Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio, Guess
Speaker 1: What Will?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So I was thinking about how sometimes we forget that
Speaker 1: all these simple things around us.
Speaker 2: Are really music, and what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: Like I was in traffic coming from the airport this
Speaker 1: weekend and everyone was honking, and I remembered how most
Speaker 1: cars actually honk in the key of F or. This
Speaker 1: is another thing. When I was in high school, this
Speaker 1: kid Sean, and my jazz band realized that our high
Speaker 1: school's bell rang at I think a G. So when
Speaker 1: the class was over and the first bell rang, everyone
Speaker 1: would harmonize and play a G seven chord on their instruments.
Speaker 1: It's so nerdy, so stupid, but of course I loved it.
Speaker 1: But this week I learned that if you want to
Speaker 1: get an alligator's attention, all you have to do is
Speaker 1: grab your tuba and play a B flat.
Speaker 3: Okay, I like that for this experiment, all you have
Speaker 3: to have You got to have an alligator and a
Speaker 3: tube nearby. But so what exactly happens when you play
Speaker 3: a B flat?
Speaker 1: It is magical because for some reason, that note arouses
Speaker 1: male gators, and when an alligator hears it, it'll bellow
Speaker 1: or call back to you.
Speaker 2: Is this a real thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually got this great origin story. So apparently
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, the New York Philharmonic took a
Speaker 1: field trip to the Natural History Museum and while they
Speaker 1: were warming up there, this alligator named Oscar, who I
Speaker 1: guess was a part of the natural history exhibit at
Speaker 1: the time, he just started moaning.
Speaker 2: And you know, they're all.
Speaker 1: These scientists there and they were watching, and you know,
Speaker 1: he'd start moaning, and then the instruments would play, and
Speaker 1: then he'd moan, and then he'd stop and it would
Speaker 1: start again. And so you know, the scientists stopped the
Speaker 1: musicians and got them to start playing different notes to
Speaker 1: see what was specifically causing it. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it turns out B flat was the key to the
Speaker 1: alligator call. Thanks to this great science done by Oscar
Speaker 1: and the New York Philharmonic, plenty of folks have actually
Speaker 1: repeated experiment and gotten alligators to duet with them. But
Speaker 1: you actually have to remember, not any B flat works.
Speaker 1: You actually have to play the B flat that's one
Speaker 1: octave below middle sea to really get them going. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's just the first of nine wonderful facts we've got
Speaker 1: about alligators today.
Speaker 2: So let's dig in.
Speaker 3: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to part time Genius. I'm
Speaker 3: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 3: friend mangesh Hot Ticketter. And on the other side of
Speaker 3: that soundproof glass are good Buddy Ramsey.
Speaker 2: He's giving us his best toothy grin. All right, mego.
Speaker 3: So it's been a while since we've done one of
Speaker 3: these shows. I know I've actually missed it so much.
Speaker 3: And two things before we can this off.
Speaker 1: One, I promised that if and when we finally started
Speaker 1: doing the show again, we'd give a shout out to
Speaker 1: our listener's son, Apollo, who is a fan of the
Speaker 1: show or was a fan of the show. But Apollo,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, tag us on Instagram. We want to
Speaker 1: see what you're up to.
Speaker 2: What's up, Apollo, This weird show.
Speaker 1: About alligators is for you. And two, Will, I know
Speaker 1: you've gone to Saint Pete's in Florida so many times,
Speaker 1: but I don't know why you didn't tell me that
Speaker 1: they keep baby alligators in their mini golf places there.
Speaker 3: The only downside to doing this episode is that I
Speaker 3: was hoping to save this for when we both I know,
Speaker 3: both of us really want to retire to Florida, and
Speaker 3: since we're really bad at most sports instead of golf,
Speaker 3: we were going to retire there to play mini golf.
Speaker 3: And that's when I was going to tell you, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the big reveal.
Speaker 1: So my in laws rented a place there for winter
Speaker 1: break and we took my kids mini golfing. And the
Speaker 1: fact that there were tiny gators that you could feed.
Speaker 2: These pellets so crazy.
Speaker 1: You put alligator food on the little fishing and send
Speaker 1: it down. Honestly, it was the greatest thing. And the
Speaker 1: mini golf was so unremarkable, but the fact that my
Speaker 1: tiny monsters were feeding these tiny monsters was just great.
Speaker 1: So I thought, you know, I wanted to learn more
Speaker 1: about gators.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. And actually you have one more reason, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this one's a little more personal. My dad
Speaker 1: has been pretty ill recently. I know I told you this,
Speaker 1: but he can't really watch things. But he loves you,
Speaker 1: and he has stacks of mental floss in his garage
Speaker 1: and he's a huge, huge, part time genius fan. So
Speaker 1: he and Apollo might be the only ones left off there.
Speaker 1: But I thought hearing us laugh and be goofy and
Speaker 1: sharing facts who would make him smile. So thank you
Speaker 1: for making the time to do some more episodes with me.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love your dad.
Speaker 3: This was a no brainer to do this, And it
Speaker 3: makes sense for this topic because when I think of
Speaker 3: your dad, I always think of his love for these big,
Speaker 3: aggressive reptiles. It's kind of like his thing. So it
Speaker 3: makes sense you pick this theme especially for him. But
Speaker 3: we've actually got eight facts to go. So what do
Speaker 3: you say I do the next one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, go for it, all right.
Speaker 3: So I actually wanted to build on your b flat
Speaker 3: fact because bellowing is one of those things crocodiles do
Speaker 3: as a mating ritual. And so the bellow does this
Speaker 3: amazing thing to the water. It's where the alligator just
Speaker 3: raises his head and tail out of the water, so
Speaker 3: his back and belly are still submerged. You know, it's
Speaker 3: almost like if you imagine like a banana curved up
Speaker 3: and so you lower it into the water so both
Speaker 3: ends are sticking out and you know you can picture this, right,
Speaker 3: except instead of a banana, it's a gate. Just go
Speaker 3: with me, just just think about it. And so when
Speaker 3: the gator bellows or does its deep grow. These vibrations
Speaker 3: make the water around its body kind of kind of
Speaker 3: like ripple out.
Speaker 2: It's actually pretty spectacular if.
Speaker 3: You look at this in slow motion, and it's very
Speaker 3: very appealing to female alligators of course.
Speaker 1: And is that the main way that male alligators like
Speaker 1: court females like They don't dim lights and play smooth.
Speaker 3: Jazz, neither of those things. But this is one part
Speaker 3: of it. So sometimes you'll hear one gator bellow and
Speaker 3: then another male gator, well, we'll try to out bellow
Speaker 3: it by making its own giant ripples. But gators have
Speaker 3: some of the most amazing and really romantic courting rituals too.
Speaker 3: There was this piece in Wired I was looking at
Speaker 3: and they like quote head slapping on the water's surface,
Speaker 3: snout and back rubbing, and blowing bubbles, you know, the usual.
Speaker 2: It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: That's pretty romantic. So here's one I hadn't realized. I know,
Speaker 1: Cape Canaverl is in Florida, and it's where NASA launches
Speaker 1: and land shuttles, but I didn't realize the land around
Speaker 1: it is actually a wildlife sanctuary. And this is all
Speaker 1: stuff I learned in modern farmer. But in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: NASA bought about one hundred and forty five thousand acres
Speaker 1: of coastal property there, but since they only needed about
Speaker 1: six thousand acres, they turned the rest into this Merritt
Speaker 1: Island National Wildlife Refuge. But according to modern farmer, that
Speaker 1: proximity to wildlife has definitely caused some issues. And I'm
Speaker 1: reading here quote morning commuters have to wait as bobcats
Speaker 1: cross the roadway. Shuttle launches are stalled by armadillos, woodpeckers
Speaker 1: poke holes in fuel tanks. But according to the guy
Speaker 1: who manages the island call center, the biggest issue at
Speaker 1: NASA is with of course, gators. And here's how we
Speaker 1: put it. Quote we've got gators blocking doorways, climbing fences.
Speaker 1: We've got little bitty ones to shore big enough the gators.
Speaker 1: NASA employees are encouraged to keep alert indoors and out.
Speaker 1: You're never supposed to feed the gators, and always check
Speaker 1: on your cars before hopping in. And since I can't
Speaker 1: get off this b flat thing, sometimes when the shuttles land,
Speaker 1: the gators start bellowing because they're trying to outdo the shuttles.
Speaker 2: Mating call. Wow.
Speaker 3: Actually, I think this episode could have just been about
Speaker 3: B flat. We should do a separate one just on
Speaker 3: B flat. But I need you to back up for
Speaker 3: a second. So what are you supposed to do if
Speaker 3: you see a gator?
Speaker 2: I mean, go back inside. I guess that's good advice.
Speaker 1: There's really only one account I read about an employee
Speaker 1: trying to deal with a gator on his own. He
Speaker 1: apparently made karate chopping motions and kept yelling hi yah,
Speaker 1: and the gator hissed and spit, but apparently eventually went away.
Speaker 1: So I guess if you know you have to deal
Speaker 1: with a gator, learn karate.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, I'll think about that. And I actually
Speaker 3: I realized this is off topic. But did you read
Speaker 3: about the guy with the alligator at the drive through
Speaker 3: while you were researching for this episode?
Speaker 2: No? What was this recently? All right?
Speaker 3: So this was again talking about Florida kind of reminded
Speaker 3: me about this. This is back from I think it
Speaker 3: was twenty sixteen. So there was this kid that apparently
Speaker 3: drove up to a Windy's. He made an order, he
Speaker 3: got his drink, and then of course he tossed the
Speaker 3: three foot gator through the window of the drive through. Yeah,
Speaker 3: thankfully nobody was heard, and he didn't really have a motive.
Speaker 3: Apparently his mom's defense to the local news was that,
Speaker 3: you know, he's just a big prankster and can't help himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, franksters, what happened to him?
Speaker 3: So he got charged with quote assault with a deadly weapon,
Speaker 3: which I guess is, you know, not far off. And
Speaker 3: the judge had some pretty strict terms for him. So
Speaker 3: one of the punishments he's banned from Wendy's for life. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, you gotta really think twice before you throw
Speaker 3: a game through a drive through because you cannot go
Speaker 3: back for that spicy chicken sandwich. And he was told
Speaker 3: that he couldn't frattenize with any animals except his mother's dog,
Speaker 3: which of course makes sense.
Speaker 1: So my son Henry does the worst pranks like he
Speaker 1: is under the mistaken impression that just saying April Fools
Speaker 1: absolves you of anything you do. And two years ago
Speaker 1: he decided to pour some water in our bed as
Speaker 1: a prank, and right before bed he took three giant
Speaker 1: pine glasses.
Speaker 2: Of water and poured them on our mattress. Gotcha, I got.
Speaker 1: So mad we had to sleep on the guest bed
Speaker 1: in the living room for two days before the thing
Speaker 1: cried out.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, that's quite the frank.
Speaker 1: But I'm really hoping that he never gets access to alligators.
Speaker 1: So your fact kind of sounds like the most Florida
Speaker 1: man headline I've heard in a while. But but do
Speaker 1: you want to do another fact to make off for it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me see which one I want to want
Speaker 3: to do next. All right, Well, this is something I
Speaker 3: think is super cool. So alligators obviously seem tough because
Speaker 3: they've got that bony armor on their skin, and they
Speaker 3: can climb fences like you mentioned and do these death
Speaker 3: rolls and things like that. But even their blood is
Speaker 3: actually tougher than ours. So part of the reason you
Speaker 3: never see an alligator with colds and flus, Like, have
Speaker 3: you ever seen an.
Speaker 2: Alligator with a cold ango?
Speaker 3: You know, I haven't. It's weird you haven't, And that's
Speaker 3: because it does not sell to them. No, it really
Speaker 3: doesn't doesn't work at all, because they have this incredible
Speaker 3: immune system. These scientists in Louisiana have actually discovered that
Speaker 3: the serum and alligator blood can fight off viruses and
Speaker 3: bacteria can actually destroy most of the microbes in HIV.
Speaker 3: It's actually part of the reason that when an alligator
Speaker 3: tail is severed in a swamp, even if the water
Speaker 3: is muddy and dirty, the animals rarely get infections. So
Speaker 3: this discovery is incredible because it has all sorts of
Speaker 3: potential applications for humans. I was looking at this article
Speaker 3: in National Geographic talking about this, and it was showing
Speaker 3: that the resulting medicines could help everyone from like diabetes
Speaker 3: patients with foot ulcers, to burn victims to people suffering
Speaker 3: from various autoimmune diseases.
Speaker 2: That's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny that something like a bat could
Speaker 1: give as COVID, but an alligator might be the one.
Speaker 2: To cure it. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Your here's a ridiculous one I like just because I
Speaker 1: like picturing it. Apparently alligators have two types of walks,
Speaker 1: a high walk and a low walk or a sprawl.
Speaker 2: As does that mean, well, the low walk.
Speaker 1: Is cooler, Like they kind of drag their belly on
Speaker 1: the ground and they kind of lazily pull themselves along.
Speaker 1: But you know, whether on the move or late for
Speaker 1: a meeting, they high tail it. Literally they raise their
Speaker 1: bellies and half their tail up off the ground and
Speaker 1: they kind of stand upright on all fours and.
Speaker 2: Then they really move.
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize this, but according to our Palasa
Speaker 1: how stuff works, alligators aren't really hunters or gathers. They're
Speaker 1: more what they call lurkers. They kind of just lunge
Speaker 1: at food, so they're opportunistic and they can actually go
Speaker 1: a few years without eating if they need to. But
Speaker 1: when they decide they're really hungry, they can really high
Speaker 1: walk to a meal. They can apparently reach peak speeds
Speaker 1: of thirty five miles.
Speaker 2: Per hour on Wow, that's fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they also tire very very quickly, so they're
Speaker 1: never going to be an antelope in a marathon or
Speaker 1: a half marathon.
Speaker 2: All right, that's another good fact to write down.
Speaker 3: So but speaking of facts, we've got three more facts
Speaker 3: to go. But let's take a quick break and we'll
Speaker 3: be right back. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where
Speaker 3: we're talking all about gators today.
Speaker 2: All right, what did you want to talk about next? Mego?
Speaker 1: So, something I think is super cool about alligators is
Speaker 1: that their sex isn't predetermined by genetics. It actually has
Speaker 1: all to do with the temperature you store an alligator
Speaker 1: egg at. Actually, just just to take a step back,
Speaker 1: One thing that's fascinating is that in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties, alligators were nearly hunted to extinction in America.
Speaker 1: But part of the reason they managed to recover is
Speaker 1: that the gators lay a lot of eggs, like thirty
Speaker 1: to fifty of them at one time, so once there
Speaker 1: were more restrictions on hunting, they made a quick comeback.
Speaker 1: But gators make a giant nest like three feet high
Speaker 1: and six feet wide, and then they bury their eggs
Speaker 1: inside it, and the eggs that incubate at around eighty
Speaker 1: degrees will turn out female, but the ones that incubate
Speaker 1: it closer to ninety degrees will be male, and in
Speaker 1: between is just a mix of males and females, which
Speaker 1: I think is kind of remarkable. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that's interesting about alligators is that the moms also stick
Speaker 1: around to protect their hatchlings, which is super rare in
Speaker 1: modern reptiles and more common frankly to birds and some
Speaker 1: dinosaur species.
Speaker 2: That is really interesting. So we're down to.
Speaker 1: Two last facts, and I'm curious, what do you have
Speaker 1: as your final last fact.
Speaker 3: For my final fact, I think the most insane thing
Speaker 3: I found this week is from this article on Smithsonian
Speaker 3: and it's called When Kids Played with Alligators in Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: and the piece is all about a theme park. As
Speaker 3: soon as I saw this headline, I was like, this
Speaker 3: is gonna be good. And it's all about this theme park.
Speaker 3: I'd never heard of it before. It was called the
Speaker 3: California Alligator Farm, which I guess operated from nineteen oh
Speaker 3: seven to nineteen fifty three, so almost half a century.
Speaker 3: And for only one quarter you could see over a
Speaker 3: thousand alligators of all sizes. And while the gators were
Speaker 3: exercised and you could you could watch them eat live chickens.
Speaker 3: There were twenty ponds with supposedly trained alligators that you
Speaker 3: could interact with. But the photos are insane, Like there's
Speaker 3: this picture of a baby and a pin with thirty
Speaker 3: hatchlings and no parents anywhere to be found there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you really need to look this up. There are
Speaker 3: photos of people riding on the alligator backs. There are
Speaker 3: pictures of picnics in the water with people in bathing
Speaker 3: suits eating meals right next to these gators.
Speaker 2: The gators are actually approaching the table.
Speaker 3: No one seems to be scared by this, and I
Speaker 3: think my favorite fact is that there are photos of
Speaker 3: people watching as adult alligators all climb up a ladder
Speaker 3: and then take a water slide down into the pond
Speaker 3: for fun. Like it is the weirdest thing. It's like
Speaker 3: a giant petting zoo for gators. It makes no sense
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 1: But it sounds fun for the gators too.
Speaker 3: Yes, that maybe they were having fun so they had
Speaker 3: decided not to attack.
Speaker 1: So I'm definitely gonna look this up. But did anyone
Speaker 1: die there? Like that all sounds so incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, in that article on how stuff works, the
Speaker 3: editor's right, how alligators are really instinctual animals because you know,
Speaker 3: their brains are only nine grams and they take about
Speaker 3: half a tablespoon of space, which means there's no such
Speaker 3: thing as a nice gator. I mean, these things are
Speaker 3: programmed to behave a certain way. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: there really aren't reports of injuries there, so I'm certain
Speaker 3: there were some that happened. And one thing I do
Speaker 3: know is there were a lot of sign posted to
Speaker 3: remind visitors, you know, not to punch the gators. Or
Speaker 3: throw rocks at them, so don't don't try that. And
Speaker 3: apparently college pranksters used to occasionally sneak in and steal
Speaker 3: a gator. But other than that, there really isn't a
Speaker 3: whole lot of reporting on, you know, the darker side
Speaker 3: of an alligator farm.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, my last fact is kind of fitting. I decided
Speaker 1: to look up the origins of see you later, alligator.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, what did you find out? Not much? Good, good,
Speaker 2: Well that does it for today.
Speaker 1: So, as you might imagine, there's no clear origin story,
Speaker 1: like there isn't for a lot of these things. But
Speaker 1: it's really funny. There's a site called word Histories and
Speaker 1: they looked up early newspaper accounts that reference the phrase,
Speaker 1: and there are all these explainer columns for adults trying
Speaker 1: to understand their kids and why they're talking this way.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen fifty two there was a column in
Speaker 1: the Honolulu Star Bulletin that explained teenage slang in Hawaii
Speaker 1: and it reads, quote, many high school students use expressions
Speaker 1: such as tutlu tofu or see you alligator, which I
Speaker 1: might responses like see you soon, goon and hit the toad. Road,
Speaker 1: which I guess means that in a while crocodile wasn't
Speaker 1: immediately like the default response Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I never heard that before.
Speaker 1: No, But it gets better. There's also an explanation from
Speaker 1: this guy, Lester Rand in the Baltimore Sun, and this
Speaker 1: is for nineteen fifty four, and he clarifies the alligator
Speaker 1: and see you alligator is an all encompassing term and
Speaker 1: relieves the leaving party of having to recite several names.
Speaker 1: That's great, and in case the Olds needed more explanation,
Speaker 1: it continues. The popular teenage rhyming expressions rarely convey any
Speaker 1: actual meaning and are somewhat confusing, like do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, jelly bean? Let me have steak jake
Speaker 1: and have a piece of salami tommy.
Speaker 2: Right, it feels like a phrase we should bring brack right,
Speaker 2: Like yeah, for sure, whatever we.
Speaker 1: Say goodbye to someone, and I kind of want to say, like,
Speaker 1: have a piece of lobby tommy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a weird one. And I think if I
Speaker 3: was a parent my kid kept saying this as he
Speaker 3: walked out of the door, I'd probably be confused enough
Speaker 3: to want to read an article about what was wrong
Speaker 3: with him. But Anyway, who do you think deserves the
Speaker 3: crown for today's fact off?
Speaker 2: Well, I did like the fact that we talked about
Speaker 2: B flat so much. There was a lot of B flat.
Speaker 1: Those photos of alligators on water slides, I think have
Speaker 1: to be my new wallpaper. I'm gonna say, you win.
Speaker 1: This crazy alligator farm theme park thing is too good.
Speaker 3: It's so good looking at those photos, so I will
Speaker 3: take it. Thank you very much, I'm honored. That is
Speaker 3: it for today's Part Time Genius. If you like hearing
Speaker 3: the show, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram, drop
Speaker 3: us a line in Apple Reviews, And if you have
Speaker 3: any great gator facts we missed or have a topic
Speaker 3: you want us to cover, be sure to write to
Speaker 3: us about those.
Speaker 1: Two and thank you, thank you, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening, especially you Dad.
Speaker 3: Part Time Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 3: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 3: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.