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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert, ma'am.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And Rob you wanted to

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Speaker 3: talk about Pokemon today, So you are going to have

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Speaker 3: to be my Virgil leading me through the pokey hell

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Speaker 3: and all the way to the Pokey Paradise. Because, as

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Speaker 3: longtime listeners will know, every time this comes up on

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Speaker 3: the show, I am lost in a dark wood when

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Speaker 3: it comes to Pokemon. I do not have the Pokemon

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Speaker 3: knowledge of my peers.

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Speaker 2: Well, maybe I am the Virgil of Pokemon because I

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Speaker 2: cannot enter paradise. I can only take you so far

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Speaker 2: because I came into it really late as well. We

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Speaker 2: were actually chatting off Mike with our producer JJ earlier,

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Speaker 2: and JJ is of the right age to have been

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Speaker 2: properly brought up in the Pokemon world, and so we

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Speaker 2: were we were chatting just a little bit about knowing

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Speaker 2: your way around Pokemon and just the the enormous pop

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Speaker 2: culture shadow that Pokemon casts for, particularly for millennials in

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Speaker 2: gen Z, with strong signs that it's going to continue

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Speaker 2: to play this role for younger generations as well, like

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Speaker 2: you can people who grew up with Pokemon can did

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Speaker 2: they just talk about it? They can use it as

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Speaker 2: reference points. It's it's like a language undo itself.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. By the way, JJ, if we if we make

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Speaker 3: a big poke blunder in this episode, please do interrupt

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Speaker 3: us and we can fill the listeners in with your

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Speaker 3: with your insights. Yeah, so I'm not like somebody who

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Speaker 3: has never encountered Pokemon before. My personal experience with it

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Speaker 3: was basically at the same time as every other kid

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Speaker 3: in America. I played the original Pokemon game Boy game.

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Speaker 3: I never finished it, but I played that when it

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Speaker 3: came out when I was in like sixth grades. I

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Speaker 3: think this would be like, okay, nineteen ninety eight. So yeah, so.

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Speaker 2: You were exposed to pokemona but I never finished. The

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Speaker 2: body like built up a resistance to the infection and

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Speaker 2: then you were immune to it.

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Speaker 3: I yeah, so I played part of the original game

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Speaker 3: Boy game, never finished it. I remember the one I picked.

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Speaker 3: It was the green one Bulbosar, because he's it seemed

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Speaker 3: more threatening than the other two, Okay, at least more

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Speaker 3: than the water the water turtle squirrel.

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Speaker 2: Thing, because it needed to fight for you. You wanted

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Speaker 2: a fierce Pokemon.

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Speaker 3: Right, and it looked more. Yeah, it was like a

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Speaker 3: little cute but angry little turtle with plants coming off

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Speaker 3: of it. So I picked that thing. I played part

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Speaker 3: of the game, and then I basically never interacted with

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Speaker 3: Pokemon again, except sort of secondhand. I had, like, you know,

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Speaker 3: friends in college who were playing Pokemon Nintendo sixty four games,

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Speaker 3: so I got a little bit of that by osmosis,

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Speaker 3: but otherwise I'm like not plugged in. I get it

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Speaker 3: all secondhand.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, just a reminder for folks out there,

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Speaker 2: and I realized most of you do not need to

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Speaker 2: be reminded what a Pokemon is. I mean, Pokemon are everywhere.

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Speaker 2: It's again, it's it's enormous. We're, of course talking about

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Speaker 2: the Japanese Pocket Monster media empire that began as a

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six Nintendo video game for the old game Boy,

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Speaker 2: the original game Boy, and then shortly thereafter became a

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Speaker 2: collectible card game as well, and since then it has

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Speaker 2: grown to encompass television shows, movies, toys, even more video games,

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Speaker 2: more collectible card games. There's a mobile game now and

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Speaker 2: it's just generally secured, you know, its place as a

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Speaker 2: major generational touchstone, as we've been saying, So what's the

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Speaker 2: basic idea here, Well, it's a fantastic world much like

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Speaker 2: our own, but populated by a vast array of creatures

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Speaker 2: called Pokemon or pokemons. I'm not sure the plural is

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Speaker 2: fan and they often just Pokemon.

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Speaker 3: Isn't it just pokemon right?

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Speaker 2: At any rate? The pokemon or multi pokemons or POKEMONA

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Speaker 2: I don't know. They often resemble real and folkloreic creatures.

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Speaker 2: Not every Pokemon is based on an actual animal or plant,

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Speaker 2: but a huge amount of them are. You also have

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Speaker 2: ones that are you know, we were talking about one

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Speaker 2: off Mike with JJ that looks like keys, obviously not

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Speaker 2: biological in origin. And then there are ghost types that

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Speaker 2: may or may not match up with animals. But for

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Speaker 2: the most part you're dealing with a vast ecosystem of

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Speaker 2: fanciful creatures and or plants.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and Rob, I don't know if this has changed

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Speaker 3: it all over the history of Pokemon, because I know

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Speaker 3: we were now like many generations in but what I

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Speaker 3: remember from the original game Boy game was you would

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Speaker 3: collect these monsters from the environment and then you would

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Speaker 3: make them fight each other, so there is in one

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Speaker 3: sense kind of a almost a darwin Esque you know,

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Speaker 3: collecting beetles from the forest sort of thing where you're

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Speaker 3: looking for specimens. But then there's another element, which is

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Speaker 3: just you're making them fight.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, And this my understanding is this is

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Speaker 2: still very key to the whole thing. I mean, it's

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Speaker 2: still the one of the main things that you do

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Speaker 2: in the video games. It is central to the collectible

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Speaker 2: card game. Not all media, though perhaps there's a Pokemon

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Speaker 2: media like depends heavily on it. There was like a

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Speaker 2: really cute kind of oh, what's the word kind of

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Speaker 2: a comfort show that I believe it was. That it's

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Speaker 2: actually on Netflix called Let's See Pokemon Concierge, where it's

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Speaker 2: Pokemon's on vacation and you're just looking after them and

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Speaker 2: you were trying to prevent them from fighting, or the

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Speaker 2: main character is trying to prevent them from fighting. It's

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Speaker 2: very sweet, very relaxing.

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Speaker 3: You bring them champagne and an ice bucket.

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Speaker 2: Maybe not shampa, but whatever champagne would be to a bulbasar,

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Speaker 2: you might bring it to them. Okay, but yeah, I

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Speaker 2: guess the other key things to mention are that most

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Speaker 2: Pokemon go through a series of evolutions, typically but not always,

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Speaker 2: consisting of three phases, and then humans use poke balls

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Speaker 2: to capture them and make them.

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Speaker 3: Fight each other. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So, as for myself, and I think I may have

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Speaker 2: mentioned this on the show before I missed out on

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Speaker 2: Pokemon as a younger person. I think I theoretically could

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Speaker 2: have caught the bug, but it didn't officially make its

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Speaker 2: way over to the US until ninety eight. I would

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Speaker 2: have been twenty at the time, and I guess it

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Speaker 2: just I wasn't in the place for it, and I

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Speaker 2: don't think I had any friends that had been infected

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Speaker 2: with Pokemon, So for the most part, I would hear

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Speaker 2: about it, but I'm like, oh, I guess that's something

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Speaker 2: kids are doing, and I'm not a kid right now.

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Speaker 2: But I of course eventually became a parent, and my

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Speaker 2: kid certainly got into Pokemon in a major way, and

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Speaker 2: as a teen, they still seem to really enjoy the franchise.

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Speaker 2: They're playing the current video game. I think they occasionally

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Speaker 2: watched some of the media, and they still know their

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Speaker 2: way around all of the Pokemon lore and classifications. So

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Speaker 2: if Pokemon business comes up on the podcast, I've covered

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Speaker 2: them on the Monster Fact episodes before. I will generally

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Speaker 2: ask them about it and say like, hey, do I

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Speaker 2: have this ride? Is this Pokemon an example of such

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Speaker 2: and such? And they'll be able to throw in on

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Speaker 2: that also alongside them. I have watched the occasional episode

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Speaker 2: of the Pokemon TV show or one of the TV

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Speaker 2: shows and found it, you know, engaging and weird. I

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Speaker 2: watched twenty nineteen's Pokemon Detective Pikachu with them, and I

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Speaker 2: was actually really impressed with that one. I've considered doing

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Speaker 2: that one for Weird House at some point. And a

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Speaker 2: real highlight was we got to visit the Pokemon store

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Speaker 2: in Tokyo a couple of years back, and that was

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Speaker 2: overwhelming and super cool. I ended up picking up a

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Speaker 2: few of the stickers that they have there. I got

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Speaker 2: one of the Pokemon Ditto and I have Diddos stuck

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Speaker 2: to my work laptop right now. I have it covering

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Speaker 2: the Apple logo so that it glows a little bit.

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Speaker 3: Oh nice.

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Speaker 2: Ditto is a shape shifting blob by.

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Speaker 3: The way, like the thing, Yeah but.

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Speaker 2: Cute, you know, the more like the blob If the

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Speaker 2: blob could could form a human form, Yeah, but you know.

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Speaker 3: The thing could be cute, if it copied a cute thing.

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Speaker 2: If it wanted to. It never seemed particularly interesting, but

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Speaker 2: it could.

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Speaker 3: I guess that would have been a better strategy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so today's episode is going to be less hyper

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Speaker 2: focused on Pokemon lore, and certainly, you know, we're not

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Speaker 2: the individuals could really steer that ship. I'm sure there

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Speaker 2: are any number of podcasts out there that are that

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Speaker 2: are more capable of that. But instead, we're going to

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Speaker 2: be talking more about interesting connections to be made between

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Speaker 2: the Pokemon franchises, core elements, and sometimes specific species, its

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Speaker 2: popularity with our innate fascination with the natural world. We're

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Speaker 2: gonna be talking about its connection to biophilia. Now, to

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Speaker 2: really get into this, I think it's illuminating to go

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Speaker 2: back to the origins of Pokemon itself. I'm not going

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Speaker 2: to go through, you know, the full origin story, but

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Speaker 2: essentially I'm going to touch on a couple of individuals.

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Speaker 2: There's Junichi Masuda born nineteen sixty eight. He was one

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Speaker 2: of the key individuals in the creation of the initial

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Speaker 2: video game, and I believe still serves as chief creative

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Speaker 2: fellow at the Pokemon Company. I was looking at a

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Speaker 2: sighted interview that's from him. I was looking at Pokemon

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Speaker 2: from Bugs to Blockbuster by Simon Parkin from The Guardian

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Speaker 2: back in twenty thirteen, and in that in the quotations,

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Speaker 2: Masuda mentions that as a kid in Osaka, he spent

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Speaker 2: most of his time outside, riding around on his bicycle

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Speaker 2: and catching insects. Now, I don't know that he was

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Speaker 2: making the insects fight, but of course we also know

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Speaker 2: we've discussed before there is the sort of the beatles

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Speaker 2: sparring that also takes place in Japan, or he used

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Speaker 2: to take place in Japan. I'm not sure what the

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Speaker 2: hobby's current status is, but that is probably in the

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Speaker 2: zeitgeist as well here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I was wondering about that because I

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Speaker 3: could have imagined that even if the initial impulse to

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Speaker 3: create the game was just being inspired by the kind

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Speaker 3: of naturalists instinct or the collector instinct, you know, like

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Speaker 3: going out and finding beatles in the woods, that you

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Speaker 3: might end up wanting to add fighting because it's a

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Speaker 3: video game and you need like a conflict mechanic and.

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Speaker 2: A gangame conflict. I mean, nowadays we can point to

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Speaker 2: examples of video games that are may be less dependent

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Speaker 2: on conflict, but certainly at the time, like, can you

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Speaker 2: imagine a game that didn't have some sort of a

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Speaker 2: battle or fight central to it. Yeah, yeah, let's see

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Speaker 2: Another individual, Satoshi Tajiri born nineteen sixty five, also one

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Speaker 2: of the founding partners, apparently had similar experiences on the

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Speaker 2: outskirts of Tokyo, cataloging various creatures he found, writing them

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Speaker 2: all down in a notepad that his parents had given him.

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Speaker 2: And Parkin also shares in this article that when the

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Speaker 2: original Red and Blue Pokemon game was released on game Boy,

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Speaker 2: I didn't really think about this connection, but the plat

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Speaker 2: form was towards the end of its life cycle, so

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Speaker 2: there were still plenty of game Boy games coming out

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Speaker 2: because there were all these game Boys out in the world,

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Speaker 2: but it made getting coverage for the game a lot

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Speaker 2: more difficult. The industry was moving on to newer technology,

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Speaker 2: So it's it's interesting to just imagine, you know, any

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Speaker 2: kind of property or franchise in its early goings potentially

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Speaker 2: having a challenge to establish itself because it's such a

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Speaker 2: juggernaut today.

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Speaker 3: That is weird to imagine there was a time when

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Speaker 3: like new games were still coming out for the game Boy,

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Speaker 3: and yet there were PlayStations, you know, you were getting

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Speaker 3: these three dimensional games. Yeah, yeah, and that was happening

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Speaker 3: at the same time. That is strange.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So Masuda and Tegery, of course had a great

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Speaker 2: deal of passion for video games in general as well

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Speaker 2: as electronics. But it is such an interesting detail that

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Speaker 2: part of the franchise's genesis was in the collection, cataloging,

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Speaker 2: and experience of the natural world, and through the Pokemon gains,

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Speaker 2: they to a large extent, attempted to pass that experience

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Speaker 2: on to children who in many cases, certainly in Japan,

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Speaker 2: but then in other markets as well, you know, certainly

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Speaker 2: as supplies to the US in the following years, you know,

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Speaker 2: a lot of children just had decreasing ability to experience

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Speaker 2: the natural world, to experience the organisms of the natural

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Speaker 2: world and chronicle them in a way that we would

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Speaker 2: seem almost hired, hardwired to do. And this is where

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Speaker 2: things tie back into the biophilia hypothesis. We've talked about

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Speaker 2: this numerous times in the show before. This was a

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Speaker 2: hypothesis that was concocted by the late EO. Wilson, who

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Speaker 2: lived nineteen twenty nine through twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 3: Wilson was an entomologist who is famous for studying ants,

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Speaker 3: especially Yeah.

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Speaker 2: It is essentially, in Wilson's words, the innate tendency to

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Speaker 2: focus on life and lifelike processes, and as related in

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Speaker 2: Why Conservationists Should Heed Pokemon by Boumford, Clegg, Coulson, and Taylor,

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Speaker 2: this is published in Science Back in two thousand and two.

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Speaker 2: It can also be thought of as humanity's innate desire

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Speaker 2: to catalog, understand, and spend time with other life forms.

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Speaker 3: So, of course there is an irony in that Pokemon

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Speaker 3: originally was a video game, so when you're playing it,

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Speaker 3: you are interacting with an electronic device that is about

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Speaker 3: as synthetic as objects get. But it would be that

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Speaker 3: within that realm, within the video game realm of this handheld,

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Speaker 3: plastic and glass thing you are playing with, you are

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Speaker 3: getting a simulation of cataloging the diversity of the natural

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Speaker 3: world instead of just like you know, having Mario run

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Speaker 3: and jump on things. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I don't know enough about any precursors to this in

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Speaker 2: video games, but certainly in the wake of the first

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Speaker 2: Pokemon game, we can point to any number of games

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Speaker 2: where you're doing some sort of collecting and logging of

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Speaker 2: natural organisms. Like just thinking of two games offhand that

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Speaker 2: I spend a fair amount of time with in the past,

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Speaker 2: the Fallout games or say Red Dead Redemption. These are

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Speaker 2: both games where you spend a lot of time wandering

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Speaker 2: around collecting things. Maybe you're collecting things to make I

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Speaker 2: don't know, to make something essentially make a potion. But

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Speaker 2: other times it's just about checking off a list.

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Speaker 3: You're finding out what's in the world and then figuring

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Speaker 3: out what you can do with it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that is really interesting. I guess one

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Speaker 2: of the big questions is, ye do this is there

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Speaker 2: is there something innate in us? Indeed, is the biophilia

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Speaker 2: hypothesis correct? And we really need to do this? And

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Speaker 2: we can trace it back to the fact that we

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Speaker 2: are organisms in the natural world, and we have had

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Speaker 2: to make our way through that world, understand how each

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Speaker 2: of these organisms affects us in positive, neutral, or negative fashions,

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Speaker 2: and then on top of that, with our human ingenuity,

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Speaker 2: how to augment those parameters and turn a potentially harmful

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Speaker 2: organism into a helpful one and maybe vice versa. So

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Speaker 2: the two thousand and two piece in question, it raises

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Speaker 2: some interesting questions about this supposed relationship between Pokemon fandom

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Speaker 2: and biophilia. They conduct a study in this, and this

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Speaker 2: is one of those studies we have to point out

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Speaker 2: this is a small study. This doesn't concern a tremendous

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Speaker 2: number of individuals, and certainly we're dealing with like a

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Speaker 2: a one particular part of the world, and there you know,

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Speaker 2: all sorts of limitations you would have to take into

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Speaker 2: into account here. But in it the author has carried

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Speaker 2: out a study one hundred and nine UK school children

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Speaker 2: ages four through eleven, and they quiz different age groups

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Speaker 2: about both real life UK organisms, organisms that you know

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Speaker 2: would have been more or less in their natural habitat,

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Speaker 2: and fictional Pokemon organisms. And what they generally observed in

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Speaker 2: their findings is that the kids started off with a

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Speaker 2: stronger understanding of natural world organisms around them and less

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Speaker 2: knowledge of Pokemon. But as they got older, the Pokemon

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Speaker 2: knowledge kind of took over and took the place of

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Speaker 2: the natural world wisdom. And there were some other like

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Speaker 2: you know they were talking about okay, well, you know,

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Speaker 2: we divided them up into boys and girls, and then

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Speaker 2: the boys tended to know more about Pokemon and so forth.

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Speaker 2: So you have to factor all of that into it

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Speaker 2: as well.

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Speaker 3: Interesting.

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Speaker 2: So the researchers here argue that, on one hand, the

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Speaker 2: findings demonstrate the young children in general just have a

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Speaker 2: tremendous capacity for learning about creatures, real or fictional, and

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Speaker 2: at age eight, the typical child could identify eighty percent

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Speaker 2: of a sample drawn from one hundred and fifty synthetic

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Speaker 2: species aka Pokemon, which you know we've all encountered this

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Speaker 2: with kids. Kids will come up maybe maybe it is

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Speaker 2: Pokemon specific. A kid will come up to you and

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Speaker 2: start talking at you about Pokemon, and it can be overwhelming,

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Speaker 2: and you're like, no, thank you, I really don't need

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Speaker 2: to hear all of this, But you have to admit, like,

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Speaker 2: it's amazing that they have all of these facts in

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Speaker 2: their head. Granted there's all sorts of stuff they don't

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Speaker 2: have to remember yet, but they have tremendous capacity for

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Speaker 2: memorizing all this stuff. I certainly see that with my

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Speaker 2: own kiddo. I mean, granted, you know there's the Pokemon example,

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Speaker 2: but you know we also share a love for dungeons

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Speaker 2: and dragons, so you know, both of us can rattle

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Speaker 2: off some stats about the various monsters and with my kid.

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Speaker 2: They also got super into herpetology years back, and so

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Speaker 2: they you know, this does have at least in their

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Speaker 2: their case, and I think in many kids cases, there's

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Speaker 2: also the real world component, like learning about the animals

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Speaker 2: in your natural environment and then potentially other environments, like

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Speaker 2: we don't live by the ocean, but we know a

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Speaker 2: number of foceanic creatures and it As a kid, I

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Speaker 2: remember being really into that, like, oh, sharks are neat.

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Speaker 2: I want to see a chart of all the different

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Speaker 2: types of sharks so that I can memorize them for

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Speaker 2: some reason. Yeah, and it can even spill over, I think,

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Speaker 2: into things that are not animals, but maybe a little

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Speaker 2: that you can certainly anthropomorphize to some degree, you know,

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Speaker 2: like airplanes. Like when I was growing up, my dad

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Speaker 2: was a big World War Two buff and was often

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Speaker 2: working on, say, a model of the World War two aircraft,

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Speaker 2: and so for a while there I could really rattle

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Speaker 2: off a number of different makes and models of World

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Speaker 2: War two planes, you know, which are kind of like

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Speaker 2: sharks of the sky.

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Speaker 3: Well, Rob, if I can observe something about your personality,

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Speaker 3: I mean, you seem to me to be a person

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Speaker 3: who has a very an encyclopedist's kind of framing. I

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Speaker 3: think you like to have You like to have lists

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Speaker 3: and catalogs of things to like learn all of the

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Speaker 3: items in the list and know all of the you know,

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Speaker 3: the names of the things on that list, which I

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Speaker 3: don't know. Knowing that about you, I can see how

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Speaker 3: that that also transcends just the biological realm. I mean,

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Speaker 3: like that's a general impulse about like organizing knowledge, but

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Speaker 3: then when you bring it to the natural world, it

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Speaker 3: has this particular kind of taxonomy or creature understanding principle

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Speaker 3: behind it. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And whether we're thinking about it or not, we

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Speaker 2: are learning like the map of the ecosystem and ecosystems

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Speaker 2: that we are a part of. Yah. Now, coming back

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Speaker 2: to that two thousand and two paper, the authors here

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Speaker 2: argue that based on the children that they quipped in

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Speaker 2: their study, they made an argument that quote conservationists are

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Speaker 2: doing less well than the creators of Pokemon inspiring interest

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Speaker 2: in their subjects. Now, granted, we've had quite a while

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Speaker 2: since two thousand and two, and I think there have

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Speaker 2: been efforts to sort of capitalize in the Pokemon fandom

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Speaker 2: to figure out new ways to get people excited about

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Speaker 2: the natural World. Yeah, and I've done just a little

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Speaker 2: bit of that on the show before, doing like Monster

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Speaker 2: Fact episodes, like here's this Pokemon, but it's you know,

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Speaker 2: it's clearly based on this organism, and there's there's a

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Speaker 2: lot of fun to be had with that kind of

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Speaker 2: connection making.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, in the case of Pokemon, you can

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Speaker 3: have the interest in the subject matter organized by the

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Speaker 3: medium itself. So it's like the fact that it's a

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Speaker 3: game that's fun to play, or a TV show that

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Speaker 3: all your friends are watching, like drives interest in the

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Speaker 3: subject matter that's being featured there. So I wonder if

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Speaker 3: there was a similarly engaging game or TV show that

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Speaker 3: just had the actual world creatures instead of the Pokemon,

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Speaker 3: if you would not see a similar increase in knowledge.

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Speaker 2: Right right, Like, for instance, nobody out there is just

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Speaker 2: for the most part, I think learning a list of

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Speaker 2: all the X Men characters, we learn them also because

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Speaker 2: they have stories and they have connections to each other,

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Speaker 2: and all of this makes you know, becomes a cat's

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Speaker 2: cradle of fascination. Yeah, and the same, of course can

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Speaker 2: be said natural World. So the authors here stress something

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Speaker 2: we already mentioned before that a lot of this might

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Speaker 2: have to do with an increased distance between individuals in

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Speaker 2: the natural world. As we live our lives more removed

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Speaker 2: from nature, our knowledge of it falls away, And then

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Speaker 2: presumably that's when something like Pokemon comes into play, giving

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Speaker 2: us a whole host of imaginary creatures to throw our

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Speaker 2: cataloging mental faculties at you. After all, we've arrived in

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Speaker 2: a cultural place, particularly in large urban settings, where knowledge

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Speaker 2: of natural world organisms doesn't highly illuminate the world that

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00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:39,680
Speaker 2: we're interacting with. We're not id in creatures. We see creatures,

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Speaker 2: we avoid creatures, we eat, creatures, we utilize in other ways.

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Speaker 2: So there's an argument to be made that instead we

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00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,440
Speaker 2: end up cataloging the fictional creatures that we engage with

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Speaker 2: in our entertainment, which live within a pervasive or array

401
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Speaker 2: of captivating video games, card games, media, and shared imaginary worlds.

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00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:02,400
Speaker 2: This is I think worth stressing as well. We talked

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Speaker 2: about Pokemon ever so briefly in our episodes about imaginary

404
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:12,199
Speaker 2: friends and imaginary worlds, and I would I would observe

405
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:15,520
Speaker 2: this between my kid and one of their friends, where

406
00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:17,919
Speaker 2: when they were hanging out, they would just make up

407
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:20,600
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of stories about Pokemon and like tell

408
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:22,520
Speaker 2: them to each other like they had a whole and

409
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Speaker 2: it was largely divorced from the actual Pokemon fandom world.

410
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Speaker 2: This was about like armies of Pokemon marching against each

411
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Speaker 2: other as something.

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Speaker 3: Wow, what were the big rivalries?

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Speaker 2: Oh, it had to do with with Pikachu. They they

414
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 2: decided that they didn't like Pikachu, and Pikachu was like

415
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:45,639
Speaker 2: the ultimate enemy. It's kind of like, you know, Pikachu

416
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:50,200
Speaker 2: was the the superstar of of Pokemon, and I guess

417
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 2: still is. You know, he's the poster child and I

418
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:54,359
Speaker 2: Pikachu backlash.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

420
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:56,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think they were like, you know, Pikachu

421
00:22:56,480 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 2: is not the best. Clearly, these other ones are the best. Ironically,

422
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:02,160
Speaker 2: one of the ones they thought was actually the best

423
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 2: was Piachu, which is a lower, less evolved version of Pikachu.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, they were big about championing these other creatures

425
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Speaker 2: over Pikachu.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the one I've heard described as there's

427
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:16,360
Speaker 3: a Pikachu baby.

428
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:19,359
Speaker 2: Now, Yes, Yeah, essentially a Pikachu baby that is cuter,

429
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Speaker 2: has everything Pikachu brings to the table, except even cuter.

430
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Speaker 2: It's like Pikachu crack. Really, it's just super refined it's.

431
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Speaker 3: The baby Yoda of Pikachu.

432
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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

433
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Speaker 3: We live in an era where you've got to have

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Speaker 3: a baby version of everything.

435
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. But I in general, though, I think this

436
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 2: is an interesting way to sort of self analyze some

437
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:44,400
Speaker 2: of the at times useless seeming trivia that we can accumulate.

438
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:47,200
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, Joe, but I will occasionally

439
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 2: find myself in this situation where hopefully I'm not called

440
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,120
Speaker 2: out on it, though that has occurred as well, where

441
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:56,679
Speaker 2: I'll at least realize, oh, I have a fairly expansive

442
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 2: catalog of say B movie actors in my head. But

443
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,160
Speaker 2: then I may still struggle to remember some vital piece

444
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:06,479
Speaker 2: of information about my actual life. Yeah, oh yeah, and

445
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 2: you're like, why does that happen? Like why? You know?

446
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,960
Speaker 2: People may encounter that with Pokemon and specifically, like maybe

447
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:15,360
Speaker 2: you forget your anniversary, but you remember all the Pokemon

448
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:17,600
Speaker 2: ghost type evolutions, Like what's going on there?

449
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 3: I think this is an extremely common experience that people find,

450
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:25,240
Speaker 3: for whatever reason, they have an easy time remembering information

451
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:28,480
Speaker 3: that is not as important and a harder time remembering

452
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 3: things that are more meaningful and more important. Ye. I

453
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:35,400
Speaker 3: don't think I don't have an overarching theory of why

454
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:39,160
Speaker 3: that is. But maybe it's just I don't know. Some

455
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 3: types of information are easier to dwell on. I mean,

456
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,200
Speaker 3: I do think that information is easier to retrieve when

457
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 3: you retrieve it often, So you know, if you find yourself,

458
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 3: I don't know, if something is less stressful to think

459
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 3: about or I don't know, easier to think about, maybe

460
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 3: more entertaining, you will will keep going back there, whether

461
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 3: for you know, with external stimulation, like you're watching a

462
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 3: movie again or reading about something again, or you're just

463
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 3: thinking about it again. But I've had the same experience,

464
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 3: not so much with I don't know if I know

465
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:19,119
Speaker 3: catalogs of Pokemon really, but I, you know, find myself like, wow,

466
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 3: I have a really good memory for quoting dialogue from

467
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,879
Speaker 3: movies verbatim, And I don't know why that is. And

468
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 3: I wish that memory were better deployed to things that

469
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 3: matter more in like my social and human life, or

470
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 3: in you know, remembering things that are actually useful.

471
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, obviously we have to remind everyone. Memory

472
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 2: is complex and there's so many different factors going on, like,

473
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 2: for instance, sometimes you are less likely to remember a

474
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,640
Speaker 2: vital piece of information. If you know that, say your

475
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 2: significant other is remembering that for you, or you suspect

476
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 2: that they are, your brain like makes choices like this, like, well,

477
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 2: we don't need to hold onto that as tightly because

478
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 2: that is held by someone else. Yeah, and you know,

479
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 2: and perhaps in any given relationship, someone's brain is like,

480
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:06,879
Speaker 2: you need to be the keeper of the pokemon lord.

481
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 2: This is more important than remembering when the water bells do.

482
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,399
Speaker 3: That's your job. Yeah, remember remember snorlax.

483
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 2: But if we were to connect this to some sort

484
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 2: of like you know, important knowledge about the natural world,

485
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 2: then it would be important.

486
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:21,679
Speaker 3: You know.

487
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well maybe this other person maybe they

488
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 2: know how to cook, or they know how to hunt,

489
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. But clearly it's important for

490
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 2: me to know what all the creatures are out there,

491
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,360
Speaker 2: what all the plants are, and what their roles are

492
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 2: in our use of the natural world.

493
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 3: Yeah.

494
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 2: So so yeah, we might think about pokemon fandom is

495
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 2: something that kind of co ops a natural inclination that

496
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:51,439
Speaker 2: might be better harnessed for naturalists and conservationist causes. But

497
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 2: another way of loosely interpreting all of this is that

498
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 2: perhaps pokemon fandom lives comfortably alongside interest in the natural world,

499
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 2: and maybe can even inspire it, because on one hand, like, yeah,

500
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:06,679
Speaker 2: there are more than I think more than a thousand

501
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 2: Pokemon species easy at this point, and a lot of them,

502
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 2: if not most of them, and I think it is

503
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 2: most of them by a pretty significant degree are based

504
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 2: on real creatures living or extinct, or they're based on

505
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 2: folkloric or mythological entities that themselves are based to some

506
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 2: degree on a combination of actual real world organisms. Given

507
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 2: the franchises Japanese roots, you do seem more likely to

508
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:39,919
Speaker 2: see local creatures, creatures that people of Japan would come

509
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 2: into contact with and have knowledge of, And the same

510
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 2: can also be said for mythological and folkloric references. So

511
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 2: there are various Pokemon that are clearly based on Yokai,

512
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:53,880
Speaker 2: but then you can expand that regionally. They are also

513
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 2: Pokemon that are based on Chinese mythological figures as well,

514
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 2: And you know, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that. Okay,

515
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,680
Speaker 2: if you have this game that is making kids think

516
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:08,199
Speaker 2: about these various bioforms, it could inspire interest in the

517
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 2: things they're based upon, be they folklore, mythology or biology.

518
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 2: I asked my kid about this, because again, they're super

519
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 2: into reptile and amphibian classifications and they can rattle a

520
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 2: lot of that off, you know, certainly as well as

521
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 2: they could rattle off Pokemon classifications, and I don't know.

522
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 2: They seem to consider these to be two separate things,

523
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 2: but acknowledged that there were some similarities in like the databases.

524
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 2: I guess now in terms of to what extent like

525
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 2: the diversity of the Pokemon world matches up with real

526
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 2: ecosystem diversity, I found a couple of interesting papers, both

527
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 2: from the Journal of Geek Studies, both Brazilian in origin,

528
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 2: and both published in twenty seventeen, but by different authors.

529
00:28:56,040 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 2: There's one titled the Theological Diversity of Pokemon, and this

530
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 2: one was by Mendes at All, and the other one

531
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 2: is Arthropod Diversity in Pokemon by Preto and Almida. So

532
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 2: in general, I'm not going to go through all the

533
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 2: points in these papers, but in general, the findings seem

534
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 2: to indicate that, first of all, arthropod representation in Pokemon

535
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 2: is high and in general is in keeping with the

536
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 2: vast array of arthropod diversity that we find in the

537
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 2: natural world, where they account for something like eighty percent

538
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 2: of all known living animal species and a sizable portion

539
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 2: of the biomass.

540
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would think a huge portion of that would

541
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 3: just be accounted for by insects alone.

542
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 2: However, they note that the high number of crustacean based

543
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 2: pokemons compared to calliserate based pokemons does seem to be

544
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 2: at odds with the natural world, and probably has more

545
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 2: to do with the quote very frequent contact that Japanese

546
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 2: people have with aquatic animals. Okay, So in general, and

547
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if this my version of this actually

548
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 2: matches up with the Pokemon database info, but it would

549
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 2: seem to mean you're going to encounter more crab based

550
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 2: Pokemon than there are shrimp based Pokemon and so forth.

551
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 2: Then you would encounter spider based Pokemon I see.

552
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 3: Okay, and hard to complain about that, like, oh, they're

553
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 3: giving us too many crabs, I can't see. Yes.

554
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, in the other paper concerning the fish fish being

555
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 2: the largest vertebrate animal group, they are also well represented.

556
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 2: They say, quote fish pokemon are very diverse creatures both

557
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 2: taxonomic and ecologically. Despite being a small group within the

558
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 2: Pokemon universe with eight hundred and one species. They speculate

559
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 2: that the diversity of habitat types and real life fish

560
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 2: analogs is only going to increase as more Pokemon are

561
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 2: rolled out, and they would have been since this paper

562
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 2: came out. But they argue that it already constituted a

563
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 2: kind of quote biological pocket world that matches up with

564
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 2: the actual biological world in key way, so kind of

565
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 2: a fictional reflection of now diversity. And so I mean,

566
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,239
Speaker 2: you can you can base that in. You can look

567
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 2: at that in a number of ways. You know. It's

568
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 2: like if you're creating a fantasy world, it's generally to

569
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 2: some degree mirroring a real world. Like you can look

570
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 2: at Middle Earth or West Euros and yeah, those are

571
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 2: there's there are a lot of clear analogs going on there,

572
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 2: And the same would be expected of some sort of

573
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 2: an imagined ecology, especially one that's not on an alien

574
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 2: world but a fictional version of our own world. But

575
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 2: if the biophilia connection is certainly in play here, it

576
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 2: makes even more sense that your imagined ecosystem would would

577
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 2: so closely match up, at least in broad strokes, with

578
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 2: what is actually out there. So anyway, for my part, anyway,

579
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 2: I find all this this interesting, this way that this

580
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 2: big franchise, this thing that many people may just think

581
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 2: of is pure fun, pure entertainment, and that's perfectly fine.

582
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 2: But what if it does say something really essential about

583
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 2: who we are and how we react and and and

584
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 2: experience the natural world?

585
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 3: That is interesting? I don't know if I'd ever thought

586
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 3: of it that way? Can I? Can I shift to

587
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 3: the more specific and ask you a question about fish pokemon?

588
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 2: Sure? Sure?

589
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 3: How do they fight? Do they fight on land? How

590
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 3: does that work? I see, like, you know, so you

591
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 3: throw out your poke balls and they fight, and it's

592
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 3: like in an arena or on grass. What if it's

593
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 3: a fish flop?

594
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 2: I think sometimes they do flop for comedic purposes. But

595
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 2: I think also these battles tend to be kind of

596
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 2: like big anime battles. Right, So it's again, they're not

597
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 2: necessarily necessarily fighting each other with like mouth and talon.

598
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 2: It's more like energy balls and stuff and lightning bolts

599
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 2: and so forth.

600
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 3: Does the fight take place within a kind of second

601
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 3: psychic realm?

602
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:51,959
Speaker 2: Kind of?

603
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 3: Yeah?

604
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's it's kind of it's you know,

605
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 2: it's sort of like that moment in Big Trouble and

606
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 2: Little China where low Pa and Annection are battling and

607
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 2: they kind of do this video game thing where each

608
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 2: one is controlling some sort of a force different, you know,

609
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 2: light warriors battling each other. It's essentially what's going on here. So,

610
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 2: you know, no matter how I guess, it is a

611
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 2: good reminder, yeat, no matter how interesting the natural connections

612
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 2: might be in some of the the cataloging and the diversity,

613
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 2: when it comes down to the fighting, yeah, it's I

614
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 2: don't think there's there's much that really closely mirrors what

615
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 2: actual organisms are doing.

616
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 3: No, I get you. So even a fish out of

617
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 3: water can emit rays.

618
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, but like you said earlier though, you know,

619
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 2: sometimes sleeping is the attack, Sometimes flopping is probably the attack.

620
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 3: All right. Do you want to get into these species

621
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 3: named after Pokemon? Yeah?

622
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think this is another interesting area to

623
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 2: get into because it does kind of support this idea

624
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 2: that hey, you can you know, you can certainly be

625
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 2: into Pokemon and then you can actually you can actually

626
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:14,799
Speaker 2: become a scientist. You know. We again, it's been a

627
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 2: huge generational touchstone, and so we have various examples of

628
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 2: people with varying degrees of Pokemon knowledge who then go

629
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:25,839
Speaker 2: out into the world as scientists discover new organisms, name

630
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 2: new organisms, and name them after Pokemon.

631
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 3: Mm hmm h. Yeah. So Rob, when you asked me

632
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 3: to look into this, you referred me to a list

633
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 3: maintained on the bulb Apedia, which is great. This is

634
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 3: sort of like the Wookipedia of the Pokemon universe. I

635
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 3: like that, and I wish I could have helped them

636
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 3: name it, because I feel like you've got a lot

637
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 3: of potential there to call it like the Codex Pokemonicus

638
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 3: or something.

639
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it's This is like the sort

640
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 2: of like fan generated version. Could be wrong on this,

641
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:57,800
Speaker 2: and then the poke des is like the official listing

642
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 2: and is also like the in game cattle of Pokemon.

643
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 3: That's the one maintained by the Empire. But yes, but yeah,

644
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:08,319
Speaker 3: so you've got people adding these things. So anyway, I

645
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 3: did look some of these up, and I've got some

646
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 3: thoughts in general about how these naming conventions work out.

647
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is going to be really fun. But first,

648
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 2: first of all, I do want to make a quick

649
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 2: note here about Pokemon creature names. This is not going

650
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 2: to be new information for a lot of you out there.

651
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:29,359
Speaker 2: But some Pokemon retain or largely retain their original Japanese names,

652
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 2: so like Pikachu, mewtwo, Pichu, while others are changed at

653
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 2: least a little and sometimes quite a bit for the

654
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 2: English language market. So for instance, Lizardon became Charizard, Kabigan

655
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 2: became snorlax Puran became jigly Puff, and one of my

656
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 2: favorites yad On. I think that's that I may be

657
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 2: mispronouncing the Japanese name, but he becomes slow Poke. Slow

658
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 2: Poke has an amazing life cycle, and my kids showed

659
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 2: me a slow Poke episode of the cartoon once that

660
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 2: I thought was just super weird. It was like a

661
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 2: stoner animation, so I was really impressed by that. But anyway,

662
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,320
Speaker 2: one of the main reasons for all of this is

663
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 2: that sometimes the wordplay in Japanese just doesn't translate, or

664
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 2: they feel like, well, let's try a name that accomplishes

665
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 2: the same thing but in English.

666
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, before we get into some of these species

667
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 3: that have been named after Pokemon, I do have to

668
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 3: take a little digression here to talk about the law.

669
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 3: Many scientists have tried to name things after Pokemon, and

670
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 3: the company that owns the Pokemon trademark has not always

671
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 3: taken kindly to this. It is with a heavy heart

672
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 3: that I must report that sometimes the lawyers are brought

673
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 3: in about Pokemon naming. One example that I came across

674
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 3: is described in a two thousand and five news article

675
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 3: in Nature by Tom Simonite called Pokemon block's gene name.

676
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 3: The lead of this article reads, quote, A cancer research

677
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:06,840
Speaker 3: institute has been threatened with legal action by the US

678
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 3: branch of Japanese video game franchise Pokemon after one of

679
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:14,800
Speaker 3: its researchers borrowed the company's trademark to name an oncogene.

680
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:17,759
Speaker 3: An onco gene is a gene that has the potential

681
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 3: to cause cancer. I've also seen the gene in this

682
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:24,359
Speaker 3: story referred to as a proto onco gene. So the

683
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 3: origin of this conflict is that a group of cancer

684
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:32,240
Speaker 3: researchers led by Pierre Paolo Pandulfi of Memorial Sloan Kettering

685
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:36,279
Speaker 3: Cancer Center in New York. I think they first talked

686
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 3: about this in a conference presentation in two thousand and one.

687
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 3: They were introducing the discovery or naming of a cancer

688
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 3: gene that they called the Pokemon gene, so named because

689
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 3: it came from a family already known as the Pok

690
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 3: genes pok letters pok and then this particular gene was

691
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 3: the pok erythroid myeloid ontogenic, which acronymed out pretty nicely

692
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 3: to Pokemon. And so when this group published their findings

693
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 3: and nomenclature in the journal Nature in two thousand and five,

694
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 3: some subsequent reporting I think seized on this delicious opportunity

695
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 3: to run headlines like scientists discover Pokemon causes cancer.

696
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 2: Oh well, that was bound to happen, wasn't it.

697
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 3: Pokemon USA did not like this. They got involved and

698
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 3: threatened to sue the scientists unless they changed the name

699
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 3: of the gene. The scientists involved protested that the name

700
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 3: of the gene didn't have anything to do with the

701
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,399
Speaker 3: game or the cartoon. It was just an acronym. It

702
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,279
Speaker 3: was like the pok emont a. You know, I guess

703
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 3: it's questionable. You can think they knew what they were doing,

704
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 3: or maybe you can think they didn't. I don't really know.

705
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 3: But their claim was it's just an acronym from what

706
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 3: this gene is. But in response to that, I'm going

707
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 3: to read from this two thousand and five article quote

708
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 3: a spokeswoman for Pokemon USA told Nature that its image

709
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 3: was at risk. Quote. We don't want our image undermined

710
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 3: by associating Pokemon with cancer, she said. So. This article

711
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 3: notes that it is not the only time a researcher

712
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:20,799
Speaker 3: has been threatened with legal action over the name of

713
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 3: a gene. For example, in nineteen ninety three, the Velcro

714
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 3: Corporation threatened to sue a scientist named Alfonso Martinez Arius

715
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,280
Speaker 3: of the University of Cambridge because he named a fruit

716
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 3: fly gene the velcrow gene. I want to note that

717
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 3: in looking this up, it seems to me like the

718
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 3: Velcrow Corporation is especially sensitive about use of the word velcrow.

719
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 3: Like they've got this whole ad campaign about trying to

720
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 3: get people to not use that word as a verb

721
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 3: or as a generic now and they're like, no, it's

722
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 3: called hook and loop. Velcrow is the name of the company.

723
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, there's a an amount of drift like

724
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 2: that that is unavoidable. You know, it's gonna you're going

725
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 2: to call you know, whatever the most prominent brand name is.

726
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 2: You're just going to call it that. You know, it's

727
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:12,760
Speaker 2: like people asking for a coke when they're not really

728
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 2: talking about a Coca Cola. It's just that, you know,

729
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 2: this is what comes with having a successful franchise.

730
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I wonder if this is one

731
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 3: of those cases of extremely aggressive intellectual property claims that

732
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 3: are based on like lawyers telling a company that they

733
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 3: cannot allow a certain kind of precedent to be set,

734
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 3: like you always have to pursue this aggressively, or in

735
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 3: the future you may not be able to make claims

736
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 3: that you want to. Yeah, but anyway, there it hasn't

737
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 3: always happened with genes named after named after protected properties.

738
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,240
Speaker 3: There is a gene known as the sonic hedgehogs gene

739
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 3: that has escaped this fate. So hats off to Sega

740
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:56,280
Speaker 3: for being cool about that. But the the legal threats

741
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 3: worked in the case of the Pokemon gene, which is

742
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 3: now known by the some would say equally catchy name

743
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 3: z bTB seven.

744
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to get into the legal

745
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 2: ins and outs here is, but I mean I can

746
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 2: I can kind of see where the Pokemon lawyers are

747
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 2: coming from here, right, I mean, if you're talking about

748
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 2: something that is linked to cancer.

749
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I certainly understand their perspective, though I think

750
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 3: I just generally have an orientation that it's a bummer

751
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 3: to be suing scientists about Yeah.

752
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely yeah. And I mean, would it really have

753
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 2: reflected poorly on on the Pokemon brand?

754
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 3: I doubt it. But anyway, there was another thing, So

755
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 3: this one. I want to be careful in how I

756
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 3: couch this because I did not find this verified by

757
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:49,760
Speaker 3: any reporting, So nobody, as far as I know, nobody

758
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 3: tracked this down to the source to make one hundred

759
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 3: percent sure this is true. But I found a seven

760
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 3: year old Reddit post that claimed to be an entomologist

761
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 3: trying to hold a contest to name some new ant

762
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 3: species after Pokemon. And this post claims that they started

763
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 3: to do this contest thing, and then they contacted the

764
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 3: Pokemon company to get their blessing to go through with this,

765
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,959
Speaker 3: you know, naming these species after Pokemon, and instead got

766
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 3: some legal threats. That is what the post claims they

767
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 3: were told not to use any names. Again, don't have

768
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 3: total confidence in the story because it's just a Reddit

769
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 3: post like this could be anybody, But if true, that

770
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:32,000
Speaker 3: would be somewhat consistent with this other story. Yeah.

771
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, And certainly when you're dealing with big companies like

772
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:36,880
Speaker 2: this is probably what somebody's job to go around and

773
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 2: like make sure that the certain names and certain ideas

774
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:44,879
Speaker 2: are not being used by other people, even if it's

775
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 2: a case where if you went down like to the

776
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 2: creative levels, they would be like, oh, that's why are

777
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 2: you causing a stir over this?

778
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:56,920
Speaker 3: You know, right exactly. But it's weird because for some reason,

779
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 3: this has not been the universal fame of biological entities

780
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,839
Speaker 3: named after pokemon. Quite a number of them exist, and

781
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 3: I truly don't know if it's because these other things

782
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 3: like slipped under the company's radar and then it was

783
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 3: too late for them to do anything about it, or

784
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 3: if it's because the company is cool with some associations

785
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 3: and not others. I don't know why they'd be okay

786
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:25,240
Speaker 3: with a bee but not an aunt. Yeah, but anyway,

787
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 3: are you ready to talk about a few of these.

788
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about some specific pokemon.

789
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 3: The first example is a species of wasp named after

790
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:38,759
Speaker 3: the pokemon known as Wheedle. And I was looking at

791
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 3: these images, I was like, I remember this guy, so okay,

792
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 3: so I at least made it far enough in the

793
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 3: original game Boy game to meet a Wheedle. Here's a

794
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 3: little curious little caterpillar with like a purple clown nose,

795
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 3: very adorable eyes, little baby dough eyes, looking up at you.

796
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 3: It's got a posture that's kind of like, you know,

797
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 3: a kitten raising up on its back legs at you, like,

798
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 3: oh please, you know, can I please have a treat?

799
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:07,760
Speaker 3: But then it all it's very cute in that respect.

800
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 3: But then this cute little caterpillar has what looks like

801
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 3: a knife blade for a tail and a metal spike

802
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 3: on its head, a kind of conical spike like a

803
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 3: party hat. So Wheedle is viciously cute, but does have weapons.

804
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to look this one up. This is

805
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 2: not what I was familiar with. Apparently, Wheedle evolves into Cocuna,

806
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 2: which is a kind of crystalis or a cocoon. Now

807
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 2: I realize that's that's what the name means. And then

808
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 2: this evolves into b Drill. This is a bee or

809
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 2: wasp like creature that seems to have spikes or drills

810
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 2: for hands, and also a stinger so it can like

811
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 2: poke you numerous ways.

812
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 3: I guess, right, So the conical spike that's on this

813
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 3: caterpillar's head in the evolved form, those are its hands,

814
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 3: So it's like Edward's spike hands. Yeah. Yeah. So the

815
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 3: species named after this pokemon is a type of parasitoid

816
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 3: wasp from Eastern Africa, described in a paper by Nielsen

817
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 3: and Buffington in the Journal African Entomology in twenty eleven.

818
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:14,839
Speaker 3: This paper describes five new species of the genus stint Torsps.

819
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:19,120
Speaker 3: This one is called stin Torsps wheed alee or I

820
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 3: don't know. If I didn't know it is named after

821
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 3: the pokemon, I might have thought that was like weed late. Yeah,

822
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 3: we'd lay I or we'd lay em. Anyway, why is

823
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 3: it named after wheedl Because like Wheedle, this wasp has

824
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 3: a spine jutting out of the middle of its head. Rob,

825
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 3: I've got some images for you to look at in

826
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 3: the outline here you might be able to say. It's

827
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 3: kind of hard to see, but there's a little I

828
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:43,320
Speaker 3: think you can see a little spine sticking out of

829
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:45,759
Speaker 3: its head between the antennae here, Yeah, I see it.

830
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 3: This species was found in Madagascar. I couldn't get a

831
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 3: lot more information about its behavior or morphology. But this

832
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:56,719
Speaker 3: is what it looks like. It's got a horn and

833
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:58,799
Speaker 3: as far as I can tell, no knife tail.

834
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, no drills for arms on this guy.

835
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:04,960
Speaker 3: Okay, how about some Pikachu's you ready, There are quite

836
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:05,760
Speaker 3: a few of these.

837
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 2: I guess that would make sense given Pikachu's popularity.

838
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:11,399
Speaker 3: I found at least four. I'm gonna do these kind

839
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:15,880
Speaker 3: of rapid fire. One is called Dicranocentris Pikachu. This is

840
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 3: a species of springtail found in Brazil. Springtails are a

841
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 3: large class of six legged arthropods, not insects, but they

842
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 3: are hexapods. This species was named and described by Zisto

843
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 3: and Mendonsa, and I couldn't find a lot of info

844
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:35,279
Speaker 3: on it, no picture that I could verify, but it

845
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 3: is a type of springtail named after Pikachu. The next species,

846
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 3: this one has a little bit more to look at.

847
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 3: This is called Hyperantha Pikachu. It is a species of

848
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 3: jewel beetle from Brazil, described in an article in Zootaxa

849
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 3: by Pineda and Barros in twenty twenty one. And here

850
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:59,239
Speaker 3: the authors have an etymology note in their paper They say,

851
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 3: quote the pacific name is an homage to Pikachu, a

852
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 3: fictional monster which this species resembles in its yellow elytra

853
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 3: with a black apical band like the ears of Pikachu.

854
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 3: And so rob I've attached some pictures for you to

855
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 3: look at in the outline here. It is a beetle,

856
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 3: and the elytra refers to the hard coverings of the

857
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:22,800
Speaker 3: hard coverings on the outside of the wings, so you

858
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 3: might it's kind of a shell that closes over the wings,

859
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 3: and you can see there it is very yellow. So

860
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 3: it's a yellow and black beetle. And I don't know,

861
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,520
Speaker 3: do you see Pikachu. I see the Pikachu colors.

862
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 2: I think this is Pikachu. I see Pikachu. One out

863
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 2: of percent. Okay, yeah, yeah, this is Pikachu as a

864
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:42,320
Speaker 2: flying insect.

865
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 3: Next one is Alistra pikachu. This is described by linn

866
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:50,320
Speaker 3: at All in a twenty twenty one paper in Zoological Systematics.

867
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 3: This paper reports on twenty three new spider species discovered

868
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 3: from various places in China and India. Elistra Pikachu is

869
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:03,320
Speaker 3: a little tiny spider measuring less than two millimeters at most,

870
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 3: discovered in a cave in Guangdong Province in Southeast China.

871
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,720
Speaker 3: The authors say that it was named after Pikachu because

872
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 3: it is yellow. And also in the same paper, the

873
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 3: authors describe a pale cave spider that they name sinopesa

874
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 3: Gollum and they acknowledge, yes, this is a pale cave

875
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 3: spider named after Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

876
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 2: Hmmm, okay, I couldn't find a picture of the Gollum

877
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 2: spider the Pikachu spider, and I don't feel as strongly

878
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:38,319
Speaker 2: about this one. It's like, okay, I guess it's it

879
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:40,400
Speaker 2: is kind of yellow. I guess you could call it

880
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 2: a Pikachu spider, but not as strong a case to

881
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 2: be made here in my opinion.

882
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 3: So the next one is Epicritinus Pikachu, named in a

883
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 3: twenty twenty paper by Goncalvas and Breaskovit. This describes eleven

884
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:59,879
Speaker 3: new species of spider from the genus Epicritinus, all found

885
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 3: in Brazil. The authors here were going wild with video

886
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 3: game names and other nerd references in naming these spiders.

887
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 3: So it's naming eleven spider species. One of them is

888
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 3: Epicritinus Zengi for Zengi street Fighter. There's also an Epicritinus

889
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 3: e Honda. There's there's an Epcritinus Anakin, and an Epicatrinus Vader.

890
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 3: Oh wow, there's an Epicritinas Pikachu. Of course, there's an

891
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:37,320
Speaker 3: Epicritinus Pegasus, and Epicatinus Zelda, and then some other things

892
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't recognize, but maybe they're from something.

893
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:48,040
Speaker 3: Epicritinus Omegaarugal, Epicritinus dou Can. I don't know what those are.

894
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, the listeners write in, if you know what a

895
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 2: duke can is.

896
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 3: Oh, and there's one Epocritinus Stitch. Is that Leelo and Stitch,

897
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 3: it would have to be.

898
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:59,560
Speaker 2: That's Maybe it's something more obscure from anime as well,

899
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:01,760
Speaker 2: But that's that's the connection I'm making.

900
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 3: Okay, here's where this one gets good. About the Pikachu one.

901
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:07,799
Speaker 3: In this case, the name Pikachu was not chosen just

902
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,919
Speaker 3: because the spider is yellow or yellow and black. They

903
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:14,719
Speaker 3: claim the inspiration is about a specific part of an

904
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 3: at of the anatomy quote etymology. The specific epithet is

905
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 3: a noun taken in apposition and is in reference to Pikachu,

906
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 3: a fictional rodent and electrical creature that's a great description.

907
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 3: I Love Love a fictional rodent and electrical creature that

908
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:34,880
Speaker 3: appears in an assortment of video games, anime, et cetera,

909
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:38,440
Speaker 3: licensed by the Pokemon Company. And then now they're speaking

910
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 3: of the spider. The female epigonum resembles the face of Pikachu.

911
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 3: Now what does that mean? Well, the epiginum of a

912
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 3: spider is the external genital organ of a female spider.

913
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 3: It is a hardened plate on the underside of the

914
00:50:56,480 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 3: female spider's abdomen, which has these openings that receive sperm

915
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 3: from the male's petipalps during mating. The epigonum often has

916
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 3: distinctive markings that can help with species identification, and in

917
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:14,160
Speaker 3: this case, the authors think that this spider's genitals look

918
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:17,280
Speaker 3: like Pikachu's face. Rob, I'll let you be the judge.

919
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:20,080
Speaker 3: I've attached a view in right below this in the

920
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 3: outline here, I've got a ventral view of the female

921
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 3: spider on the right, so you can see down on

922
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:27,919
Speaker 3: the abdomen. The genital plate is going to be near

923
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 3: the top of the underside of the abdomen. Do you

924
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:33,480
Speaker 3: see Pikachu in this spider crotch?

925
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:36,360
Speaker 2: Who I want to see Pikachu in this spider crotch.

926
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:38,760
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm looking at a like a magic

927
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 2: eye puzzle here, and I want to be a part

928
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:44,799
Speaker 2: of the magic but I'm having trouble seeing it. I'm

929
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:48,840
Speaker 2: flipping back and forth between this and some pictures of Pikachu.

930
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 2: I want to believe, but I'm having trouble.

931
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 3: Shoe, Well, I thought maybe you would see Okay, maybe,

932
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 3: I just want to make sure you're looking at the

933
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 3: right place. So you're looking on the underside view of

934
00:51:57,600 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 3: the spider, near the top of the abdomen, you don't

935
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 3: see a little thing that looks kind of like it

936
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 3: has It's like a yellow face with black bunny ears

937
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 3: and black spots that could be eyes.

938
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:13,240
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, now that I'm looking more specifically, yeah, yeah, okay,

939
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 2: I can see it. I can see it. It's yeah,

940
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,359
Speaker 2: that that could be a Pikachu, all right, Okay.

941
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 3: I think probably, though I'm not an expert on this, obviously,

942
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 3: but I believe the things that we're interpreting as Pikachu's

943
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 3: eyes here would be the holes that receive the sperm

944
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 3: during mating.

945
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the things that we're seeing are that are

946
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 2: the ears of the Pikachu. These are part of the

947
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,360
Speaker 2: coloration that we see on the rest of the abdomen

948
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 2: the plate.

949
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the ears are just part of the

950
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 3: epigonum plate.

951
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, okay, I've I've come around to this one. Yeah,

952
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 2: I do believe now, Okay.

953
00:52:49,800 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 3: Pikachu face genitals confirmed. All right. Next one is the

954
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:10,279
Speaker 3: charizard bee. In twenty sixteen, a researcher named Spencer K.

955
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 3: Monkton published a paper in the journal Zoo Keys describing

956
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:18,240
Speaker 3: eight new species of bee in the subgenus chili Cola

957
00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:21,440
Speaker 3: living in Chile. One of these species was given the

958
00:53:21,520 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 3: name Chilicola charizard.

959
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 2: Charizard's the little dragon with the tail on fire.

960
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:31,919
Speaker 3: Yes, pretty iconic. So the paper itself doesn't say why

961
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:34,759
Speaker 3: he chose to name this bee after a pokemon, but

962
00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 3: I found a bit more detail in a press release

963
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 3: from twenty sixteen, so I looked this up on Eurek Alert.

964
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:43,319
Speaker 3: The species is part of a family known sometimes as

965
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:49,240
Speaker 3: the polyester bees or as cellophane bees. These bees secrete

966
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 3: a substance that they used to line the walls of

967
00:53:53,120 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 3: their nest cells. I think they're primarily ground burrowing bees,

968
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 3: or sometimes they might be stem burrowing, but they create

969
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 3: these nest cells and they line them with this secretion that,

970
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 3: once it hardens, forms a smooth lining that people compare

971
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 3: to clear plastic film or cellophane. So what's the similarity

972
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:17,799
Speaker 3: with Charizard. Like Charizard, the stem nesting Charizard bee is

973
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:21,960
Speaker 3: usually found around mountains, in this case the andes. So

974
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 3: I had to get the detail that Charizar the pokemon

975
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 3: is found around mountains from his article. I didn't know

976
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 3: that because again I thought you get Charizard at the

977
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:31,959
Speaker 3: beginning of the game. But maybe it's in the wild too.

978
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:37,200
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, I know in the Detective Pikachu

979
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 2: movie it's like an urban in an urban environment, but

980
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:42,440
Speaker 2: I guess that's not its natural habitat.

981
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:46,440
Speaker 3: Okay, but it has some so the author claims it

982
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 3: has some visual features in common. Rob I've got pictures

983
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 3: of this bee for you to look at in the

984
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,359
Speaker 3: outline down below. You can compare this as I as

985
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:58,360
Speaker 3: I read through the features quote, long snout like face,

986
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:03,400
Speaker 3: broad hind limbs. So Charizard, I guess has like big legs,

987
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:07,279
Speaker 3: thick thighs and yeah, big legs, so long snout like

988
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:11,480
Speaker 3: face and broad hind limbs with antennae in place of horns.

989
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 3: So charizard has horns, the charizard bee has antenna. Of course,

990
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 3: what do you think?

991
00:55:17,960 --> 00:55:21,360
Speaker 2: Hmm? I mean, I'll take it. I'll take it, but

992
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 2: but it does seem like maybe a little bit more

993
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:23,880
Speaker 2: of a stretch.

994
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:27,759
Speaker 3: This bee is very small, between four and seven millimeters

995
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:30,800
Speaker 3: in length. In life. It is not red or orange

996
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:34,000
Speaker 3: like charizard. It's mostly dark brown, black and yellow. But

997
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 3: apparently when you preserve specimens of this bee in the lab,

998
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:42,719
Speaker 3: its yellow markings tend to turn orange, which Monkton said

999
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 3: quote cemented the comparison. Okay, I feel like maybe he

1000
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 3: was trying to get there, but I don't know.

1001
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:51,600
Speaker 2: I guess One of the things to keep in mind

1002
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 2: in all of these examples is like, otherwise, what are

1003
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 2: you naming these species after? You have to name them

1004
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:59,040
Speaker 2: after something, and you know a lot of species end

1005
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:03,200
Speaker 2: up being big be named after individuals or after say

1006
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 2: mythological figures and something like.

1007
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 3: Those tem physical traits or if you.

1008
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:08,839
Speaker 2: Have physical traits. But you know, there are also plenty

1009
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:12,080
Speaker 2: of examples that are named after mythological figures, and you

1010
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 2: know these this is the new mythology, These are the

1011
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:18,080
Speaker 2: new things that we can name creatures after and then

1012
00:56:18,239 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's also probably in some cases a

1013
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 2: little bit of the Hey, if I name this after

1014
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 2: a certain Pokemon, maybe more people will pay attention to

1015
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 2: my findings in the study. And you know, you could

1016
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,880
Speaker 2: maybe spend that and say, well that maybe you're exploiting

1017
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 2: the Pokemon. But I mean, it's also coming back to

1018
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:38,040
Speaker 2: what we were talking about earlier, like people take people's

1019
00:56:38,239 --> 00:56:41,759
Speaker 2: that take the take the fascination people have with Pokemon,

1020
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 2: and that certainly the children have with Pokemon, and if

1021
00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 2: you can get them a little more interested in the

1022
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 2: actual science it's going out there in the actual, actual

1023
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 2: natural world. Not only is that great, like that's in

1024
00:56:54,239 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 2: the original spirit of the generation of Pokemon.

1025
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:00,920
Speaker 3: So I'm all for it. Yeah, Oh yeah, I was

1026
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,040
Speaker 3: going to say the same thing. I can't prove this,

1027
00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:06,800
Speaker 3: and I'm certainly not saying this with any negative implications,

1028
00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 3: but my guess is that sometimes naming species after Pokemon

1029
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:16,560
Speaker 3: could be a bid to get some attention to the research. Yeah,

1030
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:21,480
Speaker 3: because you know, of course, if you are just documenting

1031
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:23,919
Speaker 3: in a kind of dry and standard way, if you're

1032
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:28,040
Speaker 3: documenting fourteen new species of bee or spider, somewhere that

1033
00:57:28,160 --> 00:57:31,080
Speaker 3: is useful information to the field, but it's probably not

1034
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:33,400
Speaker 3: going to get noticed at all in the mainstream press

1035
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 3: or you know, not a lot of people outside of

1036
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 3: the field are going to pay attention to it. But

1037
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:40,920
Speaker 3: if you name something after a Pokemon, you instantly tap

1038
00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 3: into a large fan base of people who are like, oh,

1039
00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 3: I want to read about this. Yeah.

1040
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:48,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then of course, as we've been discussing, it's

1041
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 2: just fine, So why in the name of fine, let's

1042
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 2: do it.

1043
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:56,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, one more example, And this is not an exhaustive exploration,

1044
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:58,880
Speaker 3: So if you want to find all of these species

1045
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 3: that are named after Pokemon, you can go to the

1046
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:04,280
Speaker 3: Bulbipedia or I think there's a mainstream Wikipedia list where

1047
00:58:04,280 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 3: people have compiled these as well.

1048
00:58:05,840 --> 00:58:08,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there will be more after this publication, for sure,

1049
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 2: there will be more creatures discovered and named after Pokemon.

1050
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 3: But the last one we're going to talk about today

1051
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 3: is the Bulbosaurus genus. So this is a long extinct

1052
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:25,400
Speaker 3: genus of quadrupedal vertebrate called Bulbasaurus. It obviously shares a

1053
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 3: name with the pokemon bulbasur Robigin. This is a I

1054
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 3: don't know exactly what all of its qualities are. But

1055
00:58:31,640 --> 00:58:35,720
Speaker 3: it's a little cute, four legged, cute but aggressive, little

1056
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 3: four legged turtle type thing that is sort of a

1057
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:41,560
Speaker 3: plant type Pokemon has got like vines coming out of it.

1058
00:58:42,040 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah, And he has like a what like

1059
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:45,720
Speaker 2: a flower on his back?

1060
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. I have read conflicting statements in different sources

1061
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 3: about whether or not this actual extinct animal is named

1062
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:57,919
Speaker 3: after the Pokemon. Some sources say it's just a coincidence.

1063
00:58:58,080 --> 00:59:01,400
Speaker 3: Others say it might not be a coincidence. I don't

1064
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 3: know if the researchers are being cute about this, but

1065
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:10,479
Speaker 3: Bulbosaurus is a genus of the thrapsid clade Designodontia, which

1066
00:59:10,520 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 3: means two dog tooth, named after the fact that Desygnodonts

1067
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 3: typically had two tusks or large protruding teeth, which looked

1068
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 3: kind of like goofy vampire fangs from an old movie,

1069
00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 3: you know, either like big overbite tusks or fang teeth.

1070
00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:31,960
Speaker 3: Desynodonts were a widespread, successful taxon that thrived during the

1071
00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 3: Permian era. The key species reported in this Pokemon genus

1072
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:42,000
Speaker 3: is Bulbosaurus phyloxeron. I was reading about this in a

1073
00:59:42,040 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 3: short twenty seventeen discover article by Ian graber Steel called

1074
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:51,360
Speaker 3: part turtle, part pig, Bulbosaurus was a stout survivor. So

1075
00:59:51,520 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 3: I'll cover a few facts from this article. The Bulbosaurus

1076
00:59:54,720 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 3: phyloxeron comes the name there comes from two features. Bulbosaurus

1077
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 3: means bulbous lizard. This comes from the fact that these

1078
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:09,800
Speaker 3: species had a large, you know, kind of domed nasal protuberants,

1079
01:00:09,880 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 3: kind of a big old turtally beak with a raised

1080
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 3: area at the top. And then phloxeron means leaf cutter,

1081
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 3: presumably what it did with its beak, because these were

1082
01:00:18,640 --> 01:00:25,560
Speaker 3: primarily herbivorous animals. The discoverers were German and South African researchers,

1083
01:00:25,720 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 3: and the first big fossil find was in South Africa.

1084
01:00:29,400 --> 01:00:32,160
Speaker 3: The article describes work by one of the researchers on

1085
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 3: the team named Christian Camerer, who was comparing the fossils

1086
01:00:37,440 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 3: and decided that Bulbosaurus was an ancestor of a family

1087
01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 3: of designodonts called gayekiids. I'm not sure if I'm saying

1088
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:49,880
Speaker 3: that right is spelled g E I K I d s.

1089
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:55,720
Speaker 3: And these were also creatures that had these big keratenized noses,

1090
01:00:55,800 --> 01:00:59,120
Speaker 3: So like large honken noses up on the top of

1091
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 3: their snout. What were these big bulbous noses for. Obviously

1092
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 3: this involves some inference, but a leading theory cited in

1093
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:11,800
Speaker 3: this article is that they were kind of like antlers

1094
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:13,480
Speaker 3: in a way in some animals. That they may have

1095
01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:16,560
Speaker 3: been a display that was used for species recognition and

1096
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 3: sexual appeal. So it is thought likely by many researchers

1097
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:24,360
Speaker 3: looking at this that the big bulbous sore turtle beak

1098
01:01:24,720 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 3: may have been hot. It may have been for attracting maids.

1099
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:28,680
Speaker 3: Like all looks good?

1100
01:01:28,800 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, just looking at this artist interpretation of what

1101
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:35,600
Speaker 2: they may have looked like, I mean, it's not you know,

1102
01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 2: it's not one to one with the Pokemon, but I

1103
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:41,240
Speaker 2: can I can see some possible connections, no matter how

1104
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 2: those connections ended up being stitched together. All right, Well,

1105
01:01:45,920 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 2: that's I think all we have to say about Pokemon today.

1106
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:51,600
Speaker 2: But we'd love to hear from everyone out there, because

1107
01:01:51,600 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 2: obviously we have a lot of a lot of listeners

1108
01:01:53,960 --> 01:01:57,040
Speaker 2: who have grown up with with Pokemon or they've been

1109
01:01:57,080 --> 01:02:00,000
Speaker 2: exposed to Pokemon, certainly at different points in their lives.

1110
01:02:00,640 --> 01:02:03,400
Speaker 2: You may have some feelings you may have some thoughts

1111
01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:06,640
Speaker 2: right in with those thoughts and feelings. Also, if there

1112
01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 2: are other species, even newly discovered, maybe it'll be a

1113
01:02:09,600 --> 01:02:13,480
Speaker 2: headline tomorrow about a new species that is now named

1114
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 2: after a pokemon. Right in with that, let's talk about it.

1115
01:02:16,120 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 2: We can bring it up on a future listener mail episode.

1116
01:02:19,120 --> 01:02:21,439
Speaker 2: Just a reminder for everyone out there, Stuff to Blow

1117
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:24,720
Speaker 2: your Mind is a podcast. We've been an audio podcast

1118
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:27,720
Speaker 2: for quite a while, so you can find a vast

1119
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:31,120
Speaker 2: archive of past episodes wherever you get your audio podcasts.

1120
01:02:31,640 --> 01:02:35,920
Speaker 2: Our current rhythm is basically we do two core episodes

1121
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:38,760
Speaker 2: per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a short form episode

1122
01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:41,720
Speaker 2: on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns,

1123
01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:44,360
Speaker 2: so just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1124
01:02:44,680 --> 01:02:47,240
Speaker 3: And hey, if you are listening to us in audio

1125
01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:50,280
Speaker 3: form right now, of course, please subscribe wherever you get

1126
01:02:50,320 --> 01:02:52,840
Speaker 3: your podcasts. If you are not already subscribed, If you

1127
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:55,840
Speaker 3: think you're subscribed but you don't know, maybe check, maybe

1128
01:02:55,960 --> 01:02:59,080
Speaker 3: check and see if you just make sure and subscribe.

1129
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 3: But also so be aware that we have a new

1130
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:05,240
Speaker 3: video version of our podcast, same content, same thing. You're

1131
01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:08,280
Speaker 3: getting in the audio feed, except with the video element added.

1132
01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 3: So we've got the cameras turned on. You can see

1133
01:03:10,400 --> 01:03:13,800
Speaker 3: our heads talking while we have these discussions, and you

1134
01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:16,560
Speaker 3: can get that on Netflix. If you go to Netflix,

1135
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:18,360
Speaker 3: you can look up Stuff to Blow Your Mind and

1136
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 3: click remind me so you always get new episodes.

1137
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 2: That's right, play us in bars whatever floats your books?

1138
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 3: Okay? Is that everything?

1139
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:28,000
Speaker 2: I believe?

1140
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:31,280
Speaker 3: That's it. Okay, so huge, Thanks as always to our

1141
01:03:31,320 --> 01:03:34,680
Speaker 3: excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to

1142
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 3: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

1143
01:03:37,080 --> 01:03:39,680
Speaker 3: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1144
01:03:39,880 --> 01:03:41,840
Speaker 3: or just to say hello, you can email us at

1145
01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:51,560
Speaker 3: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1146
01:03:51,880 --> 01:03:54,800
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1147
01:03:54,880 --> 01:03:58,720
Speaker 1: more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1148
01:03:58,800 --> 01:04:14,280
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your face Rick shows