Animal Lecter

Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show Animal Elector, the animals will eat your liver with some fava beans, Kyanti, maybe some parsley or those little oyster crackers. These critters have a taste for the weird, the morbid, and the wildly unethical. Discover this and more as we answer the age old question what do you do with the cannibal boss Baby?

Welcome, Hey, Hey Katie, thanks for having us. Yeah, Abe was gonna say it. I heard the thch on his time. This is the Michael voice.

Yes, that's my ches, the Abe voice.

I don't know, there might yeah, there might be creature. You knows who don't know us just saying hey, uh yeah, very excited to be here. I am. Also, I was famously I was the kid who would like eat bugs on the playground. Yeah, and eat weird and unethical, gross things for attention. So I already feel a kinship with the topic and I'm excited.

To discuss it.

Michael coming out as a bug as a weird eat as a bug eater on the podcast today.

I was a weird bug kid, but I didn't eat them. I just stared at them.

You were just half bugging hours.

Yeah, in a way, that's weirder to me, Like you're not what's to gain?

Where's the big Yeah.

What's my what's my what's my piece of this bug?

I ate snails as a baby, I knew.

So what was interesting is I ate bugs, not like I liked it, but to literally, you know, because someone would dare me or to get attention or be audacious. And then there was another kid who would get attention organically because he ate snails because he wanted to. And that was how I felt good about myself. I'm like, I'm not like that freak.

Though, You're not like that snail eating freak.

Otherwise known as different.

Otherwise known as French people and other Europeans who enjoy us.

Sure, sure, or Katie it was a baby Katie who knows.

Yeah, I don't like escargo these days. But yeah, as a baby, my mom would find me in the backyard just with like little pieces of snail shell stuck to my mouth because I ate snails shell and all.

Apparently, Wow, you guys are just bragging good texture.

I would imagine the shell into the goo.

Yeah, chewy on the inside.

Yeah, so we we.

Are talking about animals who have a taste for the strange that uh you know the title of the podcast animal elector Animal elector. You know, it's if you say it fast enough, it is a joke. Yeah, But first I want to set a grizzly crime scene for you guys. Now I'm not so much a true crime podcaster, but let me see if I can kind of do my true crime podcaster voice. It's sort of like, I'm way too into this. So the victim has washed up on the shore with an almost surgical terror across her shoulders.

But the shark reveal I was expecting, not sharks, not humans, because I knew you were doing something animal sharks.

So something's out there hunting sharks is just drilling.

Their livers out. That is, I've never encountered only the liver.

The liver. Yeah. Yeah, So starting around twenty fifteen, a murderer had been meticulously preying on seven gill sharks. So seven gill sharks are formidable themselves. The females can grow to be over seven feet or about two meters long, and males can grow up to five feet are about one and a half meters, and their carnivores they're serious business. So you know it is it is quite a feat to go handibal elector on these sharks because they're they're sharks.

That guy also dangerous to around.

Yeah, I did a crime.

My first thought is like it's like like an orca or something. It's got to be big, right.

Oh, my brain went the opposite way where I thought like it's some kind of little needlefish that they can't fight because it just sneaks in and zaps your liver out real quick.

But how does he eat it? Like, it's got to be a handsome that's a handsome liver, you know, like a big liver. Well, I actually don't know the size of shark livers, like I.

Would love if it's just like, oh, no, it's a guy this time.

It's oh, it's just a guy.

Yeah they thought him.

Yeah he's a freak dude. It's just Paul in Pacific Beach in San Diego.

Well, abe, you are getting promoted to the rank of ocean detective because you are correct. This was Orca's So there's a National Geographic article with a wonderful title, why are these orcas killing sharks and removing their livers?

Why?

Shout out to the author, Jessica Taylor Price. This is a fascinating story. Apparently based on the precise of the killers, as well as tooth impressions found on the victims, shark biologists whittled down the suspects to two male orcas Starboard import Just a pair of fun loving orcas going around surgically removing the livers from sharks.

So we're not a regular behavior of orcas. Yeah, down to individual orcas.

Okay, wow, So like sociopath or psychopath orcas.

Yes, right, I thought I thought we'd be covering animals where that whole species eats something we would consider weird. But these are like, no, no, these two orcas even to other orcas, Like I imagine another orca coming up while they're you know, slicing the liver rapp right, what you're doing, Bud, Yeah.

The liver. That's Starboard. He's the worst.

Yeah or sorry, no, exactly. Yeah, so this is not a hitherto known behavior that orces regularly do. They do attack and eat sharks, sure, but this like surgical precision where they're just like, I want to eat the liver. Holds him down, brother, while I cut out the liver. Yeah,

Wow or can suck yeah yeah, I mean like their lips can come together enough to create suction. Is also something I didn't think was true.

I think it's maybe I don't know that it's their lips so much. I mean, Belugas can do that. Belugas definitely can do that. They actually have very mobile lips and they can suck things up. Or is I think it's more like sort of like get in their mouth and and sort of opening their mouths such that the water water and then comes the liver.

Yeah, so what a waste. Obviously they would. I think it stands to reason they kill way more to eat than other orcas have to write. It just feels like this is like a dude who is like I just like the bacon off of the sandwich, right, throws the rest of the sandwich out the window of his car.

So wasteful, right, that it's very wasteful. I just think that these two are just fancy orcas, right, that must be what they are. They only have the finest their food parts. Yeah, they're snobs. They da figured it out. Deliver is the best part and screw everything else.

I mean, I am a bit of a fussy eater, but I can't imagine just like so that means I'm gonna kill this entire cow, but just eat like one of its eyeballs it's just you know, it's like you can be picky, but for me, picky is like I don't like capers, and so I pick all the capers off my food. But you know, I don't kill like a whale, and then like I think the whole most of the whale is like one big caper and just eat one flipper.

We also don't kill our food, though, So I don't know.

Well is a thing, and I'm sure that I'm sure foa grad ducks. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I imagine foa garrad ducks. You know, like the livers turn into fuagra, and other parts of it are also used. Like I imagine they don't throw the rest of the duck away, but still probably not.

They just kind of livers.

They just kind of torture it by forceing it.

Oh, it's still horrible, right, But my point being that our our food snobs also have a thing for liver. Like, I guess liver is good. I don't like liver, but I guess it's good.

I don't know, Yeah that's true. I don't know, but I imagine that like the things you need, the horrible and ethical things you need to do to an animal for that sweet sweet foah graw versus like I just want a chicken breast or something like that. You know, like they're doing things to the animal for to streamline, like the best foe gras, right, So that doesn't necessarily mean that it's gonna be like, oh, that's also good meat. They're gonna use an entirely different animal or yeah animal, I.

Don't I don't know what happens to the rest of that. I don't know what happens to the rest of the fuagram. I went, well, no, I'm googling it. Now you've you've done this.

To ye graters. This could get dark, This could get real dark.

Yeah. Also, I realized how funny of God to design the ducks such stuff. Torturing it makes it delicious. God's like, you're fuck, I've done this to you. This is funny to me tell you what corkscrewed dick. There you go.

Here's the thing. I recently learned that ducks are amazing because they have the most amazing and the most horrifying factoid about them. One is that, yeah, they have horrible corkscrew penises, which is very covered on this show before. And that's the horrible thing. I'm sure we taught. Yeah, Coature for Cheers covered it. But the thing I just recently learned is that they can breathe out of their buttholes.

I did not know that. Also, I should correct myself, goose liver pat as fois gras. But but yes, but ducks are the interesting animal we're discussing now, Katie, did you find the information?

Yeah, but no, I've found some horrible things about like vomiting and aspirating the vomit. But you know, yeah, so we're not going to answer that fun little question today. Sure, Instead, we're gonna answer the question why are these orca brothers running around sucking out shark lovers? Sure? What that short story is, They're not sure, But there are theories as to the motives for their serial killing of these sharks.

Yeah I don't.

Yeah, why would they have a concept of food waste. So I feel like it's got to be they randomly, at an impressionable age eight liver and decided, oh, that.

Tasted the best of the thing.

Yeah, I'm doing that.

Yeah, that's and.

I'll take for the rest of yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And this is not just like a harmless, quirky story about two serial killing whales. The shark populations coming for you. They have, Yes, they there. It's actually really cute. They're like one of them is on like a little like wheely KRT and the other one has like roller states on each of its fins. They have

With I love that knowing that. I mean, there's some shark researcher out there who is like, I hate those damn orcas' you can't handle it.

That's not even an exaggeration. These researchers were like quoted in this article, I don't have the exact quote, but it was like something to the effect of like, I don't know what to do about this. It's just horrible and sad.

I bet it would be heartbreaking. You're like, I was tracking twelve sharks and they're all dead.

Now this is what my life has been leading up to. This is like a big deal for me, and then suddenly just act of God, cruel, cruel nature.

The tone of these researchers, it just seems like exasperation and desolation. So, guys, we talked about orcas who serial kill sharks, little innocent baby sharks and suck their livers out. Now we are moving on to another animal with a strange appetite. But first, hey, what do you think about tortoises?

Hard the best way to determine if someone is a replicant. That's probably the main thing I think about.

Oh that's right, because you're like, hey, what you come across the tortoise and it's flipped over and kick it, and then it's the replicant is like, I'm sorry, I am an interface and I have not been programmed with the ability to do ethical questions. But if you'd like to ask me about math and then you then you know, and yeah.

Then ironically cave their head in with a tortoise show, Ah, tortoises.

Frankly, Katie, you put me in an existential funk. I don't know. I never, to this day in my life have asked myself what I think about turtles?

You have not developed an opinion on first of all, turtles, I guess I like turtles.

Yeah, like that kid on the internet, remember that, that's great?

Yeah, the quarantine turtles.

We are talking about tortoises. Turtles are you know, similar? There's more aquatic.

My apologies and to the to the tortoises out there and they live longer than us, which makes me upset at them.

Some of them do, yeah, well, but these ones generally don't. So we're talking about the gopher tortoise found in the Southeast United States. Now, tortoises are really they're clever, right, like, they have evolved their own little bonkers, and their shells are extremely tough, like the average short tortoise shell can't handle around two hundred times its own weight. So the gopher tortoise, like I said, lives in the southeast United States.

Yeah. To Actually, I imagine, I guess just because of my knowledge of tortoises, I imagined a little cubby hole like some spiders will make. But this sounds more like an ant like that.

This sounds like minecraft or something like a badger or something right.

It sounds like a gopher, which because I assumed.

They were called that just because they're like unpaid interns who fetch coffee for the tortoises. I thought that had nothing to do with it.

Yeah, yeah, they're just it's their gaffer tortoises and they hold up you know, the sound equipment.

Anyways, make sure yeah, yeah, yeah, gopher is the connection point there.

I see that.

Now.

This is why you're the host. That is why you get the big creature box.

This is why I get the massive creature box for pointing out. Gopher tortoises are named after gophers because they did go oh boy, yeah no. These they can actually live to be over forty years, which you know is very I think, quite impressive. And yeah, their shells protect them against many predators. As eggs or as young tortoises, they can be preyed upon by foxes or raccoons and other omnivorous or carnivorous animals, but as adults there are

Delicious at all. Yeah, I thought of so many gopher tortoises.

They are pretty safe and secure all things to that shell because most animals don't really want to mess around with that shell. It's too tough, it's not tasty. So really, the only threats to an adult tortoise's life are some of the most hardcore predators. But once they're dead, they're fair game for this little creep who feasts on the tortoise's dead body. But not the fleshy parts, not the fun meat parts. This little necrophile is after the dead tortoise's shell.

Huh, what's in that keratin? What's in it for that thing?

Well, I'm wondering what the thing is? Yeah, right, is this a worm? I'm also still stuck on raccoon insect. I'm imagining almost like guys after a heist trying to break a safe open, like a bunch of raccoons gathered around a tortoise being like, how do we get the meat out there? I'm impressed that raccoons were able to do that even well.

They can, yeah, they can really only do it for like babies, but and eggs. But yeah, onto onto the question. I think one of you mentioned worms. What do you think could do this, babe?

Hm hmm, I'm my first thought is an insect of some kind. Uh, but I don't know you guys.

You guys are really good tortoise detectives.

Uh.

This is done by something called a Seratophagia vichanillah. It is a small black and white, shabby looking moth who is honestly pretty unspectacular looking. But their larva have a taste for pure keratin and they will find it on the shells of dead gopher tortoises, so they specifically eat and only eat dead gopher tortoise shells. The larva will eat into the shell and they'll actually create a silk tube that extends into the ground under the tortoise shell.

They make little tunnels out of its shell. It's some kind of cruel joke on the tortoise. I mean, the tunneling tortoise gets tunneled out.

The first one on the dock and see.

A picture of it.

It's a little it's a little ironic. I feel like Elenis Morisset could use this in her song rather than the other stuff that I don't think was actually ironic.

Yeah, hundred percent with you percent.

It's like, right on your wedding day is just unlucky. Whereas a tortoise known for burrowing itself gets burrowed, I feel that is irony.

Irony, right, So yeah, because I imagine it wouldn't I don't know how Mas digests things, but I imagined it wouldn't have been something with like a stomach in the way that we typically think of stomachs, right, because like that's a hard thing to break down. It's one of the hardest things in the world.

Isn't a larva, Like the whole thing is a stomach essentially pretty much.

Yeah, so the moth just tubes. The adult moths don't really eat this stuff. It is the larva, which are, as you've said, Michael, pretty much just stomach tubes. And their whole thing is acquire nutrients until they get enough to fuel that transformation into a moth. And so these guys though, have a taste for keratin, which is an unusual thing. Keratin it's found in your fingernails. I mean, some people will like eat fingernails, but humans can't really derive,

I think, No, what's the deal with the the one you commonly hear about where something plants its eggs and something else and then they eat their way out.

I mean, that's a that's a parasitoid. So anything, So there's.

A whole range of things, the who whole.

Range of things that do that. That's like such a pop that does such a popular thing. But yeah, but this is I think a little more benign than a parasitoid. This is not really a parasite at all, in fact, because they only eat the dead, dead tortoise shell and so this is more of a scavenger really, because.

It's morally, morally way more defensible and just equally grossed out by its disgusting.

And it's like if someone you know, it's those cases of like human cannibalism where sometimes they like murder someone and eat them and it's like, guys, that's wrong, that's

Put it on ice.

It's kind of nice that they go for the shell and not the meat parts because after a few days, like, that's even the more disgusting image.

I guess, So I guess we got spared.

But yeah, if you do look up an image, which I suggest in all these cases kind of looks like it's wearing a rasta hat and now like the dead shorts. Yeah, or like Katie said, if it was upside down, I would be roots. But what a weird thing. If you were a primitive man and you found one of these, I feel like you spend a long time pondering what the hell was that.

I don't think you'd have to be a primitive person to ponder this to not know what it is. Yeah, I think if you lifted one of these up and you looked at this, it'd be like today, there are people looking at this going okay, it's haunted. Haunted.

Yeah, that's true.

I do still see a lot of goos on Twitter where people go, is this the first sighting of this ever on Earth? And some zoologists will respond, no, it's this kind of worm. Yeah, we know it exists.

It's fine, it's fine, it's just you haven't seen it.

Yeah. It does occasionally happen that someone will take a photo of a weird thing in their backyard and it's not necessarily that it hasn't been seen before, but it's like, hunh, that's not supposed to be in this area at this time of year, in this Yeah, in this kind of backyard.

So you know it does happen, but yeah, LUs, yeah, it's just like the worm, right, life finds away Like screw dinosaurs changing genders. This thing is eating fingernail material, right, It's amazing to me that life can use that and turn it into nutrals.

Like, it's it's biology, man, We've got clearly it's morally right for us to eat.

So can we just eat rocks or can we eat anything?

Is it fine? Does it work? It's all yeah?

So, uh, these moths, these moth larvae, are actually relatives of the horn moth, which is another creepy little moth that instead of feeding on dead tortoise shells, actually feeds

Are those live ones sticking straight out from it? Or how do they make those little tubes if there's no earth around them? Or did someone pull this out of These.

Tubes are made out of silk. So the silk is a structure, you know, that is, you know, kind of a sticky stuff that like will dry and so it's can't it's sort of like a it's actually a physical tube. Even with the tortoise eating uh larva, the tubes that they do, even though they're digging into the dirt, the tubes are made out of this silk, and so it is they are somewhat rigid.

I thought they were just burrowing tunnels. Interesting, and they're in there that's like they're apart.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's their apartment that opens directly.

I got a condo. It's bone adjacent. It's really good.

Yeah yeah. So guys, can I give you some unsolicited advice?

Absolutely?

Oh yeah, yeah, damn it.

Otherwise yeah, now you don't get it.

It's only okay, great, now, now i'll give it to you since okay, wait now not okay now wait, okay, I'll just give it to you. If you find a large, pink baby that starts speaking to you in a regal adult queen's voice and oozes honey, run away, don't pick it up, leave it there.

Could you take some of the honey first, or no, it's a hard rule. Okay, no, I trust you. No.

If a baby starts like going, good afternoon, I am your queen. You get out of there, right. Just do not not pick up the baby. Do not try to collect the honey from the baby.

Here's the thing you could get. You could get like one hundred and fifty bucks or something that like that on the black market. Find a you know, find a baby that can doc. That's pretty amazing.

Yeah, But by the time you've picked up this baby. It's gonna be too late for you. Ab You've just made the biggest mistake of your life.

Oh no, I am always doing this.

So there is a caterpillar that is not exactly like a cute little caterpillar. Like remember a bugs bugs Life?

What was it?

A bug's life? Oh?

Yeah, the big story.

He was like German, he was a little caterpillar. Uh no, this is like this looks more like it comes out of Dune or a Cronenberg kind of situation. It's pink, it is fleshy, it has a fringe of what looks like blonde eyelashes around its pale, ridged body. It is, you know, unattractive. I'm gonna say.

It's a still image, but you imagine that it's pulsating.

Yeah, it's you.

You know, you know you're horrifying larva, don't you, Michael, Because well, let me tell you a little bit about this thing. So it is found in Europe and parts of central and south western Asia.

Uh.

It is the larva of a creature. We'll cover that later. So this little nightmare should make anyone who comes across it repulsed, especially ants. So it starts out life looking pretty harmless, I mean, other than being gross and horrible looking. It's no larger than an ant. Actually, that ant could easily kill it, and they probably should, but they don't because this caterpillar has developed an amazing strategy, an amazingly devias strategy that they have been sort of born with

You just know some etymologist has tried it honeydew for sure.

First, yeah, there are I mean, you know people that insects are a viable food source for people. They can be quite tasty. In fact, there's an ant I believe called a sugar ant or a honey ant, sugar ant.

It tastes sweet sugar ant.

Well, it actually collects a bunch of sugar in its gaster and people can eat it sort of like candy. It's apparently really Yeah, it's like a little gush. It's like a gusher full of sugar, of sugary sweetness. So yeah, I'm sure it probably tastes all right. Uh so that's a little caterpillary is like, yeah, yet it be shitty union, don't you mind me? And so, uh, the ant will kind of be put at ease. It's like, all right, great sugar being excreted by this little weird pink thing. That's fine.

Uh.

And then the caterpillar starts phase two of its plan. It inhales a bunch of air. It actually kind of inflates itself and then releases the air like a squeaky balloon. And this sound actually mimics the distress call of a queen ant, so.

It turns crazy. It turns itself.

Into like bagpipes, and it's like like, Eh, don't mind me, I'm the queen.

Oh heaven to me, that's the real part.

Yeah, they're literally it's the ants in the famous Simpsons episode Save the Queen, which one of us is the queen. I am No, you're not.

Exactly exactly.

So it's just a big whoopee cushion that makes ant sounds. So this ant is losing its mind. It's like, oh delicious, honey, dude, what you I was just came from where you were clean? What are you doing here now? And you're in distress and you're in distressed. I gotta save you like that man. Just really psychological warfare coming from these little things.

It gets classic gas lighting strategy. You love classics.

It gets worse. So this caterpillar also has a pheromone that mimics the pheromones of the ant colony. Uh, and so the ants feel compelled to pick up this little bundle of not joy and bring it back to their nest. No no, Once inside, it's quite snugly, and you know it's it smells like it belongs there. It sounds like they're queen. It's oozing, you know, this sweet sugary substance. So the ants are like, they trust it, they think it's great. They they actually, I think that maybe it

And giving their young to it.

Yes, and just like human queen's the greatest luxury of all.

I always imagine stay young. I always imagine first contact would go something like this, you know, like some alien would like visit and be like, I'm President of the world, and we're all like that sounds awesome, you seem awesome, and then he's like, you guys are a bunch of dummies because I'm not even from here.

Yeah, oh wow, we're gonna we're gonna like get a new audience. And people were like, that's right written her babies anyways. No, I mean I wonder if there has there been like a horror movie where like there's a baby that's actually an alien or a changeling and it like eats the other kids. I know there was like a rug Rats episode about.

That and brainwashes everyone around it.

Right, No, and it would it's like a good that's a good hook if you like the most horrifying thing possible. The closest thing I can think of is the Darren Aronofsky movie Mother that has a baby eating in it, but brainwashing someone into feeding you their baby.

What a horrifying by Yeah, I mean there's Rosemary's baby where it's a demon baby, but it's still not eating the other baby, right, Like.

No, it's almost not demon enough.

Its parents aren't cutting up babies and feeding it babies.

Like grost, not just any babies in their own babies.

And the equivalent of that alarm sound would be like, it's just constantly emitting a police siren sound. Just twenty four hours a day. People are shoveling baby parts into its mouth.

Love this, I love that. The answer just like, this is great. I love the new you know, like the whole fight, the whole infrastructure is great. Now everything moves smooth.

The answer probably like, and I'm doing my job.

This is good. I'm doing my job clean baby tunes.

Yeah, no, I mean it's like, yeah, it's like a baby talking with an adult voice, like the adult voice of an authority. And you just keep feeding it your babies, and it gets huge, like it grows to one hundred times its original size, and over the course of a year it will mature and once it has had its fill of the ants babies, it will pupate and the adult monster will emerge. It is a beautiful, pale blue butterfly.

Yeah, so it looks like a normal cute butterfly where you go.

Like, butterfly, you don't know where I've been, you know, I struggle. It's like like bit, it's like this thing in Baane. I came out of the darkness, you know, like I am I am your god. This is terrifying.

What a.

Nature? So cool?

You ordered the three animals in the correct order where the last one.

Is the worst.

Yeah, I mean it's like, you know, I think that it goes to show you you can't judge a book by its cover. You're like, oh, no, a shark. It turns out the sharks were the victims, and you're like, oh, time off. That can't be a weird necrophage that eats dead tortoises. But it can and it does. And this time it's like who do you trust more? And or beautiful butterflies? I think everybody loves butterflies more. They're like

So mean.

Yeah, it's not looking good for ants. They're not that's smart. But hold on. You brought something home and it's it within it like I don't know how long a time amount of time, it grows to be a hundred times its size, and you're just like, don't weird, talking in like.

An adult voice, going I'm a baby. I'm a precious little baby. Feed me.

It's like I'm still hungry and in distress, and you're like, still you've been shoveling food into you.

It's a hundred times your size, and it's still like, I'm your precious little baby, I'm your bundle of joy. Feed me your children, Feed me your children.

Your children. They're like that sounds good, sounds about but it's the tunes.

It's actually the giant flesh thing from the end of Akira, like right, and they're still like this is normal, this is normal, this is a god.

It like flies off and then they're like bye, and then they look around and their colonies just devastated. There's no more babies. It can't actually devastate an entire ant colony.

Of course I would imagine, Yeah, and then I I imagine the real Queen's long dead. But I like the idea of panning over to the real queen all shrivel, like I'm still hey, no one cares about getting rebuilt.

The most interesting part to me about this particular animal here is the thinking about, like how natural selection and evolution does so many cool things that are like what, that's so weird, But the inflating yourself thing like that is so left field, out of left field for me, Like that, like you, that's your whole body. Your body has to evolve to that point where you're like, yeah, it probably makes sense just to get a little bit of you know, like whoopy cushion going on? What can

I mean it's like, imagine sort of you are randomly in putting some lines of code into a program, and the bits of code that works will propagate, that will happen, and the bits of code that don't work that's just a dead end. It won't propagate. And you do that over millions of years, you're gonna get something. You're gonna get at least like maybe a Tetris game going on.

You know.

Yeah, that's right. That's just a horrifying combination of events.

Yeah, exactly, I mean it is. It's the power of selective pressure over a huge amount of time.

Exactly.

It's amazing, though.

Beautiful, beauty, beautiful.

You know, baby eating in nature, It's beautiful.

That's what That was my takeaway out of this horrible topic.

What's your takeaway, Michael, I'm just imagining Mufasa and Simba on the ridge going But but when we die, we become the grass and the antelopes eat us, and this is as it should be, all right. What about that weird pink thing that eats all the aunt babies?

No, no, no, that's.

No.

Don't think about the pink baby.

Beautiful, it's not where I landed.

He's just like turning the camera away from that. No, no, no, we're not we're not.

Talking about I'm not I'm not. I'm gonna blank this memory as soon as this is over. Just it was a great episode, but just sheer self preservation. I will not recall this conversation.

It's a learning podcast.

That's right today, just lost time.

Well, guys, before we go, though, we gotta play a little game, my little game, by my little rules. The game is called Guess Who's squawking the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I pay I play a mystery animal sound and you the listener, and you the guests, god to guess who's squawking in my twisted little game. It can be any animals, any animal at all.

You're so, I'm a little twisted, a little twisted.

It makes sounds.

I'm a little uh unorthodox, I'm a little little dark, a.

Little I was prepared for this segment. So I've listened to every animal sound.

It's true, it's.

Every animal sound that's you know, if you do it on like three time speed, I think that you can. I think that's doable.

Yeah for sure, But then you lose the fidelity of the real thing. Man, it doesn't see the same.

Yeah, we will natigate this twisted haul of terrors.

Yeah. So last week's hint was this, don't be too bitter if you can't guess this one. And here is the sound. So fellas, you've been pretty good detective. So far, do you have any guesses for what this animal could be?

And the bitter clue applies to this.

Yeah, don't be too better if you can't guess this one.

I guess is that it? I mean, I'm also hearing bitter. It's an or baby hear me, I'm hearing a I'm hearing like jungle sounds.

That's the thing. It sounds like a way shorter. But also you hear the jungle.

Maybe something maybe something nearby like uh, coco, not coco, old coffee plants and such. That's there's bitterness and then oh bitter.

Oh, but what animal is that gonna be?

Like?

It sounds like an instrument, right, and I've never heard it before even in that video. I must have fallen asleep for that part. But uh, it sounds almost like a Yeah. I'm trying to attack it from the bitter clue, like if it's a you know, what do you like a lemon skink? Name is bitter? You know?

Is there a bit?

Oh?

Yeah?

Is there bitter?

Yeah?

That's probably gophers are better. This one's got stuff is there right now? Well, it's gotta it's something that can create a column of air because that sound is like much like a digital doo. Yeah, it's a columnist kind of like, which can be contorted. I mean, so I'm taking like bird out of the mix, you know what I mean? Sure, but man, oh man.

I can do it too.

Grape I'm gonna I'm gonna guess grapefruit toad.

Yeah, I think a toad is in the right direction, grapefruit because the coffee toad.

Yeah, because you guys, You guys.

Are getting you guys are getting cold. You're getting colder and colder. So dang, you're wrong on all accounts. I'm sorry. I'm revoking your.

It's a beached orca that ran around. It's an orca.

It's an but with lemons on it. But lemons aren't bitter. There's sour, you guys, And there's no such thing as a lemon skink. I checked.

Grapefruits are better, though, grapefruits are better.

That was fair. I like grapefruits though. Anyways, this is a bittern. It's a bittern. This is the Eurasian bittern. Congratulations to Anti B. Saga E and Emily M for guessing correct. Klee Bitterns are brown aquatic birds with long poses disappointed and a somewhat long neck. So abe, when you're like, this can't be a bird, you fool.

I'm just thinking it now. You're just reminding me of my child.

Were you tortured as a child?

You feel just made fun of for my lack of bird knowledge?

What people bullied you for their Like you couldn't identify a passerine bird from an aquatic bird?

Yeah a belt. Why you couldn't tell a grackle from a pig? Well, that is pretty bad. Those are pretty different.

I'm gonna.

So the bittern is related to the heron, but their neck is not as long. It kind of looks like you took a heron and kind of like cranked its neck down a few notches.

Yeah, they're sort of brown.

They've got a pointy head. They feed on fish and other small aquatic creatures. Males will issue that booming call as an attempt to seduce females. There are a set of very powerful muscles around its esavacus that allows it to create a call much louder than one might think a four pound bird is capable of. So that's just under two kilograms for our non American listeners. So, yeah, that is the Eurasian bittern.

Yeah, it's surprising that sounds comes out of that thing. It's a real clay ache. And that's an old reference that cut Sandpiper kind of Potter response.

That's right.

Yeah, it's what we call the feeling they feel in that scene from Ghosts when they're spinning the pot together.

Way aching Acon for the aching play love onto this.

Sound that was my mating. Is it working out and we got we got it?

We gotta we gotta move on, we gotta move on. Uh. The hint for this week's mystery animal sound is this this little guy isn't happy about being put in the discount Ben.

Discount.

Don't even you're trying to think about it before I play the sound. That's not how my game works.

I play the game how I play the game.

So what do you what do you think a broken kazoo or like a balloon they you're holding the end of but not fully tightly and you're just letting the air ound.

Haiti, Why are you just recording me and playing it back.

I don't record any when he sleeps.

If you feel like this while you're sleeping, you need to go to a sleep clinic. That's probably a form of aggressive sleep apnea. That it's probably a.

Legitimately one of the funniest sounds.

Yeah, it does feel like.

It's a must like a turtle having sex.

But I've heard that a lot on YouTube, and I know the difference is a lot, Yeah, a lot, a lot.

This one feels I could see maybe a toad or something like that. I don't know. It was also sounded cat like.

Well, if it's in the discount rank, I thought you have discount be that's what throws me.

It's like a cheap like a bird.

It's a bird, it's another bird, it's a bird. Cheap swishes. Keep Well, it's the beginning of the clue. You used a this a little bit.

This little guy isn't happy about being put in the discount ben so.

He's also or they are also unhappy and little Yeah, so the cheap cheap grumpy cat.

Cheap cheap grumpy cat.

Well, I'll tell you what.

I'll actually you can actually make that all right, we give up, you give up.

Well, I'll let you know the answer on next week's episode of Creature feature Fellas, thank you so much for joining me today this on this twisted episode.

Yeah, you know what I knew that that segment ended like that, and I still feel ripped off. I want to know.

I really want to know. Oh maybe we slipped you twenty dollars under the table.

Yeah, okay, well we'll talk about that later. But now, Yeah, what, guys, is there anything you're work on, anything that people might want to know about you?

I just admitted distress called people all over the world bringing their babies. No, we do have a thing.

Yeah, thank you, kurious. Thanks.

We have made one movie before. If you don't know our work, it was called kill Me Now. You can check it out online for free if you want, on YouTube. And then we made a bunch of bunch of sketches over it cracked For like ten years, we sort of led the video department there. Now we're in the middle of trying to fund our second movie. It's based on the hilarious, poignant true story of when my dad came out as a gay furry named Papa Bear when I

We're very excited to sort.

Of show the fandom in a light that we think media has never shown it in before, which is to say, always with a bunch of misinformation.

But it's broader than that.

It involves a whole community sort of forming their complex, reducible lee unique sexual identities. That's all say. You can find out more over at seed and spark dot com slash Fun slash Papa hyphen Bear.

I hope you'll check it out. Thanks so much for having us.

Yeah, personally, it was super fun.

Yeah, I'm personally very interested in checking out that that movie. It sounds very interesting and it seems like, yeah, so it's this is not some kind of like you know, just trolling thing. This is you guys are doing something that is looking into a subculture with interest and sensitivity.

With interest, genuine interest. And I grew up with furries.

I love my dad.

It's not an estranged dad story. So yeah, it comes from a place a love. It's just because we're comedians.

It's not ripping or dunking. It's still very funny, and we hope you Yeah, I think you're coming of age comedy drama. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

I'm looking forward to it. Well, yeah, Thank you guys so much for coming on the show, and thank you guys so much for listening. If you are enjoying the show and you leave a rating or a view, I won't eat your liver. I won't do it anyways, but I won't do it then either U and thank you to the Space Classics for their super awesome song XO. Lumina Creature features a production of iHeart Radio four more podcasts like the one you just heard. Visit the iHeart