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 glam rock animals. Animals who are glamorous and glitzy and on occasion also tough as a rock. From the shiny and splendiferous scale worms of the deep to scuba diving lizards, these animals all have one thing in common. They are one hundred percent glam Discover This Morris answer to the angel question
was that Rainbowfish children's Book of Body Horror. Joining me today is friend of the pod podcast person frequent voice on Fake Doctor's Real Friends, DJ and twitch Man Dan L. Goodman.
Hi, how's it going good?
Do you mind if I call you Twitchman?
Twitch Man? That is perfect? Twitch Man is excellent. I'm honored by the title.
Yeah, yeah, I'm a pod woman. I feel like I missed the times where it's like like Blacksmith or you know, you know what I mean, Like when we have these these names like Lamplighter or they you know, like like we have podcaster, but like what about Podsmith.
I was just thinking, how fun Podsmith would be psmith.
Yeah, it sounds like real work, which it's not.
I go to the kilns of pro tools and craft strong by hand.
Had handblown podcast technically true because you know, you breathe out with your mouth as you make mouth sounds. Anyways, we are talking about glam rock animals, animals who are glamorous, incredible looking. The rock stars of the natural Kingdom and their glitzy and glamorous appearance have probably red reasons for it, actual survival reasons, which we will discuss. What do you think of when you think of glam rock in general?
Yeah, I mean, you know, there was definitely I'll tell you a very short story. The very first vintage T shirt that I ever got at this place on Lobra I called jet Rag was an old Poison T shirt, a Poison Tour T shirt, and on the back I think it said rock the fuck Out. And my mom didn't see that at the time, so she let me buy this shirt that said fuck on it, and I
was like, wow. So I think of that shirt, but I think of hair, I think of Neon, I think of Sparkles, I think of like yeah, so I think of a lot of you know, we're talking wall of sound. We're talking big, So I thought's that's what I think of.
I think everything big, hair, big, eyeliner big, yes, you know, mega big, the hole in the ozone from the Hairspray big.
I'm perfect, yes, but yeah.
So the first animal we're going to talk about is the Elvis war which has is named after the King of rock Elvis, because it is iridescent and glitzy and glamorous and also kind of an asshole.
Oh really, yeah, I mean it's not I don't think.
I don't think they named it after Elvis because it's an asshole. But I think it's fits right because he was kind of an ass wasn't he.
That is my understanding.
Yes, you know, I'm look, I'm keeping it real. I'm not saying Elvis. It's not cool to like Elvis, but you know, yeah he had he had a big sound, but also a big ego.
That is what I hear. Is my understanding as well.
Shout out to listener Vincent Jorgensen for this idea that I don't know why I have not talked about these on the show before, because they are incredible. They have this rainbow and purple shimmer. Now Daniel, I want you to look at this, this little little cutie.
I have it pulled up right here, and this is a shimmery, a shimmery looking little worm. How big is this worm there?
You know, I'd say about like palm sized.
Oh yeah, that's that's big.
I guess, so not that big.
Well, okay, fair fair play, but this is and this is truly an error on my part. But looking at this image just on the just on the raw, just like stark black of it, it almost felt like a slide. I was ready to be looking at like a microscopic worm here. I was ready for you to say, yeah, oh, you could fit about a thousand on your hand right now.
I'd be like, you know, not not not super huge. But yeah, they are definitely like not. They are not microscopic. They can see them with the naked eye. Hold them in your hand, you know, let them crawl all over you.
I would get the I would get the willies. I believe it is the willies. I'd get the willies very quickly.
I call it. Call it the Jimmy skin. But yeah, I mean that.
Works too, that's very funny.
But yeah, so they are absolutely beautiful. They look like holographic nail polish or you know, the most the glittery, most glittery glam that you can find. They were discovered by a team of researchers at Script's Institute of Oceanography at UCSD. Shout out to my dad who works at Scripts Institute of Oceanography. He's actually in the ocean Physics group, so they deal with the physics of waves, not necessarily the critters, but yeah, you know.
Got it.
Good, good job, guys. Can't wait to see y'all for a beer and I'll say, hey, good work on that worm.
You know, good, good work on that worm.
Good good warming you guys.
Oh you got me. I'm looking at this worm also, and it reminds me. You remember the book The Rainbow Fish.
Yes, yes, oh oh man, I love that book as a kid.
Just very similar color scheme of just like that, you know, super iridescent glowy but also like some solid color but also looks like there's just like super flex of rainbow everywhere. Yeah, just trying to paint as as vivid stone a picture as I possibly can of this world. I'm like cat I right now, you know, man, it's like that book The Rainbow fish.
Yeah, because it's like they had this like iridescent glittery scales on this fish. It was so fun as a kid because you could like touch it and like feel like embossed are fun. Yes, it was also I feel kind of sorry for the rainbow fish because it was like he's got all these rainbow scales on him, right, and like his fish friends who don't have those are jealous.
So he it's a book about sharing, like you share this with others and generally speak, I'm very pro sharing, you know, pro sharing sure, yeah, or resources with others. But it's part of his body.
So yeah, it's different, a little.
Strange, right of a weird message. It's like if you are hanging out with friends and you're like, oh, I really like your hair, and you're like you do it and then you just like cut off a big trip here you go rip it off.
And that's the thing. And that's the thing with kids that are unpredictable. It's like they'll take the note to the letter. So it's like, I know the story of the room. It's about sharing. They're like, okay, so I like rip off my skin for my friends, like no, no, no, no, no, no no, no, no, not quite that.
Well, you know, that is a horrible kindergarten scene that I do not want to see. But so yeah, these do look these do look like the rainbow fish. They are They are in fact a worm, I know, like sometimes we call things worms, but they aren't really, but they are. They are warm. They're actually a type of scale worm, uh and which is actually related to very distantly related to earthworms, a little more closely related to
bristle worms. You may know some bristle worms, like there is We've talked about some of them on the show, like the bobbit worm. This horrifying tremors. Like did I were you on the show and I.
Talked about the bottom I think I was, Wow, I love it.
I love how somehow that worked out. But I did not plan for that.
I was gonna say, I feel like we talked about like a I remember you described something as a tremor's like worm, and I was like, wait a minute.
Well I'm flattered either way, but like if it was if it's a worm that lives under the sand at the bottom of the sea, it lunges out of the sand and will grab onto an unsuspecting fish and pull them back down, sort of like a tremor's worm or like a sarlac. But it's also very shiny and iridescent. Now it's it's not super closely related to this one, but fairly it's it's a bristleworm. So they they are, you know, so scale. But this the Elvis, it's actually
called p elvis. I gotta gotta have it sound scientific.
I was gonna say it's got sound though, sound good. That's so funny.
But yeah, they did name it that because of its sort of glittery, glamorous look that they thought looked flashy like Elvis. And so here's what it looks like. So it's not it doesn't actually look super like a worm like you think of an earthworm. It has a series of interlocking scales on its back that are shiny like that. It's like it looks like plate armor, and it's kind of flat, very shiny and eardescent. And underneath it it has these gold shiny bristles jutting out of it that
you might mistake for legs, but aren't actually legs. They're just these these bristles. And at its head it has these things that look a little bit like pincers. They're actually not quite pincers. They're called pelps. So pelps are these appendages at the heads near the mouths of arthropods. You can see them in spiders and insects as well, So those are its pelps. And so yeah, it's it's kind of but it's it's rather flat looking and it's kind of oval shaped and so like you know, it's
kind of alien and bizarre looking. But it gets way weirder than what you can just see at a glance.
So being on this show, you know, I will say I wasn't entirely surprised by that potential, but like I'm excited, please go on. I had to drop when you said that. I was like, you know, I had a feeling you were gonna say, yeah.
Well, you know, there's always something hidden underneath the surface for these animals. So like these are found in the deep sea near like hydrothermic vents, as well as on the carcasses of fallen sea creatures, including whales. So when whales die, it's certainly sad for the whales, but it's a great boon for all of these underwater arthropods, these deep sea creatures that will feed on the whale's carcass, and it can feed a hell of a lot of animals in life.
I have a question, isn't there a term for like the kind of like minor or like micro ecosystem created by a whale carcass? Am I thinking, am, I could be I may, I may just be this. I could be pulling this all the way out of my ass right here. But I felt like there was some word for like the micro ecosystem created ecro micro ecosystem created by a dead whale in the ocean, because like, yeah, you're right, feel that.
I feel that, I feel like there is I mean, I thought it had a specific I mean I think it's called like whale fall action whale fall.
I think that's it. Yeah, I think you're right. Whale fall. That's it. You're right, whale fall. That's it. Nice. Yeah that was the whale fall.
Well, thank you for reminding me that that term exists. It is a cool like whale fall. Yeah, so, I mean it's pretty straightforward. I guess it's what a whale falls to, but yeah, it is. It's something where there's something kind of grim and ghoulish about it, seeing this decaying whale but it's also incredible how much life that can support. It's kind of like when a tree falls, a huge tree falls in the forest. There's something sad about that, right, this ancient tree falling and decaying, But
then that tree feeds so many animals. In fact, an animal we're gonna talk about later on the show. A lot of these glamorous animals like to feed on dead things, but hey, look, you know it's a living so they will feed on things like whale carcasses. I know that the research team that collected some of these specimens actually found them on a whale carcass, so that must have been a fun treat. You're like zooming around looking at this whale carcass all it's all strange and kind of creepy.
And then you see this like glitterus glamorous little scale where I'm going like, hello, I'm here, and here I am eating a dead whale. I don't know how Elvi sounds.
You know, just like you, I was transported, you know what I'm saying?
Dead? Who that's a little better.
Okay words, But like I said, like Elvis, not only in appearance, but a little bit assholely.
They like to bite each other when they're not biting on some delicious whale fall carcass. So they that is one of the reasons that they have these scales is for protections. Protection not only from other animals and predator, but from their.
Competition literally from each other.
Yeah, from each other, and when they bite each other. It's fascinating. So I want you to, before I say anything else, just take a look at that picture that I've provided for you.
Yeah, I mean, I'm horrified. Obviously, this is a terrifying picture of a dean. I'm seeing a demon of the suit with it's almost like I want to say, I mean, okay, okay, it looks like a faceless worm with a with a like a bird's beak coming out of the center, but it's surrounded by like a statue of liberty of like it's just outward appendages, Like I know they're not horns, but it looks like a wreath of horns sticking out around a bird's mouth coming out of an eyeless worm. Demon.
That's about right. They actually have a proboscis that they can avert. So a proboscis is basically like a fleshy probe. It can mean like a nose. It can mean a variety of different things, but it's basically a flesh probe, which is flesh probe. It's not really that's not really a gl rock name is.
It could be a song though, could be a song.
I feel like this show is good at producing metal names more than glen Rock names like flush probe. So they can evert it, which means basically like pushing it out from inside of them. And then in this proboscis, what you're seeing is a set of jaws, set of sharp jaws that they can use to snap at their food source like a dead whale, or each other if they if they're feeling feisty. Okay, so just you know, like in Aliens, like how the alien shoots out a
smaller alien tongue with the set of jaws. It's just like that. It's like boop, I'm gonna snap you up. Another similar feature of the of the bob At Warmer. They can just basically shoot out a thing and like snap up. So do check out this video. I'm also including all this in the show notes as always, But there is a cool video of them.
Okay, oh there they are, Oh well, yeah, they are pretty their sizable. Oh yeah, you'd see them. They're they're real. Oh oh, you just stuck his tongue out one of the other ones, gonna do it, I bet Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, he's so patient. Ooh goodness, he got a grip.
Mm hmmm.
Whoa.
In fact, their fights can be so violent that they can rip the scales off of each other. So a pretty like dark reboot of The Rainbow Fish where it's just violently ripping off each other's scales.
Yeah, exactly, my scale, No, my scale.
But yeah, that thing that looks like a tongue like it's going like boop, that's actually it's proboscis. And it has that gnarly set of jaws in the center of it that it's using to bite that other elvis worm.
That is a lot. Yeah, that's a lot right there. Oh my gosh.
I bet you're wondering why they're so iridescent and shiny and beautiful.
That's that's I mean, that's you know, that's on the list of questions mostly I'm I I.
Wonder it too, but I don't know, and nobody knows. Isn't that fun When I'm just like, hey, you wonder this thing. Sorry, nobody knows.
It's literally don't you wish you could just ask them, like, Hey.
What's up? Why are you guys so angry all the time? What's with that weird like mouth boop thing that you do? Yeah? I mean, so they are actually blind. There's no reason for them to need this aridescence for like conspecific communication, So like it's probably not for sexual selection or anything like that because they can't see it. Uh, It's possible it's for some some way of crypsis, I suppose. Seems unlikely.
It seems like it would just make them stick out. However, in these deep sea and ronments, you never know, Like how that I wonder, like maybe it interacts strangely with bioluminescence. That's a possible thing, Like the refraction of bioluminescence may have some advantage. My suspicion is that it actually serves no purpose the actual visual of it. Rather, it's just
a byproduct of forming these tough scales. So like having these very tough maybe crystalline structures in its scales, the nature of having them really tough at this molecular level also affects like how light is refracted off of the surface of these scales, so that would be sort of, my guess, is just a byproduct of making sure that these scales are really tough. Yes, okay, I mean, like you think about how like a diamond is really tough and it's beautiful and it's hiering glittery.
Yeah, it makes sense absolutely. I by one thousand percent.
I'm with you, And I also like that, you know, it's it's really subverting expectations, like to be tough, you have to be glamorous. I like that.
To the first first you must shine.
Speaking of the bobbit worm, twenty million year old fossilized tunnels have been discovered beneath the ocean floor, over seven feet or two meters long, but only a couple centimeters wide in diameter. It's thought that these were once home to an incredibly long worm, perhaps the ancestors of the bobbit worm, as there's fossilized imprints made by these worms that seem to indicate they use these tunnels to drag
their prey to an extra deep and watery grave. When we return, we're going to talk about a thought provoking intersection of fashion and entomology, though Daniel. You know that animals and humans have a weird relationship sometimes, Yeah, totally. I mean, for instance, like my dog, I think only sees me as like the peanut butter provider.
You know, at least a peanut butter warm blanket.
Right, that's true, a warm blanket.
Peanut butter human radiator, a butt.
Scratcher and peanut provider, peanut butter provider.
Oh, I'm king butt scratcher. I'll tell you what I feel like. That's it. I feel like that, if I'm being real, Everybody's like, oh, that's a trick with dogs. They love getting scratched on the butt. Like, at what point is it not a trick anymore? It's like, oh, of course a dog loves a good butt scratch right there. Right, that's just you know, that's it. That baseline baseline dog knowledge.
Are they sing? It's like a Konami code for a dog. I feel like I feel like the dogs are fair really obvious about one. I mean, like my dog Cookie, Cookie will literally walk up to She does this every day all day, like this is her favorite thing to do, not joking, walk up to you, turn around so her butt is near you, and then look over her shoulder as you know, like kind of look between you and the butt like exactly you're doing it. Yeah, eh eh, thinking about this.
Yeah, gotch And you can like.
Hold your hand out and start wiggling your fingers and she will come over and sort of like dock her butt under your fingers and then so you can scratch it.
Wow, that is a smart that's smart Cookie you got raised there.
Yeah, she's smart whenever it serves her own insist.
I love that. A purpose like a purposely smart and stupid dog. That's like, Cookie, we need you to do this right now. I don't know. I'm a dog. I don't speak.
And then they say you want to get your butt scratched? She knows that. She knows what that means.
Oh, I want to get my butt scratched.
You got hearing? That's what she knows. What a CHICKI pill is. When I she has these like chicken flavored, chicken flavored hip point supplements and if you want to you want a chicky pill, she knows what that means. When I say you gotta sit, she doesn't know what that means. That suddenly doesn't know what that means.
Have you seen that since this episode. It's like the thing that translates baby talk, but or like translates animal talk. Oh, like what is your animals saying? It's like this leash demeans us. Both great. I wait for that day. I wait for that day where we get that where we get the translation device. And Cookie was just saying, look, I sit on my own schedule.
Okay, right right, that you shall provide me with butt scratch, cheese and peanut butter. Your services for anything else are not required.
Not required. That's funny.
But so that's all to say that I want to talk about something that it's both really interesting and it provokes a lot of thought in conversation. I think about, like our relationship to animals, because we're talking about insects, and our feelings toward insects as a species can range from like they are delicious food to they are gross and I don't want anything to do with them, to
their beautiful jewelry. So I think one case that really exemplifies this complex relationship we have with insects are the beautiful bejeweled living beetle jewelry originating from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. So these living brooches are called makesh So they are beetles of the Zoferis genus, which is a group of species of beetles who are kind of long with this very like thick exoskeleton. They're kind of shaped like bowling pins a little bit. In fact, their exoskeleton
is so tough. There is a species called the ironclad beetle. And if you're trying to mount them as a specimen, you know how like you have like a butterfly specimen where you stick a pin in it. They do that for all all sorts of insects. You actually have to drill a hole into them because you can't just push a pin through it there. They're oh yeah, they're They're
exoskeleton is that tough? So they are flightless. They have this little stubby head around thorax, so the thing that actually kind of looks like their head is actually their thorax. And then they have a long oval abdomen and they range in color from black to sort of a black and white pattern, lots of other different colors. They also come in this like really pretty gold color, not not a shiny gold, but kind of a matte gold. And it's this species, this kind of gold sofitera species that
is often used for mkesh jewelry. So the jewelry is made by taking a living beetle and gluing like rhinestones on it or a variety of jewels or decorations on it, or something like colorful thread or other ornaments. So there's like some adhesive is used, like some kind of glue, uh, and then like you you bedazzle the beetle, and then they attach a gold chain to the beetle just by gluing it. And then that's attached to like a pin that you pin to your blouse, and the beetle crawls
around on your blouse. It's it's still alive and just kind of like crawls around with all of this this sort of bedazzlement, and it's hard to know like when the tradition started. There's a lot of like, uh, sort of mixed information on it, and it's you know, I don't think that I'm comfortable, you know, saying anything definitively because it doesn't seem like it's been studied definitively in
terms of like the order of the cultural practice. This particular beetle them cash is actually the name of the jewelry, but the zofers beetle chosen because it's got this kind of slow, sluggish nature. It's pretty chill, it's got that pretty exoskeleton, but it can also survive for months without food or water. So ah man, yeah, I know, so, I mean it's it's like, it sounds pretty creepy. So we'll get to more of that, but first I want
to talk about the beetles in the wild. So in the wild, the beetles live in dry forests and feed on rotting wood starches. So we're talking about earlier. You know, like the whale fall, well with tree fall it gets tree fall is great for a lot of organisms and forest environments. These beetles are one of them. They have a metabolism that allows them to survive on small amounts
of starch in very little water. So in theory, if you treat a mkesh beetle righte like you have a terrarium, and you provide them with some starch and just like a little bit of water like a moist sponge, you can keep them alive for their whole lifespan of about three years. But of course there's a few catches to this, as there are for most things. When we when we were talking about using animals for our own purposes, first and foremost is that they can spew formic acid out of their anus.
Great.
I mean actually to me, that's like a benefit, Like I want to broach that, like you know, like I kind of poke it and it just like sprays out formic acid. That's that's a great James Bond weapon.
That is a great James Bond weapon. Very like, right now, what are the what are the effects of that kind of acid on your skin? Or is it smelly? Is it? Is it? It's unpleasant?
It gives you, Yeah, it could give you a bad skin rash, like wow, not a fun time. Yeah, you shouldn't, you know, try not to get it. Yeah, you don't want to get it on you. Traditionally, that issue has been sold by making the beetles very tiny diapers, like a little cloth Yeah, like a little cloth diaper that goes near their backside and just sort of absorbs up
that thing, the formic acid. Unfortunately, I was reading something that seemed to indicate I don't know how true this is, but there was some like rumor about like how some vendors will use glue to actually seal up the anus, and then that's bad, like you can't do that, it's it'll it'll kill the beetle. And so of course, I think the issue that is probably on a lot of people's minds is like, well, is this cruel? Is this cruelty towards these beetles? And I think it's really it's
a really complex issue. And I think whenever there's like a different cultural practice than our own, it's really easy for us to go like, oh, this is cruel or
this is this is strange. It's like sure too strange because you know, it's like it's not normalized in our society, so like right, like in the way that a lot of our practices towards animals are like you know, so I think that the fact like it's living jewelry is so such an unusual concept that I think it's easier to think of it as like, oh, man, that's unnecessary and kind of cruel. But then you think about a lot of the things that we do in our culture.
We kill insects all the time, yes, and not super nice ways. We also you know, just in our homes, like we kill pests all the time. Look I'm not above killing, you know, ants who try to eat all my cereal.
I would be lying if I said I hadn't killed a bug before. That's it's foolish. I do my best to be, you know, sympathetic, especially to our spider friends who do a lot of the bug killing for us. But like, look, I've smashed them flies. I've smashed them bugs. That's just fast matter. I'm not it is.
I try to relocate spiders whenever I find them, but I have to admit, like a few weeks ago, I saw a pretty big spider and just instinctively stomped it, like I didn't even think, and then immediately after something's like.
Oh, I'm so sorry that immediate up, I don't It's okay.
So you know, we we kill insects all the time, and so you know, I feel like this aspect of like, oh, it's really cruel to do this is somewhat relative. The other argument would be like, well, but you know we kill insex maybe out of necessity. Keeping them as an ornament in this way like seems sort of unnecessary. It's like, well, we also have things like we have state fairs where
we have food animals. There for you know, entertainment purposes, and like we'll we'll have like petting zoos with animals that will eventually go and be used for food. So I guess my point is, like, there are certainly complaints you can have about certain cultural practices when it comes to animals, but I'm always hesitant to like point the finger at another culture where it's like, ah, see this this thing that they do that we don't do, like that that's super that's super weird.
You know what I mean, Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's I think that's completely fair. My only complaint would be that I think the I mean, maybe it's you know, and as I explore the culture of this a little bit more and I see in your picture down here, there's definitely Katie. But by the way, for all the listeners, Katie has provided excellent resources for the for the guests to look at it and and get familiar with and just like see what is what what we're talking about.
I'm surprised these people aren't going further with the bug itself.
Like you know, I mean, like add a little top hat or yeah, or just like it.
Maybe it may it might just be the video, but it's like this seems pretty like Ryan Stones on some gold chains kind of shit when we could get some real like I mean, you know, if this is a cultural thing here, I could see some like Swarovsky ass like really glitzed up, glitzed up bugs crawling around on your chest, premium bugs. Premium bugs.
Yeah, I mean I think that. I mean, these aren't necessarily super super fancy things like they you know, they often sell them for not that much money, like it could be like chin us dollars or something. And you know, it's also often sold to tourists, so I'm not super clear on how much of it is directed towards tourists to the area, and like how much of it is that locals do just sort of as a local tradition.
So it's you know, I can't pretend to be a cultural expert on this, and I couldn't quite sus that out in my research. But there is one thing that the artists who do this do seem to try to do is they don't like inhibit the Beatles movement, so they keep it like to the backs of the Beetles, so they don't like put it, you know, like on their actual heads, like it looks like it's on their heads,
but that's actually their thorax. Yeah, and they don't like put it on their legs or anything, so they can because like the point is for them to still be able to move around as long as they're not putting glue on the butt. I don't think. I mean, I'm sure that like the bejeweling of the Beatles isn't great for the beetles, but I don't think it necessarily is that all that harmful again, because they have that really
thick exoskeleton. The harmful thing would be, of course, if you don't like feed it or you know, like you know, actually keep it in a terrarium, if you just kind of like keep it in a drawer for a few months until it dies like that, then the beetle will not survive that. For me, I guess like the main uh, the main issue I think that needs to be explored
by ecologists, which I mean as they are doing. I'm not scolding them like a cologists get on this, but is whether or not like this is sustainable for the beetle population, because like on a local level it's probably fine, but if it gains a huge amount of popularity with tourists collection of the beetles may exceed their ability to reproduce. The beetles are really like they have a very slow lifespan compared to other insects like they It takes them
a long time to reach sexual maturation. They don't lay a huge amount of eggs. It's hard to estimate their population size because they like to live under lugs, like underleaf litter and lugs, so like, actually finding them is kind of difficult. So getting a good sort of sensus of how many of these beetles are out there is
actually quite tricky. But because they don't seem to reproduce that rapidly, there's fear that without some regulation, like, there could be over collection of the beetles and that would endanger their population, which I think just kind of shows how like it's really important for ecologists and biologists to work with people who study human culture to be able to come together and research things together so that we can figure out ways to both preserve human culture but also preserve nature.
Teamwork makes the dream work.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Amen.
The makesh is not the only insect worn as jewelry in ancient Egypt. Scarab beetles were worn by soldiers to offer them spiritual protection, and in two thousand and six, fashion designer Jared Gold included giant hissing cockroaches in his collection, basically copying the style of the makesh brooches by bedazzling his cockroaches with Swarovsky crystals and keeping them on a golden chain. These runway ready cockroaches came with instructions of how to care for them and could live for over
a year. Personally, I'm content to just admire the natural beauty of hissing cockroaches from nature photographs. When you return, we're gonna investigate a lizard. These aquatic fashion is all about function, So now I want to talk about an extremely glamorous lizard that I think gives like David Bowie a run for his money in terms of like how incredibly shiny they are and also just how I don't know,
you know, how like like the Space Odyssey thing. Will these lizards like to go under the water and be little little diver diverman? Okay, what's the what's the David Bowie thing? It's like Rocketman? Right, yeah, Rocketman?
Or is that Elton John That'ston John. Is he glamor the Ziggie startist. Yeah, I mean like that's very yeah, David Bowie is super super glam.
Elton John glamrock not really is he.
I'm going to google is Elton John glamrock?
This is very important for an evolutionary biology podcast to know whether Elton.
John is I would say so other performers associated with British.
Glam I see, I see. I mean, I guess it depends on whether you're using the phylogenetic classification system or the linean classification system of glam rock.
I mean, I'll say this. You know, look, the only people who are going to get mad at you about someone being or not being glam rock are the Yeah, exactly aggressive glam rock. British glam was very strictly different from us glamrock, and I think that needs to be noted.
He actually fits more in the mod category.
Thing you very much, but he's certainly glamorous and certainly a rocker. We'll go. We'll definitely go with that.
Instead of spending time in outer space in a spacesuit, these lizards like to spend time underwater in a water suit or an airsuit anyways, a diver suit a diver suit. So these are water Annolly's aka scuba diving lizards. So, water nollys are a species of small lizards found in Costa Rica and Central America. They're pretty small. They're about the size of a thumb. They are brown, although males do have this brilliant yellow do lap. So what's a
do lap. It's a flap of skin under their chin they can fan out, which they use to attract females and intimidate males. What I mean, have you ever seen a lizard like like kind of stunting, like, you know, flapping out its stew lap?
For sure? For sure? You know, for a second I thought, so I'm, you know, not skipping out head per se. But I'm looking at this picture and I thought for a split second that its do lap was the clear thing coming out of its nose, which is an air bubble. Is he's got the do lap on the top of his head. Now it's clear and he can breathe it.
I think I forgot to include an image of the do lap, but it's very pretty.
It's like this brilliant yellow wo awesome.
The ladies love a do lap.
The ladies love a doude.
But because these little lizards are such tasty little snacks, not just for the females of their species, but you know, for predators, and they're not like the fastest lizards in the land. They will take to the water to escape predators. They'll literally leap off of a rock and belly flop into the water. And so once underwater they are safe from a lot of terrestrial or airborne predators. But they need to breathe because you know, they can't. They I
can't breathe water. These are reptiles, they are They do not although you know, there are some reptiles like turtles who do do gas exchange near an area near their cloaca, aka their butthole, but these lizards cannot. We have no evidence to suggest that these lizards can breed through their buttholes like turtles. I know, darn it. God, I hate it when I'm like swimming and I'm like, wait, let me try it, let me try it for a second. I can't do it. I can't breathe through my butt.
So they have a problem because they either stand or water and drown, or they go above the water and get eaten by a predator. So there is recent observations of these lizards that seem to suggest that they can create a wetsuit made out of air and form a bubble around their head that they can breed through.
This is I you know, truly again, your research is so good. You've videos. I could not even imagine what this would look like, but now I have a video to look at, and it is extraordinary. I'm like blown away that they're able to, like what is holding the water to their face this way?
That's a really good question. And while I haven't been able to find studies that are really exact about it, I would say that it is very similar to other times that we see water adhering to animals underwater. So with their diving bell spiders that can actually go underwater and water, they will also form these kind of underwater For the spiders, it's like this diving bell that this little bubble that surrounds them that they can do gas exchange through. And for them, the air sticks to these
teeny tiny little hairs all over their bodies. So the air literally sticks to these really small fine hairs. For these lizards, I don't think they rely on hairs rather, I think it's the skin texture. So I think they have these probably these really tiny stroke ructures on their skin, like these little tiny, probably microscopic indentations and texture on their skin that actually traps air on their skin and holds onto it through sort of a manner of surface tension.
I mean, even like when you dive underwater, sometimes little bubbles can stick to your skin and you can see
little air bubbles still sticking to you. But like for these lizards, their skin is such that I think it's probably you have really small structures on their skin that is able to really cling onto this water such that you look at these lizards and underwater, it looks like they have this whole silvery sheen all over it, like their skin is made out of a mirror like material and that's all that trapped air all over their body, reflecting light underwater like a mirror.
That's so cool.
Yeah, they're like it's beautiful. It's one of those things where are like, wow, why do they look this cool? And then they come out of water and you're like, eh, okay.
Hey, you know what, I'll save it, save it for the underwater crowd, you know, if they want to be less less shiny on top save for the underwater crowd. They deserve it more. They're not trying to eat you as much.
Yeah, So they can form this bubble around their head. And while this the research on this is by no means complete, so this is all conjecture at this point, there's this idea that their heads have this kind of concave structure just so this air bubble can form, like this pocket can form over their nostrils, and when they like breathe out, it kind of bubbles up, and they breathe in and it kind of bubbles down. So it's like this little bubble going up and down as they breathe.
Makes that's that's so wild. Again, if I didn't have this video, I wouldn't be able to put it together. I mean, you know, I could understand and imagine, but it's just like it's truly a bubble coming off of their face and then just sucking back in, right, you know. Wild, Like have you ever like.
Blown a bubble with some bubble gum and instead of just like blowing the bubble, you kind of like breathe in and out. You're like yeah, and then you do like a Darth Vader voice I'm here to chop off hands and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of bubble gum?
Could you imagine I want to see that recut? Wow?
But yeah, I mean your reaction is kind of similar to researchers who discovered this because they just incidentally discovered that they that they seem to breathe this way through observations. They put underwater cameras down there because they noticed that some of these lizards would like dive underwater and then
they would pop up a few feet away. But some of them would dive underwater and then just disappear, and they're like, now that can't be right, Like that can't be a good survival strategy to just drown yourself whenever a predator comes at you. So sure enough, they found that these guys can spend up to about fifteen minutes underwater, and using these underwater cameras, they found this behavior of
like them seeming to breathe through these bubbles. Now, it hasn't been like scientifically proven that they are actually breathing through these bubbles. It's just observation, like you looking at this video, but it seems fairly likely that that's the case, because that seems to be what's going on.
Wow.
And also because they can last so long underwater, it seems like this keeps them last longer without having to hold their breath the whole time.
Wow. These are fascinating little beasts right here.
They really are.
You've really done it.
And they're so shiny. I love how just like they have like meer skin, you know what I mean.
Shit, totally the shine, especially like again that it's primarily for the underwater crowd. It's like they're just so so so shiny, and it almost I almost feel like you would mistake it. I mean you shouldn't say mistake it, but like you might think that there's like a small like pocket knife in the water if you were to look right and see just like the body of one of these little guys down they're just like whoa that is yeah, yeah, my gosh, I do.
I also I do like the idea that like, above water it's like nah, but underwater it's like Miley Cyrus turning into Hannah Montana.
Wow, that's where they shine.
Yeah, it's like Miley Cyrus, eh whatever, just normal girls and then she turned to normal.
Wow.
Wow, Well I think we I think we've done it. I think we've found some of the coolest glam rockers in the animal kingdom.
These are truly glamorous animals you have shared with me today, Katie. I'm touched. These are awesome than I do.
Before we go, I do want to address a listener question. So listener Izzybe writes in and says, hey, creature peeps. There's been a meme Twitter thread popping up now and again claiming that the Uncanny Valley exists as a deep psychological remnant from our early hominid ancestors interspecies competition for resources. So frequently these conversations use the idea that animals, even our own pets, don't experience the Uncanny Valley as proof, but that rings false to me. I am a puppet
maker and have lots of Sorry. I love this. I love this email so much. I love it when you guys write into me when I when I was reading this and then I got to I am a puppet maker. Like I almost screamed in excitement. I anyways, I'm going to continue reading.
This, but like, please please, sorry.
I am a puppet maker and have lots of experience of dogs and cats. Absolutely losing their their quack in terror of puppets, usually human based puppets, but sometimes those based on other animals. What is this if not the uncanny valley, the mental rejection and innate fear of something that resembles the familiar but doesn't achieve a fully believable resemblance. As someone familiar with animal psychology, I was wondering if
you had any thoughts on the matter. On a completely different note of the arc of the universe bending towards crab, one of our latest puppets is a massive crab dragon. Although it fails to copy the evolutionary perfect crab body plan, it is painted to look like a coconut crab. We were even listening to the Carsonization episode while painting her. Here are pictures, Izzy be Thank you so much. Izzy. These. When you said you were a puppet maker, I was excited.
I love puppets. It's I mean, like, but I was expecting a small puppet.
Which I was still excited for.
I was still really excited for. This is a life sized, freaking dragon. It's massive, It's three people are operating this thing. It's a huge, actual real life dragon puppet the size of a freaking real life dragon and.
It's incredible, and it is incredible.
It is painted like a coconut crab. It's absolutely beautiful. It's amazing, and I, if possible, I'm going to include a link to these photos in the show notes. It's I'm so blown away by this. This is a beautiful puppet. I actually like a note about the Uncanny Valley before I get into answering the question. I actually love the Uncanny Valley, Like I actively seek out feeling that feeling.
It's a it's a fun, exciting feeling for me. It's like, now I don't like roller coasters, Like I hate roller coasters. They scare me. But I imagine the feeling that other people get when they go on a roller coaster, of like that it's like kind of scary but exciting. That thrill that's what I get from like looking at weird animatronics or Uncanny Valley things. I love animatronics, I love puppets. I just love that feeling of like there's a certain sort of offness to this thing. It's like not quite
a human, but it's almost a human. Like I really it's just thrilling for me. So this is a really exciting thing for me.
Nice, this is an incredible puppet These are these are true. This is truly I you know, I would totally expect to see this at the front of a very well produced parade. This is like or you know of a like it's a puppet show. Not like a puppet show though, but like like a The Muppets.
Yeah, definitely a cirqu of silet production. Yeah.
No, it's it's a centerpiece right here.
This is or like The Dark Crystal, you know what I mean. Ye Oh, I loved by the way. I love The Dark Crystal loved. I also like the the reboot, the remake or not remake the was I haven't.
Checked out the It's good.
I liked it. Yeah, my skeio, if you liked the original one, you'll definitely like the remake. It's or not remake. It's just a reboot, but it definitely recaptures sort of the it's it's all practical effects. It's really really beautiful.
I love that.
In terms of the question about whether animals feel the Uncanny Valley, I actually really agree with this listener. I think that we don't. While we don't necessarily have evidence that says that animals definitely do feel the Uncanny Valley. It's like hard to you know, quantify what an animal is feeling. I definitely think that animals would have the
capacity to feel that based on certain animal behavior. So some of the things that we know, like, well, first of all, this is maybe not super scientific, but I've definitely seen a lot of videos of cats on like TikTok and stuff reacting to their owners having a like a cat filter on their face, you know, like on Snapchat or it's like a cat a cat face like filter on their face, so it looks like the human has a cat face on the phone, and the cats
like look at the phone, look really startled, look back at their human and look at the phone and like run away. So, uh, that's that's interesting to me that the cats get really freaked out by humans wearing like a cat cat makeup or having that like cat filter. Of course, that's that's that's totally anecdotal. Uh less anecdotal I think, is Well, no, I guess it's still anecdotal. Anyways.
Another thing that we've seen is like there's this TV show called Spies in the Wild where they put like anima, Yeah, spy in the wild. It's they it's it's hilarious but also a great nature documentary. They create these animatronic versions of animals so that they can have cameras like watching
the animals up close. But it's also kind of funny because like most of the camera work in the show isn't from the animatronic animals, so it seems like that's something of a gimmick, got it, But it's still really interesting. I think the most interesting part of the show is not like the up close shots that these animatronics get, but it's the reactions that the animals have to the animatronics. So a lot of animals don't seem to really think anything of it, but once you start to get to primates,
their reactions are very interesting. There are these langers that were very tentatively playing with this animatronic linger, and then it fell down and like broke and stopped moving, and then a bunch of langers all came over that this langers are a type of monkey, and they they came and surrounded this thing, like like twenty or thirty of them, just like looking and like carefully touching it and looking it was almost it looked like they were holding a
funeral almost, but it was like I think they were just so freaked out and fascinated by what this was, where like it seems kind of like a dead monkey, but they weren't sure what it was, but they were
fascinated and and it seemed kind of freaked out. So I think that And you also look at like things that we have done research on where dogs seem to pay particular attention to human faces on the side of the face that's more expressive, Like we're not our expressions are not completely symmetrical, Like there's usually one side of the face that is a little more expressive, and the dogs seem to prefer that side of the face. And so I think that that kind of like facial recognition.
And it's the whole kind of concept of this idea that like only humans would be in some sort of like competition with other hominids. That doesn't make any sense, Like there are so many species who have very similar
species that they are in competition with. I mean, like you know, canines like like wolves and other canids would be in competition, you know, I mean like a dog in a coyote Like coyote will often kill dogs, So like they have to be very careful around each other different kind of feline species, Like you know, a cheetah is no friend to like a lion. So it's you know, it's they are all sorts of competition amongst species that maybe don't look exactly like each other, but are somewhat similar.
So this idea that the Uncanny Valley evolved in humans because we were competing with other species and we had to be aware of like ones that were kind off. It's like, well, I would say that would apply to you know, most most intelligent social animals.
Great, I support that entirely. I don't. I obviously do not have a professional opinion on the matter, but I would like to think that, like you know, obviously language is something that is created by humans for humans. Yeah, but I think for to be for the suggestion to be that dogs and and you know certain animals don't have the capability to semi recognize something or have to wrestle with something as recognizable or not. I think, you know,
to say, do they experience the uncanny Valley? It's like, well, they don't. They don't call it that, but they know when something is there and doesn't. It's like this is not quite right. This is not I'm confused by this. I support you entirely. I think it's I think it's one.
Yeah. In fact, there there's a study, uh, there's a study of mackex that looked at their eye gaze of like computer generated images of mckx and like ones that were like, uh, sort of realistic, actually kind of cartoonish. They sort of looked at a little bit, didn't really seem to care. They were real photos they looked at for a long time because they were interested. But ones that were almost exactly realistic but not quite they were like CGI. They didn't like to look at it all.
They like spent as little time looking at it as possible, which you know, it's hard to know exactly how to interpret those results, but one way of interpreting them is that they did not enjoy looking at that CGI version of the the macaque, and so they would avert their gaze because they found it unpleasant, which is how humans
experienced the Uncanny Valley. So I would say this has not been researched enough to really say definitively, but I think all the research that we have, as well as general trends and animal behavior I think would indicate that, yeah, this could definitely happen for animals, and I don't see any reason to rule.
It out for animals, right, I agree with you.
That's why my dog hates polar Express. I thought it was just because she hated Tom Hanks, but I think it's all those all those weird kids.
It's all those weird looking kids. That's funny, that's wonderful.
Oh, Cookie, Also when I make a weird noise, she gives me such a look, like she does the little head turning thing. But like if I do sort of a weird whistling noise, like where I'm kind of sucking airin through my teeth or something in a weird way, or or if I blow across a bottle and it makes that like weird hooty noise, like she just like she looks at me like I've been possessed, and she's clearly she's like she's interested, but she's concerned. I've been bewitched.
Totally totally different noise, I'm unfamiliar.
Oh, and she hates it when people ride on bikes or skateboards, like, uh, just it's something like about the human going faster than they should that like she loses her mind over she hates so much. It's like you're a human but way too fast. This isn't right.
Yeah, why is one part of you moving but the other parts of you were not? What's up with that? What's that?
It's a bicycle human centaur? Evil?
I'll bite off its legs?
What is this?
Yeah? Amazing?
Well I think that'll do it for today. Thank you so much. Yeah for this email. Love the pictures of the puppet. I will share those. And yeah, if you haven't have a question and you want me to answer it, send an email to Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and I will either try to answer it over the email or even on the show. So yeah, thank you so much for that. And Daniel, thank you so much for being on here today. Thank you for having me.
It's always a pleasure. It's such a great show, one of my favorite podcasts. Always honored to be included.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much. He used to you used to engineer the dang thing.
Did used to engineer the dang thing. But then we got so you know, we got so big and busy. They spread spread us all out there. They're like Danny can't do that anymore. You got to go do this other thing. I'm like that.
But the bright side is now we've got Zach yay here you guys. He's he's actually he's actually.
Shrouded by waves.
He's actually he's actually a dolphins, so he can only in squeals and ease yes and confetti emotions. That's insane thing. Yes, I engineered.
Lovely.
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you?
You can find me on the on Twitter at dj Underscore Daniel and you can find me on Twitch at the same twitch dot tv slash dj Underscore d A n L. Check it out. We do fun stuff. Yeah yeah, and listen to the podcast shoot listen to Creature Feature. I mean you already here, so great job. Check on the podcast of the network.
Yeah, check out other podcasts on the network. Uh, thank you guys so much for listening. You can find us on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e a T not f e et hood is something very different. And as always, I'm Katie Golden. You can find me on Twitter just for my Katie thoughts and uh yeah, thank you so much the Space Classics for their super awesome song ex Alumina.
That song is great.
I know it's so good. I love it.
Can I get it? A Can I get it? A corny joke before we leave? Do it? Do it?
Do it?
Since? Did you said creature feet? Yeah, you were like, no, it's creature feet f e eight not f e e t. That's a different website. That website is only Finn's.
Thank you, No, don't never apologize. Thank you so much for that. Oh my god, thank you so much. Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or Hey guess what where have you listened to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday, Only Finn