Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host to Many Parasites Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show I'm Trash,
Speaker 1: we're talking about all the animals who intentionally make themselves
Speaker 1: look like garbage. These animals want you to just ignore
Speaker 1: them because they're normal litterd nothing to see here. Those
Speaker 1: some have sinister purposes. Discover this and more as we
Speaker 1: answer the age old question why do so many bugs
Speaker 1: want to look like poop? Joining me today is friend
Speaker 1: of the show, comedian and producer of The City Council
Speaker 1: Show podcast, Polo V. Goodlandlan Welcome. Hello, I'm super excited
Speaker 1: to be on this episode. Yes, I like, I feel
Speaker 1: like so many people also to disguise themselves as trash exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I sometimes like you just want to kind of appear
Speaker 1: like trash so you can float through the world and
Speaker 1: not have any anyone interacts. Do you have a question?
Speaker 1: Do you ever feel like a plastic bag? Wow? That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Did you come up with that? Yeah? Just now, I
Speaker 1: just that's that's such a beautiful sentiment. I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I do sometimes feel like like tarash. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm how I'm approaching that word, but
Speaker 1: I feel like trash sometimes. I'm really excited to see
Speaker 1: like a fish that looks like a Derrito's bag, you know,
Speaker 1: just like trash. I was like picturing like human trash,
Speaker 1: and I was like, that's crazy that there there is
Speaker 1: a like a lizard that looks like a water bottle.
Speaker 1: That's the wild I mean, give them, give them like
Speaker 1: a few more million years of evolution and it'll happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So we are talking about animals who disguise
Speaker 1: themselves as garbage for a variety of fun reasons. The
Speaker 1: first one I want to talk about is the cockatoo
Speaker 1: wasp fish, also known as a Blabby's tain nineous. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was gonna be like fish, get your own animal name,
Speaker 1: because it's like cockatoo wasp fish, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's appropriating very many different animal cultures
Speaker 1: and it's good to know it has its own name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a Blaby's taying ninan. Notice. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: a six inch or fifteen centimeter fish found in the
Speaker 1: West Pacific near Japan, Australia, and Fiji. They are typically
Speaker 1: found on the sandy sea floor or in sea grass
Speaker 1: um and they basically their whole lifestyle is don't mind me,
Speaker 1: I'm a dead piece of gross kelp, ignore me. Help
Speaker 1: the trash of the sea other than the trash that
Speaker 1: we also put in the sea, Yeah, that's also trash.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, but you know, KELP is sort of
Speaker 1: like the dead leaves of the seas, nature's trash um
Speaker 1: and they really commit to the bit. Uh. I've provided
Speaker 1: you with a couple of YouTube links if you would
Speaker 1: be so kind of check those out. That'd be so
Speaker 1: weird if I clicked on this YouTube link and I
Speaker 1: started getting ads from fish new heably Oh whoa, there
Speaker 1: was one in the foreground that I didn't even see. Wow.
Speaker 1: They're very good at it. And they're doing the whole
Speaker 1: like lazing around getting moved by the water water which
Speaker 1: is wind of the sea, the wind of the sea water. Yes, damn,
Speaker 1: that's such a chill life, just like and just relaxing
Speaker 1: and trash. Yeah, I mean it's they are doing a
Speaker 1: method acting of the of the dead. KELP really going
Speaker 1: for who was the succession guy, Jeremy what's his name?
Speaker 1: Jeremy Strong could never, Jeremy Strong could never, Daniel day Lewis,
Speaker 1: who else does? Yeah, like Jared Litto leto Jared a
Speaker 1: bunch of strangely ego tripping men, right, more like Jared
Speaker 1: lefo this guy there we go. But watching the second
Speaker 1: clip one second? Do they like? Help is different colors? Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean brown green mostly, So I'm wondering if, like
Speaker 1: the kelp in the area wherever these are, like, if
Speaker 1: they if they reflect the color of the kelp there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably I would imagine, so like there's there's a great
Speaker 1: deal of this color of brownish sort of reddish brown kelp,
Speaker 1: so they would blend right in with the kelp force
Speaker 1: you know where they are. Um and yeah, I really
Speaker 1: just appreciate how committed they are to acting like kelp.
Speaker 1: They swim in a way where they kind of make
Speaker 1: it seem like they're drifting, so it looks just like
Speaker 1: they're kelp kind of floating in the current, but they
Speaker 1: are intentionally moving, so like their swim styles, like I
Speaker 1: just kind of swim over here like they're floating. Uh.
Speaker 1: And but they are covered in poisonous spines. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: venomous spines. So unfortunately they if you step on one
Speaker 1: of these. They have a bunch of venomous spines, and
Speaker 1: it's fun because they make themselves intentionally look just like kelp.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and then you're gonna spine me. It's a fault, right,
Speaker 1: Good luck with that. Uh. And and even like more
Speaker 1: toxic of them is that their predators, and they will
Speaker 1: each shrimp in small crustaceans, and this form of mimicry
Speaker 1: is not just to evade detection from editors, it is
Speaker 1: to evade detection from their prey. So they just act
Speaker 1: like a dead piece of kelp, float along and then
Speaker 1: ambush some unsuspecting victim and suddenly this kelp is trying
Speaker 1: to eat you. That would give me so many like
Speaker 1: I would have so many trauma responses to vegetation after that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's you don't expect like basically the limp
Speaker 1: salad of the sea to attack you. That's the last
Speaker 1: place you would expect violence from, like essentially sea salad.
Speaker 1: So essentially, the only clue you have that this thing
Speaker 1: is not some dead kelp drifting on the sea floor
Speaker 1: is its eyes. And their eyes are really weird because
Speaker 1: I don't know if you noticed in that video, but
Speaker 1: they kind of like stabilize, like as they're floating, their
Speaker 1: eyes remain kind of like gyroscopically stable, so they can
Speaker 1: continually scan their surroundings for prey. It's like in those
Speaker 1: videos of like people like moving chickens arounds and their
Speaker 1: heads too in the same spot. It's exactly like that,
Speaker 1: except the chicken is covered in venomous spines and looks
Speaker 1: like sea salad. Maybe they would do better on land
Speaker 1: if if they did look like that. Yeah, yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we would like that would be
Speaker 1: very effective. Camouflage for a chicken is like a salad
Speaker 1: because then meat eaters are like you a salad. I
Speaker 1: don't want that to be like, oh taste dress like chicken.
Speaker 1: I hate myself, OLIVI is it just me? Or do
Speaker 1: you ever just like dress up in garbage when you
Speaker 1: don't want to be bothered, like you put on into Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like the you'r were your most off putting sweater
Speaker 1: or jeans, like and an intentionally placed Marinara sauce stains
Speaker 1: somewhere just so you know, Yeah, it was intentional, sure,
Speaker 1: artfully artfully designed stains um so that when you go
Speaker 1: outside people will give you like a wide berth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. I mean that's like when I walk my dogs,
Speaker 1: I'm always just like dressed in whatever I'm at in
Speaker 1: at home, and it's very like not attention. It's like
Speaker 1: it's unfortunately attention grabbing in a wrong way, like in
Speaker 1: that it's like so mismatched. But luckily in Hollywood nobody care, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I have a lot of my whole, my whole.
Speaker 1: That's like this the Billie Eilish thing where she wore
Speaker 1: a bunch of like baggy sweatpants and stuff so people
Speaker 1: wouldn't look at her body. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just sometimes you don't want to be noticed. And it's
Speaker 1: frustrating because I live in Italy and people actually dressed
Speaker 1: very nicely a lot of the time, and everywhere except
Speaker 1: the US, people dressed very nicely a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: It seems that way. Yes, I go to and yet
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I'm going out to dinner. Are usually
Speaker 1: in the US, I would just like wear a T
Speaker 1: shirt And they were like, you would wear just a
Speaker 1: T shirt outside of your home? And I was like yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're like that's disgusting. Yeah. When I went to
Speaker 1: an Italian language class. I like was in there with
Speaker 1: like jeans and hoodie and she's like, oh, did you
Speaker 1: just come back from the gym. It's like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: just wearing clothes. You're welcome that I'm here. But the
Speaker 1: kind of the commitment to loungewear, to wearing garbage so
Speaker 1: that you're not noticed is done by the humble crab
Speaker 1: who I don't know if you've heard of this idea
Speaker 1: of carsonization where animals repeatedly evolved to be crab shaped.
Speaker 1: But all I'm saying is we are sort of headed
Speaker 1: towards crab form eventually. And so isn't that what the
Speaker 1: that movie was about the crab or the lobster? What
Speaker 1: was it that Jake jill and all moving no idea.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of this, but I would love it
Speaker 1: if there's a Jake Jillenhall movie called the Crabs. It
Speaker 1: might have been calling Ferrell. They're kind of the same
Speaker 1: time Ferrell. It wasn't a movie called the Lobster, That's
Speaker 1: what it was. Where you have to like I think
Speaker 1: you have to like find you have to marry someone,
Speaker 1: or you turn into an animal when you turn like
Speaker 1: forty or something, and that's where we're all going. A
Speaker 1: single woman. This is up exactly where I'm headed. I'm
Speaker 1: about to turn into this crab. I think going crab
Speaker 1: is not so bad. Honestly, you can scuttle a lot more.
Speaker 1: Scuttling is nice. It's a good it's a good form
Speaker 1: of locomotion. Anyways, I would I would dig a crab lifestyle,
Speaker 1: especially decorator crabs, because decorator crabs are. Yes, they're basically
Speaker 1: like I am small and cute and edible, so I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna put a bunch of junk on my bodies
Speaker 1: so nobody notices me, mm hmm. So they decorate themselves. Exactly.
Speaker 1: How come it's called decorator crabs and not like defender crabs.
Speaker 1: It's because they're cute, toxic, their their life, their survival
Speaker 1: skills or little arcs and crafts to you scientists, pinterest crabs. Yes,
Speaker 1: so there are at least fifteen species of crabs known
Speaker 1: as decorator crabs, who will pick up junk they find
Speaker 1: from the seat and place it on tiny little vil
Speaker 1: crow like hooks on their bodies. They're literally covered in
Speaker 1: vil crow and so they can just pick that's crazy.
Speaker 1: The hooks are called sete, and sete are just it's
Speaker 1: just a science see word for like hair like bristles.
Speaker 1: So they can basically pick up any kind of seed
Speaker 1: junk that could stick to sort of a sticky vill
Speaker 1: crow thing. Um. They'll use things like kelp, broken bits
Speaker 1: of coral shells, pebbles. Some species of decorator crab even
Speaker 1: choose to attach toxic bits of scrap onto their bodies
Speaker 1: like little an enemies. I said that wrong. Anemonies. That's
Speaker 1: that's a word that does not feel good in my mouth.
Speaker 1: So it's thought that the enemonies may benefit by being
Speaker 1: able to taxi around and find food, while the crab
Speaker 1: benefits from the enemonies toxins. Mm hmm. Wow. That's like
Speaker 1: having like one mean friend. Yeah, It's like they benefit
Speaker 1: because they get access to all the places you go
Speaker 1: because you're nice, but then you benefit when goes down
Speaker 1: and you need to like throw that mean friend at
Speaker 1: the situation. Exactly. It's like your mean friend is always
Speaker 1: sort of strong army in you into driving them around,
Speaker 1: but then we need them to really release some They
Speaker 1: will fight someone for you, they will, right exactly. I
Speaker 1: love that. I love this friendship for them. So decorator
Speaker 1: crabs will use whatever they find in their environment, which
Speaker 1: makes sense because they want to blend in best where
Speaker 1: they are. But that means that if a decorator crab
Speaker 1: finds itself near human garbage, it will cover itself in
Speaker 1: human garbage. But it's so good. So there are a
Speaker 1: little derrito's bags wandering around the ocean pretty much, pretty
Speaker 1: much so. A crab found near a sump system by
Speaker 1: photographer Michael Bach at a research station was covered in
Speaker 1: little pieces of plastic and netting that was in a
Speaker 1: filter system he had crawled into. So thankfully this wasn't
Speaker 1: like pollution in the ocean. There was like a filtration
Speaker 1: system that was supposed to keep stuff from getting out
Speaker 1: into the ocean, but this little crab got in there.
Speaker 1: It was like great free junk and he put them
Speaker 1: on all on himself. Ones man, one man's trash is
Speaker 1: another decorator crabs. Michael's arts Michaels is like the number
Speaker 1: one generator of just stuff and junk. Like there's I
Speaker 1: feel like in a few if we last a few
Speaker 1: more hundred thousand years, unlikely, but if we do, there's
Speaker 1: just gonna be like a fine sedimentary layer of like
Speaker 1: Michael's stuff like sequin Yeah, fillers, pipe cleaners, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: felt eyeballs, those little like weird styrofoam shapes. Yeah. So Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this habit of wearing human trash is not only found
Speaker 1: with decorator crabs. It is a so found with hermit crabs.
Speaker 1: So hermit crabs will wear trash if they end up
Speaker 1: finding that instead of an adequate seashell. So hermit crabs
Speaker 1: will use the abandoned shells of other marine life rather
Speaker 1: than producing their own shells. And as they grow, they
Speaker 1: need to move into bigger shells, so they're always on
Speaker 1: the hunt for a nice sustainable kings look at them, yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever they have incredible reuse, recycle um literal grain houses
Speaker 1: is what they're doing, right, scuttle reuse, recycle crab life.
Speaker 1: So finding the right size shell is difficult, So if
Speaker 1: they're surrounded by human garbage, they will wear that garbage
Speaker 1: like bottle caps, broken lightbulbs. Uh. This photographer Sean Miller
Speaker 1: captured a bunch of photos of hermit crabs on a
Speaker 1: litter covered beach in Okinawa, and they're just they're with
Speaker 1: their little bottle caps and ran garbage that they're wearing, Like,
Speaker 1: it's no big deal. But if we're not going to
Speaker 1: use it, they should, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is like so I'm like, no, We're like, we
Speaker 1: don't need to. We've we've made we're such consumers, we've
Speaker 1: like endowed the consumer lifestyle and the capitalist culture onto crabs.
Speaker 1: They're like they're they're like work pilled. Yeah, they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're going to be shopping at Cole's next. It's it's
Speaker 1: a problem. It's a big problem. Yeah. I mean it
Speaker 1: is a problem though, because trash is I'm the whole
Speaker 1: not helpful for crabs. First of all, it's not an
Speaker 1: ideal home for them. Um. But also there is something
Speaker 1: called a cascade of death that can happen to hermit crabs,
Speaker 1: which I do. I mean, this is bad, but I
Speaker 1: do like the name of it. I love it when
Speaker 1: scientists are just like, this is a cascade of debt death,
Speaker 1: this is a whirlpool of suffering. It's like a scientist
Speaker 1: who didn't get into writing school, right, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, this is your one shot? Yeah, exactly, So
Speaker 1: this cascade of death can happen to hermit crabs. Who
Speaker 1: get stuck inside plastic bottles that they're rooting around in.
Speaker 1: So they can sometimes go inside a plastic or glass
Speaker 1: bottle because they're looking for water. They think maybe it's
Speaker 1: a home, but it turns out just to be a
Speaker 1: big bottle. But then they keep yeah, and they can
Speaker 1: get stuck inside because the sides are so smooth they
Speaker 1: don't get traction with their little hermit crab feet and
Speaker 1: so it's unable to get out, and so it'll die.
Speaker 1: And then it emits a smell that other hermit crabs
Speaker 1: can detect and which lets them know that there's a
Speaker 1: dead hermit crab around. And when other hermit crabs smell that,
Speaker 1: they know there is an available shell. And so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So normally what this means. Normally this means that it's
Speaker 1: just the hermit crab going to the dead hermit crabs
Speaker 1: estate sale, doing a little bit of harmless grave robbing
Speaker 1: and getting a nice new home. M But what happens
Speaker 1: now when they are inside this bottle is that these
Speaker 1: other crabs go in smelling they're like, hey, free home,
Speaker 1: I'm dead smell, and then they get trapped too, and
Speaker 1: then they die, and then another crab smells them, and
Speaker 1: it's just this vicious cycle of crabs dying and sending
Speaker 1: out like I'm dead, now, come take my shell sent
Speaker 1: out to other crabs until these bottles can be like
Speaker 1: full of dead hermit crabs. Okay, how do we do this?
Speaker 1: But with like billionaires just luring immediately, like how can
Speaker 1: we weaponize this? I'm better than other people. Lure them
Speaker 1: into buying social media companies and dunk on them more
Speaker 1: and more. This is the owt that that they're like,
Speaker 1: it's affecting so many hermit crabs makes me so upset.
Speaker 1: It's also like, I don't know, like people are always like, oh,
Speaker 1: like marine life gets trapped, and it's like you don't
Speaker 1: think about the little like insect like creatures to people
Speaker 1: think about like turtles and stuff. It's really like the
Speaker 1: whole the whole food chain is affected. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: little guys too. I love hermit crabs. I had a
Speaker 1: pet terrestrial hermit crab um when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and the best pets, but that makes sense, Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: not great pets. I owe a lot of pets as
Speaker 1: a kid that like as an adult I would advise
Speaker 1: against because partially because it's like they're not great pets,
Speaker 1: and also it's not necessarily the best life for them
Speaker 1: to be manhandled by a child. Your your hermit crab.
Speaker 1: You had that chimp that ate someone's face, talk about anymore, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you had a whole slew of pets, Yeah exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this this hermit crab did try to eat my face,
Speaker 1: or at least my armpit. It like crawled into my
Speaker 1: armpit one time and then just clamped down really hard
Speaker 1: and I couldn't get it, and it was just it
Speaker 1: sounds like it was very painful. I was conscientious as
Speaker 1: a kid, and I didn't want to like rip it
Speaker 1: off because I was worried I would hurt its little arm.
Speaker 1: So I just was like, well, this is my life now,
Speaker 1: and I had to wait until it decided to let go.
Speaker 1: I just had a hermit crab in my armpit for
Speaker 1: like half an hour. Oh my god, what if you
Speaker 1: had like a cascade of death from that, like you
Speaker 1: accidentally and then it died. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: all these hermit crabs like appeared out of your apartment.
Speaker 1: And it's like and then it's like someone's like, wow,
Speaker 1: it smells like a bunch of hermit crabs crawled up
Speaker 1: and died in your armpits. I'm like, well about that,
Speaker 1: about that, USA, That's why POLIVI. I'm sure we've both
Speaker 1: experienced the feeling of just feeling like crap and sort
Speaker 1: of like, you know, just just dressing like crap, just
Speaker 1: sort of embracing being crapped for a day, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, similar to this trash theme. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's like there are days where, like, at least
Speaker 1: for me, I sometimes just like I feel kind of
Speaker 1: crappy and I just go with it. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm having a crap day. I'm just gonna be crap today.
Speaker 1: That's fine. Well, lots of arthropods also love to be crap. Uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, they're very committed to looking exactly like poop um.
Speaker 1: So this is something that happens in multiple different like
Speaker 1: insects and arthropods, and it is some of them like
Speaker 1: it's yes, it is kind of gross looking, but it's
Speaker 1: also ridiculously elegant evolution. So it's very gross looking. But
Speaker 1: it is like you have to be really good at
Speaker 1: mimicry to do it exactly. I mean, this is it's
Speaker 1: like I don't know. I feel like it's high like
Speaker 1: when in like really high fashion, sometimes they do this
Speaker 1: like disheveled look where it's like, wow, that outfit looks
Speaker 1: like garbage, but it's very fancy and well thought out garbage.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, it's like the casual look. It's really
Speaker 1: well crafted. Actually right, it's the sloppy bun. I've never
Speaker 1: been able to like, I've never been able to do
Speaker 1: a sloppy bun. Why is a sloppy bun? Okay, but
Speaker 1: a frizzy bun isn't like let me have let me
Speaker 1: be a frizz ball. I come into fashion style. Come on,
Speaker 1: I have extremely frizzy like Girl before the Makeover and
Speaker 1: teen movies hair literally literally in middle school. I after, okay,
Speaker 1: I was still sticking with me. This is how much
Speaker 1: it's a like a chip on my shoulder. I went
Speaker 1: to swimming class because we had like gym rotations, and
Speaker 1: one of them was like swim learning how to swim,
Speaker 1: And then afterwards one of my male friends was like,
Speaker 1: you look like the before picture and Rachel looks like
Speaker 1: the after in a shampoo commercial. Oh my god. First
Speaker 1: of all, but I didn't know how to articulate that
Speaker 1: at the time, No, everybody just laughed, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: because I didn't have like a voice at that point.
Speaker 1: You know, I was by all these white people in Utah,
Speaker 1: but I was. I literally like in the morning, like
Speaker 1: I won't One thing that I do love about myself
Speaker 1: is that I won't look in the mirror in the
Speaker 1: mornings and I like go walk the dogs and just
Speaker 1: like leave immediately. So no idea what I look like.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like if I tie my hair up,
Speaker 1: it's like first ball fris Ball, Like it's just like
Speaker 1: there's no I can't. I'm not going to put condition
Speaker 1: under my hair when my dog needs to take you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, big same. I When
Speaker 1: I try to do sloppy bun, I look like a
Speaker 1: Victorian era woman who's been like put in the asylum
Speaker 1: by her husband for speaking her mind. We're lootomy right exactly.
Speaker 1: Um on Sunday's post lobotomy. On Sunday's pre lobotomy. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it doesn't look great. So I feel like
Speaker 1: with the with the like stylish, messy bun, it's something
Speaker 1: that I have to imagine people work at this craft. Similarly,
Speaker 1: the bird poop spiders great segue perfect, So you're so
Speaker 1: gross looking, this is disgusting. They really do look like
Speaker 1: bird poop. So spiders love to pretend to be poop,
Speaker 1: and there are actually many species who do it. So.
Speaker 1: For example, there is the Selenia excavata, or bird dropping spider,
Speaker 1: who lives in Australia and looks literally like a little
Speaker 1: globule of bird poop. It is a splotchy white and
Speaker 1: brown and it's disconcertingly glossy on the white part. It's
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable. Yeah, it looks literally like a bird dropping. Uh.
Speaker 1: They smell like them too. I don't think these ones do.
Speaker 1: There are some bird poop uh imitators who do emit
Speaker 1: a foul odor to really sell it. Um so yeah
Speaker 1: they also Daniel day lewis it. Uh. They method act
Speaker 1: by holding their legs tucked in and staying still to
Speaker 1: really give it that authentic poop performance. And some in
Speaker 1: Law and Order as a corpse right now, I would
Speaker 1: love it. Oh my god, if we like lived in
Speaker 1: a magical world where animals, you know, like in the Flintstones,
Speaker 1: where animals were all employed as stuff, and like you
Speaker 1: had to have like bird poop in a movie. So
Speaker 1: you cast one of these as the bird poop and
Speaker 1: then you paid them a fair wage. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the most unreal union podcast, right, the most
Speaker 1: unrealistic part of that scenario is someone being paid a
Speaker 1: fair worge. Yeah, we both were like, what a dream
Speaker 1: of fair wage? What a dream? I mean, sentient spiders.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll get there soon. Fair wage not a chance?
Speaker 1: So so yes, Uh, they grow to be about half
Speaker 1: an inch or a little over a cinameter wide. So
Speaker 1: while they're not like super teeny tiny, they're definitely pray
Speaker 1: for birds. So what better way to keep a bird
Speaker 1: from eating you than looking like a piece of poop? Yep,
Speaker 1: So they are hunters as well. They are spiders, and
Speaker 1: they actually go from day to night using a different
Speaker 1: kind of mimicry. It's like, day look is poop, night
Speaker 1: look is something else. So, um, I mean, who amongst us,
Speaker 1: you know, when we go out at night look much
Speaker 1: different than the poop look during the day exactly. So
Speaker 1: they hunt for their favorite food at night, which is moths,
Speaker 1: and at night it's not so much that they change
Speaker 1: their appearance, but they definitely put on a deceptive perfume.
Speaker 1: So the bird dropping spider releases a pheromone that mimics
Speaker 1: that of a female moth. So the horny male moths
Speaker 1: will come right up to the spider who smells like
Speaker 1: a sexy female, and then the spider eats the male.
Speaker 1: I think the female moths are in on it. I
Speaker 1: think there are ones who are like, They're like, here,
Speaker 1: take this perfume and then murder my husband. Yeah. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this, this male moth just made fun of my antenna.
Speaker 1: Here's some perfume. Do what you will. This is like
Speaker 1: the Chicago movie Music, but moth and birth. I would
Speaker 1: I would definitely pay to see an insect version of Chicago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you like Katherine Sada Jones is like a spider.
Speaker 1: That'd be great. Yeah. So yeah, it goes from being
Speaker 1: a piece of poop during the day to a fem
Speaker 1: fatale at night, which I love. It's what we all
Speaker 1: dream of. Hell yeah, so there are many other spiders
Speaker 1: and insects who use the poop defense. So, uh, one
Speaker 1: other type of insect. I want to talk about our moths.
Speaker 1: So the You'drea is book You'd Rise? I have no
Speaker 1: Oh my god, You'd Raise you'd raise Grata moths a
Speaker 1: k a. Beautiful wood nymphs found in the US have white, brown,
Speaker 1: black and green splotches on their wings, and when their
Speaker 1: wings are actually wide open, they're quite lovely. They look
Speaker 1: like pretty moths. They don't look like anything gross or strange.
Speaker 1: But when they fold their wings and they splay out
Speaker 1: their front legs, so their front legs are kind of fuzzy,
Speaker 1: like covered in like white fuzz, which is cute. But
Speaker 1: when they like splay them out and fold their wings up,
Speaker 1: they look like a bird poops bladder. It's because it
Speaker 1: goes from white to like slightly green to brown. It
Speaker 1: looks like how a bird poop like crusts over. Yes,
Speaker 1: So when they're like folded up like that, it looks
Speaker 1: like a drip of bird poop in like the positioning
Speaker 1: and then also in like the gradient. But then when
Speaker 1: they're open they look so pretty. Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that they can transform from pretty moth to like, nope,
Speaker 1: I am a splatter of nasty, crusty bird. Do do
Speaker 1: moths contain multitudes? Indeed? And uh, there's another moth known
Speaker 1: as macro silics I found in Malaysia and they are
Speaker 1: perhaps the most impressive bird dropping mimics. Uh. Their wings
Speaker 1: actually feature an entire painting not only of splattered bird poop,
Speaker 1: but what seems to be a couple of flies eating
Speaker 1: the poop. Oh my god, holyh that looks crazy, right.
Speaker 1: It looks like a cartoon, like somebody drew it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also the bird poop also looks like a penis
Speaker 1: part of it, because it's like symmetricals right, so like
Speaker 1: when they pulled it right bo and penis coming up
Speaker 1: along the spine. It's it's the first known of mimicry
Speaker 1: and pornography. So not much is known about why this
Speaker 1: moth has this impressive mimicry, but it is likely it's
Speaker 1: to ward off predators who are not particularly interested in
Speaker 1: a bunch of bird poop and a couple of flies
Speaker 1: eating that bird poop. Do you think flies get tricked
Speaker 1: by it too? You know what? I bet they do.
Speaker 1: I bet they like go up to this moth's ass
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, what's going on here? And they
Speaker 1: wanted to smell? Right, It's just not it's not working
Speaker 1: out for them, it is, I really, there's like, not
Speaker 1: surprisingly not that much research on these things. And I
Speaker 1: really want there to be more because this is so
Speaker 1: it's so ridiculous. Like you can see the outline of
Speaker 1: the flies, you can see their little red heads, you
Speaker 1: can see sort of different segments of their bodies. It's
Speaker 1: crazy like it it literally looks like a cartoon, like
Speaker 1: it's filed. Do you think there are other moths that
Speaker 1: we haven't discovered with like other things on their wings
Speaker 1: that would make you a verse to coming up to them,
Speaker 1: Like a moth with a a drunk bachelor rep party
Speaker 1: scene on their wings, like, you know, like a moth
Speaker 1: with a red maga hat, right, a moth with the
Speaker 1: guy doing street magic. Yeah, I think I think definitely
Speaker 1: there are moths like that out there. Um, we have
Speaker 1: to we have to do the research to find them
Speaker 1: right exactly. That would probably be like that would be
Speaker 1: my choice for like like if we could wear camouflage
Speaker 1: city camouflage. That's just like things that would keep you
Speaker 1: away from you, Like, oh, if you just wear this
Speaker 1: is mean because I do like green peace. But if
Speaker 1: you wear like a sweater sweatshirt with green peace on it,
Speaker 1: people help clipboard and have a clipboard, people will leave
Speaker 1: you alone because everyone like dodges out of the way.
Speaker 1: But then there's like that one weirdo who really wants
Speaker 1: to talk about it, and then you're the mark, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, right, And then that and that
Speaker 1: weirdo is me. It was me the whole time. I
Speaker 1: think that's a view and me discovering that we have
Speaker 1: the ability to wear whatever we want, you know, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's full episode, and that's being like, let's
Speaker 1: take inspiration from these insects and yeah, express ourselves time
Speaker 1: we want to express our though. Yeah, I mean if
Speaker 1: I wear a shirt with a bunch of bird duty
Speaker 1: printed on it, then I can get pooped on by
Speaker 1: a birden it won't make a difference. Yeah, that sounds
Speaker 1: like a Mentos commercial. Actually, it's like like remember the
Speaker 1: one where he like he sits down on like a
Speaker 1: painted bench and he's like, oh no, and then he
Speaker 1: makes this striped suit out of oh oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: was like a really old one from Yeah, that's that
Speaker 1: one all the time, because it's like in my memory, yes,
Speaker 1: like a Mentos you sit on bird poop and there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of like just a bird poop covered bench
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh man, I got bird poop and
Speaker 1: then you roll around and then someone's like nice Jackson Pollock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we figured out fashion. We figured it out
Speaker 1: packing in Milan, packing in Paris. We've got the fat,
Speaker 1: the fashion down. The fashion is bird crap. So mimicry,
Speaker 1: animal mimicry exactly. So before we go, we've got to
Speaker 1: play a little game called the Mystery Animal sound game
Speaker 1: or yes, Who's squawking? Every week I play a mystery
Speaker 1: animal sound and you the listener, and you the guests,
Speaker 1: try to guess who's squawking. The rules is it's any animal,
Speaker 1: and I give you a little hint. Uh. Some weeks
Speaker 1: it's very tricky. Some weeks it's maybe less tricky. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Usually it's quite tricky, and this one is
Speaker 1: no exception. Uh. So last week's mystery animal sound hint
Speaker 1: was this. It says, if this little guy has stolen
Speaker 1: the voice of another animal, So did you get that
Speaker 1: little bim baby baby. Yeah, so it sounds like a bird,
Speaker 1: but that makes me think it's not a b bird,
Speaker 1: because you're saying it's stole the voice of another animal.
Speaker 1: So it makes me think it's like like some sort
Speaker 1: of insect, like a cricket or something to pretend like
Speaker 1: it's a bird. Interesting, very interesting logic. Well, you're definitely
Speaker 1: on the right track. There is that, your final guests, Yes,
Speaker 1: so you are very close. You're right that this is
Speaker 1: not a bird and it's something that sounds like a bird,
Speaker 1: but it's not an insect. This is actually a tree frog.
Speaker 1: So this is yes, this is the bird voiced tree frog.
Speaker 1: That's its name. Just bird voice tree frogs. Okay. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we get names like cascade of Death and sometimes we
Speaker 1: get bird voice tree frogs. Sometimes yeah, sometimes it's like
Speaker 1: turtle who is green and also brown and knows his
Speaker 1: pointy Yeah, and we clearly know who double major in
Speaker 1: English major like. So, the bird voice tree frog is
Speaker 1: found in swamps, wet and forests in the United States.
Speaker 1: It is a small green and gray frog who spends
Speaker 1: almost all of its life in the trees. It really
Speaker 1: only leaves the safety of the trees to mate and
Speaker 1: lay their eggs. And what you have just heard is
Speaker 1: the call of the male, and like bird's song, it
Speaker 1: is used to track females. So it's interesting because it
Speaker 1: sounds similar to bird's song and it's used in essentially
Speaker 1: the same way. So you know, little frog has big
Speaker 1: bird dreams. Yeah. I love that it's like raised by birds.
Speaker 1: Do you remember remember that book Stella Luna about the
Speaker 1: bat ah Man. It was such a good It was
Speaker 1: a children's book about this bat raised by birds because
Speaker 1: it like got lost separated from its mom and landed
Speaker 1: in like a bird's nest and it tried to like
Speaker 1: sit up straight and like eat bugs and do all
Speaker 1: these bird things, but it was having struggling really hard.
Speaker 1: And then find it's like mom finds it again, and
Speaker 1: then it gets to live the bat life and eat fruit.
Speaker 1: It's a great book, very cute. But yeah, I like
Speaker 1: to think that this frog got like raised by birds
Speaker 1: once and it's like pass this information on to the
Speaker 1: other frogs of hey, guys, this is actually pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Now they're all doing it all right, Onto this week's
Speaker 1: mystery animal. Sound. The hint is whoever named this animal
Speaker 1: was being a bit judgmental. It feels kind of like
Speaker 1: you're in Jurassic Park, right, Yeah, that was weird. So
Speaker 1: there's multiple of them, and they did it in a
Speaker 1: way that sounded like a pack or something, but it
Speaker 1: also a kind of bird like mm hmm, infusing. I
Speaker 1: think when you said it was judgmental. I feel like
Speaker 1: that there's gonna be something in the name that's like
Speaker 1: like mean about how it sounds like this, like this,
Speaker 1: this shrill something, the stupid, the nagging, the stupid voiced goat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting. So you got any guesses? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to go with them the I think Oh
Speaker 1: so for a type of animal? Oh god, now, because
Speaker 1: the other one was a frog, I'm like, are these
Speaker 1: like some weird like box or h Well, foxes are
Speaker 1: more on their own, right, m I'm wondering if it's
Speaker 1: some sort of like mammalian thing instead of like a
Speaker 1: bird or something interesting interesting thing. Yeah, my face, my
Speaker 1: face is a is a mask of complete neutrality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll have to tune in to find out.
Speaker 1: We will have to tune in to find out next
Speaker 1: Creature Feature or I will reveal to you who this
Speaker 1: mystery squawker is. If you think you know who it is,
Speaker 1: you can write to me at Creature Feature pot at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. Hallo v. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today. Tell the people where they can find you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I do have a podcast called City Council Um
Speaker 1: and it spelled c O U N s e L
Speaker 1: is my genius way of telling city council. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like counselor like we all need to council the city. Um.
Speaker 1: But yes, so that's my podcast. I have a Patreon
Speaker 1: on for it. If you want to support um he
Speaker 1: greund dot com for a slash city Council show and
Speaker 1: you can find that everywhere podcaster found. You can find
Speaker 1: me at calaviganalen p A l l A b I
Speaker 1: g U n A l a n everywhere. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing shows again. I write for love it or
Speaker 1: leave it. I am just chugging along here in l
Speaker 1: A while you're in a very cold but beautiful place.
Speaker 1: And thank you guys so much for listening. You can
Speaker 1: find me, you know, on the internet. I'm so bad
Speaker 1: at social media, but you know I'm on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Creature feet Pod. That's f a T not f e T.
Speaker 1: That is something very different. I'm on Instagram at Creature
Speaker 1: Feature Pod. And again, if you think you know the
Speaker 1: answer the Mister Animal sound game or you have a question,
Speaker 1: you can write at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And thank you guys if you leave a rating or review,
Speaker 1: I love them all. I read them all. I print
Speaker 1: them all out and compiled them in books. I book
Speaker 1: bind them and put them on a huge bookshelf and
Speaker 1: then just read it by the fire every day. That
Speaker 1: is my life. And thanks thanks to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song Exo Lumina of Creature. Feature
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