Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: Creature Feature. It's Creature Cringle Times, a holiday special about
Speaker 2: our furry friends. Today we'll learn how hibernation works and
Speaker 2: what's up with these chabby bears, snail hibernas, leivers with
Speaker 2: fat tails.
Speaker 3: Join us as we learn and love in the sleepy
Speaker 3: little penguins perfect power naps. It's a sleepy, cozy winter time.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeart Radio. I'm your
Speaker 1: host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology, and on today's special Kringle Time show, we're
Speaker 1: getting cozy and snugly and talking about the world's best,
Speaker 1: most creative, and most interesting sleepers. From hibernations to teeny naps,
Speaker 1: these wintery animals know how to catch a few holiday z's.
Speaker 3: Happy Creature Ring, Happy Creature, Ring, Happy Creature.
Speaker 1: Joining me today is comedian and host of the podcast
Speaker 1: Jeff Has Cool Friends and Other great podcasts.
Speaker 4: Jeff May welcome. Hey, I just woke up. This is great. Yeah, fact,
Speaker 4: I just dehibernated. Be mad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite way to get cozy during the winter?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're still in La, right, I am.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get too cold there, but it's still nice
Speaker 1: to get cozy.
Speaker 4: So it actually gets really cold inside. I don't know
Speaker 4: if you remember La, but there's no insulation in any
Speaker 4: of the houses, so for example, like in my house
Speaker 4: right now, it's like the high fifties. So yeah, not
Speaker 4: what you would think would be great. I actually prefer
Speaker 4: a fireplace. Yeah, airplace. I had a fire last night.
Speaker 4: It was delightful. That really is something for me. It's
Speaker 4: getting pricey, getting a little pricey. The wood has gone up.
Speaker 4: But I do like that. I like being inside where
Speaker 4: it is not bad while the weather is bad.
Speaker 1: It's the best feeling. It's the best. I'm finally living
Speaker 1: somewhere where it does occasionally snow, which I love. And
Speaker 1: I also just like being inside watching either rain or snow.
Speaker 1: But you're cozy and you're warm, and you're under a blanket,
Speaker 1: maybe you even have a hot drink. It's just such
Speaker 1: a good feeling. It's like this intense smugness about your
Speaker 1: position versus like the weather outside. It's like a very
Speaker 1: cozy smugness and I love it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it turns out that the weather outside is actually frightful, right, but.
Speaker 1: The fire inside.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, wow, that's delightful.
Speaker 1: Right, that can be delightful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I very much am that as a new Englander.
Speaker 4: Like snow is two is two things for me. One,
Speaker 4: it is a dangerous labor because you have to like
Speaker 4: shovel your driveway or you know, you have to drive
Speaker 4: extra specially careful carefully. I don't know I didn't add
Speaker 4: an adverb into that sentence. But then on top of
Speaker 4: that too, like being inside when it snows is the best, right, Yeah, no,
Speaker 4: you like you forget you're just sitting there. Although when
Speaker 4: I was a homeowner, I would look outside and see
Speaker 4: the snow and be like, yeah, should I go pre
Speaker 4: shovel right now? So it's not super bad tomorrow. Like
Speaker 4: that's the energy that I was bringing to homeowners, real
Speaker 4: dad energy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never had a home while I lived, like
Speaker 1: a suburban home where I'd actually have to shovel snow
Speaker 1: or deal with it. So I've always just had a
Speaker 1: good time in the snow because i haven't had a
Speaker 1: car or home while being in an area with snow.
Speaker 4: So that's the labor of snow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, disappears right exactly, But yeah, very very on theme,
Speaker 1: because today we are talking about animals who do their
Speaker 1: best to avoid the discomforts of winter in bad weather
Speaker 1: and we'll just sleep it off, but in very specific
Speaker 1: physiological ways. So first we're going to talk about bears
Speaker 1: and this idea of bear hibernation. Now there's going to
Speaker 1: be a twist here, so get ready for that. But
Speaker 1: first let's talk about fat Bear Week. So have you
Speaker 1: heard of fat Bear Week?
Speaker 4: I love fat Bear Week, so good course, standard Bear
Speaker 4: Week as a Massachusetts former Massachusetts residence Bear Week itself,
Speaker 4: of course very popular in Provincetown in the summertime. Fat
Speaker 4: Bear Week, that is a winter holiday.
Speaker 1: The Fat Bear Week is a celebration by the Cathmeae
Speaker 1: National Park and Preserve in Alaska of the bears in
Speaker 1: the park putting on their winter weight. This year, it
Speaker 1: happened in October and ended on what the Park Service
Speaker 1: calls fat Bear Tuesday. So the way it works is
Speaker 1: that the public is allowed to watch the bears on
Speaker 1: these park cams and then vote online at fatbearweek dot org. Obviously,
Speaker 1: fat Bear Week has already happened, so a winner has
Speaker 1: been crowned. It was a female bear named Grazier, who
Speaker 1: is a light brown bear with blonde, fluffy ears who
Speaker 1: is described by the Fat Bear Week website as a
Speaker 1: very tough lady. She's raised two sets of cubs and
Speaker 1: is so protected her cubs. She'll go on the offense
Speaker 1: against male bears who get too close, even bears that
Speaker 1: are bigger than herself. She is famous for being the
Speaker 1: most defensive bold mother bear in the current bear lineup
Speaker 1: in Catmi National Park.
Speaker 4: I love this. I love all this information, but I
Speaker 4: do feel like we did sort of gloss over the
Speaker 4: fact that they do Fat Bear Tuesday, yeah, which is
Speaker 4: what Mardi Gras d'Ors or something like that, like it's
Speaker 4: Mardi Gras, Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for bears, I love.
Speaker 4: I love all of that energy in there. And I
Speaker 4: love that she just partied. She's got some bead around,
Speaker 4: beads around her neck, and she is just chasing dudes off.
Speaker 4: I love that about her.
Speaker 1: Yes, And she and these bears. Every year, bears put
Speaker 1: on an enormous amount of weight in the summer and
Speaker 1: fall uh to survive the winter. And so the point
Speaker 1: of Fat Bear Week is to celebrate these bears and
Speaker 1: all their girth and you know, pick out one of
Speaker 1: the bears, who has one. I mean, it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's necessarily just a way in right, they're
Speaker 1: not because they're not weighing these bears. It's not all
Speaker 1: just about the size. It's about the public's favorite. So
Speaker 1: the favorite one usually it's one that has indeed put
Speaker 1: on a bunch of weight. But there's you know, other
Speaker 1: aspects to their personality that can win them boats.
Speaker 4: Now the photo that you shared first off, must hug bear. Yeah, bear,
Speaker 4: it's friend. And then the information that you shared bear
Speaker 4: is not friend.
Speaker 1: Bear is not friend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's also but also bear's friend.
Speaker 1: This is the contradiction of bear. This is the biggest
Speaker 1: sort of like it is an The oxymoron of the
Speaker 1: bear is that they look like the world's most huggable animal,
Speaker 1: and in fact, they may be one of the world's
Speaker 1: least huggable animals in terms of the speed with which
Speaker 1: they could rind your bones from flesh and absolutely turn
Speaker 1: you into a sort of meat and bone salad. Is
Speaker 1: it's very impressive, like you know so, But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, they do look really huggable a friend, Yes,
Speaker 1: like if I had to if I had to be
Speaker 1: executed for some reason for one of my many crimes.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'd want to do execution by bear hug, Like,
Speaker 1: let me hug a bear. Yeah, death by bear where
Speaker 1: I give it a hug and it, you know, does
Speaker 1: its thing and at least I go out on a
Speaker 1: high note.
Speaker 4: And you get to help out fat bear week, right exactly,
Speaker 4: be like I'm going to feed myself to my favorite
Speaker 4: bear that I have put money on.
Speaker 1: I become part of the bear. In reality, this would
Speaker 1: be really bad because then once the bear gets a
Speaker 1: taste of delicious human, it would probably go after other
Speaker 1: people and then they'd euthanize the bear.
Speaker 4: It is it? Historically speaking, we don't taste great? Is that?
Speaker 4: Is that right? Like? I know that like sharks, sharks
Speaker 4: aren't actually fans of our flavor.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's a fat to like bone ratio.
Speaker 1: And also we have clothing, and I think all of
Speaker 1: that is kind of off.
Speaker 4: But there are frogs legs, Yeah.
Speaker 1: There are, Yeah, We're a little We're just not. It's
Speaker 1: like like with insects, right, Like we are not used
Speaker 1: to eating insects. I mean some cultures, certainly they do
Speaker 1: eat insects, but when you're raised in a culture where
Speaker 1: you don't eat them. If someone's like, here, you have
Speaker 1: this cricket and you're like, ah, this kind of feels weird.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean the cricket tastes bad. It's just
Speaker 1: that you're not used to it. So for a lot
Speaker 1: of animals, I would think they're just not used to
Speaker 1: the human taste and or texture. But there are a
Speaker 1: copy Yeah, it's like it's an acquired taste. But certainly
Speaker 1: there are animals like polar bears who will absolutely look
Speaker 1: at a human and be like, yeah, I could, I
Speaker 1: could chow down on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean in nature there's there's options, but if
Speaker 4: there's no options, they are like women to eat that obviously.
Speaker 1: Right of course. Yeah, and bears will potentially eat people.
Speaker 1: I mean typically though, like even grizzly bears don't generally
Speaker 1: go after humans, but but they can. They will if,
Speaker 1: especially if they feel threatened or you try to get close.
Speaker 4: To them, or they do a lot of cocaine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, there's that Cocaine Bear movie, which is
Speaker 1: really kind of I feel like you're really setting a
Speaker 1: bad example for bears, and I feel like we need
Speaker 1: to do like a dare program for bears like bear
Speaker 1: Beardar to teach them that no cocaine is actually really
Speaker 1: bad for bears. Don't do it just because you saw
Speaker 1: a bear on the movies.
Speaker 4: Maybe you could do it not being so lame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know.
Speaker 4: With that, maybe stop trying to ruin the party.
Speaker 1: You know, I just I want my bears thick and
Speaker 1: fat and full of salmon.
Speaker 4: So bear body shaming are you because no.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that. I'm I'm I'm just saying that the
Speaker 1: best bears are fat bears.
Speaker 4: Okay, well I'm saying all bears are beautiful. So like
Speaker 4: mark that down. Put that in the notes for people
Speaker 4: when they listen to by bears.
Speaker 1: So why do these bears put on so much weight?
Speaker 1: It's not just to look amazing. It is which you
Speaker 1: can actually see these before after photos of these bears.
Speaker 4: If you go to Rubenesque Bears.
Speaker 1: They are Rubenesque bears. Go to explore dot org slash
Speaker 1: meet the dash Bears. I'll put that link in the footnotes.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's really cool because you can see live
Speaker 1: streams of parks, old videos of bears like eating fish
Speaker 1: and stuff, and also the before after pictures of bears
Speaker 1: after having bulked up. But yeah, they put on this
Speaker 1: huge amount of fat so that they can get through
Speaker 1: the winter, and they go into this state of dormancy
Speaker 1: during the winter. This is often called hibernation, but if
Speaker 1: you're being really picky, bears are not true hibernators. It's
Speaker 1: kind of weird because they're like kind of the poster
Speaker 1: bear for hibernation, and yet what they do in the
Speaker 1: winter is technically not exactly hibernation. So hibernation is a
Speaker 1: type of prolonged inactivity characterized by physiological changes where the
Speaker 1: rate of breathing is slowed, the heart rate is slowed,
Speaker 1: and body temperature drops. This helps slow the metabolism so
Speaker 1: the animal can live off of their energy stores and
Speaker 1: survive the winter, which is generally harsh and nutrient poor,
Speaker 1: and so lots of animals hibernate, from rodents to bats,
Speaker 1: But technically bears do not hibernate. They do enter a
Speaker 1: state of torpoor, which just means a state of reduced
Speaker 1: activity and which includes a lot of sleep, a lot
Speaker 1: of rest, a lot of like not really doing anything.
Speaker 1: Celebrities just like us, just like just like podcasters, there
Speaker 1: are some physio changes that bears go through, including bulking up.
Speaker 1: Their heart rate, breathing and metal ballic rate do slow
Speaker 1: down when they are in deep sleep, but their body
Speaker 1: temperature does not drop, and they can actually wake up
Speaker 1: relatively easy, which is unlike hibernators. In fact, female bears
Speaker 1: generally have to wake up from their torpoor in order
Speaker 1: to give birth during the winter, which is when they
Speaker 1: typically give birth. So they'll be, you know, in the
Speaker 1: state of torpoor, snooze and be like, op, gotta gotta
Speaker 1: wake up, gotta gotta push out of the cups. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this winter dormancy that bears go through is still
Speaker 1: really impressive. They can go for months without needing to
Speaker 1: urinate or defecate. The poop in their intestines actually remains
Speaker 1: there whatever's left before because they go before they hibernate.
Speaker 1: So they have like basically this fecal plug. They're very like,
Speaker 1: I guess, hard and thick, and it stays in the intestines.
Speaker 1: It's slow moving and then it just kind of like
Speaker 1: dries out. The intestines absorb a lot of the fluids
Speaker 1: from this fecal matter and then it forms this hard plug.
Speaker 1: And so this their intestines basically slow down, their kidney
Speaker 1: function grinds to a halt, and they don't urinate. Like
Speaker 1: you know that feeling when you're super cozy in bed,
Speaker 1: you're really warm and it's cold and like you have
Speaker 1: to peep, but you're like it can wait, Like I
Speaker 1: know I should get up and pee, but it can wait,
Speaker 1: and you just stay in bed and you're like, ah,
Speaker 1: I should pee, but then you don't, and then you
Speaker 1: dream about like trying to find a bathroom, but you
Speaker 1: can't find one all because you just don't want to
Speaker 1: leave bed because it's too warm.
Speaker 4: You know what's funny is I have this weird, insane
Speaker 4: fear of beeing the bed. I don't know why, Like
Speaker 4: I've nevergett had then to have that fear, but I do.
Speaker 4: I have that fear. And so if that feeling, if
Speaker 4: I'm cozy in bed and that feeling hits, I'm like,
Speaker 4: I got to do this or else I'm going to
Speaker 4: pee the bed and everyone will find out they'll have
Speaker 4: to buy a new mattress. Like I very much have
Speaker 4: that thought in my head at all.
Speaker 1: I like to roll the dye. Someday it might burn me,
Speaker 1: but I like to roll that dye. Yeah, actually, so
Speaker 1: with the with the urination for bears, they can still
Speaker 1: produce urea, but what they do is they recycle it
Speaker 1: into proteins and that means they don't have to pee
Speaker 1: and they there because while they're you know, in their
Speaker 1: state of torpor, they are converting the fat that they've
Speaker 1: built up into usable nutrients to keep them alive, to
Speaker 1: keep their muscle mouse from deteriorating. So they're living off
Speaker 1: of that. So even though that process does create urea,
Speaker 1: they recycle that into helping them build muscle. There is
Speaker 1: actually a paper studying the bear eurothelium, which is the
Speaker 1: lining of the urinary tract. The paper is called the
Speaker 1: eurothelium of a hibernator, the American Black Bear. So like
Speaker 1: just so you know, like a lot of people still
Speaker 1: call what bears do hibernation, even like researchers and biologists,
Speaker 1: even though.
Speaker 4: It's colloquialism at this point, like it's a widely it's
Speaker 4: like when literally and figuratively are now interchangeable because the
Speaker 4: language has accepted it as so yeah.
Speaker 1: No, exactly, and it's like it's a subtle distinction, right,
Speaker 1: Like true hibernators their body temperature drops and bears theres don't.
Speaker 1: They can wake up easier, so it's like it's a
Speaker 1: subtle delineation.
Speaker 4: My question for your New England listeners is when Katie
Speaker 4: said black Bear, did you guys immediately because of what
Speaker 4: we've been talking about, did all of you start thinking
Speaker 4: about Clark's Trading Post in New Hampshire. Because Clark's Trading
Speaker 4: Post is a very famous New England attraction that is
Speaker 4: propagated and sort of pushed as this big trained black
Speaker 4: bear haven. It is the most New England kind of
Speaker 4: quote theme park slash experience that you could possibly imagine,
Speaker 4: where it's just trained black bears and weird stuff the
Speaker 4: whole time, but it's an aggressively New England thing.
Speaker 1: Is that the one where like the bears stand on
Speaker 1: their hind legs or something.
Speaker 4: For They do a lot of stuff. They climb up
Speaker 4: poles for fun, they like roll around in barrels, they
Speaker 4: eat ice cream, they live like they do. I'm assuming
Speaker 4: that the version of ice cream that they have is
Speaker 4: something that they make for the bears. I'm not going
Speaker 4: to pretend that I know enough about Clark's Trading Post
Speaker 4: to guarantee you that these are not abused bears. But
Speaker 4: what I can tell you is I have seen the
Speaker 4: bears many times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah, I don't want to make any
Speaker 1: judgments not knowing exactly what what it is, but in general,
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical. I'm always skeptical of like when animals are
Speaker 1: in entertainment, like SeaWorld or this Clark's Trading Post.
Speaker 4: But yeah, and nothing can be like, oh, well, we've
Speaker 4: been doing it for so long. I'm like, yeah, that
Speaker 4: kind of makes me feel like, you guys did it worse. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's Clark's Bears. Do they call it Clark's Bears now?
Speaker 4: They literally changed the name named Clark's Trading Post until
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen. This is huge.
Speaker 1: I mean, it does make sense if your main thing
Speaker 1: is bears to have bears in the title, because like
Speaker 1: when it's like Clark's Trading Post, that sounds super boring.
Speaker 1: If you're like Clark's Bears that eat ice cream, now
Speaker 1: you've got something.
Speaker 4: If you do a quick cursory Google image search, the
Speaker 4: second photo will give you the entire gist of what
Speaker 4: Clark's Bears. I hate saying that Clark's Trading Post is
Speaker 4: all about, because there's like a weird mountain man that
Speaker 4: like chases the train tour. There's trained bears. It is
Speaker 4: a glorious experience. And coming on here talking about bears,
Speaker 4: I would feel like it was my duty to at
Speaker 4: least say there is an absolute trained bear theme park
Speaker 4: that was from my health.
Speaker 1: There's like a bear in a small car. Look, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie and say like I don't get some
Speaker 1: kind of you know, enjoyment out of seeing a bear
Speaker 1: in a tiny car. But I don't think this is
Speaker 1: probably the best thing.
Speaker 4: For the bears, probably not the most ethical.
Speaker 1: Not probably not the most ethical thing for these bears.
Speaker 4: I get it, you know, I like, I understand that
Speaker 4: they're my footprints are bloody in the world of of
Speaker 4: of consumption and entertainment, I recognize this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know this is this is exploitation
Speaker 1: is woven into the fabric of America. What can you say?
Speaker 1: But uh, but in this uh, in this paper, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, like talking about bears in tiny cars sounds
Speaker 1: really interesting, But what about it paper on the Eurothelium?
Speaker 1: Jeff does that not?
Speaker 4: Also?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly so? So they My point in bringing up
Speaker 1: this paper is that it actually so they like were
Speaker 1: doing studies of the bear urinary track because of this
Speaker 1: interesting way in which these bears hibernate and they don't
Speaker 1: urinate like during hibernation. But like, so they went through
Speaker 1: this whole thing of like they used euthanized bears to
Speaker 1: like look at their urinary tracts, and in this section
Speaker 1: where they were they had discussed the properties of these
Speaker 1: euthanized bears, like the cause why they were euthanizeding, you know,
Speaker 1: very sad like some of them like hit by car.
Speaker 4: Or abandoned driven by another bear, by a.
Speaker 1: Tiny car driven by another bear. Horrifying bears.
Speaker 4: I worked at a trucking company where a truck driver
Speaker 4: ran over a bear. Oh god, and just like didn't
Speaker 4: report it. He just kept going, no, you could realized,
Speaker 4: and then like immediately all of his lights went on,
Speaker 4: just like absolutely destroyed his truck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, he ran over a bear. Yeah you can't.
Speaker 1: I also think you have to report it, right if
Speaker 1: you hit.
Speaker 4: A bear, you'd think so, And I think he thought
Speaker 4: he might not have.
Speaker 5: To, and then do I'm pretty sure, Well, especially if
Speaker 5: you're a bear law doctor, trailer shuts down, yeah, and
Speaker 5: you're like, well, there's no way of getting around this,
Speaker 5: I hit a bear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so that's very unfortunate. But there were some
Speaker 1: bears that were euthanized because they were called nuisance bears,
Speaker 1: which I guess is the technical term for bears who
Speaker 1: are interacting with humans in a less than ideal wayl bears,
Speaker 1: No exactly, I mean rebel bears, bear rebels without a cause.
Speaker 4: I just add out some pause.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean pretty sure they don't have pause anymore.
Speaker 1: They've probably been have some other researchers studying bear pause,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it is. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things where it's like I get it right, Like if
Speaker 1: you have a bear who's going around neighborhoods, you know,
Speaker 1: getting into stuff and like interacting with humans or being aggressive,
Speaker 1: Like I get why they have to euthanize them, but like,
Speaker 1: do we have to add insult to injury by calling
Speaker 1: them nuisance bears? That feels like we're blaming the bears
Speaker 1: way too much. Like it's not really the bear's fault
Speaker 1: that there's like a suburb near them that has trash
Speaker 1: cans full of ice cream that they can get and
Speaker 1: then when they do you know what I.
Speaker 4: Mean, Yeah, they got to do what deer did and
Speaker 4: just create a new disease for to combat suburban sprawl.
Speaker 4: Like lime disease exists because the deer were like, screw
Speaker 4: these guys starting Connecticut, by the way, another New England tradition.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, brain bears and lime disease. Is there nothing
Speaker 4: we can't.
Speaker 1: Do, Like there are a ton of lime in Martha's vineyard.
Speaker 1: Probably I think there's, like because it's like weird, it's
Speaker 1: something that like there's a lot of lime disease and
Speaker 1: like wealthy people because they all get it from Martha's
Speaker 1: vineyard or somewhere nearby.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it would make sense too, because here's the here's
Speaker 4: the tragedy is the more outside you are, the more
Speaker 4: apt you are to get it because deer ticks are
Speaker 4: a much harder to spot tick, yeah than your standard
Speaker 4: would tick. So yeah, so we would, we would. We
Speaker 4: were taught, you know, because I grew up in the
Speaker 4: eighties and nineties, so that was when lime disease was
Speaker 4: like all the rage. Yeah, so so we were we
Speaker 4: had to be very very careful to look out for
Speaker 4: those and my brother ended up getting it.
Speaker 1: Oh oh no, I'm sorry, it's his fault.
Speaker 4: These bears However, they're not nuisances. They're just cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, like calling them like nuisance sparits, it's like,
Speaker 1: could we call them something else, like, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: cool bears.
Speaker 4: The spirits had to take out some cool bears and
Speaker 4: everybody would get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like we had to ethanized the spar for being
Speaker 1: too cool, which is a tragedy, but you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like, yeah, this is like the this is
Speaker 1: the body and Clyde of bears. It's you know, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it. I get why they have to use
Speaker 1: the nize of them, but can we give them a
Speaker 1: nicer label? Anyways, So after winter, bears will emerge from
Speaker 1: their dens and their metabolism will slowly kick back into gear.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they will lap up snow fleas to kind of
Speaker 1: like as an appetizer before they fully get their appetite.
Speaker 1: So snow fleas are actually tiny black springtail hexapods. They're
Speaker 1: these little little hexapods that can survive and live in snow.
Speaker 1: We actually did a podcast about this, I think last winter,
Speaker 1: about ice worms. So they're not really fleas, they're not parasites,
Speaker 1: but they feed on organic matter in leaf litter and
Speaker 1: in snow and they're teeny tiny, but there's so many
Speaker 1: of them that base these bears are like great protein popsicles,
Speaker 1: and we'll like lick at like melting snow or the
Speaker 1: leaf litter and just have kind of like these like
Speaker 1: protein popsicles that looks like kind of a really organic
Speaker 1: mint ice cream. But the mint chips are bugs.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I mean, let's give that a dry Let's call
Speaker 4: saltan straw and the.
Speaker 1: Flavor saltan straw. So I miss saltan stra so much.
Speaker 1: I think it's a California thing, right.
Speaker 4: It's a West Coast thing. I believe it's actually a
Speaker 4: Portland thing to say.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, so it's a West Coast thing. Man, if
Speaker 1: you live on the West Coast or you visit the
Speaker 1: West Coast, saltan Straw is the best ice cream place
Speaker 1: I've ever been To't.
Speaker 4: You the land of Gelato?
Speaker 1: Yes, But honestly, like look no offense to to northern
Speaker 1: Italy where there is some amazing gelato. Salt and Straw
Speaker 1: is still really holds its own like it's really good. Also,
Speaker 1: like in the US, they know how to make waffle
Speaker 1: cones really well, whereas here it's much more rare that
Speaker 1: you get asta because they're made out of dry pasta, like.
Speaker 4: They kind of ice cream. We have a.
Speaker 1: Basket, yeah, they we have like a basket out of pasta. No.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the gelato is great, especially in Florence.
Speaker 1: But you know, like, honestly, America, you got some amazing
Speaker 1: ice cream there, so be proud.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have nailed the tastiest, most absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1: Food, right, which is why these bears are eating it
Speaker 1: at the trading post.
Speaker 4: Fish a bear sitting there eating like ice cream and
Speaker 4: a grilled cheese or like, this doesn't seem like this
Speaker 4: is the thing they should be eating. Probably not fairy.
Speaker 4: Is dairy a big thing for bears? Because I don't.
Speaker 1: Really see how that would think so, But you know,
Speaker 1: I still feel like if I saw a bear their
Speaker 1: nose deep into a tub of ice cream, you like,
Speaker 1: you know what good for her?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Let it out, girl, be there in your feelings.
Speaker 4: You've had a week. Yeah, you've earned.
Speaker 1: This, you've earned this. Well, we are going to take
Speaker 1: a quick break, but don't go to sleep. When we
Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk about a couple true
Speaker 1: hibernators that are perhaps not what you typically think of
Speaker 1: when you think hibernation. So, Jeff, did you know that
Speaker 1: snails hibernate?
Speaker 4: Are they true hibernator?
Speaker 1: They are true hibernators. They also estivate, so estivation is hibernation,
Speaker 1: but during hot or dry seasons. So both terrestrial and
Speaker 1: aquatic species of snails can hibernate when the temperature gets
Speaker 1: too low and estivate when the season gets too hot
Speaker 1: or dry. So during hibernation, terrestrial snails such as garden
Speaker 1: snails or fresh water snails like apple snails, will regulate
Speaker 1: their bodily processes to survive the cold, so they are
Speaker 1: true hibernators. Because their metabolic rate drops, their respiratory system,
Speaker 1: their circulatory system, everything like slows down, and their body
Speaker 1: temperature drops. Their body temperature actually basically has to endure
Speaker 1: the ambient cold temperature. One of the problems with freezing
Speaker 1: is that if you freeze like your cells kind of
Speaker 1: get ice crystals in them, and that's really bad. Once
Speaker 1: they start to thaw, they essentially rip apart because of
Speaker 1: these Yeah, exactly, frostbite like that is necrotic tissue because
Speaker 1: your cells have basically been torn asunder by the ice
Speaker 1: crystal formation. But the way a lot of animals, including snails,
Speaker 1: who can survive freezing work is they actually have in
Speaker 1: their blood or in the snails case, hem aloof which
Speaker 1: is basically the bug version of blood. They have anti
Speaker 1: freeze in their blood. So this is like glycerol and
Speaker 1: glucose in their blood that prevents the formation of ice crystals.
Speaker 4: You have anti freeze in your blood. Sounds like a
Speaker 4: grinch lyric. That didn't make it into the song.
Speaker 1: It does, doesn't it? Man? I can hear the voice too.
Speaker 1: Can you do the voice?
Speaker 4: Earl Thurl ravenscrop It's Tony the Tiger.
Speaker 1: Oh he did, Tony the Tiger.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you listen to the song, it's literally Tony
Speaker 4: the Tiger's voice. He doesn't doesn't really Garler in your soul.
Speaker 1: Mister, Oh my god, oh my god, my mind has
Speaker 1: been blown.
Speaker 4: Two huge Christmas songs. Sorry, I always have to bring
Speaker 4: Christmas into it. Two huge Christmas songs are named are
Speaker 4: sung by people whose last name whose names are you
Speaker 4: are l. We have Burl Eves and Thorough Ravenscroft, and
Speaker 4: those are two names you do not hear every Berlin
Speaker 4: Thurle are responsible for a good I'd say ten percent
Speaker 4: of your holiday listening.
Speaker 1: Berlin Thurle sounds like an artisan like sheets company, like
Speaker 1: a company that makes sheets, like wool sheets for your bed.
Speaker 5: And it's already yeah that they're not that comfortable, but
Speaker 5: they're like, yeah, they're sustainable, and then you're like all right,
Speaker 5: and then you try to sleep in them, you're like,
Speaker 5: this was a huge mistake.
Speaker 1: Itchy, but it costs five hundred dollars, so you do
Speaker 1: use it all the time. Burl and Thurle, the sponsor
Speaker 1: of this this week's podcast Berlin use code Creature to
Speaker 1: get ten percent off the itchiest blankets you'll ever have.
Speaker 1: But they're made out of one hundred percent human hair
Speaker 1: at geosophical rash ethically sourced rat hair. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: is these snails drop their metabolic rate. They have this
Speaker 1: antifreeze in their blood. They actually these anti freezing compounds
Speaker 1: like glycerol and glucose become more concentrated in the winter,
Speaker 1: according to research by noahsaka at all. Thanks guys for
Speaker 1: cutting open snails and looking at their hemal lymph. That
Speaker 1: must have been delicious. So they also produce something called
Speaker 1: an epiphragm, which is a temporary mucous membrane that they
Speaker 1: form to reduce water loss in like hot dry conditions,
Speaker 1: or prevent water absorption during too wet conditions, to maintain
Speaker 1: a balance of their bodily fluid because if they dry
Speaker 1: completely out, that's bad. Or if they absorb too much
Speaker 1: water and then they basically don't have the right balance
Speaker 1: of fluids and salt ions, et cetera, like that can
Speaker 1: also be bad. Just like humans, we can either die
Speaker 1: of not having enough water, having too much salt, or
Speaker 1: having too much water and not enough salt.
Speaker 4: Some would say that adding another mucous membrane onto your
Speaker 4: body is gross, and I would say, you're not a snail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not a snail. You're not thinking snail.
Speaker 4: You got to think you're thinking people. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 4: know how. I probably wouldn't do great with an additional
Speaker 4: mucus membrane on me, But not a snail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like, I don't. The other cool thing
Speaker 1: about this mucus membrane, this epiphragm, is that they can
Speaker 1: use it to stick onto things. So have you ever
Speaker 1: like had a snail and it's like inside its shell,
Speaker 1: you can't see any of the like meat of the snail.
Speaker 1: You're trying to pull it off of like a tree
Speaker 1: or a rock, but it's like stuck.
Speaker 4: No, you know what, I didn't have access to snails
Speaker 4: when I was a kid. We had slugs, but no snails.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm so sorry. That's that's a terrible childhood to
Speaker 1: not have snails.
Speaker 4: It is, well, we made up for it with the
Speaker 4: lime disease in the transmit.
Speaker 5: Well, I have lots of childhood experience somehow.
Speaker 1: San Diego, we had a lot of snails and I would,
Speaker 1: I guess, harass the snails a lot. I was curious,
Speaker 1: and so I would try to like pick them up,
Speaker 1: but they'd be like stuck, and so you kind of
Speaker 1: like try to pull them off and like it. They'd
Speaker 1: be like the suction and like you could kind of
Speaker 1: rip them off. But I'd kind of feel bad when
Speaker 1: I would do that because it feels like, oh I
Speaker 1: did something, I broke something. Well, what that is is
Speaker 1: the epiphram. It's this temporary mucous membrane. And they would
Speaker 1: probably use this because it would be the summer it
Speaker 1: would be hot and dry, but they can also do
Speaker 1: it in the winter. Both if the winter is too
Speaker 1: dry or if there's too much moisture or cold to
Speaker 1: you know, basically protect their their soft, vulnerable, squishy bodies.
Speaker 1: So another thing is that I have seen on the
Speaker 1: internet too many things, but among them this factoid that
Speaker 1: snails can hibernate for three years. And that sounded wrong
Speaker 1: to me. That sounded right, That doesn't sound right. And
Speaker 1: I love it when I find something like this and
Speaker 1: find out that it's correct. This is not one of
Speaker 1: those times. The longest they can hibernate, as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, is around four months. And so I
Speaker 1: do not know where this three years figure comes from.
Speaker 1: It seems like it is maybe a rumor or something
Speaker 1: that keeps getting repeated. But I could not find any
Speaker 1: like real sources for this three years thing. I have
Speaker 1: seen that there are multiple studies that they do over
Speaker 1: the course of two to three years, and so I
Speaker 1: wonder and someone was like skimming one of these studies
Speaker 1: and said, like study period was two to three years,
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, that must be how long the
Speaker 1: snail's hibernating, and it's like, no, that's the duration of
Speaker 1: the study.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So come on, guys, you know how this works.
Speaker 4: You know words this is academia, come on, yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, to be fair, a lot of academic papers
Speaker 1: are very difficult to understand, and dare I say it,
Speaker 1: sometimes written poorly in a way that's hard to comprehend.
Speaker 1: But yeah, still like, uh, this seems to be wrong.
Speaker 1: If someone out there is like, hey, I actually know
Speaker 1: where this comes from, or that you think it is
Speaker 1: real and you have a source, you could send that
Speaker 1: to me. I would love to be wrong about this
Speaker 1: because hibernating for three years as a snail sounds super chill.
Speaker 1: That's like ultimate cozy. I just don't know.
Speaker 4: It also seems a little wasteful, like how long are
Speaker 4: you living, man, I don't know, three and a half years.
Speaker 4: We want to readjust what we're doing with our time here?
Speaker 4: Our time management needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1: Maybe the snail shell is like a pokey ball and
Speaker 1: there's like a whole universe in there though, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like to the snail, this could.
Speaker 4: Be what an effective Pokemon? That would be right? Get
Speaker 4: out immediately. It's pikachuwed to death, all right, it didn't
Speaker 4: react quick enough, nail.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, snails have their strengths. Combat is not
Speaker 1: generally one of them, but you.
Speaker 4: Know, I mean, to be fair, there might be a
Speaker 4: snail Pokemon that I have no idea.
Speaker 1: There has to be there. I'm googling snail Pokemon because
Speaker 1: there had there has to be snail Pokemon, like weirdly, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's mag mag Cargo, which is a magnum snail. It
Speaker 1: looks like it's made out of lava an obsidian.
Speaker 4: I mean that sounds like a pretty bad ass snail. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there you go, so lava snail. There's some going to
Speaker 4: pick that one up off a tree.
Speaker 1: There's some aquatic looking snails like ohmannite, ohmanite. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Have you ever done a creature feature that was just
Speaker 4: like sort of about the sort of apocrypha of Pokemon? Yeah,
Speaker 4: just play it in a real episode.
Speaker 1: Well no, So I actually had Ellen Weatherford, she hosts
Speaker 1: a podcast called Just the Zoo of Us, and we
Speaker 1: talked about Pokemon and then like the real life animals
Speaker 1: that are seem to either have inspired these Pokemon or
Speaker 1: by coincidence, these Pokemon are very much like real life animals.
Speaker 4: So or that or that one magician that sued Pokemon.
Speaker 1: Someone sued Pokemon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Urigeller. Urigeller had like an injunction on one of
Speaker 4: the characters, because it was clearly a dig on him.
Speaker 4: It was like this really corrupt It was this corrupt
Speaker 4: magician that would like hold a spoon and he was
Speaker 4: famous for like us as a spoon bender that ended
Speaker 4: up becoming sort of revealed as a fraud.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 4: And yeah, it was this whole thing. He'd like just
Speaker 4: he just rescinded the lawsuit like very recently.
Speaker 1: But I thought that was like a I thought that
Speaker 1: the fake spoon bending was like a classic thing, right.
Speaker 4: Like I think it's because of your igeller. Really yeah,
Speaker 4: I think it was like a whole thing with Carson. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 4: I mean I think it was like famously like that's
Speaker 4: where like he's the fame famously debunked magician and it
Speaker 4: was like this big scandal. And uh so he like
Speaker 4: just recently rescinded his lawsuit or complaint and like apologized
Speaker 4: to like the children of the world for like, has.
Speaker 1: He apologized to spoons, because like what the hell of
Speaker 1: the spoon's done that He's just like I'm gonna bend
Speaker 1: this perfectly good spoon.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know the spoons not have feelings?
Speaker 4: Am I A utensilist.
Speaker 1: If I say that, I just think it's sad to
Speaker 1: be a spoon and then not get used for ice
Speaker 1: cream instead get bent by.
Speaker 4: A jerk, or get kidnapped by a dish.
Speaker 1: Right man, the dish ran away with that spoon, But
Speaker 1: did it ask the spoon for It's what it wanted
Speaker 1: to do? I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, snails they can hibernate and uh with that anti
Speaker 1: freeze in their hemal lymph and but they do not.
Speaker 1: I have not seen anything to indicate they can hibernate
Speaker 1: for three years. They can hibernate for around four months,
Speaker 1: which I still think is pretty impressive. Now we're going
Speaker 1: to yeah, no, it's good man, like, why are we
Speaker 1: making stuff up? That's pretty impressive. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: hibernators is actually a completely different animal. This one's acutie.
Speaker 1: It's the fat tailed dwarf leamur. So uh oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I shared a cute little photo with you. These are
Speaker 1: cute little babies that I want to cuddle. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: so fat tailed dwarf lemurs. You may have guessed it.
Speaker 1: They have fat tails. We're gonna talk about why so uh.
Speaker 1: They are primates found in in Madagascar, they're pretty small.
Speaker 1: They're only about seven ounces in the summer and nine
Speaker 1: ounces when they fatten those tails up in the winter.
Speaker 1: And you know, Jeff, can you guess why they fatten
Speaker 1: their tails up in the winter.
Speaker 4: I don't feel like I need to guess on this one.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's pretty much been established that this
Speaker 4: is where they store their fat and nutrients, yes, for
Speaker 4: their torpor or their their hibernation or whatever they can do.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, so these can be considered true hibernators because
Speaker 1: they kind of meet all the requirements. Their metabolism slows down,
Speaker 1: their heart rate, breathing all slows down, and their temperature
Speaker 1: drops and that fat tail allows them to hibernate without
Speaker 1: needing to feed. So just as bears developed that big
Speaker 1: belly for winter, these dwarf flamers developed this like fat tail.
Speaker 1: They put all their fat in this tail. I mean
Speaker 1: we see this in other animals right where they kind
Speaker 1: of store fat in these localized regions like a camel's hump,
Speaker 1: not filled with water, actually filled with fat to allow
Speaker 1: them to survive long periods of time without eating. But
Speaker 1: this means that fat tailed dwarf lemurs are actually the
Speaker 1: only primates known to hibernate. Yeah, which is.
Speaker 4: Really interesting, so exciting for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good for them. Look these little guys.
Speaker 4: What what Mada Gascar movie? Do they address that in?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, you know what? Like they have so many
Speaker 1: fun like like actual animals in those movies, like Fosses
Speaker 1: and a bunch of different lemurs who I think I
Speaker 1: think basically all of the lemur characters are actual lemurs, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think they made any lemurs up. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of them, Like Madagascar is lemur Land essentially,
Speaker 1: so that there could.
Speaker 4: Definitely They eat ice cream and they play around in barrel.
Speaker 1: Pretty much the closest thing lemurs get to a resort.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like it's it's like a lot of these
Speaker 1: these lemurs are endemic to Madagascar, meaning they're not found
Speaker 1: anywhere else. So there is this research center called Duke
Speaker 1: Lemur Center, and they've done a lot of research on
Speaker 1: lemurs in general, including these fat tailed dwarf lemurs.
Speaker 4: And you say Duke, you just mean like Duke University.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's Duke Lemur Center. Be fun, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know what, Like I feel like I would I
Speaker 1: would love to be a card carrying member of the
Speaker 1: Duke Lemur Center. So they've done all this research on
Speaker 1: these dwarf fat tailed dwarf lemurs. It's actually really cute
Speaker 1: because they have they have like lemurs that they studied
Speaker 1: that are in captivity, but they you know, they make
Speaker 1: sure their environment is really really good and they like
Speaker 1: to hibernate and sleep in like little nooks and crannies
Speaker 1: inside trees, and so they've you know, done all these
Speaker 1: things where they try to like recreate these spaces for
Speaker 1: them and apparently like they've had basically these cute little
Speaker 1: like fabric nests and like all these like very cozy
Speaker 1: looking things. But their favorite thing is PVC pipes. Like
Speaker 1: the lemurs love going to sleep in PVC pipes. Same, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: Like you want to just curl up into a little
Speaker 1: ball and be in a PVC pipe? Who doesn't?
Speaker 4: I really do? I really do want them, That's.
Speaker 1: What That's how like whenever I'm like working with my plumbing,
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I wish I could shrink down and
Speaker 1: curl up and go to sleep in this you trap.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I hope they don't fall asleep in a potato
Speaker 4: gun though, because that could be a problem, could be.
Speaker 1: A problem, could be really cool, But you know, it's
Speaker 1: just a matter of perspective. So yeah, the their research
Speaker 1: has found that these uh fat tailed dwarf lemurs can
Speaker 1: rouse from hibernation every six to twelve days and hibernate
Speaker 1: for up to seven months. So just because you're hibernating
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can't occasionally, like wake up during the winter.
Speaker 1: Like some hibernators, especially like smaller hibernators, will wake up
Speaker 1: occasionally to move around, maybe even eat something like if
Speaker 1: they have something stored, and then go back. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: But it is harder for hibernators to wake up in
Speaker 1: response to say, a threat, versus just torpoor. So if
Speaker 1: you're just in torpor, you can wake up more quickly
Speaker 1: if there's something threatening. If you're in hibernation, it's actually
Speaker 1: a good deal more difficult for your body to rouse
Speaker 1: from that even if there's a threat. So finding a
Speaker 1: good hidden PVC pipe is very important because these guys
Speaker 1: live in Madagascar. They're not protecting themselves from the cold
Speaker 1: and the snow because it doesn't get that cold in Madagascar.
Speaker 1: It's instead believe that they're protecting themselves from drought where
Speaker 1: like in the winter, because it's really hard to get
Speaker 1: enough nutrients. So like they feed on insects, fruits, and flowers,
Speaker 1: and so these things are going to be harder to
Speaker 1: find during a drought, and so they're just like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna eat a bunch of stuff, put it all in
Speaker 1: my tail fat, and then when there's not as much
Speaker 1: food around, just.
Speaker 4: Go to sleep, Go to sleep with my big fat tail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just wrap that, man, you could also use it
Speaker 1: as a pillow. It's just it's such a good idea,
Speaker 1: like this is Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 4: Of opportunities with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, absolutely, I.
Speaker 4: Store the food I eat in my ass a lot too.
Speaker 1: So that makes it, does it? Is it? You know
Speaker 1: like Thanksgiving butt is a more comfortable butt.
Speaker 4: I gotta say, yeah, you're we're in prime. But right now,
Speaker 4: these these these months that we've been in, you know,
Speaker 4: it's just like really just we're getting ready to hibernate as.
Speaker 1: Humans, though we don't really get to. We don't like
Speaker 1: store all our fat like in one perfect pillowy location.
Speaker 1: It goes wherever it goes, usually based on a combination
Speaker 1: of genetics and your activity or whatever. But it would
Speaker 1: be really nice if it's like, yeah, I just want
Speaker 1: my fat to go in like my butt or my
Speaker 1: tail so I can use it as a pillow. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like these dwarf lemurs really have it figured
Speaker 1: out west. So yeah. Also, according to this Duke Leamer
Speaker 1: Center's research, these little guys tails account for around forty
Speaker 1: percent of their body weight, and during hibernation, their breathing
Speaker 1: can drop to a rate of about one breath per
Speaker 1: ten minutes and their heart rate drops to about one
Speaker 1: beat every ten seconds.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's it's pretty great. That's like college I
Speaker 4: mean college athlete level.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that some people can't hold their
Speaker 1: breath for a really long time, like they're divers who
Speaker 1: like work on it and practice it. I think there
Speaker 1: are some divers who can get near that level, right
Speaker 1: of holding your breath for that long.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know that they're like like three minutes tends
Speaker 4: to be like a big threshold for people like your
Speaker 4: average person. And then it was it ranks up. I
Speaker 4: remember I was running for a while and I got
Speaker 4: my heart rate tested when I was running, and it
Speaker 4: was like really good. It was like forty two beats
Speaker 4: a minute. Or something like that.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 4: It was like really impressive. My breath holding is so bad.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to do it. Brain it. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I don't think I can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I did a quick Google search and apparently,
Speaker 1: like there are some professional divers who have held their
Speaker 1: breath for over twenty minutes, which is just ridiculous. You
Speaker 1: can't do you can't. I want to caution everyone, you
Speaker 1: cannot do that. You can't just like you can't do that.
Speaker 1: You cannot decide I'm going to go try to do that.
Speaker 1: There have been people who have drowned trying to hold
Speaker 1: their breath in the pool, Like people who are practicing,
Speaker 1: like say they want to be a good surfer or
Speaker 1: a good diver or something, and they practice holding their breath.
Speaker 1: If you want to do that, you need a buddy.
Speaker 1: You need to be there with someone, because if you
Speaker 1: do that alone, you can lose consciousness and drown, which
Speaker 1: and it has happened really sadly. But yeah, to work
Speaker 1: your way up to that long it takes I would
Speaker 1: imagine years and years of practice. And you know it's
Speaker 1: not it's like any kind of like you can't just
Speaker 1: like lift an enormous weight because you decide to try
Speaker 1: really hard one day. But you know it is true
Speaker 1: that with like you can responsibly trained to hold your
Speaker 1: breath for longer, with a coach or someone to spot you.
Speaker 4: Or just on a thing to couch, a fainting couch.
Speaker 1: That's what they were invented for.
Speaker 4: To hold your breath in the Victorian age.
Speaker 1: Anyways, we're gonna take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: get back, we're gonna talk about penguin micro sleeps. All right,
Speaker 1: we are back, and Jeff, penguins are cute.
Speaker 4: Right, I think that, well sort of. There's that one
Speaker 4: with the red eyes and the.
Speaker 1: Yellow like a rock hopper penguin.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say no that that's an ugly
Speaker 4: ass penguin.
Speaker 1: Well, chin strap penguins are some of the cutest penguins.
Speaker 1: They They are these little guys who live on islands
Speaker 1: near the Antarctic or Southern Pacific Ocean waters. They have
Speaker 1: this characteristic strap of black feathers that go under their chin,
Speaker 1: and then they also have like a black cap on
Speaker 1: their heads, so it looks like they're wearing like a
Speaker 1: little black helmet with like a chin strap.
Speaker 4: It looks like they have little cartoon faces.
Speaker 1: They're adorable, and I must have one. I must, I
Speaker 1: must illegally acquire this penguin. So they they are adorable. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they are, but they're they're not the biggest penguins. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they have a lot of stuff to worry about.
Speaker 1: So how do they get a good night's sleep? Well,
Speaker 1: there was some research by Leborel a all, sorry, let
Speaker 1: me do that again because I got too French with
Speaker 1: that Liborel at all, who strapped sensors onto the chin straps.
Speaker 1: So they already got their chin straps. Now they got
Speaker 1: sensor straps. These are strap strap penguins.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: And they measured their brain activity and motion. They used
Speaker 1: like this remote electro encephalogram uh. And they found that
Speaker 1: the penguins engaged in my grow sleeps, which were four
Speaker 1: second long bouts of dozing, so like four second naps
Speaker 1: around ten thousand times a day.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, like in my head, I'm like is there,
Speaker 4: I'm like doing them? Are there forty thousand seconds? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's forty no, no, yeah, there are forty thousand seconds in
Speaker 1: a day, because this is about eleven hours of tiny naps.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there's ninety thousand seconds in a day roughly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, that map is probably wrong math. No, that
Speaker 1: sounds right ish almost sure almost so yeah, forty thousand
Speaker 1: seconds of tiny naps, which is about eleven hours total
Speaker 1: of tiny naps. And so this is really interesting, right
Speaker 1: because you'd think, like, well, but sleep in order to
Speaker 1: be good sleep, you need like long sleep. You need
Speaker 1: to like really kind of get into it. You can't
Speaker 1: just have like little tiny sleeps.
Speaker 4: Well like little Einstein's right line signs, wasn't that his thing?
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, little naps, little cat naps, that's true.
Speaker 4: Call catnaps, penguin naps.
Speaker 1: We should call them penguin naps.
Speaker 4: I guess chaps chin strap penguin nap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like a really fast one. That's like head
Speaker 1: down on the table and then you lift it back
Speaker 1: up so fast you get whiplash.
Speaker 4: So that means that you fell asleep and then hit
Speaker 4: the table and then you're like, that's.
Speaker 1: A chin strap nap. So, uh the yeah, they found
Speaker 1: that these penguins were still able to successfully nest, forage
Speaker 1: all the normal penguin behaviors. Uh. So the question is, well,
Speaker 1: why are they doing these micro sleeps rather than like
Speaker 1: just a full night of sleep or even like an
Speaker 1: hour nap at a time. The idea is that this
Speaker 1: might be too risky for the little penguins because the
Speaker 1: way that they they protect their offspring is they have,
Speaker 1: like you have a couple of parents that they're both
Speaker 1: looking after the egg and the chick, and so one
Speaker 1: has to like incubate the egg or keep the chick
Speaker 1: warm and protect it while the other one goes out
Speaker 1: and forge, and then they have to switch off. And
Speaker 1: so there's not a lot of time for napping in
Speaker 1: that situation, especially when you have rampaging birds like scuas
Speaker 1: who go around trying to steal eggs or chicks right
Speaker 1: from underneath these penguins. And so the penguins must be
Speaker 1: vigilant at almost all times. And even the adults have
Speaker 1: their fair share predators like leopard seals. So they've got
Speaker 1: to protect their egg, they got to protect their chick,
Speaker 1: and they have to go out and forge for like
Speaker 1: two you know, for their partner and for their chick.
Speaker 1: So it's a lot of stuff going on. So like
Speaker 1: the best way it seems for them to get their
Speaker 1: rest are these four second naps.
Speaker 4: Little micro naps, little micropus delightful.
Speaker 1: It does. I feel like human, Like new human parents
Speaker 1: would be really envious of these micro sleeps.
Speaker 4: This is how I sleep on planes, by the way.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh it's so weird man. Plane sleep where
Speaker 1: you fall asleep and then you wake up and you're
Speaker 1: like that must have been an hour, and you look
Speaker 1: at the clock and it's like that was five minutes.
Speaker 4: Three minutes. Yeah, yeah, I always think I can, Like
Speaker 4: whenever I would go home, I used to take the
Speaker 4: Red Eye and I would be like, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: going to sleep on the plane. This time. It turns
Speaker 4: out I'm too big to sleep. Yeah, Like there's no
Speaker 4: comfort when you're when you're of a certain height, Like
Speaker 4: you can't comfortably sleep, there's no like you're it messes
Speaker 4: every part of your body up. And I was so
Speaker 4: stupid I forget every time, So all of my sleeps
Speaker 4: would be like me falling asleep and then wake up
Speaker 4: and be like that was eight seconds. Yeah, that was
Speaker 4: an eight second.
Speaker 1: I very much sympathize. I am a small and compact person,
Speaker 1: so I can sleep on planes. But my husband is not,
Speaker 1: and he he has a lot of trouble just even
Speaker 1: kind of like sitting planes are really like made for
Speaker 1: us sort of average smaller folk, which I think is unfair.
Speaker 4: It's like turn of the century Eastern European factory workers, right,
Speaker 4: Like that's exactly like that's when I was like house
Speaker 4: shopping back in Massachusetts, Like that's who the houses were
Speaker 4: made for half the time. So I wouldn't fit in
Speaker 4: the room because I'd be like, this is for where
Speaker 4: the tallest person was five to nine, And I'd be like,
Speaker 4: that's fair. I can't walk through this house. I'm not
Speaker 4: going to pay money for it, right, same thing with planes,
Speaker 4: Like it's tough. These penguins, however, they would do great
Speaker 4: on these planes. And imagine getting on a plane and
Speaker 4: it was just a sea of those penguins in each season.
Speaker 1: I would smell horrible, but I'd love it.
Speaker 4: Like probably it would probably be very cold in there.
Speaker 1: It would smell like rotting fish, probably like fish arts
Speaker 1: essentially like.
Speaker 4: A Spirit airline, just like Spirit.
Speaker 1: Airlines, so it wouldn't be that different actually, So yeah,
Speaker 1: that is an amazing superpower that these chin strap penguins have.
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly jealous. And I'm actually a very good napper,
Speaker 1: but my naps tend to be longer, like about an
Speaker 1: hour at least at a time, Like I wish I
Speaker 1: could do really short naps. I'm sorry, I love napping
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 4: If the sun is out, I'm awake, Like, for example,
Speaker 4: like I woke up at five thirty this morning, not
Speaker 4: by choice, but I because I'm an early morning person,
Speaker 4: and once if the sun peaks through my window, my
Speaker 4: brain is immediately like you're up. And I've tried.
Speaker 1: I'm a little jealous of that. I have struggle a
Speaker 1: lot with like maintaining a good sleep schedule.
Speaker 4: I don't have a good sleep schedules, like you know.
Speaker 4: I found it out. I found that out I had
Speaker 4: done during college. I got two good paying jobs that
Speaker 4: were on opposite ends of the day. I was so
Speaker 4: at night, I was a doc worker, so I was
Speaker 4: a forklift operator basically from like six pm till ten pm,
Speaker 4: and then I was a mail sorter the next morning
Speaker 4: every and I would have to arrive at four am
Speaker 4: to the post office. And I was like, well, I'll
Speaker 4: just sleep four hours at night and then four hours
Speaker 4: during the day. And that's when I found out, like, oh,
Speaker 4: I've never actually slept during the day. Yeah, And I
Speaker 4: would try and I didn't, and I legitimately like went,
Speaker 4: I started hallucinating. Oh god, I would see like motion,
Speaker 4: like like mailboxes would look like they were running out
Speaker 4: into the street while I was driving. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: Well some of them do do that, like you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like like cartoon ones. Yeah, yeah, it was leg
Speaker 4: yeah ones sometimes, but yeah, so that was That's how
Speaker 4: I found that out. So I'm jealous. Anytime you mentioned
Speaker 4: somebody being able to nap, I'm super super jealous because
Speaker 4: I'm like, I wish I could do that.
Speaker 1: We got to like inject you with some like uh
Speaker 1: chin strap na penguin DNA.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of a man half penguin. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 4: would just be the penguin, right, You'd just.
Speaker 1: Be the penguin, but instead of like kidnapping people, you
Speaker 1: would just be napping in your house.
Speaker 4: Wave the kids out of it.
Speaker 1: Jeff, where can on people find you?
Speaker 4: Well, you can find me across all social media, including
Speaker 4: my YouTube at hay There Jeff Row. I do a
Speaker 4: lot of really neat stuff. I mean, obviously we brought
Speaker 4: up Jeff has cool friends. I do the Great Show
Speaker 4: Tom and Jeff watch Batman with Tom Ryman employed. I
Speaker 4: do a lot of shows with Adam Todd Brown on
Speaker 4: that you Don't Even Like podcast Network, such as you
Speaker 4: Don't Even Like Sports, which is a sports podcast for
Speaker 4: people that hate sports. Lots of fun, that irony, It's
Speaker 4: a lot, it's most of our fans. It's why we
Speaker 4: did Why we did that show Jeff has Cool Friends.
Speaker 4: If you listen to that, you can also hear the
Speaker 4: Amazing Nerd with Dre Alvarez, which is also under the
Speaker 4: Jeff has Cool Friends umbrella and at patroon dot Com
Speaker 4: Slash Jeff May you connect early access to unsunsed episodes
Speaker 4: with bonus content, including the exclusive ug Fine with Kim Krawl.
Speaker 4: So that's podcast. If you want to see me live
Speaker 4: and you live in southern California, I do a Mint
Speaker 4: on Card, which is my live stand up show, and
Speaker 4: a toy store and Blast from the Past on Magnolia
Speaker 4: in Burbank, California. I also open packs of trading cards.
Speaker 4: It's so fun, Katie. I open packs of trading cards
Speaker 4: on camera every Wednesday at two o'clock Pacific on my
Speaker 4: YouTube at Hey Jeff row on a show I call
Speaker 4: I Must Break You luck Man.
Speaker 1: I would love to watch videos of people just like
Speaker 1: cutting soap up into little pieces. So, oh that sounds great.
Speaker 4: Oh the sounds yeah. So there is an ASMR aspect
Speaker 4: when you open up a pack of trading cards as well.
Speaker 4: But like, man, just it's so fun opening those cards
Speaker 4: and I give them away to follow up my Patreon
Speaker 4: but it's just so fun, Like it's just this glory
Speaker 4: of like it's like the first childhood form of gambling.
Speaker 4: You got us a because.
Speaker 1: You're like that it is actually it's like literally gambling though.
Speaker 1: That's the thing is, it's like it is actually gambling,
Speaker 1: but you know, but for Pokemon or whatever other trading cards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds fantastic. Do check those out. Jeff is a
Speaker 1: fantastic podcaster. And if you enjoy any of those shows,
Speaker 1: thank Jeff's mother for giving birth to a frighteningly large baby.
Speaker 4: My poor mother, Katie. It was a blast having you on.
Speaker 4: You're an absolute delight and even though we are across
Speaker 4: the world, I'm glad we are so yes.
Speaker 1: Right now, Yeah, and thank you so much for coming on,
Speaker 1: and thank you guys out there for listening. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying the show and you leave a rating and review,
Speaker 1: that is that really helps the podcast. And I read
Speaker 1: every single review. Hope you're all having a great winter time,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much to the Space Cossacks for
Speaker 1: their super awesome song Ex Solumina. I hope you're all
Speaker 1: cozy out there ready for your winter hibernation. Happy Creature,
Speaker 1: kringled times everyone, and uh go hug a bear, Don't
Speaker 1: do that. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app Apple podcast, or Hey, guess what more have you
Speaker 1: listened to your favorite show? I don't judge you. Just
Speaker 1: sip on your hot coco, watch the snow or the
Speaker 1: rain or basically nothing fall down outside, and get all
Speaker 1: cuddling cozy and I'll see you next Wednesday.