Creature Classic: Under Crabstruction

we all be crabs? Joining me today is one of my favorite comedians, Twitter video artist and crab appreciator, Kylie Bragman Boca. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk about crabs. Yes, I am so excited to have you. You your tweets and your videos are amazing. And the reason I have you on today to talk about crabs is you have tweeted about crabs favorite roably. Yes, I've I've I've sent I've fired off some pro crab tweets. You can go on the record and say that, thank you,

thank you. Yeah, I had a feeling you were pro crab, but I'm glad that we could just like clear the air between us and Yeah, it's important to say it. It's a yeah, we're pro crab, damn it. And you actually have a tweet that shows some really interesting crab behavior of a sand bubbler crab. So it's a little little key toiny crab in the sand, digging, dig in a hole and it looks like you tweeted, cannot believe my guy built himself a hot tub in fifteen seconds flat.

Uh and it. I mean this crab, Kylie, this crab, he's a precious little guy. He's a precious little guy. And more than that, he's an architect. I mean, because I feel like I've seen sand crabs before, like I just like I don't know, like the Santa Monica Beach, like the way they dig directly into the ground. But this guy amateur like a wori gig, like he's like building himself like it almost looks like a little iglue. Yeah. Actually, Kylie,

that's what they're called by biologists. Really, you didn't even go to biology school and you knew what they were called. So I'm a doctor. I'm your doctor, I guess, doctor, Kylie Brickman. I have to say, now, yeah, you gotta re record the intro with that. Yeah, I mean like there are people who like got their pH d s and evolutionary biology, but it turns out, guys, you just got lapped by Kylie Bragman. Sorry, you gotta you gotta

just you gotta be on it, guys, catch up biologists. Yeah, but yes, they do build a little like hot tub dome out of sand. So they start out it looks like a cool little hot tub, but then they keep going until it's this full on dome that ensconces them. And they are teeny, twiny little guys. We we love to we love to talk about a tiny guy on this show. Um, they're about or tiny girls feel like guys not to gender it, but that is a crab

sexist I'll have you know. That's for another episode. That's yeah, we're gonna have to go into crab sexism now. Well but yeah, so they are about point four inches wide or one centimeter and their sand colored because they live in sand, and sand is basically their whole deal. It's you know, that's that's their thing is sand. They really have made that their brand. I mean that's very clear. But just from this twenty second video, I'm like, this is a guy who knows about sand. I didn't realize

they were one centimeter though. Ye tiny, I mean I was imagining like a couple inches of guy, But like that is a tiny tiny crab, not even an inch of guy. Uh yeah, no, they are very small, but with their small size they accomplish great things, such as including building that little iglu. They are found on tropical beaches all around the Indo Pacific Ocean, and they love wet sand. They love it, They eat it, live in it. Who doesn't love it? So they actually will eat sand.

And when I say eat sand, they're not actually like shoving claw fulls of sand and just like eating the actual sand. But they filter out tiny particles of organic matter in the sand and eat that. So they like to filter through the sand. But they don't like getting buffeted around by the high tide. So what's just a little guy to do. You gott to create a burrow in the sand to hide when the tag comes in. So he's making himself like a little restaurant, like a

little dining room. Yeah like, but it's a combination restaurant, dining room and bunker like bomb shelter. You know, he's a doomsday prepper. He is a doomsday prepper. To be fair, Doomsday does come every day, multiple times with the high tide. But yes, it could happen to us too, you know, alien high tides could happen, and so if we learned from these crabs, maybe we would be less skeptical of doomsday preppers. It could. No, there's a lot to learn there.

I just think it's fascinating how many animals live like right on the high tide because it's constantly changing and it looks so dangerous. I'm like, how did life start in the ocean? That looks like the scariest place to live. Yeah, I was terrified of the ocean when I was a kid because I remember I was playing on the sand building sand castle, which was really just kind of a pile of sand. It wasn't It didn't have like turrets or any kind of like no, like you know, flying

buttresses or anything. It's like a pile. But you know, anyways, I was building my sandpile and then a wave come comes in and just completely rex me and my kingdom, and it was traumatizing. Damn, everything you built, everything you worked for gone in a second. I am Ozzy mandious. Yeah, your kingdom gone. I definitely have like wave trauma where I don't like I go in like water. I go in the water where it's like small waves but big waves.

I used to try and like body surf as a ten year old, and I just got saltwater in my nose too many times. And now I'm like, I stay away. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing quite like just standing in the ocean, minding your own business and then getting punched by water, absolutely pummeled as like a child decked in the face. Yeah. Yeah, that's the ocean reminding us like I'm not for you, Like, yeah, you belong on land, you do not belong in me. Yeah, hey did you adapt? Did you adapt for the water?

No eat can get up a sandwich made out of Yeah, they're all our school bullies. Yeah yeah. I got bullied by the ocean a lot when I was a kid. It's a it's a traumatizing thing. But that's why I feel like these these little sandbub are crabs, are heroes because they're they're these just little toyinies, little teeny toynies, and then the ocean is like, well, I'm gonna shove you in a locker, and it's like ha ha, not so fast. I've created an igloo out of sand, and

now I'm in here and you can't get me. And in this little igloo, they've actually trapped a bubble of air. So they're totally fine. You know, they can breathe. They're fine, they're cool. They're just like chilling out in their little igloo while the tide is doing its stupid thing, and they're like, yeah, sure, do whatever you want, tied. I'm in here and I'm fine. I have a house. I'm a self sufficient guy. I'm a homeowner, all right. Yeah, he's paying a mortgage on that thing, Like, yeah, how

many times does he make that in a day? Yeah? Yeah, exactly. Uh. And so, actually, in terms of breathing, even though crabs are aquatic or in this case, semi aquatic, they have gills that can breathe underwater, but they also have their gills can breathe in air as long as the gills are moist. You want to have moist gills. Always with

the moist gills, right, yeah, as we know. But since sand bubblers spend so much time in the open air, they have also developed gas windows on their legs, which are membranous discs that researchers think is for gas exchange, so they might breathe with their legs. Maybe, whoa, that is innovation. Yeah, really, like we're not taking advantage of our legs. Our legs could be doing more. I know, I know. It's like, okay, so you can walk, all right,

So you're one trick pony. You're saying legs, Yeah, yeah, you got one thing. What else you got? You gotta keep it, keep it fresh. I can't even smell with my feet. What is that? What do you mean? Like? Yeah, you know, there were not more evolved than these guys, Like I don't think we are. I think it's just different. I guess if they like skip leg day, then they could die, which you know, yeah, that's a little tough's

I can't keep up with that. So, like you guessed correctly, Kylie, the protective domed burrow is uh called an igloo and they just chill out in there, perfectly safe, breathing, perfectly happy while the tide is going on creating a mass of everything. Um. But not only are they pros at rapid burrow construction multiple times a day because they have to rebuild the burrow after each tide cycle, they are

also experts at making balls. So remember when I said they eat sand, I mean you probably do, because yes, that happened, um like a minute ago. Yeah yeah, well I think I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. They eat sand, but not really like the silica part of the sand. They eat the organic matter in the sand. So in order to like suck out all the good parts of the sand, and they have to filter through it, and the they do it unlike other crabs that just like pick up some sand and kind of filtered out and

like spit it out. They put keep putting sand in their mouth parts and use water stored in their guilt chambers and turns it into this little vortex inside their mouths, and they wash the sand but in this circular motion, and they create a big ball of sand in their mouth and using the water to like flush all of the edible organic bits out of it until they have this clean ball of sand that they spit out. So the ball is like the waste. The ball is like

what what they don't want to eat? Right exactly? The ball is the reject bits. And they have already sucked out all the juices from the sand, all the nutritious juice nutritious juices. Yummy, umy, sand yummy. If you've ever sucked on some sand, you know, you get go to the beach and sucking on sand. My favorite thing to do the New Diet. It's called sand. But like with an umla over the a and you just s sand. It's just a couple of handfuls of sand a day,

and then you can work out so much better. You're so much more efficient. It's really good for being regular, you know what I mean, Just suck on some sand. Suck on that for being normal. It's for being regular, um, you know in the stomach sense, and regular normal as a person as well. These balls, I will say they also they are very cute. They look like boba, Yeah they do. They're very perfectly spherical balls like they make.

They're just the perfect little size, and they're all kind of a uniform size because they keep making this ball and sucking out the juices of the sand until the ball is just too big for them to look over because they don't want to like have the ball so big that it impedes their eyesights so they can't watch out for predators. So just about the size of like a little marble, they spit it out and start sucking through so new sand. I'm looking at this gyp. It

looks like they're doing it really fast. I don't know if it's a sped up, but it looks like it's instant. I don't think it's sped up that fast. It might be a little bit, but I think it's pretty quick because they don't. It just looks like they're going through like a ball shaped chamber. Like they're not like like completely just like molding it, like like you're on some sort of like a ceramic pot spinny thing. Like it's

like it's not right, Yeah, it's not. It's not like a ghost where there's like one crab behind it and the music swells and they're like creating a ball together. No, it's just like they put it in the mouth there there. They like take their little pincers and go get like little bits of sand in the mouth. Again, the water in that they're using to flush all the yummies out of the sand is like creating this vortex in their mouth and it's like spinning around and then they just

chuck out a ball. They're like little ball making machines. They're so cute. It's adorable, they could create like a little marble factory. They could labor. Yeah, hey, look, if we have an exploited animal labor enough, here's a new way to do it. I'm just always thinking about capitalism, thinking about it. The reason I teach people about animals to appreciate the beauty and intriguing nature of the animal

kingdom is so we can monetize it. Yeah, because if if these crabs aren't making me money, why are they doing this weird thing? Work crab or not sadder? Right? Work crabber work crab or not sadder. That's a good one. That's I'm very good at. I'm a word smith. Anyways, Um,

these are called pseudo fecal pellets. Pseudo fecal pellets the marbles are yeah, because they're waste, but they don't come out of there, but so they're not They don't passed through like it's it's kind of an instantaneous right, It's like it's feces, but instead of going through their whole digestive system, it just goes through the mouth. So they're called pseudal fecal pellets, which I feel like scientists just love to make everything cute and fun. Sound really really gross. Yeah,

because they're just making a little ball. It's like sitting out the pit of an olive. Yeah, you mean a sudi fecal all of a pseudo fecal alive reject all of detric detri detritus de tried us. Yeah, I like to come the mouth turds, you know, just pop out a mouth. There you go, popping out a mouth turd at a fancy restaurant. Waiter, excuse me, waiter, please take away this bowl of mouth turds from the all. Bring me a bowl from my mouth turds please. Uh. Yeah.

But because they go through so much pieces of sand, they actually create these huge patterns, relatively big compared to the Tony crab of just a hunch of balls, hundreds of balls, because they're just like, you know, make a ball, suck out the juices, move on to the next spot. It can create these like spiral patterns that the crabs. They look like crop circles almost. Yeah, Like it looks like like tiny aliens just came on the beach and made a crop circle out of sand balls. This is

so fascinating. They're just like their tiny little garbonzo beans like in the shapes of creepy little rings. Yeah, that's nuts. So are they just doing this in a circle, Like they're just making all these balls and then like spinning around like it looks like they're it's very methodical. Yeah. I think it's probably just kind of like radially going further and further from the the inception point of like, because they can also like dig deep and start pulling

up uh sand from like these feeding trenches. But if the quality of the sand is good enough on the surface where it's nutrient rich, they will come out of their little hidy hole, a little dome that they make, and just start processing sand when the tide is low, and they probably just like they start closest to their little, uh temporary burrow and then just start making more and more sand. Sometimes they like will uh come at like start digging deep in the sand and excavate out balls

and chuck balls out of the hole. So yeah, I think it's this inadvertent. All right, Well, I guess I gotta move two steps to the right and make more sandballs and suck on them. Yeah. Yeah, you just gotta you just gotta blow through the whole whole sand patch. You gotta make your way around the town. Yeah, you know, like you gotta paint the town red with your juicy sandballs. You gotta. That's what I say. That's what I say before a night out. Yeah, that's what I say too.

I think everyone does, so we're not. I think everyone does. The big trope it is they put it on bachelorette party merch. Yeah, but I just love that. Like, if you saw this on the beach, you would think like aliens or art textbook aliens. That looks very textbook alien instant. I'm like, either some one demented kid did this or a bunch of aliens. Possible. Possible. Yeah, I mean kids do. Like you give kids wet sand and they do go bananas. Yeah,

I do. Remember when I was a kid, my friend had some membership to this like private special beach, very fancy it was. I don't know where it was. I don't know if it's somewhere near Huntington Beach or something, but it had this like like this nice sand and the waves weren't like as intense, and we would make ourselves like a human size hot tub like we would.

The objective of the day was to dig out enough space for all of us to sit in and then the waves would eventually come in and like fill the tub and eventually it would like bring in more and more sand. But I relate to this, yeah, yeah, I mean I I remember doing stuff like that. You just dig in the sand and then like your swimsuit gets completely full with like sand, so it makes it look

like you took a dump in your swimsuit. Remember that you'd like be in the in the sand hot tub because I grew up in San Diego, so I was your in this life. I'm a mariner essentially. Um. But the worst part is like you'd stand up from the sand pit, the the salty, watery sandpit, and then it's like, oh, like I'm full of sand? Now, how could this have happened? Possibly? And this? Yeah, I hate going into the ocean and then just turning your swimsuit over and then just like

feeling all the sand coming out. It's it's traumatizing. Which I feel like these crabs know how to organize sand really well, and so we could hire them to help organize the sand for us. Right, It's like, hey, like I get sand everywhere, and then I come home and sand it's everywhere. It just gets everywhere, but then they're really good at organizing all the sand into little balls. Yeah. If the sand was in all these like knee little balls,

that wouldn't be happening. We wouldn't we wouldn't have this problem. And unfortunately every time the tide comes in it ruins their their sandball artwork that they do. Uh So that's a shame. Yeah, I feel like the moral of this episode is the tides are mean and bullies. It's just like, I mean, in a way, it's sort of beautiful. It's like this ethereal like or maybe ephemeral is the word.

I'm looking for. Nothing lasts forever. They're uh like, you can make an art, make art and then it will just disappear, and you can try and make a name for yourself with the tide will wash you away too, And maybe that's sad, but maybe it's kind of freeing. Yeah. I mean, my feeling though, is we should maybe blow up the moon and stop having tides. Like that's a

really nice sack, could be fun, just like one giant lake. Yeah, like your sentiment of like, oh everything is temporary, it's cool, but hey, guess what, the moon could also be temporary. We could stop having these goddamn tides. Yeah, you're on a you're on a mission. You're gonna get rid of that guy. Yeah, I'm on team Crab here, I'm on

I'm on team sand Bubbler Crab Crab versus Moon. It's time And they've been feuding for centuries, just like King Kong and Godzilla ancient feud, and it's time we do something about it. It's time we pick a side. What I'm saying is that, you know, there's not enough room for both crab and Moon, and personally I side with Crab. I like crab. We gotta stand with our fellow carbon based life form, you know, like what is the Moon

done for me lately? Yeah, And as we've talked about on the show before, Carsonization is the routine habit of evolution of continually evolving crabs over and over again, separately, which just keeps on happening. Which means, so crabs are coming from different points on the tree essentially essentially, I mean like it's it's all coming from crustaceans or you know, like so specific node on the tree, but crustaceans keep

independently evolving into crab form over and over again. Even spiders, which are not crustaceans but they are arthropods, do sometimes kind of turn into crab form, as do other Arthur pod other insects. Did spiders come from crab? Where did spiders come from? That's my big question in this episode about crabs is where does spiders come from? Spiders don't come from crabs, But spiders and crab do share a

common ancestor because they're both arthur pods. But spider and crab diverged quite a while ago, so they're not very close relatives. But there are things called spider crabs, which we will talk about later. Um, but they aren't called that because they're spiders. They're called that because of their long, sexy legs. So they just have a spider vibe. They got a daddy logs they gotta they got a daddy long legs fibe. Right now, I can't. Twitter has ruined me.

Now I can't say daddy long legs without anyways. Um, well, that's a good point at which I think we could take a commercial break for me to rinse my brain out with soap. Wait, I don't know the daddy long legs reference. No, there's no reference. It's just like it's everyone's like, like daddy, whatever, daddy? Ye, daddy? What did I miss? What disgusting daddy did I miss? I'm keeping

this in welcome back. No, Kylie thought I was referencing something, and no, it turns out I'm just All you have to do is say like daddy or anything like even tangentially suggestive of something father. Father. It's a funny word, you know, Daddy's hilarious. It is. I love daddy. It is funny. Used to be like you daddy, who calls it daddy? But now I's like anything like a shirt with the word daddy his technical it's it's such. It's so, it's so trashy and good. It's like and I just

love the overuse of it. Like someone sees a hamburger and they're like, mm, feed me sandwich, daddy, and it's like, yeah, okay, great, let's I feel like non men are reclaiming the word daddy from the like I feel like it used to be. This is chance, I'm sorry, brief, non crab, tangent. I feel like men were like, daddy is our word. You say it because we're in control, we're daddy. But now everyone else is like, no, weird Daddy. Like, I don't

think you understand. Weird Daddy. We're daddy, and mommy we're daddy. Where mommy, we're daddy. We are all one. I'm trying to think how to tie this back into crabs. Let's talk about crab daddy's. Fiddler crabs are pretty cool, right because they got them big old, big old fiddle on them. Just they have a fiddle on them. They have these like sharp clean lines too, very sleek. Yeah. Yeah, they're built like a car, like a Maserati. I'm gonna pretend I know about cars. I'm just gonna say some car

names right now. Corvette, that's one of them. Uh, Chevy Vault, um sports car. Ford Fiesta. They're built like a Ford Fiesta. Um, so you know they have They're called fiddler crabs because one of their claws. And this only applies to the crab daddy's I'm afraid to say another problem with crab feminism. But the male crabs have a huge claw and one little tiny claw. So they have this big, single, meaty, chunky claw, the daddy of all claws. And I guess

because their claws so big. People when they were naming animals back in the day, like hundreds of years ago. They're like, that's a fiddle because we have fiddles, because we're old, and right now it's fiddles. It's not like uh um, I'm trying to think of what the modern equivalent with. Yeah, it's an iPod touch right right. If we had discovered this crab nowadays, we would have called it an iPod crab. Isn't it sad? Isn't it sad? What this world has come to. We've replaced that that

we can't name things. It's sad that everything's been named. Yeah, we gotta go deeper and smaller. Like you get you can start getting small, you start finding really cool things because it's like, man, we just looked over them the last time we were looking, So I bet we could find a new I bet you the next time we discover a new species of crab, I'm going to get in touch with you and you get to name it. I would love to do that. I would love to

do that for the scientific community. I want to be like some sort of biologists that runs around naming things, like on the naming committee, and Pete will come to me and they're like, I found this weird slug, and I'm like, cool, that's a bedtime slug. Next, and then it just becomes like a whole, a whole life force. Give me a good give me a good new species of crab name go okay um uh window silk crab. It's like a very pensive small Yeah. I like that.

Yeah that's really good. That's actually legitimately really good. So yeah, it's sort of like introverted tumbler cup of tea type crab. Well, speaking of introverted tumbler cup of tea type of crab, I think fiddler crabs, at least certain fiddler crabs are shyer than other fiddler crabs. And there's an academic paper that actually refers to shy crabs. So we'll we'll get into that in a little boot that's freshes. Yes, So

fiddler crabs, it's not just one species. There are over a hundred species of fiddler crabs, all varying in appearance and behavior. So, just to reiterate, the female fiddler crabs have two normal size small claws, and males have one little clawn, one big honk and claw. Uh so it's big honk and claw. Like maybe it's just the specific picture, but it looks like he's got like a really firm handshake, like he's shaken out with his big honker and um it feels like a power play. Yeah, it is absolutely.

In fact, they do really firm handshakes with each other to try to compete for mates with their big honk and claw, just like humans. Do you know how like two men meet and they're just like, all right, I'm gonna try to squeeze the blood out of your hand and somehow they'll make me a better uh person working at this office building. Yeah, let's see who's the alpha of this insurance company exactly. I mean, like really again, evolution loves a crab and we're like, oh, we're humans

were nothing like crabs. But come on, like, you go to any insurance company, any all state, like find people doing crab stuff, like firm handshakes. You find a guy with one giant arm that uses to shake with shaking hand that's a shaken hand, and the best numbers, he has the best sales. Everyone worships him because he's in charge, right, God, he'd be king of the Fiddler crabs with his big old shaken hand. Yeah, they love Muddy and sandy beaches,

both crabs and people at insurance companies. They live in mangroves as well, and even salt marshes on coastal regions around the world, and they come in a variety of fun, fruity flavors. There's the lemon Fiddlers of Fiji, who are lemon flavored and yellow, bright yellow. There's the watermelon Fiddler of the Western Pacific who comes in watermelon colors. This guy looks like a watermelon. Yeah. I want to pop him in my mouth and like gusher's chew on them,

But I know that would be a bad time. It just wouldn't be the type of gush you want, the wrong type of gush, you know. Yeah. Unfortunately, they come in grape flavor. There's a purple one. Who's I assume grape flavored. I'm I'm going to assume that these don't just taste like crab meat, and they actually taste like, you know, it's gatorade rules that tastes purple. I can tell. Yeah, Yeah, I love how like grape flavor is just purple flavor

because it doesn't taste like grape gap flavor. It doesn't. It tastes nothing like grape. That was always my big gripe with grape was like ripe with grape. It was my big grape gripe. It was I'm like, this doesn't taste like a grape because I love a grape, but I hate welch. Is what's going on here? Right? Because it's purple flavored. It's not grape flavored. That's just purple. And it's like you either have to be pro purple flavored or pro grape flavored. Like I don't think I

think you gotta pick fence sitters. Anyways, I'm I'm whatever, whatever flavor this crab is, that's the side I'm going to take. Uh. And then there's a red bull flavor crab who's bright blue, bright red, looks like a red bull can This guy is in a mosh pit, like he's giving me a scary energy. Yeah, he's got like one of those uh, one of those like necklaces remember what we had in the nineties. Yeah. Yeah, because he's a crab. And that makes sense too because he's on

the beach. Yeah, he'd find a little shark tooth. We've a little rope for himself. Yeah, he's got a hacky sack and he's not good at it, but boy don't he still have that hacky sack. He's aggressive about it. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, he's always going anyways. I actually think this one might be a female because both of its claws are the same. But still just you can meet a girl in a smash pitch. She's that of course. Yeah. Yeah, no,

I've watched a mosh pit. I haven't gone in it, but you know observed, no, no, no, no, no, I get I'm five too, I'd get like absolutely right, yeah, yeah, I uh. I just don't like sweat, you know, which is funny because I sweat a lot, but regardless to be in those places because it's always just at eye level with like, right, boy, armpit and it just isn't like a good time. You're just breathing in like the

worst part. You kind of slap into something and it makes a wet slapping noise and it's like, yeah, that's the arm pit against my face. I don't want that anyways. Another reason that for us to become more crab because like, I'm sure their arm pits are better than ours. Crabs don't go to raves, Yeah, crabs don't. Well that's not necessarily true, but why they got them big claws to be hot and sexy and, like we discussed earlier, to have aggressive handshakes and win in the battle of the handshakes.

So the big claw isn't really good for anything other than looking nice and meaty and sexy. The little claw does all the work for feeding. I think that's also another reason why they're called fiddler crabs, is like they have the big claw and they got the little claws, so the little claws like going, and so they're like, oh, yes, indeed, this looks like a fiddler. I'm quite smart. My name is Quincy feather Bottom, and I'm naming the crab because

I found the seven, isn't it. I'm covered in rickets and this year crab looks like he's got a little fiddle. Not cute anyway. So I'm thirty five, so I'm retiring. Time to die. I'm really roasting people in the six hundreds. Yeah, they've got their high horse for far too long. Good. Yeah. So they communicate to each other through claw gesters, you know, just like New Yorker's am I right, just like, hey, I'm walking here, That's what they're doing. I'm walking here.

They're always going, hey, I'm walking here. That's all their scientific paper on that say hey I'm here. The hey I'm walking here phenomenon A study an intergenerational study of crabshages. Yeah, published in Crabs Monthly bi monthly. Anyways, So if a male wants to mate with a female, he will wave his big meaty claw at her and engage in ritual combat with other males where they test their cloth strength and growth against each other. I have given you a

video of the fight. Doesn't really have a good soundtrack, so you can listen to it with oh here we go. Okay, listen to it without the sound Crab fight? Is this a famous video? Have I maybe seen this? No? I don't think it is. It's only got twenty seven views. But okay, this is not the This is not the fight I thought it was. I think I'm thinking of a hermit crab fight. Okay, okay, I see it. They're like in hands yeah, dont the Star Star Trek Star Wars fight music, you know, gret sense and but it's

like a real, real firm handshake. It looks like they're not even looking at each other there now, they're just doing mirror exercises there just moving them at the same time. I don't know what this is really proving, uh, Like what are they proving to each other right now? I mean, you know who got the biggest claw, the biggest, baddest claw. Yeah, you know who's best. I guess they can't like eyeball it. It's kind of how they move it to which I do. Actually,

actually they do sometimes eyeball it. In fact, like some crabs have a strategy of having a bigger claw, but it's more useless. But the if the claw is big enough, it might just intimidate another crab visually, and they're like, oh, I don't want to mess with that big claw. But it turns out it's not very good claw. It's kind of a crummy father Like I'm just not even good.

I'm gonna get wrecked. Yeah. Actually, so the claus like, if they lose a claw, they will regenerate a new claw as they moll which is normal for for crabs and other crustaceans. But in some species, if the male loses a big claw, uh, the other claw then starts to grow bigger and bigger, so that other claw becomes the big claw and the old big claw just regrows into a small claw. So you know, I don't know,

that's weird. Wow, that's nuts that they could just they're like, nope, Like it would be like if we lost an arm and then we wanted to make it a leg. It would just no, it would be the other way around. Well I don't like it'd be like you cut off an arm and your other arm gets huge, but then you grow another normal sized arm. Yeah, then you would. Okay, so okay, so their big arm gets cut off, their tiny arm grows into a big army, and then what happens to the other arm, the one that's into a

tiny arm, So they just switch. They just switch. Yeah, it's like if someone kind of I have to have a big arm at all times. Yeah, it's like if fascinating if you're like right handed or left handed and then someone cut off your dominant hands, so then you became a dominant hand in the other hand, but then your other hand and grew into it the other hand. I'm sorry I made it more confusing anyways, No, I think I get it. I think okay, big claw get fall off, grow into small claw, but small claw grow

into big claw. Yeah. There we go to three. Also, you may sometimes see a fiddler crab rip off its own claw. Don't worry that normal, it's okay. It's usually if their claw gets injured, they will self amputate, or if they're feeling threatened, they will self amputate and throw the claw at the predator. Either way, it's like if they don't yeah, yeah, they're just like, oh, I don't need this claw anymore, Like it's dead weight, it's too injured. So they just rip it off, throw it and grow

new one, and it's fine. That's crazy, okay. So they throw it at predators, like is this other crabs or is this like a bigger like species that it isn't their own? They'll just chuck it. Usually it's a different species. It could be like a I suppose if there's a crab that wants to eat them. But usually the self amputation and throwing out a predator is to give the predators something to snack on while they run away. Oh,

it's kind of like, hey, here you go. It's not like here's a scary thing, because I feel like that wouldn't be that scary. Yeah, no, it's not. It's not to scare them it's like, oh, you want to eat me, Well, here's an order derve see you. Uh, if you take my wallet, don't kill me, right right? Except your wallet

is is your arm? Yeah. I feel like if you were getting mugged and you like held your wallet in your hand and you're like, okay, take my whole army, you start like trying to chop off your own arm to give them, I feel like they would just leave you alone. Yeah, they'd be like, Okay, they probably don't have a lot in their wallet because they're acting really really weird, right right, So whatever they have in there, I don't want to see. Whatever they have in there,

it's not good. It's probably fingers. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm that's all right. Yeah. Just you have a nice day, ma'am. But yeah, so you know Claus Shenanigans with claws. The reason I'm actually talking about Fiddler crabs isn't because of their big giant claws. It's because they build chimbleys. They built chimneys. Oh my god, Fiddler on the Roof Yeah, with a chimney. Wow, that's fascinating. What are okay are these these are the chimneys right here? They're like little tubes. Yeah,

little tubes. What is the purpose of it? You know, sometimes they just want to do a little fireplace and you know, no, that's not just hanging out. Yeah, just hanging out in the living room with their little crab cup of coffee and in a good crab book for a long day of avoiding tides. Yeah, like like reading cribe and crab prejudice, Crab crab pride and crab prejudice, crab pride and crab prejudice of crab wrath yeah, crabs of crab crab Yeah, thank you. Yes, crab prey love

is a good one. It's about self care. Yeah, you know, it's it's about self crab dulization. Anyways, crabs do chimneys. They make a chimney, uh, and what it is. So it's interesting because not all fiddler crabs make chimneys. Even within a single species of fiddler crabs, only some uh specimens will make these chimneys. It tends to be females. Um. But males will sometimes make these chimneys. And basically they

build them. They have their their burrow that they hide in for safety, uh, and then they build this chimney up from usually their burrows just a hole and then they build a chimney up from that hole. Uh and then they pop out like olll Gov. You wan't me to sweep of chimney, you know from Harry Remember remember Harry Potter, when Harry Potter the chimneys. Yeah, I remember Harry Poppins and the Sorcerer's chim chimbley sweep with Harry popper Off. That was so sad when Doubledore had to

watch all those kids. Yeah, and Dumbledore flies in on his umbrella. He is like the you know, like we're gonna make you fight Wizard Hitler. That was a good movie, right right, yeah, yeah, the whole Nazi allegory. There's so much going on there. Yeah yeah, yeah, good good movie. Dick Van Dyke classic, classic, class a great role for him. Harry Potter was a wonderful role for Dick van dye. It was it was he was so good at it.

All the capers he did, all cutting the capers, dancing with the penguins with his magic wand that's what really got about the ground. I mean, that's what made me realize who Dick Van Dyke was. So I'm on the map. Yeah, but yeah, so a bunch of Dick van Dyke little crabs in their little chimneys. Uh, and they apparently sometimes the chimneys are really well constructed, like this, neat little too. Sometimes it's just a pile of dirt, pile of sand. Didn't do you that? Some of these guys are not

very good. I don't want to be rude to them, but not tough love. I don't know if they're that good at it. Give it to them straight there they suck. Actually, I just like I have a lot of notes personally. Yeah, some of these just don't look like chimneys. That's the note. Some of them looks looks just like a pile of sand. Guys, what are you doing? Come on, what are you doing here? Just take some classes, build just skills up, and you know,

come back to me when you're ready. Maybe are Yeah, take a step back and look at what you've done, and it's like, does this look like a chimney to you? Doesn't look like a chimney to me? You might have to do something to me when you're ready. Okay, come back to me when you're ready to get out of my Keep doing it, though, but keep doing it, but keep at it keeping in the little let's keep in touch because I think there's something here. Let's just keep talking.

You have my email, Let's keep the dialogue open. Uh, don't be a stranger. But yeah, no, but no, but no, but yeah, but no, but yeah, but no. So the reason they build these chimneys is partially a mystery. Recent research suggests that it's maybe to confuse predators and aggressive con specifics. That means just a con specific means someone else in your own species, Like, uh, you're you're con specific to me. Um, uh yeah, and I'm a con specific to you. You know, con specifics here. It's kind

of like a calmrade of yeah, yeah exactly. But sometimes, you know, you saw these crabs like doing thegressive handshake, and if some like if a bill from accounting is like like handshake with me, it's like please, no, just how about I go down my chimney. Don't thank you. We don't need to shake hands. We don't need to bring handshaking back. No, No, that was a good thing

that we lost. You know. There's like like there's a lot of like go back to normal after the pandemic, but there are some things that I think we can keep like no handshakes, although it is coming back a little bit. I had to shake a couple of hands recently, and I'm like, you know you, we could have just not done it, Like this is the way for us to have met without doing it. This is a critical time in the reintroduction of people to other people, which

is that we could maybe stop that from happening. Yeah, we have an opportunity to change, and I just don't know if we'll take it. Yeah. Also I have bad hands. Uh, I don't know what you call it. It's just bad hands, where like my hand is the wrong, wrong level of moisture, wrong temperature, it's bad hands. And so I don't want to dry hands. Yeah. Well my hands are like dry on the top and then wet on the bottom, and they aren't the right level of heat because sometimes they're cold,

but sometimes they're too hot. And so I don't want anyone to have to touch my hands. Yeah, I don't want to deal with it. And also like I have really small hands and people comment on it a lot and they'll god, baby hand and I'm like, I wish I hadn't shown you are you little tidy baby baby? We can't have a business meeting because you're just a little baby. How do you hold onto a glass of milk? At? Oh baby, that's you a glass of water, but clearly

you couldn't hold one because you're a little baby. Or you want to sign this contract, you want me to get you a smaller pin for your baby hands? Yeah, here, take some crayons. Oh man, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That is super awkward. Like, well, I know it's it's um a constant struggle, but U and I can tell it looks like it uh no, but but no, I that is like, don't your hand looks normal? I think I just have I think it looks normal on zoom because I think my face is just kind of small too,

so like in proportion. But like if I shook hands with like an adult man, they're like people will grab my hands and be like that's a small hand. Okay, I mean that's a little bit like you know, like it's maybe maybe this guy has big hands. Maybe maybe your hands are just like abnormally large. Have you thought about that? Yeah, no one ever thinks about that. No one ever self reflects. You know, you know what, maybe

my hands could be a little bit smaller. Maybe it would be a little bit considerate of me, shave them down a little bit, maybe keep your hands a little smaller, like like, oh, pancake hands, you know. Uh yeah, no, don't, don't like don't. That's that's the key thing. Like a handshake generally means you're just meeting someone, and so I think like commenting, oh, you have little baby hands is maybe something you shouldn't do when you're just meeting someone.

I'm not an expert on politeness or making friends, so I could be wrong, but I guess it is usually people I know well or like people I somewhat know, where there's some situation, like there will be some situation in which we have to hold it our hands or hands the center. And then they'll say, well, you're a professional. Every time you see your friends, you shake hands with them. Yes, I say hello, very lovely to see you. I'm so

happy to be working with you. And then we sign a bunch of Crown tracts and then we you know, we hang out. We watched glasses of milk. Yeah, uh yeah, don't don't talk about people's hand sizes. Um, but if you're a crab, like they're constantly talking about their class sizes. That's the whole world again. Just like if your friend says like, oh, your hands are small, but like that's a very crab thing to say. That's a very crab behavior,

you know. Yeah, that's crab behavior. It's not people behavior. We're being You're you're using crab voices. Let's use human voices now, um so uh yeah, yeah. It turns out that the crabs who decide to build chimneys are shy all babies. Researchers literally in their paper documenting chimney construction, were like, these appear to be shy crabs because they spend more time in their burrows. They are more skittish around other crabs, and they just are introverted shy crabs.

They just and they make their chimneys. So people are other crabs, I guess in their crabmunity. Uh just don't like pop in their holes as much, you know what I mean, Just like they're just like, wow, they're just shy little guys. They just don't want to come to

the party. And that's okay, Yeah, just little little shy crabs just spending all their all time in their crab burrows, spend all their time on crab chat rooms, you know, yeah, just a I am age age crab type location right right right, number of legs, class eyes, number of legs, class eyes. Just really talking on straight with strangers all the time. Yeah yeah, uh yeah, no, I mean yeah, just like like I don't know, I can't get over the fact that scientists were like studying these crabs in

a serious capacity. It is like, yeah, this is a shy crab. You know. We were going to talk about you know, they're they're they're anatomy and their biological functions, but we couldn't get over the fact that they're just so shy. They're just so shy. We like went up to them with a tiny microphone and we were like, hey, why do you build these chimneys? And they're just like no, I thank you. I don't biggle, And none of them

would breathe their slam poetry. They're too shy about it. Now, they're too shy, beautiful singing voices, and no one is going to know they're just wearing a ponytail and putting on glasses. It's time to take them off, you know. And if a crab, can you imagine if a crab like took off their glasses and like tossed their well, they don't have hair, but I guess they're antenna in the hair. Like that transformation. Beautiful and suddenly she's beautiful.

Suddenly she's arrived, and it's like you thought she was shy building her little sad on chimney, staying out of the limelight. But now she's arrived and she's actually she's Crab Prom queen. She's the hottest crab at Crab Prom. Now. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. It's beautiful. And there's a diagram diagram of crabs building these chimneys if you want it, Like, I don't know, I thought maybe you'd want a diagram of a crab building a chimney, just so you know,

I want to see the process. Yeah, I'm gonna make this my screen saver. Thank you, that's good. I'm honored. Um, I just I do love this diagram. I'll include it in our our document that I share with all of you listeners of the images that we discussed in the show. You can find that in the footnotes as always, But this diagram is um step one or sorry, step a no no no wait, Step one A crab digging into depositing mud. Crab comes out a hole. Step one B. Crab has a ball of sand in clause step two

Part A dragging and stacking mud. Step two Part B. He's starting a crab chimney. Step three part A. It's a bigger crab chimney. Step three part B, even bigger crab chimney. Like that's what the diagram is. These steps were divided very strangely. Yeah, it's kind of like a how to draw thing where it's like we're like, it's like, yeah, start how to draw rabbit. Start with an oval. Now do a circle. Uh, rabbit traumatic shaving. It's a rabbit

right right, cross hatch, cross hatch. Now it's bunny. That's kind of what's going on here. It's like, it's a hole, there's a ball. Now suddenly it's a chimney. You know, very useful diagram. I like it. I liked it because I wanted to build one of my own. And so now I have the tools. Now you have the tools. You know what, information is the best tool, better than pincers. It's true, it's true. Now I can just beat them at their own game, because you know what I have.

I have a shovel. Yeah, no, we better. We better because if we don't start catching up to crabs, were in trouble and we will talk about that when we get back, because spider crabs are building pyramids underwater and we might be doomed. No, So, Kylie, do you not like spiders? Oh, I'm okay with spiders. Okay, good, I'm I'm I'm kind of pro spider. Honestly. That's really good to hear because so far you've been pro crab, which I again appreciate. I'm I'm pro things with a lot

of legs, except for like centipedes and millipedes. I don't really subscribe to that, But um, crabs and spiders I'm okay with. I don't like kill a spider when I see one, Yeah, kind of just let it be. Yeah, I you know, I like spiders in the house because I'm like, look, I don't like getting bugs in my food. And you don't eat my food. You eat the bugs that eat my food. Yeah, we're eating different foods. There's no reason. I truly like, I don't even put it

in a paper cup and take it outside. I just let it stay. I do that if they're like in a high traffic area because I don't want to step on a spider. But if they're just my chilling out in a corner, it's like, hey man, look I'm eating cereal and you're eating flies. This is perfect. Yeah, as long as you don't want any of my cereal. I was we grew up. I grew up like next to a hiking trail, and so we had tarantulas, like we get like one or two a year on the porch,

and they were very scary and they would charge at you. Um. Yeah, that's just for a hug, though, like, come on, bring it in, come here, I just want to bite you a little bit. Um. So that was deeply scary. Um. But every other spider, I'm like, you know what, it's fine. Yeah,

you know, I feel you Like. I actually did have a brief fear of spiders when I was a kid, because there was like a honking big spider in my bed one time, just like pulled down the covers, is like right next to me on my pillowing, like hey there, just for me out. So I kept checking my bed, Yeah, kept kept checking my bed for spiders. But then after college, when I learned more about spiders, I was like you know what. I'm into. These into these folks. I like them,

got over my fear of spiders. I also held like someone's pet tarantula, which is a lot better than just honestly from afar. Honestly though, like when something's a pet, I have a much different reaction to it than just seeing it out in situ or uh, you know, what's the cinematic term, like in in cinema? Very tay. I don't know what is it? When you see something in real life? Do you just call it seeing it in real life? I've forgotten. Sorry, that's a traditional cinema term

for it? Is I? I r L? Okay, thank you, No, I've forgotten, Like, how do you refer to real life? It's not something I've been dealing with lately. We're not leaving living it anymore now, we're not. It's just not something I've had to think about. So when I see like a snake, I r L. It's like I'm startled in a little frightened. If I see a mouse, I r L. Like, especially in my home, I'm like, you know, oh that's not good. I don't like that. And the

same thing with tarantula. I see a tarantula, you know, just like sitting on the end of the street and like, what the what are you doing, buddy? I don't like this just staring at me. But like, if someone's got a pet rat, or a pet snake or or a pet tarantula, I'm like, all right, you uh, you've already built up a rapport with at least one humans. So I kind of like, you know, yeah, do pet tarantulas

like their owners? Like? Do they they just don't bite them? Well, I have never owned a tarantula, and far be it from me to say that tarantulas don't love their owners, because I'm sure we have a lot of listeners who have tarantulism. Kylie, between you and me, I don't. I don't think tarrangelas are capable of love. WHOA, be careful. You are messing with the tarantula owner demographic and they

are scary they've got a tar angela. I think tarantula's can feel the emotion of neutrality, and for a tarantula, that's love. Yeah, I think like love in the animal kingdom sometimes is you won't kill me, so I will be cool about this. Yeah, it's neutrality. But yeah, I think tarantulas can be neutral towards their owners, which is

a huge compliment from the tarantula community. Yeah, but you know, speaking of tarantula's, a kind of underwater tarantula is a giant spider crab which looks like a crab but with big old tarantula legs, And honestly, I think it's a cutie. But I could understand if someone didn't like it. You're wrong not to like it. But you know, it's just because it's got spider legs doesn't mean it's not cute.

Because it's got that little crab face with the little rostrum that looks like a pointy nose, and it's just it's cute. It's keute to me. Yeah, it looks on to me. It looks like a like a baby duck with a bunch of like tiki torch legs. Like for some something about the face it's got like a maybe this is just a trick of the eye in this photo, but it almost looks like it has a beak. Yeah, that's the rostrum. It's a it's just sort of an

protrusion of like the front of the face. It's not actually a nose, but it kind of looks like a pointy nose. I do like that. Crabs have sometimes look like they have that pointy little nose. Not so much seeing the baby. Okay, if I squint, if you really like, if you you know what, I'm looking closer at it and it does not look like that at all, I would like to reverse my opinion. I want to take

that back. Yeah, but if I squint almost enough that I'm closing my eyes, maybe, Yeah, if I go like that, I also see a little bit of sea turtle potentially sea turtle face. Yeah. What, I'm really trying to make this guy cute, and I just don't know if he is. Yeah, to me, it just looks like crab face. But listen, that's not the reason we're talking about these We're talking about them because they make pyramids of themselves, giant spider crab pyramids they have. Wow, that's just a pile of crabs.

It's just a pile of crabs. So before we explain the pile of crabs, let's talk about the crabs themselves, the individuals that make up this crab pyramid. The giant spider crab is found around the waters of South Australia, They're a big red crab with sexy long legs and a nice big carapast. Uh. They're total width including legs is fifteen inches or forty cimeters, so that's a little over a foot. But their carapists, their main body is only about six inches or sixteen centimeters, so you know

they're honky chunky. They're chunky, big honker crab like crab. Long crab is huge, middable. It's not the biggest crab. That's the Japanese spider crab, who is quite thick. Anyways, Um, these ones aren't the biggest crab, but they are quite big. Uh. And of course sometimes they form giant underwater pyramids. Uh. Do you want to see a video of a crab pyramid? You do? Absolutely absolutely, Let me pull it up. You don't have to listen to the whatever audio is on it.

I think it's just water noises. Actually, oh well, I need the water no noises to understand where I am. To fully perceive a crab, you need to feel underwater, yeah, because otherwise I'm like, what is this blue stuff they're swimming in? I don't understand it's a crab. Okay, so this is we're talking about mosh pits earlier. This is a mosh pit. This is a mosh pit. Yeah, that's why. Earlier you're like, well, I don't think crabs go to raves, and I was like, oh, just you. But yeah, what

is the goal of this? What is the goal of the raid? Yeah, that's a good question and one other people have asked, because when when you see a big pile of crabs, I guess you can't just like leave well enough alone. Although check out that these crab faces. Again, I'm sorry, I will answer your question, but I do the crab faces because the rostrum looks like a pointy nose, and it looks like they're kind of frowning, and so it looks like they just are really grumpily not washing,

which I do love. Yeah, they look like weird zombies who are just under some weird sort of crab spell. Yeah. Yeah, So the reason is scrillics. I mean, it's got a good beat. And when you've dropped the beat, like you you're and you're in a group and everyone's reacting to the beacon dropped, is you know, I mean, it's electric. Yeah, yeah, it's a transcendent. So the reason they make the crab tower. They're not trying to form a crab ultron. What's is ultron made out of a lot of robots? I guess

I don't really know what. I don't know robot lore. Unfortunately, that's a that's a blind spot I have. Yeah, they're trying to form like a mega crab out of like many crabs. Well, the best guess that biologists have is that it is protect them all as they simultaneously get naked a k. A. When a crab gets naked, that is called malting. Wow, So they're all like creating like this big dressing room for each other. Exactly. When crabs

and other arthropods who have exoskeletons grow, they're hard. Carapists can't grow with them. The armor of it, the fact it's so tough has a downside, which is it's not stretchy. So as they get bigger, the carapists can't get bigger either, so they have to molt. They have to break out of their old shell, revealing a fresh new shell. But like I said, when the shell is developing and growing with them, it actually has to start out being soft.

Otherwise obviously you can't you can't expand it. You can't grow, so under that hard shell grows a soft new shell, and once they break out of their old shell, that new shell starts out soft and slowly hardens over time. For these crabs, it takes about an hour for the shell to reach maximum hardness, and during that hour they are extremely vulnerable to predation because they are soft, juicy little treats. Yeah that sounds pretty yummy, sounds like yeah, yeah,

it's just like you know, melt in your mouth crab. Uh. So they are easy pickens for predators when they're naked. So their solution is pyramid of crabs. More crabs, the better you know, it makes it more intimidating, much more pinchy,

like pinches per square inch increases quite a bit. Uh. And even if a predator decides to snack on one of them's statistics is on their side, like you're just water, like, it probably won't be me, right end of like fighting to be in the middle, Like I can't totally tell, Like you don't want to be an outside crab. Right, Yeah, that's a really good question. I haven't seen any research

on that whether that's true. I think it's relatively hard to actually study these because they only last about two hours, and they only happen during this molting season. But I think that's a really smart observation because I would bet that's not only what they're trying to do, but that's the reason that they form that crab pile is this

instinct to hide under one another. So like, if you have a bunch of crabs all trying to hide under one another, they'll all congregate in a big pile being on top of each other, so everybody just piles on. It's very interesting because like who decides who's like, okay, guys, time to start the crab pyramid. Let's go right right. It's well, I mean it's the crab with the clipboard obviously. Yeah, it's the crab stage manager. Yeah right, okay, okay, quiet quiet,

I still hear whispering. I still here, r braces places everybody, crab pit. It's where I put the tape down. So some observers who have watched these crab pyramids say they have even seen crabs like take pieces of sponge sea sponge to try to like cover their nakedness. Like, oh, they're shy too, Yeah, they're so shy. I mean all of the crabs we've talked about are just a little shy, little shy babies. Um or these aren't big shy babies over babies, big big honk and shy babies secure and

I think we all relate to that. It is a little burlesque though, like the crab just with a couple of things of like sea sponge, just trying to cover their nakedness, like like they're like, you see my ankles. You shan't see my little rostrum, will you know? No, my astar, my rostrum is not for your eyes from mine. H I saw you trying to take a peek of my gifts. No no, don't you never see it? You never see it? No, no, no, the secret. I'm a

little coquettish. Uh yeah. So these, like I said, the pyramids, are pretty pretty brief. I mean, you know, it's like it's like we talked about with these sand bubbler crabs. They create this art, it's performance art, and in their case like but then it only last a couple of hours because they live in the moment. God damn it,

everything washes away. And that's the ocean. Like we have all these things on land that can stay for a while, but the ocean is like, no, time isn't real here, like you just this is going to happen in the moment and that's gonna be gone. Yeah, Time makes fools of us all, even crabs. It's true. It's true. We can't we can't defeat time. We can't defeat the time God. Yeah, And that's ultimately what this podcast is a about. Why how we cannot kill the time God. And I keep

trying to It's just not happening. Boy. If I tried, Boy do I keep trying to kill the time God? And every time it's like back to the drawing board. Couldn't kill time today. Tried a big catapult, didn't work. Tried a bunch of poison, tried a bunch of mine tricks, no, not calling for any of it. Tried a big mouse trap with some watches his bait. That didn't work, right, I got a really big businessman mouse though. That's why

I could see potential there. I could see potential for like a sort of business thing where we cheat him out of all of his money and then with time is money and he just time is money. So if we got rid of money, we would get rid of time. Okay, so now we just have to kill capitalism. I mean, this is what I've been time, this is what I have been saying. Yeah, yeah, we got it, we cracked it. Well.

I like to answer listener emails occasionally on the show, and I got one, uh, and I wanted to dress it and I wanted to read it to you, because well, it's not about crabs um which, guys. I went into my email inbox for listener questions and I searched for Crab and I got a couple, but I had already answered those, and I haven't gotten new crab emails, and I don't know. I don't know what to do about it. I just don't. I mean, it's not that I'm angry.

I think it's that I'm disappointed, you know what I mean, you would think that that the people would care more. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, I get it, like crabs aren't Crabs aren't the popular girl at school, you know, but it's like shy, but someone's got to say about the shy girls out there. They can surprise you, you know. It's like the shyest girl all in high school. Now now she's like on Instagram, like because she took off her ponytail right exactly, just ripped it right off her skull,

ripped it right off. Yeah, she doesn't need haircut. This bloody chunk of scalp coming off with it, and all the boys in the room we're like, whoa, who is she part? She just ripped part of her scalp off? That's why I'm asking who she is dat her? I'm wondering what's going on? Well, he should we call medical professional? Wow, I've never noticed you before, but now that you're well, you win, I noticed you. Well. This email is about ferrets, and it starts Dear Katie Golden. I've been a fan

since near the beginning of your podcast. I enjoy everything about your podcast, from how the information is presented to the humor that you and your guests have. Well, thank you so much. One thing that I'm surprised that you haven't had an episode covering is ferrets. I'm not just suggesting this because I am biased for having multiple ferrets. Well we'll see about that, although that is part of it, won't you admit it? Uh? Ferrets have been instrumental to

so many aspects of human culture and scientific developments. The Yearly flu vaccine is tested using laboratory ferrets, and most importantly right now, ferrets were used in the development of the COVID nineteen vaccines. They have saved so many lives at the cost of their own. You know, that's a that's a really good point. Like when when we have our vaccines, like if we could spare a moment to think about the animals that we've used in testing to be able to stay alive, it's uh, you know, like,

thank you ferrets, fret. I don't think they volunteered. That's the awkward thing. I don't think they volunteered to be medical heroes. But again, it couldn't hurt to thank them. Yeah, yeah, that's oh man, oh man, we needs I'm sorry ferrets were really sorry ferrets. Sorry ferrets. Uh. Which makes me even more mad when people are like, oh, I don't want to get the vaccine, like you know, it's a it's scary, or like I don't know, it'll make me

a robot. It's like, dude, the ferrets did not test the vaccine for you to be so coy about the vaccine, all right, yeah, for you to think that you know more about the vacccene you think you know more about vaccines than ferrets. Nice try, buddy, nice trying. Well, some people know just as much about ferrets because they think there's five g in them and that they're gonna make you not pregnant. Yeah, I mean a ferret is long, so they could fit a hole in antenna in there.

I'm sorry, no, no, no, let's let's move on. Uh well the Yeah, the ferrets are GPS tracks. Ferrets are GPS. Yeah, no, I've long suspected. Uh no, everyone, get a vaccine. God, dang it, get your vaccine. Do it. I just said it. Just bite the bullet. Let's just do it. Let's be done with all this. I got all my vaccines, and I feel great, and in fact, I feel stronger than ever because I got all of the vaccines. Yeah, everyone, advisor Johnson and Johnson. Yeah to the UK. Got astrid zedeka. Yeah. Yeah,

you know, I got the spotnick one from Russia. That's pretty good. Uh, just a I had. I told them to like mix it all up in one cocktail and one big syringe and get that in me. So you know, I just got absolutely blasted for a day. Yeah. I couldn't couldn't leave my bed. Yeah, but no, in all seriousness, if you're hesitant, don't be. The vaccine is very safe and uh much much better than getting covid. Uh So

get one. I know you. Probably everyone who listens to in a podcast about animal biology probably is very interested in the vaccine. Uh if you can get it? Um all right? Uh so, Vanessa continues to write. During this pandemic, I have worried more about the health and safety of my ferrets than myself. They are susceptible to many human viruses,

but have been useful in finding treatments and vaccines. In a historical context, my favorite bit of ferret knowledge is that Elizabeth the First had ferrets and loved them so much that she had them in portraits of herself. Leonardo da Vinci's painting Lady with Ermine is also thought to be a white ferret and not a proper ermine. Scandal. Oh my god, that I mean that must have the people the right like, that's not an er mine, that's not a proper mine. That's a white ferret. Get it out,

Get it out of my office. If they did. Indeed, Elizabeth the First, famous for her Royal Offices office, so many computers, printers, and when she was annoyed with a courtesan, she would order them out of her office. I do remember that from history. Yeah, it was nice when they stopped doing beheadings and they started to saying, get out of my office. Right, what is this invention? Well, your highness, it's an office. So I was thinking, instead of killing people,

you could simply order them out of it. I see what an innovation. I love that more of a power play. Yes, I can give them a phone handshake. Where the renaissance really is a rebirth. Vanessa continues to write that she is passionate about ferrets. They are affectionate, playful, social, and misunderstood, and she writes, I would love to hear your thoughts and jokes about these ridiculous little creatures that want nothing more than to play, hide things, and to be friends

with everyone. I've included some photos of my ferrets, sincerely, Vanessa. Indeed, she has included photos of her ferrets, Kylie. I shared them with she has. Indeed, I see them. They're just they're like in a little ferret pile, kind of like our crab here amid over there. It kind of reminds me of like sometimes if you like hold, um, hold

a bunch of pina pasta, which I do commonly. Just hold the pasta and like the pasta is kind of slipping out through your fingers, you know, and like one pasta is trying to get away from you, and it's really hard to hold them all. That's how I imagine the pile of ferrets would feel in your feel like you try and scoop up these parrot ferrets and they just sort of like slip through their your fingers. They look like little little like ferret tail key chains. Is

that a real thing? Uh? Maybe? Yeah? I feel like I don't know what I'm thinking of. No, No, I think you're right, Like there's all sorts of weird things that we've done where it's like, because I remember there were the rabbit's foot key chains, and there was also like some little tail. Oh, I know what I'm thinking of. It's something completely different. It's like those cat toys that are like felt worms. They Oh thank god, I thought, I thought, like very visceral. And I'm like, yeah, I

definitely don't have one of those. I wanted, though. You're just like, yeah, I got some taxidermy ferret tales. Don't worry about it. Don't taxidor what if I came out as like a big taxidermist, you just like pop onto record this and it was just like moose antlers all around me. I mean, I don't hate taxidermy when it's roadkill because it's like, hey, you know what, They're not using those bodies anymore and you didn't kill them for it,

so if you want to do that. In fact, when I first moved to l A, I was considering moving in with a roommate and then I found out that she was a taxidermist, and I thought that was interesting. She's like, I only taxidermy roadkill are already dead animals. It's like, oh, that's fascinating. She's like yeah, And I was like super into maybe being roommates with her. But then it turned out she does all the taxidermy in

the apartment. Yeah, which huff I mean at that point, yeah, studio, she's got to get a studio, yeah, because she is like, you, you'll need to be comfortable with road kill sometimes on the table and or in the fridge, and like, uh, you know, this is really a ME problem and not a U problem. But I don't know if I want road kill in the fridge. And that's probably my own biases, you know, right right. I wonder if she ever got anyone to fill that Craigslist listing, because that's a tough sell.

I will say she did. H. I continued having the phone call with her long after I knew I wasn't going to rent, because I just needed to. I needed to hear more of her. I asked her if she ever like taxidermy pets, and she's like, oh, no, no, that that's too strange. I think just I would just do like an ear, oh, an ear or tail. H yeah, And it's like yeah, yeah, of course, I mean yeah, just a near er tail so that And she's like, yeah, so I could like have it in my pocket and

just like pet it. Sometimes it's like, you know what, I feel, that's worse. That feels worse it you know what, whatever, get whatever, whatever, whatever passed, as long as you don't kill anything to get right. Yeah, love live. Yeah. Some people, you know, look at different strokes for different folks. Some people like to stroke a dog ear. Uh. Some people like to play volleyball, Some people like to paint. Some people like to hold a little dead dog ear in

their pockets. Yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't judge because I'm bad at painting, but maybe i'd be better at having dead dog. Yeah, you never know. I'm not good at things, right, right, Sometimes it's it's not what you want, it's what's mind to judge. And taxidermy can be a really cool art. Uh, Like it's I know that often like taxidermy, think about like the kind of like bad taxidermy where it's like someone took a squirrel and put

deer antlers on it and googly eyes. But if you look at like some of the professional taxidermy where they're actually recreating scenes of nature for like museums and stuff, it's mind blowing. It's completely mind blowing. Wow. Wait, how did we start talking about taxidermy? I don't. I invent did something in my mind called a ferret key chain, right, right,

and then we started talking about taxidermy. Um, But originally we're talking about ferrets because these ferrets are just look like little buttered noodles that would fall right out of your arms and pile is so cute. Because my brain can't really calculate how many ferrets there are, right, I can't where but I really can't tell I don't know where one ends in one begins, right, And I don't know too much about ferret biology. I don't think they can have two heads, right, Like, it's not like they

start out with my head. Yeah, I think one of the ends. But certainly there couldn't be two butts. That would be quite a ferret though, right, just a tube with two butts. But I don't two but ferret. It's like the opposite of a cat dog, where you just get you just get the tails. You don't get in the cat dog extended universe. There's got to be a just like dog butt attached to a cat but right, Yeah,

that doesn't get to talk. And they wouldn't make the movie about them because people a recrimination because these people are are small minded. Yeah, people need to open their minds to things like two butts on a tube or dog ears dead dog ears. Um, anyways, I think uh, I think that's a good note to end on. Uh, that's it's perfect. It's poetry, pure poetry, your poetry. Well, Kylie, did I answer all the questions you've ever had about crabs? I? Um, I know so much about crabs now I feel like

I got such a good education. I'm going to go downstairs and tell my roommates everything I've learned. Um, I'm going to be spouting crab facts all dark day. So thank you so much for that. Please pass it on, pay it forward, pay the crabs forward, until everyone forward. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to, like I want to kind of speed run this whole are inevitable evolution into becoming crabs, Like we gotta start now. We got like you know,

global warming, world's gonna be an ocean. If we could start now, I could see us becoming crabs in like a couple of thousand years. Yeah, we just it's not it won't be that hard. We just need to get our arms and legs just like a little bit like harder, a little bit a bonier, and then just developed two more limbs and that should take too long. Yeah, yeah, I think you're missing one more pair of limbs. But hey, I think, uh, and we'll get there. We'll get there.

It's I mean, it's step by step by step by step and uh, and then we suck on some sand and then we're there. Then we're already there, you know there, and then we're there and then we were enjoining the crabs. That came before us. Yeah, exactly, maybe they'll welcome us. And that's when wild world peace. When we're all crabs, it's world peace. Uh. Anyways, thank you so much for joining me, Kylie. Do you have anything to plug? Yeah, I um, well, you can follow me on all platforms

at Dead Eye Brakeman. And then I have a podcast coming out called Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists. It is an improvised Hollywood roundtable podcast like all those you know, Vanity Fair, like all the supporting actors get together and gab um. So it's it's it's like that. It's very character it's a lot of fun. Um. I host that with Patrick McDonald, are Angela Garitada and Jeremy cohane and it will be available I think two weeks from now, so sometime in June. Just follow me all up.

Now we'll be now, we'll be the future. Now we'll be next week. So now we'll be the future. We're doing this from the past. Who Just follow me and I'll keep you updated, keep updated with that. Check it out. Kylie is hilarious, so I'm very excited for her her new podcast, So definitely check that out and she's got amazing videos on Twitter. They are hilarious and 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 f e E T is something very different. You can send me your ferrets or other things. Really, any questions you have to Creature feature pot at gmail dot com. And I sometimes I'm slow to respond because you guys send me your pet pictures and I don't think you realize how like, if I see a pet picture, I'm just staring at it for hours and trying to touch the screen because I don't know how images work,

and I think I'm petting the animal. So yeah, thank you for sending me all your emails, and uh again, thank you for listening to the show. If you're enjoying it and you do a writing or review. I read all of the reviews and I love them. They warm my heart and also they warm the heart of the algorithm. All hail the algorithm. We've got to please the algorithm. All Hail indeed, all hail the algorithm. We love you, algorithm. Um and thanks to the Space Classics for their super

awesome song x Alumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or Hey guess what? Where? Have you listen to your favorite shows even if it's in a sand Bubbler, Crabs, Igloo, I Don't Judge. The next Wednesday