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Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology

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Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about some twisted mating stories from parasites that take this

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Speaker 1: scenic route to reproduction, to some species boycotting normal mating altogether.

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Speaker 1: Discover this more as we answer the age old question

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Speaker 1: how many nematodes can you fit inside an ant's key

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Speaker 1: star Joining me today is author of the John Dyes

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Speaker 1: at the End and the Zoe Ash series and fan

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Speaker 1: of parasites, Jason Pargeon. Welcome. So my goal today is

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Speaker 1: not to instill a sense of existential dread and horror

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Speaker 1: and your listeners. I know this is not that kind

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Speaker 1: of a show. So if I start if in the

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Speaker 1: course of you describing these things, if I when I

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Speaker 1: start talking about the implications of it, if I start

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Speaker 1: going down too dark of the path, there needs to

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Speaker 1: be some kind of a signal or a safe word,

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Speaker 1: something you can say this like, no, Jason, I know

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Speaker 1: that you are a master of modern horror, is what

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Speaker 1: I personally, Katie. I'm calling you, Jason about I need

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Speaker 1: you to to dial it I need YouTube dial it back. Well,

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Speaker 1: I do quack out naughty words on this show, but

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Speaker 1: I don't really quack out existential dreads. So I think

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Speaker 1: it will be okay. And if the listeners don't need

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Speaker 1: that right now, like let's nobody like nobody, surely nobody

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Speaker 1: is listening to spend the rest of the day because

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna just people who are unfamiliar for me and

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Speaker 1: me and Katie used to work together, like, for example,

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Speaker 1: just people unfamiliar with me. I personally, it's my understanding

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Speaker 1: that the only reason one of my previous horror novels

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Speaker 1: did not win the Pulitzer Prize was because it was

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Speaker 1: just too too scary. That's because I in twelve. You

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Speaker 1: may have heard like there was no Pulitzer awarded in

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Speaker 1: fiction that year, and I think it's because my novel

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Speaker 1: that year. This book is full of spiders. I think

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Speaker 1: because I I was people don't believe me. But I

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Speaker 1: was texting with the guy that gives out the Pulitzers

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Speaker 1: and I was like, bro, like, yeah, Rodney, we call

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Speaker 1: him pork Chop is his nickname. I was like, yo,

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Speaker 1: it's am I winning the Pulitzer or not? And he

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Speaker 1: he text me bags like, bro, it's like low key, bro,

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Speaker 1: it's too like, I'm too scared reading this thing. The

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Speaker 1: number one rule is you cannot make the Pulitzer Prize

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Speaker 1: awarders pee their pants because then you know they won't

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Speaker 1: give you an award because they pe their pants. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they're like, that's no, you made it. You made

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Speaker 1: it too, you made it too scary, so and kind

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Speaker 1: and that sucks because like the Pulzer comes, it's there's

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Speaker 1: like a fifty dollar gift card to Taco Bell like

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Speaker 1: the like it's it's a really cool prized one. But

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Speaker 1: the point I'm making is is that sometimes I can

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Speaker 1: go to a place that's so terrifying that you can

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Speaker 1: just be terrified into a coma. So if you hear

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Speaker 1: in the course of recording this where it seems like

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Speaker 1: there's gaps in the audio, that's where it's they've had

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Speaker 1: to cut out some things that was too disturbing by law,

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Speaker 1: Like it's legally and you can't put it into a podcast. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I've got my lawyer right here kind of

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Speaker 1: letting me know when I got to cut it out. Wait,

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Speaker 1: what's that she's she's saying, cut all of this, but

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Speaker 1: you know, well, we'll see if we can keep that in.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, so we are talking about some pretty horrifying

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Speaker 1: things today on the podcast, and one of my favorite

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Speaker 1: parasites actually we're going to talk about and a parasite

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Speaker 1: that I actually recently learned about that is now my

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Speaker 1: new favorite parasite. So, Jason, when I asked you what

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Speaker 1: you wanted to talk about, you mentioned the Lucochloridium paradox um,

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Speaker 1: which is that parasitic brood sex that infects the eye

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Speaker 1: stalks of snails and turns their eye stalks into this

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Speaker 1: incredible undulating show of like these colorful lines and they

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Speaker 1: kind of look like caterpillars or like some kind of

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Speaker 1: techno caterpillar rave attached to this snail's head. I really

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Speaker 1: I can't emphasize enough. And here's where if you are

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Speaker 1: able to access a photo of this thing, and I

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Speaker 1: know that there's no way listening to this, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: know how to google what was the name of the parasite,

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Speaker 1: Lucochloridium paradox um. This is the whole thing right here,

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Speaker 1: because this thing it infects that she says, the stalks

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Speaker 1: of of a snail and makes them look like caterpillar.

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Speaker 1: But why would it want to do that, Katie. Well,

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Speaker 1: in the strictest sense, it doesn't want anything, because it

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Speaker 1: is a tiny flat worm with barely two brain cells

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Speaker 1: to kind of rubbed together. But natural selection has created

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Speaker 1: this completely bananas mating process for this thing. So a

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Speaker 1: little bit of info about it. It lives in temperate

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Speaker 1: forests of North American Europe. We actually did cover this

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Speaker 1: on the episode Evolutionary Horror Stories, but that was a

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Speaker 1: while back, and I think it's always fun to do

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Speaker 1: a recap of this thing because it is amazing. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this tiny flat worm found in the temperate forests of

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Speaker 1: North American Europe. So here is its lifestyle in a nutshell,

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Speaker 1: or maybe I should say in a snail shell. So first,

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Speaker 1: a snail will accidentally eat the eggs of the luca

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Speaker 1: clurity of flatworm. While the snail is eating lee was

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Speaker 1: contaminated by bird poop, and we're going to find out

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Speaker 1: why this bird poop is important later. So the eggs

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Speaker 1: hatch inside the snail's body, and so they are these

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Speaker 1: really teeny tiny larvae of this flat worm. There, these

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Speaker 1: tiny mouthless worms and they travel through the snail's body

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Speaker 1: into its eye stalks, and once it's in the ice stalks,

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Speaker 1: these first stage larvae actually transform into brood sacks. So

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Speaker 1: it's not just that these larvae are growing inside these snail.

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Speaker 1: The larvae are actually generating new larvae through a sexual reproduction,

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Speaker 1: so they are multiplying until these brood sacks contains hundreds

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Speaker 1: of new larvae. And these brood sacks caused the snail's

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Speaker 1: eyes to swell, and that is what you're actually seeing

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Speaker 1: when you're seeing this weird techno rave of these caterpillar

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Speaker 1: like protrusions. They undulate inside the eye stocks, creating a

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Speaker 1: hypnotic strobe effect of red, green, white, and yellow bands

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Speaker 1: and spots, which looks like those two writing caterpillars, because

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Speaker 1: the caterpillars are food for the type of bird is

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Speaker 1: trying to attract. Now you're going to correct me, and

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Speaker 1: you're gonna say, Jason, you you idiot, You you master

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Speaker 1: of horror. Yet somehow, idiot, No one involved in this

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Speaker 1: process wants anything. No one involved in this process knows

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Speaker 1: what it's doing. That right there is my entire point.

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Speaker 1: Because we've only you're only halfway through this process. That

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Speaker 1: you're going to describe a process that is so complicated

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Speaker 1: and so hyper specific and so strategic that it is

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Speaker 1: impossible to understand how it could exist without an intelligence

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Speaker 1: strategizing it out. It would be like if a flock

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Speaker 1: of a flock of beavers, what's what's a group of

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Speaker 1: beavers called? Oh, you know what? I'm not really sure. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to say the Parliament of Beavers. A herd

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Speaker 1: of beavers accidentally carried out the Oceans thirteen heist, not

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Speaker 1: because they had a Danny Ocean strategizing it, just because

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Speaker 1: they mindlessly, following instinct, accidentally did every step of breaking

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Speaker 1: into the vault and on all of that stuff. This

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Speaker 1: is every bit as complicated as that, only it was

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Speaker 1: all done through blind, dumb natural selection. No one involved

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Speaker 1: knows what they're doing, and that to me is incredible

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Speaker 1: because it kind of cast doubt on what intelligence is. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it does feel very much like this was written by

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Speaker 1: a serial killer. Like you you gave a serial killers

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Speaker 1: some kind of animal creation powers and they're like, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to create a parasite that grows inside a

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Speaker 1: snail and then a sexually reproduces until it creates these

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Speaker 1: eggs acts inside the snails. Ey stalks that undulate and

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Speaker 1: throb like two caterpillars, and then that gets eaten by

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Speaker 1: a bird. Yeah, it's it's completely nuts and psychotics. So,

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Speaker 1: like you were saying, just as these just as these

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Speaker 1: flatworms have quote unquote planned all along, the birds will

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Speaker 1: find that caterpillar mimicry display really appetizing and eat the

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Speaker 1: snails i stalks or even the whole snail. Often just

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Speaker 1: pick up the ice stalks themselves and leave this poor, blind,

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Speaker 1: mutilated snail to die. And the local claridium quote unquote

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Speaker 1: wants to be eaten by that bird to fulfill its

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Speaker 1: sick and twisted lifestyle, so it will reproduce inside of

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Speaker 1: the bird sexually and just basically having this orgy, and

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Speaker 1: so it's eggs will get pooped out again. The horrifying

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Speaker 1: life cycle will start again once a snail accidentally eats

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Speaker 1: a leaf contaminated by that poop, and even more deviously,

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Speaker 1: it actually changes the behavior of the snail to make

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Speaker 1: it more likely to be eaten by a bird. So

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Speaker 1: typically these snails will stay in the dense foliage of

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Speaker 1: the forest where it's shady and there's not a lot

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Speaker 1: of light in there, and it's harder for a bird

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Speaker 1: to see them, but these local chloridium will cause the

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Speaker 1: snail to actually go towards sunlight, where it's much more

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Speaker 1: likely that these birds will be able to find and

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Speaker 1: pick them off. So, like you said, it is my

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Speaker 1: blowing that such a parasite could exist and would have

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Speaker 1: such a detailed life plan that yeah, does really rival

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Speaker 1: some kind of heist, except the bank is like a

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Speaker 1: bird's intestinal tract. So to pull pull back the curtain

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Speaker 1: a little bit, because the question people constantly ask me is, Jason,

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Speaker 1: how is it even possible to write a horror novel? Like,

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Speaker 1: surely only a genius could do it. Here's here's the

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Speaker 1: reality any any monster horror story you've ever seen. It's

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Speaker 1: the only premise is what if humans were subject to

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Speaker 1: the same stuff that animals and insects are subject to

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Speaker 1: all time? Yeah, Like like on this show, like previous

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Speaker 1: guests have referenced aliens or something like that, It's like, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but aliens, that meeting process and aliens is something that

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Speaker 1: you would see in the insect were old, only much

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Speaker 1: much worse. So here to try to put this into

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Speaker 1: human terms is something that no no horror writer, no

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Speaker 1: matter how depraved would come up with. The human equivalent

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Speaker 1: would be if you ate a salad and there was

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Speaker 1: some sort of parasite in the leaves of the salad.

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Speaker 1: This parasite then traveled to let's say, your arm, and

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Speaker 1: formed an egg sac that looks and smells exactly like

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Speaker 1: a cheeseburger. Then it mind controlled you into you thinking

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Speaker 1: you're doing this for your own purposes. You don't know

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Speaker 1: you're you're being controlled. In mind controlled you into crawling

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Speaker 1: under someone's picnic and sticking your cheeseburger egg sact arm

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Speaker 1: under their paper plate so that they would eat it,

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Speaker 1: so that they would now have the egg from this

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Speaker 1: eggsact inside of them. So then they the next time

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Speaker 1: they are out and about and they poop on someone

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Speaker 1: else's salad, it would start the cycle all over again. Right, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: I mean at first I wasn't scared because the idea

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Speaker 1: that I would willingly eat a salad is just preposterous.

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Speaker 1: But then you started talking about the cheeseburger arms and

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Speaker 1: pooping on someone's salad, both things that I do enjoy.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, no, that is exactly what is happening here.

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Speaker 1: What is so interesting to me is that this isn't

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Speaker 1: something where it's like, oh, man, well, I guess in

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Speaker 1: a world full of possibilities, we're going to get one

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Speaker 1: parasite that does such a devious thing just due to

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Speaker 1: the law of large numbers probability. But no, this is

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Speaker 1: not the only parasite that has such a complicated lifestyle

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Speaker 1: and such a devious plan. There is actually another parasite

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Speaker 1: that does almost, if not more, of a devious kind

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Speaker 1: of um does does a version of this that is

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Speaker 1: just as devious. So Mermaconema neotropic come is a parasite

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Speaker 1: that doesn't make its victim look like a caterpillar but

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Speaker 1: a fruit. This is actually the only instance of fruit

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Speaker 1: mimicry known in the animal kingdom, let alone unwilling mimicry

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Speaker 1: caused by a parasite. So this is this is really creepy.

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Speaker 1: And so this uh m neotropic come is a parasitic

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Speaker 1: Nema toad, which is a tiny round worm that parasitizes

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Speaker 1: a species of South American ants. So so far, pretty

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Speaker 1: normal ants get all sorts of horrifying parasites all the time,

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Speaker 1: And like the luco Floridium, the m. Neotropicum does have

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Speaker 1: a dastardly convoluted plan to carry out its life cycle.

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Speaker 1: Just like the lucochloridium, it starts with a bird uh,

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Speaker 1: and its eggs are pooped out of a bird. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so how did it get inside that bird? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's a funny story. So uh. These eggs will be

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Speaker 1: picked up by an ant of the sea, a trada species.

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Speaker 1: And these ants are actually really interesting in their own right.

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Speaker 1: Their jet black, shiny ants with this kind of odd,

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Speaker 1: blocky shovel shaped head. They're also known as gliding ants

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Speaker 1: because they can use their legs in their butt to

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Speaker 1: steer while falling, which is really useful because they live

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Speaker 1: up in the trees of the Peruvian rainforest, and if

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Speaker 1: they fall, being able to steer back to the tree

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Speaker 1: trunk to easily return to their colony is much more

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Speaker 1: preferable than getting lost or eaten by predators on the

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Speaker 1: forest floor. However, m neotropicome, our little parasitic nematode, has

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Speaker 1: other plans for these poor ants. So when the ant

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Speaker 1: picks up the eggs in the bird dukie, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: just eat them directly. It's even more convoluted than the

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Speaker 1: snail story. They actually carry these eggs back to their

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Speaker 1: colony because they think this is a source of food

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Speaker 1: that they can feed their young. Then they feed it

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Speaker 1: to their own aunt larva, unwittingly dooming them, and these

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Speaker 1: poor larva will have their life completely altered by the

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Speaker 1: parasite sick game. So as the aunt larva matures into

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Speaker 1: a fully grown ant, the c neotropicome nematode is also

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Speaker 1: developing inside the ant, reproducing inside the ants gaster. So

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Speaker 1: that's the round caboose part of the ant. We could

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Speaker 1: call it a butt. It's not technically a butt, but

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'm going to call it but anyways,

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Speaker 1: So that means that male and female nematodes inside the

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Speaker 1: ant that were hatched from these eggs that were fed

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Speaker 1: to it by the ant's own caretakers are now having

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Speaker 1: sex inside of the ants but and making more of

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Speaker 1: these horrible little nematodes. So after the nematodes mate, the

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Speaker 1: males die while the female stick around carrying their eggs. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is all still happening inside of the ant gaster,

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Speaker 1: and when we zoom back out to the ant, we

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Speaker 1: see something even more nefarious happening. So the nematodes, who

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Speaker 1: are sick little perverts, will complete its life cycle inside birds.

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Speaker 1: And so to get there, it's got to do something

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Speaker 1: horrible to this ant. Because the birds are actually uninterested

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Speaker 1: in eating these ants. They have a bad tasting chemical defense,

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Speaker 1: these hard pointing exteriors. Birds are not interested in eating

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Speaker 1: the ants, so the ant has to be changed to

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Speaker 1: suit the nematodes needs. So as the nematode eggs are

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Speaker 1: developing inside the ants gaster, they're causing it to swell,

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Speaker 1: become bright red instead of black, and look just like

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Speaker 1: a delicious ripe berry that are commonly found in the

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Speaker 1: trees where the ants live. And the birds will see

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Speaker 1: this and think, hey a berry, eat it, and oh no,

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Speaker 1: now they are unwittingly carriers of an ant torture mechanism.

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Speaker 1: And Jason, I've shared with you a photo of one

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Speaker 1: of these ants, both before it's horrible transformation and after,

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Speaker 1: and also one of these ants nestled among some of

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Speaker 1: these red berries that are commonly found in these trees,

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Speaker 1: and it looks exactly like a berry. It's this is

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Speaker 1: again where if you are in a place or on

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Speaker 1: a device where you can see the vision will aids

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Speaker 1: there in the show notes or whatever. It it doesn't

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Speaker 1: just inflame. It's the it's aunt. But to be read,

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Speaker 1: it's because you know, like it's like, well, humans, something

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Speaker 1: gets inflamed in red. No, no, no, this is not

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Speaker 1: how that's not how ants work. They don't have red blood.

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Speaker 1: It looks like the exact shading and shape and everything

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Speaker 1: is exactly like one of these berries. And again, specifically,

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Speaker 1: as part of this incredibly complicated strategy, and again even

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Speaker 1: in your course of explaining that, you used phrasing like, well,

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Speaker 1: the ant thinks it's carrying food back, and anyone wanting

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Speaker 1: to be pedantic will say, well, ants can't think. But again,

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Speaker 1: I can't even give you the human equivalent of this. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's like, well, it gets inside your body and it

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Speaker 1: turns your butt into a beautiful fruit basket. And then

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Speaker 1: and then you you take it to the office, and

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Speaker 1: somebody thinks of fruit basket has been delivered to the office,

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Speaker 1: and that tricks the because this is actually so convoluted

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Speaker 1: that I can't explain it in those terms without becoming confusing.

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Speaker 1: Because you've got at every stage you're gonna ask yourself, well,

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Speaker 1: how does this parasite know that? And I guess the

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Speaker 1: first question we haven't really addressed. It is like, well,

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Speaker 1: why do they want to be eaten by birds in

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Speaker 1: the first place. And you have to understand there's a

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Speaker 1: strategy among this type of creature that the parents want

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Speaker 1: their children to be as far away from them as possible.

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Speaker 1: They so their goal is to broadcast themselves, like, to

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Speaker 1: get far away, and that's just part of their Now,

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Speaker 1: I don't actually I am not smart enough to know why,

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Speaker 1: but getting into a bird to be pooped out somewhere

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Speaker 1: miles away is a key part of all sorts of

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Speaker 1: living things strategies, including fruit. That's how seeds. Seeds work.

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Speaker 1: They make beautiful fruit that the birds want to come eat,

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Speaker 1: but the seeds are made to pass safely through their

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Speaker 1: digestion they get pooped out miles way on a new

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Speaker 1: tree grows. It is not totally clear to me why

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Speaker 1: these larvae or these parasites don't want to just breed

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Speaker 1: near where they are, because it seems like those distances

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Speaker 1: would seem like a long way away to a parasite.

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Speaker 1: But their strategy clearly there's a benefit to getting inside

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Speaker 1: of a bird and then starting the whole process, not

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Speaker 1: just starting over, starting over miles away. Yeah, and you

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Speaker 1: were right. That dispersal seems to be the main motivating

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Speaker 1: factor for having this elaborate system, and a reason both

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Speaker 1: for things like plants or animals why they want dispersal

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Speaker 1: is so that their offspring don't have to compete for

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Speaker 1: as many resources. So if you have, you know, like

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Speaker 1: with plants, like a tree, it's very easy to see

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Speaker 1: if you have a cluster of tree, all of the

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Speaker 1: young saplings who are under this tree aren't going to

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Speaker 1: get any sunlight, They're not going to get as many

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Speaker 1: nutrients from this soil. It's bad to have this dense

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Speaker 1: population and that are all competing for the same resources,

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Speaker 1: especially if it's your own genetic progeny, because you're going

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Speaker 1: to outcompete your own offspring, and that's not a tenable

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Speaker 1: strategy for genes being reproduced generation over generation. So in general,

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Speaker 1: animals have also developed this technique of dispersal. We've actually

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Speaker 1: talked about this on the podcast before from sort of

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Speaker 1: a more I guess understandable from a human perspective, where

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Speaker 1: you you'll have something like an elephant troop or a

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Speaker 1: lion pride where the males will go off and and

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Speaker 1: join their own pride or go mate somewhere else, so

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Speaker 1: the males will disperse and move off. And this is

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Speaker 1: kind of a more if you can think of it

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Speaker 1: this way, it's more of a conscious thing that these

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Speaker 1: males are doing, although also driven by instinct. But when

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Speaker 1: you get down to you the parasite level, there's not

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Speaker 1: too much thinking going on. It's just the ones that

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Speaker 1: reproduced in a way that dispersed their offspring had a

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Speaker 1: better chance of these offspring having enough resources to survive

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Speaker 1: and then reproduce themselves. And that's also kind of when

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Speaker 1: we think about really convoluted evolutionary stories. It it blows

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Speaker 1: my mind always that you can get such complexity from

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Speaker 1: just the very simplest of principles is that genes that

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Speaker 1: survive survive, and that's it, Like that is the only

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Speaker 1: concept you really need to know in order to explain this,

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Speaker 1: which is it's hard. It's even knowing that it's still

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Speaker 1: hard to really visualize it. So you can think of

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Speaker 1: it as every time there's some kind of accident or

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Speaker 1: mutation that happens with this parasite that results in it

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Speaker 1: getting sort of a step closer to this system that

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Speaker 1: works so well for it that offspring will survive so

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Speaker 1: you can imagine like with these uh, with these nematodes

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Speaker 1: accidentally getting eaten by a bird, like before they've developed

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Speaker 1: this reproductive strategy, and these are called um, this is

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Speaker 1: a called actually my asses, which my my, my, I

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Speaker 1: my ass. And it is h when something unwittingly or

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Speaker 1: let me see if I can phrase it, when something

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Speaker 1: becomes a parasite even though it has not evolved to

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Speaker 1: become a parasite. Like if you eat something like some

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Speaker 1: kind of um, some kind of nematode, and it it

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Speaker 1: is not actually a parasitic nemic toade, but now it's

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Speaker 1: living in you because it has to because you ate it.

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Speaker 1: So something like that could happen to this thing, but

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Speaker 1: then it may start to evolve these strategies that actually

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Speaker 1: make good use of this accidental ingestion. So like maybe

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Speaker 1: these nematodes kept getting eaten by birds or kept getting

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Speaker 1: eaten by ants, but then the ones that caused these

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Speaker 1: changes maybe made the ant a little more swollen and

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Speaker 1: noticeable when it was inside it. Those ended up surviving

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Speaker 1: and passing on these genes that kept getting driven further

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Speaker 1: and further into this direction, until we've got ants with

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Speaker 1: berry butts well, and I think, you know, obviously with

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Speaker 1: this show, we always are trying to put things into

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Speaker 1: human terms, like imagine this happen, or you'll be i know,

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Speaker 1: previous guests like they'll put it in terms of like

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Speaker 1: what this was the Pixar movie, because Pixar, it's always

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Speaker 1: the animals, but they're acting exactly like people. They're having

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Speaker 1: parasitic nematode. Pixar movie, by the way. So for example,

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Speaker 1: when you talked earlier about why offspring disperse, you know,

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Speaker 1: and and so they you know, it's so the young

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Speaker 1: don't have to compete for resources, and some listening are like, well,

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Speaker 1: my my dad did that. You know, he just one day,

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Speaker 1: he just left and he moved to Ohio and started

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Speaker 1: a different family. Like that's probably what he was doing. Sure,

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Speaker 1: but the problem with putting this into human terms. Obviously

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Speaker 1: humans made it to the top of the food chain

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Speaker 1: because of our big brains and our opposable thumbs, and

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Speaker 1: we became tool users. That's why, you know, we have

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Speaker 1: cars and stuff to get around on. We use our

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Speaker 1: our technology, we can build things. So we can really

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Speaker 1: only think in terms of intentionality, like like if if

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Speaker 1: a human bought if a human built a house. We

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Speaker 1: don't think, oh, that person had an instinct to build

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Speaker 1: a house. We think, oh, they sat down, drew up

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Speaker 1: the plans, bought a piece of land, and everything we

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Speaker 1: do we think of as being the result of our

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Speaker 1: conscious mind having the thoughts. But there is a viral

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Speaker 1: tweet that went around where someone asked a question I

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Speaker 1: think every school child was asked. There's like, when a

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Speaker 1: beaver is building a dam, does it know it's building

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Speaker 1: a dam? Or does it, as the tweet said, does

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Speaker 1: it just see some flowing water and think absolutely not

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Speaker 1: and and just start grabbing stuff to putting its way,

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Speaker 1: like doesn't know what it's doing. I think every kid,

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Speaker 1: every kindergarten kid must seem like a bird building a

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Speaker 1: nest has asked, well, how did the bird learn how

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Speaker 1: to build the nest? Who taught it? Didn't watch its

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Speaker 1: mother build the nest? I mean, it's a this is

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Speaker 1: such a huge question in evolutionary biology to the beaver thing. Actually,

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Speaker 1: I can answer that tweet, which is it's the sound

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Speaker 1: of flowing water and the beaver going absolutely not. You

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Speaker 1: can actually play the sound of flowing water from a

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Speaker 1: speaker and the beaver will come over to it an

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Speaker 1: agitation and like shove twigs and mud at it because

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Speaker 1: it has this instinct too when it can hear are

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Speaker 1: flowing water and it's near this damn. The damn construction

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Speaker 1: is actually fascinating because they have like a foundation. It's

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Speaker 1: not just the beaver throwing sticks at a situation. They

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Speaker 1: have a whole construction process. But once they've built this damn,

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Speaker 1: they can hear leaks, and when they hear a leak,

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Speaker 1: they are driven to go and angrily shove sticks and

426
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:25,640
Speaker 1: mud into it. And with the with the bird thing,

427
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting thing to bring up birds because

428
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 1: birds are guided by so much instinct. But then they

429
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 1: also have this capacity to learn. So you can take

430
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: a bird away from its parents and it may still

431
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: learn how to build a nest, but it may not

432
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: learn how to sing because it requires the presence of

433
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: other birds hearing their bird song in order to be

434
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: able to learn how to sing that bird song. And

435
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: you actually get bird song changing over time because if

436
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 1: the parents of the bird start singing a slightly different

437
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: version of it, then the offspring will sing a slightly

438
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: different version of it, until the song actually starts to

439
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: drift into something new and with humans as we're getting

440
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: more complicated. Humans are really interesting because our babies are

441
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 1: born prematurely compared to other animals. You know, we've got

442
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: the soft, squishy heads, our skulls aren't entirely fused together.

443
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: We're kind of useless. You look at all the other

444
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: animals and the animal kingdom, so many of them aren't

445
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: as useless. They can walk around and run uh hours

446
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 1: after birth, but not babies. And the reason for this

447
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: seems to be that we selected for these huge brains,

448
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: and so the only way we could give birth to

449
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: a baby with such a huge brain as if we

450
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: gave birth to them prematurely, otherwise it would kill the mother.

451
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: And because we give birth to them so prematurely, their

452
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: brains are highly pliable and they go through a lot

453
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: of development, and then that had the added benefit of

454
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 1: the baby being born maybe with less pre programmed at

455
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: pre programmed behavior, but more of a capacity to learn behavior.

456
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: So are does that mean we have no instincts? No?

457
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: I think we definitely have still have a lot of

458
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: instincts that are sort of pre written in our brain,

459
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 1: these sort of pre programmed templates in our brain. But

460
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: because we go through so much development as young children.

461
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: There is certainly so much that is shaped and sculpted

462
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: by our an environment. And then it's a question of like, okay,

463
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: so maybe we didn't come out of the wound pre programmed,

464
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: but how much of our behavior was programmed sometime when

465
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: we were babies absorbing all this information. And then you

466
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: get into and not to steer us too far off

467
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: the subject, but you get into things like parallel evolution

468
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: where you have multip human cultures who all they all

469
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 1: developed the same idea totally separately, Like they all have music,

470
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: they all have certain things that are they all have dance,

471
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: like there are things that clearly are coming from inside us.

472
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: Like we find this satisfying and we're eventually going to

473
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,959
Speaker 1: come up with it, whether someone teaches it to us

474
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: or not. Like if we were if you had a baby,

475
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: you know, a group of babies raised on a desert

476
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: island as part of some sort of uh, you know,

477
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 1: cruel experiment and or reality show. Some calls like they

478
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 1: may not come up exactly with the Fast and Furious

479
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: franchise in their civilization, that they would have storytelling even

480
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: if no one like like, there's certain things that to

481
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: make for our brains to get where they are. You know,

482
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: there's certain behaviors, there's certain things like humor, jokes, stories,

483
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: there are certain things that are clearly come from the

484
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 1: structure in the brain somehow that's not purely Oh I

485
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: saw someone else do this, and so I'm doing it.

486
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: It's so in terms of where that line is drawn,

487
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: in terms of what we're doing automatically versus because it's

488
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: not that you're born knowing certain things, is that you're

489
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 1: born with a propensity to get leisure from certain things,

490
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: and so you seek those things out, like you you know,

491
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: you don't like sleeping in the rain, and so you

492
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: come up with what, I need to put something over me,

493
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: and so now you've invented the house again. Like it's

494
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: that I'm fascinated by that because again, we we really

495
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: don't like to think about anything we do as being

496
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: the result of instinct revolution because it makes it sound

497
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:54,479
Speaker 1: like animals and it's too easy to humanize people, and

498
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 1: I don't it doesn't have to be that. It's not

499
00:32:57,360 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: trying to take away like the really like that. There's

500
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 1: a certain personality type on the Internet of the guy

501
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: who's so smart that heat that he doesn't enjoy anything.

502
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 1: So it's like, well, you know, technically, are't as just

503
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: a manifestation of our mating rituals blah blah blah or

504
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: you know, or love doesn't exist. It's just a hormonal

505
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: chemical and it's that's a silly way to look at it.

506
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 1: Something can be natural and inborn and still be beautiful

507
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: or precious or whatever. It's just it's not until you

508
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: study how animals work that you realize how human they

509
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: are in the sense that they've learned all sorts of things,

510
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: you know, like deception. I mean, what we're describing here

511
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: is this is a straight up scam, like they've this,

512
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 1: this is an n f T bit coin scam. Here,

513
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 1: They've they've convinced that they've convinced another animal that that

514
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: there's a delicious food here, and then you know, the

515
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: bird eats it and realizes that's eating a disgust dean

516
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: aunt and then it logs in it's like, oh, somebody

517
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: took my somebody took my ape ape photos, and now

518
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 1: my n f T s or worthless. I do I

519
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,839
Speaker 1: do think that there is a really fertile market there

520
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: to like market parasites to the crypto n f T

521
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: brows because I think they might buy it, Like, hey,

522
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 1: this is a really rare n f T. You actually

523
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: eat this roundworm and it lives in you, and you

524
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: have the only copy of that roundworm inside of you,

525
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: And it would be so much more ethical than what

526
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: they're doing now. Yeah, I mean, it'd be great for

527
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: the environment. I have no idea if the parent company

528
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,760
Speaker 1: of this pod guess it isn't the n f T market.

529
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to I'm not trying to subvert. I

530
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:53,760
Speaker 1: mean I am. I was just gonna say very very briefly,

531
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: and the ants, we we didn't necessarily touch on the

532
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 1: fact that on top of making their butts look I

533
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 1: could bury it once again, May them go walk among

534
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 1: the berries and brain controls them into sticking their butt

535
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,959
Speaker 1: up into the air so that it will even poke

536
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: out more like a berry. Again. Then does know what's

537
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: doing it? The parasites don't know they're making the ant

538
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 1: do it, but it's it is another example of mind control, which,

539
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 1: by the way, mind control extremely common in in the

540
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: parasite world. Yeah, and the creepy thing is we don't

541
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 1: really know how they do that. This is somewhat of

542
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: a newly discovered parasite like in the past decade or so.

543
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: And how they get the ants to do this like

544
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: bottoms up defensive posture because usually when ants do that

545
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: stick their posteriors in the air. It's a defensive posture.

546
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: But somehow this parasite has convinced them to do this

547
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:56,760
Speaker 1: um all the time. And it also it also actually

548
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: makes their butt ripe for the picking. Like literally, the

549
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: the posterior the gaster becomes easier to detach from the

550
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 1: rest of the ant's body, so the bird can just

551
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:14,360
Speaker 1: pick it off. It's it's complete. I mean, it leaves

552
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:18,800
Speaker 1: me kind of speechless. Uh. They also the reason um

553
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,279
Speaker 1: that they are able to turn the gaster red is

554
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: because they can't While they can't change the pigment of

555
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:32,879
Speaker 1: the ant, uh, they can cause the cuticle. So that's

556
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: the ants exoskeletal skin to turn translucent. And then the

557
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: growth of hundreds of these parasitic eggs actually have a

558
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,839
Speaker 1: red coloration because of these nematode embryos, and that red

559
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 1: coloration shows up through the translucent ant cuticles so uh.

560
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: And then it also makes the ant sluggish, so it

561
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: moves slower and makes it even easier for the bird

562
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,439
Speaker 1: to pick off. So it feels like evolution has thought

563
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: of every thing in this case and planned this down

564
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: to the last detail. But it's not. It's not really planning.

565
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: You can think of it as improvisation over many generations,

566
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: so many generations that your brain can't process it because

567
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,840
Speaker 1: as complicated as we've described described the process, if you

568
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: could see under a microscope what's going on inside that ants,

569
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: but it's even more complicated than that. And again all

570
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: of those things she just described with the pigment and

571
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:31,880
Speaker 1: all of that. The end result is it looks so

572
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: much like a berry that if you a human, were

573
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: out in the woods picking berries to survive because you

574
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 1: got lost or something, you would eat this ant because

575
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: you thought it was a berry, like it would be

576
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 1: enough to fool you with your giant human brain. And

577
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: I think the way, if I'm not mistaken, I think

578
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:52,799
Speaker 1: the scientists who discovered this, I think they said it

579
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: would be the equivalent of if this parasite made your

580
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 1: butt look like a fruit basket and then made you

581
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 1: start chworking so hard that your but fell off. Yeah,

582
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 1: I mean the researchers actually thought this was another species

583
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 1: of ant. It looks so different from what it's supposed

584
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: to look like. They thought it was a separate species

585
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 1: of red budded ant until they realized, no, this is

586
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: actually a parasite turning it into a delicious berry. And honestly,

587
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:25,399
Speaker 1: if I saw one of these things, even if I

588
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 1: recognized it was an ant, I might still eat it.

589
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: It looks so good. So we've talked about the incredible

590
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 1: ways that some parasites reproduce and have sex. And however,

591
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 1: some animals just don't want to have to deal with

592
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: having all that sex. They decided it's not for them,

593
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: and they reproduce a sexually. Of course, you know, I'm

594
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: being facetious when I am saying they've decided this, But

595
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: I do like the idea of these animals just going

596
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 1: You know, I am sick of exchanging these gam meets.

597
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: This is tedious and uncouth, and I'm just gonna reproduce

598
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 1: a sexually from now on. By the way, every person

599
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: listening to this, I assume you can remember the day

600
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: you found out how human reproduction works. I don't know

601
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: if these days, if it's your parents tell you, or

602
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 1: if you just run into it in a movie or

603
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: on the internet. But when when I was a youth,

604
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: like your parents had to tell you, um, and we

605
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: all think about how silly we were when we were

606
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: toddlers and we thought that, you know, in the cartoons,

607
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:48,839
Speaker 1: like a stork brings the baby. I don't know if

608
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 1: anybody ever thought that, but it was or that like, well,

609
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 1: one day, the you know, the mom, mom and dad

610
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: they kiss and then the mom poops a baby from her.

611
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: But and and you look back, it's like, oh, my gosh,

612
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,279
Speaker 1: I was so silly for thinking that. But please understand,

613
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: there is nothing intuitive or logical about how the humans

614
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 1: do it, and the fact that you're surprised to hear

615
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: that's how it works is completely fine, because it's insane.

616
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: There's the idea that this is the one way that

617
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: reproduction would happen, or that it would require sex, or

618
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: that even every animal has sex as an act that

619
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: they do versus you know, having one of them lays

620
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: eggs and the other one just comes into just does

621
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: some stuff on the eggs. It's there is an infinite

622
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 1: number of ways this happens, and most of them do

623
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 1: not involve the boy and a girl having sex with

624
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 1: each other. That's so yeah, you toddler's out there. Don't

625
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 1: don't feel ashamed for the fact that you were shocked

626
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 1: to hear that's how we do it. It's yeah. I

627
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 1: mean I remember thinking that humans were oviparous as a kid,

628
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 1: and that means when fertilization happens outside of the body.

629
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: So like that's what happens with salmon. They'll lay some

630
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 1: eggs and then a male come by and uh deposit

631
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: his sperm on those eggs, I thought, because I had

632
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: heard like, well, you know, the female has eggs, And

633
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: when I heard this as a young kid before sex said,

634
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: I thought the woman had a special like egg, and

635
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: then the man had a seed like a chicken egg

636
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: and a plant seed, and then they somehow put them together,

637
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: and then the woman like ate that and then had

638
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 1: the baby in her stomach. That's how I thought it worked,

639
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:45,319
Speaker 1: because when you hear these vague references to like an

640
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 1: egg and a seed or something, then you come up

641
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: with some weird system and then it's delightful as an

642
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: adult to find out Wait, no, like these kinds of

643
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: weird things do happen, Like there are animals that will

644
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:06,320
Speaker 1: quote unquote eat their offspring, like the gastric brooding frog,

645
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:11,760
Speaker 1: which is unfortunately extinct. But you know, there are other

646
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 1: ways you can get creative with how you reproduce, and

647
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: some of the most creative animals are ones who actually

648
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: have kind of got off on their own evolutionary limb

649
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 1: and reproduce a sexually. So it's hard to get across

650
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 1: how weird this is in one sentence, because with a

651
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: sexual reproduction you have this it seems like it would

652
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,720
Speaker 1: be a great strategy, right, because you reproduce a person

653
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:49,759
Speaker 1: of your genes. When you're reproducing sexually, only fifty of

654
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: your genes are passed on. So if your genes want

655
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: to get passed on, right, quote unquote one like, uh,

656
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: it seems like okay, if you have a clone of yourself,

657
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: that's all of your genes. That's great, and you survived,

658
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: so shouldn't a clone of yourself also survive. So the

659
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 1: reason that not all animals do a sexual reproduction is

660
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 1: that there is a struggle with genetic diversity. If you

661
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: limit the gene pool too much, your species won't have

662
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: that genetic library to be able to pull out some

663
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:33,919
Speaker 1: tricks for unexpected road bumps, like adapting to new weather conditions,

664
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: or predators or diseases. So if you have this very

665
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: limited genetic library, you don't have as many possible recombinations

666
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 1: or mutations that could save your species from, say a

667
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: devastating disease. So some species will bypass this by reproducing

668
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: a sexually for a few generations and then sexually every

669
00:43:57,239 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 1: so often to introduce a little bit of diversity into

670
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: their genome. Like a FIDS, they'll go through an a

671
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: sexual breeding a few a sexual breeding seasons, and then

672
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,479
Speaker 1: they'll reproduce sexually for a season and then go back

673
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:16,080
Speaker 1: to reproducing a sexually. And again you want to try

674
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 1: to put it into human terms and say, well, that

675
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:21,239
Speaker 1: one generation that comes along and it's the first one

676
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 1: in memory that suddenly wants to do sex, are they

677
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 1: regarded as perverts? And then the answer is that it doesn't.

678
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 1: It doesn't work that way in the animal kingdom, Like

679
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 1: there's some instinct that it's like, oh, we're going to

680
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: do it this way now. And I know that in

681
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 1: explaining why that's an advantage, you're getting into some very

682
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: science e things about genetic diversity. I think the easiest

683
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: way to understand it is it imagine that you had

684
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 1: a superhero team where you need, like if you think

685
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: of like the Avengers, you need them to each have

686
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,280
Speaker 1: different abilities because you don't know what kind of threat

687
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 1: you're going to be fa seen. So like you may

688
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:05,399
Speaker 1: face a threat that needs a Hulk who is all

689
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 1: powerful and immortal and invincible, or you may be facing

690
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 1: a threat that just needs to be shot with a

691
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: bow and arrow. But you need both because I see

692
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 1: there's some pro Hawkeye propaganda going on here that he's useful,

693
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry, but like, if you've got a magic

694
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 1: man like Doctor Strange, you can, like I guess, shoot

695
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: magic bolts. In what situation do you just need an arrow? Okay,

696
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 1: but you're undermining the metaphor you need a team of diversity.

697
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 1: Everyone has their place because and if you've seen these movies,

698
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 1: inevitably the halk will wind up fighting like a demigod,

699
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:53,719
Speaker 1: and then Hawkeye will have to shoot a person with

700
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: a bow and arrow like the Hulk wouldn't Necessarily it

701
00:45:57,280 --> 00:45:59,839
Speaker 1: would be weird if the Hulk just went in pul

702
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: rise that person. Just from from an outside point of view,

703
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 1: it's better if you just do the merciful thing instead

704
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 1: of having the Hulk just squished him like a graper,

705
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:12,360
Speaker 1: having four all these people who literally cannot die. And

706
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:15,880
Speaker 1: then also on their team is Natasha Romanov, who is

707
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 1: just a woman who can absolutely die at any moment,

708
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,400
Speaker 1: and they're just fighting together in the same battle, and

709
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: it's like, yes, let's all charge into Asia, me who

710
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: is totally immortal, and you a woman with a pistol.

711
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 1: We will all, we will all try to take on

712
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: this literal god. Anyways, idea, it is a very good metaphor.

713
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 1: I actually do really love that metaphor you have. Like

714
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 1: having a superhero team where everyone turns invisible, you could

715
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 1: never like beat up the bad guy. You would just

716
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 1: the bad guy would just be like, well, I can't

717
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: find you. But I'm just gonna keep doing the stuff

718
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: I'm doing because you can't stop me. But I also

719
00:46:56,160 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: like the idea of the cloning is extremely and again

720
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:04,879
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep coming back to this. Every horror sci

721
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: fi story, like scary, the type monster story you've read

722
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:11,720
Speaker 1: is really just something that happens in the animal kingdom

723
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 1: all the time. So like the idea of running into

724
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 1: your clone, Like let's say Katie, let's say you came

725
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 1: home from work, Uh, tomorrow from the podcast studio and

726
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 1: you came home and you found another you there. That's

727
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:30,399
Speaker 1: like the most weirdest, horrifying thing. Many movies have been

728
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: made about something like that, when it's like, oh, they've

729
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 1: made another me, which one is the real me? Because

730
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 1: the idea of having another exact you, it just breaks

731
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: your brain because you're an individual. You know, you want

732
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: to think of yourself as as one of a kind.

733
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: But that's a distinctably human thing. Based on human psychology.

734
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: In the animal kingdom, the idea of something that's breathing

735
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: by just making an exact copy of itself is very common.

736
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: They would not find that alarming, if they could find

737
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: anything alarming. But that's something where again we instinctively think

738
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:04,839
Speaker 1: of that as like a horror scenario, like how could

739
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: there be if somebody said, hey, there's another exact you,

740
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 1: and uh, toronto, it turns out exactly you down to

741
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 1: the molecule, that would be like the weirdest thing that's

742
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,320
Speaker 1: ever happened to you. Um, But here it's just something.

743
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 1: The only the only downside is, yeah, if they're all

744
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: multiple clones and they all have the same weakness, so

745
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 1: in theory, the same disease, the same weather event could

746
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 1: wipe them all out, right, Yeah, exactly, it is. It

747
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: is a strange thing too. It almost feels like cheating

748
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:35,400
Speaker 1: for an animal just to be able to clone themselves,

749
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: because it's like, well, don't you You can't just do that.

750
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,920
Speaker 1: You can't just like make a new you, like a

751
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 1: little version of you and pop it out. But that's

752
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: exactly what animals do sometimes. And it is weird when

753
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:57,880
Speaker 1: animals do this and don't seem to need that genetic diversity.

754
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: And it's one of these things that is actually an

755
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 1: act of mystery an evolutionary biology, and I don't think

756
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: that biologists really have the answer to it right now.

757
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 1: And this is the case for a couple of really,

758
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 1: really weird species that have one of the most bizarre

759
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: and inexplicable mating strategies I've ever heard, which is the

760
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 1: amazon molly fish and mole salamanders. So these are both

761
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 1: species who are all female and don't have any time

762
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: to trifle with males. They just reproduce a sexually, but

763
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 1: they will still steal the sperm of males from other

764
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: closely related species. And you might think, okay, yeah, so

765
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: maybe they do a strategy like the a fits were.

766
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: Occasionally they'll involve a little bit of the genome from

767
00:49:56,160 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: the sperm, you know, but it seems like they actually

768
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 1: just use that sperm. Uh, not for their genetic contribution

769
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: because their offspring are still exact clones. They just use

770
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: the sperm to kick start their reproduction. The presence of

771
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 1: the sperm actually um triggers there they're reproductive process. So

772
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:25,279
Speaker 1: let's start with the Amazon molly fish. Uh. It is

773
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:28,359
Speaker 1: a hybrid of two species of Molly's, the sail fin

774
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 1: Molly's in Atlantic Molly's. I don't know, Jason, if you've

775
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 1: ever owned an aquarium, but this is a very The

776
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 1: molly is a very sort of staple beginner aquarist fish.

777
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:43,799
Speaker 1: So they're these little, like thumb sized pretty fish. The

778
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:48,359
Speaker 1: Amazon molly is sort of this pearly colouration. Uh. They're

779
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 1: they're cute and pretty and kind of um, you know,

780
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:58,280
Speaker 1: just normal little aquarium fish looking things. Yes, and we're

781
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 1: me and the other listeners are sitting here waiting to

782
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: find out how this thing gets the sperm from other species. Yeah,

783
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 1: so it will actually pickpocket sperm for itself. It will

784
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: literally but in between mating pairs of its related species,

785
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:24,959
Speaker 1: either the SailFin Molly's or the Atlantic Molly's. Uh, and

786
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: just kind of like take the sperm for itself. So, um,

787
00:51:31,360 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 1: is there video of this occurring? And I don't mean

788
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:38,759
Speaker 1: that's in allurid way. I mean, is there song I'm here,

789
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 1: I'm it's the fish and it just rings the doorbell

790
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 1: and SCEs I'm here with pizza, and then it goes

791
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 1: and just like robs the entire house of sperm. Okay,

792
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 1: what you described is less stupid than the reality because

793
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: you're saying that there are two other fish mating and

794
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 1: this fish will get in between them and intercept the

795
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 1: sperms somehow. And to put this into human terms, I

796
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:12,319
Speaker 1: cannot Because if someone wrote a horror movie where this

797
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: is a monster that does this where it goes and

798
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:19,320
Speaker 1: finds couples having intercourse and then it slides in between

799
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 1: them and intercepts the sperm to then use in its

800
00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 1: own breathing process, that movie would be banned, Yeah, from theaters.

801
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:31,759
Speaker 1: That would be too. Like your family would have an

802
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 1: intervention if you wrote something like that. Yeah, yeah, I

803
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:38,840
Speaker 1: mean nature does kind of need an intervention. It seems

804
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: like it's got a problem based on its track record.

805
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is very much like some kind of

806
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 1: weird humanoid who's related to humans but not not the

807
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 1: same species. Sort of like an two humans are trying

808
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: to you know, a mommy and a daddy love each

809
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:00,280
Speaker 1: other very much, and they're trying to make a baby baby,

810
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 1: and then this humanoid, this pale, weird humanoid, just kind

811
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:06,840
Speaker 1: of slides between them and goes, you know, I'll be

812
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 1: taking that thank you, and then leaves. You know, it is,

813
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:17,239
Speaker 1: it's weird, it's intrusive. It seems like some kind of

814
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 1: crime that this Amazon Molly is committing. Oh, and I

815
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 1: should mention before I go any further. It's called the

816
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,239
Speaker 1: Amazon Molly, not because it's anywhere near the Amazon. It's

817
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: actually uh lives in fresh water in northeastern Mexico and

818
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:35,959
Speaker 1: southern Texas. It's just called Amazon because it's named after

819
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:40,840
Speaker 1: the Greek myth of the Amazonians that all female warrior

820
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,799
Speaker 1: kind of people, except I guess in this case, they

821
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:51,880
Speaker 1: sometimes raid the rest of civilization, just as steel uh sperm,

822
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 1: which you know is uh, it's it's it's certainly a

823
00:53:56,719 --> 00:54:01,640
Speaker 1: choice that these these uh, this evolutionary path for these

824
00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 1: fish and so again it just and I am kind

825
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 1: of buffuddled by this because it seems like the sperm

826
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: just kind of like goes in the fishes in reproductive tract,

827
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:20,760
Speaker 1: bounces off the egg and then that like kick, starts

828
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 1: the egg too reproduce a sexually. This is called gino genesis,

829
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 1: which is a sexual reproduction that uses sperm to start

830
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:34,320
Speaker 1: the reproductive process but does not actually use the sperms

831
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:40,560
Speaker 1: D N A and uh, it's actually unclear why why

832
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 1: they do that, why they need that, And it is

833
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:48,640
Speaker 1: an actual mystery that I can't answer because I don't

834
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: think it has been answered, or it again to fall

835
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,520
Speaker 1: into the same fallacy we've we keep using all time.

836
00:54:56,640 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: What what was the fish thinking when saw two other

837
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: fish of a similar species meeting and thought, I'm just

838
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,239
Speaker 1: gonna squeeze in there. I'm just gonna squeeze in there,

839
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:12,600
Speaker 1: and uh, I'm gonna and then you know, and then

840
00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:16,080
Speaker 1: if if they if they other fish know this is happening.

841
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:18,759
Speaker 1: And again I realized, there's a listener saying, Jason, they

842
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:21,879
Speaker 1: don't know anything, but this is this is the whole

843
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:26,239
Speaker 1: reason this is fun for me, because you can't imagine

844
00:55:28,080 --> 00:55:31,360
Speaker 1: living and without knowing things, even though, if you go

845
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 1: back far enough in human evolution, you do find that

846
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: humans that didn't have language didn't have the ability to

847
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,520
Speaker 1: have internal monologues with themselves or think verbal thoughts, because

848
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:44,720
Speaker 1: how would they didn't have language. But they were still

849
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:47,480
Speaker 1: building societies and they were still cooperating, they were still

850
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: hunting in teams and communicating that they didn't have conscious thought.

851
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:56,800
Speaker 1: So that's weird to think that you can live a

852
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:01,760
Speaker 1: human life and do things without like and interior your

853
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:05,799
Speaker 1: mental life or whatever. Um, But it can't be that

854
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:09,400
Speaker 1: weird because everything on Earth lives that way except us.

855
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:12,320
Speaker 1: Uh So in terms of these two fish getting it

856
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: on and this third fish comes along, are they just like, hey, yeah,

857
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:20,320
Speaker 1: it's you're a freaquent. Yeah, it's you climb on, climb

858
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:23,880
Speaker 1: on in here, it's uh, it's it's it's a really

859
00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:28,239
Speaker 1: interesting question. I think the difference that the kind of

860
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: like difference between a human that has uh, sort of

861
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 1: that meta cognition where we have language and we have

862
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:39,839
Speaker 1: that internal monologue, which not all people actually say they

863
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:42,920
Speaker 1: have an internal monologue. Some people kind of just thinking

864
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 1: like pictures or feelings, and some people cannot think in pictures.

865
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:54,920
Speaker 1: The population that cannot visualize, they have a fantasia. They

866
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:58,400
Speaker 1: can't think in pictures, and so, you know, the human

867
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:01,320
Speaker 1: experience is very varied in terms of what is actually

868
00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:03,719
Speaker 1: going on in our brain. And then we try to

869
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:06,520
Speaker 1: think about an animal, what is what is actually going on?

870
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:11,680
Speaker 1: I think that a fish something like uh, these little molly's,

871
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 1: they I think are conscious in the strictest sense of

872
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:22,760
Speaker 1: they probably experience something. Now what that is, I don't

873
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 1: know what is their experience when some interloper comes between

874
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:32,720
Speaker 1: them just to steal the sperm happening it, I would

875
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:38,680
Speaker 1: feel like maybe there is some very primitive, primitive fishy

876
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:44,680
Speaker 1: frustration going on. And but an interesting thing is whether

877
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:49,520
Speaker 1: or not they're aware of it. Sometimes the molly's of

878
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 1: the related species that this amazon molly is stealing from

879
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:58,040
Speaker 1: well actually seem to use it to their advantage. So

880
00:57:59,400 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: males will like pretend to go over to the Amazon

881
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:07,240
Speaker 1: molly and mate with them, even though typically the molly

882
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 1: will seem to understand that this Amazon molly is not

883
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 1: the same species. And then when a male kind of

884
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 1: comes and follows them and notices it trying to mate

885
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:20,360
Speaker 1: with this amazon, it'll like chase it off to try

886
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:24,040
Speaker 1: to mate with the amazon itself, and then that molly

887
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:26,760
Speaker 1: will go back over to mate with its own species.

888
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like it's almost like tricking these

889
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 1: bigger males saying like, oh, look, I found this great

890
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:36,720
Speaker 1: female over here, and then the bigger male will go, okay,

891
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 1: well that'll be my female. Then chase off the other one,

892
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:42,280
Speaker 1: and the other one may have a better chance than

893
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: with mating with its own species. So it's just every

894
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 1: time you look into these animal behaviors you'll find some

895
00:58:50,440 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 1: new surprising detail where it really boggles the mind how

896
00:58:54,920 --> 00:58:57,480
Speaker 1: such a simple little creature like a molly can have

897
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 1: these crazy strategies. Yeah, and in fact, there will be

898
00:59:03,480 --> 00:59:06,720
Speaker 1: people listening to this who will say, well, actually, you guys,

899
00:59:07,120 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 1: in the course of the way you've described a lot

900
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 1: of these things, like you know Katie earlier describing these

901
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 1: parasites as perverts or depraved or whatever, that your judgments

902
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: you're making are also based in evolution, That that human

903
00:59:21,640 --> 00:59:29,160
Speaker 1: culture has developed taboos around whatever you know, burn Burglary, Yeah,

904
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:35,840
Speaker 1: that's yeah, something found on in many human cities. Um,

905
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:38,160
Speaker 1: but that these are things that are we find them

906
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:41,920
Speaker 1: repulsive for evolutionary reasons because we are trying to prevent,

907
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:45,360
Speaker 1: you know, the genetic defects that come from inbreeding things

908
00:59:45,400 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 1: like that, and that what we the end result is

909
00:59:49,880 --> 00:59:54,880
Speaker 1: us on this podcast expressing like visceral disgusted by various things,

910
00:59:55,160 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, yeah, but even that Visceral discussed,

911
00:59:57,640 --> 01:00:02,000
Speaker 1: it's something that is instinctive to you, um that you're

912
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: making these judgments because you're applying human rules of morality

913
01:00:06,040 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 1: on these to these animals, these freaky animals, that your

914
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:14,360
Speaker 1: rules of morality are just as much a part of

915
01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:19,520
Speaker 1: your instincts for reproduction as these This fish is weird,

916
01:00:19,880 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 1: weird secret threesome heist. Yeah, I mean no fish court

917
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:29,439
Speaker 1: would find the smally guilty of sperm heist. Uh. And

918
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:32,920
Speaker 1: you can't try a fish in human court, so we're

919
01:00:32,960 --> 01:00:38,120
Speaker 1: out of options. And uh, there's actually I mean, this

920
01:00:38,240 --> 01:00:42,600
Speaker 1: is such a bizarre mating strategy. And it's not the

921
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:47,480
Speaker 1: only one though. There is another completely unrelated species. It's

922
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: not even a fish, it's a salamander. The unisexual mole

923
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:56,320
Speaker 1: salamander uses this same technique. So the unisexual mole salamander

924
01:00:56,360 --> 01:00:59,000
Speaker 1: is found in the Great Lakes region of North America.

925
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:04,400
Speaker 1: It is a tiny population of a mole salamander, and

926
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 1: mole salamanders are this small kind of grayish dappled salamander

927
01:01:09,800 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 1: um and this little population are all female, and they

928
01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:20,680
Speaker 1: do something similar to the Amazon molly, where they steal

929
01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 1: sperm packets from males, which they use to trigger their

930
01:01:26,040 --> 01:01:31,960
Speaker 1: reproduction without using any of the male's DNA again making

931
01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 1: a clone. And then even weirder is it seems like

932
01:01:37,400 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 1: once in a while these females will use a tiny

933
01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:45,080
Speaker 1: amount of the males DNA some of the genome, and

934
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:48,919
Speaker 1: it's unclear why they do this or if it's even beneficial,

935
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:54,600
Speaker 1: and it's just this total mystery of these these salamanders

936
01:01:54,640 --> 01:01:58,560
Speaker 1: just kind of breaking the rules of reproduction, doing something

937
01:01:58,600 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 1: that whether an you find, you know, ethical is sort

938
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:08,320
Speaker 1: of not uh, not a priority. It's whether, well, how

939
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:12,360
Speaker 1: does this even work from a natural selection perspective, because

940
01:02:12,360 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 1: they're creating this population with less genetic diversity, and then

941
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:20,560
Speaker 1: they seemingly have these random rules of when they use

942
01:02:21,640 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: part of the male's genome. So, yeah, if we could

943
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:28,720
Speaker 1: solve this problem of what is going on with these

944
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:32,280
Speaker 1: all female mole salamanders, we might actually learn a lot

945
01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 1: more about reproduction in general. This is an aside, But

946
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:39,360
Speaker 1: there's a thing that we used to do and maybe

947
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 1: they still do it. In not to get all political,

948
01:02:43,720 --> 01:02:49,080
Speaker 1: but sometimes in political media, when they're complaining about like

949
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 1: what government money is being spent on, they will call

950
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 1: out like these specific line items and grants. It's like, well,

951
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:59,920
Speaker 1: they spent five thousand dollars to study the mating habit

952
01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:05,240
Speaker 1: of the Amazonian nematode, as if the only reason to

953
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:08,640
Speaker 1: study it is like if you're a weirdo, or why

954
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:13,040
Speaker 1: would anyone want to know this? Scientists are perverts. Surely

955
01:03:13,040 --> 01:03:16,160
Speaker 1: that people listening to this as much as we joke

956
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: about this being a voyeuristic perversion thing. Knowing how animals reproduce,

957
01:03:23,480 --> 01:03:27,760
Speaker 1: if you're trying to keep them from going extinct, you

958
01:03:27,800 --> 01:03:31,760
Speaker 1: need to know exactly how they reproduce. Like ideally, like

959
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:36,320
Speaker 1: all of this stuff where we've discovered exactly how you know,

960
01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:39,520
Speaker 1: this weird cycle happens with this ant that looks like

961
01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:43,080
Speaker 1: a berry or whatever. If there's a minor, minor change

962
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:47,120
Speaker 1: in the environment that for some reason means that this

963
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:51,000
Speaker 1: parasite doesn't breed in this exact way anymore, and the

964
01:03:51,080 --> 01:03:56,320
Speaker 1: ants don't get eaten, and then suddenly something different happens

965
01:03:56,360 --> 01:03:59,560
Speaker 1: with the ant population, and then that causes a certain

966
01:03:59,680 --> 01:04:02,040
Speaker 1: plant to disappear, and then the animals that eat that

967
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:06,400
Speaker 1: plant now starve those tiny When you see how complex

968
01:04:06,480 --> 01:04:10,600
Speaker 1: these processes are, you also understand how easy it is

969
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:15,960
Speaker 1: to disrupt them. It's a Jenga tower of and you

970
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 1: pull out one weird salamander and you don't know when

971
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:23,240
Speaker 1: that's going to cause that whole Jenga tower of animals

972
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:29,680
Speaker 1: to collapse. Yes, and so this is something that is

973
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:34,200
Speaker 1: crucial because if you see that there's a population of

974
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:38,280
Speaker 1: animals suddenly is disappearing, or insects, this suddenly is like

975
01:04:39,080 --> 01:04:43,360
Speaker 1: they've dropped off. When you look into it, you if

976
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:45,040
Speaker 1: you didn't know any better, you would say, oh, well,

977
01:04:45,040 --> 01:04:48,760
Speaker 1: it's just because probably some chemicals in the environment that's

978
01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:52,280
Speaker 1: killing them, or there's you know, their predators have increased,

979
01:04:52,360 --> 01:04:56,280
Speaker 1: or their their habitats have been overrun by human housing development.

980
01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:01,640
Speaker 1: But knowing how fragile and how hypersp specific these strategies are,

981
01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 1: you realize that teeny tiny changes where it's just one

982
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:10,640
Speaker 1: link in the chain that gets broken that has existed

983
01:05:10,640 --> 01:05:13,840
Speaker 1: for millions of years probably, but it's humans come along

984
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:19,880
Speaker 1: and then suddenly a certain stream doesn't exist anymore or whatever,

985
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 1: but you've broken a link in a chain. That's why

986
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:25,080
Speaker 1: it's important to know this stuff because if you're looking

987
01:05:25,120 --> 01:05:30,320
Speaker 1: at preserving a species, reproduction is everything that's you know,

988
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:35,800
Speaker 1: that's the whole ballgame. And understanding how these unisexual moles

989
01:05:35,920 --> 01:05:40,560
Speaker 1: or unisexual mole salamanders, and how these amazon molly's are

990
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:46,760
Speaker 1: actually able to continue their existence, continue these populations of

991
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 1: clones without dying off because of this lack of genetic

992
01:05:51,880 --> 01:05:55,960
Speaker 1: diversity could help us revived species that are on the

993
01:05:56,000 --> 01:05:59,720
Speaker 1: brink of extinction, because that's one of the huge issues

994
01:06:00,040 --> 01:06:03,520
Speaker 1: with reviving a species that is going extinct. Even if

995
01:06:03,560 --> 01:06:08,400
Speaker 1: you say catch it and are trying a breeding program,

996
01:06:08,440 --> 01:06:12,520
Speaker 1: you get a genetic bottleneck where it's hard to introduce

997
01:06:12,600 --> 01:06:16,640
Speaker 1: more diversity into these uh the gene pool of this

998
01:06:16,680 --> 01:06:19,200
Speaker 1: animal that you're revitalizing, because like say you have a

999
01:06:19,240 --> 01:06:23,040
Speaker 1: population of only ten left, how do you bring that

1000
01:06:23,120 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 1: back from the brink while still keeping their genetic library

1001
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:32,560
Speaker 1: sort of vital enough and diverse enough for them to survive.

1002
01:06:32,600 --> 01:06:36,600
Speaker 1: And so if we could understand how these things are surviving,

1003
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:41,640
Speaker 1: how they can get by without too much of uh,

1004
01:06:41,760 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: you know, how they can get by basically cloning themselves,

1005
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:49,440
Speaker 1: but also using genetic information from other species that could

1006
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:53,600
Speaker 1: be a breakthrough and understanding how we could bring species

1007
01:06:53,640 --> 01:07:00,040
Speaker 1: back or endangered or even almost extinct. Yes, and I

1008
01:07:00,040 --> 01:07:02,680
Speaker 1: think this is something where ott of people don't understand that.

1009
01:07:02,920 --> 01:07:07,600
Speaker 1: For example, if some fish population and a certain body

1010
01:07:07,600 --> 01:07:11,560
Speaker 1: of water that humans depend on, when we talk about

1011
01:07:11,600 --> 01:07:14,720
Speaker 1: over over fishing, you think, oh, so you're afraid that

1012
01:07:14,840 --> 01:07:17,480
Speaker 1: we will fish until every single one of those fish

1013
01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:19,520
Speaker 1: is gone, like it will have gone extinct when we

1014
01:07:19,600 --> 01:07:22,720
Speaker 1: finally have caught the final fish. That's not how it works.

1015
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:26,920
Speaker 1: There's a threshold of a certain number of breeding pairs

1016
01:07:27,240 --> 01:07:30,640
Speaker 1: of several thousand or however many, where you don't have

1017
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:35,240
Speaker 1: enough genetic diversity left, and then one parasite or one

1018
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:38,240
Speaker 1: disease can wipe out the rest. So what happens is

1019
01:07:38,320 --> 01:07:41,080
Speaker 1: you get to a certain threshold that's low enough that

1020
01:07:41,120 --> 01:07:45,080
Speaker 1: the rest of the population collapses. For the same reason

1021
01:07:45,160 --> 01:07:48,920
Speaker 1: we just discussed, you don't have enough enough of them

1022
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:53,920
Speaker 1: breeding in enough varieties to be to withstand the natural

1023
01:07:53,960 --> 01:07:56,320
Speaker 1: stuff that's always going to come along in the environment

1024
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:59,360
Speaker 1: that they can't handle the next winter or the next whatever.

1025
01:07:59,760 --> 01:08:02,160
Speaker 1: That what happens. It's not that we kill every single

1026
01:08:02,240 --> 01:08:05,600
Speaker 1: last one of these bears or these lizards or whatever.

1027
01:08:06,160 --> 01:08:09,080
Speaker 1: It is that the population gets low enough that they

1028
01:08:09,120 --> 01:08:12,800
Speaker 1: go ahead and just go extinct on their own. Yeah, exactly.

1029
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:15,600
Speaker 1: I mean that's called once they've reached that point of

1030
01:08:15,640 --> 01:08:19,879
Speaker 1: no return and we can't do a captive breeding program,

1031
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:23,960
Speaker 1: it's called being functionally extinct, where there's still technically some

1032
01:08:24,040 --> 01:08:26,759
Speaker 1: out there in this population, but it's only a matter

1033
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:30,200
Speaker 1: of time before they go extinct because you know, we

1034
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:33,320
Speaker 1: we can't bring them back from this threshold, and they

1035
01:08:33,360 --> 01:08:37,240
Speaker 1: cannot recover from this threshold, which is what's feared to

1036
01:08:37,320 --> 01:08:40,120
Speaker 1: be happening with some species. The one that breaks my

1037
01:08:40,160 --> 01:08:43,639
Speaker 1: heart the most is the Kido, which is this teeny

1038
01:08:43,720 --> 01:08:47,639
Speaker 1: tiny dolphin that lives off the coast of Mexico, and

1039
01:08:48,320 --> 01:08:51,479
Speaker 1: I think it's thought to be basically functionally extinct at

1040
01:08:51,479 --> 01:08:55,000
Speaker 1: this point, even though there's like maybe twenty individuals left.

1041
01:08:55,479 --> 01:08:59,320
Speaker 1: It's pretty it's looking pretty grim, which is just it's

1042
01:08:59,360 --> 01:09:05,519
Speaker 1: so sad, heartbreaking, And I know that no one in

1043
01:09:05,600 --> 01:09:08,200
Speaker 1: the listenership here is saying this. The questions like, well, yeah,

1044
01:09:08,200 --> 01:09:12,200
Speaker 1: but how does that benefit humans to keep these around

1045
01:09:12,280 --> 01:09:14,920
Speaker 1: or to know how to to to clone you know,

1046
01:09:14,960 --> 01:09:21,200
Speaker 1: creatures or whatever. The Remember, if someday you want humans

1047
01:09:21,240 --> 01:09:24,720
Speaker 1: to be able to build a clone army of super soldiers,

1048
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:29,760
Speaker 1: we have to examine other species that have successfully done this.

1049
01:09:31,960 --> 01:09:35,200
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I mean that's my that that was my

1050
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:39,080
Speaker 1: intention in my island experiment of clone babies that I

1051
01:09:39,160 --> 01:09:41,800
Speaker 1: left alone to fit for themselves, which I guess I

1052
01:09:41,800 --> 01:09:43,880
Speaker 1: had to shut down because you said it was like

1053
01:09:44,000 --> 01:09:46,760
Speaker 1: illegal or an ethical or something, and my lawyer is

1054
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:49,519
Speaker 1: like shaking your head and saying, no, stop talking about this.

1055
01:09:49,640 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I mean I think that is the

1056
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:56,800
Speaker 1: most important lesson from this show. It's that we must

1057
01:09:56,800 --> 01:10:01,120
Speaker 1: study animals to create clone armies that can turn our

1058
01:10:01,240 --> 01:10:06,719
Speaker 1: enemies into berries. Yes, And the only way to get

1059
01:10:06,760 --> 01:10:09,160
Speaker 1: the funding through this is to buy one of the

1060
01:10:09,280 --> 01:10:13,519
Speaker 1: limited edition jpeg n f T s that have been

1061
01:10:13,560 --> 01:10:17,720
Speaker 1: released through this show that again can only be purchased

1062
01:10:17,760 --> 01:10:25,320
Speaker 1: with the specific cryptocurrency of this show, creature coin, creature coin. Yes, yeah, yeah,

1063
01:10:25,320 --> 01:10:27,519
Speaker 1: And I send you a packet of your very own

1064
01:10:27,560 --> 01:10:30,400
Speaker 1: parasitic nematodes that you just swallow with a glass of

1065
01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:32,559
Speaker 1: water and there you there, you have your very own

1066
01:10:33,080 --> 01:10:38,880
Speaker 1: n f T, your nematode freely swimming in your tummy.

1067
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:43,920
Speaker 1: So if you're asking how does that, like, how is

1068
01:10:43,960 --> 01:10:46,559
Speaker 1: that going to make me rich? All I can say

1069
01:10:46,600 --> 01:10:50,880
Speaker 1: is you're ignorant. You don't understand. You understand the future, research, blockchain,

1070
01:10:51,400 --> 01:10:55,519
Speaker 1: just research and you'll understand. Yeah, because because you know what,

1071
01:10:55,520 --> 01:10:57,920
Speaker 1: when the computer was invented, they said that was stupid too,

1072
01:10:58,200 --> 01:11:00,640
Speaker 1: They said that was a scam. So if you if

1073
01:11:00,680 --> 01:11:04,599
Speaker 1: you're against this, you're literally just against progress exactly. It's

1074
01:11:04,640 --> 01:11:07,880
Speaker 1: the and it's not a parasite controlling my brain and

1075
01:11:07,920 --> 01:11:13,439
Speaker 1: making me say that to propagated species. That's ridiculous. So

1076
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:19,080
Speaker 1: before we go, we do actually have to attend to

1077
01:11:19,160 --> 01:11:23,439
Speaker 1: some extremely important business, and that's the guests who's squawking game.

1078
01:11:23,760 --> 01:11:26,880
Speaker 1: It's the mystery animal of the week. So first I

1079
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:31,640
Speaker 1: have to extend my deepest apologies. I have made a

1080
01:11:31,640 --> 01:11:35,800
Speaker 1: horrible mistake. A couple of weeks ago. I did something unforgivable.

1081
01:11:35,880 --> 01:11:39,519
Speaker 1: I forgot to announce the winners who correctly gives the

1082
01:11:39,640 --> 01:11:43,760
Speaker 1: sound of the baby carockle uh. So I'm gonna do

1083
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:48,240
Speaker 1: that now. The fastest three guessers were Anti b, Hannah

1084
01:11:48,439 --> 01:11:52,920
Speaker 1: w and Remy h. You guys, thank you so much

1085
01:11:53,000 --> 01:11:57,760
Speaker 1: for your guesses on that amazingly, I'm so proud of

1086
01:11:57,800 --> 01:12:00,919
Speaker 1: you for guessing. I'm so sorry, are you I forgot

1087
01:12:01,439 --> 01:12:05,479
Speaker 1: to to declare those Uh please, if you can find

1088
01:12:05,479 --> 01:12:07,639
Speaker 1: it in your heart to forgive me at some point,

1089
01:12:08,080 --> 01:12:11,639
Speaker 1: I would. I would appreciate that. But you know it's

1090
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:16,240
Speaker 1: a Now we got to move on to last week's

1091
01:12:16,320 --> 01:12:20,679
Speaker 1: mystery sound. So every week we play a mystery animal

1092
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:25,600
Speaker 1: sound and you, the listeners, try to guess who is squawking,

1093
01:12:25,800 --> 01:12:29,240
Speaker 1: who is making that sound. And the hint for last

1094
01:12:29,280 --> 01:12:34,240
Speaker 1: week was, this is a baby aquatic mammal with big teeth. Adorable,

1095
01:12:34,680 --> 01:12:39,920
Speaker 1: but you'd better pray mama is not around. H m

1096
01:12:40,080 --> 01:12:48,439
Speaker 1: h m. There's surely no way. Baby otters sound like that, Like,

1097
01:12:48,520 --> 01:12:52,160
Speaker 1: this thing sounds big. It sounds sounds like Walrus, like

1098
01:12:52,439 --> 01:12:59,080
Speaker 1: more Walrus e something in the Walrus category of of product. Yeah,

1099
01:12:59,160 --> 01:13:03,800
Speaker 1: and in the in sort of the Walrous section of Walgreens. Yes.

1100
01:13:03,960 --> 01:13:07,679
Speaker 1: So this that is a very good guess because this

1101
01:13:07,840 --> 01:13:12,839
Speaker 1: is a baby hippo. It is a an aquatic mammal

1102
01:13:13,280 --> 01:13:18,519
Speaker 1: that's got those big two teeth. And congratulations to the

1103
01:13:18,600 --> 01:13:22,920
Speaker 1: three fastest guessers, Anti B, who is our Champion Animal

1104
01:13:22,960 --> 01:13:27,160
Speaker 1: sound Guesser, as well as Saga E and Emily M.

1105
01:13:27,200 --> 01:13:30,200
Speaker 1: And an honorable mention to Joey P who not only

1106
01:13:30,280 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 1: guessed correctly that it's a baby hippo, but also specifically

1107
01:13:34,360 --> 01:13:38,559
Speaker 1: guessed it's Fiona of the Cincinnati Zoo, which is correct.

1108
01:13:38,680 --> 01:13:43,800
Speaker 1: I don't know how you guessed not only the species

1109
01:13:43,840 --> 01:13:51,400
Speaker 1: but the specific individual. Um so yeah, congratulations. Hippos are

1110
01:13:51,920 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: very vocally communicative. They will grunt at each other. Mothers

1111
01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:59,160
Speaker 1: will sometimes grunt out a special call to their babies,

1112
01:13:59,200 --> 01:14:01,639
Speaker 1: and babies will runt toilet their mother or in this

1113
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:05,840
Speaker 1: case human caretakers know that they are there. Uh. Their

1114
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:10,080
Speaker 1: calls each have a distinctive sound, and other hippos can

1115
01:14:10,120 --> 01:14:15,400
Speaker 1: recognize the individual by the literal calling card of their

1116
01:14:15,479 --> 01:14:21,439
Speaker 1: wheezing honks. And again, as always every week, all three

1117
01:14:21,479 --> 01:14:28,559
Speaker 1: winners will win a brand new Accord uh worth worth

1118
01:14:28,640 --> 01:14:31,479
Speaker 1: forty seven thousand dollars retail that that will be please

1119
01:14:31,520 --> 01:14:33,840
Speaker 1: sending your information. The car will be delivered to your

1120
01:14:33,920 --> 01:14:37,360
Speaker 1: to your home. Yes, send your information to Jason Pargeon.

1121
01:14:37,479 --> 01:14:41,840
Speaker 1: He handles um all of the the car gifting on

1122
01:14:41,920 --> 01:14:44,560
Speaker 1: the show. So yeah. And if he doesn't respond, to

1123
01:14:44,680 --> 01:14:51,280
Speaker 1: keep tweeting at him. He likes that, so legally, I

1124
01:14:51,280 --> 01:14:53,439
Speaker 1: guess we have to say there is you win nothing

1125
01:14:53,520 --> 01:14:57,679
Speaker 1: for this other than pride. It's not pleased, not legally binding,

1126
01:14:58,720 --> 01:15:02,160
Speaker 1: just a sense of self satisfaction that you're a smarty

1127
01:15:02,200 --> 01:15:06,559
Speaker 1: pants yes so so, no cars, just the good feeling

1128
01:15:06,640 --> 01:15:10,040
Speaker 1: of being smart. I feel like in the old radio days,

1129
01:15:10,120 --> 01:15:12,280
Speaker 1: you would win like a lifetime supply of some sort

1130
01:15:12,320 --> 01:15:15,519
Speaker 1: of soap, soap powder or something. You need a sponsor

1131
01:15:15,600 --> 01:15:19,160
Speaker 1: that you can you win. You win something, A year

1132
01:15:19,240 --> 01:15:23,640
Speaker 1: supply of something seems a year supply of parasitic nematodes.

1133
01:15:27,080 --> 01:15:28,680
Speaker 1: It's just they breed on their own and it's just

1134
01:15:28,840 --> 01:15:32,439
Speaker 1: one packet they Basically, it's basically a lifetime supply. You

1135
01:15:32,479 --> 01:15:36,240
Speaker 1: ever wanted that perfect berry shaped But well, you don't

1136
01:15:36,240 --> 01:15:38,439
Speaker 1: have to work out for hours at the gym anymore.

1137
01:15:39,000 --> 01:15:43,240
Speaker 1: So Onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint is

1138
01:15:43,280 --> 01:15:45,800
Speaker 1: that this is what happens when you get a little

1139
01:15:45,880 --> 01:16:05,679
Speaker 1: too nosy with this group. Jason, can you guess who's squawking?

1140
01:16:06,360 --> 01:16:08,639
Speaker 1: I'm afraid to say because I think I know exactly

1141
01:16:08,680 --> 01:16:10,360
Speaker 1: what it is and I don't want to ruin it.

1142
01:16:10,600 --> 01:16:14,479
Speaker 1: I'll just bleep you out if you're right, that sounds

1143
01:16:14,479 --> 01:16:19,720
Speaker 1: exactly like a like a donkey, right, like a like

1144
01:16:19,800 --> 01:16:23,640
Speaker 1: a cartoon donkey. That that's it's it does? Doesn't it

1145
01:16:23,720 --> 01:16:27,320
Speaker 1: a brain donkey? Yeah? Brain? Yeah? I mean I guess

1146
01:16:27,360 --> 01:16:30,160
Speaker 1: that's another hint because it's not a brain donkey. It

1147
01:16:30,320 --> 01:16:32,960
Speaker 1: is something else. Okay, I was I was afraid to

1148
01:16:33,000 --> 01:16:36,120
Speaker 1: say because I think that's just straight up but I'm

1149
01:16:36,120 --> 01:16:38,920
Speaker 1: sure this it does sound like a donkey. That doesn't

1150
01:16:38,920 --> 01:16:42,479
Speaker 1: it a joke that previous guests have made on your show.

1151
01:16:42,560 --> 01:16:44,439
Speaker 1: But I love that some of these recordings, you know,

1152
01:16:44,479 --> 01:16:47,240
Speaker 1: they've got people in the recording because they're in captivity

1153
01:16:47,479 --> 01:16:50,160
Speaker 1: or whatever. But I would love one where the next

1154
01:16:50,200 --> 01:16:53,320
Speaker 1: the hint is just a person just shouting like what

1155
01:16:53,479 --> 01:16:58,040
Speaker 1: is this creature? That that is from the Prime Primeate family?

1156
01:16:58,120 --> 01:17:02,519
Speaker 1: Is just hey, what are you doing? Hey? What's that thing?

1157
01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:05,280
Speaker 1: What do you what do you record me for? Do

1158
01:17:05,360 --> 01:17:08,879
Speaker 1: you know what this creature is? One of these weeks,

1159
01:17:09,080 --> 01:17:11,920
Speaker 1: One of these weeks, I'll do that, But this week

1160
01:17:12,640 --> 01:17:15,320
Speaker 1: a hint. It is not a human, nor is it

1161
01:17:15,360 --> 01:17:22,560
Speaker 1: a donkey. It's somewhere between a human and a donkey. So, uh,

1162
01:17:22,680 --> 01:17:26,000
Speaker 1: if you think you know the answer to who is

1163
01:17:26,280 --> 01:17:29,479
Speaker 1: squawking on this week's Mr. Animal Sound Game. Send me

1164
01:17:29,520 --> 01:17:34,439
Speaker 1: an email at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Jason,

1165
01:17:34,680 --> 01:17:37,759
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today and talking

1166
01:17:37,800 --> 01:17:44,000
Speaker 1: about everything from Barry but parasites to fish and and

1167
01:17:44,200 --> 01:17:48,240
Speaker 1: salamanders deciding they don't want to put up with normal mating.

1168
01:17:48,920 --> 01:17:52,559
Speaker 1: Where can people find you? I write novels for a

1169
01:17:52,600 --> 01:17:56,000
Speaker 1: living us. I may have mentioned on this show. The

1170
01:17:56,080 --> 01:17:59,360
Speaker 1: next one that I have up for preorder is called

1171
01:17:59,479 --> 01:18:04,160
Speaker 1: If the Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe. Um.

1172
01:18:04,280 --> 01:18:07,080
Speaker 1: As she mentioned. This is a in a series of books.

1173
01:18:07,280 --> 01:18:09,479
Speaker 1: First one was called John Dies at the end that

1174
01:18:09,520 --> 01:18:11,640
Speaker 1: one got made into a movie. The movie is on

1175
01:18:11,800 --> 01:18:13,960
Speaker 1: HBO Max if you want to watch it and get

1176
01:18:13,960 --> 01:18:16,960
Speaker 1: a sense of what type of thing I write, and

1177
01:18:17,000 --> 01:18:19,120
Speaker 1: then you can go enjoy the books the movie was

1178
01:18:19,160 --> 01:18:24,280
Speaker 1: based on. They are for adults. Please do not complain

1179
01:18:24,320 --> 01:18:26,719
Speaker 1: at me if they are these are These are adult

1180
01:18:26,760 --> 01:18:31,640
Speaker 1: books for grown ups who even then maybe too to

1181
01:18:31,840 --> 01:18:35,599
Speaker 1: adult for many of you. Otherwise, my name is Jason Pargeon.

1182
01:18:35,920 --> 01:18:37,920
Speaker 1: Type that name into Google. You will find me on

1183
01:18:38,080 --> 01:18:42,960
Speaker 1: every possible social media platform except TikTok. I'm not doing

1184
01:18:43,000 --> 01:18:46,519
Speaker 1: TikTok ever, I'm not. That's where I draw the line.

1185
01:18:46,560 --> 01:18:49,280
Speaker 1: I have in Instagram, on on Twitter, I have three

1186
01:18:49,320 --> 01:18:52,679
Speaker 1: Facebook pages. I'm on all of them. I'm on good Reads,

1187
01:18:52,720 --> 01:18:56,719
Speaker 1: i have a YouTube channel. I have a substant Jason

1188
01:18:56,720 --> 01:18:59,559
Speaker 1: Parson dot substanct dotcom. I'm not doing TikTok. I'm not.

1189
01:19:00,280 --> 01:19:03,760
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Are you wordling a word? I had to

1190
01:19:03,840 --> 01:19:06,599
Speaker 1: mute the word myrtle wordle from Twitter. I'm not mad

1191
01:19:06,640 --> 01:19:09,680
Speaker 1: at the wordld people. It's just that I don't it's

1192
01:19:09,720 --> 01:19:12,080
Speaker 1: not doing anything for me to just show me those

1193
01:19:12,120 --> 01:19:14,799
Speaker 1: green blocks every day. I'm not playing, so it doesn't.

1194
01:19:15,280 --> 01:19:18,640
Speaker 1: That doesn't communicate anything to me. That's fine. I'm not

1195
01:19:18,800 --> 01:19:21,240
Speaker 1: mad at you for playing it. I'm glad you're all

1196
01:19:21,280 --> 01:19:28,120
Speaker 1: having fun. I just had to mute it. Well it's

1197
01:19:28,120 --> 01:19:30,280
Speaker 1: a loss. It's a loss for word all to have

1198
01:19:30,400 --> 01:19:33,680
Speaker 1: lost you from from the from the wordle verse. But

1199
01:19:34,479 --> 01:19:38,519
Speaker 1: ah yeah, thank you guys so much for listening. You

1200
01:19:38,560 --> 01:19:42,080
Speaker 1: can find the podcast on the internet at Creature feature

1201
01:19:42,120 --> 01:19:45,559
Speaker 1: Pot on Instagram, at Creature feet Pot on Twitter. That's

1202
01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:50,080
Speaker 1: not et that is something very different, and thank you

1203
01:19:50,120 --> 01:19:52,360
Speaker 1: so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and

1204
01:19:52,479 --> 01:19:55,439
Speaker 1: you feel like it, I can't tell you what to do,

1205
01:19:55,520 --> 01:19:58,640
Speaker 1: but if you want to leave a review or a rating, like,

1206
01:19:58,760 --> 01:20:01,280
Speaker 1: I'm not going to stop you. I may even like it.

1207
01:20:01,479 --> 01:20:04,000
Speaker 1: I might even read your review, and it might make

1208
01:20:04,040 --> 01:20:07,400
Speaker 1: me feel all warm inside. And thanks to the Space

1209
01:20:07,439 --> 01:20:11,400
Speaker 1: Classics for their super awesome song Exo Alumina. Creature features

1210
01:20:11,400 --> 01:20:15,240
Speaker 1: a production of ipart radio. For more podcasts like the

1211
01:20:15,280 --> 01:20:17,800
Speaker 1: one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app

1212
01:20:17,840 --> 01:20:20,479
Speaker 1: app podcasts or Hey, guess what are you listening to

1213
01:20:20,479 --> 01:20:24,560
Speaker 1: your favorite shows? Judge you see you next Wednesday.