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 are talking about cute, adorable, sweet,
Speaker 1: patible animals, except maybe not really because they are serial killers.
Speaker 1: These animals love killing and they're really good at it,
Speaker 1: from little critters to animals that you might not want
Speaker 1: to touch either. Joining me today is Animal Lover, children's
Speaker 1: book author and writer of the book Cute Animals That
Speaker 1: Could Kill You Dead, Burah Cartman.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Thank you.
Speaker 3: This is one of my favorite topics.
Speaker 2: Love.
Speaker 1: I both love talking about animals that look terrifying but
Speaker 1: are really sweet and wonderful, like say a whale shark
Speaker 1: right looks like something that would eat you, but they're
Speaker 1: really sweet. They're really hard rmless. And of course the
Speaker 1: inverse of that is talking about animals that are adorable
Speaker 1: but are just the most fierce little killers of.
Speaker 3: The animal kingdom.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: And so your book is it's for children, so it's
Speaker 1: a little more it's more focused on the animals that
Speaker 1: kill other little critters like insects or other small animals.
Speaker 2: Correct, that's true. I mean I tried to make it
Speaker 2: fun where it's like, okay, kill you dead, maybe you
Speaker 2: is sort of metaphorically like if you happen to be
Speaker 2: an avid or you know, a rodench or something like that.
Speaker 2: But there are a couple of animals in there that
Speaker 2: you still would definitely not want to mess with that
Speaker 2: if you didn't have a hospital or at least a
Speaker 2: very well stocked urgent care nearby, that there was a
Speaker 2: potential chance of death. Oh do tell your future.
Speaker 3: Tell what's one of these?
Speaker 2: I mean, for instance, if you think of this low loris,
Speaker 2: which I've heard is a very favorite animal of a
Speaker 2: lot of kids that know what this is, a lot
Speaker 2: of people have no idea what this lolres is. It's
Speaker 2: actually a primate. It is adorable. Like if you look
Speaker 2: at this thing, it looks like it shouldn't exist. It
Speaker 2: looks like nature was like, let's take a kawai anime
Speaker 2: of an animal and make it exist like a poke, right,
Speaker 2: and it's like a panda bear but like cuter. It's
Speaker 2: so hard to explain until you actually look at a
Speaker 2: picture of us lolrs. These are the only venomous primates,
Speaker 2: and so what they do is they have a gland
Speaker 2: in their armpit, and when they feel threatened, they lick
Speaker 2: this gland, and the gland has toxins that they produce,
Speaker 2: and then they put those toxins on their teeth, and
Speaker 2: so if they bite you, it can cause this like
Speaker 2: necritizing fasciatus, like a very severe like yeah, so maybe
Speaker 2: not instant death, but like maybe you should go check that,
Speaker 2: get that check that pretty soon.
Speaker 1: Yeah. On a scale of one to go to the hospital,
Speaker 1: it's like a twelve, right, exactly. Yes, they are extremely
Speaker 1: cute and you'll see them. Actually, I've seen some videos
Speaker 1: of people who bewilderingly have them as pets and they'll
Speaker 1: be like lifting up their armpits and it's like, oh, look,
Speaker 1: how cute that is. It's like no, that no, that's
Speaker 1: he's thinking about biting you.
Speaker 2: And that's an interesting point because one of the sort
Speaker 2: of behind the scenes purposes of writing this book is
Speaker 2: that we often see these cute animals in real life
Speaker 2: because they're out in the wild or are there a zoo,
Speaker 2: and you know, you people like, oh, I want it
Speaker 2: as a pet, and it's like, you know, they're adorable,
Speaker 2: but a lot of wild animals need to just stay
Speaker 2: wild and the slow Loris is one of them. They're
Speaker 2: actually being traded on the illegalist sometimes illegally, on the
Speaker 2: sort of this underground pet trade and what people are doing,
Speaker 2: and this is kind of horrifying. They're taking out their teeth,
Speaker 2: the slow Lorus's teeth, because that is how they would
Speaker 2: bite you, and that's what they lick to, like, you know,
Speaker 2: distribute this venom. And so they're like, oh, well, I
Speaker 2: want to slow Loris as a pet, I'll just take
Speaker 2: out its teeth. Like it's like, no, maybe we just
Speaker 2: not do that.
Speaker 3: Maybe we leave it not.
Speaker 1: Maybe we leave the slow lorises alone and let them
Speaker 1: keep their teeth. Yeah. I've seen them as uh pets, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: and I always assumed that maybe they removed like the
Speaker 1: I realized they took out the teeth.
Speaker 3: That's awful.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes they do both. I have heard. I've
Speaker 2: heard both. I was just on another podcast recently when
Speaker 2: you're talking about the illegal slow Loris pet trades like
Speaker 2: the dark Side, No, it's cute animals.
Speaker 1: I just you know, I'm a huge advocate of pets
Speaker 1: on this show in terms of the pets that are
Speaker 1: have had such a long history with us, right as
Speaker 1: cats and dogs. These are exactly ideal pets because dogs
Speaker 1: have co evolved with us.
Speaker 3: And they are so cute.
Speaker 1: And cats, if you want something wild, more exotic, the cat,
Speaker 1: which cats is barely domesticated, it is, and yet it's tiger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like exactly, are like basically a tiger. If you
Speaker 2: want your own tiger, just go get a house. Just
Speaker 2: get a cat.
Speaker 1: Let's get a house cat. And it's a mutually beneficial relationship.
Speaker 1: If you're feeling real wild, hamster, guinea pig, those are
Speaker 1: good choices too.
Speaker 2: I have a guinea pig in the cage sitting next
Speaker 2: to me right now, and he would one hundred percent
Speaker 2: agree with you. He would definitely not like to be
Speaker 2: turned wild anytime. So it's like I've got my soft
Speaker 2: fed I've got my pound of veggies that I'm given
Speaker 2: on a daily basis. I've had this mound of hay
Speaker 2: that i can lay in or eat as I please.
Speaker 1: They're tiny cows essentially, Yeah, they are.
Speaker 2: He gets kind of the run of the house. Sometimes
Speaker 2: we let him like just kind of explore the house
Speaker 2: as a leisure, but he just prefers his cage most
Speaker 2: of the time. He's like dude, this is my safe zone. Okay,
Speaker 2: so he's really would not like to be a wild
Speaker 2: guinea pig anytime soon.
Speaker 1: No, they're pretty content sitting there munching on their alfalfa.
Speaker 1: I had a guinea pig growing up, and its favorite
Speaker 1: thing to do is to run up my pant leg,
Speaker 1: which it's because I think it thought it was like burrowing,
Speaker 1: but you know, I would scratch the heck out of
Speaker 1: my cat.
Speaker 3: My leg, so it's not it's not super comfortable.
Speaker 1: But yeah. So my feeling is that there are a
Speaker 1: lot of pets that already exist that that need homes.
Speaker 1: Right you go to your local shelter, there are tons
Speaker 1: of pets that need.
Speaker 3: Homes, tons of them so cute.
Speaker 1: That doesn't require you to remove their teeth so they
Speaker 1: don't bite you because they want to invenimate you because
Speaker 1: they're scared of you.
Speaker 2: So, and you're not buying them on an illegal like
Speaker 2: black market pet train. You're just going to your shelter.
Speaker 2: You're rescuing animals that already need homes. They want to
Speaker 2: live in your home with you. You are doing them
Speaker 2: a favor. So please go rescue all the animals that
Speaker 2: need actually rescued. Now as far as this lolors goes,
Speaker 2: I mean, they do need assistance in that their habitat
Speaker 2: is endangered because you know, deforestation and all that fun
Speaker 2: not so fun really stuff. But then that's where you
Speaker 2: have like sanctuaries and wildlife Protection Acts and things like that,
Speaker 2: like donate to those places, like support those places. You know,
Speaker 2: go visit your local wildlife sanctuary or you know, you're
Speaker 2: accredited zoos that are doing their best to make sure
Speaker 2: that these animals like are sustained for the future in
Speaker 2: a healthy environment where they don't have to get their
Speaker 2: teeth removed. Yes, they can just live like they want
Speaker 2: to live.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly exactly. I mean I think that people who
Speaker 1: really have this strong need to become directly involved with
Speaker 1: these animals. The best thing to do is to look
Speaker 1: for a career in wildlife conservation and rehabilitation because then
Speaker 1: you can get in there and have to clean up
Speaker 1: their poopies and uh but yeah, it's I think that
Speaker 1: it is really important that cute does not equal harmless.
Speaker 1: It also does not equal friendly.
Speaker 2: Uh right.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite examples is the blackfooted cat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which do you know? This one?
Speaker 1: Is this in your book? I book oh, perfect, perfect, wonderful.
Speaker 1: I picked this one out. I didn't know realize it
Speaker 1: was in your book. But that's fantastic.
Speaker 2: So the world's deadliest cat and it's also one of
Speaker 2: the world's smallest cats. It's crazy cute, it's adorable.
Speaker 1: It's got a sixty percent kill success rate. That's that
Speaker 1: is much better than say a lion. It is really
Speaker 1: good at killing.
Speaker 2: And it will kill things that are bigger than it is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so if you think about that, that would be like a
Speaker 2: lion taking down which I guess this kind of happens,
Speaker 2: but like a water buffalo but on.
Speaker 3: It but on its own.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty rare for a lion to be
Speaker 1: able to take down a water buffalo on its own.
Speaker 3: Usually it works in a group to be able to
Speaker 3: take it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they is just like lone kitty, Yeah, in
Speaker 2: its own out there hunting.
Speaker 1: Than they're around two to four pounds. That's trainy.
Speaker 2: Like in my book, I liken it to a can
Speaker 2: of soup. So imagine taking a can of soup and
Speaker 2: that is like how much these things weigh. And yet
Speaker 2: they're out there just like like hunting machines or like
Speaker 2: the terminators.
Speaker 1: Now I'm imagining one extremely angry blackfooted cat inside a
Speaker 1: can of soup. Oh yeah, yeah, that would be That
Speaker 1: would be a way to weaponize them. You have them
Speaker 1: in a can of soup and then you unnourse them
Speaker 1: on your enemies and they scratch their eyes out.
Speaker 2: It's like the world's worst jack in the box. Yes, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: get nuclear warfare. Let's just unleash a bunch of blackfooted
Speaker 2: cats on people, like we would win instantly. It'd be
Speaker 2: like we surrender, We're done. We can't take it anywhere.
Speaker 2: Either that or they would just cute the heck out
Speaker 2: of them. Yeah, like look at them and they'd be like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, we can't take it anymore. They're adorable.
Speaker 1: It's like that scene in Shrek where Puss and Boots
Speaker 1: gives them that really adorable lie and then the cats
Speaker 1: them and I assume kills them all.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't watch all of me at.
Speaker 2: Least incapacitates them in some fairly brutal way, right right exactly.
Speaker 1: They're called ant hill tigers because they're so fierce and
Speaker 1: feisty and they're my gosh, they're not friendly to people.
Speaker 1: They do not enjoy the press people. They do not
Speaker 1: want to be pet They will know if you It's
Speaker 1: like if you when you try to take if you
Speaker 1: have a cat, when you try to take your cat
Speaker 1: to the vet, that murderous energy that you have in
Speaker 1: your cat. But twenty four to seven seven days a week, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you think your cat begs for food all the time,
Speaker 2: like this thing. They have one of the highest metabolisms
Speaker 2: of all the cat family, and so they are constantly
Speaker 2: on the lookout for food. They just like want to
Speaker 2: eat all the time. They're like, well, if it's moving,
Speaker 2: if it's made of some kind of protein, I am
Speaker 2: going to eat.
Speaker 1: I will kill it and I will eat it. They
Speaker 1: walk miles a night, which when you scale that to
Speaker 1: human miles, that's like one of us walking a thousand
Speaker 1: miles a night, right, and then just constantly eating burgers
Speaker 1: or whatever, right.
Speaker 2: Like fitting in every every Jack in the box, every
Speaker 2: in and out burger, every McDonald's on the way, yeah,
Speaker 2: and then back again exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And they're great at catching birds mid flight they which
Speaker 1: you know, if you've ever seen your own cat try
Speaker 1: to do that, I don't. I think my cat tried.
Speaker 1: My childhood cat would attempt that she'd wait by the
Speaker 1: water fountain. Now, I don't this was back in the day.
Speaker 1: These days, I would recommend keeping your cat indoors if
Speaker 1: you live near a lot of wild birds. Right back then,
Speaker 1: we didn't think about that so much. So this cat
Speaker 1: would wait by this bird water, found this terrible situation right,
Speaker 1: and would try to ambush these birds. She didn't really
Speaker 1: get them, fortunately, but she would try, and she would
Speaker 1: try to jump and catch the mid air.
Speaker 3: Didn't work. These guys are really.
Speaker 1: Good at it. They can with a pretty chilling accuracy,
Speaker 1: catch a bird mid flight.
Speaker 2: Right. What's funny, though, is in my second Cute Animals
Speaker 2: that Could Kill You Dead book, which is coming out
Speaker 2: next fall, fun with even more cute animals that you
Speaker 2: could kill you dead. I actually have the house cat
Speaker 2: in there because it's like it is, people just don't
Speaker 2: even realize it. Like they kill millions of animals a year,
Speaker 2: of small animals.
Speaker 1: They are, you know, efficient murderers, very far in a
Speaker 1: terrifying way.
Speaker 3: It's not it's not good for the environment.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: Earlier I said I'm a big fan of people having
Speaker 1: cats as pets. I'm not a fan of free range cats,
Speaker 1: especially when it is near areas where you have endangered wildlife.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, you have a lot of little birds and
Speaker 2: things like that, squirrels that are indigenous to that area.
Speaker 2: You know, like maybe not so much. Maybe keep your
Speaker 2: cat in the house. If you have a mouse and
Speaker 2: you have a mousing cat, like, they will be your
Speaker 2: best buddy. Yes, yeah, yeah, like you on a farm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cats, it's a different story because they've got plenty
Speaker 1: of mice to.
Speaker 2: Go after mice exactly.
Speaker 1: But if you live near a place where there are
Speaker 1: endangered birds, it's not not a great situation. It's also
Speaker 1: a lot safer for them if you live in say,
Speaker 1: like a city or somewhere where there's a lot of
Speaker 1: streets and roads. It is. They trust me. You can
Speaker 1: entertain a cat. If you play with them, they'll be okay.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, they are. Cats have been.
Speaker 1: The masterminds behind a lot of bird species either going
Speaker 1: extinct or becoming endangered over the world, yes, the world
Speaker 1: over right, like it is. It's hard to think about
Speaker 1: this because they're adorable and we love them, and it's not.
Speaker 2: Bring them with us right where there are pets. So
Speaker 2: we take them, We take it into this new new
Speaker 2: country or whatever that we're exploring, and then they go
Speaker 2: and they're like, Yay, thanks for introducing me to all
Speaker 2: this new fair. It's like going and taste sampling the
Speaker 2: local fair, right, I mean kind of endangered birds can
Speaker 2: I eat here?
Speaker 1: Right? Especially when the birds have not evolved with predators
Speaker 1: like hat. These birds don't have any natural defenses. So
Speaker 1: it's similar to what happened to the dodo, right. The
Speaker 1: Dodo was not just hunted to extinction. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have this concept that the Dutch just couldn't get
Speaker 1: enough dodo keep eating it until it was extinct. It
Speaker 1: was also the rats and the cats and the dogs
Speaker 1: that came along and they.
Speaker 2: Share eggs, yes, because they lay their eggs in the
Speaker 2: ground because they had no natural predators. They were like, sure,
Speaker 2: we can lay our eggs on the ground. Who's going
Speaker 2: to eat them? And I was like, oh, actually, all
Speaker 2: these things that in case people brought.
Speaker 1: Over exactly exactly. So yeah, it's surprising, but our very
Speaker 1: own Maybe it's.
Speaker 3: Not surprising to people though.
Speaker 1: When you look into a cat's eye and they give
Speaker 1: you that malicious look, right, and.
Speaker 2: You're like, I can't tell if you're gonna murder me.
Speaker 2: In my sleep, or just beg me for some kitty snacks,
Speaker 2: Like what's going to happen here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, the exactly, And then we contemplate murder.
Speaker 1: Well, we're gonna take a quick break, and then when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're going to talk about more adorable
Speaker 1: widow animals who do secretly want to murder. All right,
Speaker 1: so we are back, Brook, tell me about another animal
Speaker 1: that is oh so cute and loves to kill.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I have several obviously, I mean I wrote
Speaker 2: books about them, right, but the grasshopper mouse. Have you
Speaker 2: heard of the grasshopper mouse?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So they're adorable. They look a lot like
Speaker 2: a gerbil, but almost slightly cuter. They just are a
Speaker 2: little bit fluffier and like more compact. So these little guys,
Speaker 2: again highly predatory. They will go out. They will kill
Speaker 2: all the things. They will kill things bigger than them, bugs,
Speaker 2: you know, lizards, other rodents, birds, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2: It's made out of meat, like, they will go after it.
Speaker 2: They will eat it. However, their favorite food is scorpions,
Speaker 2: so they will eat scorpions. And the way that they
Speaker 2: have evolved is that the more the scorpion stings them,
Speaker 2: the less pain that they feel, they convert. They have
Speaker 2: an enzyme in their body that converts the scorpions venom
Speaker 2: into painkiller. So like they're like, yeah, dude, hit me
Speaker 2: some more then I'll just you know, that was nice.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, right, that fell good, right off? Yeah yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's incredible because we actually sometimes do
Speaker 1: that with other types of venoms. So the mouse does
Speaker 1: this naturally, The grasshopper mouse does this naturally. Humans have
Speaker 1: figured out that sometimes you can take venom, even the
Speaker 1: worst venom out there that would cause incredible pain if
Speaker 1: you got stung in the wild. We take it into
Speaker 1: the lab. We isolate certain compounds, and we can actually
Speaker 1: turn it from this awful venom in right, pain killer.
Speaker 2: Right, it's crazy. And so it's like your mother nature
Speaker 2: has done this on its own for this cat mouse. Right.
Speaker 2: And so the other crazy thing about this mouse is
Speaker 2: when it kills something, it rears back its head and
Speaker 2: lets out this little adorable shrieking howl like a wear
Speaker 2: right yeah right, And so they're actually called werewolf mice
Speaker 2: because they howl like a wolf when they like kill
Speaker 2: these things. I mean, it's crazy. It's I mean I
Speaker 2: want to I want to have like there'd be like
Speaker 2: a Twilight remakey except where it's like were wolf mice
Speaker 2: and so it's like everything's in miniature.
Speaker 1: I would be so you can't, like I was never
Speaker 1: super into Twilight. If you manaturized it, if you turned
Speaker 1: it into a mouse love story, I would be so.
Speaker 2: There on board, on board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're they and they look just like normal mice.
Speaker 1: They don't have any tails. It doesn't look like a
Speaker 1: wolf shrunken down, even though that's how they act.
Speaker 2: They don't look vicious. They look adorable. So you're just like,
Speaker 2: look at the cute mouse and like, oh, never mind
Speaker 2: eat scorpions. It's like immune to venom and it howls
Speaker 2: at you, like what is this thing? What is this
Speaker 2: thing again? Like it's like the Pokemon. It's like this
Speaker 2: weird genetic like crazy amalgamy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the bush predators too, right, they sneak up
Speaker 1: on things and he pounce on them.
Speaker 3: It's it's so because you don't.
Speaker 1: We do not When we think of ambush predators, we
Speaker 1: think of a lion stalking in tall grass, not a
Speaker 1: little mouse stalking in the medium sized craft, right.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, and yet you know here is just like
Speaker 2: all of that, but in miniature and again taking down
Speaker 2: larger predators than itself.
Speaker 1: So adorable, adorable. I want to ask you, have you
Speaker 1: heard of the marsupial mole.
Speaker 2: I have heard of the marsupial mole.
Speaker 3: They're very cool.
Speaker 1: So they are those moles that they're actually like technically
Speaker 1: not moles, nor are they marsupials. They're or sorry, they
Speaker 1: are marsupials, but they are not moles. A bit confusing,
Speaker 1: right there are. These are found in Australia and the
Speaker 1: desert regions of Australia. There's actually another mole that looks
Speaker 1: similar to them. It's called the golden mole, and that
Speaker 1: is also not a mole. It's really you know, we
Speaker 1: really get. The problem is there's a lot of convergent
Speaker 1: evolution going on with the mole shape being fossorial, digging
Speaker 1: in the earth, having vague claws. That was just a
Speaker 1: really good design for a digger. So you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of things that kind of look like moles, but
Speaker 1: they're not true moles. And this one is a marsupial.
Speaker 1: It is in Australia. The hint is if something's in marsupial.
Speaker 1: It's probably in Australia.
Speaker 2: In Acelia, except.
Speaker 1: For the North American poss them awesome. Yes, So these uh,
Speaker 1: these are very cute. They look like these little golden,
Speaker 1: sandy colored adorable hamsters almost, and they are the weird
Speaker 1: thing about them is that they are blind, so their
Speaker 1: eyes are entirely covered by their skin. They only have
Speaker 1: these vestigial lenses, so they kind of look like fine hamsters.
Speaker 1: They look like little balls of fluff. And they do
Speaker 1: have these really capable digging claws. They don't actually create
Speaker 1: burrows there because they live in the sand. They just
Speaker 1: sort of swim under this loose sandy soil like they're
Speaker 1: like tremors exactly.
Speaker 2: They're like they're like.
Speaker 1: Cute tremors or from Dune, you know, the sand words exactly.
Speaker 1: And they will if you are a lizard or an
Speaker 1: insect or something small enough to be grabbed by one
Speaker 1: of these guys, they will trimmers you.
Speaker 3: They'll grab it down, pull you down, and eat you.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I am writing another cute animal's book.
Speaker 2: I might have to look these up because I thought
Speaker 2: I had all the animals, but I might have to
Speaker 2: look this guy up to stick him in there like
Speaker 2: that sounds awesome, alley.
Speaker 1: Because just the sheer terror of your lizard. You're minding
Speaker 1: your own business. You're just sitting there on the yeah,
Speaker 1: and something comes from beneath the sand and grabs you
Speaker 1: and pulls you down. There's a picture of one of
Speaker 1: these guys with its goofy, little muppety hands with half
Speaker 1: a lizard in its mouth. It's like, oh, oh my gosh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are yes. Also, because they're marsupials, they do actually
Speaker 1: have a pouch. But the pouch, you know how a
Speaker 1: kangaroo has a pouch that the little pocket that the
Speaker 1: joey goes in. This one is flipped upside down because
Speaker 1: as it's digging, if it was right side up, it
Speaker 1: would fill with sand.
Speaker 2: With sand, so that the side down, crazy crazy evolutionary
Speaker 2: like that. That's just nuts kind of stand exactly, mind
Speaker 2: boggling exactly, so.
Speaker 1: Very cute, very strange, and they kill in the most
Speaker 1: upsetting way right where you're just sitting.
Speaker 3: There on the sand, minding your.
Speaker 2: Own It's it's a hundred percent. It's the sheep. It's
Speaker 2: the sheep minding its own business. You know, there's like
Speaker 2: the random sheep head like standing there, what just happened
Speaker 2: the sheep? Exactly? Oh my gosh, I love it.
Speaker 3: Hit me with another one from your book.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we can go straight up like poisoned dart frog,
Speaker 2: right if you want to go, like it will keep
Speaker 2: you dead. And I mean, I think most people know
Speaker 2: these animals, but the part that I liked writing about
Speaker 2: them with my book was just like how deadly they are.
Speaker 2: Like it's like, this is no joke. Oh hey, you
Speaker 2: touch them and you'll be fine. It's like, no, they
Speaker 2: could kill you, like several times over again, Yes they are.
Speaker 2: Maybe we just slowly mess with them. Yeah, right, And
Speaker 2: but it's one of those things again where it's just
Speaker 2: these these tiny bright frogs. And the other thing I
Speaker 2: talk about in the book is that bright colors often
Speaker 2: signify no touchy right, So here as humans and I
Speaker 2: don't know what the joke is that we were involved
Speaker 2: to assume bright colors is awesome, Like let's go touch
Speaker 2: like Easter time, let's go buy all the bright blue
Speaker 2: peeps out there, or the jelly beans or something and
Speaker 2: eat them, because in nature, if you did that, we
Speaker 2: would all be dead, Like we would just all die,
Speaker 2: Like every animal that is bright colored in nature is like,
Speaker 2: that's that's for a reason, because it's like, dude, don't
Speaker 2: mess with me. I will literally kill you. And so
Speaker 2: poisoned dart frogs are one hundred percent that, Like, they're
Speaker 2: all these pretty jewel colors. Maybe it's bright beady eyes,
Speaker 2: and they're just super tiny, and it's just like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, as people. How many people do you think
Speaker 2: in the history of humanity have died bipores and dirt
Speaker 2: frogs before they were like, we do not touch these anymore.
Speaker 3: Probably quite a few.
Speaker 1: It is interesting because with a lot of deadly, brightly
Speaker 1: colored animals, something that's called apisimitism. It is actually a
Speaker 1: learning process, not just for human beings but for other animals.
Speaker 1: And you have this interesting calculation where some of them
Speaker 1: are so poisonous to consume that they'll just kill the animal,
Speaker 1: but some of them are poisonous enough that they will
Speaker 1: cause a very strong reaction but not actually kill the animal,
Speaker 1: which can be beneficial because in that case that animal
Speaker 1: then learns I can't mess with these guys, and you
Speaker 1: have mimics. There are frogs that actually the poison dart
Speaker 1: frogs who also have that brightly colored skin, right, and
Speaker 1: they take advantage of the fact that, oh, this is
Speaker 1: like a warning sign, right, So I mimic that. Now
Speaker 1: I get protection without having to create the toxin, my toxin.
Speaker 1: Because the toxin everything, any kind of defensive strategy usually
Speaker 1: has some cost associated with it. For poison dart frogs,
Speaker 1: creating the toxin requires resources, so they actually eat it
Speaker 1: in their diet. That's why you might see if you
Speaker 1: ever see someone holding a poison dart frog and like
Speaker 1: a photo or something, don't think it's safe. Is probably
Speaker 1: a pet because they get there most of this toxin
Speaker 1: from the diet that they have in if.
Speaker 2: They feed them like fruit flies, then it's not a
Speaker 2: big deal because exactly they're not ingesting this tox on
Speaker 2: a regular basis, and so they're not producing it in
Speaker 2: their their.
Speaker 1: Skin exactly right, And so there's a cost to producing
Speaker 1: that toxin which comes from the nutrition that they get.
Speaker 1: And so for a mimic, they can get the same
Speaker 1: effect of hey, look, I'm dangerous. I have this bold
Speaker 1: red and black or yellow and black, without the cost
Speaker 1: of producing the toxin. But what happens is you have
Speaker 1: these population fluctuations because of the learning process of animals
Speaker 1: testing things eating. If there are too many mimics and
Speaker 1: animals are like, hey, when I eat these guys, nothing happens,
Speaker 1: then you actually have this population shift where the animals
Speaker 1: start to eat more of them, and then the mimic
Speaker 1: population starts to go down as well as a bit
Speaker 1: the poisonous population, until the mimic population is low enough
Speaker 1: that that signal, the apisomatic signal of brightly colored equals
Speaker 1: zone comes back and play exactly. So there's this really
Speaker 1: there's all this math that I'm not going to explain
Speaker 1: because I'm underqualified, but it's really it's really really cool
Speaker 1: that you can see these relationships. It happens a lot
Speaker 1: in butterflies too, because those are yes. But yeah.
Speaker 2: And caterpillars, yeah, same exact, same idea exactly. Yeah. I've
Speaker 2: got a couple caterpillars that are in my books. In
Speaker 2: my second book, there's the puppy faced saddleback catterlepillar. Oh cute,
Speaker 2: and that's adorable. If you have not seen this, I mean,
Speaker 2: you can wait for the book to come out next year,
Speaker 2: the second book, not the first books books. First book's
Speaker 2: already out, but the second book has this in there,
Speaker 2: and it's this crazy looking caterpillar. Yeah. These guys, seriously
Speaker 2: they look like these it's weird. It's like that's a dog, Like,
Speaker 2: that's a puppy with these big eyes and they're like green,
Speaker 2: and then they have these like floppy like ear fuzzy
Speaker 2: ear looking things on them and it's like toxic spikes
Speaker 2: on your Like, maybe we don't touch this puppy on
Speaker 2: its ear.
Speaker 1: It looks like it looks like one of those what
Speaker 1: are they called the little little scotty terriers, Yeah, scotty dogs.
Speaker 1: But the dog a green blanket on his back.
Speaker 2: Or who was lady in the tramp? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's she's a cocker spaniel, yeah spaniel, a little
Speaker 1: like a cocker spanielton and she's got this cute little
Speaker 1: blanket on her back and she's very adorable looking. But yeah,
Speaker 1: with those there. It's confusing with caterpillars because some of
Speaker 1: them have fuzz and spines that are actually not toxic toxic.
Speaker 1: They might not even be rdicating, meaning like these sears
Speaker 1: that are kind of irritating, but a lot of them do.
Speaker 1: So my advice with caterpillars is just don't touch it.
Speaker 1: It looks fluffy and cuddly like that might be the worst.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a wooly slug that I'm currently working on
Speaker 2: a third book, and the wooly slug is going to
Speaker 2: be in the third books. It looks like this floppy,
Speaker 2: like ungroomed shaggy dog. Yeah, I mean it's like this
Speaker 2: little it looks goes soft. Yeah, it's like a mop
Speaker 2: that somebody like disconnected from the broom, from the handle
Speaker 2: and just is like crawling around. But it's the most
Speaker 2: toxic caterpillar in all of North America to cardiac arrest.
Speaker 1: Kind of looks like a two pay a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yes, So if it's if it's fluffy and it's a caterpillar,
Speaker 1: unless you really know what you're doing, probably shouldn't. But
Speaker 1: with this, with the puppy face caterpillar, it's really interesting
Speaker 1: because for us, we have this evolutionary response to big eyes,
Speaker 1: big foreheads. That's cute, and we like a baby. It's
Speaker 1: a baby, and we like it, we want to bab up.
Speaker 2: We take care of it with a little baby bottle.
Speaker 1: But in nature, so this evolution was not done for us.
Speaker 1: It was not made for our benefit. This was done
Speaker 1: for birds, I would assume, so birds and other potential
Speaker 1: predators for this caterpillar. Where a lot of caterpillars will
Speaker 1: employ these eye spots where it's like, hey, I am
Speaker 1: a bigger thing than you think I am. So some
Speaker 1: of them have even evolved to have this incredible mimicry
Speaker 1: of say a snake, so having the eye spots. Yes,
Speaker 1: and they will move a little bit like a snake
Speaker 1: to try to fake out birds, right.
Speaker 2: And a lot of time that's on its butt, yes,
Speaker 2: like its head is its butt and its butt is
Speaker 2: its head, because it's like, attack my butt because you
Speaker 2: think it's my head, And then I'll get away because
Speaker 2: actually I'll be scooting opposite direction exactly. You might maybe
Speaker 2: take a little bit of pecks off my rear end,
Speaker 2: but I'll be fine. I'll get away and I'll be
Speaker 2: able to reproduce at a later time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the wildest ones there are the wingtips
Speaker 1: of that Atlas moth.
Speaker 2: Have you seen it's I know what an Atlas moth looks?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: They Yeah, what tell me about them?
Speaker 1: So, like the if you look at the whole Atlas moth,
Speaker 1: it might not be super obvious, but if you look
Speaker 1: at just the wing tips. Yeah, it kind of looks
Speaker 1: like a snakehead. And yes, yes they can when they
Speaker 1: have their wings kind of folded, it looks like these
Speaker 1: snake heads. And it's incredible because it looks like this
Speaker 1: detailed art of snakehead. And it's just it's just wild
Speaker 1: that through millions of years of these yeah mutations, you
Speaker 1: get to this point where it's like these bombs that
Speaker 1: tended to have their wing tips look a little bit more,
Speaker 1: you know, probably started with a simple eye spot and
Speaker 1: then came a.
Speaker 2: Lot more detailed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly. So yeah, just wild.
Speaker 2: Is it's so wild. And I have a gecko actually
Speaker 2: a flying gecko in my book, so similarly and kind
Speaker 2: of along a different evolutionary path. Geckos, as you know,
Speaker 2: as you probably know, you know, their tails can fall off.
Speaker 2: So you have the bird attacking this like wiggling looking
Speaker 2: tail thing. The tail falls off, it continues to wiggle,
Speaker 2: and the gecko just gets away. Yeah it's it grows back,
Speaker 2: and so here it's like it's weird. The bird actually
Speaker 2: kind of gets a snack out of it, and yet
Speaker 2: the fine, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Better than getting entirely eaten exactly. For sure.
Speaker 2: I mean you still have to regrow a tail. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it takes the time, but at least you're not officially dead.
Speaker 1: There's actually a type of scorpion who can lose its
Speaker 1: tail like that, but instead of regrowing it, it's just like, well,
Speaker 1: I've lost my tail, so now I'm just not going
Speaker 1: to have a tail for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't even it doesn't even poop for the
Speaker 1: rest of its life. It just lives as long as
Speaker 1: it can hopefully reproduces before it dies and then dies.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's crazy, you know, core scorpion. Well,
Speaker 2: I kind of feel for it. Yeah, sorry, buddy. It's
Speaker 2: like those fish that have the the worm that infects
Speaker 2: its mouth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, those are parasitic copapods or not copapods, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: parasitic isopods that hang on because its tongue, the tongue.
Speaker 1: It's actually so like the the tongue is still there,
Speaker 1: but the isopods sort of hang on and they drink
Speaker 1: blood from the tongue and they they and they eat
Speaker 1: part of the tong and the tongue is so the
Speaker 1: problem is that the they are really not that beneficial
Speaker 1: to these fish. They don't know, they don't they're not
Speaker 1: it's not yeah exactly. It's not like, oh, now they
Speaker 1: have a tongue, but it's like a little friend, who's
Speaker 1: your tongue. The fish don't get as much nutrition. And
Speaker 1: then when the parasite completes its life cycle, because usually
Speaker 1: these are females, and then they manage to complete their
Speaker 1: life cycle by laying offspring, they will leave the fish
Speaker 1: and then the fish has this like mangled stump of
Speaker 1: a tongue and they usually don't survive. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: not a good it's not like a fun thing of
Speaker 1: like eat your tongue and drink your blood.
Speaker 2: But it's fine, totally fine. We're all fine.
Speaker 3: It's not just like wait what it's.
Speaker 2: Like, I'm calling my layer.
Speaker 1: I don't think I got a good h It's wild
Speaker 1: to see though, when you open up these fish mouth
Speaker 1: and you just see this little ice of pod and
Speaker 1: if you're wondering what it looks like, they kind of
Speaker 1: look like a large white version of like a roly poly.
Speaker 1: So they're just like sitting there. It's like, hello, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gross. Thanks, it is pretty nasty.
Speaker 3: Well, we're gonna on that note. We're gonna take a
Speaker 3: quick bite.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break and then talk about
Speaker 1: cuter animals who are no less menacing. All right, we
Speaker 1: are back. And when you were talking earlier about these
Speaker 1: poisoned dart frogs, I have to bring up the blue
Speaker 1: ringed octopus because I love I love octopuses. I think
Speaker 1: they are so cute. All I want to do is
Speaker 1: pick them up and squeeze them, because they look very squishable.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that because I respect the octopus. But
Speaker 1: there's one that you should especially not do that, both
Speaker 1: out of respect and also because you will die. This
Speaker 1: is the blue ringed octopus. They are adorable looking. They
Speaker 1: only grow to be around five to eight inches. They
Speaker 1: are found across the Indian and Pacific Oceans near Australia
Speaker 1: and Japan, and they are covered in the these beautiful
Speaker 1: bright blue rings, and they are so so cute, and
Speaker 1: the rest of their skin is kind of a model brown,
Speaker 1: so they usually blend in a little bit with their environment.
Speaker 1: But they do have these bright blue rings, and it's like,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, No, why would it have these really bright
Speaker 1: beautiful rings on its body. When they are provoked, they
Speaker 1: turn into this brilliant yellow as well. And if that's
Speaker 1: not enough, because it's given you a couple of warning.
Speaker 1: It's like, dude, I have these blue rings.
Speaker 3: On my body.
Speaker 1: Now I'm turning bright yellow, and now I'm flashing my
Speaker 1: blue rings because octopuses have these incredible cells called chromatophores
Speaker 1: that can actually change their pigment dynamically, so they are
Speaker 1: flashing at you like my color is meant to tell
Speaker 1: you bad idea, let me go. And if that doesn't work, finally,
Speaker 1: they will bite you, so ye, which is funny. You'd
Speaker 1: think that maybe it's their skin has some toxin in it, right,
Speaker 1: like the poisoned dart frogs. No, they actually have a
Speaker 1: little beak and they will bite you, and they are
Speaker 1: chock full of the neurotoxin tetratotoxin, which they will release
Speaker 1: into your bloodstream. And they have enough venom in their
Speaker 1: adorable squishy little bodies to kill around thirty adult humans,
Speaker 1: which yes, they can kill you within just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: So they can cause heart failure, respiratory arrest, or total paralysis.
Speaker 1: So you need treatment yesterday. If one of these guys
Speaker 1: bite you.
Speaker 2: You just don't want to present.
Speaker 3: You just don't want to touch them.
Speaker 2: Don't touch them. They're in my second book, Awesome. I
Speaker 2: was like, I gotta put them in here somewhere. Yes,
Speaker 2: and they're adorable, cute little octopuses. Like, who doesn't want
Speaker 2: to the cute little octopuses? Yes, Oh wait, it's full
Speaker 2: of tetritoxin.
Speaker 3: It is full of toxins.
Speaker 1: I feel like they're really polite about it, though, because.
Speaker 3: They do give you so much warning. They don't.
Speaker 2: They don't like, they don't want to be they don't
Speaker 2: want to go after you proactively. They're not hunting you.
Speaker 2: They're just like, dude, leave me alone. Okay, I mean, okay,
Speaker 2: unless you're a crab. If you're a crustacean, yes, then
Speaker 2: yes they are actually hunting you. And yes they're going
Speaker 2: to actually inject you in with that talk, in that talk,
Speaker 2: with that toxin intentionally because they want you to die
Speaker 2: so that they need them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they need that, ye crab bake exactly. Yes, but
Speaker 1: that's actually that is actually the case for venomous snakes
Speaker 1: as well. This is something that animals that use their
Speaker 1: venom both for hunting and for defense are often much
Speaker 1: more hesitant to use it for defense because that means
Speaker 1: they don't have that for their hunting. So if they
Speaker 1: think they can ward you off, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: how a rattlesnake will rattle at you. It's actually it's
Speaker 1: trying to give you a chance, like, please, just don't bother,
Speaker 1: don't bug me. I I just I'm very shy. I
Speaker 1: struggle with sort of social situations. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be touched. I have boundaries, but trying to establish their boundaries,
Speaker 1: it's very important to listen to them. There's actually also
Speaker 1: a lot of snakes who will do dry bites, so
Speaker 1: they have the ability to invenimate you and they will bite,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they actually don't release their venom because it's
Speaker 1: a valuable resource and for them, they would rather you
Speaker 1: go away with just a dry bite than have to
Speaker 1: waste their venom on you because they need to use
Speaker 1: that for hunting. Right, So it's very similar with these
Speaker 1: little octopuses. They don't want to waste their venom on you.
Speaker 1: They don't want to antagonize you. They just want to
Speaker 1: be left alone. So that's why they use all of
Speaker 1: these various warnings like look, I've got these bright blue rings. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're touching me. Now I'm bright yellow. Now my rings
Speaker 1: are flashing. You got to leave me alone. Man.
Speaker 2: It's like a stoplight. It's like you've got the green light,
Speaker 2: but then you've got the yellow and it's like, oh hey,
Speaker 2: slow down, and then you have the red light. And
Speaker 2: it's like if you're still going at their red light,
Speaker 2: then maybe we need to have a conversation about, you know,
Speaker 2: our impulse control, because let's just stop right, Yeah, don't
Speaker 2: go touch the bright blinking octopus that's literally giving all
Speaker 2: the flashing warnings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's not a light show for our benefit,
Speaker 1: it is. It is a warning.
Speaker 2: So on the chromatic warnings. I have ladybugs in my
Speaker 2: first book too, because we think of lady bugs as
Speaker 2: being these adorable little bugs. Right, They're so cute. They're
Speaker 2: like little roly poly they're rosy, they have these cute
Speaker 2: little spots, but if you look at them under a microscope,
Speaker 2: they have these serrated jaws because they are one hundred
Speaker 2: percent predator and their rosy color is actually a warning
Speaker 2: for other predators to get away from them, because they
Speaker 2: have a foul sort of a taste and smell to
Speaker 2: them when they are eaten, and so predators are like, okay,
Speaker 2: it's like part of that. You know, red means stop
Speaker 2: warning that we again, as people who are sometimes dumb,
Speaker 2: are like, oh look it's cute. This is cute red,
Speaker 2: you know, spotted color. It's adorable, and I have them
Speaker 2: in that book because they are hundred present predators to aphids.
Speaker 2: Like not only do the adult ladybugs eat tons and
Speaker 2: tons and tons of aphods all day long, they just
Speaker 2: like want all the aphids, but when they're born, when
Speaker 2: they hatch as larvae, they eat aphid larvae, and so
Speaker 2: it's like the babies are eating the babies, and then
Speaker 2: the adults are baby wore adults and the other baby.
Speaker 2: It's crazy. It's like they're just like these little like
Speaker 2: detonating machines. That which is why you know it's lucky
Speaker 2: to have them in your garden because you want them
Speaker 2: to eat all the aphids. But again that's sort of
Speaker 2: evolved into this like oh, the adorable little ladybuget it's
Speaker 2: like that's a predator. Like you have a little mini predator, yes,
Speaker 2: in your garden, which, yes, you want that, it's great,
Speaker 2: but like that's that's it's like, what's cute to us.
Speaker 2: If you were an aphid, you would be running away
Speaker 2: in sheer terror because these things are like these giant,
Speaker 2: massive like megaladons coming at you.
Speaker 1: Also, if you've seen their their larva, like the the
Speaker 1: more juvenile forms of the ladybug, they're horrifying looking, right.
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember the first time I saw one
Speaker 1: as a kid. I was terrified. Yes, and I think
Speaker 1: I showed it to one of my parents. Is this
Speaker 1: very scary bug I found? It's like, oh, that's a
Speaker 1: baby ladybug? That No, this is again, this looks like
Speaker 1: an alien that's gonna wriggle its way into my ear
Speaker 1: and control my brain. This does not look harmless exactly.
Speaker 2: You're like, I saw this on Star Trek. I know what,
Speaker 2: I know it's happening. Let's not mess with this thing, right.
Speaker 1: Also, I was a very I I loved picking stuff
Speaker 1: up as a kid.
Speaker 3: Thank goodness. I did not live somewhere where there were
Speaker 3: I was not.
Speaker 1: I didn't grow If I grew up in Australia, I
Speaker 1: don't know if i'd be sitting here talking to you
Speaker 1: right now. So I I did learn not to touch
Speaker 1: black widows, so that's good. Or scorpions another good thing,
Speaker 1: but everything else I would try to pick up and
Speaker 1: I would pick up a lot of late bugs, and
Speaker 1: I would hold them in my hand and I'd be like,
Speaker 1: we're best friends now. And then I'd smell something kind
Speaker 1: of nasty and yep like in my hand and there'd
Speaker 1: be a little orange fluid and I would think like, Oh,
Speaker 1: did they throw up?
Speaker 3: Did they poopy?
Speaker 1: Did they peepy? I didn't realize when I was a
Speaker 1: kid that this is its defensive mechanism of saying like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm nasty. You don't want to eat me? Of course
Speaker 1: I didn't want to eat it. I wanted to be friends,
Speaker 1: best friends with this lady bug. So I didn't get
Speaker 1: the message.
Speaker 2: But right, nevertheless, I oh left me at present.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like very yeah, and it has it had
Speaker 1: a very almost metallic, unpleasant smell to it.
Speaker 2: So a slight detour. Have you ever heard of Jay's
Speaker 2: the j Family of Birds doing something called anting?
Speaker 1: Yes? I love this, Yeah, sobs.
Speaker 2: So and I mean sounds like you totally know what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. So, and I'll just kind of go
Speaker 2: through it.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, explain it because this is antieatic.
Speaker 2: So on the when we're talking about the ladybugs and
Speaker 2: excreting this like sort of smelly, nasty substance. So ants
Speaker 2: also will do this when they're eaten and they kind
Speaker 2: of like embody this this kind of gross like toxic substance.
Speaker 2: And so to force the ants to excrete it, jays
Speaker 2: will pick up the ants and they will rub it
Speaker 2: like around themselves and then around like the dirt to
Speaker 2: force the ant to push this substance out somewhere else,
Speaker 2: and then they will eat the ant because it's like
Speaker 2: it's like squishing the seed out of a grape, Like
Speaker 2: you eat the grape and then you eat the seed,
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, that's gross, like you want to spit
Speaker 2: it out, But if you get the seed out first,
Speaker 2: then it's like, oh hey, it's a pretty pleasant experience.
Speaker 2: And so jay's and probably other birds I only know
Speaker 2: about the jays.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of species that do this, but
Speaker 1: jays are well known for doing it.
Speaker 2: And then have they figured out maybe you know this
Speaker 2: or not, have they figured out is there a purpose
Speaker 2: for them to put because they have been witnessed as
Speaker 2: like putting rubbing this toxic substance like on their wings,
Speaker 2: and so they don't know if maybe that's like an
Speaker 2: anti like a flea or maybe anti parasite, kind of
Speaker 2: like almost like putting on a bug dope or bug
Speaker 2: spray on your body. They're thinking it's maybe similar to that.
Speaker 2: But I saw this in my yard two years ago.
Speaker 2: My kids and I were outside and we saw two
Speaker 2: stellars js and we saw one of them on the
Speaker 2: ground by the window, and we're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: what do we hit the window? And then we were
Speaker 2: watching it and we're like, well, it's not acting stunned,
Speaker 2: like what the heck is it doing? And it had
Speaker 2: its wings outstretched along the ground, and it was laying
Speaker 2: very down close to the ground, and it's another one
Speaker 2: was kind of close by, but it wasn't acting like
Speaker 2: it was concerned. It just was like kind of like guarding, like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know whatever, you know, finished doing your business and
Speaker 2: then we'll fly off.
Speaker 1: If you've remember been a girl at a bar and
Speaker 1: you go to the bathroom with your friend, like right,
Speaker 1: that's the.
Speaker 2: Same same situation. So the one that was on the
Speaker 2: ground was taking its head and it was running it
Speaker 2: along its wings, along its outstretched wings, and like going
Speaker 2: off one side and then down the other, and we
Speaker 2: were like what And then every once in a while
Speaker 2: would like rustle its feathers down into the dirt a
Speaker 2: little bit and like rustle them up in the air,
Speaker 2: and then it would like put them back down and
Speaker 2: it would do the same thing. And then eventually it
Speaker 2: like flew off like no big deal. And I was like,
Speaker 2: what the heck is that? And I went down an
Speaker 2: Internet Google rabbit hole, and at the time that I
Speaker 2: researched this, I found one article, a single article, that
Speaker 2: was like that we think that they might do this
Speaker 2: thing with ants, and it was because somebody else witnessed
Speaker 2: this sometime and they were like, we think we've seen
Speaker 2: this before. We think this is what's happening. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that's what we saw. And then fast
Speaker 2: forward to this last summer and there was like a
Speaker 2: whole article that came up like Hey, this is what
Speaker 2: these birds do and they do this like thing and
Speaker 2: it's called anting and this is what it's all about.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh my gosh, like I feel like
Speaker 2: I was on some groundbreaking, like ground level research this yeah,
Speaker 2: discovery that these birds do this. It was so crazy,
Speaker 2: So yeah, tell me more if you know more about it,
Speaker 2: like I want to hear all the things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that the idea, the theory, because of course
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure, but the theory that the
Speaker 1: ants release the formic acid, this little acidic substance that
Speaker 1: is a form of defense.
Speaker 3: And so the.
Speaker 1: Birds get this two fur right by rubbing the ant,
Speaker 1: they make it release this formic acid, and then the
Speaker 1: formic acid, by coating their wings potentially helps them kill
Speaker 1: mites that exist on the feathers.
Speaker 2: Yea, so it was like some kind of parasite that
Speaker 2: its mites, Yes, mites.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's sort of as if you could eat soap. Right,
Speaker 1: you rub yourself with the soap, you help groom yourself,
Speaker 1: and then you're like.
Speaker 3: Great, yeah, now the soap is right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure they make that. Somebody somewhere probably
Speaker 2: is made of edible soap.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I don't know if I would want to
Speaker 1: eat something that I've just used to scrub the filled.
Speaker 2: Top of my b body and mites and like, yes, right,
Speaker 2: scrub parasites off me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Closest will get is take a bath and eat cereal,
Speaker 1: but not same time at the same time.
Speaker 3: But I don't mix the fluids.
Speaker 2: So right, yeah, that might be a little strange, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is that's the theory is. And of course,
Speaker 1: I mean one of it is interesting to see, especially
Speaker 1: when you these observations start to happen more. You may
Speaker 1: have seen something as a kid or even five or
Speaker 1: ten years ago, and then suddenly you see, oh, there's
Speaker 1: all this research.
Speaker 3: Now on it.
Speaker 1: It seems like we should already know everything about everything
Speaker 1: because we've been on this planet for a long time
Speaker 1: and we've been around. But it's hard, especially for behaviors
Speaker 1: that may not happen all the time, where we may
Speaker 1: not be around when they're happening. It can take some
Speaker 1: time to not only make formal observations, but to catalog them,
Speaker 1: to put them in how to them exactly in a
Speaker 1: quantifiable way where we can confidently say this happens, it
Speaker 1: happens routinely, and this is why it happens. That takes time,
Speaker 1: so and you know, of course, even sometimes once we
Speaker 1: come up with a theory, we may have evidence that
Speaker 1: supports that theory, but we don't know one hundred percent
Speaker 1: for sure why they do it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the leading theory is that they're.
Speaker 1: Using the formic alcid to help ward off mites and
Speaker 1: then they get a tasty snack out of it.
Speaker 2: Right, And how many theories have we had over the
Speaker 2: years of not just animals but everything. We're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is one hundred percent true. And then fast forward five, ten, twenty,
Speaker 2: you know, more years, and we're like, oh, wait, no,
Speaker 2: we have no idea what we were talking about. We
Speaker 2: were idiots. I mean, think about dinosaurs, like, think about
Speaker 2: I still see all these pictures of dinosaurs that have
Speaker 2: no feathers on them, you know, and it's like, no,
Speaker 2: we now know that many of these dinosaurs look like chickens,
Speaker 2: Like they literally like urn around like with feathers in chickens. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they were. They were just the cute.
Speaker 1: They were probably t w reck that was probably quite
Speaker 1: adorably adorable. The babies, I would imagine, really fluffy, really cute,
Speaker 1: and extremely deadly, right, bear like bears are adorable. They
Speaker 1: look like something you should be able to hug, but
Speaker 1: you really shouldn't.
Speaker 2: Actually, growing up in Alaska is part of what inspired
Speaker 2: me to write the book that I did. Cute Animals
Speaker 2: that so you did. Because we get all these tourists
Speaker 2: that come up and they're wonderful, like we love our tourists,
Speaker 2: but it never fails. There's always the tourist who does
Speaker 2: something really stupid like try to pick up pet the
Speaker 2: otter and then gets bit or wants to go move
Speaker 2: in with the bears and then they literally die.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the idea, especially do especially some of the
Speaker 1: bears you got up in Alaska, Like polar bears are
Speaker 1: one of the I mean they're the biggest bear and
Speaker 1: they're also the one bear that sees us as food.
Speaker 1: Potentially they literally will see you as food, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: like you have to be careful because there are people
Speaker 1: who work up on the North Slope and they will
Speaker 1: be stalked and hunted by polar bears. Yeah, and die,
Speaker 1: Like it's just maybe not go at the polar bear. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's one of the rare examples where we say we
Speaker 1: talk about sharks, and sharks don't actually.
Speaker 2: See us as food.
Speaker 1: We can reassure people even things like alligators usually don't
Speaker 1: see you as food unless you go into the water
Speaker 1: and flash around.
Speaker 2: Roll around ye brown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Grizzly bears and black bears typically don't see you
Speaker 1: as food. If you really entice them, they might, but.
Speaker 2: Now they might see you as a threat something that
Speaker 2: is annoying them, in which case they will still have
Speaker 2: no problems ripping your face off'ugging me. It's like you
Speaker 2: swatting a fly, Like you don't really want to eat
Speaker 2: the fly, You just want it to go away, and
Speaker 2: so you're just gonna swat it, and you are way
Speaker 2: big and stronger than the fly, and so the fly
Speaker 2: is probably going to go to fly heaven.
Speaker 1: Yes, also depicting on a grizzly bear's mood. If it
Speaker 1: does kill you.
Speaker 3: It might be like, well, I don't want to be wasteful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to be I don't waste You
Speaker 1: have that cool soap with the cereal, right, so you
Speaker 1: could have an interesting flavor.
Speaker 2: I might enjoy that, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, polar bears actively stalk people to kill them,
Speaker 1: which is I think we've grown a little bit comfortable
Speaker 1: as humans where we don't see ourselves as prey anymore
Speaker 1: because we've created societies and taxes, so it seems so
Speaker 1: remote that we would be prey.
Speaker 3: But yeah, polar bears.
Speaker 1: Definitely, if they have the chance, they might go after you.
Speaker 2: If you are alone wandering back and forth to your bunker. Yeah,
Speaker 2: out on the Arctic, and they see you and they're hungry,
Speaker 2: which a lot of polar bears are these days. They
Speaker 2: might be like, well, you know what opportunity strikes, I'm
Speaker 2: going to take it.
Speaker 1: Also, people I think who don't live in the northerly
Speaker 1: regions don't realize how enormous moose are.
Speaker 3: And yeah they can.
Speaker 2: If they want, deadly they and they are also not
Speaker 2: like incredibly intelligent. I hope that there's no moose listening it.
Speaker 2: Don't mean to offend, but they are really dumb. And
Speaker 2: so the thing with moose is that a couple of
Speaker 2: things will happen, like a there's a lot of cases
Speaker 2: out there of people feeding moose and the moose is like,
Speaker 2: oh hey, thanks for the snacks, and then you literally
Speaker 2: turn away from the moose and the moose like forgot
Speaker 2: that you have the same thing that was feeding it
Speaker 2: five seconds ago, and is like, oh no, I'm being
Speaker 2: attacked and we'll rewrap and pick you in the head
Speaker 2: and then you die like or have a concussion or
Speaker 2: like our brain dead, like like no, no good things
Speaker 2: happen from being kicked by a moose, right, no, and
Speaker 2: so and then The other thing that happens is that
Speaker 2: they see themselves as the biggest creature out there, which
Speaker 2: in most cases they are, except for now. We have
Speaker 2: things called cars that have only you know, been in
Speaker 2: existence for the last hundred years, and especially up here
Speaker 2: in Alaska really in the last fifty years. And so
Speaker 2: when most see a car, they just walk out in
Speaker 2: front of it like it's just like, it's no, there's
Speaker 2: no concept of that the car is going to mow
Speaker 2: me down. It's that I am the big animal. So
Speaker 2: if something's coming at me, like come at me, bro, Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's dance.
Speaker 1: They will play chicken and the when you're playing a
Speaker 1: game of chicken with the moose, I mean, you're both
Speaker 1: gonna lose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody wins that.
Speaker 1: Nobody's gonna win that because the moose isn't gonna farewell
Speaker 1: with that, and you're certainly not. Because I mean, I
Speaker 1: would I don't know the statistics of this, but I
Speaker 1: would imagine there are plenty of fatal accidents for both
Speaker 1: the moose and the person drive one hundred percent because
Speaker 1: the moose is so big. It's not like hitting a
Speaker 1: rabbit or I mean, people do die, people do die
Speaker 1: hitting deer, but it's maybe more rare because the deer
Speaker 1: unfortunately it doesn't compete as well with the.
Speaker 3: Car, but a moose can compete even.
Speaker 1: With say like a truck, And so sad energy's got
Speaker 1: to go somewhere, and it's going to be in the
Speaker 1: moose and in you, right.
Speaker 2: And the other thing that people don't consider too when
Speaker 2: they're up here and let's say they rent a car
Speaker 2: or they've just moved up here and they're like, I
Speaker 2: need a vehicle. I'm gonna get a sedan that's low
Speaker 2: to the ground, is that moose are big, and they're tall,
Speaker 2: and they have these long, gangly legs, and so when
Speaker 2: you hit a moose, the brunt of their weight is
Speaker 2: in their body and their body can come up then
Speaker 2: because of the force of the impact and the fact
Speaker 2: that you're hitting them down against their legs, and they
Speaker 2: come up and they land on top of the windshield
Speaker 2: in front of the car area, and so they are crushing.
Speaker 2: That's what happens with a lot of these driver fatalities
Speaker 2: when they hit moose, is that the moose come up
Speaker 2: onto this like they literally their body like flies into
Speaker 2: the sedan and you have all those one hundred pounds
Speaker 2: of weight and they are literally collapsing right down onto
Speaker 2: the front of the car and crushing you know, the windshield,
Speaker 2: the top of the car into the driver. Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: it's not. I had a friend of mine who hit
Speaker 2: a moose many years ago, and she was in a
Speaker 2: super outback I think, is what it was. So not
Speaker 2: like a tiny car, but not like a super huge suv.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happened. The moose, you know, came
Speaker 2: up onto the windshield, onto the you know, top of
Speaker 2: the car, crushed it down into her and she ended
Speaker 2: up being in the hospital with multiple stitches, concussion, multiple
Speaker 2: head lacerations that had to be restitched up, and then
Speaker 2: you know, constant like pulling out fragments of flass, even
Speaker 2: over the last over the next several weeks. Yeah, to
Speaker 2: go in there and pull them back out again. So
Speaker 2: it's not a joke. Like moose are just you know,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that they're like they are kind of adorable,
Speaker 2: depending on like how you look at the movement.
Speaker 3: I think they're cute.
Speaker 2: It can be cute.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy to appreciate them and admire them from
Speaker 1: a distance, from a good distance because as cute as
Speaker 1: they are, as snugly as their big floppy faces. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not like do it I personally I'm even when
Speaker 1: around horses, I respect the horse a lot because even
Speaker 1: though horses are ridiculously chill with people, they are usually
Speaker 1: yeah it's they also have very powerful kicking power and
Speaker 1: teeth they can bite as well, So I like to
Speaker 1: be very respectful of large animals. I don't just feel
Speaker 1: cool around a large animal because I assume, hey, this
Speaker 1: is an Arab of war, it should be fine. Urban
Speaker 1: wars can seriously mess you up because they've got to
Speaker 1: have some defenses against predators. So don't assume it's, oh,
Speaker 1: this doesn't meet me, it won't mess with me. It
Speaker 1: definitely will. And it's if anything, erbal wares can be
Speaker 1: way more dangerous than predators because if they think that
Speaker 1: you're gonna kill them, they've got nothing to lose, so
Speaker 1: they're gonna really mess you up. Where As a predator,
Speaker 1: if you make it not worth their while, they'll think, Okay,
Speaker 1: i'll check, I'll find a more edible, right animal.
Speaker 2: Right right, kind of more worthy meal exactly, or an
Speaker 2: easy meal that I can just go after.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well on that note, I like to play
Speaker 1: a little game called Guess Who's squawking the Mystery Animal
Speaker 1: sound game. Every week I play mystery animal sound and
Speaker 1: you the listener, and you the guest, try to guess
Speaker 1: who is making that sound. The hint for last week's
Speaker 1: sound was don't try to cut into this guy for breakfast.
Speaker 1: And the other hint is that this is found in
Speaker 1: New Zealand. So you got any guesses?
Speaker 2: Ooh, do I have any guesses? New Zealand?
Speaker 1: Do not cut into this guy for breakfast? Hmmm.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of like, what is what is
Speaker 2: the pun? There's the pun in there. I'm like trying
Speaker 2: to figure it out. I like funds, so I'm thinking
Speaker 2: like breakfast, eggs, ham, bacon. Am I even on the
Speaker 2: right track?
Speaker 1: Not really almost think of a balanced breakfast with your
Speaker 1: fruits and see me.
Speaker 3: Yes there we go.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, New Zealand.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, okay, congratulations to Emily M, Nicole L,
Speaker 1: Miriam R. Trish H. M.
Speaker 3: Root K and Marianne D.
Speaker 2: My brain was on bird of course, and so then
Speaker 2: that just wasn't helping me with the Kiwi like at all,
Speaker 2: even though it is a bird. It's like it's a
Speaker 2: it's a ground loving bird, a little tiny Actually saw
Speaker 2: a picture of Kiwi wings the other day. Somebody a
Speaker 2: little video and somebody was like pulling up the little
Speaker 2: kiwi wings to show you what a kiwi's wing looks like.
Speaker 2: And they're there, like they're just like these tiny little nublins,
Speaker 2: like little furry, like little feathery neblins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're actually they're actually related to other other ratites,
Speaker 1: so ostriches EMUs, these other non flying.
Speaker 2: Birds, lightless birds. Yeah, interesting and so.
Speaker 1: But unlike them, they're very cute, very small and kind
Speaker 1: of they're actually surprisingly big. They're not the size of
Speaker 1: like a kiwi fruit there, they're a handful, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like the size of a I don't know, decently sized,
Speaker 1: say bunny rabbit.
Speaker 2: And they My husband was out hiking one day down
Speaker 2: there and actually got one on video, and of course
Speaker 2: my kids and I were all jealous for like, seriously,
Speaker 2: you get to go hiking. He's a pilot for his job,
Speaker 2: so he flies to all these you know, locations, and
Speaker 2: he's like, what should I do today? I guess I'll
Speaker 2: go hiking on this game trail and oh, you know,
Speaker 2: just get a random video of the KeyWe just send
Speaker 2: back home.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, not fair. They are really cute. They
Speaker 1: are another one of those animals that look adorable. I
Speaker 1: would love to pet them, but there's absolutely no way
Speaker 1: this thing wants to be pet by me.
Speaker 2: No, it does not. It doesn't want to be messed with.
Speaker 2: It's like, leave me alone. I'm going to be over
Speaker 2: here and you just stay over there. Okay, personal space,
Speaker 2: personal space.
Speaker 1: They have to give birth to, well, not birth, but
Speaker 1: they have to lay an egg.
Speaker 2: That is a huge egg.
Speaker 1: Yeh their total body weight. Yeah, an animal that can
Speaker 1: handle that is not going to have patience for your shenanigans.
Speaker 2: I think it's the size of a goose egg if
Speaker 2: I remember correctly.
Speaker 3: I think it might even be larger than that.
Speaker 1: It's it is. It is a ridiculous proportion of their
Speaker 1: total the size.
Speaker 2: Of its body.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's almost It's like it's on the same
Speaker 1: line of ridiculousness as human birth, Like we're we are
Speaker 1: ridiculous animals. The fact that we give birth to a
Speaker 1: baby with such a huge head and is.
Speaker 3: Just sort of risible.
Speaker 1: That compared to a lot of animals that will give
Speaker 1: birth the little blind pink things because it's easier to give.
Speaker 2: Birth to, right, and they can give birth to like
Speaker 2: seventeen of them at once. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're kind of like the key we where we
Speaker 1: give birth to like one very big baby massive, yeah,
Speaker 1: one massive baby, and then invest a lot of resources
Speaker 1: into it and.
Speaker 3: It does it doesn't.
Speaker 1: There is a benefit to having a large egg harder
Speaker 1: to eat. You know what's a snake's not going to
Speaker 1: have an easy time get not down it scollets. So
Speaker 1: there's benefits to it and there's negatives to it, which
Speaker 1: is you have to.
Speaker 2: Get car around seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, moms, poor Kiwi moms. All right, onto this
Speaker 1: week's mister Animal's sound. The hint is this, this bird
Speaker 1: has one of the loudest calls in the world. So
Speaker 1: I'm giving you a lot of information here. Ah, this
Speaker 1: is a bird with one of the loudest calls in
Speaker 1: the world. All right, you got any guesses?
Speaker 2: Uh? It sounds like a really annoying alarm, a se
Speaker 2: journey system.
Speaker 1: I think that I should probably replace my alarm clock
Speaker 1: with this sound and I will up.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what is that?
Speaker 1: Because I'm someone who sleeps through alarms, So I set
Speaker 1: like twenty of them because it's like alarm number one,
Speaker 1: alarm number two, alarm number three. Seriously, get up now, alarm,
Speaker 1: but this would probably wake me up. It is as
Speaker 1: loud as a pneumatic drill, so it is an extremely
Speaker 1: loud creature. If you think you know the answer, you
Speaker 1: can write to me at Creature featurepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Fork tell people where they can find your book.
Speaker 2: You know, you can find cute animals that can kill
Speaker 2: you dead just about anywhere. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Target,
Speaker 2: Walmart online if they don't have it in the store.
Speaker 2: But I like to support local businesses. So if you
Speaker 2: have a favorite local bookstore, go to your bookstore and say, hey,
Speaker 2: if you don't have this book, could you please order
Speaker 2: it for me right now? Then you're getting your book,
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe they'll let you order it online
Speaker 2: if they have that feature with your local bookstore. You
Speaker 2: can also go to your local library and if they
Speaker 2: don't have a book that you want to get you
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this or not, but
Speaker 2: you can actually go to your library and you can
Speaker 2: request them to order books. And I believe that it
Speaker 2: depends on the library, but you can request up to
Speaker 2: maybe five or ten books a year per person. So
Speaker 2: if you have kids and you know, like the library
Speaker 2: doesn't have a book that they want, they can even
Speaker 2: request books that they want as well, and you can
Speaker 2: all request all the books. So sometimes they also have
Speaker 2: a feature where if you request the book, then I
Speaker 2: believe you are the first one to get it. Amazing
Speaker 2: to have the opportunity to check that book out, so
Speaker 2: it's not like they're like, oh, yeah, we got it
Speaker 2: and then we just put it in there and somebody
Speaker 2: else checked it out, so yeah, you Yes, libraries are
Speaker 2: the best. So support your local library, support your local bookstore.
Speaker 2: Find all the.
Speaker 1: Books there amazing, and you're you're coming out with a
Speaker 1: couple more of them. So that's fantastic. And thank you
Speaker 1: guys so much for listening to the show. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying it. Writing and reviewing always helps me. Always appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Read all of them, and thanks to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their super also song XO. Lumina Creature features a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you
Speaker 1: just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or Hey
Speaker 1: guess what where have you listened to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3: Not your mother.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what to do, but I can
Speaker 1: tell you. If you find something brightly colored and alive
Speaker 1: in nature, don't put it in your mouth. Leave it alone.
Speaker 1: Not gonna taste like candy. I can tell you that much.
Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday.