Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show Animal Elector, the animals will
Speaker 1: eat your liver with some fava beans, Kyanti, maybe some
Speaker 1: parsley or those little oyster crackers. These critters have a
Speaker 1: taste for the weird, the morbid, and the wildly unethical.
Speaker 1: Discover this and more as we answer the age old
Speaker 1: question what do you do with the cannibal boss Baby?
Speaker 1: Joining me today are friends of the podcast Friends of
Speaker 1: Me Small Beans podcast network hosts Michael Swayman A Beperson.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Hey, Hey Katie, thanks for having us. Yeah, Abe
Speaker 2: was gonna say it. I heard the thch on his time.
Speaker 2: This is the Michael voice.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's my ches, the Abe voice.
Speaker 2: I don't know, there might yeah, there might be creature.
Speaker 2: You knows who don't know us just saying hey, uh yeah,
Speaker 2: very excited to be here. I am. Also, I was
Speaker 2: famously I was the kid who would like eat bugs
Speaker 2: on the playground. Yeah, and eat weird and unethical, gross
Speaker 2: things for attention. So I already feel a kinship with
Speaker 2: the topic and I'm excited.
Speaker 3: To discuss it.
Speaker 1: Michael coming out as a bug as a weird eat
Speaker 1: as a bug eater on the podcast today.
Speaker 3: I was a weird bug kid, but I didn't eat them.
Speaker 3: I just stared at them.
Speaker 1: You were just half bugging hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a way, that's weirder to me, Like you're
Speaker 2: not what's to gain?
Speaker 3: Where's the big Yeah.
Speaker 2: What's my what's my what's my piece of this bug?
Speaker 1: I ate snails as a baby, I knew.
Speaker 2: So what was interesting is I ate bugs, not like
Speaker 2: I liked it, but to literally, you know, because someone
Speaker 2: would dare me or to get attention or be audacious.
Speaker 2: And then there was another kid who would get attention
Speaker 2: organically because he ate snails because he wanted to. And
Speaker 2: that was how I felt good about myself. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm not like that freak.
Speaker 1: Though, You're not like that snail eating freak.
Speaker 2: Otherwise known as different.
Speaker 1: Otherwise known as French people and other Europeans who enjoy us.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, or Katie it was a baby Katie who knows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't like escargo these days. But yeah, as
Speaker 1: a baby, my mom would find me in the backyard
Speaker 1: just with like little pieces of snail shell stuck to
Speaker 1: my mouth because I ate snails shell and all.
Speaker 3: Apparently, Wow, you guys are just bragging good texture.
Speaker 2: I would imagine the shell into the goo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, chewy on the inside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we we.
Speaker 1: Are talking about animals who have a taste for the
Speaker 1: strange that uh you know the title of the podcast
Speaker 1: animal elector Animal elector. You know, it's if you say
Speaker 1: it fast enough, it is a joke. Yeah, But first
Speaker 1: I want to set a grizzly crime scene for you guys.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not so much a true crime podcaster, but
Speaker 1: let me see if I can kind of do my
Speaker 1: true crime podcaster voice. It's sort of like, I'm way
Speaker 1: too into this. So the victim has washed up on
Speaker 1: the shore with an almost surgical terror across her shoulders.
Speaker 1: While the rest of her organs are intact, her liver
Speaker 1: has been pulled out through the tear in her back
Speaker 1: and is missing. This scene is blood curdling enough, but
Speaker 1: soon another victim washes up to shore, and then another,
Speaker 1: and then another. Soon there's a total of nineteen victims,
Speaker 1: all of them beautiful innocent sharks gone before their time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that sharks.
Speaker 2: But the shark reveal I was expecting, not sharks, not humans,
Speaker 2: because I knew you were doing something animal sharks.
Speaker 3: So something's out there hunting sharks is just drilling.
Speaker 2: Their livers out. That is, I've never encountered only the liver.
Speaker 1: The liver. Yeah. Yeah, So starting around twenty fifteen, a
Speaker 1: murderer had been meticulously preying on seven gill sharks. So
Speaker 1: seven gill sharks are formidable themselves. The females can grow
Speaker 1: to be over seven feet or about two meters long,
Speaker 1: and males can grow up to five feet are about
Speaker 1: one and a half meters, and their carnivores they're serious business.
Speaker 1: So you know it is it is quite a feat
Speaker 1: to go handibal elector on these sharks because they're they're sharks.
Speaker 1: They're sharky sharks. They're not like little cute, tiny sharks.
Speaker 1: They are just big old sharks. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That guy also dangerous to around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did a crime.
Speaker 3: My first thought is like it's like like an orca
Speaker 3: or something. It's got to be big, right.
Speaker 2: Oh, my brain went the opposite way where I thought
Speaker 2: like it's some kind of little needlefish that they can't
Speaker 2: fight because it just sneaks in and zaps your liver
Speaker 2: out real quick.
Speaker 3: But how does he eat it? Like, it's got to
Speaker 3: be a handsome that's a handsome liver, you know, like
Speaker 3: a big liver. Well, I actually don't know the size
Speaker 3: of shark livers, like I.
Speaker 2: Would love if it's just like, oh, no, it's a
Speaker 2: guy this time.
Speaker 3: It's oh, it's just a guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah they thought him.
Speaker 3: Yeah he's a freak dude. It's just Paul in Pacific
Speaker 3: Beach in San Diego.
Speaker 1: Well, abe, you are getting promoted to the rank of
Speaker 1: ocean detective because you are correct. This was Orca's So
Speaker 1: there's a National Geographic article with a wonderful title, why
Speaker 1: are these orcas killing sharks and removing their livers?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 1: Shout out to the author, Jessica Taylor Price. This is
Speaker 1: a fascinating story. Apparently based on the precise of the killers,
Speaker 1: as well as tooth impressions found on the victims, shark
Speaker 1: biologists whittled down the suspects to two male orcas Starboard
Speaker 1: import Just a pair of fun loving orcas going around
Speaker 1: surgically removing the livers from sharks.
Speaker 2: So we're not a regular behavior of orcas. Yeah, down
Speaker 2: to individual orcas.
Speaker 3: Okay, wow, So like sociopath or psychopath orcas.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, I thought I thought we'd be covering animals
Speaker 2: where that whole species eats something we would consider weird.
Speaker 2: But these are like, no, no, these two orcas even
Speaker 2: to other orcas, Like I imagine another orca coming up
Speaker 2: while they're you know, slicing the liver rapp right, what
Speaker 2: you're doing, Bud, Yeah.
Speaker 3: The liver. That's Starboard. He's the worst.
Speaker 1: Yeah or sorry, no, exactly. Yeah, so this is not
Speaker 1: a hitherto known behavior that orces regularly do. They do
Speaker 1: attack and eat sharks, sure, but this like surgical precision
Speaker 1: where they're just like, I want to eat the liver.
Speaker 1: Holds him down, brother, while I cut out the liver. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just these weirdos. So uh yeah, Port and Starboard
Speaker 1: are so precise in their serial murders that they have
Speaker 1: figured out how to precisely cut open the sharks just
Speaker 1: above the liver so that they can suck out the
Speaker 1: liver from the wound and just feased on shark fois gras.
Speaker 2: Wow or can suck yeah yeah, I mean like their
Speaker 2: lips can come together enough to create suction. Is also
Speaker 2: something I didn't think was true.
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe I don't know that it's their
Speaker 1: lips so much. I mean, Belugas can do that. Belugas
Speaker 1: definitely can do that. They actually have very mobile lips
Speaker 1: and they can suck things up. Or is I think
Speaker 1: it's more like sort of like get in their mouth
Speaker 1: and and sort of opening their mouths such that the
Speaker 1: water water and then comes the liver.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what a waste. Obviously they would. I think
Speaker 2: it stands to reason they kill way more to eat
Speaker 2: than other orcas have to write. It just feels like
Speaker 2: this is like a dude who is like I just
Speaker 2: like the bacon off of the sandwich, right, throws the
Speaker 2: rest of the sandwich out the window of his car.
Speaker 3: So wasteful, right, that it's very wasteful. I just think
Speaker 3: that these two are just fancy orcas, right, that must
Speaker 3: be what they are. They only have the finest their
Speaker 3: food parts. Yeah, they're snobs. They da figured it out.
Speaker 3: Deliver is the best part and screw everything else.
Speaker 1: I mean, I am a bit of a fussy eater,
Speaker 1: but I can't imagine just like so that means I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill this entire cow, but just eat like one
Speaker 1: of its eyeballs it's just you know, it's like you
Speaker 1: can be picky, but for me, picky is like I
Speaker 1: don't like capers, and so I pick all the capers
Speaker 1: off my food. But you know, I don't kill like
Speaker 1: a whale, and then like I think the whole most
Speaker 1: of the whale is like one big caper and just
Speaker 1: eat one flipper.
Speaker 3: We also don't kill our food, though, So I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well is a thing, and I'm sure that I'm sure
Speaker 2: foa grad ducks. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I
Speaker 2: imagine foa garrad ducks. You know, like the livers turn
Speaker 2: into fuagra, and other parts of it are also used.
Speaker 2: Like I imagine they don't throw the rest of the
Speaker 2: duck away, but still probably not.
Speaker 3: They just kind of livers.
Speaker 1: They just kind of torture it by forceing it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's still horrible, right, But my point being that
Speaker 2: our our food snobs also have a thing for liver. Like,
Speaker 2: I guess liver is good. I don't like liver, but
Speaker 2: I guess it's good.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah that's true. I don't know, but
Speaker 3: I imagine that like the things you need, the horrible and
Speaker 3: ethical things you need to do to an animal for
Speaker 3: that sweet sweet foah graw versus like I just want
Speaker 3: a chicken breast or something like that. You know, like
Speaker 3: they're doing things to the animal for to streamline, like
Speaker 3: the best foe gras, right, So that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 3: that it's gonna be like, oh, that's also good meat.
Speaker 3: They're gonna use an entirely different animal or yeah animal, I.
Speaker 1: Don't I don't know what happens to the rest of that.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happens to the rest of the fuagram.
Speaker 1: I went, well, no, I'm googling it. Now you've you've
Speaker 1: done this.
Speaker 3: To ye graters. This could get dark, This could get
Speaker 3: real dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, I realized how funny of God to design
Speaker 2: the ducks such stuff. Torturing it makes it delicious. God's like,
Speaker 2: you're fuck, I've done this to you. This is funny
Speaker 2: to me tell you what corkscrewed dick. There you go.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. I recently learned that ducks are amazing
Speaker 3: because they have the most amazing and the most horrifying
Speaker 3: factoid about them. One is that, yeah, they have horrible
Speaker 3: corkscrew penises, which is very covered on this show before.
Speaker 3: And that's the horrible thing. I'm sure we taught. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Coature for Cheers covered it. But the thing I just
Speaker 3: recently learned is that they can breathe out of their buttholes.
Speaker 2: I did not know that. Also, I should correct myself,
Speaker 2: goose liver pat as fois gras. But but yes, but
Speaker 2: ducks are the interesting animal we're discussing now, Katie, did
Speaker 2: you find the information?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but no, I've found some horrible things about like
Speaker 1: vomiting and aspirating the vomit. But you know, yeah, so
Speaker 1: we're not going to answer that fun little question today. Sure, Instead,
Speaker 1: we're gonna answer the question why are these orca brothers
Speaker 1: running around sucking out shark lovers? Sure? What that short
Speaker 1: story is, They're not sure, But there are theories as
Speaker 1: to the motives for their serial killing of these sharks.
Speaker 1: Overfishing may be causing a deficit of fish for these
Speaker 1: orcas and making it harder for them to get the
Speaker 1: nutrients that they need, so they focus on this very
Speaker 1: vitamin rich liver. The reason they might not be eating
Speaker 1: the entire rest of the shark is that sharkskin is
Speaker 1: very tough. It's actually covered in tiny tooth like projections
Speaker 1: called denticles, and that might be kind of irritating or
Speaker 1: tough on the orca's teeth, So maybe they're just going
Speaker 1: for the liver. My theory is that they just like
Speaker 1: the taste of liver and are psychopaths with no concept
Speaker 1: of food waste.
Speaker 3: Yeah I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why would they have a concept of food waste.
Speaker 2: So I feel like it's got to be they randomly,
Speaker 2: at an impressionable age eight liver and decided, oh, that.
Speaker 3: Tasted the best of the thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm doing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's and.
Speaker 2: I'll take for the rest of yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And this is not just like a harmless,
Speaker 1: quirky story about two serial killing whales. The shark populations
Speaker 1: coming for you. They have, Yes, they there. It's actually
Speaker 1: really cute. They're like one of them is on like
Speaker 1: a little like wheely KRT and the other one has
Speaker 1: like roller states on each of its fins. They have
Speaker 1: killed dozens no, so yeah. The shark population in Cape
Speaker 1: Town has plummeted, both due to humans like overfishing, but
Speaker 1: also the behavior of these murderous orcas killing them and
Speaker 1: probably scaring the survivors away, which has been pretty bad
Speaker 1: for Cape Town's The shark researchers there as well as
Speaker 1: their tourism industry, where they're like, hey, look at our
Speaker 1: cool sharks, and then it's like, uh, you look at
Speaker 1: the water and it's just too very creepy orcas sink.
Speaker 1: Come swim with this, Come swim.
Speaker 3: With I love that knowing that. I mean, there's some
Speaker 3: shark researcher out there who is like, I hate those
Speaker 3: damn orcas' you can't handle it.
Speaker 1: That's not even an exaggeration. These researchers were like quoted
Speaker 1: in this article, I don't have the exact quote, but
Speaker 1: it was like something to the effect of like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do about this. It's just horrible
Speaker 1: and sad.
Speaker 2: I bet it would be heartbreaking. You're like, I was
Speaker 2: tracking twelve sharks and they're all dead.
Speaker 3: Now this is what my life has been leading up to.
Speaker 3: This is like a big deal for me, and then
Speaker 3: suddenly just act of God, cruel, cruel nature.
Speaker 1: The tone of these researchers, it just seems like exasperation
Speaker 1: and desolation. So, guys, we talked about orcas who serial
Speaker 1: kill sharks, little innocent baby sharks and suck their livers out.
Speaker 1: Now we are moving on to another animal with a
Speaker 1: strange appetite. But first, hey, what do you think about tortoises?
Speaker 2: Hard the best way to determine if someone is a replicant.
Speaker 2: That's probably the main thing I think about.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, because you're like, hey, what you come
Speaker 1: across the tortoise and it's flipped over and kick it,
Speaker 1: and then it's the replicant is like, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: am an interface and I have not been programmed with
Speaker 1: the ability to do ethical questions. But if you'd like
Speaker 1: to ask me about math and then you then you know,
Speaker 1: and yeah.
Speaker 2: Then ironically cave their head in with a tortoise show, Ah, tortoises.
Speaker 3: Frankly, Katie, you put me in an existential funk. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I never, to this day in my life
Speaker 3: have asked myself what I think about turtles?
Speaker 2: You have not developed an opinion on first of all, turtles,
Speaker 2: I guess I like turtles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that kid on the internet, remember that, that's great?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the quarantine turtles.
Speaker 1: We are talking about tortoises. Turtles are you know, similar?
Speaker 1: There's more aquatic.
Speaker 2: My apologies and to the to the tortoises out there
Speaker 2: and they live longer than us, which makes me upset
Speaker 2: at them.
Speaker 1: Some of them do, yeah, well, but these ones generally don't.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the gopher tortoise found in the
Speaker 1: Southeast United States. Now, tortoises are really they're clever, right, like,
Speaker 1: they have evolved their own little bonkers, and their shells
Speaker 1: are extremely tough, like the average short tortoise shell can't
Speaker 1: handle around two hundred times its own weight. So the
Speaker 1: gopher tortoise, like I said, lives in the southeast United States.
Speaker 1: They weigh around nine pounds or a little over four kilograms,
Speaker 1: and they're about a foot long or thirty centimeters long.
Speaker 1: They're called gopher tortoises because of their habit of burrowing
Speaker 1: in the dirt. And these burrows are very impressive. They
Speaker 1: can be over nine feet or three meters deep, and
Speaker 1: they can be almost fifty feet or fifteen meters long.
Speaker 1: So they are serious, wow, serious burrowers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. To Actually, I imagine, I guess just because of
Speaker 2: my knowledge of tortoises, I imagined a little cubby hole
Speaker 2: like some spiders will make. But this sounds more like
Speaker 2: an ant like that.
Speaker 3: This sounds like minecraft or something like a badger or
Speaker 3: something right.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a gopher, which because I assumed.
Speaker 2: They were called that just because they're like unpaid interns
Speaker 2: who fetch coffee for the tortoises. I thought that had
Speaker 2: nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're just it's their gaffer tortoises and they
Speaker 1: hold up you know, the sound equipment.
Speaker 2: Anyways, make sure yeah, yeah, yeah, gopher is the connection
Speaker 2: point there.
Speaker 3: I see that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: This is why you're the host. That is why you
Speaker 3: get the big creature box.
Speaker 1: This is why I get the massive creature box for
Speaker 1: pointing out. Gopher tortoises are named after gophers because they
Speaker 1: did go oh boy, yeah no. These they can actually
Speaker 1: live to be over forty years, which you know is
Speaker 1: very I think, quite impressive. And yeah, their shells protect
Speaker 1: them against many predators. As eggs or as young tortoises,
Speaker 1: they can be preyed upon by foxes or raccoons and
Speaker 1: other omnivorous or carnivorous animals, but as adults there are
Speaker 1: much harder prey. Really, only like formidable alligators can break
Speaker 1: open their shells for these gopher tortoises, so like once
Speaker 1: they're adults, they don't have too much to worry about.
Speaker 1: Around the world, there are some animals who have developed
Speaker 1: a way to get to the meat inside of the
Speaker 1: tortoise shell. There are like crocodiles who just you know,
Speaker 1: they crack them open. Jag Wires have incredible jaw strengths,
Speaker 1: so they can crack open tortoise shells. Birds of prey
Speaker 1: can pick them up and then just drop them from
Speaker 1: a really high height and that cracks them open to
Speaker 1: get to that.
Speaker 2: Delicious at all. Yeah, I thought of so many gopher tortoises.
Speaker 1: They are pretty safe and secure all things to that
Speaker 1: shell because most animals don't really want to mess around
Speaker 1: with that shell. It's too tough, it's not tasty. So really,
Speaker 1: the only threats to an adult tortoise's life are some
Speaker 1: of the most hardcore predators. But once they're dead, they're
Speaker 1: fair game for this little creep who feasts on the
Speaker 1: tortoise's dead body. But not the fleshy parts, not the
Speaker 1: fun meat parts. This little necrophile is after the dead
Speaker 1: tortoise's shell.
Speaker 3: Huh, what's in that keratin? What's in it for that thing?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm wondering what the thing is? Yeah, right, is
Speaker 2: this a worm? I'm also still stuck on raccoon insect.
Speaker 2: I'm imagining almost like guys after a heist trying to
Speaker 2: break a safe open, like a bunch of raccoons gathered
Speaker 2: around a tortoise being like, how do we get the
Speaker 2: meat out there? I'm impressed that raccoons were able to
Speaker 2: do that even well.
Speaker 1: They can, yeah, they can really only do it for
Speaker 1: like babies, but and eggs. But yeah, onto onto the question.
Speaker 1: I think one of you mentioned worms. What do you
Speaker 1: think could do this, babe?
Speaker 3: Hm hmm, I'm my first thought is an insect of
Speaker 3: some kind. Uh, but I don't know you guys.
Speaker 1: You guys are really good tortoise detectives.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: This is done by something called a Seratophagia vichanillah. It
Speaker 1: is a small black and white, shabby looking moth who
Speaker 1: is honestly pretty unspectacular looking. But their larva have a
Speaker 1: taste for pure keratin and they will find it on
Speaker 1: the shells of dead gopher tortoises, so they specifically eat
Speaker 1: and only eat dead gopher tortoise shells. The larva will
Speaker 1: eat into the shell and they'll actually create a silk
Speaker 1: tube that extends into the ground under the tortoise shell.
Speaker 1: So if you lift it up, it looks like this
Speaker 1: dead tortoise has sprouted roots into the ground. It's honestly
Speaker 1: a little bit gross.
Speaker 3: They make little tunnels out of its shell. It's some
Speaker 3: kind of cruel joke on the tortoise. I mean, the
Speaker 3: tunneling tortoise gets tunneled out.
Speaker 2: The first one on the dock and see.
Speaker 3: A picture of it.
Speaker 1: It's a little it's a little ironic. I feel like
Speaker 1: Elenis Morisset could use this in her song rather than
Speaker 1: the other stuff that I don't think was actually ironic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hundred percent with you percent.
Speaker 1: It's like, right on your wedding day is just unlucky.
Speaker 1: Whereas a tortoise known for burrowing itself gets burrowed, I
Speaker 1: feel that is irony.
Speaker 3: Irony, right, So yeah, because I imagine it wouldn't I don't
Speaker 3: know how Mas digests things, but I imagined it wouldn't
Speaker 3: have been something with like a stomach in the way
Speaker 3: that we typically think of stomachs, right, because like that's
Speaker 3: a hard thing to break down. It's one of the
Speaker 3: hardest things in the world.
Speaker 2: Isn't a larva, Like the whole thing is a stomach
Speaker 2: essentially pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the moth just tubes. The adult moths don't
Speaker 1: really eat this stuff. It is the larva, which are,
Speaker 1: as you've said, Michael, pretty much just stomach tubes. And
Speaker 1: their whole thing is acquire nutrients until they get enough
Speaker 1: to fuel that transformation into a moth. And so these
Speaker 1: guys though, have a taste for keratin, which is an
Speaker 1: unusual thing. Keratin it's found in your fingernails. I mean,
Speaker 1: some people will like eat fingernails, but humans can't really derive,
Speaker 1: you know, nutrients. We can't really digest fingernails. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so this little thing, it can't actually digest the torn shell.
Speaker 1: One of the theories as to why they create these
Speaker 1: like silk tunnels underneath the tortoise that like act as
Speaker 1: these roots is it does actually anchor down the tortoise shell,
Speaker 1: and as the tortoises shell decays and is broken down,
Speaker 1: it keeps it from like scattering or blowing away. So
Speaker 1: they can just like have their little dining hall made
Speaker 1: out of dead tortoise. Uh. And then the larva just
Speaker 1: kind of like also climb up and down these little
Speaker 1: tubes that they've made using spines on their side. It's
Speaker 1: you know, it's not the most dignified death for the tortoise.
Speaker 2: I think, No, what's the deal with the the one
Speaker 2: you commonly hear about where something plants its eggs and
Speaker 2: something else and then they eat their way out.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a that's a parasitoid. So anything, So there's.
Speaker 2: A whole range of things, the who whole.
Speaker 1: Range of things that do that. That's like such a
Speaker 1: pop that does such a popular thing. But yeah, but
Speaker 1: this is I think a little more benign than a parasitoid.
Speaker 1: This is not really a parasite at all, in fact,
Speaker 1: because they only eat the dead, dead tortoise shell and
Speaker 1: so this is more of a scavenger really, because.
Speaker 2: It's morally, morally way more defensible and just equally grossed
Speaker 2: out by its disgusting.
Speaker 1: And it's like if someone you know, it's those cases
Speaker 1: of like human cannibalism where sometimes they like murder someone
Speaker 1: and eat them and it's like, guys, that's wrong, that's
Speaker 1: not a nice thing to do. But then sometimes it's
Speaker 1: like someone dies and they are like really hesitant, so
Speaker 1: they wait a few days and they're like, I think
Speaker 1: we actually got to eat this guy and it's like,
Speaker 1: even though that's morally less repugnant, ew, it's just gross, right,
Speaker 1: I mean it's grosser in a way, right because often
Speaker 1: it's they've waited a while, so the body's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's not fresh anymore, and so you know, yeah, just.
Speaker 3: Put it on ice.
Speaker 2: It's kind of nice that they go for the shell
Speaker 2: and not the meat parts because after a few days, like,
Speaker 2: that's even the more disgusting image.
Speaker 3: I guess, So I guess we got spared.
Speaker 2: But yeah, if you do look up an image, which
Speaker 2: I suggest in all these cases kind of looks like
Speaker 2: it's wearing a rasta hat and now like the dead shorts. Yeah,
Speaker 2: or like Katie said, if it was upside down, I
Speaker 2: would be roots. But what a weird thing. If you
Speaker 2: were a primitive man and you found one of these,
Speaker 2: I feel like you spend a long time pondering what
Speaker 2: the hell was that.
Speaker 1: I don't think you'd have to be a primitive person
Speaker 1: to ponder this to not know what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think if you lifted one of these up and
Speaker 1: you looked at this, it'd be like today, there are
Speaker 1: people looking at this going okay, it's haunted. Haunted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: I do still see a lot of goos on Twitter
Speaker 2: where people go, is this the first sighting of this
Speaker 2: ever on Earth? And some zoologists will respond, no, it's
Speaker 2: this kind of worm. Yeah, we know it exists.
Speaker 3: It's fine, it's fine, it's just you haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It does occasionally happen that someone will take a
Speaker 1: photo of a weird thing in their backyard and it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily that it hasn't been seen before, but it's like, hunh,
Speaker 1: that's not supposed to be in this area at this
Speaker 1: time of year, in this Yeah, in this kind of backyard.
Speaker 2: So you know it does happen, but yeah, LUs, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just like the worm, right, life finds away Like
Speaker 2: screw dinosaurs changing genders. This thing is eating fingernail material, right,
Speaker 2: It's amazing to me that life can use that and
Speaker 2: turn it into nutrals.
Speaker 1: Like, it's it's biology, man, We've got clearly it's morally
Speaker 1: right for us to eat.
Speaker 2: So can we just eat rocks or can we eat anything?
Speaker 3: Is it fine? Does it work? It's all yeah?
Speaker 1: So, uh, these moths, these moth larvae, are actually relatives
Speaker 1: of the horn moth, which is another creepy little moth
Speaker 1: that instead of feeding on dead tortoise shells, actually feeds
Speaker 1: on the horns and the hooves of dead ungulates. So
Speaker 1: you'll sometimes find like some buffalo skull or an antelope
Speaker 1: school and then on the horns it looks like the
Speaker 1: horns are growing little like tubes or like roots or
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it almost kind of looks like
Speaker 1: a fungus of some kind, But really it's the silk
Speaker 1: tubes of these little horn moth larvae, and they are
Speaker 1: eating the keratin found in the horns like a flagpole.
Speaker 2: Are those live ones sticking straight out from it? Or
Speaker 2: how do they make those little tubes if there's no
Speaker 2: earth around them? Or did someone pull this out of These.
Speaker 1: Tubes are made out of silk. So the silk is
Speaker 1: a structure, you know, that is, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a sticky stuff that like will dry and so it's
Speaker 1: can't it's sort of like a it's actually a physical tube.
Speaker 1: Even with the tortoise eating uh larva, the tubes that
Speaker 1: they do, even though they're digging into the dirt, the
Speaker 1: tubes are made out of this silk, and so it
Speaker 1: is they are somewhat rigid.
Speaker 2: I thought they were just burrowing tunnels. Interesting, and they're
Speaker 2: in there that's like they're apart.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's their apartment that opens directly.
Speaker 2: I got a condo. It's bone adjacent. It's really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So guys, can I give you some unsolicited advice?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, damn it.
Speaker 3: Otherwise yeah, now you don't get it.
Speaker 1: It's only okay, great, now, now i'll give it to
Speaker 1: you since okay, wait now not okay now wait, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll just give it to you. If you find a large,
Speaker 1: pink baby that starts speaking to you in a regal
Speaker 1: adult queen's voice and oozes honey, run away, don't pick
Speaker 1: it up, leave it there.
Speaker 2: Could you take some of the honey first, or no,
Speaker 2: it's a hard rule. Okay, no, I trust you. No.
Speaker 1: If a baby starts like going, good afternoon, I am
Speaker 1: your queen. You get out of there, right. Just do
Speaker 1: not not pick up the baby. Do not try to
Speaker 1: collect the honey from the baby.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing you could get. You could get like
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty bucks or something that like that
Speaker 3: on the black market. Find a you know, find a
Speaker 3: baby that can doc. That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But by the time you've picked up this baby.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be too late for you. Ab You've just
Speaker 1: made the biggest mistake of your life.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I am always doing this.
Speaker 1: So there is a caterpillar that is not exactly like
Speaker 1: a cute little caterpillar. Like remember a bugs bugs Life?
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 1: A bug's life? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the big story.
Speaker 1: He was like German, he was a little caterpillar. Uh no,
Speaker 1: this is like this looks more like it comes out
Speaker 1: of Dune or a Cronenberg kind of situation. It's pink,
Speaker 1: it is fleshy, it has a fringe of what looks
Speaker 1: like blonde eyelashes around its pale, ridged body. It is,
Speaker 1: you know, unattractive. I'm gonna say.
Speaker 2: It's a still image, but you imagine that it's pulsating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you.
Speaker 1: You know, you know you're horrifying larva, don't you, Michael,
Speaker 1: Because well, let me tell you a little bit about
Speaker 1: this thing. So it is found in Europe and parts
Speaker 1: of central and south western Asia.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: It is the larva of a creature. We'll cover that later.
Speaker 1: So this little nightmare should make anyone who comes across
Speaker 1: it repulsed, especially ants. So it starts out life looking
Speaker 1: pretty harmless, I mean, other than being gross and horrible looking.
Speaker 1: It's no larger than an ant. Actually, that ant could
Speaker 1: easily kill it, and they probably should, but they don't
Speaker 1: because this caterpillar has developed an amazing strategy, an amazingly
Speaker 1: devias strategy that they have been sort of born with
Speaker 1: these instincts, this plan of infiltration. So first it releases
Speaker 1: a sugary substance called honeydew, which is sounds really delicious.
Speaker 1: It is actually an excretion made by a variety of
Speaker 1: insects that is sort of like this sugary nectar that
Speaker 1: it can offer other insects to eat. So this is
Speaker 1: something that can be excreted by like ant larvae. It
Speaker 1: can also be excreted by aphids. Ants and aphids have
Speaker 1: this somewhat symbiotic relationship where ants will harve this honeydew
Speaker 1: from aphids. They're also ant species where they harvest that
Speaker 1: from their own larvae. So you know, it's like it's
Speaker 1: it's a little bit, it's an offering. It's something inviting, right,
Speaker 1: It's like like heavy, a little bit of heavy, a
Speaker 1: little bit of sweet sugar. You know, these ants just
Speaker 1: come up and they're all about it.
Speaker 2: You just know some etymologist has tried it honeydew for sure.
Speaker 1: First, yeah, there are I mean, you know people that
Speaker 1: insects are a viable food source for people. They can
Speaker 1: be quite tasty. In fact, there's an ant I believe
Speaker 1: called a sugar ant or a honey ant, sugar ant.
Speaker 2: It tastes sweet sugar ant.
Speaker 1: Well, it actually collects a bunch of sugar in its
Speaker 1: gaster and people can eat it sort of like candy.
Speaker 1: It's apparently really Yeah, it's like a little gush. It's
Speaker 1: like a gusher full of sugar, of sugary sweetness. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it probably tastes all right. Uh so that's
Speaker 1: a little caterpillary is like, yeah, yet it be shitty union,
Speaker 1: don't you mind me? And so, uh, the ant will
Speaker 1: kind of be put at ease. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: great sugar being excreted by this little weird pink thing.
Speaker 1: That's fine.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the caterpillar starts phase two of its plan.
Speaker 1: It inhales a bunch of air. It actually kind of
Speaker 1: inflates itself and then releases the air like a squeaky balloon.
Speaker 1: And this sound actually mimics the distress call of a
Speaker 1: queen ant, so.
Speaker 2: It turns crazy. It turns itself.
Speaker 1: Into like bagpipes, and it's like like, Eh, don't mind me,
Speaker 1: I'm the queen.
Speaker 3: Oh heaven to me, that's the real part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're literally it's the ants in the famous Simpsons
Speaker 2: episode Save the Queen, which one of us is the queen.
Speaker 2: I am No, you're not.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: So it's just a big whoopee cushion that makes ant sounds.
Speaker 3: So this ant is losing its mind. It's like, oh delicious, honey, dude,
Speaker 3: what you I was just came from where you were clean?
Speaker 3: What are you doing here now? And you're in distress
Speaker 3: and you're in distressed. I gotta save you like that man.
Speaker 3: Just really psychological warfare coming from these little things.
Speaker 2: It gets classic gas lighting strategy. You love classics.
Speaker 1: It gets worse. So this caterpillar also has a pheromone
Speaker 1: that mimics the pheromones of the ant colony. Uh, and
Speaker 1: so the ants feel compelled to pick up this little
Speaker 1: bundle of not joy and bring it back to their nest.
Speaker 1: No no, Once inside, it's quite snugly, and you know
Speaker 1: it's it smells like it belongs there. It sounds like
Speaker 1: they're queen. It's oozing, you know, this sweet sugary substance.
Speaker 1: So the ants are like, they trust it, they think
Speaker 1: it's great. They they actually, I think that maybe it
Speaker 1: is even their queen that they should listen to. The
Speaker 1: basically like the orders that it's giving it. So they
Speaker 1: will sometimes make those distressed sounds inside the colony, which
Speaker 1: will trick the ants into protecting it, like it's like
Speaker 1: their queen baby, and it will get preferential treatment in
Speaker 1: the nest. It will be protected first in times of danger. Well,
Speaker 1: there are two strategies that different species of these caterpillars employ.
Speaker 1: One is to compel the ants to feed it, just
Speaker 1: continually feed it until it grows and grows. There's another
Speaker 1: species that has a slightly different strategy, which is to
Speaker 1: eat the babies that are in the nests. So eating
Speaker 1: of a little real ant babies that it is surrounded by.
Speaker 1: And because it's act of being like, I'm queen baby,
Speaker 1: pay attention to me is so convincing. Sometimes the ants
Speaker 1: will even attack their own larva, responding to this caterpillar's
Speaker 1: distress call, and then feed the larva to the caterpillars.
Speaker 1: So it's completely brainwashed these ants into giving it the
Speaker 1: queen treatment.
Speaker 3: And giving their young to it.
Speaker 2: Yes, and just like human queen's the greatest luxury of all.
Speaker 3: I always imagine stay young. I always imagine first contact
Speaker 3: would go something like this, you know, like some alien
Speaker 3: would like visit and be like, I'm President of the world,
Speaker 3: and we're all like that sounds awesome, you seem awesome,
Speaker 3: and then he's like, you guys are a bunch of
Speaker 3: dummies because I'm not even from here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh wow, we're gonna we're gonna like get a
Speaker 1: new audience. And people were like, that's right written her
Speaker 1: babies anyways. No, I mean I wonder if there has
Speaker 1: there been like a horror movie where like there's a
Speaker 1: baby that's actually an alien or a changeling and it
Speaker 1: like eats the other kids. I know there was like
Speaker 1: a rug Rats episode about.
Speaker 3: That and brainwashes everyone around it.
Speaker 2: Right, No, and it would it's like a good that's
Speaker 2: a good hook if you like the most horrifying thing possible.
Speaker 2: The closest thing I can think of is the Darren
Speaker 2: Aronofsky movie Mother that has a baby eating in it,
Speaker 2: but brainwashing someone into feeding you their baby.
Speaker 1: What a horrifying by Yeah, I mean there's Rosemary's baby
Speaker 1: where it's a demon baby, but it's still not eating
Speaker 1: the other baby, right, Like.
Speaker 3: No, it's almost not demon enough.
Speaker 2: Its parents aren't cutting up babies and feeding it babies.
Speaker 1: Like grost, not just any babies in their own babies.
Speaker 2: And the equivalent of that alarm sound would be like,
Speaker 2: it's just constantly emitting a police siren sound. Just twenty
Speaker 2: four hours a day. People are shoveling baby parts into
Speaker 2: its mouth.
Speaker 3: Love this, I love that. The answer just like, this
Speaker 3: is great. I love the new you know, like the
Speaker 3: whole fight, the whole infrastructure is great. Now everything moves smooth.
Speaker 2: The answer probably like, and I'm doing my job.
Speaker 3: This is good. I'm doing my job clean baby tunes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean it's like, yeah, it's like a
Speaker 1: baby talking with an adult voice, like the adult voice
Speaker 1: of an authority. And you just keep feeding it your babies,
Speaker 1: and it gets huge, like it grows to one hundred
Speaker 1: times its original size, and over the course of a
Speaker 1: year it will mature and once it has had its
Speaker 1: fill of the ants babies, it will pupate and the
Speaker 1: adult monster will emerge. It is a beautiful, pale blue butterfly.
Speaker 1: So this is called a large blue butterfly, and it
Speaker 1: will daintily sip on nectar as if it has never
Speaker 1: spent its childhood eating the babies of it's big right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it looks like a normal cute butterfly where
Speaker 2: you go.
Speaker 3: Like, butterfly, you don't know where I've been, you know,
Speaker 3: I struggle. It's like like bit, it's like this thing
Speaker 3: in Baane. I came out of the darkness, you know,
Speaker 3: like I am I am your god. This is terrifying.
Speaker 2: What a.
Speaker 3: Nature? So cool?
Speaker 2: You ordered the three animals in the correct order where
Speaker 2: the last one.
Speaker 3: Is the worst.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's like, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: it goes to show you you can't judge a book
Speaker 1: by its cover. You're like, oh, no, a shark. It
Speaker 1: turns out the sharks were the victims, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: time off. That can't be a weird necrophage that eats
Speaker 1: dead tortoises. But it can and it does. And this
Speaker 1: time it's like who do you trust more? And or
Speaker 1: beautiful butterflies? I think everybody loves butterflies more. They're like
Speaker 1: they're beautiful. Uh, they're like little fairies. But no, this
Speaker 1: thing is zvious and it's mean to the ants.
Speaker 2: So mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not looking good for ants. They're not that's smart.
Speaker 3: But hold on. You brought something home and it's it
Speaker 3: within it like I don't know how long a time
Speaker 3: amount of time, it grows to be a hundred times
Speaker 3: its size, and you're just like, don't weird, talking in like.
Speaker 1: An adult voice, going I'm a baby. I'm a precious
Speaker 1: little baby. Feed me.
Speaker 2: It's like I'm still hungry and in distress, and you're like,
Speaker 2: still you've been shoveling food into you.
Speaker 1: It's a hundred times your size, and it's still like,
Speaker 1: I'm your precious little baby, I'm your bundle of joy.
Speaker 1: Feed me your children, Feed me your children.
Speaker 3: Your children. They're like that sounds good, sounds about but
Speaker 3: it's the tunes.
Speaker 2: It's actually the giant flesh thing from the end of Akira,
Speaker 2: like right, and they're still like this is normal, this
Speaker 2: is normal, this is a god.
Speaker 1: It like flies off and then they're like bye, and
Speaker 1: then they look around and their colonies just devastated. There's
Speaker 1: no more babies. It can't actually devastate an entire ant colony.
Speaker 2: Of course I would imagine, Yeah, and then I I
Speaker 2: imagine the real Queen's long dead. But I like the
Speaker 2: idea of panning over to the real queen all shrivel,
Speaker 2: like I'm still hey, no one cares about getting rebuilt.
Speaker 3: The most interesting part to me about this particular animal
Speaker 3: here is the thinking about, like how natural selection and
Speaker 3: evolution does so many cool things that are like what,
Speaker 3: that's so weird, But the inflating yourself thing like that
Speaker 3: is so left field, out of left field for me,
Speaker 3: Like that, like you, that's your whole body. Your body
Speaker 3: has to evolve to that point where you're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it probably makes sense just to get a little bit
Speaker 3: of you know, like whoopy cushion going on? What can
Speaker 3: we do with this? Can we mimic ants? I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just like it's so weird. How many
Speaker 3: steps to create that weird novel?
Speaker 1: I mean it's like, imagine sort of you are randomly
Speaker 1: in putting some lines of code into a program, and
Speaker 1: the bits of code that works will propagate, that will happen,
Speaker 1: and the bits of code that don't work that's just
Speaker 1: a dead end. It won't propagate. And you do that
Speaker 1: over millions of years, you're gonna get something. You're gonna
Speaker 1: get at least like maybe a Tetris game going on.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. That's just a horrifying combination of events.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I mean it is. It's the power of
Speaker 1: selective pressure over a huge amount of time.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, though.
Speaker 3: Beautiful, beauty, beautiful.
Speaker 1: You know, baby eating in nature, It's beautiful.
Speaker 3: That's what That was my takeaway out of this horrible topic.
Speaker 4: What's your takeaway, Michael, I'm just imagining Mufasa and Simba
Speaker 4: on the ridge going But but when we die, we
Speaker 4: become the grass and the antelopes eat us, and this
Speaker 4: is as it should be, all right. What about that
Speaker 4: weird pink thing that eats all the aunt babies?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, that's.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: Don't think about the pink baby.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, it's not where I landed.
Speaker 1: He's just like turning the camera away from that. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not we're not.
Speaker 2: Talking about I'm not I'm not. I'm gonna blank this
Speaker 2: memory as soon as this is over. Just it was
Speaker 2: a great episode, but just sheer self preservation. I will
Speaker 2: not recall this conversation.
Speaker 1: It's a learning podcast.
Speaker 3: That's right today, just lost time.
Speaker 1: Well, guys, before we go, though, we gotta play a
Speaker 1: little game, my little game, by my little rules. The
Speaker 1: game is called Guess Who's squawking the Mystery Animal Sound Game.
Speaker 1: Every week I pay I play a mystery animal sound
Speaker 1: and you the listener, and you the guests, god to
Speaker 1: guess who's squawking in my twisted little game. It can
Speaker 1: be any animals, any animal at all.
Speaker 2: You're so, I'm a little twisted, a little twisted.
Speaker 3: It makes sounds.
Speaker 1: I'm a little uh unorthodox, I'm a little little dark, a.
Speaker 2: Little I was prepared for this segment. So I've listened
Speaker 2: to every animal sound.
Speaker 3: It's true, it's.
Speaker 1: Every animal sound that's you know, if you do it
Speaker 1: on like three time speed, I think that you can.
Speaker 1: I think that's doable.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure, But then you lose the fidelity of
Speaker 3: the real thing. Man, it doesn't see the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we will natigate this twisted haul of terrors.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So last week's hint was this, don't be too
Speaker 1: bitter if you can't guess this one. And here is
Speaker 1: the sound. So fellas, you've been pretty good detective. So far,
Speaker 1: do you have any guesses for what this animal could be?
Speaker 2: And the bitter clue applies to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't be too better if you can't guess this one.
Speaker 3: I guess is that it? I mean, I'm also hearing bitter.
Speaker 3: It's an or baby hear me, I'm hearing a I'm
Speaker 3: hearing like jungle sounds.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. It sounds like a way shorter. But
Speaker 2: also you hear the jungle.
Speaker 3: Maybe something maybe something nearby like uh, coco, not coco,
Speaker 3: old coffee plants and such. That's there's bitterness and then
Speaker 3: oh bitter.
Speaker 2: Oh, but what animal is that gonna be?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: It sounds like an instrument, right, and I've never heard
Speaker 2: it before even in that video. I must have fallen
Speaker 2: asleep for that part. But uh, it sounds almost like
Speaker 2: a Yeah. I'm trying to attack it from the bitter clue,
Speaker 2: like if it's a you know, what do you like
Speaker 2: a lemon skink? Name is bitter? You know?
Speaker 3: Is there a bit?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Is there bitter?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That's probably gophers are better. This one's got stuff is
Speaker 3: there right now? Well, it's gotta it's something that can
Speaker 3: create a column of air because that sound is like
Speaker 3: much like a digital doo. Yeah, it's a columnist kind
Speaker 3: of like, which can be contorted. I mean, so I'm
Speaker 3: taking like bird out of the mix, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? Sure, but man, oh man.
Speaker 1: I can do it too.
Speaker 2: Grape I'm gonna I'm gonna guess grapefruit toad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a toad is in the right direction,
Speaker 3: grapefruit because the coffee toad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you guys, You guys.
Speaker 1: Are getting you guys are getting cold. You're getting colder
Speaker 1: and colder. So dang, you're wrong on all accounts. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm revoking your.
Speaker 3: It's a beached orca that ran around. It's an orca.
Speaker 1: It's an but with lemons on it. But lemons aren't bitter.
Speaker 1: There's sour, you guys, And there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: a lemon skink. I checked.
Speaker 3: Grapefruits are better, though, grapefruits are better.
Speaker 1: That was fair. I like grapefruits though. Anyways, this is
Speaker 1: a bittern. It's a bittern. This is the Eurasian bittern.
Speaker 1: Congratulations to Anti B. Saga E and Emily M for
Speaker 1: guessing correct. Klee Bitterns are brown aquatic birds with long
Speaker 1: poses disappointed and a somewhat long neck. So abe, when
Speaker 1: you're like, this can't be a bird, you fool.
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking it now. You're just reminding me of
Speaker 3: my child.
Speaker 1: Were you tortured as a child?
Speaker 3: You feel just made fun of for my lack of
Speaker 3: bird knowledge?
Speaker 1: What people bullied you for their Like you couldn't identify
Speaker 1: a passerine bird from an aquatic bird?
Speaker 2: Yeah a belt. Why you couldn't tell a grackle from
Speaker 2: a pig? Well, that is pretty bad. Those are pretty different.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: So the bittern is related to the heron, but their
Speaker 1: neck is not as long. It kind of looks like
Speaker 1: you took a heron and kind of like cranked its
Speaker 1: neck down a few notches.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're sort of brown.
Speaker 1: They've got a pointy head. They feed on fish and
Speaker 1: other small aquatic creatures. Males will issue that booming call
Speaker 1: as an attempt to seduce females. There are a set
Speaker 1: of very powerful muscles around its esavacus that allows it
Speaker 1: to create a call much louder than one might think
Speaker 1: a four pound bird is capable of. So that's just
Speaker 1: under two kilograms for our non American listeners. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is the Eurasian bittern.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's surprising that sounds comes out of that thing.
Speaker 2: It's a real clay ache. And that's an old reference
Speaker 2: that cut Sandpiper kind of Potter response.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's what we call the feeling they feel in
Speaker 2: that scene from Ghosts when they're spinning the pot together.
Speaker 1: Way aching Acon for the aching play love onto this.
Speaker 3: Sound that was my mating. Is it working out and
Speaker 3: we got we got it?
Speaker 1: We gotta we gotta move on, we gotta move on. Uh.
Speaker 1: The hint for this week's mystery animal sound is this
Speaker 1: this little guy isn't happy about being put in the
Speaker 1: discount Ben.
Speaker 3: Discount.
Speaker 1: Don't even you're trying to think about it before I
Speaker 1: play the sound. That's not how my game works.
Speaker 3: I play the game how I play the game.
Speaker 2: So what do you what do you think a broken
Speaker 2: kazoo or like a balloon they you're holding the end
Speaker 2: of but not fully tightly and you're just letting the
Speaker 2: air ound.
Speaker 3: Haiti, Why are you just recording me and playing it back.
Speaker 2: I don't record any when he sleeps.
Speaker 1: If you feel like this while you're sleeping, you need
Speaker 1: to go to a sleep clinic. That's probably a form
Speaker 1: of aggressive sleep apnea. That it's probably a.
Speaker 3: Legitimately one of the funniest sounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does feel like.
Speaker 3: It's a must like a turtle having sex.
Speaker 2: But I've heard that a lot on YouTube, and I
Speaker 2: know the difference is a lot, Yeah, a lot, a lot.
Speaker 3: This one feels I could see maybe a toad or
Speaker 3: something like that. I don't know. It was also sounded
Speaker 3: cat like.
Speaker 2: Well, if it's in the discount rank, I thought you
Speaker 2: have discount be that's what throws me.
Speaker 3: It's like a cheap like a bird.
Speaker 2: It's a bird, it's another bird, it's a bird. Cheap swishes.
Speaker 2: Keep Well, it's the beginning of the clue. You used
Speaker 2: a this a little bit.
Speaker 1: This little guy isn't happy about being put in the
Speaker 1: discount ben so.
Speaker 2: He's also or they are also unhappy and little Yeah,
Speaker 2: so the cheap cheap grumpy cat.
Speaker 1: Cheap cheap grumpy cat.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: I'll actually you can actually make that all right, we
Speaker 2: give up, you give up.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll let you know the answer on next week's
Speaker 1: episode of Creature feature Fellas, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today this on this twisted episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I knew that that segment ended
Speaker 2: like that, and I still feel ripped off. I want
Speaker 2: to know.
Speaker 3: I really want to know. Oh maybe we slipped you
Speaker 3: twenty dollars under the table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well we'll talk about that later. But now, Yeah, what, guys,
Speaker 1: is there anything you're work on, anything that people might
Speaker 1: want to know about you?
Speaker 2: I just admitted distress called people all over the world
Speaker 2: bringing their babies. No, we do have a thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, kurious. Thanks.
Speaker 2: We have made one movie before. If you don't know
Speaker 2: our work, it was called kill Me Now. You can
Speaker 2: check it out online for free if you want, on YouTube.
Speaker 2: And then we made a bunch of bunch of sketches
Speaker 2: over it cracked For like ten years, we sort of
Speaker 2: led the video department there. Now we're in the middle
Speaker 2: of trying to fund our second movie. It's based on
Speaker 2: the hilarious, poignant true story of when my dad came
Speaker 2: out as a gay furry named Papa Bear when I
Speaker 2: was seventeen. It's called Papa Bear. You can find out
Speaker 2: more about it and how you can get involved, and like,
Speaker 2: if you pitch in fifteen twenty five bucks, get really
Speaker 2: cool rewards.
Speaker 3: We're very excited to sort.
Speaker 2: Of show the fandom in a light that we think
Speaker 2: media has never shown it in before, which is to say,
Speaker 2: always with a bunch of misinformation.
Speaker 3: But it's broader than that.
Speaker 2: It involves a whole community sort of forming their complex,
Speaker 2: reducible lee unique sexual identities. That's all say. You can
Speaker 2: find out more over at seed and spark dot com
Speaker 2: slash Fun slash Papa hyphen Bear.
Speaker 3: I hope you'll check it out. Thanks so much for
Speaker 3: having us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, personally, it was super fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm personally very interested in checking out that that movie.
Speaker 1: It sounds very interesting and it seems like, yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's this is not some kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: just trolling thing. This is you guys are doing something
Speaker 1: that is looking into a subculture with interest and sensitivity.
Speaker 2: With interest, genuine interest. And I grew up with furries.
Speaker 3: I love my dad.
Speaker 2: It's not an estranged dad story. So yeah, it comes
Speaker 2: from a place a love. It's just because we're comedians.
Speaker 3: It's not ripping or dunking. It's still very funny, and
Speaker 3: we hope you Yeah, I think you're coming of age
Speaker 3: comedy drama. Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. Well, yeah, Thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show, and thank you
Speaker 1: guys so much for listening. If you are enjoying the
Speaker 1: show and you leave a rating or a view, I
Speaker 1: won't eat your liver. I won't do it anyways, but
Speaker 1: I won't do it then either U and thank you
Speaker 1: to the Space Classics for their super awesome song XO.
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