Animal Appetite

snails when I was a toddler. This is true today on the show, we're talking weird diets, animals eating other animals eating other animals, humans eating well, some pretty freaky things. Discover this and more as we answer the angel question.

Is cannibalism good for you? Diets across the animal kingdom can be fascinating, and who better to speak to this than Charles Darwin, father of evolutionary theory, who decided during the long arduous trip aboard the Beagle that multi bread just wouldn't cut it, so he sampled some of his

animal specimens. Darwin had actually been a member of the Glutton Club at Cambridge University before making his famous discoveries, so perhaps it's less surprising that he used his adventures as an excuse to eat giant tortoises, iguana's armadillo's puma, and a goody, which is a giant squirrel like Roden. And he even accidentally ate part of a less area, a bird he'd been trying to collect a scientific specimen

of for several months. So what better way to celebrate evolutionary biology than to take a gustatory trip through the animal and human world. Joining me today is Katherine Spires, food writer and host of the podcast smart Mouth. Welcome Catherine, thank you. I'm excited to talk about this stuff. Yeah, so your podcast explores culinary things. We do a lot of food history. I have a guest on and I asked him ahead of time, what's your favorite food or whatever?

Research the heck out of it. And I'm like, did you know? Um, well, I'm glad that you are into food because this is going to be a pretty uh it'll it'll be a wild ride. Yeah, it sounds like I wanted to start out. I got a listener question, um that I think really is very suitable for this topic. Um, Amy b asks a creature I like a lottle? Is the axelttle? Nice? Nice one? Amy? And I was wondering what strange incidents and or weird and wacky facts are

associated with these little cuties. Um so, uh yeah, there's a wacky fact that I know about axlttels, which is that they will only grow up into adults when they eat each other. Oh so not a lot of them grow up into a doll. No, they don't, actually, so axceltteles little background there, critically endangered species of salamander. They're related to tiger salamanders. They live in Mexico. They're also known as the Mexican walking fish. They're not a fish

there in amphibian um. They have four underdeveloped limbs and lidless eyes. Already painting a nice picture. Um. They also have these is like fluffy feathery sideburns. Those are actually external gill stocks and that's how they breathe under waters, so they can even regenerate their body parts, even parts of their brains. Yeah, so they're pretty cool already. And their method of eating is like Kirby style vacuuming in food.

The reason only some of them grow to adulthood is that they're neotinic, meaning that they reach sexual maturity in their juvenile aquatic form, so they never actually undergo metamorphosis to their adult terrestrial form in most cases. Oh wow, So is this a rare occasion where the fact that they're almost extinct is their fault? No, no, they it's actually because of the urban sprawl of Mexico City, that's the environment. Do they eat other things besides yes, yes,

so they eat like insects, worm, small fish. There their carnivores. Most of the time, they don't actually become cannibals, but if they do, they will actually that will trigger their metamorphosis into adulthood. UM. So, the biological reason x ldels don't go through metamorphosis is that they lack thyroid stimulating hormone.

Remaining in that juvenile form is actually a survival mechanism in environments that lack adequate nutrition for their larger adult form um and especially things like iodine, which they need in their diet, and they can't necessarily get enough of um. But if they start to get enough nutrition, like enough iodine, which they get by eating other x ltdeles, this will actually trigger their body to start metamorphosis. So if they cannibalize enough other acts ltels, they will turn into larger

terrestrial adults. You can even artificially induce this by giving them iodine or thyroid stimulating hormone injections, and it makes them crazy for more. No, no, they'll just like that'll turn out and make them u that will give them a thirst for blood, right, um, No, they'll they'll transform

into a terrestrial one. And actually a lot of people keep x ltdeles as pets, and I saw these x Laudela owner forums where they're like, oh, what to do if your ax lottle like metamorphosizes into an adult um because they can't you can't keep it in a in a fish tank anymore because they will need to breathe air like that, they'll grow lungs and they like a frog, you know, that goes from tadpole which is fully aquatic to being um terrestrial and then it can't breathe underwater anymore.

Is it an okay idea to keep one of them as a pet? Yeah, I mean it's okay. I think that if they're bread, you know, I don't know too much about like the um ecological impacts of owning them as pets. Um, if they're bread and captivity, I think that's probably okay. But like, obviously the pet trade could present a problem. I think the bigger problem for them is just the the urban sprawl um and the the

sort of human impact on their environment. But I don't think as far as like exotic pets go, I don't think it's too much of a problem as long as you don't you know, there are a lot of rules for having exotic pets. You don't want to like introduce

them to wherever you live. You know, you don't want to like dump them off in a lake or anything like that, or flush them down the toilet, because you can really screw up with the ecosystems in your your own area when you introduce species that are not from there. So yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think it's mostly okay um, as long as they're not being gotten from the illegal pet trade, right as long as so Speaking of aquatic creepy aquatic animals, greenland sharks will eat

entire polar bears. Wow, I didn't really think there was anything that would eat polar bear. But greenland sharks are huge, so they live near well Greenland, Um. They grow up to twenty five ft long and they can weigh over two thousand pounds. That's too many pounds. That's a few too many. And it's a species of sleeper shark. These are sharks that live at great depths and they move

really slowly and sluggishly. They're they're just kind of they're freaky in that they just seem ancient, like these ancient callbacks to dinosaur times. Can I tell you the animal I'm most afraid of, Sure, go for it. Whales. Really, you wouldn't like this. It's kind of like it looks it looks like a whale mixed with a shark. Yeah, that's terrifying to me. And it's deep deep underwater. Why are you afraid of whales just because of how big

they are? Yeah, they're too big. Yeah. I think that's like part of the like the philosophobia thing, where it's like you're afraid of like big things in the depths

of the ocean. That's interesting. I mean I definitely curl my toes a lot when I was swimming so that the monsters won't get Greenland sharks actually literally are ancient because they have a lifespan of up to five hundred years and specimens that are sometimes and it's hard to actually encounter like specimens, especially like live specimens because of the depths at which they live. When they actually date the the bodies of these greenland sharks like they live

hundreds of years old. That's crazy. I've never even heard of these. It's I mean, it is interesting, like some of the most incredible animals that seem it's just like they seem like fantasy creatures and they just aren't, I guess because they're not cute and cuddly, like we don't hear about them. And they're also not they don't kill people generally, so they also don't have the poll of the like you know, tabloid headlines. Um. They're probably ambush predators.

So they just move so slowly and quietly, they like look like part of the environment until they're right behind you and it's too late. Because they're not very fast. They don't just like cruise around like you know you see great whites and other sharks, and they're not like zooming around like a cheetah. But they're fairly fast and active and and vicious. Um. So that's how they get the polar bears is just sneaking up on them. Well, it's I'm not sure exactly. I don't think they've ever

been observed hunting polar bears. Most likely they just suck up these rotting carcasses of polar bears. So a polar bear dies, falls into the water, and these greenland sharks just like vacuum this entire dead polar bear. How they've also been found in there. And the only reason we know this is like when we catch uh them and they're dead and researchers look inside their stomachs and they found rotting horses, moose, seals. They even found an entire

reindeer carcass. Um, how do they get a horse? I see. That's what makes me think that these must have fallen into the ocean somehow. I don't clear on how a horse full in the ocean, but things happen was it's not a cruise on a Disney cre because they do they do scavenge for food as well, so they're they're predators and scavengers. Um. You kind of remind me of coyotes. Everything you're describing around. Yeah, charote once almost got my dog by sneaking up. Yeah. Yeah, she was on a leash.

I was walking her almost sneak Yeah. Yeah. They're kind of like that, but huge and ancient even more terrifying and undying. They they're an apex predator, meaning like they don't have any natural predators except you know, humans. There is a bit of a cosmic irony here because like the greenland sharks like to eat these like dead, rotting animals, and we return the favor. At least in Iceland. Uh, there's an Icelandic dish. And my apologies for this whole episode.

Just accept my apology for the pronunciation things with these food items um so called I think ha carl, which is made of rotting greenland shark meat. Um, this is a pretty incredible dish. Uh. The raw greenland shark is actually poisonous due to the large amounts of urrea and trimethylene in oxide, trimethylamine, trimethyl amine, trimethyl amine and oxide in their flesh. Um. By fermenting the shark meat, it's rendered edible. I guess it's not edible in the strictest

sense that it won't kill you anymore. Right So. Traditionally, hakarl is made by placing the shark body in a shallow sandy grave, then burying it in sand and gravel. Then heavy stones are placed on top to put pressure on the shark, and also I guess to keep the zombie shark from rising. I would assume that's not actually like part of the makes sense to me. If I was like bearing this like giant ancient shark that eats polar bears, I be definitely sure to put some heavy

rocks on its um. And then it's left to ferment for oh, you know, twelve weeks in the ground. Um. Then it's cut into strips and hung to dry in a meat drying house. Um. It's no longer really made this way for mass consumption in Iceland. It's instead made by putting like squeezing it in a plastic container. Um. But you know, for sort of more like cultural reasons. Sometimes it's still made traditionally, especially like as a thing to show people who are visiting. It apparently has an

extremely strong ammonia flavor. Um, because you know, like it's even though the fermentation process does uh make those toxic uh uria like not as harmful, it's still like pretty yeah. Um, you know, I'm I've never had it, so I'm not gonna say, oh, this is not a good dish. I would say, because I've not been acclimated you eating any kind of meat like this, I would probably struggle yeah

with it. Um something's really truly are acquired taste. Yes, I do have the opinions of Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsey. Um So, Anthony Bourdain said it was the quote single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing, which I think is a pretty harsh thing. I don't. I don't think he's ever eaten. Like when I was in college, I used to make myself macaroni and cheese and then from the box like the crab, and I'd put it in the fridge like the little mini fridge, and I just sit

there and dry out. And then like a day later, I'd be like, huh, I still have some macaroni and cheese left, and it would be this like mummified mac and cheese, you know, just congealed that milky or bright orange toxic. So so I feel like that would be the worst thing I can see that. No, No, I would still think that Gordon Ramsey couldn't even like eat it. He tried to eat it and he couldn't. Ye wording was much braver. I mean, fancy to be such a

weenie calling you out, Ramsey. So another weird So this is something that the Vikings were thought to have eaten as well, another weird thing that the Vikings ate. Again, I'm not going to pronounce this good. Uh, Syria hoots rude gar. Yeah, sure, let's pretend it is. It's soured pickled rams testicles. Okay, you know, it actually sounds a little despite the fact that it's rams testicles. It sounds

a little better to me than the shark. Right when you get some pickling Brian in there and work right, because you pickle it um and you know, sour. You know, that's like I've I've had like sour meat, sweet and sour meat, like that's good. Um, So you know, but of course I don't want to I'm not I don't want to drag Iceland too much because they're not. This is not like, oh, man Iceland so weird. They make weird dishes. Well, they don't have a lot of produce,

right exactly. So. And also, throughout human history, we've all, like everyone in every culture, nobody is immune. We all have made some freaky stuff. So, um, here's uh, and I'm sure this this may be some stuff you're familiar with. Here's some of the weirdest stuff that we've eaten throughout human history, at least in uh Europe. I got some of this research from the Fine Dining Lover's website. Uh,

the author Peter Basildon, So thank you. This is a truly disturbing thing that I read this article that made me not want to eat ever again. So thank you, Peter. So. In medieval Europe, um, the helmeted cock is a cooked chicken and pig where the chicken is made to ride the pig while wearing military regalia. Here's a picture of it. I'll probably post that or post the link to that in the show notes. But it's that that looks like sort of the late Renaissance period when people got really

weird about food. Yeah, they were doing stuff like that to show off constantly. Yeah, it's uh, well, like what else do you know? Um? The idea of the tred ducan is supposed to have come from there. Just putting things inside things inside things. I've got. I've got a good one, okay. Um. Another medieval europe one is the live frog pie. It was a fad to surprise guest by sticking live animals in a pie empty pie crest and have them pop out when they cut into it.

Is that a fun surprise? No, I wouldn't think so. I don't think it is. I mean this is you know, when is this medieval Europe? Is this like around the Black Death? Maybe right after right before? A really dark sense of humor exactly? Um So, Now moving on to the tutors, which came a little later. I'm not a I'm not a historian, but um so, roasted swan a dish where and we don't really eat swan that much,

no more, don't necessarily the best tasting burden. I don't think it's Also, it's probably not, and we raised so many chickens. The swan was redressed in its skin and feathers, so it looked like it did when it was alive. It's like this dead swan feel a full of roasted meat, just like with the swan skin. God, that's so horrible. It's dark. And when they could get their hands on a peacock they would do that too. Yeah, it was so much show. Literally they didn't care what it tasted like.

There was something there's something so disturbing about that, like like, you know, so if you murder someone, that's pretty bad, right, that's that's upsetting. If you murder someone, skin them and like jumble around their insides and then sew them back up. Yeah, you'll go to jail for longer if you do that. Yeah, right, like the sentencing mandatory sentencing on jumbling people up and

sewing them back out. That's there's something disturbing about like because then it's like it's not just about the necessity of eating, it's about mutilating the corpse of the heating um. Speaking of which the cock and trees, which is a suckling pig. In a suckling pig, it's like a baby pig that's upper body was sewn onto the lower half of a capone castrated rooster um, which you know, I mean like sure like turn your food into a Boschian nightmare.

That's exactly what they were doing, right right, Like like, hey, what wouldn't it be funny if a pig was sewn to a rooster and we ate it? Is this British too? Yes, this is the tutor so that too. Yeah, well, the tutors were super into showing off, so I guess this is how they did it. Yes, it's weird if they thought it was funny British people became funny, but clearly where at that time humor is a I don't know, it's not good then. Yeah, this researching this episode has

made me want to swear off meat entirely forever. Like I'm already like trying to cut back on it for health and environmental reasons, but like I like see this and like maybe I'll just eat carrots for the rest of my life. Yeah, people aren't really carts, groats or whatever. So the elizabethans um would do bone marrow on toast, And I've actually had this and it's really good. It is um. That's and honestly, like if you know, if you're gonna have bones anyway and you don't use them,

that's a waste of animals. So like you use if you use their everything, every part of the animal, which I think is probably good practice, you're gonna, you know, have meat. Putting bone my own toast is pretty pretty tasty. Yeah, it does taste good. People describe it in a way that either sounds really appetizing or off putting ring on your head. It's just meat butter. It is meat butter.

It's um. It's kind of gelant, which it sounds gross, but it's it's like and I'm very sensitive to texture and stuff, and I can actually down this pretty pretty well. I have to spread it thin though I don't like it too chunky's but then when it's thin, it melts just a teeny man into the bread and it does taste really good. Yeah yeah, um, So the Georgians did, uh, and this is kind of what you're talking about, Like the tur ducan it was the rotie sounds peril um again,

apologies for the French there. It's a French dish of

seventeen birds stuffed inside each other. So, according to an article and vice, the recipe calls for busted stuffed with a turkey, stuffed with a goose, stuffed with a pheasant, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a guinea foul, stuffed with a teal, stuffed with a woodcock, stuffed with a partridge, stuffed with a plover, stuffed with a lap wing, stuffed with a quail, stuffed with a thrush, some of the lark, stuffed with an order land bunting,

stuffed with a garden warble, or stuffed with an olive. Stuffed with the n anchovie stuffed with a single caper. Guys. Yeah, stop it that. First of all, that would be so frustrating to cook because would take days and then it's dawn in a minute. Yeah, I mean, and it's also they cook at different rates. It's nightmare. Yeah, that's so wasteful.

I mean, like what like seventeen different more than seventeen animals had to die to make that because they also like used like pig fat and all these other things, and on a bed of child bones. I don't know. And there's no possible way I'm gonna say this without ever having it that it tasted very good. No, I imagine it wouldn't because you can't. There's no way. It's just too much together, like there's too much happening. No, no,

it's just complete insanity. Um it's it's I feel like we have this concept that serial killers only happen within modern society. I think they've always been around. It's just back back in these times they were endorsed. Their behavior was considered good and normal, and they got to be chefs, and they got to be kings and queen means, and they just got away or like I'm gonna sew a pig to a duck and then stuff it inside an ostrich and everyone's like how dro yes, please, wow, I

like that theory. That's cool. Yeah yeah yeah monsters while they were monsters. Yeah. So now we know humans are clearly ridiculous omnivores. But in modern times our diets can range from omnivorous, vegetarian, and vegan. But what about carnivorous? Well maybe, but you'd have to eat your meat completely raw. Around the turn of the century, Icelandic explorer Bill Hammer Stephenson traveled to Alaska, where the Inuit of the Mackenzie Delta allowed him to live with them and they taught

him about their lifestyle. Stephenson became an advocate of their diet, which was meat and fish for six to nine months of the year, an extreme ketogenic diet. But before you try it yourself, you should know that it be difficult to replicate. They eat freshly hunted, sometimes raw meat and caught fresh fish, which they also on occasion ate raw. And only by eating raw liver, fish, row, and eggs can you get the vitamin CEA you need to avoid scurvy. And if you try to eat only meat, and do

it incorrectly, you can die of malnutrition. Rabbit starvation is a form of starvation caused by eating primarily rabbit meat, which in more scientific terms is called protein poisoning. It's when there's not enough fat in the diet, so you will starve even if you continue eating. As Stephenson explained, quote rabbit eaters, if they have no fat from another source beaver, moose fish will develop diarrhea in about a week,

with headache, lassitude, and vague discomfort. If there are enough rabbits, the people eat till their stomachs are distinted, but no matter how much they eat, they feel unsatisfied. So don't go trying and meat only diet at home, especially if all you've got to eat or some lastly rabbits, Hey drop that fork will be right back after a quick break. What's food without a little seasoning? And the best seasoning in the world is salt. It's the magical mineral that

makes food taste good. So why do we like salt? Well, we do need it to live. You can actually have too little salt in your system, which is a condition known as hypernatremia, which can cause brain swelling and even death. Fortunately, you don't really need to worry about this. Typically we have too much salt in the diet, but for many animals salt is so vital they'll go to some interesting lengths to get it. What I want to talk about is, uh, butterflies and bees who love salt, and they will drink

tears to get it. Oh how do they get the tears? Well? Uh, it depends so uh. They will sometimes drink turtle tears in the proving Amazon, So I just got so sad um. So in the Peruvian Amazon, butterflies drink turtle tears to supple their diet with sodium. Butterflies need sodium like most living animals, but they can't get it from flowers, so they'll get it typically from dirt or poop um where you normally get told. Of course, they can also get

it from tears. Uh. And what better than a turtle that can't retract its head like the yellow spotted sideeck turtles who their heads are just stuck out there. They can't hide in their little shell home, so the butterflies are free to sip at their tears. Here's a picture. And I didn't want to be clear that the turtle is not sad. Can you tell me what would cause a turtle to cry? I mean probably it's just the normal, normal amount of tears and it's not it's not crying

because it's sad. Same thing with crocodiles. So butterflies are sometimes seen drinking the tears of crocodiles, like the cayman in Costa Rica. Here's uh, here's a bee and a butterfly, uh, drinking out of the crocodiles tears at the same Time's amazing. I feel like I've seen pictures of this before and I didn't even think that it might be a thing. Yeah. Um, So they're also tear drinking molls in the Amazon jungle

that drink bird tears, uh and sometimes not. It's not even clear why they do this because there's like salt in their environment already, so they just like to poke birds in the eyes and make them cry and drink their tears. So they're just like little stinkers. Yeah, they're little stinkers. And here's a picture of one just like sitting on top of a terrified looking birds. Yeah. That seems so rude. It's very rude. Humans are ruder, were

worse for those birds out there listening. Uh viewers, sensitive listeners, sensitive to matters of birds. I'm gonna warn you about this. Next one gets very sad. The ordle in bunting. Have you heard of this. It's an upsetting It's an upsetting restaurant or recipe. Um. So, ordoland bunting is a small, peaceful songbird that is apparently good tasting to some people after being brutally tortured. So in classic Middle French cuisine, the orderland is placed in a darkened cage, which causes

it to become psychologically disturbed, where it feeds compulsively. So in the wild, ordlands will gorge themselves at night. So if you make it eternal night, they will just keep eating and eating, which is really disturbing. In Roman times, emperors would stab out the eyes of the lands so they would compulsively eat anymore, even more because like no light can enter their eyes. Yeah, it's pretty I mean, I don't know if that's true. That could be apocryphal,

but I wouldn't put it past Romans Caligula. He was a stinker. Um. So the bird is then drowned in brandy um so that it is marinated murdered at the same time. Um, and then it is roasted and eaten whole. Traditionally, people would wear a large handkerchief over their heads to quote like hide from God. It could also have been that's sort of like the superstition around, but it's also could be to trap the odors from the dish or too. If it's like because these would be very wealthy people.

It could also be to hide the fact that they're spitting out bird bones as they can. So that's a I think it's illegal now. Um, it is illegal. Yeah, but there's TV shows that will depict it as depictions of how wealthy people are. Right, they've done it both on Billions and Succession. Yeah, I wonder if that's there's any truth to that, Like if wealthy people like have a black market order land under the table, rich people love having everything. There is a vegan version of order Lands.

So these vegan chefs have created a m Ortolan bunting that's supposed to mimic the taste and texture of a of a bird with bones in it. Um made out of entirely vegan ingredients. It doesn't necessarily look exactly like a bird. It looks like one vaguely birds shaped lump of weird ingredients, but they've put like other things to make it like they wanted to mimic the texture of like skin, guts and bones, and it's the thing. Is

one of the benefits. And I'm not vegan, but one of the benefits I perceive of being vegan is you don't have the gross out factor of eating another living creature. So why would you want of this is replicated? I don't understand fake meat replicating. Obviously it's better, Obviously it's better than torturing real bird, but right, yeah, why would

you even want to have the pretend version? Right? Exactly? Yeah? Um, A little bit of a less maccab weird preparation of meat is Uh, there's a farmer in Seattle that feeds his pigs marijuana. Um, and so it's actually not as crazy and weird as it sounds. It's marijuana that is not used in medical marijuana manufacturing. So instead of throwing out like the stocks and stuff, he takes it in like incorporates it into the pig slop. Apparently that helps

introduce fiber. It actually increases their appetite a little more like naturally without using like hormones and such and um, it apparently affects the taste of the meat. Um makes the meat tastes like more savory or something. I don't I kind of I'm not really, I'm not into it that much in terms of, like, you know, I feel bad about eating pigs because they look like a little doggies too. But I feel like the least we can do is give them marijuana. That's such a good point.

At least we could do is to get get them baked before they get baked, free baking, pre baking, um. I mean, And it is interesting. He claims that the pigs don't necessarily get high, but he does say that they seem to enjoy it a good amount, So I wonder, yeah, there's how do you know? We would never know? Yeah, there's gotta be like just trace amounts of probably DHC and CBD. Yeah. He says that that you can't get high from the meat. Um, But but they're consuming tracing right,

so they've got to be. There's got to be some high pigs there. You cannot tell me that they're not going to get or at least super chill, right, right exactly? Man, I kind of it's like it's it's such a cute story and tell you're like, oh, and then they're slaughtered another here's a less dark story about seasoning food. Japanese macaques, which are also known as snow monkeys, will wash their yams and potatoes and saltwater. This is exclusive to the

Japanese island of Koshima. There's a colony of macaques who have learned how to salt their potatoes. Oh my gosh uh. In nineteen fifty three, a field macaque named emo which is potato and Japanese, was observed by researchers washing sand off of the sweet potato in the river. Her family watched this and they copied her, and they learned from her. And then because normally, like if you got a sandy potato, they would just brush it off with their little their

little hands, um. But washing in the river was much more effective. And then emo Uh put a new spin on it where she took it to the ocean, not the freshwater river, but the ocean started washing it there, and she found that she preferred that to the river because of the saltiness. She would even like dip it, take a bite, dip it again. She was double dipping. I love it, Um and her her cohorts her family

also copied that and started doing the same behavior. Now, even though I mean sadly, Emo and all the other original potato dippers have passed away, but this was in so they lived nice, long lives of potato dipping. Um. But the macaques living on Koshima Island still practice potato dipping and washing. Oh my gosh, she changed the game

from that. Yeah, And I think it's one of the examples that points to like, hey, you know, animals actually can have culture, like they can learn, especially the more intelligent animals like primates can learn certain elements of culture and pass things on and pass traditions on, which is really incredible. Yeah, I'm getting more and more freaked out by the idea of keeping primates and zoos. Yeah, I feel like they're real similar, tough. I mean, some zoos,

you know, like there's a lot of conservation going on. Um. So I feel like, especially like the San Diego Zoo, I know, they go to great length to try to create these enclosures that are humane, and they go towards a lot of conservation efforts. Um. But yeah, I'm not I'm definitely not comfortable with captive primates kept in suboptimal connections.

It's uh, they're yeah, they're very intelligent. And speaking of which, red colobus monkeys who live in human forests of western, Central and Eastern Africa use charcoal to neutralize toxins in their diet. Oh my gosh, these are these are boss bays, but they're living there like instead of doing like you know, haven't you seen those like like eat more charcoal to detoxify your system, which I don't know about that, but

it works for these red colobus monkeys. So they love eating mango and Indian almond tree leaves because they're high in protein. Unfortunately, these leaves are also high in phenols, which upset there. Don't tell me. They've learned to eat charcoal to detoxify the leaves, and it's highly sought after, Like they'll fight over the charcoal they'll have, Like they'll gather huge amounts of it and carry it and like

hoard it so they can eat their favorite leaves. Um they'll even so they gather it mostly from burnt trees, but they'll even steal charcoal briquettes from humans when they have the chance take that. Um, so it's yeah, they and they'll like they'll eat the leaves and then eat the charcoal, and they've just discovered that that helps, uh settle their stomachs. Do we know if the leaves taste like the fruit the you mean, like mango. I have

no idea. I don't know. I know that almonds have cyanide in them, so it's possible the leaves also have some syanaide, which is also um a way that the charcoal could help help their tummies, because you know, I mean, if you consume small amounts of cyanide, you won't die, but will definitely make you sick. But don't do it, like, don't I'm not gonna you know, don't be like, oh well, if I have a little bit, it's okay, Like any

amount not bad news. Um. And speaking of neutralizing toxins, um, birds will eat dirt to do this, Okay, does I have to be any kind of dirt. It's a specific kind of dirt. So eating dirt is called geophagia. Lots of animals eat dirt, birds, bats, and primates. This is often done to introduce minerals into their diets, such as calcium, sodium, iron,

zinc and so on. Sometimes pregnant women will crave dirt, which could be out of a desire to make up for mineral deficiency like anemia um or potentially because certain types of clear dirt could help destroy pathogens in the gut. Um. I don't recommend eating dirt because you could just as easily introduce harmful pathogens and toxins, like they're Helmett parasitic worms whose eggs can survive in dirt for years. Um. And you can also get lead from from eating just

random dirt. But when you're pregnant, things go crazy, right. I've heard red case studies of pregnant women actually buying salt. Looks if you would keep in a barn to consume on their own. Yeah, And like pika is the term for eating things that are typically inedible, and so yeah, pregnant women will often have that because it's like it's their their body is craving something, and so they will eat things that aren't necessarily have any like eating ices

another one. Oh I do that, and I'm not pregnant. I don't know what's up with that, huh. But for the Peruvian Animazon rainforest parrots, dirt is a way to filter toxic that their diet. And they're super super picky about what dirt specifically they so they will flock to this one specific place near the Manu River, and only one layer of soil along the bend. So you know how soil is in these sediments layers, they pick this

one band of soil. And the reason the reason they do this is this soil air has the highest cat ion exchange capacity. So this is some chemistry stuff. It's a little unfamiliar with for me, so bear with me. So cat ions are positively charged ions um. Most soil is negatively charged UM. So they will stick together negative positive um. If soil has high cat ion exchange capacity, it can attract to and bind two more cat ions UM.

So the parents eat seeds and unripe fruit that has alkaloids and toxins that are harmful uh, and these these toxins will become positively charged inside the parent's acidic stomach some kind of chemical reaction there. And so if the clay that they eat has a high cat ion exchange capacity, it will bind to these now positively charged toxins to so clay is negatively charged. The toxins are positively charged

in their stomachs. They'll bind together and that neutralizes the toxins. Uh, and then it allows the parrots to eat these foods that they love without getting sick. Those are some fancy parrot they really are. And it's funny to see them because they're they're all just kind of lined along this one band of this like dirt, this face of dirt along the river, just all all like diners. They know exactly what they want. So because we are talking about eating dirt, I got a little surprised for you. Um,

it is dirt soda. Uh. It says it's shoveled and bottled in the USA. I don't know. Now, the ingredients don't mention dirt. So the ingredients is carbonated artesian spring water, cane, sugar, citric acid, artificial flavor, caramel, color, esther gum um, flash patch, pasteurized as a natural preservative. So nowhere do they say it contains dirt. I'm sure that's the natural flavors. Whatever essence they right, like, is it dirt essence? I don't. I don't like. I don't know if it's supposed to

taste like dirt. If it's just like that they didn't clean the factories, so he would mind going to do a little taste test here. Um, I'm down for it. Hang on, wait, I hope this is a twist off. It might not be. Actually, okay, I'm gonna go get a bottle. I'll probably cut out some of that of us struggling to open this bottle of dirt soda, much anticipated dirt, saying, you know, I hope it was worth the struggle. I mean, it's got to be such a big build up, so it's kind of red. Yeah, it's

got a nice amber color. Um, that's for you, thank you. Um, this is for me a toast to dirt soda. Cheers. Yeah, I only felt the dirt at the very beginning. You know what it reminds me of. It's got a dirt bouquet, but it's kind of cream soda eat a little bit. Yeah, Oh, I don't care for the aftertaste. No, no, So it's like the taste on the tongue is actually no, no dirt, but it's very dirt forward. Um, and it's like a dirt after taste. It's yeah, I wouldn't say that it

really approximates dirt. It's just a little gross yeah, it's kind of just nasty. Um. I used to eat some dirt when I was a kid, like especially love. You know, there's like little furtless white fertilizer pellets to crunch on. Good. No, well, not healthy for you. They're bad to eat, but they were. I enjoyed it. Were you not allowed to eat junk food? Was it like, yeah, cheetoh substitute? Yeah? I I My my parents were very good at having us eat healthy.

I could eat like goldfish crackers and stuff, but that was a treat for you. But you know, I would eat rass nails when I was a baby. I would eat dirt. Did you so you were a baby, you didn't have a sense that you were eating a live animal? No, I had no. I have no memory of it. My mom just tells me that it got it. I do remember eating ants, and those were actually pretty good. They're kind of pepperine tasting, not bad. This kind of almost smells like crayons. I can see that, like dirty crams,

dirty crams that like a smoker. You're It's like it smells like you're in a smoker's car that's full of dirt, crayons and sugar. So there's this um set up that people who are training to learn about wine can use, where it's a set of like eighty different sences, and so you learn how to identify the essences so you can describe the wine. And seventy two of those essences are delicious things, and then there's the eight that are gross that can help you describe like a corked bottle

of wine. And this dirt soda is actually kind of reminding me of the band aid essence. Oh my god, Yeah, there's a band aid essence with like, well, so are these essences that help you identify bad wine or good and bad? So most of them are for identifying good wine, and then there's a couple that you're like, oh no, something hasn't gone wrong. Somebody dropped a band aid and the wine it's something like if it's oxidized or something

like that. But that's what this. I feel like they dropped essence of band aid into God, it's not good. It's not even good to drink. Ironically, the smell alone is very bad because like, honestly, dirt, like the smell of wet dirt like petrocre is actually really nice. It doesn't the smells like duty. Yeah, I feel like dirt is maybe something that you can't synthesize or make synthetic. Right, Um, this is just gross. This is just gross in a way that, like you said, I don't think dirt is

actually gross. So right, if you're going to give the dirt soda rating, can we get a rating there out of like, let's do five stars, half a star, half a star, um, just out of give it to stars just because of how difficult the bottle was to open, which I felt like was kind of a nice It's almost apo semanticism, like where it's like warning sign that you shouldn't drink it. So for that design of it to be hard to open, I think two stars. I like that. Why do humans use spices just because it

tastes good? Well, researchers tried to answer this question. A scientific paper called Darwinian Gastronomy Why We Use Spices by Sherman at All found that spice use may be used potentially to protect us from micro organisms and food poisoning by borrowing the defensive weapons of plants from which spices are derived. But when we return, we'll find that there may be no spice antidote to certain dangerous diets. Sometimes we go to great lengths for our meals, even putting

ourselves in danger. The heart Attack grill in Las Vegas, which offers the octopol bypass Hamburger, should give you an idea of how much we're willing to risk for our food. We're also willing to eat fugu fish, a type of pufferfish which if prepared improperly, can be deadly as it contains lethal amounts of tetratotoxin in its inner organs. Both humans and dolphins risk death by eating wriggling octopus. Sanac g,

a Korean dish, is made of freshly killed octopus. Some people think that they're still alive, as nerve activity continues to function within the tentacles, causing them to wriggle around. This presents a choking hazard. If not chewed properly, the suction cups can stick to your throat and actually kill you. Dolphins also risk being choked to death when eating octopus, and sometimes smashed the octopus by tossing it around, tearing

it to shreads to make it less dangerous. But sometimes you're not even out of the woods if you swallow your dinner. Cassu marzoo is a classic Sardinian dish made of sheep, milk, cheese, and live larva of the cheese fly. This is meant to give the cheese is nice soft texture, but if the larva survived the trip down your gollet, the worms can try to burrow through and eat your stomach, lining, resulting in a condition called pseudomy assis a k A

accidental parasitization. The common Asian toad has also suffered from indigestion. The blind snake, a small worm like snake, can survive being ingested and has been seen escape being alive out of the butt of a common Asian toad. Well, you just described all my worst nightmares. That's all horrifying. That's what the podcasts about. It's bringing nightmares to the surface so you can you know, not have them when you're sleeping, but when you're awake. Yeah, thank you so much. You're welcome.

I remember learning about Cassu marzoo and like an anthropology class when we were talking about like, I don't I think it's good to eat insects generally as part of our cuisine, and I I haven't been socialized myself to eat insects but I think it's a great protein source in this case. This is different. This is different. I don't know for people who haven't eaten insects, it's not that weird. It's mostly crunchy, right, It's like it's like

eating popcorn but legs. Yeah, but this cheese maggoting. You can see them. There's still a lie. You can they like jump out of the cheese. Sometimes I don't understand how this dish came about accident, I would assume, Yeah, but why keep doing it? Like why is it consisted like that? Because it probably tastes good really if you can get over it. Yeah, all right, I don't know. I'll never know. I'm not going to try it. Well, no, I mean I will. I will try most insects, except

for live insects. I think. I think that's really fair. With cheese. It's that almost makes it worse. It totally does. Humans will sometimes well, as we already discussed, will imperil themselves for food. Um and one really amazing example of this is honey hunters of Nepal. Uh So, there is a man named mally Don who is one of the last mad honey hunters of Nepal and now it's not. He's not mad, but the honey is called mad hunter.

He's part of the Kolong indigenous people. Uh, and they have been using this this mad honey for centuries as um because it has been to snell properties and an antiseptic. It can be like a cough syrup. And honey has like this antibiotic property and uh can actually help heal your throat. But to get this, he will climb a three hundred foot bamboo rope ladder up a sheer cliff face of granite above the Hungu River. Um. So he's after the red honey produced by Himalayan bees, which is

called mad honey because it has psychotropic properties. Um. It becomes psychotropic because bees feet on the flowers of Rhodan drune trees, which contains toxins. It can also be sold on the black market for like eighty dollars a pound because it's like you get high off the honey. Yeah, it sounds fun. It does sound fun. It doesn't sound fun to collect though, So he has to hold onto the cliff face by hand with tiny footholds while carrying a huge bamboo pole that he uses to saw off

sections of the honey. Comb while he carries some burning grass to kind of try to soothe the bees which are not happy, and they still sting them. But if he flinches, like he could fall to his death. Is he doing this for the potential money? Uh, it's partially that, um So, it's it's partially just for a survival, you know, to to get the money. It's also um sort of part of this this tradition and there's a deep spiritual nous to it. Um. So it's it's very it's a

very meaningful things. So it makes sense that it's not he's not just doing it to try to get high. It's is of great cultural significance and it's very helpful for him and his family because of the money, um, especially when it's harder to get other sources of income. It's just incredible. And I mean he does have a helper, like on the other side of the cliff, but from that side of the cliff, you can't reach the honeycomb, or if you try to get it, like you could

make the whole honeycomb fall down. And they don't want that, like, they really don't, and it's they do it in a way where they don't want to harm the bees. They don't want to, like, you know, destroy the colonies. It's very conscientious. They sing this song like as they're doing it about like you know, I'm not here to hurt you. I'm like, you know, Uh, it's the honey kind of looks it looks a little bit like this. The color of this dirt soda, although not not the viscosity. Well,

this dirt sod is actually really pretty. The color of it is garnet. Yeah, that's right, that's right. It's very pretty to look at. Not good to eat. The honey is probably really nice to eat and then very fun right. Psychotropic properties um So, bees themselves can also be daredevils when it comes to getting a meal. They will get punched in the flight face by flowers, punched in the flace by flowers. Uh. So. Alfalfa leaf cutting bees are found all over the world, but they were introduced to

the US, so they're not indigenous. Um and they were introduced to help with crops. Uh. They're solitary bees, meaning they don't form colonies or store honey and honeycombs. Uh. They'll build their own individual nests and line them with the leaves that they've cut. So even though they're not social bees, uh, they kind of they're fine with each other. They're not like aggressive, So they just live in studio

apartment exactly. In fact, farmers will sometimes make high rise apartments for them out of styrofun They'll cut out little holes in syrofoam to house like like hundreds of these bees. Uh, and they're just each in their little apartment and they go where to go, where their babies are, uh, they need them for alfalfa, and alfalfa is a major component in feeding cows and other livestock. Alfalfa flowers are really

hard to pollinate. Their pollen is deep inside the flower and it's only released when the be steps on what's called a keel pedal, which is a spring loaded pedal that actually ejects pollen for the flower. So they step on the petal and then this like this, uh, this pollen column like shoots out of the flower and shoots

out pollen um. And this is a normally a good strategy for the alfalfa because it launches the pollen onto the the pollinator and gets it all over and it's a very effective way of distributing pollen and also avoiding like self pollination, but alfalfa is also introduced to the US, so the be the western bees, the honey bees found here are really ginger and they're kind of weeny, you know.

They don't really want to be punched by a flower, so they've figured out how to like very carefully step around the the keel petal so they don't get punched, and then they sit honey from or the they sip the nectar like from the side of the flower. Um. But leafcutter bees are some bad bitches. They are really tough enough to take a flower punch to the face. Um and uh so uh and they they're just like like you can see videos of it all postal link where the bees just like get in and they like

it punched in the face with pollen. They're just continue on. So there's no indication that it like startles them. They don't kind of go a fly about the s They seem totally cool with it. They're they're really and they they they kind of look a little more tankish. They're like sort of gray and black, and they're just they look a little more bulky, little a little more sort of like these uh, these pro wrestler bees like glow be yes because these are going to be females from

the last part. Um, I just love that if these bees didn't weren't able to take a punch to the face from a flower like, we probably wouldn't be able to have as much crop pollination about health in the US. So it really does transform our our whole farming industry. That's the kind of thing that people need to know about so that they can be actually concerned about bees. That right, exactly, like if you if these bees aren't willing to get punched in the face, we will not

have milk, yeah and ice cream. Yeah. Bees getting punched in the face equals having yeah and ice cream. And you have to say ice cream because it has to be the thing people most want, right exactly. Yeah. Um, So I want to end the show with a listener question. So Brittany asks, uh, tapers are my favorite animals, specifically Malayan tapers. When I was not tapers tapers. When I was at the zoo recently, there was a tape eer talk. The keeper told us that tapiers are known to climb trees,

but I can't find any information on this at all. Also, tapers could be on an episode for keutas babies. Unfortunately we're not um. So I actually didn't know whether this is true or not, although it seems improbable because tapers they basically they're large pig shaped animals. Um. They have these long snoots which are actually a tiny pre hint style trunk. They're found in the jungles and forests of

South and Central America and Southeast Asia. Uh. They're actually not related to pegs as much as they are odd toed ungulates, so they're related to zebras, rhinos, horses, and donkeys. They're about six ft long, three hundreds to seven hundred pounds.

They live up to thirty years. They're herbivores um and as far being able to climb trees, I don't think they can climb trees like you would imagine like a monkey or a little bear or jaguar climbing up a tree, like clambering up and like sitting on top of the tree and being like what now, um, But they can't. They are surprisingly athletic and agile, so they can kind of march their legs up the tree and then stand on their hind legs to reach the tallest leaves. So

here's a picture of that. Uh So, and then they can get those really high up leaves. They can also swim really well, so they'll climb and they can climb steep mountains. So so they're just athletes. They are athletes, yeah, uh so they are surprisingly agile on like these really steep mountains, like like goats basically, so their diet is

fruit berries and seeds. Uh and they're dongue actually is really good for saving the rainforest, so it contains a lot of undamaged seeds that can help replant the Amazon rainforest, especially because they like to go into parts of the rainforest that have been recently disturbed or deforested or burned where new growth is starting to come back, because they like those like new tender leaves and they poop there and they distribute a lot of the seeds and then

that that can help the biodiversity of the rainforest. And they're adorable. They're adorable, especially the babies. As as the listener suggested, so they will also sometimes push less sturdy trees over, like as they're sort of like rising up on their hind legs and putting their little fore legs on the tree, they will push it over and that's actually even though it sounds destructive, it's actually very important for other species because by lowering the leaves it allows

other species of animals to access them. So this helps the sandbar deer, the barking deer, and chevrotaines, which I'm so excited to talk about these because so on the show we've talked about dick dicks, which are adorable little tiny antelopes. Watch out dick dicks. These chevrotaines are even tinier. These are the smallest hooved animals in the world. They're also known as the mouse deer. Look at this little guy. They're any time to freak out. They're like just they're

like a little bigger than a jewel. They're so tiny. I know everyone's been giving me dick dick pick picks, which has been great, But can we start the chevrotaine train now because I want now, I want pictures of chevrotaine because they are so cute. I'll quit a link to some photos of these guys. They're adorable, um, and so that makes it. It's just so cute that like these big tapers, it's like they lower because otherwise it's little guys couldn't reach these trees tape yours sound amazing

the fit. Yeah they I want there to be a Disney movie about a tape here and a chevtaine that team up and like like a little guy, maybe he has some special skills we can help, like the tape here and the tape here like lowers trees for him, like sort of a milo and notist situation. This is good. Get on that, Disney. Well you need to get credit for it, right, Yeah, pay me the big books for my chev taine tape here story called like chev chevertine

train tapeier capiers. We'll still works up that well. Thank you so much for joining me, um, and thank you for trying the dirt soda my pleasure. Do you've got anything to plug? Um, just my podcast. I even know how to pronounce it. My podcast, which is smart mouth, which is two words, which apparently some people, Yeah, smart mouth two words. Um. I'm starting a newsletter at smart mouth dot substack dot com and uh it has an

Instagram at Smartmouth podcast awesome. Um. You can find us on the internet Creature feature pod dot com, Creature feature Pod on Instagram, Creature feet Pod on Twitter, e t that is ah. You can find me at Katie Golden and of course, as always at Pro Bird Rights, where I really fight for the important things in life, like bread access for birds. Don't actually feed birds bread, It's dangerous. It is the best Twitter account. Thank you. Thank you

guys so much for listening. If you're liking the podcast, please mash that subscribe I don't what is it on podcast? Rate it? Subscribe it like it. We'll do all these press the stars. Yeah yeah, please do that, um and you can catch us next Wednesday. Thank you. Creature feature is a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

your favorite shows. And thanks to the Space Classics for their awesome song Exo Lumina.