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 Fat Babies, we're talking about
Speaker 1: some of the biggest babies around, everyone's favorite Internet hippo
Speaker 1: Moo Dang, as well as the enormous, gargantuan, fluffy and
Speaker 1: incredible baby king penguin Pasto. I am so excited to
Speaker 1: talk about these I really wanted to sort of have
Speaker 1: a full discussion about Moodang, the internet sensation and what
Speaker 1: is she, how does she function, why is she and
Speaker 1: also the interesting conversation about how we treat animal celebrities.
Speaker 1: Joining me today to talk about these enormous babies is
Speaker 1: writer for one nine hundred Hot Dog, the comedy website,
Speaker 1: and of the horror novella Healthy Choices, Lydia bug. Hi.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: You actually suggested this topic to me because you mentioned Pesto,
Speaker 1: the incredible baby king penguin, who is just apparently growing
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger. He's not going to stop until essentially
Speaker 1: he is the size of a building.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I told my husband it's like me having a
Speaker 2: baby and it being six feet tall. Yes, that's what
Speaker 2: it reminds me of.
Speaker 1: It's wild, it's very wild. So, but first, I do
Speaker 1: want to talk about moo Dang. You are familiar with Moodang,
Speaker 1: I would presume.
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, yes, obviously I'm obsessed with all of
Speaker 2: the fat baby animals. There's a TikTok talker who does
Speaker 2: the Nights of the rotund Table, which is all of
Speaker 2: the fat baby animals that are at Zeus. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: Moodang is like the King Arthur of the Knights of
Speaker 2: the Road Hunt.
Speaker 1: Yes, she's incredible, So let's let's talk about her first.
Speaker 1: So Mooding, it's the internet's favorite juvenile pigmy hippo. Uh.
Speaker 1: Pigmy hippos hail from West Africa. Let's talk about this
Speaker 1: species a little bit before we talk about Moodan Specifically,
Speaker 1: they are one of two living species within the hippo family.
Speaker 1: The other is the common hippo, which is much larger.
Speaker 1: That's the hippo we know in love. That's the one
Speaker 1: that does the ballet in Fantasia. They are quite big now.
Speaker 1: Adult pigmy hippos grow to be around four hundred to
Speaker 1: six hundred pounds which is one hundred and eighty to
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five kilograms, which sounds like a
Speaker 1: lot maybe until you realize that common hippos average over
Speaker 1: three thousand pounds. Oh my god, one five hundred kilograms.
Speaker 2: Right, dainty.
Speaker 1: Pigmy hippos are tiny compared to common hippos. Like the
Speaker 1: largest kind of individual common hippos can weigh in to
Speaker 1: be over five thousand pounds or over two thou two
Speaker 1: hundred kilograms, so that compared to say, amax size of
Speaker 1: six hundred pounds. Pygmy hippos are little. You know, they're
Speaker 1: pigmy hippos and they're little. They're the Chihuahuas of the
Speaker 1: hippo world.
Speaker 2: Did we like breathe them like teacup chuahuas to be
Speaker 2: tiny or they're just.
Speaker 1: Like Fortunately, no, they are just naturally like that.
Speaker 2: Because if someone wants a house hippo, that's really not good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's probably. I love the idea of a little
Speaker 1: lap hippo, but it's not gonna ever happen ethically. So
Speaker 1: pigmy hippos only grow to be a little over three
Speaker 1: feet tall about a meter, so yeah, they are truly
Speaker 1: the cute little cousins of common hippos. They are similar
Speaker 1: in some ways to the larger hippos. They are semi aquatic,
Speaker 1: although they are a lot more terrestrial than common hippos.
Speaker 1: They spend more time on land. They're also less aggressive
Speaker 1: than common hippos. They're a lot more shy.
Speaker 2: Really because Moodang is spicy.
Speaker 1: Moodang is very sassy, but contrary, she's not murderous. I
Speaker 1: would say, like pygmy hippos are sassy. They will go
Speaker 1: after you if they feel you are, you know, bringing
Speaker 1: down the mood harshing their mellow, but they won't kill you.
Speaker 1: I can't. I couldn't find a case of a pygmy
Speaker 1: hippo over killing anyone, whereas common hippos regularly kill people.
Speaker 1: They're very dangerous, they are very aggressive.
Speaker 2: I feel like I heard once they were like one
Speaker 2: of the most dangerous animals on Earth. Is that true?
Speaker 1: They're They're not the like one of the most dangerous
Speaker 1: animals on earth. They are far more dangerous than say,
Speaker 1: sharks in terms of killing people. That's crazy. The most
Speaker 1: dangerous animals on Earth are mosquitoes, dogs, and snakes, and
Speaker 1: in descending order of badness, I think or no, I'm
Speaker 1: not anyways, regardless, those are the three ones that cause
Speaker 1: the most human deaths of of sort of animals, right, Like,
Speaker 1: obviously bacteria and pathogens can cause more death.
Speaker 2: That makes sense because those are prolific animals.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so. And it's also like with mosquitos, it's
Speaker 1: unintentional they carry disease. Dogs, it's rabies, uh and in
Speaker 1: a lot of countries where there is not as much
Speaker 1: of a successful campaign against rabies. And then snakes obviously
Speaker 1: with their venom, they actually can cause a good number
Speaker 1: of human deaths. But but you know, like common hippos
Speaker 1: are up there, they are more dangerous than sharks, but
Speaker 1: they but pygmy hippos not so much. They are not
Speaker 1: that aggressive. They will fight, as we know from Moodang,
Speaker 1: who is a spicy little sausage. So the pigmy hippos
Speaker 1: are more shy than common hippos. They form smaller social groups,
Speaker 1: usually family units like a mother and the calves. They
Speaker 1: avoid confrontation with other pigmy hippos. They don't really fight
Speaker 1: so much, and they like to rest in the river
Speaker 1: during the day and then they come out at dusk
Speaker 1: to feed. And so you know there they are overall
Speaker 1: a bit more shy, a bit more introverted, a bit
Speaker 1: more chill. And so the way I interpret mood Dang's
Speaker 1: behavior is that she's annoyed at all the attention and
Speaker 1: just wants to be left alone.
Speaker 2: I get it relatable. I just want to chill in
Speaker 2: a river and come out at night to feed. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that sounds like the life.
Speaker 1: If like I could just bite someone's leg every time
Speaker 1: I feel socially exhausted, my life would be so much
Speaker 1: more simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why we love Mudang. She's the people's pigmy hippo.
Speaker 2: We're all like, I get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've said this. I think I've said this before
Speaker 1: on this show. But like, I had a plumbing disaster
Speaker 1: that a few weeks ago, just as Moudang was spiking
Speaker 1: in popularity. And what happened was I filled my sink
Speaker 1: up with dirty dishwater. Well not intentionally, My sink was clogged.
Speaker 1: There was a clog deep down somewhere and I I
Speaker 1: was filled with dirty dishwater. So me smart took out
Speaker 1: the u trap of the sink and I did put
Speaker 1: a bucket under there, but it was a small bucket,
Speaker 1: not enough bucket, and also the water came out really
Speaker 1: fast because it was under pressure, and I did get
Speaker 1: blasted with dirty dishwater. The bucket overflowed and I flooded
Speaker 1: our kitchen and I was wet and mad. And when
Speaker 1: I saw Moodang, I was like, well, sister, I get it,
Speaker 1: but you do look like.
Speaker 2: Me the most relatable in that moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wet and mad? Yeah, uh so, yes she is.
Speaker 1: I think that the fury of the little hippo is
Speaker 1: very relatable.
Speaker 2: And she's just always doing normal things and the zookeepers
Speaker 2: are like bothering her. Like I saw one where she
Speaker 2: was sitting in her mother's food bowl, which genius. Like
Speaker 2: if I were tiny and could fit into a food bowl,
Speaker 2: I would sit in it and eat like that sounds great,
Speaker 2: And her mom was trying to eat like around her. Yeah,
Speaker 2: zookeepers were like, get out of that food bowl, and
Speaker 2: then she was like, no, I'm gonna bite you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very reasonable she should. I used to when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. I would like to take cereal into
Speaker 1: the bath, and sometimes the cereal would fall into the
Speaker 1: bath and I thought, huh, I'm basically swimming in a
Speaker 1: bowl of cereal. Because my cereal is now my bathwater.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I love eating in the bathtub, Like
Speaker 2: I feel like that's good. It's such a hick thing
Speaker 2: to do, but I love it.
Speaker 1: I had a setup where in my parents' bathroom, if
Speaker 1: I opened the door, I could like turn on the
Speaker 1: TV from the other room and incredible, watch the TV
Speaker 1: from the bath and take a bubble bath and then
Speaker 1: eat eat fruity pebbles in the bubble bath. And it
Speaker 1: was sort of the best thing that's ever happened in
Speaker 1: my life. I can't say anything has ever topped that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, Like at my old house, I had a jet
Speaker 2: bathtub and I had enough space to put my laptop
Speaker 2: at the edge of the tub, and I was willing
Speaker 2: to like live dangerously and do that. And I remember
Speaker 2: at Christmas once Bridgerton had just come out and I
Speaker 2: was like in the bathtub watching Bridgerton. I had some
Speaker 2: kind I think, like a bottle of sparkling wine and
Speaker 2: some cheese. This is incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the thing. Like, yes, mood dang
Speaker 1: is highly relatable. We like to swim around in our
Speaker 1: in some water, have food at the ready, and we
Speaker 1: don't want people to interrupt our good times. One cute
Speaker 1: habit that pigmy hippos share with common hippos is that
Speaker 1: they like to do poop fan So they will poop
Speaker 1: vigorously and then helicopter their tail and just spread the
Speaker 1: dung around. And it's not that the like whole papers
Speaker 1: have been written about exactly what they're trying to achieve
Speaker 1: with this, like it's basically thought to be marking sort
Speaker 1: of trails or territories, but it is just it's, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a pooh tornado that they like to produce.
Speaker 2: That's great. I think I've seen videos of hippos and
Speaker 2: zoos doing that and people being like horrified.
Speaker 1: That's it's just a normal behavior for them.
Speaker 2: I love it, and they know. I'm sure that people like, hey,
Speaker 2: people think this is terrifying. I'm gonna do it, yes,
Speaker 2: like everybody check this out. All the chorists are.
Speaker 1: Like, oh my god, no, yeah, they probably they probably
Speaker 1: get a kick out of it. They do sometimes do
Speaker 1: it like at each other in the wild, not necessarily
Speaker 1: pigmy hippos but common hippos, So there can be some
Speaker 1: poop poop fan aggression going on. So I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: surprised if sometimes it is used towards visitors to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: get out of here.
Speaker 2: Is poop fan the scientific name?
Speaker 1: You know, it's not not scientific. So that is the
Speaker 1: background on pygmy hippos. Let's talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about Moo Dang specifically. She was born in July of
Speaker 1: this year, twenty twenty four. She's a juvenile pygmy hippo
Speaker 1: living at Kao Ko Open Zoo in Thailand. Her antics
Speaker 1: are looking perpetually annoyed and soaked in water. She has
Speaker 1: two siblings, Nadette and Mutuan, though like the Baldwin brothers,
Speaker 1: they are not as famous. So and my favorite thing
Speaker 1: about her is that her name Moodang roughly translates to
Speaker 1: bouncy pig.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's so cute.
Speaker 1: She really is that she is a bouncy pig. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she looks like an overstuffed cushion. I love her. Her
Speaker 1: popularity actually doubled the number of visitors to the zoo,
Speaker 1: which can in some ways be good right, but in
Speaker 1: other ways it's proved to be a challenge. Some of
Speaker 1: these visitors took it upon themselves to try to harass
Speaker 1: Moodang by throwing water or objects at her. I believe
Speaker 1: that all of these visitors should be lined up and
Speaker 1: receive a bite from Mudang, like just be like, all right,
Speaker 1: you did this, you get bitten. Yeah, you receive if
Speaker 1: you if you violate Moodang's boundaries, you should be willing
Speaker 1: to receive. Mudang's retribution is Mike.
Speaker 2: I can't I can't even imagine what goes through a
Speaker 2: person's head that makes them want to throw something, I mean,
Speaker 2: at any animal, but especially at the cutest animal on friggin' Earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're trying to think because they're trying to provoke
Speaker 1: a reaction, probably to get like a photo or video
Speaker 1: for social media, that would be my guess. But the
Speaker 1: zoo has responded, I mean by definitely scolding people, but
Speaker 1: also they become more protective of her, and they only
Speaker 1: allow visitors like five minutes to gaze upon MoU Dang
Speaker 1: other because like, she's just become so wildly popular and
Speaker 1: they've got to protect her. And you know, but I
Speaker 1: think it's a very interesting example of how weird animal
Speaker 1: celebrity gets. You know. I love this little hippo, I
Speaker 1: get it, she's adorable, but it's also a little concerning
Speaker 1: sometimes because she is a wild animal, she's not gonna
Speaker 1: appreciate or like the excess attention that she's actually getting
Speaker 1: like in real life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have this exact same like worry about because
Speaker 2: zoos know that these little animals are huge money makers
Speaker 2: now ever since like Fiona, I think was the first
Speaker 2: big celebrity hippo, and I wonder if they're being ethical
Speaker 2: about how many babies they're having because of how much
Speaker 2: money they can bring into the zoo. Like, I had
Speaker 2: lots of questions about this. It's because I love it,
Speaker 2: But I'm like, am I is it bad that I
Speaker 2: love this so much?
Speaker 1: You know, it's a good question. I don't have it
Speaker 1: as simple answer for this. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of really good zoos that do a lot of good
Speaker 1: conservation work. I think that overall zoos can be a
Speaker 1: positive thing, both in terms of conservation, rehabilitation, education, research.
Speaker 1: All of these things can make zoos actually I think
Speaker 1: a net benefit for the for animals, for the environment.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that in cases like this,
Speaker 1: it is a definite gray area because on one hand,
Speaker 1: uh pigmy hippos are endangered and Moodang has now brought
Speaker 1: a huge amount of attention to pygmy hippos. Now everybody
Speaker 1: knows what they are. They see her, they find her
Speaker 1: really key. And so if you tell them, like, look
Speaker 1: this type of hippo, like they're endangered, people make care more.
Speaker 1: Right due to her fame and her popularity. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, it's an we do kind of like it
Speaker 1: concerns me obviously the people who throw stuff at the
Speaker 1: at her should just be fired off into the sun.
Speaker 1: But like it's also now that she gets so many visitors,
Speaker 1: I wonder how much that stresses her out right, because
Speaker 1: like I said, they're basically crepuscular, borderline nocturnal, Like they
Speaker 1: you know usually rest in rivers during the day and
Speaker 1: then at night is when they like at dusk is
Speaker 1: when they come out to feed. So be getting that
Speaker 1: much attention during the day, I wonder how much that
Speaker 1: affects her stress and her health, right, Like, I just
Speaker 1: hope that you know, she is being protected so that
Speaker 1: she can stay moisturized in the lane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I was psyched to hear that they took
Speaker 2: her off display except for five minutes a day, because
Speaker 2: if you're having if that's like you know, if they're
Speaker 2: having these issues. That's what needs to be done obviously,
Speaker 2: is to like mainly have her be protected and doing
Speaker 2: her own thing, and then every once in a while
Speaker 2: people can look upon her like.
Speaker 1: Ye right, yeah, I think it might be five minutes
Speaker 1: of visitor. Let me check on that, visitors.
Speaker 2: I remember reading about that.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it's you're right. It's like for only five minutes.
Speaker 1: Visitors could see mooding for only five minutes on Saturdays
Speaker 1: and Sundays. I think it might be on Saturdays and Sundays,
Speaker 1: each visitor, like you know, like you're in a line
Speaker 1: and basically you're ushered forward, so you only get about
Speaker 1: five minutes to look at her. But it is it
Speaker 1: is limited to Saturdays and Sundays.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's not so bad, like, you know, because that
Speaker 2: keeps the crowds smaller too, so she's not dealing with
Speaker 2: Like when I went to see Fiona, there was like,
Speaker 2: you know, sixty people like pressed to the glass.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's less stressful to have two people at a
Speaker 2: time kind of staring at you.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, uh yeah, yeah. I think it is really
Speaker 1: important to kind of balance the I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: I don't blame anyone for wanting to see her in person.
Speaker 1: I'd love to see her in person. Who wouldn't an
Speaker 1: adorable little hippo. That's not necessarily the problem. It's that
Speaker 1: we do need to balance sort of the fun of
Speaker 1: it all, like, which is like, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: having fun internet stuff about her. There's no harm in
Speaker 1: that that I can really see, but yeah, just making
Speaker 1: sure that doesn't bleed over into you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want people thinking like that she's basically like a pet
Speaker 1: or a toy or you know, that she's anything other
Speaker 1: than a wild animal who isn't a zoo obviously, but
Speaker 1: that deserves respect and deserves to be treat, you know,
Speaker 1: not treated like a form of entertainment, but rather as
Speaker 1: a living creature.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want the zoo to like stage mom
Speaker 2: mood day, you know.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm just thinking about those hippos and Fantasia, the
Speaker 1: ballet hippos, and like, yeah, if they had to go
Speaker 1: through dance moms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want Moudang to go through what Jojo
Speaker 2: Siba went through.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, oh man, no ah, Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: just Moodang in a sparkly bikini, drinking with Pila I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna end up. Well all right, well we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and then, much to Lydia's delight,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about Pesto the Penguin.
Speaker 2: I've been dying to talk to anyone about Pasto that
Speaker 2: will listen, So.
Speaker 1: All right, so we are back, and Lendy, you actually
Speaker 1: suggested this one to me. This is about Pesto the penguin.
Speaker 1: What drew you towards this little penguin or probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: say little penguin?
Speaker 2: No, thank you for asking. So I think what's so
Speaker 2: special about Pesto is the fact that a lot of
Speaker 2: big baby animals just look like a slightly smaller version
Speaker 2: of that animal. So if they're born really big, you
Speaker 2: can't really tell how big they are. But the fact
Speaker 2: that Pesto has his like penguins have that fuzz when
Speaker 2: they're born, and then they get their like oily slicker feathers,
Speaker 2: you can really tell, like this is a baby, and
Speaker 2: it looks like a baby, but it's taller than all
Speaker 2: of the adults. So it makes me picture, like I said,
Speaker 2: a six foot tall, like two year old, yeah, walking
Speaker 2: around a house, and how much destruction that would bring
Speaker 2: and it makes me like smile and laugh every single time.
Speaker 2: And I have heard like an origin story for Pesto
Speaker 2: that is very cute, but I don't know if it's true.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you know it's true. But
Speaker 2: do you do you want me to tell you.
Speaker 1: What it is? Yeah? Tell me I can, Okay, all right.
Speaker 2: I heard that his dad was like one of the
Speaker 2: biggest king penguins ever in Captivity, and he was very
Speaker 2: old and he passed away either pre Pesto's birth or
Speaker 2: when he was very young.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And his mother also has passed away. And so Pesto's
Speaker 2: two dads, he says, two dads, and that's the penguins
Speaker 2: he hangs around with. And they're smaller penguins. So part
Speaker 2: of why he also looks so big is because he's
Speaker 2: hanging out with these two smaller penguins all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think at least part of that is true.
Speaker 1: So he is like I thought.
Speaker 2: I thought it was sus so I didn't google it
Speaker 2: because I liked it so much.
Speaker 1: So his his father is one of the oldest and
Speaker 1: largest penguins at the zoo. I don't know that his father,
Speaker 1: Blake is actually dead. He is being raised by foster parents.
Speaker 1: So like the the foster parents are Tango and Hudson.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that these are these are I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're They might be gay penguins. There's I
Speaker 1: would like, yeah, I believe so, Yes, I believe so
Speaker 1: so and but yeah, I don't know. I haven't really
Speaker 1: seen anything specifically about the mother. I don't know that
Speaker 1: the mothers actually died. I think it may just be
Speaker 1: that the father's really old. Raising a penguin is kind
Speaker 1: of a two penguin job, and so they wanted to
Speaker 1: try out. They wanted to give this egg to Hudson
Speaker 1: and Tango to raise, to see how that if that
Speaker 1: would work out well, and it did work out really
Speaker 1: really well. It worked out super well, well cared for.
Speaker 1: So Pesto he's a juvenile king penguin, not an emperor penguin,
Speaker 1: so we're not talking about happy feet here. Happy feet
Speaker 1: penguins are emperor penguins. King penguins are slightly smaller, so
Speaker 1: Pesto is enormous. He was hatched January twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium, and like most baby penguins,
Speaker 1: he grew a fluffy brown coat that started to lighten,
Speaker 1: and eventually, as an adult it will molt in favor
Speaker 1: of that black, yellow and white coloration that you're familiar
Speaker 1: with of penguins. But currently I think he's sort of
Speaker 1: a fluffy gray, sort of light gray. He started out
Speaker 1: as a dark brown gray. That coat lightens, gets a
Speaker 1: little thinner as they age, and then they'll molt and
Speaker 1: then have their adult colors. But Pesto is unique because
Speaker 1: Pesto is absolutely enormous. He towers over his gay foster dads.
Speaker 1: So for a frame of reference, adult king penguins typically
Speaker 1: average around thirty five pounds, so that's about sixteen kilograms.
Speaker 1: In September of this year of our Lord and Savior
Speaker 1: King Penguin twenty twenty four, Pesto weighed forty six pounds.
Speaker 2: Lord almighty.
Speaker 1: Thirty five pounds is the average. He's forty six pounds
Speaker 1: and he's just baby, and he's a baby, and that's
Speaker 1: about twenty one kilograms. He was eating twenty five fish
Speaker 1: a day. He's the largest baby king penguin in the
Speaker 1: aquarium's history, and he's only getting bigger. Last time I checked,
Speaker 1: it's looked like he was maybe fifty pounds at least.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every time he's on TikTok. You know, the search
Speaker 2: bar of TikTok has what everybody else is searching every
Speaker 2: single video of Pesto without fail. The search bar is
Speaker 2: why is Pasto so big? Why is Pasto so big?
Speaker 2: We need to know?
Speaker 1: Well, the according to the zoo, it's partially genetics. His
Speaker 1: father was one of the biggest penguins in the zoo's
Speaker 1: history or in the aquarium's history. Part of it, they say,
Speaker 1: is because of his parents. The foster parents are incredibly attentive,
Speaker 1: so feeding him a lot. So like both both gens
Speaker 1: and environment mean he is enrm uh, but they do
Speaker 1: say the caretakers do say that he'll drop and wait
Speaker 1: after fledging, so like once he finally molts as an
Speaker 1: adult to around thirty three pounds or fifteen kilograms, so
Speaker 1: dropping down to somewhere in the average. But I'm so
Speaker 1: skeptical that yah, yeah, I justlieve them.
Speaker 2: He's got twenty pounds of feathers that he's gonna drop.
Speaker 1: Okay, no, no, And I mean part of it could be,
Speaker 1: like the metabolism changes a little bit, but like I'm
Speaker 1: also very skeptical, Like in I tried to sort of
Speaker 1: hunt this down. In the wild, it looks like, in
Speaker 1: good conditions, pre fledgling king penguins have an average weight
Speaker 1: of about twenty eight pounds or thirteen kilograms. Remember, Pesto
Speaker 1: is like fifty pounds right now, But let's say the
Speaker 1: weight is higher, right, Like in the wild they may
Speaker 1: be thinner, right because they're getting less nutrition. Let's say
Speaker 1: they're heavier on average in captivity. Even then, like let's
Speaker 1: say they're like, you know, instead of twenty eight pounds,
Speaker 1: they're like thirty eight pounds or something. Pesto is fifty pounds,
Speaker 1: So like there's still this like vast difference in weight.
Speaker 1: Like I I want to place bets, Like what do
Speaker 1: you think he's gonna weigh as an adult?
Speaker 2: I think what was his father's weight? Do we know
Speaker 2: it was forty something?
Speaker 1: Oh we don't. Yeah, I don't know what his father's
Speaker 1: weight is. Let me see, But I mean he was big, right.
Speaker 2: I think he's going to be bigger than even his dad,
Speaker 2: which is the largest. So I think he'll definitely be
Speaker 2: the new largest in captivity. I guess he's still he's
Speaker 2: still going to weigh forty three pounds.
Speaker 1: That's very close to my guess, which was just forty
Speaker 1: pounds because it's a nice round number. Yeah, but we'll see,
Speaker 1: we shall see. In the wild, king penguins are one
Speaker 1: of the biggest species of penguin, outmatched only by emperor penguins.
Speaker 1: They're just a sleeker, slimmer version of emperor penguins. They're
Speaker 1: found in the South Atlanta in South Indian Ocean on
Speaker 1: these Subantarctic islands. Typically they live in warmer conditions than
Speaker 1: the emperor penguin, So it is it's almost as if
Speaker 1: someone like slipped in an emperor penguin egg into the
Speaker 1: enclosure and is just like trying to pass it off as.
Speaker 2: Wow, that would be a hilarious twist in this someone
Speaker 2: someone just put the wrong egg in the wrong place
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh god, oh.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, so just got the egg switched. Fun fact
Speaker 1: about pesto, Oh no, we already we already covered that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the pesto is being raised by these foster parents,
Speaker 1: and it is really cute because penguins are very attentive.
Speaker 1: They there's a good chance that if you give them
Speaker 1: an egg, they're just gonna be like Hey, free kid
Speaker 1: and raise that egg as their own.
Speaker 2: Incredible. These are half off this.
Speaker 1: Month, so yeah, and parental care is quite significant for penguins,
Speaker 1: including king penguins. The like I said, males also caretake
Speaker 1: for the eggs and for the offspring. Once the egg
Speaker 1: has hatched, that baby is very vulnerable. Even though they
Speaker 1: grow that really fluffy brown, downy coat, eventually, when they
Speaker 1: are newly hatched, they barely have any feathers or any
Speaker 1: down at all, so they're very vulnerable to freezing to death.
Speaker 1: So what the parents have to do is they sort
Speaker 1: of tuck them under their tummy. They have this thing
Speaker 1: called a brood pouch that they can tuck either over
Speaker 1: the egg or once the chick is hatched, they can
Speaker 1: tuck it over the chicken. They balance the egg sort
Speaker 1: of like on their feet and then tuck the pouch
Speaker 1: over so they're nice and snugly and warm.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so sweet. It's kind of like a reverse
Speaker 2: kangaroo pouch. Then it's like an Audi pouch.
Speaker 1: It's an Audi pouch. I love that. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean, like because that's one reason like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's like in every species, every species of
Speaker 1: animals will have gay animals. Like, that's just basically something
Speaker 1: that will happen if there is an animal that sexually reproduces.
Speaker 1: I think it's almost guaranteed that some of them will
Speaker 1: be gay. And so penguins are not unique in being gay.
Speaker 1: Penguins are unique in that we have them in captivity
Speaker 1: a lot so we can observe them, and also that
Speaker 1: they are such good and loving dads. So that's why
Speaker 1: we get these unique situations where we have we get
Speaker 1: to see like loving gay parents raising a foster a
Speaker 1: foster pesto because and because you know, the fathers do
Speaker 1: really invest just as much care into raising the chicks
Speaker 1: as the females do, which is something that is more
Speaker 1: common in seabirds, it seems, because the demands of the
Speaker 1: environments are so harsh that you really need both parents
Speaker 1: to be involved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's so great. That's some good, great
Speaker 2: gay representation, because like, I mean, how big a baby
Speaker 2: penguin is has to be a metric for like how
Speaker 2: well you're taking care of it. So it's like these
Speaker 2: are amazing fathers. Yes, yeah, they're killing it.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't we shouldn't need to like point to penguins
Speaker 1: to encourage people to support gay rights.
Speaker 2: But you know, but this penguin said gay rights.
Speaker 1: This penguin did say gay rights. Yeah, it just it
Speaker 1: makes me think about like here in Italy, I think
Speaker 1: there's just a law past that makes it illegal to
Speaker 1: effectively bans gay people from adopting or becoming parents, which
Speaker 1: I think is disgusting that this is happening in Italy,
Speaker 1: and it is, you know, it's just like it's so weird, right,
Speaker 1: like that we come up with all these laws and
Speaker 1: hang ups. Meanwhile, penguins are just like, we've just raised
Speaker 1: this baby to be the world's largest pengua.
Speaker 2: We're literally, statistically the best penguin.
Speaker 1: Parents, statistically the best penguin parents. Like you have ever
Speaker 1: seen witness our enormous child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the miracle penguin baby, and Italy is just
Speaker 2: ignoring it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, make that movie DreamWorks at Disney, I dare you.
Speaker 1: All Right, So we're gonna take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: when we return, we are going to talk about or
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a little change up. We're gonna kind
Speaker 1: of do the opposite the tiniest babies that grow into
Speaker 1: the biggest adults. That sounds great, all right, so we
Speaker 1: are back and we're going to talk about the world's
Speaker 1: any bittiest baby. But the twist is that they grow
Speaker 1: into very large animals. So this is about some of
Speaker 1: the greatest growths from birth weight to adult weight in
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom. And so my two favorite examples of
Speaker 1: this are the red kangaroo and the sunfish, two very
Speaker 1: different animals. Let's start with the red kangaroo. I like
Speaker 1: that you brought up earlier, the fact that the penguin
Speaker 1: brood pouch is like an audi pouch, like a kangaroo
Speaker 1: pouch but audi, and we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: kangaroo pouches here. So red kangaroos are marsupials, and like
Speaker 1: other kangaroos, they're actually the largest kangaroo. And when they
Speaker 1: give birth, their joeys start out incredibly tiny. They are
Speaker 1: basically like fetuses at this point, and they are like
Speaker 1: the size of a tiny bean, and they crawl their
Speaker 1: way out of the vaginal canal up into the mother's
Speaker 1: the mother kangaroo's pouch. It's this like incredible journey that
Speaker 1: takes them. It's actually surprisingly fast. It takes like around
Speaker 1: five to ten minutes for them to crawl up.
Speaker 2: They do it themselves. They do it themselves. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They And then once they're inside the pouch, they
Speaker 1: have to latch onto a teat and then they stay
Speaker 1: there until they start growing. So adult red kangaroos, like
Speaker 1: I said, they are the largest roo, biggest roue, and
Speaker 1: they weigh anywhere from around ninety pounds or forty kilograms
Speaker 1: if female, or up to two hundred pounds around ninety
Speaker 1: kilograms if male. Guess how much the newborn babies weigh, man,
Speaker 1: I've seen a.
Speaker 2: Baby kangaroo before, and they are teeny tiny, like the
Speaker 2: size of a mouse. So I'm gonna say like a pound.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's because you see it after it started developing
Speaker 1: a little bit. The newborn babies are like a single gram.
Speaker 1: They are like they are smaller than a bean, which
Speaker 1: means that they grow around ninety thousand times their birth
Speaker 1: weight when they reach adulthood.
Speaker 2: Man, kangaroo's got it made. I'm jealous of kangaroos, I.
Speaker 1: Know, right, Like when I think about having children, it's
Speaker 1: just like, why wasn't I born a kangaroo? Yes, although
Speaker 1: I guess they get a squirming toddler like attached to
Speaker 1: your stomach pouch all the time, although that just happens
Speaker 1: with us.
Speaker 2: We do that, we do that to us and carry
Speaker 2: them around, and that's when they're the most peaceful, honestly,
Speaker 2: is when they're like like super pressed to their mother's body.
Speaker 2: They usually just sleep. So dang kangaroos. God loves kangaroos.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen like people who are like kangaroo rescuers, Like, say,
Speaker 1: the kangaroo babies are being raised in sort of a
Speaker 1: rescue organization. They can just like hold out like a
Speaker 1: bag and the little kangaroo will come up, The joey
Speaker 1: will come up and just like flop right into the pack.
Speaker 2: It's so cold, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh, they're so portable. They really are the most the
Speaker 1: most I would say convenient baby. Another convenient baby is
Speaker 1: the baby of the sunfish. Oh wait, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I have something really cool to say about the red kangaroo. First,
Speaker 1: so one fun little thing with that might either make
Speaker 1: you jealous or not. I'm not sure, but like female
Speaker 1: red kangaroos are almost perpetually pregnant. Now that sounds bad,
Speaker 1: I'm off board.
Speaker 2: I'm afward.
Speaker 1: Their bodies can actually freeze the development of the embryo
Speaker 1: if she senses that she currently has a Joey in
Speaker 1: her pouch, so essentially she can control when she gives
Speaker 1: birth to the new Joey, which again is gonna be
Speaker 1: like a teeny tiny bean. And then once the older
Speaker 1: Joey like moves out of the pouch, like moves out
Speaker 1: of his old room, then she starts up the the
Speaker 1: birthing process that the like the embryo continues to develop,
Speaker 1: is born and then crawls into the empty pouch.
Speaker 2: Can if they sense that there's like not enough resources
Speaker 2: or something around, can they just not have a baby
Speaker 2: at all? Or does it always have to be sort
Speaker 2: of in some in some way in that process? I
Speaker 2: guess does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Like I would imagine that if there's other environmental cues,
Speaker 1: right that like she can hold she can can continue
Speaker 1: to hold off on giving birth, right like like you
Speaker 1: pull it in essential in a way, in a way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a very good point, like resource, uh, like,
Speaker 1: if there's your resources, yeah, she might she might also
Speaker 1: continue to halt the embryonic development, but yeah, and there
Speaker 1: could of course, there could also be like miscarriage type
Speaker 1: type situation, which is like sort of a natural abortion
Speaker 1: that would be in cases where your body is very
Speaker 1: stressed and so it aborts the baby to you know,
Speaker 1: prevent there from being a pregnancy during a time that
Speaker 1: is not good for it.
Speaker 2: So so interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it sounds convenient to me. I'm very jealous. Now.
Speaker 1: So the other one that I love are sunfish. Have
Speaker 1: you ever seen a sunfish?
Speaker 2: I know they're very big. Yes, are they big? Are
Speaker 2: they big? Flat guys?
Speaker 1: Yes, you have seen them. Yes, they're enormous, weird flat
Speaker 1: fish with big bulging eyes. They're very strange looking. They
Speaker 1: weigh up to one thousand kilograms or two thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. Wow. In contrast, the babies that hatched look
Speaker 1: like teeny tiny spikey stars and they weigh less than
Speaker 1: a gram. Uh, they're almost like planked in it, like
Speaker 1: they're just a few millimeters wide. Oh wow, Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1: Many of them will not reach adulthood. They're so tiny.
Speaker 1: They're like an easy snack for a lot of things.
Speaker 1: But it's fine. It's fine because mom can carry around
Speaker 1: three hundred million eggs.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you really don't want her to have all
Speaker 2: of those babies, or we would just there would be
Speaker 2: no ocean, there would be no sunfish.
Speaker 1: You could you could just walk on on all these sunfish.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh. The ones that do survive increase their birth weight
Speaker 1: by a factor of a million. It is an incredible change.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's so crazy, Like how do you even have
Speaker 2: enough cells in your body to construct?
Speaker 1: Well, you don't start out with them, you make it.
Speaker 1: They start dividing, myosis, my toe, my god.
Speaker 2: And like I think about how much like when you're
Speaker 2: a teenager you have growing pains, like I had bad
Speaker 2: and pains, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially in the legs. Well they don't have legs,
Speaker 1: so maybe it's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just they just kind of go out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what pancake. Well, uh, before we go, we do
Speaker 1: have to play a little game. It's called the Mystery
Speaker 1: Animal Sound game. Every week I play a mystery animal
Speaker 1: sound and you the listener, and you the guest, try
Speaker 1: to guess who is squawking' wow, let me take that again. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you the guests try to guess who is squawking.
Speaker 1: Let's guess who's squawking. So last week's mystery animal sound,
Speaker 1: the hint was this happy hollow Wayne from this loud
Speaker 1: little aquatic gentleman. All right, we're able to hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is that a bat?
Speaker 1: Uh? That's a very good guess. It does sound a
Speaker 1: little bit like a bat, But no, this is the
Speaker 1: lesser water boatman. Uh. Micro Netta shalt seal. That is
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of consonants in this name. It's
Speaker 1: Microta schultzee. So it is an oval aquatic insect only
Speaker 1: around two millimeters long that produces an incredibly loud sound
Speaker 1: by rubbing its penis against its abdomen. It's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, like a spoon and a washboard kind of thing,
Speaker 1: or one of those like weiro instruments that you played
Speaker 1: as a kid in elementary school.
Speaker 2: But it's a penis on an abdomen.
Speaker 1: But it is a penis on an abdomen. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is something called stridulation. It's similar to what crickets do,
Speaker 1: but in this case it's with a penis.
Speaker 2: And you're so beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's glorious, it's beautiful and it is you know, I
Speaker 1: dig it. This musical singing penis can reach volume up
Speaker 1: to ninety nine decibels. That's very loud. That's like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's almost jackhammer loud. Fortunately, the water protects us from
Speaker 1: being subjected to the sound at full volume, so we
Speaker 1: really don't hear it like that loud. It's always underwater
Speaker 1: when it's making these stridulations. So but yeah, that is
Speaker 1: the You know, it's kind of fun when a guy
Speaker 1: just serenades you, but with his wiener, with.
Speaker 2: His wiener, you know, and it's so loud that it's
Speaker 2: the sound like the sound of a jackhammer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just imagine a guy playing a violin in a
Speaker 1: very specific way way.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh god, all right, it's horrifying. Thank you for
Speaker 2: that vimage in my head.
Speaker 1: You're very welcome. I thought that we could wash down
Speaker 1: all of the cute babies stuff with like horrifying piece
Speaker 1: instrument from above. Yes, get here, Yes, all right, onto
Speaker 1: this week's mystery animal sound. The hint, Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: this is an animal I learned from my guest Kara
Speaker 1: Jaimo about an episode or so ago. And the hint
Speaker 1: is this holy ray Fins Batman. All right Lydia got
Speaker 1: any guesses?
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it a sting ray.
Speaker 1: Ooh, that's a good guess. I definitely did say Rayfin
Speaker 1: in there. That is a very good guess. Well, I
Speaker 1: won't reveal the answer or not yet. You gotta wait
Speaker 1: around until next week's Creature feature. Lydia, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today to talk about Moo Dang
Speaker 1: and Pesto and our beautiful little bean kangaroos. Where can people.
Speaker 2: Find you on social media? I'm at you know, Lydia
Speaker 2: on pretty much everything. It's yo you k and ow Lydia.
Speaker 2: My biggest platform is probably TikTok.
Speaker 1: Hey, yeah, I should figure out how that website works.
Speaker 2: Just skip right past it and go to Snapchat. That's
Speaker 2: where everybody is now.
Speaker 1: Seriously, yes, I'm such a grandma. I can't like. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: do we see how these tiktoks work? And it's like,
Speaker 1: now everyone's on Snapchat. Now you missed it. You missed it,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, thank you guys so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the show, you can leave a rating
Speaker 1: or review. I read all the I appreciate all the reviews.
Speaker 1: I got that mixed up. I read all the reviews,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate all the ratings. Someone's gonna leave a
Speaker 1: rating like cannot distinguish between reviews and ratings. One star
Speaker 1: stars and thanks to the space Cossics for their super
Speaker 1: awesome song Ex Solumina. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey, guess what? Why
Speaker 1: have you listen to your favorite shows? I don't judge you.
Speaker 1: You live your own life, you follow your own dreams,
Speaker 1: give birth to two tiny beans, and you know, be
Speaker 1: like Pesto enormous. See you next Wednesday.