Speaker 1: Welcome the Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show Upsetting Spaghetti. These are tubular
Speaker 1: creatures that just don't feel right, but maybe they'll worm
Speaker 1: your way into your heart. From a morbid fashionista to
Speaker 1: an obg wormman, these worms are a bit odd, and
Speaker 1: one of them is definitely metal. Discover this and more
Speaker 1: as we answer the age old question why not live
Speaker 1: your life in a bag? Joining me today is friend
Speaker 1: of the show, writer for American Dad and the Soorin
Speaker 1: part of Quick Question with Soorn and Daniel Soren. Booie, welcome, boo,
Speaker 1: boo boo.
Speaker 2: We hate him.
Speaker 1: We're booing sorn Or.
Speaker 2: We're booing I'm going Sorn.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: I like to imagine that the very worst of my
Speaker 2: haters listen, and then I win them back. So right,
Speaker 2: I psack myself up by booing myself to begin.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. I psych myself up
Speaker 1: by booing you as well.
Speaker 2: It feels good, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: I just feel really good. I suggest everyone try it,
Speaker 1: Booing Soren, so Soren. Today we are talking about it's
Speaker 1: not just worms. That's why I'm calling them spaghetti because
Speaker 1: they're they're the animals that come in tube form. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different types of tube anels.
Speaker 2: Terrible tubes, the terrible nightmare noodles.
Speaker 1: Nightmare noodles. That's a good one. That's a really good one.
Speaker 1: And this first story is one that you might have read, actually,
Speaker 1: because it's in the New York Times, which is like a.
Speaker 2: Little pretty much guarantee I didn't.
Speaker 1: You're more of a Wall Street Journal kind of guy.
Speaker 2: Then I like to say that I am. I do
Speaker 2: tell people frequently when I find out new facts that
Speaker 2: I read it somewhere, when what I really mean is
Speaker 2: that I was scrolling through TikTok and.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, well, this is a this is a
Speaker 1: it's a newspaper, which is sort of a okay, both
Speaker 1: a physical sometimes an online medium where there's like words
Speaker 1: on a page and sometimes pictures. And this time they
Speaker 1: had pictures of something pretty horrible looking called a bone
Speaker 1: collector caterpillar, a bone collector.
Speaker 2: There's a movie called The Bone Collector. Yeah, there is.
Speaker 2: Let's see right.
Speaker 1: Now, bone collector.
Speaker 2: Let's see if I'm right about this. I think it's
Speaker 2: a Denzel Washington movie.
Speaker 1: You're correct about that, and in it he is.
Speaker 2: It's tough to say. Maybe he's an undertaker who's secretly
Speaker 2: really good at fighting. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Uh, well, no, it's close. But he's a forensics expert
Speaker 1: whose bed bound after an accident left him paralyzed from
Speaker 1: the neck down. So you know, close.
Speaker 2: And not doing the same job as No. Yeah, apparently
Speaker 2: in Nightmare Noodles, close is cigar?
Speaker 1: So close is cigar? That is? I've heard that expression
Speaker 1: actually before. So the bone collector caterpillar was featured in
Speaker 1: the New York Times because it's one of these animals
Speaker 1: that does freak stuff that we all love, and there's
Speaker 1: this one. Is It's interesting because there are actually a
Speaker 1: lot of caterpillars like this that will craft a case
Speaker 1: around themselves. It's a protective case. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: what the bone collector does specifically. But first of me
Speaker 1: just talk to you about bagworms for a bit. Can
Speaker 1: I talk to you about bagworms. I've been dying to
Speaker 1: talk to you about bagworms.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear about bagworms. First. I'm going to
Speaker 2: put a little pin in my bone collectors and i
Speaker 2: want to hear.
Speaker 1: We will get back. We'll get back to the bone
Speaker 1: collector after this brief announcement from bagworms. So, there are
Speaker 1: quite a few species of moths who when they are
Speaker 1: in their larval juvenile form, they build elaborate cases around
Speaker 1: themselves using some of their sticky silk, sometimes poop as
Speaker 1: like an adhesive and then you know the old poop
Speaker 1: adhesive trick, and then silk, and they will make it
Speaker 1: out of basically whatever is most common in their environment.
Speaker 1: It can be sticks, it can be sand like in
Speaker 1: whatever they have available to them, and they craft these
Speaker 1: very elaborate cases like this, almost like a house, around
Speaker 1: themselves to protect them. And they're really interesting because the
Speaker 1: males do what you would think are typical of moths.
Speaker 1: They pupate inside of these cases and they burst out
Speaker 1: and their little moths and they go around. But the
Speaker 1: females don't bother with any of that. They stay in
Speaker 1: the case that they make for life, don't bother pewpating
Speaker 1: going out exploring the world. They just stay in their bag,
Speaker 1: and the males come and find them and mate with them,
Speaker 1: and the females lay their eggs in the bag and
Speaker 1: then they're like well, I've done pretty much everything I've
Speaker 1: set out to do in life, and they die, and
Speaker 1: so they spend their entire life in this bag that
Speaker 1: they create. Yeah, just chilling, and while the males are
Speaker 1: kind of going around doing all the active moth stuff.
Speaker 2: I can't do that, I guess. I mean, I've definitely
Speaker 2: been on trips before, I've been in a sleeping bag
Speaker 2: and in the morning night they're like, we got to
Speaker 2: get up, and I'm like, you know what what I
Speaker 2: just what if I lived here forever?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What if I lived here, laid some eggs and
Speaker 1: then died. Yeah.
Speaker 2: People just came to me and like, right, I got
Speaker 2: all the stuff done in the world that I need
Speaker 2: to do from the sleeping bag.
Speaker 1: It's I've heard, like I'm I'm not super up to
Speaker 1: date with what the kids are talking about on TikTok,
Speaker 1: but I know there's this idea of girl rotting where
Speaker 1: it's you spend all day in your bed. I read
Speaker 1: about that, yeah, on on the New York Times.
Speaker 2: Yep, they write they write an impact bold on the
Speaker 2: New York Times, right.
Speaker 1: Right, right, Yeah, they definitely do with an outline and
Speaker 1: with like a penguin in the middle of it. The Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this, I think this we all got to pack
Speaker 1: it up. Girl rotting is over because these bagworms have
Speaker 1: already mastered it. So it's it's over. We've done it
Speaker 1: peak girl rotting. So onto the bone collector caterpillar. So
Speaker 1: similar to bagworms, they build a case around themselves out
Speaker 1: of materials that they have available. Those materials just happen
Speaker 1: to be their own murder victims. So this is found
Speaker 1: on the beautiful island of Hawaii. Bone collector caterpillars are
Speaker 1: the juvenile form of hyposmoke coma moths, which when they're adults,
Speaker 1: they just kind of look like, I don't know, little
Speaker 1: tiny scrappy moths. They're not very impressive to be honest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the moth larvae are carnivorous and they basically do
Speaker 1: an ed geen thing where they use the corpses of
Speaker 1: their victims as a costume that they wear.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it now, it just got it's a
Speaker 2: it's just wearing trophies of the things.
Speaker 1: That yes, yes, and it does. It does this in
Speaker 1: a very meticulous way. It doesn't just slap them on.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes sure it's rotated correctly and it
Speaker 1: puts it on and even cuts them down to size.
Speaker 1: If it's too big, they sort of well like, ah,
Speaker 1: this head's a little bit too big. Chew, chew, chew. Okay,
Speaker 1: now it's small enough, and I'll put it on where
Speaker 1: it is a brooch?
Speaker 2: How is it getting it on its back like that?
Speaker 1: So it just like the other bagworms. It uses sticky
Speaker 1: milk maybe feces to as an adhesive, and then it
Speaker 1: kind of creates this It's almost like a cocoon, except
Speaker 1: it lives in it and it can move around in it.
Speaker 2: It crawls around. Yeah, man, So what I'm looking at here,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of legs. First of all, they are
Speaker 2: leg heavy. There's like a lot of like looks like
Speaker 2: cricket legs, and yeah, stuff like that. And then some
Speaker 2: weavil heads and things, and they've covered their entire entire
Speaker 2: body in the limbs of their enemies or like whatever
Speaker 2: they killed.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: And then the moth itself, I mean you just undersell it.
Speaker 2: It's got some kind of like fringy wings. It's yeah,
Speaker 2: like a beautiful white fringe coming off of them.
Speaker 1: It's a little a little bit late, I can see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, certainly one is more or less horrified than
Speaker 2: the other.
Speaker 1: El say that much for sure, And so they create
Speaker 1: these elaborate cases out of the the exoskeletons of victims,
Speaker 1: and the whole reason they do this is really really
Speaker 1: weird and interesting. So they are carnivores, but they like
Speaker 1: to work smarter, not harder, because they essentially they're moving
Speaker 1: around relatively slowly in this big case that they make
Speaker 1: around themselves, and they hang around spider webs, and they
Speaker 1: the spider essentially does all the work right, creates the web,
Speaker 1: catches insects in them, and the bone collector will go
Speaker 1: up to a dead or dying insect and be like
Speaker 1: great free lunch and either kill it or just eat
Speaker 1: whatever the spider hasn't eaten or eat before the spider
Speaker 1: has a chance to eat it. And then it takes
Speaker 1: that dead insect or whatever it is arthur pod, and
Speaker 1: once it's all sucked dry, it arranges it artfully on
Speaker 1: its case, and now it looks like a pile of
Speaker 1: dead bugs, which is totally not out of play on
Speaker 1: a spider web, so essentially tricking the spider into thinking
Speaker 1: that it's just a bunch of trash from its own
Speaker 1: prey that it's eaten.
Speaker 2: Our beautiful death mosaic, something nice to lighten up the
Speaker 2: spider web. Yeah, why isn't Why aren't these maybe you
Speaker 2: don't know the answer. Why aren't these caterpillars sticking to
Speaker 2: the web?
Speaker 1: Well? They that's a really that is actually a good question.
Speaker 1: I would think that given they are also a silk
Speaker 1: producing animal, that they just have the skills to sort
Speaker 1: of traverse the silk with their little little claws.
Speaker 2: They're wearing the right gloves.
Speaker 1: They've got the right gloves there. It is interesting because
Speaker 1: they're The case that they build around them doesn't really
Speaker 1: stick to the web. But I assume they're able to
Speaker 1: just drag that along. They have the strength to drag
Speaker 1: it along with their little bodies. Whereas an insect that
Speaker 1: gets trapped in the web, probably it's going really fast,
Speaker 1: not looking where it's flying, and then it's trapped in
Speaker 1: there struggles gets even more wrapped up where the whereas
Speaker 1: the bone collector is cool, it's collected, yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: isn't isn't it's it is expecting the sticky web and
Speaker 1: probably knows how to navigate it.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. So there are a lot of caterpillars
Speaker 2: that make sort of light, and I think it was
Speaker 2: what you were describing. They make that like it is
Speaker 2: a webby home. It's like a webby almost looks like
Speaker 2: a snot. But I'll tell you a quick story. We're
Speaker 2: camping in the desert, speaking of sleeping bags. We're camping
Speaker 2: in the desert, and you put down a ground tarp
Speaker 2: when you can't, but you always necessarily need something on top.
Speaker 2: But the ground tarp is just a big piece of
Speaker 2: waterproof plastic. But when stuff hits it, it makes obviously
Speaker 2: a noise. And we're going to sleep one night and
Speaker 2: we're just hearing this umbum on all the ground tarps,
Speaker 2: and we're like, what is that noise? And we put
Speaker 2: on our headlamps and realize that we are covered in caterpillars. Yes,
Speaker 2: tons and tons of caterpillars on us, and like, oh,
Speaker 2: they're falling from the sky. And then we looked up
Speaker 2: and the tree above us, the tree was just in
Speaker 2: taste in like basically one giant web and there were yeah,
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of caterpillars in it, just falling from it.
Speaker 1: That's so, what did these caterpillars look like? Were they fuzzy?
Speaker 1: What was their color? No?
Speaker 2: I think so these were not. They were hairless, and
Speaker 2: in my memory they were either brown or green, but
Speaker 2: I can't remember which. And they're long, I mean they're
Speaker 2: like pretty long, guys. They're probably like two inches two
Speaker 2: and a half inches. But and they're in the deserts
Speaker 2: of Utah. Okay, you know what any ideas I mean
Speaker 2: I think and they sound like this.
Speaker 1: They sound like, oh my god, there's weird underneath her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they I mean I believe they would be a type
Speaker 1: of social caterpillar. It's yeah, which social what it sounds like? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean like that would be what they're called scientifically
Speaker 1: as well, not just to compliment to them, like you're
Speaker 1: a real social caterpillary, but in terms of their specific species,
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what species had live there, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're essentially called the type of caterpillar that is
Speaker 1: are called a social caterpillars. And they do tend to
Speaker 1: form large groups in trees, and some species do create
Speaker 1: sort of almost like funnel like webs and stuff in
Speaker 1: the trees.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, and then and now I need to also
Speaker 2: hijack your podcast to get to tell you a different
Speaker 2: story about a nightmare caterpillar. There's there's something. There's an
Speaker 2: elm tree in our neighbor's yard that uh this basically
Speaker 2: come on this podcast to make sure that you can
Speaker 2: answer questions for me that I sure.
Speaker 1: Go for it if you have. If you have questions
Speaker 1: out there that you would like me to answer, you
Speaker 1: can write to me at Creature feature Pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com and I'll answer all your caterpillar questions too.
Speaker 1: Now go for it, soar and let's see if I
Speaker 1: can answer this one.
Speaker 2: There's, uh, we have an elm tree that's near us,
Speaker 2: and there's some type of caterpillar that really loves it,
Speaker 2: loves it, and I know that it eventually will become
Speaker 2: this black butterfly with maybe like some tinge on the
Speaker 2: end of its wings that it's either white or yellow.
Speaker 2: But when they're young there, when they're a caterpillar. There's
Speaker 2: a bunch of them. My son found one and we
Speaker 2: were like, let's let's get it to form its Let's see,
Speaker 2: they're butterfly, so it would be a crystalist. Le's get
Speaker 2: them to the form of their chrystalist in this jar.
Speaker 2: And he was like he had it in the house
Speaker 2: and he did definitely form into a chrysalis, and we're
Speaker 2: just sort of waiting for it to hatch. While we
Speaker 2: were waiting, it's this really menacing looking chrystalis. It has
Speaker 2: like spikes on it and stuff. It looks really horrifying.
Speaker 2: And while we were waiting, I broke my toe. My
Speaker 2: daughter split her face open. I got it, had to
Speaker 2: get an appendectomy on a Father's day. You gotta try it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the kids do it. It's really fun. I hadn't ever.
Speaker 2: And so while I was at the hospital waiting to
Speaker 2: get my app indeck to me to call my wife
Speaker 2: and I was like, is that is that chrystalis in
Speaker 2: the house And she was like yeah. I was like,
Speaker 2: please remove it. And I had this real feeling of
Speaker 2: dread surrounding this because of all this confluence of terrible
Speaker 2: events h and I wanted it gone. I wanted it
Speaker 2: out of the house. And now I won't let my
Speaker 2: son collect those a Another detail of these is that
Speaker 2: they do form on the ouse they put they're on
Speaker 2: in the eaves of our house. The caterpillars love to
Speaker 2: set up their chrystals is there, and when they hatch
Speaker 2: from them. They bleed out of it. So there's drops
Speaker 2: of a really dark red blood all over the ground,
Speaker 2: every underneath each one of these.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a good omen though.
Speaker 2: Right I would, Yeah, you'd think so blood's always good, right,
Speaker 2: that's a good omen.
Speaker 1: So that it's so that the Moses version of God
Speaker 1: knows not to steal your children. Yeah, so that I
Speaker 1: think that's the spiny elm caterpillar or it's they are
Speaker 1: also which a fun thing is they're also known as
Speaker 1: morning cloak butterflies. Yeah, so which is it seems really
Speaker 1: also like a good omen to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are them, these are this is definitely the butterfly.
Speaker 2: Let me see their crystalist too, morning cloak butterfly.
Speaker 1: They're like they're red and black, and the caterpillars themselves
Speaker 1: are kind of spiny as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, this criz is the crystalist. These are horrifying.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the thing. This is the thing that
Speaker 2: broke my toe and made me take it curs organs
Speaker 2: out of my body.
Speaker 1: It cursed you for uh imprisoning its chrysalis, by the.
Speaker 2: Way, that would never even hatched. It was just there.
Speaker 1: It just remained a very vengeful goo inside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess my question is is that that's true? Right?
Speaker 2: They're bad, They're bad luck those ones, are they? You know?
Speaker 2: Curse you? Well?
Speaker 1: You know, when caterpillars turn into a goo, they retained
Speaker 1: some of their neural crust cells and they can remember things.
Speaker 1: So I do believe that one cursed you in goo
Speaker 1: form because it had a grudge.
Speaker 2: I think probably. Yeah, I took it away from the
Speaker 2: elm tree that it was on in our neighbor's guard
Speaker 2: and we put it in a jar. Okay, I'm not
Speaker 2: doing that.
Speaker 1: Again, precious elm. That's right. So the the bone collector caterpillar,
Speaker 1: the bagworm like caterpillar, they essentially they just cover themsells
Speaker 1: in skulls of their enemies, which are you know, the exoskeletons.
Speaker 1: So the spider doesn't recognize that it's a thing that
Speaker 1: has a delicious treat inside and just chills with the spider,
Speaker 1: steals its food and lives a great life. Apparently sounds great.
Speaker 2: I'm I love the idea of collecting. If I'm going
Speaker 2: to be a dude, like a D and D campaign,
Speaker 2: I'm collecting something from my enemy, I'm collecting some sort
Speaker 2: of trophy and I'm wearing it the rest of the time.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of your armor just being a
Speaker 1: bunch of skulls piled together, not just just you know,
Speaker 1: your your entire chest breastplate is just a bunch of skulls,
Speaker 1: your legs covered in a bunch of skulls, sort of
Speaker 1: like the Michelin man. But it's all like skulls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to leave just like you leave one open, right,
Speaker 2: And then whenever you're fighting an enemy, you're like, this
Speaker 2: is this is your spot. That's where you will go
Speaker 2: exactly when I remove you from your bones?
Speaker 1: Right? Wait, no, remove your wait, who's the U?
Speaker 2: You're right though, just a horrifying way of putting it.
Speaker 1: I think I just kind of thing where it's like, wait,
Speaker 1: but are you wouldn't you be the bones? And it's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not the bones and the stuff in the bones? Yes, right, Well, man.
Speaker 2: See you off of these whoa.
Speaker 1: This is as trippy as when I saw the x
Speaker 1: ray of my wisdom teeth trying to break into my
Speaker 1: sinus cavities. I'm like, whoa, whoa, man, look at that
Speaker 1: my own soul is betraying me and trying to kill me.
Speaker 2: You have swung a door open onto like a part
Speaker 2: of your life I didn't know existed it, just like
Speaker 2: you realize when you hear these things from other people.
Speaker 2: Life has so many chapters.
Speaker 1: So many chapters, like the chapter where all four of
Speaker 1: my wisdom teeth had to be removed and two of
Speaker 1: them were growing into my sinus cavities with a vengeance,
Speaker 1: trying to reach my brain in time before I got
Speaker 1: rid of them.
Speaker 2: What a story. Yeah, right, that they were trying to
Speaker 2: kill you, that's right.
Speaker 1: They were like, we will, we will find your brain.
Speaker 1: And the orthodontist was not concerned at all. If you're wondering,
Speaker 1: if you thought, like maybe he would be concerned that
Speaker 1: my wisdom teeth were trying to grow into my sinus cavities.
Speaker 1: Like I see it all the time. It happens all
Speaker 1: the time. Don't worry about them, Like, am I gonna
Speaker 1: have holes in there? Oh? Not serious ones?
Speaker 2: Yeah I had.
Speaker 1: He couldnt be less concerned. Yeah, we all take these out.
Speaker 2: They've seen it all. I had a lism teeth only
Speaker 2: on the bottom. But when I tell the X ray
Speaker 2: you see it obviously from silhouette from the side profile.
Speaker 2: I mean, and one of them you could see, like
Speaker 2: basically in the topography of the top of a tooth
Speaker 2: coming directly at you. Yeah, And I was like that
Speaker 2: seems wrong, and they're like, yeah, it's coming out sideways.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, they're so silly. Those are some
Speaker 2: silly teeth. Yeah, wisdom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't know which Tame'm gonna come for you.
Speaker 1: I'm ironically named. All right, Well, we're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick break and then we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a more positive but equally disgusting worm tale.
Speaker 2: If I'm being honest, we're not going to get there.
Speaker 2: I've got a lot more.
Speaker 1: Stories sour in. There is a worm out there that,
Speaker 1: without really meaning to, acts as a midwife to squits.
Speaker 1: Do you need me to repeat that sentence or did
Speaker 1: you get it the first time?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess I'm curious as to because they don't lactate,
Speaker 2: so how what would we be doing to help raise
Speaker 2: the young.
Speaker 1: I mean, no, they don't lactape. That's a really good
Speaker 1: call when it comes to squids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people always said about me every time I talk
Speaker 2: about how squids dn't lactate. Yeah, calls good call.
Speaker 1: Call, really you really, uh, you really nailed that squid fact. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a worm that helps the basically the young
Speaker 1: squid in the birthing process like a like a midwife.
Speaker 2: And oh, I see, I see. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let's first talk about the squids, because the squid
Speaker 1: themselves are freaks. They're called opalescent squid. They're found all
Speaker 1: along the western coast of America from Mexico to British Columbia.
Speaker 1: They're pretty common, and they're very squid like squids. They're
Speaker 1: kind of gray, sort of opal esson. I suppose they
Speaker 1: grow rapidly from two millimeter big hatchlings to about the
Speaker 1: size of like a banana or a subway sandwich foot long,
Speaker 1: which is like less than a foot long. Right, it's
Speaker 1: definitely not a foot long, but it's the size of
Speaker 1: the subway sandwich, so to about which takes them about
Speaker 1: six to nine months, which is their lifespan. And so
Speaker 1: they are similparius, which means they mate only once and
Speaker 1: then they die. They mate in an ocean mash pit
Speaker 1: situation where they all come together in this giant frenzy
Speaker 1: and they all essentially exhaust themselves in this mating frenzy
Speaker 1: and die shortly after.
Speaker 2: So orgy to death, big.
Speaker 1: Orgy to death. And this is a surprisingly common tactic
Speaker 1: among animals, particularly yeah, aquatic animals. So they the males
Speaker 1: will grab the females with their tentacles, which flush red,
Speaker 1: which is likely both a signal to the female being
Speaker 1: like hey, I'm mating with you, how's it going, But
Speaker 1: it's also a signal to the other males to back off,
Speaker 1: where it's essentially like a red occupied sign. You know,
Speaker 1: you go to the bathroom, the green turns to red,
Speaker 1: a little occupied.
Speaker 2: Occupied occupy.
Speaker 1: Well, they're squid. It's close. It's very close. It's so
Speaker 1: close though.
Speaker 2: I'll go.
Speaker 1: So they yeah, they it's just a big mess. They're
Speaker 1: all trying to mate with each other, and they the
Speaker 1: male will when it's like it sounds really rough and intense,
Speaker 1: but the actual mating is really innocent because the male
Speaker 1: just hands the sperm packet to the female where he's
Speaker 1: like here you go. Mel was like, okay, thank you,
Speaker 1: and I can use it to fertilize her eggs.
Speaker 2: Transaction complete, goodbye, yeah, transactional turn my limbs back to
Speaker 2: their normal color.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, exactly. And so then they then the females
Speaker 1: fertilize the eggs, and the eggs kind of come in
Speaker 1: these white, kind of oblong cases, and they're just it
Speaker 1: looks like a weird forest of all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: It looks like a weird kind of coral like growth happening.
Speaker 1: But it's all these egg cases. These females are laying
Speaker 1: and then they all die, okay, and it's like a
Speaker 1: feeding frenzy for scavengers because they are all these dead
Speaker 1: squid that just did it. They've completed their life story.
Speaker 1: They had lately their eggs and they're just like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm I am extremely tired. I think I will just
Speaker 1: take a nap, and by that I mean stop existing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so what happens is you have all these baby
Speaker 1: squid and they just don't have any living parents who
Speaker 1: are there for them. And it's the egg cases themselves
Speaker 1: are have a smile the toxin in them which makes
Speaker 1: them unpalatable. So that's why they don't all get eaten
Speaker 1: on masks. Some animals, I think try to eat them.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a real lesson there in terms of
Speaker 2: like people who engage in orgies when they still have
Speaker 2: when they have children in their life. You're just taught
Speaker 2: impossible to be there for your kids when that's your lifestyle.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, especially when it's underwater.
Speaker 2: Mmm.
Speaker 1: You know that's the key, that's I think a key
Speaker 1: problem in this situation. So yeah, So for most right,
Speaker 1: these egg cases are completely unappetizing except for a worm
Speaker 1: called Capitella ovincola, which are small, white, pinkish. They're called polykeets.
Speaker 1: These are marine worms that are just a couple millimeters long,
Speaker 1: and after the eggs have some time to kind of ripen,
Speaker 1: these are actually really attractive to these worms, and that
Speaker 1: sounds like it would be bad news for the baby squid.
Speaker 1: You have this worm, it's like, ooh, delicious egg cases.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, the worms will break into
Speaker 1: the eggsack itself and they completely ignore the baby squid.
Speaker 1: They're not at all interested in eating those. What they
Speaker 1: do is they eat this gelatin like substance that separates
Speaker 1: each squid embryo from the other. So it's like it
Speaker 1: within the egg case are sort of smaller eggs inside,
Speaker 1: and so the worm is eating the outside of these
Speaker 1: smaller egg divisions within the egg case. And when the
Speaker 1: squid is about ready to hatch. This allows the seawater
Speaker 1: to come into the egg case and it oxygenates them.
Speaker 1: It also helps weaken the basically the membrane of the
Speaker 1: egg case, and it makes it easier for the little
Speaker 1: squid to hatch, because otherwise it would be tough to
Speaker 1: kind of punch their way out of the egg case.
Speaker 1: So these worms, which don't at all hurt the squids,
Speaker 1: just go in. They are like, ooh, snack and they
Speaker 1: start eating what's essentially kind of like the placenta of
Speaker 1: the of the squid. And then that helps the squid.
Speaker 1: That helps the squid break free of their egg case.
Speaker 2: Oh that's awesome. It's greazingatic relationship. I don't think that.
Speaker 2: It's sort of sad to me that they will never
Speaker 2: know the other one. You know, Yeah, the worm just
Speaker 2: knows that here's a meal, and like and then then
Speaker 2: the squid comes out. I was like, fuck, that was easy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: life's gonna be good. Life's easy. Neither one of them
Speaker 2: never know will know how much they helped the other, which.
Speaker 1: Is like I'd like to think that there's like at
Speaker 1: least a few of them who are preternaturally smart, and
Speaker 1: they wave to each other like hey, what's up. I
Speaker 1: know what's going on here. You and I we both
Speaker 1: know what's going on here.
Speaker 2: The worm just waves its body.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one will know. No one will ever know.
Speaker 1: They actually have all these like little bristly appendages all
Speaker 1: along their bodies, so they could wave some of those
Speaker 1: in a truly disturbing manner.
Speaker 2: But I didn't ate the outside of your chicken eggshell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, it's a it's a beautiful symbiotic,
Speaker 1: mutualistic relationship between these two.
Speaker 2: You need more of that in the world.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I'm saying more eaten membranes and less building walls.
Speaker 2: Less. I don't want to see seagulls swooping down and
Speaker 2: eating baby sea turtles. They just pick them up, lick
Speaker 2: off the viscera, and just carry them gently to the sea.
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, yeah, licking like I think that would be
Speaker 1: nice if they, you know, licked off the viscera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all those eggshells they are full of that. Great still, just.
Speaker 1: Like just have the viscera part, right, the sort of
Speaker 1: the afterbirth, if you know, and you're.
Speaker 2: It's an investment honestly for those seagulls, because now you've
Speaker 2: got more sea turtles that are gonna lay more eggs.
Speaker 1: Right, and exactly. There's actually a fishing strategy for certain
Speaker 1: types of squid where fishermen go towards the end of
Speaker 1: their life cycle like this with the with the squid
Speaker 1: where it's like, hey, after they've laid their eggs and
Speaker 1: they're all going to die anyways, that's when we go
Speaker 1: fish them because they're all going to die anyways, and
Speaker 1: why not you.
Speaker 2: Know, Yeah, they put them to good use, that's right here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I invite those in fight, all these creatures to eat
Speaker 2: my body when I'm dead. Yeah, well you're welcome to it, squids,
Speaker 2: because I also want to be cast into the sea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, turn about spare play right with the squid?
Speaker 1: They like do you think they have little bibs but
Speaker 1: with us on it when we are when when our
Speaker 1: bodies are at sea?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like they're already they've already got forking knife
Speaker 2: in their hand that they're working with while they're tying
Speaker 2: the bib on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're tying a little bib that has like a
Speaker 1: person shape on it.
Speaker 2: Oh, I like that a lot.
Speaker 1: Do you think they have those little lemon scented hand
Speaker 1: wipes for their little pincers.
Speaker 2: I mean guarantee right right for.
Speaker 1: The try divors when they're like going to town on
Speaker 1: a whale carcass, Like, well, let me just wipe my
Speaker 1: little hands off here.
Speaker 2: That's a that's like a Red Lobster specific thing.
Speaker 1: Like I've been I've been known to. Uh. I have
Speaker 1: never once in my I have never been to a
Speaker 1: Red lam Katie.
Speaker 2: You got you got just for the cheddar Bay biscuits
Speaker 2: I've heard.
Speaker 1: I've heard those are very good. But you know, my
Speaker 1: cousin once made them just by herself. As like, these
Speaker 1: are very good. I don't need to go to Red
Speaker 1: Lobster because my cousin made them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you want to get them from the source.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm going to tell my cousin that you
Speaker 1: said you just negged her biscuits.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate that she did it and then she tried,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to tell you those were dogs.
Speaker 1: Oh thank goodness. They don't listen to my podet. So uh,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk about blood worms. Oh god,
Speaker 1: So this is very metal worm and so my husband
Speaker 1: is super in the metal and I told him. I
Speaker 1: was doing an episode on worms and he was like,
Speaker 1: you should talk about lord Worm, and I forgot. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's like a I don't know what he does in
Speaker 1: the band, but he he's like a like he was
Speaker 1: part of the group Cryptopsy. Cryptopsy, which is a metal
Speaker 1: metal band. Yeah, and so lord Worm. H I God,
Speaker 1: I have the Wikipedia, but it's in Italian. This is
Speaker 1: very frustrating to me. Okay, so he's all right, he's
Speaker 1: the singer of Cryptopsy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he left after the nun So Vile tour in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven. That's just a lot of information about it.
Speaker 1: Anyways, my so, what my husband wanted me to say
Speaker 1: about this guy is that he apparently would eat worms
Speaker 1: on stage as part of his act, and that thus
Speaker 1: his name was Lord Worm.
Speaker 2: He took a look at Ozzy Osbourne. He was like,
Speaker 2: you ate that off a bat. I don't do well
Speaker 2: with big animals just eating them live. I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can eat a worm. I think that I could
Speaker 2: recreate how to eat fried worms.
Speaker 1: I do think. I do think it's probably better in
Speaker 1: terms of zoonotic diseases to go for the worms rather
Speaker 1: than the bats. So I gotta say it's more sustainable
Speaker 1: to eat the worms.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's just more ethically responsible.
Speaker 1: Right, He's like, you know what, it's way more sustainable
Speaker 1: to eat worms than bats.
Speaker 2: So I'm looking at him, and I really wanted this
Speaker 2: guy to look really impressive, and he just.
Speaker 1: He just seems like some guys. This is what's This
Speaker 1: is what is very funny about a lot of metal
Speaker 1: is it has some name like death Bloat, corpse Parade,
Speaker 1: and then you look at them and they're all sort
Speaker 1: of just like I work at a library in my
Speaker 1: spare time, just these five eight guys with a goate
Speaker 1: It does look a little bit like Gary Oldman.
Speaker 2: Yeah he does. He's got, you know, to his credit,
Speaker 2: he has that early Gary Oleman and Dracula look.
Speaker 1: He does. He does. He's got the early Gary Oldman
Speaker 1: and Dracula look, which is very specific. I just I
Speaker 1: think that it's if you're gonna do, I just hope
Speaker 1: that these worms were of an edible grade. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you make sure worms are edible, but there's
Speaker 1: gotta be somewhere, right, because don't don't go around just
Speaker 1: eating a random bugs you find in your backyard, because
Speaker 1: that's a good way to get like a weird parasite.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I didn't even consider the possibility that
Speaker 2: those bugs would have parasites and them that could affect me.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna stop doing that.
Speaker 1: Random if you eat random slugs you can get it's
Speaker 1: like rat lungworm, which is really bad.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I so.
Speaker 2: Also, my assumption would have been, like you eat crickets
Speaker 2: off the ground or something, which obviously don't.
Speaker 1: Do it, but you could get anymatoad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you I assume it would also be like
Speaker 2: the stuff that they're carrying, or like worms that they've got.
Speaker 2: There's wriggling around in some pretty filthy soil. I imagine
Speaker 2: I could get some equal eye or something from just
Speaker 2: the outside of a worm.
Speaker 1: I mean you probably could. There's at least like what
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not supposed to just have eat dirt
Speaker 1: rot dirts, right, Yeah, I'm supposed to eat rod dirt
Speaker 1: because of the disease is like hysteria you can get
Speaker 1: from that. You can get hysteria. Apparently you can't garden
Speaker 1: when you're pregnant unless you're wearing gloves because of the
Speaker 1: lhysteria on the soil.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. All I know is about turkey meat.
Speaker 2: They're like, don't eat cold cuts. But I never said
Speaker 2: anything about don't grow roses or anything.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not allowed you're not allowed to have fun.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to uh, you're not allowed to play
Speaker 1: in the dirt or eat worms. It's frankly ridiculous.
Speaker 2: So which has no fish.
Speaker 1: No, no dirt, no much.
Speaker 2: Cheeses, no cheese, nothing.
Speaker 1: No cheese nothing. Well, you know I thought that, Wait
Speaker 1: is it the opposite? I thought pasteurized cheeses.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I think maybe that's okay, it's the stinky ones.
Speaker 2: It's like you're not supposed to have, like the those
Speaker 2: French cheeses. Oh boy, I can't remember now all this
Speaker 2: information leaves you immediately.
Speaker 1: Cheeses. That's what they call them, the gym sock cheeses,
Speaker 1: the French gym sock cheesus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get off this topic and get onto blood
Speaker 2: worms advertising.
Speaker 1: So they are also called glyceara dibrayan chiata. What a
Speaker 1: wonderful phrase. Which they grow a little over a foot long.
Speaker 1: They are blood red and horrible looking. These are also
Speaker 1: like remember the nice little midwife worms we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: That are polykeets. These are also polykeets. It's a type
Speaker 1: of marine worm. It's a huge group of worms, so
Speaker 1: it's not they're not super closely related. And so they
Speaker 1: are a little over a foot long. They are venomous.
Speaker 1: They have copper fangs, and they're irritable.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at their fangs right now. Oh man, wait,
Speaker 2: so they will they it would bite me. It wouldn't
Speaker 2: like me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they wouldn't like you. They're irritable. They're like boo sore.
Speaker 1: And that's also how they pump themselves up is booing you.
Speaker 1: So they are found all along coastal North America. They're
Speaker 1: predators and they like to hide in the sand and
Speaker 1: ambush their prey with those horrible little things on their proboscis.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little. You want to talk about
Speaker 1: proboscis just for a minute. Let's talk about love to
Speaker 1: love to talk about a proposcos So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a balloon like extrusion. Preposcus is in general an extrusion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the there's this I read this New York Times
Speaker 1: article on this blood worm, and there was this great
Speaker 1: quote from a researcher at UC Santa Barbara. His name
Speaker 1: is William Wonderley. Uh, and he told The New York
Speaker 1: Times quote, you can't imagine if your head was a balloon.
Speaker 1: Normally it's sucked inside your body. I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, in my head's a balloon, it's normally sucked
Speaker 1: inside my body. Of course I'm already there. Yeah. Then
Speaker 1: when you want to eat, you inflate it and bite
Speaker 1: and then suck it back in, and it's like, of course,
Speaker 1: yeah that It's like you can imagine this, right, You've
Speaker 1: always you've thought about it, if your head's a balloon,
Speaker 1: and then but it's normally inside your body, but then
Speaker 1: you inflate it and you bite down so that it
Speaker 1: stays inflated. Uh, and then you suck it back in
Speaker 1: once you get food through your your sort of balloon mandibles.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyways, apparently that's how it works.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it, and I mean, there's obviously, oh
Speaker 2: way more apt descripsion than that this guy is clearly avoiding.
Speaker 2: And it's clear that that's exactly what he was thinking
Speaker 2: about the entire time, because he was like, don't say,
Speaker 2: don't say foreskin, don't say.
Speaker 1: Yeah you can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's the head of your your body, the
Speaker 2: head of your body, how you know, it expands out
Speaker 2: like a balloon and eats and then and then goes
Speaker 2: back in Yeah, oh god, and then just runs off
Speaker 2: into the woods. He just leaves the interview.
Speaker 1: This is a very this is a very foreskin like creature. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the tip of it
Speaker 1: is our four little things.
Speaker 2: Just like a normal penis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's the thing is what's funny is
Speaker 1: there's so many penis like marine animals. There's more than
Speaker 1: one species that are not related called penis fish. Anyways,
Speaker 1: we're not here to talk about them. We're here to
Speaker 1: talk about the bloodworm. So they will inject venom into
Speaker 1: their prey off in small crustaceans. It's enough to paralyze
Speaker 1: or even kill them. For humans, it's not so bad.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a beasting. Some people might be
Speaker 1: allergic in the same way some people are allergic to beastings,
Speaker 1: but for most people it's not deadly. It's just very
Speaker 1: painful because it's like also, I feel like it would
Speaker 1: be more traumatic than a beasting, because you get stung
Speaker 1: by a bee. I feel mostly bad for the bee
Speaker 1: because I'm like no, why did you waste your life
Speaker 1: on me? Like I was not going to hurt your queen.
Speaker 1: You've made a terrible mistake. But for this thing, it's
Speaker 1: just this awful creature that looks so bad in every way.
Speaker 1: It's it's just I wouldn't if I saw this like
Speaker 1: coming out of my I don't know, if it like
Speaker 1: bit me on the leg, I wouldn't assume first that
Speaker 1: this is an animal that's biting me. I would assume that,
Speaker 1: like my leg is exploding, and.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it looks like internal organs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like like that my like leg guts are coming out,
Speaker 1: Like I think that there's like leg intestines that I
Speaker 1: have that are coming out or something. It looks very
Speaker 1: intestine like. It's not a good it's not a good
Speaker 1: looking animal. I think spiders are cute, so I am
Speaker 1: pretty generous when it comes to finding animals cute, and
Speaker 1: this one just looks it does not. It's very visceral.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's that's exactly right. It's a very visceral looking
Speaker 2: animal at every turn. It's also because it's so like
Speaker 2: flesh colored. It's just yes, it's it's just it really,
Speaker 2: it's tough to look at It reminds me of if
Speaker 2: if people can't see this obviously, if you that remake
Speaker 2: of King Kong when they all fall into that pit
Speaker 2: and like they get eaten by those worms. They look
Speaker 2: kind of like those worms.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it was the one with the gull with
Speaker 1: gollum in it. Yeah, what's normal person?
Speaker 2: Yeah he's he's a cook in that. Yeah, but yeah
Speaker 2: he gets eaten by those worms. He gets like sloiced
Speaker 2: devoured by them. Those have a lot more teeth. These
Speaker 2: only have four teeth that are like teeth is wrong, obviously,
Speaker 2: they're fangs. And the fangs don't even like sit together. Well,
Speaker 2: it's not like well designed like a shag like a snake,
Speaker 2: where like the fangs like, oh, they retract and they
Speaker 2: pull up and then they bite. These are just like
Speaker 2: poorly placed four fangs that just sort of over each other.
Speaker 1: It just looks it looks very It looks like it
Speaker 1: would be a painful existence to be this thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like it hurts looking at it because it feels just
Speaker 1: like a raw scab that is alive somehow. So apparently though,
Speaker 1: those things are really interesting because they have a very
Speaker 1: high copper content, more so than I think any other
Speaker 1: kind of organic animal part. And apparently they are made
Speaker 1: out of melanin, copper, and a small protein melanin. I
Speaker 1: know you're thinking like, well, that's like the pigment, which
Speaker 1: is correct. Melanin is usually a pigment, but blood worms
Speaker 1: have turned it into sort of an anchor for the copper.
Speaker 1: It adheres to a copper ion that in this whole
Speaker 1: process is facilitated by some little protein, and then it
Speaker 1: creates this fang mostly made out of copper, and then
Speaker 1: these other weird little facilitative proteins in the melanin.
Speaker 2: We should be stripping them.
Speaker 1: We should be These are valuable worms.
Speaker 2: I'd love to see some people take these words down a.
Speaker 1: Peg, right, Such a tiny amount of copper in there,
Speaker 1: but you know, still you need I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of how many worms you'd need for a penny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say fifty worms for a penny.
Speaker 2: That feels like south of what I was thinking. These
Speaker 2: are so tiny, these fangs. I feel like I need
Speaker 2: get pure copper. Yeah, I think one hundred maybe even like.
Speaker 1: Huns were coming, we'll try it, you know, we're coming
Speaker 1: for you. Glisarah di bran Kiata.
Speaker 2: Even they don't know that that's them. They're like, what,
Speaker 2: Oh was that me? Is that my name is so complicated?
Speaker 2: I can't if that one's me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why. That's why we just call them blood worms.
Speaker 1: There's got to be a band called blood worm. There's
Speaker 1: probably multiple bands band surely called blood worm. Blood worm.
Speaker 1: Yeah there's yeah, yeah, there's like a few of them.
Speaker 1: Oh and they look exactly expect them to look pink
Speaker 1: and slimy and yeah.
Speaker 2: There's just it's just a bunch of guys with balloon heads.
Speaker 1: Yea. They have a very foreskin forward sort of Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I think that it's it is, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's we on the show. I try to appreciate everything
Speaker 1: for what it is, and I gotta say, for to
Speaker 1: this worm's credit, it spends most of its time buried
Speaker 1: under the sand. So I feel like that's really something
Speaker 1: that we could admire and appreciate about this thing, Like
Speaker 1: it's horrible to look at, but most of the time
Speaker 1: it's it has the self awareness to bury itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my first thought too. As soon as you
Speaker 2: like it spends most of the times waiting the sand,
Speaker 2: I'm like.
Speaker 1: Good, yeah, yeah, it's like say there, yea, we know,
Speaker 1: we know.
Speaker 2: That is how it sounds like trying to talk around
Speaker 2: those stupid fangs. We for trying not to poke themselves
Speaker 2: in their own face, their own pink raw face with
Speaker 2: their fangs. Will they talk?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really it's it's quite awful looking. And yeah,
Speaker 1: just imagine that's the last thing you see coming at you,
Speaker 1: Just this thing that looks apologetic for existing. It's like,
Speaker 1: so we anyways, before we go sour, and we got
Speaker 1: to play a little a little gom he'll go. We
Speaker 1: gotta play a game called Guess who Squawk, a mystery
Speaker 1: animal sound game. Every week I play a mystery sound
Speaker 1: for you and you the listener, and use the guests
Speaker 1: trying to guess who is who's making this sound. It
Speaker 1: can be any animal in the world. The hint was
Speaker 1: this last week. It is that this bird has one
Speaker 1: of the loudest calls in the world.
Speaker 2: All right, horrifying.
Speaker 1: You know, you go out in the nature to relax
Speaker 1: and then some bird comes up to you and goes.
Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, it's like a siren. Almh. Yeah, I'm trying
Speaker 2: to identify even what that sound is. Okay, you said
Speaker 2: the loudest bird My first thought was like a parrot
Speaker 2: or a cockatoo. Those are so loud, But that does
Speaker 2: not sound like either of those things. And it did
Speaker 2: sound like context clues. It did sound like it was
Speaker 2: near body of water, like rushing water, or it was
Speaker 2: in the rain, which means that this bird lives somewhere wet.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a sea bird. I think it's
Speaker 2: something inland.
Speaker 1: Can you try, can you try to guess the country
Speaker 1: or the region?
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna say South America.
Speaker 1: All right, well, sir, you are correct that this is
Speaker 1: in South America. This is a bird that has a
Speaker 1: call that is one hundred and twenty five decibels or more.
Speaker 1: It is as loud as having your head right next
Speaker 1: to a jet engine during takeoff. This is the white
Speaker 1: bell bird.
Speaker 2: Uhl bird. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: It looks like a dove, except for it has this
Speaker 1: like big wattle that goes from its beak down hangs down.
Speaker 1: It's quite long, sort of wardy looking wattle, and it
Speaker 1: has a giant mouth. And it apparently, even though it
Speaker 1: has such a loud voice, and it's thought like this
Speaker 1: is so that it can be heard over really long distances.
Speaker 1: It also screams really loudly as soon as a female
Speaker 1: is nearby, so that's not it doesn't explain everything about
Speaker 1: why it's so loud, because it seems to scream the
Speaker 1: most when a female is next to it, and then
Speaker 1: it's just like listen to this and just air horns
Speaker 1: right in her ear, and she apparently finds that attractive.
Speaker 2: So you got you've got the chop, you got the pipes,
Speaker 2: my boy?
Speaker 1: Yep, uh yeah this.
Speaker 2: I'm really disturbed by this wattle. It looks like if
Speaker 2: I saw a burn a tree, I would think it
Speaker 2: was carrying a worm in its mouth, but it just
Speaker 2: like hangs off the top like a turkey's. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: sporting a rat tail on the front.
Speaker 1: There's a taxidermy of one of these where someone just
Speaker 1: had a dead one and didn't know what they looked
Speaker 1: like when they were alive, so they just assumed it
Speaker 1: was like a unicorn worn just this like straight up
Speaker 1: taxidermy of this like pointy horn like protrusion on this
Speaker 1: bird because they didn't realize it was so floppy.
Speaker 2: How could you have predicted it would be this silly?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So, according to researchers, the bellbirds have the
Speaker 1: facial anatomy of a trombone because their mouths open so wide,
Speaker 1: and that's how one of the reasons they are so loud,
Speaker 1: so you know, but why exactly they have to be
Speaker 1: that loud. It doesn't seem to be known because again
Speaker 1: they yes, it helps them communicate over long distances, but
Speaker 1: as soon as the female is like right there, they're like,
Speaker 1: all right, let me again. Yeah, here's an encore and
Speaker 1: just shrieks in her ear. And they also don't know
Speaker 1: exactly how they don't have hearing loss. Yeah, because they're
Speaker 1: doing it, you know. I mean, maybe they just don't
Speaker 1: live long enough for the hearing loss is set in
Speaker 1: a full I'm not really sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because to themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, having.
Speaker 2: A gun next to their own face every single.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's uh, you know, that's why you gotta wear
Speaker 1: your protection if you like to go to concerts a lot,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you start to lose it, yeah, damage your hearing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they don't. They don't seem to be affected.
Speaker 2: That's a fun one like that when the answer is
Speaker 2: something that I've never heard of, and then I get
Speaker 2: to look at it and what the is it wearing? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 1: Like, I do highly recommend looking at a video of
Speaker 1: these guys because they'll like shriek and then kind of
Speaker 1: like move their head around in that bird like way,
Speaker 1: and it's like, all right, onto this week's mystery animal sound.
Speaker 1: The hint is this found in eastern North America. You
Speaker 1: might find this little guy boogie woogieing and who can
Speaker 1: blame him with a call like this? Sh sh.
Speaker 2: Oh, my god, that's a cute sound.
Speaker 1: They're so goofy. We don't do another one.
Speaker 2: That's that's such an adorable sound.
Speaker 1: It's so cute and okay, another hint, the actual animal
Speaker 1: behind them is equally super cute. This is not a
Speaker 1: deceptive sound. They are as cute as the sound is. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love these guys so much.
Speaker 2: They sound to me like I don't know the name
Speaker 2: they had. There's like that little round frog. It's like
Speaker 2: a frog that almost looks like a dime. And this
Speaker 2: is what I thget it's a frog.
Speaker 1: Well, we will find out next week if sorn is
Speaker 1: correct or not. You can write to us at Creature
Speaker 1: Featurepod at gmail dot com with your guests, or your
Speaker 1: questions or your disgusting caterpillar stories. Sorn, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today, you guys pleasure. Where can
Speaker 1: people find you?
Speaker 2: Oh, you can find me on Blue Sky hang out
Speaker 2: there a lot and do some jokes, jokes and what
Speaker 2: you can find it. You can find us on our
Speaker 2: podcast I think that I do with Daniel O'Brien called
Speaker 2: Soren and Dan. No, it's not called that, it's called
Speaker 2: Quick Question with Soorn and Dan. Uh and uh. That's
Speaker 2: pretty much it. Or you can just watch my episodes on
Speaker 2: American Dad. Yeah, or as.
Speaker 1: I like to call it, family, Dad's family Dad, family Dad.
Speaker 1: He's everyone's family and everyone's dad. All right, Well, thank
Speaker 1: you guys so much for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: please do leave a rating or review. I read them
Speaker 1: all and I look at all of the the ratings
Speaker 1: as well, each individually, even when it's just like counting
Speaker 1: all the little stars each separately. So it gives me
Speaker 1: something to do. And I appreciate that we all need
Speaker 1: we all need stuff to do in our lives. And
Speaker 1: that's that's one thing that I do, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: your participation in that. And thanks for the song that
Speaker 1: is called ex Alumina by the Space Cossacks. And you
Speaker 1: can find the I am usually on autopilot for these outcomes.
Speaker 1: I have just suddenly become self aware of what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I don't like it.
Speaker 2: I do not like it.
Speaker 1: Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like
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Speaker 1: Podcasts or Yes, what where have you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows? I do not judge you. I'm not your mother.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what to do, but don't go
Speaker 1: around bothering blood worms. They're just gonna bite you, and
Speaker 1: they don't want to be seen, and you don't want
Speaker 1: to see them. Respect that. You've gotta respect that. I'll
Speaker 1: see you next Wednesday, you guys,