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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and um Julie

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Speaker 1: Love Slug Douglas. Yes, because this is uh, this is

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Speaker 1: the time of the year when Valentine's is thrust upon

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Speaker 1: us and we all have to celebrate love or curse

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Speaker 1: its name. Or we could listen to an episode about slugs,

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Speaker 1: how they mate, what they're doing with their viscous stuff,

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Speaker 1: and how they may even I don't know, he'll a

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Speaker 1: broken heart. Yeah, before we retread the topic from last year,

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Speaker 1: we're going to discuss a little new material that we

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Speaker 1: ran across involving the role of the slug in the

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Speaker 1: matters of the heart in this case literally the matters

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Speaker 1: of the heart. That's right, because, as you will find

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Speaker 1: out if you haven't already heard this episode about slug

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Speaker 1: mating rituals and some of their other virtues, these guys

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Speaker 1: have inspired hearts surgeons to create a kind of glue

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Speaker 1: based on the slime that slugs create. Yeah, and as

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Speaker 1: as we explored last year, the slug slime is incredible.

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Speaker 1: It's not just it's easy to just discount it Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's a slime, you know, but it's this is amazing

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Speaker 1: viscus fluid that is all at once the outer layer

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Speaker 1: of their body. It is the road they travel on,

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Speaker 1: it is the substance of their their physical love making.

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Speaker 1: It is a means of communicating with one another. It's

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Speaker 1: it's fabulous stuff. And so scientists are drawn again and

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Speaker 1: again to slug slime for possible solutions, and in this case,

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Speaker 1: surgical glue inspired by slug slime, because you can use

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Speaker 1: surgical glue on a heart. But the problem is is

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Speaker 1: that it is wet and it's a beating heart, and

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Speaker 1: it's really hard to get this stuff true surgical glue

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Speaker 1: to really take right. And you don't want to use

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Speaker 1: stitches or staples because we were talking about really fragile

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Speaker 1: tissue with the heart. So what does a what does

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Speaker 1: a good researcher do? Well? A team from Boston Children's

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Speaker 1: Hospital m I team mimic the slug slime it came

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Speaker 1: up with is adhesive which is uber sticky, water and

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Speaker 1: blood proof and it dries in seconds via UV lights.

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Speaker 1: So which is one more reason to celebrate slime and slugs. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's also biodegradable. Unlike a lot of existing circcal blues,

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Speaker 1: which are not only not biodegradable, they're also potentially toxic.

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Speaker 1: So uh yeah, you just sign a little UV light on,

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Speaker 1: it activates it. It hardens up less than five seconds.

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Speaker 1: The whole is sealed. Now, currently the seal is holding

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Speaker 1: only for about twenty four hour period. They'll need it

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Speaker 1: to hold a little longer for it to really be effective.

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Speaker 1: But but you know they're getting there. They're working at

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Speaker 1: bump in that time up. So there you go. In

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Speaker 1: restaurant parlance, there's a little amuse bouche before your main

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Speaker 1: entree here of slimy love via our slugs, and we

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Speaker 1: hope that you enjoy this episode and happy going. Time

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Speaker 1: stands the slug that serves as an example of just

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Speaker 1: how wild and diverse and to humanize hideous uh sexual

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Speaker 1: reproduction really is in in in nature, and and maybe

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Speaker 1: how sanitized it is in humans. I don't know that's

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Speaker 1: that's a value judgment. I'll leave that for someone else

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Speaker 1: to make, because it shows us how much human baggage

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Speaker 1: we bring to the situation. I'm going to tell you

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Speaker 1: that some slugs sex, in particular leopard slugs and we'll

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Speaker 1: talk more about them, kind of make human sex look

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Speaker 1: little milk toast, a little vanilla. Yeah, I will. I

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Speaker 1: will admit that as repulsed by slugs as I am, like,

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Speaker 1: I feel like this deep in my genes repulsion to them,

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Speaker 1: not in my blue jeans, but in my actual genetic material.

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Speaker 1: Like there's a deep like there in my ancestral enemy

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Speaker 1: um that that I am avoiding because I know they

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Speaker 1: will crush You think you have ancestral memories exactly of slugs.

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Speaker 1: As repulsed as I am, I have to admit that

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Speaker 1: there is something weirdly beautiful about it. If not beautiful,

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Speaker 1: then at least elaborate, Like it's it's elaborately grotesque. It's

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Speaker 1: it's it's grotesque in a way that that that it

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Speaker 1: becomes almost art. All right, So before we start talking

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Speaker 1: about slug sucks and all girding our loins for that,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about slug anatomy. Because most slugs are hermaphrodites.

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Speaker 1: They have both a penis and a genital opening, right, yes,

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Speaker 1: so when they have sex, they can both fertilize and

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Speaker 1: are fertilized. It's important to remember too, that your coming

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Speaker 1: slug it's ancestor had a had a shell. It is

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Speaker 1: descended from shelled gastropods. So if your rear end is

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Speaker 1: in a shell, where do you think evolution has put

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Speaker 1: all of your important debts right up there at the head.

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Speaker 1: So it's from the head that the penis of a

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Speaker 1: of a slug for truths right out the side like

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Speaker 1: a weird hat. Yes, and they yeah, I think about

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Speaker 1: the penus being over there too, And this is over

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Speaker 1: there too, so so there's that. And again, yes, this

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Speaker 1: is because they are descended from snap, the genital orifice, everything,

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Speaker 1: the mouth, everything has to be upfront, has to be unloaded,

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Speaker 1: because the rear is back there in the shell where

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Speaker 1: Dr Doolittle rides. If you're are a fan of that

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Speaker 1: movie and really knowing all this stuff about snails makes

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Speaker 1: that even weirder. So keep that in mind when we're

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Speaker 1: talking about some of the configurations that these slugs make

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Speaker 1: when they are engaging in their reproductive efforts, because again,

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Speaker 1: all the business is pretty much over there on the head. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: face to face sex, because that's where it's two faces

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Speaker 1: going at it, alright, various ways as well discuss Let's

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Speaker 1: discuss one of the ways one of the strategies that

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Speaker 1: slugs approach reproduction. Yes, now it's important to to realize

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Speaker 1: that what we're talking about here sexual conflict between among

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Speaker 1: these creatures. And this is the idea that you have

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Speaker 1: individuals in a species and they are competing with other

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Speaker 1: individuals for mates. So they want to do whatever they

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Speaker 1: can to ensure that their genetic material passes on and

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Speaker 1: not the genetic material of rivals and other other individuals

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Speaker 1: that uh that their mate is mating with. So you

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Speaker 1: see various methods in various animals, whether the uses you see,

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Speaker 1: for instance, their sperm plugs, which again you can look

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Speaker 1: up which it's it's about. I've got mine in there,

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Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna sort of block it up so

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Speaker 1: that nothing else is gonna get in there too. You

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Speaker 1: see barbed penises in various creatures, especially in in in insects.

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Speaker 1: I've seen them referred to as torture phallusis. If you

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Speaker 1: want to hear more about that, check out our our

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Speaker 1: episode that we did on the penis and the evolution

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Speaker 1: of the penis um. So you see a lot of

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Speaker 1: sexual competition evolution trying to to to game this scenario

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Speaker 1: so that the the the mating creature has the advantage

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Speaker 1: over all the other creatures that are mating with its mate.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you cewed that up because I think that

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Speaker 1: it's it's important to keep this in mind when you

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Speaker 1: think about um slugs in what seems sort of rough

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Speaker 1: dealings with reproduction and of course with that's anthropomising them.

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Speaker 1: But um, we can't help to. But thinking of it

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Speaker 1: in that context I think helps you do better on

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Speaker 1: nderstand why, Um it is maybe as dire seeming as

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Speaker 1: it is, or I mean, it's a it's a brutal

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Speaker 1: game with high stakes. The stakes are high. They couldn't

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Speaker 1: be any higher because ultimately, the genetic mission of this

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Speaker 1: creature and any any creature is to pass his genes on. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So let's look at the sea slug all right. According

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Speaker 1: to I O nine author Robert T. Gonzalez, uh sex

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Speaker 1: is initiated when one slug uses a syringe like organ

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Speaker 1: to gore its partner. That's where the stabbing comes in. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and you you see the same activity in a number

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Speaker 1: of air breathing land snails and slugs as well. So

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Speaker 1: this is not particular to sea slugs, right, But in

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Speaker 1: this particular instance, you've got that syringe like organ goring

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Speaker 1: its partner and injecting prostate fluid into its body. And

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Speaker 1: then they made a second time, this time with one

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Speaker 1: slug inserting its penis into the partner's genital opening that

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Speaker 1: they made through the stabbing. So these are two separate acts.

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Speaker 1: Basically one is shanking and the other is sexing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean the way I to like to think of

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Speaker 1: it as the the final knife fight in dune Um

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Speaker 1: between Paul Trades and Uh and the harcone and kid

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Speaker 1: played by a Sting in the movie you know there.

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Speaker 1: It's this this vicious fight when they have to counter

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Speaker 1: with each other's shields with their slow moving daggers, and

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Speaker 1: at least one of the daggers this poisoned divider call.

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Speaker 1: So it's that kind of situation. There's kind of a

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Speaker 1: it's like they're they're making love to each other, these snails,

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Speaker 1: these slugs, but they're also trying to stab each other.

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Speaker 1: It's it's it's often described by biologists is ultimately a

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Speaker 1: joust sword fight because whoever gets their loved dart, which

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Speaker 1: is the term that's often used for it, whoever gets

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Speaker 1: their loved art into their mate. They're going to increase

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Speaker 1: the odds that their sperm is going to be victorious

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Speaker 1: inside of that mate. That's right. And you know, it

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Speaker 1: is said that most slugs would probably prefer to be

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Speaker 1: the shanker rather than the shanky. Evolutionary biologist Rulanda Lane

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Speaker 1: describes theness thus lee The penis bears four to five

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Speaker 1: large hook shaped spines at its base in a crown

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Speaker 1: of twenty to thirty minute fine pointed spines at its tip,

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Speaker 1: which are spread like an anchor during mating. So there's

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Speaker 1: still a question as to why slugs that allow themselves

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Speaker 1: to be penetrated beyond the amount needed to get the

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Speaker 1: stores of sperm, because this happens, right, they get the

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Speaker 1: storm stores of sperm that they need, but they still

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Speaker 1: engage in this what we think of as a very

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Speaker 1: vicious act um and it doesn't really increase the reproductive

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Speaker 1: fitness to do it, but they still engage in it.

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Speaker 1: So the idea is that perhaps the injections of prostate

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Speaker 1: fluid might include nutrients that benefit the stab slug. So

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Speaker 1: it's a bit of a trade off there. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: there was this old idea that the love dart was

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Speaker 1: injecting calcium into the mate and therefore making a giving

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Speaker 1: at a gift kind of a dowry. Uh, and staying here,

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Speaker 1: here's some calcium. Used this to create the eggs that

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Speaker 1: we have created together. Um. But but they they've kind

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Speaker 1: of shied away from that, going more in this hormonal

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Speaker 1: direction that it's it's enabling this better chance of survival

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Speaker 1: for the stabber's sperm. Again, reproductive fitness being the most

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Speaker 1: important thing. And just as the you described the penis

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Speaker 1: and pretty horrific terms, uh, the love darts, which are

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Speaker 1: also called gyps of ellums um. They vary a great

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Speaker 1: deal as well. You can find images of these, and

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Speaker 1: they look like varying cruel harpoons, and and they're made

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Speaker 1: of different substances. Sometimes it's calcium carbonate, sometimes it's kitan um,

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Speaker 1: various shapes and sizes and h They can also vary

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Speaker 1: between one and thirty millimeters in length. UM. Sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: more of a just kind of a stab in the side,

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Speaker 1: like a prison shiving. Sometimes the love dart goes all

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Speaker 1: the way through, uh, the the mated slug. It's um.

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Speaker 1: It's it's pretty fascinating, and we call it a love

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Speaker 1: dart in English, but in Germany they call it a

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Speaker 1: lebs field or love arrow. And there's some there's some

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Speaker 1: people that that argue that the idea of Cupid and

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Speaker 1: his arrow is ultimately um inspired by the love duct,

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Speaker 1: even though the love dart again is just a it's

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Speaker 1: a stabbing, more of a lance or a dagger in

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Speaker 1: the side rather than anything that is actually a projectile. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they do come in in various shapes. Um, some

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Speaker 1: look like spears. I thought one actually did look like

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Speaker 1: a graboeid as well. So it sort of depends on

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Speaker 1: this species, alright. Most some have just one um dark sack.

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Speaker 1: Some have more than one. Uh. And then after they

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Speaker 1: have used it takes a while to grow it back

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Speaker 1: to re reload the gun as it were. All Right, Um,

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Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and when we get back,

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Speaker 1: we are going to talk about the love lives of

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Speaker 1: leopard slugs. And you really don't want to miss this.

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Speaker 1: All right, we're back leopard slugs. Um now, the very white,

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Speaker 1: the very white again. The leopard slugs. They really make

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Speaker 1: a show. They're they're really about putting on a show

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Speaker 1: of their love for anyone who may be able to watch.

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Speaker 1: In stomach this nonsense. Yeah, alright, Imagine these leopard slugs.

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Speaker 1: They're no turnal. They're grayish yellow with modeled black spots,

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Speaker 1: hence the name leopard slugs. They measure about four inches long. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Let's say that they're cruising through the forest. They pick

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Speaker 1: up a scent in another slugs trail that they read

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Speaker 1: the love poem, and that that slug slime yes come home.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, is that very well? And so they

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Speaker 1: follow it. They find this other slug and they stalk

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Speaker 1: each other in a circle again using their scent trails,

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Speaker 1: and then they say, hey, let's take this up to

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Speaker 1: a more private area. They go up a tree. They

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Speaker 1: find a nice little tree branch, and that's when things

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Speaker 1: start to get a little bit weird. They begin to intertwine.

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Speaker 1: It's quite beautiful. And as they are intertwining, they form

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Speaker 1: a rope of mucus that comes down start to slay like.

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Speaker 1: Imagine this rope of mucus extending from the branch. And

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Speaker 1: then they continue intertwining together and they're suspended like that

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Speaker 1: for a little while in this gooey embrace. Now, then

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Speaker 1: the penises come out. That's right, I was gonna say

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Speaker 1: if that's not their head, the side of their head,

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Speaker 1: their penises are basically emerging and they begin to glow blue. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and these are these are large phouls is um comparatively

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Speaker 1: um like for a human it would be like a

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Speaker 1: like a baby's arm coming out of the side of

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Speaker 1: your head, or no larger than baby's arn't like a

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Speaker 1: like an eight year old army. So now I'm asked

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Speaker 1: to say, I'm a little bits that you used that analogy,

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Speaker 1: but it's effective to give you some idea of scale.

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Speaker 1: So then these uh, these head placed penises begin to

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Speaker 1: do the same execute the same intertwining configuration, right this

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Speaker 1: embraced and you see this glowing blue penises entwined and

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Speaker 1: moving until they bloom into a pulsating blue flower like

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Speaker 1: globe that's translucent. Yes, it's really alien and oddly beautiful

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Speaker 1: to bold it's it's it's really weird. Now. The reason

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Speaker 1: that they're doing this big light show, this big circus

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Speaker 1: l at hey look at us, you know, intertwined getting

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Speaker 1: it on um, is that their passing sperm to and

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Speaker 1: fro and that um, that sort of flower configuration. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because again there hermaphrodites. They're both male and female, and

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Speaker 1: it's just amazing because yeah, this is this is the

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Speaker 1: attempt to for a lie each other. And it's amazing

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Speaker 1: because it looks like this totally sculpture, right, glass blown

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Speaker 1: sculpture that's happening before your eyes. But my favorite part

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Speaker 1: of this is that you have this entirely intricate, beautiful,

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Speaker 1: disgusting display of reproductive fitness and then there's just this

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Speaker 1: unceremonious drop of one of them PLoP onto the fourth floor,

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Speaker 1: Like you would think that they would have come up

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Speaker 1: with a more elegant way to end it. But it's

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Speaker 1: quite it's quite a sight to behold. If you want

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Speaker 1: to see yourself, check out Ion nine. Uh Sex Life

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Speaker 1: of Leopard Slugs. Yeah, I believe they're embedding a video

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Speaker 1: created by Discovery and BBC. Atinburg narrator narrates it. And

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Speaker 1: you want Attenborough narrating well anything in the natural world,

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Speaker 1: but especially slugs doing it because he's got that great

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Speaker 1: wink wink, nudge nudge with his voice that he does.

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Speaker 1: So imagine it applied to this scene of beauty before

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Speaker 1: you and I know you're thinking, well that's where it ends, right,

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Speaker 1: maybe this uh and we're generalizing the entire vast buffet

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Speaker 1: of slug sex in this. But you begin with a

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Speaker 1: little gentle stabbing. Then you you go up into the

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Speaker 1: trees and you you intertwine and you enter wine penises

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Speaker 1: and create a glowing flour and swap sperm, and you think, well,

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Speaker 1: then then you're done. Right, not necessarily, because in some

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Speaker 1: slugs you see something that we call apophylation, which is, uh,

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Speaker 1: maybe not as sexy as it sounds. This is when

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Speaker 1: one slug choose the other's penis off, occasionally will tooo

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Speaker 1: its own penis off and swallow it. Yeah, that's auto appopylation,

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Speaker 1: auto appopilation. Yes, So what is all this sexual cannibalism?

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Speaker 1: What is it about? Right, because we've we've encountered we've

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Speaker 1: talked about sexual cannibalism before, where you have like the

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Speaker 1: female will eat the male or part of the male

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Speaker 1: following mating, sometimes because hey, the male was only there

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Speaker 1: to mate, and then once he's done, there's no sense

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Speaker 1: keeping him around. Might as well make a meal out

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Speaker 1: of him, right, female or spiders right? Right? In this

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Speaker 1: case though, these are these are hermaphrodites. So what's what's

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Speaker 1: going on here? Well, these, ah, these banana slugs in particular,

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Speaker 1: of course, called banana flicks because of a very yellow

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Speaker 1: color and their occasional black spots. Uh. They're not entirely

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Speaker 1: sure why the chewing is going on, but let me

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Speaker 1: just kind of give you a little bit of information

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Speaker 1: about these guys. They are the second largest slug in

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Speaker 1: the world, So imagine that. Imagine that when you start

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Speaker 1: to talk about the slug penis, which is usually the

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Speaker 1: length of the slug itself. It is also the official

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Speaker 1: mascot of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Really really,

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Speaker 1: they're the banana slugs. Oh god, I assume they don't

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Speaker 1: have a sports program like this has to be just

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Speaker 1: like chess club or something I don't well but or

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Speaker 1: the or mild school. I just can't imagine, like a

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Speaker 1: football mascot is a banana slug. I mean it's better

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Speaker 1: than a dog, I guess, But I mean it would

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Speaker 1: inspire fear in the competitor, right, like I'm gonna chew

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Speaker 1: your penis off. Yeah, if they really went all out

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Speaker 1: with it, I guess it would work. Yeah. Yeah, um, okay.

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Speaker 1: Its scientific name is Dolly Pollus, which means a long penis.

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Speaker 1: So what we find when we look at slugs getting

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Speaker 1: it on is that again they find each other via

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Speaker 1: the chemical traces in their slime trail. They make a

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Speaker 1: bed of slime to cuttle on. Essentially, there's some head waving,

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Speaker 1: they get very close to each other and then they

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Speaker 1: begin to actually, when I say they get close together,

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Speaker 1: they're in a gangang configuration. Um. Then they began to

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Speaker 1: gently bite gentital openings of each other. So what happens

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Speaker 1: next is they their penises spring out from their heads

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Speaker 1: and they insert the penises and the nearby genital slits,

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Speaker 1: and then intercourse lasts for hours for hours, and then

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Speaker 1: with their multiple pairs of teeth known as the ragula,

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Speaker 1: sometimes one or both of the slugs gnaws the penis

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Speaker 1: off the other. This is the apophiliation. So the idea

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Speaker 1: at first was that they were doing this because the

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Speaker 1: penis was getting stuck in. Yeah, ran across that that

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Speaker 1: theory that they were their intertwined is like, how do

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Speaker 1: we get out of this? Well, we could bite through

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Speaker 1: these penises and then they do. But but the but

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Speaker 1: what we're really getting down to ultimately it is again

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Speaker 1: sexual conflict, right, yes, because it's not about that, because

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Speaker 1: actually what happens is that the penis when it is

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Speaker 1: not erect, it's not a problem for it to pull out. Okay, again,

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Speaker 1: imagine this, This penisan is the length of the actual

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Speaker 1: banana slug itself. So, uh, they do think it has

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Speaker 1: to do with this idea of Okay, well, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: chew your penis off and I'm going to ensure that

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Speaker 1: my sperm from now on is the main deal out there.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to remove you from the playing field. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it's it comes down to sexual conflict

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Speaker 1: because every slug is both male and female. But then

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Speaker 1: after the mating s done, Yeah, if you can, if

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Speaker 1: you can bite the penis off of the other slug,

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Speaker 1: then you have taken a male competitor off out of

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Speaker 1: the out of the game, while leaving a perfectly functional

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Speaker 1: female slug out there for what you know, for for

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Speaker 1: public use. So it's it's pretty amazing stuff. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: I saw one of the videos that had the uh,

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Speaker 1: the case of auto appiphilation and uh, and this one

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Speaker 1: was a situation where the slug engaged in sex and

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Speaker 1: then they went off without chewing penises off. Because sometimes

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Speaker 1: that happens like sometimes there's no penis chewing off, and

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Speaker 1: when a when a penis is chewed off again, it's

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Speaker 1: still a perfectly functional female slug, so it really doesn't care.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like, all right, you got me, but

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go on carry out out my business now.

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Speaker 1: But in this one example, they were looking at the

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Speaker 1: the slug had survived, its penis was still intact, but

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Speaker 1: it had not retracted, and so the slug just turned

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Speaker 1: and did it off and ate it down. So they

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Speaker 1: really weren't sure what to make of that, but maybe

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Speaker 1: there's something malfunctioning there. It decided, well, I'm not just

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Speaker 1: gonna walk around with this thing sticking out the side

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Speaker 1: of my head. I look kind of stupid. I better

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Speaker 1: eat it. You think slugs will could experience phantom limb.

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Speaker 1: I get the impression they don't. I get the impression

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Speaker 1: there they don't really think that hard about it. You

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Speaker 1: know that it's that it ultimately it's like, ah, you

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Speaker 1: know you got me, all right, good on you you

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Speaker 1: ate my penis off, But but I'm still I'm still

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Speaker 1: a functional female slug. I'm I'm a harmaphrodite for the mistake.

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Speaker 1: So that's right. They can still engage in the act. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and do so. So there you have it. It was

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Speaker 1: a wonderful episode last year, really fun to get into.

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Speaker 1: I mean, whenever you have creatures shooting love darts into

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Speaker 1: each other and ramming their their fauces into each other's forehead,

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Speaker 1: you have an amazing topic. Or you can reimagine search

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Speaker 1: of Slay with slugs making love on those little mucus

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Speaker 1: tendrils coming from the ceiling. Yeah. And if you want

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Speaker 1: more slug content, be sure to check out stuffabow your

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Speaker 1: Mind dot com. The week of this publication, I'll make

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Speaker 1: sure to bump up some some older slug content that

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Speaker 1: we did some other podcast episodes, as well as a

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Speaker 1: number of blogs. So hey, stuff to blow your Mind

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Speaker 1: dot com. Visit it. That's the mothership links to all

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Speaker 1: the things we make, all the social media accounts that

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Speaker 1: we use. And Julie, if people want to get in

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00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:14,080
Speaker 1: touch with us in an old fashioned way and a

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Speaker 1: more one on one way, what is the addressable? You

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Speaker 1: say old fashioned, but I think it's all called and

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Speaker 1: you can do so at Below the Mind at Discovery

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00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:27,479
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: does it, how stuff works, dot com, wh