Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: We don't really think about it, but our planet might
Speaker 1: as well be a universe all its own. There are
Speaker 1: still parts of Earth that have yet to be seen
Speaker 1: with human eyes. For example, much of the ocean still
Speaker 1: hasn't been explored, and there are even islands where no
Speaker 1: man has stepped foot. And in those areas are flora
Speaker 1: and fauna we cannot comprehend. Louis Deloyes thought he'd found
Speaker 1: such a place in South America in nineteen twenty. What
Speaker 1: he discovered was more than he bargained for. The Lace
Speaker 1: was a Swiss geologist, and in nineteen seventeen he started
Speaker 1: traveling through South America as part of an oil survey.
Speaker 1: He'd been joined by a crew of twenty men, but
Speaker 1: that number had dwindled since the starts of their journey.
Speaker 1: They had faced a number of hardships, including run ins
Speaker 1: with hostile indigenous peoples and devastating diseases. Several members had
Speaker 1: even disappeared in the mountains. By nineteen twenty, there were
Speaker 1: only four men left. The group had set up camp
Speaker 1: one night by Columbia's Tara River when they noticed something
Speaker 1: along the banks. Two creatures had emerged nearby, and they
Speaker 1: were getting closer. They were almost five feet tall and
Speaker 1: covered in red fur, and they looked like large apes,
Speaker 1: only they were walking upright on two legs like a human.
Speaker 1: One was a male, the other was a female. As
Speaker 1: the pair inch toward the camp, it was clear they
Speaker 1: had not come in peace. The creatures started making loud
Speaker 1: noises and throwing their feces at the crew. Scared and angry,
Speaker 1: the men kicked up their guns and fired. Both apes
Speaker 1: were hit, but only the female died. The male ran
Speaker 1: back into the woods to nurse his wounds and was
Speaker 1: never seen again. Deloys examined the creature that lay at
Speaker 1: his feet. It didn't look like any ape he had
Speaker 1: seen before. While on the surface, it had features like
Speaker 1: a spider monkey's, but it was much larger and had
Speaker 1: no tail, and while most monkeys only have thirty two
Speaker 1: teeth in their mouths. This one had thirty six. Deloys
Speaker 1: and the other men propped the animal up on a
Speaker 1: crate in a seated position. They wedged a long stick
Speaker 1: under its chin to keep it from falling over, and
Speaker 1: then photos were taken before the creature was skinned and
Speaker 1: its skull was removed. Any scientist would have been excited
Speaker 1: to share this discovery with the world. A brand new
Speaker 1: species of ape had been found along the coast of
Speaker 1: South America, and Louis de Loys was about to be famous.
Speaker 1: Except he wasn't. Not at first. He sat on the
Speaker 1: news for a number of years, refusing to tell a
Speaker 1: soul about what he'd seen. Plus, much of his evidence
Speaker 1: had been lost before or he'd made it back home.
Speaker 1: All that remained was a single photograph of the ape.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until nineteen twenty eight when his friend George
Speaker 1: Montendan found what had nearly been forgotten. He was a
Speaker 1: professor of anthropology and was paging through Deloys's notebook when
Speaker 1: he came across a photo tucked inside. He'd seen plenty
Speaker 1: of apes and monkeys throughout his career, but this one
Speaker 1: was much different than the others, and he knew it
Speaker 1: needed to be seen, it looked like Deloys had discovered
Speaker 1: what other scientists had only theorized about the missing link.
Speaker 1: The two men worked together and had stories about the
Speaker 1: eight published in several newspapers. Montandan also submitted a paper
Speaker 1: to the French Academy of Sciences, dubbing the creature the
Speaker 1: ameranthropoid's loisi. It was the biggest scientific discovery of the day,
Speaker 1: at least it was supposed to be. As soon as
Speaker 1: other scientists and naturalists got a look at the animal
Speaker 1: in the photo, they started asking questions, how big was
Speaker 1: it really, where did its tale go? Why did it
Speaker 1: look so much like a spider monkey. Eventually the answers
Speaker 1: weren't good enough, when both Deloy's and Montendan were labeled frauds.
Speaker 1: The final nail in the coffin, though, came in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two. That year, doctor Enrique Tahara sent a letter
Speaker 1: to the editor of a Spanish language magazine, a letter
Speaker 1: that wasn't published until nineteen ninety nine. In it, he
Speaker 1: explained how he knew Deloy's ape was a hoax, writing
Speaker 1: mister Montendan said that the monkey had no tail, that
Speaker 1: is for sure, but he forgot to mention something. It
Speaker 1: has no tail because it was cut off. I can
Speaker 1: assure you this, gentlemen, because I saw the amputation. Deloyz
Speaker 1: died of syphilis in nineteen thirty five. He was barely
Speaker 1: forty two and left behind a legacy of deception. Montandan
Speaker 1: didn't fare much better. When he wasn't fabricating hoaxes. He
Speaker 1: was pushing eugenics ideas and working with the Nazis. He
Speaker 1: was executed in nineteen forty four for betraying his country.
Speaker 1: It seems that the French resistance didn't tolerate monkey business
Speaker 1: of any kind. The world is full of natural wonders.
Speaker 1: We actually have a list of seven of the most
Speaker 1: impressive ones, which was compiled by CNN in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: They are the Northern Lights, the Grand Canyon, the Great
Speaker 1: Barrier Reef, Mount Everest, the Harbor of Rio de Janio
Speaker 1: in Brazil, Zimbabwe's Victoria Falls, and Perkutin, a volcano in Mexico.
Speaker 1: These are bucket list level phenomena places that people travel
Speaker 1: thousands of miles to see. But there's another lesser known
Speaker 1: location that's just as mysterious and breathtaking. It's called Mosquito Bay,
Speaker 1: which I know is not a particularly enticing name. It
Speaker 1: is not named after the blood sucking insects that we
Speaker 1: all know and hate. It's named after a pirate ship
Speaker 1: that once sailed through the area. Mosquito Bay is located
Speaker 1: on the southeast edge of Viakis, which is a tiny
Speaker 1: island about seven miles off the coast of Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: By day, the waters there look perfectly normal, but when
Speaker 1: the sun sets, things get curious. The water glows neon
Speaker 1: blue in the darkness. There's an entire tourism industry around
Speaker 1: the glowing bay. However, there are also a lot of
Speaker 1: rules that visitors have to follow. For example, tour guides
Speaker 1: can't use motor boats to take people out on the water.
Speaker 1: They can only use kayaks. Plus, tourists can't swim in
Speaker 1: the bay. The closest they can get is just dipping
Speaker 1: a hand in. And despite being called Mosquito Bay, there
Speaker 1: is absolutely no bug spray allowed, at least not the
Speaker 1: kind that contains a chemical called deet. If you're wondering
Speaker 1: why all these restrictions exist, it's because the bay's neon
Speaker 1: blue light depends on it. You see, Mosquito Bay glows
Speaker 1: because the water is home to billions of microscopic, single
Speaker 1: celled organisms called dinoflagelets, which just happen to be bioluminescent now.
Speaker 1: Bioluminescence occurs when a living organism's body gives off lights
Speaker 1: as the result of an internal chemical reaction. The most
Speaker 1: common example of this is fireflies. Everyone knows them, but
Speaker 1: there are all kinds of species that glow, including certain
Speaker 1: types of bacteria, worms, starfish, jellyfish, and even sharks, so
Speaker 1: bioluminescence isn't actually that rare. However, Mosquito Bay is unique
Speaker 1: because of the sheer number of glowing organisms it contains.
Speaker 1: For every gallon of water, there's an estimated seven hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dinoflagelets. Over time, they've gotten trapped inside the bay
Speaker 1: and become the accustomed to feeding off nutrients from the
Speaker 1: surrounding mangrove trees. Still, these tiny glowing creatures are very
Speaker 1: sensitive to changes in their environment. Other bioluminescent bays have
Speaker 1: been destroyed by humans in the past, hence all the
Speaker 1: rules visitors have to follow. The fast movement and fuel
Speaker 1: exhaust from motor boats can kill them. Swimmers aren't allowed
Speaker 1: in the water because human sweat saliva and urine can
Speaker 1: throw off the marine ecosystem, and bug spray containing deep
Speaker 1: is the biggest problem of all. It could actually wipe
Speaker 1: out the microorganism that makes the bay so beautiful. Thanks
Speaker 1: to these conservation efforts, people have been able to experience
Speaker 1: this natural wonder without hurting it. In two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: Guinness World Records named Mosquito Bay the brightest bioluminescent bay
Speaker 1: on Earth. But a decade later, in twenty seventeen, disaster
Speaker 1: struck and it wasn't anyone's fault. Hurricane Maria decimated large
Speaker 1: portions of Puerto Rico, including Viacus and Mosquito Bay. For
Speaker 1: the first time in recent memory, the glowing bay went dark,
Speaker 1: and people feared that the dioflagelets had all been killed
Speaker 1: or would it return. But then eighteen months later, the
Speaker 1: bay's signature glow slowly began to come back. It seemed
Speaker 1: the microorganisms were recovering, and soon the water actually glowed
Speaker 1: brighter than it ever had before. These days, the bioluminescent
Speaker 1: creatures are alive and well, and people who visit the
Speaker 1: bay say it's one of the most magical places they
Speaker 1: have ever seen. In twenty twenty, Conde Nast named Mosquito
Speaker 1: Bay as one of its seven Wonders of the World.
Speaker 1: So who knows, Maybe one day the glowing water will
Speaker 1: earn a spot on CNN's official list. Until then, Mosquito
Speaker 1: Bay remains a uniquely bright spot on Earth. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.