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, we're talking about some animals that you should not have as a pet unless you want to become extremely dead. From innocent looking beach beauties to our lovable goofy and deadly cousins, these creatures would sooner destroy you than cuddle. Discover this and more as we answer the age old question when does a kangaroo
become your King of Doom? Joining me today is the Internet's zoologist TikTok Star and author of the book one Hundred Animals That Can Fucking End You.
Mama, do welcome.
I just want to say that was your radio voice. That was amazing. I want to be able to do that one day. But thanks for having me. This is really exciting.
You're very welcome. That's about it for my radio voice.
The rest of the show is just in my normal voice because I don't have written out for me what I say. So, Yeah, I love your content. I love how you make evolutionary biology relatable, exciting, fun and scary. It's it's definitely the kind of thing I'm super into.
Well, thank you, I really appreciate it. My whole thing with what I do is I kind of wanted to make the type of content that I myself as a kid would have really liked not necessary for people that don't necessarily watch the hour long documentaries or they're not exactly Animal Planet like junkies the way I was, they could still get something out of the content because of
just the way I present information. I feel like it's entertaining, it's funny, but you can also come away with it and learn something, and you have a bunch of things you can like take to your friends and start conversations, and you know, just being able to foster an interest in the environment the way that I do. Yeah, I think that's kind of the main goal of like the platform that I have, and that's been going pretty well so far.
I think it's the absolute best use of tik talk because TikTok's very addictive, but I love just having these little, like little cookies of information that you get and there it is. It does remind me of when I was a kid and i'd watched Animal Planet, one of my favorite shows I think was like the World's Most Extreme and they do like a countdown of the most extreme animals, and that was always so fun.
No, I watched that show religiously.
Me too, just every day after school, and it was like it was so exciting for me. And so I love how you capture that excitement of like looking at some of the most intense animals that blow your mind that they even exist.
Honestly, Yeah, even if you watch that show and you watch my content, you could definitely see like where I like took inspiration from it. Like that show was. As a kid, I wasn't really allowed to watch TV on the weekdays, that was the rule. But I was able to get around that because Animal Planet Discovery channels technically educational, so I was able to get away. So I was watching the Most Extreme all the time. I had even had blank CDs and I had my mom burn like
episodes on the disc, so I just watch it whenever. Yeah, I love that show.
We would have been friends in school because yeah, that I was all about that show. That was amazing. And so today we are doing kind of the most extreme animals in terms of how surprisingly deadly they are. I mean, these are not the deadliest animals in the world or the most dangerous. These are animals that you would not
think are as dangerous as they really are. Animals that we love, that look innocent, that look beautiful, and definitely don't seem like they would pack the punch that they really do.
Yeah, definitely. I feel like everyone can easily identify what animals are dangerous, the lines, the tigers, the bears. But a lot of times these animals that people like kind of take for granted that people just assume because they're cute. They kind of put human characteristics onto them to answer form size them and to be fair, I do that a lot of my videos. But I feel like when people like take that like out into the real world,
that's when people like really get hurt. Like I don't know what the exact numbers are, but I know the animal that causes the most like injuries in America more than like the cougars and the bears, it's like bison. Yeah, because people will walk right up to these bison, these two thousand pounds bison, because they're like docile, they're pretty
calm around people. If you're like respect their space, people will go right up to them and take pictures of them and then at least once a year somebody gets gets sent to the hospital because they get gored, and just things like that. Is like it's fun to like free people out with animal facts, but just also to like make people aware that you know, these are still wild animals, and you know you wouldn't say like that and that like an animal went crazy, it just did.
What It's just an animal, yeah, exactly. Yeah, And I think there is this misconception that herbivores are harmless, that only carnivores.
You have to worry about.
But herbivores have a tough life. They have to defend themselves, and so they're some of the most dangerous animals can be herbivores. I mean, like hippos are much more dangerous than lions, and they're herbivores, but they are much more aggressive, much more dangerous. You're much more likely to be injured by a hippo than you are by a lion.
And it is.
Yeah, it is just respecting nature, not always thinking you can like stroll right up to an animal, pick it up, touch it without there being consequences.
Definitely, something I would always say is that like when you're dealing with a carnivore, you have to you just convince it that you're not worth the calories. But for a herbivore, it assumes that you're trying to kill it, so it's trying to come after you first. Like that's why moose are like a pretty big problem, like more so than bears and wolves and cougars. It's the herbivores, like you said, like moose and bison, and even like deer. There are a lot of people in the hospital and
a deer sent them there. So you know, it's just understanding that these animals have been around for like millions of years. They have developed these like ways to survive in like pretty harsh climates. And well they're not exactly they're not like you can respect them from like a distance, but once you like enter like their like environment, you can be conceived as a threat. And that's that's where things get bad for people.
Yeah, yeah, it is. It's all about respect. You always have to respect nature, respect deer and they won't they won't come hunt you down find you. But yeah, so first we are going to talk about an animal that looks very harmless in fact, like you may be on the beach spot one of these and think literally nothing of it other than it's pretty and something that maybe you would want to collect as a beach comber, but you should never do that because they're extremely dangerous. And
these are the cone snails. They're one of my favorite surprise dangers of I remember learning about these a long time ago and just being horrified at the idea of them. So, cone snails are a group of beautiful marine mollusks with these spectacular cone shaped shells, and there are many different species. There's over nine hundred species. They're found in warm tropical waters all over the world. And they look innocent, right, Oh, they definitely do.
And I feel like just snails in general are just something cartoons teach a lot of people that snails are like harmless and slow and just. But these cone snails, one thing about them is they are what they are incredibly venomous. But it's not just one toxin that a lot of cone snales have different combinations of toxins up to fifty and like you said, there's nine hundred different types of cone snails, so there isn't one specific venom that one uses. That's why if you get stung, there
is really no anti venom. All they can really do is manage your symptoms and keep you from like, you know, like gets flatlining. But yeah, and to be fair, like the chances of you dying from a cone snail with like media medical attention, you're probably gonna be fine. But like, all they can really do is manage your symptoms and keep you breathing because there's just so many toxins that they use. And another thing is they are ironically one
of the fastest things on the planet. I don't know the exact number, but they strike faster than you can blink. They are incredibly fast because they obviously they can't move, so like whenever a prey item like a fish, gets anywhere near them, they have like a split second to like just ensnare them and just engulf them. So that's what like, if you're anywhere near them and you think like they really, they can strike you faster than you
even have time to recognize what's going on. So yeah, and it's incredibly painful that no one wants to deal with that. So yeah, cone staals, you see them on the beach, do not do not pick. And that's the problem, right, because they're so colorful and a lot of people take that as a sign to pick them up. Their color is designed to tell you not to pick them. Yeah, because anything that isn't trying to actively hide from you, there's a pretty big reason for that. Like the poisoned
dart frogs. The color, they're not trying to camouflage. There's a reason why they're like standing out somewhuch.
So yeah, yeah, not pick them up.
Yeah.
Apemitism is when an animal has a bright color or pattern that is a warning to potential predators that it is toxic, poisonous, or venomous. And yeah, these cone snails are indeed very venomous, and like you said, you know, they move slowly in terms of locomotion, but they are able to strike extremely quickly like some kind of gunslinger. And they are not like your typical innocent little snail, marine snail. They are predatory carnivores and they are armed
to the teeth. In fact, that injection the venom that they do is a modified tooth that is turned into a harpoon and it literally looks like a miniature harpoon, like a man made harpoon, just like tiny. It's hollow and it is attached to a venom snack and it shoots that out like you said, in an incredib do speed. It sticks into its victim, it injects the venom, and it uses this for both hunting and for self defense. So when it's hunting, this is great because it basically
uh just ambushes its victim with this harpoon. It paralyzes it with these many like these conotoxins, like you said, many many different compounds. That's why it's we don't have a good anti venom, but a lot of these toxins are designed to like incapacitate its prey. So it basically, you know, just like freezes the prey and then that allows it to engulf it and eat.
It and get that business done.
And I love there's this technical name of the harpoon, which I actually just learned researching for this, called the toxogloss and radula. It's a it's a but yeah. It it does have certain species of cone snails. Like I mentioned earlier, there are many different species, but the larger ones, UH do have enough toxin to potentially kill a human. Now, like you said, it's very rare the cases where it
has killed people. It's like sometimes like a freak thing like someone picked up I think two of them kind of held them up for a photo and they both got them right in the neck and that was fatal.
But yeah, you do not, especially with small children. That's when they get the.
Wor yes, yes, the smaller you are, the faster it's gonna get through your bloodstream and it's the higher concentration that's not good. But yeah, even if it's not fatal, it's very painful. So you do not want to uh to mess with these guys. So the the method of action of these conotoxins are like a lot of neurotoxins.
Each species has its own fun cocktail of deadly chemicals, but it will sometimes block the receptors of your neural cells or sometimes interfere with nerve channels, which is bad for us in terms of remaining alive or not being
in extreme pain. But interestingly, the cone snails can also use different cocktails depending on the situation, So like defensive harpoonings, the ones that we're probably more likely to receive are going to be designed to be more painful, whereas hunting venom can actually include like painkilling properties and paralytic because they don't want their victim that they're hunting to freak out. They want them to just like go still become subdued as quickly as possible.
Yeah, their whole thing is just just incapacitating you as quickly as possible, even if it doesn't necessarily mean killing you. It's the same mechanism as a box jellyfish or especially the ukanji, which people can automatically identify as dangerous. But with the box jellyfish, they can't afford to have their prey struggles since they might snap on their technacles. So they're just laced with all these millions of stinging cells like harpoo likes thinging cells that inject this neurotoxin that
will paralyze you. That's where the intense pain comes from, just to like have keep their prey from struggling. And it's the same thing with the con snails, since they really only get one shot to like subdue their prey. The prey breaks away, then there is no second attempt
and they have to find somebody else. So it's really designed to just just take their prey down as quickly as possible, and that's where like the pain comes in and That's why depending on where you get stung, Like if you get stung on the hand or the leg,
you'll probably be fine with medical attention. But if it is one of those rare cases where you manage to get stung in the neck, that's where you can like that's where they first of all, that's incredibly painful, and once that venom gets anywhere near your heart, like, that's how you can go into like cardiac arrest. But of course those are like really extreme cases. A lot has to go wrong for it to get to that point. But you still don't want to take that chance.
No, No, I mean, like, like you said, even if it's not fatal, the pain alone should be enought to stop you from picking up these guys because it's not something you I mean, it's like if you look I'll include this in the show notes, but if you actually look at that the barb that they shoot out, it does it looks like a tiny weapon and that goes into your skin. So that is and then on top of that the painful venom. It's not something you want
to mess with. But there are medical uses for these conotoxins because it does interact with neural pathways with pain pathways, often in a bad way for you if you're stung by one. By modifying these conotoxins, it can actually potentially be a pain reliever. So there are studies going on to see like using not necessarily I'm not saying like, hey, it's going to be a pain reliever if you inject yourself with a con snail's natural toxins.
That's not true.
But by studying these toxins figuring out how they work, researchers can actually derive potentially painkillers that would be able to block or interfere with pain receptors, which you know, there may be some discoveries in terms of pain management thanks to the cone snails.
Yeah, like you said, it's about just being able to isolate the pain killing properties. It's pretty interesting the way all these applications for all these like different venoms that normally you wouldn't want to touch it all. Like I
was reading the other day, like with box shellyfish. Historically people have been trying to isolate certain properties or their venom to create like a form of botox of all things, like from one of the most venomous things on the planet, people trying to use it to I guess look younger. So that's always interesting, I do.
It is something about humans, isn't it. We find something in nature that's like incredibly dangerous or deadly, it's like, how can we capitalize on this?
Like should I stick this.
In my face? Should I put it in my mouth?
It's makes you wonder about the first person I ever tried it.
Yeah, yeah, I mean like there are a variety of things that are good, like you know, like spices and stuff, hot peppers, and you wonder about the first person who like put that in their mouth ad it and it's like, uh, oh this is bad or actually maybe good.
It's funny because I'm pretty sure like the whole reason of behind like the spice of certain things it's to be a deterrent to keep at them. And then we came along We're.
Like that's we like the pain. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. That you know, the spices of like a hot pepper, it's it's a deterrence for like insects or other animals that would eat the peppers. But humans are like, hey, this is great, I love this. Give me more pain that they didn't. These plants did not calculate that humans are so masochistic that we would intentionally inflict delicious pain on our mouths yep.
And then they have no answer for that stuff.
But we like them so much that it is ended up being good for them or well, I guess neutral for them, because we kept we started cultivating them, so they did end up surviving at least in a form that we find delicious input on our food. So we're going to take a quick break, but when we get back, we're going to talk about a animal that is very jumpy, but that doesn't mean it's intimidated by you. So one of the most iconic animals in the world is the kangaroo, and they're.
Such a goofy animal.
I think like they've got these long ears, these big feet, they hop around. They're associated with Australia, and they're this big marsupial. They're so they're so strange and funny and wonderful and cute too, Like they've got these ctacute faces that they seem they don't seem like they would be dangerous. It seems like you could beer throw an arm around one and just have a good time.
Yeah, kangaroos. I have a theory, a working theory about kangaroos, and it's that they have gotten cocky basically, like Australia doesn't really have a dominant apex like a predator or at least a land predator. I mean, you have like dingoes and packs, and you might have large monitor lizards, you have your go in this, but there isn't like a large big cat or there isn't like anything like that. So these kangaroos are kind of I guess they're like
they got drunk off success. They didn't really earn once you get like especially the big bread kangaroos, the ones that can be six feet tall, nothing can really you know, affect them. So now they just I don't know. I just see so many videos of kangaroos just starting problems completely unprovoked, Like they're honestly like what deer are here, That's what kangaroos are on Australia, only they actively seek
out cars. Yeah, Like I think I read something about maybe nine out of every ten animal related car accident in kangaroo was caused. Well, I said in kan in Australia was caused by a kangaroo, And a lot of times they just walk away from it. While your car's just like done for it.
So they're insurance for like.
In cartoons exactly. You know what, there has to be kangaroo insurance. Now, there's no way they don't prepare for that kind of thing.
I mean, there's Australia is so full of these dangerous animals. I can't imagine they don't have different speed like insurance for many different species, Like this is for kangaroos, this is for getting a koala dropped on your head and scratching your eyes out. There's got to be insurance for everything.
There has to be. I mean, even like something like there are brush tail possums. They become like invasive in certain places. And every once in a while something a picture will go viral of one just breaking through the wall and yeah sitting there. Yeah, like I've seen like pictures of just their polishes hanging out or dry wall or in one case this was really funny, one broke into like I think it was a bakery and they found him like in a box of yeah, eat and you.
It was just that picture.
You can catch me, but it's just done.
It's it's I've already won. You can't take anything from me for I am victorious.
Yet I love that picture.
That's like, I feel like that is an embodiment of my attitude sometimes where it's like, as long as I have a pastry, no matter what has happened to me that day, It's like if I get some pastries in me, it's like you can't win bad luck, like I've won today. I ate a bunch of pastries and I'm covered in delicious.
I love it. I love it. Yeah, there's no regret in his eyes at all, none And I couldn't even see his people, but you can see it.
No remorse, remorseless pastry thief in my hero. But yeah, so so kangaroos are I love your way of phrasing it. They have kind of grown too cocky or maybe cocky enough because they are the largest mammal in Australia. They're also the largest macropos. So macropods are these large marsupials like kangaroos, wallabies and possums. And there's actually a recent news story about a man who quote unquote owned a kangaroo, was keeping a wild kangaroo as a pet, and this
kangaroo actually killed him. And I think that it is I mean it's sad when I hear this, you know, I don't I feel bad because I think that if people were taught more, learn more that like you really, if an animal seems okay, like a wild animal doesn't seem on its surface that dangerous, that does not mean that you can turn it into a pet, because that is going to, you know, potentially be quite dangerous for you.
And this is not.
This doesn't happen very often, so kangaroo fatalities are relatively rare. The last reported attack was in nineteen thirty six. So they don't want to murder you, or at least they don't try to murder you that much. I can't say what they want, but they will do it if they feel like they must do it. So yeah, keeping a wild kangaroo is a pet not a good idea. So this kangaroo that killed this man was a So it was a western gray kangaroo and a male.
So males are.
Gonna be, in general, a little more feisty than the females. Females can be feisty, especially when they are protective of their joey's, but males, I think, are the ones that tend to just kind of randomly seek out confrontation.
Yeah. See with male kangaroos there the whole thing is they have harems and they have to fight for control of the harem, and then if you lose, then you don't you lose the right to like reproduce. So there can be really intense competition. Even if that competition isn't there, that instinct always will be. So if it sees you as a threat, like it really doesn't take much for a kangaro to hurt you. A lot of people see the cartoons with you know, the kangaroo and the boxing ring.
It's not the punches you have to worry for. Like, what they'll do is they have powerful forums. They'll hold you in place and try to kick you, and they have a long, like sharp like middle toe nail that can easily disemvalue and can cut through flesh. They've killed dogs that way, especially since dogs are you know, lowered
the ground. So if it cuts like a crucial artery, like anywhere near the neck, or for a human, if it cuts like the femeral artery, that's where you can get in a whole lot of trouble because you will bleed out. And that's like that's how they injure each other. Like, kangaroo fights aren't just like punching and kicking. They cause like massive damage to each other where the loser often sometimes just dies, Yeah, just can recover from those injuries.
So that's like, that's why, well, kangaroo attacks on humans are rare. When they happen, they can be pretty like catastrophic.
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean sometimes you might see like a photo of two kangaroos and it looks like they're hugging, like it's like, oh, cute, they're hugging. No, no, they are having a fight because the males will, like like you said, they'll hold onto each other, lean back on these strong, powerful tails and kick and scratch at each other. And they have claws both on their forearms and on their hind legs that they can use in with extremely powerful kicks and armed with a claw that can be
very very dangerous and so like. So the western gray kangaroos, which I believe are some of the most common kangaroos in Australia.
They're fairly large.
They can weigh around one hundred and fifty pounds or sixty eight kilograms for the male's females are a little smaller. Some have been known to weigh up to two hundred pounds or ninety kilograms, but those are sort of the big boys. But so much of that weight is like muscle, and so much of that muscle is distributed to their extremely powerful legs, so that is not something you want
to mess with. And they are not even the largest kangaroo you mentioned earlier, the red kangaroo, which is the largest kangaroo, and it.
Is quite big.
They can be, like you said earlier, six feet tall or one point eight meters or even taller in certain circumstances. They can weigh around two hundred pounds or ninety kilograms, and they can run over thirty seven miles per hour or sixty kilometers an hour, and they have three hundred degree vision.
So if you think.
That you can escape an angry red kangaroo, it's that you could not. If they were determined to catch up to you and find you, they definitely would.
Yeah, And the scary part is the way their legs are and the way they like move they actually expend less energy, like the faster they're moving when they're just when kangaroos are kind of like at leisure and they're like raising. Uh. They actually spend more energy doing that than when they're in a full out bound going the thirty five miles per hour. They can like max out at Yeah. And with the guy, obviously it's like tragic.
But with like a male kangaroo, like the like I said, the fights can cause serious injury and no kangaro wants to deal with that, so they have these ways to communicate that they don't want to fight that they're like kind of letting the other guy like you know, you're you're the alpha. That's fine. They'll do things like they won't make eye contact is usually just bad with any animal, especially like predator based. They'll try to avoid eye contact.
They'll do this thing where they'll cough, like that's kind of like an admission of like submission where you're like basically giving up before you like can potentially get hurt. So I'm guessing with this man, he raises kangaroo, and a lot of people raise these animals like humans, So things that like things like eye contact, things like being loud. They they're doing that with these animals, and eventually if that animal feears threatened and you do those same behaviors.
It's going to see that as a threat no matter what you tried to teach it throughout his life. And I'm guessing I don't know the story with this man, but it feels like the kangaroo was like standing up to them. The guy was like not backing down, and the kangaro saw as a threat and just did what
like instinctually they've been doing for like a while. So that's just it's sad, But those are like reminders that these are wild animals and they don't like not it's only a matter of time before they like revert back to like their actual wild behavior, right.
And we don't speak their language, so, like, you know, you see this a lot in various animals. They don't necessarily want to engage in conflict all the time. They will if they feel that they need to, but especially with like male and male sort of like rivalries, they will often have this like if the winner is really clear, this is when they can back down from a fight. Like if it's not so clear who would win this fight,
then you may have quite a violent fight. But if you have like a male who's like, oh, I cannot take you on, and I do not want to fight you. They have a communication system for that because it is costly to have a competition between two males. And yeah, I think that probably it sounds about right, probably what happened, you know, Like, especially if someone raises an animal.
From a baby, like from.
A young animal, they may be surprised when that animal reaches maturity and their hormones kick in and their behavior suddenly changes, because like a mature male is going to be much different from an immature male. I mean the
same thing with female animals in many cases. But yeah, once they reach maturity, their behaviors are going to be quite different, and it can be more aggressive because you know, this is the point at which they have to compete for females, and so behaviors you may have had with like a baby kangaroo with a joey that the joey didn't you know, get upset by.
The adult kangaroo may get upset by it.
And again, if you don't know that much about kangaroos or you don't speak kangaroo language, then you're not gonna see that coming, that that change in behavior where they no longer think you're just playing around, They think that you're actually a threat or threatening them.
Yeah, when a joy, when it goes from a joy to a boomer, that's when that's when things change. That's when the picking order changes.
In the house. Yeah. Yeah, and it can be quite violent.
I mean this is half, I would say, half myth, but there is a truth to it, which is the idea that kangaroos will try to drown you.
So I'm glad you I'm glad you brought that up.
Yes, yes, So there's this, i don't know what you'd call it, old wives tale, internet rumor that kangaroos will lure you into water so that they can drown you, or lure a predator into water so they can drown you. The intention to like the luring part of like, you know, trying to get you to come in the water so that they can drown you.
That's not true, care don't. They're as.
Sort of pugnacious as they are. They don't have like a premeditated murder mindset where it's like I'm going to get you in the water so that I can drown you. But it is true that herbivores have a strategy where they go into water when they feel threatened. And this is not because they're planning on drowning you. This is because often predators maybe don't want to follow you into the water, Like you know, it's more difficult terrain for
a lot of predators. They're suddenly at a disadvantage because you know, they especially shorter predators. It's like now you don't have any terra firma, any ground to like be able to stabilize yourself against. So a predator might just give up at that point. And that's what the kangaroos do. But if a predator does follow them into the water, they're going to defend themselves, and for a kangaroo, this may mean drowning that predator.
Yeah, especially as bipeds. Again, they can be pretty tall. So like and I think they're the biggest predator might be dingos, especially if they're like being hunted in pasts. Yeah, So again, like it's a natural prey response to like retreat into water. Plenty of animals do it, buffalo like, but especially with kangaroos, Like they'll just go to the
deepest point. Now, if the animal happens to follow them into the water again, like you said, they'll use their forearms and try to shove them like underwater until they either retreat or they just end up drowning them. And that's why since they like had to deal with dingos for so long, they're basically what I called like dog racists. So like anything that looks like a dog, a kangaroo's
probably going to attack or attempt to drown. So like if a kangaroo like runs into water, that's kind of its last stand because again it's not actively trying to like lure people in, like because that's still bringing conflict to itself and no animal really likes that. But they do have ways to like defend themselves if they do
get followed into the water. But it does remind me of like this other myth where like people would say that, well, for the longest, people thought the komodo dragon it was the bacteria in its mouth that killed its prey, but really it's it's venom. The problem is they do have like a septic bite, and what do buffalo do if
they've been attacked, they'll like run into the water. And then when you have like when you have this unclean, unsanitary water around this open boom, that's when they can develop like a bacterial infection and that's when these buffy loo can have these slow, painful deaths, and that's how the Komodo can end up tracking them, especially with their sense of smell. They're like leather blood outs. They can smell you at almost any point in the island. It's
they're actually they're legitimately terrifying. There's no point you can go where Kamoto will eventually track you down. But I think that's where the whole bacteria thing came from. But like most prey animals have like an inclination to like get into the water since most mammals have just the natural ability to swim. So yeah, they just feel safe the water. That's what they do. And uh it behelve you not to follow them in there.
Yes, yes absolutely, you know they come out of dragon put it like that.
It reminds me of the movie.
It follows just like this this very like this slow and steady predator that's like inescapable. It's just tracking you and as soon as you slow down, it's gonna get you.
It's so scary, it really is, because that's almost exactly how they operate once like they I think another thing is that people believe the komodo will bite once and then let you get away and then track you. Not really because obviously if one komodo can track you, a
whole bunch can. The thing is they have the one bite, and if you do manage to escape, they have such a developed sense of smell that they can track you wherever, to the point where people would say, like women that are in their eventual cycle are they should stay inside if they're anywhere in kimmodo country because they really can get tracked by kimmodo dragon. And I don't know how often. I imagine it isn't too often, but there have been cases of komodos like digging out human graves and eating
corpses inside. They're like apex. Yeah, so literally they can eat anything, like including each other, like to the point where young kimodos will often hide in trees where adult komodos can't get them because adult kmodos will eat baby kimodos like without hesitation. They're like truly like, uh, they're pretty much like a relic from like back when we had dinosaurs and everything, especially with like Megalaia. Megaladia was
just basically komodo dragon three times bigger. Yeah, so that's truly terrifying.
Yeah, that is.
There's it's it's how methodical they are, how thorough they are. They're like the scariest serial killer where they can find you anywhere, they have a great sense of smell, and then they're so tenacious that they have the patience to continue after Yeah.
It'll be days, days, they'll come after you.
Oh that's so scary.
Well, we're gonna take another quick break while I hyperventilate about Kimodo dragons.
But when we're when.
We get back, we're going to talk about actually one of the for me, it's one of the scariest animals, though I also love it as I yes, yes, I love them, but they terrify me in a way that I think no other animal really does. So we will talk about that right after the break. So I finally got to see Nope, it's it. I don't know, of all the horror movies, I feel like this one really scared me in a profound way that other.
Ones don't really get at. I don't know.
Maybe it's maybe it's because I love evolutionary biology so much, and there are so many references to evolutionary biology in it, and it's like it.
Like touches on my deepest, darkest fears.
Honestly, it's the realism that really got me. Especially I don't want to give away too much to anyone who hasn't watched it yet, but certain things in that movie, so the scariest scenes, those happened like in real life, especially with one of the animals we're going to talk about. Yes, yeah, in some pretty horrific like attacks, and ironically you don't even see it in the movie, but like you get you see just how catastrophic that kind of thing can be.
Yeah, absolutely, it's I mean, yeah, the whole it does touch upon and I don't think this will spoil anything, but it will. It does touch upon the sort of unconquerability of nature in certain ways where it's like we think that because we're you know, we have our human civilization and we you know, kind of have insulated ourselves a lot, we feel sort of all powerful in a way, but when it comes down to it, we are not. And that is a little bit humbling and scary to
think about. So the most terrifying animal I think, which is also an animal that I really love, and that's chimpanzees.
So they are, They're adorable, they are amazing. There are close relatives, and they you know, are highly intelligent, and they're absolutely terrifying in a way that I mean, it's like I guess it is because they're so close to being human that they're so scary, because there's a certain like with when you know, if a lion eats you, it's just being a lion, it's just trying to you know, get its next meal. But a chimpanzee, like they could be kind of sadistic in a human way, and that
is there's something very uncanny about that. So they are they they they kind of scare me not you know, like obviously I still really love them because they are they are incredible and incredible species, but they you know, in the same way that I love humanity. But humans can be the scariest things in the world to me.
That's well said. I definitely me too. I love chimpanzees. I think they're really fascinating, intelligent, complex creatures. But uh, there's a couple like there's a few misconceptions about them that I feel like people kind of like overlook. One is the whole people believe there's like this myth that they're like five to eight times stronger than any given man. It's more like one point five to two I'm stronger. The thing is they have they're just riddled with extra
fast switched muscles so they can react faster. They basically have four hands, like their legs function just the same. They're incredibly strong. They have a really powerful bite force. And number two is that chimpanzees are predators. They're not like they're not like the herbivores that a gorillas are, that are orangutan tans are. They actively hunt other animals like colonbus monkeys and colonist monkeys. Aren't small. They're like
pretty big. If you've seen them in person. Bush babies, they've been known they use spears to hunt bush babies. But yeah, and they they hunt almost the exact same way. Well not, it is the exact same way we did. Like they have drivers animals that will like the chimps that will go in and like freak the animals out
and chase, and then they have people. Yeah, they've got they have a chimp station, specifically the more experienced ones in the group that will ambush the animal and like just like cut off its cut it off its path, and once it catches it, they all like home in on it and just literally just tear it to shreds. But the part that really freaks me out about chimps they will they can like commit calculated and coordinated acts
of violence the same way humans do. Like, uh, it's rare for it to be within a troop, but that can happen where basically chimps are like people. They form alliances, they form friendships, but everything's calculated so if they feel like one ship might be a threat to it, especially in the hierarchy. Because chimps are like male dominated, they can get they can get good with some guys in
the troop and they will jump this other chimp. And that's it sounds it might sound funny the way I'm describing, that's literally what will happen. There are videos, obviously they're pretty graphic, but well of chimps just committing like acts of violence against their own, tearing them apart, and they don't just kill them. They know what's important to a chimpanzee, they know same thing with a human. They know it's important to a human. So it's almost like they draw
out like the way they torture you. And that's why with chimp attack victims, the ones that survive, that is, they all have the same like injuries. They have a disfigured face, they're missing fingers, if not entire hands, their feet. They go for genitals because they know that that's important. They know what that does, they know the implication of losing that. So they like, if you see like a rival chimp that was attacked by other chimps, it's usually
missing it's genitalia. And that's just how vicious these guys can be.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it reminds me of like human warfare, Like I'm trying to remember. I think it was some Yeah, it might have been some kind of Greek thing. I'm sure I'm getting getting it wrong, but there was something where there is some ancient war and basically they cut off the enemies genitals to like prove that they had, you know, defeated this enemy. And it's yeah, I mean I think that you're exactly right that it's the ability for these animals to kind of calculate things that is
so unsettling. Like they, like you said, they can form these alliances, so mail chimps are arranged in this dominance hierarchy, with dominant males sometimes violently enforcing their authority, but sometimes the weaker males will form these alliances and together they can take down a more dominant chimpanzee that otherwise they would not be able to take down. And so they can like basically form a coalition, decide to either murder
or intimidate another chimpanzee and enact that plan. But they're also like kind of fickle, so they can backstab each other, so if a better opportunity arises, they can totally turn on each other. I mean, like, I'm sure the drama that have weppens in a chimpanzee troop is something that could be put on you know, HBO. It can get very very messy, messy drama and also very violent drama. You know, they are they are highly social, so they're
not constantly attacking each other. There can be harmony, There can be you know, like they like to groom each other to sort of affirm social bonds. But you know, they can be quite violent, and they can even be violent within the same group.
The worst violence is like out.
Of outside of their own group. There can be these really really vicious. I mean there it's basically wars like wars with other groups over territory, just like humans do. So I would say it's like, you know, I don't think chimpanzees are evil, but they are unnervingly like humans, you know, they are, so they're they're that kind of the capacity for violence and their motivations for it's similar
to humans. Although I'd say humans we did evolve to become more gentle, to become more cooperative, and so that is that's good news for us that we are not quite so grumpy, I would say, as chimpanzees are, which which is good, which is probably one of the reasons that we have been so successful. Is that greater cooperation and more capacity for being gentle and less being less prone to fly into a rage than chimpanzees are.
Yeah, I think that's probably the most eerie thing about them, is just that they share ninety percent of their DNA with humans and you can see it. And I don't know if they will, like like I said, they'll commit these coordinated attacks against other troops that if you see, if they you see it happen like they walk in single file lines and once they leave their territory, they go completely silent. Every once in a while they'll stop and just listen for other chimps and try to gauge
how many other chimps are in this rival group. And once the leader like says, gives the go ahead, they just go an attack. They'll take like sticks and like
bang them against the base of trees. They'll scream and shall try to make themselves seem like there's more of them than there actually are, and they will specifically go after the children, and like it can get incredibly like grizzly, to the point where they will tear apart like infant chimpanzees and then just cannibalize them and just share them
with the rest of the troopers. That part might not be too human or no, well humans now, like they have theories about cavemen and what their diets consisted of. I don't know if we can talk about that here, but it's you'll see it. But like, yeah, that's the whole thing with chimps. And the thing is chimps like humans, they have different personalities. They're not all like raising psychopaths, but like they are humans, but without the social construct,
there is no jail. There is no, like RELI, there's just survival, yeah, and act and just acting in your best interest, like not selfishness. It has like a negative connotation, but like in this you have to be selfish like in the wild. And that's what you see with chimps and the way they'll form these alliances, the way they can backstab each other, the way they can decide they don't like another chimpanzee. Like there was one one of the worst like chimp attacks that I've like seen, Like
it was on YouTube. It got like taken down a while ago, but it was just it was it was in a within the truth too. There was this one chimpanzee who just seemed to have the wrong like type of personality. He was like very outgoing, very ambitious, but he also wasn't like it's weird to say people person but he wasn't great at forming alliances with the other chimps. But he was also acting like he was like higher
up than he really should have been. They didn't like that, and one day, maybe like ten to fifteen of them just converged on him and beat him down to the point where one of the older like higher ranking mails stepped in and like stopped it, but by the time they did, he was like mortally wounded. It was clear he wasn't welcome in the troop, and like two days later researchers found his body. Yes, that's not super like common within the troop, but like chimpan chimp homicide is
like it's a thing and it's really it's ugly. Yeah, when it happens to humans, you see just how strong and a motivated chimp can't be.
Yeah, that is yeah, it's I think so wild chimps don't tend to attack humans. They are pretty smart in terms of avoiding humans because we know we are bad news.
But captive chimps are the ones who are the most dangerous, even though like it's it's ironic, right because it's like, if we've raised a chimpanzee and like quote unquote tamed it, it seems like it'd be safer than a wild chimpanzee, but it's not because it's actually bolder because it's not afraid of humans, and it also has more opportunity to attack humans. So captive chimpanzees are actually quite a bit more dangerous than a wild chimpanzee because a wild chimpanzee
is probably just gonna like run away from you. It's not necessarily going to want to. I mean, they chimp attacks do happen in the wild, but they generally want to avoid people if they can, if they feel that they can. But yeah, these scariest attacks have been from pet chimpanzees. And I say pet in sort of the loosest possible version of the term. I do not think that pretty much any primate really can be kept as
a pet. Like, yeah, I mean, strictly speaking, people do it, but it's not you know, they are not domesticated animals. Their lives with a human aren't going to be fulfilling for them. And it is especially for something like a chimpanzee that's very smart, has a lot of social needs, and is very very strong. That's like a recipe for disaster. And you mentioned something earlier that I think is really interesting,
so that chimpanzees. No, they're not like five times as strong as a human, but they are pound four pounds stronger than us, and they're about one and a half times stronger than us, even though they're only like they're maybe about five feet tall one hundred and fifty centimeters tall, maybe ninety to one hundred and fifty pounds. They're not
that huge. But you mentioned those those fast twitch muscle fibers, so those are the more powerful muscle fibers, but they fatigue more quickly, so they are able to kind of go into this like berserker mode, whereas humans don't have as much density of these fast which muscle fibers. Ours are actually a little better for endurance, which has actually suited us really well. It's been very successful for humans.
But yeah, we don't have as much of that like sort of instant access to this like incredible strength that chimpanzees do. So so yeah, when if it's a chimpanzee versus a human, often the chimpanzee will come on top, and it.
Is it is very scary, like they are.
Capable of a lot of damage, and yeah, it's you know, like like you mentioned, I think when these famous cases of chimpanzees, like they can you know, destroy your entire face, amputate your hands, it is it's very it's upsetting, and I think it is it is a kind of harrowing reminder that these are not pets. These are not fun goofy little like trainable you know, circus pets that we can just have and feel this sort of entitlement over.
Yeah, I feel like that's something people forget a lot. Like they are predators, Like owning a chimp is really no different from owning like a grizzly bear, right, it is an incredibly intelligent predator that cannot be tamed. And I think the most famous chimp attack evolve was definitely what happened with Charlotte Nashvill's Travis back in two thousand and nine. People that don't know, there was this lady
Sandra Na Sandra Herold. She had a chimpanzee, Travis, as she raised as a baby, just she raised him as a human, taught him. He knew how to drive cars, he would drink out of wine glasses, he would drink actual wine. Actually it's part of the family. But the thing with chimps is they are in terms of strength, they are about they might be the same or slightly inferior to humans up until about five years old. Once they start to hit like puberty, especially the males, that's
when things change. They become a whole lot stronger. Their attitude changes because around that time they'd probably be fighting for like their place in a hierarchy, in a troop, that's when they're like that's when their sexual maturity hits. So with Travis, he was raised around humans his entire life, never saw another him, so he's not engaging in any of those like natural instincts that he still has. He obviously there's no female chip for Travis. And eventually, unfortunately Sandra,
his owner's husband, passed away. Uh he was affected by that. Travis, he exhibited signs that he was like depressed and like breathing. But Sandra was also depressed and she couldn't really take care of Travis the way that she was before. Also, he had some incidents outside where people believe it wasn't safe for him to really be outside, although since he was around and everyone was familiar with him, nobody thought to have him taken away. So now he was confined
to the house. After seeing after being allowed to be outside, he was confined into the house. He was well overweight eventually that he was put on Xanax to deal with like his uh yeah, emotional issues that he had. It was it was a matter of time and like that, like he was going to it was gonna happen eventually, and unfortunately it happened with with Charlotte Nash and like the worst possible way. But like with chimps, they have
two ways of really hurting you. One is like, well, I guess three, But so one would be just bludgeting you with their arms and again there's so much stronger than people. So like it. It feels like imagine somebody hitting you full force, like not holding back at all with their forearm or their elbows or like kicking you, and it's like multiply because this chimp might actually be trying to kill you. Two is that they'll bite, bite
at the face. They have powerful Again, they're predators, they're not just herbivores, so they have teeth designed to like tear through flesh and they'll do that. They go for the face because they know that's at a really conflict damage. Sometimes they'll go out of their way to goug your eyes out. And then three would be they have hands and they'll just tear at you. Yeah, with chimps, it's like like you said, you made a good point that chimps they have all the muscles, fast switch muscles, but
they're not really built for endurance. You can see that the differences and how we hunt. We were long distance runners, so we would just chase prey and no matter how far it would run, eventually we will catch up. It would get exhausted, and then we would hunt them. Chimps focus all their energy into one like explosive like charge
to like catch their their prey off guard. So with chimps, a lot of times they'll attack you and then kind of just rest a little bit while you're there, and then especially if it's if it's a group attack, one chip will like make this a long call and they'll
like kind of just initiate it all over again. Like these chip attacks can if it's not put down, it could last a very long time where it's not killing you, but it's like slowly chipping away, taking time to like it's it's just it's truly awful, and it's like, yeah, it's it's it's never pretty when the chimp's involved, and for the chimp, it's like a miserable way to live,
you know. If there's something that intelligent, like that's another conversation you can have about whether chimps really can be in captivities an animal that intelligent, that has a level of self awareness, and the fact that it's like behind a cage or like it lives a certain way and it sees people in racts with people, but it's like from behind the glass, it's they're probably there's probably a lot to going gone, and it's head to the point
where like now that they're they're actively like trying to act out or they're engaging in like delicious like acts, because that's kind of what boredom can do. That's why, like animals in captivity are much more dangerous than ones in the wild, like orcas are the best example, while dominant apex predator like of the world, like not just the ocean of the world never killed a human in the wild, multiple like kills like captivity. Same thing with tigers,
most tiger deaths these days. Well I guess that might not be true, but like there's a high density of tigers in America. I think there's more tigers in America than in the rest of the world, like combined. That's where like most of the occur, especially in me.
Isn't it like more captive it really is than they exist in the wild, Yeah, I mean it is.
I think it's also I think that's part of the reason.
I mean that I feel that it's it's not just fear when it comes to chimpanzees. There's something deeply unsettling about it. And I think it's the empathy that I feel for them, because you know, they have, like animals have minds, chimpanzees have a very very intelligent mind, and so they can have, you know, mental health needs, and if those mental health needs aren't met, they can suffer mentally. And then but on top of that, they don't have
the same moral reasoning that humans have. And so a chimpanzee who is suffering mentally, like I think it sounds like Travis was, you know, they can act in a way that is, you know, basically an expression of their suffering or their anger or whatever. But they don't necessarily understand exactly what they're doing, So they don't necessarily have the moral reasoning of thinking like, oh, I'm you know, I'm gonna like do something bad to this person or something.
I don't necessarily you know, we don't know how Obviously we can't step into the consciousness of a chimpanzee, so we don't know exactly what they're thinking. But I don't think that they have the same meta cognition that a human would.
And so there's something like I don't know.
I mean, I can't say anymore without spoiling the movie.
Nope, but I would.
Say, if you have a capacity for watching horror movies and this idea of you know, of having empathy for an animal that's also kind of scary, like, you should definitely watch the movie.
But it's yeah, it is.
I think it's such a it's such an important thing to respect animals in terms of not just in terms of how they can be dangerous towards us, but also in terms of like their emotional needs, their emotional state, and that an animal who does something that's terrifying to us, like mauling person, like well, let's find out why they did that, not blaming the person who was mald necessarily.
But there is a problem I think when we when we try to, when we have sort of the hubris to think that we can incorporate wild animals neatly into our human lifestyles, that I think we need to kind
of kind of face and realize that it's not. A wild animal is intelligent, they have a mind, they have emotions, but they aren't necessarily they're not you know, little furry humans that we can like, you know, bring into our society and then like have you know, have them perform tricks for us and you know, have as a form of entertainment.
Yeah. I really think it just goes back to people just placing human traits on animals, and a lot of times people will do that to kind of rationalize exploiting them, whether it's exploiting them as a house pet that has no business being there, or in Travis's case, he was used in commercials, TV shows things like that. These animals
don't really have the understanding that you do. So like if an animal's upset and like you're reacting in a certain way, it's not going to rationalize that, Okay, it's you know what I mean. So, like that's how these attacks can happen. So a big example that I'd like to use. Are you familiar with Grizzly Man?
Yes, yes, I am Timothy Treadwell.
Yeah. So basically the important thing is he wasn't like a zoologist or a biologist or anything. I think he was like a failed actor or something. He went down like a bad path. One of his friends introduced him
to the landscape of I believe it was Alaska. He went to Alaska and he witnessed brown bears and it was kind of like this epiphany that he had that he wanted to study these bears, which is great, but the way he went about it, he would for I think it was about thirteen years that he would just go camp out in the Alaska wilderness. He would get really close to these bears and he claimed to like have their trust, that they had understanding. And again, you
can't really you can't tame a predator. You never you never can. But he got away with it for so long that people thought there was some truth to like what he was doing. And I will give him credit for he was he actively tried to be an advocate for these bears, trying to have people see them as other than like killing machines. But eventually that's kind of that went, like he went so far in that direction and he kind of like did a three sixty and then like kind of like h made it worse for them.
So basically like he started getting cocky with these bears. He was getting really close to bear cubs, really close to them around I think that's what when it happened. So like bears obviously they have to hibernate, so they have to they have to basically go on all They pretty much both for the most part. They both were
They taken as many calories as possible. Obviously resources the competition for resources gets really intense, so that's like the worst time to be around, like in bear territory, especially if it's around males. So he went around that time, right the maybe two to three months before hibernation where they're at their most like irritable, when people told him
not to. Not only that, like, but he also he placed his tent around a well known bear trail to the point where if a bear wanted to access, like it was like a stream where they can get sim and it would have to walk right past his tent. I think he even brought his girlfriend with him, and she was like afraid of it. He's been he had been doing it for like thirteen years. I guess she trusted him, so it was I remember the day, it
was October fifth. I think he sent like either a message or call whatever he said to a friend talking about the landscape. He was like, yeah, the bears are great. They're acting a little bit weird, but I'm gonna stay here anyway. This is amazing. The very next day they found their bodies half eaten. And worst part was right when the attack started, a camera was rolling, the lens
was on. You can still hear it, so like there was this six minute audio of this man being eaten alive by a grizzly bear that I can't remember if it was a bear that he actually knew, if it was just some friend.
I think it was.
I think it was a bear he was not as familiar with, but he still tried to approach it, which was enough yet another sort of mistake he made, among many, Yeah.
Among them exactly, And yeah, a six minute audio of him just slowly because that's the thing with bears, like big cats still kill their prey, usually take it somewhere where they don't have to worry about competition from other predators. Animals like bears, like wild dogs, hyenas, they just tear into you, like whether you're alive or not. And that's what happened. Like the bear incapacitated him and just ate him, and his girl was there. She's screaming, So what happens next?
The bear comes after her? Yeah, and audio never was released. People say they've heard it, they've heard reenactments. Reenactment, yes, yeah.
Because I think didn't.
Wasn't it very Herzog who like listened to the audio and decided because like he was listening to it for the family to try to determine whether they should hear it or not, and he was like, nobody should hear this. It's it's like this would be too traumatizing. So it's never been Thankfully, you know, it's never been released. I think that's that's a merciful thing for the family not
to not to have that out there. But god, yeah, it's I I remember when I read about that, I had nightmares that I was like listening to the audio, but of course it doesn't exist, but the imagination can can fill in the blanks in a very terrifying way.
I'm not sure if this was true, but I heard her report saying that he were Canta saying that he kind of wished that he had released it just to like have people understand just what theirs are capable of, because I feel like people still haven't really learned. But ultimately, like, and this is where I kind of have to take back the credit I gave him. He said he tried to be an ad for these bears. All he did was like he got himself like killed by a bear. And what happens to the bear that they had to
hunt the bear down kill it. And now people are hearing about this horrific bear.
A type that yeah, yeah, yeah, because once a bear like kills a human, they it's like, well, you the bear can't see humans as a source of food and go and hunt someone else down, so then they have to go and euthanize it. And it's I mean, it's just it's bad, bad news all around. I mean, it's such a horrifying thing to happen to anyone. But yeah,
I mean, it's just we we. I think it is this like sense of we're so insulated as humans because we've protected ourselves with our society, with with all of our sort of innovations and our intelligence that you know. I think that sometimes that can lend itself to this idea that we are not prey anymore. We're not we're not in danger. You know, we're not you know, nothing could view us as prey, right because we're humans. We're like on top of the food chain, and that is not not true at all.
Yeah, And whether it's with Travis or the bear, or with Sigfried and Roy and their tiger Montok or it's just there's like a level of arrogance that some people can get where they feel like they have complete control over this wild animal. And really it's like we are where we are at because of intelligence. Mostly because of intelligence.
There's obviously physical attributes that we have, like being able to run for a really long period of time, being able to I think we might be one of the no we are We can throw things with accuracy that other animals don't have, just on like us having thumbs and hands and the way our shoulders are placed. But ultimately, like one on one, we can't do anything with these predators, right, especially something like a bear or a tiger or a chimpanzee, things that hunt for a living. Yeah, you know, so
there's like it. You can raise them as a baby, you can try to like you they're not human though, And all it takes is like one moment of them referring back to their predatory instincts. It doesn't even have to be a predator, but just that's when like things can happen, and ultimately that animal gets put down because of.
It exactly, and our language doesn't align with them. Like for chimps, like with humans, eye contact and smiling is a nice thing. It's you know, showing the other person like, hey, I'm friendly, how's it going. If you do that to a chimp, you're basically telling it like hey, you know, like hum man like, and it's like a confrontation. It's like eye contact and showing your teeth is very confrontational
for a chimpanzee. So like, you can't walk up to a chimpanzee act like a human and have it understand what you're trying to say, what your body language means, because it can mean something very different. And I think in cases where we successfully have pets, like with dogs and cats, these are cases, I mean, especially for dogs, we have selected over thousands and thousands of years and co evolved with them to the point where our styles
of communication can interlock. So like we can communicate with a dog when we see a dog. We although sometimes people can mistake body language of dogs, for sure, a lot of the dog's body language is readable by us, and they can actually read our body language fairly well. They can read our facial expressions our intonation. So it's like, this is why dogs and also cats, you know, are quite good pets, whereas something like a chimpanzee, a grizzly bear,
a kangaroo. These, you know, they can't really you know, they can only be tamed inas much. They can be habituated to humans, but they can't really be tamed.
They can't. They are not pets.
And you know, we can't make them into pets unless we had some kind of like you know again, tried to selectively breed them over thousands and thousands of years, which I don't see the point in doing that either.
Yeah. My favorite line in the entire movie no spoiler, but they says something about you can't tame a predator. The best you can do is enter an agreement with one, right, And I think that's something that a lot of people forget. Yeah, and that's when these incidents happened.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, man. Yeah, I think it's it is such a good movie for evolutionary biologists, but it's also such nightmare fuel because like all of it, it's just because they did their research for that movie, I can really tell. So it's yeah, it's it's very it's very good. But because they were so thorough with the research and it is so realistic that is it's it makes it.
Quite scary, definitely.
So before we go at the end of every episode, I like to play a little game called Guess Who's Squawking? It's a mystery animal sound game. Every week I play a mystery animal found now it's called gets who squawking? But it can be any animal in the world, not necessarily a bird, any animal. Uh and uh, you the listener and you the guests trying to guess who is squalking'?
So uh.
Last week's hint was there's nothing deadly or sinful about this cutie.
Uh.
And this is a sound I honestly had no idea this is what this animal sounded.
Like until I googled it. So here it is. Can you guess who's.
Making that sound? Is it a wh I get hints?
Well, the hint is there's nothing deadly or sinful about this cutie.
Do you need any any more?
Like?
You can ask me a question and I can answer.
Is it a herbivore? It is, yes, not domesticated?
Is it now?
Can I hear it again? Yes?
You can just slot Yeah, it is good job you are. You are like an encyclopedia for animal knowledge, so I'm not surprised that you got this.
But yes, I also wondering where I heard that from. There's compilations of like baby's slow often. Yeah, it's like free serotonin. I love it. I recommended anyone watching yourself.
It is I an ear medicine for the soul. It's wonderful. Yes, I had no idea this is what they sounded like until I just added curiosity, googled, like, hey, what does slaws sound like? These are baby two toed sloths. They are Slavs found in Central and South America. I don't
believe the adults make these sounds. I think this is just the babies because they are bleeding for their mothers, so they spend their first nine months of lives constantly attached to their mothers, and so when they're at like a rescue rehabilitation animal center, they will often be given teddy bears so they have something to hold onto to
comfort them, which is really adorable. Also a little sad, but yes, they will make this bleating noise until somebody picks them up or they get to cuddle a teddy bear which is ador and makes me want to cry.
And that is your wholesome fact for the week.
After this, after this show where we talked about animals eating your face, adorable baby sloth say it. There you go, the shot and then the chaser. Congratulations to Joey P, Lily H, and Grant W the three fastest to correctly guess sloth, although maybe I should have rewarded the three slowest guessers given that you know to sloth anyway, make a suggestion.
Next one should be like, ask them play what they sound like and then see if they can guess, because if they've never heard it before, they will never in a million years guess.
That the the hauntingly angry banshee screaming of a koala. Yes, they are, they are, They're I understand why people like why Australians have the drop bear mythos just based on uh when koalas are a screen me angrily.
I was gonna say, there's like one hundred different types of cryptids in Australia and I'm so sure half of them originated from koalis.
Loud it's qualas, Yeah, absolutely, It's like how probably all the cryptids in the US are either sand hill cranes or coyotes with mange, and that's it, like all your captives.
I was disappointed. I remember as like, in like seventh grade, I saw that video that went viral at the well, I guess at the time of like that chuop ofcabre. Then I revisited it because I randomly just was curious about it ten years later, and I was like, oh wait, it's a coyote.
Coyote with mange. It's always a coyote with maine.
Pretty anti climactic.
Yeah.
Also, sometimes listeners send me in pictures of like is this, like what species is this? Like I found this and it looks like some kind of you know, novel species in North America, and it's like it's either coyote with mange, maybe a fox with mange. When an animal gets mange and it messes up their fur, it can make them like almost unrecognizable and look very very creepy. But unfortunately it's just, you know, just a sick animal. It's nothing scary or creepy. It's just sad. But uh onto this
week's mister animal sound. The hint is they sound like drunks on land and alien spaceships. In the sea, but they're always chill.
Mm hmmmmmm mm hmmm. That's them on land.
So now this is them under the water.
I have actually stopt on this one. So they're amphibious.
Then, yes, they spend time both on the land and under the water. Now they are mammals. Yes, so that's another free.
Hint, because the obvious one would be whales. But then you said on land, so huh interesting. Uh, Okay, it's sometimes a SELC line. I'm gonna see.
Oh is it it is?
You are absolutely correct?
Okay, okay, okay, because that's okay, I see.
Yes, So you'll the listeners out there, you'll have heard a cute little duck quack over what mama du said. But he did guess it correctly, and you'll have a chance to guess it. If you think you know the answer, you can write to me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com. But I am very very impressed by your animal sound guessing abilities. I don't think I could have done that, thank you.
I took a couple of guesses and a lot of hints, but yeah, definitely definitely an interesting one, Dick. You would have to hear it before to like guess that, like I would not have been able to guess. That's just blind.
Yeah, no, no, I And like I I had a listener from I think as far as Jaber who came on and recommended this animal noise as one that is is quite strange, very otherworldly. It sounds like underwater. They sound like aliens, like alien spaceships. It's it's kind of haunting in a way.
It definitely is. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this part, so I guess you could like leep this out. But it's actually they use that to like find like their little like breathing holes because they can like freeze. Oh maybe I should. Well, basically they use them to find breathing holes that they might not have access to because of where they live. So it's like
I can't describe it further without giving it away. You just have to go see it on a next show and then YouTube it because it is free.
Yes, I mean, I think this is a hard enough sound that getting some more hints is definitely fair.
But yes, it is.
It's it's it's such an unexpected sound. Also, I'll say, for such a cute animal where it sounds like there's a there's there's a haunted ocean, but then you see them, it's like, Oh, you're just a little cutie, aren't you. Yeah, well, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate having you on. You are an incredible font of animal wisdom.
Uh and I.
Think people, if you like this podcast, you will definitely like Mamad's TikTok. He's also got a book out called one Hundred Animals that King End You, So if you liked the topic of this episode, you will definitely like that book. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find you?
They can find me on TikTok dot MGI underscore ninety seven. They can find me on Instagram at the exact same use your name. Also have a YouTube channel, realizing not a lot of people know that, or at least not as many people that know me from TikTok or Instagram, But I do have a YouTube channel where I make longer flow content as yourble geographic and yeah, those are that's pretty much the big three TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Yeah,
thanks so much for reaching out to me. By the way, this is also stoked to me, like invide it here.
I'm so happy to have you on this. This is wonderful. This is so fun, and thanks you guys for listening to the show. If you're enjoying it, do leave a rating or review. I read all the reviews. I appreciate all the ratings and as always, appreciate you guys listening. And yeah, if you think you know this week's mystery animal sound or you have any questions, you can write to meet at Creature Feature.
Pod at gmail dot com.
I'm also on Twitter at Creature feet Pod. That's feat not fee ten Pad is something very different and thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song XO Lumina. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more shows like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hey gus, what wherever you listened to your favorite shows?
See you next Wednesday.