Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on this show, we're talking
Speaker 1: about mash pits, animals who prefer to stick together or
Speaker 1: get sticky together. We're looking at three of the world's
Speaker 1: weirdest creepy Crawley's who think three is a crowd and
Speaker 1: a hundred is a party. Discover this and more as
Speaker 1: we answer the age old question if you send your
Speaker 1: boot packing, do you have to give it directions? Joining
Speaker 1: me today is Friend of the Pod, the audio genius
Speaker 1: behind Fake Doctor's Real Friends, Boss Level and One Upmanship.
Speaker 1: DJ Daniel Welcome. Happy to be here, Katie, A thrilling,
Speaker 1: a thrilling proposition, as always to be here on Creature Feature. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about this one because it's about mash pits,
Speaker 1: and I know you're always getting in those all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, me always thrashing my arms around, getting sweaty
Speaker 1: and flicking that sweat upon all of my fellow concert goers.
Speaker 1: You like a sprinkler, It's great they call you Dandle
Speaker 1: the sprinkler, the human sprinkler. At least this, at least this, this,
Speaker 1: this family flop sweat is good for something. Sure, So
Speaker 1: tell me about these bugs? Yeah, stoked. Yeah, so we're
Speaker 1: talking about a lot of bugs. Some of them are
Speaker 1: not insects, but we'll call them all bugs. Uh and sorry,
Speaker 1: that's that's misnomber for sure. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think you can call anything a bug. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: I don't think that bug is a scientific term. So like,
Speaker 1: if you feel like it's a bug and you want
Speaker 1: to call it a bug, I think that's fine. Insect
Speaker 1: is a scientific term, so you can't like go throwing
Speaker 1: that around. But bugs, you know, if something's like buggy
Speaker 1: to me, I'm like, that's a bug. I feel like
Speaker 1: crabs have bug energy. I know that most people don't
Speaker 1: call them, but they've got bug energy. Sea bugs, sky bugs,
Speaker 1: land bugs. Yeah exactly. So these are called snow fleas.
Speaker 1: So imagine you are digging up some snowballs and suddenly
Speaker 1: you dig up a writhing, squirming mass of tiny black
Speaker 1: dots that jump around so quickly they almost seemed to
Speaker 1: flick in and out of existence. I think I would
Speaker 1: I think my snow day would be over at that
Speaker 1: point I would be. I would run screaming back to
Speaker 1: my cabin for a cup of hot cocoa and a
Speaker 1: scalding hot shower, dual wheeled a couple of hair dryers
Speaker 1: and go outside. Yeah, I mean I sent you a
Speaker 1: video of someone just digging into a black hole of
Speaker 1: these riving little black dots. Yeah, just having them els
Speaker 1: a scoop. Yeah. Really, And you know this is something
Speaker 1: that I It's one of those things where in my
Speaker 1: head I'm like, this is a totally fine, like the
Speaker 1: the bugs or these these creatures are not trying to
Speaker 1: hurt you, and in fact, you may not even be
Speaker 1: hurting them. Similar to um, there's a there's a person
Speaker 1: on TikTok who is who takes care of bees and
Speaker 1: the way that she just scoops bees up and puts
Speaker 1: them into you know, new uh whatever you call the
Speaker 1: little boxes that they hold honeycombs in. Like the way
Speaker 1: she just like handles bees. I'm always like, there's there's
Speaker 1: no way, how do you even do that? But yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't get past the heart part of this. That's
Speaker 1: like hand in bug, No, no thank you. I don't
Speaker 1: suggest the layman go out and scoop up a ball
Speaker 1: of bees. I think that I think that's done you.
Speaker 1: I think like the hive is probably calmed down. I
Speaker 1: think sometimes they even like very gingerly hold a queen
Speaker 1: in their hand so that the when the bees cluster
Speaker 1: around there smelling the pheromones of the queen there. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's very specialized handling abilities. I can't do it. I
Speaker 1: don't suggest anyone try to do that. Um. But with
Speaker 1: these snow fleas, uh, they really don't have too much
Speaker 1: to worry about. So despite the moniker snow fleas, the
Speaker 1: only one that really has to worry about an infestation
Speaker 1: is a snowman because these are not really fleas, even
Speaker 1: though they do look like them from our perspective. These
Speaker 1: are instead spring tales. So spring tales are a subclass
Speaker 1: of arthropod UH known as columbola UH. They are technically
Speaker 1: not insects, but they are hexapods. So it's it gets
Speaker 1: weird with taxonomy with sometimes some of these like bug
Speaker 1: like things, and it's like it's technically not an insect,
Speaker 1: but you know it is a bug. Can you remind
Speaker 1: me what a hexapod is again? Or what? What? What? What?
Speaker 1: What makes a hexapod yeah, I mean it's it's basically
Speaker 1: insects plus Columbola plus a couple of other classes of things, uh,
Speaker 1: pro Tura and dip lura, which are other kind of
Speaker 1: weird non insect things, but they are pretty much very
Speaker 1: bug like. Uh. It's it's a biologeny taxonomy thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's just based on sort of the evolutionary branching genetic
Speaker 1: linking things like that. Yeah, so they're they're related to insects,
Speaker 1: they're related to things like, uh, fleas and flies and
Speaker 1: so on, but they aren't insects themselves. Um so. Uh
Speaker 1: the snow fleas uh so. Uh springtails are a uh
Speaker 1: subclass that they are a large grouping of different species.
Speaker 1: They live all over the world. Uh. Snow fleas are
Speaker 1: a species of springtail that live in seasonally cold climates
Speaker 1: in North America. Uh. And they are teeny tiny. They're
Speaker 1: usually less than a millimater long. They really do just
Speaker 1: look like little black jumping grains of sand. Very small,
Speaker 1: very small, very small, very but still very scary. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's the it's the multitude of them. Like
Speaker 1: you have one of them, you're like you're just a
Speaker 1: little buddy, and then he invites like a thousand of
Speaker 1: his friends and it's like, oh, yeah, you could cover
Speaker 1: my face. I didn't ask for this. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like the scariness of bugs is based on how much
Speaker 1: of your face they can cover. Wow, that is such
Speaker 1: a good metric, because you're absolutely right. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: other golden rule. Uh. It is like spider covers only
Speaker 1: a freckle on your face, and not so scary covers
Speaker 1: the eyeball or get we're getting somewhere with that one.
Speaker 1: Oh god, eyeballs by I'll be I'll be working all
Speaker 1: day to get that image on my head. So, in
Speaker 1: the warmer months, snow fleas like to live in leaf
Speaker 1: litter and eat decaying matter or things like algae. But
Speaker 1: in colder times they are actually able to survive the
Speaker 1: freezing snow because they have an anti freeze like protein
Speaker 1: in their bodies, and this protein prevents ice crystals from
Speaker 1: forming in their cells, which protects the cells from exploding.
Speaker 1: And when your cells explode, it's generally bad for you.
Speaker 1: So I hear that is really cool though, that that
Speaker 1: I mean just one of those like adjustments, kind of
Speaker 1: like the sea bugs that can live near an underwater
Speaker 1: volcano because they've just you know, been been or maybe
Speaker 1: not a volcano, but like a thermal vent where it's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you're just strong enough to withstand all sorts
Speaker 1: of crazy heats and yet you're a bug the producing
Speaker 1: anti freeze to survive out in the frigid cold Like,
Speaker 1: damn science, how do you how you do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Those are called like extremophiles, things that can live like
Speaker 1: in the really really cold environments, are really really hot,
Speaker 1: really extreme environments, and yeah, it is. It's shocking when
Speaker 1: they have things like this uh this protein in their blood.
Speaker 1: There's also the wood frog, which can also do something similar.
Speaker 1: It also has an anti freeze like substance in their
Speaker 1: blood that prevents uh cells from getting icicles in them
Speaker 1: getting these ice crystals, which is bad for the body. Actually,
Speaker 1: when you're when you're frozen, the freezing process doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: hurt you. It's typically the thawing out that does the damage.
Speaker 1: Like when you start to thaw and you have this
Speaker 1: expansion of you know, these ice crystals and then you
Speaker 1: get cell explosion. M h yeah. Yeah. So it's like
Speaker 1: so like you could potentially all these rich people cryogenically
Speaker 1: freezing themselves like I guess if they are able to
Speaker 1: store themselves long enough, the hope is that you would
Speaker 1: find a futuristic society that could unthaw them safely. But
Speaker 1: also I kind of think probably not, Like it's probably
Speaker 1: something where you'd need to have this anti freeze in
Speaker 1: you before you undergo the cryogenic process, and probably they're
Speaker 1: just going to be like popsicles for post apocalyptic cannibals.
Speaker 1: That's popsicles for cannibals. That's a great that's a great
Speaker 1: band name, right, popsicles for cannibals. I like that a lot. Damn.
Speaker 1: I really didn't think about that process though, that it
Speaker 1: would be the thawing that would be the damaging process.
Speaker 1: You think of it's just like, well, I'm just unfrozen now.
Speaker 1: It's like no, no, no no, no, but where's all that
Speaker 1: water going? Yeah exactly, Oh God, that's really scary. Exactly, um,
Speaker 1: but not for these guys. So the anti the protein
Speaker 1: prevents these ice crystals from forming in their cells, which
Speaker 1: protects their cells. And researchers are very interested in the
Speaker 1: snow flea's natural anti freeze and how it can be
Speaker 1: applied to like the storage of donor organs, but much
Speaker 1: more importantly ice cream. Uh. Of course, the Spring Tales
Speaker 1: anti freeze is um actually similar to a non toxic
Speaker 1: compound that you can create. Uh. There's this professor of
Speaker 1: food chemistry, uh shriny Vas and de Morderin at the
Speaker 1: University of Wisconsin Madison who is seeking to perfect ice
Speaker 1: cream science with a synthetic, edible anti freeze similar to
Speaker 1: what is found in Spring Tales. M hmm. Interesting. I
Speaker 1: mean I wonder, well, yeah, you don't want ice crystals
Speaker 1: on your ice cream, but so like it's it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be. I don't know, well no, because if you
Speaker 1: have it's like when you know, like how your ice
Speaker 1: cream gets freezer burn and ice get ice cream and
Speaker 1: you get it, don't it. Nobody likes like that. No,
Speaker 1: nobody likes it. Right Yeah, I mean this, you know this,
Speaker 1: This is important. No, this is this is worth it,
Speaker 1: This is worth the time in the science. I'm with us. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think preserving organs is a good stepping off point
Speaker 1: for perfecting ice cream. The true goal. This is what
Speaker 1: we all really need, right exactly. I mean it's all,
Speaker 1: it is all all everything we do, all of our
Speaker 1: scientific advancements. If we can make ice cream, a little
Speaker 1: more delicious, a little more melt in your mouthing it.
Speaker 1: It's all worth it, let's go off. So this is
Speaker 1: not the only superpower that spring tails have. They can also,
Speaker 1: of course spring so they can jump at incredible heights
Speaker 1: and speeds relative to their body size and rotate five
Speaker 1: hundred times a second while in the air. What yeah,
Speaker 1: And sometimes I mean often when they are springing, like,
Speaker 1: they are in the air less than a second, So
Speaker 1: they're not always rotating five hundred times, but they are
Speaker 1: like so fast in their jumps. Sometimes their jumps are
Speaker 1: measured in nanoseconds. Okay, more questions because of that. So
Speaker 1: rotation wise, are we talking like barrel roll style rotation
Speaker 1: or like spinning around like mostly you can't see this,
Speaker 1: but he just punished m really kind of committing to
Speaker 1: the springtale life. I think it's more it's more of
Speaker 1: a barrel roll. So they actually like curl up into
Speaker 1: a U shape, although I have seen some of them,
Speaker 1: some of the like slow mo videos, and some of
Speaker 1: them do twirl like a ballerina sometimes. I think it
Speaker 1: kind of depends on the jump how they execute it.
Speaker 1: But to understand how they do that, we kind of
Speaker 1: have to zoom in on this springtail because to our
Speaker 1: naked eye they look like little jumping black grains of sand. Uh.
Speaker 1: But their bodies really don't look anything like fleas, even
Speaker 1: though to our naked eye it's like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: like a flea um. Instead, they have this like salindrical
Speaker 1: segmented body, a forked tail called a fercula, and like
Speaker 1: a little round head and antenna and six legs. I
Speaker 1: think they're actually a little bit cute. It is kind
Speaker 1: of cute. Yeah, I mean, you know, they're they're definitely like,
Speaker 1: you know, adorable. That's that's that's my that's my least
Speaker 1: and most favorite thing about a lot of bugs is
Speaker 1: like you zoom in on them to a certain degree
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, you know, they're just cute little guys.
Speaker 1: And then you do one of those really hyper close
Speaker 1: ups on their face and it's like this is a
Speaker 1: horrifying monster. Yeah, but there's there's definitely a middle ground
Speaker 1: where they're absolutely adorable. Exactly. It's like tartar grades, the yes,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, yes, moss piglets, water bears. Like you
Speaker 1: zoom in zoom out too much, you can't really see
Speaker 1: them not cute. You zoom in enough and they're like,
Speaker 1: you're like a chubby, little little gum drop. You're so cute, truly,
Speaker 1: little chubby gum drop, a bunch of little legs, cute,
Speaker 1: little like dot mouth, little oh mouth. Yeah, exactly, very cute.
Speaker 1: And then you zoom in more and it's this like
Speaker 1: horrifying sandworm from Dune. Yeah, very very much a garbage
Speaker 1: disposal mouth where it's like, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: anywhere near that horrifying. It's the optimal zoom. Uh. We
Speaker 1: need scientists need to look into like the optimal zoom
Speaker 1: ratio for all of these small critters, you know, people,
Speaker 1: people on TikTok and small critters. Optimal zoom is a
Speaker 1: feature that we all need. How close is too close
Speaker 1: to your face for both humans posting content on the
Speaker 1: internet and bugs. This is the other other golden rule
Speaker 1: about zoom, like one first one about bugs is how
Speaker 1: much of your face it covers is directly proportional to
Speaker 1: how scary it is. And secondly the zoom principle, there
Speaker 1: is a ratio of zoom for each bug oh that
Speaker 1: determines how cute it is horrifying. So to jump these
Speaker 1: spring tails use their whole body like a spring, including
Speaker 1: that forked tail called the ferculate, and they will like
Speaker 1: smack their tail against the ground or snow or even
Speaker 1: the surface of water. Because they're so small, the surface
Speaker 1: tension of the water is like it's hard enough for
Speaker 1: them to like spring off of it like a trampoline,
Speaker 1: and they will launch themselves into the air while curled
Speaker 1: in a U shape like an acrobat. And interestingly, there
Speaker 1: is this tube on the underside of the springtail's abdomen
Speaker 1: called a color four whose function is kind of confusing
Speaker 1: and debated for a long time. UM Earlier scientists thought
Speaker 1: it was like it excreted a sticky thing that helped
Speaker 1: them grab onto flat surfaces, but that's been relatively debunked,
Speaker 1: and it may have something to do with excretion and
Speaker 1: fluid regulation. It's this like mystery tube in the middle
Speaker 1: of this thing's stomach, which is really funny because it's
Speaker 1: like it like sticks outside of them like a little hose.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, there's hose hose hose shame shame, thank
Speaker 1: you was trying to shame. Uh yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: sounds very Canadian hose shaming. So uh. Some research suggests
Speaker 1: that this coloform can actually help balance the spring tails
Speaker 1: jump when there's a water droplet attached to the coloforce.
Speaker 1: So again like water at this scale, like water tension,
Speaker 1: they can hold like a little droplet of water quite securely.
Speaker 1: And and they like did some research where they found
Speaker 1: like the spring tails that had a little water droplet
Speaker 1: there were much more balanced and could like jump and
Speaker 1: land on their feet really quickly and really easily, whereas
Speaker 1: dry spring tails were not able to do that as much.
Speaker 1: So potentially it acts like a tight rope walker's pulse
Speaker 1: when they have a water droplet there, it helps them
Speaker 1: balance for more optimal jumps. Yeah, so in that video,
Speaker 1: I would imagine that one question you might have is
Speaker 1: why are they all together like that? I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: I am curious about why they are together like that?
Speaker 1: Pardon me, thinks that's I mean, well, they have the
Speaker 1: anti freeze, so they're not going to freeze. But maybe
Speaker 1: something about being altogether, maybe some sort of closeness promotes
Speaker 1: some more warmth. Maybe I had to guess it's a
Speaker 1: very good guess. And how actually hold onto that gift
Speaker 1: for a surprise later in the podcast. Um, but actually
Speaker 1: the reason that they cluster together and like these huge
Speaker 1: piles of like moving sand is for food or sex,
Speaker 1: you know, the universal motivators. So during the winter, food
Speaker 1: is more scarce, and snow fleas will cluster in or
Speaker 1: on top of the snow where there's food available, usually
Speaker 1: some decaying plant matter or maybe even algae um. But
Speaker 1: they may also gather together during their reproductive cycles. So
Speaker 1: an interesting thing about spring tails and snow fleas is
Speaker 1: that they continue to molt throughout their life. So something
Speaker 1: like say a butterfly or a moth or a wasp,
Speaker 1: they will go through these molting from egg to these larva,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they will go through numerous what are called
Speaker 1: in stars, which are like you, you start out as
Speaker 1: you know, a larva, and then you molten into something
Speaker 1: else and then into something else, and then you're in
Speaker 1: your adult form um and something. Some of insects have
Speaker 1: much more straightforward sort of processes, like caterpillar going from
Speaker 1: like caterpillar to the pupae to the butterfly or moth.
Speaker 1: Some animals have more complex ones, like from a caterpillar
Speaker 1: stage to sort of a juvenile in star that eventually
Speaker 1: molds into its adult form. But these spring tails actually
Speaker 1: continually mold throughout their entire life, and they will alternate
Speaker 1: between a reproductive in star and a non reproductive in star,
Speaker 1: and the reproductive in star doesn't eat, whereas the non
Speaker 1: reproductive one does. So they like transform into reproductive mode
Speaker 1: for a while and then transform back into no sex
Speaker 1: only eating mode. Sounds like me and my twenties, am
Speaker 1: I right? So how how quickly did these modes shift? Like? How?
Speaker 1: You know, how what's the cycle of this? If you
Speaker 1: happen to it's I think it's like over over months
Speaker 1: or weeks. I don't think it's like that quickly. Um,
Speaker 1: So these bugs survived for a little while. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And when females are in a reproductive in star, they
Speaker 1: actually release a pheromone that attracts both male and female
Speaker 1: spring tales that all common cluster together, and the more
Speaker 1: females that come who are also releasing pheromone makes even
Speaker 1: more coming. So they formed this giant sex mosh pit,
Speaker 1: which is you know, they're having a good time. I
Speaker 1: love that. I hope that, and you know what, I
Speaker 1: hope everybody's having fun. That's really the most my main concern.
Speaker 1: As long as in the pheromone induced sex mosh pit.
Speaker 1: Everybody's having a good time. That's my main concern. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're they're probably having a good time in
Speaker 1: these mash it's I imagine. I mean, like their lives
Speaker 1: do you seem kind of fun because they just go
Speaker 1: through cycles of eating stuff, hanging out together, eating stuff,
Speaker 1: hanging out together, having sex. I think they've got things
Speaker 1: figured out. They really nailed it. I think they got
Speaker 1: down to the base, the base what we all need
Speaker 1: to survive. And um, they're just doing it right. And
Speaker 1: they're not really hurting anyone because they're eating decaying matter,
Speaker 1: they're eating algae um. They're they're called fleas, which I
Speaker 1: think is kind of insulting to them because they don't
Speaker 1: they don't bite your dog right now, they're not hurting
Speaker 1: no doggies. No, no, that's right. The only time I
Speaker 1: really get mad at insects is when they hurt my
Speaker 1: doggie or any any kind of like bug creature like
Speaker 1: I got. I get really mad at fleas or ticks
Speaker 1: or round worms when they affect my doggie. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just an anger. Usually I don't have
Speaker 1: towards the bug and insect Kingdom. It's unfair. Look, doggies
Speaker 1: don't have a usable thumbs. They can't get these little
Speaker 1: buggies off of them. Often it's a pain in the butt.
Speaker 1: And um, it's not fair. It's not fairly leave them dogs.
Speaker 1: But these guys snow Fleas are dog's best friend. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's got a best friend. But they're at
Speaker 1: least cool acquaintances, exactly, exactly, cool acquaintances, not mortal enemies.
Speaker 1: If we stand exactly, that's what we gotta have. Warn
Speaker 1: that there's a link in it that has watched this video,
Speaker 1: so if you could have that video open as well. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: I'll say this also something of my nightmares. If I'm
Speaker 1: being real, it's odd. It's definitely odd. The movement of
Speaker 1: the worms aren't great. Have you been playing like the
Speaker 1: Dead Space remake remuk? No, I have not, but I'm
Speaker 1: very familiar with the with the with the series. I'm
Speaker 1: too scared. This is embarrassing. I love of horror games,
Speaker 1: but I don't handle stress well, so I'm too scared
Speaker 1: to play them myself. But I love watching other people
Speaker 1: play them. So right now I'm watching my husband play it.
Speaker 1: I watched the whole play through of the original, so
Speaker 1: it's fun to see the updated graphics. And so I
Speaker 1: feel like I feel like these things squiggle and wiggle
Speaker 1: in a way that reminds me of some of the
Speaker 1: monsters and dead Space. Yeah, well that that'll turn you
Speaker 1: off the real quick. This is just this is just
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that even though I know that well,
Speaker 1: I mean you actually you're probably about to tell me
Speaker 1: how fine it is that these these little squiggly wormy
Speaker 1: things are in the water. But I just know that
Speaker 1: if I saw this, I would be like, I have
Speaker 1: to get out of here immediately before one of these
Speaker 1: crawls into my ear and eats my brain out. So
Speaker 1: maybe that fear is unfounded and we'll find out shortly,
Speaker 1: but I can't stop myself from thinking that whenever I
Speaker 1: look at this video, I would I definitely feel that.
Speaker 1: I think that when I see warm in the water,
Speaker 1: I think definitely parasite. But fortunately these are not parasites,
Speaker 1: but they are very weird. So these are called pololo worms,
Speaker 1: and they are you know, they're just kind of squiggly
Speaker 1: worms here in this video that I've used to kind
Speaker 1: of traumatize Danial. Uh. They are never going in again.
Speaker 1: They're just they like look like, you know, maybe thin, thinner,
Speaker 1: a little bit longer. Earthworms. They're they're different colors, they're
Speaker 1: more pale, and they're moving around undulating, very weird jerky motions.
Speaker 1: When you say, yeah, very jerky. I'm also gonna give
Speaker 1: our our viewers a little context for this video. So
Speaker 1: this is someone who is in what looks to be
Speaker 1: the ocean at night with a with a underwater flashlight
Speaker 1: and their first filming from above the water. So you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can see some little squiggly wormies in the water.
Speaker 1: And then they submerge the camera and reveal that throughout
Speaker 1: the water, through probably five or six feet of solid
Speaker 1: depth of water, there are little squiggly worms everywhere. To
Speaker 1: be honest with you, this is a horror movie level
Speaker 1: reveal that happens in this video. And another note about
Speaker 1: this video is that the description simply says God provides
Speaker 1: and that's and that's big facts right there. God provides
Speaker 1: some of our most horrifying things. When the camera goes
Speaker 1: into the dark water and you see you guys, oh
Speaker 1: my god. I mean so a lot of people would
Speaker 1: look at this and get really excited and happy and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why in a little bit, but first
Speaker 1: I will introduce this warm by saying that palolo worms
Speaker 1: reproduced by timing a mass gathering with the moon cycle
Speaker 1: and then explode like a two stage rocket, releasing sperm
Speaker 1: and eggs. What Yeah, so okay, yeah poalolo worms. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess the shorter version is they detached their butts
Speaker 1: to have a giant rave at the surface of the
Speaker 1: sea and a mass reproductive orgy. Wow. Yeah, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: so they are found is just processing. I can see
Speaker 1: like the like the wheels spinning. Yeah, that's I mean
Speaker 1: that sounds I don't know. I mean, I gotta see it,
Speaker 1: but I just know that if I don't know, I
Speaker 1: have to put myself in the shoes of the person
Speaker 1: taking the video. Being if I was in the water
Speaker 1: and I saw these worms, first of all, I'll be
Speaker 1: getting the hell out of there. But if all of
Speaker 1: a sudden their butts started exploding and shooting seed into
Speaker 1: the surface of the water, I'll be like, I'm about
Speaker 1: to turn into a last of a zombie right now,
Speaker 1: Like this this is it. This is how I become
Speaker 1: a clicker and it's over. Yeah anyway, Sorry, please your
Speaker 1: face is just an error message. I am enjoying that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have one of those little rotate I have on
Speaker 1: my face right now that windows like sounding windows like,
Speaker 1: but we're experiencing problem. Yeah. So they are found in
Speaker 1: the oceans near the Pacific Islands and Indonesia, and they
Speaker 1: are a species of marine worm. They are a polykeet
Speaker 1: in the same class as bristle worms, bobbit worms, and
Speaker 1: certain deep sea tube worms. Now bobbit worms we've talked
Speaker 1: about before on the podcast. They are those horrifying mixture
Speaker 1: between like a really long sarlac pit because they hide
Speaker 1: in the sand on the seabed and then we'll burrow
Speaker 1: down because they can be quite long, and then they
Speaker 1: pop out, grab fish and pull them down into their burrows.
Speaker 1: So um, horrifying. And you know, cousins to the pololo worms,
Speaker 1: so their cousins can be pretty weird and wild too.
Speaker 1: But pololo worms have a very bizarre life cycle, one
Speaker 1: of the weirdest ones that I know about. Uh. They
Speaker 1: start off as tiny planktonic larva, which is not unusual
Speaker 1: for marine life. Lots of marine life starts out as zooplankton,
Speaker 1: little little tiny guys that just bhoop around the ocean.
Speaker 1: But then they develop into an adult. They grow into
Speaker 1: a long segmented worm with a weird claw like head. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they are not small. They can grow to be
Speaker 1: around sixteen inches or forty centimeters long. Yeah, they're pretty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they seem significant in terms of their like size
Speaker 1: that they're definitely not tiny little guys. You will you
Speaker 1: would not miss them, You absolutely would not miss them.
Speaker 1: They like to settle into the crevices of a coral reef,
Speaker 1: So they go head first into like a little sort
Speaker 1: of nook or cranny in the coral reef and kind
Speaker 1: of burrowed in there. All right. So there, so the
Speaker 1: coral is their home or is that just a okay, cool?
Speaker 1: It's their home. I mean it's it's sort of typical
Speaker 1: weird marine war warm lifestyle so far, Like they're they're
Speaker 1: weird looking, kind of creepy. They're in coral all standard
Speaker 1: for the ocean. Are they mostly found in places like
Speaker 1: Australia where there's a lot of coral reef? Um? Are
Speaker 1: they kind of all over? Yeah, they're mostly found so
Speaker 1: like they're found uh, near the Polynesian Islands, they're near Indonesia.
Speaker 1: They're I think they some of them are sort of
Speaker 1: in uh the ocean somewhat near Australia. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's like in these warmer coral uh corally areas. I
Speaker 1: don't know if coraly is a word, but yeah, none, yeah,
Speaker 1: poorly coral lue, coral line. I'm with you. So this
Speaker 1: is where stuff gets weird. After they are adults and
Speaker 1: then they want to reproduce, they go into another stage
Speaker 1: of their lives, uh and kind of transform into their
Speaker 1: reproductive form. So their muscles and heads start to atrophy
Speaker 1: a little bit, and there in segments which contain reproductive
Speaker 1: organs grow, and their legs become more paddle like, and
Speaker 1: eventually these in segments detached from the head and are
Speaker 1: able to swim on their own. So this free swimming
Speaker 1: butt section is called the epitope, and it will alone
Speaker 1: without the head, swim up to the surface of the
Speaker 1: ocean to reproduce. So it what So the reproductive organ
Speaker 1: is a kind of like its own creature? Yes, what
Speaker 1: is it? Does it? WHOA? Okay? Does it? So? Is
Speaker 1: it just the reproductive organs or does it like is
Speaker 1: it kind of like a like a cell? Splitting where
Speaker 1: like you're getting some you know, does it have it?
Speaker 1: Does it Does it have its own like brain nervous
Speaker 1: system or something like that, or is it just it
Speaker 1: has Yeah, it's got its own like nerves. It's got
Speaker 1: a bunch of legs. Um. I think it even has
Speaker 1: some like sensory light sensing cells. Uh. And so I
Speaker 1: don't think it has like a central brain. No, but
Speaker 1: it has like neurons um and some connections happening there. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like as if you basically like detached your lower
Speaker 1: half like belly button down, and it ran off and
Speaker 1: went to go mate, yeah, without you having to be involved.
Speaker 1: So fun. Well that's I mean, you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: the part I don't never want to experience, the actual
Speaker 1: reproduction part. I kind of just wanted to happen. So
Speaker 1: if I could take all the more fun for me,
Speaker 1: I could say in my computer looking at memes, it's
Speaker 1: it's a waste of time and boring. So the uh,
Speaker 1: the head part doesn't always die typically it actually can
Speaker 1: regrow a new in segment. Um. Yeah. So the but
Speaker 1: as this like as this posterior segment goes off on
Speaker 1: its own like like nice now and you see, it
Speaker 1: goes to the surface, it will meet up with a
Speaker 1: bunch of other posterior segments all there for the same reason,
Speaker 1: and they like kind of explode, They sort of disintegrate
Speaker 1: and like just kind of fault. These segments kind of
Speaker 1: like pop apart, and there's this mass soup of sperm
Speaker 1: and eggs that just kind of mingles together to form
Speaker 1: the new babies m soup. Yeah. In fact, okay, so
Speaker 1: the palolo worm is on a very precise and consistent
Speaker 1: time schedule following moon fade. This is after apparently October eighth,
Speaker 1: during the third quarter moon, for just a couple hours.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that is so specific. Yes, and because
Speaker 1: of this, people who live in the area have recognized
Speaker 1: the habits of the pololo warm over centuries. And apparently,
Speaker 1: I know you grimaced when I called this a soup,
Speaker 1: but apparently these epitopes, the butt segments are quite delicious.
Speaker 1: So people will go out during this special time and
Speaker 1: catch them with nuts and so you are kind of
Speaker 1: eating like, um, you know, reproductive organs. But we eat
Speaker 1: caviar in row all the time, and those are reproduct
Speaker 1: those are eggs. You know, you're you're right, You're right.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be so young yucky with my interpretation of
Speaker 1: these things, because at first, when you said they're delicious,
Speaker 1: I was expecting, like, yes, delicious to fish or to
Speaker 1: other creatures of the seed that might you know, just
Speaker 1: be just be out there snacking. Um. But wow, we'd
Speaker 1: be eating this stuff. Okay? Is it is it a
Speaker 1: m Is it like a delicacy to any particular region?
Speaker 1: Is there a chance that I've eaten this before and
Speaker 1: I just didn't know. I don't know. I think it's
Speaker 1: more in the Polynesian Islands area. Uh so there, Yes,
Speaker 1: it is very much delicacy. It's like it's because it
Speaker 1: only happens like you know, this rare time every year.
Speaker 1: Uh that it's like and you know, you can collect
Speaker 1: quite a bit over this period of time. Uh, And
Speaker 1: I think that they do. They go with every third
Speaker 1: moon cycle after October eight, so there might be like
Speaker 1: a a few periods of time before they stop. But
Speaker 1: still it's like very rare. It only happens like a
Speaker 1: couple of hours when they come up and do this.
Speaker 1: You gotta catch them while you can. And apparently they're
Speaker 1: very very rich in protein. I mean, like an egg.
Speaker 1: It's very high in protein, so I imagine they have
Speaker 1: a very like ummmy flavor, very rich protein flavor, and
Speaker 1: are apparently extremely good. I've never tried any. Don't tempt
Speaker 1: me with a good time. I mean, I'm into it. Look,
Speaker 1: you know your food. You've got to have an open mind.
Speaker 1: And once I once I learned something might might be
Speaker 1: delicious and might be food, you gotta go ship. I'm down.
Speaker 1: Who didn't look at salmon Roe for the first time,
Speaker 1: look at a little a little kora and be like,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, and then you put it
Speaker 1: in your mouth and you're like, damn. Actually, these little
Speaker 1: explosions of flavor are incredible, right, Yeah, I mean all
Speaker 1: our all our food, so much of our food is
Speaker 1: very weird, and our understanding, our understanding of weirdness is
Speaker 1: very cultural. I mean, like with milk, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is coming out of a cow nipple. I'm going
Speaker 1: to drink that, you know it. In fact, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to start eating the cow's ass. You're just gonna
Speaker 1: eat that booty. There's there's there's so many things that
Speaker 1: I have to like, credit are our for our ancestors
Speaker 1: for for having the gall and the bravery to be like,
Speaker 1: let me do this thing, because like, without them, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have literally anything today. Think about sandwiches, Think about
Speaker 1: how many steps we have to go through to get
Speaker 1: to bread and then if you want to go, if
Speaker 1: you want to go really quote unquote science with me
Speaker 1: right here, I think about how many steps it took
Speaker 1: for us to get to like bonds, how much how
Speaker 1: much work do we have to do to get to Okay?
Speaker 1: But then what about this, this and this? Yeah we
Speaker 1: had there's a lot of cultivation, their understanding of glass,
Speaker 1: lots of lots of things that had to to to
Speaker 1: lock into place. But yeah, we'll stick with We'll stick
Speaker 1: with food and sandwiches for now and not go too
Speaker 1: deep down the stone or rabbit hole of can you
Speaker 1: believe they did this to make this thing? Bro? Dude?
Speaker 1: Sand think about glass? What do anyway? You just think
Speaker 1: about sand and how many of them there are? Well
Speaker 1: that is awesome. Now I'm hungry, So I want to
Speaker 1: talk about larval conveyor belts. Are you ready? Belts? Larval
Speaker 1: conveyor belts another cool sounding thing. So uh, first I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you what a soft fly is. So soft
Speaker 1: flies aren't flies? Or bees or wasps, even though they
Speaker 1: kind of look like all three of those things somehow, weirdly,
Speaker 1: they are actually a distinct suborder of Hymenoptera, and they
Speaker 1: are named after the saw like ovipositor. So an ovipositor
Speaker 1: is like this tube on the butt of female that
Speaker 1: is used to deposit eggs um. And so she uses
Speaker 1: that sali like ovipositor to saw into a plant and
Speaker 1: lay her eggs um. And there are many different species
Speaker 1: of soft flies all over the world. But the reason
Speaker 1: I want to talk about soft flies is that their
Speaker 1: larva are often very social. Now, their larva look like caterpillars, uh,
Speaker 1: and they are usually quite social and they tend to
Speaker 1: stick together and it's cute and horrible at the same time,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite feeling. I love that they look
Speaker 1: like an enemy popping out of a tree. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So what you are looking at right now is a
Speaker 1: fascinating thing because this is it looks like one organism
Speaker 1: right like an m or a living fleshy flower. And
Speaker 1: it's like twitching, it's like jumping, like unfurling in this
Speaker 1: like coordinated pulsating movement. This is actually a cluster of
Speaker 1: soft fly larva uh moving in Unison, and the thought
Speaker 1: is that by moving in Unison, they are a warding
Speaker 1: off potential attackers. Interesting. Interesting, I mean, I'll tell you this,
Speaker 1: I'm certainly warded off by seeing this. I would not
Speaker 1: be going over there being like touch thing. Absolutely not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that I would have to drag my dog
Speaker 1: Kelly away from it, though I'd be like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: not with that right now. Dogs find the weirdest, most disgusting,
Speaker 1: probably most dangerous thing in their perimeter and immediately put
Speaker 1: it in their mouth like that, Oh, this thing looks
Speaker 1: fun Like my dog found a turd with a cigarette
Speaker 1: stuck into it like a birthday candle and immediately like
Speaker 1: it like dove for it. I had to like nank
Speaker 1: her back because she's like, that's it's my birthday to
Speaker 1: the happy birthday in the cookie. Time for me to
Speaker 1: eat that thing. That's so funny and disgusting. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I support you, a fellow dog on her I support you, yes, um,
Speaker 1: But yeah no, this absolutely looks like a see an
Speaker 1: enemy um but on a tree. But it's also made
Speaker 1: up of a bunch of these individual larva um and
Speaker 1: and again they're like they're kind of they're chunky like
Speaker 1: they're like caterpillars. They're not tiny guys, um very much
Speaker 1: like a yellow caterpillar. And again imagine four our view
Speaker 1: our listeners at home, imagine truly like a kind of
Speaker 1: a cluster of small yellow caterpillars sticking out long ways
Speaker 1: out of a tree in a little group, and like
Speaker 1: a handwave near them makes them all go Like if
Speaker 1: you can imagine what that noise sounds like in terms
Speaker 1: of wiggling action. That is the scientific term for that movement.
Speaker 1: It's spelled with a lot of ohs and a lot
Speaker 1: of uh gotta yeah. So they will form what is
Speaker 1: known as a rolling swarm where they crawl all over
Speaker 1: each other and it protects them from attacks by predators. Um.
Speaker 1: And it is really interesting to see both when it
Speaker 1: is sped up and also in real time movement, both
Speaker 1: pretty horrifying looking but also there. To me, it's cute
Speaker 1: because it's just a bunch of a little guys crawling
Speaker 1: all over each other trying to go forward. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a there's a group. A group
Speaker 1: think elements to their to their movements and whatnot, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't can't get over the I need to can't
Speaker 1: get over the demon back away from me. Kind of
Speaker 1: a thing I'm thinking right here. I think, honestly my
Speaker 1: theme or not my theme, but there's a trope of
Speaker 1: me on this show that is like, I'm so scared
Speaker 1: of bugs, and like, in truth, I don't think I
Speaker 1: am that's scared of bugs, but I do stray away
Speaker 1: from interaction with bugs as much as possible, and that's
Speaker 1: just unfortunately factual. I think it's not a bad idea.
Speaker 1: I think it's worse if you're like me and you
Speaker 1: like have this compulsion to pick up every weird bug
Speaker 1: you see, and then later find out that this was,
Speaker 1: oh this is a kissing beetle, or this is a
Speaker 1: kissing bug. This could have actually really hurt me. I
Speaker 1: should not have touched that. I just kind of like,
Speaker 1: I kind of like I want to touch everything. I
Speaker 1: want to pick everything up. So I guess me and
Speaker 1: my dog are not so different, are we? Maybe not?
Speaker 1: But you know what we need people like you do.
Speaker 1: If people like me survive long enough, touching bugs protects
Speaker 1: Katie at all costs. Um. But yeah, by moving in
Speaker 1: unison kind of I'm trying to think I feel like
Speaker 1: it reminds me a lot of Miyazaki movies where he
Speaker 1: does this kind of thing. I think he's done it
Speaker 1: in a few of his movies in Howel's Moving Castle
Speaker 1: and Princess Mononoke, where it's like a bunch of like
Speaker 1: little slugs kind of like coming coalescing together and moving
Speaker 1: in Unison. Yes, it's a little stomach turning. It is,
Speaker 1: most certainly especially in monok when it's like the writhing
Speaker 1: disease on Htuka's arm. Not my favorite. No, it's a
Speaker 1: little gross looking, but in this case it's effective because
Speaker 1: they are able to make themselves seem like a larger
Speaker 1: organism also probably make it difficult for a predator to
Speaker 1: pick out anyone individual. Um. There's also remember earlier when
Speaker 1: you were speculating that maybe those snow fleas gathered together
Speaker 1: for heat. Indeed, that was not a stupid guest, because
Speaker 1: there is research on these guys on the soft fly
Speaker 1: larva that they do gather together to benefit from each
Speaker 1: other's body heat. So I was just a little early
Speaker 1: with my predictions, that's right, that's right, accurate, but early.
Speaker 1: So there was some speculation. When I say some speculation,
Speaker 1: it's really just kind of one guy on YouTube, YouTuber
Speaker 1: named Dustin who that's speculation, nonetheless, that is that is speculation, nonetheless,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of it. People are saying, um, well,
Speaker 1: really it's just one people on YouTube. And he did
Speaker 1: this experiment with like moving legos because he saw like
Speaker 1: these larva as this sort of like living conveyor belt,
Speaker 1: and he speculates that maybe they're able to move faster
Speaker 1: like that because basically they are moving on top of
Speaker 1: each other and then the bottom ones also moving, but
Speaker 1: then they rotate and so they're kind of like it's
Speaker 1: like when you're you know, like at the airport, when
Speaker 1: you're walking on the flat escalator. I don't know what
Speaker 1: those are called people mover. I guess okay, wow, we
Speaker 1: didn't think of anything more creative than that. Huh. People
Speaker 1: move all right, but where it's like you're walking, usually
Speaker 1: for me, I'm walking on the people mover because it's
Speaker 1: the airport, and I'm always in a rush and always straight,
Speaker 1: keep going right. But you're walking, but the thing under
Speaker 1: you is also moving, so you're going very fast compared
Speaker 1: to your normal walking speed. And so the idea is
Speaker 1: the same here Unfortunately, I haven't seen any real like
Speaker 1: research studies on the actual larva, just this one YouTubers
Speaker 1: like Lego experiment, which is cool. I'm not like, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's not cool. It's very cool. But it's
Speaker 1: at this point just this one ded speculation, which I
Speaker 1: think is great. That's where stuff starts, that's where research starts.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping to see hoping to see more research
Speaker 1: on it because that would be that would be great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well definitely it definitely want to see. Definitely want to
Speaker 1: see more. Um. I just like seeing you know, things
Speaker 1: working together. That that's what I'm about, all about mutual
Speaker 1: aid here and all of that community and seeing these things,
Speaker 1: you know, crawl over each other to get forward, but
Speaker 1: still move as a group. It's very it feels very
Speaker 1: anti capitalist. It's not so much it's not so much
Speaker 1: I use you to get further up top. It's we
Speaker 1: moved together as a unit and that's we like that
Speaker 1: team makes the dream warm. Wow, nailed it. Technically I
Speaker 1: guess these aren't worms though, so I'm sorry. Please don't
Speaker 1: email me the the you know, some some some Twitter
Speaker 1: nerds might might get in your d ms. But these
Speaker 1: ones are too busy working together to make progress for
Speaker 1: their own group. So think about that. Twitter. I've actually
Speaker 1: found that my audience is very very sweet and their
Speaker 1: corrections are often extremely extremely kind, and it's nice and
Speaker 1: not like, you know, not the actually genre. So that's
Speaker 1: really wonderful. Well, shout out, shot out, shout out. Fans
Speaker 1: of Creature feature, thank guys for like when you do
Speaker 1: get on your when you do get on my case,
Speaker 1: it's in a very nice way, very cordial, very cordial.
Speaker 1: I think that's all we can ask for with our
Speaker 1: podcast communities, is that you you foster community that is cordial. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I ain't perfect, and you guys know that, and
Speaker 1: that's that's great. Who lives among us? Who among us?
Speaker 1: But he who is without? You know, worm sin cast
Speaker 1: the first rolling worm Rock perfect BEAUTI fo you perfectly
Speaker 1: executed well. Before we go, we gotta play a little
Speaker 1: game called Guests Who's Squawk? And the Mtery Animal Sound Game. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a game where I play Mry animal Sound
Speaker 1: and you the listener, and you're the guests try to
Speaker 1: guess his squawken. It can be any animals, uh, not
Speaker 1: just birds, not just bees, anything anything in the earth
Speaker 1: or on the earth or slightly above the earth. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the hint for this week's mtery animal sound is this
Speaker 1: baby sure likes to make a point. Can you guess
Speaker 1: who is making that sound? All right? So my immediate
Speaker 1: thinking was bird. My immediate thinking is bird sounds like bird? Um,
Speaker 1: this baby sure likes to make a point. Yes, that
Speaker 1: is the hint. This baby shorts to make a point.
Speaker 1: I can't tell if it. So here's here give you
Speaker 1: all my thinking. I can't tell if the hint is
Speaker 1: in the is in the hint of like sure likes
Speaker 1: to make a point, like it is arguing, like it's
Speaker 1: a lawyer or something, or if it's like an actually
Speaker 1: kind of like sure likes to make a point, get
Speaker 1: its point across, or or if it's or if it's
Speaker 1: a more straightforward hint of like this baby sure likes
Speaker 1: to make a point, like something pointed is part of
Speaker 1: its physiology, like maybe it is a baby woodpecker or something. Um,
Speaker 1: I did like where you're going with like the lawyer
Speaker 1: the animal that is a baby lawyer right, the boss
Speaker 1: of the boss baby of animals. Um, I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go. I think I'm gonna go with baby woodpecker.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with baby woodpecker. That is a fantastic guess.
Speaker 1: It is wrong though, that this is a baby hedgehog.
Speaker 1: Is baby hedgehog? Congratulations to Joey P and Auntie B
Speaker 1: who gets correctly that this is a baby hedgehog. So
Speaker 1: it is a baby who likes to make a point,
Speaker 1: likes to make lots of points. So a baby hedgehog
Speaker 1: also known as a hoglute what they're called? Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is very cute. They come out pink, They come out pink,
Speaker 1: and like little little spiky jellybeans. Um, they will squeak
Speaker 1: to communicate to their mother that they are hungry, just
Speaker 1: kind of like kittens. Um. Down. In terms of baby hedgehogs,
Speaker 1: a question I imagine a lot of people have about
Speaker 1: baby hedgehogs is that if they are born with spines,
Speaker 1: how do you give birth to one without getting impaled
Speaker 1: by the spines? And nobody having a good time with that? Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so they are worn with spines, but they are born
Speaker 1: covered in a protective skin like membrane when they are born. Huh,
Speaker 1: And these spikes emerge after the membrane dries and shrinks
Speaker 1: and the spikes start poking out from the membrane. Um.
Speaker 1: Kind of like that X Man from the X Men. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he had spikes coming out of his face, except
Speaker 1: that there was an X Man that had spikes that
Speaker 1: would come out of his body. Uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't remember he was from No, he was from one
Speaker 1: of the Bad Want movies. Um, Okay, you know what
Speaker 1: I think, I know what you're talking about. Spikeman, Spikeman, Spikeman. Um,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that, except it's a tiny pink
Speaker 1: baby hedgehog. And it's sort of like they kind of
Speaker 1: are born like with extra puffy skin, and the natskin
Speaker 1: kind of dries and then shrinks down and then the
Speaker 1: spikes come out. Um. Also the spines, the spines of
Speaker 1: a newborn are softer than an adults, and they will
Speaker 1: eventually be shed and replaced by harder adult spines. Got it, Okay?
Speaker 1: And and with the and with the skin, like the
Speaker 1: the the protective layering does it when it starts to
Speaker 1: poke through, does it eventually like fall off? Is it
Speaker 1: like molted off of them or or is it like
Speaker 1: it becomes just like a part of their skin layer.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it just kind of shrinks down
Speaker 1: to their skin layer, but like all skin, it will
Speaker 1: sort of fall off sort of like I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: like our our skin is always you know, sort of
Speaker 1: like the dead layer is falling off all the time.
Speaker 1: So I think it might it might kind of slough
Speaker 1: off a little bit faster than other skin though. I
Speaker 1: would imagine, Hey, the listeners out there, take care of
Speaker 1: your skin. Where all right, get that SPF going. Did
Speaker 1: you know that like your outer most layer of skin
Speaker 1: is like dead essentially? Yeah, Like why is skin such
Speaker 1: a good defense against pathogens? And it's like this It
Speaker 1: actually looks a lot like uh, if you've seen these
Speaker 1: old stone walls that they used to make with like
Speaker 1: smaller rocks, like these kind of thin and flat rocks,
Speaker 1: and they used to kind of jam them together, like
Speaker 1: the Romans would do this. And we actually have some
Speaker 1: of these still in Italy and they just have a
Speaker 1: bunch of like sort of small thin rocks all stuck together.
Speaker 1: It's like this technique that like we don't know how
Speaker 1: to do anymore really, um, but like skin is kind
Speaker 1: of like that. These they're these like small flat dead
Speaker 1: cells that are kind of squished together, and these like
Speaker 1: you know, sort of like almost like like these these
Speaker 1: old walls with all these rocks kind of interwoven with
Speaker 1: each other and it forms it's very like tough to
Speaker 1: penetrate layer. Cool. Yeah, wow, Well, shout out the Italians
Speaker 1: for for figuring out how the skin can be turned
Speaker 1: into rock or how the skin is can be trans
Speaker 1: transitioned into rock. Um that's cool. Yeah, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: our skin, all all the skin that we see, what
Speaker 1: we're looking at is death. It's very it's very Werner Herzog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: constantly observing our own demise. Exactly that you strive to
Speaker 1: protect is simply your mortal coil exposure itself and then
Speaker 1: like it's like unsatisfy, you should buy it. Can protect
Speaker 1: a multra hydro hydro salasinic acid your eyes in this
Speaker 1: episode is a Mandaloria and sponsored by Salery. Protect your skin,
Speaker 1: Embrace your death. Onto this week's Mr Animal Sound. The
Speaker 1: hint this is one unhappy noodle. If you think you
Speaker 1: know the answer to this week's Mystery animal sound, you
Speaker 1: can email me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That is Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and
Speaker 1: make your gifts and if you've gifts correctly, you might
Speaker 1: hear your name on the podcast. Well, Daniel, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being here, or can on people find you? Well,
Speaker 1: it's my pleasure to be here, Katie, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me love the show so much. Um.
Speaker 1: You can find me all over the internet at DJ
Speaker 1: Underscore Daniel d A n L on all the platforms, um.
Speaker 1: I'm mostly on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch. I also have
Speaker 1: a TikTok, regrettably for all the content that I forced
Speaker 1: myself to post to try and stay relevant in this
Speaker 1: ever more cringe universe of posting. Um. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: on Twitch three times a week Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Speaker 1: We play a lot of games to tell a lot
Speaker 1: of stories, and you know, it's just it's just about
Speaker 1: Twitch community. I also have a lot of channel point
Speaker 1: rewards that you can use to make fun of me
Speaker 1: or surprise me with jump scares and whatnot, which is
Speaker 1: truly the most fun part of the stream is how
Speaker 1: you can interact with it and make me miserable. So
Speaker 1: come on, it's a lot of fun. Go harass Danial,
Speaker 1: Go harass Daniel. That's the whole point. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: mentioned you like the show, but I should also mention
Speaker 1: you helped me started early on, so you credit for that. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's all it's all you. I mean, it's me and
Speaker 1: other people. Fair, okay, fair always, it's always a team.
Speaker 1: But but it has to has someone needs to be
Speaker 1: the captain to write the ship. And that's all you.
Speaker 1: We form a rolling swarm. Swarm kind of ride around
Speaker 1: and then make podcasts and that's the way of the world.
Speaker 1: Am well, Thank you guys so much for listening. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying the show and you leave me a writing
Speaker 1: or review, I will read it. I will add it
Speaker 1: to this wall in my house where I post up
Speaker 1: all my views. And my husband is getting very nervous
Speaker 1: about it, getting quite alarmed. Uh. He shouldn't worry, because
Speaker 1: I do it out of love and obsession. Uh. And
Speaker 1: thanks to the Space Cossacks for their super awesome song
Speaker 1: Exo Lumina. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
Speaker 1: was that the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast? Or
Speaker 1: Hey guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows?
Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday.