Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature 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 it's no secret I love animals
Speaker 1: and I want to cuddle all of them. But sadly,
Speaker 1: most animals are not available for cuddles as their wild animals,
Speaker 1: or they're that grumpy house cat who keeps rejecting me. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I'll have to stick to giving my dog belly rubs,
Speaker 1: because as cute as wild animals can be, they certainly
Speaker 1: don't want to be cuddled by me. And as we'll
Speaker 1: find out, sometimes a cute little animal turns out to
Speaker 1: be a serial killer. So today we're going to be
Speaker 1: playing a little game. See if you can give us
Speaker 1: which one of these animals were about to discuss is
Speaker 1: more likely to kill you than to cuddle you. We're
Speaker 1: talking adorable widow sea creatures, terrifying toothy beasts, and birds
Speaker 1: who look like they come from a gym. I'm a
Speaker 1: handsome nightmare. Discover this more as we answer the angel question,
Speaker 1: can you trim your hedges? With a crocodile? Joining me
Speaker 1: today to play the world's Riskiest game show is comedian
Speaker 1: cat Lover Garfield impersonator Joey Clift. Welcome, Joey, Hey everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be back. I'm excited. I feel like
Speaker 1: I might do well in this game. But I also
Speaker 1: I just assume that every animal that looks adorable is
Speaker 1: probably also not deadly, So I feel like I might
Speaker 1: die pretty fast. The last time I had you, and
Speaker 1: I think we talked about cats, right, Cats the Musical,
Speaker 1: Cats the Animal, Cats the Musical, and Cats the Animal,
Speaker 1: and I write, I still I still think that seeing
Speaker 1: the Cats movie live is the most fun that I've
Speaker 1: ever had watching a movie live. So my my taste
Speaker 1: is off, is what I'm saying. Yeah, all right, well,
Speaker 1: so let's get right into or play a little game
Speaker 1: on this show where we try to guess which one
Speaker 1: of these animals is gonna want to cuddle you and
Speaker 1: which one will kill you. And when I say cuddle you,
Speaker 1: none of these animals actually really want to cuddle you,
Speaker 1: because they're wild animals. But you know, in a situation
Speaker 1: where it's like you have to choose either to cuddle
Speaker 1: it like to cuddle which one of these animals? Which
Speaker 1: one would you pick? And so first up, is the
Speaker 1: catfish versus the garry Ol crocodile. So I have provided
Speaker 1: you with pictures of these lovely animals, and which one
Speaker 1: would you like to cuddle? And which one are you
Speaker 1: going to run away from? Joey so um. Looking at
Speaker 1: the pictures of these animals, I my immediate gut reaction
Speaker 1: based on pictures is like, Oh, that'd be cute to
Speaker 1: cuddle a catfish. It's got the word cat in its name,
Speaker 1: so of course I'm gonna be on board for it.
Speaker 1: But I think that I'm going to choose the giad
Speaker 1: or the I think I'm gonna choose the garyl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to choose the garryl crocodile because
Speaker 1: I feel like I might have heard stories of catfish
Speaker 1: like eating people, so like, I think that that's actually
Speaker 1: from the show Catfish, where a cannibal convinces someone to
Speaker 1: dator and then she eats them. It was okay in
Speaker 1: this situation, was the cannibal a catfish that convinced was
Speaker 1: like the cannibal and actually catfish on the show, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a catfish on the show Catfish, and and
Speaker 1: the catfish catfished a human and then ate the human exactly. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, I I believe that. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna say the garryel crocodile just because I
Speaker 1: think I've heard of catfish eating humans. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: think catfish actually eat humans. Now, there is a thing
Speaker 1: that people will do called catfish noodling, where they will
Speaker 1: their arm in a catfish den and the catfish will
Speaker 1: chomp down on their arm and then they pull the
Speaker 1: catfish out of the water. Now, this is a very
Speaker 1: dangerous way to fish because first of all, catfish will
Speaker 1: bite you and maybe hurt you that way. Also, it
Speaker 1: can pull you under and if you get stuck and
Speaker 1: you are trying to get this catfish and the catfish
Speaker 1: is pulling you under the water, you can drown. And
Speaker 1: there is another very important reason not to mess with catfish.
Speaker 1: So catfish are a group of species of bottom feeding
Speaker 1: fish found all over the world, and they're called catfish
Speaker 1: because many of these species, most of them do have
Speaker 1: these whiskers on their mouth area. They are called barbels,
Speaker 1: and those are sensory organs. They're also called catfish because
Speaker 1: they love laser pointers, right exactly, Yes, yes, if you
Speaker 1: bring a laser pointer under the water. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: a fun time with the catfish. Not really, So catfish
Speaker 1: do not have scales. They actually have this smooth, mucus
Speaker 1: covered skin which helps them respiate so they can take
Speaker 1: in oxygen and do gas exchange through their skin, which
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting. And the reason you don't really want
Speaker 1: to cuddle a catfish is that they possess very powerful weapons.
Speaker 1: They have spines on their fins that can wound you,
Speaker 1: and in some species they deliver a stinging venom. In fact,
Speaker 1: so many species of catfish are venomous that the Sluri forms,
Speaker 1: which is the group of catfish, win the prize for
Speaker 1: the vertebrate order with the most venomous species. This is
Speaker 1: how I find out that I didn't win that award. Gee, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: the Joey Cliff's order does not have the most venomous species.
Speaker 1: True nuts, it's actually wait, what was that? Goddamn I
Speaker 1: was gonna do a bit about Joan Rivers and then
Speaker 1: I forgot about what Joan Rivers name was, so you know,
Speaker 1: and she's also dead. So it's also dead because she
Speaker 1: was filled with too much venom. She produces all the
Speaker 1: all the people like under thirties something. Listening to this,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be wondering what the hell is going on?
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, yeah, so like next next you're gonna
Speaker 1: talk like talk about Charlemagne from a first person of like, look,
Speaker 1: I was telling Charlemagne this joke and he loved it.
Speaker 1: So the most dangerous species of catfish are the Heteroneustis
Speaker 1: and plotosas So. Heteroneustis are a genus of Asian catfish
Speaker 1: which can hospitalize humans with their powerful stings, which are
Speaker 1: also extremely painful. So you know it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: bad time with these catfish. Unfortunately, have you have you
Speaker 1: ever been stung by anything with venom? You know, I
Speaker 1: have lived a blessed life where I have actually not
Speaker 1: been stung by that many animals. And maybe it's because
Speaker 1: they since I'm an ally or something, but I have
Speaker 1: never been stung by a bee. I've only gotten very
Speaker 1: mild spider bites. I don't think. I don't even think
Speaker 1: I've ever gotten a jellyfish sting. And I lived next
Speaker 1: to the beach for like growing up, so yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I haven't. Um I think that. I also, I am
Speaker 1: just such an indoor person that I don't think I
Speaker 1: ever have. The closest I think I've come is when
Speaker 1: I was two years old, a bee flew into my eye.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it didn't sting me. And I remember literally
Speaker 1: like like pointing and like I have vivid memories of
Speaker 1: pointing at this large bee and being like, look, mom,
Speaker 1: a bee and then like just like track me with
Speaker 1: my finger as it flew into my eye and being like, so,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't really say from a firsthand experience
Speaker 1: what venom feels like, but like, if it's anything like
Speaker 1: a bee flying into your eye, it sucks. It's bad.
Speaker 1: It makes you cry like a two year old. There's
Speaker 1: this biologist and I forgot his name, but he went
Speaker 1: around the world ranking the painfulness of stings and guess
Speaker 1: how he did it by just stinging himself with a
Speaker 1: bunch of different animals. Yeah, it's't that. What is what
Speaker 1: is that? The the Kinsey scale or what is that? No,
Speaker 1: the Kinzie scale is sexual? They think, Oh right, I'm dumb.
Speaker 1: How sexual you feel towards venomous animals? Okay, god, oh
Speaker 1: then I'm like a twelve out of out of one. Um, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, uh yeah, I I've definitely read about that. Guy. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean that's why, like it's it's a scale of
Speaker 1: like one to five or something like that. I think
Speaker 1: that like bullet ants and murder hornets are like the
Speaker 1: far are like the higher end of it. And then
Speaker 1: I want to say that there's also just like a
Speaker 1: guy with a YouTube channel. Now that's just like, watch
Speaker 1: me get stung by this bug? Oh really, is this
Speaker 1: a real thing or do you think it just no
Speaker 1: is a real thing. It's like, well, I know what
Speaker 1: I'm doing after we wrap this up. Oh yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: send you a link. Everybody watching, everybody listening to this,
Speaker 1: just google YouTube sting guy. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: actually what its channel is called, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Guy getting stung by something will come up, Guy getting
Speaker 1: stung by something the name of the channel. So the
Speaker 1: other group of species of catfish that you really really
Speaker 1: do not want to mess with our the plotosis. So
Speaker 1: Plotosis are a genus of catfish that live in the
Speaker 1: Indian Ocean in New Guinea and the Western Pacific. They
Speaker 1: live in fresh, brackish and marine water, so they're They're
Speaker 1: found in a good variety of places, and some species
Speaker 1: can get as big as four ft long, and their
Speaker 1: stings are extremely venomous. So one species, the striped eel catfish,
Speaker 1: has a sting so powerful it can be lethal. They
Speaker 1: are pretty unassuming looking. They're actually kind of cute in
Speaker 1: my opinion. There it's that photo that I showed you.
Speaker 1: They've got the little whiskers, they've got that silly little
Speaker 1: catfish mouth. But I don't find that's something that cute
Speaker 1: could harm me. It's so cute. Yeah, they have these
Speaker 1: black and white stripes. They're like a little stripy water kitty.
Speaker 1: Cute little water kitty. But it will kill you if
Speaker 1: it stings you, and if you're it doesn't always kill
Speaker 1: you if you're stung by one of these catfish, but
Speaker 1: if you're lucky enough not to die, they can cause
Speaker 1: necrosis and that can require amputations. So you know that's
Speaker 1: not great. I don't think. I mean, I think that, like, look,
Speaker 1: if that's the risk I gotta take to pet a catfish,
Speaker 1: then like that's the risk death or amputation, amputation or
Speaker 1: or cuddling as slimy animal. I will choose cuddle. You're
Speaker 1: willing to put it all on the line for these catfish. Yep.
Speaker 1: Uh So in contrast, the garyl crocodile is extremely frightening looking.
Speaker 1: So it is a crocodile, as is perhaps observable by
Speaker 1: its name. So crocodiles are a very very old order
Speaker 1: of reptiles, originating over eighty million years ago, and garyles
Speaker 1: have been around a little more recently, so they're only
Speaker 1: five million years old, fresh and uh sort of spry
Speaker 1: five million years and they are found in very small
Speaker 1: numbers and a handful of Nepal and India's freshwater river systems.
Speaker 1: They're actually critically endangered, and they used to be found
Speaker 1: in a much wider range in the northern Indian subcontinent,
Speaker 1: but now there is just kind of a handful of
Speaker 1: them left. And these are big, big, big guys. They
Speaker 1: grow from eight to nineteen ft long, and they way
Speaker 1: up to two thousand pounds. So you know, that's that's chunky.
Speaker 1: I am looking at the picture of you sent me
Speaker 1: of this crocodile. I wouldn't have guessed that it's so
Speaker 1: big because it just looks so happy, like it's like
Speaker 1: a it's like a side view, and its mouth is
Speaker 1: open really wide, and it looks like it's saying high, howdy, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's and it's kind of cute because it has well, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess my definition of cute is maybe, you know, unique.
Speaker 1: But it has this really long, thin snout with a
Speaker 1: hundred and ten two hundred and twelve really sharp teeth,
Speaker 1: and they I don't know, it's just kind of funny
Speaker 1: to me that they have these huge bodies and then
Speaker 1: these really long, skinny snouts. I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of cute. There's there's not. It just does
Speaker 1: look like it looks kind of like, oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: that's a Pixar character. But they are actually carnivores, and
Speaker 1: they look kind of I don't know, they look very prehistoric,
Speaker 1: maybe even more so than other crocodiles. Like just it's
Speaker 1: that weird proportion of these long snouts with all these
Speaker 1: teeth sticking out, and they just look like, uh, something
Speaker 1: from before humans were around. Yeah, I mean, what's isn't
Speaker 1: that the story of like crocodiles have evolved the least
Speaker 1: of I mean, it's like they're like a crocodile today
Speaker 1: and a crocodile ten million years ago looks like basically
Speaker 1: the same thing. Yeah, Yeah, they haven't evolved all that
Speaker 1: much I mean, we know that they have evolved somewhat,
Speaker 1: especially because like you know, you see the garryl crocodile
Speaker 1: that's about five million years old, and then the older
Speaker 1: crocodiles are over eighty million years old, so there's some
Speaker 1: evolution and different species coming up. But yeah, they haven't
Speaker 1: really had to change all that much. I mean, I
Speaker 1: get it this, this crocodile definitely does look it looks
Speaker 1: like it looks cute. I don't know that that crocodile
Speaker 1: doesn't have to change a thing. You don't have to.
Speaker 1: I I love it for the way it is. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to change for me, and it is to
Speaker 1: make you fall even more in love. They're pretty shy,
Speaker 1: so they don't tend to trifle with prey larger than
Speaker 1: a fish. Those long snouts with all those scary looking
Speaker 1: teeth are actually just used for fishing. They have sensory
Speaker 1: cells on the tips of their snouts that can feel
Speaker 1: vibrations in the water, so they just kind of snap
Speaker 1: up fish and skewer them in those rows and rows
Speaker 1: of teeth. Um, do you think that every time it
Speaker 1: does that, it makes like a gulping sound, like its
Speaker 1: small as a fish? And then just goes like I do. Yes, absolutely, oh,
Speaker 1: and it gets cuter. So they actually typically kind of
Speaker 1: like run away from humans, and those really highly specialized
Speaker 1: jaws are not used for stalking and hunting and chomping
Speaker 1: down on bigger prey, and it probably so when it
Speaker 1: does attack a human, it can't really do all that
Speaker 1: much damage. I have seen these claims online where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's jaw strength is really weak, but that's actually not true.
Speaker 1: As far as I can tell from the latest research,
Speaker 1: their bite force is the same as any other crocodile
Speaker 1: its size. It's just that, first of all, it's non
Speaker 1: aggressive with humans. It's very shy, it'll shy away from us,
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't hunt big prey, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: really occur to it to go and bite you necessarily,
Speaker 1: and if it does, it usually realizes its mistake and
Speaker 1: runs away. So actually, biology professor and crocodile and alligator
Speaker 1: researcher Greg Ericsson describes the way that crocodile bite force
Speaker 1: works like this. He says, quote, it is analogous to
Speaker 1: putting different attachments on a weed eater, like a grass cutter,
Speaker 1: brush cutter, tree tremor they all have the same type
Speaker 1: of engine. There are bigger and smaller engines with higher
Speaker 1: and lower horsepower, but they have the same attachments. So
Speaker 1: so I have a question, Uh, do you fill them
Speaker 1: with gasoline? Do you fill the gary with gasolink that
Speaker 1: they're an engine? Is that like? Do I? Is that
Speaker 1: how you make them bite? Um? I wouldn't recommend it personally,
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I'm not a mechanic and I'm
Speaker 1: not a crocodile mechanic, but I don't think you should
Speaker 1: fill them with gasoline. I wish I wish that. I
Speaker 1: wish that. I was about to say, I wish that
Speaker 1: you were a crocodile mechanic, but then I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be selfish. I wish I was a crocodile can.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you if you get a garryle
Speaker 1: and you put some fish around your weeds, it probably
Speaker 1: will trim the weeds. I guess it's yeah, like trying
Speaker 1: to go for the You're like holding this massive procodile
Speaker 1: and it's like snapping out the fish and maybe it'll
Speaker 1: get a few weeds in there. Yeah, I buy that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like efficient, but I feel like
Speaker 1: I feel like it would work. It's not efficient. So yeah.
Speaker 1: So basically, the garyls are big enough to have a
Speaker 1: big bite force, and they do. It's just they have
Speaker 1: these little weed trimmer snouts and you know, they probably
Speaker 1: could do a little bit of damage to a person
Speaker 1: if they wanted to. They just don't want to. And
Speaker 1: I find that really sweet and adorable. I feel like
Speaker 1: weed trimmers are like I don't like, if you got
Speaker 1: hit by a weed trimmer, it wouldn't if it was
Speaker 1: like the one with the string on it, Like, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't kill you, Like it would hurt, but like, well
Speaker 1: not if you're not doing it creatively. Yeah, wait what
Speaker 1: do you mean by that? Nothing? Nothing? Nothing. So the
Speaker 1: garryl they're very shy. They haven't been able to find
Speaker 1: a single case of a garryle killing a human and
Speaker 1: there have only been three recorded cases of non fatal
Speaker 1: attacks since the seventies, which makes them far less lethal
Speaker 1: and less dangerous than a catfish than even dogs and deer.
Speaker 1: And do you actually kill a lot of people every
Speaker 1: year just because of car accidents? Yes, they're they're the
Speaker 1: lemmings of the road. Like basically, instead of jumping off cliffs.
Speaker 1: Now I do have to do for legal purposes defending
Speaker 1: the honor of the lemmings. Lemmings don't actually follow each
Speaker 1: other off of cliffs. That is a dirty lie made
Speaker 1: to slander the Limmings, and they actually don't follow each
Speaker 1: other off of cliffs. But yeah, dear, do seem to
Speaker 1: love to get into car accidents with people. I think
Speaker 1: it's an insurance scam. I think the deer are trying
Speaker 1: to get insurance out of it. Last, do you do
Speaker 1: you think that that that lemming lie has been spread
Speaker 1: by big lemming? Big lemming? Why would it be spread
Speaker 1: by big Lemming. It would be like spread by big
Speaker 1: Marmot or something. Yeah you got a point, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: get it. So with these garry attacks, most of them
Speaker 1: appear to be the garryle just being confused and thinking
Speaker 1: that the person is a fish. So like if you're
Speaker 1: out bathing or swimming, they mistake body part of the
Speaker 1: human as a fish and they give it a bite
Speaker 1: and then they're like, oh my god, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I I didn't realize you're a person, and they run away.
Speaker 1: And then then the one case since the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: where it was like a serious attack. It was probably
Speaker 1: actually mistaken identity, so it was recorded as either being
Speaker 1: a garile crocodile or a mugger crocodile. And mugger crocodile
Speaker 1: share the same waters as the garryles and they're much
Speaker 1: more aggressive and dangerous to humans, so I think it
Speaker 1: was a mugger crocodile. To be fair, the the human
Speaker 1: that that crocodile killed arms and legs were made of fish,
Speaker 1: so it was really asking for it by going in that. Well,
Speaker 1: didn it didn't even kill the person, So even if
Speaker 1: this is a garyl, there's not even a single case
Speaker 1: of an alleged garile attack where the person died or
Speaker 1: even sustained really life threatening injuries. So yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: sounds like just the dictionary definition of like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they're more afraid of you than you are of them,
Speaker 1: so exactly, exactly, And just in case you haven't fallen
Speaker 1: in love with the garry ale yet, here are some
Speaker 1: more cute facts. So males have a little bulbous protrusion
Speaker 1: on the tips of their snout called a mud pot.
Speaker 1: They use these as resonance chambers to help them make
Speaker 1: mating calls, and they also blow bubbles to impress the female.
Speaker 1: I hope that those males, I don't know. I love
Speaker 1: those males little mudpots. It's just such a cute. It's
Speaker 1: such a cute courtship thing of like, may I blow
Speaker 1: you a bubble? Ma'am. Well, it's also just that they're
Speaker 1: called mud pots is adorable. It is pretty cute. They
Speaker 1: also let out cries when they're in pain that has
Speaker 1: been described as sounding like bawling. They're like just these
Speaker 1: long snouted, shy, little bubble blow and cry babies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thinking about it, I really think I made the right choice,
Speaker 1: even if catfish don't eat people like yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I made the right child choice. And wanting to cuddle
Speaker 1: a gariel, Yeah yeah, I mean, don't don't cuddle it,
Speaker 1: just respectfully socially distanced, say hello to a gariel. Oh
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, I'm gonna cuddle. Oh oh please don't.
Speaker 1: The Creature Feature podcast is not endorsed cuddling any kind
Speaker 1: of crocodile, including the gariel. Do not try this at home. Okay,
Speaker 1: good now that now that that's clear. Don't listen to
Speaker 1: her do it? It sounds great. Legalist flamer just makes
Speaker 1: me want to do it more. Yeah, no, they I
Speaker 1: mean it's gonna be they will be traumatized if you
Speaker 1: try to cuddle them. They are so shy. Just you know,
Speaker 1: be respectful, Be respectful of the gariel. And they're critically endangered,
Speaker 1: so I feel like we should really care about them.
Speaker 1: Even if they're kind of scary looking. They are adorable
Speaker 1: and sweet and they need our help. Okay, So I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna Okay, so I won't cuddle a gariel. I
Speaker 1: will just appreciate. I'll just smile multiple times throughout the
Speaker 1: next week whenever I think of the term mudpot, that's
Speaker 1: perfectly fine. Why is catfishing called catfishing? You know the
Speaker 1: phrase that means someone pretends to be someone online, like
Speaker 1: pretending to be the King of Norway, but when you
Speaker 1: meet him it turns out he's just three dogs in
Speaker 1: a trench coat. You think it's because catfish look cute
Speaker 1: but can be sinister. Sadly, that's not where the term
Speaker 1: comes from. The phrase gets its meaning from the movie Catfish, Uh,
Speaker 1: kind of documentary about a man forming a relationship with
Speaker 1: a woman who isn't who she says she is. The
Speaker 1: term catfish is used by the woman's husband, who talks
Speaker 1: about how live cod are shipped from Alaska to Asia,
Speaker 1: but due to being sedentary, their muscles get mushy and
Speaker 1: they don't taste as good. So to keep them active,
Speaker 1: fishermen put catfish in their tanks to agitate them and
Speaker 1: keep them swimming around. Thus, the woman in the story
Speaker 1: is the quote catfish keeping others on their toes. But
Speaker 1: is this true? Well, I have no idea about the
Speaker 1: veracity of the events in the documentary, but what about
Speaker 1: whether catfish are used to keep cod in shape. One
Speaker 1: of the explanations I've seen is that catfish are cod's
Speaker 1: quote natural enemy, But that's just not really true. God
Speaker 1: that would be caught near Alaska live in the Northern Pacific,
Speaker 1: their bottom dwellers, living deep in the cold ocean. And
Speaker 1: while there are catfish who live in the ocean, there
Speaker 1: aren't that many species in the Pacific Ocean, and those
Speaker 1: that are typically stick to tropical or temperate waters down
Speaker 1: near South America, far from the cold waters that the
Speaker 1: Northern Pacific cod inhabits, so they're not natural enemies. Nor
Speaker 1: can I find any record of fishermen actually trying to
Speaker 1: use this tactic to keep fish fit. That means that
Speaker 1: the story behind catfishing is itself a catfish. Or wait,
Speaker 1: it's not because the story is not true, so catfish doesn't.
Speaker 1: Never mind, forget it. When we return, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about another couple of water dwelling credits. One is
Speaker 1: a sweetheart and the other could kill around thirty people
Speaker 1: and under a minute. Appearances can be deceiving or sometimes
Speaker 1: they're not. Sometimes an animal looks sinister with huge teeth
Speaker 1: and huge claws, and it turns out yep, it's a
Speaker 1: grizzly bear and it will definitely tear you to pieces.
Speaker 1: Making snap judgments about what animals are most likely to
Speaker 1: kill us probably saved a lot of our ancient ancestors keysters.
Speaker 1: But now that we have the modern technology of podcasting,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at some of these animals and
Speaker 1: see if the science backs up our initial impressions. So, Joey,
Speaker 1: I think you probably know the answer to this section.
Speaker 1: But who would you rather cuddle a cute little octopus
Speaker 1: or one of the biggest sharks in the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I I know that the blue ring octopus is
Speaker 1: one of the most venomous animals out there, so I
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't pick the blue ring octopus. But the basking
Speaker 1: shark is a large shark whose mouth looks like it's
Speaker 1: out of just a Cathulu story. I could be tricking you,
Speaker 1: like this could be the section where I'm like, they
Speaker 1: both kill you and eat you dead. Congratulations, you lose.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that I want to cuddle the I
Speaker 1: want to say I want to cuddle the basking shark.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's take a look at the basking
Speaker 1: shark then. So the basking shark is the second largest
Speaker 1: shark in the world, second to the whale shark. It
Speaker 1: will be the biggest some day, don't you worry? Buddy. Well,
Speaker 1: I feel like Finding Dory has kind of given the
Speaker 1: whale sharks some really good press, you know, because it
Speaker 1: was that that character in Finding Dory. What was the
Speaker 1: whale sharks name? I don't remember. Yeah, I'm sure if
Speaker 1: I've seen Finding Dory, but I'm sure it's cute. That
Speaker 1: movie look cute. There's this like near sighted whale shark
Speaker 1: and it's very cute. But yeah, the whale sharks are
Speaker 1: also cute and harmless. Um, but basking sharks look a
Speaker 1: lot more menacing than a whale shark. Whale sharks kind
Speaker 1: of they're cute, they have little spots, they look kind
Speaker 1: of happy and friendly, But basking sharks have these massive,
Speaker 1: massive mouths. It has gray skin. It grows to be
Speaker 1: around twenty six ft, which is eight meters long, and
Speaker 1: it can reach lengths up to forty five ft and
Speaker 1: way up to ten thousand pounds, and they can live
Speaker 1: to be around fifty years old. So they really are
Speaker 1: sort of a I don't know, just like this, they
Speaker 1: look like this ancient monster from the depths, and like
Speaker 1: looking at the photo, like its mouth really looks like
Speaker 1: like it looks like it's opening its neck into its
Speaker 1: rib change basically right, it looks like a portal into
Speaker 1: the nether world. And like, although like the basking shark
Speaker 1: picture that you sent me, like he does look puffy
Speaker 1: like in a cute way. And then like it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I I kind of would like to pet the stuffed
Speaker 1: animal version of a basking shark, but I also am
Speaker 1: aware of that shark skin. It's like if you pet
Speaker 1: the wrong way, can like cut you open. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually they have denticles, little protrusions coming out of their
Speaker 1: skin that are actually quite rough. Yeah, it feels like
Speaker 1: sand papery. But but my point stands, I would like
Speaker 1: to cuttle that shark. I will take that risk. They
Speaker 1: do look like pretus stark monsters, and because they kind
Speaker 1: of are prehistoric monsters, they evolved around four hundred million
Speaker 1: years ago, and one of their most notable features, other
Speaker 1: than just being ginormous, is that they have that huge mouth.
Speaker 1: They have rows and rows of teeth in the mouth,
Speaker 1: and they can open the mouths incredibly wide enough for
Speaker 1: an adult human to just kind of waltz right into
Speaker 1: if you wanted to just like do to do here
Speaker 1: I walk into a shark mouth. But as you may
Speaker 1: have guests from this sort of overall redemption arc of
Speaker 1: this episode, they are harmless to humans. The teeth that
Speaker 1: are in their mouth are tiny, and the real business
Speaker 1: end of this shark are all of the little gill breakers.
Speaker 1: These are bristles on the inside of its mouth that
Speaker 1: help them catch plankton because they're just filter feeders. So okay,
Speaker 1: so basely I could I could walk into the mouth
Speaker 1: of basking shark and not die. Ah Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I wouldn't try it because you could drown if you
Speaker 1: get stuck in there, you could you could hurt the
Speaker 1: basking shark, but it's probably not going to know what
Speaker 1: to do with you. It's probably just gonna try to
Speaker 1: get away from you. I'm not gonna want you in
Speaker 1: its mouth. I mean, did you ask the basking shark.
Speaker 1: Did you ask, like hello, knock on its front mouth
Speaker 1: part and be like, you know, knock knock here I am,
Speaker 1: and it's just gonna be like, uh no, you're not
Speaker 1: planketon like please don't uh do you think I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think it basking shark has a doorbellancenout and
Speaker 1: no solicitors. H Yeah. I feel like if you knocked
Speaker 1: on the side of a basking shark like it was
Speaker 1: a door, then it would open up. There's like a
Speaker 1: couch in there, and it's like the other version of Pinocchio,
Speaker 1: where instead of getting eaten up by a big old
Speaker 1: meanwhile they were eaten by the super chill basking shark
Speaker 1: and it's like, hey, we actually kind of like it
Speaker 1: in here. I feel like if if a basking shark
Speaker 1: mouth is big enough to walk into, like, I feel
Speaker 1: like a basking shark's mouth is probably bigger than most
Speaker 1: of our apartments. We should live inside basking sharks exactly.
Speaker 1: It's good rent rent controlled basking sharks. Yeah, So they
Speaker 1: feed by moving forward with their giant mouth agape, and
Speaker 1: they suck in massive amounts of water, and that water
Speaker 1: flows through their mouth over their gills, and the plankton
Speaker 1: gets stuck on their gill raker bristles. So when you
Speaker 1: look at that open mouth, you see all those white bands,
Speaker 1: and those are areas where the gill attaches to the shark,
Speaker 1: and then on those sort of like white bony structures
Speaker 1: are these raker bristles, and then it's just you know,
Speaker 1: the plankton and other small marine life gets stuck in
Speaker 1: there and it's got a nice snack. Um. I'm curious about,
Speaker 1: like how much how many pounds of plankton does a
Speaker 1: basking shark have to eat to survive, because like, yeah,
Speaker 1: plankton is fairly small and basking sharks are gigantic. Are
Speaker 1: they sucking in like a ton of plankton per day?
Speaker 1: Like what? I don't know, I mean, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how much plankton itself they suck in. They do suck
Speaker 1: in a thousand, eight hundred metric tons of water every hour.
Speaker 1: So that's like, what is that it's like for that's like,
Speaker 1: that's like four big gulps a lot. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a lot. But they also have the smallest brain to
Speaker 1: body ratio of any shark, so we do know that
Speaker 1: brain size is not always an accurate predictor of intelligence.
Speaker 1: But it's also true that these basking sharks are really
Speaker 1: don't need all that much brain because they are very
Speaker 1: they're very chill dudes. They have a very passive lifestyle.
Speaker 1: They don't have to they don't really have predators to
Speaker 1: speak of. They you know, just swim through the ocean
Speaker 1: lazily slurping up plankton. They are the very picture of
Speaker 1: chillness in the ocean. Ah, so it's a big old
Speaker 1: dummies what you're saying, So big old dom dum. So
Speaker 1: it's like it's like if if a shark was Garfield,
Speaker 1: it's that these are the car You're totally right, these
Speaker 1: are I'm gonna I'm gonna cram so much lasagna down
Speaker 1: the sharks. Well, if it's lasagna but it's made out
Speaker 1: of krill in plankton, I'm sure it would appreciate that.
Speaker 1: What do you think the shark's opinions on Monday's are
Speaker 1: I don't think it likes it. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: fond of the Monday. Yeah, I don't think so. And
Speaker 1: then like normal is just like a pupper fit man,
Speaker 1: Let's okay, uh like a million dollar idea. Let's make
Speaker 1: shark field shark field. He's always trying to trying to
Speaker 1: male normal. The pufferfish to Atlantists, so they are they're
Speaker 1: so relaxed, they're not aggressive at all. They often bask
Speaker 1: near the surface of the water, so that's their name, uh,
Speaker 1: filter feeding and enjoying the warmth. But they're so incredibly
Speaker 1: chill that they don't try to avoid boats. And so
Speaker 1: these poor guys often get injured by boats because they're
Speaker 1: just like two chill ax to like run away from
Speaker 1: a boat and they're like, oh, that looks like a
Speaker 1: new friend, and then they get bonked on the head
Speaker 1: and sounds I know, I know, but there's there's such
Speaker 1: big sweeties, we got it. We gotta protect them, gotta
Speaker 1: be careful, have good boat etiquette around these these just
Speaker 1: big old fun girl garf sharks. So I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: a shipping question, who who would you friendship ship a
Speaker 1: basking shark and a catfish, or a basking shark and
Speaker 1: a garryl crocodile. I would definitely be the basking shark
Speaker 1: and the garryl. I think, yeah, like they're like one
Speaker 1: is like really chill, and it's not that it's like
Speaker 1: super shy. Like the basking shark is not shy, it's
Speaker 1: just like laid back. But then the garryl is really shy.
Speaker 1: So it's like, I think a laid back h shark
Speaker 1: and like a really shy crocodile would get along pretty well,
Speaker 1: just like it's okay, little buddy, it's just that Captain
Speaker 1: Hokey shut a jerk. They would not be found in
Speaker 1: the same environment, but you know, just as a thought experiment,
Speaker 1: they would definitely beat buddy up. I think I agree.
Speaker 1: Have a buddy comedy. That buddy comedy, me too, me too.
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about one of the smallest octopuses
Speaker 1: in the world, who is a lovely little cutie. I
Speaker 1: love this octopus and it'll wreck you. It'll totally destroy you.
Speaker 1: So there is a group of small octopus species called
Speaker 1: the blue ringed octopuses, and Joey, I know you know
Speaker 1: about these guys and also are and appreciate these blue
Speaker 1: ringed octopuses. Yeah, something that I love about blue ringed
Speaker 1: octopuses is that like they look the most like a
Speaker 1: squeaky toy. Like it's just this bright octopus. That's like
Speaker 1: I think they're around like ten centimeters in length in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, including arm length. Yeah, they're like
Speaker 1: five to eight inches to twenty centimeters, like very teeny, meanie.
Speaker 1: They could fit in the palm of your hand, and
Speaker 1: like they just looked out of there, like they're covered
Speaker 1: in blue colored in like spots that are blue and yellow,
Speaker 1: and like it's just they look so cuddly, but they're
Speaker 1: one of the most venomous animals in the entire animal
Speaker 1: into them. Yes, they look like they come from candy
Speaker 1: Land and they're here to be your friend, but they
Speaker 1: are most assuredly not. And speaking of fitting into your palm,
Speaker 1: I see, I've seen so many pictures of people like
Speaker 1: holding these in their palm, and it makes me shutter
Speaker 1: and cringe every time I see it. It's you you
Speaker 1: do not want to touch them, which you will find
Speaker 1: out why very soon. So the blue ringed octopuses are
Speaker 1: found in the Indian and Pacific oceans near Australia and Japan,
Speaker 1: and like many other octopus species, they eat small prey
Speaker 1: like crustaceans, shrimp, and other small marine animals. And as
Speaker 1: their name suggests, they are covered in beautiful, bright blue rings.
Speaker 1: If you if you haven't seen a picture of a
Speaker 1: blue ring octopus, just google it. They genuinely look really cool.
Speaker 1: They're very cool looking, and they can actually change their
Speaker 1: color like a lot of other cephalopods and octopuses, so
Speaker 1: the rest of their skin is often a kind of
Speaker 1: modeled round and tan, which helps them blend into their environment,
Speaker 1: and the blue rings aren't as noticeable, but if you
Speaker 1: provoke them, they will turn a brilliant yellow and they're
Speaker 1: bright blue rings flash a warning at you. So they
Speaker 1: are able to do this like other octopuses, using chrematophores,
Speaker 1: which are color changing cells in their skin, and that
Speaker 1: allows them to turn from that sort of camouflage modeled
Speaker 1: color to a bright yellow and then to actually make
Speaker 1: those blue rings flash, they don't use chrematophores. They use
Speaker 1: muscle contractions to create this like rapid flashing of these rings,
Speaker 1: and it's beautiful to look at and it might be
Speaker 1: the last thing you see, honestly, do you I'm gonna
Speaker 1: spill some blue ring octopus expert T yeah, do it okay?
Speaker 1: So Um. A couple of years ago, I was working
Speaker 1: on a national geographic show and we were doing a
Speaker 1: segment on blueing octopuses. I was emailing with a bluing
Speaker 1: octopus expert whose name escaves me at the moment, but
Speaker 1: she was she was really great, and um, after doing
Speaker 1: an interview with her about the blue ring octopus, basically
Speaker 1: like sent me an all caps email that was just like,
Speaker 1: please don't tell people that their venom is located in
Speaker 1: the chromato force. And I was and like, at no
Speaker 1: point do I think that I referenced that to her
Speaker 1: as a thing that I was going to bring up.
Speaker 1: I think it's something that she just felt like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is what this researcher is personally very frustrated by.
Speaker 1: So oh I see, I see. So they're there people
Speaker 1: think that the venom is in the chromato force. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: or like the venom is like it's created by the
Speaker 1: camato force, or like the venom connected and yeah, It's
Speaker 1: like I got like an all caps of just like
Speaker 1: please love God, don't help help people that, and I
Speaker 1: was like, listen, it's a dangerous rumor that everyone's talking about.
Speaker 1: It makes me very mad. It's trending on Twitter every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, so I guess what I actually So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a real sneaky one and say that
Speaker 1: they are caused by the crematophor. No, they're not. They're not.
Speaker 1: So it's funny because they're not super aggressive, but if
Speaker 1: you if they think you're about to eat them, they
Speaker 1: will kill you with the most venomous bite that you
Speaker 1: can get in the ocean. So they are the world's
Speaker 1: most venomous marine animal. They are brimming with neurotoxic tetradotoxin,
Speaker 1: which they will release into you by biting you with
Speaker 1: their cute little beak, and they have enough venom in
Speaker 1: their little, itty bitty bodies to kill around thirty adult humans.
Speaker 1: So since we're under quarantine, that's more people that I've
Speaker 1: had in person interactions with in five months, which is actually,
Speaker 1: I'm not that cool. That's honestly probably how it would
Speaker 1: have been even without quarantine. Another thing that's really interesting
Speaker 1: about blueing octopus venom is um. One of the ways
Speaker 1: that they hunt their venom is soap pot potent is
Speaker 1: they'll basically just drip their saliva out of their mouths
Speaker 1: into the water around them, and then fish will swim
Speaker 1: through the saliva and then get instantly realized and they'll
Speaker 1: be like, oh, this is easy, Well, don't mind if
Speaker 1: I do. It's like, well, I guess if this is
Speaker 1: just paralyzed in front of me, so yeah, And but
Speaker 1: if it bites you, it can kill you within just
Speaker 1: a few minutes, and it kills There's a few things
Speaker 1: that happens when you get that venom in your body,
Speaker 1: and they're all bad. So you can get heart failure,
Speaker 1: respiratory arrest, and total paralysis of your body. And if
Speaker 1: you're not treated, you will most likely die, usually from
Speaker 1: suffocation because your diaphragm is paralyzed and you can't breathe.
Speaker 1: So you need your diet the contraction of your diaphragm
Speaker 1: to be able to have your lungs function, and if
Speaker 1: that's not working, you can't breathe and you will die.
Speaker 1: So tetrad toxin, that narrotoxin that they are love to
Speaker 1: just like ooze out, works by blocking the sodium animals
Speaker 1: that neurons need to function, which prevents your brain from
Speaker 1: sending signals to the rest of your body, and you're
Speaker 1: basically your nervous system from working. And yeah, it's bad.
Speaker 1: How many people do you think the last words were, Hey, Mark,
Speaker 1: check out this front the octopus? Oh you know probably several. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll mess you up. Yeah, and there's no anti venom,
Speaker 1: so to survive, you have to have some form of
Speaker 1: artificial respiration until the toxin works its way out of
Speaker 1: your body. So if you're put on a ventilator or
Speaker 1: you know, given CPR, and you know, basically you have
Speaker 1: to somehow have someone else, a medical professional, preferably giving
Speaker 1: you oxygen until you can work that out of your body.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so it's it's not a good time. You
Speaker 1: do not want that to happen to you. Do not
Speaker 1: pick them up. I've seen pictures of these in people's
Speaker 1: hands and they're like bright yellow and bright blue spots,
Speaker 1: which means it's piste and it's like about to buy you.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's like watching videos of people like
Speaker 1: standing up on those big satellite towers or something. It's
Speaker 1: just every part of my body is clinching in total anxiety.
Speaker 1: Feel like there are a lot of YouTube videos of
Speaker 1: people like feeding bears out of their cars. It's just like,
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh god, it's just like this, And like,
Speaker 1: am I watching this on YouTube or live leaks? Because
Speaker 1: if it's YouTube, I probably find If it's live leaks,
Speaker 1: then I'm about to watch a murder, a bear murder.
Speaker 1: So what you're telling me about the blue ring octopus
Speaker 1: is that if I were to start a YouTube channel
Speaker 1: where I was getting stung by venomous animals and telling
Speaker 1: you how it felt, I should not start with the
Speaker 1: blue ring octopus. Yeah. Yeah, that's you shouldn't start or
Speaker 1: in with it. Although if you do in with it,
Speaker 1: that would, yeah, it would basically if you incorporate that
Speaker 1: into your weird show where you try to mutilate yourself
Speaker 1: with animals, that will be the end of your show.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, what I was about to say, I
Speaker 1: was about to say something something to the effect of
Speaker 1: like or what it, and then I was like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I would wants I would not survive that thing. But
Speaker 1: in terms of nitpicking over where the tetrato toxin is located,
Speaker 1: like you were talking about where the researcher was saying
Speaker 1: it's not in the chromatophores. Stop telling people that. So
Speaker 1: it's actually most of its body is full of tetrato toxin.
Speaker 1: It's found in almost every organ in its body, and
Speaker 1: it is created in the salivary glands, and it is
Speaker 1: actually produced by a symbiotic bacteria that lives in those
Speaker 1: salivary glands, and it helps them produce that toxin. And
Speaker 1: actually mother blue ring to octopuses will inject their eggs
Speaker 1: full of this u tetra to toxin. They hate their
Speaker 1: babies because they hate their babies. No, it helps them
Speaker 1: produce their own tech to toxin. So it's like they're
Speaker 1: giving them the bacteria and the recipe to create their
Speaker 1: own deadly, deadly toxin. I love recipes from mom. You know,
Speaker 1: I wish my mom pumped me full of tetradoxin before
Speaker 1: I was born. Mom, I love your cookie recipes. Could
Speaker 1: you give me something deadlier? Yeah? If I had, If
Speaker 1: I had deadly venom, man, how would my life be different?
Speaker 1: Hue flashback, flashback flashback. Uh yeah, And it's it's immune
Speaker 1: to its own venom, which I guess is good because
Speaker 1: otherwise would die. One thing I want to add for
Speaker 1: the blue ring octopus is if you if you're like
Speaker 1: hearing all this information about the blueing octopus and you're thinking, like, wow,
Speaker 1: bluing octopus seems real, full of himself, deadliest venom blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. They actually are hunted by like mantis shrimp,
Speaker 1: And if you go online, you can find a lot
Speaker 1: of videos of like mantis shrimp just using their fists
Speaker 1: to beat the ship out of bluing octopuses, really taking
Speaker 1: them down a peg. And it's it's the most like
Speaker 1: real life Pokemon, but in a way that's not that's
Speaker 1: weirdly not like disturbing. It's just like, oh, yeah, this
Speaker 1: blue rey octopus is just or this mantis shrimp is
Speaker 1: just pummeling this blue I don't know. I have a
Speaker 1: soft spot for octopuses, even ones that want to kill me,
Speaker 1: so I think I would be sad to see it
Speaker 1: just getting punched reputedly. Do you think the blurring octopus
Speaker 1: wants to kill you or no, they don't. They actually
Speaker 1: they kind of go out of the way not to
Speaker 1: kill you, so they will that's why they flash that
Speaker 1: warning at you. They're actually pretty shy. They don't like
Speaker 1: chase you and try to bite you. That it's like,
Speaker 1: if you pester it enough, it will eventually bite you
Speaker 1: because it thinks that you're about to kill it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that that coloration is actually api semtism. So it's saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm actually super deadly. You don't want to mess with me.
Speaker 1: Look at me. I'm like yellow and covered in pretty
Speaker 1: blue dots. And then you know it's like, hey, marthall,
Speaker 1: look at this cool octopus. It's so pretty. Underest humans,
Speaker 1: we don't we we don't understand what you're telling us. Animals.
Speaker 1: When you're pretty and bright, we want to suck on
Speaker 1: you like a lolly pop. Yeah, I really want to know,
Speaker 1: Like how many famous last words if people were, hey,
Speaker 1: check this thing out. I mean, it's funny that you
Speaker 1: would say that there are Like I remember reading about
Speaker 1: this thing in one of my biology classes where I
Speaker 1: was this guy who picked up a couple of cone
Speaker 1: snails and those are also they have very deadly harpoons
Speaker 1: that they can shoot at you with a neurotoxin. And
Speaker 1: he like picked it up and held it up and
Speaker 1: he was like like said something along those lines of
Speaker 1: like hey, check this out, and then it like shot
Speaker 1: him in his neck. And how is it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so don't if you don't recognize it and it's a
Speaker 1: wild animal, don't pick it up. Actually, unless it looks
Speaker 1: like a cat and go nuts because it's probably friendly. Right.
Speaker 1: Just have you learned nothing from our catfish section? I mean,
Speaker 1: look everything that I listened to win in one ear,
Speaker 1: and then in my mind I just remember the cat part,
Speaker 1: and then all the information just shot. It been too
Speaker 1: busy building the Garfield shark world to really retain any
Speaker 1: of this information. We already established it's called shark field. Sorry,
Speaker 1: shark field all right? How come it's mostly non mammals
Speaker 1: like invertebrates, fish, and reptiles who get all the cool
Speaker 1: deadly venom. Mammals can have venom, such as the slow
Speaker 1: lorist platypus and Solenodon, a cute little shrew like animal
Speaker 1: with a poisonous bite, but most of us mammals are
Speaker 1: stuck with our fur, hair and milk. Well, evolution doesn't
Speaker 1: really care about what we think would be cool. All
Speaker 1: that matters is whether you live to pass on your gene.
Speaker 1: And it turns out mammals have other more effective tools
Speaker 1: for doing that sharp claws, teeth and in primate hands
Speaker 1: and a brain, which means we can defend ourselves and
Speaker 1: kill things even quicker than most venom works. While it's
Speaker 1: true that the blue ring octopus can kill things and
Speaker 1: under a minute, most venom takes a while to kick in,
Speaker 1: whereas teeth and claws can typically take something down much faster,
Speaker 1: so we don't really need venom to get the job done.
Speaker 1: Whereas an itty bitty, squashy octopus has very few other
Speaker 1: weapons at its disposal, so it needs something to keep
Speaker 1: other fish and marine animals from treating it like a
Speaker 1: living couchh ball. When we return, we're getting out of
Speaker 1: the water crawling up on land to talk about a
Speaker 1: couple of very intimidating birdies. So birds, they're adorable, little
Speaker 1: feathery puff balls who chirp and cheap and steal the rito's.
Speaker 1: But once in a while there are bird species that
Speaker 1: remind us that they're actually living dinosaurs. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: meet two big birds and find out if they want
Speaker 1: to teach us about letters or you know, kill us. Joey,
Speaker 1: you know what like birds? Right? Yes, I'm well well
Speaker 1: aware that you were, uh the pre eminent bird meme
Speaker 1: creator on the Internet. That's right, that's right, the bird memes.
Speaker 1: It's gonna it's gonna go on my tombstone. Like created
Speaker 1: the bird memes, coined the word burb. Every time I
Speaker 1: see the word burb on the internet, like I do
Speaker 1: think like Golden created that. Thank you. I think it's
Speaker 1: true too. I like did a little digging and I
Speaker 1: think one of my stupid bird tweets was the first
Speaker 1: to use that term. There could have been like parallel creation,
Speaker 1: you know, like parallel invention someone else at the same time.
Speaker 1: But you know, I like to credit myself because it
Speaker 1: makes me feel good and powerful. So powerful, yes, you
Speaker 1: and you controlled the bourb Empire. I am in charge
Speaker 1: bird memes and soon the world. So I want to
Speaker 1: talk about two birds who look I think they both
Speaker 1: look equally goofy and terrifying. And so you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to pick which one you want to just like chill
Speaker 1: out with and which one you're gonna try to avoid.
Speaker 1: So we have the cassowary and the shoe bill stork,
Speaker 1: and I have provided pictures of these guys to you.
Speaker 1: And the cassowary is a flightless bird who looks like
Speaker 1: a mop with the turkey head and the shoe bill
Speaker 1: stork is a huge stork like bird who has a
Speaker 1: massive beak and looks like the world's most terrifying bird muppet.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, shoebell stork is the animal that I
Speaker 1: would cuddle one because it just like looks it just
Speaker 1: like looks like a muppet. And then too, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, cassowaries like kill people by cutting them. I
Speaker 1: also thought that catfish eight people. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: what do I know? Yeah, so you have chosen correctly.
Speaker 1: I think you're you're three for three, right you. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: you have survived the animal gauntlet. So yes, Cassa waries
Speaker 1: you don't really want to mess with. And I will
Speaker 1: tell you exactly why. So. Cast A waries are a
Speaker 1: group of birds similar to the emu, but smaller, and
Speaker 1: they are actually related to the emu. They are found
Speaker 1: in Australia, Indonesia, the Maluku Islands, and Papua New Guinea.
Speaker 1: They grow up to five to six ft tall, so
Speaker 1: that's one point five to two meters and they have
Speaker 1: these bright blue heads, a pink wattle or an orange neck,
Speaker 1: and they basically it looks like a weird turkey head
Speaker 1: and the females are larger and more brightly colored than
Speaker 1: the males. Feminism clean slay literally, so they have a
Speaker 1: hard keratin casque on top of their heads. So a
Speaker 1: cask in birds is it's like this sort of like
Speaker 1: keratin structure and it looks like a shark fin on
Speaker 1: top of their heads. And it's speculated that it is
Speaker 1: used as like a resonance chamber for their call. And
Speaker 1: they can run up to thirty miles an hour. They
Speaker 1: can jump up to five ft and they're good swimmers,
Speaker 1: so you cannot escape these these uh, terrible beasts. It
Speaker 1: says a lot about how I view the world that
Speaker 1: when you said that, I looked up at the cast
Speaker 1: weary picture and then thought my initial thought when seeing
Speaker 1: it was like, why is that bird wearing that silly hat?
Speaker 1: And then I did not stop to it all analyze.
Speaker 1: The thought of just assuming that the bird was wearing
Speaker 1: a silly hat was weird, and I was just like, well,
Speaker 1: carrying on, I think it pulls it off, honestly, get
Speaker 1: it works. Yeah. But they so they mostly eat fruit,
Speaker 1: and they are omnivores, so they'll eat invertebrates and small vertebrates.
Speaker 1: They don't hunt people, but they can absolutely kill you
Speaker 1: if they want to, if they feel like it. So they,
Speaker 1: like you said, they can cut people because they have
Speaker 1: an enormous dagger on each of their feet. It's like
Speaker 1: they have switchblades attached to their toes, so their inner
Speaker 1: toe has a five inch long sharp claw that can
Speaker 1: mess you right up. And they are attached to these
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful legs, so they can kick you, they can
Speaker 1: stomp on you while stabbing you. I mean, I would
Speaker 1: watch a horror movie where the slasher movie villain is
Speaker 1: a cassowary. I mean, if you think about like how
Speaker 1: Jurassic Parks should have looked, where all the dinosaurs had feathers,
Speaker 1: that's essentially it, right, like it those raptors had feathers.
Speaker 1: You look at that and yeah, like it, like that's
Speaker 1: just a feathered velociraptor right right exactly. Yeah. And they
Speaker 1: so you would think that they're probably just going around
Speaker 1: murdering everyone, And I think that the tails of their
Speaker 1: deadliness are a little bit overblown. So they don't hunt people,
Speaker 1: they don't go around killing everyone. But they are one
Speaker 1: of the only birds to have been definitely documented killing humans.
Speaker 1: So the other birds where there's like actual documentation of
Speaker 1: them killing people are maybe EMUs and chickens. To be
Speaker 1: fair about the chicken case, is that the chicken had
Speaker 1: a knife attached to its foot because it was in
Speaker 1: an illegal cockfight and it killed its owner. I think
Speaker 1: so in that case, the chicken was armed. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, big ups to that chicken, like
Speaker 1: fight the power. Yeah, can't say. I you know, I
Speaker 1: think the chicken was in the right in this case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that chickens are terrible. Yeah, that chicken's cool as part
Speaker 1: of the chicken revolution. Yeah, I'm just gonna believe that.
Speaker 1: That's that's basically chicken chick of Vara, Like chicken used
Speaker 1: its knife to like to like slay its captor and
Speaker 1: then now they live on a chicken island and they're
Speaker 1: all super planet of the chickens. A chicken Abraham Lincoln. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like Abraham chick Lynnet. I was trying to make it
Speaker 1: um Abraham Lincock. Yeah. No, no, that's all right, chick
Speaker 1: lab Lincoln and Lincoln. No it's not. Yeah, we've got
Speaker 1: to move on. We've got to move on. Kill us
Speaker 1: this a bit, well, no, we must, we must persevere.
Speaker 1: Like the mighty animals that we've talked to before that
Speaker 1: the person. So despite actually being capable of killing us,
Speaker 1: there have actually only been two recorded cases of a
Speaker 1: cassuary killing a person since nine nine. But they will
Speaker 1: mess you up if you tangle with them, so most
Speaker 1: of the time, even if they don't kill you, they
Speaker 1: will give you puncture wounds, broken bones, and lacerations, and uh,
Speaker 1: they usually attack in self defense. But the other reason
Speaker 1: that they can be so aggressive is because humans feed
Speaker 1: them and they become like like bears. If you feed bears,
Speaker 1: they will start to become very assertive and very aggressive
Speaker 1: because they want the food that you give them. Honestly,
Speaker 1: that makes me like cassuaries a little bit more because
Speaker 1: it's like a cat when it's like when it's like
Speaker 1: six in the morning, and like the cats, just like
Speaker 1: I want freck First, if you give a cassuary a cookie,
Speaker 1: it will stab you with its knife feet Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the children's book. But you know I'm a children's author. Now,
Speaker 1: if you give a Castwaria cookie, you will stab you
Speaker 1: with its knife hook knife yeah, yeah, my new book.
Speaker 1: Yeah I read that. Let me know. Let me know
Speaker 1: in the comments if you want me to write that book.
Speaker 1: So they actually will attack cars because they associate them
Speaker 1: with food, which is a bold move, I think. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they will attack dogs unprovoked because often wild dogs
Speaker 1: are predators. But yeah, if you bring your dog on
Speaker 1: a walk around where these cast swaries live, it can
Speaker 1: you know, kill your dogs. So don't do that, and
Speaker 1: don't feed them and just leave them alone. So them
Speaker 1: attacking cars because they associate them with food makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. But I want to believe that the
Speaker 1: reason that they attack cars is they want to they
Speaker 1: want to avenge their fallen Dear brothers, this is for you, dear,
Speaker 1: This is for you, dear, or it's another insurance scam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these animals out for our insurance moneys. I get that.
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about the shoe bill stork. So
Speaker 1: shoe bills look like terrifying gray, feathery dinosaur like storks
Speaker 1: with huge boat shaped bills. They're called shoe like. The
Speaker 1: descriptions are like their bills are shaped like shoes. I
Speaker 1: don't know what kind of shoes people are wearing. I
Speaker 1: guess these kind of look like wooden clogs maybe clogs
Speaker 1: look they look like I mean, honestly, they look not
Speaker 1: dissimilar to a lot of like Kanye West's shoe designed Easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they look they look a lot like easy. So it's
Speaker 1: like the easy Bills short the easy Bill Stork. I mean,
Speaker 1: if they changed his name to the easy Bill Stork,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't hate it. Easy easy Bills. Yeah, So they
Speaker 1: actually are not storks. They are more closely related to
Speaker 1: pell likins, and they grow up to five ft tall
Speaker 1: with a seven to eight foot wingspan, and they can
Speaker 1: totally fly and they live in the swamps in eastern
Speaker 1: tropical Africa. So yeah, they are very intimidating looking birds.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, they kind of look like
Speaker 1: a huge muppet, which is like it's like scary and
Speaker 1: cute and you're it's very confusing, and they have these
Speaker 1: like their eyes somehow have this expression of just like fierceness.
Speaker 1: It's hard to explain. It doesn't look it doesn't look
Speaker 1: scary like it's going to attack you. It looks intimidating,
Speaker 1: like it's super wise. And if you don't answer it's
Speaker 1: riddle correctly, you will just like disintegrate. What do you
Speaker 1: think it's riddle is? And do you think it's about fish?
Speaker 1: Where should you charge me, point it on my bill.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good that's a good rattle. Actually, Like
Speaker 1: I'm looking at more extures of them, and they look
Speaker 1: they they look very much like a human wearing a
Speaker 1: bird cast. Due. Yeah, yeah, it's that. It's a little uncanny, right,
Speaker 1: it's an uncanny. That's kind of why they look like
Speaker 1: a big muppet, like a big bird, like the first
Speaker 1: draft of Big Bird. That's like oddly terrifying or something.
Speaker 1: It looks like they're like their legs look very bird like.
Speaker 1: Their upper body it's like you can almost see pectoral
Speaker 1: muscles and it looks like it looks like they have shoulders. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which they you know, it's just the wings. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks it doesn't It looks off. It looks a
Speaker 1: little uncanny. Although I'm just scrolling through Google images, Um,
Speaker 1: I found a picture of one opening its mouth and
Speaker 1: it's the cutest dancing like it definitely looks like it's
Speaker 1: saying like, hey, guys, what are you doing? Well, the
Speaker 1: way it says hey guys, what are you doing is
Speaker 1: making machine gun noises with their So what is that?
Speaker 1: That's insane? Is that edited in any way? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: so It's called bill clattering, and it is a greeting
Speaker 1: to communicate with each other. It can be used like
Speaker 1: as a mating call too mates to alert other birds
Speaker 1: that this is their territory, and it can be used
Speaker 1: by nestlings as well to communicate with adults and vice versa.
Speaker 1: So basically like they're high, honey, I'm home, is just
Speaker 1: machine gun noises that they make by clattering their bills. Um,
Speaker 1: do you remember paper Planes by M I A. Yeah?
Speaker 1: All I want to do is bing bing bing bing,
Speaker 1: and eat lots of fish. I really want to hear
Speaker 1: the shoebill Stork edit of Paper Planes by the shoe
Speaker 1: bill Stork cover of m I A Want to do
Speaker 1: and eat your salmon. There's a there's an all animal
Speaker 1: cover of drowning Pool. Let the bodies hit the floor.
Speaker 1: It's very good. Have you seen that. I'll show it
Speaker 1: to you after the show. It's very good. But so
Speaker 1: they do hunt, but they hunt fish, baby crocodiles, eels,
Speaker 1: and monitor lizards. So they're not joking around when it
Speaker 1: comes to hunting in the swamp. Uh, And their way
Speaker 1: of hunting is actually kind of creepy. So they will
Speaker 1: stand perfectly still waiting to ambush their prey. And it's
Speaker 1: almost they're kind of like the you know, like the
Speaker 1: doctor who Weeping Angels, because they're like they're gray, and
Speaker 1: they stand really still, and they do literally look like
Speaker 1: a concrete or marble statue, just like sitting in the swamp.
Speaker 1: That's something that I'm noticing even just scrolling through photos
Speaker 1: of them, is like they really do look like statuesque
Speaker 1: like they look they look like not like real creatures.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I would walk past this thing and think, oh,
Speaker 1: what a weird statue, and then here a machine gun sound?
Speaker 1: Is it guns me down? Yeah? Exactly? I mean. And
Speaker 1: for these the fish and little reptiles that they eat,
Speaker 1: and even baby crocodiles, they will wait around and when
Speaker 1: they see their prey, they will jump out of statue mode,
Speaker 1: lunge at them and open those huge beaks that look
Speaker 1: like these like weird boats and engulf their prey and
Speaker 1: basically anything within you know, about a foot radius of
Speaker 1: their prey. So like they'll get a bunch of water
Speaker 1: and mug and vegetation and everything in that beak. And
Speaker 1: then they start to use their beak as like a
Speaker 1: big colander and they shake their head back and forth,
Speaker 1: draining everything out of their beak that isn't their live prey,
Speaker 1: and then they decapitate the prey with the edges of
Speaker 1: their sharp beak. This this big bird first cut got
Speaker 1: real dark. Jim Henson was, Yeah, he was, he got
Speaker 1: pretty dark with those early versions of Sesame Street. Jim
Speaker 1: Henson was going through some ship. But so they are
Speaker 1: like a horror villain for all of the small critters
Speaker 1: living in the swamp, but around humans, they're really harmless
Speaker 1: and somewhat tolerant of us, and they are totally docile.
Speaker 1: They're non aggressive, and they're actually a favorite among bird
Speaker 1: watchers for how easygoing they are around observers, and like
Speaker 1: the most intimidating thing they'll do is like get into
Speaker 1: a staring contest with you and just like stare at you.
Speaker 1: And it's I feel like I would I would poop
Speaker 1: myself if this giant, weird statue bird was just staring
Speaker 1: at me. But yeah, they don't. They don't typically attack humans.
Speaker 1: They just like they're like, now you get the idea,
Speaker 1: like you're not gonna mess with me. I know we've
Speaker 1: done a little bit of friendship shipping before this, but
Speaker 1: do you think a shoe bill, a shoebill stork, and
Speaker 1: a gariel crocodile would get along because they're both shy.
Speaker 1: I don't know, because like the shoe Bill does baby crocodiles,
Speaker 1: so I feel like that would be a point against it. Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to get along with you, dude,
Speaker 1: but like you ate my babies and that's kind of
Speaker 1: not chill. You know. Yeah, I get that. So basically
Speaker 1: that that's a that's a buddy movie where they learned
Speaker 1: to trust each other, got it. I do feel like
Speaker 1: the the shoe Bill and the basking Shark would get
Speaker 1: along because it's like, hey, you've got a big mouth.
Speaker 1: I got a big mouth. A look at our big
Speaker 1: mouths um. I want to see the Tom and Jerry
Speaker 1: re launched. That's just a shoebill stork and a gariel
Speaker 1: crocod I'd watch that, yeah, yeah, but it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: really yeah. I guess like a baby, so a baby
Speaker 1: gariel and a shoebill stork, because then that that would
Speaker 1: be sort of the predator prey thing. But then like
Speaker 1: the baby grows up to be really big and then
Speaker 1: it's like oh, but then he's just a shy shy
Speaker 1: There's there was that like Disney movie similar to that.
Speaker 1: What was it called? It was a Lambert the Sheepish Lion,
Speaker 1: And it's like this, like a lion gets adopted by
Speaker 1: a sheep, it grows up to be big and then
Speaker 1: like kills a wolf for something and everybody loves them.
Speaker 1: But he's like, you know, very sheepish. Um. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I vaguely remember that movie. Uh More Disney lies about
Speaker 1: the behaviors of animals, Yeah, I feel like you know,
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about the lion King is like
Speaker 1: none of those animals would actually be able to be friends,
Speaker 1: nor can they sing. I mean, lions do occasionally like
Speaker 1: adopt uh prey animals, but then they often end up
Speaker 1: eating them anyways. Yeah, so it's like maybe they would
Speaker 1: tolerate Zazoo for a while and then just like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna eat you today. It's Today's the day.
Speaker 1: You've been in my ear about our infrastructure budget for
Speaker 1: like way too long, and I am gonna eat you.
Speaker 1: But that's like, that's one of the things I love
Speaker 1: about cats is like you'll be petinam They'll be like
Speaker 1: really loving it. And then they're just yeah. Yeah, house
Speaker 1: cats are just little tiny wildcats. If they were big,
Speaker 1: they would moll us every day. Cute cute, yes, but
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you like, I wish man now,
Speaker 1: I want a domesticated version of like the gariel crocodile,
Speaker 1: just like a little one, you know, to cuddle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be I guess that of these animals, just
Speaker 1: based on like appearances, let's be very shallow here, which
Speaker 1: of these animals would you want to cuddle the most? Okay,
Speaker 1: again with the disclaimer that you should never cuddle a
Speaker 1: wild animal. But we're on an imagination journey, I would say,
Speaker 1: so we have Now are we including the deadly ones
Speaker 1: or just the ones that aren't deadly? I guess that's
Speaker 1: we're including all of them, and it's this is a
Speaker 1: world where you have protections against whatever makes them deadly.
Speaker 1: I see, Well, I don't know. I actually I think
Speaker 1: it would be the shoebill. I love this freaking muppet.
Speaker 1: It's so good. It's just it's so goofy, and I
Speaker 1: love the like scary goofy nous of it. It's like
Speaker 1: aggressively goofy, but it's not aggressive, so That's what's so
Speaker 1: wonderful about it. For appearances, I would say immediately catfish
Speaker 1: because it has the word cabinet. But like, realistically, I
Speaker 1: feel like the shoebill stork is the one that I
Speaker 1: would like, and it just looks like a muppet. I
Speaker 1: would like pat it on the back and say good job,
Speaker 1: and then it would make something that would make a
Speaker 1: machine gun noise, and I'd be like classic, Oh, you
Speaker 1: feel like we'd go fishing together with a couple of brusquees,
Speaker 1: would be wearing one of those like fishing hats that's
Speaker 1: got the tackle dangling from it, and you know, we'd
Speaker 1: be just like sharing a beer, talking about our lives,
Speaker 1: you know, laughing about stuff. I'd use its machine gun
Speaker 1: sounding beak to rob a bank. It would be great,
Speaker 1: a real Bonnie and Clyde situation and fun. I love it. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today, Joey and
Speaker 1: learning which animals are friends and which ones. Well, they're
Speaker 1: still our friends, but they would kill us if we,
Speaker 1: uh were Yeah, we didn't say they were good friends. No, No,
Speaker 1: I mean we didn't say they were doormat friends. They
Speaker 1: will assert themselves. Got anything to plug um? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can follow me on Twitter at Joey tainment Um, follow
Speaker 1: me on Instagram at Joey Clift with like five eyes
Speaker 1: and then um, this is uh some context of the
Speaker 1: thing I'm about to plug. Um. I for a long
Speaker 1: time have been annoyed at Sufie and Stevens for not
Speaker 1: finishing his fifty States project. He's a folk musician who
Speaker 1: was popular in the mid two thousands and he said
Speaker 1: he was going to make a full album of music
Speaker 1: for every single U. S. State, but he gave up
Speaker 1: after two albums. So this has been sticking in my
Speaker 1: cross since two thousand five, so for fifteen years. And
Speaker 1: finally at the start of Quarantine, I decided to finish
Speaker 1: sufi on Steven's fifty States project with the help of
Speaker 1: the Internet, and I did it. So you drag him. Yes,
Speaker 1: you can go on SoundCloud dot com slash our fifty
Speaker 1: States project and listen to fifty three albums and two
Speaker 1: epis for every an album for every U. S. State,
Speaker 1: double album for Rhode Island, an album for the Moon
Speaker 1: because there's a U. S flag up there, so we
Speaker 1: gotta EPs for Washington State. Yeah, that means the state.
Speaker 1: It will be a state. Um, and the EP for Washington,
Speaker 1: d C in Puerto Rico. It's five ten songs. This
Speaker 1: took me two months of NonStop work, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: Check it out, listen, look, check out the ciss of
Speaker 1: the sis of his project. I dedicated myself to to
Speaker 1: get through quarantine. That sounds incredible and worrying. Actually, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a cry for help in somewhere. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram at Creature Your Pod, and I
Speaker 1: will be posting pictures of all of these adorable scary
Speaker 1: animals there. And you can find us also on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Creature Feet Pod. That's f e A T, not
Speaker 1: f E T. That is something very different. And you
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden with my
Speaker 1: Katie thoughts, not necessarily related to the show at all,
Speaker 1: just you know, my Katie opinions. And I am also
Speaker 1: pro bird rites, where I, you know, basically make the
Speaker 1: case that all birds should be respected, whether they're the
Speaker 1: cassowary and they're trying to kill you or the shoe
Speaker 1: bill stork and they're staring at you creepily through the window.
Speaker 1: Right now. Thank you so much for listening. You guys,
Speaker 1: if you're enjoying the show. Uh yeah, just like if
Speaker 1: you leave a review and a rating that actually really
Speaker 1: really helps out a whole lot. Uh. Thanks to the
Speaker 1: Space Cossacks for their super awesome song. Ex Alumina. Creature
Speaker 1: features a production of I Heart Radio. To listen to
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Speaker 1: Whereever you listen to your favorite podcast, See you next Wednesday,
Speaker 1: m hm