Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature, future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the birds and the bees. Literally, reproduction is the key
Speaker 1: to evolution, which means that Mother Nature can get a
Speaker 1: little strange when it comes to sex. All she cares
Speaker 1: about is whether your jeans get passed on. She doesn't
Speaker 1: judge animals if they get a little freaky. Parents, you
Speaker 1: might want to listen to this one first if your
Speaker 1: kids are in the room. We're talking about strange equipment,
Speaker 1: bizarre courtship, and fatal attraction, Discover the s'mores, We answer
Speaker 1: the angel question, the kidnas Are you Kidney? Today's guest
Speaker 1: is an actor, writer, producer who's been on Chelsea Lately,
Speaker 1: Orange is the New Black, Shameless, Insatiable, Key and Peel,
Speaker 1: among many other shows. She's the host of Will You
Speaker 1: Accept This Rose and has just authored a memoir titled
Speaker 1: Little Miss Little Compton, which comes out September twenty nine,
Speaker 1: and you can pre order now. And I don't know
Speaker 1: when she has time to sleep. Welcome to the show,
Speaker 1: Art and Marine. Oh my goodness, Thank you so much, Katie. Wow,
Speaker 1: what an intro that is. I'm going to have you
Speaker 1: introduced me. Wherever I go, I'll be I'll be your
Speaker 1: hype woman. Dude, I need a hype woman. We can
Speaker 1: set up ringing people's backyards. Maybe I'll wrestle, wrestle neighbors
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah, we can have a you know,
Speaker 1: walk around. You can see what round we're on. We'll
Speaker 1: deal with animals, We'll have snugglapp time, but like hype
Speaker 1: in between exactly exactly like we're gonna go hard with arden,
Speaker 1: but then that sounds a little bit in your indoing
Speaker 1: the topic. I give you permission to say we're gonna
Speaker 1: go hard with art and then and then when people
Speaker 1: get weird about it, we're like, oh no, that's your problem.
Speaker 1: We're just too innocent ladies going hard and your back,
Speaker 1: your look at us, so naive and innocent, and you're
Speaker 1: bringing all this weird energy. You're the one with the
Speaker 1: creeper vibe, not me holding a sign up. That's your Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do like the bikini and high heels. Look. It's
Speaker 1: very It's like hel utility built a trucker hat right right,
Speaker 1: It's like you've got a little bit of an outfit
Speaker 1: for any occasion, come water, ballroom dancing, and gotta repair
Speaker 1: an engine, anything, anything, you know what, I feel like.
Speaker 1: It like shoved us, and it thought we weren't going
Speaker 1: to shove back. And here's the reality. We're adaptable, down
Speaker 1: and we will come to your backyard in a bikini
Speaker 1: with their utility deal and we will go hard with hard, right,
Speaker 1: go hard with art. Yeah. And I think this is
Speaker 1: kind of the theme of the episode this this time around,
Speaker 1: because we are talking about animals who are highly adaptive
Speaker 1: with their sex and seduction. And you know you, I'm
Speaker 1: not you. I think you're you're down with it. But
Speaker 1: like some people may find it a little strange what
Speaker 1: these animals do, but when you think about it, look,
Speaker 1: they are getting creative. They're thinking outside of the box,
Speaker 1: sometimes literally to to pass on their jeans. And that's
Speaker 1: what it's all about. I'm not here to kink, shame walrus.
Speaker 1: I come here to pooh poo some kind of a
Speaker 1: mola skirt or something, just looking for love, you know,
Speaker 1: just because I'm a human being, you think that I'm
Speaker 1: the only one that is mating, you know, right, Gotta
Speaker 1: do what they gotta do. That is actually our number
Speaker 1: one rule for guests on this podcast is no kink shaming.
Speaker 1: The walrus is we've got a sign. They're very touchy
Speaker 1: and they will try to cancel you. They will very
Speaker 1: so artn't tell me a little bit about your relationship
Speaker 1: with animals. Thank you so much, I would say my
Speaker 1: present day relationship. I was a dog lady who has
Speaker 1: stumbled into much afraid of cats. Much to my surprise,
Speaker 1: about five years ago, my friend's cat. I was living
Speaker 1: in New York, but I kept working out in l
Speaker 1: A and I would stay with her, and her cat
Speaker 1: picked me as his lady wife like and and would
Speaker 1: like and when I would go back to New York
Speaker 1: for a couple of days, he would punish me like
Speaker 1: and walk asked backwards into the room and bite me.
Speaker 1: And then we were cool again. So he was definitely
Speaker 1: a fickle lover. But I felt like that he would
Speaker 1: sleep on my neck, and I felt so hard for
Speaker 1: this cat. He played it the hot and cold game
Speaker 1: on you. That's how they get you, the one too
Speaker 1: hot and cold, like I'm into you, but I but
Speaker 1: I but you, I'm not just a sure thing. And
Speaker 1: and then so I my I really liked the cat,
Speaker 1: and I saw how sort of lomade as they are.
Speaker 1: And I was with this gentleman and with this gentleman
Speaker 1: who like a straight male cat lady, and so I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, okay, we can get two cats. So
Speaker 1: we went to the shelter. We went to Sante Door
Speaker 1: and last and like and less Felis, which is a
Speaker 1: great no kill shelter. Shout out Sante Door and he
Speaker 1: this ding dong made the air of saying, all cats
Speaker 1: bond Let's just pick two that like to you. So
Speaker 1: we picked this one that is a lane stretch. She's
Speaker 1: like an old lady. She was thirteen. Just picture her
Speaker 1: with a cigarette, a white button on shirt, black note pants,
Speaker 1: black tights and like a character shoe. She's completely in
Speaker 1: love with Dan wants to kill me in my sleep.
Speaker 1: And then we got this kitten and they could not
Speaker 1: have bonded less. And we started feeling really badly for
Speaker 1: the kitten. So we're like, okay, okay, the kittens lonely,
Speaker 1: let's go get another cat. Surely. Of course that's how
Speaker 1: it start going to get another cat. We'll get a
Speaker 1: kitten for the cat, surely, adding more cats to the
Speaker 1: cat fire is gonna cure the cat fire? Well, maybe
Speaker 1: it's because there's two women cat. Maybe let's get a
Speaker 1: male cat to neutralize this. We'll go get this cat.
Speaker 1: So then I got a male kitten who's so cute
Speaker 1: but like the town deviant to. Now we have three
Speaker 1: non bonded cats. And then last year I had a
Speaker 1: relative pass away who had a cat, and my brother
Speaker 1: refused to take it, and he was like, what's the
Speaker 1: difference between three and four? So really is you know?
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, the one big difference is the cat
Speaker 1: that loved me, that was like my familiar attached cat
Speaker 1: hates this new cat like I ruined the life of
Speaker 1: So now I have four non bonded cats in a
Speaker 1: small world. That's my present day past day. I grew
Speaker 1: the dogs, grew up in the country. You know, I
Speaker 1: loved my dogs. I will say my brother and I
Speaker 1: grew up in the country. It was there was very
Speaker 1: little supervision. My brother and I were very small, rascally kids,
Speaker 1: and we would chase each other around, and we had
Speaker 1: a sheep dog and a lapdog that would both when
Speaker 1: we get too wild, try to knock us over and
Speaker 1: then hump us into submission. So it's like like that us,
Speaker 1: they're just babysitting you somewhat literally. They would like nip
Speaker 1: at her ankles. It was like a hurting dog. It
Speaker 1: would nipput her ankles and then like subdue us where
Speaker 1: it would just like sit on us and then like
Speaker 1: basically just start pounding a way until we calmed down.
Speaker 1: The little dog. We would hear like at the dining
Speaker 1: room table when guests were over. We were here, like
Speaker 1: the dog Mindy was humping my mother's ankle. This is
Speaker 1: all in the book. I's gems like. This was humping
Speaker 1: my mother's ankle and uh. And she was sort of
Speaker 1: cocky about it. She was like, yeah, flattered, I can't
Speaker 1: help it, favors my ankle. Let her have some fun.
Speaker 1: So I grew up with a very sexualized animal household
Speaker 1: and then humped cockapoos and sheep dogs. Yeah no, it's
Speaker 1: I mean, look, dogs hump for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1: My my dog actually doesn't do that. Um. But she
Speaker 1: was at the dog park a long time ago and
Speaker 1: she was friends with this beagle who was a major
Speaker 1: hump hump stress, and she humpstress in and I'm a
Speaker 1: major humpstress. But she watched this beagle go around doing
Speaker 1: a lot of humping, just kind of show showing other
Speaker 1: dogs's boss and my dog, bless her stupid little heart,
Speaker 1: she went perpendicular to a dog, so so arrived at
Speaker 1: the dog perpendicular, like went sidesidle like like over the
Speaker 1: dog's back and sort of like tried to do this
Speaker 1: awkward humping movement where she was like lifting her little
Speaker 1: toes and sort of doing this like like is this right?
Speaker 1: And then I was like, Cookie, no, And we were
Speaker 1: all laughing at her. And I think that embarrassed her,
Speaker 1: and and she was too embarrassed too. Ever, Yeah, she
Speaker 1: got she got hump shamed. And I do feel a
Speaker 1: little guilty that I humped shamed her so because now
Speaker 1: she doesn't do it. Keith, my cat, that's was the
Speaker 1: third one on the pile. He's so horny and we
Speaker 1: got him fixed. He's a little cat. We got him fixed.
Speaker 1: That dude well has never met a blanket that he
Speaker 1: didn't want to like need the bread and then just
Speaker 1: like start grinding. He just like punts his blanket. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is about me. I I feel
Speaker 1: like I look I look like the devia. Well maybe
Speaker 1: it's maybe it's the ginger cat. You know, you know
Speaker 1: what they say about as Ginger's right, you can't, you
Speaker 1: can't fix us. Let me tell you what. I am
Speaker 1: a real ginger and I talked about that. I have
Speaker 1: evidence right here on my my back. There's my stix
Speaker 1: green picture. Words my dad said about me was she's
Speaker 1: not a blonde, she's a redhead. I never met a
Speaker 1: redheaded woman. I trusted. First words of the redheads are
Speaker 1: supposed to be kind of spicy. Yeah, yeah, exactly, love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, you can't. You can't tame us.
Speaker 1: You can't. You can prior spfs away from our cold
Speaker 1: dead hands. Yes, I put like SPF eighty thousand on
Speaker 1: every day, all day, everywhere, and I still am just
Speaker 1: like a symphony of frickles my hands from the driver's side,
Speaker 1: like just it's you can't win. You're not going to
Speaker 1: beat the man, and the man is the sun, and
Speaker 1: the sun is you can't win is unwinnable. One thing
Speaker 1: that is winnable, though, I think, is the reproduction game
Speaker 1: in nature. And that was a weird segue, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to stick with it. Actually plotting, I was like,
Speaker 1: she'sn't realized this is rong is. We can't defeat the sun,
Speaker 1: but hey, we can reproduce until the sun is so
Speaker 1: grossed out it hides behind what I'm saying out the sun.
Speaker 1: It's like, get a room, Get a room, And here
Speaker 1: are some animals who are doing just that. In this
Speaker 1: first section, I want to talk about not just their behavior,
Speaker 1: but the strange equipment that some animals have. So strange
Speaker 1: genitalia um and it's one of the most interesting things.
Speaker 1: When you look at the genitals of various species of animals,
Speaker 1: like insects and reptile it is fascinating. They don't just
Speaker 1: look like how you necessarily expect them to look. Some
Speaker 1: of them look like morning stars, like uh, like snake
Speaker 1: penises look like some kind of medieval weapon. But this
Speaker 1: one I thought is really interesting because this is the
Speaker 1: crane fly, and crane flies have musical penises, so we're
Speaker 1: kind of a musical instrument. It's like, um, one of
Speaker 1: those scraping blocks where you remember in like an elementary school,
Speaker 1: where you would get everyone would get an instrument, and
Speaker 1: some people would get the scraping blocks, or you just
Speaker 1: get the little wooden dowl that has these ridges, and
Speaker 1: then you go like that penis of the crane fly
Speaker 1: is like that exactly. So you know how like when
Speaker 1: crickets chirped by rubbing their textured wings together, it's called stridulation.
Speaker 1: That is the technique. That's what you're doing with that
Speaker 1: little instrument, and that is what the crane flies do
Speaker 1: with their instrument. If you know. That is so exciting. Yes,
Speaker 1: And what's even more interesting is they don't actually I
Speaker 1: don't think a human could necessarily hear it, and it
Speaker 1: is not I don't think it's for attracting another mate,
Speaker 1: like calling to them. It's more just to make the
Speaker 1: mate feel good and to keep her around her her pleasure.
Speaker 1: I love this so far. I give thumbs up for
Speaker 1: the musical pianist. I feel like it's very sex positive. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: a good crane fly musician can keep his mate interested
Speaker 1: in copulate for up to ten minutes. That's a long
Speaker 1: time when you're that little in your life's brand is
Speaker 1: probably eleven minutes. So that yeah. Well, so it's interesting
Speaker 1: because crane flies don't live very long and they look
Speaker 1: like it's kind of like that thing when you see
Speaker 1: in your house and you're like, oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: a huge mosquito. They they're like they could fit in
Speaker 1: the palm of your hand. They look like big scary mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: They're harmless to humans, but they just look a little
Speaker 1: bit alarming. As adults, they don't have that much time.
Speaker 1: It's like about ten days. So yeah, ten minutes is like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's a big chunk. I mean, that's a large portion
Speaker 1: of getting at it, going to the right right, it's
Speaker 1: like spending a year just you know, getting it done,
Speaker 1: getting at it. That's exciting, Like good for that with
Speaker 1: a crane fly with a little bit of you know,
Speaker 1: accompanying music, I think that's so it's so sweet. It's
Speaker 1: like romantic, romangic and yeah, exactly exactly. And crane flies
Speaker 1: are not the only insect that uses their their tool
Speaker 1: as an instrument. There is also some species of moths
Speaker 1: who have musical genitals and they use their penis like
Speaker 1: very much like the crane fly does. They use stridulation
Speaker 1: to create an ultrasonic noise that both attracts mates and
Speaker 1: it also jams the sonar of bats who are trying
Speaker 1: to hunt them, So it's a signal jammer for the
Speaker 1: bats and then it attracts me. It's like a multi
Speaker 1: use tool. It's incredible. It's like a force field. Ween
Speaker 1: like it's like the perfect like the undercarriage that can
Speaker 1: both protect you and like bring up your all the
Speaker 1: ladies to the yard. It's it's like I'm in imagining
Speaker 1: this thing with like a little like a little satellite
Speaker 1: coming out and going like boop boop boop, and then
Speaker 1: and then like a little attachment that plays music and
Speaker 1: just like a radar system and we're not there that
Speaker 1: has like built some super dude that's got all that
Speaker 1: business in his pants. It's like great idea, right, sort
Speaker 1: of like a smartphone. Yeah, it's like the Inspector gadget. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh there's yeah, there's probably some Inspector some erotica about
Speaker 1: Inspector Gadget. I'm certain of it. So now onto um
Speaker 1: a bit of a bigger animal who has This is
Speaker 1: one of those things where when you look at it,
Speaker 1: it's just confuses your brain as to what you're looking at.
Speaker 1: It's very cute. It's very cute. This isn't a kidna,
Speaker 1: and kidnas are monotreams. Like the platypus um. They have
Speaker 1: a narrow pointed snout and spine similar to a porcupine
Speaker 1: like the platypus, though they lay eggs, they don't have
Speaker 1: nipples and they just kind of leak milk out of
Speaker 1: their bellies because monotreams are the this really old group
Speaker 1: of animals that have a lot of these transitional features
Speaker 1: from before mammals were around, when we had like this
Speaker 1: common ancestor sort of reptile like ancestor and then it
Speaker 1: transitioned into these these mammalion features. But montreams are sort
Speaker 1: of this like weird, very old group of animals that
Speaker 1: have still are like they still have eggs and they
Speaker 1: still don't have um the same kind of memory glands
Speaker 1: that mammals have. So it's really interesting. Well, Australia and
Speaker 1: New Guinea, that's very cool. That feels right. Australia gets
Speaker 1: all the weirdos and Australia you know what. I feel like,
Speaker 1: it's it's like a fun wild card, like you know,
Speaker 1: I like that for Australia. I feel good about that
Speaker 1: for Australia. Yeah, I'm very jealous of Australia's uh biodiversity
Speaker 1: and also it's not just biodiversity. Feels like they get
Speaker 1: all of the wildest animals. It's like, is this a cool,
Speaker 1: completely alarming animal that could either kill you or blow
Speaker 1: your mind? Like it's probably in Australia. I like that
Speaker 1: we want badlor in Australia on our Patreon page. And
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you there's like a little white there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a fun wildness of the the you know,
Speaker 1: the contestants that's different than here. And I feel that
Speaker 1: that's true in the same animal kingdom because they don't
Speaker 1: know if the spider they see, like crawling on the
Speaker 1: wall is going to kill them. Like they could like
Speaker 1: find some kind of you know, there's like you go
Speaker 1: in the ocean, there's box jellyfish everywhere, these invisible little
Speaker 1: things that can Yeah, so kid knows. Despite looking very
Speaker 1: menacing with all their spikes, they are They just like
Speaker 1: to hunt ants and termites, so kind of like an
Speaker 1: it looks like an ant eater and a hedgehog got
Speaker 1: together and had it offspring. But they have this long
Speaker 1: beak that hunts for ants and termites. But that's not
Speaker 1: why I want to talk about them. I mean, they
Speaker 1: are really cool animal. They're cute, They're very cute, very adorable.
Speaker 1: I know. I they just look so huggable. They're They're not.
Speaker 1: They're absolutely not. You shouldn't just hug one. No, looking
Speaker 1: at those claws. I mean, there's no part of me
Speaker 1: that thinks I would have both of my eyes left
Speaker 1: in my socket if I hugged it. That actually not. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it uses those to dig for ants and termites,
Speaker 1: and it could probably dig your eyes out to you.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Going hard with the harden that means
Speaker 1: that's the cold king is going hard to ripping my
Speaker 1: eyeballs in my like tricky way. I'm don't lose, and
Speaker 1: I know that, and that's why I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go harder. Okay, but you respect you respect them. I
Speaker 1: respect it. I know when I'm outmatched. And here's another
Speaker 1: reason to respect them. The males have a four headed penis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just it's just wonder Oh I'm looking
Speaker 1: at it. Whoa, it looks like an elephant's foot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like a cartoon Simpson's hands. Okay, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: So does it does do all four of those ejaculate? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's disgusting, like its breaker system. Well, here's how it
Speaker 1: actually works when they are invading, so it's actually like
Speaker 1: to only two heads work at once, like I guess,
Speaker 1: sort of a stereo system. But like so when they're mating,
Speaker 1: like at first, only two of them on the same
Speaker 1: side will ejaculate, and then after that is done, then
Speaker 1: the other two will ejaculate later. So it's sort of
Speaker 1: like you get more bang for your buck by having
Speaker 1: right four heads. So that is the craziest looking penis
Speaker 1: It really is. He doesn't look like that big of
Speaker 1: an animal. The size and the it is like it
Speaker 1: is like a stump has come out, is stumped with
Speaker 1: or like a rhinoceros foot. It's just jammed out with
Speaker 1: a pedicure that will not be denied. And I I know,
Speaker 1: I'm so immature that if I saw it, I would
Speaker 1: not stop screeching and taking photos because look how second,
Speaker 1: like he's smiling like yeah, man, look at a like
Speaker 1: check it out. He's really like a little bit deviant.
Speaker 1: I mean, is like what you've got a problem? Like
Speaker 1: you can tell he's into it. It's like, yeah, oh
Speaker 1: you've got you've got like one head on yours. That's
Speaker 1: that's cute. And look at his claws on his back
Speaker 1: foot like adorable. That's great. Well, what's interesting too, because
Speaker 1: their monotreams the other parts of their plumbing are very
Speaker 1: different from mammals. So monotream actually means one hole, and
Speaker 1: that's why they're called monotreams. Scientists are weird, they're they're
Speaker 1: they're really perverts, all of them. I can see that.
Speaker 1: But like they actually have a cloaca that does the
Speaker 1: urination and defecation. Females just have the cloaca that basically
Speaker 1: handles everything. Males have this ridiculous penis and the cloaca.
Speaker 1: The penis is just for having sex, the kloacas for
Speaker 1: everything else for waste disposal. Actually, that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense, like why did we why did we merge
Speaker 1: everything into one organ as as mammals, I mean it does.
Speaker 1: It does have to do with like the arrangement, like
Speaker 1: how we have babies and we have give live birth,
Speaker 1: whereas um monotreams can give birth to eggs, and so
Speaker 1: it's just there are reproductive system gets all rearranged whenever
Speaker 1: we make an evolutionary decision like hey, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give live birth to a big baby versus like giving
Speaker 1: birth to an egg. You're fantastic. Can I just say,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I feel like you would be my brother's
Speaker 1: dream girl. You have the people that have crushes on you,
Speaker 1: must have gigantic crushes on you, because it's all about
Speaker 1: talking about the reproductive system scientifically. Actually, just like I
Speaker 1: think you know what it is. It's just your passion
Speaker 1: for animals. You're so charming, you're so sweet. Well, you're
Speaker 1: wooing me right now. Actually, you know, on my first
Speaker 1: date with my current fiance, I started talking about parasites
Speaker 1: as a pickup line, just like, let me tell you
Speaker 1: about all the insane parasites out there, Like there's one
Speaker 1: that takes over a fish tongue, and I think I
Speaker 1: think that's what sealed the deal. You're sole and adorable,
Speaker 1: like chefs kissed you. You are so sweet. Well, I
Speaker 1: love the praise. But let's talk more about a kidnapenis
Speaker 1: is because I think that's that's what people are here for,
Speaker 1: the sod. They came for the kidnapenis and we can
Speaker 1: serve them that on a platter. Um. So there's the
Speaker 1: question of like, why why would they why would they
Speaker 1: have like a sprinkler as as as a penis, especially
Speaker 1: because they can only really like fit two of them
Speaker 1: in the female at once, So it's like they go
Speaker 1: with two and then they go with the other one.
Speaker 1: And the answer is actually that they have this really
Speaker 1: intense sperm competition. So when males are competing to reproduce,
Speaker 1: sometimes they compete basically for access to the females, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it is not necessarily like the mating itself. Um,
Speaker 1: the copulation is not where you're competing. It's at the
Speaker 1: level of your sperm and your sperm fitness. And that's
Speaker 1: the case with the kidnas. So a kidnas hibernate, but
Speaker 1: male kidnas will come out of hibernation before females and
Speaker 1: so they will go around mating with hibernating females. And
Speaker 1: so that seems awfully unfair because the females and you're thinking, like, well,
Speaker 1: how do female select for the fittest male if they're
Speaker 1: just like hibernating. Well, females are able to select for
Speaker 1: sperm by going into torpor, which is another word for
Speaker 1: sort of an extended state of stasis or hibernation between matings.
Speaker 1: They can delay gestation and they can even abort their
Speaker 1: egg like self abort um in order to make sure
Speaker 1: that they are getting the fittest sperms. I mean biologically speaking,
Speaker 1: they aren't mentally like through like Okay, this sperm is
Speaker 1: pretty good and I don't like this one, you know
Speaker 1: this one, but like, biologically their reproductive system really is
Speaker 1: selecting for the best sperm that comes along for the males.
Speaker 1: Like they can go around and try to mate as
Speaker 1: much as they want, but if they you know, don't
Speaker 1: have the right stuff, it's just not gonna necessarily work
Speaker 1: for them. Wow, that is amazing. That is amazing. And
Speaker 1: so for them being able to basically say, you have
Speaker 1: an a kidna that went and mated with a female,
Speaker 1: if another male comes along and he has better sperm
Speaker 1: and and more of it, uh, then he can actually
Speaker 1: like sort of resurp the previous mating of the other kidna.
Speaker 1: You're like, sorry, bro, I'm here and I've got four
Speaker 1: valves and mine are working better than the exactly That's
Speaker 1: exactly it. And it's it is. It's kind of um,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very strange form of sexual selection,
Speaker 1: but it you know, it all works out in the end.
Speaker 1: Mother nature, she's she's a she's her own beast. What
Speaker 1: comes out of this is an adorable baby a kid night.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a picture of a baby kidney. The
Speaker 1: cutest little like squishy. It looks like a water balloon
Speaker 1: with a face. They're so cute. And they are called puggles.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I just I can't even come on.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it sounds like a Jim Hanson character,
Speaker 1: like you know, we're going to puggle rock being out
Speaker 1: with the Puggles. I'm looking that up right now. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at up right now. I'm going to see this.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, oh my god. It kind of looks
Speaker 1: like a character that would be in the like the
Speaker 1: Star Wars like bar, like the bar scene, you know,
Speaker 1: like or the canteen. The canteen looks like Max Reebo
Speaker 1: from Star Wars, that little like weird elephant thing. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. And you can kind of see that like
Speaker 1: the crazy the crazy Genitalia just getting at it. Well,
Speaker 1: this is fat like what I'm learning today exactly. And
Speaker 1: you know, female a kidnas are not the only animals
Speaker 1: who get to be choosy when it comes to sperm,
Speaker 1: so a little less cute, but still very interesting. Dung
Speaker 1: flies are found all over the Northern hemisphere, and as
Speaker 1: their name very rudely implies, they love dung I mean
Speaker 1: that they love everybody's got their own thing, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And females have sperm stores in her vaginal tract that
Speaker 1: keeps sperm house before it reaches her egg. And this
Speaker 1: is these like sperm storage containers become a sort of
Speaker 1: sperm thunderdome where male dung flies will try to displace
Speaker 1: other male sperm and the one with the best sperm
Speaker 1: wins in this like sperm thunderdome. In the female we
Speaker 1: all are taught to be so uptight like when we were,
Speaker 1: you know, at least I grew up in a world
Speaker 1: that was very sort of buttoned down about it. And
Speaker 1: it's like it's just like natural, the world is just bonkers.
Speaker 1: Just you know, do do what mother nature intended for
Speaker 1: you to do, Yeah, which is a sperm thunderdome. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's it's truly, it's truly incredible to me. And this
Speaker 1: is a little less relatable. I just had to share
Speaker 1: it with you because I was looking I found this
Speaker 1: on accident as I was doing the research for this show,
Speaker 1: and this I was like looking at different, like like
Speaker 1: if there's interesting facts about different animal Genitalia. And I
Speaker 1: found that there are bull penis canes walking canes that
Speaker 1: people make out of bull penis. I so the the
Speaker 1: the mental wiring, that's like, that's going to like procure that,
Speaker 1: it's going to give your hard earned money. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: I need that, and like, I think you need to
Speaker 1: walk like I am the man. It's almost the equivalent
Speaker 1: of having the balls hanging on the back of your truck.
Speaker 1: But I felt like a walking cane, like a dapper adapper.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a dress, a gussied up version of
Speaker 1: truck nuts, for sure. It's the black tie. Where is
Speaker 1: the oscars meeting the queen? But you still want exactly
Speaker 1: This is from Fashionable Canes dot com. This is bull
Speaker 1: Penis tourist handle walking cane for the lolo price of
Speaker 1: nine dollars. Hashtag worth at worth it and this is
Speaker 1: I love the description. This is a genuine bull Penis cane.
Speaker 1: This cane has been used for hundreds of years. It
Speaker 1: represents good stamina and strength. This is a collector's cane
Speaker 1: that is a must for any cane collector. A taxidermy
Speaker 1: process is used to sterilize and properly cure the tissue.
Speaker 1: The organ is stretched over a metal rod to make
Speaker 1: it sturdy. Brass tip with rubber tip included. Gotta get
Speaker 1: gotta get that traction. It doesn't even look like I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's a penis, but you wouldn't look at it.
Speaker 1: And no, I'm more penis right, like just sort of
Speaker 1: your stroll around with shaped But no, it's like it
Speaker 1: looks like it's look honestly looks like a giant slim gym,
Speaker 1: which kind of upsets me to saying it. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, like how dogs often chew
Speaker 1: the boy sticks. Yeah, it's made out of that is
Speaker 1: also made out of. I mean, there's many uses apparently
Speaker 1: horrible penis um. One of them is cruising around town
Speaker 1: in style. Yes, it's fantastic. I love it. Human penises
Speaker 1: are lacking in something a bone. Most mammals, including our
Speaker 1: primate relatives, have a penis bone called a baculum. Even
Speaker 1: our close relatives, the chimpanzee, have a penis bone. So
Speaker 1: why not humans? Why didn't Mother Nature throw us a bone? Well,
Speaker 1: humans simply don't have sex long enough or frequently enough
Speaker 1: to need the extra support. Mammals who have more prominent
Speaker 1: baculums tend to mate for longer durations, like walruses who
Speaker 1: have marathon underwater copulations with multiple females. Chimpanzees who mate
Speaker 1: very briefly have a much smaller vacuum, but males also
Speaker 1: mate with multiple females, sometimes within a short period of time. Humans,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, seem to have evolved with a
Speaker 1: less frantic system of mating, with less intense mating sessions
Speaker 1: and fewer partners, so no need for the extra structural
Speaker 1: support of a penis bone. When we return, we're talking
Speaker 1: about some of the most interesting mating rituals on the planet,
Speaker 1: including a very prickly situation. Romance is subjective. Some people
Speaker 1: like aromatic candles and rose petals, some people like dancing,
Speaker 1: Some people like a rubber chicken and car batteries. The
Speaker 1: point is there are a whole lot of different ways
Speaker 1: to get in the mood, and animals are no exception.
Speaker 1: So now that we have talked about very interesting equipment
Speaker 1: when it comes to mating, now I want to talk
Speaker 1: about mating rituals that are fascinating. And first I want
Speaker 1: to talk about whiptail lizards, because this is a we're
Speaker 1: getting into some real Jurassic Park stuff with these, because
Speaker 1: whiptail lizards are a species of lizards found in Arizona
Speaker 1: and New Mexico, and in a win for feminism, they
Speaker 1: are all female, not a not a single boy, and wow,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. How do you reproduce? That is a good question,
Speaker 1: as Jeff Goldbloom says, life, Uh, find the way, and
Speaker 1: so they actually reproduce via parthenogenesis, which means that they
Speaker 1: can reproduce without male sperm, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: times what like a sexual reproduction is is basically cloning.
Speaker 1: You create a clone of yourself and then give birth
Speaker 1: to that clone and then basically just have a clonal species.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting about whippedtail lizards is their offspring aren't
Speaker 1: exact clones. They actually have three sets of chromosomes that
Speaker 1: they can shuffle around kind of like shuffling the decks
Speaker 1: of these chromosomes around, and they can create a genetically
Speaker 1: unique offspring that is not a clone, and that allows
Speaker 1: them to be an all female species and still maintain
Speaker 1: some amount of genetic diversity by basically they have all
Speaker 1: of this big library of chromosomes and just you know,
Speaker 1: shuffle them up. That is so interesting. And when you
Speaker 1: think about how many different species are on earth, just
Speaker 1: that there's this whole variety and that we get so
Speaker 1: we just think we're the only ones doing. You know,
Speaker 1: we're out there going after our dreams and paying our
Speaker 1: mortgages or whatever. You're putting gas in the car. It's
Speaker 1: it's so interesting. There's all these little universes happening all
Speaker 1: over exactly. And just because they reproduce a sexually does
Speaker 1: not mean that there is no room for romance. Because
Speaker 1: these whiptail lizards will engage in what's called pseudocopulation, so
Speaker 1: they will essentially dry hump each other. And it's not
Speaker 1: just for fun, although I'm sure it is. It also
Speaker 1: helps them regulate their hormones, which is more likely to
Speaker 1: create a successful self fertilization. So it's basically getting them
Speaker 1: in the mood to have a baby. I love this
Speaker 1: and I'm a fast signing up for a whiptail lizard.
Speaker 1: They're so thing also really charming about it, where there's
Speaker 1: not really any competition sexual competition between them. They're just
Speaker 1: all like, you know, I just need to get in
Speaker 1: the mood, and so they just all kind of end
Speaker 1: up helping each other out because it's mutually beneficial to
Speaker 1: you know, give each other backrubs and light some candles
Speaker 1: and lay some flower pedals out or whatever lizard you
Speaker 1: get when you have all female world, they're like, got
Speaker 1: your sister takes a village. I got you a little
Speaker 1: a little heart shaped box full of like dead maggots
Speaker 1: for them to eat. You had a hard day, Karen,
Speaker 1: here's some here's some maggots for you. John at the office,
Speaker 1: let me give your shoulder massage. Man, How much better
Speaker 1: would Golden Girls and Sex in the City Ben if
Speaker 1: it was like a whiptail lizards? Just you know, I
Speaker 1: just did that show. I said no gifts, and I
Speaker 1: brought the host Bridger a Golden Girls Clue game. I
Speaker 1: played that. It was fun because I really wanted to
Speaker 1: say it, but I bought it for him. I was
Speaker 1: like it was out wrapped. I wanted to open it,
Speaker 1: like was it fun? Yes? Yes, my friend Dave Bell
Speaker 1: and Tom Rayman had had like a game night we
Speaker 1: played the Golden Girl's Clue. It's great. They're like objects
Speaker 1: like cherry pie or something. I don't I didn't watch
Speaker 1: a lot of Golden Girls, so some of the references
Speaker 1: went over my head. But it was, I know, the
Speaker 1: test of it, and I'm like, I get you there.
Speaker 1: I know they had like a feather healed slipper, and
Speaker 1: then we had like somebody's handbag and then there's like
Speaker 1: you know, tissues or it's so fun great if they
Speaker 1: would be getting each other in the mood mine. One
Speaker 1: complaint about the game is it doesn't come with a
Speaker 1: bag of Whether's originals, which I think would have like
Speaker 1: just fully sort of you know, got the full immersion.
Speaker 1: You need some hard candy like to be able to
Speaker 1: like win when like that's the goal as you get
Speaker 1: to go to into like Nana's handbag and get yourself
Speaker 1: right exactly exactly. Speaking of going into Nana's handbag, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about nuptial gifts, so which again a
Speaker 1: little bit of a strange segue, but this is a
Speaker 1: thing that happens, especially with insects or arachnids like spiders,
Speaker 1: where they will give their partner prey item like a
Speaker 1: unlucky fly or something that they give to their mate
Speaker 1: so that their mate will be eating this while they're
Speaker 1: mating and it gives them more time to mate. So
Speaker 1: hanging flies are predatory insect in the scorpion fly family.
Speaker 1: They actually look they also look like a crane fly,
Speaker 1: like is some kind of huge mosquito, but they are
Speaker 1: actually they can actually prey on crane flies, so they're
Speaker 1: much more, much more serious news. If somebody gave me
Speaker 1: a gift to snack on while I was mating, that
Speaker 1: is a sure fire way to my heart. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: And that's what these hanging flies do. They just give
Speaker 1: the males give the female a snack to munch on
Speaker 1: while mating, which you know, it's just like hand like
Speaker 1: hand in handing you a HOGI being like, all right,
Speaker 1: you work on that while I I do my business
Speaker 1: down here. I love that when my blood sugar gets well,
Speaker 1: pittycats gotta eat, you know. So have you brought me
Speaker 1: like a taco or something? I you know, I put
Speaker 1: me in a good mood. I'd feel relaxed. I feel
Speaker 1: like it could just be free. Great idea, right right,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that like having snacks is like
Speaker 1: an underrated seduction technique. A comfortable bed maybe like a
Speaker 1: temper pedick with the nice settings like and then snacks
Speaker 1: like a bowl of pretzels, maybe some in and out,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Just like you know somewhere
Speaker 1: there's originals too. I do like where there's originals. And ironically,
Speaker 1: I have not had one in a long time, and
Speaker 1: I know every time I've had one, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's really buttery and good, like that's really good, rich
Speaker 1: and satisfying, hard candy butter scotch. Yeah, I always get one.
Speaker 1: One I get like a sore throats, like, oh well,
Speaker 1: I need this for my sore throat because I don't
Speaker 1: like cough drops. They taste like ass. So you know
Speaker 1: where there's original, it's good for you. I you know
Speaker 1: it's your it's your regal, exactly exactly. The game for
Speaker 1: the male hanging fly is to get the female a
Speaker 1: large enough snack that she will eat it long enough
Speaker 1: for him to complete mating. So if it's too small, uh,
Speaker 1: and she finishes eating, she's like, all right, well I'm
Speaker 1: done with this, like fly burrito you gave me, Now
Speaker 1: get the hell out, and she'll like kick him off.
Speaker 1: But if it's big enough, he can complete mating, get
Speaker 1: a bunch of his genetic material sent out, and once
Speaker 1: he's done. He will sometimes try to steal the gift
Speaker 1: back from her. I mean that's where I'm like Bylicia
Speaker 1: hit the road jack and then he tries to re
Speaker 1: gift it to another partner, gigantic and like, you've gotten
Speaker 1: at with me. So I'm chowing down to my burrito.
Speaker 1: You're getting at it. Whatever, do your thing. And then
Speaker 1: I'm still enjoying my burrito, which you've distracted me with,
Speaker 1: and then you try to pry it from my like
Speaker 1: slightly disinterested hands and then go bing it over to Katie.
Speaker 1: That's we got your we talk. We know, we got
Speaker 1: your number. Yeah, we've got a group text. Yeah that
Speaker 1: that hanging fly. A group text has got to be
Speaker 1: blowing up all the time with our Shenanians. People. They
Speaker 1: know you cannot regift a snack you've brought to a
Speaker 1: lover to woo a lover. People know people talk exactly. Now.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about porcupine sex because one of
Speaker 1: the biggest questions people have with porcupines is how do
Speaker 1: they do it? How do they have sex? And the
Speaker 1: answer is very carefully. They're so cute, so cute. So
Speaker 1: there are many different species of porcupine. There's not just
Speaker 1: one species of porcupine. There are Old World porcupines who
Speaker 1: have sort of like they have these black and white
Speaker 1: striped spines, and they are actually monogamous, which is really cute. Um.
Speaker 1: But North American porcupines are free spirits and they are
Speaker 1: into really freaky mating rituals. So females are only fertile
Speaker 1: for less than a day every year, so in that
Speaker 1: in those few hours, she's got to make the most
Speaker 1: of it. Um. So they used secretions to attract males,
Speaker 1: and once the males arrive, they can they often like
Speaker 1: fight each other, have these gruesome porcupine battles. Window even
Speaker 1: if you are successful at this porcupine battle, you are
Speaker 1: not guaranteed anything. She's still got a battery of tests
Speaker 1: for you to go through. One of them is a
Speaker 1: urine tests. She's gonna make your piano cup, well not
Speaker 1: really piano cup. She's gonna make your pee on her.
Speaker 1: So the males will urinate on the female with a
Speaker 1: special kind of like sexual urine that gives her a
Speaker 1: chance to smell the urine and determine whether he is
Speaker 1: physically fit. She's like she's like a doctor, Like she
Speaker 1: she's like going yeah, this seems this seems right, or
Speaker 1: she's like, no, you're you're dehydrated. You don't you know
Speaker 1: your your hormones are off. I don't like I don't
Speaker 1: like your levels here bonkers. Yes, And if she does
Speaker 1: not approve of the male's urine, she will scream at him,
Speaker 1: shake the urine off, and chase him away. Game over,
Speaker 1: you fail your urine tests, you know, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the right response. You can try to tell her, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just a poppyseed muffin, I trust me, believe me,
Speaker 1: but no, she's not gonna buy it's But if she's
Speaker 1: into it, she will allow the mail to meete with her.
Speaker 1: And now there is she is always in control because
Speaker 1: you the male cannot mate with a female unless she
Speaker 1: has made it possible for him, because he will impale
Speaker 1: himself on her spines. So what she does is she
Speaker 1: will curl her tail upward over her back and lay
Speaker 1: the spines flat so the male can mount her without
Speaker 1: getting impaled. And if she doesn't do this, he will
Speaker 1: just impale himself. So that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: she's she's a strong, sexy doctor who's covered in spines.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love that I love that with her.
Speaker 1: You know, we did talk about the old world porcupines
Speaker 1: and how they're monogamous, and it's like people people sometimes
Speaker 1: like the opposite of king shaming. I feel like it
Speaker 1: is vanilla shaming, where you're like, oh, that's boring, you're
Speaker 1: too boring. Well, but consider this, Like, you know, the
Speaker 1: New world porcupines they have their style which is really cool,
Speaker 1: but Old world porcupines will often mate shortly after the
Speaker 1: female gives birth. Um again, the female has to allow
Speaker 1: the male to mate with her into it, but right,
Speaker 1: but like, if she's into it, they will mate. And
Speaker 1: there's actually no reproductive reason for this mating because she's
Speaker 1: not fertile after she gives birth. So the just to
Speaker 1: strengthen their bond because they love each other. They're porcupines,
Speaker 1: you know, They're just two porcupines and love right exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's like just as fascinating as
Speaker 1: like the weird, kinky porcupine stuff. Is just like that
Speaker 1: they have this monogamous bond and they're like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: you know we've got you know, the kids asleep. You
Speaker 1: know what that means, It's time get over here. It's time.
Speaker 1: Sometimes spikes are in a much more unfortunate location. When
Speaker 1: it comes to mating, male cats have an infamously barbed penis.
Speaker 1: Their penis is covered in tiny caratin barbs which scrape
Speaker 1: the inside of the female cats vagina. This can both
Speaker 1: help remove the sperm of the male's competitors, and it
Speaker 1: also stimulates the female in a way that triggers hormones
Speaker 1: to help her ovulate. So it sounds like the female
Speaker 1: is get in the rough end of the stick. But
Speaker 1: is mating really unpleasant for the female. There's some evidence
Speaker 1: that mating can cause discomforting cats of particularly unhappy female
Speaker 1: may lash out and attack her mate. But some species
Speaker 1: of big cats, such as lions, cougars, and leopards, all
Speaker 1: of whose male sports barbed penises, have high rates of
Speaker 1: mating that seemed to be too excessive to be purely
Speaker 1: for reproduction. Female lions, when in heat can sometimes made
Speaker 1: up to one hundred times a day with multiple partners,
Speaker 1: which may indicate that she either enjoys mating or reaps
Speaker 1: some benefit. When we return, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: some truly dangerous mating habits and fatal attractions. In French
Speaker 1: la petit mort means the little death, and it's often
Speaker 1: a phrase used to describe orgasm. Basically, la petite mort
Speaker 1: refers to a brief break with consciousness or transcendence from
Speaker 1: your conscious state, which has also been likened to the
Speaker 1: feeling after sex. But in some animals, la petite more
Speaker 1: that little death is a bit more permanent. Now I
Speaker 1: want to talk about fatal attraction, and this is of
Speaker 1: course there's always very uh. We love the tales of
Speaker 1: fim fatals in in literature and movies. Um, but nature
Speaker 1: is just tops all of that. You can't there's no
Speaker 1: like fim fatal Stephen King character or you can't. You
Speaker 1: can't compete with nature. She's got she's got the Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's got the most horrific soap opera you've ever seen. First,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about brown widow spiders because we know,
Speaker 1: we all know about the black widow and the whole
Speaker 1: Like she she will sometimes eat the mail I mean,
Speaker 1: and I feel like she's given him a bad rap
Speaker 1: because a lot of spiders and a lot of insects
Speaker 1: like praying mantis is will sometimes engage in sexual cannibalism,
Speaker 1: where they eat their partner after mating, but um black
Speaker 1: widows don't always do that, they sometimes do, just as
Speaker 1: pragmantis is don't always decapitate and eat their mate after
Speaker 1: um mating, but they sometimes do. But brown widows are
Speaker 1: really interesting because the males make a very interesting choice
Speaker 1: when it comes to mating. So brown widow males show
Speaker 1: a very strong preference for older females, even though reproduction
Speaker 1: with the older females is riskier, so younger females are
Speaker 1: more fertile and less likely to eat the males after mating.
Speaker 1: Older females know what they want, and what they want
Speaker 1: is possibly sex, but also to like have a snack
Speaker 1: after mating, which is you like the male spider um.
Speaker 1: And take a look at that picture of the brown
Speaker 1: winds hard to even look at it. It's so gnarly.
Speaker 1: He's this tiny, like this tiny little I compared to
Speaker 1: the female just just aty biddy less than fourth her size,
Speaker 1: So he stands no chance if she decides to eat them,
Speaker 1: that's it game over. And these older like cougar females,
Speaker 1: these sexy older women love to eat the males. Yes
Speaker 1: they do, yes, But and so researchers thought, okay, obviously
Speaker 1: the males are gonna go for younger females because they
Speaker 1: don't eat males as much. But oh contraire, the males
Speaker 1: seem to like to live dangerously with these sexy older women.
Speaker 1: Get those kids, and they will mate much more often
Speaker 1: with the older females, and researchers aren't exactly sure why
Speaker 1: this is. I think it's because it's like sexy as hell,
Speaker 1: But it's possible that the older female brown widows have
Speaker 1: more powerful pheromones that help attract the males, so as
Speaker 1: they're older, maybe they put out the signal. Yeah, put
Speaker 1: out that signal. But I love that because it's really
Speaker 1: kind of like subverts that Hollywood trope of, like the
Speaker 1: you know, young film Fatalit, like these spiders love an
Speaker 1: older lady even if he bites your head off. Sign
Speaker 1: me up. Another deadly liaison occurs with Anaconda's now Anaconda's
Speaker 1: these two photos. I cannot even it looks it looks
Speaker 1: a bit squishy. I gotta say. Anacondas are huge snakes
Speaker 1: from South America, as we know from that documentary film Anaconda.
Speaker 1: They live in swamps and marshes. They're sort of slower
Speaker 1: on land, but they're great swimmers, they have no venom.
Speaker 1: They kill prey by wrapping around them and strangling them
Speaker 1: to death. And females can grow up to be around
Speaker 1: twenty feet long, which is six meters. Typically, they only
Speaker 1: grow up to be a measly sixteen feet though, about
Speaker 1: five meters not that's not so bad. Males only grow
Speaker 1: up to be about ten feet or three meters long,
Speaker 1: so they are smaller than females by a good amount.
Speaker 1: When mating, females will waft out pheromones, which attracts males
Speaker 1: and more than one, so they will form what's called
Speaker 1: a breeding ball, which is a bunch of giant snakes
Speaker 1: wrapped around each other, like a big pile of giant snakes.
Speaker 1: Spaghetti not easy to look at. It's like spaghetti in
Speaker 1: a pot. Though you know what else? Python? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's not. They're not pythons. Though it's sort of inaccurate.
Speaker 1: I just had to do it for the acronym. It
Speaker 1: doesn't scare you that photo. It doesn't scare me because
Speaker 1: they're gonna be too preoccupied mating to like try to
Speaker 1: strangle me. I would say it's unappetizing, like it makes
Speaker 1: me not want to have like you know, pina or
Speaker 1: spaghetti or you know kind of the squitting pasta. I
Speaker 1: will wait on that after looking at the photos. But
Speaker 1: they in this breeding ball, these snakes will wrap around
Speaker 1: each other and the males will compete to try to
Speaker 1: get their sperm to reach the female, and they'll even
Speaker 1: try to like push out the other male's sperm if
Speaker 1: they've already mated with the female. And they also the
Speaker 1: males have what's called a pelvic spur, which is a
Speaker 1: claw located near the kloaco which, as we talked about before,
Speaker 1: kloake is that hole that kind of does it all, um,
Speaker 1: I don't want to spur near there. But that spur
Speaker 1: is actually the remnant of hind legs that these animals
Speaker 1: used to have because they lost their legs to become
Speaker 1: the snake or danger noodles as we like to call
Speaker 1: them on the show. And they use this pelvic spur
Speaker 1: to like tickle the female and like stroke the female.
Speaker 1: But which is nice, but it can also be used
Speaker 1: to fight other males or try to shove them off.
Speaker 1: So fascinating. Yeah, yeah, very It's again very interesting tools
Speaker 1: that that these males have. Some males will get lucky
Speaker 1: and get their way to the female. Um, but some
Speaker 1: will get a little unlucky. They'll strike out and they
Speaker 1: will get eaten by the female who's probably pretty hungry
Speaker 1: after all of the mosh pit mating and like, researchers
Speaker 1: have found whole snakes inside of these female anacondas and
Speaker 1: it is indeed a male anaconda that they figure probably
Speaker 1: you know, just got eaten during one of these big
Speaker 1: mating balls. I mean, it reminds me. Did you watch
Speaker 1: the documentary Wild Wild Country and Sheila the head, like
Speaker 1: the lady that was sort of the head of the cult. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Which was this about um Rajnish
Speaker 1: she's up in Portland. Oh no, I haven't seen this documentary.
Speaker 1: It's really good. But like she was just charming but
Speaker 1: top like a top head and like the number two
Speaker 1: of this and I feel like I feel like she
Speaker 1: could she had like the temperament. I mean, she was
Speaker 1: kind of terrifying and adorable at the same time. It
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, she could eat somebody and she might
Speaker 1: need somebody. Yeah, it's sort of it's sort of like, Oh,
Speaker 1: another another documentary that the Tiger King documentary Carol Baskin right,
Speaker 1: she's like she's so charming and yeah, you know, but
Speaker 1: like she she definitely like she definitely ate her husband
Speaker 1: of her husband. I know that is I mean, that
Speaker 1: is just absurd. Yeah, okay, me dressed like a tiger
Speaker 1: and eat my husband. You don't you can't believe you
Speaker 1: read online she like burps like a whole Famer exactly.
Speaker 1: She burps like like the whole Famer and then looks
Speaker 1: like the guy Robert Durrs', like I did it. I
Speaker 1: killed him all picks a little bit of mustache out
Speaker 1: from between her two for sure. For you know, something
Speaker 1: happened out in that backyard for sure. So too and
Speaker 1: are very naughty show about mating. About the birds and
Speaker 1: the bees. I thought we could talk about some bees.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about Dawson's burrowing bees. I
Speaker 1: love bees. I think they're adorable. These are no exception there,
Speaker 1: these little fuzz balls that buzz around. Um. They can
Speaker 1: also be found in Australia. Don't they look cuddly? They
Speaker 1: look they're very cute, you know. I I um, I
Speaker 1: would cuddle a bee like if it was safe for
Speaker 1: the bee. Um. But unfortunately, when they sting you. It
Speaker 1: also like with honey bees, not with all bees, um,
Speaker 1: but like with honey bees, when they sting you, the
Speaker 1: stinger actually comes out, and the bleeding that they suffer
Speaker 1: after stinging you actually is mortal. Yeah, and so I
Speaker 1: feel really bad, Like actually, for the first time in
Speaker 1: my life, I got stung by a bee last week,
Speaker 1: and I start like it hurts, Yeah, it hurts a
Speaker 1: little bit. That the worst part was that I then
Speaker 1: like I don't right, I felt so bad, buddy, Like
Speaker 1: you didn't need to stay. I wasn't gonna oh cheese
Speaker 1: now now now you did not I was. I would
Speaker 1: have put you, I would have picked you, carried you
Speaker 1: to the nearest flower, and you didn't have It actually
Speaker 1: didn't hurt that bad because it was on a fingertip.
Speaker 1: And also like what you want to do is like
Speaker 1: scrape it away as quickly as you can, just kind
Speaker 1: of like flick the singer out and that way because
Speaker 1: it can keep injecting venom. Like the longer the stinger is,
Speaker 1: the longer the singer is, the more venom you're gonna get. UM.
Speaker 1: So like you kind of like very very quickly, like
Speaker 1: you don't want to like um squeeze the area too much.
Speaker 1: You don't want to really like shove your fingernails and
Speaker 1: then try to like because then like by tugging on
Speaker 1: the actual sort of meaty part of the stinger, you
Speaker 1: can actually push like squirt more venom into it. So
Speaker 1: you want to like like just take a fingernail or
Speaker 1: credit card and just kind of like swoop it, you know,
Speaker 1: just scrape it off, just a little flick. It should
Speaker 1: should come right out if it's in a an accessible area,
Speaker 1: and then just like rense your finger off with some
Speaker 1: some cool water, wash it off, and then it should
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's sometimes it's in a place where
Speaker 1: it's going to be worse. But yeah, it wasn't that bad.
Speaker 1: But yeah I did feel guilty for the poor little bee.
Speaker 1: But these bees, these Dawson's burrowing bees, are found in
Speaker 1: Australia and they are not like honey bees. They actually
Speaker 1: do not form hives. They, like many species of wild bees,
Speaker 1: are solitary and each female will reproduce on her own
Speaker 1: in her own nest. Now, just because they're solitary breeders
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they aren't sort of communal, because they do
Speaker 1: form these like big almost like an apartment complex of burrows.
Speaker 1: Like it's like the ground and you see a bunch
Speaker 1: of holes in the ground and there it's like a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a bee apartment. Um, you know, welcome
Speaker 1: to what was that? What was the apartment? Like corny
Speaker 1: soap opera comic, like three B apartment? Apartment three B?
Speaker 1: Is it? I think three B? Yeah, but this is
Speaker 1: like apartment like hundred bees. I love the idea of
Speaker 1: the apartment. Yeah, and alright, just like buzzing around, like
Speaker 1: like hey, Barbara, and you're just buzzing. But yeah, So
Speaker 1: the females, like in when they reproduce, the females will
Speaker 1: actually dig a pretty deep burrow, uh lay their eggs
Speaker 1: which will develop into larva, and they provide them with
Speaker 1: food and then the larva grow and then they crawl
Speaker 1: up and emerge from the holes. And it's actually, to
Speaker 1: me really cute to see these little bees coming like poke,
Speaker 1: they poked their little fuzzy heads out of the hole.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, here's the thing. Male bees will actually
Speaker 1: emerge before the females, and the females as they emerge,
Speaker 1: the competition to get access to the female is very
Speaker 1: fierce and the males will start fighting each other and
Speaker 1: they once a female emerge. It's like when it's early
Speaker 1: on in the breeding and everyone's competing all at once
Speaker 1: and there's only like a few females, and like all
Speaker 1: of these males they will form these big breeding balls
Speaker 1: much like the anaconda's, but even more violent, where they
Speaker 1: will decapitate each other, fight and claw their way just
Speaker 1: these like this like deadly ball of horny bees. I
Speaker 1: don't want a deadly ball of horny and they like
Speaker 1: it's literally looks like a battle field with all these
Speaker 1: like bees, like some of them are like decapitated, and
Speaker 1: it's nobody wants that. I don't want that. He wants that.
Speaker 1: It's just complete, complete pandemonium. Can you just be a
Speaker 1: little more patient, you know, you just chill it out,
Speaker 1: Like you don't need an angry mass of a ball
Speaker 1: of horny fighting bees right right, And they look they
Speaker 1: look so fuzzy and cute, and I don't these these
Speaker 1: little sweet cutie pies. But then they just they horn
Speaker 1: it out on the battlefield and it is like they
Speaker 1: can accidentally like they're trying to mate with each other,
Speaker 1: and they can accidentally like behead their own mate in
Speaker 1: their fears attempt to like try to be the one
Speaker 1: that gets to me. It's truly terrifying, you know, So
Speaker 1: think about that when you know what, I feel that
Speaker 1: I've learned my I feel like I've learned my lesson,
Speaker 1: and I will think about that. To be fair, though,
Speaker 1: a little little honey bees like their their whole system
Speaker 1: is much more civilized where they have, you know, their
Speaker 1: whole hive structure. And it is interesting because like when
Speaker 1: you see sort of the alternative to you sociality. So
Speaker 1: that's when you have this hive structure where you have
Speaker 1: one queen that reproduces and all these sister bees um
Speaker 1: that are all related and working together to ensure the
Speaker 1: success of the hive, but they're not necessarily reproducing. It
Speaker 1: does make that seem like a lot less unfair when
Speaker 1: you realize, like an other like solid Harry Beak populations,
Speaker 1: like the competition to make is so fierce and so deadly.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, the hive structure can actually be
Speaker 1: a quite successful strategy. They just have to play it
Speaker 1: cool when they're the big horny ball at the end
Speaker 1: playing cool. You know, nobody nobody likes someone who comes
Speaker 1: to the b orgy too early and too eager. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got cool. Let's just play. You's gotta like slow
Speaker 1: your role a little bit. It's play a little bit
Speaker 1: hard to get exactly exactly I want to. I want
Speaker 1: to teach these bees sort of the art of you know,
Speaker 1: just like like you got you know, we were talking
Speaker 1: about your cats earlier, like they know the art of seduction.
Speaker 1: You gotta like play it hot and cold. Please bees
Speaker 1: coming hot? You like, I am not a sure thing.
Speaker 1: A little bit of yeah, hold off on some of
Speaker 1: the horny decapitations, just a little bit, a little just
Speaker 1: it's just a bit well Arden, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me. I can't believe how anything, as you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to talk to you. It's really
Speaker 1: like what a fascinating I will never forget that panis
Speaker 1: that foreheaded penis and also looking at it, it's a
Speaker 1: little baby, I mean, just the whole thing. The puggle.
Speaker 1: Those are cute. I feel that I've learned a lot
Speaker 1: and uh and I appreciate that, and I appreciate you
Speaker 1: hig on of course, and you know, but the inspiration
Speaker 1: for this episode was reading Little Miss Little Compton, and
Speaker 1: again I love the chapter on sex education. It's hilarious
Speaker 1: if you're if you've ever had a childhood you know,
Speaker 1: which I think most of us have somebody childhood some
Speaker 1: some of us, you know, like this is it's just
Speaker 1: a wonderful book. It's so fun and funny. And I
Speaker 1: think it's like, I love the way that you capture
Speaker 1: just the inevitable awkwardness of childhood. You know, I've ever
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody, everybody's families has their works, and
Speaker 1: this is mine, and but that you don't maybe you
Speaker 1: don't feel alone. And I think it's a fun book
Speaker 1: for just the world right now. I think it's fun
Speaker 1: and lighthearted, but I think there's a lot of hearts
Speaker 1: to it. And um, we're actually doing a thing where
Speaker 1: we're going to have a book release party virtually at
Speaker 1: the Dynasty Typewriter. It's gonna be like a variety show
Speaker 1: and a party. Lauren lopkis who is us from the
Speaker 1: Wrong Missy. She is Missy, So she and I are
Speaker 1: doing it together. It's just gonna be my co host
Speaker 1: and we're gonna read from the book. And um, because
Speaker 1: I can't tour right now, so this is this is
Speaker 1: my The good news is that you can be in
Speaker 1: any time zone. So it's gonna be Saturday, September twenty
Speaker 1: six at five pm. If you go to Dynasty Typewriter
Speaker 1: dot com is it Tickets are five dollars, which also
Speaker 1: goes to help support the theater. And um, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have uh Ryan Sophie from Throwing Shade, who's hilarious. He's
Speaker 1: gonna come on, Rob Benedict from Supernatural he plays God
Speaker 1: on Supernatural one, and he's gonna say, your literally having
Speaker 1: God come on to promote your book, my book. He's
Speaker 1: gonna do a Katie Perry cover. My brother is gonna
Speaker 1: be there, and we're gonna have some special surprise guests.
Speaker 1: So for five dollars and you can interact with us
Speaker 1: and what's fun about it? If you can't make it
Speaker 1: at five pm Pacific Saturday, the link will be live
Speaker 1: on YouTube for one week afterwards, so you can watch
Speaker 1: it anytime. And you can also order through the Dynasty
Speaker 1: Typewriter website. If you want to get a for the
Speaker 1: price of just a regular price of the book, you
Speaker 1: want a custom signed to you, so not even just
Speaker 1: not even just a signature. If you want me to
Speaker 1: be like, hey, Katie and watch for those horny killer bees.
Speaker 1: You can keep a page third Team, but you can
Speaker 1: write him what you want it dedicated to, and you
Speaker 1: can get a like as a gift for yourself. You
Speaker 1: can get a custom signed books. I would like to
Speaker 1: request a book that says, Hey, Katie, watch out for
Speaker 1: those horny horny bees. You know what. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's your destiny. I feel like that used to happen.
Speaker 1: I think we can make that happen. And so where
Speaker 1: can people find you online? Where what's your socials? I'm
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at art and marine dot com.
Speaker 1: Our marine is eight but it looks like Myron so A,
Speaker 1: R D E. N M and the Mary Y and
Speaker 1: and yes r I and and Nancy Um Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1: And then my podcast will you accept this rose about
Speaker 1: the Bachelor franchises on my Heart? And that's really fun
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful to be part of this. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me. This is so fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. And you can find us
Speaker 1: on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram, at
Speaker 1: Creature feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e A T
Speaker 1: not FET. That is something very different and you can
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at Katie Golden's just for my
Speaker 1: Katie thoughts not necessarily related to the show, and as always,
Speaker 1: I'm also at pro bird Writes, where I you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that I'm a real bird, I'm not like
Speaker 1: a bird in a in a ski in human suit
Speaker 1: masquerading as a human to indoctrinate you to accept birds
Speaker 1: as our new overlords, which is exactly what someone would
Speaker 1: say if they're not any of those things. So, you know,
Speaker 1: go check it out. Thank you so much for listening
Speaker 1: to the show. If you're enjoying it and you leave
Speaker 1: a review, I will read it. I read all of them,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate them. All the kind words you
Speaker 1: say really mean the world to me. Um Thank you
Speaker 1: so much to the Space Classics for their super awesome song.
Speaker 1: Excelumina Creature Feature is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or hey guess what,
Speaker 1: I don't know where. If you get your podcast, you're
Speaker 1: listening to one right now, aren't you see your next
Speaker 1: Wednesday