Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature 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, we're talking about animals who
Speaker 1: ride on top of other animals, like a poodle on
Speaker 1: a horse at a rodeo, except you know, not messed up.
Speaker 1: Let's explore the exploits of octopuses, the tiniest and the
Speaker 1: largest passengers, and we'll answer the age old question. Are
Speaker 1: oxpeckers jerks joining me Today's comedian, writer and journalist who
Speaker 1: has done work for some More News as well as
Speaker 1: teen Vogue, Ella Yeerman. Welcome, Hi Katie, Hey, it's good
Speaker 1: to see you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm super excited. I the whole reason I
Speaker 1: picked this topic was I saw a very serious article
Speaker 1: in the New York Times about an octopus writing a
Speaker 1: shark like a pony, and you know, I it was.
Speaker 1: It's just one of those beautiful moments where our world
Speaker 1: is still messed up right now, but out there in
Speaker 1: the ocean there's a little orange octopus riding a shark
Speaker 1: and everything's copasetic and wonderful.
Speaker 2: That's really beautiful. Yeah, the octopus doesn't know anything about
Speaker 2: Donald Trump or or anything that's going on in the world.
Speaker 1: Despite being orange, knows nothing about orange. Yeah. So, quote
Speaker 1: unquote researchers otherwise known as perverts were stalking an innocent
Speaker 1: mac o shark off the coast of New Zealand when
Speaker 1: they spotted an orange blobby hat that the shark was wearing.
Speaker 1: It turns out the hat was a Meori octopus. These
Speaker 1: are large octopuses that grow over six feet so that's
Speaker 1: nearly two meters in European and they can weigh almost
Speaker 1: thirty pounds, which is around thirteen to fourteen kilograms. So
Speaker 1: they're not tiny octopodes. That's not that's not what you
Speaker 1: call them. They're not tiny octopus. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I there's it is. Actually the plural of octopuses is octopuses.
Speaker 2: It's not octopus, not octopy because it's it's Greek and
Speaker 2: not Latin.
Speaker 1: It's something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some like something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: I used to I used to know. I used to
Speaker 2: know how that works.
Speaker 1: Yeah I I I do my best to know as
Speaker 1: little about grammar as I possibly can and still function. Sure,
Speaker 1: but yeah, so it is a it is an an
Speaker 1: octopus that seem to be cool with writing on the shark,
Speaker 1: Like neither the shark nor the octopus seemed to be
Speaker 1: in distress, which is interesting, right it was it didn't
Speaker 1: seem like the octopus was like, oh crap, like I
Speaker 1: need to stay very still otherwise this shark is going
Speaker 1: to notice me. In fact, researchers think that the shark
Speaker 1: was probably aware of the octopus, given that it has
Speaker 1: sensory organs along its body that can sense pressure changes
Speaker 1: and vibrations. So it's not like the ark didn't know
Speaker 1: it was there because it can't see it. Also, the
Speaker 1: shark could very easily like knock the octopus off of
Speaker 1: its body just by swimming a little faster. So researchers
Speaker 1: are saying, like it kind of seems like the shark's
Speaker 1: okay with the octopus on it, and the octopus it
Speaker 1: seems to intentionally be like riding on the shark, So
Speaker 1: that that is the observation that was made.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. It's it's like the opposite of the scorpion
Speaker 2: and the toad story, right and sad. But this is
Speaker 2: like if they if the scobeen the toad actually shook
Speaker 2: hands and decided to cross the river right together.
Speaker 1: Right, they crossed the river together. Everything's fine, they shake
Speaker 1: it fine, and then the frog's like, oh crap, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, and the scarp's like, oh dang, dude, why
Speaker 1: did you just shake and it's his tail and you
Speaker 1: know anyways, uh yeah, no, I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: it is it is unusual. It's it's also unusual given
Speaker 1: that these are not like these species don't interact very often.
Speaker 1: So they the maco shark kind of is close usually
Speaker 1: dwells closer to the surface of the water, whereas the
Speaker 1: octopus spends most of its time near the seafloor. So
Speaker 1: they don't they aren't like, they're neither sort of natural
Speaker 1: like predator prey. They're also not natural like buddies. Right.
Speaker 1: They don't. They don't spend a lot of time. It's
Speaker 1: not sort of like a little Mermaid thing where the
Speaker 1: shark's playing the octopus like a guitar or something, right, Like,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't hang out a lot. So the
Speaker 1: fact that they have this really strange interaction where the
Speaker 1: octopus is just hanging out on them like a surfboard
Speaker 1: is super weird. It's also very weird that we happen
Speaker 1: to see it, because it's really hard to observe stuff
Speaker 1: in the ocean, Like, right, the ocean is so big,
Speaker 1: it's so big, and we can't I mean, it's very wet,
Speaker 1: so we can't be there a lot because we gotta
Speaker 1: breathe and we can't just like hang out in the
Speaker 1: middle of the ocean indefinitely, And so a lot of
Speaker 1: live animal behavior in the ocean is hard to observe.
Speaker 1: Like you'd think we'd know everything about sharks and whales
Speaker 1: because they're so big, but we actually don't, because they
Speaker 1: are so difficult to observe, if you, like, even if
Speaker 1: you put a boat out there, right and have a
Speaker 1: bunch of people sitting on the boat, researchers as these were, right,
Speaker 1: Like these are researchers out on a boat doing research,
Speaker 1: probably not anything related to sharks and octopuses, but they're
Speaker 1: out there and they happen to see some behavior. It's
Speaker 1: just going to be a tiny fraction of the total
Speaker 1: behavior that you see.
Speaker 2: Because, right, maybe this happens all the time, right.
Speaker 1: We don't know, like maybe there's a whole sort of
Speaker 1: a shark octopus uber system that.
Speaker 2: We're unaware I of.
Speaker 1: Uber.
Speaker 2: The octopuses are treating the sharks like an uber, and
Speaker 2: the sharks are treating the octopus as like a new
Speaker 2: fashion trend. Right, it's very hip and cool if you
Speaker 2: have an octopus.
Speaker 1: Hat, it's a it's sort of a symbiosis of the
Speaker 1: octopus getting transportation and the shark getting sort of high fashion,
Speaker 1: high fashion, high frashion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, only the most popular sharks to wear octopus are right, exactly. Well,
Speaker 2: it's funny that makes sense that you say, like it's
Speaker 2: really rare that we see stuff in the ocean, because
Speaker 2: I was I'm like scrolling through this relatively short New
Speaker 2: York Times article and it does sort of feel like
Speaker 2: the whole article is like, isn't this cool that this happened?
Speaker 2: And I was thinking, like, it's funny that this even
Speaker 2: qualifies as New York Times worthy news.
Speaker 1: They are desperate to find something that'll make anyone smile.
Speaker 2: Sure, right, like, look a cool octopus octopus on a shark.
Speaker 1: Guys, everyone calmed down, all the markets, all the markets
Speaker 1: need to calm down. We're all gonna be okay. There's
Speaker 1: an octopus writing a shark.
Speaker 2: Maybe this is why, Maybe this is why the tariffs
Speaker 2: are Oh no, the timeline doesn't line up. Maybe this
Speaker 2: is why the tariffs went back.
Speaker 1: The dead cat bounces because of the the it's the
Speaker 1: octopus on a shark bounce.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know it literally anything about investment, So I
Speaker 1: can't like it's illegal to give advice, But I can't
Speaker 1: do it either because I am good at it and
Speaker 1: no one should listen to me.
Speaker 2: But I can't even quite make jokes about it because
Speaker 2: I I don't know enough of the right words.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, hah, line goes up, line goes down.
Speaker 1: That's that's funny. It's right funny.
Speaker 2: How That is how I felt when when the game
Speaker 2: stop stuff was happening in the news too, is like
Speaker 2: I'm sure this is really funny if you understand it,
Speaker 2: But I.
Speaker 1: Don't, right, you know, I'm like, yeah, stucks, right, just
Speaker 1: those bulls and those bears. You know, does a bear
Speaker 1: poop in the Woods stock market? I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't even do it, But I do feel
Speaker 1: like this is a good omen like that's you know,
Speaker 1: like it has to be somewhere like if you if
Speaker 1: you go back to Nostradamus and his writings on the
Speaker 1: stock market, Like he must have had something in there
Speaker 1: about it. If an animal of eight legs rides upon, uh,
Speaker 1: the sharp toothed non dolphin of the sea, the stocks
Speaker 1: better will be. I don't know, I'm just I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a good sign.
Speaker 2: I do think the world would be in a better
Speaker 2: place if we went back to making our decisions based
Speaker 2: on like omens and cool things that we saw in
Speaker 2: the world. Like, yeah, hundreds of years ago, if if
Speaker 2: someone had seen this, they would have said this, I
Speaker 2: have to change my entire life, like this is this
Speaker 2: is the gods speaking to me and I I have
Speaker 2: to I have to make a big change. And now
Speaker 2: now we get in your Times article about it, and
Speaker 2: maybe we should go back to basing all of our
Speaker 2: personal and geopolitical decisions on the whims of the animals.
Speaker 1: Agree, like very much. Agree. Like imagine if Alan Green
Speaker 1: Span God rest his soul. Wait, I assume he's dead.
Speaker 1: I don't know actually if he is, but you know,
Speaker 1: just like made prognostications based on like the chirps of
Speaker 1: crickets or something. I feel like we would be a
Speaker 1: lot better off because Honestly, that seems more stable than
Speaker 1: our current situation.
Speaker 2: That dude is ninety nine years old and alive.
Speaker 1: What, well, you know what, it's all those it's all
Speaker 1: that you know math. Math is good for you.
Speaker 2: That's what they say, right. Being a Republican, I think,
Speaker 2: is also good for your life span. It seems those
Speaker 2: guys live forever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's a I think it's something to
Speaker 1: do with sort of like when you eat enough McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Not saying only Republicans eat McDonald's, I know libertarians do
Speaker 1: as well, but it's like enough McDonald's that it forms
Speaker 1: like sort of like a protective line, you know, like
Speaker 1: how old pipes like, there's like like kind of a
Speaker 1: weird lead coating, but then it it gets so covered
Speaker 1: in another coating of minerals that the lead actually the problem,
Speaker 1: right exactly. I think it's like that. But with Max.
Speaker 2: The problem with supersized me is that he didn't go
Speaker 2: far enough. If he had just exactly eating McDonald's, it
Speaker 2: would have circled all the way back around to be exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's two things you shouldn't listen to me about
Speaker 1: on this podcast. Finances or eating food. Eating food, habits,
Speaker 1: so ella. The behavior that we've observed in this octopus
Speaker 1: is technically called faesis, which sounds kind of gross, but
Speaker 1: all it means is when one organism attacks which is
Speaker 1: itself to another for travel. So this is a type
Speaker 1: of symbiosis. Usually it is a commensalistic which just means
Speaker 1: that it doesn't hurt the host, but it doesn't help
Speaker 1: the host either. It's just kind of like like with
Speaker 1: this octopus writing this shark. It doesn't seem like the
Speaker 1: octopus is doing the shark any harm, but it might
Speaker 1: not be benefiting the shark in any way unless the
Speaker 1: shark is lonely. We don't know, but yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is most common among insects. There are many species
Speaker 1: of insects who will do with this. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: that a bit later. But the sort of more famous
Speaker 1: example when it comes to sharks is not octopuses, which
Speaker 1: we don't know if this is a trend. This could
Speaker 1: be just one weird little octopus pervert who is into there.
Speaker 1: We don't know, but we do know about remort also
Speaker 1: knows as also known as suckerfish, who will attach themselves
Speaker 1: to sharks. They also attach themselves to whales, dolphins, even
Speaker 1: sea turtles, so even a raithin like a manta raise
Speaker 1: And there are many different species of ramoras, and those
Speaker 1: are those little kind of like flat looking fish that
Speaker 1: you'll often see kind of like attached to a shark,
Speaker 1: and it's seen as as kind of like interesting thing
Speaker 1: of like, whoa, the shark's really scary and dangerous, but
Speaker 1: here's this little fish that's just like kind of attaching.
Speaker 2: And you're saying they're not doing I always assumed they
Speaker 2: were doing something for the shark. There was a reason
Speaker 2: the sharks were putting up with them. That's right.
Speaker 1: No, it's a really good question actually, because the the
Speaker 1: answer to that is complicated, and the the summer is
Speaker 1: we don't really know exactly what's going on. So there's
Speaker 1: different species of remorras with different preferred hosts, from whales
Speaker 1: to turtles. The first thing is they don't actually suck
Speaker 1: onto the shark with their mouths, like I think that
Speaker 1: there's a there might be a misconception that they're sort
Speaker 1: of like attached by their mouth. They don't suck the
Speaker 1: shark's blood at all or anything like that. It's actually
Speaker 1: there the tops of their heads, so their dorsal fin
Speaker 1: is modified into a sucker shape, and they it's almost
Speaker 1: like if you put like a plunger on top of
Speaker 1: your head, sort of like but inverted, so you could
Speaker 1: sort of hang onto a wall from your head.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's how they work. So it's like a
Speaker 1: hat with a plunger on it that they can use
Speaker 1: to stick onto a shark and then they just like
Speaker 1: ride on the shark. And the what they're actually doing
Speaker 1: there is up for a little bit of debate. There's
Speaker 1: a few behaviors that researchers have seen. Some speculate that
Speaker 1: they're eating bits of food that are left over from
Speaker 1: the shark feeding. Right, that's a simple enough thing, so
Speaker 1: like they have transportation, but they also get a little
Speaker 1: bit of food. Other observations include them eating shark poop,
Speaker 1: which you know, it happens sometimes animals eat other animals poop.
Speaker 1: We can all be adults about it. But it's not
Speaker 1: like the observations have been consistent enough for that to
Speaker 1: be established as the true meaning of it's about to say, Christmas,
Speaker 1: the true meaning of the remoras attaching themselves to sharks.
Speaker 1: And there's also some theories about how they might be
Speaker 1: able to maybe loosen parasites from their skins. So maybe
Speaker 1: the remra's presence on the shark skin somehow helps reduce
Speaker 1: the amount of parasites on their skin, but that also
Speaker 1: isn't very well known, and there's even theories that the
Speaker 1: remorras might be harmful by reducing the shark's speed. Certainly
Speaker 1: in the case of dolphins, there's an idea that the
Speaker 1: presence of the remras, because dolphins like to travel pretty
Speaker 1: quickly in their pods like that, the remors might be
Speaker 1: introducing a lot of drag to the dolphin and the
Speaker 1: dolphin doesn't like this. And there's even an idea that
Speaker 1: one of the reasons dolphins jump out of the water
Speaker 1: so much is.
Speaker 2: Too to get rid of those those damn fish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, as well as any other parasites that they
Speaker 1: might have on their bodies. But again, these are all
Speaker 1: kind of speculations. It's not like there's one kind of
Speaker 1: there's not one theory in terms of whether they are
Speaker 1: good or bad for sharks or neutral, right, neutral is
Speaker 1: a totally valid option where it could just be they're
Speaker 1: not hurting the sharks, but they're also not helping the sharks,
Speaker 1: and the sharks are just like, I got other problems,
Speaker 1: so I don't need to spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: trying to remove them. Although there are sharks that sometimes
Speaker 1: will sort of like lunge out of the water, and
Speaker 1: like one of the theories is like maybe they're trying
Speaker 1: to loosen remorras once in a while when there's too
Speaker 1: many of them on there. So, yeah, it's a kind
Speaker 1: of unsatisfying answer because it's a it's a a lot
Speaker 1: of cases where there's a symbiotic relationship between two animals,
Speaker 1: it can actually be really hard to determine at what
Speaker 1: point is this harmful or helpful and is an animal
Speaker 1: tolerating it because they have no other choice, or is
Speaker 1: the the symbiote actually helping them.
Speaker 2: At what point does a symbiote become a parasite or
Speaker 2: is that a sub Are they subcategories of the other?
Speaker 1: Yes, so that's a very very good question. Symbiosis just
Speaker 1: means a long and sustained relationship between two organisms to
Speaker 1: two species, and the uh there. It can be parasitic, mutualistic,
Speaker 1: or commensialistic. Said, well, it's it's but it bears repeating
Speaker 1: because parasites actively harm their host for their own benefit.
Speaker 1: In mutualistic relationships, they both get something, and in commensialistic relationships,
Speaker 1: the symbio, the one that is attaching itself to the
Speaker 1: host or involved with the host, may get something, but
Speaker 1: it's not hurting and it's not helping the host. So
Speaker 1: there's there's three options. But and it would be really
Speaker 1: nice if animals always just fell into one little category
Speaker 1: and made things easier for us, but they don't, and
Speaker 1: it can be really difficult to actually tell the difference
Speaker 1: between like, hey, is this symbiotic relationship parasitic or is
Speaker 1: it mutualistic? It can be genuinely difficult to know what's
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's interesting that it's seems like so much
Speaker 2: of what we're talking about today is the advantage is
Speaker 2: like migration or like like travel, because I feel like
Speaker 2: we see that a lot in plants, Like plants are
Speaker 2: always using animals to move around, and we don't think
Speaker 2: of that as weird because plants can't really move by themselves,
Speaker 2: So it's it's just interesting to see it in a
Speaker 2: like a fish that can probably it probably can swim
Speaker 2: on its own, but like not nearly as as far
Speaker 2: as this shark.
Speaker 1: Yes, so it's a really that's a really really good observation.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely correct. Actually, plants that attach themselves to animals,
Speaker 1: say like a plant that, let's sit seed burs attached
Speaker 1: to your dog's fur and then it has all these
Speaker 1: little burrs on it.
Speaker 2: All the time.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, that is actually an example of paresis where
Speaker 1: it is it is a plant using the animal as
Speaker 1: a type of transportation. So plants can also be in
Speaker 1: parasitic or symbiotic relationships with either animals or other plants,
Speaker 1: and so the use like riding attaching themselves onto a
Speaker 1: dog's coat is an example of symbiosis. Either. I would
Speaker 1: say that's probably example of a commensalistic relationship because I don't.
Speaker 2: Think I'm not sure the dog is getting much out
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: It's not getting anything out of it, but it's also
Speaker 1: not really hurting the dog.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the birds go in his paws and then it
Speaker 2: hurts him.
Speaker 1: Maybe that then in that case, that plant is being
Speaker 1: a big jerk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, and thank you for saying that. Not
Speaker 2: on the people have been standing up against against plant
Speaker 2: jerk plant.
Speaker 1: Right, I know, I'm like very compassionate towards h life
Speaker 1: on earth. I'm a huge hippie. When it comes to like, oh,
Speaker 1: a little spider, I will help you outdoors rather than
Speaker 1: crush you beneath my feet. When there's like any kind
Speaker 1: of like parasite on my dog, I turn into like
Speaker 1: Jigsaw from absolutely from uh from Saw Saw, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're going into this tube of alcohol and I will
Speaker 1: watch you die. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, tics that are that attached to my dog or
Speaker 2: to me, to be honest, right, it's I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: going to to drown you in in rubbing alcohol.
Speaker 1: I'm way more tolerant of ticks that attach themselves to
Speaker 1: me because I'm like, well, I have a fighting chance
Speaker 1: because I got fingis.
Speaker 2: You got fingers, you got medicine for exactly.
Speaker 1: When they attach themselves to my dog, I'm like, she's
Speaker 1: just a little baby. She's a little baby.
Speaker 2: She doesn't know about tics.
Speaker 1: No, she can't do anything, she doesn't have fingis, and
Speaker 1: she's a little baby. So I get so angry. Anyways,
Speaker 1: your your other your other question about like the remorras,
Speaker 1: why do they attach themselves to sharks? Uh? It really
Speaker 1: is about being able to travel over long distances without
Speaker 1: having to go to the energy. I mean, it's the
Speaker 1: same reason we riding cars or bicycles or not go pros.
Speaker 1: That's not a that's not a vehicle. You know, go carts,
Speaker 1: go carts, that's a vehicle. Yeah, have our scooters whatever
Speaker 1: we've got going on out there these days. So they
Speaker 1: are Actually there's another aspect, which is that it helps
Speaker 1: them breathe. They are ram ventilators. So ram ventilators are
Speaker 1: a type of fish that breathes by moving through the water.
Speaker 1: And as they move through the water, the water enters
Speaker 1: through gill slits, runs over their gills, and then that
Speaker 1: that their gills allow for the transfer of oxygen from
Speaker 1: the water into their bloodstream. They are not obligate ram ventilators.
Speaker 1: It sounds like I'm getting into weird like engineering, but this.
Speaker 2: Is no I'm you know, I'm like, I'm about.
Speaker 1: To sell you an HVAC system for your house.
Speaker 2: But you want an obligate ventilator or do you.
Speaker 1: Want to put I'll put an obligate ram ventilator in
Speaker 1: there for you, ma'am. But you know this is a
Speaker 1: obligate ram ventilators are fish, usually sharks. There's just a
Speaker 1: few species like this where they have to keep moving,
Speaker 1: like this is the only way that they can breathe.
Speaker 1: So that's that's where that sort of myth that sharks
Speaker 1: have to keep moving or they'll die. It's not all sharks.
Speaker 1: A lot of sharks hashtag not a sharks, not all
Speaker 1: sharks hashtag uh. And some of them actually do have
Speaker 1: a different method of breathing, so like they it's the
Speaker 1: same thing as remoras actually, so remoras can do ram ventilation,
Speaker 1: but they can also do essentially active ventilation, so doing
Speaker 1: it manually pumping the water through their gills while remaining.
Speaker 2: Sort of like like breathing, like sort of like breathe.
Speaker 2: They don't have lungs, I assume, but like some mechanism
Speaker 2: to yeah.
Speaker 1: It's pull exactly. It's it's by they basically pumping the
Speaker 1: water over their gills rather than letting it passively flow
Speaker 1: over their gills. And there are a lot of shark
Speaker 1: species that can do this too, where they can they
Speaker 1: can just pump the water over their gills. There are
Speaker 1: a few species that do essentially need to keep moving
Speaker 1: because their obligate ram ventilators. But it's not like they
Speaker 1: will die as soon as they stop moving. That that
Speaker 1: part is a myth, Like that's just a you know.
Speaker 2: I've heard that myth and I never really like thought
Speaker 2: to question it, to be honest, I was just I think,
Speaker 2: I don't even know if I associated with breathing in
Speaker 2: my head. I was like, oh, yeah, shark stops moving,
Speaker 2: they will just sink to the bottom of the ocean
Speaker 2: and not be able to move it, like they won't
Speaker 2: be able to start moving again. Right, it's a momentum thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like someone set just shoves the shark in
Speaker 1: emotion and it's like, well guess I'm going now, right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it's it's actually so breathing underwater is
Speaker 1: a lot harder than breathing outside of water, which sounds
Speaker 1: like I'm being kind of stupid here, but it's it
Speaker 1: is true. So like transferring oxygen from water to your
Speaker 1: lungs is, or for a fish, like transferring water the
Speaker 1: oxygen in the water to their blood stream is really
Speaker 1: hard in sure comparison to breathing air. Like mammals kind
Speaker 1: of have it going on because we can like take
Speaker 1: in a breath get a bunch of oxygen really easily,
Speaker 1: Like breathing is not that big of a deal for us,
Speaker 1: for fish, for sharks, like for other marine animals, like
Speaker 1: transferring oxygen to their blood stream, it takes energy more
Speaker 1: so than us. It's less efficient. That's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons actually whales are so ope in terms of being
Speaker 1: sure ginormous. Is they breathe air. They don't have to
Speaker 1: deal with the transferring of oxygen from water into their lungs.
Speaker 1: They just take a huge breath of air and they
Speaker 1: store it in their massive, massive collection of blood that
Speaker 1: they have, and then they have a bunch of like
Speaker 1: richly oxygenated blood that can last for hours.
Speaker 2: It's wild well, and that's that's why animals used to
Speaker 2: be bigger, right There used to be more oxygen in
Speaker 2: the atmosphere. Is that true or did I make that up?
Speaker 1: It's one factor for why insects may have been bigger
Speaker 1: is that there was more oxygen. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of other factors, though. That makes it a little bit
Speaker 1: difficult to separate it out because for insects, they breathe
Speaker 1: through spiracles, which are these little holes that kind of
Speaker 1: run through their bodies. So having more oxygen in the
Speaker 1: atmosphere definitely makes it easier for them to breathe but
Speaker 1: the other factor was that we didn't have birds around.
Speaker 1: Literally that was it. Like once birds got on the scene,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh damn, Like these giant dragonflies could
Speaker 1: not compete with the birds with the power of birds.
Speaker 1: So birds really messed things up for insects, out competed them,
Speaker 1: kind of took over the niche that the insects were inhabiting.
Speaker 1: But the huge amounts of oxygen definitely helped so for
Speaker 1: these remorras, because getting oxygen from underwater can be kind
Speaker 1: of a drag they know no pun intended physics drag
Speaker 1: with anyways. So like if they are attached to a shark,
Speaker 1: basically the shark is breathing for them by moving through
Speaker 1: the water. The water flows over the remora's gills, and
Speaker 1: the remorra doesn't have to do anything. So they're just
Speaker 1: they got it going on. Someone's breathing for them, someone's
Speaker 1: moving them around. Possibly they're getting food from sort of
Speaker 1: the sharks leavings or from their poop. They they have
Speaker 1: worked out a wonderful system of just passively living on
Speaker 1: a shark.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. It is, really, I mean, I I that's
Speaker 2: something I sort of aspire to. I think is figuring
Speaker 2: out a system of passively living. Yeah, it's next to
Speaker 2: a larger organism.
Speaker 1: If someone could like breathe for me, if I didn't
Speaker 1: have to think about it, and like, would like just
Speaker 1: move my eyelids to like blink for me as well,
Speaker 1: that would be super right.
Speaker 2: If I could. If I could figure out a weekend
Speaker 2: at Bernie's situation where I could be Bernie, but I
Speaker 2: don't have to, like I can just sort of lie.
Speaker 1: There exactly, you know exactly what I'm talking about, like
Speaker 1: being sort of a living puppet where the puppet teers
Speaker 1: are doing what I want them to do, right.
Speaker 2: Right, but I don't have to think or exert any energy, right.
Speaker 1: Like I'm a kermit, but with a mind of my own,
Speaker 1: and so the puppeteers are sort of doing my bidding right.
Speaker 2: And just I sort of what I'm saying is I
Speaker 2: want to be a Roman emperor and sort of carrying
Speaker 2: around on a palette all.
Speaker 1: Day, right, and then like and then also have people
Speaker 1: move my hands for me while I eat grapes and
Speaker 1: drink wine and stuff. No, exactly, that sounds great. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break because I want to
Speaker 1: eat some grapes, and then if we're to get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about some of the smallest furants
Speaker 1: and largest florants. Which is a great word, super cool
Speaker 1: sounding or furant all right, So just as a reminder
Speaker 1: of furant is an animal or plant or organism that
Speaker 1: engages in horesis, which is the act of using another
Speaker 1: animal or plant as a form of transportation. And it
Speaker 1: happens a lot in insects, particularly in some of the
Speaker 1: smallest insects, which are mites. You've probably seen mites before.
Speaker 1: They're itty bitty little things. They kind of look like
Speaker 1: they're related to and they sort of look like, say,
Speaker 1: a tick, but they're not a tick. But they're just
Speaker 1: like these little tiny little dots and move around and
Speaker 1: there's the I forgot the poem, but it's like something
Speaker 1: like little bugs have littler bugs to bite them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, this is kind of this is kind of
Speaker 1: the thing. Mites will often be on top of other bugs,
Speaker 1: other insects, other arthropods. Mites are a type of arthropod
Speaker 1: and there's many, many, many different species of them, and
Speaker 1: some of them are just straight at parasites. They'll be
Speaker 1: on another insect and kind of be feeding on them.
Speaker 1: But some of them are a little more benign. They
Speaker 1: are just there basically to hang out and have free
Speaker 1: transportation public might transportation. So one example of this is
Speaker 1: a big word coming up, uh po kilo kairis mites,
Speaker 1: pochairis mites. I don't know if that's no one's here
Speaker 1: to fact check me out on that.
Speaker 2: It looks right, and you get it with enough confidence
Speaker 2: that I believe you.
Speaker 1: Yes, the you know, of course, the Pokeylo kiris mites.
Speaker 2: Of course, of course everyone knows about the iris mites exactly.
Speaker 1: Oh you said that, good, I'm impressed.
Speaker 2: I don't Well, you did it three times first, so
Speaker 2: I got to listen.
Speaker 1: Column pea mites from now on. So these are tiny
Speaker 1: orange little dots, less than a millimeter big. They're so
Speaker 1: tiny a bunch of them can fit on the back
Speaker 1: of a beetle. And indeed they do like to ride beetles,
Speaker 1: not you know, the car beetles, but you know the
Speaker 1: actual insect, specifically carrion beetles. So carrying beetles locate and
Speaker 1: burry small dead animals and lay their eggs on them
Speaker 1: so that their larvae can grow with a you know,
Speaker 1: not entirely fresh supply of meat, but a supply of
Speaker 1: meat nonetheless. There this is a beautiful example of parental
Speaker 1: care and insects that is really rare. Like usually insects
Speaker 1: just kind of like, ah, you're an egg on a
Speaker 1: leaf some where, good luck. But carrion beetles take care
Speaker 1: of their larva by providing them with this carefully prepared
Speaker 1: larder of like a dead mouse or a dead vole.
Speaker 1: And mites take advantage of this situation by riding on
Speaker 1: the carrion beetle like a bus that takes them directly
Speaker 1: to dead rodent buffets. So again, just they've really got
Speaker 1: it worked out. Like it's just like a bunch of
Speaker 1: people from the retirement home loading onto the shuttle to
Speaker 1: go to Golden Corral or something, except Golden Corral is
Speaker 1: a dead mouse.
Speaker 2: Do the mites also eat the carrion like the like
Speaker 2: the beatles do?
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, so they are not there to harm the
Speaker 1: carrion beetles, larva or anything like that. They go and
Speaker 1: they feed on the carrion. So when an an animal,
Speaker 1: this is where it gets kind of complex of like
Speaker 1: are they hurting or helping the beetle. Technically, an animal
Speaker 1: that steals another animal's food is called a klepto parasite.
Speaker 2: So it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a good. It's easily applied in so
Speaker 1: many human situationships. I just said situationships. I meant situations,
Speaker 1: but I guess situations situation right either way.
Speaker 2: So in a klepto parasitic situationship.
Speaker 1: Exactly right, it's it's we've all been through it. So, uh.
Speaker 1: The the klepto parasite will steal food from another animal.
Speaker 1: A classic example of seagulls. Those are jerks. They'll like
Speaker 1: steal fish right from another animal. You may have even
Speaker 1: been a victim of a seagulls stealing your chips or
Speaker 1: your sandwich or your hot dog. And they do it
Speaker 1: in the wild too, So they'll like steal fish from
Speaker 1: other seabirds, from other animals. So they are kleptoparasites. So
Speaker 1: you could say that this might could be a kleptoparasite.
Speaker 1: Where it gets kind of tricky is does the presence
Speaker 1: of the might actually reduce the amount of food that
Speaker 1: the carryon larva need. That's not very clear. The other
Speaker 1: problem is that the mites might be able to help
Speaker 1: the larva by protecting the beetle larva from other kinds
Speaker 1: of like microarthropods that might actually be parasites. So by
Speaker 1: kind of being there on the meat and competing with
Speaker 1: any other kind of mites that might want to directly
Speaker 1: feed on the larva. The p mites might be I
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, mte a lot. I'm saying, might
Speaker 1: like a lot a lot. You know, they could possibly
Speaker 1: could be protecting the beetle larva thesaurus for some other
Speaker 1: word than my So it's not really known if these
Speaker 1: are parasites, if they're a mutualists, or if they're commensalistic. Again,
Speaker 1: these relationships are really hard to definitively determine because you
Speaker 1: have there's so many potential countervailing issues that are happening
Speaker 1: that the say the mites. There's like some studies that
Speaker 1: tried to look at this relationship between carrying beetles and
Speaker 1: the pe mites, and it was kind of a mixed bag.
Speaker 1: On one hand, it seemed like they did disrupt some
Speaker 1: of the presence of maybe more predatory micro arthropods, but
Speaker 1: another aspect was that it didn't seem like they were
Speaker 1: actually increasing the number of larva that would reach adulthoods.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's still kind of a question mark
Speaker 1: another way.
Speaker 2: Like I'm looking at this picture, there are so many
Speaker 2: mites on this one beetle, Like does it not bother
Speaker 2: the beetle or like weigh them down?
Speaker 1: It could if there's enough of them, right, like that
Speaker 1: could start to hinder the Beatles movement. So it can
Speaker 1: vary from having just like you know, five of them
Speaker 1: on there to what I showed you in this picture,
Speaker 1: which is like I don't even know how many there are,
Speaker 1: maybe one hundred.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, like an upsetting amount of money.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's like this is not for people to
Speaker 1: look at. If you have what is it tripophobia where
Speaker 1: you don't like to see yeah, things I try to
Speaker 1: look at.
Speaker 2: Do you have that?
Speaker 1: Like this looks like one of those like gross things
Speaker 1: on YouTube where I'm trying to look for ASMR or
Speaker 1: relaxing sleep sleepy time videos and then they're like, would
Speaker 1: you like to see a face with a bunch of
Speaker 1: like worms on it? And I don't, Oh, yeah, happen? Okay,
Speaker 1: does that happen to you?
Speaker 2: You're looking for like the opposite of that, and it.
Speaker 1: Right, And I was wondering like, is it like does
Speaker 1: YouTube think I'm a freak? Like did I do something?
Speaker 1: Did I mess up my algorithms somehow for them to
Speaker 1: think that this is what I want to see?
Speaker 2: But I think it's I just think it's I think
Speaker 2: it's what the it's all of the algorithms, to be honest, like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they seem to push those weird thumbnails because I
Speaker 1: turned off all the cookies I did like private browsing
Speaker 1: to like try to get away from that. Not for
Speaker 1: anything gross, don't worry, but like it was it. It
Speaker 1: kept showing up, and it's like, I guess people are
Speaker 1: looking like is this just they're very popular videos to
Speaker 1: see like maybe the shock factor. I don't really know that.
Speaker 2: I bet the clickbait does really well. I don't know
Speaker 2: what the thought. I don't that's interesting. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Anyways, YouTube is really scary and looking at these beetles,
Speaker 1: it makes me think of those weird videos.
Speaker 2: That get it does feel like that, yeah, algorithm.
Speaker 1: But it depends so in some cases, yes, they can
Speaker 1: get laiden down with enough of these mites that it
Speaker 1: could hinder their movement and in that case it is harmful,
Speaker 1: that would be a parasitic relationship. Sometimes it's just a
Speaker 1: few of them. And another interesting thing is that when
Speaker 1: it is just a few of them, I couldn't find
Speaker 1: any research that would confirm this behavior. But like, the
Speaker 1: mites are sort of this orange color, and the carrion
Speaker 1: beetles have these orange bands, and when they arrange themselves
Speaker 1: over the orange bands, they blend in really well, which
Speaker 1: makes me wonder if their color is meant to be
Speaker 1: sort of a form of camouflage where they can sit
Speaker 1: on this beetles back without being seen by potential predators.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't find any confirmation about that. That might
Speaker 1: not be true at all. But again, it's just there's
Speaker 1: so much about these you'd think again that it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: we would know everything about this relationship.
Speaker 2: Is so much going on, so.
Speaker 1: Much going on, it's a whole situationship.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: So. Another example of mites are mites that are on bumblebees.
Speaker 1: So bumblebees are my favorite little doufist just fuzzy, clumsy,
Speaker 1: the adorable airplanes of the mite world. They are, I
Speaker 1: think because bumblebees have all that nice sort of fuzz.
Speaker 1: They're kind of big, and they're a little doo fear.
Speaker 1: They've got their they've got their life a little less
Speaker 1: together than say, honey bees certainly wasps, so bumblebees are a.
Speaker 2: Little more certainly.
Speaker 1: Was Yeah, bumblebees are kind of bimbos, a little bit
Speaker 1: himbos and bimbos. So I think that might take advantage
Speaker 1: of this to use bumblebees as a free taxi service.
Speaker 1: And the mtes will actually hang out on these flowers
Speaker 1: like their airports and go off and on bumblebees and
Speaker 1: travel around, and then they'll go to bumblebee nests because
Speaker 1: there are bumble bees that live in in a sort
Speaker 1: of collective living where it's a there's like a queen
Speaker 1: bumblebee sort of like a honey bee colony, but usually
Speaker 1: quite a bit smaller.
Speaker 2: And the like a polycule situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, something like that exactly, and a polycule polycule honeycomb situation,
Speaker 1: and so the the depending on the species and also
Speaker 1: depending on the live stage, which is wild. So like
Speaker 1: mites will go through different life stages from sort of
Speaker 1: nymphs to adults, and depending on their life stage, some
Speaker 1: life stages they're more kleptoparasitics, so they actually like steal
Speaker 1: pollen from the bumblebees. Sometimes they're more neutral or even helpful,
Speaker 1: like in their adult stages, they might actually be helpful
Speaker 1: because like, for example, the there's a parasiteliscorum, which sounds
Speaker 1: really bad, but actually this little brown mite will eat
Speaker 1: the eggs of other micro arthropods in the bumblebee nest.
Speaker 1: So basically it's helpful to the bumblebees to have in
Speaker 1: their nests. So but then in other life stages it
Speaker 1: might do more harm where it's like eating pollen so
Speaker 1: of stealing food. So it's just it's just very strange
Speaker 1: because sometimes there's like a whole a species that might
Speaker 1: be helpful to the bumblebees, or like it's only helpful
Speaker 1: like once once it's at a certain stage of its life.
Speaker 1: So very strange situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, both bumblebees were the the animals I was thinking
Speaker 2: of first when when we were talking about like the
Speaker 2: way plants are symbiotic with like like the way that
Speaker 2: that pollen and gets spread around to planate flowers. So
Speaker 2: it's good to know that that bees are just sort
Speaker 2: of the the of the insect.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's so true. It really is. Everyone there the
Speaker 1: town bicycles.
Speaker 2: Right, exactly everybody wants to ride. And that's okay. I'm
Speaker 2: not judging.
Speaker 1: No, we're not. We're not shaming the bees. Uh we're saying,
Speaker 1: heck yeah, bees, you get your you get your freak
Speaker 1: on with all those flowers. So, uh, Eli, can you
Speaker 1: guess what the largest furant is because we've talked about
Speaker 1: the tiny furants the mites, Like, what do you think
Speaker 1: is the largest furant? Meaning the largest sort of symbiote
Speaker 1: that uses another animal as transport?
Speaker 2: Is it when I picked my cat up and put
Speaker 2: her around my neck like a scarf. She doesn't like it,
Speaker 2: but she'll stay there for a little bit. You know that.
Speaker 1: It's that that's definitely giving this sort of shark wearing
Speaker 1: the octopus as a hat vibe. Yeah that you know
Speaker 1: you're you're close because it does involve humans. This is
Speaker 1: one of those stupid answers where it's like humans, it
Speaker 1: is men, it's man. The true monster was man all.
Speaker 2: Along, the true the largest furant largest.
Speaker 1: For all along, twas us, twas us, that was the
Speaker 1: real beast. Anyways, who are we?
Speaker 2: Who are we riding a top of horses? Oh? Duh,
Speaker 2: of course.
Speaker 1: Yes, cars from the movie Cars.
Speaker 2: Parasites in the Cars, right, We're like that.
Speaker 1: We're like the herpes of the Pixar Car universe.
Speaker 2: Right, and Cars is actually set in the world where
Speaker 2: they've cured They've cured their parasites, right, right.
Speaker 1: But like humans are still like sort of an std
Speaker 1: where you can catch humans from another car. Please please
Speaker 1: check out my entire series of Pixar's Car fan fiction.
Speaker 1: It's very PG thirteen are rated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds, it sounds incredibly titillating.
Speaker 1: It's nasty. So we actually humans are considered four rounds
Speaker 1: because we ride on horses and we're the largest four
Speaker 1: aunt in the world. We may have actually started riding
Speaker 1: horses five thousand years ago, which is according to new
Speaker 1: evidence found in the skeletons of ancient Yamnaya people in Eurasia,
Speaker 1: who essentially like archaeologists do kind of bone magic where
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I can tell based on stress of
Speaker 1: the bones that this skeleton rode a horse. I mean
Speaker 1: like the Sorry, it's not the skeleton wasn't riding the
Speaker 1: horse like a spooky, spooky Halloween ghost.
Speaker 2: That would be cool, but it was it packed up
Speaker 2: their bones to ride a.
Speaker 1: Horse exactly exactly, so you could see like, hey, this
Speaker 1: has horsemen syndrome, which also sounds like some of my
Speaker 1: fan fiction. But anyways, the the bones had like certain
Speaker 1: stress patterns caused by stress like on the muscle tissue
Speaker 1: that would then be reflected in these marks on the bones.
Speaker 2: It's like, how when they find my bones, they're gonna
Speaker 2: be able to tell I spent twelve hours a day
Speaker 2: on my laptop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're gonna be like, ah, they have
Speaker 1: the classic podcaster syndrome. You see, you can see from
Speaker 1: the curvature of the spine and the stress impact on
Speaker 1: the butt that this person was not mobile for most
Speaker 1: of the day. Yeah exactly. But yeah, horses themselves like
Speaker 1: were wild before they were domesticated. So now there's only
Speaker 1: one wild horse species that's still living. It's called the taxies.
Speaker 2: For a second, I thought you were gonna tell me
Speaker 2: there was only one wild horse.
Speaker 1: There's a little one horse. Guys, there's one horse left.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know, like if people have
Speaker 1: been paying attention to problem, but we've like literally lost
Speaker 1: all the horses.
Speaker 2: One horse. He's the most special horse there is and
Speaker 2: we have to take care of him.
Speaker 1: He's so tired. But yeah, no, there there there's one
Speaker 1: extant meaning living species of wild horse called the Taki,
Speaker 1: So I have to clarify between there's a lot of
Speaker 1: feral horses, so there's a difference between wild horse species
Speaker 1: and feral horses. So feral horses used to be domesticated
Speaker 1: and then we're like, I'm tired of people, and then
Speaker 1: they pieced out and rewilded themselves by going back out
Speaker 1: into nature and then creating a feral population. So there's
Speaker 1: a ton of faral horses all over the world which
Speaker 1: were like they used to be domesticated, but for hundreds
Speaker 1: or even thousands of years, they've now been rewilded, so
Speaker 1: they're wild horses now, but they're still considered like feral
Speaker 1: horses because they used to be domesticated invescated, whereas the Takis,
Speaker 1: the Mongolian wild horses, have never been domesticated. Some of
Speaker 1: them might have been tamed, right, so there's a difference
Speaker 1: between domestication and taming. So like you take I'm a
Speaker 1: wolf and we've domesticated dogs. So the Taki species of
Speaker 1: horses have not been domesticated because they have not been
Speaker 1: selectively bred to be more amenable to us using them
Speaker 1: as transportation. But yeah, they look interesting, because so these
Speaker 1: are the takis? Are not I keep saying talkies and
Speaker 1: it's making me hungry. So the Takis are not the
Speaker 1: ancestor of modern domesticated horses, but they're close relative and
Speaker 1: they share a common ancestor. We don't actually know exactly
Speaker 1: what the ancestor is to domesticated horses. We don't like
Speaker 1: have sort of the exact fossil record of it.
Speaker 2: But what do we know? It seems like we don't
Speaker 2: know shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we don't know a whole lot.
Speaker 2: Honestly, like we walk around, we as a species walk
Speaker 2: around with a lot of confidence for how little we know.
Speaker 1: We do know based on cave drawings, actually that the
Speaker 1: the original horses that we probably started domesticating, we're probably
Speaker 1: very similar to the Taki horses, the Mongolian wildhorse, at
Speaker 1: least in appearance. Based on genetic information. We don't think
Speaker 1: that the that these are like the direct ancestors, but
Speaker 1: that they're like a later relative because of you know,
Speaker 1: genetic shenanigans in terms of like branching off at a
Speaker 1: certain point. But yeah, we think they're very similar to
Speaker 1: the og horse in terms of their like these tan
Speaker 1: they're kind of like they're like sort of chunkier. They
Speaker 1: have short manes, and they have more like mule like faces,
Speaker 1: more rounded faces. They're they're rounder, they're kind of cute.
Speaker 1: I think I like them a lot. They're very cute looking.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's like what horses used to be
Speaker 1: before we messed with them.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. Are we like what type of what
Speaker 2: category of symbiotic are we with horses?
Speaker 1: That's a super good question. It's hard to answer. I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, it's it's complicated because we've actually
Speaker 1: created a new species of right horse, which is the
Speaker 1: domesticated horse. And I would yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it kind of depends on your perspective because in some sense,
Speaker 1: because we've created domesticated horses, we've facilitated this new species
Speaker 1: of horse to spread across the globe. And in that sense,
Speaker 1: I would say it's like a symbiotic relationship that is
Speaker 1: mutualistic because we help the horses reproduce, we take care
Speaker 1: of them, we've increased their numbers and old like the
Speaker 1: horses that we have bred have become you know, this
Speaker 1: like dominant species of horse and so in that sense,
Speaker 1: we've kind of it's a mixture of co evolving and
Speaker 1: one where I think that it is I wouldn't. I
Speaker 1: don't think I would describe it as a parasitic relationship
Speaker 1: because we do ultimately facilitate the horse species their survival.
Speaker 1: That's not a This is like not like a moral
Speaker 1: sort of a a judgment or something in terms of
Speaker 1: saying like, so it's good that we've done this to
Speaker 1: horses or something like that. The ethical conversation about it
Speaker 1: is completely separate. This is sort of just from the
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology perspective of we by using horses, we made
Speaker 1: more horses, right, But also if you're like shifting the
Speaker 1: perspective to our relationship to the og wild horse, you
Speaker 1: could view us as a paras because existence exactly. So
Speaker 1: it kind of depends on how you view that and
Speaker 1: how you view sort of the connectivity of species. Like
Speaker 1: if you breathe them out of existence, but the new
Speaker 1: horse that you've created then is way more successful than
Speaker 1: the original horse? Is that a you know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of like saying like, well, human beings bred out of
Speaker 1: existence are ancestors. Is that really does that count as us?
Speaker 1: Like killing off our ancestors because we're slightly different from
Speaker 1: them and we outbred them. I would say probably no.
Speaker 2: Like I guess that classic philosophical question, the Horse of Theseus.
Speaker 1: The horse of Theseus, where you keep ripping apart a
Speaker 1: horse and replacing its horse parts with the like one
Speaker 1: legs of zebra and then one legs like a donkey,
Speaker 1: and then by the time you're done with it, you
Speaker 1: actually get Donkey from Shrek, and you're like, is this
Speaker 1: still the same horse that I started out with?
Speaker 2: And then Eddie Murphy says yes, yes, he sounds like
Speaker 2: Eddie Murphy, so.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, we're constantly dying and living. In the
Speaker 1: context of the new Shrek movie.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I would love to see Shrek five be
Speaker 2: an existentialist horror film, but I don't think dream Works
Speaker 2: is quite brave enough.
Speaker 1: They're cowards. They won't give us a Shrek where we
Speaker 1: see Shrek sort of eating his son like Saturn, and
Speaker 1: I'm sad about it.
Speaker 2: Man, that would be awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you imagine. Anyways, we're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break and come up with a better Shrek, and
Speaker 1: then when we come back, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a couple of examples of animals that you might think
Speaker 1: these seem like they would count as four aunts as
Speaker 1: examples of Boric's but it's a little more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: All right, So for the last two animals we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about, were two types of animals to talk about.
Speaker 1: These are I think if we think about like animals
Speaker 1: that use other animals, it's transportations. These would come to
Speaker 1: mind immediately. But the question is do they count as
Speaker 1: four ants or not in terms of is their relationship
Speaker 1: really primarily about transportation. So barnacles are a really interesting
Speaker 1: example because I've seen a mix of references to them
Speaker 1: as either it being for esis or not, and it
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, part of the problem is these
Speaker 1: categories again are not super rigid, but I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of sources saying like, no, they don't count because
Speaker 1: barnacles are permanently attached to their host, and also they
Speaker 1: use their host for Basically, it's not just about travel,
Speaker 1: it's about a substrate like a home. So once it
Speaker 1: becomes like this is my home, now, it's not really
Speaker 1: about travel. It's like this is my this is my apartment. Uh,
Speaker 1: this whales, this whales butt is my apartment, so they don't.
Speaker 1: It's but you know, I've also seen it described as well, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they are the reason that they settle on a
Speaker 1: whales butt and not just like other substrate is for
Speaker 1: being able to travel at or being able to travel
Speaker 1: around and get access to like different spots where there's
Speaker 1: maybe more filter feeding opportunities.
Speaker 2: Right for the for the the barnicle, it's it's like
Speaker 2: truly about the journey, not the destination. Yeah, they're not
Speaker 2: trying to go anywhere, They're just trying to go.
Speaker 1: You know what. It's such a healthy life philosophy, Like
Speaker 1: if we were all just less thinking about where we
Speaker 1: want to be and who we want to be, we
Speaker 1: could all be a little more like the humble barnacle.
Speaker 2: The humble barnacle, The humble Barnacle.
Speaker 1: I got it. Just this is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a tangent, but it's just too weird not to share.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different types of arracles. There's
Speaker 1: they're actually crustaceans. They're related to crabs. There's a bunch
Speaker 1: of different species. They're not all sort of the little
Speaker 1: just like bumpy wart like things that we see it,
Speaker 1: like like whale acne. There's also long ones. There's god. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say this word real good. It's Zeno baileinis
Speaker 1: globic ticis I I I did not mount, I did
Speaker 1: not nail the landing. There Zeno baileinis globbic pictus, Yes,
Speaker 1: globic globbic pitus. Okay, there we go.
Speaker 2: Anyways, there's a lot of letters in there.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call them unholy canolis because they like, that's
Speaker 1: what they look like. They look like weird little squash blossoms.
Speaker 1: They're kind of long and tubular, and they attached to whales.
Speaker 1: And then there's also species of barnacles called goose neck
Speaker 1: barnacles that have like a long stalk and they're like
Speaker 1: tipped in calcium plates. They look like super weird aliens.
Speaker 1: And the weirdest thing about them is actually our misconception
Speaker 1: of them back in medieval times, which is that because
Speaker 1: they have this like long neck like a goose, and
Speaker 1: because they're kind of like black and white, they're the
Speaker 1: same coloration as a actual goose, a bird called the
Speaker 1: barnacle goose, which is black and white, had this long neck.
Speaker 1: But medieval people, like in Europe, didn't have a concept
Speaker 1: about geese migrating. So they would see these barnacle geese
Speaker 1: like the bird and not see any evidence of a
Speaker 1: nest or eggs, but they would see goose neck barnacles.
Speaker 1: So the crustacean this like long, weird, inanimate looking thing.
Speaker 1: And because they had long neck, because they had the
Speaker 1: black and white coloration, medieval people thought that the geese
Speaker 1: spontaneously generated from the barnacles. And because they like just
Speaker 1: couldn't find any eggs, and they couldn't fathom that maybe
Speaker 1: the geese flew there rather than were born there.
Speaker 2: That's so funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then I presumably we named the geese after the barnacles,
Speaker 2: and we didn't choose the word barnacle after the geese.
Speaker 2: That would be that would be a much crazier etymology.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think barnacle, I'll do it. I believe so because
Speaker 1: barnacle uh an homology. I believe it has uh huh, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe it does have something to do with the goose.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's nuts.
Speaker 1: Wait, hang on, Barnick really be oh huh you know
Speaker 1: what actually burnac which is like Anglo Latin burnecki. There's
Speaker 1: no way that's right, early thirteenth centuries species of northern
Speaker 1: European wild goose meaning no way. The meaning the type
Speaker 1: of shelf is found on clusters on submerged wood, is
Speaker 1: attested by fifteen eighties. It is of unknown origin, despite
Speaker 1: intense speculation. The earliest form looks like bare neck. So
Speaker 1: barnacle might have actually first been the goose.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, and like the goose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the goose nests in the Arctic and then
Speaker 1: returns to Europe in the winter. So Europeans, those silly
Speaker 1: goats like never see any of the eggs that the
Speaker 1: geese slays. They're like, where are these geese coming from?
Speaker 2: Egg hatching from the barnacle.
Speaker 1: They're hatching from the barnacles. So it was like they
Speaker 1: thought that they would develop from the barnacle's shell and
Speaker 1: like also, yeah, I guess so this etymology has even
Speaker 1: more information. Like they they thought that like the that
Speaker 1: the stalks of the crustaceans having this like texture that
Speaker 1: resembled goose feathers, which is wild. So uh, they thought
Speaker 1: that like the barnacles would grow on trees and then
Speaker 1: fall into the ocean and then like that would cause
Speaker 1: them to turn into geese. They were so bored back then,
Speaker 1: like they did. They're just like they're just eating potatoes
Speaker 1: for the you know, billianth night in a row and
Speaker 1: they see they see a goose. They're like, where the
Speaker 1: hell did that goose come from?
Speaker 2: That goose looks a lot like that weird rock I
Speaker 2: saw in the ocean.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly like it had that thing was black and
Speaker 1: white and long, And this thing is black and white
Speaker 1: and long. Goose comes from the barnacle, obviously.
Speaker 2: That which well, the again yet again another famous expression
Speaker 2: which came first the goose or the barnacle?
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yes, now we know where that famous expression about
Speaker 1: the goose or the barnacle comes from. Wonderful.
Speaker 2: My only point of reference for barnacles for a long
Speaker 2: time was that there I used to be willing to pirates.
Speaker 2: And and keel hauling is a method of torture that
Speaker 2: where pirates would attach you to a rope and then
Speaker 2: run you under the boat so that you would get
Speaker 2: like ripped up by the barnacles on the bottom of
Speaker 2: the boat. That they would like drop you in front
Speaker 2: of the boat and then you would like the boat
Speaker 2: would keep going and you get like joinked under it
Speaker 2: and then they'd pull you back up. Oh damn, that's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's really horrible. It's like getting.
Speaker 1: Cheese gratered by barnacles. Oh yeah, that doesn't sound very good.
Speaker 2: Do barnacles? Do barnacles think boats are just like terrible whales?
Speaker 2: Is that what's happening there?
Speaker 1: I mean they will also they would also like sort
Speaker 1: of go on say like pieces of wood that would
Speaker 1: fall into the water, so it wouldn't just be boats.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it's just like there's a boat.
Speaker 1: It's like I'm on this boat. Now, It's like whoa,
Speaker 1: we're moving right. Yeah. So yeah, just like really awful
Speaker 1: stinky whales. Probably is. I mean, barnicles don't have a
Speaker 1: lot going on in terms of neural right, they exactly.
Speaker 1: So the last one I want to talk about is
Speaker 1: something that maybe people think of when we think about
Speaker 1: an animal riding a horse, and those are oxpeckers. So
Speaker 1: oxpeckers are one of the most famous examples of like
Speaker 1: animals riding on another animals because they sit on the
Speaker 1: backs of a ton of ungulates. Hooved animals found in
Speaker 1: Africa and savannahs, so zebras, rhinos kudoos, which is sort
Speaker 1: of an antelope like animal, will the beast, buffalo and pollod, giraffes,
Speaker 1: et cetera. All sorts of these megafauna found in African
Speaker 1: savannahs have often been observed with oxpeckers on them as
Speaker 1: a passenger. And oxpeckers like these other examples are really
Speaker 1: interesting because they blur the line between mutualism and parasitism. Now,
Speaker 1: the one thing about them is that seems pretty definitive
Speaker 1: is they are not really considered fronts, so they don't
Speaker 1: actually ride on the backs of these animals as transportation.
Speaker 1: They do it for the snacks, mostly like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of snacks to be had on the backs of
Speaker 1: say a zebra, in the form of ticks, in the
Speaker 1: form of botflies, which don't look that up. I beg,
Speaker 1: you do not google that. It's gross.
Speaker 2: Uh I never.
Speaker 1: Just so you know, botflies lay their larva under the
Speaker 1: skin and then they you know, develop under the skin
Speaker 1: and in form sort of this bolus and then hatch
Speaker 1: and it's gross. But the oxpecker will eat these things,
Speaker 1: will eat the they'll eat the ticks, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's like a it's like a feast. It's sort of like,
Speaker 1: if I don't know, the first time I've ever seen
Speaker 1: this is in Italy, but I'm sure this exists elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Which is like a dining trolley where it's like a
Speaker 1: tram and you're on it and they serve you dinner
Speaker 1: on it, but you're not really riding the tram to
Speaker 1: get anywhere. You're just riding it to eat dinner, which
Speaker 1: honestly to me sounds awful. I'm like eating dinner and
Speaker 1: I'm moving on a tram and it's like rumbling. The
Speaker 1: silverware is kind of jingling, and then I can't imagine
Speaker 1: the bathroom is very good. Uh So I'm starting to
Speaker 1: feel nauseated because, like, I'm in a small tram eating
Speaker 1: dinner doesn't sound great, but some.
Speaker 2: People like to do it.
Speaker 1: But that's essentially what the oxpeckers are doing. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like a dining experience. They don't actually really need
Speaker 1: to get from point A to point B.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, And actually, before before this podcast, that's
Speaker 2: sort of what I thought all of the animal like,
Speaker 2: I assumed that most of the animals riding on other
Speaker 2: animals were it was more about food than transport. I
Speaker 2: think of like those little birds that sit on alligators.
Speaker 2: Are those oxpeckers? Are those something different?
Speaker 1: Those? You know? It could be I think if so,
Speaker 1: like the little birds that like sit on I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think they would be Uh, they
Speaker 1: might be oxpeckers, but I think in general oxpeckers stick
Speaker 1: to more like terrestrial animals. But it could be. There's
Speaker 1: also like there there are little birds. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of the species that do hang out around alligators.
Speaker 1: Let me just look that up really quickly, because there's
Speaker 1: like an idea of them sort of picking in the
Speaker 1: alligator's teeth. And that has never like that was maybe
Speaker 1: observed once and hasn't really been established as a routine behavior.
Speaker 2: But it certainly it really embedded itself in my mind
Speaker 2: because that is what I was thinking of the bird
Speaker 2: and the alligators. I feel like there's a whole I
Speaker 2: can't I will not remember the name of it. But
Speaker 2: there's a children's book where an alligator uses like a
Speaker 2: bird as a toothbrush, like they that that imagery is really.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think I remember. I think I remember that
Speaker 1: as well. So, but it's like and that act so Okay,
Speaker 1: so that comes from the a plover bird. So these
Speaker 1: are little aquatic birds that will sit on a crocodile
Speaker 1: or yeah, sit on a crocodile, and sometimes they can
Speaker 1: be seen like maybe near their mouth. But it's I
Speaker 1: don't think that there's any really good evidence that plovers
Speaker 1: actually do dental care for crocodiles consistently. But I see
Speaker 1: that repeated as like an established fact, but that's not
Speaker 1: it's not. I don't think that's actually an established fact.
Speaker 1: Another example of a bird, but this is not like
Speaker 1: a little bird like egrets will sometimes sit I believe,
Speaker 1: on alligators, not on crocodiles. So like, the plovers are big, right,
Speaker 1: Egrets are big, though they're not the little tiny birds.
Speaker 1: So the plovers are the little ones that I think
Speaker 1: have been mythologized into like crocodile dentists, and egrets are
Speaker 1: sort of the big white birds with the long necks,
Speaker 1: and those are the ones that are will like hang
Speaker 1: out on alligators and kind of sit on them as
Speaker 1: like and actually know what, I think that might count
Speaker 1: as sort of a forurnt because they're just like hanging
Speaker 1: out on them like they're a boat or a not
Speaker 1: necessarily for transportation though, but maybe for like a place
Speaker 1: of rest. Yeah, yeah, for the like also like you know,
Speaker 1: like a perch for them.
Speaker 2: Well it's sort of like a vanity car, right, Like
Speaker 2: a lot of sports cars aren't super practical, but they
Speaker 2: look cool, soue Like.
Speaker 1: If it's like this, egret is picking up egret chicks,
Speaker 1: which has a different connotation now that I think about it.
Speaker 1: Egret females by cruiser babes. The babes exactly, that's what
Speaker 1: birds call them babes. Yeah, so the the oxpeckers actually,
Speaker 1: because they're feeding on parasites on top of the animals,
Speaker 1: you think, like, okay, so this is an example of
Speaker 1: a mutualistic relationship. They're both benefiting, but they also can't
Speaker 1: help but kind of be jerks sometimes, so like they
Speaker 1: will I say, like the buffalo or the zebra that
Speaker 1: they're sitting on has like a little wound or something.
Speaker 1: Maybe even like maybe they pick a parasite out, but
Speaker 1: then they have like a wound left behind. They'll drink
Speaker 1: blood from that wound and sometimes they've even been observed
Speaker 1: like opening up the wound more because it's like ooh,
Speaker 1: you know, delicious, delicious zebra juice. The drink it right,
Speaker 1: so they're not so innocent. And the whether or not
Speaker 1: they're beneficial like is again, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that is really hard to tell because it's not very
Speaker 1: clear whether or not they're actually hurting them more than
Speaker 1: they're helping. There have been studies to try to look
Speaker 1: at whether they're actually reducing the amount of ticks on them,
Speaker 1: and it seems like sometimes they're just eating the ticks
Speaker 1: that have already had blood meals, So it's hard to
Speaker 1: tell whether that's like beneficial. Uh so, yeah, it's it's again,
Speaker 1: it's an this I feel like this episode more than
Speaker 1: any other episode, has really been about like how we
Speaker 1: don't like you mentioned, I don't really know anything, just
Speaker 1: like you know, sometimes that happens. Yeah, and it's weird.
Speaker 1: But there is one actually really cool observation that has
Speaker 1: been backed up by research where it is definitely a
Speaker 1: mutualistic relationship, and that's between oxpeckers and rhinos, because oxpeckers
Speaker 1: will more or less do the same thing with rhinos
Speaker 1: that they do with other species, picking off parasites maybe
Speaker 1: even sort of like eating their earwax a little bit
Speaker 1: and their dandruff, you know, because hey, why not? That
Speaker 1: actually sounds pretty like they're getting a little bird spa there.
Speaker 1: But the thing that really helps the rhino is that
Speaker 1: the oxpeckers have better vision than the rhinos, and they
Speaker 1: are more sensitive to seeing potential predators from far away,
Speaker 1: and they can see humans, and when they see humans,
Speaker 1: they will issue this alarm call. And for the rhino,
Speaker 1: that's really useful because the rhino has good hearing, it
Speaker 1: has pretty good sense of smell, but it doesn't have
Speaker 1: great visions. So the bird is actually going to spot,
Speaker 1: like say, a human approaching faster than the rhino will,
Speaker 1: and that's really important for the rhino to avoid being
Speaker 1: poached by a human being. Humans are going to be
Speaker 1: the most dangerous predator for the rhinos, so the presence
Speaker 1: of there have been studies that saw that the presence
Speaker 1: of oxpeckers on rhinos helped the rhinos spot and avoid
Speaker 1: humans faster than rhinos that didn't have the oxpeckers on them.
Speaker 1: So in this in this specific case of the rhino
Speaker 1: and the oxpecker, I would say this counts as a
Speaker 1: mutualistic relationship where they both gain a benefit.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. That's so cool that we know that, and
Speaker 2: also kind of depressing that we can we can make
Speaker 2: that observation, like these birds help rhinos not get murdered
Speaker 2: by us. But what we're still like we know that,
Speaker 2: but we're still doing the murdering. Yeah, I'm sure it's
Speaker 2: not the same humans.
Speaker 1: It's not the same people. For sure. It's not like
Speaker 1: the poacher's submitting a paper to nature.
Speaker 2: But like, wow, when I try to kill this rhino,
Speaker 2: the birds warn it and it goes really interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean that's like, that's kind of how like we
Speaker 1: used to conduct a lot of our sort of uh
Speaker 1: you know, natural research where it's like, ah, you know,
Speaker 1: like I a bunch of turtles, and in the process
Speaker 1: of eating a bunch of turtles, I noticed that.
Speaker 2: I noticed that the turtles do not like being They
Speaker 2: don't like it, even.
Speaker 1: Though they come in a bowl. Like why would they
Speaker 1: come in a bowl if they don't want me to
Speaker 1: eat them? Oh?
Speaker 2: That makes that so sad.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I I hate to I hate to tell
Speaker 1: people about how Charles Darwin snacked on so many of
Speaker 1: the animals he discovered. He's like he's the grandfather of
Speaker 1: evolutionary science or one of them, you know, and like
Speaker 1: he just went to town, like he tried like Galapagos tortoise.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure he ate a bunch of animals that
Speaker 1: he found on the Galapagos because he's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: these are new animals. I'm gonna I'm gonna nibble on
Speaker 1: him a little bit on taste them, you know, just
Speaker 1: a little taste, you know.
Speaker 2: I hear, I hear Punnett was eating the peas too,
Speaker 2: So yes, goes all the way down right right?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Mindel that monster. Anyways, before we go, we gotta play
Speaker 1: a little game called Guess Who's squawk and the Mystery
Speaker 1: Animal Sound Game.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: This is where you the guest and you the listener,
Speaker 1: try to guess who is making this sound. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so the hint for last week was this little rock
Speaker 1: dweller is just saying hi. Another another hint is.
Speaker 3: This is related to the elephant. There we go, that
Speaker 3: lovely little that lovely little sound.
Speaker 1: Let's hear it again. All right, Ell you got any guesses.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking it's a bird.
Speaker 1: I did say it's related to the elephants.
Speaker 2: So do you want to like adjust maybe not say
Speaker 2: it's a bird, it's related to the elephant. You're right,
Speaker 2: you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. It seems
Speaker 2: unlikely it's related to the elephant. I didn't know elephants
Speaker 2: had relatives that were living. I know about I know
Speaker 2: about the mammoth, but those guys aren't around, right, it's
Speaker 2: very strange related to the elephant. Can I hear it
Speaker 2: one more time?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Wow, related to the elephant. I have no idea. I
Speaker 2: want to say, like something like rhinoceros related, but we
Speaker 2: that's mostly just because we were talking about rhinos.
Speaker 1: We're just talking about rhinos, so I kind of prime
Speaker 1: the pump for rhinos. Uh. This is actually some thing
Speaker 1: called a rock hierax. They are found.
Speaker 2: I would not have gotten that. I'm gonna be honest
Speaker 2: with you, Katie.
Speaker 1: It's just this is a pokemon that I'm randomly throwing
Speaker 1: out there. No, they're found in the Middle East and
Speaker 1: in Africa, and they're actually related to elephants. Despite the
Speaker 1: fact that they're only around eleven pounds, which is about
Speaker 1: five kilograms of pure adorable fluff, they're super cute. They
Speaker 1: look like a little prairie dog that has this pair
Speaker 1: of tiny tusks. And they eat vegetables, vegetation and grubs,
Speaker 1: and they are super chill animals. They're actually more Timon
Speaker 1: and Pumba than like the species like meerkat and warthog
Speaker 1: that Timon and Pumba are based on, because rock higher
Speaker 1: exes have a very Kumbaya egalitarian society where they like
Speaker 1: form groups of friends where it's like the friend of
Speaker 1: my friend is my friend, and they trust each other,
Speaker 1: and they don't establish a hierarchy. There's not like a
Speaker 1: dominant one. Uh. They all seem to like have this
Speaker 1: kind of like commune and the reason that helps them
Speaker 1: is that they have such a spread out territory. And
Speaker 1: then they also face predators that if one starts to
Speaker 1: send off an alarm call, that will also spread to
Speaker 1: its buddies, who like from kind of a distance will
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, like Jenny just told me
Speaker 1: that like there's a leopard around, so I'm gonna send
Speaker 1: out an alarm call of my own, and so that's
Speaker 1: a Then it forms this like cool community of little keys.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. And you're saying, though they're related to elephants,
Speaker 2: that's why they have the little teeth.
Speaker 1: Their teeth are very similar. Yeah, they're tiny and they're adorable,
Speaker 1: but yes they are. They are related to elephants. They're
Speaker 1: one of the few living relatives of elephants.
Speaker 2: That's so beautiful. Yeah they're so small. Oh about their
Speaker 2: large their large cousins.
Speaker 1: I feel like someone should tell them and they should
Speaker 1: all be friends. I think so too, Like can you
Speaker 1: imagine like these little guys riding on top of an
Speaker 1: elephant just being like technically.
Speaker 2: I'm imagining it right now and it's making me emotional.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're super cute. I also just love to hear
Speaker 1: about like people are always like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's only natural to have like, you know, messed
Speaker 1: up societies where we have hierarchies where we're all mean
Speaker 1: to each other, and then the rock hier axes are
Speaker 1: out there being like we're all buddies and we're all friends.
Speaker 2: This is really important. Wow, thank you very well showing
Speaker 2: me this animal.
Speaker 1: So onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint is this, uh,
Speaker 1: don't try to cut into this guy for breakfast. I
Speaker 1: feel like this one's kind of tough, so I'm also
Speaker 1: going to give a country. It is from New Zealand,
Speaker 1: New Zealand News Islands Island.
Speaker 2: Is it taicho? Y t T I wouldn't cut into
Speaker 2: him for breakfast.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like he wants. He doesn't seem to want
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 2: Hmm, don't cut into this guy for breakfast. What do
Speaker 2: people eat for breakfast? Like eggs and also fish? Sometimes
Speaker 2: you're cheerios cheerios which we eat with a fork and
Speaker 2: night which we eat with a fork in a night. Wow,
Speaker 2: that was such a horrifying sound. New Zealand. New Zealand
Speaker 2: is adjacent to Australia, which is where all of the
Speaker 2: scariest animals live. Yeah, I didn't know that New Zealand
Speaker 2: also housed such horrors. I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, it has a few horrors, but it definitely
Speaker 1: does feel like New Zealand is sort of like a
Speaker 1: more fun version of Australia or a friendlier version of
Speaker 1: Australia when it comes to animals. But there are there
Speaker 1: are a few stinkers. This one's actually not is I'll
Speaker 1: give another hint. This one is surprisingly not as scary
Speaker 1: as you would think.
Speaker 2: Not scary. Don't cut into him for breakfast, which means
Speaker 2: he sort of seems like something you might eat for breakfast.
Speaker 1: Yes, maybe, but you don't want You probably don't, but I.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't want to.
Speaker 1: No, you probably wouldn't want to.
Speaker 2: Oh, man, I have no idea again, well should I?
Speaker 3: Uh uh?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Is it a mammal? I'm gonna guess mammal of some kind?
Speaker 1: Well, we will find out if you are correct or
Speaker 1: close next week on Creature Future Major Cliffhanger. Ella, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you? And all the cool stuff that you do?
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. It's been so much fun.
Speaker 2: I'm on all the social media's. I'm Ella dot Yeerman
Speaker 2: on Instagram and Ella Yerman on Blue Sky and X
Speaker 2: the Everything app.
Speaker 1: My writing is Eggs, the everything app Eggs.
Speaker 2: The Everything App. My writing is all around the Internet.
Speaker 2: I just I wrote this profile of Vivian Wilson for
Speaker 2: teen Volks.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, super good.
Speaker 2: I read it.
Speaker 1: It's amazing you, I mean probably everyone's heard of it
Speaker 1: because it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been it's been all over lately.
Speaker 1: Fantastic profile.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And then yeah, I write for some more
Speaker 2: news on YouTube and then I also host and self
Speaker 2: produce another political comedy news show called Going Down with
Speaker 2: Ella Yeerman. Also on YouTube and Instagram and x the
Speaker 2: everything app.
Speaker 1: But I can't imagine that just sounds so pessimistic, which
Speaker 1: seems so out of step with like where we're at,
Speaker 1: you know, like.
Speaker 2: Going, well, yeah, you know everything everything in politics is
Speaker 2: so good and cheery right now.
Speaker 1: So cheerful, and I just I just don't understand why.
Speaker 1: It's like there's nowhere up, there's nowhere but up from here.
Speaker 2: There's nowhere but up from here.
Speaker 1: But I'm joking, it's a it's a you should definitely
Speaker 1: check these things out, like she's an incredible writer and
Speaker 1: a great article, great somewhere news, great YouTube, YouTube projects.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: I think that's it. That's where you can find me.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you guys want to write to me
Speaker 1: because you think you know who the mystery animal sound is.
Speaker 1: If you have a question a picture of your guinea
Speaker 1: pig and a cowboy hat, you could write to me
Speaker 1: at Creature feature pot it gmail dot com. And if
Speaker 1: you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating or review,
Speaker 1: I super appreciate that. That's really tangibly helps and I
Speaker 1: love seeing feedback. And thanks to the priest Classics for
Speaker 1: their super awesome song XO. Lumina. Creature features a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast Hard Guess what, Baby,
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite show. I would judge you whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do.
Speaker 3: Baby.
Speaker 1: It's like, let's all be rock higher axes and just
Speaker 1: be friends and not judge each other for podcasting platforms.
Speaker 1: And I'll see you next Wednesday.