Speaker 1: Welcome to future future 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 animals
Speaker 1: who explode. That's right, our very own Creatureheimer, in honor
Speaker 1: of the Oppenheimer movie. Of course, last week we did
Speaker 1: a Barbie episode about pink animals. This week we're doing
Speaker 1: an episode about animals who explode, from tiny explosions to
Speaker 1: an actual World War two story. All these animals are
Speaker 1: blowing up literally in credible discover this and more as
Speaker 1: we discover the age old question what's the pond of death?
Speaker 1: Joining me today is my friend friend of the show, writer,
Speaker 1: director and podcaster Adam Ganzer.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome. I love the even nature bows to the zeitgeist. Yeah,
Speaker 2: animals must be trend.
Speaker 1: Animals gotta be on trend. They gotta know they do
Speaker 1: what's trending on the socials, on threads, Blue Sky, whatever
Speaker 1: that other website is. You know what we're calling whatever
Speaker 1: we're calling the Internet these days, But yes we are.
Speaker 1: We're we're doing a We're doing a Barbenheimer of course.
Speaker 1: This week is the Heimer part of the Barbenheimer, because
Speaker 1: we're talking about exploding animals, Adam, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about explosions?
Speaker 2: About explosions? I was raised in America, and therefore I
Speaker 2: instinctively pump my fists anytime I see it, right, even
Speaker 2: when it's a truly tragic situation, and I.
Speaker 1: Still Adam Ganzer actually kind of likes war crimes. He's
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 2: Listen, I've been socialized this way.
Speaker 1: Nothing as much, right, Nothing you can't there's nothing you
Speaker 1: can do about it. We have fireworks, we have fireworks.
Speaker 1: We cheer for fireworks. How are we not supposed to
Speaker 1: cheer for war crimes?
Speaker 2: Right? Right? Our song, our national anthem, is literally about.
Speaker 1: Exploding bombs bursting in. Yeah, we're helpless, and we're helpless
Speaker 1: in the face of jingoism, truly. So some animals do
Speaker 1: indeed explode, and we're going to talk about some many
Speaker 1: explosions that are very interesting, very weird, little gross, uh,
Speaker 1: somewhat tragic, maybe so.
Speaker 2: Great, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: So some ants like to pull a bit of an Oppenheimer,
Speaker 1: which is a new sentence in the English language. So
Speaker 1: ants like to use themselves as tiny chemical warfare bombs.
Speaker 1: So there are a couple of species of ants that
Speaker 1: do this are C. Sounder sea and see explodins, which
Speaker 1: you know, good job of the scientific name for that one.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, right to the point direct.
Speaker 1: These are two related species of exploding ants. They are
Speaker 1: found in Southeast Asia and they quite literally have an
Speaker 1: explosive temper. They will rupture their own abdomen, releasing a
Speaker 1: small explosion of sticky, yellow toxic fluid when they are disturbed.
Speaker 1: So yes, they do not the explosion this kills the ant.
Speaker 1: The ants does not survive rupturing its own abdomen. It's
Speaker 1: much like a bee where it stings and its butt
Speaker 1: kind of falls off. It is the ultimate defensive technique.
Speaker 1: So they have glands that run through their entire body
Speaker 1: that is stilled with this horrible yellow goo. When they
Speaker 1: encounter an invader ant or a predator, they will suddenly
Speaker 1: and sharply contract their abdomen, which ruptures the gland, which
Speaker 1: basically causes them to burst like a little gusher and
Speaker 1: all of this sticky toxic goop comes out and sprays
Speaker 1: all over the their.
Speaker 2: Target like a like a delicious dangerous tree.
Speaker 1: Yes, next time you, yeah, next time you pop a
Speaker 1: gusher in your mouth. Just imagine it's an ant doing
Speaker 1: the ultimate sacrifice.
Speaker 2: That it's dying to defend its colony whilst you enjoy
Speaker 2: its screamy go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, except don't eat these. I advise against it, right
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's not it's not delicious, uh gushery goodness.
Speaker 1: It is toxic and corrosive.
Speaker 2: I I'm well, I mean, can I ask a couple?
Speaker 2: I have Yeah, questions the way what what? What? What
Speaker 2: predator needs these gusher ants to to be deterred? Like
Speaker 2: what are they deterring?
Speaker 1: So they're mostly deterring other ants. So if ants are
Speaker 1: attacking their colony, they can very easily attack these ants. Uh,
Speaker 1: and basically deterring most other like small it would be
Speaker 1: other insects essentially, like once you get to bird size,
Speaker 1: this technique doesn't work very well because the bird's just
Speaker 1: it's too big.
Speaker 2: Right, they like and they'll they'll develop a taste.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just watch it's gushers to birds.
Speaker 2: They exactly have you have they tried diplomacy in their
Speaker 2: evolved state? Have they tried evolving diplomacy instead of this?
Speaker 2: They tried?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like they've evolved tiny hands to shake with
Speaker 1: the other ants.
Speaker 2: It's amazing that it's two other ants. Yeah, that's my
Speaker 2: favorite part of this.
Speaker 1: It's other. It can be other species of ants, other
Speaker 1: colonies of you know, like well, actually, I guess I've
Speaker 1: never seen anything about if the same species gets into fights,
Speaker 1: because then you just have a big goopy mess of
Speaker 1: these exploding all over each other.
Speaker 2: And is it corrosive to them? Like if they touch
Speaker 2: the goo, are they corroded? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like is it toxic? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they avoid it, okay, And like the one
Speaker 1: that explodes is already gonna die. So it's no skin off, right,
Speaker 1: broken back, Yeah, it's exoskeleton. Yeah. So this goo is
Speaker 1: very sticky. It slows their movements, and it's corrosive, so
Speaker 1: it kind of dissolves them as well. So it's not
Speaker 1: great to get on you.
Speaker 2: Is it bright yellow?
Speaker 1: It is yellow?
Speaker 2: Is it yellow the way I'm imagining it?
Speaker 1: It is?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like these colors sometimes, you know, like
Speaker 1: the toxic colors. It's like, yes, that is indeed toxic.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like I mean, I guess this is
Speaker 1: a little bit less like an Oppenheimer and more like
Speaker 1: that guy in the end of Doctor Strangelove. Who rides
Speaker 1: the nuke, because you know.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it, wohooing his way into disaster exactly. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's funny to me that it's in Nickelodeon colors. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I shouldn't say funny, more like, uh, twisted,
Speaker 2: Like there's a twisted aspect that it looks cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's kind of yellow, little yellow goop, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you kind of like so when you see it happening,
Speaker 1: it's not like a little like mushroom cloud explosion type thing.
Speaker 1: You just kind of see an ant wrestling with another
Speaker 1: ant and then suddenly the one of the ants is
Speaker 1: like covered in yellow goo and the other ant looks
Speaker 1: kind of like wrong, kind of broken, like a like
Speaker 1: a like a glow stick that's sick, like a glowstick
Speaker 1: that's been snapped in half. Yeah. So this act of
Speaker 1: explosive self destruction is called autothysis. It is a type
Speaker 1: of altruism that, you know, the very extreme type of altruism.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd say it's as altruistic as it gets really yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's not just ants that do this. There are
Speaker 1: actually some species of termites who also do this behavior. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: soldier termites in the species glossothermes Oculatis will within the
Speaker 1: confines of their termite colony, grab onto an attacker and
Speaker 1: explode the glands near their head by nearly beheading themselves
Speaker 1: and forming a rupture between the head and thorax. Then
Speaker 1: they excrete a yellow goo onto their attacker, which researchers
Speaker 1: believe is meant to block the tunnels to the colony
Speaker 1: and sort of fix the attacker. Just glue the attacker
Speaker 1: into the tunnel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and their kids. I mean, like it's just like
Speaker 2: what a prank to pull on your kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's off your head just pops off. I mean,
Speaker 1: this does kill the termite's it's hard to survive, sort
Speaker 1: of like rupturing your own essentially, what's a neck. Uh
Speaker 1: it's not really a neck, but you know, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: That we accept it as a substitute. It's a next substitute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's the it's the termine equivalent to an
Speaker 1: ex So the goo acts as a glue and also
Speaker 1: as an alarm pheromone, alerting the other termites in the
Speaker 1: colony that there is an intruder. Uh. So, you know,
Speaker 1: basically like you've popped your own head off like a
Speaker 1: pez dispenser. You've gooped on this guy and now everyone
Speaker 1: can smell your goo, and it's like, oh, it looks
Speaker 1: like like Helen uh found a trespasser.
Speaker 2: The sweet smell of terror. Yeah, we better go the
Speaker 2: other way, so do I. So I got to assume
Speaker 2: this happens because creatures are biting their heads off. I
Speaker 2: got it right. That that makes sense, doesn't it? Why? Why?
Speaker 1: No? Not necessarily the the uh they are just kind
Speaker 1: of the way that they're beheading themselves is by contracting
Speaker 1: their muscles.
Speaker 2: So it's sort of a like it's a reflexive thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So it's like like literally kind of like
Speaker 1: a pez dispenser flipping its own head back.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is the most funny image I can imagine. Uh,
Speaker 2: I think, like I I've been thinking about it the
Speaker 2: whole time I'm talking. And the head squeezing off for goo,
Speaker 2: pretty funny way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the go I mean, the head I don't think
Speaker 1: comes completely off. That would be really funny, like a
Speaker 1: champagne bottle with the head just like but I think
Speaker 1: it's more just like it's like near the head, like
Speaker 1: near where the head and the thorax meet. There's like
Speaker 1: this rupture, and it just kind of like like I
Speaker 1: don't know, like a little confetti cannon like.
Speaker 2: A movie slit throat like where it just like its
Speaker 2: sprays everything.
Speaker 1: Right exactly exactly, except this goo is also yellow apparently,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. I guess yellow is just universal goo color.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the color of poison.
Speaker 1: Insects, color of bad goo.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can I So termites are basically already corrosive beings,
Speaker 2: like if I like, just that's how I feel about scientifically,
Speaker 2: they will destroy everything, Like if they get in your house,
Speaker 2: they're already basically a tub of yellow goo in your walls,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like just slowly corroding it.
Speaker 2: So it's wild to me that some species like, no,
Speaker 2: we can do better. We could, We could, We could
Speaker 2: go for a y.
Speaker 1: We could be even more irritating by us squeezing goo
Speaker 1: out of our necks like a tube of tooth exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: It's toothpaste, tube of doom. We can be there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you are worried about termites, uh, if
Speaker 1: you ever find like a pile of like weird little
Speaker 1: brown like tiny brown pellets that you sweep up and
Speaker 1: it keeps like reforming you got you got termites. It's
Speaker 1: called it's called frasts, which is a cute name for
Speaker 1: an incredibly destructive and horrible problem.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's also a cute way for them to
Speaker 2: murder themselves with toxic good. They're sort of cute with
Speaker 2: their benevolent or malicious activities.
Speaker 1: With their self annihilation. It's it is, yeah, the PEZ technique.
Speaker 1: It's you know, good job, termites.
Speaker 2: I guess can you imagine what if the guy who
Speaker 2: invented PEZ saw this and was like, I know what
Speaker 2: I could do right? Candy?
Speaker 1: What if it was shaped like Donald Duck and did
Speaker 1: candy right?
Speaker 2: What if it had Goofy's head on it and it's
Speaker 2: still the head still popped off, but out of its
Speaker 2: neck came pellets of candy. Kids would love that.
Speaker 1: He's just he's taking just let me let me taste
Speaker 1: mone of these. Let me taste that. He tastes a
Speaker 1: term He's like, no, this one's no good. I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta do something different.
Speaker 2: I think it's not candy enough. We make it look
Speaker 2: slightly morey.
Speaker 1: It should be made out of sugar instead of toxic goo.
Speaker 2: Very smart, right, yeah, brilliant man.
Speaker 1: We assume well, we are going to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: and when we get back, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a mystery, a very mysterious mystery, an explosive mystery.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, that doesn't sound like how that sounds like
Speaker 2: a terrible way for a weekend to go, but I'm excited.
Speaker 1: Seems like a terrible way for it to go after
Speaker 1: you've had some like really spicy food.
Speaker 2: Thank you, You went right where I'm going, same brain over.
Speaker 1: Here, are right? We are back, and we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about a mystery, the mystery of the thousand
Speaker 1: exploding toads.
Speaker 2: That one thousand exploding actually over a thousand. That's so
Speaker 2: that's the low balls, right, that are oh good?
Speaker 1: He was more around one thousand, three hundred. But a
Speaker 1: thousand exploding toads rolls off the tongue better than a thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred exploding toads.
Speaker 2: Okay, and this is a this is a noir caper.
Speaker 2: I assume, right, we're gonna we're gonna find some darkness
Speaker 2: in the toad hard or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this actually happened in Hamburg, Germany, in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five. Okay, Uh, Public officials and scientists were
Speaker 1: confused because toads just kept on exploding like little toad
Speaker 1: balloons with a splatter of on trails up to three
Speaker 1: feet are about a meter away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be confused by that. Yeah, why are animals
Speaker 2: becoming balloons of goo? Why is that happening?
Speaker 1: I'd like to Yeah, No, I I feel like that's
Speaker 1: a real head scratcher. When you got a bunch of
Speaker 1: toads that are exploding, real real.
Speaker 2: You can't just walk past it. That's the kind of
Speaker 2: case you get.
Speaker 1: You get drawn in, right right, you make you're making
Speaker 1: little chalk outlines of just a toad sort of splayed out.
Speaker 2: It's just a big splatter. Yeah, every line of it
Speaker 2: sort of.
Speaker 1: You know, the goop shape, the wiggly goop shape.
Speaker 2: The splatter happened in here as you so, yeah, and
Speaker 2: a splatter pattern.
Speaker 1: Yeah, toad splatter experts are actually in high demand. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's the very highly specialized.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, over one thousand toads died this way, so much
Speaker 1: so that there was a bit of a panic. Uh.
Speaker 1: Tabloids started calling this area the pond of Death. Uh.
Speaker 1: People were warned to stay away, into keep their children
Speaker 1: in pets away in case the pond was full of
Speaker 1: some kind of mysterious chemical that was causing these toads
Speaker 1: to explodes. Theories went around that it could be some
Speaker 1: kind of toad exploding pathogen, it could be a pesticide,
Speaker 1: maybe even a fungus or pollution. They didn't know. It
Speaker 1: was scary. Even more puzzling is that there were no
Speaker 1: eyewitness accounts of the toads exploding. So like you'd think,
Speaker 1: you know, someone would at least see one of these
Speaker 1: toads like just randomly popping off, but nobody had seen it.
Speaker 2: This is like seven for the toad culture, right. It's
Speaker 2: just like, what's at the bottom of this.
Speaker 1: There's a methodology, there is definite m oh adam, Do
Speaker 1: you have any guesses what could be causing the toad explosions.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess the real thing in a second. It
Speaker 2: thrills me to think of scientists getting together they're impositing
Speaker 2: what this could be. I just imagine one guy walking
Speaker 2: into the bicycle pump and just dropping it. I've got it, guys.
Speaker 1: These toads have an inflation fetish and it's not going well.
Speaker 2: A helium tank he just puts it in there. These
Speaker 2: are kids that went too far.
Speaker 1: It's that scene from Shrek that kids are re enacting,
Speaker 1: like where you know they like blow up the snake
Speaker 1: and the toad. I think can make a snake and
Speaker 1: toad balloon. Remember that that makes sense, it's frem shrack.
Speaker 1: I always felt really bad for the snake and the
Speaker 1: toad that got like blown up into a balloon balloons.
Speaker 1: It seems like that would hurt them and be sad
Speaker 1: for them.
Speaker 2: It would hurt of it. Also, you get immediately immobilized
Speaker 2: as a balloon, right you'd think like, oh, balloon sounds fun.
Speaker 2: Now man, it's basically like body jail. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 2: go anywhere. You're stuck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, No, I don't like that. That's a
Speaker 1: panic attack.
Speaker 2: That's one of my nightmare. Yeah, added to the pile. Uh.
Speaker 2: I'm going to guess that it's a digestive related issue.
Speaker 2: But they're eating something that's that's uh like something that
Speaker 2: is the equivalent of baking soda to the vinegar in
Speaker 2: their stomach or something.
Speaker 1: A Minto's truck and a Coke truck both crashed near
Speaker 1: the pond.
Speaker 2: There was a surplus of high school volcano prize yes
Speaker 2: that year that we're all being dumped in the lakes.
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know, so uh, you know, or could
Speaker 1: it have been some kind of secret government toad exploding experiment, like.
Speaker 2: I mean, the only other conclusion, right, exactly, the only
Speaker 2: other option.
Speaker 1: Well, apparently the leading theory as to what happened is
Speaker 1: murderous crows. So toad expert doctor Frank Muschmann believed that
Speaker 1: crows were carefully cutting open the toad's toxic skin and
Speaker 1: selectively plucking out the toads livers based on these small
Speaker 1: incision marks that doctor Mutschmann found on the toads.
Speaker 2: His name is Mushmann Musmann, so not not mush not
Speaker 2: mush Man.
Speaker 1: Not mush Man.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm not making fun of his name, just say
Speaker 2: it would have been amazing if his name.
Speaker 1: Is Mushman, and it would be I would I would
Speaker 1: definitely love there to be a doctor Mushman who studies toads,
Speaker 1: you know, just.
Speaker 2: A suggest destiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so uh. The reason it would then explode, right,
Speaker 1: is that toads have this behavior when they are attacked,
Speaker 1: they will puff up, so they like inflate themselves with
Speaker 1: air to appear bigger, to look you know, not very
Speaker 1: snackable something that could not easily be swallowed, something that
Speaker 1: couldn't be easily attacked. Uh. But these toads. Uh, it
Speaker 1: was theorized that they had an incision in the from
Speaker 1: the crows basically doing a liver ectomy and eating the liver.
Speaker 1: And because they had a hole in it, it's like
Speaker 1: they would fill themselves with air. But then that would
Speaker 1: just force all their organs out of the hole. Oh no,
Speaker 1: like again, like a tube of toothpaste. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like a balloon full of organs. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just imagine you're squeezing a bunch of organs out of
Speaker 1: a hole by pushing air into the toad.
Speaker 2: I mean it's yeah, that's amazing. And also like that's
Speaker 2: actually somehow the saddest thing I've heard so.
Speaker 1: Far, I know, just like you trying to defend itself
Speaker 1: but then it accidentally uh you know.
Speaker 2: It's it just shoots, it just squeezes out. Its organs
Speaker 2: are popping out there like they're popcornans.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's yeah, it's like silly string but out of
Speaker 1: a toad. Just terrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the string is like vital organs.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Well, some scientists weren't satisfied with this theory.
Speaker 1: Crow behavioral researcher, who I believe is just a crow apologist,
Speaker 1: doctor Miriam Sima, believed that crows were not behind the
Speaker 1: attacks and that crows would not be so picky as
Speaker 1: to only eat the livers that like the crow, would
Speaker 1: eat the rest of the organs as well. But my counterpoint,
Speaker 1: as a non expert to this expert's opinion is that
Speaker 1: crows are smart, and smart animals can be jerks sometimes, right,
Speaker 1: Like I think because it like it happened in like
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and it would happened in this
Speaker 1: localized area, I feel like it was just a few
Speaker 1: crows who were doing this. Yeah, yeah, who learned that
Speaker 1: livers taste good and that they can selectively grab the
Speaker 1: liver and just chow that down. Because there is this
Speaker 1: more recent case of orcas, the two orcas who went
Speaker 1: on a killing spree eating just the livers of sharks.
Speaker 1: So oh again, like Orca's very smart, crows very smart.
Speaker 1: What happens when someone gets too smart they start eating livers.
Speaker 1: It's the hannibal lecter phenomenon.
Speaker 2: Yep, they find out about key ant, they got a
Speaker 2: whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I mean, Einstein probably ates some livers. I'm
Speaker 1: you know, like, uh, Elon Musk not eating livers because
Speaker 1: I don't think he's very smart.
Speaker 2: He's rejecting liver every time somebody offers it to him,
Speaker 2: which is all the time. He's just never, never even
Speaker 2: eating pete.
Speaker 1: He's just burning himself trying to make pop tarts. I read.
Speaker 1: I read that excerpt from there was a book about
Speaker 1: I guess SpaceX in the early years, and apparently Elon
Speaker 1: Musk kept burning himself because he was trying to take
Speaker 1: pop tarts out of the toaster. Anyways, what are the
Speaker 1: chances that crow Doctor is just a.
Speaker 2: Bunch of crows and a lab coat? Hmm I greater
Speaker 2: than zero?
Speaker 1: Right, It's yeah, plausible, plausible, Yeah, plausible, passible, plausible, scientifically
Speaker 1: plab not proven, but plausible. It can't be libel because
Speaker 1: I'm saying it hasn't been proven. I'm just saying it's plausible, correct.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I I I think that there was like
Speaker 1: a few crows that were doing this, uh, two thousands
Speaker 1: of toads just like and I'll take this liver and
Speaker 1: that'll be mine, and yeah, just like they each time
Speaker 1: yin yeah, and crows can talk, so they can probably
Speaker 1: say yoink right, so uh yeah, liver is also very nutritious.
Speaker 1: So I feel like these were just like gormond crows
Speaker 1: that uh learned to appreciate the taste of toad liver
Speaker 1: and did not really care that the toads exploded or
Speaker 1: thought it was funny.
Speaker 2: I could see them it was funny, yeah, because honestly,
Speaker 2: it does seem like a funny image.
Speaker 1: It is kind of actually funny. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: really bad for the toads. Obviously, I'm a toad fan.
Speaker 1: I think they're cute. It's still a little bit funny
Speaker 1: for that to happen. Like you pluck out the liver
Speaker 1: and then this toad just inflates until it explodes. It's
Speaker 1: you gotta admit, there's a certain grim humor in that.
Speaker 2: You pluck a liver out, it puffs up, and then
Speaker 2: you just start seeing kidneys spitting out of it like
Speaker 2: there like somebody threw a stone from their stomach.
Speaker 1: It's like the crow equivalent of getting one thing out
Speaker 1: of a vending machine. But then it knocks down a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other things, right, and.
Speaker 2: All shoots out and the crows like, man, we figured
Speaker 2: everything out. We figured everything out. This is our xanadu,
Speaker 2: the pond of death or whatever, that's that's our Zena.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like if crows figure out the secret
Speaker 1: way to make like pluck something out of humans that
Speaker 1: make us explode, like we're in for it.
Speaker 2: Lord, yeah, good lord. They won't stop doing it either. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like those crows didn't learn anything.
Speaker 1: No, they didn't learn a lesson.
Speaker 2: They didn't learn anything.
Speaker 1: They learn well, they did learn something that it's really
Speaker 1: funny and good total livers.
Speaker 2: From toads, liver good, explosion better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that they learned exactly. Yeah, Well, we are going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but when we return, we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about a real World War two
Speaker 1: story involving exploding animals. So we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a World War two story involving exploding animals. And I
Speaker 1: promise this is not as horrifying as it sounds. I
Speaker 1: mean it is a little horrifying. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: so it's kind of funny. It's a little bit.
Speaker 2: I promise tragic, it's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's one of I would say. I mean,
Speaker 1: World War two is generally not a funny topic hot take. Generally,
Speaker 1: generally it's not funny. Generally it's horrifying. This is one
Speaker 1: of the funnier World War two stories. So unless unless
Speaker 1: you're a big fan of Rats, which personally I actually am.
Speaker 1: So I feel conflicted about this story because it's funny,
Speaker 1: but I feel really bad for the Rats.
Speaker 2: But it's not like Hogan's hero is funny. No, it's
Speaker 2: it's more of a grounded humor.
Speaker 1: It's it's more of a gallows humor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of yeah, I'm excited, not a.
Speaker 1: Haha funny, it's a oh all right, all right.
Speaker 2: Laughter, laughter, heels, I'll wove.
Speaker 1: Yeah, take a take a stiff sip of brandy and
Speaker 1: sort of exhale sharply out of your nose funny. So yeah,
Speaker 1: to cap off our Creature Heimer episode, let's talk about
Speaker 1: World War Two. So arguably, just as consequential as Oppenheimer's
Speaker 1: work on the nuclear bomb was the effort to create
Speaker 1: another type of super weapon, the explosive rat. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm joking, it was not nearly as consequential as the
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb, because we aren't, you know, currently sort of
Speaker 1: in a world dominated by mutually assured rat destruction.
Speaker 2: That we know of, that we know of that, we
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 1: But maybe it's the rats pulling all the strings.
Speaker 2: Dude, honestly knowing what I know about crows. Now, No,
Speaker 2: rats are just as smart as crows. Yeah, they're just
Speaker 2: they're just flightless crows.
Speaker 1: Really pretty much there. Yeah, rats are quite smart, which
Speaker 1: makes this a little sadder. Uh So, during World War Two,
Speaker 1: British special operations got their hands on a bunch of rats. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: it's so far. Good job, guys.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the idea of the transaction to get that, right,
Speaker 2: but fair enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just like Jerio, I will need five hundred
Speaker 1: rats if you please, right, for a country.
Speaker 2: Some government officials like you know, sequestering it or whatever,
Speaker 2: for some guy in a back alley. Yeah, I'll need
Speaker 2: all your rats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, keep calm and give me five hundred.
Speaker 2: Routs and give me rats, and give.
Speaker 1: Me rats all of your ruts. So sadly they killed
Speaker 1: the rats. Rest in peace, uh, little dudes, gone before
Speaker 1: your time. An unjust and unjust and to these poor
Speaker 1: little rats. Then they taxi dermied them and they sewed
Speaker 1: a small amount of explosives inside of them okay because
Speaker 1: they were Look, you know, while Oppenheimer was working on
Speaker 1: his little nuclear bomb, the British were really getting down
Speaker 1: to the the hot the higher sciences, the more esoteric
Speaker 1: sciences of what if we sowed some explosives inside of
Speaker 1: dead rats?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What if we jokered some rats? Yeah? What if
Speaker 2: we joker bombed a couple of rats?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Okay, right right? Yeah? What if it's like that scene
Speaker 1: and breaking bad with that guy's head on a tortoise,
Speaker 1: except its rats and there accept it and there's no message,
Speaker 1: it's just rats.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you might be wondering why you would put explosives
Speaker 1: inside a rat, how you would use a rat bomb. Well,
Speaker 1: the idea was this, Uh, if these rats were planted
Speaker 1: in factories, trains, or power stations, they would presumably be
Speaker 1: disposed of by the German by being shoveled into the
Speaker 1: boiler or furnace. Because it's like you find a dead rat,
Speaker 1: You're not gonna give it a little rat burial, You're
Speaker 1: just gonna throw it in the furnace, burn it, and
Speaker 1: that would cause an explosion and sabotage the boiler. And
Speaker 1: if the boiler fails, that might cause a larger explosion.
Speaker 1: So it's like, maybe it's real.
Speaker 2: This, this is a this is a this is kind
Speaker 2: of a Rube Goldberg device of a plan. Here.
Speaker 1: It's it's a little bit like that game mouse Trap,
Speaker 1: except it's it's a German trap, but the bait is
Speaker 1: dead rats.
Speaker 2: And all of them are mice. Everything they have to
Speaker 2: do is mice similar to get the trap to go off.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, Yeah, not sure about this plan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a bit of a stretch, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's a bit of a weird plan, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you know they're gonna throw it in the furnace?
Speaker 1: How do you know? Like it's the explosion is going
Speaker 1: to be big enough to actually sabotage the whole factory
Speaker 1: or train. Well, we'll never know how successful they might
Speaker 1: have been because the Germans intercepted the shipment of exploding
Speaker 1: rats right away.
Speaker 2: Ah, so that is another amazing twist in the story.
Speaker 2: And they're like, we could use these rats.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting because the rats sacrifice was not completely
Speaker 1: in vain. Apparently the threat of exploding rats was potentially
Speaker 1: more effective at inconveniencing the Germans than if the rats
Speaker 1: had actually been successfully deployed, because German military command became
Speaker 1: kind of paranoid that there were more exploding rats out
Speaker 1: there and had to use their resources to try to
Speaker 1: find the other exploding rats and get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of these exploding rats.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to them, as soon as this first shipment of
Speaker 1: rats was intercepted, British Special Operations just gave They just
Speaker 1: dropped it.
Speaker 2: They're like, fuck, maybe the rat. Maybe this whole thing's
Speaker 2: been bad.
Speaker 1: Maybe, now that I reflect upon things, maybe explosive rats
Speaker 1: was not the genius idea that'll win this war. They
Speaker 1: just dropped.
Speaker 2: Perhaps perhaps trip wires would be more effective, or just
Speaker 2: putting bombs there already.
Speaker 1: Perhaps pigeons with spikes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, let's get a really big bomb and
Speaker 2: drop that on them instead.
Speaker 1: What about a really really large rat with a bomb
Speaker 1: inside of it.
Speaker 2: Now you're talking Humphrey exploding. They started sewing rats together
Speaker 2: to make a super rat.
Speaker 1: Rat parachute, parachute made out of rats rat aeroplane. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they gave up. But so there were no more exploding rats.
Speaker 1: But the Germans wasted a bunch of resources trying to
Speaker 1: find more exploding rats, trying to figure out what the
Speaker 1: whole plan is with the exploding rats. Certainly it couldn't
Speaker 1: be as simple as them just sending the shipment of
Speaker 1: exploding rats. So they wasted a bunch of time trying
Speaker 1: to like basically go on this red this, this red herring,
Speaker 1: this like trying to figure out what was going on
Speaker 1: with the exploding rats when really it was as stupid
Speaker 1: as it seemed and unsuccessful as it seemed. But the
Speaker 1: Germans were like, they must be up to something really
Speaker 1: insidious with these exploding rats, and we've got to figure
Speaker 1: that out. They waste all the time.
Speaker 2: Is this is extraordinarily funny. I know, if you understood
Speaker 2: how funny this is. Like I'm like, in my brain,
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is such a great comedy movie. Like
Speaker 2: just one guy's obsessed with I can make bombs and rats,
Speaker 2: and everyone's like a bad idea, dude, super bad idea.
Speaker 2: He's like, just give me a battalion of guys a
Speaker 2: couple million pounds, you'll see, right. Fails immediately. But then
Speaker 2: of course the Germans get very worried and they start
Speaker 2: to you know, mutually assured rat destruction. As you said,
Speaker 2: he writes itself. It's a perfect movie.
Speaker 1: This is I don't understand why very funny, why Quentin
Speaker 1: Tarantino didn't make this movie.
Speaker 2: Right after his final film, this tenth film about a
Speaker 2: movie critic. How about rat bombs? Right, you know, rat bomber.
Speaker 2: Let's make that.
Speaker 1: I know that basically all of Hollywood is on strike,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna be I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: a scab. But what like, Look, you need to cave
Speaker 1: to the requests of the writers because we need this
Speaker 1: rat movie. We need it.
Speaker 2: We have rat bombers, we need it. We need it.
Speaker 2: It would heal the world, it would.
Speaker 1: So please give the writers and the actors fair living
Speaker 1: wages because I need the exploding rat movie.
Speaker 2: That's right, And play this on a loop during the
Speaker 2: Academy Awards conversation right where we talked about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, do that. Maybe, oh, exploding rats
Speaker 1: in the Awards but they're not real. But okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: back up, they're not really exploding rats because of course
Speaker 1: we don't want to hurt anyone, but just the idea
Speaker 1: that there could be exploding rats might make it might
Speaker 1: make it less likely for someone to cross the picket line.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, you never know when a rat might explode.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's the that's the feeling we want movie
Speaker 2: audiences to have. Yeah, every rat as your enemy.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, you know that was in that movie like
Speaker 1: with Matt Damon and uh Leonardo DiCaprio Departed. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just remember as the rat movie. But yes, the Departed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's did you know, by the way, that
Speaker 2: they didn't have the final shot with the rat when
Speaker 2: they first shot that movie. The editor told Scorsese, you
Speaker 2: need you need this last thing, you need the rat
Speaker 2: at the end, and they shot it in pickups.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: That's what I've heard. I've heard that they.
Speaker 1: Just call up this rat actor at three and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you need a Yeah, you got a movie?
Speaker 1: You want me to all time? I all right, serving coffee, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll come.
Speaker 2: Finally it's rats time to shine. Yeah, that's what I heard.
Speaker 2: I don't you know, I can't. I wasn't there, so
Speaker 2: I don't don't.
Speaker 1: I did. I did laugh, uh involuntarily when that popped up,
Speaker 1: because like I was enthralled by the movie and really
Speaker 1: into it. And then as soon as they zoomed out
Speaker 1: and showed us a rat. I just like it was.
Speaker 2: Come on, I get it, I get it, bro, I
Speaker 2: get the idea.
Speaker 1: But if the rat had exploded.
Speaker 2: Then whole other idea greatest movie all time maybe.
Speaker 1: And then then they could end with like the end
Speaker 1: dot dot dot question mark.
Speaker 2: Exactly right, the only, the only appropriate ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we don't know that rats were exactly Well.
Speaker 1: I think we've covered as many exploding animals I can
Speaker 1: take without starting to spiral into an existential crisis about
Speaker 1: you know, rat assured destruction.
Speaker 2: I'm going to cry for two hours after this podcast, just.
Speaker 1: For every single toad that exploded. Those poor toads. Don't
Speaker 1: care as much about the termites.
Speaker 2: No, I think of them as evil and their death
Speaker 2: as a victory for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it, though, they used
Speaker 1: to just eat trees, but then we turn the trees
Speaker 1: into houses, So what are they going to do?
Speaker 2: That's true. I'm going to refuse to think about that.
Speaker 1: No introspection, think you Well, before we go, we've got
Speaker 1: to play a little game, Adam, do you like games?
Speaker 2: Sure? And then a rat opens like.
Speaker 1: Would you like to play a little game?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd love to.
Speaker 1: You just open a present. There's a rat inside, and
Speaker 1: inside the rat there's a smaller present, and inside that
Speaker 1: present there's a bomb. Yep, So we are going to
Speaker 1: play a game called Guess Who's squawking? The Mystery Animal
Speaker 1: Sound game?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Every week I play Mystery Animal sound and you the listener,
Speaker 1: and you the guests, try to guess who was making
Speaker 1: that sound? Can he any animal in the world. Last
Speaker 1: week's mystery animal sound hint was this don't get too cocky.
Speaker 1: You may have to think further back to get this
Speaker 1: one right. So adam any guesses.
Speaker 2: So, just to be clear, the hint was for this animal.
Speaker 1: Yes, don't get too cocky. You may have to think
Speaker 1: further back to get this one right.
Speaker 2: Because I mean, it sounds like a rooster. But it's
Speaker 2: not that. It's some you say, further bat to get
Speaker 2: this one right.
Speaker 1: Further back.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's not.
Speaker 1: The common phrase further bat.
Speaker 2: That's what I was. What is this a Batman riddle?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What exactly?
Speaker 1: And tower me this what became before the chicken and
Speaker 1: the egg? Ah, that would have been a better hint.
Speaker 1: What became before the chicken and the egg?
Speaker 2: That Batman Mmm, I'm gonna go ahead and guess that
Speaker 2: that you mean further back, like on the evolutionary scale,
Speaker 2: and say this is this is some kind of lizard,
Speaker 2: kind of That's what I'm gonna guess. Everything else in
Speaker 2: me is saying, no, Adam, no chance it's a lizard.
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna go ahead and I'm trusting your hint
Speaker 2: on this one.
Speaker 1: Some kind of lizard.
Speaker 2: No, you're wrong, No, it's so wrong.
Speaker 1: Congratulations to Jack M, Joey P. And Grant W for
Speaker 1: all guessing correctly. There red jungle fowl. So, the red
Speaker 1: jungle fowl is a tropical species of bird that lives
Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia. When you look at one, it might
Speaker 1: seem kind of familiar. It looks very similar to a rooster.
Speaker 1: It is smaller and more brightly colored than a rooster
Speaker 1: or a chicken. But around eight thousand years ago the
Speaker 1: jungle fowl was domesticated and it's spread across the world,
Speaker 1: and it's speciated into chickens and roosters, the ones that
Speaker 1: we know as are lovely farm animals.
Speaker 2: So I was right about it being an ancestor, yes,
Speaker 2: but wrong about how far back to Yeah.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, if you had guessed dinosaur instead of lizard, you'd
Speaker 1: technically be correct because birds are still birds are still
Speaker 1: technically dinosaurs. So if you're like, maybe it's a dinosaur,
Speaker 1: I would have had to give it to you.
Speaker 2: Which is which would have been even sillier for me
Speaker 2: to say, because how would you have a recording of
Speaker 2: a dinosaur? But okay, sure sure.
Speaker 1: Uh sadly, Adam, you were wrong, So this pile of
Speaker 1: dead rats shall not be going home with you.
Speaker 2: You must now pick which rat is the one you
Speaker 2: must open. Yeah, we have lots of rat jokes today.
Speaker 1: Well we're really we're really leaning into the rat jokes. Well,
Speaker 1: onto this week's mystery animal. Sound the hint. She may
Speaker 1: seem to have a tough exterior, but Betsy here doesn't
Speaker 1: like to be bothered.
Speaker 2: Sh sh hear that. Yeah, yeah, any guesses should have
Speaker 2: a tough exterior, but Betsy here doesn't like See father,
Speaker 2: and I thought I was gonna get a cow.
Speaker 1: Quol or something.
Speaker 2: Uh, pounce up the bird. Uh, I'm gonna guess it's
Speaker 2: uh some kind of like it's it's related to an ostrich.
Speaker 1: Interesting related to an ostrich some kind of rath type bird.
Speaker 1: Well maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. I can't say,
Speaker 1: because we will reveal the answer on next week's episode
Speaker 1: of Creature Feature. If you think you know the answer
Speaker 1: to this week's mystery animial sound, you can write to
Speaker 1: me at Creature Future product gmail dot com. And hey,
Speaker 1: if you have any other questions or comments or whatever,
Speaker 1: you can also email me. I won't be mad. Uh
Speaker 1: and Adam, Where can people find you?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, I'm definitely gonna stay on X Where do
Speaker 2: you find Uh? You can find me on X X
Speaker 2: way yeah, uh at the real game. I'm also on
Speaker 2: every other social media site, including Hive still somehow at
Speaker 2: the real gans and you know, you can find my
Speaker 2: Twitch channel saying. And my podcasts are mostly on a
Speaker 2: Patreon called small Beams, where I do talks about directing
Speaker 2: and about lots of other movie related stuff, video games,
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff. Come check me out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, check it out small beans and every single like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's twenty social media's now that we've
Speaker 1: all got to be on simultaneously. And somehow I.
Speaker 2: Do check I check Blue Sky. I'm still checking threads.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. We'll see about threads
Speaker 2: I'm just and hive is just funny.
Speaker 1: To me at this one. I'm so tired.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's not good, None of it's good. It's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I need I need like an army of exploding
Speaker 1: toads to manage all these social media accounts. I don't
Speaker 1: know how they'll do it.
Speaker 2: But I need a crow to selectively rip out X's liver. Yeah,
Speaker 2: final explodes, and we can just.
Speaker 1: Tell the crows they're delicious livers inside of our keyboards,
Speaker 1: and then they can post on all these websites exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: the show and you leave a rating and review, I
Speaker 1: greatly greatly appreciate that. I literally read every single review,
Speaker 1: and all the ratings really do matter a lot to
Speaker 1: me because they help the podcast appear decent to other people.
Speaker 1: And thanks to the Space Cossics for their super awesome
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