Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back to talk snakes. It's
Speaker 1: snake talk. That's right. We're continuing this month's movie episode
Speaker 1: and now it's episodes because we you you got to
Speaker 1: pick the movie this time. You pick Conan the Barbarian.
Speaker 1: Hadn't seen it in a while. I was wondering how
Speaker 1: it held up, and you know, it kind of did,
Speaker 1: it kind of didn't. But it's it's definitely worth talking about.
Speaker 1: But one of the key centerpieces in this film is
Speaker 1: the cult of set thulsa dooms religion. I mean, he
Speaker 1: seems into the branding, even in the earlier portions of
Speaker 1: the film when he's just a warrior. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: little confusing, because the whole thing is that, like James
Speaker 1: Earl Jones, he was like once I was a young
Speaker 1: man and I was just a war lord running around
Speaker 1: raiding villages. You know, the sorry I killed your parents
Speaker 1: and not that's a yeah. I don't think he ever
Speaker 1: said he was no. He didn't say no. In fact,
Speaker 1: he says, Dakona, and he's like, got Arnold Schwartzendinger on
Speaker 1: the floor. He's like, when when I destroyed your village,
Speaker 1: I made you You're welcome. Yeah, pretty much. Uh. But
Speaker 1: but then later in the film he's he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't do that anymore. Now I'm just a regular
Speaker 1: cult leader. But in both cases he's carrying the symbol
Speaker 1: of his cult even though he's not a cult leader yet.
Speaker 1: In in the earlier part, and the symbol of his cult,
Speaker 1: which is referred to in the movie as the Cult
Speaker 1: of set or the Temple of set Uh. And in
Speaker 1: the last episode we discussed the real ancient Egyptian not
Speaker 1: well maybe not real, but the real mythology of the
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian god Set or Seth, and how he is
Speaker 1: very different than the set represented in the film. But
Speaker 1: the Cult of set in the film has the symbol
Speaker 1: of the two headed snake with with the two heads
Speaker 1: facing off against each other. Right, I mean, maybe part
Speaker 1: of it is that just even though his approach to
Speaker 1: life changed a little bit, he just always had great branding,
Speaker 1: always loves snakes, or certainly he just maybe just took
Speaker 1: up the the the emblem at some point there was
Speaker 1: a pre existing cult of Set. I mean certainly that
Speaker 1: would if you're creating a cult leader. I mean, some
Speaker 1: cult leaders create their faith wholesale, uh, from from new parts.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, for the most part, they're
Speaker 1: depending on something that came before and just inserting themselves
Speaker 1: into it. That's exactly right. I mean, in fact, I
Speaker 1: can scarcely think of a cult that doesn't draw on
Speaker 1: some existing mythology. I mean, uh, you think about the
Speaker 1: Heaven's Gate cult. I mean that was in a large
Speaker 1: part based on like UFO mythology and existing Christianity. Even
Speaker 1: if you look at like the Raylians and Rileyans, one
Speaker 1: of the the UFO religions, they're the guy who found it,
Speaker 1: has this whole book going through like the books of
Speaker 1: the Bible and all this talking about how it's actually
Speaker 1: all about alien encounters and alien technology. It's basically an
Speaker 1: ancient aliens religion. So the emblem for the Temple of
Speaker 1: Set in this film has this this really cool logo
Speaker 1: actually that it's like there are two different versions of it.
Speaker 1: You kind of see one is like on the like
Speaker 1: the staffs and the armor that they carry, and then
Speaker 1: there's this like simple simplified logo, but it's a snake
Speaker 1: with two heads as a head on each end, like
Speaker 1: a like the head of the snake is a snakehead
Speaker 1: and the tail of the snake is a snakehead, and
Speaker 1: they're they're rising against each other, and in the background
Speaker 1: there is a son And in fact it's a plot
Speaker 1: point in the film because Conan and his friends go
Speaker 1: around looking for Falsa Doom played by James Earl Jones
Speaker 1: by asking about this symbol. It's like, have you seen
Speaker 1: this symbol anywhere? That's how they they initially connect with him.
Speaker 1: So I should kind of surprise, as a surprise to
Speaker 1: nobody that the idea of a snake with a head
Speaker 1: on each end pre dates this film, that you know
Speaker 1: that this this is something that we can go back
Speaker 1: in time and we can find examples of in uh
Speaker 1: in the human use of symbols. Right now, you might
Speaker 1: be thinking about other existing snake symbols that are a
Speaker 1: little bit different. You might be thinking about the orb
Speaker 1: corros where a snake is swallowing its own tail, But
Speaker 1: that's different than two snake heads facing each other, right though,
Speaker 1: I mean in Theora Boruss defense we usually don't see
Speaker 1: the tail because it's in his mouth. Who's to say
Speaker 1: that wasn't a hat on there? But yeah, the the
Speaker 1: or a Borus, the world serpent, the mid guard storm, Um,
Speaker 1: it's uh. It is yet depicted as the snake consuming itself.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, one that is very similar but
Speaker 1: isn't quite the same thing does have snakeheads facing each
Speaker 1: other would be the Caducius. This is this is like
Speaker 1: the staff with the snakes staff of hers. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about here is the the amphis
Speaker 1: beina and it's a it's a name that's derived from
Speaker 1: the Greek to go both ways because of the idea
Speaker 1: is that it's a snake that can move forwards or
Speaker 1: backwards with ease. The one thing I've read is that
Speaker 1: snakes that just have one normal head and a normal
Speaker 1: tail can sometimes slither backwards. Like I was reading a
Speaker 1: book about how the author observed that coral snakes seem
Speaker 1: to be able to slither backwards just fine. Right, And
Speaker 1: so I mean, of course, in all of this you're talking,
Speaker 1: we're dealing with something on one level, there's the symbolism
Speaker 1: level of it, right, Like what does the idea of
Speaker 1: a snake with two heads mean, how does it? What
Speaker 1: does it? How does it function in the human mind?
Speaker 1: But then also there is a certain degree of just
Speaker 1: like weird tales about what snakes look like. So, according
Speaker 1: to Carol Rose, the folklorist, his books always come back
Speaker 1: to She she has a nice write up about it
Speaker 1: in one of her monster books, and she points out
Speaker 1: that the Greek writer Lucan described it as a desert
Speaker 1: creature of North Africa. Um and um, and of course
Speaker 1: as well, we'll we'll see plenty of the Elder of
Speaker 1: course also wrote about it. But I also was reading
Speaker 1: from a article Stalking the Emphis Beena by Sydney J.
Speaker 1: Levy from the Journal of Consumer Research. That but yeah,
Speaker 1: but that mentions that the this particular symbol quote was
Speaker 1: probably intended to express the horror and anguish associated with
Speaker 1: ambivalent situations. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that. Um,
Speaker 1: it certainly goes with a kind of classic archetype of
Speaker 1: of psychodynamics, right, the idea that like this might not
Speaker 1: be the most correct way of thinking about the mind. Now,
Speaker 1: but if you go back to Freudian thought, you know,
Speaker 1: he often seemed to emphasize that major problems in the mind.
Speaker 1: The psychoses and things were caused by states of ambivalence
Speaker 1: where you had, you know, conflicting desires or conflicting tendencies
Speaker 1: that couldn't be resolved. Should I stay or should I go?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm of two snakes on the man. H.
Speaker 1: So this particular beast also shows up in a lot
Speaker 1: of medieval beast theories with as a winged creature with
Speaker 1: two legs at it as well. Uh, sometimes it's said
Speaker 1: that it can roll like a hoop snake, a hoop
Speaker 1: snake being kind of a form of an aura borous
Speaker 1: that's less, less concerned with what happens if a snake
Speaker 1: consumes itself. How does this house this play out in
Speaker 1: my mind? Versus what if a snake just at its
Speaker 1: own tail and then rolled like a wheel down a
Speaker 1: down a hill. Now this is a mythical creature, no
Speaker 1: real creature, though there is a real wheel spider. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are some real rolling creatures, but but not quite
Speaker 1: like a snake. Um Plenty of Here's what Plenty had
Speaker 1: to say about the the amphisbina in the Natural History
Speaker 1: Glad Plenty was on it. The amphisbina has a twin
Speaker 1: head that is one at the tail end as well
Speaker 1: as though it were not enough for poison to be
Speaker 1: poured out of one mount, because that's another aspect of
Speaker 1: it is is that the creature is supposed to be
Speaker 1: like any mythic serpent. It's highly venomous, and so maybe
Speaker 1: the ideas it's just so venomous that one head is
Speaker 1: not enough. It needs two heads for all that venom. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then likewise, there their accounts of how you can use
Speaker 1: its dried skin to say, treat rheumatism. Uh. So there's
Speaker 1: you know, there are all these different stories about it,
Speaker 1: and it reminds me a lot of the of some
Speaker 1: of the things we're discussing about the bassilisk. Now Rose
Speaker 1: writes that while exaggerated, she thinks it was likely based
Speaker 1: on some real venomous reptile in the Libyan desert, perhaps
Speaker 1: one that was capable of slithering in either direction, which,
Speaker 1: as you said, that's some real snakes. Not that impressive.
Speaker 1: But if you didn't know that, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: if you don't know that horses can lay down, and
Speaker 1: then you see one laying down, sleeping and you're like, whoa.
Speaker 1: Then you start reporting you're gonna call it plenty immediately.
Speaker 1: I didn't tell him or the other possibilities that is
Speaker 1: that it's a snake that seemed to raise its tail
Speaker 1: a tail like a head when it was threatened. And
Speaker 1: we'll come back to to that because there are some
Speaker 1: potential examples of that for sure. Then there. You know,
Speaker 1: if we look outside of Western traditions, we also see
Speaker 1: double headed serpents in the Aztec tradition. Yeah, with a
Speaker 1: with a you know, there's a particularly interesting fifteenth or
Speaker 1: sixteenth century turquoise example that I'm sure everyone's seeing photos of.
Speaker 1: There's a particularly a nice example of this in the
Speaker 1: British Museum. Uh. This this turquoise uh serpent creature uh
Speaker 1: with this like almost bear like head on on either end.
Speaker 1: And it's uncertain exactly what it's depicting. So, you know,
Speaker 1: the the idea maybe that this is just representing that
Speaker 1: serpentine rebirth that we've talked about, So this is not
Speaker 1: so much a snake with two heads, but that it's
Speaker 1: a snake emerging from itself from its skin. It also
Speaker 1: may be well be related to quetzal codal, which we
Speaker 1: we did an episode on talking about the importance of
Speaker 1: the plumed serpent in in meso American religion. And uh,
Speaker 1: and we should also point out that that particular god
Speaker 1: like there there's a snake god that is certainly far
Speaker 1: removed from anything Falsa Doom represents no thoroughly nondo me
Speaker 1: And then uh, I also read that it's it's possible
Speaker 1: that this is not like clearly maybe an Aztec creation,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's a creation of the mix the mixed
Speaker 1: tech people. UM, so you're you're ultimately going with with
Speaker 1: perhaps several different degrees of separate between the people who
Speaker 1: originally um dreamed up and created this work of art
Speaker 1: versus those certainly who now possess it. So obviously the
Speaker 1: next question is are there two headed snakes in real life? Oh? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: the answer is clearly yes. Two headed snakes of a
Speaker 1: certain kind I will say, absolutely do exist and are
Speaker 1: pretty regularly captured or breading captivity. It seems like maybe
Speaker 1: once every couple of years, herpetologists come across one new
Speaker 1: and interesting case of this that blows up in the media.
Speaker 1: I think they probably get discovered more oftense, just only
Speaker 1: sometimes do they really catch fire on the internet. But yes,
Speaker 1: there are pretty frequently cases of two headed snakes known
Speaker 1: as diecephalic or polycephalic, meaning you know, two heads or
Speaker 1: many heads from species like ladder snakes, copper heads, king
Speaker 1: snakes I've read about in all those species and others,
Speaker 1: and these snakes generally have two heads, both growing from
Speaker 1: the neck end of the body. There is no species
Speaker 1: of snake that is regularly like this. Rather, this is
Speaker 1: like this is not an adaptation or evolutionary change. It's
Speaker 1: a developmental anomaly. It occurs the same way that most
Speaker 1: other conjoined twins do when an embryo in in utero
Speaker 1: splits into twins, but it doesn't split all the way,
Speaker 1: leading to embryos that continue to develop while remaining attached
Speaker 1: in some way. That's right, And if if you want
Speaker 1: some more information on conjoined twins, uh, we we actually
Speaker 1: discussed this in our Halloween episode whatever Halloween episodes last year,
Speaker 1: the Tales from the Crypt episode, because of course there's
Speaker 1: a Tales from the Crypt episode. There's more than one
Speaker 1: actually that involves that in an insensitive manner, but so
Speaker 1: we we we use that episode as an excuse to like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's let's put aside the trash because let's
Speaker 1: face the tales in the crypt is ultimately a trashy show.
Speaker 1: But let's set all that aside and discuss, like, you know,
Speaker 1: what the actual science is. And so we went through
Speaker 1: all the various forms that occur, and so, yeah, this
Speaker 1: this occurs in all kinds of animals and in cases
Speaker 1: I've read about. What happens with snakes is you've got
Speaker 1: two heads that are side by side, both extending from
Speaker 1: the neck at different um. Sometimes there will be different
Speaker 1: amounts of like length of the body that that are separated.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the heads are very close to each other. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they've got significant amounts of of separate neck, but they
Speaker 1: share connections, usually to the top of the elementary canal. Um.
Speaker 1: But the question would be here, what about a snake
Speaker 1: with a head on both ends of the length of
Speaker 1: the body, like in Thulsa Dooms standard for the cult
Speaker 1: of set Could there be a snake that's got a
Speaker 1: head for a tail? Well, we already mentioned that plenty
Speaker 1: of the elder Um discussed one, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't have plenty with us any any longer, but
Speaker 1: we do have the Daily mail, and uh, and so
Speaker 1: I was I was looking around, you know, for doing
Speaker 1: various searches for two headed snakes, and I found an
Speaker 1: article from September twenty third, two thousand twelve by Daily
Speaker 1: Mail reporter titled they Both Seemed to Control It. Family
Speaker 1: finds snake with two heads, one on each end of
Speaker 1: its body. And so this all seemed to have happened
Speaker 1: in South Carolina, and it was originally reported by Fox
Speaker 1: Carolina presumably It's Fantastic Beasts news Beat newsdesk, and it
Speaker 1: was it was identified by the local high school's biology
Speaker 1: department as a rough earth snake. Uh. And you look
Speaker 1: at these pictures, they're not, you know, super clear. Um,
Speaker 1: but there was video. There was video at some point,
Speaker 1: but the video I couldn't find actually alright good because
Speaker 1: the video footage I found had been removed, as as
Speaker 1: had the like I was getting a four or four
Speaker 1: on the original Fox reporting. But uh, the article was
Speaker 1: was pretty fun. My favorite line from it was quote,
Speaker 1: but while the snake pulls itself in opposite directions, young
Speaker 1: Savannah and Preston are also pulled in different directions on
Speaker 1: what to name the snake. That's right. One of them
Speaker 1: wanted to name it Billy Bob and the other said
Speaker 1: Oreo right, um, uh yeah. I was looking for more
Speaker 1: on this story to see to try to dig underneath
Speaker 1: like the the Daily Mail article, and I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: couldn't get under it. I don't understand why there wasn't
Speaker 1: more follow up. I mean, I suspect it's because the
Speaker 1: snake died and everyone was like, oh no, I'm sad
Speaker 1: and let's move on with it. But or because the
Speaker 1: original reporting might have been mistaken. That's the other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just don't We don't know ultimately. Yeah. So even
Speaker 1: though there's video, I mean I did watch video, and
Speaker 1: it's a small snake, but they've got it in like
Speaker 1: a little igloo cooler and it's slithering around and it
Speaker 1: has some kind of it wasn't super high definition, but
Speaker 1: it's got something on its tail. It looks sort of
Speaker 1: head shaped. Even though I saw some video, I'm still
Speaker 1: a little bit skeptical. I wonder if what's being interpreted
Speaker 1: as a head on the tail end of the snake
Speaker 1: is not really ahead. Yeah, I mean that's that's a
Speaker 1: huge possibility. Uh yeah. So just to as as back
Speaker 1: up for that as that being a possibility, I was
Speaker 1: looking at a book from J h U Press two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen called American Snakes by Sean P. Graham. Uh.
Speaker 1: And just as a side note before we get to
Speaker 1: the thing that I went to this book for. As
Speaker 1: a side note, there's a part I found where the
Speaker 1: author is describing strange defense strategies that snakes employ. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this unrelated one is called cloacle popping. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: So sometimes have you read about this? No, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you tell, if you'd asked me what cloacle popping was,
Speaker 1: I would assume it's like the hottest new dance number
Speaker 1: that I'm not familiar with. So sometimes when threatened, Uh,
Speaker 1: some types of snakes will rapidly turn their cloaca inside out.
Speaker 1: The cloaca is the common hole at the rear of
Speaker 1: the body that's used for urinary tract, digestive tract, and
Speaker 1: reproductive tract. So it's it's a common sort of hole
Speaker 1: back there that takes care of all the cummings and
Speaker 1: goings at the back side of the body. So when
Speaker 1: these snakes get captured or handled or encounter some kind
Speaker 1: of menace, they will sort of suddenly vigorously poop out
Speaker 1: part of their own rectum. Basically, it's not a rectum.
Speaker 1: It's cloaca, which produces these popping or squishing sounds which
Speaker 1: are vaguely audible to us. Uh. It's not known what
Speaker 1: adaptive purpose, if any of this has. But there's your
Speaker 1: fact of the day, chloecal pot there, Okay. But also
Speaker 1: the reason I was reading about this is that I
Speaker 1: was looking for examples, and this is absolutely true that
Speaker 1: some snake species have a defensive strategy that's known as automimicry,
Speaker 1: which involves having a tail that looks like a second head.
Speaker 1: And examples of this include the rubber boa, which can
Speaker 1: use its tail as a decoy head if it's attacked.
Speaker 1: Like if this snake is attacked, if you've seen pictures
Speaker 1: of the rubber boa, you might have seen it not
Speaker 1: just coiled, but sort of tied up in itself like
Speaker 1: a not it'll you know, be a jumble, and while
Speaker 1: it's in this tangle, it will raise its tail all
Speaker 1: up as if it were raising its head up, and
Speaker 1: allow whatever is attacking it to attack its tail, while
Speaker 1: you know, the real head is defended under the coiled
Speaker 1: body and perhaps searching for an escape route. Right. And
Speaker 1: so in this it has a lot in common with
Speaker 1: various other animals where the ideas of a predator is
Speaker 1: going to attack, you draw their attack away from them.
Speaker 1: The more sensitive parts of your anatomy draw them away
Speaker 1: from them from like your brain or your Torso get
Speaker 1: them towards the tail. There are some creatures that even
Speaker 1: practice something that's known as autotomy, where they will like
Speaker 1: release their tail sort of as a distraction or a
Speaker 1: gift to the predator while the rest of them can escape. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I encountered this on a nature path over the weekend.
Speaker 1: I was walking with my son and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: there in the path is we see a little lizard
Speaker 1: tail still moving, still flopping back and forth, no sign
Speaker 1: of the of its former owner. And so we were
Speaker 1: trying to decide, well, what happened here? Did did the
Speaker 1: lizard you know, an attempt to prevent predation and it
Speaker 1: didn't work? Or did it work? And it's ever all
Speaker 1: the parties have gone their separate ways. Uh. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating survival adaptation. And there I believe there is
Speaker 1: an episode of stuff to blow your mind in the
Speaker 1: vault about it. Yeah. I think we did a two
Speaker 1: parter about tails. Long We talked about the scorpion scorpion autonomy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: where its tail will come off, But then it can't
Speaker 1: live much longer after that because it can't poop. That's right,
Speaker 1: the tail or, one of the lost segments of the
Speaker 1: tail contained the scorpion anus, and therefore it can never
Speaker 1: poop again. Which I mean, as far as scorpion timelines get,
Speaker 1: it's probably not that bad. But that's the world of scorpions.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the world. How do you know
Speaker 1: how bad it is I speak for the scorpions, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean never having to poop again. I can just imagine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be there's gonna be some huge downsides to that,
Speaker 1: but then there are certain upsides, namely not having to
Speaker 1: poop again. Okay, so I want to be clear. I
Speaker 1: want to try to be humble about what's going on
Speaker 1: with the with the supposed two headed, you know, head
Speaker 1: on the tail snake here. I don't know that what's
Speaker 1: going on here is like a mistaken case of automimicry.
Speaker 1: I I just will say that I'm not yet convinced
Speaker 1: that this is really a snake with a head on
Speaker 1: both ends. It seems a little hard for me to
Speaker 1: imagine exactly how that happens, Like, where is the cloaca
Speaker 1: for one thing, Is it in the middle of the snake? Well,
Speaker 1: the two heads go out from each side. All the snakes,
Speaker 1: all the snakes where we have confirmed accounts that, like
Speaker 1: a really well documented that I could find are where
Speaker 1: the heads appear at the same end. And so I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm skeptical about this. I am not yet convinced
Speaker 1: that this is for real. Yeah, I definitely would love
Speaker 1: to see more evidence. Um, be it just visual evidence
Speaker 1: of this particular snake or just more people saying oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I would love to hear from the the actual
Speaker 1: uh science teacher who resumably weigh in on this. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've seen this thing up close and you're listening
Speaker 1: now get in touch. Yeah. And likewise, I feel like
Speaker 1: the town that this occurred in, like this should be
Speaker 1: if this was real, this snake should be like the
Speaker 1: mascot for the city at this point. Um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: talking pulling itself into uh. But but anyway, just to
Speaker 1: get back to the broader subject of polycephaly or having
Speaker 1: two heads in the serpent world, Um, it's rare, but
Speaker 1: it does seem to occur. It seems to occur more
Speaker 1: in the snake world, but it's really hard to say
Speaker 1: for sure because such specimens they tend to die fast
Speaker 1: in the wild. Yeah, I've seen it speculated, but not
Speaker 1: known for sure that it happens more often in snakes
Speaker 1: in captivity than it does in wild snakes. But we
Speaker 1: that's not something that's know and it's just kind of
Speaker 1: a possibility. I found a two thousand twelve paper in
Speaker 1: the Bulletin of the Chicago or Herpetological Society titled two
Speaker 1: headed Snakes Make high Mate It's Pets by Van Walock,
Speaker 1: and the author points out that there was a nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven book by an individual by the name of
Speaker 1: Cunningham on the subject of two headed snakes, and that
Speaker 1: book catalog nine and fifty cases in one d and
Speaker 1: sixty nine species from ninety four genera and um. The
Speaker 1: author here writes that currently, and this is two thousand twelve, currently, uh,
Speaker 1: there were one thousand fifty known cases one species in
Speaker 1: a hundred and three genera, and Van Wallack drove home
Speaker 1: that most of them end up just drowning in the egg,
Speaker 1: or they're still born, or they die shortly after birth.
Speaker 1: But if they if they do survive, one of the
Speaker 1: things is, and this is the key to the title
Speaker 1: of the paper, they're difficult to care for. They require
Speaker 1: extra assistance in in uh, you know, in eating, they
Speaker 1: need extra systence even when they shed their skin. But
Speaker 1: they can survive in captivity in some cases. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they do encounter all kinds of problems to survival. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're good reasons you don't usually come across them alive
Speaker 1: in the wild. For one thing, with two heads, movement
Speaker 1: is a lot more difficult. You know, you've got two
Speaker 1: brains that can struggle for control of the body. Feeding
Speaker 1: can be more difficult as the two heads sometimes fight
Speaker 1: each other over access to the food. Also, in some
Speaker 1: cases after, of course, predation can be more difficult. And
Speaker 1: then in some cases after feeding, I was reading that
Speaker 1: if one of the snake's heads smells like prey because
Speaker 1: it just eight, the other head may sometimes mistake that
Speaker 1: head for prey and try to attack it, and then
Speaker 1: we're potentially back in oral Boras country at that point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And another thing that I thought was kind of morbidly
Speaker 1: interesting in the in the van Wallaka piece that that
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, there is a risk. For example, if
Speaker 1: you've got a snake in a two headed snake in
Speaker 1: a tank, a risk of the snake crawling into apertures
Speaker 1: or past obstacles, because of course, snakes very often like
Speaker 1: to hide inside holes and enclosures. But if they have
Speaker 1: two heads bifurcated at the neck, you can run into
Speaker 1: a situation where one head is trying to pass by
Speaker 1: an obstacle or go into a hole. That's essentially like
Speaker 1: like smashing the other head against that aperture or that
Speaker 1: obstacle trying to get past it, and could end up
Speaker 1: sort of peeling the other head off as it struggles
Speaker 1: to go forward. That's not good. That's not good for anybody.
Speaker 1: And uh, and the snakes are not I mean, they
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of complex cognition. They can't usually think, oh,
Speaker 1: I should back up, you know, it just doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to occur to them. Now, outside of the world of snakes,
Speaker 1: we should also know that real life worm lizards are
Speaker 1: also known as Emphis pina um, but they of course
Speaker 1: only have one head, but their tail does trunkate in
Speaker 1: a way that kind of resembles a head. So is
Speaker 1: it a form of automimicry. They think, I'm not entirely
Speaker 1: sure on that if it actually functions as a as
Speaker 1: as a mimic a mimic head, or it's just one
Speaker 1: of these things where where we look at and we say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the end kind of looks like a head, and then
Speaker 1: they decided to bestow this name upon them. Okay, I
Speaker 1: think we got to take a break, but we will
Speaker 1: be right back with more. Alright, we're back. Okay, So
Speaker 1: we're thinking about Fulsa doom in the Conan the Barbarian movie.
Speaker 1: One thing that the great Fulsa doom Uh does. One
Speaker 1: trick he's got up his sleeve is the snake arrow. Yes,
Speaker 1: so this is one of my my favorite snake tricks
Speaker 1: from the film. And there are there's at least there
Speaker 1: are a couple of scenes where he employs this one
Speaker 1: extremely dramatically, where he'll he'll draw a venomous snake and
Speaker 1: then he'll he'll stretch it out and he'll make it
Speaker 1: rigid like an arrow. And then he will take the
Speaker 1: rigid snake and he will put it in a bow
Speaker 1: and then he will fire it as an arrow at
Speaker 1: one of his enemies. And so he like he takes
Speaker 1: a venomous snake and uses it as a venomous arrow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is how he kills Conan's beloved the thief area. Yes,
Speaker 1: so if you're watching this, maybe you're not asking questions,
Speaker 1: but I can't help it. But wonder where does this
Speaker 1: come from? Like they had to have been inspired by this,
Speaker 1: And even if they weren't inspired by a particular detail
Speaker 1: from from history and mythology, uh, then clearly they weren't
Speaker 1: the ones to think of it first. Somebody else came
Speaker 1: up with this cool idea earlier. Uh. And indeed we
Speaker 1: do see some form of this in the Hindu epic
Speaker 1: the Ramayana. So there are mentions in uh in the
Speaker 1: Ramayana of serpent arrows or sharpa vanna. And then there's
Speaker 1: also the Naga Pasha powerful snake turned arrow created created
Speaker 1: by Brahma. So one particular character, we have the Prince
Speaker 1: of Lanka, and this is the son of the tin
Speaker 1: headed Ravana Ravana being. Yeah, he's like the demon king
Speaker 1: principal antagonist in in in this particular Hindu epic. Um.
Speaker 1: And anyway, the Prince of Lanka is named Indrajit and
Speaker 1: he employs a host of wondrous weapons, including serpent arrows.
Speaker 1: And I could have this wrong, but it seems like
Speaker 1: the descriptions vary as to whether these are snakes transformed
Speaker 1: into arrows or snakes fired as arrows. Again, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know at what point you draw a line between
Speaker 1: these two things. Also, I'm left wondering if they're venomous
Speaker 1: like those of the Fulsa doom uses, or do they
Speaker 1: coil around the victim? Now this is the later would
Speaker 1: seem to be the case, based on some of the
Speaker 1: depictions I've seen of Hanuman, the monkey bound up by
Speaker 1: such an arrow, and so it would almost be something
Speaker 1: more like a bolus or something like it, Like it
Speaker 1: binds the enemy, you shoot it at them, and it
Speaker 1: wraps them up. Yeah, that definitely seems to be what's
Speaker 1: taking place in some of these illustrations. I was looking
Speaker 1: at like you've been shot by a snake and now
Speaker 1: you're wrapped up in the snake. Now, of course that's
Speaker 1: again we've gone from um Hollywood film to Hindu mythology.
Speaker 1: But let's bring it back to history. Okay, So what
Speaker 1: about just snake venom arrows, not a snake, Like we're
Speaker 1: not even explore we're not gonna even attempt to mythbust
Speaker 1: the idea that you could that you could string a
Speaker 1: snake in a bow and arrow and fire it at somebody.
Speaker 1: That's not gonna work. I don't think that would work.
Speaker 1: I don't think you could get the snake to stay
Speaker 1: rigid for that. But I do think there have been
Speaker 1: cases where snakes have been used, uh, you know, in
Speaker 1: intact as bioweapons, you know, just sort of like seeding
Speaker 1: enemy territory with poisonous snakes. And certainly the idea of
Speaker 1: using snake venom on an arrow, Uh, this does seem
Speaker 1: to be a thing. I was looking uh at a
Speaker 1: paper titled Chemical and Biological Warfare and Antiquity from by
Speaker 1: Stanford's Adrian Mayor of the Geomethology episode, and this was
Speaker 1: in History of Toxicology and Environmental health. So, um, some
Speaker 1: of the points that Mayor makes. First of all, snake
Speaker 1: venom is digestible, so it's actually suitable for killing game.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. So like you can eat it without
Speaker 1: it necessarily harming you, right, yeah, or you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about Yeah, I've I've I've felled a deer
Speaker 1: and now I could potentially eat this deer. I haven't liked,
Speaker 1: you know, ruined the deer. Another point they make is
Speaker 1: that in warfare UH, the venom can produce agonizing pain
Speaker 1: and or a never healing wound. And then there are
Speaker 1: numerous venomous snakes in the Mediterranean and UH and in
Speaker 1: Africa and Asia that one could turn to. And the
Speaker 1: Greeks and Romans recorded numerous groups that were known to
Speaker 1: utilize their venom on arrows. Greek geographer Strabo, she writes,
Speaker 1: wrote of Ethiopian arrows dipped in quote the gall of serpents,
Speaker 1: and that the so ends of the Caucusus used arrow
Speaker 1: poison so noxious that the smell alone was supposed to
Speaker 1: injure you. And then poisonous arrows, though perhaps not snake based,
Speaker 1: pop up in ancient China and South America as well.
Speaker 1: We'll come back to China in a second. Um, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a big one. Snake venom crystallizes so it
Speaker 1: can cling and remain viable on a wooden bone and
Speaker 1: metal points. Okay, so it wouldn't just be like dipping
Speaker 1: it in water that would run off right, yeah, and
Speaker 1: fly off as you send the arrow sailing like it
Speaker 1: would have some sticking potential there um. Also, the Greeks
Speaker 1: wrote of the deadly arrows of the Scythians coated in scythocon,
Speaker 1: which was said to be a combination of venom in
Speaker 1: various other infectious agents like dung and human blood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this comes back to something we'll see in the Chinese
Speaker 1: example of like people potentially just taking a bunch of
Speaker 1: things that were known or suspected to be nasty and
Speaker 1: infectious and combining them together and then using that as
Speaker 1: a coding for a weapon. Yeah. So the the it
Speaker 1: might be that there were some vague concepts about biowarfare
Speaker 1: in the ancient world or you know, before we had
Speaker 1: a germ theory of disease, say, or modern modern theories
Speaker 1: of toxicology and biology and chemistry. But still they would
Speaker 1: have some vague ideas that there's a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: you just group under poison and those things that will
Speaker 1: will poison you in the direct chemical sense or cause
Speaker 1: infections exactly. Uh. Mayor also points out that several venomous
Speaker 1: snakes would have been at the disposal of the Scythians,
Speaker 1: so the Caucus viper, the European adder, and the sand viper,
Speaker 1: Alexander the Great, according to his campaign historians encountered snake
Speaker 1: venom weapons in the conquest of India. Uh, specifically in
Speaker 1: Harmatilia in modern day Pakistan. Quote, any man who suffered
Speaker 1: even a slight wound felt immediately numb and experienced stabbing,
Speaker 1: pains and convulsions. The victim's skin became pale and cold,
Speaker 1: and he vomited bile. Soon a black froth exuded from
Speaker 1: the wound. Purplish green gang green spread rapidly, followed by death.
Speaker 1: So the idea was what perhaps this was cobra venom,
Speaker 1: but uh and that was long the theory, she points out,
Speaker 1: but that the counter to that is the cobra venom
Speaker 1: brings on a largely painless death due to respiratory paralysis,
Speaker 1: so it's likely that it was another species of venomous
Speaker 1: snake that was utilized there. Now. On the subject of
Speaker 1: snake venom and Chinese weapons, Christian and I did an
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind years ago titled
Speaker 1: Six Deadly Venoms, where we discussed various venoms from history
Speaker 1: and what their biological component was, and we discussed the
Speaker 1: Chinese poison goo and what it might have actually been
Speaker 1: with all of the folklore and superstition removed the idea
Speaker 1: of being that this was goog was supposed to be
Speaker 1: a poison that was used by by um um Uh
Speaker 1: sort of rival ethnic groups on the border, and so
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't. The the idea of goo also
Speaker 1: has connotations of like decay or something. You know, well,
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of two different there's it's kind of
Speaker 1: becomes a complex topic because it's you can sort of
Speaker 1: view it as being a poison that was utilized by
Speaker 1: a foreign adversary, or it's kind of like an aspect
Speaker 1: of their foreignness. It gets kind of complicated, and we
Speaker 1: certainly give it more of a robust treatment in that episode.
Speaker 1: But one of the main sources we turned to it
Speaker 1: on that was the Meal and Poison Interactions on China's
Speaker 1: Southwest Frontier by Norma Diamond publishing a edition of Ethnology
Speaker 1: and um this was yeah, this was said to be
Speaker 1: a poison used by the male people, one of Chinese
Speaker 1: China's fifty five ethnic groups, mostly in the mountains of
Speaker 1: southern China, and um the Google folklore of the Tang
Speaker 1: dynasty from around six eighteen CE onward took a couple
Speaker 1: of different forms. Uh. One was that it was just
Speaker 1: a quasi magical poison created by sealing five different poisonous
Speaker 1: creatures together in a jar and keeping it in a
Speaker 1: dark place for a year. So you're throwing a snake,
Speaker 1: a sinipede, the toad, the scorpion, and the lizard and
Speaker 1: you just let them duke get out in there until
Speaker 1: there's only one survivor, and then that survivor dies and
Speaker 1: then when you open up the jar, bam, you've got
Speaker 1: some poison. It's like the Doomsday of poison. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: But in terms of figuring out what the actual poison
Speaker 1: might be like, if if there's a real poison that
Speaker 1: was utilized by by this group of people, you have
Speaker 1: to ask, well, what what was it really? What were
Speaker 1: they getting it where they weren't really creating a magical poison.
Speaker 1: But if we set aside all these supernatural ideas, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there are various theories that arise, but one
Speaker 1: of them is that there were poisons. Uh, they were
Speaker 1: used in hunting by the male. There is the you know,
Speaker 1: the sap of a particular tree, but also sometimes they
Speaker 1: would mix this sap with the snake venom and it
Speaker 1: was widely traded in the area around n Nie. So
Speaker 1: this is a case where it doesn't sound like they
Speaker 1: definitely depended on snake venom, but snake venom might have
Speaker 1: been part of the cocktail, and then we of course
Speaker 1: have to or like to to what extent it was
Speaker 1: an active part of the cocktail. If it was really
Speaker 1: more about the the the herbal ingredients and the you know,
Speaker 1: like that the tree sap that was utilized as opposed
Speaker 1: to the strength of the the snake venom, this would
Speaker 1: be an interesting topic to come back to because of
Speaker 1: course one's reminded of to branch over into the amphibian
Speaker 1: world the various poisoned dart frogs uh and and they
Speaker 1: are high toxicity. But of course, the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter with with with these species is that if you
Speaker 1: go and see them like your local um, you know,
Speaker 1: botanical garden or zoo, they're not actually gonna be poisonous
Speaker 1: there because they don't have access to, uh, the the
Speaker 1: vegetation that they consume to give them, uh that that
Speaker 1: high degree of toxicity. Oh yeah, I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of extremely poisonous or extremely venomous animals get their potency
Speaker 1: from something in their natural ecology, often from like a
Speaker 1: bacterium or something it's from from their their microbiome or
Speaker 1: something else that they consume. But anyway to bring it
Speaker 1: all act told thulsa doom venomous arrows. Uh, definitely a thing.
Speaker 1: Shooting actual snakes at people. Uh, not a thing unless
Speaker 1: you are a mythological figure. You know, there are many
Speaker 1: animals mentioned in the Bible that actually we don't know
Speaker 1: exactly how to translate them, Like modern scholars aren't sure
Speaker 1: what this name of an animal refers to. And one
Speaker 1: of them that's often been kind of confusing is this
Speaker 1: animal that's mentioned called the arrow snake. Uh, so that's
Speaker 1: how the name of it is translated, but I never
Speaker 1: made the connection. I don't know if that means that
Speaker 1: there's some suggestion that it's a snake that would have
Speaker 1: had venom used in arrows. I kind of doubt it,
Speaker 1: but that's possibility. I mean, you're also left with just
Speaker 1: the the undeniable comparison between an arrow, which is a
Speaker 1: very old bit of human technology, and then naturally occurring snake.
Speaker 1: Like the snake can be stretched out and it looks
Speaker 1: kind of like an arrow. The comparison is unavoidable, both
Speaker 1: in understanding what it arrow is and understanding what a
Speaker 1: snake is. They're both considered deadly, yes, even though most
Speaker 1: snakes not deadly. We don't want to contribute to snake
Speaker 1: panic on here. Snakes are great. You want snakes living
Speaker 1: around your house, You want them, And in fact, I
Speaker 1: would love to come back to that. I've already sort
Speaker 1: of planted the seeds. We'll see, but I'm I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about having a guest come back on the show and
Speaker 1: discuss the importance of snakes in our our local habitats.
Speaker 1: I am so on board for that. I want to
Speaker 1: do whatever we can to fight reptile hate. Al Right, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take one more break, and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we will discuss one more aspect
Speaker 1: of Falsa Doom's cult and how it compares to the
Speaker 1: natural world. Thank alright, we're back. So clearly, the best
Speaker 1: thing about the Cone of the Barbarian movie, as we've
Speaker 1: discussed before, is James Earl Jones and the role of
Speaker 1: Fulsa Doom. But but he does one thing in the
Speaker 1: movie that we haven't gotten to yet. I don't think
Speaker 1: we've mentioned, which is that he turn himself into a
Speaker 1: giant snake. Oh, yes, he does this. He changes into
Speaker 1: a giant snake in order to escape the vengeance of Conan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also a part where Conan just goes into a
Speaker 1: tower and kills a giant snake for no good reason
Speaker 1: except I guess he wanted to steal and the snake
Speaker 1: woke up while he was stealing. Well, the snake was
Speaker 1: a pet, that was it was it Rex or had right?
Speaker 1: Which one? Was it by spinel a Thora secundus from
Speaker 1: a practis guardian of the universe. Yes, so he had
Speaker 1: raised this snake from a child he lived in the temple.
Speaker 1: It was the pet of Thusa Doom. So, but it's
Speaker 1: also like the security device and Conan and his compatriots
Speaker 1: had broken into the temple to steal things. It's just
Speaker 1: one of the many examples in the movie where you
Speaker 1: see Conan, like uh enacting brutal violence on something where
Speaker 1: you kind of take the other things side. It's like,
Speaker 1: I'd kind of like to see the snake win here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Conan is just chopping its head off. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: steal a gym. Wou't you leave me alone? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: certainly Conan does succeed in mass occurring this giant, beautiful
Speaker 1: reptile um, but also James Earl Jones can turn himself
Speaker 1: into a massive giant snake, which appears is not the
Speaker 1: same as the earlier snake. There's just multiple giant snakes
Speaker 1: in the movie. Yeah, I mean that's one of the
Speaker 1: authentically this is one of the aspects of like old
Speaker 1: pulpe wizards is you don't know what they're capable of.
Speaker 1: They can pull off any any number of of dark sorceries. Uh,
Speaker 1: they have a pet snake, they can turn into a
Speaker 1: pet snake. There they can make snakes and arrows. There's
Speaker 1: no limit. But it leads to the the unavoidable question
Speaker 1: like how big due terrestrial snakes get? How big have
Speaker 1: they gotten in the past? Is there anything in the
Speaker 1: world today as big as the snake we see in
Speaker 1: the Temple of set And if not, was there ever
Speaker 1: anything that big? So let's start with the present and
Speaker 1: work our way back. So this is a topic I've
Speaker 1: I've looked into previously, actually ended up writing an article
Speaker 1: about this for How Stuff Works a few years back.
Speaker 1: And when we look when we discuss the biggest snakes,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of species that we turned to,
Speaker 1: and in both cases we turned to the females because
Speaker 1: they run larger. So we have the Asian reticulated python
Speaker 1: or python reticulattice. And these tend to be the longest
Speaker 1: snakes that you find in the natural world. The most
Speaker 1: uh reputable record lengths are around twenty five ft or
Speaker 1: seven point six meters. Field measurements in a survey averaged
Speaker 1: a little under twelve feet or three point two meters
Speaker 1: in the jungles of southern Sumatra, maxing out at just
Speaker 1: shy of twenty ft or six point one ms um
Speaker 1: and uh. Then in South America we have the green anaconda. Okay,
Speaker 1: this would be of the movie Anaconda. To bring in
Speaker 1: another another giant snake movie, another great cheesy, cheesy action movie,
Speaker 1: the one that it ends up eating John Voyd for
Speaker 1: a while for a while. Speaking of films I loved
Speaker 1: when I was younger and recently went back and revisited,
Speaker 1: Anaconda is another one. Yeah, I I love that when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I went back and watched it
Speaker 1: within the past couple of years, and that is a
Speaker 1: great cheesy creature flick. It is worth a watch now
Speaker 1: is the creature in question the giant snake or John
Speaker 1: Voyd because he's the villain. But John Voyd in it
Speaker 1: is also speaking of like like actors who go whole
Speaker 1: hog just like go over the horizon with their villain performances. Uh,
Speaker 1: John Void's doing it in this movie. He's got this
Speaker 1: accent that who knows what it's supposed to sound like.
Speaker 1: He's like a he's playing like a South American Dracula
Speaker 1: who hunts snakes. It's just amazing. I need to see
Speaker 1: that one again. So yes, if you go to South America,
Speaker 1: you'll get the green anaconda. And these tend to be
Speaker 1: the more massive of the two species here. Larger females
Speaker 1: typical rate typically reach lengths of nine ft two point
Speaker 1: seven meters, and they way upward of two hundred pounds
Speaker 1: or nine point seven krams. Up to twenty nine and
Speaker 1: thirty thirty two ft lengths have been considered possible by experts.
Speaker 1: So this tends to be when you get into arguments
Speaker 1: about what's the largest living snake. Uh, you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna have people that are on team articulated python. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have people that are on team green anaconda. If
Speaker 1: you go to a zoo or a reptile house and
Speaker 1: you happen to see um specimens of both species, you
Speaker 1: could probably make a case for either depending on how
Speaker 1: large the individual is. And also in either case, they're
Speaker 1: also wilder stories and even some photo evidence of skins
Speaker 1: UH that suggest larger creatures. So it might be just
Speaker 1: a reported sighting or someone said, look, here's a picture
Speaker 1: of the skin we got from the snake. The problem
Speaker 1: in these situations is that snake skins, once they've been
Speaker 1: removed from the snake, may be stretched out a bit.
Speaker 1: So not only you can stretch your story, and you
Speaker 1: can stretch your physical evidence and it becomes harder to
Speaker 1: lean on it um. But to just give an idea
Speaker 1: about the about some of the crazier sightings UH. In
Speaker 1: ninety three, Fritz w Uptograph reported seeing a fifty to
Speaker 1: sixty ft or fifteen to eighteen meter green anaconda. And
Speaker 1: that's one that I've seen the experts do. They really
Speaker 1: kind of rolled their eyes at that one. But that's
Speaker 1: so that both of these are cases where those giant snakes,
Speaker 1: those are impressive creatures if you get to see them
Speaker 1: at any kind of a reptile house or certainly if
Speaker 1: you ever get to see one in the wild, like
Speaker 1: that's that's impressive. But they're not as big as the
Speaker 1: as the giant snake we see in Cone in the
Speaker 1: Barbarian To find something that big, we have to go
Speaker 1: back in time, uh, you know, not to the Hyborian age,
Speaker 1: you know, we have we have to go well past
Speaker 1: the time of my adventure. We have to go back
Speaker 1: sixty million years. Uh. Specifically have to go to what
Speaker 1: is now known as because the country of Colombia, and
Speaker 1: we have to go to the Sera John rainforest, and
Speaker 1: that is where we will find the Titana Boa. Titana Boa, yes, uh,
Speaker 1: and this is uh, this is a creature that's received
Speaker 1: a lot of press. Uh. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: there's some cool artwork that was created with to go
Speaker 1: along with the studies about the Titana Boa and the
Speaker 1: fossil evidence that that informs us about its size. But
Speaker 1: this was an impressive serpent. This was this is kind
Speaker 1: of a very like a hot box jungle environment. And
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons that, uh, this serpent could
Speaker 1: reach such a size sixty million years ago. Uh. The
Speaker 1: temperatures there uh probably an average yearly temperature of eighty
Speaker 1: six to ninety three degrees fahrenheit or thirty to thirty
Speaker 1: four degrees celsius, far hotter than modern tropical rainforest temperatures.
Speaker 1: And and the size of this creature was impressive. University
Speaker 1: of Florida paleontologists estimate its tip to tail link that
Speaker 1: a whopping forty two eight or thirteen meters, and it
Speaker 1: would have had a crushing it would have had a
Speaker 1: crushing weight of more than a ton. Wow. So this
Speaker 1: particular species, titanaboa, would definitely be able to stand in
Speaker 1: for that giant snake we see in ConA, the Barbarian.
Speaker 1: And don't you lay a finger on it? Conan, don't
Speaker 1: you hurt the snake. It is a holy, blameless creature.
Speaker 1: It is uh. You know, whatever your feelings are about
Speaker 1: Fulsa Doom and his awful death cult um which grant
Speaker 1: it is an awful death cult. You know, we can't
Speaker 1: blame that on the snake. Why don't they look I
Speaker 1: have a question about snake size and uh and are
Speaker 1: supposed instincts. Now. We talked a little bit in the
Speaker 1: last episode about the idea that there's there's an ongoing
Speaker 1: debate about the extent to which are the common fear
Speaker 1: of certain types of animal forms, particularly things like snakes
Speaker 1: and spiders. Is is hardwired into human brains, it's the
Speaker 1: thing that you're born being afraid of with out even
Speaker 1: having having been told it exists. Or is it a
Speaker 1: culturally conditioned fear and something we learn about from fiction
Speaker 1: and from people around us that we're supposed to be
Speaker 1: afraid of. And there's obviously going to be some cultural conditioning.
Speaker 1: The question is is there something that's there before that is?
Speaker 1: Is it there in the brain before the culture gets
Speaker 1: to you. And there's some evidence I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: even like babies looking at pictures of snakes get people
Speaker 1: dilation when when they see an image of a snake.
Speaker 1: But my question would be does that scale like does
Speaker 1: the I mean like, once you get to a snake
Speaker 1: of this size, it's so big it's not even really
Speaker 1: recognizable as a snake in the way you would normally
Speaker 1: perceive snake threats. It becomes a dragon, it becomes some
Speaker 1: kind of completely other thing. I mean, the kind of
Speaker 1: snakes that would be any sort of normal threat that
Speaker 1: you might have biological conditioning to avoid would be relatively
Speaker 1: small snakes. Their threat would be in their venom, not
Speaker 1: in their size. But you're you're saying, like, if we
Speaker 1: were to encounter a titana boa in the wild, would
Speaker 1: it even register as a snake to us? Well, I
Speaker 1: think on on one level, you know, yeah, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to. Like, I think there is something, there's that
Speaker 1: kind of magical moment, like a darkly magical moment, whenever
Speaker 1: you perceive a predator in the wild, like like, not
Speaker 1: not not just any predator, but a creature that that
Speaker 1: could conceivably prey upon a human um at least, you know,
Speaker 1: a weakened human. Uh, it seems to it feels like
Speaker 1: it sets off different alarms in your brain, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you lock eyes with that lion when you're
Speaker 1: I've certainly been in this situation when you're the first
Speaker 1: person to the zoo and and the lion sees you,
Speaker 1: and you lock eyes with a lion, or perhaps the
Speaker 1: lion looks at the small child that's traveling with you, um,
Speaker 1: and you realize, oh, I would you know if if
Speaker 1: if not for this glass wall, if not for for
Speaker 1: the artificial as acts of this encounter, Um, I would
Speaker 1: be the one fleeing. Now, I would be the one,
Speaker 1: you know, at least backing away, if not running in tearror.
Speaker 1: Uh So I feel like that would certainly kick in
Speaker 1: if you were to encounter the Titana bo. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: guess I'm not saying people wouldn't be afraid of it
Speaker 1: with good reason. I would. I think they wouldn't say
Speaker 1: eke is the is the difference. They wouldn't say, eke
Speaker 1: a snake. They would say, oh my god, a snake.
Speaker 1: But I guess humans in the Titana bow never existed
Speaker 1: at the same time, so there'll be no reason to
Speaker 1: have this kind of conditioned fear. Yeah. I mean the
Speaker 1: closest would be, you know, any degree of conditioning that
Speaker 1: might come from being around um. You know green anicon
Speaker 1: is in reticulated pythons. But that's a different that's a
Speaker 1: different level of It's totally not the same thing as
Speaker 1: the danger of a venomous snake, where I could conceivably accidentally,
Speaker 1: um wind up bitten by the snake. But I think
Speaker 1: also a lot of the danger there with the venomous
Speaker 1: snakes that it has been hypothesized if we have some
Speaker 1: kind of hardwired instinctual reaction to snakes. It was mainly
Speaker 1: about children, right, that there would be small children would
Speaker 1: be vulnerable to them, right, And of course that's going
Speaker 1: to be the case with a lot of predators in general.
Speaker 1: You know, the the wild cat that is not a
Speaker 1: danger to an adult human could be a danger to
Speaker 1: a small child. I mean, definitely that's the case, even
Speaker 1: with modern day crocodilians. Oh but they're also they're definitely
Speaker 1: crocodilians that are a danger to adults. Yes, yes, but
Speaker 1: but but even you know, more so so to a
Speaker 1: diminutive human. Yeah. Well, I'd just like to wrap up
Speaker 1: today by saying I'm on thulsa doom side. I would
Speaker 1: join his cult. I would take his side against Conan
Speaker 1: and his evil friends. And uh yeah, there's where my
Speaker 1: loyalty is. Okay, even even though, just to be clear,
Speaker 1: they do practice cannibalism. It's firmly established, you know, big
Speaker 1: cannib annibalism here and there. To hang out with spin
Speaker 1: only thorson, you know, yeah, they don't seem to be
Speaker 1: a certain amount of just hanging out and chill. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the temple set flesh is stronger than steel. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's what he tells us. All right, So there you
Speaker 1: have it. Um Again, we set out to do one episode.
Speaker 1: We had to break this one into two. But I
Speaker 1: think it was worthwhile because we got to explore a
Speaker 1: few things that I don't think we would have necessarily
Speaker 1: have recovered on the show had we not been prompted
Speaker 1: by Fulsa Doom's teachings. Likewise, we get to highlight some
Speaker 1: areas we might come back to in the future. Uh,
Speaker 1: were related to the study of of serpents. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I'm not done. This is not this is not just
Speaker 1: another snake cult. We will be the snake religion by
Speaker 1: the time we're finished. All right. Well, Uh. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you want to check out those
Speaker 1: past movie episodes that we've done Highlander two, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, of Space Odyssey, The Dark Crystal. You can
Speaker 1: find them all. It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you want to support the show, the best
Speaker 1: thing you can do is rate and review us wherever
Speaker 1: you have the power to do so. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: wherever you get this podcast asked give us some stars
Speaker 1: leave a nice comment that helps us out. Also, if
Speaker 1: you haven't checked out Invention, check out Invention. It's the
Speaker 1: other podcast that we do. It is an invention by
Speaker 1: invention exploration of human techno history. We've been looking at
Speaker 1: a lot of photography and motion picture. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you perhaps you check this episode out because you're
Speaker 1: into films and you're like, what kind of science are
Speaker 1: they going to squeeze out of this? Uh, this puppy well, uh,
Speaker 1: then go check out Invention and learn about where the
Speaker 1: technology of films came from. Huge thanks as always to
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, just to say oh, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
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