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 Ben's here too, sitting in for Jerry, the
Speaker 2: illustrious Ben, who's doing his thing really well. That makes
Speaker 2: the stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Hey just said the listeners know. I finally met Ben
Speaker 1: in person. Oh yeah, was there a hand offs, Georgia?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, there wasn't a handoff. But I went
Speaker 1: to that Rim tribute show in Athens and Ben lives
Speaker 1: in Athens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so tell me about that show. Didn't like Michael
Speaker 2: Shannon Reunite Rim somehow.
Speaker 1: Well, Michael Shannon and Jason Narducci got together a band
Speaker 1: to play some Rim tribute shows, basically playing all of
Speaker 1: Murmur and Chronic Town and then like another fifteen early
Speaker 1: Deepish cuts Oka and in Athens as happens at the
Speaker 1: forty watt and Athens. When there's Rim things like that,
Speaker 1: the boys tend to come out. And that night all
Speaker 1: of them came out, wow, and shared a stage for
Speaker 1: the first time, and like you know, they said seventeen years,
Speaker 1: but it feels like more than that. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was great.
Speaker 2: Boy, that was something, huh, because forty one is not.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It's a tiny black box for everybody who's never been there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple hundred people maybe, but it was. You know,
Speaker 1: all of them perform, like you know, Peter Buck shows
Speaker 1: up a lot and performs. Bill Barry is starting to
Speaker 1: come out and perform a little bit every now and then.
Speaker 1: Mike Mills, if you start singing an Ariam song in
Speaker 1: your backyard, he'll probably pop out from behind a tree
Speaker 1: and ask if you want to back up? Right, But
Speaker 1: Stipe never performs. So when he jumped up, the place
Speaker 1: is just vibrating and I was like, it's happening, It's happening.
Speaker 1: But he didn't perform. He just was very sweet and
Speaker 1: said thank you, and they all kind of congregated for
Speaker 1: a minute and that was it.
Speaker 2: Oh but he didn't perform. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: No, he didn't sing. I think everyone was just like,
Speaker 1: it's finally gonna happen. He said, nope, no, but I
Speaker 1: get it. But it was a great night and met
Speaker 1: old Ben.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, man, that's a heck of a story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's a great way to kick off our Lama episode. Frankly,
Speaker 2: if you ask me.
Speaker 1: And I agree, I think, and you know what, I
Speaker 1: will agree because when I was very very briefly in
Speaker 1: abandoned college, I don't know who had it, but someone
Speaker 1: in the band knew a friend with a lama farm. Wow,
Speaker 1: who knew that was coming? So when we would go
Speaker 1: out to play in this big barn, we would drive
Speaker 1: through the lamas.
Speaker 2: That makes sense because somebody out in Georgia having a
Speaker 2: lama farm is so nineties. That is such a nineties
Speaker 2: thing to do.
Speaker 3: You know, totally yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because there was an attempt to introduce
Speaker 2: lamas to the United States well before the nineties and
Speaker 2: even the eighties when they kind of became a thing
Speaker 2: for the first time in the US. All the way
Speaker 2: back in nineteen fourteen, the mayor of Buenos Aires tried
Speaker 2: to give Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan the gift
Speaker 2: of a llama, and that's when they would have entered
Speaker 2: the US the first time, but it turned out that
Speaker 2: that particular lama had foot and mouth disease, so it
Speaker 2: wasn't allowed in well.
Speaker 1: And it's also interesting because lama's they're back in forth
Speaker 1: and thiss with North America is interesting because they originated
Speaker 1: in North America on the Central Plains like forty million
Speaker 1: years ago, and then about three million years ago they
Speaker 1: dispersed to South America. They were like, we're heading south,
Speaker 1: not for the winner, but perhaps.
Speaker 2: Forever permanent vacation like Aerosmith.
Speaker 1: Exactly that the boy music wrestler is flying all over
Speaker 1: the place. And at the end of the last Ice Age,
Speaker 1: the Camelids, which we'll see they're part of the Kamelid family,
Speaker 1: they went extinct in North America even though that's where
Speaker 1: they started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you just kind of touched on something that
Speaker 2: I think is maybe the fact of the podcast. Lamas
Speaker 2: are members of the camel In family. They share a
Speaker 2: common ancestor with camels themselves. Hence camels originated in North America.
Speaker 2: Just mind blowing to me. Like, take that Central Eurasian steps.
Speaker 1: Now, were there actual camels here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I believe, Yes, I looked it up and I
Speaker 2: can't remember exactly, so I'm sure I'm getting it dead wrong.
Speaker 2: But I believe camels themselves did evolve here in North
Speaker 2: America and crossed over into Eurasia through the Bearing Land Strait.
Speaker 2: Same with horses. Wow, yeah, I know, so USA, right.
Speaker 2: But also Mexico and Canada.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, we were USA back then, right, exactly. They
Speaker 1: were domesticated. They're actually one of the oldest domesticated animals
Speaker 1: in history, the history of animals. They're in the Andean
Speaker 1: Highlands of Peru between four and five thousand years ago
Speaker 1: they were domesticated, and then back in the United States
Speaker 1: they were redomesticated, and that's obviously the only way they
Speaker 1: exist in the US now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it was a little confusing to me, and
Speaker 2: I went and hashed out. Lamas have never existed in
Speaker 2: the wild. Llama like animals and species that are related
Speaker 2: to lamas, like the guanacos. Guanacos, they're wild and if
Speaker 2: you look up a guanaco, it looks like a wild lama.
Speaker 2: But lamas were domesticated from the outset. They were bred
Speaker 2: from guanacos, so they never existed in the wild and
Speaker 2: they still don't, which I find fascinating. They were bread
Speaker 2: out of whole cloth. Is as a domesticated animal. It
Speaker 2: was never not domesticated. Isn't they cool?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super cool. And they're specifically bred because they're
Speaker 1: a beast of burden.
Speaker 2: You know, like the rolling Stones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, another music graft.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep them coming, okay.
Speaker 1: You totally should, okay, and we'll talk about their you know,
Speaker 1: their beast of burdenness and how it's okay as far
Speaker 1: as that goes. But they also provided meat, obviously to herdsman.
Speaker 1: They could make candles out of their tallow their clothing,
Speaker 1: although it's not quite like it's not as effective, I
Speaker 1: guess as alpaca wool. They're still shorn, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that as well. And you know, their hides and
Speaker 1: things like that, they're they're poo poo. They could use
Speaker 1: for fuel. They were a very useful animal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, super useful. The only large animal domesticated in the
Speaker 2: ancient Americas. And they definitely came in handy. They were
Speaker 2: put to good use and they were, like we said,
Speaker 2: they were never a wild animal. They were always bread.
Speaker 2: So humans always always had a hand in how lamas
Speaker 2: were and the lamas that are around today. Again, they
Speaker 2: were bred from guanacos. Yeah, guanacos, right, that's how you'd
Speaker 2: say that, right.
Speaker 1: It's got to be or guanaco I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Right, but they are. Some people say that these are
Speaker 2: separate guanacos and lamas are separate. Other people say, no,
Speaker 2: they're both. They're both members of the subspecies Llama glama.
Speaker 2: They're great, right, And then collectively, lamas, guanacos, vicunas, and
Speaker 2: alpacas are collectively known as lamboids, not to be confused
Speaker 2: with graboids. And that they're still related to camels because
Speaker 2: they're all originally camelids. There's a lot of differences between them,
Speaker 2: especially with body shape or body morphology, but as we'll see,
Speaker 2: they also share a lot of characteristics with camels. Still,
Speaker 2: camels are from the Americas, by the.
Speaker 1: Way, totally, But they don't have that hump.
Speaker 2: That's one. They're much smaller.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're smaller. They're a little more slender. They do
Speaker 1: have long legs, they got the long necks, they got
Speaker 1: those cute little short waggy tails. Yes, smaller heads. If
Speaker 1: you look at their face, they have a split upper
Speaker 1: lip and big pointy ears, and they smile. I feel
Speaker 1: like we do. Maybe we're, you know, have a predisposition
Speaker 1: to highlight animals who smile at us.
Speaker 2: Sure, I feel like we've done that a lot that Really,
Speaker 2: hijags are brainwiring.
Speaker 1: Oh totally, But you look up Lama smile and you're
Speaker 1: going to see some pretty cute stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, they also have a panoramic vision because their eyes
Speaker 2: are on the sides of their head, so they can
Speaker 2: see predators from coming a mile away. And what's something
Speaker 2: interesting about lamas that I didn't know about is they
Speaker 2: are naturally aggressive toward predators. They don't shy away. If
Speaker 2: they see like a fox or a coyote or something,
Speaker 2: they go after it and they chase it off, which
Speaker 2: is pretty cool. As we'll see, it's very useful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nice defense, although I took that their main defense
Speaker 1: is like to charge it something like that. But it's
Speaker 1: sort of a lot of bluster because they don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of defense.
Speaker 2: No, it is bluster. But they also have a lot
Speaker 2: of size on like any coyote or any flock. Certainly,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize how big they can get. They a
Speaker 2: llama gets about four feet at the shoulder, pretty tall.
Speaker 2: It's one point two meters and males can weigh between
Speaker 2: three hundred and four hundred pounds, which is one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty five tow one hundred and eighty kilograms. That's
Speaker 2: a hefty, husky little boy there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, females can weigh between two thirty and three point fifty.
Speaker 1: And I saw a video of a guy who's llama
Speaker 1: busted out on his farm and went after the dog,
Speaker 1: and it was funny. He wasn't harming the dog, but
Speaker 1: he was chasing this dog. And they're pretty fast. They're
Speaker 1: way faster than I thought. They can hit a max
Speaker 1: speed of forty miles an hour. That's insane, which is
Speaker 1: just yeah. I mean, I've seen them run, but I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was that fast. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: when a camel runs. I think it's a little deceiving
Speaker 1: how fast they are because of their big lopie long
Speaker 1: legs right right, It doesn't have that intensity of a
Speaker 1: horse gallop, right, but it helps them run at a
Speaker 1: predator or most importantly, run away from a predator.
Speaker 2: I mean, forty miles an hour is really really fast.
Speaker 2: That's like road runner fast. Yeah, but imagine the road
Speaker 2: runner with a furry coat and a big old smile
Speaker 2: while he's running forty miles an hour.
Speaker 1: What's going on with those feet too?
Speaker 2: So I say we talk about the feet and use
Speaker 2: it as a cliffhanger to take a break, and then
Speaker 2: come back and talk about how those feet come in handy.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 1: Wowie wow.
Speaker 2: So remember I said that they share a lot in
Speaker 2: common still with camels, both of them, neither one of
Speaker 2: them are hooved animals. Camels have two toasts, and so
Speaker 2: do lamas. Camels have toenails in the front, but they
Speaker 2: don't use those for walking on the bottom of the
Speaker 2: feet of Llamas and camels are soft pads, leathery and
Speaker 2: soft that are not hoofs, which means that when they're
Speaker 2: walking on like rocks and mountains and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: they can actually kind of grip those rocks with their feet.
Speaker 2: And they're split two toes, which makes them very surefooted,
Speaker 2: which again made them very useful in the andies, which
Speaker 2: again leads us to a message.
Speaker 3: Break all right, we'll be right back, so Chuck.
Speaker 2: I think we kind of started to set it up
Speaker 2: pretty nicely. Lamas are surefooted, to.
Speaker 1: Say the least, that's right, one of the benefits of
Speaker 1: being unhooved or maybe even anti hoof I've never talked
Speaker 1: to Alama.
Speaker 2: They may got no problem with hoofed and they're fine
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: All right, So they're not but that that, like you said,
Speaker 1: that makes them very surefooted. But it Also, it doesn't
Speaker 1: tear up the side of a mountain like a hoof
Speaker 1: did does because they got a little give there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you want to walk around and not
Speaker 2: accidentally start off a rock slide, bring a lama instead
Speaker 2: of like a cow.
Speaker 1: That's a good point I mentioned. We would talk about
Speaker 1: their whether or not they were good beasts of burden.
Speaker 1: They're okay. A llama that's about two point fifty can
Speaker 1: carry a load that's one hundred to one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five pounds, maybe fifteen miles, maybe twenty miles in
Speaker 1: a day. That's not bad at all. It's no ox
Speaker 1: or horse. But if you've got a lightish load and
Speaker 1: you're going, you know, not the furthest distance, then you
Speaker 1: can do a lot worse than a lama.
Speaker 2: It's true. They couldn't pull, they couldn't carry human, They
Speaker 2: couldn't pull a machine. And I saw it. It spelled
Speaker 2: out that even if the Inca who really put the
Speaker 2: lama to good use had discovered the wheel, the lama
Speaker 2: still wouldn't have been able to be attached to anything
Speaker 2: bigger than probably like a wheelbarrow sized type thing. They
Speaker 2: just don't have that strength. But they are good pack animals,
Speaker 2: and that they can carry a lot of weight, just
Speaker 2: not like human weight. So if you have a ton
Speaker 2: of stuff, say you're mining silver pre Columbian contact, you
Speaker 2: got a silver mine set up of Potosi, you need
Speaker 2: a lot of lamas. And apparently there was a Spanish
Speaker 2: observer didn't catch their name, who visited Potosi, which is
Speaker 2: a really important silver mine and what's now Bolivia, and
Speaker 2: found that the Inca were employing what they guessed to
Speaker 2: be about three hundred thousand lamas. Yeah, transporting the silver
Speaker 2: ore from the mind to be refined.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a lot of lamas. And again,
Speaker 1: if each one of those can carry over one hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: then they're moving some silver for sure.
Speaker 2: Sure, and it probably goes without saying, but you could
Speaker 2: also delight your child as long as your child's under
Speaker 2: one hundred pounds and let them ride the lama too.
Speaker 2: They could have done that.
Speaker 1: Sure, I'm sure there was an Incan birthday party at
Speaker 1: some point where a kid rode a lama.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: They're also you know, as far as being up there
Speaker 1: in the high dryness, they have a very high thirst tolerance,
Speaker 1: which is super handy. Obviously, has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with their camel camelness. They have a lot of endurance.
Speaker 1: They can eat a lot of different kinds of shrubbery,
Speaker 1: which is great, and their blood has a really unusually
Speaker 1: high amount of hemoglobin, and as we all know, that
Speaker 1: protein is going to carry oxygen from the lungs throughout
Speaker 1: your body. So that's an animal that's basically built to
Speaker 1: survive a high elevation where it's dry and where there's
Speaker 1: lots of you know, sort of dry grasses and shrubs
Speaker 1: to eat.
Speaker 2: So as animals themselves, like you know, without the human
Speaker 2: touch of being used as pack animals. Just if you
Speaker 2: have some lamas hanging out with one another, I can't
Speaker 2: believe how I just put that. They are gregarious, which
Speaker 2: means they need social like social groups. Like you don't
Speaker 2: really want to have just a single lama, or I
Speaker 2: even saw it, just a couple of lamas. You want
Speaker 2: to have a handful because they have specific ways of living.
Speaker 2: And typically a lama family group will have a single
Speaker 2: male and a handful of females and then whatever offspring
Speaker 2: were born from those by those females that year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And you'll see why in a minute. If
Speaker 1: you are the head of a family. If you're the
Speaker 1: male leading that group, you're going to be pretty territorial.
Speaker 1: You're going to defend your family. If a competing male
Speaker 1: comes in there that doesn't have a family, that's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I might like to take yours, they will be pretty
Speaker 1: aggressive toward that, even though they're not super aggressive animals.
Speaker 1: Drive them out of there and say go back to
Speaker 1: your bachelor pad. And by bachelor pad, we mean the
Speaker 1: group of males that don't have families, that all just
Speaker 1: seemingly hang out together and play cards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's another thing too that is really just loving
Speaker 2: about lamas. They actually will adopt and protect other species
Speaker 2: of animals.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Remember how I said they're naturally aggressive toward predators. They'll
Speaker 2: actually defend other kinds of animals that they consider part
Speaker 2: of their group on say, like a farmer ranch from predators.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that they would adopt sheep, and I wonder,
Speaker 1: I mean, they'll probably do this with all the animals,
Speaker 1: but I wonder if it's because the sheep, you know,
Speaker 1: in the face at least, and there are some similarities there.
Speaker 1: I think that or.
Speaker 2: The llamas are familiar with the whole ba ram you
Speaker 2: message that allows you either the sheep family.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it was particularly you know, interested male lama
Speaker 1: who saw that sheep and was like, hey, shawty, you
Speaker 1: want to join our family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for some reason, I'm disturbed by that.
Speaker 1: You probably should be. They communicate with each other mainly
Speaker 1: through a body language. Their posture can kind of tell
Speaker 1: you a lot. Their ears apparently are going to indicate
Speaker 1: their mood. They don't make a lot of noise. Lamas
Speaker 1: are pretty quiet if you have a lama farm, but
Speaker 1: they will like vocalize if their predators around. And little
Speaker 1: mummies and babies can hum at one another like back
Speaker 1: and forth, kind of sing to each other. And it's
Speaker 1: very sweet.
Speaker 2: Did you watch that YouTube I sent you?
Speaker 1: Oh, you know I did, so.
Speaker 2: There's a YouTube. I can't remember the exact name, but
Speaker 2: just look up llama hum I think it'll come up.
Speaker 2: But there's a baby lama drinking from a bottle and
Speaker 2: the mom's standing by watching and the baby's just humming
Speaker 2: while it's drinking. The mom hums back a little bit.
Speaker 2: It's really really sweet.
Speaker 1: It's pretty great, and they are gentle for the most part,
Speaker 1: but they are a little bit stubborn. Too, because if
Speaker 1: you put too much weight on them, if you're not
Speaker 1: treating them right, then they're they're just like, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna have a sit in. Basically, they won't budge, they
Speaker 1: won't move, they will spit at you, they might hiss
Speaker 1: or kick at you. Yeah, and they're just like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not lamas. Don't play that game, homie.
Speaker 2: All that behavior is shared in common with camels too.
Speaker 2: Camels are yeah, for sure. Also, one other thing about
Speaker 2: the vocalizations when they when you said when they warn
Speaker 2: of predators. I look that up too, and it sounds
Speaker 2: like a fork being scraped across a metal plate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty aggressively annoying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it is. It doesn't scare them off,
Speaker 2: it just annoys them away.
Speaker 1: They are like fine, geez.
Speaker 2: So we said that the family groups consist of the
Speaker 2: offspring that were born that year. That's because the young,
Speaker 2: the little babies get to hang out with the moms
Speaker 2: who are very attentive of them for that first year,
Speaker 2: and then after that the dominant male chases the baby
Speaker 2: off after its first birthday. For a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2: It makes sense. So number one, if it's a boy,
Speaker 2: it doesn't want to have to have to fight over
Speaker 2: the females with the boy. But if it's a girl,
Speaker 2: it doesn't want to have a girl around that it
Speaker 2: might mate with and kind of taper the gene pool
Speaker 2: a little bit. So it makes sense biologically and genetically
Speaker 2: for the dominant male just chase off female and male young.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. They have a gestation period about eleven months.
Speaker 1: They only have one little baby at a time, and
Speaker 1: the male has you know, those multi they have a
Speaker 1: little hairm around them. Because they're polygynous, they will mate
Speaker 1: with all the females in their family that will accept
Speaker 1: that and they release. It's an induced ovulation, so once
Speaker 1: they they do that thing, they're going to release an
Speaker 1: egg within about a day or a day and a
Speaker 1: half after mating.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm just withholding any jokes. So did you
Speaker 2: say that they just state for eleven months? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: and their offspringer called Korea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there they're like any smallish, long legged mammal,
Speaker 1: a little eighteen to twenty pound lama standing for the
Speaker 1: first time within that first hour is just something that
Speaker 1: everyone just needs to make part of their life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And after that first hour that they stand.
Speaker 2: They can expect to live about fifteen years from that
Speaker 2: moment on average, as far as as far as lifespan
Speaker 2: is concerned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not bad.
Speaker 2: Speaking of a little baby Lama's being born. There's a
Speaker 2: movie I watched recently, another a twenty four knock it
Speaker 2: out of the park movie called Lamb Have you seen?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. I think I know the one
Speaker 1: with the the what's her name rumy? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's her last name?
Speaker 2: I want to say a piece, but it's.
Speaker 1: I think it's ra piece rap piece, that's right. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that's how you pronounce it. But I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it. But there's almost no way to talk about
Speaker 1: it without spoiling it, right.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to, but I'm just gonna say I'm
Speaker 2: going to encourage you to please see it as soon
Speaker 2: as possible. It's so good. And I started to watch
Speaker 2: it in subtitles, and then I realized they weren't talking
Speaker 2: that much, and when they were talking, it was kind
Speaker 2: of distracting from the visuals, which are just lovely. So
Speaker 2: I actually watched most of the movie in Icelandic and
Speaker 2: you can just tell from you can tell from the
Speaker 2: conversations in the context generally what they're talking about. Oh,
Speaker 2: that's funny enough that I don't feel like I missed
Speaker 2: anything from the movie. I probably missed some very subtle
Speaker 2: things here or there, but I got the broad strokes
Speaker 2: for sure. But I think I'll probably go back and
Speaker 2: watch it with the subtitles to see what I missed.
Speaker 2: But however, you watch it, just watch it. It's so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was on my list and I kind of
Speaker 1: forgot about it. I know what the deal is. I
Speaker 1: just hope it's not a case where I'm talking about
Speaker 1: a part and you're like, yeah, that's when blank happens,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, no, no, that's not at all
Speaker 1: what happens. You weren't reading the subtitles, right, It's actually
Speaker 1: far more disturbing and sad.
Speaker 2: It's possible it is an A twenty four movie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I just wanted to shout out LAMB because it
Speaker 2: was good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't wait.
Speaker 2: Should we take a second break here now and then
Speaker 2: come back and talk about how valuable Lama Fleece has been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that, and we'll talk about that Lama
Speaker 1: Fleece right after this. All right, Well, quickly before we
Speaker 1: talk about lamba fleece. I I kind of forgot until
Speaker 1: I started researching this that there was a there's a
Speaker 1: book series for kids called Lama Lama. Okay, And boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, did I have to read a lot of
Speaker 1: Lama Lama for those first few years. Yeah, I totally
Speaker 1: forgot about it. But now I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Ruby had like I feel like twenty of those Lama
Speaker 1: Lama books.
Speaker 2: Is it like about a lama that solves mysteries.
Speaker 1: No, it didn't solve mysteries, And I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: the thrust of it. I think it's just about a
Speaker 1: lama that's like always getting in trouble and stuff. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of lama, like every children's book. Sure, But
Speaker 1: we were going to talk about fleece. Their fleece is
Speaker 1: pretty good. It's they get shared about every two years.
Speaker 1: They don't produce the most fleece in the world. You
Speaker 1: get about six and a half to seven and a
Speaker 1: half pounds of fiber every two years. And like I said,
Speaker 1: it's not like that, like that wool of the alpaca
Speaker 1: that makes for such a wonderful, warm experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also like Kashmir, which everybody knows it's the
Speaker 2: gold standard for soft woolen fleece, right, But I was
Speaker 2: reading an article by a historian named Emily Wakid Walkld
Speaker 2: sorry wak l i d from Boise State, who wrote
Speaker 2: a piece on the conversation about lamas in the natural
Speaker 2: History of Lamas, and apparently one of the things that
Speaker 2: the Inca used to do was bury lamas sacrificially and
Speaker 2: ritually on land that they were claiming as their own.
Speaker 2: They're like, we're the ones with the lamas, because I
Speaker 2: don't know if we said this or not. They were
Speaker 2: never exported outside of the Incan Empire until after the
Speaker 2: Spanish came, so the Inca had like a lock on
Speaker 2: the lama. So they would bury lamas, mummify them, and
Speaker 2: bury them on land that they were claiming as part
Speaker 2: of their territory and sod like A thousand years later,
Speaker 2: archaeologists and anthropologists came along and dug these lama up,
Speaker 2: and what they found is that these incredibly well lamas
Speaker 2: actually used to have fleece that was like on par
Speaker 2: with Kashmir, and that it just got lost over time
Speaker 2: as the Spanish came along and were like we have Kashmir,
Speaker 2: We're just gonna eat these lama instead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's and it's crazy. And I guess just the
Speaker 1: reason they didn't remain that way is because they they
Speaker 1: left the area and went somewhere else.
Speaker 2: No, they were no longer bread so selectively for their fleece.
Speaker 2: They were more to be meat bearing.
Speaker 1: I gotcha. Well, I know that while they were meat
Speaker 1: bearing for the incas that they were highly revered. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just like, hey, we're going to raise and kill
Speaker 1: this animal. They were very much revered in their sort
Speaker 1: of cultural and spiritual beliefs. And while they did sacrifice
Speaker 1: them along with alpacas, they were you know, they ate
Speaker 1: the meat at big like important community celebrations. They would
Speaker 1: do it to honor the gods as specifically the gods
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they would sacrifice and bury them along with
Speaker 1: like jewelry and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they also today you can see llamas dressed
Speaker 2: up in like pretty ribbons and hats, little cute little
Speaker 2: hats in like parades in areas like Bolivia, and they
Speaker 2: still it's just been carried down over the generations. They're
Speaker 2: still very traditionally revered, right, there's an explanation that apparently
Speaker 2: some kinds of llama herders or lama farmers in the
Speaker 2: Andes still consider lamas basically a conduit to the spirits
Speaker 2: of the mountains, the wamani is what they're called, and
Speaker 2: that the lama don't actually belong to these humans. They're
Speaker 2: just kind of tending the lama. They're taking care of
Speaker 2: the lama, and so they engage in all these rituals,
Speaker 2: which on their face sound really bizarre, like marrying lamas, right.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's so cute, it is.
Speaker 2: So they will take lamas and they'll be like, you're
Speaker 2: gonna marry esther over here, right, Fred, and so Fred
Speaker 2: and Esther are made to get married, and I guess
Speaker 2: they lay down in a marriage bet or something like that.
Speaker 2: And all this sounds like so weird, and like, of
Speaker 2: course it's just spiritual and mystical. This kind of has
Speaker 2: this just bizarre cast to it. But and I love
Speaker 2: it when this happens, when like a custom turns out
Speaker 2: to have like a practical reason behind it. The Lamas
Speaker 2: that go along with this are like, yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: lay down on this marriage. But with esther, this is fun, right,
Speaker 2: they prove themselves to be more docile. So those are
Speaker 2: the ones who are less likely to be slaughtered for
Speaker 2: meat or oil or tallow for candles. They're gonna be
Speaker 2: kept around and they're gonna breed more and more so
Speaker 2: that the lamas in this flock become more and more
Speaker 2: docile generation to generation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing, And I guess that's why we have the
Speaker 1: sort of sweet, smiley, gregarious friends that we have now.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, You would not of wanted to meet a
Speaker 2: lama from five thousand years ago, No, you'd black your eye.
Speaker 1: Big trouble.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One more thing about the wool and the flee
Speaker 2: slow Chuck is like, while it is much coarser, although
Speaker 2: surprisingly light, apparently the hairs themselves are hollow. They're working
Speaker 2: on getting it back to something akin to Kashmir. It's
Speaker 2: just going to take a very long time. But they've
Speaker 2: kind of gone back to the traditional caregiving that they
Speaker 2: had pre Spanish.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 1: What is kashmir even? Isn't it some kind of goat?
Speaker 1: It's a goat okay, yeah, but like a special goat right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it has Kashmir. It's pretty special and expense.
Speaker 2: That's an expensive goat.
Speaker 1: But what I mean is there's not just any old
Speaker 1: goat has Kashmir.
Speaker 2: Right, No, I don't know the kind of goat. It
Speaker 2: might be a Kashmir goat. It probably isn't. I will
Speaker 2: look it up while you talk about that.
Speaker 1: Okay, sure, because mo to the goats, ie Pad, I
Speaker 1: love them. But their hair feels like it's a horse
Speaker 1: brush or something.
Speaker 2: Right, and they their eyes make them look like emissaries
Speaker 2: of Satan himself. Oh, it's true that side side waist
Speaker 2: slit eye is very very evil looking.
Speaker 1: Did you change or did you uh? Did you think
Speaker 1: that before the Witch movie? Or did you even see that?
Speaker 2: The what movie?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: The Witch?
Speaker 1: The Witch?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've always thought that.
Speaker 1: Okay, for sure, I certainly reinforced it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it knew the goat the goat population, any
Speaker 2: favors with me?
Speaker 1: No, cowb was the name of that guy. He had
Speaker 1: a great name in the movie.
Speaker 2: I can't remember the dad.
Speaker 1: No the goat. Oh, like it was like something something
Speaker 1: like ugly Samd, but it wasn't ugly.
Speaker 2: SAand it was like black Billy or.
Speaker 1: Something evil black evil bart uh uh blue Beard.
Speaker 3: No, that's not it.
Speaker 1: And I know people are screaming at their black filler.
Speaker 1: Black Philip was that.
Speaker 2: Black Philip was it. And in a double whammie of
Speaker 2: quick research, the Kashmir goat is called the Kashmir goat.
Speaker 2: Oh of course, And it just so turns out that
Speaker 2: black Philip was a Kashmir goat.
Speaker 1: Well look at this, it's all come in full circle.
Speaker 2: That last part was a lie. Oh Black Philip isn't
Speaker 2: He was not a Kashmir goat.
Speaker 1: Now, Oh jeez man, that was a weird thing to
Speaker 1: trick me over.
Speaker 2: He just got pummeled all over the place.
Speaker 1: Huh, I did, all right. So let's move on then,
Speaker 1: because this, to me, we kind of saved the best
Speaker 1: for last. As far as you know, lama's are great.
Speaker 1: We love them. They smile, they spit, they'll carry some
Speaker 1: stuff for you. You can go Visimita and pet those
Speaker 1: long necks, for sure, and they're wonderful. But they are
Speaker 1: some of the most valuable research animals around and research
Speaker 1: animals that you can take very good care of, and
Speaker 1: because all they need are just like small samples of
Speaker 1: their blood for this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the reason why is because they're after lama antibodies,
Speaker 2: just like we have antibodies that attack or they tag,
Speaker 2: they destroy, they say, hey, go get this virus or
Speaker 2: this bacteria cell over here. Antibodies fight foreign invaders in
Speaker 2: your body while being mammals and being alive. Llamas have
Speaker 2: the same thing. They have antibodies too, but there's a
Speaker 2: very specific apparently llamas and sharks, and I can't remember.
Speaker 2: There might have been something else that has these very
Speaker 2: specific antibodies that are way tinier, way simpler, and way
Speaker 2: more stable than the super fruity, high falutant complex antibodies
Speaker 2: that we produce, and that makes them extraordinarily valuable because
Speaker 2: they can target viruses and diseases that human antibodies can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the camels was the other one.
Speaker 2: Oh, no surprise, But sharks that just kind of came
Speaker 2: out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know what, I'm pretty sure we'd mentioned
Speaker 1: that at some point in an episode.
Speaker 2: I remember the horseshoe crab blood used to detect some
Speaker 2: like it used in some medical tests, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: She may have been one of our ill advised videos
Speaker 1: from the old days. I'm not sure, but yeah, the lamas,
Speaker 1: they have the antibodies that are formed in only two
Speaker 1: long chains as opposed to the four chain antibodies that
Speaker 1: most mammals have. And the structure has really paid dividends
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, and one of the biggest
Speaker 1: ones has been to neutralize specifically HIV and specifically all
Speaker 1: sixty HIV strains that they've tested. Those lamas have antibodies
Speaker 1: that can work together and just neutralize that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and here's why the antibodies are smaller. They're called well,
Speaker 2: actually that I've seen it both ways, but I think
Speaker 2: the antibodies that scientists create based on lama antibodies are
Speaker 2: called nanobodies because they're very very small. Well, being small,
Speaker 2: they can connect to receptor sites on viruses that have
Speaker 2: very very small receptors. And humans have these large, clumsy
Speaker 2: antibodies that just kind of slap around on the outside
Speaker 2: of the virus cell and don't do anything. They can't
Speaker 2: attach to it, they can't attack it, they can't keep
Speaker 2: it from connecting with the cell. The Lama antibodies can
Speaker 2: and HIV happens to be one of those viruses with
Speaker 2: the very tiny receptor sites that a LAMA antibody just
Speaker 2: goes up to and says, you're with me now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Also, with potentially COVID nineteen. It is
Speaker 1: similar to HIV in the way that the nanobodies from
Speaker 1: the LAMA can bind super tightly to that CoV two virus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, you may be able to think a
Speaker 1: LAMA one day for COVID progress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I think they've already found because COVID
Speaker 2: is like SARS, that's right. It's also closely related to MYRS.
Speaker 2: I think they found that that can be used for
Speaker 2: that as well. Well. They also, it's so weird, they've
Speaker 2: also figured out how to use these LAMA antibodies as
Speaker 2: biological warfare detectors too, because they don't just work on viruses,
Speaker 2: they work on bacteria as well and other biological foreign invaders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's remarkable. So scientists for a while
Speaker 1: now have been working on devices. They're biosensors, so they're
Speaker 1: you know, obviously part biological that can detect like the
Speaker 1: very first hints of something bad going down biologically, which
Speaker 1: is what you want. You want super early detection. And
Speaker 1: these sensors are made up of antibodies, and you know,
Speaker 1: in the past they were human cloned antibodies called immunoglobin
Speaker 1: G so I little G, big g and that's what
Speaker 1: they use. So the idea is that you know, somebody
Speaker 1: would launch like a cholera bomb or a smallpox bomb
Speaker 1: or something like that. That'd be so bad, it would
Speaker 1: be really really bad, and all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: have this biosensor that can immediately detect that. And the
Speaker 1: Lama biosensors work way better than the other ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the human ones work in concept and I believe
Speaker 2: like in actuality too, but they're so fragile because human
Speaker 2: antibodies are fragile because they're complex, because they have like
Speaker 2: heavy chains connected to light chains. They're just really fragile.
Speaker 2: They don't hold up well in harsh environments. They just
Speaker 2: totally fall apart at one hundred and fifty degrees sixty
Speaker 2: five degrees celsius or more.
Speaker 1: They're expensive.
Speaker 2: They are very expensive to reproduce because again they're super
Speaker 2: complicated and all of the stuff that Lama antibodies are
Speaker 2: not compared to human antibodies make it that much more
Speaker 2: valuable and precious in applications like this because they're simpler,
Speaker 2: they are sturdier, and they are hardier too. They can
Speaker 2: survive in much harsher environments. So it's like we figured
Speaker 2: out this concept of using antibodies to detect biological warfare
Speaker 2: in the air the moment it's launched. But we've replaced
Speaker 2: these kind of shoddy antibodies, the human antibodies, with much sturdier,
Speaker 2: more reliable antibodies, so we actually can do this now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's amazing and it's you know, you
Speaker 1: and I are not big fans of animal research or
Speaker 1: using animals in research like this, but from everything I saw,
Speaker 1: this was like a pretty decent scenario where these lamas
Speaker 1: are treated very well. They are in captivity anyway as
Speaker 1: a species, and they're drawing, you know, just small amounts
Speaker 1: of blood from these lamas to build this huge library.
Speaker 1: I think they have more than a billion different they're called.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even know how to say that sd abs
Speaker 1: single domain antibodies basically, And it seems like a win
Speaker 1: win for.
Speaker 2: Sure, because the there's so good at drawing blood that
Speaker 2: the llamas don't even stop smiling.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: One other thing I saw, if you ever see a
Speaker 2: llama with its ears turned forward and maybe even leaning
Speaker 2: forward a little bit, that llama is curious. It wants
Speaker 2: to know what's going on. It wants to meet you,
Speaker 2: It wants to hang out, you.
Speaker 1: Know, if I'm not mistaken. Ruby went to a kid's
Speaker 1: birthday party where you can like have farm animals on site,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure there was a lama there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure there was. Ever since the eighties,
Speaker 2: like they became like a common thing in the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for my thirty fifth birthday party, you mey had a
Speaker 2: petting zoo including a lama there.
Speaker 1: I was there. My friend, did you ride the horse?
Speaker 1: I didn't ride the horse, but I ate some. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I may reveal your your catered food, is that okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You guys had McDonald's and I just remember humongous trays
Speaker 1: of stacked cheeseburgers and trays of French fries and it
Speaker 1: was a great, great party.
Speaker 2: You forgot the Taco Bell tacos on another tray.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. I don't even know if I
Speaker 1: saw this.
Speaker 2: Yeh, there was McDonald's cheeseburgers and Taco Bell tacos and
Speaker 2: we even borrowed the trays. We asked them if we
Speaker 2: could borrow some trays, and we actually took them back
Speaker 2: after the party.
Speaker 1: That seemed like one hundred years ago.
Speaker 2: It was maybe one hundred and fifty man so long ago.
Speaker 1: It's good time.
Speaker 2: So yep, good times had by all. We just had
Speaker 2: one all together talking about Lamas. If you want to
Speaker 2: know more about Lamas and go out and meet one.
Speaker 2: And since I said that it's time for listener.
Speaker 1: Mail instead of listener mail, we're going to take this
Speaker 1: opportunity to reinforce that we are going out on tour
Speaker 1: this year.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, and this is it.
Speaker 1: These are all the cities we're doing for the year.
Speaker 1: We rarely have them all locked in this early, so
Speaker 1: we're pretty but May twenty ninth, thirtieth, and thirty first
Speaker 1: we'll be in Medford, mass outside of Boston, then down
Speaker 1: to DC and then back up to New York City
Speaker 1: finally at town Hall there.
Speaker 2: Right, and then what about August.
Speaker 1: August seventh, eighth, and ninth will be in Chicago, then
Speaker 1: Minneapolis once again. We're so happy to be back there,
Speaker 1: and we're super excited to add Indianapolis to our list
Speaker 1: of cities that we've never been to. Yep, and then
Speaker 1: what and they're gonna wind it all down in September
Speaker 1: back in Durham, North Carolina at the Carolina theater there
Speaker 1: on September.
Speaker 2: Such a lovely places.
Speaker 1: It was great, and then closing it out in Atlanta
Speaker 1: once again on September seventh. And you can go to
Speaker 1: our website, go to these venue websites to get tickets,
Speaker 1: and as a reminder, please make sure you are only
Speaker 1: at venue websites because a lot of times it'll just
Speaker 1: say souff, you should know tickets. Oh here, they are
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty dollars. That sounds expensive if you
Speaker 1: ever see tickets more than like I think the highest
Speaker 1: ever is like sixty bucks or something, maybe sixty.
Speaker 2: Five some places for like front round for face value,
Speaker 2: like the face bell add like some of those ticket
Speaker 2: vendors add a bunch of stuff, but like the face
Speaker 2: value shouldn't be more than that, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So if you see a ticket for more than that,
Speaker 1: then that means you're you're not on the right website.
Speaker 2: Or if you're required to pay only in cryptocurrency, you
Speaker 2: might want to go to a different website too.
Speaker 1: But we're super excited. It's a great show and we
Speaker 1: just we can't wait to see everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, come on out, everybody, If we may toot our
Speaker 2: own horns. It is loads of fun for us, and
Speaker 2: it seems based on how people respond for the audience
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, oh yes, you can go to link
Speaker 2: tree slash sysk, or you can go to stuff you
Speaker 2: Should Know dot com and there's all of the links
Speaker 2: and stuff like that too, all the ticket sites and
Speaker 2: there on sale now, so we'll see everybody for the
Speaker 2: rest of the year. Huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now how do we end the show? I
Speaker 1: don't even remember.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. If you want to get in touch with
Speaker 2: this in the meantime, not to ask about parking or
Speaker 2: anything like that at any of the venues, you can
Speaker 2: email us at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff
Speaker 2: you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.