Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show Big Mouths animals with absolutely
Speaker 1: animalistic appetites, from the stretchiest mouth the reptiles, to seat
Speaker 1: creatures that are mostly mouths. We're talking about the most
Speaker 1: ghoulish gluttons on the globe. Discover this and more as
Speaker 1: we answer the age old question what the heck is
Speaker 1: wrong with Heron's joining me today is food writer, host
Speaker 1: of the podcast Smart Mouth, and expert on all things edible,
Speaker 1: Catherine Spires.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Thank you so much for having me. I love
Speaker 2: doing this show.
Speaker 1: I am excited to talk to you about this. I uh,
Speaker 1: I'm always impressed with animals that just go for it
Speaker 1: when they're eating, Like you would think, hey, don't you
Speaker 1: want a smaller nibble maybe, and they're like, no, I
Speaker 1: want the whole meal in my mouth immediately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you don't know what's gonna happen exactly, so
Speaker 2: you got to get it in while you can.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. You don't know if someone's gonna catch you
Speaker 1: trying to get this thing. Someone's gonna steal your food
Speaker 1: from right in front of you, so you've got to
Speaker 1: get the whole thing down your gullet within seconds, which
Speaker 1: is yeah, my sort of That's how my brain interprets
Speaker 1: when I'm eating pizza, like what I have to do,
Speaker 1: which burns the roof of my mouth, and then two
Speaker 1: seconds later I forget that pain and then continue.
Speaker 2: I know, that's a hard one when something's so delicious
Speaker 2: or you just feel so panicky about it. You know,
Speaker 2: my dad was Irish Catholic and grew up in an
Speaker 2: Irish Catholic neighborhood and everyone had a million kids, and
Speaker 2: that is the way humans eat. Also when there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people at the table, a lot of people
Speaker 2: that you don't care about manner in front of, and
Speaker 2: they still kind of do it to this day. It's
Speaker 2: still kind of like a slightly panicky situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just food around hyenas at a carcass exactly. Yes, yes, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I think anyone who's had sort of a
Speaker 1: buffet style thing and then you're competing with all your
Speaker 1: siblings and your cousins and your aunts and your uncles,
Speaker 1: you know, it can things can get messy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, especially if there's something highly prized like clams.
Speaker 2: They're from Seattle, and you know, my everyone's memories of
Speaker 2: like being allotted three clams. Are there any animals that
Speaker 2: think about food like that? Like, are there any mom
Speaker 2: animals that allocate food that thoughtfully? I mean, it's kind
Speaker 2: of mean to only let people have three clams, but
Speaker 2: I mean that's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: There are I mean, certainly birds will feed their offspring,
Speaker 1: and if they have multiple offspring, they tried to feed
Speaker 1: where you know, many offspring, some bird species will favor
Speaker 1: one offspring over the other and feed them more. There
Speaker 1: are certainly animals who will starve themselves in order to
Speaker 1: feed their offspring. So there are so many different ways
Speaker 1: in which animals will partition out food. In fact, some animals,
Speaker 1: like fish or frogs, will even eat some of their
Speaker 1: offspring just to make sure there's enough food to go around.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah, there are lots of ways of
Speaker 2: handling this indeed.
Speaker 1: And so our first animal we're talking about, it's one
Speaker 1: of one of my personal favorite snakes. It's an egg
Speaker 1: eating snake. So all eggs eating snakes are quite impressive
Speaker 1: in terms of their ability to swallow whole eggs larger
Speaker 1: than their heads. But a genus of cute little snakes
Speaker 1: called dazzy Peltis are the snakes with the highest prey
Speaker 1: size to their own size ratio in the snake world,
Speaker 1: meaning that relative to their body size, they can swallow
Speaker 1: the largest prey, but that prey is exclusively eggs, so
Speaker 1: they have.
Speaker 2: Like a mono diet.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, they eat only eggs, typically bird eggs, and
Speaker 1: they are really they cannot really eat anything else. They're
Speaker 1: highly highly specialized.
Speaker 2: And how often do they starve or is this something
Speaker 2: that's easy for them to get.
Speaker 1: To because they live in areas and are specialized to
Speaker 1: find bird nests. I think that they are fairly capable
Speaker 1: of feeding themselves, Like it's one of the things like
Speaker 1: when you're really niche, you have to be really good
Speaker 1: and specialized at getting that food. But they they happen
Speaker 1: to be really good at getting these eggs and specializing
Speaker 1: in it to the point where they actually have basically
Speaker 1: no teeth. They really can't eat anything other than eggs.
Speaker 1: They're completely harmless to humans. They have no teeth, they
Speaker 1: have no venom. They're quite cute. I think some people
Speaker 1: might disagree, but they will they're really harmless, and they
Speaker 1: try to pretend like they're tough. So they'll hiss by
Speaker 1: rubbing their scales together, producing this striation that makes a
Speaker 1: hissing sound, and then they'll lunge with a fake bite,
Speaker 1: but they don't actually bite. They just have their mouth
Speaker 1: kind of like open and then bonk against you harmlessly
Speaker 1: because they can't. They really have no bite to their bark,
Speaker 1: like there's nothing they can do. They're just trying to
Speaker 1: intimidate you and pretend like they're much tougher snake than
Speaker 1: they actually are.
Speaker 2: Okay, that is pretty endearing. Do people keep these as pets?
Speaker 1: They do? Indeed, yes, it's a fairly popular snake to
Speaker 1: keep as a pet. I think in addition to them
Speaker 1: being you know, not dangerous to handle, it's also if
Speaker 1: you feel bad about feeding snakes live food, this one
Speaker 1: is easy to feed because you feed it eggs typically
Speaker 1: not chicken eggs. They might be a little too big,
Speaker 1: especially for the smaller species, but you know, smaller eggs
Speaker 1: like quail eggs, although, as we'll talk about, these snakes
Speaker 1: in the wild can eat eggs much larger than quail eggs.
Speaker 2: So oh gosh, okay, So I see what you're saying
Speaker 2: about it being cute. When you look at the picture
Speaker 2: of just the snake. I think a lot of it
Speaker 2: has to do with it's not huge and its eyes
Speaker 2: are disproportionately large. Yeah, it has that like Disney effect.
Speaker 2: But right below that you have a picture of it
Speaker 2: eating an egg, and I don't care for that image.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little it's a little gut churning. So this,
Speaker 1: the one that is pictured, is actually the Ganza's egg eater.
Speaker 1: It has a head that's about the diameter of an
Speaker 1: adult human's finger, Like, depending on how beefy your hand
Speaker 1: is either like your thumb or your pointer finger. H
Speaker 1: And despite being so slender, it can swallow whole bird eggs.
Speaker 1: And they are able to grotesquely distin their mouths and
Speaker 1: their bodies in order to swallow eggs many many times
Speaker 1: the size of their own heads. It's like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like if I guess what would be like if we
Speaker 1: tried to swallow an entire watermelon. I think that would
Speaker 1: be sort of the the relative size here.
Speaker 2: Wow wow, wow wow nature man. Yeah, I have a
Speaker 2: question that this is some story that my sister told
Speaker 2: me fifteen years ago. I think she in college lived
Speaker 2: in a house with a bunch of other hippies and
Speaker 2: one of them moved out but left his pet snake.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't a little guy like this, It was
Speaker 2: a big one. I don't know anything about snakes. But
Speaker 2: she would have to go to pet smart or whatever
Speaker 2: and get mice to feed to it. And she wanted
Speaker 2: to like get into the whole snake world. She had
Speaker 2: this snake now, so she went to some her patological
Speaker 2: society meetings. Is that the correct? That's correct? Okay. So
Speaker 2: it was sort of just an enthusiast group and she
Speaker 2: was told the story that it was about, like when
Speaker 2: they were talking about the best way to care for
Speaker 2: your pet snake and interact with your pet snake. And
Speaker 2: this couple had gotten pet snake medium to bigs. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know how big they get in nature, but
Speaker 2: like big for a pet. And they decided that they
Speaker 2: weren't going to keep it in a tank because that
Speaker 2: was cruel. That they were going to treat it basically
Speaker 2: like a puppy, including letting it sleep with them in
Speaker 2: their bed. And uh, the snake stopped eating but kept growing,
Speaker 2: so they took it to the vet, and the vet
Speaker 2: was like, do you keep this snake in a tank?
Speaker 2: And they were like, no, we let it sleep with us.
Speaker 2: We let it go where it wants. And it was like, okay.
Speaker 2: So what snakes do is they when they're preparing to
Speaker 2: eat something really large, is they like stop eating so
Speaker 2: they have the appetite, but they grow to like accommodate
Speaker 2: the size of their prey and the snake is preparing
Speaker 2: to eat you. I that's the story.
Speaker 1: I'm I don't believe that is true. Uh, snakes, I
Speaker 1: do not believe have that much foresight. I've heard stories
Speaker 1: kind of like this before, where it's like a snake
Speaker 1: is sort of trying to measure you, like a pet
Speaker 1: snake trying to measure you to see if you're it's
Speaker 1: big enough to eat you, or it'll stop eating to
Speaker 1: like kind of save room for you. Snakes really aren't
Speaker 1: plan like that. Burmese pythons certainly they can kill people
Speaker 1: because they are, you know, constrictors. They can constrict around you.
Speaker 1: Both constrictors can constrict and hurt you. But I do
Speaker 1: not know of any cases of a pet snake eating
Speaker 1: an adult. I believe there might be cases of a
Speaker 1: pet snake killing an adult, Okay, And in terms of
Speaker 1: like feeding, they will usually feed very intermittently, so they
Speaker 1: can have a large meal and then basically not eat
Speaker 1: for many months. But I don't believe that is because
Speaker 1: it is saving room for a large meal. It's just
Speaker 1: it doesn't really need to eat. Once it's had a
Speaker 1: large meal, it can metabolize that for quite a bit
Speaker 1: of time, and then it will after a while to
Speaker 1: eat something else once it needs to.
Speaker 2: Okay, but yeah, it makes me feel a little better,
Speaker 2: a little better about snakes.
Speaker 1: Yes, but you know, in terms of like snakes, so
Speaker 1: like what's interesting is even though these guys are pretty
Speaker 1: small and cute looking and other than when they're like
Speaker 1: distended around an egg, compared to like the Burmese python
Speaker 1: or other snakes, they have the stretchiest, most expandable.
Speaker 2: Jaws relative to their body side.
Speaker 1: So even though the Burmese pythec python has been known
Speaker 1: to eat like goats, this snake, pound for pound, can
Speaker 1: eat larger prey than any other snake that has been studied.
Speaker 1: And so they really basically just stretch their mouth over
Speaker 1: the egg like a sock going over a foot. And
Speaker 1: this is why being toothless helps them like they don't
Speaker 1: want that getting hot on the egg. They also have
Speaker 1: like these ridges on the inside of their mouth that
Speaker 1: helps grip onto the egg. And the reason they can
Speaker 1: stretch their mouth out like a son is that their
Speaker 1: lower jaw comes in two sections and it's connected by
Speaker 1: very stretchy connective tissue that can expand like elastic, like
Speaker 1: a rubber band. And so there's not like our jaw
Speaker 1: is in one piece, and so if we tried to
Speaker 1: stretch our mouth out, there's a limit. Our jaw is
Speaker 1: also fused to our upper jaw, and that's another problem
Speaker 1: with snakes. They have unfused jaws. And then in addition
Speaker 1: to that, that separated mandible allows their jaw to stretch
Speaker 1: out even more, and so it will take in this
Speaker 1: egg and like there's sort of with the movements of
Speaker 1: the jaws, the kind of ridge like pattern on the
Speaker 1: inside of the cheeks and muscle movements pulls the egg
Speaker 1: into the esophagus and they can actually close their mouth
Speaker 1: and then have this hole. It'll just be this like
Speaker 1: thin snake and then like an egg shape like inside
Speaker 1: their throat. You might have the question of, well, how
Speaker 1: do they digest this egg, it's still got its shell
Speaker 1: on it. They actually have these bone like protrusions on
Speaker 1: the inside of their bodies that are actually part of
Speaker 1: their spine, and they use muscles to push the egg
Speaker 1: into these bony protrusions and that breaks the egg, and
Speaker 1: then they squeeze the egg until like all of the
Speaker 1: edible egg material, the yolk, the white, everything gets pushed
Speaker 1: out and into the rest of their digestive tract. And
Speaker 1: then once they've basically squeezed everything out of this egg,
Speaker 1: they regurgitate the shell. And they're remarkably efficient, like they
Speaker 1: leave very little of the egg that is not she else.
Speaker 1: So they basically it's like they've eaten a pistachio now
Speaker 1: and they're just spitting out the shell and uh they
Speaker 1: it's just it's just kind of an incredible feat for
Speaker 1: such a small animal, and it's all they can do. Essentially,
Speaker 1: they they exist to reproduce and process eggs.
Speaker 2: That's it. Wait, So I've been thinking about this a
Speaker 2: lot because there's been a lot of talk of how
Speaker 2: there are mosquitos in Los Angeles now and apparently throughout
Speaker 2: history up till about five years ago, there were not
Speaker 2: so a lot of talk of like, can you get
Speaker 2: rid of an entire species if it doesn't seem like
Speaker 2: it's contributing that much to the ecosystem. Turns out mosquitoes
Speaker 2: actually feed a lot of other animals. But what are
Speaker 2: these snakes? What do we need these snakes for?
Speaker 1: E mean, what does humanity need these snakes for?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: No, the antalcopulation, the plant planet. I mean, they are
Speaker 1: food for animals. So like mosquitoes, they provide food for
Speaker 1: any kind of snake eating animals. They you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's they may eat some bird eggs, and some birds
Speaker 1: might actually eat them. They're small enough to be eaten by,
Speaker 1: you know, many birds of prey. We're actually going to
Speaker 1: talk about a bird who likes to eat lots of
Speaker 1: different snakes, maybe not the egg eating snake in particular,
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, the local ecology. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: But like when you have something that eats like an egg,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of species of birds where they
Speaker 1: may have a lot of eggs, and then if they
Speaker 1: all hatch, you may actually have too many nestlings, and
Speaker 1: some of the nestlings may get sick or even get
Speaker 1: pushed out of the nest. So there may be some
Speaker 1: benefit even to birds. For an egg eating snake, now
Speaker 1: a lot of birds will also develop strategies to prevent
Speaker 1: snakes from eating their eggs, because if a snake goes
Speaker 1: and eats all their eggs, that's not good for the bird.
Speaker 1: And if you have a disproportionate say you have like
Speaker 1: it's all about balance. Really, it's like, you know, wolf
Speaker 1: populations and deer populations. For instance, if you have too
Speaker 1: many wolves, that's bad for the deer. You have too
Speaker 1: few wolves that can actually be bad for the deer
Speaker 1: as well, surprisingly, because if you have too dense a
Speaker 1: population of deer, they can get spread illness more easily.
Speaker 1: And so wolves can actually help prey populations thrive just
Speaker 1: as much as the prey populations can help the wolves thrive.
Speaker 1: So while I don't know like the exact specifics of
Speaker 1: this dynamic between egg eating snakes and birds, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if it was a similar thing where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, having the egg eating snakes in balance with
Speaker 1: the birds can actually help control the bird population such
Speaker 1: that there's not too much competition for food or.
Speaker 2: Spread of disease.
Speaker 1: So these relationships are very even when they're antagonistic, they
Speaker 1: can balance out in ways that actually creates a relatively
Speaker 1: stable ecosystem.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting.
Speaker 1: They're all so cute. So in my opinion, I was.
Speaker 2: Gonna say, are there any animals that you're afraid of?
Speaker 1: Hmm? I mean they're I mean I'm afraid of a
Speaker 1: lot of animals. I'm afraid of horses because they can
Speaker 1: kill me if they're having a bad day. I love horses.
Speaker 1: I think they're sweet, gentle animals. I'm amazed that they
Speaker 1: don't destroy us at every turn. But if I'm face
Speaker 1: to face with a large horse, I'm intimidated. Maybe intimidated
Speaker 1: is the right word. I'm scared, like I'm I think
Speaker 1: like I am afraid of animal. Like if I see
Speaker 1: a snake on the ground, my initial response is fear
Speaker 1: because I don't know, you know, It's like I have
Speaker 1: an instinctive responsive fear. And then once I know whether
Speaker 1: it's like venomous or not, then my my feelings change essentially.
Speaker 1: But I'm not like looking at a photo of any animal,
Speaker 1: I don't feel discussed towards anything except for cockroaches and silverfish.
Speaker 1: It's a type of insect, and I think it's because
Speaker 1: I associate those earwigs too to some degree, so because
Speaker 1: I think I associate those with them getting in my
Speaker 1: cereal boxes and being grossed around food, So I have
Speaker 1: a negative Like once I found half of a silverfish
Speaker 1: in a bowl of cheerios that I was eating, so
Speaker 1: I was done with them, yeah after that. So it's
Speaker 1: more of a disgust response I think to certain pests
Speaker 1: that actively get into my food. But it's also like
Speaker 1: I can see, like I have had mice as pets,
Speaker 1: and I like mice. But if I see a mice
Speaker 1: scurry across the room, or like when I was camping,
Speaker 1: have a mouse run across my foot, I have a
Speaker 1: reaction of dismay because it's not a context in which
Speaker 1: I want to see the mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah that makes sense. Okay, So when.
Speaker 1: We get back, we are going to talk about a
Speaker 1: fish that you probably don't want to see in most contexts,
Speaker 1: except for maybe a culinary one. So we will be
Speaker 1: right back. So, Catherine, are you familiar with monkfish in cuisine?
Speaker 2: Oh? In cuisine, absolutely, yes. It's it's a delicacy. People
Speaker 2: love it, both the flesh and the monkfish liver is
Speaker 2: also something that some people really try and get their
Speaker 2: hands on.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Have you ever had it? No?
Speaker 2: Uh? Have I? I don't think that I have. I
Speaker 2: tend not to, you know, try to do any stunt eating,
Speaker 2: which done in the context of Los Angeles is what
Speaker 2: it would be. So No, I've just had like monkfish,
Speaker 2: the flesh, the flesh.
Speaker 1: What does just the ordinary flesh of the monk fish
Speaker 1: taste like in your opinion, like.
Speaker 2: A, it's a really good whitefish, so you know, and
Speaker 2: it's whitefish, as Miles was, probably whatever seasonings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absorbs, absorbs the lime or whatever you put on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard it's like got almost like a lobstery texture.
Speaker 1: Is that true or is that just is that just
Speaker 1: restaurants trying to talk it up a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe that is not my recollection of it at all. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because Long to.
Speaker 1: Me has a very specific, not fishy texture.
Speaker 2: It's kind of you would think you wouldn't want you
Speaker 2: wouldn't want a lobster texture in a fish because it
Speaker 2: wouldn't that mean the fish was very rebby I. I. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is not resonating with me. But okay, so this.
Speaker 1: Is I think this is just trying Maybe it's advert
Speaker 1: marketing for the monkfish to make it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and they do do that, And I
Speaker 2: feel like it's different enough from sea bass that they
Speaker 2: can't call it sea bass, even though they call just
Speaker 2: about every other fish in the ocean sea bass when
Speaker 2: it's on a restaurant menu, but not monkfish. It's two different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I've seen I also, like, in researching this,
Speaker 1: like I've seen certain publications claiming, Oh, this is sustainable,
Speaker 1: and then other publications saying, no, it's definitely not sustainable.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's so.
Speaker 1: Hard when you're researching because I eat fish, but I
Speaker 1: like to eat fish that if I can, eating fish
Speaker 1: that is more sustainable and also not full of mercury
Speaker 1: is a plus.
Speaker 2: That's such a winning combination.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's really hard to do research on it
Speaker 1: because I don't think, you know, it's always easy to
Speaker 1: get the correct information on this, Like I've seen sources
Speaker 1: saying like, well, their populations are stable enough such that
Speaker 1: it's sustainable, or sources saying like, well, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them are caught via trawling, which which is definitely
Speaker 1: not sustainable, because that's that's a method that kicks up
Speaker 1: a lot of the like coral and sand and stuff
Speaker 1: and destroys the seafloor. So I honestly have I feel
Speaker 1: like the jury's out for me whether to eat this fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the seafood industry in particular is very secretive.
Speaker 2: They've got a lot of stuff going on that they
Speaker 2: don't want us to know about. And then that just
Speaker 2: raises more questions about like, well, what is sustainable for you?
Speaker 2: I think two people both operating in good faith can
Speaker 2: come up with a different definition of sustainable, because some
Speaker 2: people are gonna say, well, if the people catching this
Speaker 2: fish are literal slaves, that's probably not good. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if that's true for monkfish. But
Speaker 2: there's just it's like some people truly believe that farmed
Speaker 2: fish is better than wild and vice versa. And it's
Speaker 2: just to eat ethically, you have to put so much
Speaker 2: thought and effort into it. It's really hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if you're even if you're vegetarian or vegan.
Speaker 1: I think it's still like knowing which kinds of crops
Speaker 1: are are sustainable and like what the working conditions for
Speaker 1: farmers are. It's not that and I don't think it's
Speaker 1: not worthwhile to try to research it. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: think it's something where it like when we put it
Speaker 1: on the consumer to figure this stuff out, it is
Speaker 1: so there's so many hurdles, and I feel like we
Speaker 1: need a better system of regulation so that it's not
Speaker 1: like a consumer at the grocery store going like, oh, monkfish,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Well, I guess I'll do half an hour
Speaker 1: of research while standing next to the fish aisle to
Speaker 1: see if yeah, this is okay to eat, and then
Speaker 1: after thirty minutes, not knowing whether or not, it's like.
Speaker 2: Eat, I know, and see I am that person who
Speaker 2: will stand there researching in the grocery store. But like,
Speaker 2: I don't have kids, like I have the time to
Speaker 2: do stuff like that. You're totally right. Putting on the
Speaker 2: consumer is way too much, and especially because you know,
Speaker 2: we don't have any consumer education in school, so we
Speaker 2: don't even know what we're looking for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, absolutely, I mean knowing and also just
Speaker 1: like things about like safety, like knowing which types of
Speaker 1: fish tend to have more mercury in them, because it's
Speaker 1: like when you eat fish, you're like, well this is healthy,
Speaker 1: this is a healthy meat. You know, It's like uh,
Speaker 1: and it I mean people aren't wrong because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, fish has a lot of like omega, you know,
Speaker 1: three proteins in it. It's a it's a protein that
Speaker 1: is not typically as you know, full of like say cholesterol,
Speaker 1: as say like red meat. It's got a lot of
Speaker 1: good stuff in it. But then if you're getting a
Speaker 1: huge dose of mercury.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, it kind of wipes everything else out, right.
Speaker 1: But then there are certain types of fish that have
Speaker 1: less mercury and some that have more. And then it's
Speaker 1: just like you have to do this cost benefit of like, well,
Speaker 1: if I eat this fish for my health, how much
Speaker 1: mercury am I getting? If it's a low enough dose,
Speaker 1: it actually is worth it to eat that fish to
Speaker 1: be healthy. And so it's just I think it's some
Speaker 1: and I mean I'm with you, Like I feel like
Speaker 1: I do, like an extensive amount of research on food
Speaker 1: and both in terms of health and like the ethics,
Speaker 1: and often I'm just become more confused.
Speaker 2: After I do it, right.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, So it's I I guess it's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a tangent, but it's just like it's
Speaker 1: so hard to know. So I'm I've never personally eaten monkfish,
Speaker 1: but it seems it seems interesting because it's because it's
Speaker 1: definitely not the typical whitefish that I see around.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's it's its own thing. It is good man.
Speaker 2: I just keep starting at this picture, and unlike the
Speaker 2: snake picture, I was like, I'm just not going to
Speaker 2: look at this monkfish. I'm like, you're really something, yes, guy.
Speaker 2: So now we're no pun intended.
Speaker 1: But now we're going to get into the meat of
Speaker 1: this issue, which is that the monkfish is an absolutely
Speaker 1: bananas monster from the deep that I think isn't It's like,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about sharks, we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about deep sea anglers and stuff, and we have these
Speaker 1: these ideas of like these monstrous fish. This one, I
Speaker 1: feel like doesn't get as much attention for how monstrous
Speaker 1: it is, but it is just as disturbing as the
Speaker 1: deep sea angler without as much pr So these are
Speaker 1: also known as frogfish and sea devils. Unsurprising if you're
Speaker 1: looking at them. Uh, they are actually in the same
Speaker 1: order as deep sea anglerfishuh. And they have a lot
Speaker 1: of similar qualities, but they are much flatter, wider, They
Speaker 1: tend not to live as deep when compared to certain
Speaker 1: species of deep sea anglerfish, but they still live on
Speaker 1: the seafloor.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And they are absolute monsters. They have these huge, wide
Speaker 1: monster mouths. In fact, like most of their body is
Speaker 1: like their mouth and their head and their jaws. Like
Speaker 1: that's like none eighty percent of their body is like
Speaker 1: jaws and face essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this, you know. I scrolled down and I saw
Speaker 2: the picture below of the head on one that you
Speaker 2: have taken from above. Yeah, that is nightmarish. Well, I
Speaker 2: don't know why the above from above angle looks so
Speaker 2: much scarier.
Speaker 1: I think it's because you can see the proportion that
Speaker 1: it is basically like mostly a mouth and then a
Speaker 1: small body attached to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the joker of fish or something. It
Speaker 2: is kind of a joker.
Speaker 1: They also have this weird beard of this like fringe
Speaker 1: like beard of barbells growing on their chins. It's to
Speaker 1: help with camouflage. Oh, I forgot to put a photo
Speaker 1: of that in there. You deserve to see that, because
Speaker 1: it's actually a little funny. I'm seeing recipes. That's not
Speaker 1: what I want. There we go and I'll include this
Speaker 1: in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Too.
Speaker 1: I just added a picture of a living monk fish
Speaker 1: with its funny little beard.
Speaker 2: Oh, that is a funny little beard. I haven't I
Speaker 2: don't think I've ever seen the beard before. Does it
Speaker 2: disintegrate or when it dies? Why have I mean this
Speaker 2: kind of makes it endearing looking Grandpa.
Speaker 1: Monkeys don't have as prominent like this is a species
Speaker 1: that might not be fished as much. It's okay, this
Speaker 1: one has a more prominent one the other species. It's
Speaker 1: also the beard is like generally the same color as
Speaker 1: the rest of the skin, so like once it's out
Speaker 1: of the water, it's probably just kind of flattened against
Speaker 1: its so you can't really see it. Okay, Okay, I
Speaker 1: think all the species do have those little protrusions, just
Speaker 1: like some species are more prominent. This one definitely is
Speaker 1: giving me sort of like a Quaker oats man beard,
Speaker 1: you know, like a chin strap neck beard.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, which could go either way.
Speaker 1: So they live on the seafloor at depths ranging from
Speaker 1: about two thousand to over three thousand feet, so that's
Speaker 1: around six hundred to one thousand meters in both Atlantic
Speaker 1: and Mediterranean waters. There's a few different species. Certain species
Speaker 1: such as the Lofius americanas also known as the all
Speaker 1: mouth American anglerfish, which I love that name, can grow
Speaker 1: up to around fifty pounds or nearly twenty three kilograms
Speaker 1: and live up to around thirty years old, so they
Speaker 1: can be chunky and hunky.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, wow, that's impressive.
Speaker 1: They can also use their pectoral fins to walk along
Speaker 1: the seafloor and depending on their and you're making a faith.
Speaker 2: You don't like that. Don't tell me about fish walking.
Speaker 2: It's so weird, like fears about animals and stuff can
Speaker 2: be so non sensical. It's totally meaningless to my life
Speaker 2: that monkfish can walk across the ocean floor. But for
Speaker 2: some reason it's really freaking me out. There is this dog.
Speaker 1: Related to like the sight hounds, like the Afghan hands.
Speaker 1: I forgot what it's called, but it's borzoi.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it, and normally very cute. I have seen pictures
Speaker 1: of borzoi on their hind legs and it freaks me out.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I love dogs. I love all dogs,
Speaker 1: Borzoi included. They're silly little noodle doggies with long noodle faces.
Speaker 1: But this dog, which is already quite long and tall,
Speaker 1: and it looks a little bit like an Afghan hound,
Speaker 1: but it has this really long snout and then when
Speaker 1: it walks on it's hind legs, I'm afraid of just
Speaker 1: being killed. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: It's uh no, yes, absolutely, I'm looking. I googled borzoi
Speaker 2: on hind legs and it looks like a cryptid. Yes, absolutely, it.
Speaker 1: Looks like some kind of weird human has dressed themselves
Speaker 1: as a dog and with only the worst intentions.
Speaker 2: That is what it looks like.
Speaker 1: So I get it when like animals are normally not scary,
Speaker 1: but in certain contexts they are for sure. So yes, Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: monkfish do walk on their fins on the ocean floor.
Speaker 1: They will hide themselves among the sand rocks or seaweed,
Speaker 1: depending on their environment, and they're basically at this point
Speaker 1: living mouths that will hide and wait for something to
Speaker 1: come close. And what they actually have, like their anglerfish relatives,
Speaker 1: is a lure, and so it's a filament on top
Speaker 1: of their head. It's actually a modified fin that has
Speaker 1: a bulb on the end of it. So it's basically
Speaker 1: this long, skinny thing with a bulb on the end
Speaker 1: that they can move around kind of wiggle, and they
Speaker 1: move it around, and as soon as the fish comes
Speaker 1: up and gives it a little nibble, that activates the
Speaker 1: mouth and they use their wide, expandable jaws to grab
Speaker 1: the fish and suck it inwards. And a charming little
Speaker 1: detail is that with the mini pointy needle like teeth,
Speaker 1: they're all facing inwards like towards its belly, they can
Speaker 1: actually sort of be flat, like flattened a little bit,
Speaker 1: and so that means that they can suck the fish in.
Speaker 1: But then if the fish tries to get out and
Speaker 1: go the other direction, it gets caught on the teeth.
Speaker 1: So it's like a one way. It's you know, like
Speaker 1: when you're driving on those like spikes like out of
Speaker 1: like a parking lot or something, so you can drive
Speaker 1: one way but not the other way. Yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: these fish mouths work.
Speaker 2: Is that where we got the idea?
Speaker 1: Someone like pulled up one of these fish and it's like,
Speaker 1: I've got a great idea for parking that way. Maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, animals can be the mother of invention.
Speaker 2: They can be So what animals eat?
Speaker 1: Monkfish, humans, right, and I probably larger fish, I think
Speaker 1: humans are their main predators though, we're so strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah we are. I guess I just keep wanting
Speaker 2: to know, making sure that these animals get got too.
Speaker 1: They do, they do for sure. They are able, though,
Speaker 1: to swallow prey as large as their whole bodies, because apparently,
Speaker 1: even though their abdomen is relatively small compared to their heads,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like elastic and expandable like a snake.
Speaker 1: So they can just kind of like eat a whole
Speaker 1: fish that's pretty much as big as they are.
Speaker 2: No problem, no problem. Yeah, I mean what about But
Speaker 2: I know that they are deep in the ocean, But
Speaker 2: has has a human ever gotten hurt by a monkfish?
Speaker 1: I mean, they're not going to kill a human. They
Speaker 1: can't like eat a whole human. That's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: A person may have gotten bitten by one, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure that hurts.
Speaker 2: I would imagine, But no, these.
Speaker 1: Things aren't trying to eat people. That's not happened. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: that nightmare you can you know, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've never monkfish. Don't scare me. Yeah, No, I think
Speaker 2: we're good. We're past the snakes. I am all good.
Speaker 1: The thing is like once you've eaten an animal, can
Speaker 1: it really scare you again? Because it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm actually the apex predator. I ate you.
Speaker 2: Interesting. I guess we have to eat everything in find out.
Speaker 1: That was Darwin's idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Actually, though, I think I'm ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: sure I have eaten snake before when I was in
Speaker 2: middle school, and they still scare me. I.
Speaker 1: You know what, I have a similar story. I someone
Speaker 1: served what they claimed was snake during some kind of
Speaker 1: school project about snakes. I think it was chicken. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was snake. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they lied,
Speaker 1: calling you out, calling you out, Julie.
Speaker 2: It was a fellow student doing a presentation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just can't imagine where they would have sourced
Speaker 1: the snake meat. So I'm pretty sure it was chicken.
Speaker 1: I tried it. It was good, but it seemed like
Speaker 1: it was definitely chicken.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if if her parents had bought her
Speaker 2: real snake to cook and serve to people, that would
Speaker 2: have been like one of the more expensive school projects.
Speaker 2: It's ever true, It's true.
Speaker 1: I for a long time, I claimed though that I
Speaker 1: ate snake, and I upon reflect and I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: I think that might have actually been chicken. But I
Speaker 1: would try snake. I just don't I love snakes, so
Speaker 1: I don't really want to have one killed for me.
Speaker 1: Very reasonable, And I don't really want to eat road
Speaker 1: killed either. I'm not that level of like scavenger quite yet.
Speaker 2: No, I think I'd rather be a vegetarian. I yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't need I don't feel the need for meat
Speaker 2: in my diet, which is not to say I'm a vegetarian,
Speaker 2: but I would say, like, yeah, I'm a carb person,
Speaker 2: please give me all the carb.
Speaker 1: I'm a bredetarian as well. Yeah. Well, we're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but when we get back, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about one of the world's least picky
Speaker 1: animals whose appetite is just completely buck wild. And you
Speaker 1: may be surprised or maybe not surprised what animals says,
Speaker 1: So we will return shortly. So, Catherine, do you like
Speaker 1: a heron?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do like them. I like birds. I think
Speaker 2: they can be pretty. I think they're cool looking at
Speaker 2: these pictures, though it looks like there's different kinds, many
Speaker 2: different kinds of herons. I'm certain are indeed familiar with
Speaker 2: all of them there are indeed.
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting because herons are a family of many,
Speaker 1: many different species of aquatic birds. So there's over seventy
Speaker 1: species of birds in the heron family, which includes birds
Speaker 1: from herons to egrets to bitterns. These are all birds
Speaker 1: that are considered to be in the heron family, and
Speaker 1: it also includes kind of some of the classic birds
Speaker 1: like gray herons, blue herons. These are the white herons.
Speaker 1: These are all in the same family of heron.
Speaker 2: I see. Do you remember from when you lived in
Speaker 2: La what the birds at the Silver Lake Reservoir were?
Speaker 2: Were those egrets?
Speaker 1: There are both egrets and herons there. I think there
Speaker 1: are a species of white egret.
Speaker 2: Okay, in the spring when they have their babies in there,
Speaker 2: all sitting up in the trees just screaming their heads off.
Speaker 2: It is the craziest noise and I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So great blue herons are found in Silver Lake,
Speaker 1: so those are the ones that are gonna be the
Speaker 1: big guys.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm mm hmm. Okay, I think it's the great
Speaker 2: blue herons that make a ton of noise. I'm just
Speaker 2: looking at the Silver Lake Wildlife Instagram page.
Speaker 1: I see yes, so that that would be it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are.
Speaker 1: We're actually going to talk about the great blue heron
Speaker 1: because they are absolute monsters. I love them though. So
Speaker 1: larger species of herons, such as gray herons and great
Speaker 1: blue herons and goliath herons will eat so many different
Speaker 1: things from fish to other species.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: So the heron family ranges greatly. So the smallest member
Speaker 1: of the heron family is this bird called the least bittern.
Speaker 1: It is a cute little North American bird, just about
Speaker 1: a foot long and three ounces. Little guy bitterns are
Speaker 1: really interesting because when you look at them, you're like,
Speaker 1: this is not a heron. Where's the neck. There's no
Speaker 1: neck because they actually typically tuck their neck in and
Speaker 1: they're like holy, like it's when you like try to
Speaker 1: turtle your head down. That's what they're doing. And so
Speaker 1: normally you look at them and like they have zero neck.
Speaker 1: There's no neck there. But they can stretch out their
Speaker 1: heads when they're hunting or flying and it's like they're
Speaker 1: they've got this expandable it's not really expandable neck, it's
Speaker 1: just there. It's just kind of tucked in, but it's
Speaker 1: actually quite a long neck. It's like, have you ever
Speaker 1: had like those grabby things where it's like it's this
Speaker 1: not telescoping, but kind of like thing that folds in
Speaker 1: and then you kind of squeeze some clamps and then
Speaker 1: this grabby hand comes out. It's like that, but a bird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're hiding a lot of neck under there. They
Speaker 1: are hiding a lot of neck under their feathers. So look,
Speaker 1: if you looked under the feathers, you'd see this neck
Speaker 1: kind of form a.
Speaker 2: U shaped loop.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they can stretch that neck out and grab fish. So, yes,
Speaker 1: they are little guys, but no less a heron. The
Speaker 1: largest heron is the goliath heron. It is found in
Speaker 1: Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. The South Asian population
Speaker 1: is in decline, but they're found in lake regions. It's
Speaker 1: a very striking bird. It's hand and gray with black
Speaker 1: and white markings on its beak and neck. To me,
Speaker 1: it looks very dinosaur like. I love this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Grows up to five feet tall including its neck, so
Speaker 1: that's over one and a half meters, and it can
Speaker 1: weigh around eleven pounds or five kilograms, So it's tall,
Speaker 1: but not a ton of meat.
Speaker 2: No, what a skinny mini.
Speaker 1: But look at that, like, look at the beak and
Speaker 1: its head. It looks, you know, like a it looks
Speaker 1: like a really long noodle e velociraptor. It absolutely does,
Speaker 1: but like a distinguished one, A distinguished one. I like this,
Speaker 1: This is a pretty bird. It's not like scary looking
Speaker 1: to me. Uh, it's it's like a swankier dinosaur.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, you know, I so whatever. I obviously have
Speaker 2: no reason to be afraid of snakes, but I also
Speaker 2: don't understand it when people are afraid of birds.
Speaker 1: I know these people who are afraid of birds.
Speaker 2: It's a thing.
Speaker 1: I think that part of it might be birds can
Speaker 1: be intimidating when they come in big flocks. So if
Speaker 1: there's like a big flock of birds, that can be
Speaker 1: kind of scary. Or if you live in a city
Speaker 1: with a lot of pigeons and they kind of fly
Speaker 1: towards your face, that can be startling. And I think
Speaker 1: that people have this concept about pigeons and birds as
Speaker 1: being maybe kind of dirty, and then they get intimidated,
Speaker 1: especially if there's a city dwelling bird that like flies
Speaker 1: near them, and then they get scared. So I can
Speaker 1: understand it on a certain level, but I do not
Speaker 1: have that fear. I absolutely love birds.
Speaker 2: I forgot about pigeons, and there was a story in
Speaker 2: my family for two generations that pigeons killed my great
Speaker 2: grandpa with their disease. What. Yeah, so it was like
Speaker 2: I was raised to fear and hate pigeons. I can't
Speaker 2: believe I forgot all about this, It's just it. When
Speaker 2: I was in my mid twenties or so, I realized
Speaker 2: that story made absolutely no sense. Yeah, I think because
Speaker 2: like what he died of wasn't completely clear, or at
Speaker 2: least it wasn't to my mom, but she was a
Speaker 2: kid when he died. But yeah, the story was just
Speaker 2: like a pigeon pooped on him, or pigeons flew in
Speaker 2: his face and the feathers touched his face and it
Speaker 2: killed them or something like that.
Speaker 1: Huh, it's interesting you bring that up. We may talk
Speaker 1: about that a little bit later. So herons, hold that
Speaker 1: thought about pigeons, okay, and then we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about how you should be more afraid of herons
Speaker 1: and pigeons. Actually, you shouldn't be afraid of either of
Speaker 1: them unless you are small enough to fit in a
Speaker 1: pigeon or fit in a hair and mouth. So herons
Speaker 1: can either directly catch prey in their beak or spirit,
Speaker 1: so typically it's fish on the menu, but they are opportunistic.
Speaker 1: If they make the calculation that it can be eaten
Speaker 1: in swallowed hole, they will certainly try, especially species like
Speaker 1: the great blue heron that you find in Silver Lake
Speaker 1: and the gray heron. So the gray heron is found
Speaker 1: throughout Europe, Asia and Africa and wetlands. It's about a
Speaker 1: meter tall or a little over three feet, and it
Speaker 1: weighs around two kilograms around four pounds, so you know
Speaker 1: they're not huge, but for a bird, they're pretty big.
Speaker 1: They will eat fish, amphibians, crustaceans, small birds, ducklings, ducks,
Speaker 1: small mammals, rabbits and more. They smash their prey against rocks,
Speaker 1: snap their necks, or drown them before swallowing them whole.
Speaker 1: And they are considered an apex predator in their environments.
Speaker 2: So which is worse smashing something against a rock until
Speaker 2: its neck breaks or eating it while it's still alive.
Speaker 1: I mean eating it while it's still alive, like if
Speaker 1: you get your neck snapped. I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: much easier way to go than you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just maw yeah, yeah, no, that's true. It's
Speaker 2: the smashing it against the rocks imagery that like threw
Speaker 2: me for a loop. I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's shockingly violent.
Speaker 2: They must have gotten house pets at some point. This
Speaker 2: has to have happened. It's yeah, probably.
Speaker 1: You know, it's I don't think I've seen anything documented,
Speaker 1: most likely because I simply don't want to google has
Speaker 1: a hair and eating a kitten. I'm not googling that ever.
Speaker 2: Fair, fair, I don't think I will either.
Speaker 1: No. So another hair, and one that's actually found in
Speaker 1: North and Central America is the great blue heron. That's
Speaker 1: your that's your local hair in Catherine. It's about four
Speaker 1: and a half feet high, which is over a meter,
Speaker 1: and weighs around five pounds that that's a little over
Speaker 1: two kilograms. They are sort of a grayish blue. They
Speaker 1: will eat fish, crustaceans, frogs, toads, snakes, lizards, shrews, rats, moles, voles,
Speaker 1: ground squirrels, regular squirrels, muskrats, weasels, rabbits, smaller aquatic birds
Speaker 1: including ducks, chicks of various species, pied billed grebs, dippers, rails, turns,
Speaker 1: and young alligators.
Speaker 2: What a diverse diet. This is so healthy.
Speaker 1: Yes, this bird is the nutrition expert that we need.
Speaker 1: Just eat everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, and it actually goes It's really on
Speaker 2: point for where nutrition is right now because that's so
Speaker 2: much protein and none of us so much protein. But
Speaker 2: this bird is.
Speaker 1: The heron diet. Eat everything you can fit in your mouth,
Speaker 1: just including young alligators.
Speaker 2: Do they ever eat vegetables.
Speaker 1: Not that I am aware of, unless you consider fish
Speaker 1: to be a vegetable, which they're not. No.
Speaker 2: Do some people consider fish to be vegetables?
Speaker 1: Maybe so, Yes, it's as pretty and elegant as these
Speaker 1: birds are. There absolute monsters. If you shrunk one of
Speaker 1: us down to the size of like at least a rabbit,
Speaker 1: it would eat you, no problem.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, that's well, you know what, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2: I'm not the size of the rabbit, so I guess
Speaker 2: I don't have to be afraid. And I really do.
Speaker 2: I mean to your point about them being monsters, they do.
Speaker 2: They make the craziest noises. The babies are so weird looking.
Speaker 2: I love them. I love It's just like just a
Speaker 2: lot of weirdness in one animal. We have to we
Speaker 2: have to play a hair and call then aaron. And
Speaker 2: that sounds like some screaming. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that being annoying if there's like five
Speaker 1: of them altogether doing this, yeah, But.
Speaker 2: As long as you're just walking by, I find it delightful.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of animal sounds, would you like to play
Speaker 1: a little game with me? Yes, this is the Mystery
Speaker 1: Animal Sound game, guests who's squawking? Every week I pick
Speaker 1: a mystery animal sound, and you the listener, and you,
Speaker 1: the guest, try to guess who is making that sound.
Speaker 1: So last week's mystery animal sound hint was this. This
Speaker 1: is a very common bird, but you might not recognize
Speaker 1: this sound unless you're close friends with one.
Speaker 2: Did you hear that? M hmm?
Speaker 1: Any guesses.
Speaker 2: I know we were just talking about pigeons, but I
Speaker 2: feel like it's some sort of small bird like a
Speaker 2: pigeon or a dove, which I don't know if those
Speaker 2: are the exact same animals with different coloring or something
Speaker 2: that is interact.
Speaker 1: We have been primed for pigeons, we did it, so
Speaker 1: this is indeed a pigeon. This is a pet pigeon,
Speaker 1: happily cooling as it's being pet. So domesticated pigeons are
Speaker 1: actually relatively common pets, and the pigeons you see in
Speaker 1: the city are typically feral pigeons that we domesticated from
Speaker 1: rock doves, so rock doves look fairly similar. But yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of these city pigeons are actually a feral
Speaker 1: population that over many generations have been around because we
Speaker 1: actually domesticated pigeons both as pets, as messengers, and as food.
Speaker 1: So yeah, most of the pigeons that you interact with
Speaker 1: today are probably feral domestic sticated pigeons, And by feral
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they're vicious or anything. It just means
Speaker 1: that they are a population that was domesticated and now
Speaker 1: they're out and about. It's hard to call them exactly
Speaker 1: wild because they're living in the city, but they have
Speaker 1: no masters. So we were talking about this idea that
Speaker 1: pigeons are actually disease ridden or dirty, and they're actually
Speaker 1: not nearly as dirty or disease ridden as they are
Speaker 1: often feared to be. It is true that there are
Speaker 1: a few diseases you can get from pigeons, but usually
Speaker 1: you would only get them if you're cleaning a large
Speaker 1: amount of dried droppings, so not from the pigeon itself,
Speaker 1: not even if you're pooped on necessarily, But if you're
Speaker 1: like cleaning a large quantity of dried pigeon poop and
Speaker 1: like a poorly ventilated area, and even if you do
Speaker 1: get ill, it's usually only going to pose a threat
Speaker 1: to you if you are immunocompromised. So according to the
Speaker 1: New York City Health Department, like cleaning small amounts of
Speaker 1: pigeon droppings is probably not going to hurt you, especially
Speaker 1: if it's in a well ventilated area. But if you're
Speaker 1: cleaning like a lot of them, like maybe from a
Speaker 1: vent or something. If you use water to clean it,
Speaker 1: like wet cloth a hose, that really helps because it
Speaker 1: doesn't kick up as much dust as if you're just
Speaker 1: sort of using dry implements to clean it. You can
Speaker 1: also wear gloves and face mask and keep the area
Speaker 1: of well ventilated, and that is going to really help
Speaker 1: in terms of preventing you from catching anything from it.
Speaker 1: But just kind of being around pigeons in the city
Speaker 1: and having one fly near you or even poop on you,
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to catch anything. Like I wouldn't
Speaker 1: kiss a feral pigeon on the face or like try
Speaker 1: to subject myself to their poop because that's gross, But
Speaker 1: they really aren't. You know, if you have a pigeon
Speaker 1: like fly by you or bonk into you, you're you're
Speaker 1: gonna be okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta figure that people maybe call them dirty
Speaker 2: because they're so associated with high density urban areas. Yes,
Speaker 2: a lot of people are afraid of anyway.
Speaker 1: Also, yeah, when they are in sort of like urban
Speaker 1: areas and they there's a lot of problems with their
Speaker 1: feet often, so like they will get a lot of it.
Speaker 1: It's because like if it gets too cold, like they'll
Speaker 1: get frostbite and on their toes, and then they might
Speaker 1: loose some toes or get like sort of gnarled, sort
Speaker 1: of wardy growths on their feet which kind of make
Speaker 1: them look gnarly, or like they get like threads or
Speaker 1: hairs or something like tied around their feet. It can
Speaker 1: cause them problems and stuff, and so they they might
Speaker 1: kind of look scruffy or dirty, but it's just because
Speaker 1: they're like picking up dirt from the streets that we've generated.
Speaker 1: So it's like right, right, not really their fault, but
Speaker 1: they are actually still kept as pets today, and like
Speaker 1: dogs or cats, they're actually bred for like different colors,
Speaker 1: for different feather patterns. In fact, you may have seen
Speaker 1: pigeons in your city that like are interesting sort of
Speaker 1: splotchy colors or brown or like different color patterns. That's
Speaker 1: all from human selective breeding. And then those pigeons when
Speaker 1: they become feral or escape or breed with the local
Speaker 1: population of other feral pigeons, those genes get woven into
Speaker 1: the mix, and then you have these birds for generations
Speaker 1: that will have these interesting color patterns. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: definitely like if you like the idea of having a
Speaker 1: pigeon as a pet, but you like have this negative
Speaker 1: association with like street pigeons. A lot of the pet
Speaker 1: pigeons don't look very similar to street pigeons because they
Speaker 1: are like different color patterns. And of course also because
Speaker 1: they're pets, they're kept very clean, so they do not
Speaker 1: look dirty at all, because you know, they get to
Speaker 1: live in luxury and not have to walk over the
Speaker 1: well trod streets of the city.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about keeping birds as pets.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's something that should be undertaken with
Speaker 1: an understanding of what you're getting into. So I think
Speaker 1: pigeons are actually much better pets than a lot of
Speaker 1: birds because they are very affectionate. I think it's better
Speaker 1: to get more than one pigeon, but they can bond
Speaker 1: with humans really well. They're much less expensive and easier
Speaker 1: to maintain than say a parrot, And while they do
Speaker 1: have a lot of social needs like they are not
Speaker 1: it's not nearly to the extent of say a parrot.
Speaker 1: I think a parrot certain species of parrots, and because
Speaker 1: they can have like cognition that's like similar to like
Speaker 1: a toddler, And it is a huge responsibility to.
Speaker 2: Take care of a parrot.
Speaker 1: They live really long time, they have so many social needs,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they get psychological problems from being isolated from
Speaker 1: other parrots. So I would say, you know, when you're
Speaker 1: looking at pet birds, like pigeons are actually really good
Speaker 1: type of pet bird. I don't think it's cruel to
Speaker 1: keep a pigeon as a pet because they've been domesticated.
Speaker 1: I think it's similar to keeping like a dog or
Speaker 1: cat as a pet, as long as you've done your
Speaker 1: research and you know what you're getting into. Because pigeons
Speaker 1: can live to be anywhere from fifteen to twenty years.
Speaker 1: So you are signing on too a long time with
Speaker 1: this pigeon, and.
Speaker 2: They are so.
Speaker 1: What you shouldn't do is get a pigeon, stick them
Speaker 1: in a cage and you know, just feed them once
Speaker 1: in a while. That's obviously not good. But if you
Speaker 1: interact with them a lot, especially if you have like
Speaker 1: more than one pigeon, they you can actually, I think,
Speaker 1: give a domesticated pigeon a nice life if you have
Speaker 1: enough space, if you have enough resources. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a dog, like you know, you can have
Speaker 1: a dog with a very happy life or not so
Speaker 1: happy life. Like you wouldn't keep a dog just in
Speaker 1: a crate all the time. But if your dog is
Speaker 1: out and about and you're taking care of it and
Speaker 1: giving it a lot of socialization, they can be quite happy.
Speaker 2: Well, there's if anyone wants to have their heart melt.
Speaker 2: There's a big feature in People magazine about a pigeon
Speaker 2: and a chihuahua puppy who live in a foundation for
Speaker 2: special needs Animals Friends, and the pigeon sits on the
Speaker 2: chihuahua because it thinks it's it's mom. There's lots of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've actually read that pigeons get along with cats
Speaker 1: and dogs pretty well, especially compared compared to other birds,
Speaker 1: and you can, you know, definitely your cat and your dog.
Speaker 1: I would say, if you have a pet with which
Speaker 1: has a really high prey drive, I would not have
Speaker 1: that combination. But if you have a dog that does
Speaker 1: not have a high prey drive or it's small, like
Speaker 1: at Chihuahua, you know, like they can actually get along
Speaker 1: fairly well.
Speaker 2: Cute, very cute.
Speaker 1: I like definitely look up photos of pet pigeons. They're adorable,
Speaker 1: and I think it also will give you a new
Speaker 1: appreciation for just your city pigeons because they are the
Speaker 1: same species. It's just like maybe they're a little cleaner looking,
Speaker 1: they're a little tidier, little different colors. It's like looking
Speaker 1: at sort of a street dog versus like a Pomeranian.
Speaker 2: But it's you.
Speaker 1: Know, they are at their core the same animal. It's
Speaker 1: interesting because here I live in northern Italy and we
Speaker 1: have a lot of pigeons here, and we have all
Speaker 1: sorts of like different interesting color morphs of these pigeons.
Speaker 1: Like there's white ones, there's brown, there's like all kinds
Speaker 1: of speckled patterns.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But because we have a lot we don't have so
Speaker 1: much car traffic, and we have a ton of like
Speaker 1: sort of open public spaces where there's not like uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like grass and trees and just uh,
Speaker 1: these birds aren't really harried so much. You'll just see
Speaker 1: all these pigeons just kind of like sitting around. I've
Speaker 1: never seen such calm, chilled out pigeons as I.
Speaker 2: Have in the city.
Speaker 1: And I I mean, I think they're really cute. Like
Speaker 1: when the quality of life goes up for the pigeon,
Speaker 1: I think like they're uh, their cuteness level also goes
Speaker 1: up because they're you know, they look healthy, they look content,
Speaker 1: and you'll just look over and there's like a little
Speaker 1: pigeon sitting on the ground and it does it's like
Speaker 1: it's not scared of you. It's just looking at you, like, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's up. All cute?
Speaker 2: Very cute. Yes.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you're if you like love the
Speaker 1: idea of having a bird, and you're you don't mind
Speaker 1: clean up bird poop and you have the space, but
Speaker 1: you don't really want to commit to like getting a parrot,
Speaker 1: a pigeon is actually I think a pretty good alternative.
Speaker 1: It's a you know, as long as as long as
Speaker 1: you know what you're getting into, because it's not like, uh,
Speaker 1: it's not no pet is like easy. Every pet has
Speaker 1: its challenges. But you know, I don't think pet ownership
Speaker 1: is inherently wrong when we've domesticated animals that like depend
Speaker 1: on us and that we can we can make happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree, And it's.
Speaker 1: Certainly with the pigeons. I think when you compare like
Speaker 1: pigeons to like escape outdoors versus cats that escape outdoors, uh,
Speaker 1: usually will have a less bad impact on the environment.
Speaker 1: So they are definitely benefits.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah pigeons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So onto this week's mystery animal. Sound.
Speaker 1: The hint is this This raptor is all of out
Speaker 1: no shave November. Did you hear that kind of sounds
Speaker 1: like a squeaky toy that's lost a bit of its
Speaker 1: sweet Yeah, got any giesses?
Speaker 2: I I don't know this kind of bird at all.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, okay, I think it's a verd.
Speaker 1: I mean that that narrows it down, to be honest,
Speaker 1: things like the best game it can be any animal
Speaker 1: in the world. So narrowing it down to bird is
Speaker 1: a pretty big step.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's all I got. Yeah, it's some sort.
Speaker 1: Of bird, some sort of raptor bird. Well, we will
Speaker 1: find out on the next episode of Creature Feature. If
Speaker 1: you think you know, you can write to me at
Speaker 1: Creature featurepot at gmail dot com. Or if you have questions,
Speaker 1: or if you have a pet pigeon and you want
Speaker 1: to tell me how cute they are already pet right
Speaker 1: to me, Love the pet pictures, Catherine, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today. Where can people find you?
Speaker 2: Oh, let's see. So my podcast is called Smartmouth and
Speaker 2: there's a companying Substack Smartmouth about substack dot com that's
Speaker 2: for food history of the world. And if there's any
Speaker 2: Angelina's listening, which I'm sure there are. I also just
Speaker 2: started how to Eatla dot com, which is local restaurant reviews.
Speaker 1: That sounds great.
Speaker 2: La.
Speaker 1: Like I've lived a few places over the years, in
Speaker 1: La is the best place I've ever lived in terms
Speaker 1: of food. It is like just no competition even I
Speaker 1: mean I haven't to be fair, I have not lived.
Speaker 2: In New York.
Speaker 1: I have visited New York, so it's hard. It's not
Speaker 1: maybe a fair comparison, but in terms of the places
Speaker 1: that I have lived, LA. It is the most diverse,
Speaker 1: most high quality food scene I've.
Speaker 2: Ever experience that is objectively correct.
Speaker 1: Well, I might check that out for next time I
Speaker 1: visit LA. But yes, definitely check that out if you
Speaker 1: are a gormond or just interested in the topic of food,
Speaker 1: because I think it's fascinating. And thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you
Speaker 1: leave a rating or review, I greatly appreciate it. I
Speaker 1: read every review, and of course every rating really.
Speaker 2: Helps out the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you to the Space Classics for their super awesome
Speaker 1: song XO. Lumina. Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
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Speaker 2: Or Hey guess what where? Have you listen to your
Speaker 2: favorite shows?
Speaker 1: I'm not Jamada and I don't judge you. See you
Speaker 1: next Wednesday.