Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show. Some like it cold, some like it hot, but what they all have in common is living life as a basic tube. That's right. We're talking about worms who live in the most extreme places on Earth, able to endure temperatures and chemicals that would
easily kill a poison. Discover this more as we answer the angel question, what sorts of activities are scheduled for the ice Worm Festival. Joining me today is friend of the show, writer for American Dad and the Soarin part of Quick Question with Sorn and Daniel Sore and Booie.
Welcome, Hello everybody, Thank you for the introduction. I'm realizing after hearing it, I know I brought this on myself because I suggested a worm, but I don't I'm worried I'm going to be the worm guy and I don't want that title.
Uh oh, now that you just said warm guy, it's stuck. Now that's all I can think of. Sore and Bowie worm guy.
Yeah, when you find another worm that you really like and you're like, oh, I should have on worm guy.
Yeah, well, now see you made you You had that in your head and you could have kept it just to yourself in your brain, but now it's out there in the universe and you've made it happen.
I'm an overshaar. Hi everybody, I'm sore in bowe. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited about to talk about my favorite animal of all worms.
Yes, you suggested ice worms, which I gotta admit I had actually never heard of. I figured it was a worm that lived in ice and go, yeah, gosh, darted. I was right about that. Yeah, but these are really interesting sorn. Why why did you suggest this? What? What do you find interesting about the ice worm?
I always get excited when we think that there's places on Earth that animals can't live and yeah, they're like, nah, it's just like carbon based. Ice worms have like a very specific temperature in which they can live. And then we'll find like something living inside the lava of a volcano and we're like, yeah, okay, things can live anywhere,
and so the ice worms were one of them. Ice worms were very exciting to me also because they're kind of maybe I'm wrong about this they remember them being kind of like snowflakes, and that if you take them out of the snow for too long, they just sort of melt in your hand.
Yeap, yep, that you are correct about that. Yes, they are really weird and interesting, and indeed they live somewhere that it doesn't seem like they should be able to live. But also they need a very specific set of parameters to be alive. Like they are very much like the Frosty the snowman thing where it's like, ah, it gets too warm, he dies, which is a horrible thing to teach children, but like it also like if they get
too cold, they also die. They just have this very It's like I like it these five degrees of temperature, no more, no less, and if it is I will just melt or freeze and it it's I feel that though, I like I have a very limited temperature range that I can tolerate before I feel like passing out because it's too warm, or just kind of like stop moving because it's too cold.
No, that makes sense to me too. I do I feel that as well. I can definitely tell my house I'll be like, I guess I'm also pretty dramatic but I'd be like, oh my god, I'm freezing. Oh yeah, that's the problem. It's sixty eight in here or not?
So yeah, I actually so I'm more sensitive to heat that I am too cold. So like if I accidentally wear an extra layer that I'm not supposed to be wearing outside, I A I actually feel like I'm might pass out. I'm like, oh, wow, well I overdid it. I wore a sweater I shouldn't have, and now I need to sit down and drink some water.
I'm the same way. I just got back from Tucson, where it's just where my wife is from, and anytime I go there, that's not the dead of winter. I'm like, people should not live here now, it's too hot. This is the landscape of hell. Yeah, look at it. It's all brown and crusted and all the animals are rust colored and starving. Like, this is not where things should live. Too hot.
My mom grew up in Bakersfield, so we would visit there every so often, and it's like it reaches over one hundred degrees fahrenheit, which for Celsius is over for I don't know.
I'm gonna just sit here and see if you can do.
It forty forty celsiuses.
I don't know what's good in celsius, Like, what are the good celsius?
H No, thirty is still a little bit warm. I think the good celsiuses are in the mid meloat to mid twenties.
That's complicated. Yeah, my system, which isn't by the way, fahrenheit. I have my own.
Yeah bouize and they and they have various precise decimals. It's a yeah, it's kind of a math mathematically, but yeah, So these worms like to live in the ice. Thus that is why they are called ice worms. They are a genus of segmented worms. There are actually seventy seven species of ice worm found in various habitats of ice and snow. And they can complete their whole life cycle around zero degrees celsius. And they can even be found in glacial ice. So if temperatures get a few degrees
below zero degrees celsius, they can die. If it goes to around forty degrees fahrenheit or four degree celsius, they can die. So yeah, they are very very picky, just like sorein and I are when it comes to temperatures. And they can actually move between ice crystals through the
ice using tiny hairs on their bodies. Now, I think this brings up something where you asked me before we started recording if I'd ever seen a close up picture of an ice worm, and I was shocked to find that no, I hadn't, And I did look at one, and it is wonderful. It. I love microscopic photography of little creatures because it's always like there's a certain range that's sometimes a little cute, like with tartar grades, but then you get close enough, it's always horrifying every time.
Yeah, yeah, this one it's it's it's like unfair to call it a worm when you get up close, because it's got tons of little pom poms coming off of it, like little arms with fur.
At the end. Yeah.
Yeah, it kind of looks like it's it kind of looks like the arms make it look kind of like it's got a rib. It's just a rib cage. It looks like a skeleton wearing a fur coat.
Yeah, which I mean that's fun. Though, it's like, you gotta be cold when you're a skeleton, wind goes right through you. It kind of makes sense to wear fur coat. But yeah, I mean this actually, you know, have you ever seen a Bobbit worm. Yes, it looks kind of like a Bobbit worm and uh, which I I mean this is hard though, if you haven't seen a Bobbitt warm, it's like this is very bobbitwarm mask. Uh. But yeah, it's just it's like got a bunch of bristles coming
out of it. It looks like it stuck like hundreds of brooms on its sides and they've got just like a little like a puff of bristles coming out and it uses those to like navigate amongst ice crystals. So getting purchased. I mean, if you've been on ice, h's slippery, right, am I right? I'm bad. I'm bad at ice. Do you know how to ice skate? Yeah?
Well I was born in Colorado, so you're born you're handed a bunch of winter skills.
Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in southern California. So the first time I saw ice, I I cried and uh and ran away because it's like it's too smooth and it's too cold. But yeah, no I can't. I cannot ice skate. I'm bad at it. So it is, it's slippery,
and so you need some kind of purchase. And these little guys have traction such that they can move between these ice crystals, and there's that in that way they can actually live like inside glaciers, in glacial ice, which is kind of a place I would not have thought something as delicate as a little warmy could manage.
Yeah, I I Here's what I don't understand about them is that after doing zero research bomb my own, they have exclusively an ice. Nothing grows in ice. It feels like, so what are they eating?
That's a great question. It's because the premise of your question is wrong. There is stuff that grows in ice, like algae, which basically is the thing that can grow anywhere. Yes, so they will eat algae that can grow in the ice or on the ice. And yeah, like basically, if you've got this is what's so fascinating about extreme environments.
As long as you got one thing that is hardy enough to grow there, then you can have a whole food chain, right because like, now things can eat the ice worms and get a source of nutrition in these areas. So now you've got this whole food chain of supporting life. Once you get like just something like algae that manages to be like, eh, I can do I could do a glacier.
I could I could set up shop here, I can work with that pretty nice spot. Yeah.
Yeah, And these are like, these are little itty bitty worms. They range from being teeny tiny, like a couple of centimeters long and as thin as a hair to like a couple inches or sixty millimeters long and about like zero point one inch or two point five millimeters thick. So they're like they're visible to the naked eye obviously, and you can pick them up and watch them melt in your hand and laugh and laugh. Oh man, but
yeah they are. But they're small. They're small. They just look very delicate, and it's it's hard to believe that they can survive such rugged temperatures.
So, I mean, it's crazy that there's their structural stability is dependent on being almost frozen, nearly frozen. Like it's like that you pick it up and your body temperature is such that this animal turns into liquid form.
Yeah, it's a living popsicle.
That's so cool.
Yeah, I mean, like, you know, if there were things that lived in the sun, they'd probably view us with the same amazement of like, wow, can't even get close to the sun without turning into vapor.
Yeah, the other end of the element spectrum. Uh man, I'm trying to think of, like, yeah, what the equivalent would be on the other end, Like if there's something that just turns to powdery dust as soon as it gets in the sup But.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that it is. Uh, it's it is one of those things where it's so highly specialized. There are a few species of animals that are like this. They're often called like indicator species because they can indicate that, say, the environment is changing or the temperature is changing, because their population levels will rapidly fluctuate if there is something going on with the temperature. I think another one is it might be the pika.
Oh, we talked about the pika.
We did talk about the pika.
You and I went down memory row. Oh, that's right about my upbringing.
Yeah, I remember. Yeah, we did talk about pikas.
Before, around this time during Easter, that's.
Right, Yeah, because we talked about alternative bunnies. But yeah, no, pikas are much cuter, arguably, I mean, these worms are pretty cute though, look at their little cavernous faces and bristles. But like the Pika is another indicator species who uh dies from heat exhaustion if their temperature is increased just
a little bit. So, yeah, there are species like this that are very sensitive have a very specialized range because for so long, like the temperatures were relatively stable, and so these animals will evolve to kind of fit this very specific niche and they just don't expect to have someone show up with like a hair dryer and blow it on them, or you know, pollute the planet until we get greenhouse gasses.
Why does it have such a gaping mouth? Is that the only way to eat algae?
You just gotta I mean, you know, I I the short answers, I'm not sure, but the long answer is I think it is to be able to scoop up algae. Yeah, I mean it's like as a tube. Everything on Earth, though, is essentially a tube. We're tubes, just with extra details.
I guess that's why I appreciate worm so much. That I remember in high school learning the tube within a tube system and being like, ah, that makes sense to me. Yeah, we should all just beIN that. Why did we advance beyond that? That was that was a.
Great We are still essentially tubes, right, like there's a direct line from your mouth to your butthole. It is. We are essentially tubes, and we kind of start out as tubes, and that's you know, we just we are just highly detailed tubes. To think about that way.
It certainly keeps you humble.
Yeah, don't get too hoty, Just remember you're your tube with accessories.
I guess I'd prefer it that way. I would prefer that that waste comes out a different place than than all the meals go in. Yeah, of course, I'm gonna stick with it.
Tubes are a great design. That's why we see so many of them in nature. But ice worms love glaciers so much that you can find around five billion ice worms on just one glacier, which is a lot.
Wait a second, So if I'm hiking around let's say Antarctica, is that is that what place with them?
Well, you could even be closer. You could be in Mount Rainier, Washington.
Okay, let's say I tripped them mount Rainier and I'm hiking and I don't know about these yet, and I'm hiking and hiking, and all of a sudden I get to the snowfield and he's just littered with like the worms. Yeah, I think that I would be terrified.
Yeah, I mean I shared a picture with it. You can see like you can sometimes it just looks like the snow is sort of speckled with little worms. It kind of looks like, I don't know, like tiny twigs or something or or something growing there. But no, it's little worms.
See it all moving. I would be I'd leave, I wouldn't get to the top.
I mean, ice worm researchers are very excited about it, and they there's an ice worm researcher named Scott Hoddling who told NPR, quote, if you were going to put a biological mascot on the glaciers of the Northwest, it's an ice worm. And he complains that the visitors Center near Paradise Glacier in Mount Rainier, Washington has all sorts of stuff on like other wildlife, but quote, there is somehow nothing about ice worms, and it is a source
of fri stration for me. So there are ice worm fans who are upset that ice worms are not getting the attention they deserve.
This poor guy, I mean, he's not championing a winning cause. Never gonna be happy because no one's gonna get excited about ice worms except us. You're wrong, other people who are super excited.
There's an ice worm festival.
Yeah, oh oh, what a sad little town. Who's doing that?
This is the Cordova ice Worm Festival, held every year in Alaska, Alaska, where you can enjoy ice worm themed challenges an ice the ice worm thing, haystack trail thing, ice worm basketball, and ice worm volleyball.
Those things?
What is that?
Just snow snow volleyball and snow basketball.
I mean I think like the volleyball is man out of a ball ice worms. No it's not. I don't know, it's probably a normal volleyball. I wouldn't want a volleyball made out of ice worms because that's mean to the ice worms.
What Alaska?
So they just what do they?
I mean? Nothing up there.
They've got polar bears and cold and so I'd like to see you come up with a way to spend your time. But yeah. The ice Worm Festival started in the nineteen sixties and featured a giant ice worm mascot. It's like a row of people, basically like a long line of people, and the person in front has like a little ice worm head that's just like a little smiley face and then a bunch of people behind them in a long line.
Yeah, if you picture like a Chinese dragon, yeah, it's just like that, except it's a it's a very cartoonish looking worm. They didn't bother to go for any of the specificity that makes the worm interesting to me.
Yeah, they didn't do like the microscopic photography version of it with terrifying bristles and just this gaping mall.
No, they gave this one earmuffs and blush too.
Yeah, it's just it's not faithful to the actual worm.
Well good for them, I'm glad they have their own little thing. I grew up in a town that had potato days, so like, I know what it's like to have a bolder festival in Colorado. Yeah. So Colorado where I grew up, in the Mountains of Colorado, is really great for growing potatoes. And for a long time that area was producing more potatoes than all of Idaho across
the US. And so it's just like train cars coming out of this area called the Rolling Fork Valley filled with minerals are like so silver and gold and coal and stuff, and then also potatoes just train cars filled with potatoes going all over the world. And they even had like their own type of potato there called the McClure that was one of the most famous potatoes in their early nineteen hundreds.
Wow.
And I know all this because I had potato days growing up and it was a and I remember as a kid being like, uh, what are we doing. Let's just there's so many other cool things around us, Like let's just celebrate something else.
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's tough on a kid. You see, like other places, you know, with like hey, our state is known for our cool snakes, or we've got oranges, and it's like we got potatoes.
California put a bear on their flag. You can just do these things.
We did have a in San Diego. We had a Grunion Run, which is like there are these little fish things that breed on the beach, but they come up near the surface of the beach to breathe and you're like on the shoreline.
Yeah, and.
And then you can like go along and like collect them because like once they breed, they kind of just die. So you are allowed to go along the shoreline and just dig up and pick up these like dying sexed out fish, and that was I never did it because I thought of the smell and then decided, no, oh, they're.
Not a fun looking fish either.
They're sort of they're a phallic fish for sure. They're a they're they're a tube black fish. We've we come back to tubes, and we're back. We always returned to tubes.
Watching people walk through it is really unnerving as well. I'm done at the Grunian Festival.
Imagine the foot feel if you like accidentally step on one. Yeah, yeah, it's not no like that is a like if you if you have walked on the beach barefoot and then you've ever stepped on something squidgy. It's not like you're not like, oh great, I like this feeling. I'm excited to find out what it was.
Right, let me let me dig in a little deeper on that. That was delicious. That felt great on my bald toe.
So we talked about a worm who likes it cold. In fact, likes it cold so much it will melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Actually it melts both in your hand and your mouth. Anyways, now we're talking about a worm who likes it a bit toastier. Likes it a bit warmer. It's called the Pompeii worm.
I bet I could guess where this worm lives.
It's I think it's actually kind of a misnomer. I don't. I don't think it really like lives in Pompeii. I think it's just because well, I'm gonna apologize for the biologist who named this.
On his behalf.
Yeah, I wonder why why is it? I mean it's just like, uh, it's just so it lives in the Pacific Ocean.
What, Yeah, this thing should live in a volcano.
Yeah you would think so, right, but it kind of does in a way. So basically what these guys look like. They look like these colorful pink or green hairy worms with horrible face tentacles. They are not microscopic. You could comfortably hold one in your hand.
They grow well, well I don't know why he was doing it comfortably.
Soothingly, like calmly, uh and meditatively. You could hold one of these. They grow up to around five inches or thirteen centimeters. So yeah, you know, it's like it's like a solid guy.
Yeah, this is a pet.
This is like.
I thought it's so hideous.
It's well, it's fluffy. You could say it's fluffy.
You know what, it looks like, it's got this is I feel like stranger things when they made the mouth that the mouths of oh yeah whatever that gorgon or whatever.
The find Yeah, the dodecahedron I don't remember.
I feel like they stole from this thing it is.
Yeah. Yeah.
If you were to start at the tail and work up, you'd be like, okay, okay, what sort of fluffy animal is this? And then the tail just doesn't end and you get to head and it's hideous.
Yeah, it's so their bodies are covered in what looks like sort of a fine hair, and then their heads are like, it looks like a flower, but it's tentacles.
Yeah, it's got an anemone vibe to it.
Yeah, it does a little bit, doesn't it. So these guys are actually a polykeet worm found where else but the hot hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. So they live in these sort of naturally forming tubes near the hydrothermal vents where they're what's.
Up, tubes within tubes within tubes, tubes.
We always get back to tubes. Uh, it's tubes tubes in tubes forever. I think that's in physics as well. Essentially, we're probably in a tube in the universe right now, just like these worms are in tubes near hydrothermal vents,
which are themselves also tubes. Anyways, they're butts indoor temperatures of one hundred and seventy six degrees fahrenheit or eighty degrees celsius, which is now I like a toasty butt, you know, like it's nice when you, like, say you sit in a chair where someone's recently sat in, You're like, oh, this is nice, this was warmed up for me. But one hundred and seventy six degrees fahrenheit is a little bit a lot of heat for the butt.
Yeah, I'm just doing the quick calculation to booiz. Yeah, it is too hot.
It is one in one fourth point three booies. So their heads actually face outwards and are at a much nicer area of water that's only around seventy two degrees fahrenheit or twenty two degrees celsius, and that is like, that's a friendly temperature for me.
Yeah, that sounds nice. That's how's it get there?
That quick? Yeah, it's like that well, because so in these the near these vents, right, you're at the bottom of the ocean, and the water is very cold because it gets no sunlight, and so right next to these vents that it's extremely extremely hot. And then as it rapidly cools down as you get further away from the vent, I see, okay, which is actually key to things being able to survive near these vents because you have like this zone near the vents that goes from being basically
inhospitable to being like, eh, it' sor right, that's deefit. Yeah, but yeah, but their butts are in an area that is just ridiculously hot, and then researchers wanted to test their limits. They can survive temperatures up to two hundred and twenty one degrees fahrenheit or one hundred and five degrees celsius, which makes them the second toughest animal when it comes to heat resistance. Can you guess the toughest animal when it comes to heat resistance.
I'm thinking.
It is the.
Kangaroo rat.
No, it is the tartar grade. So tartar grade.
Oh yeah, those indestructible little things.
They are, yes, there they are. They look like a microbe, but they are actually microscopic animal and they are virtually indestructible. But yeah, so the fact that these Pompeii worms are almost as indestructible as these tartar grades, and yet they are large and squishy, it's it's interesting. So how do they have such tough butts? Well, researchers think that they may use bacteria as a heat resistant coat. Remember earlier where you were like, it's like as if a skeleton
was wearing a fur coat. Of that picture of the ice worm. This is like if you're wearing a coat made out of bacteria. Uh, and that is helping you survive extreme heat. So all that fur or hair that's on their bodies, that's just strands of bacteria. Oh good, Yeah, they're stinky little guys bacteria shield Oh yeah yeah. It doesn't like like make you want to pet them. Just get right in there, scratch all that nice fur, all that bacteria. Fir.
I want to take a cleraton and just put my face right in there fur.
Yeah, give a little kiss. So the worm secretes a mucus that attracts and feeds the bacteria. Oh god, the world is either tubes or mucus. I'm sorry, and usually tubes filled with mucus.
It's such a mistake. Like I just think about the world differently after every time I learned them enough about nature, No wonder, we all tried to escape it.
No wonder.
We went to homes and we went the direction we did, put soles on our shoes, like we have to get away from this.
This is. We encountered just yet another mucus filled tube, and we're like, that's it, that's it, We're shutting it all down. I hate this.
I hate that it has to that this worm attracts a bacteria to keep it safe from extreme temperatures.
Yeah. The bacteria like grows in these strands that look like fur. Yeah, oh my god. So the bacteria is thought to both shield the worm from intense heat and maybe help the worm feed. Now, I don't think it directly eats the bacteria that is on its own body, because it needs that for the heat protection. But like when I was reading about it, there's just this vague sort of reference of like it may help it feed, and it's like how why, And then it's just like, huh, maybe maybe it does.
SOMETHINGED guess, but they do all also eat bacteria using feeding tentacles that come out of their face, so like these long, sticky strands that they shoot out and just kind of like, you know, suck up.
Bacteria on these filaments. So that's nice.
Yeah, it's somewhat sympathetic, only because have you ever tried to be in a natural hot springs in a river before? No? I?
Yeah, so I get like I get hives if I sit in the wrong hot tub. So I have allergic reactions to fung guy that most people don't even notice, and for me, somehow it gets on my body and then I just kind of grow spots.
You're like our canary species or that.
A pico or an indicator speci for fungus. Yeah. Yeah, so no, no, I have never nat you.
In Colorado. They occur in rivers, and in those rivers does all runoff. So it's snow melt that has just recently melted, so the water is barely below freezing as it's coming down the river. And then there's a hot spring somewhere there, and that water coming out of the hot springs is blisteringly hot, and so you have to figure out if you want to go try to enjoy
one of these. You've got to figure out how to get the right rocks in the right area to just filter in enough of the river water that it immediately cools the blisteringly hot hot spring and then you can kind of get like a nice temperature going in this one section of the river, and it's very pleasant, but it still smells deeply like sulfur. So I don't know why we used to do this now that I'm describing it, I'm like, this is that we have showers at home.
But yeah, we try to do this all the time, and it gets to the point where, like you, you can't tell anymore whether what you're feeling is intense cold or intense heat.
Oh that I know, moment, Yeah, that's that feeling.
I know.
Yeah, that sounds horrible. It's interesting you mentioned sulfur. Hold on to that thought. Well, we take a quick break, so we are back, and have you been thinking about sulfur for the like thirty seconds that we've been gone when.
We sat here in silence for the full ads? Yeah, all I did was think of us.
I said a timer. I was like, this is where the ads go. We've got a method, We've got it.
And then Katie just she says, we'll be right back, and then she looks off into the distance and does not speak to me. No, we're on video.
She doesn't speak to me. I'm on standby mode.
Wait, and then she comes back.
This is how this is how I get the realistic experience. Like if the audience feels like they're the only ones who have to listen to ads and like wait patiently during that time, that's unfair. There's gotta be some fairness. So yeah, sulfur it's not it's not great, right, Like the smell isn't good.
It's rough.
We there there.
We have the largest natural hot springs, actual pool in Colorado. It's in this place called Glownin Springs. And I used to do my I was on swim team and we would go there in the morning and do swim team in this pool. Oh and throughout the summer, my skin just smelled like sulfur.
Huh. That's interesting. Yeah, like that you would do that because it's general Like if it's too sulfuric, Uh, it can be you know, not good for the body.
No, my hair would turn green too.
Oh well, that's a good sign. That's always healthy. That's that's what doctors say. Hair turns green a day keeps the doctor away, mostly because we don't want to touch you.
I was building up bacteria as a protecting you're just.
Like covered in fur. But yeah, so it's interesting that you mention Colorado because there is a famous sulfur cave in Steamboat Springs, Colorado that contains a very amazing animal. It's another tube. It's a sulfur worm. So a sulfur cave is not a good place for a human. It's not like a great place for the casual splunker because they contain lethal levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide.
So the air is I mean, first of all, the smell is bad, like a fart, but then it's a fart that kills you.
This is horrendous. I'm just like looking up other pictures of these worms and I and the NPR story says, sulfur cave in Colorado home to blood red worm blobs.
Yep, they look like I don't know, because they're all bundled together right in a blob, so they look a little bit like a plate of spaghetti. But it's worms.
And they're red, yeah, deep deep red, almost a brown yeah.
Yeah, So if you want to go into one of these sulfur caves that these sulfur worm balls live in, you have to wear breathing apparatus, and because there are also pools of sulfuric acid that can burn your flesh off if you stay in it too long, you have to wear protective equipment all over your body. So, yeah, so there is there are actually only a few sulfur caves in the world, and one of them is in
Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I assume you've never been in this cave, despite growing up in Colorado.
I regretfully haven't. Yeah, I haven't been in this terrible cave with these terrible animals.
You just turned your hair green with sulfur. It's like this baby stuff.
I'm realizing now that, yeah, that's the case. But I am I'm thankful that these worms they knew what they knew this situation. They knew that they were disgusting and gross, and they were like, let's just live somewhere where we're out of sight. Yeah, humans don't go.
Yeah, I mean like they didn't expect researchers to try to find them, and now we're like ew, gross, and they're like, we know, that's why we're in here. Get out.
We came in here on purpose for you.
Yeah. It's like when I'm sick and snotty and gross and then someone comes to my door, maybe there's a delivery, maybe there's marketer or something, and it's like, look, I know, I'm horror fine to look at, but this is you brought this on yourself by coming to my sulfur cave and like poking at my writhing mass, which is myself of of worms.
Quite an image you've painted.
Yeah, so the cave is full of crystal structures, a huge, huge amount of bacteria, and yeah, these balls of brownish pink, slimy worms. So uh, researchers, I mean, so researchers are interesting because they'll do things that you normally wouldn't do because they have some kind of like thirst for knowledge or whatever. And so yeah, they go into these highly toxic environments and check out the worms. Researchers like David
Steinmann of the Denver Museum of Nature and Sciences. Uh, and they're interested in how the worms live in such a toxic environment. Uh. And apparently the worm's blood is able to bind to oxygen much better than most animals. And I think David Steinman has his quote where he's like saying something to the effect of like, yeah, athletes would love to have warm blood, which you know is one way to say things.
Well, that's why people go to Colorado to train, right, because your blood has to oxygen ate better up there, so they even better in these caves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta. I mean it's just like, imagine a scandal at the Olympics where you find out someone's been juicing with warm blood.
I think you'd be like, well, good, good work. That's a hard thing. You had to go collect those, that's not easy. You got to get a whole suit for that. Yeah, I mean really, how to extract the blood?
Yeah, Like you know, like people carbo load before a race by eating a big plate of spaghetti, maybe they like blood load by eating a big plate of these sulfur worms. You'd probably die, but you know, you gotta do it for the gains.
You gotta do it for the Tour de front. I don't know if I've told you, Katie, I don't do great with blood. Oh, it's like a phobia of mine. And yeah, that's very common, which is comforting. To me, it means that maybe we're right, but I get this, just like the idea of these little tubes of blood is making me ride like maybe in a little bit, I'll light down on my floor.
No, I'm sorry, yeah, no, I mean, well, you know. One of the reasons I mean this is a little bit of a tangent, but it's sort of related to human evolution. One of the I will not mention blood in detail.
He it's okay, it's fine.
All right, I'll mention blood in detail, get to get to the viscosity of the blood. No, but yeah, it's like the phobia of blood is. One of the theories is that if you see blood and you like the vasovagel response to blood where you faint, it may be a defensive tactic to basically be like, oh, I'm bleeding while I'm dead, so you can not bother me anymore.
Oh it's like to deal with bears.
Right exactly. And just for some people, like I get a I will sometimes have a vasal veagel response not to not to blood, but to like being like punctured, like with a with a needle, so like not It's interesting because it depends on like, uh, if I'm just getting like a flu shot, it doesn't matter. But if I'm gonna getting like a vena puncture, I can get
the vasovagel response for some reason. So it's like, you know, you just sort of it is a a sort of automatic response your body has and you don't have any control over it. So it's nothing to be ashamed of.
Yeah, it's a It's like in clinical settings, it's worse for me in the same way like drawing blood, seeing a scalpel go into skin and then the blood that erupts from that. Yeah, that kind of stuff is uh, that's what really does it for me. Emergency situations feels late, and I mean emergency outside will hospitle Like out in the world, if I saw blood, I think it it wouldn't It wouldn't bother me as much as intentional blood. Interesting.
Yeah, but you know, I think that we have we have discovered today that these little warmies, these little tubes, they are quite a bit more hearty than they seem, and they will live anywhere they can possibly find a niche or a crevice. Uh, and just like do their thing, do their little to be warmy thing. Good.
Just stay out of my eyesight is all I'm asking of these worms, just like be be in these plates, stay in these like remote spots where humans aren't supposed to go.
I'll be even more generous and say, just like stay out of my eyeballs, like don't go into my eyes. And then you're fine, Like I'll look at you. But if you try to get into my vitreous fluid, that's where I draw the line. That's my boundary.
It happens sometimes right with like parasitic worms, like people will see it streaming across the eyeball.
Yeah, yeah, I watched that documentary too, Yeah yeah, yeah. I In general, again, it's interesting. I have a very high tolerance for parasites. It's the ones that you can see, like the ones where you like see them under people's skin that I call it quits. At that point, I'm like, well, it's yeah, yeah, it's.
A lot probably where that needle fear calms from. You've got this invasive species. That's this invasive thing that's just like under your skin and right there, and.
Yeah, so before we go, we gotta play a little game.
Oh yes, I remember.
This is the guests who's squawking mystery animal sound game. Every week I play mister Animal sound and you the listener, and you the guests, trying to guess who's squawking.
Uh.
Last week's mister Animal sound HIMT was this this foxy little feller loves a banane. That's it's a banana. I want it to be clear, I'm saying banana. I'm just saying banana in a fun way. Clear.
It's from the songes.
All right, look here it is. I'm I I just I want to watch this whole video. So again, the hint is this foxy little feller loves a banana?
Yeah, it's that animal sounds like it's in pure joy.
What it is?
It's really enjoying itself. Can I guess what that animal is?
You can guess what that animal is.
Fennec fox?
No, damn it. Congratulations to Grant W, Aaron K and joe In who all gets correctly the flying fox. So this is a megabat. You were right, Soren that it isn't pure bliss though, So you got that right. You read the room correctly. It is being petted h and it's enjoying. Little head scratches. I'm actually I'm gonna give you the video because yeah, I it makes me so happy. I just want to give you that for an hour
later whenever you want it, because it is the best video. So, the gray headed flying fox is the largest bat in Australia, with a wingspan of up to three feet or about a meter. They eat pollen, nectar, and fruit, and while the banana is not indigenous to Australia and bat rescues, they are a popular treat for the bats in their care.
So baby flying foxes must cling to their mothers, who will even fly with a baby attached to them, but sometimes the babies will fall off the mother, typically because of disease or ticks that we can either the baby bat or the mother. And because the gray headed flying fox is a vulnerable species in Australia, bat rescuers will gather the abandoned baby bats, wrap them in little blankies and feed the milk, and when they're older, they'll hand
feed them fruit just like precious little packages. Have you ever seen like a baby bat wrapped in a little baby blanket getting feda grape?
I mean, I think it's universal. As soon as you said that, I was like, oh, yeah, I've seen a swaddled bat. Yeah, getting getting fed fruit. That's yeah, exactly like something i'd see.
It's probably a flying fox. So this particular flying fox is in the care of a professional Sydney Wildlife bat rescuer named Mandy Griffith and was rescued with the intent to release, but was too injured and so is now
a pampered educational bat. So just as a reminder, like, don't pet wild bats even I know that sound is like the most heavenly cute sound you've ever heard, and this is like mean of me to play it and then say like, sorry, don't pet them, but it is true because they do like you don't want to mess with bats in terms of transmitting diseases too and from them, and bat rescuers are professional bat handlers who have been fully vaccinated to prevent the spread of diseases.
That freaked me up a little. It feels like an inner specie ba interspecies. Viruses are like not a thing that's even on my radar. It's like, I think I can think of the getting colds from people, but getting something from my cat, or like getting something from an animal like a frog or something like that, I'm like, oh no, wait, they can do that viruses jump from one to another.
I mean there were I don't know if you heard about this, but we had a little, a little incident a few years ago.
No, that was creating the lab that's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean it's I mean, there's multiple reasons, right, Like, because you know it's a wild animal. You don't want to like mess with wild animals. They generally don't appreciate being pet It's just in this very specific and charming situation, this bat was abandoned due to unfortunate circumstances, and it's
two hundred to be released. So in this very special set of circum stances, it's okay for this person to pet this bat, and now we all get to enjoy it through listening to the bat's delightful little squeaks as it's getting scritcheed and scratchyed.
That's really kind, it's really nice.
It's I don't know what it is, but baby bat videos Like I it's pure serotonin. It's just it's like the opposite of getting getting a vena puncture. It's like the opposite feeling of the vasovagel response. It's like my brain just goes into hyperdrive. Of like being happy with us.
This is a nice palate cleanser from blood worms in a sulfur cave.
Yeah, from being from horrible tubes to cute little bats making squeaky noises. Yeah, cu tubes, very very cute, flying, cute fluffy tubes.
Yeah.
Onto this week's mystery animals sound. The hint if you've got happy feet, This is not a sound you want to hear?
Are you allowed to give me? If I asked a question?
Yeah?
Is that happening underwater?
It is?
Indeed, there's a free hint for y'alls, thanks to Soren.
Yeah, do stingrays make a noise? Is that a stingray?
No? A? Well, you will find out on next episode of Creature Feature. If you out there think you know who is making this sound, you can write to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Soorn, thank you so much for joining me today and talking about the wonderful, wild and sometimes just horrible and devastating world of worms. Thank you for having me on.
And I've enjoyed this time and I will think about how everything is too from now on.
Yeah, you look a little bit a little stricken from that realization and to be honest. Uh, where can people find you?
You can find me on Twitter at Soorren Underscore Ltd. You can find me on my podcast, which is a Quick Question with Sorn and Daniel, which is a podcast that I do with Daniel O'Brien who was also from Crack where we all grew up.
Yeah, we grew up together in school which was cracked.
Yeah.
Remember remember missus cracked cracked, Missus cracked.
Look, I like how you gave up on that, and you're like, I'll give her a name. No, let's just do crack missus craps. No.
I didn't mean to say that. Even that was not even intitional. Uh.
And you can also find my episodes of my show called American Dad. When I say my show the show that I that, I that you can find episodes of American Dad on Hulu or you can go watch you on TVs.
And thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave a review or rating, I deeply deeply appreciate it, even if it's just like hey, nice nice tube. That's fine. I don't care. Just if you write, you know, you write a review, I will read it. I read all the reviews and you know you know. Send me an email if you want at
Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com. If you've got the mystery and will sound noise that you got a guess for, or if you have any questions or just tube opinions, like, like them or don't like them, let me know. And thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song ex Aluminu. Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey, guess what? Where have
you listen to your favorite shows? I don't actually care? Fine, what do we want to do? See you next Wednesday?
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