Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're giving
Speaker 1: the creature Kringle Time's Reindeerer break and hiring some new
Speaker 1: mystical steeds to carry Kringle claws sleigh, and using a
Speaker 1: bit of Kringle Time magic, we're bringing some mega fauna
Speaker 1: back from extinction, discover some unforgettable ungulates as we answer
Speaker 1: the age old question or Dragon's herbivores. Joining me is
Speaker 1: friend of the pod, friend of ungulates everywhere, and host
Speaker 1: of the show, secretly incredibly fascinating Alex Schmidt. Hey, Katie,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to be here, and especially thank you for
Speaker 1: teaing up mega fauna. It's very very I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mammals and bison in my heart is dancing around and
Speaker 1: very heavy fun. Well look at the size. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all about angulates today. Alx, you like an ungulate?
Speaker 1: I think I learned the word ungulate from a Far
Speaker 1: Side cartoon. I don't know how many other people had
Speaker 1: that experience, but there's it's like a guy in a
Speaker 1: back alley it's like the strip is like a guy
Speaker 1: in a back alley. It's the trope of like a
Speaker 1: guy with a coat full of illicit watches or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's a guy in a back alley saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to buy an ungulate, and then there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of like antelope in the shadows. It's great, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's amazing. That's amazing black market ungulate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are a clade of quadruped mammals. Typically they've got hoofs.
Speaker 1: This includes animals you'd probably expect like horses, deer, cows, camels,
Speaker 1: and sheep, but also animals you might not expect, like rhinos, giraffes,
Speaker 1: tape ears, and even cetaceans, which is dolphins and whales.
Speaker 1: And the reason dolphins and whales are in that clade
Speaker 1: is they evolved from terrestrial ungulate ancestors, so they do
Speaker 1: not have hoos. They are the you know, thinking of
Speaker 1: a dolphin as an ungulate is very strange, but they
Speaker 1: are in that clade because they did evolve from weird
Speaker 1: little dear things. I didn't know they got to remain
Speaker 1: in the club. That's amazing. Yeah, they're still in the club.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't. I think if you called a
Speaker 1: dolphin an ungulate, you might get some weird looks. But
Speaker 1: they are technically in the same clade as ungulates, so
Speaker 1: you know, you might get some side eyes. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: dolphins is an ungulate because I care about scientific accuracy
Speaker 1: and I also care about, you know, fitting in with
Speaker 1: the cool marine biologists exactly. So it's important to kind
Speaker 1: of a west side story situation where you have the
Speaker 1: marine biologists and then the terrestrial animal biologists snapping their
Speaker 1: fingers and right, the sharks and something besides the chats,
Speaker 1: the silic cants or whatever old ocean thing they care about.
Speaker 1: Wikta's in the chevrotines sounds sounds really bad as but
Speaker 1: those are two of the cutest examples of cetaceans. And
Speaker 1: uh so, first let's talk about what a hoof is.
Speaker 1: So not all ungulates have hoofs, but most hoofed animals
Speaker 1: are ungulates. A hoof is the tip of a toe
Speaker 1: of an animal where the nail or claw has evolved
Speaker 1: into a very thick and hard, coratinous chunk that the
Speaker 1: animal can walk on. So there are both even toed
Speaker 1: ungulates like deer, who have an even number of toes
Speaker 1: on each foot, or the odd toed ungulates like horses
Speaker 1: who walk on an odd number of toes. For instance,
Speaker 1: horses walk on one big old toe which has grown
Speaker 1: to incredible proportions, so yeah, they're just walking on their tiptoes.
Speaker 1: Ungulate legs are typically pretty interesting anatomically. So the part
Speaker 1: of the horse that you would probably think of as
Speaker 1: the knee is actually its wrist. So that big knobby
Speaker 1: thing on the horse and you're like, that's where it's knee,
Speaker 1: is right, That's that's where it's walking. That's that's its
Speaker 1: ankle and or wrist. So below that are the elongated
Speaker 1: infused bones of the metacarpals. In humans, the metacarpals are
Speaker 1: actually that first segment of our fingers and toes. You
Speaker 1: guys can't see it because I'm in your ears, but
Speaker 1: I'm showing Alex my fingers because this is the metacarpals.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, it's just then the rest of it is.
Speaker 1: Katie's hoof actually continues into her and they fuse into
Speaker 1: a single horrifying hoove that I like to prance around on,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, really an interesting image. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean basically, horses are walking on one long toe.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting and a little bit upsetting. I guess
Speaker 1: this is really changing my whole understanding of like the
Speaker 1: whole essentially bottom half of what I think of as
Speaker 1: their leg is basically a foot. Like that's incredible. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so like yeah, because if you think of a horse leg,
Speaker 1: it bends in like three places kind of So you've
Speaker 1: got the shoulder part, but then under that you have
Speaker 1: the actual knee and or elbow um, and then under
Speaker 1: that you have where you would kind of think the
Speaker 1: knee would go is actually the wrist or ankle joint,
Speaker 1: and then below that you have the finger joints. So
Speaker 1: it's weird. Yeah, it's like I'm thinking of that meme
Speaker 1: where it's like how would a dog wear pants? And
Speaker 1: it's either across or at the back, Like now I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of how would a horse wear shoes? And the
Speaker 1: shoe is like half the leg, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: it's the foot or whatever. I think there's a some
Speaker 1: kind of drawing of like what a human would look
Speaker 1: like with horse proportions. It's called BoJack Horseman. It's very
Speaker 1: good show. A lot of people like it. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun diagrams of people walking like horses, and
Speaker 1: it's showing sort of the the similar stuff. Well, my
Speaker 1: Google searches certainly very strange and interesting, but not very
Speaker 1: scientifically relevant. So moving on, it's weird toe walkers. But
Speaker 1: it gets weirder and we can look back in time
Speaker 1: to some extinct species that were absolutely just bonkers. So
Speaker 1: there used to be a gigantic deer that would roam
Speaker 1: around in Ireland and Russia and parts of Europe called
Speaker 1: the Irish elk, and it was not an elk, it
Speaker 1: was a deer. It was also known as Megalosara's giganteus
Speaker 1: because it was giganteus. So it's skeletal remains have been
Speaker 1: found in the bogs of Ireland, which those bogs are
Speaker 1: really amazing at preserving dead things. Uh. It probably went
Speaker 1: extinct over seven thousand years ago, so humans definitely overlapped
Speaker 1: with this thing. So it had a massive set of
Speaker 1: moose like antlers. So you have two types of antlers.
Speaker 1: You have sort of the antlers you see on like
Speaker 1: a deer, but then the antlers you see on a
Speaker 1: moose or like a I think it's called a fallow deer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a fallow deer are palmated antlers. So a palmated antlers
Speaker 1: basically means handlike antlers, just like a moose. You know,
Speaker 1: they're there. They have sort of this uh solid palm
Speaker 1: and then it branches off into quote unquote fingers. So yeah,
Speaker 1: palmated antlers. And it was absolutely pants weddingly huge, gigantist, gigantic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm imagining the first human to invent pants
Speaker 1: overlapping with the end of this animals, So like they
Speaker 1: finally finished pants and immediately peeed them because you know,
Speaker 1: well I think they were invented to be peed in
Speaker 1: like like you know, some very early human like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that deer makes me want to pee my
Speaker 1: my pants, and then he invinced pants and peas them promptly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the big old deer stood it around seven ft tall,
Speaker 1: over two meters at the shoulders. It could weigh over
Speaker 1: one thousand, five hundred pounds or seven It was similar
Speaker 1: in size to moose plus you know, maybe maybe a
Speaker 1: little bigger than a moose, but it had much bigger antlers.
Speaker 1: The antlers were the biggest known of any deer, and
Speaker 1: they spanned twelve ft from side to side. So that's
Speaker 1: three point six meters of antlers and they weighed almost
Speaker 1: ninety pounds or forts over twice the size of the
Speaker 1: antlers of a moose. So yeah, big antlers, right, that's
Speaker 1: the freakiest part that it's the same size of the
Speaker 1: rest of the animal. Pretty much just pile on so much.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that old the Grinch who Stole Christmas
Speaker 1: car tune version of the Jim Carrey version. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the car like the check the Check Jones cartoon. And
Speaker 1: he's trying to disguise his little dog into a deer,
Speaker 1: so he puts a big set of antlers on the dog,
Speaker 1: so the dog tips forward, and he keeps having to
Speaker 1: shave off the antlers until it's the right size for
Speaker 1: the dog to wear. Yeah, keeps tipping forward. That's how
Speaker 1: I imagine these deer just like tipping forward all the time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's why their bodies had to be so
Speaker 1: huge and muscular. They even had like this big hump
Speaker 1: on their backs, similar to a bison that would help
Speaker 1: probably kind of balance them a little more and also
Speaker 1: gave them the ability to both store fat and have
Speaker 1: longer legs strides. Uh. At the attachment of their shoulders.
Speaker 1: So yeah, just beasts, big old beasts and probably almost
Speaker 1: like hair owing to see. Because because I have family
Speaker 1: and Colorado who've seen a moose in the wild and
Speaker 1: real life, and they described it as a little more
Speaker 1: scary than majestic, you know what I mean, Like they're
Speaker 1: that big and they're kind of aggressive, and they only
Speaker 1: have you know, like one percent of these antlers or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't want to see an Irish elk in life.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, forget it. Well, absolutely, yeah, I think moose
Speaker 1: are scary. I appreciate them obviously. I think they're beautiful animals.
Speaker 1: I respect them. I would not want to be face
Speaker 1: to face with a moose. That is terrifying. They're they're big,
Speaker 1: dangerous wild animals. I think that sometimes and certainly not
Speaker 1: people who live with moose, I think they probably understand
Speaker 1: and have a healthy respect for the moose. But deer
Speaker 1: and moose and unguluts in general, I think maybe other
Speaker 1: than bulls, we kind of don't think of as dangerous,
Speaker 1: but they certainly can be. Yeah, Bulls, bulls, I think,
Speaker 1: because of media, are the one exception where we're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that plant eater is dangerous. But otherwise we have this
Speaker 1: weird like dinosaur I think based concepts where we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: if it eats plants, you can hug it, and if
Speaker 1: it eats meat, it's it's the bad guys in the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but really not the case. Even like if you've seen um,
Speaker 1: these herbivores fighting back against the carnivores, especially in the
Speaker 1: sub Sparan savannah, like the giraffes kicking lions, and you
Speaker 1: know it just just they can really, I mean, they
Speaker 1: can sometimes kill lions like a giraffe, even something like um,
Speaker 1: you know some of the bigger, bigger unguluts like a
Speaker 1: hippos uluts. Hippos are on gullets and they can certainly
Speaker 1: ruin your day and stomp in your head. Yeah. Will
Speaker 1: the beasts can really mess a line up. Absolutely just
Speaker 1: reck allion. So yeah, I mean it's they are very capable.
Speaker 1: Moose are very capable. Even regular sized deer can hurt people.
Speaker 1: They can kill people, they can stomp you, they can
Speaker 1: gor you, you know, if you anger a deer up close.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have a great advantage with our weapons
Speaker 1: and stuff, and generally they're afraid of us, but if
Speaker 1: they feel like they've got to fight you, uh, to
Speaker 1: get out of a situation you're in a lot of trouble,
Speaker 1: because yeah, they are, they're dangerous animals and so and
Speaker 1: so this this thing with antlers twelve feet wide antlers
Speaker 1: that's like to like it could carry two do in
Speaker 1: each set of antlers. You know, like that's insane, that's
Speaker 1: it's it's absolutely the deer of your nightmares. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we did apparently hunt them, which I guess
Speaker 1: or the humans were just like, yeah, mammoth, giant deer,
Speaker 1: no big deal, just gonna go up to this thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure there was a good
Speaker 1: amount of collateral damage of early humans of like, what's
Speaker 1: this thing? And the next thing they know, like they've
Speaker 1: been cleanly hewn in half by a giant set of antlers.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, uh, one of the theories for
Speaker 1: why these went extinct is because of those huge antlers,
Speaker 1: because they are very costly in terms of nutrition. You
Speaker 1: need a lot of nutrition to build up that those
Speaker 1: muscles and to be able to actually grow such huge antlers.
Speaker 1: And you they're also kind of, you know, not the
Speaker 1: most aerodynamic things in the world. So if you're trying
Speaker 1: to run through a forest away from the group of
Speaker 1: human hunters. I would imagine they'd get stuck in things,
Speaker 1: like in trees, and you know, it's probably not the
Speaker 1: most um advantageous feature. The reason they got so huge
Speaker 1: was for probably sexual selection, because they were huge in males,
Speaker 1: and it was probably to impress females and to signal
Speaker 1: to other males that like, they were awesome and great
Speaker 1: and don't even bother trying to compete. Yeah, they're essentially
Speaker 1: built like Johnny Bravo. It's that he doesn't need all
Speaker 1: that hair up there. Yeah, definitely sort of the ornamental
Speaker 1: bodybuilders of the unguill At world, where it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's kind of decorative. You know, it looks intimidating, but
Speaker 1: a lot of it is decorative. I mean, they could
Speaker 1: definitely crush you if they fell on you, but you know.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to talk about one of the
Speaker 1: most uncanny, weird just getting we're getting real freaky with
Speaker 1: these with these deer alex. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: photos Sura today, which is a family of even total
Speaker 1: ungulates of North and Central America that went extinct over
Speaker 1: four million years ago, whose bodies looked similar to deer,
Speaker 1: but their heads looked like a deer from Salvador Dali's nightmares,
Speaker 1: So not as good dreams where stuff also melting but
Speaker 1: it's happy. Although maybe with Salvador Dali, maybe his nightmares
Speaker 1: were just realistic things like cute teddy bears, normal looking things,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I just dreamed about o'clock that wasn't melting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could tell time. No. So my inspiration for this
Speaker 1: section is actually from a Twitter thread by an ecology
Speaker 1: student Aditya Stranath and some paleo artists discussing one of
Speaker 1: the weirdest extinct families of ungulates out there, so protosaur. Today.
Speaker 1: If you look at one of these skulls, you will
Speaker 1: be convinced that dragons were real. Alex, I have shared
Speaker 1: with you some of these schools, these walls to be
Speaker 1: in the show notes. They you know, they look like
Speaker 1: dragons or dinosaurs, right, Yeah, it's got dinosaur vibes and
Speaker 1: then also sort of a horse mouth as I understand skeletons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like if you came upon it in the desert southwest,
Speaker 1: all bleached and stuff, you you would assume it's some
Speaker 1: sort of dark tower situation where a dun slinger was
Speaker 1: fighting monsters. Yeah, so there are many different species with
Speaker 1: really wacky looking skulls, but typically they would have four
Speaker 1: horns quote unquote horns. They're actually most likely occone, So
Speaker 1: an accone is something like you see on a giraffe.
Speaker 1: They are a bone structure covered in skin and fur.
Speaker 1: For the section, I'm gonna use terms like horn and
Speaker 1: antler just to describe the shape of these things, but technically,
Speaker 1: horns are a structure covered in keratin, and antlers are
Speaker 1: a bony structure that are shed and regrown every year,
Speaker 1: and they, like a deer's antlers, will actually start out
Speaker 1: covered in a thin layer of skin and fur which
Speaker 1: is shed, whereas asa cones, which is what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here, are structurally similar to antlers, and then they
Speaker 1: have a bony bony base and they're covered in skin
Speaker 1: and fur, but they're permanent and so they never shed
Speaker 1: that skin in fur coating. Yeah, I mean, like the
Speaker 1: little the little knobs on a giraffe head. I don't
Speaker 1: think about them too much, but when I do, I
Speaker 1: realize they're kind of weird, right I do, I because
Speaker 1: I used to give tours of a zoo at Brickfield Zoo,
Speaker 1: and we had a lot of giraffes that were part
Speaker 1: of the tour about, and I think people always thought
Speaker 1: of them as just silly. But then those little I
Speaker 1: guess asako on the top of the head, they indicate
Speaker 1: some sort of more warlike past to make of the giraffes.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true. And then, as you said,
Speaker 1: giraffes will totally fight and kick in the modern day,
Speaker 1: they still got it, Yeah, but with their next but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting. I I don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: the oscans are used in giraffes. That may be for
Speaker 1: mate selection. I don't think they're used for fighting, but
Speaker 1: they may have had a relative that used them for
Speaker 1: fighting or for mate signaling. So yeah, so in these
Speaker 1: extinct species, these were probably used in sexual selection because
Speaker 1: it was the males that had the most just bananas
Speaker 1: situation going on with these as accounts. So yeah, once again,
Speaker 1: Johnny Bravo, Johnny Bravo's most species, it turns out, folks,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar with the cartoon, I
Speaker 1: think the nineties maybe nineties cartoon where it was this
Speaker 1: guy who's like body mass was n the the pectorals
Speaker 1: and uh and biceps and then tiny little legs. Uh.
Speaker 1: And actually, you know what that Johnny Bravo analogy is
Speaker 1: going to hold out throughout the show, especially with our
Speaker 1: last one we're going to talk about. So hold onto
Speaker 1: that thought scientific name Jonica's Bravonica in the you know,
Speaker 1: the finer scientific texts out there. So most species of
Speaker 1: proto sur today had too horny protrusions behind the eyes
Speaker 1: and two on the snout. But depending on the species,
Speaker 1: these horns were in all sorts of different weird shapes
Speaker 1: and yeah it was the males ran particularly wild with it.
Speaker 1: So one species called Synthotosus had a nose antler that
Speaker 1: started out as like one long and unicorn horn and
Speaker 1: branched into two, so kind of like kind of like
Speaker 1: a sling shot. I could imagine, you know, you're wrapping
Speaker 1: a rubber band around it and using it as slingshot.
Speaker 1: Was that old show with like the Caveman family who
Speaker 1: would like ride around on weird dinosaur things and like, no,
Speaker 1: I mean flint Stones is one of those things. Definitely
Speaker 1: flint Stones would use this as like a mobile like
Speaker 1: a slingshot creature. But now there was another one, the
Speaker 1: movie The Crudes. I have not seen the movie. I
Speaker 1: googled cartoon dinosaur times eighties, and that didn't help me
Speaker 1: really at all. Slingshot at an old cartoon. I almost
Speaker 1: thought you were going to say Bart Simpson, like what,
Speaker 1: he just goes around sling shotting things. But but of Ustada,
Speaker 1: especially in the early seasons, they were like, he's a
Speaker 1: real troublemaker. And part of it was that he had
Speaker 1: a slingshot in his back pocket, which no child has
Speaker 1: done since I don't know, FDR, that's very old fashion
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, yeah, the fling shot in the back pocket. Herculoids.
Speaker 1: It was herculoids. Do you remember herculoid's No, I don't
Speaker 1: know it. I don't know it. Yeah, I never heard
Speaker 1: of it. I mean it was a little before our time.
Speaker 1: I think I only saw reruns and stuff. But they
Speaker 1: had like weird like dinosaur monsters and like a rhino
Speaker 1: that would shoot stuff out of its forehead, and like
Speaker 1: a gorilla made out of stone, and then these just
Speaker 1: like big goo things. Anyways, it was a really weird show.
Speaker 1: And this makes me think of something from that weird show.
Speaker 1: I think it was from the seventies. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: so in addition to the slingshot on its nose, it
Speaker 1: also had these two horns behind its eyes that were
Speaker 1: curved and even weirder. So there's this dip in the
Speaker 1: nasal bones that some people, including paleo artists Vile sincon
Speaker 1: In uh speculate uh may have been because of an
Speaker 1: inflatable skin pouch at the base of the horn that
Speaker 1: males could have used, similar to how animals like elephant,
Speaker 1: seals or frigate birds inflate a pouch for sexual displays,
Speaker 1: but like right on top of its nose. So I'm
Speaker 1: definitely including a link to a hilarious and really interesting
Speaker 1: animated three D recreation by Vile sink In. It's this
Speaker 1: such a goof osaurus, like, I mean, it's a it's
Speaker 1: an ungulate, mammalian ungulate, but it's so goofy looking. And
Speaker 1: then on top of that, the potential for this inflatable
Speaker 1: nose pouch just incredible, magnificent. I'm looking at this little
Speaker 1: video and look, they did a really professional job. It's
Speaker 1: really well put together, and it makes it funnier to me.
Speaker 1: It's just this it looks like it has like Edgar
Speaker 1: Allan Poe tell tale heart underneath the front of its
Speaker 1: face really good, like it won't stop beating in a
Speaker 1: way that's unsettling. Yeah, yeah, it's it looks like it
Speaker 1: would make a little like bicycle horn honking sounds, yeah,
Speaker 1: or have like that wheezing nerd voice that's in cartoons,
Speaker 1: like it's trying to talk, but there's just wheezing all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, yeah, no exactly, I mean there's and
Speaker 1: this is just one species. There are several species of
Speaker 1: really weird looking ones, and I'm including in the show
Speaker 1: notes a a diagram of a few of them. One
Speaker 1: of them was paratosris ward eye, which appeared to have
Speaker 1: two big triangular horns right above the eyes, like almost
Speaker 1: like I eye lashes that fused into a horn, and
Speaker 1: then two smaller bony triangular protrusions in front of the eyes,
Speaker 1: and this weird little wishbone shaped bone right on top
Speaker 1: of its skull between the ears, like it's wearing one
Speaker 1: of those little propeller hats. Yeah. Yeah, it almost looks
Speaker 1: like old TV antennas and pictures of old TVs in
Speaker 1: a way that no one has now, Like, yeah, like
Speaker 1: it's picking up channels two through seven for free and
Speaker 1: it's really proud of it, you know, beating the Kal Company.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's ridiculous. And there's Protocera Celaire, which
Speaker 1: was I don't I struggled to figure out how to
Speaker 1: describe this. It has fangs, that's important, like vampire things.
Speaker 1: It has like two bony shark fins um or dolphin
Speaker 1: fins like at the sides of its nose, and then
Speaker 1: just a complete chaos as you go up the face.
Speaker 1: There are ridges around its eyes, like a square ridge
Speaker 1: right above its eyes, and then two joysticks right behind
Speaker 1: its size. So that's the thing. It basically has one
Speaker 1: of the landscape backgrounds from Wiley, coyote and roadrunner on
Speaker 1: top of its head, like several maces in a way
Speaker 1: that would be our greatest national park but doesn't exist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a skate park built on top of
Speaker 1: a deer head. It's just these things are they're so
Speaker 1: I mean, so ambitious. They just the ambition of these
Speaker 1: creatures that thought they could get away with these horns.
Speaker 1: It also, I'm not a hunter, but I feel like
Speaker 1: the hunting community would be losing its mind if it
Speaker 1: could have this many different kinds of antlers to count
Speaker 1: and rate themselves on right, like they all love just
Speaker 1: the amount of points deer antlers have, they would they
Speaker 1: would be like like weird stat had baseball nerds, it
Speaker 1: was available to them today, these antlers would require some
Speaker 1: long division. It's it's a situation. It's a whole situation.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to talk about truly the most
Speaker 1: Johnny Bravo of of all deer. It is a species
Speaker 1: of giant guerrilla bear deer that went extinct over seventy
Speaker 1: eight thousand years ago, found in North America, Eurasia, and Africa.
Speaker 1: So these are did you did you say guerrilla bear deer?
Speaker 1: Did no? Actually it's a giant guerrilla bear deer. Oh
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. The fourth animal there is giants like in
Speaker 1: Jack of the Beads duck. Really cool. So these were
Speaker 1: odd toed ungulates. And though they were odd toed ungulates,
Speaker 1: they didn't really have the same hoof leg structure as
Speaker 1: ungulates such as horses. Instead of hoofs, they had these
Speaker 1: three big claws, kind of like a sloth um. And
Speaker 1: the way they walked were very strange. Do you know
Speaker 1: those like strider costumes. I think they're in like the
Speaker 1: dark crystal, and a lot of people wear them for
Speaker 1: like parades or Halloween or something where you're kind of
Speaker 1: you have two stilts that you hold with your arms
Speaker 1: and then you're on a set of shorter stilts with
Speaker 1: your back legs, and people kind of walk around like
Speaker 1: some kind of weird animal. Um, it's basically shaped like that.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like clover Field monster posture. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: where you have like big, big, big front legs and
Speaker 1: then little back ones. Everyone does shaky camp footage. That
Speaker 1: is what these are. Absolutely and they liked to eat
Speaker 1: leaves and shrubs. So they had these little short hind
Speaker 1: legs and really really big beefcakes arms obviously skipping leg
Speaker 1: day but doing like quadruple duty on arm day. And
Speaker 1: they walked on their knuckles of their forelimbs, kind of
Speaker 1: similar to a gorilla, sort of like side side knuckling.
Speaker 1: It actually more like an ant eater walks. Because they
Speaker 1: had such huge claws on their front limbs. They couldn't
Speaker 1: really walk directly on these claws. They had to curl
Speaker 1: them inwards and walk on the sides on their knuckles.
Speaker 1: And then their heads were horse like, uh, and they
Speaker 1: had like the you know, basically a big, big horse mouth,
Speaker 1: and they would so a review of what's happening here.
Speaker 1: Beefy body of a gorilla walks like a cross between
Speaker 1: a gorilla and an ant eater, has claws like a sloth,
Speaker 1: head and neck like a horse. They weighed over one thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred pounds or six They were about six ft
Speaker 1: tall at the shoulders or one point eight meters and
Speaker 1: over seven ft long or two meters, and it could
Speaker 1: use it's huge claws to pull down trees and strip
Speaker 1: off limbs for them to get at leaves or probably
Speaker 1: to fight off predators. Yeah, they could just put up
Speaker 1: those dukes and do it and maybe fall over if
Speaker 1: it picks up its front legs, but you know, still
Speaker 1: pretty good until that pretty good. Even funnier, they probably
Speaker 1: were able to rear up on their hind legs to
Speaker 1: get at tall trees. So just these little teeny tiny
Speaker 1: like I mean, their legs aren't that tiny, they're like
Speaker 1: bare legs, but compared to the front of them with
Speaker 1: these huge arms, they do look disproportionately small. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like, yeah, looking at this thing, it's like
Speaker 1: it's like a mule or a donkey cross with like
Speaker 1: a bear or a giant sloth and with huge claws
Speaker 1: that could definitely decapitate you. Ah yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: absolute cuties it is. It's like pretty nice looking for
Speaker 1: being the exact nightmare collas you have described. It's it's
Speaker 1: pretty fun to look at for being parts of seven
Speaker 1: different mammals. It almost feels like somebody was vaguely told
Speaker 1: about mammals in passing and tried to draw what that is. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels like a b stary drawing from a monk
Speaker 1: who has never seen a horse or a gorilla, uh,
Speaker 1: and tried to draw a combination of the two from memory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, and they're like, you're a monk, aren't you
Speaker 1: supposed to be focused on the Bible, And they're like,
Speaker 1: it's part of it. It's part of it. Don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. Don't worry about it. I've creative. Yeah. Yeah, man.
Speaker 1: They love to draw their their weird animals and those
Speaker 1: little inserts in the side. I mean, I don't blame them, dad.
Speaker 1: It must have been boring to be a monk. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, enough time staring at the wall and
Speaker 1: brewing beer that will be better later, you know, you
Speaker 1: want to start drawing weird lions that don't Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to draw a line despite never having
Speaker 1: seen one or even heard a description of one. I
Speaker 1: think it's like a dog with spikes. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: would absolutely like feed one of these sugar cube, call
Speaker 1: it sea biscuit, and right around on it until it
Speaker 1: like decided it was annoyed by me and just slice
Speaker 1: sliced me cleanly into it. Could it could definitely be
Speaker 1: the tank in your like fantasy role playing group of
Speaker 1: four or five characters. It could definitely be the one
Speaker 1: that receives a lot of damage. Well, somebody else is
Speaker 1: a mage and there's an archer or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's a It's definitely the tank. And yeah, are
Speaker 1: like a Star Wars creature that you know that makes
Speaker 1: some ridiculous fully sound effect as as you ride around
Speaker 1: on it. Yes, Star Wars. I feel like throughout that
Speaker 1: franchise they're very anti megafauna, right, Like there's some people
Speaker 1: ride and stuff, but the Wampa and then the rain
Speaker 1: Corps and then that big thing in the seventh movie
Speaker 1: and stuff. There's a lot of like if it's a
Speaker 1: big animal. It's a monster. No thanks, big animals are cool.
Speaker 1: Get out of here. Star Wars not into it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. I do think like if if if Creature
Speaker 1: Kringle times Reindeer need a break, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: would love I would love to see a sleigh driven
Speaker 1: by like a couple of a couple giant irish elk,
Speaker 1: a couple of weird protocerotidae with just absolutely Bauschan mc
Speaker 1: escher like faces, and then you know, bringing up, bringing
Speaker 1: up the rear, maybe a couple of these guerrilla dear
Speaker 1: I love it, just just following like a celebrity's bodyguards,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, sunglasses and those like little little ear wires.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, baby reindeer to to Papa Papa,
Speaker 1: Papa Santa eyes on the package. And then later in
Speaker 1: the movie you find out they're actually really sweet guys.
Speaker 1: You judge them for their size, but actually one of
Speaker 1: them does a lot of needle point willed the movie
Speaker 1: into existence, Like later in the movie about this crew
Speaker 1: of non reindeer. I've been storybarding this whole time. My
Speaker 1: hand is very tired. Yeah, it'd be called Santa Claus
Speaker 1: and then there'd be like in the poster art, these
Speaker 1: fake claw rips and then blood dripping down right, I
Speaker 1: am astonished that is not already a movie title, Santa
Speaker 1: Claus movie. Oh, it certainly is. It's got two stars
Speaker 1: on IMDb. So there's different types of Santa Claus movies.
Speaker 1: There's one that's starring kittens as it looks like one
Speaker 1: kittens like a reindeer, one kittens like an elf, So
Speaker 1: Santa Claus the Kittens Movie. Then there's Santa Claus starring
Speaker 1: as skeleton dressed as Santa, carrying a axe. Well, hold on,
Speaker 1: So they were like, we're going to make a horror
Speaker 1: movie called Santa Clause. What's the first monster we pick?
Speaker 1: Definitely something that has no clause, a skeleton. Perfect. There's
Speaker 1: also a two any fourteen movie called Santa Stole Our Dog. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. And then there's another Santa Claus movie
Speaker 1: with kittens that seems to be pretty popular. One Santa
Speaker 1: Stole Our Dog. Santa. It's just a huge jerk. I
Speaker 1: know this is not this is not necessarily the theme
Speaker 1: of the podcast, but I do have to see if
Speaker 1: I can read the description of this this movie, the
Speaker 1: Santa Stole Our Dog? So Santa Stole Our Dog is
Speaker 1: a twenty seventeen Christmas movie. It's called Santa Stole Our Dog.
Speaker 1: A Merry Dog on Christmas um by Brian Michael Stoller
Speaker 1: Bryan Michael Steeler. Of course he wrote this, of course
Speaker 1: he did. Um. So the summary is is pretty simple.
Speaker 1: On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus accidentally steals the family dog,
Speaker 1: so begins an epic journey through the twelve Days of
Speaker 1: Christmas as the family ventests to the North Pole to
Speaker 1: get their beloved canine back. Now, the cover of the
Speaker 1: Santa Stolar Dog has a Dodo bird on it um
Speaker 1: which I'm not sure I understand that this is definitely
Speaker 1: something I'm gonna have to watch and get back to
Speaker 1: you guys on what's going on with this uh with
Speaker 1: this movie because it looks I'm astonished that this movie
Speaker 1: connected to mega fauna. There's a Dodo on it. Incredible,
Speaker 1: great those are mega fauna, right, I feel like they're
Speaker 1: medium fauna. Santas Sole Our Dog. I don't think I'm allowed.
Speaker 1: Maybe I could play just a little clip from the trailer.
Speaker 1: Let me let me see this is a this is
Speaker 1: a this is a special creature feature. First me playing
Speaker 1: a clip from a trailer that only has a tenuous
Speaker 1: connection to uh animal biology. I have also pulled up
Speaker 1: this IMDb page and I'm seeing a very cock eyed Santa,
Speaker 1: who is apparently played by Ed Asner R I P.
Speaker 1: And I'm also seeing the subtitle of Santa stole our
Speaker 1: dog is a merry dog on Christmas exclamation point A
Speaker 1: lot going on. Yeah, okay, so I did I did
Speaker 1: manage to get the trailer. It's a creature Kringle Times
Speaker 1: miracle m there is um okay, giving Santa a lot
Speaker 1: of credit upfront. Maybe he's a thief guys, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it stars Ed Asner's Santa Claus bad c g I
Speaker 1: Reindeer and uh you know, yeah, I know this is
Speaker 1: a wow. The trailer is basically just the kids going, um,
Speaker 1: Santa stole or dog, and then the adults going like,
Speaker 1: Santa stole our dog. And then there's a newspaper that
Speaker 1: reads Santa Steele's family's dog, and then Santa going like,
Speaker 1: Who's dog? Did I allegedly steell? Who do you belong to? Wonderful?
Speaker 1: It feels so blessed to find this. It's just nineties
Speaker 1: straight minutes of people making surprised faces back and forth.
Speaker 1: That's the entire stole a dog. A dog was stolen
Speaker 1: by sunchel Ah. Well that's enough of that, but before
Speaker 1: we go, we do have to answer the question of
Speaker 1: guess who's squawking. It's the Mystery Animal sound game where
Speaker 1: every week I present to you a mystery animal sound
Speaker 1: and you guess who is squawking. So last to week's
Speaker 1: Mystery Animals sound hint was this happy little corn eating
Speaker 1: animal may sound cute, but it's a little stuck up alright, so, uh,
Speaker 1: like you have any kisses? First, I want to hear
Speaker 1: your oppression of it. My My favorite part is that
Speaker 1: there is there was like some tapping noise within it
Speaker 1: that sounded like it was using a computer. That's my
Speaker 1: favorite part is that it was eating corn. This tidy
Speaker 1: little freak was also blogging, so really good. Uh if
Speaker 1: by using a computer you mean eating corn, then yes,
Speaker 1: oh they're the same to me. Um wow. And you
Speaker 1: said it's a little stuck up, Is that right? That
Speaker 1: was part of the hint? M m hm uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm imagining so many mammals it's is is
Speaker 1: that what I'm gonna go very vanilla and gasa squirrel
Speaker 1: a squirrel. Hum, well, that is not correct, But congratulations
Speaker 1: to a bunch of listeners who did get the answer right.
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of you all. But the three fastest
Speaker 1: on the jaw were Aaron Kay, Eric p and Twitter
Speaker 1: user Dave Blogger. Great job you guys, into everyone else
Speaker 1: who wrote in and gifts correctly or gifts at home
Speaker 1: and sent me telepathic vibes that this is a porcupine.
Speaker 1: This is a North American porcupine named Teddy. So, I
Speaker 1: mean the individual porcupine's name is Teddy. They're not named
Speaker 1: Teddy in general. So yeah. North American porcupines have around
Speaker 1: thirty thousand sharp quills, modified fur fibers that are sharp
Speaker 1: and ready to embed themselves in your skin if you're
Speaker 1: not careful. They can also emit a strong, cheesy odor
Speaker 1: if threatened, and they like to grunt and make noises
Speaker 1: when they are eating things like corn. Apparently, I mean
Speaker 1: I can relate. Yeah, I mean I know when I
Speaker 1: got a corn cob, I'm just getting getting in their garnan.
Speaker 1: Did you did you say thirty thousand quills modified quills? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're so, I mean they're not small, small, but that's
Speaker 1: astounding that body. It's a lot. And they're little ones too.
Speaker 1: They're the big ones on their backs and then just
Speaker 1: smaller ones. Uh. And they're all sharp and pokey and
Speaker 1: you don't want to, you know, I'm in your face
Speaker 1: and they don't, I think. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is still a common misconception, but I know
Speaker 1: it used to be like when I was a kid
Speaker 1: growing up that like they could shoot quills, and no,
Speaker 1: they can't do that. They don't like shoot quills at you.
Speaker 1: They will just sort of stand up, uh and present
Speaker 1: their quills to you. Uh, you know, and like if
Speaker 1: you get your face in their business, they will, you know,
Speaker 1: get you right. They're not the needler gun from the
Speaker 1: Halo franchise, right, as awesome as that would be. Although
Speaker 1: there are spiders like tarantulas that actually can fling their
Speaker 1: irdicating hairs at you, which are these much smaller, uh,
Speaker 1: irritating hairs, So if you get in their business, they
Speaker 1: can like sort of rub flick their irdicating hairs at
Speaker 1: something that's threatening them. So, but porcupines don't do that,
Speaker 1: just you know, sort of stick up their spines and
Speaker 1: then if you get invade their personal space. Well, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get what's coming to you, which is about thirty
Speaker 1: thousand sharp sharp skin piercing spines. Right, and they're they're
Speaker 1: too busy to throw any quills too. They're all about
Speaker 1: that corn life. Yeah, they're all about the corn life. Also.
Speaker 1: I always like to answer the question of like, how
Speaker 1: do porcupines mate very carefully? Which is actually true the
Speaker 1: females um Basically all mating has to be consensual with porcupines,
Speaker 1: and the females if they approve of a male, they
Speaker 1: will curl their tail up, revealing sort of they're underside
Speaker 1: a little bit so that the male can mount them
Speaker 1: without getting eviscerated, which I think is sweet romantic. I
Speaker 1: like that. It just is the joke very carefully. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean it's correct. Yes, that is correct. So onto
Speaker 1: this week's Mr Animal sound a hint to the season.
Speaker 1: So who do you think is talking? Yeah, Katie, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I burped eight times there you can sound now
Speaker 1: no more soda during recordings? Do you think that? Should
Speaker 1: I guess it for next week? Well, yeah, I'll answer
Speaker 1: next week, but you can try to guess this week.
Speaker 1: I mean, tis the season makes me think I'm very
Speaker 1: excited to learn what it is you are actually correct? WHOA,
Speaker 1: But of course I'm going to jingle you out so
Speaker 1: that the listeners can get a chance to guess correctly.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so my guess was filthy. She had to
Speaker 1: censor it. Just absolutely disgusting. He gets the most inappropriate
Speaker 1: animal in the world. Just disgusting. I've never heard such
Speaker 1: horrible language on this show before Christmas, you know. But yeah,
Speaker 1: happy Creature Kringle Times everyone. Next week we will have
Speaker 1: a Creature Creature, a Creature Cringle Time special. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope everyone's enjoying the season, celebrating whatever they would
Speaker 1: like and staying safe and healthy and warm. Yeah everybody,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for joining me. Alex. Where
Speaker 1: can people find you? Think? It's always great, always, always great.
Speaker 1: And I make a podcast called Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. I
Speaker 1: really hope people check it out. At each one's about
Speaker 1: one thing that people think is ordinary, and then we
Speaker 1: get into history science Laura about why it's amazing. And
Speaker 1: there are many wonderful episodes with Katie Golden what Yes,
Speaker 1: you should check them out, especially they will one started January,
Speaker 1: a new one. It's exciting. I love the topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the topic might make you make a series of high
Speaker 1: pitched noises as you enjoy might thank you go here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for listening if you're enjoying
Speaker 1: the pod. Uh, and you leave me a writing and review.
Speaker 1: I read all the reviews and I cherished them, and
Speaker 1: I print them out and I hang them up in
Speaker 1: my house. I'm like, look at that one from We'd
Speaker 1: Go K sixty nine. He liked my show, So thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Uh. And if you think you have
Speaker 1: an answer to the animal U sound gissing game, you
Speaker 1: can write me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: Creature feature Pot on Instagram, creat your feet pot on Twitter.
Speaker 1: That's eighteen et something very different And of course thanks
Speaker 1: to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Alumina.
Speaker 1: Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio ap Apple podcast or hy Guess what prby
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday. M