Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Mini Parasites Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show Weirdest Animal Spit, we are
Speaker 1: separating fact from fiction when it comes to expectorating animals.
Speaker 1: Is komodo dragon saliva really deadly? And what could be
Speaker 1: as cute as a harmless little mal? Discover this and
Speaker 1: more as we answer the angel question, can we just
Speaker 1: throw worms on our problems? Joining me today as friend
Speaker 1: of the show. Co host of George Center and Lower
Speaker 1: after Hours, Will Pull aka Christy, I'm a Guccie Mane.
Speaker 2: Welcome, thank you for having me back. And you've already
Speaker 2: referenced moles at the very top of the show, and
Speaker 2: I feel like, no matter the subject matter they get
Speaker 2: brought up, every episode I've been on has has moles
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: They really maybe moles just desire to be your animal.
Speaker 2: It's I'm starting to believe that like, if I had
Speaker 2: a an animal that matches my interests and personality, it
Speaker 2: would it would have to be the mole. Like they
Speaker 2: just seem like they are the single most interesting set
Speaker 2: of creatures of all time.
Speaker 1: They are very cool. I love them. There's so many
Speaker 1: of them. There's like this whole thing of carsonization where
Speaker 1: nature loves a crab and things keep evolving to be
Speaker 1: crab shaped. The same can be said of moles. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of mole like animals or animals called moles,
Speaker 1: who are not related to true moles, but they look
Speaker 1: so similar and it's convergent evolution because nature also loves
Speaker 1: a mole. So eventually we'll I'll either be crabs or moles.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you'd be team moles.
Speaker 2: That is, that is the We already have the conspiracy
Speaker 2: theories about mole people right right, Like that's already a thing,
Speaker 2: so we're already headed there. We're already predicting our own
Speaker 2: future with that conspiracy theory. So I for when I
Speaker 2: am excited to eventually take my true final form as
Speaker 2: a mole person underground. As much time as I spend online,
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm halfway there.
Speaker 1: So I feel like the only reason I would choose
Speaker 1: crab over mole is that I love scuttling. Scuttling is great.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you like walking, like like scuttling sideways especially, Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, the sideways scuttle is very efficient and I enjoy
Speaker 1: it so Other than that, though, mole life sounds great
Speaker 1: to just be down in dank, moist soil.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we are going to talk about a secret
Speaker 1: superpower that moles have. But first will have you heard
Speaker 1: of komodo dragon saliva being especially dangerous? I have?
Speaker 2: I heard. I feel like growing up it was one
Speaker 2: of those science facts that you learn when you're like
Speaker 2: eight or nine years old that you just run with
Speaker 2: for the rest of your life, that komodo dragons have
Speaker 2: poisonous saliva, that they basically have venom or I guess
Speaker 2: venom would be the correct term there, not poisonous. Poisonous
Speaker 2: is when you're toxic when something eats you, right, and
Speaker 2: venomus is when you deliver toxins to your prey. Yes,
Speaker 2: So I feel like I grew up hearing that komodo
Speaker 2: dragons were super venomous, that the bite of a Komodo
Speaker 2: dragon could take down a wildebeeste or a you know,
Speaker 2: a ox or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this is like the way that I heard
Speaker 1: it is that komodo dragons saliva is so full of
Speaker 1: bacteria that it can just bite something and then wait
Speaker 1: for sepsis to kick in. So it's like they have
Speaker 1: this extremely nasty, noxious septic spit saliva, and then they
Speaker 1: bite something and then that saliva like gives the animal sepsis.
Speaker 1: The animal keels over, and the Komodo dragon just casually
Speaker 1: walks over and eats its prey. So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting ideas and myths about the Komodo dragons,
Speaker 1: but for some of the facts. So, Komodo dragons are
Speaker 1: indeed very impressive lizards. They are the thickest lizards in
Speaker 1: the world. They grow over ten feet long and they
Speaker 1: weigh from about one hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: so they are the chunkiest lizards on the planet.
Speaker 2: That's thickest is an interesting way of describing it. Like
Speaker 2: I now I'm picturing a komodo dragon with like a
Speaker 2: nice rear end on it. They do be quite honest.
Speaker 1: Thick as a bowl of oatmeal, to be honest.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, all right, They.
Speaker 1: Do not skip leg day. They live up to about
Speaker 1: thirty years, so.
Speaker 2: Well more like komodo wagon. Oh my gosh, and that'll
Speaker 2: be it for me, all right, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for having me on I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I think that's it. I think we've got an episode there.
Speaker 2: We nailed it, and we nailed it.
Speaker 1: So they live on islands of Indonesia in dry grasslands
Speaker 1: and they will dig burrows to shelter themselves and conserve heat.
Speaker 1: So yeah, about their saliva. You hear that their saliva
Speaker 1: is full of bacteria such that they can hunt down
Speaker 1: their prey by just biting them, like once waiting for
Speaker 1: their prey to run off, and then the prey get
Speaker 1: sepsis or an alternative versions of it. They bite their prey,
Speaker 1: their prey succumbs to the venom, the toxic venom, and
Speaker 1: then like collapses and then the Momoto dragon just casually
Speaker 1: walks up. And that sounds really cool, like a very
Speaker 1: cool assassin move, but it's not actually true. So okay,
Speaker 1: Komodo dragon saliva is not particularly septic compared to other animals,
Speaker 1: and they actually have relatively good mouth hygiene, like they don't.
Speaker 1: One of the myths is that they have so much
Speaker 1: rotting flesh in their mouths that it's like that's what
Speaker 1: makes their mouth septic. But actually, after they eat meat
Speaker 1: and carry and they spend a lot of time like
Speaker 1: licking and wiping and cleaning their face, so they're they're
Speaker 1: clean little guys.
Speaker 2: They like not unlike myself. Yeah, having eaten ribs or
Speaker 2: chicken wings. I'm very Uh I'm empathizing with the komodo dragon,
Speaker 2: and people would look at me and think that my
Speaker 2: mouth is full of bacteria. So uh, yeah, I empathize
Speaker 2: with this creature so far.
Speaker 1: Top misconception about will is that he has septic saliva.
Speaker 1: So they do have venom like proteins in their saliva,
Speaker 1: so their saliva is partially venomous, but it is unclear
Speaker 1: to what extent this venom actually leads to death of
Speaker 1: their prey. If the venom does have an effect, it
Speaker 1: would probably work by preventing blood clotting and lowering blood pressure,
Speaker 1: increasing the chance that the animal goes into shock. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't just rely on a sneaky little bite and
Speaker 1: then wait for its prey to succumb to the venom.
Speaker 1: They very much want to murder as fast and as
Speaker 1: close and quickly as possible, so the komodo dragon is
Speaker 1: very patient. It will lay in wait and ambush its prey.
Speaker 1: Once it grabs its prey, its goal is to kill
Speaker 1: this thing. As quickly as possible. It will use its
Speaker 1: razor sharp teeth and claws to tear open the animal's flesh,
Speaker 1: causing massive bleeding, shock, and death. And so the one
Speaker 1: bite and then let it wander off is a myth.
Speaker 1: The myth may have originated from prey that did escape
Speaker 1: a komodo dragon attack, only to later succumb to its wounds,
Speaker 1: or sometimes animals like water buffalo will go into the
Speaker 1: water and with an open wound, if you go into
Speaker 1: dirty water, you are very likely to get sepsis, and
Speaker 1: so like that combined with the blood loss is a
Speaker 1: recipe for the animal to die as well. And then
Speaker 1: the komodo dragon just tracks it down like smells where
Speaker 1: it goes. And then you know, it's not gonna waste
Speaker 1: the animal that tried to kill, so if it can,
Speaker 1: it will kill it on the spot, and then if
Speaker 1: the escapes, it will try to track it down and resume.
Speaker 1: Uh dinner.
Speaker 2: These Uh, I'm looking at pictures of komodo dragons. They
Speaker 2: have such an odd face to them. It's it's like
Speaker 2: it's almost dog like. Yeah, they're they're snout like. They
Speaker 2: they look like they it's it looks like a like
Speaker 2: a first grader tried to draw a dinosaur and then
Speaker 2: doesn't quite know how faces work yet, or or like
Speaker 2: the the muscle structure they're they're almost almost like doofy looking,
Speaker 2: even though I know, like you you just described them.
Speaker 2: You know they're how gnarly these things are. Uh, they're
Speaker 2: not friendly at all.
Speaker 1: They can though I think they're c they are cute.
Speaker 1: They're not not a good thing to pet, but they
Speaker 1: are cute, and.
Speaker 2: They're they're like you said they are. They are chonky
Speaker 2: like they're they've got like folds everywhere, like they're they
Speaker 2: got a little arms. I know all of this is
Speaker 2: misleading because I also googled a pet komodo dragon because
Speaker 2: I wanted to see if people actually kept these things
Speaker 2: as pets. Not that I'm encouraging that, but one of
Speaker 2: the first suggestions was seven reasons the komodo dragon is
Speaker 2: an ideal pet. But you are you were dissuading me
Speaker 2: of any of that notion. Also, I think this article
Speaker 2: is actually satire.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would say I would say don't keep
Speaker 1: a komodo dragon as a pet because it does occasionally,
Speaker 1: very occasionally attack and kill humans, so they don't typically
Speaker 1: prey on humans, that's not like their prey of choice,
Speaker 1: but they attack occasionally. In a thirty eight year period,
Speaker 1: there were five human deaths caused by komodo dragon attacks
Speaker 1: and nineteen non fatal attacks. So that's not statistically speaking,
Speaker 1: your very unlikely to be hurt by a komodo dragon.
Speaker 1: But I would say that if you have one as
Speaker 1: a pet, your chance of becoming a komodo dragon snack
Speaker 1: has risen, you know, skyrockets. Yeah, your relative risk ratio
Speaker 1: has gone up quite a bit.
Speaker 2: And I imagine, I imagine the like, if you did
Speaker 2: keep one as a pet, you wouldn't want it to
Speaker 2: like lick you in the face or anywhere like a dog.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: Even though like you're dispelling this about its saliva, it's
Speaker 2: still probably not a great thing to get all over each.
Speaker 1: It probably still has stink breath from all of the things,
Speaker 1: and eats I mean, like it will eat carrion. It's
Speaker 1: not necessarily picky about that. They have also been known
Speaker 1: to dig up human bodies if graves are shallow enough,
Speaker 1: and eat them. So people who live in Komodo dragon
Speaker 1: territory generally try not to bury people in shallow grapes.
Speaker 1: Nearmoto dragons. But yeah, I mean so they also are.
Speaker 1: It's interesting I say they're not picky, but they are
Speaker 1: actually a little picky because they apparently avoid eating undigested
Speaker 1: plant matter. When they're eating an herbivore. They'll lead everything
Speaker 1: else except for like the plant matter that's inside of
Speaker 1: their bellies because I guess that's difficult for the komodo
Speaker 1: dragon to digest.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, they are. They are picky. They're so they
Speaker 2: have the they have the diet of like a kindergartener
Speaker 2: that doesn't want to eat their vegetables. Oh, actually, that's weird.
Speaker 2: Kindergarteners don't eat dead bodies for the most part.
Speaker 1: That I mean most of them don't.
Speaker 2: Most of them don't. Yeah, this is okay, I'm seeing too.
Speaker 2: This is kind of off subject. But like a two
Speaker 2: komodo dragons fighting on their hind legs. Yeah, that looks.
Speaker 2: These creatures are so so cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're pugnacious in gnarly h They they'll eat anything too,
Speaker 1: from like eggs to monkeys, deer, and water buffalo alive
Speaker 1: or dead. They will sometimes like get a huge chunk
Speaker 1: of food in their mouth and like ram it down
Speaker 1: their throat by like slamming into a tree or something,
Speaker 1: because like they are trying to get it down. And
Speaker 1: one true fact about their saliva is that they have
Speaker 1: a lot of it and it works as a lubricant
Speaker 1: so that they're more likely to be able to get
Speaker 1: huge chunks of flesh down their gullet.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, so just more and more like me with everything.
Speaker 3: You thought.
Speaker 1: You thought moles were the ones you could relate to
Speaker 1: you the most, but really it's a handle that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they the reason they don't choke when they're doing
Speaker 1: this is they actually have a tube under their tongue
Speaker 1: that connects to their air passage. So I don't recommend
Speaker 1: trying it as a human because we don't have that.
Speaker 1: And to make sure that because they eat such large
Speaker 1: quantities at one time and their stomachs actually can expand
Speaker 1: to accommodate this, they need to digest it relatively quickly,
Speaker 1: not too slowly, because otherwise the food will like rot
Speaker 1: inside their stomach and they'll have sure basically what lactose
Speaker 1: and tolerant people have to tolerate if they drink milk
Speaker 1: without a kind of like lactate, but with like a
Speaker 1: whole water buffalo. So they will sit bask in the
Speaker 1: sun after a meal to try to speed up digestion
Speaker 1: because the sun warms their bodies up, which increases the
Speaker 1: rate of their metabolism.
Speaker 2: It's similar to alligators around here that we have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: They basically they don't feed in the winter time because
Speaker 2: that would the food would rotten their stomachs and kill
Speaker 2: them essentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly. So, yeah, they need that basking time.
Speaker 1: It's not just to like preen and feel proud after
Speaker 1: they've eaten a water buffalo. It's so that they don't
Speaker 1: get sick from the rotting meat if they don't have
Speaker 1: enough warmth to fuel their metabolism. But yeah, so they
Speaker 1: are cute to me. Probably not good pets, I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1: They will see you more like either an obstacle or
Speaker 1: a snack, and they are their venom Their saliva is
Speaker 1: really interesting in that it is slightly venomous and it
Speaker 1: is a lubricant, but it is not uh, it is
Speaker 1: not the septic, toxic toilet mouth that rumor has it.
Speaker 1: So that is just a dirty lie about the Kommodo dragons.
Speaker 1: They do not have potty mouths.
Speaker 2: They do curse a lot, though they did are known.
Speaker 2: They are known for being very crass, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: having crass personalities and kind of off color humor.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they have that edgy South Park humor and
Speaker 1: it's really immature. Very they grew up.
Speaker 2: They grew up like all of us did, like watching
Speaker 2: Comedy Central in the nineties and developing, you know, mighty
Speaker 2: personality because of it.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to take a quick break, and when
Speaker 1: we get back, exciting news, we're talking about moles. All right,
Speaker 1: So we are back, and now we are onto Will's
Speaker 1: favorite animal, the male.
Speaker 3: Yay.
Speaker 1: So moles are adorable little ground dwellers. What kind of
Speaker 1: threat do you think a male could possibly be? They're
Speaker 1: so adorable. Well, mole saliva is fitomous.
Speaker 2: Ooh really, yes, I had no idea.
Speaker 1: So European moles are your sort of classic looking moles.
Speaker 1: They have gray for a pointy snout. They have large,
Speaker 1: pink four claws for digging, and a stubby tail.
Speaker 2: U the Old Country, the Old Yeah.
Speaker 1: And while it's called the European mole, it's also found
Speaker 1: in Asia, so it's kind of found all over Eurasia.
Speaker 1: They are very in my opinion, they're very cute. They
Speaker 1: have the classic like little tiny beady mole eyes. They
Speaker 1: have a little pointy nose. They're not like the star
Speaker 1: nosed moles, which are very fascinating. I love them too,
Speaker 1: but the star nosed moles have those like it almost
Speaker 1: looks like a hand in front of their face. And
Speaker 1: European moles are not the only moles that are have
Speaker 1: a venomous bite, but we're just focusing on them for
Speaker 1: this one. So, uh they have rapid metabolisms and eat
Speaker 1: about half their body weight in food every day, and
Speaker 1: uh so they need to eat a lot to keep
Speaker 1: that up. And they have basically a few senses that
Speaker 1: they use to find and hunt prey. Popular portrayals of
Speaker 1: moles depict them as being completely blind, which is not
Speaker 1: exactly true. It is true that their eyes are very
Speaker 1: underdeveloped because they spend most of their time underground, so
Speaker 1: they don't really need a keen eyesight, but they can
Speaker 1: detect light and dark. They can detect movement, and this
Speaker 1: is really helpful for them to be able to evade
Speaker 1: predators that may have invaded their little mole holes. So
Speaker 1: they're not totally blind, but their eyesight is definitely not great.
Speaker 2: These Like I googled mole eyes and they are comically tiny,
Speaker 2: like they look like like little dots of ink on
Speaker 2: the mole itself. It's I did not realize they were
Speaker 2: that small. They're there, it's it doesn't it doesn't look
Speaker 2: real almost it looks photoshopped just.
Speaker 1: To it looks like someone took like a ballpoint pin
Speaker 1: and just like, oh wait, I forgot the eyes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like if you were drawing a comic
Speaker 2: of a mole, how you would draw their eyes on it, right.
Speaker 1: Just like little dots. It's very I find it super cute.
Speaker 1: Like you can you can barely see the eyes. It
Speaker 1: looks like they don't have eyes at all. It's just
Speaker 1: that their eyes are very very underdeveloped and very very tiny,
Speaker 1: just basically like little pinpoints.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. But these things are so stinking cute.
Speaker 1: I know, I know it. Like the the I feel
Speaker 1: like I love Star No's moles as well. And most
Speaker 1: of everything I'm saying about the European mole also applies
Speaker 1: to the Star No's mole. But the Star No's mole,
Speaker 1: like It's definitely not got the same cuteness because its
Speaker 1: face looks like a Boshian nightmare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like the uh like on par with
Speaker 2: pans that pans loud. Yes, creature that holds the eyes.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely absolutely, And there's a definite reason that it
Speaker 1: has that disturbing looking nose, which we'll talk about in
Speaker 1: a little bit. But yeah, I definitely do. Just in
Speaker 1: terms of cuteness factor. The European mole is quite a
Speaker 1: bit cuter, so they can hear low frequencies and vibrations.
Speaker 1: Their hearing is otherwise not like amazing, But the sense
Speaker 1: they rely on the most is their sense of touch.
Speaker 1: So the tip of their nose is one of the
Speaker 1: most sensitive touch organs in any mammal.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: These are called Emer's organs, and they are able to
Speaker 1: sense very They're able to sense vibrations through the soil
Speaker 1: through these organs on their nose, and that's why the
Speaker 1: star nose mole has those like finger like a pin dies.
Speaker 1: They have a bunch of these Eimers organs on their
Speaker 1: nose and they're very, very sensitive to vibration. The European
Speaker 1: mole also has these on its nose, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: have as many as the star nose mole.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, similar to like when you drop
Speaker 2: acid or smoke weed, you're very sensitive to vibrations, like
Speaker 2: good ones especially. It's kind of their equivalent of doing drugs,
Speaker 2: you know, right.
Speaker 1: And then when they're trying to maintain the little sunglasses
Speaker 1: that they wear to like keep you from seeing their
Speaker 1: bloodshot eyes are very comically tiny exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they venture into like cultural appropriation where they start
Speaker 2: growing dreads or wearing like, you know, rosta stuff, and
Speaker 2: you know, you kind of have to keep the mole
Speaker 2: in check.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to do like what rock have you
Speaker 1: been under? And they're like pretty much all of them.
Speaker 1: I've been under all the rocks exactly.
Speaker 2: We're not We're not doing this anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's what's culturally
Speaker 1: insensitive or not. I'm literally living underground.
Speaker 2: I am a mole person. I am a literal mole person.
Speaker 1: So their favorite food is earthworms, though they have been
Speaker 1: known to snack on other invertebrates as well as on
Speaker 1: small mammals like shrews and mice. So, you know, you
Speaker 1: think of moles as being really cute wind in the willows,
Speaker 1: little guy, you know, being sweet and cute and not
Speaker 1: eating entire little mice, little baby cute mice. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they will, they'll do it nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they'll they're kind of omnivores in that way.
Speaker 2: They'll do they eat plant matter of any kind.
Speaker 1: I don't think they typically do. They're mostly they're mostly
Speaker 1: insective wars, but then they are opportunistic carnivores, so they
Speaker 1: will eat small, small mammals on occasion.
Speaker 2: And people people get mad about having moles in their yard.
Speaker 2: But is it just because they make like the little
Speaker 2: visible tunnels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on top, it's just because they make the holes.
Speaker 1: They and if they go through plant roots, like if
Speaker 1: they tunnel through plant roots, that could damage the plants.
Speaker 1: But they don't eat the plants. They're eating the earthworms,
Speaker 1: so you know they're not they're not really plant eaters.
Speaker 1: It's just they may uh sort of make cause some
Speaker 1: damage as a byproduct of their tunneling.
Speaker 2: And people got to get over that. I think love
Speaker 2: having moles in my yard. And I think I've had
Speaker 2: moles in my yard before and I didn't try to
Speaker 2: get rid of them. You know, like if you're not
Speaker 2: planting stuff, that can't have like a tiny little adorable
Speaker 2: mole crawl through it, then you need to plant something hardier.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: They're also much less destructive than like gophers or ground hogs, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I like it. I don't think we have gophers,
Speaker 2: or maybe we have gophers and groundhogs around here. But
Speaker 2: also our soil is very sandy living this close to
Speaker 2: the river and the beach, so we don't have like,
Speaker 2: I feel like, we don't have a ton of those
Speaker 2: burrowing animals around here. But yeah, I would personally, I
Speaker 2: would take it as a badge of honor if my
Speaker 2: soil was healthy enough to sustain earthworms and then moles
Speaker 2: on top of it.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely they are very cute. And then this
Speaker 1: is kind of where the cuteness ends a little bit.
Speaker 1: So there's saliva contains a paralytic toxin that can paralyze
Speaker 1: their prey. Now for a human, it's not very threatening.
Speaker 1: Their bites can hurt, but they're not going to paralyze
Speaker 1: a human. But they are very good at paralyzing their prey,
Speaker 1: so okay, they will, especially earthworms, so these it's hard
Speaker 1: to feel sorry for it. Earthworms sometimes because they don't
Speaker 1: like they don't really got a face. They're basically living spaghetti.
Speaker 1: But in this case I do feel bad for them,
Speaker 1: because the mole paralyzes the earthworm with a quick, sharp
Speaker 1: bite and a distribution of their venomous saliva. The worm
Speaker 1: is paralyzed but not dead. So the mole will take
Speaker 1: this paralyzed earthworm back to its burrow, to its larder
Speaker 1: and just keep it there for a while. And this
Speaker 1: poor earthworms still alive and it can't do anything but
Speaker 1: just helplessly wait for when the mole's feeling hungry and
Speaker 1: wants to eat it alive.
Speaker 2: Wow, so this is a way for the mole to
Speaker 2: So it's like it's essentially like a refrigerator. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: your food doesn't go bad, it's it's alive still and
Speaker 2: you can just you just save it for later.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. It's like instead of having a fridge, you
Speaker 1: just have some live chickens in your home and every
Speaker 1: time you feel hungry, you just kill a chicken. And hey, folks,
Speaker 1: that's what a farm is.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: But yeah.
Speaker 2: That's wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, except I guess it's a more devious farm because
Speaker 1: the chickens are paralyzed, like you paralyze the chickens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's a little moreistic. Yeah seriously, so could
Speaker 2: you I know you said it's not harmful to humans,
Speaker 2: but can you microdose the venom? Like if af a
Speaker 2: mole bit you, what would happen?
Speaker 1: I mean, it would just hurt. I don't think it
Speaker 1: would make you feel any special kind of way. It
Speaker 1: would just they have very sharp little teeth. It probably
Speaker 1: hurt a lot. Maybe your finger might tingle a bit,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's gonna I think it's mostly
Speaker 1: just gonna be very painful.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, So don't still though your advice, your professional
Speaker 2: opinion is to not kiss a mole on the line.
Speaker 1: I would not kiss a mole on the mouth. I
Speaker 1: would not kiss all right, I would not kiss any
Speaker 1: wild animal on the mouth. Particularly.
Speaker 2: Did you see, uh, speaking of that, did you see
Speaker 2: there's an account on Twitter because I refuse to call
Speaker 2: it whatever he's calling it now, wild TikTok screens and
Speaker 2: this this woman basically she tried to give CPR to
Speaker 2: a wild rabbit and then she went to the er
Speaker 2: with some kind of you know, it's it's not toxoplasmas whatever,
Speaker 2: but it was like something it was like some kind
Speaker 2: of wild rabbit induced fever. And now she's like, has
Speaker 2: all these medical bills because she tried to save a
Speaker 2: wild rabbit. Yeah, by putting her mouth on its its face. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm an animal lover. But y'all don't don't do that.
Speaker 2: That is not smart at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't admit CPR to wild animals. Uh please they So,
Speaker 1: zoonosis is a thing. Zoonotic diseases, it is. Uh, diseases
Speaker 1: can jump from other animals to humans. It's rare. But again,
Speaker 1: it's like komodo dragons. Killing a human is rare. If
Speaker 1: you try to keep a komodo dragon is a pet
Speaker 1: and kiss it on the face, it's much more likely
Speaker 1: to attack you. It's the same thing with zoonotic disease.
Speaker 1: Notic disease is rare. Giving mouth to mouth french basically
Speaker 1: french kissing a wild rabbit makes it much more likely
Speaker 1: that you're going to catch something from the rabbit. And
Speaker 1: there I forgot the name of the diseases. But there
Speaker 1: are things you can catch from wild rabbits that are
Speaker 1: life threatening, Like you don't want to get those.
Speaker 2: No, not at all. So I found it and I
Speaker 2: was I was confusing it, so this I found. The
Speaker 2: Lady's tweet says two nights ago, I gave a wild
Speaker 2: baby rabbit CPR with breaths after I took it from
Speaker 2: my cat. Dear, Today, I'm being admitted to the hospital
Speaker 2: with signs of bunny fever. Oh no, tula remia. I'm
Speaker 2: on eight liters of oxygen, a cocktail of very expensive antibiotics,
Speaker 2: anti diuretics. Need light and love please, Yeah, like I
Speaker 2: know this. I know this lady's heart was in the
Speaker 2: right place.
Speaker 1: Her intentions were pure, but her stem was not ready
Speaker 1: for the rabbit fever. I mean, like I get it right,
Speaker 1: like you want to. I've had a cat kill a
Speaker 1: baby bunny and it's very sad. Yeah, what you should
Speaker 1: do in the case of your cat, if your cat's
Speaker 1: like injured the baby bunny to the point where it's
Speaker 1: like it looks like without help it's not gonna make it.
Speaker 1: You could either contact a wild rehab center or just
Speaker 1: merciful kill it, I would say, I mean, like that's
Speaker 1: kind of a call you'd have to make in the moment, right,
Speaker 1: Like if it seems like it might be savable again,
Speaker 1: like call a wild rehab center. They'll tell you what
Speaker 1: to do under no circumstances. Do you give mouth to
Speaker 1: mouth to a wild rabbit or to be safe any
Speaker 1: wild animal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that's just a good general rule of
Speaker 2: thumb to walk around in life with. As far as
Speaker 2: I'm concerned. I've seen people.
Speaker 1: I've seen people like touching marmots like aka groundhogs or
Speaker 1: prairie dogs and stuff in the wild, and it's like,
Speaker 1: y'all they carry the plague.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, yeah, it's very it's very rare.
Speaker 1: It's very rare. But again, once again, it's like that's
Speaker 1: how you do get the plague though, Like, so you
Speaker 1: know your chance even if you touch a wild marmot, sure,
Speaker 1: your your chance of getting plague is pretty low. But
Speaker 1: it's gone up from basically zero to like something something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anything less than zero is bad news.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to get the plague. So you know, just I
Speaker 1: would say, don't touch wild animals, even if they are
Speaker 1: cute and adorable. The I guess the exception would be
Speaker 1: you can touch earthwormsh just wash your hands afterwards. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't kiss them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't kiss an earthwork. Although people will eat earthworms,
Speaker 2: usually for money as a bet. Yeah, yeah, not not
Speaker 2: really my thing for sure. Now I will so having
Speaker 2: you know, appearing on on your show. Recently, I saved
Speaker 2: three baby squirrels that I think we had some bad
Speaker 2: storms and they came down out of a nest and
Speaker 2: we did bottle feed some baby squirrels and then got that,
Speaker 2: you know, as soon as we could get them to
Speaker 2: the rehab place. We did. But yeah, we took We
Speaker 2: took that advice which is always the best to contact
Speaker 2: your local wildlife rehab. And earlier this year, my puppy
Speaker 2: found a baby possum hanging onto a branch by itself
Speaker 2: in the backyard and we rescued that little guy as
Speaker 2: well took him to the wildlife rehab. So yeah, just
Speaker 2: keep your distance as much as you can. Although you know,
Speaker 2: like we wrapped them up to keep them warm and stuff,
Speaker 2: and we had to baby them a little bit. But
Speaker 2: you know, you don't want to imprint upon them or anything.
Speaker 2: You want to get them to professionals as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in that case, you were not giving them mouth
Speaker 1: to mouth.
Speaker 2: So I did want to kiss them. I didn't want
Speaker 2: to kiss them all on the forehead and tell them
Speaker 2: it would be okay, little bedtime story. Yeah, I wanted.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do that, but because I am a
Speaker 2: grown man, I am an adult, I fought my urge
Speaker 2: and did the responsible thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and I think and you still help them
Speaker 1: and got them to where they are the most likely
Speaker 1: to receive professional help. And you know, like it's okay
Speaker 1: if you need to like put a like kind of
Speaker 1: take care of them while you're waiting to deliver them
Speaker 1: to the rehab center, that's totally acceptable as long as
Speaker 1: you're not kissing them giving them mouth to mouth. Personally,
Speaker 1: I would like, uh, wear gloves, wash your hands. Gardening
Speaker 1: gloves are good to like prevent any like bites. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are some animals that you definitely don't want to
Speaker 1: like try to keep to rehab or approach things like bats.
Speaker 1: Like if you find a bat on the ground, do
Speaker 1: not touch it, don't pick it up. Uh, that is
Speaker 1: that's absolutely not something you want to want to do
Speaker 1: because like bats who are on the ground are While
Speaker 1: most bats do not carry rabies, ones that you find
Speaker 1: on the ground have are is someone that's sick, so
Speaker 1: that you're the chance that that one has rabies is
Speaker 1: more than like the general population because they typically don't
Speaker 1: hang out on the ground. Uh, and so the one
Speaker 1: anyone that you find on the ground, just don't don't
Speaker 1: pick up. Don't pick up a bat unless you're a
Speaker 1: special bat.
Speaker 2: And don't uh don't clean up bat poop either unless
Speaker 2: you have like like serious ppe. Yes, that's that. That
Speaker 2: stuff is full of all sorts of toxic.
Speaker 1: Stuff mouse poop too, like dried mouse poop, and especially
Speaker 1: in certain locations. Like that's how you get what's that
Speaker 1: mouse disease? I forgot what it's called mouse disease, mouse
Speaker 1: poop disease. I don't think it's called mouse poop disease.
Speaker 1: It's called something else.
Speaker 2: It should just be called mouse poop.
Speaker 1: Mouse mouse poop itis, mouse poop disease. It is a hantavirus,
Speaker 1: that's what it's called. Okay, ok yeah, I just think
Speaker 1: of that that remember House m D. I think of
Speaker 1: that meme of House like going like we're gonna use
Speaker 1: mouse poop as medicine.
Speaker 2: Wait, is that a real That's not a real line.
Speaker 1: That's not a real line. It's just okay, it's just
Speaker 1: making fun of the show. Because House it always come
Speaker 1: up with some kind of like and like very like
Speaker 1: weird treatment or like his methods were unorthodox, but then
Speaker 1: they always worked out. And in this case, it's like
Speaker 1: we have to use mouse Poops's medicine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't. It's like Magiver doesn't exactly work for
Speaker 2: the medical field. Yeahs, as much as these shows would
Speaker 2: have you believe. Yeah, like maybe every once in a
Speaker 2: while you can, like you know, Apollo thirteen somebody's medical
Speaker 2: case where you like use unorthodox methods, but for the
Speaker 2: most part it does not. The field I don't think
Speaker 2: works quite like.
Speaker 1: No, I've talked to doctors and like they say that
Speaker 1: Scrubs was the most accurate medical show of all.
Speaker 2: Oh that's funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely, it was like the portrayed the medical
Speaker 1: world like the most accurately, both scientific and in terms
Speaker 1: of vibes, which I thought, I think is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's what I've heard about, like Veep when
Speaker 2: it comes to actual politics and the stupid stuff that
Speaker 2: goes on behind the scenes, I've heard Veep is like
Speaker 2: far more accurate than the West Wing or any of
Speaker 2: these other prestige shows to deal with politics.
Speaker 1: Because life is life is ridiculous and silly.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly well, we're.
Speaker 1: Going to take a quick break and when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to find out if worms can be our savior.
Speaker 1: So we are going to talk about wax worms saliva,
Speaker 1: which is a magical manna from heaven.
Speaker 2: So wow, so you've already You've already asked if worms
Speaker 2: can be our savior, and now you're talking about heaven.
Speaker 2: I feel like this is about to get like a
Speaker 2: you know, a very religion heavy segment if involving Jesus worms.
Speaker 1: I'm not a Christian, but question for Christians, if Jesus
Speaker 1: was a worm, would you still love him?
Speaker 2: The age old question, you know, if Jesus was a worm. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if Jesus looked at you and said, hey if I
Speaker 2: was if I was a worm, would you still love me?
Speaker 2: What would your answer be? And if it's if it's
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't accept him into your heart as your savior,
Speaker 2: then you need to do some soul searching.
Speaker 1: There has to be a Bible verse that is essentially that, right,
Speaker 1: like a Bible verse where he's like if I come
Speaker 1: to you as a beggar or something like that, but
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, if I come to you as a worm,
Speaker 1: wouldst thou not still love.
Speaker 2: Me, oh man, which is why the Internet is our
Speaker 2: modern gospel. Yeah, you know, because it's asking all the
Speaker 2: same philosophical questions as any of the old sacred religious texts.
Speaker 1: Humanity is on a loop, just with like better technology.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm convinced.
Speaker 2: I'm as a flat circle, absolutely.
Speaker 1: So. Waxworms are the larval form of wax moths. They
Speaker 1: are relatively uninteresting looking. They're kind of gross. They're like
Speaker 1: your typical grub. They're white, kind of squiggly looking grub. Yep,
Speaker 1: they are, And wax moths are pretty kind of like
Speaker 1: drab looking moth. They're kind of tattered and ratty looking.
Speaker 1: They're neither of these forms. They don't really have a
Speaker 1: glow up or a glowdown. There's no glow about these things.
Speaker 1: They're just kind of eugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, they're they're pretty drab looking.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They sadly they they sadly do not have the
Speaker 1: riz I would say of uh, but despite their appearance,
Speaker 1: they are actually quite interesting. So the larval forms the
Speaker 1: waxworms are actually parasites of hive making bees. Like honey bees.
Speaker 1: They will in bee colonies and eat their pollen, the cocoons,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, they can even eat bees wax. So that
Speaker 1: is why they're called waxworms because they can eat bees wax.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, that's cool. So not not because they look
Speaker 2: like they're made out of wax, but because they can
Speaker 2: eat stuff that Have you ever tried you've munched on
Speaker 2: beeswax before?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Anything that could I could put in my mouth I have.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna put that out there.
Speaker 2: Well, that's good to know. Uh yeah, okay, so they's
Speaker 2: that's interesting. I would never in a million years have
Speaker 2: figured out that's why they called that the waxworm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Have you ever tried to eat wax lips?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Or the the wax like soda bottles.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or like the wax covering cheese.
Speaker 2: Yes, the outside rind, or like wax from your ears.
Speaker 1: Ah yes, well just just kidding.
Speaker 2: God, I made myself gag saying that. I'm sorry. Dude.
Speaker 1: I had a cat who was obsessed with earwax. He
Speaker 1: would like, go like go after my ear plugs after
Speaker 1: using them, and I it wasn't like it wasn't like
Speaker 1: disgusting because I keep my ears pretty clean because I
Speaker 1: can't really stand wax. But like, my cat was like
Speaker 1: obsessed with ear plugs and I think it was like
Speaker 1: that nasty, stinky ear smell. Apparently there's some kind of
Speaker 1: like fatty acid in ear wax that attracts some weird cats.
Speaker 2: Anyways, after such demonic little goblins grimlins, there's they're the
Speaker 2: best and the worst at the.
Speaker 1: Same Yeah, not even my dog has ever been as
Speaker 1: gross as that cat was. So the worms themselves, despite
Speaker 1: eating wax, because they convert the wax into sugars and proteins.
Speaker 1: The worms themselves are by a variety of animals, including humans.
Speaker 1: So these are an edible worm.
Speaker 2: Okay, ok, yeah, I think I've seen like clips of
Speaker 2: fear factor with waxworms.
Speaker 1: That would make sense. Yeah, I think typically they're cooked,
Speaker 1: but I believe you can eat them raw as well.
Speaker 1: You know, I wouldn't pick up any random looking worm
Speaker 1: and put it in your mouth. But yeah, so these
Speaker 1: worms are are used as food. So the due to
Speaker 1: their wax eating habits, their saliva is actually really really
Speaker 1: interesting and unique. So their saliva is loaded with enzymes
Speaker 1: that can break down wax, and researchers have found that
Speaker 1: these same enzymes can also break down plastics. So waxworm
Speaker 1: saliva breaks down polyethylene, which is a plastic used for
Speaker 1: disposable bags for packing materials. So it's a big kind
Speaker 1: of problem, right because we use a lot of plastic bags,
Speaker 1: a lot of packing materials and then just throw them out,
Speaker 1: and it's not something that typically can just decay naturally
Speaker 1: over short periods of times. It does break down eventually,
Speaker 1: but it takes a really long time. So the waxworm
Speaker 1: saliva can actually break down this plastic at room temperature
Speaker 1: within two hours, So it starts to break it down
Speaker 1: within two hours. That doesn't mean they can like neutralize
Speaker 1: an entire plastic bag in two hours. It's just the
Speaker 1: saliva starts to go to work and breaks down the
Speaker 1: polyethylene within two hours, which is actually really interesting and
Speaker 1: somewhat promising because it may be able to help in
Speaker 1: the biodegradation of this particular plastic.
Speaker 2: So, wow, that's trippy. That's so so would the so
Speaker 2: if you put like something plastic in a bin full
Speaker 2: of these things, would they attempt to eat it? Or
Speaker 2: is it just something that scientists have like isolated, Like
Speaker 2: have they isolated the saliva and just applied it to plastics?
Speaker 2: To see what would happen.
Speaker 1: So I think it's interesting because I think that they
Speaker 1: would if it has no other food, it would actually
Speaker 1: attempt to eat it. And the way they actually discovered
Speaker 1: this is I think there was a researcher who had
Speaker 1: some waxworms. I'm trying to remember why she had them,
Speaker 1: just as a hobby, maybe right, and she was she
Speaker 1: might have removed them from like her beehive or something,
Speaker 1: and she was putting them in a plastic bag and
Speaker 1: she noticed the plastic bag actually started to break down
Speaker 1: after she put them inside there. So I think I
Speaker 1: don't know that they would get much nutrition from the plastic,
Speaker 1: but if you put no other food in there, I
Speaker 1: believe they would try to eat the plastic bag. It's
Speaker 1: probably not great for them.
Speaker 2: But yeah, probably not.
Speaker 1: But so you know, one would think like, well, we
Speaker 1: can just throw a bunch of these worms in landfills
Speaker 1: and problem solved. The problem is that to have enough
Speaker 1: of these worms to break down all of the plastics
Speaker 1: that we have represents an incredible amount of worm biomass.
Speaker 1: So biomass is also something that can produce carbon dioxide,
Speaker 1: so we kind of need It's not like we can
Speaker 1: still just like waste as much plastic as we want,
Speaker 1: that's not true. But potentially, either through the worms or
Speaker 1: through isolating their saliva, there is some hope that this
Speaker 1: might help us with the waste that we already have
Speaker 1: and future waste in terms of breaking it down and
Speaker 1: increasing the rate of the biodegradation. So I think it's promising,
Speaker 1: but it's not the answer to the question. Can we
Speaker 1: just throw worms on the problem and expect it to
Speaker 1: go away? Is like not really, but if we work
Speaker 1: with the worms, we may find a solution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I was just thinking, like, also, worms
Speaker 2: turn into moths, so that like I'm just thinking like
Speaker 2: if you did try to increase the biomass of worms
Speaker 2: around like a landfill or something, would that increase? Like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm just imagining the domino effect of the ecosystem around there,
Speaker 2: like these these moths moth population exploding. Do the wax
Speaker 2: moths then, you know, take food supply from other species,
Speaker 2: Do what's feeding on the wax moths? Yeah, it would
Speaker 2: Like definitely, I love the potential that there is here,
Speaker 2: but it offers a lot of kind of questions that
Speaker 2: create a conundrum as far as the domino effect goes.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is exactly the right question to ask.
Speaker 1: That is a question that should have been asked by
Speaker 1: the people who introduce the cane toad to Australia tea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, eat.
Speaker 1: Sugar cane bugs. It should have been the question asked
Speaker 1: by people who introduce mongooses to countless islands to eat snakes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, that is that is absolutely the right question
Speaker 1: to ask. Like, how would introducing a huge amount of
Speaker 1: waxworms to say, like a landfill or something affect the
Speaker 1: local ecology? And you know, like potentially if you have
Speaker 1: a bunch of these saying like a laboratory setting, you
Speaker 1: can control that by not just like releasing them out
Speaker 1: into the wild. But yeah, it's it's these are the
Speaker 1: considerations that we have to make when it's like, well,
Speaker 1: we found this cool property of this animal. Can we
Speaker 1: just make a whole bunch of these animals and throw
Speaker 1: them out, let them do what they will. It is
Speaker 1: very difficult for us to know and predict exactly what
Speaker 1: impacts that has. And like you said, it's a domino effect.
Speaker 1: It's like trying to remove one piece of a Djenga
Speaker 1: tower and you might not realize that that was the
Speaker 1: load bearing Jenga piece. Ah, so yeah exactly, but it's
Speaker 1: you know, they're still pretty cool and hopefully we can
Speaker 1: figure out how to use them to help us without
Speaker 1: accidentally creating like a monster that eats all the plastic
Speaker 1: in the world. Actually, I guess that wouldn't be so bad, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, just one one giant monster that ate all
Speaker 2: the plastic in the world. Like you just have to
Speaker 2: keep that one creature in check. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 2: feel like we could come together as a planet maybe.
Speaker 1: For that Godzilla.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess it.
Speaker 1: Like a math mathra was right there, but I didn't
Speaker 1: go for it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yep, yep, like giant Mathra. Yeah, giant waxworm mathra.
Speaker 2: That's so. This is like this always reminds me or
Speaker 2: kind of like recenters, the notion that everything, no matter
Speaker 2: how synthetic, originates as organic matter. Yes, and and same
Speaker 2: thing with with plastics. Like I look at like a
Speaker 2: plastic hanger beside me, and I think, well, that's completely
Speaker 2: man made and synthetic. But when you break down the
Speaker 2: components and you go back far enough, it it all
Speaker 2: comes out of the ground essentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It always, it always does. So no matter, like even
Speaker 2: though waxworms didn't evolve to eat plastic, their ability to
Speaker 2: find the organic molecule in the plastics is just is
Speaker 2: so trippy to think about. And it's similar to like
Speaker 2: the I remember hearing about bacteria in the ocean that
Speaker 2: was capable of eating like oil spills, crude oil spills
Speaker 2: and basically pollution from you know, our terrible treatment of
Speaker 2: our waters. And how how just trippy that is that
Speaker 2: It's like, no, everything eventually is going to break down
Speaker 2: because it started broken down. We just put it all
Speaker 2: together with science and it will return eventually eventually.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the problem is how long the eventually? Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, no, Like bacteria are very similar in that
Speaker 1: they can, you know, help break down things that seem
Speaker 1: toxic or inable to any living creature. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you have the same problems as like throwing worms
Speaker 1: on the problem which is like bacteria of course create byproducts.
Speaker 1: It could be better than an oil spill, but it
Speaker 1: could also have unpredictable effects. So it's it's a useful thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's something that is promising, but it's also like
Speaker 1: I don't think we can just be like, well, we
Speaker 1: can spill oil everywhere, use plastic eyes all the time,
Speaker 1: and it'll be fine. It's still better, and.
Speaker 2: Inevitably that will be the lesson that we take from it.
Speaker 2: But it shouldn't be. But yes, we we we love
Speaker 2: coming up with solutions and going well, that solved that.
Speaker 2: I guess we can. We can keep keep on keeping on,
Speaker 2: you know. It's it's just we always, without fail take
Speaker 2: the wrong lessons from whatever advancements we make.
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, yeah, Unfortunately, I think there's hope
Speaker 1: for the future though. The kids are all right. Maybe
Speaker 1: they'll they are they are, Maybe they'll figure finally figure
Speaker 1: out not to throw more worms on the problem. But
Speaker 1: we'll see.
Speaker 2: It does sound fun, though, Throwing worms on your problems
Speaker 2: sounds like kind of a blast, you know what. You
Speaker 2: know what that sounds like. It just sounds like taking
Speaker 2: up fishing. It sounds like it sounds like, you know, you're, you're,
Speaker 2: you know what. I'm in a kind of a rut
Speaker 2: right now. I'm gonna go fishing. Uh And that's like
Speaker 2: the most like you know, old man boomer humor type
Speaker 2: of thing. But uh, you know, just hang a sign
Speaker 2: up on your door that says gone fishing. Uh, and
Speaker 2: go sit by a lake and throw worms on your problems.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'd take a Dale Gribble approach and
Speaker 1: just have some pocket worms that I throw on someone
Speaker 1: that I don't want to talk to you anymore.
Speaker 2: Oh that's even better.
Speaker 1: They would be distracted.
Speaker 2: That I would be uh, rendered speechless, I can honestly admit,
Speaker 2: and that rarely happens to me.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I feel like it's a good technique. Well it
Speaker 1: is right before we go, Well, do you want to
Speaker 1: play a little game?
Speaker 2: Sure? Love to.
Speaker 1: This is called Guess Who's squawk and the Mystery Animal
Speaker 1: Sound Game. Every week I play a mystery animal sound
Speaker 1: and you the listener, and.
Speaker 3: You the guests, try to guess who is.
Speaker 1: Making that sound. So last week's mystery animal sound hint
Speaker 1: was this. I hope it doesn't have a sore throat.
Speaker 3: That be a doozy.
Speaker 1: Can you guess who is making that sound? M?
Speaker 2: I want to say a giraffe.
Speaker 1: You are absolutely correct, as well as listeners Asher P,
Speaker 1: Emily M, and Joey P. Congratulations, you are right. It
Speaker 1: is a giraffe. So, giraffes aren't known for being particularly vocal,
Speaker 1: but they do make some sounds like they're grunting that
Speaker 1: you just heard There's sounds are somewhat mysterious to behavioral
Speaker 1: researchers and haven't been absolutely determined yet, like whether they're
Speaker 1: a form of communication and if so, what exactly they're communicating,
Speaker 1: But current research suggests that snorting and hissing may have
Speaker 1: something to do with defensiveness. Aside from snorts and grunts,
Speaker 1: giraffes seem to hum at night, and the exact purpose
Speaker 1: of this low frequency humming is unknown, but it's thought
Speaker 1: that it could potentially be a form of communication. Giraffe
Speaker 1: social life is fission fusion, which means that group composition
Speaker 1: can change fluidly over time. It's like in high school
Speaker 1: if you just have groups of friends that change throughout
Speaker 1: the semester. Giraffes are like that, they're fair weather friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they I mean, you get like a new hot
Speaker 2: giraffe that shows up, and everybody wants to be the
Speaker 2: hot giraffe friend, and you kind of leave your less
Speaker 2: hot you know, giraffe friends behind, and this is it's messy.
Speaker 2: It's it's a whole whole messy thing.
Speaker 1: Just because Giraffica got her braces off and now she
Speaker 1: looks super hot every once in a while.
Speaker 2: Exactly, friend, exactly.
Speaker 1: So annoying it is, it is.
Speaker 2: Have you ever have you ever handfed giraffes before?
Speaker 1: I have not. I'd love to, though that sounds thrilling.
Speaker 2: It It is the trippiest you think you it's it's
Speaker 2: one of those animals where you picture in your head
Speaker 2: and you think you know what it looks like, and
Speaker 2: then you're face to face with one and you're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is the wildest looking creature I've
Speaker 2: ever seen in my life. Like it is. It's it's
Speaker 2: just one of those animals. It's like a zebra or
Speaker 2: an elephant or a rhino. You you you grow up
Speaker 2: with these these animals, you know, like toys of them
Speaker 2: or cartoons and stuff, and then you see one in
Speaker 2: person there Their heads are so massive. Yes, I've mentioned
Speaker 2: it before being on here. We have the Ashburo Zoo
Speaker 2: here in North Carolina. Incredible, incredible place and you can
Speaker 2: walk up onto the platform and for like three dollars
Speaker 2: feed it like heads of lettuce and carrots and stuff,
Speaker 2: and it is the coolest experience. I highly recommend that
Speaker 2: to anybody who happens to be traveling through North Carolina
Speaker 2: stop at the Ashborough Zoo and feed the giraffes.
Speaker 1: I think I'd be intimidated. I'm already intimidated by horses.
Speaker 1: I greatly respect horses because they're so large, and I
Speaker 1: think that we sure we just we don't get stomped
Speaker 1: up by them, just through their merciful nature.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I feel like if I saw a giraffe, I
Speaker 1: would just like bow in front of them and be like,
Speaker 1: please spare me, sir.
Speaker 2: Even if you don't hand feed them, you have to
Speaker 2: just walk up on the platform and just because there,
Speaker 2: their heads are just like level with you, so you
Speaker 2: can't really like get in where you're standing or anything.
Speaker 2: But their tongues are so long and so massive. It
Speaker 2: is the trippiest looking thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 1: They can strangle you with their tongues, yes.
Speaker 2: Just about, just about seriously.
Speaker 1: Because they're merciful that they don't.
Speaker 2: It's true. It's true.
Speaker 1: It's strong tongues too, because they use them to like
Speaker 1: rip off leaves off of trees.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yep, they rip whole branches down.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've got we are so lucky that
Speaker 1: they're herbivores so lucky.
Speaker 2: Seriously.
Speaker 1: Also, speaking of giraffes and zoos, a baby giraffe with
Speaker 1: no spots was born at a Tennessee zoo. So it's
Speaker 1: like entirely brown. It's very cute. It's like kind of
Speaker 1: awesome looking because we just tape for granted that girafts
Speaker 1: are spotty, and this one has a unique mutation where
Speaker 1: it does not have spots, so it.
Speaker 2: Is that's so cool.
Speaker 1: It's just very cool looking. I mean, it's like usually
Speaker 1: we wouldn't think of it as being like something that's
Speaker 1: just a solid color as being cool, but like when
Speaker 1: you see it and you're expecting something else from a giraffe,
Speaker 1: it's just it's very cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has. Are there cases of like zebras being
Speaker 2: born without their stripes?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely?
Speaker 2: Oh well that's trippy about yeah, huh, I have to
Speaker 2: I have to look this up now. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Oh, that is the.
Speaker 2: Cutest thing I've ever seen. Like, giraffes are already adorable.
Speaker 2: That is so cute. Okay, Katie, Yes, do giraffes have
Speaker 2: poisonous saliva or venomous saliva?
Speaker 1: Not that I'm aware of, So.
Speaker 2: I can't have this one as a pet. I can't
Speaker 2: have a giraffe as a pet, is what you're saying,
Speaker 2: You're like publicly endorsed.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely what I'm publicly endorsing pets for. Sweet sure,
Speaker 1: don't do it.
Speaker 2: This is the cutest thing in the worldld oh Man,
Speaker 2: so trippy looking. I can't. It's like it's like when
Speaker 2: you grow up in your town and you're bored by
Speaker 2: everything and you hate it, and then you like go
Speaker 2: out into the world and then you come back to
Speaker 2: your town and you realize, like, oh, as an adult,
Speaker 2: this is like such a cool place to live.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like you like grow in appreciations, like growing up
Speaker 2: at the beach, you know, Yeah, and you take the
Speaker 2: ocean for granted, and then you move away from it
Speaker 2: and then you miss it all the time, and then
Speaker 2: you come back and you kind of rediscover things. That's
Speaker 2: kind of how it is with these large animals that
Speaker 2: I'm talking about, like the rhino or the elephant or
Speaker 2: zebra and you know, tiger, lions all that stuff, Like
Speaker 2: when you just like examine one with like a fresh perspective. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like, how do these things actually exist? This is
Speaker 2: the trippiest thing I think.
Speaker 1: It's because like, without the spots, it messes with our
Speaker 1: pattern recognition and our brain right where expecting a giraffe
Speaker 1: to have spots and so and we've seen so many
Speaker 1: giraffes just through you know, picture books whatever that we are.
Speaker 1: We aren't wowed by a giraffe. Maybe in person we are,
Speaker 1: but just seeing it in a book, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a giraffe, just seeing a picture of it, but
Speaker 1: like when it doesn't have the spots, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's neck is super long. Like I really hope this
Speaker 1: one is healthy and makes it to adulthood because I
Speaker 1: think seeing an all tan fully grown giraffe will really
Speaker 1: just kind of because it's because it's not falling into
Speaker 1: your brain's archetype of what a giraffe is. It's just
Speaker 1: gonna be very startling to see, like, well, this animal
Speaker 1: is actually really huge, Like this is actually a gigantic animal.
Speaker 1: So that's very exciting. All right, onto this week's mystery animal.
Speaker 1: Sound the hint, you'd better not step over the line
Speaker 1: with this grounded animal. All right, do you have any
Speaker 1: guesses for what this animal is?
Speaker 3: Huh?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with a bird of some sort but
Speaker 2: I am so bad at bird calls. My wife has
Speaker 2: gotten so good listening to the birds in our backyard.
Speaker 2: She knows them, she knows all of their songs.
Speaker 1: By now, Oh, you want to call your wife in here,
Speaker 1: I will.
Speaker 2: Not use a lifeline. I wouldn't even know. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go with my favorite bird, the tufted tit mouse.
Speaker 1: Oh cute. Well, we'll find out next time whether you
Speaker 1: are correct on the next episode of Creature Feature Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you?
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me again, Katie anytime.
Speaker 2: You can find me on Twitter still at the Wopple House.
Speaker 2: Had to which accounts since last time, dude to some
Speaker 2: very stupid reasons. I won't get into but at the
Speaker 2: Wopple House. And you can find me on George Center.
Speaker 2: That's at George Center Pod. Yeah, I'm on Blue Sky
Speaker 2: now as well at Wopple House, and George Center's on
Speaker 2: there as well, and get it wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for listening. If you think
Speaker 1: you know who's squawking on this episode, or you've got
Speaker 1: any questions, you can write to me at Creature Feature
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com. I've also finally given in
Speaker 1: and I have a TikTok. It is Katie Golden. That's
Speaker 1: k A t I E g O L d I
Speaker 1: N one word, and I'm posting animal content on that
Speaker 1: and it's a brand new account. I'm just a little baby.
Speaker 1: I'm a little baby on TikTok. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. Be nice to me. I guess.
Speaker 2: So are you, Katie? Not to interrupt you, are you
Speaker 2: going to be doing TikTok dances of animals from the
Speaker 2: Animal Kingdom?
Speaker 1: Oh, now that you've said it, I have to do it.
Speaker 3: I hate that.
Speaker 1: I hate that I have to do.
Speaker 2: That, Like rituals of like birds and stuff, you have to.
Speaker 1: I guess I got it. I guess I gotta do
Speaker 1: that now.
Speaker 2: Thanks, I'm sorry. Thanks a lot your whole experience.
Speaker 1: Now I have to do that. But yeah, I'm giving
Speaker 1: out animal facts and also playing the Mystery Animal sound
Speaker 1: game on on the TikTok. So we've got we've got
Speaker 1: even more opportunities for you to guess animal sounds. So
Speaker 1: check that out again. It's k A t I E
Speaker 1: G O L D I N on TikTok, And thank
Speaker 1: you guys, so much for listening, and thanks to the
Speaker 1: Space Cossics for their super awesome song XO. Lumina Creature
Speaker 1: features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the
Speaker 1: one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or Hey guess what where you listen to your favorite shows?
Speaker 1: I don't care, do what you want? Your mother? See
Speaker 1: you next Wednesday
Speaker 2: Mhm.