Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas,
Speaker 1: and monsters in time. My son and I recently watched
Speaker 1: the two thousand nineteen live action film Pokemon Detective Pikachu,
Speaker 1: a surprisingly watchable, big budget special effects feature that takes
Speaker 1: the world of evolving, battling cartoon monsters and blends them
Speaker 1: into a sort of Blade Runner esque future world in
Speaker 1: which exotic, cute, supernatural creatures are just a part of
Speaker 1: everyday life. Plus Bill Nigh is in it, and he's
Speaker 1: always great. This film is, of course, an endless parade
Speaker 1: of Pokemon, some central to the plot, others merely cameos
Speaker 1: in the film. For today's Monster Fact, I'd like to
Speaker 1: talk about the Pokemon Ditto, known in Japan as Metamn.
Speaker 1: I turned to a guest researcher and writer for help
Speaker 1: on this episode, my son Sebastian. Sebastian rites Ditto the
Speaker 1: transformed Pokemon a normal type. It's weak against fighting tips.
Speaker 1: Did can we arrange its DNA to match any other Pokemon?
Speaker 1: When In this form, it can imitate at taps to
Speaker 1: know is it Ditto do yes? Ditto who appears as
Speaker 1: a short pink blob with dots for eyes, is a
Speaker 1: shape shifter. In the movie Pokemon Detective Pikachu, we see
Speaker 1: it transform into various human characters as well as a
Speaker 1: few powerful Pokemon monsters, but especially when in human form,
Speaker 1: the eyes give it away. As we've discussed on the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast, this is a frequent
Speaker 1: detail in various tales and traditions of shape shifting monsters,
Speaker 1: from dem incubi and succupy to the forest dwelling Leshy.
Speaker 1: There's always a detail that the shape shifter gets wrong.
Speaker 1: It might be uh using duck feed instead of human feed,
Speaker 1: or making the buttons backwards, but there's often something to
Speaker 1: provide the hero of our story with a chance to
Speaker 1: see through the deceptive disguise. The natural world is home
Speaker 1: to mimics and shape shifters as well, but the most
Speaker 1: impressive maybe the mimic octopus them Octopus mimicus. While other
Speaker 1: octopus species use their chromatophores and versatile bodies to resemble
Speaker 1: parts of their environment, the mimic octopus takes on the
Speaker 1: form of other animal species. As Norman at All pointed
Speaker 1: out in Dynamic Mimicry in an Indo Malayan Octopus, the
Speaker 1: mimic octopus takes the form of quote poisonous or distasteful animals,
Speaker 1: and these include the flatfish, the lionfish, the banded sea snake,
Speaker 1: jelly fishes, and possibly see an enemies as well. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you think, but that seems like
Speaker 1: quite a diverse selection of creatures, almost as diverse as
Speaker 1: any given page from the Pokemon Bestieri. As the researchers
Speaker 1: point out, human interpretations of potential mimicries in the mimic
Speaker 1: octopus are subjective, so we have to be careful about
Speaker 1: jumping to conclusions about what they are pretending to be.
Speaker 1: But also they continue to be the subject of scientific study.
Speaker 1: But it just goes to show that no matter how
Speaker 1: weird and amazing the monster or Pokemon may seem to be,
Speaker 1: the natural world probably equals or exceeds it somewhere. Tune
Speaker 1: in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact or the
Speaker 1: Artifact each week. As always, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com MHM
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I
Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.