Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're talking
Speaker 1: about animal romance, from slimy love unicorns to sexy eight
Speaker 1: legged twerking. We're looking at all the beautiful and bizarre
Speaker 1: mating habits of all sorts of creatures gastropods, arthropods, birds,
Speaker 1: and mammals. Discover this more as we answer the age
Speaker 1: old question, well should you feed your mouse to give
Speaker 1: him a bigger pair of the old family jewels. Joining
Speaker 1: me today to discuss all things romance are the hosts
Speaker 1: of the podcast True Romance, Devin Leary and Carolina Barlow. Hello,
Speaker 1: how are you? Thank you for having us. It's good
Speaker 1: to see you, guys. I know your podcast very intimately
Speaker 1: because I edit it. So it's nice to talk to
Speaker 1: you guys, because sometimes you'll sit like, say hi Katie
Speaker 1: in the in the edit and I cut it all
Speaker 1: out and I'm like, hi, guys, but you can't hear me.
Speaker 1: So you know you're the only one who knows the
Speaker 1: true us with all our likes and literally ease, and
Speaker 1: this is true sometimes we have to say, Katie, we're
Speaker 1: so sorry, we're you have to cut this out. Please
Speaker 1: you understand, sorry for rambling, Thank you so much. Recordings,
Speaker 1: sometimes we go off about Ryan Adams and we have
Speaker 1: to cut the entire thing. Yeah, sometimes it's a whole
Speaker 1: episode that we have to cut about Ryan Adams. It's true,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely true, and that's the real victories that I
Speaker 1: get to enjoy it. But yeah, today we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about animal romance on your show. You guys like
Speaker 1: to talk about more, I would say more human focused romance,
Speaker 1: your own romantic life and stories. It's almost nine human romance.
Speaker 1: So this is not a topic we've dealt into before,
Speaker 1: which is exciting, right, We're I'm just expanding your horizons
Speaker 1: to non human romance. Yes, I thought the sexiest thing
Speaker 1: to talk about at first would be snails. Notably hot, Yes,
Speaker 1: famously hot, famously hot. It's something about the eyes, tucks,
Speaker 1: I think, Oh, I always forget those are eyeballs. I
Speaker 1: remember the first time I saw a snail killed with salt,
Speaker 1: and it haunted me for the rest of the day. No,
Speaker 1: that's a slug, isn't it. I think they can both.
Speaker 1: They can both get hurt. So this is already drama. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're already in a fight and it's ruining our relationship. Okay,
Speaker 1: she said it was a slug, but I remember it well.
Speaker 1: Slugs and snails are closely related. They're both gastropods. It's
Speaker 1: just snails. They got that shell, yeah, met gala shell. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's interesting because a lot of people
Speaker 1: hate slugs but don't mind snails, and it really is
Speaker 1: all about that shell. All about that shell is Megan
Speaker 1: Trainers next song. So land snails are hermaphroditic, meaning that
Speaker 1: they have both male and female gonads that they can
Speaker 1: use interchangeably. So it is very interesting. When they're courting
Speaker 1: each other. They will circle around one another, touching their
Speaker 1: tentacles or ey stocks together, and very very romantic, very
Speaker 1: sensual for many species of land snail. At this point,
Speaker 1: one of the snails will pop a horn out of
Speaker 1: their head like some kind of sexy unicorn, and this
Speaker 1: is called a love dart. That's sweet. I like unicorns.
Speaker 1: I like unicorns. I think that's very generous to the
Speaker 1: snail that you reference the unicorn in relation to them.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's in every way it's like a unicorn,
Speaker 1: except the body, the size, the having of legs and hoofs,
Speaker 1: the for the mythical aspect, the mythic the ability to ride,
Speaker 1: the lack of sliminess. I mean, other than that, it's
Speaker 1: perfectly like a unicorn. Yeah, totally. So that love dart
Speaker 1: really does look like a unicorn horn coming right out
Speaker 1: of its head. And it's actually typically made out of
Speaker 1: the same material as its shell, which is calcium carbonate.
Speaker 1: So it's this sort of tough, porcelain like material and
Speaker 1: it will thrust that love dart into its mates body,
Speaker 1: which sounds horrifying, but no, it's all done for. It
Speaker 1: sounds like my Wednesday night to We've all done it.
Speaker 1: We've all had love darts in us at some point,
Speaker 1: right eensive shell. Yeah, you're lucky not miss political climate.
Speaker 1: Back in the golden age of love darts, you could
Speaker 1: just you could just dart whenever you wanted to dart.
Speaker 1: But before the core, we were all thrust in love
Speaker 1: darts in each other and it was beautiful and it's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things I miss about life before.
Speaker 1: So the love dart is actually covered in a mucous
Speaker 1: substance I know you guys thought it couldn't get better,
Speaker 1: but of course it gets better. It's covered in mucus hotter, hotter, hotter,
Speaker 1: and hotter. That causes the receiver of the love dart
Speaker 1: to be more receptive to sperm, preventing the sperm from
Speaker 1: being digested inside the recipient's body. So it's basically like circle, circle,
Speaker 1: dot dot. Now you've got a love shot and you
Speaker 1: won't digest my sperm, so hopefully the sperm will fertilize
Speaker 1: your egg. The second part doesn't rhyme, but yes, it's like,
Speaker 1: but if we're gonna do circle circle, if we're talking science,
Speaker 1: we gotta say circle dot Diana rhyme. Yeah, that's like milk, milk,
Speaker 1: lemonade around the corner, fudge is made. That works scientifically,
Speaker 1: that works. Yeah, that's actually what my doctor says. That
Speaker 1: is taught in Harvard evolutionary biology courses. That is what's taught.
Speaker 1: Lest do you think that it's terribly unfair for one
Speaker 1: snail that is getting stabbed with this love dart. It's
Speaker 1: a mutual exchange of love darts. This is an equitable
Speaker 1: snail society. Have you seen what that snail was wearing? Carol,
Speaker 1: you can't say I'm getting political, Carol, my edgy snail humor.
Speaker 1: The snail is not on trial here. I would love
Speaker 1: to see. This is classical, it would be so I
Speaker 1: would I would love to see snail Amanda Knox. Yeah,
Speaker 1: jury has been deliberating for over two days and uh
Speaker 1: some and the jury hasn't even gone back into its
Speaker 1: chambers yet, one of them still lagging behind. What if
Speaker 1: their chambers are just their shells. They're like, we're waiting
Speaker 1: for Steve and they're like, Steve, we need your vote,
Speaker 1: and He's like, you guys, one second, listen. I actually
Speaker 1: completely forgot that snails are slow until Carolina just said that.
Speaker 1: Now I feel like I've missed out on so much
Speaker 1: material that I could have been joking about. I've just
Speaker 1: been thinking about these snails zipping around. I've been writing
Speaker 1: all morning. Caroline has been like doing slow snail material
Speaker 1: for the place. I gotta push it. They wish they
Speaker 1: could hustle, but they can't because they're slow. Like A
Speaker 1: Bug's life is one movie. But if I'm going to
Speaker 1: make an eight mile version that's called the snails Hustle,
Speaker 1: it's very A star is born it's very um hustle
Speaker 1: and flow. I like this a lot, hustle and slow.
Speaker 1: It's good. Hus The next Pixar animated movie about a
Speaker 1: sexy hermaphroditic snail going up and going up in the world.
Speaker 1: So back to the snails stabbing each other lustfully. The
Speaker 1: snails will exchange their love darts stabbing each other. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then once they're done stabbing each other, they will
Speaker 1: push their gonads against each other. They both have penises,
Speaker 1: and they will push their penises into one another, exchangeing sperm.
Speaker 1: And this can last up to six hours, depending on
Speaker 1: the species. So for her must be nice, sorry Lina,
Speaker 1: good for him and her at the same time, both
Speaker 1: good for all of them. I haven't heard the term
Speaker 1: gonads since I think eighth grade. I'll get used to it.
Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna bring it back. We're bringing it back.
Speaker 1: Stop trying to make go nuts happen. So I do
Speaker 1: want to say that male black widows twerk to avoid
Speaker 1: being eaten. And yeah, so as you may know, there's
Speaker 1: a large size difference between male black widows who are
Speaker 1: tiny and females who are gigantic compared to them. Story
Speaker 1: of My Love life story of me trying to put
Speaker 1: on my ex boyfriend's jeans. Sorry continue, Carolina has just
Speaker 1: got this like little little guy just kind of trying
Speaker 1: to crawl up her shoulder. Oh my god. I once
Speaker 1: hooked up with a guy who was like a lot
Speaker 1: shorter than me, and it was like I was a
Speaker 1: jungle gym and he was like a child. Wow did
Speaker 1: he was awful? He twerked to make sure you didn't
Speaker 1: mistake him for a prey adem yes, because exactly, Oh,
Speaker 1: we are both spiders at the time, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like he's got it. He's gotta let you know. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not a snack. I mean I am a snack,
Speaker 1: but just not in that way. You know, snack another
Speaker 1: term that we used to love. It was good. Caroline
Speaker 1: was really calling me out for like using snack and
Speaker 1: gonad and I feel I love attacked. It's a memory, Lane.
Speaker 1: I I just I mean, I haven't been out in
Speaker 1: public in a year, so it's just exciting to talk
Speaker 1: to two humans right about going ads? Like has uh
Speaker 1: just found out about Urban Dictionary yesterday, so she's having
Speaker 1: She's she's been looking at the etymology of of all
Speaker 1: slang terms and it's a bit tough to have a
Speaker 1: conversation like every other stard just yeah, yo, did you
Speaker 1: know yot is like the past participle of eat? I
Speaker 1: actually did not know that in the Amish on my
Speaker 1: sh slang. Yeah, that has yoked my sheep exactly. Now
Speaker 1: you owe me your daughter's hand in marriage, you see,
Speaker 1: That's what I missed. I feel like that is like
Speaker 1: the romantic life I need. Actually a funny story which
Speaker 1: checks out with what Carolina just said is that one time,
Speaker 1: one time we tried to record an intro of our
Speaker 1: podcast True Romance, So I said, how are you doing? Carolina?
Speaker 1: And she goes, do you ever just wish that you
Speaker 1: could live a simpler life like I am like moving
Speaker 1: and I just wish I just had a few items
Speaker 1: that I could be happy with instead of all this
Speaker 1: stuff that means nothing. And I was like, let's do
Speaker 1: another take. I guess I literally said, I actually don't
Speaker 1: know how to respond to that. Carolina is just trying
Speaker 1: to go off the grid. Do you ever just think
Speaker 1: it all means nothing? Do you ever just want to
Speaker 1: like get just a hatchet and flint and go out
Speaker 1: and just go out and see what happens in the
Speaker 1: Appalachian Mountains. I mean, yeah, it's appealing. You can't deny
Speaker 1: the glamping appeal. But to bring it back to spider twerking,
Speaker 1: because honestly, I think that people come on here. They've
Speaker 1: come here for the spider twerking to see. It's luscious,
Speaker 1: little little booty go at it. The thing is that
Speaker 1: males are so small that female black widows could easily
Speaker 1: mistake them as prey as they crawl over their web.
Speaker 1: So the females sense vibrations in their web and that's
Speaker 1: how they can tell that they've caught something. But the
Speaker 1: male stands the risk of walking over the web. The
Speaker 1: females like, oh, vibrations, that means a snack, I eat
Speaker 1: it immediately. No sex happens, It's sad, it's a tragedy.
Speaker 1: So the male twerks rhythmically to create a very specific
Speaker 1: vibration that the female black widow recognizes as a male.
Speaker 1: So instead of like, oh, this is food, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh no, this is the way a boy. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: um only maybe food, So it's and then that way
Speaker 1: the male can communicate to the female that hey, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm here for sex, not not necessarily to be food
Speaker 1: for you, and she will respond with some tuerking of
Speaker 1: her own. I just love that. It's sort of this,
Speaker 1: like you know this this dancer that that's like, hey,
Speaker 1: don't eat me, I want a blank you It's it's yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it reminds me a lot of my two
Speaker 1: instincts in life, which is to fall in love but
Speaker 1: also to have a meal. And I feel like sometimes
Speaker 1: those are at odds with each other. Sometimes you are hungry.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm on a date and I know I shouldn't
Speaker 1: eat too much if we're going to hook up after,
Speaker 1: but a girl's gotta eat, and both senses, you know,
Speaker 1: and both meanings of the term. I feel like you'd
Speaker 1: love to be a spider, and I'm not. I don't
Speaker 1: mean this as an insult at all. I just so rude.
Speaker 1: I just think that you'd like the spider lifestyle. Black
Speaker 1: shiter black widows and other spiders do sometimes engage in
Speaker 1: sexual cannibalism. It's not true that It's not true they
Speaker 1: always do it. Like North American black widows often allow
Speaker 1: their mate to leave alive. But sometimes you know, you're
Speaker 1: just hungry and he's right there, and he's small he's
Speaker 1: the size he's easily fits in your mouth. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, we are saying so much right now, and
Speaker 1: I think I am going to speak about my godmother,
Speaker 1: Samantha from the show Sex in the City, who said
Speaker 1: I'm a tri sexual. I'll try anything once, and I
Speaker 1: think cannibalism is fine. I'm willing to go out there.
Speaker 1: That's my take. That's my one issue I have, and
Speaker 1: then I have a question, go for it. I'm ready.
Speaker 1: Number one. I am terribly afraid of all bugs and
Speaker 1: phobic of all bugs except for spiders. I can't explain why,
Speaker 1: but if I see a spider, I don't get distressed
Speaker 1: at all. If I see like a beetle, I am
Speaker 1: so disgusted that I actually gag like I have had
Speaker 1: gag reflex at the side of a bug. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. And I have at times seen a bug
Speaker 1: in a room, closed the door and just don't go
Speaker 1: in that room for a long time. Um, so that's
Speaker 1: any problem in my life. I just shouted out. One
Speaker 1: time I called my mom because I had closed a
Speaker 1: beetle in a room, and I was like, what do
Speaker 1: I do? And she was like, I don't know, so
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I guess I'll just go to
Speaker 1: bed and leave it there. Um. Now that's how I
Speaker 1: do deal with like emails I don't want to respond to.
Speaker 1: I just shut my computer and then yeah, it disappears.
Speaker 1: It will die here. Yeah, right. Second of all, I
Speaker 1: feel for this male spider because I imagine his life
Speaker 1: is much like my boyfriend's life, which is that I
Speaker 1: have created such an intricate web of emotional turmoil that
Speaker 1: if he steps in the wrong way on any territory,
Speaker 1: whether it's talking about it doesn't matter what it is,
Speaker 1: that he's always one vibration away from triggering my insanely
Speaker 1: sensitive emotional state and me being like, wait, you don't
Speaker 1: think I'm a hard worker. You don't think I'm independent,
Speaker 1: Like you don't think I'm doing a good job, but
Speaker 1: like I'm trying, and like I know that, like I
Speaker 1: you know, it's like I'm doing the best I can.
Speaker 1: I know you're better than me, and it's like whatever.
Speaker 1: So that's his experience, and so I sympathize with this
Speaker 1: spider similar experience. We have to walk on eggshells literally
Speaker 1: I mean not literally, I guess actually, but figuratively, yes,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it is that is very similar spider.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of This is the story for
Speaker 1: a lot of spider species. Often the female is big
Speaker 1: and hungry and the male is tiny and and very
Speaker 1: probably taste very good, and so the males are always
Speaker 1: delicately stepping on their web like hey, hey, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm here, you know, for sex not to get eaten.
Speaker 1: And she's always like one bad from like biting his
Speaker 1: head off, which you know. I feel bad for spiders
Speaker 1: because they have a bad rap. And I even every
Speaker 1: time I see when I think that, I think, oh
Speaker 1: my god, if anyone else were here, they would kill you.
Speaker 1: But I feel for you, and I know that you're
Speaker 1: partly here to help me maintain my house, and so
Speaker 1: I want to let you live, so I always try
Speaker 1: to take them outside. I really am like a good person.
Speaker 1: And is another example of how like different from other people.
Speaker 1: I'm a peacemaker. You're a hero when you really think
Speaker 1: about it, you are a hero. You know. I love spider.
Speaker 1: I don't even have to think about it for that long. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's just it's your instinct is to nurture spiders, which
Speaker 1: thank you, I guess I have like a Jesus complex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your spider Jesus, is the black widow actually really poisonous?
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, you don't want to get bitten by
Speaker 1: a black widow. It probably won't kill you. I think
Speaker 1: there's this perception that, um, well, it's not it's not poisonous.
Speaker 1: This is annoying. I hate to be a pendant here. No,
Speaker 1: I love it. But it's actually venomous because venom is
Speaker 1: like injected into you, like a bite is venomous. Poison
Speaker 1: is something you eat and get sick. So um, and
Speaker 1: then toxic just refers to both and Carolina I know
Speaker 1: toxic Carolina's personality. I can talk on top. But a
Speaker 1: black widows bite is venomous and it doesn't generally kill people.
Speaker 1: I mean, in very rare cases it can, and it's
Speaker 1: for like children it's more dangerous, but mostly it results
Speaker 1: in just a big welt or potentially like you know,
Speaker 1: some light necrosis, not I don't know, like you should
Speaker 1: go to the doctor, if you should go to the dog.
Speaker 1: I'm saying it's bad and you should go to the doctor.
Speaker 1: But they do kind of get a bad rap. They're
Speaker 1: also very shy. They don't like to bite people so
Speaker 1: often it's like you accidentally corner one, like it's in
Speaker 1: your shoe or glove. Again, don't worry about this happening
Speaker 1: too much. But if it does happen, do go to
Speaker 1: the doctor. Anyways. Yeah, I think that's pretty awesome that,
Speaker 1: like I love I just love torking spiders. Uh. And
Speaker 1: my favorite spiders actually are jumping spiders, which our whole
Speaker 1: family of spiders that are both adorable. They're really beautiful spiders,
Speaker 1: and they all almost all of them have some kind
Speaker 1: of elaborate dance. Uh. This time I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about the cosmo phases Umbrattica, which is a tropical jumping
Speaker 1: spider that likes to wave around naturally occurring glow sticks
Speaker 1: and dance like it's in a rave. So was canceled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like this is like Spider Coachella, Spider Burning
Speaker 1: Man all combined. Yeah. Probably, unfortunately, I mean it it
Speaker 1: is very flashy. They are a little itty bitty spider
Speaker 1: found in the tropics of Southeast Asia. Males have its Yes,
Speaker 1: let's let's call it etsy bitsy. Let's say that it is.
Speaker 1: The size is about itsy bitsy. The reason I say
Speaker 1: itty bitty and not as specific size as I couldn't
Speaker 1: find a specific size. I'm gonna say it's smaller than
Speaker 1: a fingernail though. So. The males have colorful, bright peacock
Speaker 1: blue and iridescent green stripes. Females are a pretty but
Speaker 1: kind of less flashy green color males. Males are the
Speaker 1: ones that like to show off. We all cheah, yeah, yeah, men,
Speaker 1: you're on notice you hear that. Yeah, we called you
Speaker 1: out man. We'd go to sixty nine comments on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I liked the podcast a lot better before it became
Speaker 1: radically feminist. Oh god, that's what they always say about.
Speaker 1: But yeah, these male jumping spiders, Uh. In addition to
Speaker 1: being very pretty like little peacocks, also have another trick
Speaker 1: up their sleep, which is that they can reflect UV light,
Speaker 1: making them glow to other spiders who can see UV lights.
Speaker 1: So we can't necessarily see it unless we reflect UV
Speaker 1: light off of them, but the other spiders see them
Speaker 1: and it looks like they're glowing. And they have these
Speaker 1: little things called pet palps, which are those little arms,
Speaker 1: you know, in front of their mouths that they can
Speaker 1: move like. I think they're cute. Uh, they're just there.
Speaker 1: I'm actually doing it right now. I know the users
Speaker 1: can't see, but it's for Caroline, and but it's adorable.
Speaker 1: It's very cute. I look like a little spider. I'm
Speaker 1: moving just my little fingers in front of my mouth
Speaker 1: and that's that's what it looks like. But those little
Speaker 1: petal palps actually glow you v lights, so they can
Speaker 1: like do a little rape like and like move them
Speaker 1: around rhythmically, and that attracts the females. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: and they also are drummers. They like to drum sound
Speaker 1: and familiar ladies. Who sounds like every boy named Logan actually,
Speaker 1: so I was pretty close to joining a band, but then,
Speaker 1: um yeah, I just kind of like got distracted by
Speaker 1: my dad's dream that he's making me live for him,
Speaker 1: so you know, see him. Brettica does not have a
Speaker 1: non scientific name yet. It doesn't have like a nickname,
Speaker 1: and I would like it to be Logan. I would. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Even though every species has its own mating ritual, when
Speaker 1: it comes to sex itself, it's all pretty much the same, right.
Speaker 1: The male inserts his mating apparatus into the female's mating
Speaker 1: apparatus and deposits his sperm. Well, listeners of the show
Speaker 1: not it's not nearly this simple. There are many different
Speaker 1: ways sex can occur, including the way neo trogla bark
Speaker 1: lies do it. Neo Trogla are little flea sized insects
Speaker 1: that live in Brazil and feed on bat poop and caves.
Speaker 1: They're already living a pretty great life, but wait until
Speaker 1: you hear about their sex lives. Neo Trogla females have
Speaker 1: something called a gynosome, a long penis like organ that
Speaker 1: they use in mating. They insert their gnosome into the
Speaker 1: male's reproductive cavity and while suck up a seminal fluid
Speaker 1: and sperm like it's a straw. Gives a whole new
Speaker 1: meaning to that milkshake song. When we turn work talking
Speaker 1: about some very anorous avians, there's just no end to
Speaker 1: what a bird will do to find a mate. Birds
Speaker 1: of paradise are perhaps the most showy examples. There are
Speaker 1: at least forty two species of birds of paradise, each
Speaker 1: more flamboyant and festive than the next. To cover them all,
Speaker 1: i'd need a hundred hours of podcast, so we'll just
Speaker 1: visit a few with some of the most enticing antics.
Speaker 1: So I do want to talk about birds. Now, I
Speaker 1: do love birds. Uh. They are sexy, they are hot,
Speaker 1: they are they have swagger, and they know how to seduce.
Speaker 1: I think they are one of the better lovers of
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom and one of the most incredible birds
Speaker 1: in terms of just showmanship are birds of paradise. So
Speaker 1: I want to talk talk about just a few of those.
Speaker 1: So first is the twelve wired birds of Paradise that
Speaker 1: are found throughout forests in Indonesia, New Guinea and solid
Speaker 1: Waddy Island. And they're about the size of a kitten.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm trying to, like a small kitten, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to size things relatively again, because I couldn't I
Speaker 1: couldn't like find an exact measurement of it. And I
Speaker 1: also feel like it's more visceral, Like now you're holding
Speaker 1: this bird like a little kid, like a little kitty,
Speaker 1: like a little kid, like a little kit Yeah, against
Speaker 1: your boosum, just cuddling it. So females have black heads,
Speaker 1: red eyes, and rusty, reddish brown bodies. They're just kind
Speaker 1: of normal looking birds. But males, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: the case with a lot of bird species, not all,
Speaker 1: but many the females just kind of look like whatever.
Speaker 1: They didn't try very hard, but the males are. They
Speaker 1: have been up since like six am getting their outfit together.
Speaker 1: So males are black with red eyes and bright highlighter
Speaker 1: yellow feathers along his flanks and long black wire like
Speaker 1: feathers that stick out from his butt. And I'm assuming
Speaker 1: there's like twelve of these wire feathers because it's name
Speaker 1: the twelve Wired Bird of Paradise. So you know, I
Speaker 1: think it looks a little cyber goth, kind of half
Speaker 1: dresses goth, but then you also have like neon highlights,
Speaker 1: and I mean cybergroth feels like a late nineties early
Speaker 1: Odds look, right, was it? I can't be that old.
Speaker 1: I know people were doing it when I was in
Speaker 1: high school. Yeah, I mean that was like two thousands, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you made me feel like early odds. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel like I'm a settler. I'm the old last from
Speaker 1: the settlers, and in one way or another, in one
Speaker 1: way or another, but yeah, sure. But males really try
Speaker 1: to impress the females, and they do it by shoving
Speaker 1: their butts in their faces in what is called a
Speaker 1: wire wipe display, which sounds very central, very sexy. They've
Speaker 1: bent over to show off their yellow highlights to the
Speaker 1: female and then they swish their wire filments in the
Speaker 1: female's face, like tickling her face with their weird like
Speaker 1: butt eyelashes. Now that's where I'm talking about. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is how guys. Take note again, this is how you
Speaker 1: talk to women. You push their butts in their faces
Speaker 1: and you tickle our noses with your just be clear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if the female is interested, she is super into it.
Speaker 1: She will like put her head into those butt wires
Speaker 1: like she loves it. It's like a nice I don't know,
Speaker 1: she's enjoying the face tickling. It's a fetish guys, and
Speaker 1: we can't kin shame here. Especially I wouldn't know or
Speaker 1: if anything, I'm going to welcome it into my um.
Speaker 1: I think this is cool because I hate when people
Speaker 1: play games, and I just feel like they're not playing games.
Speaker 1: They're texting back right away, they're but wiring right away,
Speaker 1: They're enjoying the face tickle right away. There's no maybe
Speaker 1: there's no one word response, there's no you know whatever
Speaker 1: it is, restraining order. All this stuff that guys do
Speaker 1: to like confuse me and I'm just like, can you
Speaker 1: just clear? Yeah? Birds of Paradise? They do. It is
Speaker 1: very direct. It's hey, would you like this? Would you
Speaker 1: like look at my eardescent? But do you like it?
Speaker 1: And the female is either yes or no? And then
Speaker 1: if the female's yes, he's like, great, let's let's mate
Speaker 1: like right here and right now, and she's like, great,
Speaker 1: I love it. And there's another bird of paradise that
Speaker 1: has really sort of the gentleman's version of the butt wires.
Speaker 1: This is the Wilson's bird of Paradise. It's found in Indoness.
Speaker 1: Also about the size of a small cuton, so cute.
Speaker 1: It's got a bright red cape, bright blue head, green mouth,
Speaker 1: iridescent green belly, blue feet, and violet tail. Feathers that
Speaker 1: curl into the shape of a cartoonish snidily whiplash curly mustache.
Speaker 1: It's like their butt's got a little curly handlebar mustache.
Speaker 1: And it's and who doesn't love a mustache? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: is like a hipster. And then the back is more
Speaker 1: of an artist look right, like a vampire cost player too,
Speaker 1: like a carpenter, like a handsome carpenter. It is really
Speaker 1: you know who that was Jesus was a handsome that
Speaker 1: he was handsome and a carpenter. So like Jesus, they
Speaker 1: clear away a stage on the forest floor. That's I
Speaker 1: guess that's not like Jesus. But who's to say. We
Speaker 1: don't know everything about Jesus. We only have one book
Speaker 1: about him. We only have one book about him. There's
Speaker 1: no documentary. Right, I'm gonna say Jesus hates leaves and
Speaker 1: like to clear away the forest floor in order to
Speaker 1: show off their mating dance. In fact, like these birds
Speaker 1: of Paradise that clear off the forest floor in order
Speaker 1: to show off their mating dance. They are so anal
Speaker 1: about it that like if you throw interesting look, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying. I'm not implying anything other than that
Speaker 1: they are very persnicketty. They do have a mustache on
Speaker 1: their butt, but that doesn't mean anything necessarily. But David
Speaker 1: Attenborough was trying to get a video of one of
Speaker 1: these birds of Paradise, and in order to get the
Speaker 1: bird to come out of hiding, he threw some leaves
Speaker 1: in its staging ground and the bird, like in exasperation,
Speaker 1: was like oh my god, and came out and like
Speaker 1: cleared away the lead was like he was like, now
Speaker 1: I had to do Forest of Management. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: the president suggested exactly. So now we know Addenburrow was
Speaker 1: a total phony and everything was okay, catfish. This is
Speaker 1: like when I found out The Hills was scripted. That
Speaker 1: was a rough day for all of us. David Attenborough
Speaker 1: famous jerk to birds. So yeah, but then once they
Speaker 1: get out there, this Wilson's Word of Paradise will dance
Speaker 1: like a robot. They'll show off their great green mouth,
Speaker 1: great Jesus bright green mouths, which I was going to
Speaker 1: assume that that was some like term. Yeah, I was like, sure,
Speaker 1: great brain mouth, Yeah, no it is. It's a it's
Speaker 1: actually very smart that I say that, very very distinguished
Speaker 1: words distinguished. Yes, there's another bird of Paradise called the
Speaker 1: six plumed Bird of Paradise, which is found in New Guinea.
Speaker 1: And he at first just doesn't seem that impressive. He's
Speaker 1: just sort of a jet black, like a crow or
Speaker 1: a raven. He's got some fancy filaments on his head,
Speaker 1: like some fancy head donggles, which are kind of cool,
Speaker 1: I guess, and he's got these piercing blue eyes. So
Speaker 1: it's like he's kind of neat, but he's like not
Speaker 1: that flashy. It's like, okay, you're a bird of paradise.
Speaker 1: You you don't really look like it. But once he
Speaker 1: clears away his dance platform, he um will call to
Speaker 1: summon females, and then he pops out a cape of
Speaker 1: feathers that runs all the way around his neck and
Speaker 1: turns himself into an umbrella. Like it's literally normal looking
Speaker 1: burden then umbrella, and he starts walking around dancing and
Speaker 1: then reveals this like brightly colored yellow neon yellow and
Speaker 1: green iridescent feathers on his throat that are so shiny
Speaker 1: and iridescent they kind of look like sequence, and he's
Speaker 1: flapping those. There's something so I think charming about how
Speaker 1: hard they try. I feel like if a guy full
Speaker 1: on turned into an umbrella just for me, he's at
Speaker 1: he's at least worth a callback. It very much sounds
Speaker 1: like a cool, nuanced Lady Gaga VMA's performance, which I'm
Speaker 1: obviously all four. So I love big romantic gestures. I
Speaker 1: never get them, and I'm really looking for that for
Speaker 1: my next partner. I love um umbrellas. I love a
Speaker 1: guy holding an umbrella for me. Another romantic gesture. Obama
Speaker 1: does it for Michelle and his daughters, and you know,
Speaker 1: that's a very like if he's if he is the umbrella,
Speaker 1: that's even more romantic because he's like, I will shield
Speaker 1: you from the rain, but I'm the umbrella, so I'm
Speaker 1: getting wet, but I don't care. Like when a guy
Speaker 1: I think an old movie is like a guy would
Speaker 1: throw his coat down over a puddle so a woman
Speaker 1: could walk across it. And obviously that's very unnecessary, but
Speaker 1: still waste of alorus. It actually seems she could. She
Speaker 1: could step over the puddle. That's the thing that gets me,
Speaker 1: Like she could probably, like if it's only takes a coat,
Speaker 1: you know, to traverse the puddle, Like she could step
Speaker 1: over it or just find a place where there's not
Speaker 1: a puddle. And it's just the like the rush to like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just like, oh, let's walk near this puddle
Speaker 1: so I can just start throwing my clothing into it
Speaker 1: getting somebody And I hate it. That sounds crazy, but
Speaker 1: I love it that sounds romantic. The next time I
Speaker 1: come across a puddle, I'm just going to stare at
Speaker 1: my boyfriend until he does something right. Yeah, exactly, And
Speaker 1: if it's not disrobing and throwing all of his belongings
Speaker 1: into the puddle, then it should be him laying down
Speaker 1: into that puddle and letting you walk across on top
Speaker 1: of him. Correct personally, like, I'm not going to judge
Speaker 1: your relationship, but that's what I would want. I demand
Speaker 1: nothing less than he laid down on the puddle and
Speaker 1: let me walk across his face exactly. One way that
Speaker 1: birds show affection is by kissing. Most parent species like
Speaker 1: a little bit of mouth to mouth love resuscitation, if
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And what better way to
Speaker 1: cap off a kiss them with some good old fashioned regurgitation.
Speaker 1: That's right. Parents love to show their love by regurgitating
Speaker 1: food into each other's mouths. Sharing is carrying, and a
Speaker 1: good amount of regurgitated food informs the female that the
Speaker 1: male could provide for her and her chicks a nothing
Speaker 1: hotter than a dad bought and some dad vomb. When
Speaker 1: we return, we're going to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: rodent sperm. Everyone's favorite topic. Rodent sperm. It's serious business.
Speaker 1: Sperm is one of the most diverse types of cells
Speaker 1: in nature, and studying different types of sperm can tell
Speaker 1: us a lot about biodiversity. Sperm isn't always as simple
Speaker 1: as a little balloon attached to a tail, and there
Speaker 1: are surprisingly innovative or weirdly defunct sperm floating out there,
Speaker 1: especially with as divers a group of animals as rodents. So, guys,
Speaker 1: I wanted to do like a brief interlude about rodent sperm.
Speaker 1: Are you on board? Obviously, Devin, I just talking about
Speaker 1: that before this podcast. Okay, I hope it's not like
Speaker 1: too boring then, because like you guys have already talked,
Speaker 1: we've already gone over like rodent sperm. But it's actually
Speaker 1: so fine. There's nothing really related to rodent sperm that
Speaker 1: we don't know about. But I'm really sorry. I kind
Speaker 1: of I wanted to keep it fresh, but I should
Speaker 1: have known better than you. Should have found a more
Speaker 1: niche topic like this than the well trodden path of
Speaker 1: rodent sperm. It's all over the news, well naked mule
Speaker 1: rats have mutants sperm um uh. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: science writers, Ed Young, who writes for National Geographic. He
Speaker 1: I just love that he's like unapologetically like here's here's
Speaker 1: just the weirdest, like mutant naked mule rat sperm that
Speaker 1: you'll ever it's disgusting. I love it, you know, you
Speaker 1: guys kind of know what naked muleratt is there, the
Speaker 1: little like penile looking him possible yet looking looking underground rodents.
Speaker 1: They live in colonies. They have a queen and they
Speaker 1: sort of like live in a colony structure like ants
Speaker 1: or bees. Um. And they don't feel pain in their skin,
Speaker 1: which their skin sort of looks like a foreskin, not
Speaker 1: not sort of exactly looks like a foreskin very much. Um.
Speaker 1: And they have, in addition to all their other fine qualities,
Speaker 1: they have weird mutant garbage sperm that's almost shaping you know.
Speaker 1: Like remember the Simps. I love since Simpson's callbacks. They're
Speaker 1: always so funny. Do you remember thought you were going
Speaker 1: to say the Sims And I was like, yeah, do
Speaker 1: you have an hour? Because I love killing Sims. It's
Speaker 1: so naughty, but I love it. You mean putting walls
Speaker 1: around them and then setting a fire, Yeah, making them
Speaker 1: pee themselves. It's so naughty and bad. I love it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I love the Simpsons. It was I
Speaker 1: think a funny show, but I think that I think
Speaker 1: so too. Okay, okay, guys aren't crazy with these statements.
Speaker 1: I would be careful, like you guys are making some
Speaker 1: bold statements. Okay, but there's this scene where it's like
Speaker 1: shows Homer's sperm and how like messed up they are
Speaker 1: from the nuclear plant and they're all just walking into
Speaker 1: each other and like have like two like three heads
Speaker 1: and stuff. That's naked mule rat sperm. They have, Like
Speaker 1: some of the sperm like has like two heads. Some
Speaker 1: of the sperm has like weird cone shaped heads and like,
Speaker 1: um the tail, you know how like the sperm it's
Speaker 1: like the head and then the tail, and the head
Speaker 1: contains the DNA and the tail propels it forward. And
Speaker 1: the tails are like really skinny, and they don't have
Speaker 1: this extra sheath that most mammalian sperm has, so like
Speaker 1: it's very weak and so it like barely moves forward.
Speaker 1: In fact, only one to fi of their sperm can
Speaker 1: actually swim. It's the owest of any mammal sperm. It's
Speaker 1: I'm calling it out. I'm calling out naked mole rat
Speaker 1: sperm is being the worst. I'm sorry I have to
Speaker 1: say this about naked mole rats, and that's I'm an
Speaker 1: animal lover. I think about animals all the time. I
Speaker 1: like looking at pictures of animals. I really do, just
Speaker 1: like get so much peace from them, and I feel
Speaker 1: like there's a butt coming. There is. But when I
Speaker 1: first saw a picture of a naked moulerat my initial
Speaker 1: thought was biology has failed them. No no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. And then when you described it as penal,
Speaker 1: I imagined, well, what if that's penis what penises look like?
Speaker 1: And again the major thought I had was no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Penises don't have little teeth. Um. I mean, I've definitely
Speaker 1: seen one, so I'm gonna have some tough conversations. Anyways,
Speaker 1: They're a weird, mutant looking animal and their sperm is
Speaker 1: weird and mutated, but it ends up all being fine
Speaker 1: because in their colonies, the queens are the only ones
Speaker 1: who made and the so there's the queen and the
Speaker 1: concert and they're the only breeding pair in the whole colony,
Speaker 1: so there's no competition, and it's just this mostly not
Speaker 1: that crowd. I mean, have you seen her. She's stunning
Speaker 1: and huge and engorged with babies. Ah, that is an
Speaker 1: incentive for birth. I think that this is another flaw
Speaker 1: of the Disney channel added to the list under a
Speaker 1: Nazi founder. Okay, they made Rufus the Naked molerad and kimpossible.
Speaker 1: Seems so cute, like a cute little pink guy, right,
Speaker 1: and then you google it and you see that's not
Speaker 1: at all what they look like. It's like Instagram and
Speaker 1: then a screenshot from a video. It's just not raistic.
Speaker 1: Their sperm doesn't need to compete because there's just no
Speaker 1: other males that they have to compete with. Then when
Speaker 1: you compare that to mice, like the deer mice are
Speaker 1: very promiscuous, cute little mice, which I I like most
Speaker 1: of the time. Sperm is like every sperm for itself,
Speaker 1: but like in this case, there's way too much competition
Speaker 1: with other mice here, Like there's so much sperm going on,
Speaker 1: too much drama. We got a team up, we gotta form,
Speaker 1: you know, a rowing team. And I feel like again
Speaker 1: another movie idea, like a rowing team of sperm that
Speaker 1: is like they're kind of the underdog. There's already one
Speaker 1: in development. Damn, God, damn every time, all right, every time,
Speaker 1: I know every time, I'm like the story every day,
Speaker 1: the story of the little like hookworm that tries to in.
Speaker 1: It's like no already, yeah, a large bit of more Amazon,
Speaker 1: got it, damn it? I guess how much? For thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars? Oh is this going to be in the
Speaker 1: new Lord of the Rings because they did say they're
Speaker 1: adding sex to it, which I'm excited for. It's going
Speaker 1: to be a spinoff or a shoot off. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see what they do about like tree in
Speaker 1: those big walking trees and they just like I guess,
Speaker 1: are gonna bone. I mean, there is such a thing
Speaker 1: as too much sex in fantasy worlds, and I think
Speaker 1: we all have to look to a Game of Thrones
Speaker 1: to see that. Yeah. Yeah, I only saw Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings when my brother tricked me and said we
Speaker 1: were going to see Harry Potter and instead we saw
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings, and so I don't remember anything
Speaker 1: because I was crying and complaining the whole time. Nice.
Speaker 1: So I went to The Lord of the Rings intentionally
Speaker 1: because you know, that's you can imagine what I was
Speaker 1: like in middle school, I'm sure, and I had like
Speaker 1: a belt that had like beads and like shiny sequence
Speaker 1: on and in my little dumb middle school or head,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna wear this belt, and one
Speaker 1: of the creators of Lord of the Rings is gonna
Speaker 1: be in the audience looking first someone who has the
Speaker 1: fashion sense to be in the next Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna look at this and they're gonna be like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a very elvish looking belt. I'm gonna cat us
Speaker 1: this stupid little girl in the next Slur of the
Speaker 1: Rings as an elf. You know what's wrong with Hollywood
Speaker 1: is that they don't do stuff like that when they
Speaker 1: have it in their power. No, Peter, just my cool belt,
Speaker 1: Peter Jackson. You have this in your power. You can
Speaker 1: make dreams come true, and yet you choose not to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all I can say is big, big loss on their part,
Speaker 1: But whatever, it's too bad. The last fact of the
Speaker 1: day before we we go is that my study yogurt
Speaker 1: have bigger balls, like their balls get bigger. What kind
Speaker 1: of yogurt probiotic yogurt? I think it's Chobani. Non coincidentally,
Speaker 1: we are sponsored this week by Cho Chobani for big
Speaker 1: balls for go nets. It's gonna be a bunch of
Speaker 1: guys listening to this, just like furiously reaching for yogurt
Speaker 1: and like like dunking their face in it, trying to
Speaker 1: get Jim gets those those big balls. But searchers were
Speaker 1: not explicitly trying to find out if yogurt would cause
Speaker 1: mice balls to get bigger. They're trying to see, like
Speaker 1: how it affected rates of cancer and rates of obesity.
Speaker 1: But they did find out that more yogurt creates big,
Speaker 1: juicy mouth balls, also silky shiny first. So you know, guys,
Speaker 1: if you want silky hair and I guess big balls,
Speaker 1: you heard it here. First, eat a lot of yogurt,
Speaker 1: Eat a lot of yogurt, and watch movies with your
Speaker 1: girlfrid do it. You gotta watch at least one Meg
Speaker 1: Ryan movie a week. Science says, So, I mean, this
Speaker 1: has only been proven in mice, but there are some, guys,
Speaker 1: some preliminary studies that do show that eating yogurt may
Speaker 1: help with sperm quality in human men. This is like
Speaker 1: when I used to drink soy milk in middle school
Speaker 1: because I read that soy milk has estrogen that makes
Speaker 1: your boobs big. Yeah, that's like why I'm still drinking
Speaker 1: storm up. Well, guys, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: me today. I think this is a real katie. This
Speaker 1: is a really romantic, sweet episode. I think sexy. I
Speaker 1: think it makes us seem all very alluring. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: like you know, that's what you want in a podcast,
Speaker 1: to leave the listeners with them. Wow. I gosh, they
Speaker 1: sound very appealing to me, and I never thought of that.
Speaker 1: I hope listeners out there are thinking, I thought I
Speaker 1: tried everything, but looks like I didn't. I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: some my butt in her face and tickle her nose.
Speaker 1: I have to say thank you, Katie for all the
Speaker 1: work you do. I True Romance and if you want
Speaker 1: to listen to True Romance, it's on I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: I Heart Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Katie,
Speaker 1: thank you for this science lesson. And I hope that
Speaker 1: when they make the reboot of Lord of the Rings
Speaker 1: that you wear your belt and go to the theater
Speaker 1: if we're allowed to go to theaters by then. And
Speaker 1: I hope someone's there. I hope Lego Loss is there
Speaker 1: and he sees you in it and he says, let's
Speaker 1: crack on, and then you guys go do the bellish
Speaker 1: smashing in it. I hope Orlando Bloom is Austin Powers
Speaker 1: by the time you see and he's like in it,
Speaker 1: smashing more characters, more characters. I want I want there
Speaker 1: to be the Rowing Team of Sperm. I want the
Speaker 1: Wink of Us Twins of Sperm to be in the
Speaker 1: next These are all ideas. These are all ideals, free ideas.
Speaker 1: Just what are you listening? Not not to this podcast? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But thank you? Yeah, definitely check out True Romance. You
Speaker 1: guys will not believe what gets left on the cutting
Speaker 1: room floor incriminating evidence. Let's just say I have had
Speaker 1: to call the police numbers of times, a number of times.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying the show, please leave a writing review. Press
Speaker 1: all the stars. Even if your name is we'd gocoust
Speaker 1: six nine, I still want to hear what you have
Speaker 1: to say more than anyone. Thanks to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song. X Alumina. Creature features a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the
Speaker 1: one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what? Where have you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows? Wherever? That might be through a
Speaker 1: shell on a beach, whatever it is. Um You can
Speaker 1: find us at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at Creature
Speaker 1: feat Pod. That's f e a T, not f ET.
Speaker 1: That is something very different. On Twitter and as always,
Speaker 1: I am Katie Golden on Twitter if you want to
Speaker 1: check out my Katie thoughts. And I am also at
Speaker 1: Pro Bird Rights where I fight for the rights of
Speaker 1: birds to you know, rule over a with an iron wing,
Speaker 1: iron wings. Yes see you next Wednesday.