Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here for the moment and this is
Speaker 2: Stuff you should know the podcast.
Speaker 1: That's right. This is one of my ideas. I believe
Speaker 1: Olivia helped us with this because I am on a
Speaker 1: mission to get my daughter to watch the movie Anaconda.
Speaker 2: The first one?
Speaker 1: Was there another one?
Speaker 2: I think they remade it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean if we're talking about the one with
Speaker 1: John Boyd and Ice Cube and Owen Wilson, that's the
Speaker 1: one I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Don't forget j Lo. She's the star that's it.
Speaker 1: Well, arguably the stars, that big slithery snake.
Speaker 2: I guess. So. I watched it for the very first
Speaker 2: time last night.
Speaker 1: Oh did you really?
Speaker 2: It's not good?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I know. I mean it's not one of those it's
Speaker 2: like so bad it's good. It's just kind of bad.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, I think it's kind of a fun
Speaker 1: bad movie. Are friends of the podcast the flop House.
Speaker 1: The Bad Movie podcast has been around for as long
Speaker 1: as we have. Those guys are great. Their rating system
Speaker 1: is good, bad movie, bad, bad movie, or movie I
Speaker 1: kind of liked, so it's kind of fun.
Speaker 2: Did they raid Anna Conda? Do you know?
Speaker 1: I don't know that they've ever done this one. I'll
Speaker 1: have to ask Dan about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm giving it a bad, bad movie, Okay.
Speaker 1: I remember it as being good bad and for a
Speaker 1: you know, almost ten year old like she would like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. There's a lot of Jaws homage to it.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure that's one reason you like it subconsciously.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a just before we get going again
Speaker 1: while we're on movies, a very humbling dad moment, which
Speaker 1: is a reminder that you can't necessarily make your favorite
Speaker 1: stuff your kid's favorite stuff. We've tried to watch Army
Speaker 1: of Dark aka Evil Dead three and she made it
Speaker 1: through about forty minutes and I thought she was liking it,
Speaker 1: and then she went, yeah, can we turn this off?
Speaker 1: And I was so heartbroken. I was like, oh, oh really.
Speaker 1: I was like, you don't think it's kind of fun
Speaker 1: and funny and weird and she was like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's just not my thing.
Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, man, did you tried her
Speaker 2: out of the will?
Speaker 1: Yeah? That's it. Sorry. Bruce Campbell gets it all Now.
Speaker 2: Do you know what she didn't like about it?
Speaker 1: Uh? No, I mean it wasn't too scary because she
Speaker 1: doesn't mind scary stuff. It was funny, she was lad.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I thought she was into it. It
Speaker 1: may have just been the mood. Maybe a try again later,
Speaker 1: because that's happened before.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen Bubba Ho Tep with Bruce Campbell?
Speaker 1: You bet, your sweet Bibi I have. It's a great movie.
Speaker 2: I wonder if she would like that, Like maybe she
Speaker 2: didn't like all the skeletons that he had to fight
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, but she would like Bruce Campbell
Speaker 2: doing his thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, who doesn't. I think Bruce Campbell is
Speaker 1: appeals to all ages.
Speaker 2: He really does. And that's our Bruce Campbell's story.
Speaker 1: All right, Should we do a good old fashioned stuff
Speaker 1: you should know animal episode?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is definitely that. We're talking Anaconda's for those
Speaker 2: of you who didn't bother to look at the title,
Speaker 2: and Anaconda's are giant, massive snakes, the world's heaviest snake,
Speaker 2: like by far, not the world's longest, but they're not
Speaker 2: too much shorter than the world's longest, so they're just
Speaker 2: a massive giant snake. They're BoA's, which means they like
Speaker 2: to constrict you. They're big enough that if you're a human,
Speaker 2: they could constrict around you and kill you and eat
Speaker 2: you if they wanted to. Luckily, they don't really have
Speaker 2: much to do with humans. Apparently our buns are not
Speaker 2: substantial enough for their liking, and so they don't want
Speaker 2: none of us.
Speaker 1: And just remember, everyone, you can decide bins or sit ups,
Speaker 1: but please don't lose that butt.
Speaker 2: Nope, not if you want a anaconda to eat you.
Speaker 1: I just reference that specific part of that song this
Speaker 1: past weekend because that is my favorite part of that song,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite.
Speaker 2: Songs, the side bends and sit ups part.
Speaker 1: No, just that whole sort of section starting with workout
Speaker 1: tapes by Fonda. It's just I don't know it's again, sir,
Speaker 1: mixedco Loot. How we've talked about him a lot lately.
Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, he's come up a couple of times,
Speaker 2: almost as much as Billy Joel.
Speaker 1: They should do a mashup.
Speaker 2: So yes, So anacondas are giant and scary, but strangely
Speaker 2: they're not really anything to be scared of. According to
Speaker 2: science and people who don't live around them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are a member of the unctus genus, which
Speaker 1: means good swimmer in Greek. And as we'll see, they
Speaker 1: are great swimmers and they are part of the I
Speaker 1: even look this up.
Speaker 2: I think it's like it's spelled.
Speaker 1: All right, say it then, bowie day Okay, I saw
Speaker 1: e though I think we've been pronouncing d e a
Speaker 1: e wrong.
Speaker 2: I think it's a d Bowiiti, m, You're back on
Speaker 2: that bowbo thing again, and I'm pretty sure it's bowide
Speaker 2: Maybe how about boi de, But.
Speaker 1: That is known as a true boa. They are non venomous,
Speaker 1: so they're not gonna They're not gonna kill you with venom.
Speaker 1: They're just gonna give you a big, warm hug. But
Speaker 1: they're not after you again. Like you said, they snakes
Speaker 1: generally don't want to be around people at all, so
Speaker 1: it's certainly not like the movie where they are on
Speaker 1: the attack.
Speaker 2: No, and I mean they say so many lies about
Speaker 2: Ana Conda's in that movie.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, bad, real bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Luckily most of the people who saw that
Speaker 2: movie probably don't live around ana Conas and don't have
Speaker 2: a chance to kill them. But it was like that
Speaker 2: level of lies and smears against the anta condas in
Speaker 2: that movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing that the movie did get right and
Speaker 1: that I mentioned is that they are great, great swimmers.
Speaker 1: They have those eyes and the nose on top of
Speaker 1: the head, so they can barely keep their little top
Speaker 1: of their head out of the water and still be
Speaker 1: below water, which is a terrifying thought. Although mostly when
Speaker 1: I've seen them, they're kind of swimming on top of
Speaker 1: the water like you see a lot of snakes do.
Speaker 1: But they can hold their breath for like ten minutes, right,
Speaker 1: and just like fully dive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, ten minutes. Like the more you learn about anaconda,
Speaker 2: is this, the more unsettling they are. Like it's good
Speaker 2: that they don't really want to have much to do
Speaker 2: with humans, but if they wanted to, like, we would
Speaker 2: be in trouble for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Because they love the water so much. They
Speaker 1: obviously live in the swamps of the world, slow flowing rivers.
Speaker 1: If there are places that are flooded annually or seasonally,
Speaker 1: they will be there during those times, and when it's
Speaker 1: not they will probably travel to wetter climbs or maybe
Speaker 1: just burrow down in the mud. But they'll also go
Speaker 1: into the jungle and forest here and there. Just they
Speaker 1: really like the water though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all fresh water. Though they're not salt tolerant, which
Speaker 2: was not immediately apparent to me. I had to look
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 1: Oh you thought there could be like an ocean anaconda.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll explain why later on. How about that. I'm
Speaker 2: going to save that one for later.
Speaker 1: My thinking, are you going to say the word bracash
Speaker 1: at any point?
Speaker 2: I may?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So, just because they're snakes, they have the Jacobson's organ
Speaker 2: in their mouth, the roof of their mouth. It's prominently
Speaker 2: featured in the movie Anaconda because I think like bears
Speaker 2: its fangs at the camera like every thirty forty seconds. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and there's it's Jacobson's organ, the big hole in the
Speaker 2: back of the roof of its mouth. And because whenever
Speaker 2: you see a snake flicker its tongue really quickly, what
Speaker 2: it's doing is it's sampling the air and transferring it
Speaker 2: to the Jacobson's organ, which analyzes it and says, there's
Speaker 2: a cap of bara right over there, let's go eat it.
Speaker 1: Yes, they can. Also the heat signatures can be recognized,
Speaker 1: so part of finding that animal is their warm blood.
Speaker 1: But they also use it to find a nice cool
Speaker 1: place to go rest after they've had a big meal,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to.
Speaker 2: That's the yeah, and that's a different one. That's the
Speaker 2: pit organ. This is just nuts.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: That's the one that so one the Jacobsen's senses smells
Speaker 2: in the air. Pit organs, like you said, sense heat,
Speaker 2: and the pit organs transfer these this these electrical impulses
Speaker 2: based on thermal signatures to their optic center and it
Speaker 2: gets integrated with their vision so they can see like
Speaker 2: a capa bara again, plain as day, in complete darkness,
Speaker 2: just like predator.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I mean we think we've never we've never
Speaker 1: asked them to draw a picture of what that looks like.
Speaker 1: It's true, but this is the best we can figure.
Speaker 2: But I mean that kind of goes to show just
Speaker 2: how amazing science can be, that that we basically walk
Speaker 2: around thinking like we know what anaconda's vision looks like,
Speaker 2: even though yeah, no Ana Conda's ever told us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the same with whether an animal
Speaker 1: is colorblind. I'm always like, well, how do you know? Sure,
Speaker 1: So if you want to talk couple. Speaking of colors,
Speaker 1: we'll get to the nitty gritty of sort of the
Speaker 1: different kinds of anacondas, but for now we'll just say
Speaker 1: the green ones are the ones that are really really big.
Speaker 1: They're bigger than the yellow ones. They're the heaviest snake
Speaker 1: in the world. Like you said, basically, I think you
Speaker 1: mentioned not the longest that goes to the reticulated python,
Speaker 1: but the female anaconda green anaconda is larger than the male,
Speaker 1: anywhere from fifteen to thirty feet even sometimes that's at
Speaker 1: the very high end. I think they're generally, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty feet and weigh about one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty to two hundred pounds, whereas the males are only
Speaker 1: about nine to ten feet and one hundred to one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty pounds. Still a very large snake.
Speaker 2: That's a giant snake still. And yeah, that thirty foot
Speaker 2: one that's supposedly the record, although it's not obvious where
Speaker 2: that came from, but supposedly the record anaconda is thirty
Speaker 2: feet long and five hundred and fifty pounds. Right. Again,
Speaker 2: that's not we don't know who said that originally, but
Speaker 2: there was we know for a fact, a snake and
Speaker 2: a green anaconda female that was about four hundred and
Speaker 2: forty pounds and twenty feet long. So they do get giant.
Speaker 2: I mean they are so big and you look up,
Speaker 2: like go look up pictures and videos of green ana
Speaker 2: condas and you'll be like, wow, it's a big snake.
Speaker 2: And then see if you can find one next to
Speaker 2: like a human or something for scale, and you will
Speaker 2: just be blown away by how giant these things are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a banana. Also be wary because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of fake pictures and videos of giant anacondas. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it's just harder to tell these days. I saw
Speaker 1: some video from like helicopters above a river where it's like,
Speaker 1: there's no way this thing is that big because they
Speaker 1: were sixty feet long and as big around as a
Speaker 1: basketball and they look really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, and they're hard to tell. Yeah. Like
Speaker 2: you said, I saw one and it was curling around
Speaker 2: this lion and I was like, wait a minute, these
Speaker 2: things are only in South America and lions are not
Speaker 2: in South America. That was the only way I like,
Speaker 2: I had to stop and think about it, because it
Speaker 2: looks so realistic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like, can you just.
Speaker 2: Be amazed by the national world as it is? Like,
Speaker 2: does everything have to be pushed to the extreme for
Speaker 2: you to get your jolly's?
Speaker 1: I'm with you, buddy, I had the same thought, So
Speaker 1: I mentioned the yellows are smaller. They're nine to ten
Speaker 1: pounds for the females, which are larger than the males
Speaker 1: because they're only about six feet long, which is again
Speaker 1: still a very big snake, and they can top one
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. A yellow one can. Like all snakes, they
Speaker 1: have intermediate growth, which means they're always growing. It slows
Speaker 1: down in adulthood, but the snakes keep growing forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there was one other dimension that we left out,
Speaker 2: and that is those green anacondas can get to about
Speaker 2: twelve inches or a third of a meter in diameter. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's an old thicky, is what they call that.
Speaker 1: And how long do they live, Josh for.
Speaker 2: A while, actually, in the in the wild, up to
Speaker 2: twenty years on average, and then because the wild is
Speaker 2: so much more dangerous than a cushy zoo, in captivity
Speaker 2: they can live up to thirty years. They're just not
Speaker 2: as happy as the ones in the wild. The ones
Speaker 2: in a wild are like, live fast, die young, leave
Speaker 2: a beautiful corpse. The ones in captivity are like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get soft, but I'll live to an old age.
Speaker 1: That's right. Just throw me a cappy, buyra in here
Speaker 1: so I can have some lunch.
Speaker 2: Right, They're like camping byron? Can can I get a
Speaker 2: tep here?
Speaker 1: They are apex predators, so nothing is gonna come after
Speaker 1: the anacondah. They're just it's not gonna happen. They feed
Speaker 1: on fish, they feed on reptiles. We mentioned mammals. They'll
Speaker 1: eat a deer. They'll eat a cayman. Although I did
Speaker 1: see a cayman stand off a Nana conda because I
Speaker 1: think it was one of the smaller Randa condas, so
Speaker 1: I got out of there.
Speaker 2: That's the caymans are like the mini crocodiles.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, but they're they're still, you know, got some
Speaker 1: size to them.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, but I just want to make sure it's
Speaker 2: thinking of the right animal totally.
Speaker 1: And they kill things like you would think they're constrictors.
Speaker 1: So they grab it, they grab it around the neck,
Speaker 1: they coil that body and they squeeze it. And I
Speaker 1: always heard that like, oh, they'll crush your internal organs
Speaker 1: and your break your rib cage. They're really not doing that,
Speaker 1: And this is kind of a cool little fact. What
Speaker 1: they're doing is they're stopping the blood flow and you
Speaker 1: end up having heart failure because or a stroke because
Speaker 1: you have no blood reaching your brain or your heart,
Speaker 1: and you lose consciousness. They can bite if you're smaller,
Speaker 1: but they're generally going to constrict you to death.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the reason that they don't break your bones
Speaker 2: is because they don't want bones sticking out of your
Speaker 2: body on the way down their gullet as they're digesting you,
Speaker 2: So they use a little bit of finesse I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they swallow you whole, you know, that's the idea.
Speaker 1: That's why when you see constrictors with those big bulges,
Speaker 1: that is like a pig or something.
Speaker 2: It's probably John Boyd.
Speaker 1: I wish it was, but we should say that they don't,
Speaker 1: you know, because they're eating such big things, they don't
Speaker 1: have to eat very much. They can go months between
Speaker 1: eating meals and it can take weeks and weeks for
Speaker 1: them to digest. So they'll just sneak away to a
Speaker 1: nice cool place and digest on the download for a
Speaker 1: little while, and there was one reporter but captive anacona
Speaker 1: that live for two years without eating.
Speaker 2: Right, and they normally keep to themselves. They have their
Speaker 2: own hunting territories, but most of the time they're like,
Speaker 2: I just leave me alone. I'm just over here doing
Speaker 2: my thing. Except they come together from April to May
Speaker 2: during breeding season, and they're polyandrous, which means that a
Speaker 2: single female will mate with multiple males, as opposed to polygamous,
Speaker 2: which means a single male will mate with multiple females,
Speaker 2: and they will mate in what's called the breeding ball.
Speaker 2: And if you want to be unsettled to your core,
Speaker 2: look up green and Aconda breeding ball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, breed is the stuff of nightmares for sure. That's
Speaker 1: like as many as thirteen snakes sometimes just having a
Speaker 1: big old snake party with each other. That's not how
Speaker 1: it always goes down, though, a lot of times the
Speaker 1: females will spend an entire mating season with just one dude.
Speaker 1: But that dude may be lunch after they're impregnated, because
Speaker 1: the female may just eat that male because they've just
Speaker 1: gotten pregnant and they need to bed down for seven
Speaker 1: months without eating again. So ts for you, pal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something in the animal kingdom called sexual cannibalism. Yeah,
Speaker 2: sexual cannibals is maybe the greatest band name we've run
Speaker 2: across so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they open for the fine young cannibals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I just one other thing about that.
Speaker 2: I read some species of males will sacrifice themselves to
Speaker 2: be cannibalized after mating. And there was a study of
Speaker 2: fisher spiders or dark fish or spiders something like that
Speaker 2: where they found that after the female eats the male,
Speaker 2: she has more success like healthier offspring and more offspring
Speaker 2: when she eats the male than if she immediately ate
Speaker 2: an alternative prey like a cricket or something like that.
Speaker 2: So there's something involved in that exchange that helps reproduction
Speaker 2: and natural selection go full steam ahead, I guess. And
Speaker 2: whatever species says.
Speaker 1: That, Wow, that's super interesting.
Speaker 2: I thought so too.
Speaker 1: They mate, the green ones, that is, mate every other
Speaker 1: year because it's a lot. I think we could admit
Speaker 1: that that big sex ball that they formed sometimes for weeks, yeah,
Speaker 1: and just you know, the seven month pregnancy and they're
Speaker 1: not eating. It's just a lot. So they do this
Speaker 1: every other year. Greens have about thirty babies at a time.
Speaker 1: Yellow ones have about forty, but there is at least
Speaker 1: one verified case of a green and a conda having
Speaker 1: eighty two baby.
Speaker 2: And aconda snakes, yeah that's I mean that poor snake. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like my ache and back. They have live births too.
Speaker 2: They're viviparous rather than oviparis. They don't lay eggs like
Speaker 2: some kinds of snakes. And regardless however the baby comes out,
Speaker 2: they don't do any parenting. They're just done. They have
Speaker 2: their babies and they just slither off and the babies
Speaker 2: are on their own immediately and they just start swimming
Speaker 2: around and eating whatever is in the area. And then
Speaker 2: after three or four years they get into their own
Speaker 2: breeding ball situations and the circle of life just keeps
Speaker 2: continuing on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and those babies are a couple of feet long,
Speaker 1: and that feels like a pretty good place to break. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know why I said ya as opposed to nay.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, so, chuck. There are different species
Speaker 2: of anaconda's and one of the things that's extremely interesting
Speaker 2: about this that I guess the taxonomy of anacondas is
Speaker 2: that very recently they've shaken things up. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you're a herpetologist, this is one of the most exciting
Speaker 2: things in your field to come along in a really
Speaker 2: long time. I'm guessing yeah, I bet you're right. So originally,
Speaker 2: up until very recently, scientists divided anacondas into four species.
Speaker 2: There was the green anticonda Eunectes marinus, which we talked
Speaker 2: about basically this whole time, yellow anaconda Eunectes notaeus, the
Speaker 2: benny doesn't even it's not even called an anaconda, that's
Speaker 2: how odd it is. That's Eunctes beniensis. And then the
Speaker 2: dark spotted anacona anaconda, which is Eunectes deshausen seal deshow
Speaker 2: and seal? Did I say that right, mister German pronunciation? Guy?
Speaker 1: I think that is an eye at the end and
Speaker 1: on an.
Speaker 2: L des showing see.
Speaker 1: I think that is exactly right. It's definitely a German word.
Speaker 2: So those four species are the ones that they've they've
Speaker 2: considered anti condas since time immemorial. But within the last
Speaker 2: year or so they're like, this is all wrong. We
Speaker 2: need to reconfigure stuff into like a new breeding ball
Speaker 2: of species of anaconda.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a paper, as Emily likes to say,
Speaker 1: probably a white paper from last year, where an international
Speaker 1: team of scientists got together. They had probably the leading
Speaker 1: anaconda expert in the world, Jesus Revas of New Mexico
Speaker 1: Highlands University, and they got together and said, guys, I
Speaker 1: think we gotta we gotta dig in a little deeper.
Speaker 1: We're being a little lazy, and we got to rename
Speaker 1: these reclassify these these snakes. We're gonna split these green
Speaker 1: anacondas into two species, and we're gonna combined the other
Speaker 1: three into one. And Will Smith somehow has something to
Speaker 1: do with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, interestingly, So they've studied anacondas for decades and decades
Speaker 2: to try to figure out the taxonomy is correct, because
Speaker 2: I mean, when LINEA started taxonomy, it was all based
Speaker 2: on like, this thing looks like this thing, And as
Speaker 2: we've gotten better at genetic analysis, we've been like, well,
Speaker 2: just because it looks like it, actually they're not very
Speaker 2: related at all. That's been the case with anaconda's. But
Speaker 2: a big chunk of the work that's been done, the
Speaker 2: research that's been done that led to this was done
Speaker 2: through a National Geographic Show poll to poll with Will Smith. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there is apparently at least one episode where one of
Speaker 2: the leaders of the way Irani people, his name was
Speaker 2: Pente Behua, he said, Hey, Will Smith, why don't you
Speaker 2: guys come to Ecuador and we'll hang out in the
Speaker 2: Amazon and we'll lead you around and show you anacondas
Speaker 2: and you guys can capture them and test them and
Speaker 2: release them back. And that's exactly what happened. And from
Speaker 2: that they took all sorts of blood samples and tissue
Speaker 2: samples and did it genetic analysis and they're like, we
Speaker 2: got this way wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Will Smith said, what did the five fingers
Speaker 1: say to the face?
Speaker 2: I know, man, that's that is gonna be tough for
Speaker 2: him to ever live down.
Speaker 1: It's because it's one of the weirdest public things that's
Speaker 1: ever happened, televised things it's ever happened.
Speaker 2: It was weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still mind boggling to think about. And I
Speaker 1: remember seeing it live just being like what did I
Speaker 1: just see?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, same here. I'm pretty sure I saw it
Speaker 2: live and not a replay, but it was. But also
Speaker 2: the violence of it, I think is what it's going
Speaker 2: to make it so hard to live down. It was
Speaker 2: just an ugly, ugly thing. It really was crazy.
Speaker 1: Oh man, so strange. So they did some research and
Speaker 1: again you said that, you know, once we sort of
Speaker 1: get into the genetics, just because something looks like something
Speaker 1: doesn't mean much. So they did that. They got into
Speaker 1: the genetics of these snakes, and they found that the
Speaker 1: two green anaconda types, because you know they reclassified, were
Speaker 1: split up. They were they diverged because of probably plate
Speaker 1: tectonic activity about ten million years ago, when plates smashed
Speaker 1: together and created a big like ridge or a mountain range,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, it's like the Berlin Wall,
Speaker 1: and they were split up. And they look a lot
Speaker 1: alike if you look like them, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: but their genomes differ by about five and a half percent,
Speaker 1: which is a lot genetically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, humans and chimps are separated by about two percent,
Speaker 2: and these are identical looking snakes, so they are definitely
Speaker 2: different species. And it just goes to show you, like
Speaker 2: how species put into very similar habitats a long time ago,
Speaker 2: that those small changes that spread out and out and
Speaker 2: out over millions of years can have huge sweeping effects
Speaker 2: that their genomes could be divergent by five percent just
Speaker 2: over that time, which is the basis of chaos theory.
Speaker 2: Oh really Yeah, the little tiny changes inputs early on
Speaker 2: over a long enough span of time, completely different things
Speaker 2: over long spans of time.
Speaker 1: You should say that all as Jeff Goldbloom.
Speaker 2: I can't. I wish I could do a Jeff Goldbloom. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that would be amazing. I saw him once in person
Speaker 2: outside of the What's the place we always stayed for
Speaker 2: sketch fiest.
Speaker 1: I saw him outside the hotel too. He was there
Speaker 1: the same time, and I was at one point even
Speaker 1: in a little circular group with friends, I knew that
Speaker 1: knew him, and I just stayed quiet and tried to
Speaker 1: just be among Jeff Goldbloom.
Speaker 2: I feel like we talked about this at the San
Speaker 2: Francisco show.
Speaker 1: I think so. And my takeaway just from being near
Speaker 1: him is that boy, he was a charming, lovely guy
Speaker 1: that seemed like he wanted every interaction with the person
Speaker 1: to leave thinking like, what a great dude that guy is.
Speaker 2: Andy smells like a million dollars, a million bucks. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I wish I could do a Jeff Goldblum too, I
Speaker 2: guess is what I'm trying.
Speaker 1: To say, so we should mention the range quickly before
Speaker 1: we probably break again. The greens obviously almost all of
Speaker 1: Brazil and other parts of South America east of the
Speaker 1: Andes up the northern Venezuela coast. You can find them
Speaker 1: as far south as Paraguay, and interestingly, also maybe unlucky
Speaker 1: for them, on the Caribbean island of Trinidad.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, now here's where the salt tolerance thing comes up.
Speaker 2: I could not figure out if you look at a map,
Speaker 2: Trinidad is there's a part of Venezuela that's no more
Speaker 2: than ten miles away from Trinidad and Tobago, the islands
Speaker 2: right off of Venezuela. So these things can swim and
Speaker 2: hold their breath for ten minutes. I was like, how
Speaker 2: did they get to Trinidad? Did they swim? I still
Speaker 2: have no idea how they got to Trinidad. It had
Speaker 2: to have been, you know, at a point in time
Speaker 2: when Trinidad was still fused to maybe to South America
Speaker 2: or like maybe the sea levels were lower so there
Speaker 2: was a land bridge. I don't know, but that's how
Speaker 2: I found out that they're not salt tolerant they're only
Speaker 2: freshwater snakes, because no, they couldn't have swam to Trinidad.
Speaker 2: That's the answer to.
Speaker 1: That, even if they vaselined up and wore the the
Speaker 1: goggles and the skull cap.
Speaker 2: And the bike shorts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, they were bike shorts these days.
Speaker 2: What was it that Pee Wee Herman thing in Pee
Speaker 2: Wee's Big Adventure? He said, oh, yeah, he's talking about
Speaker 2: blowing your mind. He's like, have you ever seen a
Speaker 2: snake wear a vest? You remember that part? That's Youmi's
Speaker 2: favorite part in the entire.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that part. That's funny. I thought I
Speaker 1: knew that movie inside out. That's very funny. I've not
Speaker 1: seen that documentary yet on Pee Wee Herman. I heard
Speaker 1: it's really really good, though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just watched it. It is very good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's also one we're watching called Chimp Crazy by the
Speaker 2: guy who did Tiger.
Speaker 1: King No No thanks.
Speaker 2: It's it's not as hard to watch as you would think.
Speaker 2: It's more human interest stuff, but yeah, I mean there's
Speaker 2: still it's weird because you it's you empathize with both sides.
Speaker 2: It's one of those documentaries.
Speaker 1: I'm one of the few people that didn't any interest
Speaker 1: or watch tiger Was it Tiger What Tiger King?
Speaker 2: You kind of missed out? Man? That was something?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't feel like it did.
Speaker 2: Okay, well then yeah you might not like Chimp Crazy
Speaker 2: then if you didn't want to watch Tiger King.
Speaker 1: All right, shall we take that break? Yes, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll be back and talk about human interactions with anacondas
Speaker 1: right after this. So we mentioned that you're probably not
Speaker 1: in danger around in anaconda. I don't know if i'd
Speaker 1: go like partying with one, but you know, we said
Speaker 1: they may eat like every couple of months. So if
Speaker 1: you know for a fact that anaconda has eaten something,
Speaker 1: those are probably the videos you're seeing on the internet.
Speaker 1: When they're people like, you know, doing like documentary work
Speaker 1: on anacondas, they probably know that that thing is eaten.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interestingly, there was a study that found that humans
Speaker 2: who live around anaconas see a full anaconda as far
Speaker 2: less threatening than one that doesn't have a big pot belly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, so it makes sense. There was
Speaker 1: a book that I don't even know if we should mention,
Speaker 1: but a book from the fifties called Giant Snake Hunt
Speaker 1: by a guy named Ralph Blomberg who claimed two definite
Speaker 1: cases of people being killed by snakes. But I think
Speaker 1: that book is probably not accurate, is my guess. There
Speaker 1: is a video that I watched from Terra Santa, Brazil
Speaker 1: that has a guy I'm sure you watch this too,
Speaker 1: and anaconda standing or the guy was standing rather in
Speaker 1: like chest deep water in a river in Brazil, and
Speaker 1: anaconda was wrapped around him, and that his buddies up
Speaker 1: on the boat were trying to get it off, and
Speaker 1: he bit this snake near its head and the snake
Speaker 1: released it and they got this guy out of there.
Speaker 2: It was weird. If you listen close, his bite made
Speaker 2: the same sound that Fred Flintstone makes when he bites
Speaker 2: into something. That trump sound. I was really surprised.
Speaker 1: It was very surprising.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this is the that's really really rare that
Speaker 2: that happens. And the guy was able to escape unharmed.
Speaker 2: The point is as if if an ana konda wanted
Speaker 2: to take you on, like you would be in big trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure. It turns out that there are some people who
Speaker 2: want an anaconda to take them on. There's a guy
Speaker 2: named Paul Rizzoli, who, for all intents and purposes, his
Speaker 2: chainsaw from summer school. Did you look this up and
Speaker 2: see him?
Speaker 1: I did, and I remember when this happened.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Discovery Channel had a two hour special called
Speaker 2: Eating Alive, wherein Paul Rissoli was out looking for a
Speaker 2: giant anaconda to eat him and it was just pulse
Speaker 2: pounding from the beginning to the last moment from what
Speaker 2: I understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he don't remember this. Oh boy. It was a
Speaker 1: media disaster and I would like to think a low
Speaker 1: point for Discovery Channel. But they made a carbon fiber
Speaker 1: suit that he wore and he drenched himself in pig's blood.
Speaker 1: And what he claimed was like, oh, I want to
Speaker 1: bring awareness to the loss of habitats, you know, for
Speaker 1: these snakes. But close to forty thousand people signed a
Speaker 1: petition beforehand calling it animal abuse, saying you can't do
Speaker 1: a show like this. The show itself was a disaster,
Speaker 1: sort of a Heraldo digging for who is it Jimmy
Speaker 1: Hawth or was it?
Speaker 2: I don't know about Haffa. I know that he found
Speaker 2: al Capone's vault.
Speaker 1: Al Capone that was it that had nothing basically in it,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of the deal here, where almost
Speaker 1: all of the show is just prep In the last
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, this snake, this poor snake being exploited, tries
Speaker 1: to bite him on the head and starts constricting him
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, oh my arm and he taps out,
Speaker 1: and that was it.
Speaker 2: Right. So, I think the rule of thumb here, Chuck,
Speaker 2: is if you are in another animal's habitat messing with
Speaker 2: it and there's a TV camera on you, you are
Speaker 2: in the wrong. There is no exception to that. Agreed.
Speaker 2: You are going into their house and messing with them
Speaker 2: for your own benefit, and that's just wrong. It's wrong,
Speaker 2: and don't do it.
Speaker 1: Agreed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all I have to say about that.
Speaker 1: I think we should mention a couple of these tweets though,
Speaker 1: because they're pretty funny.
Speaker 2: Totally. There was one person who said that they called
Speaker 2: it eaten Alive because getting squeezed really hard didn't sound
Speaker 2: as enticing. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: Another one someone said, calling it hashtag eating the Lime
Speaker 1: is like having a show on the Food Network about
Speaker 1: cooking a turkey and all they do after two hours
Speaker 1: is pre eat the oven good stuff roasted.
Speaker 2: I don't remember it at all, and I don't remember
Speaker 2: it being a disaster, but I could see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as far as human interaction, you know, humans are
Speaker 1: probably a bigger threat. Not probably, humans are a bigger
Speaker 1: threat to anacon than they are to them.
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 1: A lot of times it will be preemptively killed in
Speaker 1: a small community because of fear of like small kids
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more of a threat, or a
Speaker 1: small elderly person perhaps, or your livestock. A lot of
Speaker 1: times they'll describe this as retaliatory killing because they they
Speaker 1: ate my prize year, so I'm going to kill it.
Speaker 1: But they did at an actual study in Brazil in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen and they found it it's probably more of
Speaker 1: a preemptive fear to keep them from doing something like that.
Speaker 2: Right, And based on your Human Development Index score, which
Speaker 2: is a rating of education level and standard of living
Speaker 2: and income for an area, the lower that score, the
Speaker 2: more likely you are to kill in anaconda. I feel
Speaker 2: like that's a little bit slanted, because I feel like
Speaker 2: people with high Human Development Index scores probably don't live
Speaker 2: with anacondas in their yard, So I think that's a
Speaker 2: little bit skewed. But I get the gist that you know,
Speaker 2: the more you're educated about, say, animals, the less likely
Speaker 2: you are to hurt them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At the same time, the more educated you are, probably
Speaker 2: the more removed you are from animals. So it's hard
Speaker 2: to fault people who literally live among anacondas or other
Speaker 2: things that they perceive as a threat killing them, even
Speaker 2: though to US and the developed world or the global
Speaker 2: North it seems just abhorrent. We don't have to deal
Speaker 2: with that. So it's there's a certain amount of judgment
Speaker 2: that you have to take perspective on either way. I
Speaker 2: wish that no one would kill an anti conda, especially
Speaker 2: if they leave humans alone. But I can't also put
Speaker 2: myself in the shoes of the people who live among them,
Speaker 2: I guess, is what I'm saying. Yeah, well said, I'm
Speaker 2: glad you said that, because I'm out of breath.
Speaker 1: No, that's great. Yeah, Obviously, a loss of habitat is
Speaker 1: a problem for everything in South America, draining of wetlands
Speaker 1: for agricultural use and just you know, clear cutting of
Speaker 1: rainforests and things like that. Despite all this, UH, they're
Speaker 1: in pretty good shape. The International Union for Conservation of
Speaker 1: Nature and Natural Resources classified UH or they're currently classified
Speaker 1: as of least concern.
Speaker 2: That was surprising.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they're they're they're doing pretty good. You
Speaker 1: might wonder about, like, well, what about these things, like
Speaker 1: if people bring them over and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they're in the swamps of Florida. Uh, there are some
Speaker 1: anacondas in Florida, but it's generally not a problem. The
Speaker 1: Burmese python is, you know, very much on record as
Speaker 1: being a much much bigger problem. But regardless, Florida has
Speaker 1: a complete ban on anaconda's and they are prohibited as pets.
Speaker 2: They said, don't even don't even think about it. We're Florida.
Speaker 2: We'll we'll find you. We'll hunt you down and find
Speaker 2: you if you release an anaconda here. One of the
Speaker 2: reasons why they're they're not a big problem as an
Speaker 2: invasive species is because they're really hard to keep as pets,
Speaker 2: like you essentially need like a a zoo exhibit size place.
Speaker 2: There's a word in there somewhere that I'm missing to
Speaker 2: keep an anaconda like at your home. Most people can't
Speaker 2: do that. So there's not a lot of pet ana
Speaker 2: condas anywhere that could be released in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we're going to finish up with a little
Speaker 1: bit on some of the more famous ana condas, first
Speaker 1: of which has got to be Ana Julia. This is
Speaker 1: a twenty footer, four hundred and forty pound female, obviously green,
Speaker 1: and probably the most famous anaconda that lived in the
Speaker 1: Foremosa River or near Benito, Brazil, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of ecotourism there and Anna Julia was just present a lot.
Speaker 1: And the water there in the river around Benito's is
Speaker 1: pretty clear as far as that kind of water goes,
Speaker 1: and Anna Julia was not aggressive, so she was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to make a documentary about me, I'm
Speaker 1: right here, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Come on in the water's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or maybe you don't come on in the water.
Speaker 2: So there's a yeah. Well there's actually from that study
Speaker 2: that pulled the pole national geographic thing that contributed to
Speaker 2: a huge study that changed the species arrangement, the taxonomy.
Speaker 2: One of the biologists involved in that, there's a video
Speaker 2: of him swimming alongside Anna Julia and she's totally underwater,
Speaker 2: just swimming along and does not seem at all bothered
Speaker 2: by his presence. I mean, he's not like trying to
Speaker 2: ride or anything like that. He's not putting any on her.
Speaker 1: Was he the one wearing the freaking dress shirt?
Speaker 2: I think so. Yeah, he was not dressed for snorkeling
Speaker 2: or swimming.
Speaker 1: It was very weird. Well, and I immediately went to
Speaker 1: the comments. I'm like, surely I'm not the only one
Speaker 1: that is noticing this, And of course everyone is like, well,
Speaker 1: I see the guy dressed, you know, formal for the occasion,
Speaker 1: and everyone's talking about this guy wearing I mean, it
Speaker 1: may be one of those weird sort of moisture wicking
Speaker 1: all weather outdoor shirts that just is a button up.
Speaker 1: But why swimming in a button up?
Speaker 2: I get the impression that he's Dutch.
Speaker 1: Oh, that explained it.
Speaker 2: So what's sad about it, though, is that Anna Julia
Speaker 2: was found dead just a few weeks after this research
Speaker 2: that she was a huge part of, like because she
Speaker 2: was so docile, they were able to closely study and
Speaker 2: observe her, and she contributed greatly to our understanding of
Speaker 2: Ana Conda's and she died like five weeks after that
Speaker 2: research was published, that big twenty twenty four paper, And
Speaker 2: of course everybody's like, somebody like, who shot Anna Julia.
Speaker 2: It was like a murder mystery that Netflix quickly made
Speaker 2: a ten part series about. And it turns out that
Speaker 2: she died of natural causes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is sad, but good to know that she
Speaker 1: was not killed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: If you live in Saint Louis, you're probably screaming at
Speaker 1: us right now. You got to mention Jlo. Guys, you
Speaker 1: got to mention j Lo. J Loo was the eighteen
Speaker 1: foot two hundred and ten pound anaconda that lived for
Speaker 1: about a dozen years at the Saint Louis Zoo. And
Speaker 1: you know, feel what you want about zoos, but this
Speaker 1: ana conda was saved, actually escaped being sold for meat
Speaker 1: and skin at a Guyana market and an animal exporter
Speaker 1: stepped in, bought the snake and brought to j Lo
Speaker 1: to the zoo in twenty ten and was apparently the
Speaker 1: star of the show. At they're developing herbetarium.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the animal exporter who brought her very famously
Speaker 2: put her in what looked like a present box with
Speaker 2: like a bow on it and everything. It was like
Speaker 2: here you go, guys, and let him open it, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, j Lo sprung out and coiled
Speaker 2: herself in a very like happy, playful way around the
Speaker 2: zoo keeper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of like a genuine hug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and slithered off. And because ana Conda's sound
Speaker 2: just like this anaconda in the movie Anakanda, she went
Speaker 2: eye as she slithered off, because that's the sound that
Speaker 2: that snakes make.
Speaker 1: That sounds sort of like the sound that the mummy makes.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see that special? No, they they were
Speaker 1: just talking about this on the Threedom podcast with Scott Ackerman,
Speaker 1: Lauren Lapkins, and Paula Tompkins, where there was another one
Speaker 1: of the specials. So let's recreate this thing that we
Speaker 1: have no idea what it sounded like. And they tried
Speaker 1: to recreate what a mummy sounded like by building this
Speaker 1: i think a three D mummy voice box and passing
Speaker 1: air through it. And it was just sort of like.
Speaker 2: He a mummy, a dead human being that's been embalmed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's bizarre. I mean, I'm sure they sounded like a
Speaker 2: human pre mummy, and then they didn't sound like anything
Speaker 2: because they were dead post mummification. That's just ah, I know,
Speaker 2: my mind just got blown.
Speaker 1: I'm with you. It was a very strange thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know why they did it. I don't know
Speaker 1: much about it other than hearing it on threeedom and
Speaker 1: looking it up because I had to hear the sound.
Speaker 2: Like. We may edit that gap out, but there is
Speaker 2: a substantial pause where we were both just stunned thinking
Speaker 2: about this for a second.
Speaker 1: No, I think we should leave it in there, because
Speaker 1: that was that was real life.
Speaker 2: Who else, chuck? We got to mention Oliver from the
Speaker 2: San Francisco Zoo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's funny is I didn't. I was so caught
Speaker 1: up in the sound that that mummy made. I didn't
Speaker 1: even think about, like, what does that even mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Who thought of that idea?
Speaker 1: Oh? I don't know. It's probably Discovery Channel.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, that's just bizarre. There's Oliver from
Speaker 2: San Francisco Zoo. He may have been the oldest anaconda
Speaker 2: to live in captivity. It was forty they think. And
Speaker 2: then the oldest living snake in captivity is Annie, who
Speaker 2: is in the Monte Casino Burg Gardens in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Speaker 2: And in two twenty twenty one May fourteenth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: Guinness said that she was thirty seven years in three
Speaker 2: hundred and seventeen days old. And since Olivia said that
Speaker 2: she couldn't find any mention of her death and that
Speaker 2: she she thinks that she's still there. She's coming up
Speaker 2: on her forty second birthday.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So yeah, on May sixty second, she'll be forty two
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 1: You know what they don't have in that bird?
Speaker 2: Garden birds?
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: That was great, And Chuck, we can't go any further.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm done.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, Chuck's done because he just dropped the mic.
Speaker 2: And since he did that, it's time for a listener.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm gonna call this. Oh this is a fun
Speaker 1: follow up. I always love it. And when we do
Speaker 1: something on someone and like a family member writes in,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and that's what happened here with greed you dell. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: listening to the popcorn episode is delighted. You mentioned Charles Creeters,
Speaker 1: my great great great grandfather. Here's some more information about
Speaker 1: him and how he came to invent the popcorn machine.
Speaker 1: He founded See Creators and Company in Chicago in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty five, initially building peanut roasters, patented the process of
Speaker 1: popping popcorn and oil or seasoning as he called it,
Speaker 1: to prevent popcorn from burning. In eighteen ninety three, patented
Speaker 1: the first popcorn popper, which use a steam engine to
Speaker 1: power it, and he debuted it at the eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: three Colombian Exposition. At first, his invention wasn't getting much
Speaker 1: attention until he started handing out freebacks of popcorn brilliant.
Speaker 1: I love it. During the twentieth century early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: as invention became a staple for street vendors, helping them
Speaker 1: support themselves in their families, and today see Creators and
Speaker 1: Companies a fifth generation family business. My grandfather, Charles D. Creators,
Speaker 1: owns the company and both my uncles and my mom
Speaker 1: still work there to this day.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so cool.
Speaker 1: I love that. That is from Garrett. I guess you Dell.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Garrett. This is a fantastic email. We
Speaker 2: do love it when we talk about somebody and a
Speaker 2: family member writes in, especially when they're not upset at us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and especially when they did something great like committing
Speaker 1: the popcorn machine.
Speaker 2: That's right. If you want to be like Garrett, you
Speaker 2: can get in touch with us via email. You can
Speaker 2: send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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