Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show Crustacean News Station, all the
Speaker 1: crabby stories fit to print or pinch, lobsters not saying
Speaker 1: no to drugs, and crabs implicated in a famous disappearance.
Speaker 1: Discover this and more as we answer the age old
Speaker 1: question can lobsters feel pain? Joining me today is friend
Speaker 1: of the show co host of the Just the Zoo
Speaker 1: of Us podcast, Ellen Weatherford.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Thank you. It's always nice to talk to you. Katie,
Speaker 2: my favorite person.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to have you on, specifically for
Speaker 1: this one. I couldn't imagine a better guest to have
Speaker 1: on to talk about, uh, lobsters getting hot boxed and
Speaker 1: crabs disappearing a lady.
Speaker 2: It is incredibly on brand for me. I think of
Speaker 2: just crustaceans being menaces.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course you. I'm I know that you are
Speaker 1: already a fan of the concept of carsonization, that we
Speaker 1: all shall become crabs at some point, that crab crab form.
Speaker 1: Just so. The story behind that is that animals, especially crustaceans,
Speaker 1: but animals in general will often come to this evolutionary
Speaker 1: path and converge on the crab shape because the crab
Speaker 1: shape is apparently really good. Scuttling is apparently just a
Speaker 1: really premium method of transportation, and so like you'll have spiders, arthropods,
Speaker 1: crustaceans all sort of independently evolving crab form.
Speaker 2: It's it's funny that you bring this up now, because
Speaker 2: I just this week did a TikTok about carsonization, which
Speaker 2: I know, probably to a lot of people is like, Okay,
Speaker 2: a TikTok, that's not that big a deal. I put
Speaker 2: a lot of research intout it into my tiko talks,
Speaker 2: like I've prepped for a long time for these stupid
Speaker 2: little videos. I'm like, uh, and so.
Speaker 1: I'm literally buying, like I had to buy a dongle
Speaker 1: for my phone to like I gotta, I guess I
Speaker 1: gotta start getting into TikTok and stuff. And so I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, but I gotta buy a phone dongle before
Speaker 1: I get into TikTok. It's a whole process. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I I have much respect for people who actually managed
Speaker 1: to create TikTok videos. Hopefully I will join soon. I
Speaker 1: will keep everyone posted on that. How how I struggle
Speaker 1: with that back comes to fruition.
Speaker 2: But struggle is the right word for it.
Speaker 1: But Allen's already got those out, so check those out.
Speaker 1: Uh on on her TikTok. Is that just a zoo
Speaker 1: of us TikTok? Or is it under your names?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just under my name. I've been kind of
Speaker 2: doing it because I like post stuff about multiple podcasts
Speaker 2: on there, so it's just kind of a catch all. Also,
Speaker 2: I just like goof on there sometimes too, so I
Speaker 2: don't I didn't want to feel like, oh, I post
Speaker 2: this because it's a podcast account and I have to
Speaker 2: stay relevant, and I'm like, no, I'm just gonna post
Speaker 2: whatever inane thoughts jump into my head.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny that you say that you couldn't
Speaker 1: do that under the name of a podcast, but I
Speaker 1: feel like I speak any inane thoughts I have on
Speaker 1: my own podcast, So I'm not sure what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: But yes, do check out Ellen Weatherford's TikTok. I'm sure
Speaker 1: those are really fun. But yes, let's talk about lobsters
Speaker 1: getting high. Do you eat lobsters?
Speaker 2: Ellen, I don't. I unfortunately as far as like culinary
Speaker 2: experience goes, I might be the worst guest you could
Speaker 2: have possibly picked to talk about. Like the enthusiasm and
Speaker 2: the love is there, but unfortunately I don't eat any
Speaker 2: seafood like fish, crustaceans, like shellfish, none of it. I
Speaker 2: don't like any of it.
Speaker 1: All of our crustacean listeners are just so excited. They're clapping,
Speaker 1: they're pinching their claws, they're so happy. Gloriously, I've got
Speaker 1: bad news for my crustacean listeners. I do occasionally eat lobster.
Speaker 1: I'm actually not like a huge fan of lobster. I
Speaker 1: feel like it gets this Oh it's this fancy food
Speaker 1: that you should eat because you're a fancy person, and
Speaker 1: it's really great.
Speaker 2: Has clout.
Speaker 1: It's got clout. It's definitely got clout. But I think
Speaker 1: it's fine. It's just fine. Like I think it's it's
Speaker 1: only as good as sort of the butter or seasoning
Speaker 1: right you put on it.
Speaker 2: It's merely a vessel for the butter.
Speaker 1: It's butter.
Speaker 2: It's like a little spoon that you use to get
Speaker 2: the butter into your mouth, because you can't just stick
Speaker 2: your spoon and butter I mean you.
Speaker 1: Can't pretty much. You can't more spoon and butter. There's
Speaker 1: a certain amount of pride we have where we can't
Speaker 1: do that. Someday maybe I will lose that ego and
Speaker 1: be able to just to asto the butter.
Speaker 2: But I had always heard that, even though now we
Speaker 2: associate lobster with like being a very sort of like upscale,
Speaker 2: bougie meal that originally and I don't know about originally,
Speaker 2: but at least, you know, to the tune of over
Speaker 2: one hundred years ago, lobster was like Sina's very sort
Speaker 2: of like low class, you know, like it was like
Speaker 2: the McDonald's of like seafood.
Speaker 1: Weird sea bug. Yeah, I've heard that too, and I
Speaker 1: think it's based on sort of the availability of the lobster.
Speaker 1: So if you've got like a city next to you know,
Speaker 1: a port, and people can just kind of go out
Speaker 1: and grab some lobster and eat it because it's so.
Speaker 2: It's that's free food, right, it's free food.
Speaker 1: It's easily available. But then like when it when it's
Speaker 1: like a little bit trickier to like you know, get
Speaker 1: from point A to point B, then it becomes like
Speaker 1: a fancy food because it's like, oh, imported, and lobster
Speaker 1: also has to be kept alive before you consume it.
Speaker 1: So that is that is well, we'll hit on why
Speaker 1: in just a bit, But.
Speaker 2: It seems like there are a lot of barriers between
Speaker 2: the lobster being alive in the water and being in
Speaker 2: your mouth. There are like it just seems like such
Speaker 2: a hassle.
Speaker 1: It is a hassle. I always was fascinated when I
Speaker 1: was a kid by the live lobsters at Ralt's, the
Speaker 1: grocery store.
Speaker 2: I don't think I was terrified of them. I would
Speaker 2: not walk anywhere near that lobster tank because they had
Speaker 2: lobster tanks in publics, which anybody listening from Florida is
Speaker 2: having a moment, because publics is a way of life.
Speaker 2: I miss it dearly. I just moved to Washington. We
Speaker 2: don't have them up here, and I miss them. But
Speaker 2: they had a lobster tank that not only would I
Speaker 2: like not willingly walk through the section of the store
Speaker 2: it was in, but if we did have to walk
Speaker 2: past the lobster tank, I would hold my breath wow
Speaker 2: whole time until it was like out of eyesight. It
Speaker 2: was smelly. But also I had a weird thing about
Speaker 2: like not I don't know. It was like a weird
Speaker 2: superstition almost that I didn't want to like breathe the
Speaker 2: same air as the lobsters.
Speaker 1: Could sims become a lobster yourself, No, I know, I
Speaker 1: know how that is.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, the spores will kind of like like parasitically, You'll, yeah,
Speaker 2: they'll get district Everyone knows about the spores.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to get district nined. So uh No, I
Speaker 1: love the lobsters. When I was a kid, I always
Speaker 1: like I would fantasize about like getting on. I probably
Speaker 1: asked my mom, like, can we keep one, like as
Speaker 1: a pet? She said no. I thought maybe I could
Speaker 1: keep it in the bathtub like in the Simpsons, you know,
Speaker 1: Homer's pet lobster. I wanted to do that as a kid,
Speaker 1: but that never came to fruition.
Speaker 2: Like as a kid, in the United States, the only
Speaker 2: time you see a live animal being sold in a
Speaker 2: store is like a pet store, right, so when you
Speaker 2: see one in a grocery store, there's the connection. You're like,
Speaker 2: this is a pet.
Speaker 1: I also like the idea of being the lobster's savior,
Speaker 1: of preventing them from becoming food.
Speaker 2: Right, you want to have that Disney princess like for
Speaker 2: and Gully moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's why I used to buy feeder mice when
Speaker 1: I was a kid and keep them as pets, because,
Speaker 1: like I have saved you from the snake a terrible fate.
Speaker 2: Feed and mice are so much cuter than lobster's Katie.
Speaker 2: You can't pretend like that's the same thing. Have you
Speaker 2: ever so cute?
Speaker 1: Have you ever looked a lobster right into their rostrum
Speaker 1: and standing to their soul?
Speaker 2: I can't say that.
Speaker 1: I So there is this news story I think is
Speaker 1: both really funny but also thought provoking. It is about
Speaker 1: lobsters getting completely stoned before killing them in a pot
Speaker 1: of boiling water. So I've always thought it was strange
Speaker 1: that we don't just mercifully kill lobsters before boiling them.
Speaker 1: I understand that lobsters are not the most intelligent animals,
Speaker 1: but it is weird that like this assumption that it's like, well,
Speaker 1: let's just boil them alive. I'm sure nothing's gonna happen there.
Speaker 2: It's like, right, like that can't be it, that can
Speaker 2: be the best way.
Speaker 1: Right, Like I get they're not super smart. But I
Speaker 1: it's weird to me to assume like they don't feel pain,
Speaker 1: like I, I, you know, like I'll like eat fish, right,
Speaker 1: But my assumption is fish can feel pain, and I don't,
Speaker 1: you know, like I would not want them to suffer, right,
Speaker 1: I would want them to be quickly killed and not
Speaker 1: like you know, boiled alive.
Speaker 2: And not like under the prolonged stress right, right, like
Speaker 2: the absolute terror of they clearly know something's wrong and
Speaker 2: that something bad is happening to them, even if they
Speaker 2: couldn't physically feel it, right, which I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe they can, maybe they can't, I don't know, but
Speaker 2: either way, they're gonna be, like, you know, under a
Speaker 2: period of extreme stress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean so there has been a debate
Speaker 1: over the years as to whether lobsters can feel pain.
Speaker 1: So tossing a lobster into boiling water can take up
Speaker 1: to three minutes to kill the lobster, So if they
Speaker 1: can feel pain and be consciously aware of that pain,
Speaker 1: that would be pretty horrifying. In two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: there was a Norwegian report to the Scientific Community for
Speaker 1: Food Safety. It was reported by news outlets as finding
Speaker 1: that quote lobsters don't feel pain and that their reaction
Speaker 1: to painful stimuli are just reflexes. So I looked at
Speaker 1: the actual report itself, not just like the news report
Speaker 1: of the report, and so the scientific report was a
Speaker 1: review of existing studies and animatomical knowledge about various invertebrates.
Speaker 1: It does not actually come to the conclusion about lobsters
Speaker 1: not feeling pain. They're just very honest that they cannot
Speaker 1: rule it out. They just say that there's no evidence
Speaker 1: that lobsters consciously experience pain, and that their reactions to
Speaker 1: boiling water like thrashing around could simply be unconscious reflexes.
Speaker 1: But it's not this is speculation, it's not conclusive. They're
Speaker 1: just saying there's no evidence that they do feel pain.
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that they don't feel pain. They actually
Speaker 1: call for more research on the subject of lobsters and
Speaker 1: crabs feeling pain, concluding that it's unlikely that they feel pain,
Speaker 1: but something that's understudied.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it makes me wonder if you put a
Speaker 2: human in a vat of boiling water and solve that
Speaker 2: so far panicking and thrashing on board, right, Like, you
Speaker 2: could also interpret that as like a reflex, right, But
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that just because they're responding to the
Speaker 2: pain physically doesn't mean that it's not like accompanied by
Speaker 2: a sensation. And then at that point then the only
Speaker 2: way you'd know if it was accompanied by a sensation
Speaker 2: of pain, you'd have to talk to them.
Speaker 1: Right the interview out of after the experience of like, so,
Speaker 1: how was it being boiled alive? Personally? No, not a fan.
Speaker 1: I didn't enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Because like our responses to pain are also reflexes, yes, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's not that far removed from how we respond
Speaker 2: to pain, right.
Speaker 1: I think the idea is that lobsters have such a
Speaker 1: simple kind of brain situation where it's not like really
Speaker 1: this like you know, it's got kind of this nervous
Speaker 1: system that is structurally so different from ours that maybe
Speaker 1: they don't have the same kind of consciousness that we do.
Speaker 1: Their brains are of a neural bulb kind of situation.
Speaker 1: But you're assuming a lot that they don't feel pain.
Speaker 1: So there was actually a more recent review of literature
Speaker 1: and report to the UK Government in twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: which again looked at pain perception in invertebrates. They looked
Speaker 1: at a variety of invertebrates, and so they found the
Speaker 1: highest evidence of behavior that could be interpreted as responding
Speaker 1: to pain in octopuses. Not a lot of surprise there.
Speaker 1: Octopuses are clearly pretty intelligent. In a study, octopuses would
Speaker 1: avoid tank chambers filled with an irritating acid and would
Speaker 1: sink out chambers that contained an anesthetics. So octopuses showed
Speaker 1: a very intelligent avoidance of pain. There was also a
Speaker 1: study on crayfish, which are not lobsters, but they are
Speaker 1: a crustacean, and they found that the crayfish would engage
Speaker 1: in a stress response of hiding in dark, shadowy places
Speaker 1: and would do this in response to pain stimuli. They
Speaker 1: would also stop hiding when given anti anxiety medication.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, so this.
Speaker 1: Was interesting because wild crayfish are not the same thing
Speaker 1: as lobsters. They are you know, similar, and they are crustaceans,
Speaker 1: they're invertebrates. So it's a you know that I think
Speaker 1: is the strongest evidence so far that lobsters may feel pain.
Speaker 1: And you know, personally, I don't have like a really
Speaker 1: strong opinion. I think that it's clear that lobsters and
Speaker 1: crustaceans have a pain response. I strongly believe octopuses are
Speaker 1: intelligent enough that they would feel pain and be consciously.
Speaker 2: Awes Yeah, and octopuses also have the benefit of, I think,
Speaker 2: being able to behave in a way that humans are
Speaker 2: good at perceiving and understanding. Like we have a pretty
Speaker 2: easy time seeing what an octopus is doing and kind
Speaker 2: of getting it exactly sort of relate to I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's because octopuses have a sort of like
Speaker 2: I think maybe it's in the eyes. You can look
Speaker 2: an octopus in the eyes and kind of like you
Speaker 2: know what they're doing. Some of their structures are a
Speaker 2: little more analogous to ours, so we can kind of
Speaker 2: like get it.
Speaker 1: But likes their tentacles are so flexible, they can do
Speaker 1: such complicated things with them. We can see the complexity
Speaker 1: of their behavior and their actions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whereas like a crustacean, you know, they may be
Speaker 2: behaving in a way that like they know what they're doing,
Speaker 2: but we might just have no way of knowing, Like, oh,
Speaker 2: is that a response to pain? Is that just you know,
Speaker 2: seeking out a dark spot because that's what their instinct is,
Speaker 2: Like it's a little bit more difficult for us to
Speaker 2: like parse what's going on in and crustacean behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but octopuses are like really good at sort of like communicating,
Speaker 2: not intentionally, right, but like what they do is kind
Speaker 2: of easy to be understood by humans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that's absolutely true. And yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: lobster and crab nerves systems are you know, very simple,
Speaker 1: They're very different from ours, and they are structurally very
Speaker 1: different in certain ways that I think they are able
Speaker 1: to do things that a human being could not do
Speaker 1: without like you know, completely breaking down, like tearing off
Speaker 1: their own limbs to escape predators. So like the fact
Speaker 1: that their nervous system is so different, there's like it's possible,
Speaker 1: right that they have an evolutionary advantage to not being
Speaker 1: consciously aware of pain so that they can do this
Speaker 1: self amputation behavior. True. Yeah, and it's true that the
Speaker 1: thrashing around in water the lobster could be that could
Speaker 1: just be a reflex of course. Also the screaming that
Speaker 1: people talk about hearing, you know, like when that like
Speaker 1: high pitched sort of wine when you put a lobster
Speaker 1: in the water, that is just s deemon escaping. It's
Speaker 1: not the lobster screaming but I also think that we
Speaker 1: really don't know that they can can't feel pain, and
Speaker 1: even biologists too seem to be less convinced that they
Speaker 1: can feel pain, typically point out that we don't have
Speaker 1: the capability to know, and that they're just kind of
Speaker 1: making an assumption given what we do know. So I
Speaker 1: feel like ethically it's better to assume that they might
Speaker 1: be able to feel pain. Like, I'm not against eating
Speaker 1: lobster necessarily, I just think that like boiling them alive
Speaker 1: is messed up.
Speaker 2: It feels that like it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think it's like, again, I'm not a vegetarian,
Speaker 1: but I think that there is a middle ground between
Speaker 1: like being a vegetarian, which is great. I think it's
Speaker 1: great to be a vegetarian. I'm not not at all
Speaker 1: against against being a vegetarian or just not caring about animals.
Speaker 1: I think that like you can both like you don't
Speaker 1: want to eat like lobster or fish or something, and
Speaker 1: then but also care about their treatment up until they're
Speaker 1: on your plate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can want it to be done ethically, Yeah,
Speaker 2: sustainable exactly.
Speaker 1: So I am very excited to talk about a chef
Speaker 1: who has thought about this problem, and her decision is
Speaker 1: to get her lobsters absolutely baked, and by baked, I
Speaker 1: mean high as heck. We're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break and when we get back, we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about these super high lobsters. Excellent, all right, So
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the chef who gets her
Speaker 1: lobster's absolutely displaze it.
Speaker 2: You've heard of rock lobster, Now get ready for stoned lobster.
Speaker 1: Nice. Nice. So this chef, chronicled in an article on
Speaker 1: National Geographic, really sympathizes with lobsters despite cooking and eating them,
Speaker 1: which I respect. Charlotte Gill, which is an amazing name
Speaker 1: for someone who is a chef who sympathizes with.
Speaker 2: A quest seafood. Yes, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Charlotte Gill can't invent a better name. Wanted to come
Speaker 1: up with a technique to reduce the experience of pain
Speaker 1: for lobsters before checking them into boiling water, so she
Speaker 1: hot boxed her lobsters in a plastic box filled with
Speaker 1: pot smoke marijuana smoke, so then they seemed to relax.
Speaker 1: She claims that the lobster meat actually tasted better and
Speaker 1: that after eating copious amounts of lobster. Drug tests revealed
Speaker 1: no marijuana in the human lobster eater's piece, so you
Speaker 1: can't get marijuana in your system from eating a high lobster.
Speaker 1: Apparently she tested this on her dad too, which is
Speaker 1: like that must have been one proud dad to be like,
Speaker 1: my daughter is giving me high lobsters.
Speaker 2: Also like just to just like be a part of
Speaker 2: like your child's basically like grown up science fair experiment.
Speaker 1: Where you get to get a lobster from a chef.
Speaker 1: Ye great. So the Health Department of Maine unfortunately did
Speaker 1: shut that down because I guess in main, hot boxing
Speaker 1: lobsters is not like an approved food additive.
Speaker 2: There can't possibly already be a law about that. I
Speaker 2: mean like that this has to be like an air bud,
Speaker 2: like it's not technically in the rules situation.
Speaker 1: I think it's that when it comes to the FDA
Speaker 1: and food additives, it has to be in the rules.
Speaker 1: You can't just discover a new food additive and start
Speaker 1: selling it before they can quickly like write up a
Speaker 1: lot against it. It's like I just I just found
Speaker 1: some alien organism and I'm gonna put it in my fries,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, you can't do that, unfortunately, So
Speaker 1: instead she uses valerian root, which is supposed to have
Speaker 1: a somewhat similar effect, which she mixes with water and
Speaker 1: soaks them in instead of like it being a hot
Speaker 1: boxing thing, it's like a valerian root bath.
Speaker 2: Is that not some thing from Skyrim? That's a real plant?
Speaker 2: I thought that was playing Skyrim.
Speaker 1: It does sound like it's from Skyrim, but it's a
Speaker 1: real plant. But yeah, apparently it has some kind of
Speaker 1: anti anxiety, pain soothing properties, and like, yeah, I but
Speaker 1: I am still I am still in favor of getting
Speaker 1: the lobster's high at eating them. So I hope that
Speaker 1: at some point we do make like getting high and
Speaker 1: a food additive that is approved by the FDA.
Speaker 2: So I'm just wondering how the behavior of a lobster
Speaker 2: when high could differ at all from the behavior of
Speaker 2: just a regular lobster, because like, it can't be that.
Speaker 1: Start talking incessantly about Martin Scorsese films and like you
Speaker 1: got to see him. It's like, no, I know, he's
Speaker 1: a good director. And then they're like, no, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: You have to see it. You have to watch all
Speaker 1: of these movies.
Speaker 2: They listen to a lot of pink Floyd.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, But yeah, I I love this chef.
Speaker 1: This is very interesting and I'm definitely not gonna say
Speaker 1: no to getting lobsters high. But I think the obvious
Speaker 1: question is why don't we simply kill lobsters before boiling them? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: why don't we have like a little lobster guillotine and
Speaker 1: just you know, quickly kill them before boiling them so
Speaker 1: that you know, it seems like that would be the
Speaker 1: easiest solution.
Speaker 2: I would think, So is there a reason why you don't?
Speaker 2: Is there a reason there is?
Speaker 1: It's a little questionable though. So apparently when you kill
Speaker 1: a lobster, bacteria and their flesh can rapidly multiply, which
Speaker 1: are not killed in the boiling process. So this bacteria
Speaker 1: is apparently resilient enough to not die after being boiled.
Speaker 1: I am not a food scientist, so, but like, I
Speaker 1: don't see how killing them immediately before putting them in
Speaker 1: the boiling water, like seconds before would be much different
Speaker 1: in terms of backterial growth versus just like letting the
Speaker 1: boiling water kill them. I wasn't really able to It.
Speaker 2: Just has to be like the ussane bolt of bacterias.
Speaker 1: Right right, exactly. I mean I wasn't this. I mean, someone, please,
Speaker 1: if you if you study lobsters, or you study food
Speaker 1: and bacteria, please send me if you have found a
Speaker 1: study that shows any difference in terms of bacterial growth
Speaker 1: of like killing the lobster first, or like boiling in alive.
Speaker 1: Don't do the study yourself, because I don't want to
Speaker 1: subject more lobsters to like pain. But if there is
Speaker 1: an existing study, I really want to see it. I
Speaker 1: don't see how such a study could like get past
Speaker 1: the ethics board. But I mean, we also eat lobster
Speaker 1: all the time. Anyways, It's complicated.
Speaker 2: Now. It seems like from some of the scientific studies
Speaker 2: I've read, the ethics Board seems surprisingly chill about torturing animals.
Speaker 2: Sometimes sometimes yeah, sometimes they're like that's fine, you could
Speaker 2: do a little torture.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna name any names, but I had a
Speaker 1: professor who had a student who did a study where
Speaker 1: they kept like drowning hamsters, and uh, it was like
Speaker 1: not intentional yet it was not. It was not like
Speaker 1: she made no attempt to not drown the hamsters. It
Speaker 1: was it was the thing is like she was recreating
Speaker 1: a study that involved like it was a study that
Speaker 1: was originally done on rats, and she was tweaking the study,
Speaker 1: which is very common, right, you take a study design
Speaker 1: and you tweak it to try to get some new finding.
Speaker 1: But instead of using rats, she used hamsters. And hamsters
Speaker 1: are not good swimmers. Rats are much better swimmers, and so.
Speaker 2: These hamsters are desert animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so these poor hamsters kept drowning, and then like
Speaker 1: this professor like eventually stepped in was like, why is
Speaker 1: there a basketfull of dead wet hamsters and she's.
Speaker 2: Not the hamsters.
Speaker 1: And then she's like she had to shut that down
Speaker 1: because it's like, stop drowning the hamsters. What are you doing? Anyways?
Speaker 2: So some people wonder why science has such a dark
Speaker 2: perception yea in the general pubblic.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was this was definitely a horror story.
Speaker 1: This was it was meant as a cautionary tale of like,
Speaker 1: please respect the animals that you are studying and minimize
Speaker 1: any casualties or suffering. Uh, and like yeah, so it
Speaker 1: is not it's but unfortunately, yeah, sometimes that does happen. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know who trusted a u A. I don't
Speaker 1: remember if she was like an undergrad or a grad student,
Speaker 1: but anyway, she should not have been trusted with so
Speaker 1: many hamsters. You gotta start questioning when they keep like
Speaker 1: buying more hamsters, like why are you.
Speaker 2: Buying I used to work at a pet store, and
Speaker 2: that was one of the things that we are like
Speaker 2: trained to refuse service, was that if someone kept repeatedly
Speaker 2: coming into the store and like buying a bunch of like,
Speaker 2: you know, hamsters or gerbils or something like that, there
Speaker 2: was a point where we were supposed to stop selling
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: Clear, I think you've cutting you off of classical. But yeah,
Speaker 1: in terms of lobsters, there are chefs who kill lobsters
Speaker 1: before boiling them. They stick a sharp knife in their
Speaker 1: heads right before putting them in the water. I know
Speaker 1: that sounds brutal, but to me that is far more merciful.
Speaker 2: Like it is I've seen like the I've seen the
Speaker 2: chefs that take the giant shears and cut the head
Speaker 2: off the craft. Yes, right, and like that doesn't seem
Speaker 2: that bad, right, If it's like a quick and simple
Speaker 2: little like you know, before they even know what's going on,
Speaker 2: that's got to be better than three minutes of boiling.
Speaker 1: It's got to be better. I think I remember like
Speaker 1: a Hell's Kitchen or Top Chef at As where Gordon
Speaker 1: Ramsay is like yelling at someone because they were trying
Speaker 1: to boil their crab before killing it. Uh so you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I think that like sharp knife right
Speaker 1: in sort of that neural bulb right before putting in
Speaker 1: the water, seems like that should be fine. In fact,
Speaker 1: in Switzerland, New Zealand and Reggio Emilia, Italy, you are
Speaker 1: required to knock out lobsters before boiling them, either with
Speaker 1: an electric shock or knife in the brain. So there
Speaker 1: are places.
Speaker 2: So they've already they've already done this work. It sounds like.
Speaker 1: It sounds like and again I still I have not
Speaker 1: been able to find studies that like establish that somehow
Speaker 1: the bacteria is able to grow between that period and
Speaker 1: you know, the three minutes that it takes for them
Speaker 1: to boil.
Speaker 2: Really they don't seem to be worried about it.
Speaker 1: Seemed to be fine. So right, Look, if you.
Speaker 2: Want to get a bacteria thing as a cover by
Speaker 2: big lobster.
Speaker 1: Torture, big lobster torch, sure, Look if you want to
Speaker 1: get lobsters high. Like, I think that's great. I just
Speaker 1: think this much awesome.
Speaker 2: Keep doing that.
Speaker 1: That is so awesome. I approve of that regardless if
Speaker 1: you're gonna eat them or not.
Speaker 2: Just do it for fun. Do it for fun, like
Speaker 2: live a little.
Speaker 1: Go out to the ocean and start handed out spliffs
Speaker 1: by the seaside. But like, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: this is something that seems like we already have a
Speaker 1: good solution for. I'm not sure why we're not doing
Speaker 1: it again. If anyone has, like knows of any studies
Speaker 1: or research about bacterias somehow growing in a lobster that
Speaker 1: like minutes after you kill it, let me know it
Speaker 1: seems fine, It seems fine. I'm but I'm again, I'm
Speaker 1: not a food scientist, so I'm not gonna tell you
Speaker 1: to like go out try try this at home, unless
Speaker 1: you're a chef. I would personally leave it to the
Speaker 1: trained chefs. And terms of.
Speaker 2: Please don't ingest anything based on the recommendations of this.
Speaker 1: Podcast exactly, Please please don't like yeah, just like you know,
Speaker 1: just keep them as pets. That's what I'm saying. That's
Speaker 1: the responsible.
Speaker 2: Friend to do, and then you can smoke together that's right.
Speaker 2: You gotta smoking buddy stream joint rotation.
Speaker 1: They can even clip it off for you. Really good
Speaker 1: at rolling.
Speaker 2: Them, but you'd have to roll it for them because
Speaker 2: they get their pictures.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think have you ever seen how
Speaker 1: dexterous they can be with those little those little pictures
Speaker 1: and their little their little mandibles. I think they could
Speaker 1: do it anyways.
Speaker 2: You couldn't. They couldn't use a bong though, because there
Speaker 2: they would break it.
Speaker 1: I think there's probably a few more problems than that.
Speaker 1: But yes, that's right, lobsters can't.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to imagine where you would hold it.
Speaker 1: This is a good an tied drug message. Kids, lobsters
Speaker 1: can't use bongs? Why should you stay at school? All right,
Speaker 1: So we are gonna take a quick break, and when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're gonna talk about the crabs behind
Speaker 1: a famous disappearance. So since we've talked about eating crustaceans,
Speaker 1: I think it's only fair to talk about crustaceans eating us.
Speaker 1: You know, turn around, they're events there. It's fair play. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the question of what happened to Amelia Earhart? Did she
Speaker 1: get eaten by coconut crabs? Question mark.
Speaker 2: I don't know. This is one of those things that
Speaker 2: I've seen floating around on the internet for a while,
Speaker 2: and I initially just accepted it fully and completely uncritically
Speaker 2: in my brain. I was like, oh, yeah, that's definitely
Speaker 2: for sure true, and then haven't really looked any further
Speaker 2: into at all. So I'm very excited about whatever you're
Speaker 2: going to say next.
Speaker 1: Yes, So, first, who was Amelia Earhart? I say to
Speaker 1: the zoomers who don't know anything about anything, I'm joking, zoomers,
Speaker 1: you're great, You're smart.
Speaker 2: I never learned anything about Amelia Earhart in any class
Speaker 2: I ever took in my life.
Speaker 1: I mean I learned that she flew planes, but not
Speaker 1: good enough apparently.
Speaker 2: Because uh uh skill issue.
Speaker 1: So Amelia Earhart famously went missing on a flight with
Speaker 1: her navigator, Fred Noonan. That's another thing I think most
Speaker 1: people imagine it is just Amelia Earhart going missing. Her
Speaker 1: navigator Fred Noonan, who was also her friend, also went
Speaker 1: missing on July second, nineteen thirty seven. The International Group
Speaker 1: for Historic Aircraft Recovery or TIGHAR is a nonprofit full
Speaker 1: of extreme aviation nerds or experts. If whatever you want
Speaker 1: to say obsessed with solving aviation mysteries, including the mystery
Speaker 1: of Earhart's disappearance, over many many years analysis and collecting evidence.
Speaker 1: Their current theory is this, so ear Heart and Noonan
Speaker 1: were unable to find their target, which was Howland Island
Speaker 1: in the South Pacific, they continued on their planned flight
Speaker 1: trajectory and ended up landing or crashing on Nikumuroro Island. There,
Speaker 1: either ear Heart and Noonan lived as castaways or Nonan
Speaker 1: may have died, while Earhart lived as a castaway alone.
Speaker 1: She may have survived living on rain squalls for water
Speaker 1: and small fish, birds and clams for food. It's assumed
Speaker 1: the plane floated off. This is based on things like
Speaker 1: finding clamshells and like there was some reports that they're like, so,
Speaker 1: like Navy search planes did actually fly over this island
Speaker 1: and they saw signs of recent habitation, but they assumed
Speaker 1: the islands were all inhabited. So they're like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: not news because like these islands are.
Speaker 2: Inhabited, but this is sure just the people that live there.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. But Niko Maruro hadn't been inhabited since eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, so that may have been Amelia Earhart, which
Speaker 1: is really tragic, right, like this near miss, they might
Speaker 1: they could have found her if they had been a
Speaker 1: little smarter about knowing which islands were inhabited.
Speaker 2: And that was her target, right, like she was trying
Speaker 2: to get to that island.
Speaker 1: No, they were trying to get to Howland island. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's not her target. Oh. It was only later in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty that the British found human bones. They only
Speaker 1: found about thirteen bones. So if that was that's not
Speaker 1: all of them, that's not all of them. We've got
Speaker 1: more than that. I forgot how many a human has,
Speaker 1: but it's much more than that.
Speaker 2: It's more than thirteen, much sure, many more than thirteen.
Speaker 1: So if that was Earhart or Noonans skeleton, what happened
Speaker 1: to the rest of the bones? Well, this island is
Speaker 1: uninhabited by humans, but guess who lives there.
Speaker 2: Giant crab ubs A billion giant crabs.
Speaker 1: So many giant crabs. So Coconut crabs are massive terrestrial
Speaker 1: crabs that can grow over ten pounds or four point
Speaker 1: five kilograms and are over three feet around a meter
Speaker 1: in diameter. They're big, their claws have an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of pinch potential. They are ten times that of a
Speaker 1: human's grip, and they can crush bones or crack open coconuts.
Speaker 1: They will pretty much eat anything they can get their
Speaker 1: claws on coconuts, other crabs, birds who are too slow,
Speaker 1: and carrion. So say you have the body of a
Speaker 1: famous aviatrix on an island of unfussy power crabs who
Speaker 1: eat dead things and can crunch bones. Do I need
Speaker 1: to do the maths?
Speaker 2: Open and shutcase?
Speaker 1: Boys, So remember Tighar, the group of extreme aviation nerds
Speaker 1: who look into aviation mysteries and disappearances. Research by Tighar
Speaker 1: on coconut crabs and pig carcasses show that they are
Speaker 1: happy to drag bones off as a snack. Tig Car
Speaker 1: is very dedicated to solving this mystery. They went to
Speaker 1: this island brought a bunch of pig carcasses, so.
Speaker 2: They're taking a misbuster's approach to the whole thing pretty much.
Speaker 1: So, the theory is that your heart died either of
Speaker 1: the elements or some kind of injury. Probably she wasn't
Speaker 1: murdered by the crabs. Probably. I've never seen any evidence
Speaker 1: she was not murdered by the crabs, but I feel like,
Speaker 1: you've never.
Speaker 2: Heard of these crabs attacking a person.
Speaker 1: Don't think they would attack a live person. I think
Speaker 1: you'd have to either be dead or very close to
Speaker 1: being dead. It's immobile, it yeah, which is terrifying. I
Speaker 1: really doubt I think she would probably be dead. So
Speaker 1: now it is a scavenger hunt for crab burrows to
Speaker 1: see if they can find like a secret stash of
Speaker 1: Amelia your heart's bones. It's like the world's most gruesome
Speaker 1: to egg hunt, Like, hey, can we find a crab
Speaker 1: burrow and find some bones in there? So, as far
Speaker 1: as I know, they are still on the hunt for
Speaker 1: a crab burrow with Amelia earharts the rest of the
Speaker 1: bones in it, So you know, I'll keep you updated.
Speaker 2: I wonder is there like any particular way they would
Speaker 2: know if it was her bones specifically, or like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just some bones.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it would basically be like, are
Speaker 1: these the bones of a woman? Of this? You know? Oh?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: It's also not necessarily super easy to like figure out
Speaker 1: whether bones are male or female, but you can usually
Speaker 1: like size the size of the person. I think is
Speaker 1: probably the best way to do the items.
Speaker 2: I guess like how recent they'd be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that too, you could, like you could definitely date
Speaker 1: date the bones, not take the bones on the date,
Speaker 1: but date them.
Speaker 2: Up for yourself.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a big fan of your uh your work.
Speaker 1: Amelia sitting across jaw.
Speaker 2: Falls backs at.
Speaker 1: Uh, poor poor Amelia Earhart. I I I joke because
Speaker 1: of course this is about crabs carrying bones, which is
Speaker 1: inherently hard not to joke about. But it's just really
Speaker 1: sad because it's like, you know, it seems very likely
Speaker 1: that she uh spent some time on this island, probably alone,
Speaker 1: you know, and died in a way that is really
Speaker 1: no one deserves to have to go through that where
Speaker 1: it's just you know, the elements and you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: I think that's something that happened whenever you like investigate
Speaker 1: these mysteries, like once you get to the root of it,
Speaker 1: you're like, you know, this was like a real person,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that that's really really upsetting, like you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: And then, not.
Speaker 2: To disparage the air heart, the real die hard Earhart
Speaker 2: fans out there, the fandom community aheads, I think that
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: I don't blame people for being intensely curious it's it's
Speaker 1: a very interesting mystery. I don't think there's anything like
Speaker 1: you know, I think that in this tig hard group,
Speaker 1: I think is very very respectful of the fact that
Speaker 1: this was a human being. But the crabs certainly are
Speaker 1: not respectful on that fact. They're carrying bones hiding them.
Speaker 2: The crabs are like, oh, look, this giant bag of
Speaker 2: meat just yeah, showed up on our beach.
Speaker 1: Like sounds great, crabs, I don't. I'm not saying we
Speaker 1: should be mean to crabs, but I'm saying if the
Speaker 1: shoe is on the other, pincer like crabs would not
Speaker 1: be getting us high before boiling us and eating us.
Speaker 2: They might do us the decency of chopping our head
Speaker 2: off first. That's like a quick snap.
Speaker 1: I don't think it'd be quick snap. I think it'd
Speaker 1: be a series of horrible pinches.
Speaker 2: Based on what I know about arthropod like behavior, a
Speaker 2: lot of like insect like predatory insects and spiders and stuff. Uh,
Speaker 2: if they're up against something that is going to put
Speaker 2: up a fight, a lot of times they will go
Speaker 2: directly for like an immobilizing strike of some kind of
Speaker 2: first like they'll try to like rip off the head
Speaker 2: or snip the neck or something like that. So if
Speaker 2: you're like able to fight back, they might at least
Speaker 2: try to like put you out of your misery first,
Speaker 2: just to make it easier for them to eat you,
Speaker 2: so that you're not like inconveniencing them while they're doing it.
Speaker 1: Counterpoint, I don't recommend you look at a video of
Speaker 1: a coconut crab eating a bird.
Speaker 2: I won't be doing that. I don't think I'm going
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: Doing It's not great. Yeah, I mean, I think their
Speaker 1: their pinch strength is just so like good that they
Speaker 1: don't need to worry too much about something escaping, and
Speaker 1: thus they're not always the most merciful when it comes
Speaker 1: to eating birds.
Speaker 2: Also, like they're not the they're not the villain in
Speaker 2: the story, right, Like it's it's unlikely that they like
Speaker 2: dealt the killing blow or anything like that. Probably didn't
Speaker 2: like kill her, no, But also like they were just
Speaker 2: doing their role as like scavengers. Yeah, of course, like
Speaker 2: their role is to like clean up the ecosystem by
Speaker 2: like picking up decaying material, so they were kind of
Speaker 2: doing what they were supposed to be doing. No, it's
Speaker 2: just a little gruesome.
Speaker 1: It's a little gruesome. But I think you know again,
Speaker 1: they they're just doing They're just doing their stuff. The
Speaker 1: real villain is probably like Gang Green or bacteria. To
Speaker 1: be honest, Hubris, sure that too. Well, before we go,
Speaker 1: we've got to play a little game. Ellen, are you
Speaker 1: ready for the Mystery animal sound game? Guess who's squawking?
Speaker 2: I'm so excited. That's my favorite part.
Speaker 1: Every week I kick a mystery animal sound in. You
Speaker 1: the listener, and you, the guest, try to guess who
Speaker 1: is making that sound. It can be any animal in
Speaker 1: the world. So last week's Mystery Animals sound hint was this.
Speaker 1: She may seem to have a tough exterior, but Betsy
Speaker 1: here does not like to be bothered.
Speaker 2: S hum. It sounds like a beetle of some kind,
Speaker 2: maybe with a small but like the it sounds like
Speaker 2: the stridulation of like a bug or like a beetle
Speaker 2: or something. Is it a beetle? You are absolutely I
Speaker 2: don't know how granular when you don't get you're right.
Speaker 1: This is the stridulation of a beetle. This is a
Speaker 1: best beetle, aka a Betsy beetle. So congratulations to you
Speaker 1: and also to Auntie Bee who guessed correctly. There are
Speaker 1: actually many species of best beetle in North America. Best
Speaker 1: beetles are unusual among beetles in that they are relatively
Speaker 1: social and very vocal. So yeah, they will live in
Speaker 1: groups in rotting wood. They care for their young. They
Speaker 1: also have to eat their on poop or the poop
Speaker 1: of other adult best beetles once it's been broken down
Speaker 1: by microscopic organisms to fully get the nutritional benefits of
Speaker 1: their meals. So that's fun. I always love a poop eater.
Speaker 2: They're the drunk bachelorette party girls of the beetle world.
Speaker 2: Unusually social and very vocal. Unusually social and very vocal.
Speaker 1: And eating crap. Yes. So they are remarkable because they
Speaker 1: have a large sound repertoire. Depending on the species, they
Speaker 1: can have around fourteen distinct type of calls used in
Speaker 1: various social contexts, from courtship to aggression to feeding. One
Speaker 1: species even has a post aggression call when they start
Speaker 1: doing little push ups to indicate that the fight is over,
Speaker 1: which is adorable. The sound that you just heard is
Speaker 1: likely a disturbance sound, the protests they make when disturbed.
Speaker 2: Just being disturbed by the camera.
Speaker 1: On Yeah, like like not not exactly happy to be
Speaker 1: disturbed so on.
Speaker 2: That would be really funny if like every recording of
Speaker 2: this beetle was just the like basically like the get
Speaker 2: that microphone away from me sound for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just just the way that the you know, the
Speaker 1: look that Ben Affleck has every time the paparazzi takes
Speaker 1: a photo of them.
Speaker 2: Are He's just over it? This is that.
Speaker 1: This is the sound fit Affleck make when the paparazzi
Speaker 1: is like annoying him. So onto this week's mystery animal sound.
Speaker 1: The hint is this, Please chew with your mouth closed, Bruce,
Speaker 1: all right? Can you get to you as making that sound?
Speaker 2: Huh? That was There was like two components to that sound,
Speaker 2: and the squeak was a jump scare. It sounds like
Speaker 2: some kind of rodent to me. Uh, I'm assuming that
Speaker 2: the Bruce part is a part of the clue, but
Speaker 2: it's not whatever. It's not connecting any dots in my brain.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like some type of little squirrel maybe
Speaker 2: I'm saying, maybe like a ground squirrel.
Speaker 1: Interesting, interesting guests, Well, we will find out next week
Speaker 1: who is making this sound. If you out there think
Speaker 1: you know, send me your guesses at Creature Feature Pod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. You can also send me your questions.
Speaker 1: I occasionally do a listener questions episode and so I
Speaker 1: love receiving questions from you guys. Ellen, Where can people
Speaker 1: find you?
Speaker 2: I am on I'm most active on TikTok these days,
Speaker 2: and it's just my name Ellen doot Weather for with
Speaker 2: my hand on there, where I post a lot of
Speaker 2: tiktoks about, you know, animal facts and evolution and the
Speaker 2: fine things that I find interesting. I have two podcasts.
Speaker 2: One of them is Just the Zoo of Us. It
Speaker 2: is a podcast where we review animals. It's either me
Speaker 2: and my husband or Meat and a guest. Katie has
Speaker 2: been a guest on if you want to listen to
Speaker 2: us talk about cuckoo wasps. That was really really fun.
Speaker 2: That's a great starting point there, and that one is
Speaker 2: family friendly, so anybody can listen any age. And I
Speaker 2: have another podcast that I haven't put out an episode
Speaker 2: on recently because I have been in the middle of
Speaker 2: moving across the country, but it's gonna start back up
Speaker 2: here really soon. It's called Spellbound and Gagged and it's
Speaker 2: about all things weird and gross and with bad vibes.
Speaker 2: That you still like morbidly want to learn about.
Speaker 1: Like crabs eating Amelia at your Heart.
Speaker 2: Yes, haven't dedicated a whole episode to that, but I'm
Speaker 2: sure we will at some point. But Katie's also been
Speaker 2: a guest on that where we talked about our favorite parasites.
Speaker 2: So if you wanted to check that out, that's on
Speaker 2: Spellbound and Gag. That one is not family friendly. We
Speaker 2: do say cussing.
Speaker 1: We hate your families on that one.
Speaker 2: No family family is allowed.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend both of those podcasts, not just because
Speaker 1: I've been a guest on them, but because they're great.
Speaker 1: So do you check them out? And thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and
Speaker 1: you want to write a rating or review, I read
Speaker 1: every single written review and I deeply appreciate every rating.
Speaker 1: It really does help the podcast. It makes me feel
Speaker 1: good thanks to the space Cossics, where there's super awesome
Speaker 1: song XO. Lumina Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or guess what more of you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. I don't judge you do
Speaker 1: what you want, you know, carry off Amelia Earharts Films.
Speaker 1: That's all right, it's not, it's not. Don't do that
Speaker 1: bad hop box, bad draps, hot box a lobster. There
Speaker 1: you go. I'm not a lawyer, so don't. This is
Speaker 1: not legal.
Speaker 2: Advice, all right. Definitely only hot box a lobster. If
Speaker 2: it's legal where you live.
Speaker 1: You're right, exactly. Check your local laws. See if it's
Speaker 1: legal to hot box a lobster. All right, see you
Speaker 1: next Wednesday.