apparently it mounted a recently dead female. 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:14.600 It gained a hold by biting the skin of her 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.600 neck and attempting to mate with her. The same male 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.280 just kept biting the neck and rubbing its left hind 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.600 limbs on her body. And then this basically was like 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.240 I think a two day dead female. So it wasn't, 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:30.680 you know, as it wasn't similar to the Mallard case 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.880 where it'd like just happened. Um. Then another smaller male 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.080 came by and also held the neck of it, and 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.600 they seems to be, you know, biting seems to be 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.439 a major part of tagu lizard sex practice, because they 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:49.040 just were opening their jaws kind of biting and putting 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.360 their mouths around the whole head of this animal. Uh. 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.119 And then after a while it's it ceased its attempts 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:59.520 and he this is exactly from his his figure description. 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.840 The male tongue flicked the female's head and scratched her 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.600 hind bodies with the right hind limb. So there you 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:11.879 have it, necrophilia between tabu lizards. I love though about 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:13.119 this case. One of the things I love about this 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.560 case is that the analysis of what's happening here goes 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.080 deeper than just oh, it's a stupid animal and it 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.679 made a stupid mistake and tried to mate with something 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:25.280 that it cannot mate with. They point out that, first 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.640 of all, lizards of course cold blooded creatures, so it's 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.959 not h So the creature that it's attempting to have 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.000 sex with, though dead, uh, you know, it's it's ambient 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.399 body heat. The body heat is essentially going to be 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.760 that of the ambient air, and uh, pheromones are still 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.400 going to be in play even though it's dead. So 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.760 there there are enough signals saying yes, I'm alive for 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.199 the you know, the dominating male to then come in 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:52.880 and try and do its thing. Yeah. I think that's 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.280 an important thing to distinguish here as well, too, is like, 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.320 consider that these animals are relying on senses they're very 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:03.160 different than ours to distinguish what's what's available and what's alive. Yeah, 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.120 I'm thinking it's probably less like, um, you know, if 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.040 if a human were to go to a bar and 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:10.919 try to chat up someone who's just a corpse just 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.800 propped up. Yeah, it's more like if you're driving down 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:15.680 the interstate and you see a sign for a gas 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:17.920 station and you pull in to get gas. It said 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.960 gas station. You know, pull the car up, actually get 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:22.920 out to fill up, and then realize that the place 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.359 is closed. Exactly the existing signs. The major signs that 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.400 we care about in this rather simplistic ordeal are saying yes, 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.520 we're open for business, when in the fact that the 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.040 lizard is dead. It's possible this take Your lizard didn't 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.639 even realize it at all, you know, even even afterwards. 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:42.120 It sounded like the same with a mallard. We've also 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:46.040 got this with another reptile, the Amazonian frog. I'm gonna 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:51.600 have trouble pronouncing this Latin name, right, Ryan ella probucda. Yes, 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:56.919 And this one is fabulous because, as a two thirteen 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:03.120 study reveals, this is functional necrophilia. This is something that 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:08.520 pretty much every other organism out there, it's an impossibility 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:11.439 because necrophilia. We've often discussed this. We've discussed it so 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:15.800 far in lizards and birds, it's a mistake that cannot 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:21.000 possibly work. But in this frog, in proboscidia here are proboscidia, 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:27.880 we actually see reproduction occurring through necrophilia, right, So they 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:32.719 extract eggs from their dead sexual partners, right, and and 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.520 then they fertilize them. They don't fertilize them and then 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.879 extract them, right. This is so how this happens. And 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:44.080 it's not not to say they primarily or only reproduced 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.760 through neck right, but on the table as as as 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.199 a viable option. So the males form a big mating 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.520 ball that make you know, consist of you know, dozens 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.399 of frogs and they're all just ready to go. And 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.560 then along comes a female and essentially all began fighting 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.760 on top of her for the rights to mate with her. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.600 And in some of the cases, she ends up drowning 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.520 at the bottom of this uh, this mating ball, um, 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:12.000 you know, and so it ends up with you end 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:16.240 up with cases where um. Researchers, particularly in this case, 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:22.040 uh Thiago is a from Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research. 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.560 He's analyzing the results of this breeding. He find counting, yeah, 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.280 he's counting him like a hundred males to twenty dead 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.560 females in one in another one fifty males and five 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.560 dead females. But then when he starts dissecting the females, 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.640 there are no eggs. So he's trying to figure out 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:42.360 where did the eggs go, how did this, what could 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:48.000 have possibly happened, And then he observed the act itself. Yeah, 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.160 and so like from what I had read that there's 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.760 this is unique I believe to this particular kind of frog. 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:57.320 But that one of the one of the articles that 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:01.639 I read on this, which was called necrophiliac behavior in 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:04.560 the career toad, which is a different kind of toad, 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.640 but it also references this instance. It says that it's 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:12.960 been documented that in all groups of terrestrial tetrapods that 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:18.520 this kind of uh necrophilia happens, and that basically scientists 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.440 just account for it as a lack of proper recognition 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:25.359 by males during reproductive season. So in in this case 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:30.560 with the Probisidia, that sounds like they do recognize it though, 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.000 and they say, Okay, we've got to take these eggs 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.440 so that you know, something actually happens with it. Yeah, 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.320 or at least they've they've reached the point in their 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.160 evolution to where it still works. So it's I mean, 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:44.480 it's it's been selected. Um, because yeah, what happens is 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:46.880 the male squeeze the dead female's body, the eggs pop out, 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.240 the male quickly fertilizes the eggs, and then they eventually 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:53.160