Creature Feature Classic®: Scams with Scam Goddess!

it sounds like gullible? No, it doesn't, that's a trick. Yes, Today we're talking about getting bamboozled, pulling Shenanigan's, having the wool pulled over your eyes, getting can by caterpillars, and hoaxed by horses. So first we're going to talk about sexy scams. Pandas are notoriously bad at sex. Male pandas are terrible at knowing when a female is in the mood for sex, and even if they do happen to make it to third base, they have no idea what to do next. And the wild females have their pick

of the litter. They can select a mate from a group of males, but in captivity there's limited options, so mating is often awkward and unsuccessful. Animal caretakes are taking a novel approach their bamboos. Holding these pandas into getting good at sex. The Shingdo Panda Breeding and Research Center in Sichuan, China tricks mail pandas into doing sexercize, getting up on their hind legs and working out their pelvic

muscles by holding an apple just out of reach. Apple hungry pandas don't realize that as they wobble on their hind legs trying to get a bite of that sweet fruit, they're really working out their hips to be better at making them moves on an email. This is one of the very few of only examples of one species tricking another species into being better at mating. And it's probably because we humans are a bunch of weirdos. But when you explore the animal kingdom, you'll find a great deal

of sexual bamboozles. Amongst these perverted connartist creatures. Joining me today is actress, comedian Daily Zeygeister and host of the show Scam Goddess Lacey Mosley. Hey, welcome, Thank you for having me. Of course, uh, I'll of that these pandas all they wanted was an apple, and they got tricked

into being really great at grinding. If only we could do this for real mint, I know, I know, just like dangle Talco just out of right, and they're like trying to get a taco like the football, Like you can watch football, but it has to be up this high and you have to stand here eat this popsicle wide not reason, Oh my goodness. But that's also so it's just making them better at thrusting. How do they

get them to like engage with the females. Isn't that the problem that they don't even know when they're like horning? It's a good question. I feel like it's to make it so that when they do happen to under the female is literally saying like come get this vagina please, and the males are like okay, then they kind of know what to do because otherwise they're just not in the habit of using their pelvis. I guess, so they would just like land on top of them like is

it happening? We're doing it right, you're fueling it? Is this good for you? Oh? Pandas so I want to take you on a trip to Deception Island, which is a real plaice okay island I would like to go to. Yes, So it's named Deception island because it looks like a normal island, but it's actually a caldera, which is a ring around an active volcano. So it's like looks like solid land, but then if you get in, it's just

this ring of islands and then ocean. So is it like when those volcanoes like robbed and then they make those ocean islands. It's like one of those islands. Oh yeah, there's like nothing on those. Well, this one actually has things on it, and it's got kind of funny and in silly history, so various countries have tried to declare

it belongs to them. So in UM two and argentinean exploratory party came to Deception Island and they just left signs and painted flags marking the territory as being Argentinia. I mean that's normally how it used to work that way. I mean that's what we did on the Moon, right right, we went to the Moon. I mean that's true. When we pretended to go to the Moon, we just put a flag there and we're like, I guess it's American USA. Yeah,

we put the flag here. I mean that's a north Like that's really like back in the day, I truly don't know how anyone owns land. Land owning is a scam, and it still is a scam. It was like whoever got there first, or like whoever killed everyone? Like that's how you got it? Well? Like I did you just hear the thing where Trump was talking about how he kind of wanted to buy Greenland. No, he said so many crazy things a day. I can't keep up he does. But it was one of those things where I'm like, wait,

how do you buy a country? And then I was like, wait, how do people get countries in the first place other than just like war? And like it was like enough people got together, like we're going to decide that this is I mean, that's what happened to America. America had people on it at Native Americans, and then Chris Columbus came and stuck a flag down. Look I discovered it, dude, No, I discovered over here? What about us? Hear? No, No,

don't see anything. I don't hear anything. This is my land. Now, that's giving happened. Oh gosh, that the story we get. So a year later after the Argentinian ship like just put some flags in. They're like it's ours now, right, yeah, a British ship, being extremely petty in British returned and just like removed the signs and the flags and they're like, nope, it's British again. So they owned it in the first place. I mean no, I don't think anyone really owned it.

I think it's under some kind of like shared Antarctic territory treaty um. And then in the nineteen sixties the volcano became active again and it destroyed British and Chilean scientific stations. So they gave up on like trying to decide who owned it because it's like, oh, it's full of lava. No, no, you can have it Argentina right now away. You can have a great Britain like the keep an taxes on it. That right, Argentina got a

good deal out of that. Then. Well, the best part about Deception Island is it's home to chin strap penguins, which are cute little penguins who they themselves are little deceivers living on Deception Island? Is it? Okay? So it's well they're penguins. Wait, so it's cold there, So it's an act of Atarctica got it or near an Antarctic So the chin strap penguins and penguins in general have

what's called counter shading. So you may wonder, like why would you be where those little tuxedos if you want to like blend in and be noticed. But by being darker on the top and lighter on the bottom, they actually appear flat in one dimensional from the top and from the bottom. So like if they're swimming and the leopard seals or whatever it's hunting them, you know they will appear just flat. So if I want to avoid like shark attacks, like I should swim in a tuxedo. Yes,

that is uh, that is true. Everyone in Florida should be on the beach in a tuxed should wear you should wear it like a but like a texedo wetsuit. So like they have Bond, Yeah, doesn't James. Isn't that what James Bond does? He like has a tuxedo under his wetsuit right like he like swims ashore and his wet suiting takes it off. It's just a Texian. Am I imagining that? Or was that? Or was that in like Austin Powers and I just feel like it. I don't know, I truly don't know. That's a good question.

It's it's a funny concept though, like I guess, so if you seem flat, then animals are like, I don't want that because it's flat. Like because so normal three dimensional object, like when you have a sphere, it's like it's you see the highlight on the top because the sun is hitting it, and then it's shaded towards the bottom. So then that's how you can tell, like, oh, this

is a three dimensional object. This is a ball. And then like if you're an animal approaching from above or blow especially in water, it's like, okay, this is an object that is three dimensional, and therefore I can put it in my mouth. So like if it's flat and if you just see like an advertisement for the Hamburger, you don't try, well, most people don't. I sometimes give it a lick, just in case, just in case that they've like Willy Wonka asked, yeah, scratch and wait, did

they have scratching licks? I didn't know that. I don't think they scratching. We were licking. We were like with those markers where it was sniff but it was a little bit like grapes. Never tasted like grapes, but it felt like grapes too after a while, like, yeah, I've just sniffing it long enough. Everything everything feels like grapes. Yeah. So here's another fun instance of this time. The chin

strap penguins were the were the Bamboozled Party. So in two thousand four, Roy and Silo, two male chin strap penguins at the Central Park Zoo. Um. They were famous for being a couple and they were both males, so they couldn't conceive naturally, so they adopted a rock thinking that it was an egg. So they kept trying to hatch it, like sat on the rock and they were totally fooled by this. So sweet and so sad. I know the penguin community won't let the gay penguin, why

can't they adopt another person's egg. Well, the zoo keepers actually ended up replacing the rock with a fertile egg, and the couple hatched it and raised the chick. Ah. That's beautiful. See see why can't people be really like? This was in two thousand and four too, So it's like I feel like the zookeepers were better at being nice to the penguin than like penguins got more rights than gay people. Oh that is unfortunate um. And then one more little bamboosle that these chin strap penguins like

to do. And we've actually talked about this a bit on the show about the Adelaide penguins who also do this. So they create their nests out of pebbles because, like I don't know, in Antarctic or on this on Deception Island, there's not much to work with volcanic you're going to be sleeping on rocks. So they will steal pebbles from each other while they're not looking to make their nests better.

And we actually I think we talked about this on the first or second episode, but this is a kind of new update where researchers have found that while both males and females will make nests and they'll both steal from each other, in these chin strap populations, the males

are bigger assholes. I mean. But so males are more active in stealing stones, they're more aggressive when defending their nests, and they use larger stones because they're probably compensating, right, you see a large stone penguin, you're not working with anything, compensating for a bad career. Uh. And then females are more likely to have their rocks stolen. So I know, so y'all are stealing from the weaker. Second to how to bring feminism to penguin, I mean, they already got

gay rights. I don't understand if the whole island is made up of pebbles, like why I think you're stealing specifically from people to be petty, because it's like you're just get some pebbles that aren't lay well. I think the researchers also found that if you if you have more rocks around your nest, and the more rocks, I think the better because it keeps the eggs um warmer because it like elevates a little bit off the cold ground.

And there's just natural stone loss over time because of weather or penguins or like people running around well not people, but penguins running around flags places playing tugo war with a flag saying no, it's miling, No, it's mile. So if you have more rocks to begin with, I think you're just in a better place, like as as you start to lose rocks um later on. So there's a

motivation to steal. But you know, it's probably also a little bit of pettiness where it's like because like, why go out and get your own rock when you can just like steal rocks from your neighbor. That's true if your neighbor is like right next door, we don't have to go to the shore line. Yeah. And also like equal pay, you know, women aren't making as much. That's true for every like like twelve rocks the male penguins make the females make like six and a half. I

don't actually know you were going I was believing it. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a good feminist, especially not a good penguin feminist. Uh So, next, I want to talk about gelatas, which sounds delicious, but it's uh it sounds like gelato and I want gelata now, but it's not. So. These are species of Old World monkey. They're found in the Ethiopian highlands. They kind of look like baboons, but

they're just close relatives there because they have that. But they have that, but they have that nice but um. They're also called bleeding heart monkeys because they have a red patch on their chest. But this is not the reason they're called that. But it seems to also make sense because they will sometimes cheat on each other and then get mad about it um. So they have an actually super complex social structure that is hard for me to wrap my head around. They form multi level societies.

The smallest unit of their societies are reproductive units. It's just like a sex club where it's like a dozen or so females and three or four males. Usually only one of the males is mating with the female's um at once. So it's like a orgy yeah yeah, but it's like an orgy organization or gy org um. And then the next step of gelata society is the bands,

and they're made up of about thirty reproductive units. So it's like a bunch of these sex clubs come together for like a convention, and there are herds that are like temporary convoys made up of the report sex club. Right more like so the basic structure trip and then it's like how big? How big is the level? Right? Right? Right? So are you in like a small country town. We got three horses and that's all we're friend And then you know, it grows into like a metropolitan say like

where's the where's the l a of? Like I mean, are we so different though? Everything? Like are you know, it's just more people who in a place having sex or less. You know, like the difference between a librarian and in and out is the number of people having said. Yeah, so let's focus back on that little, that smallest unit, which is the little sex club of like a dozen females and one to four males, and then one of the males is supposed to be the only one reproducing um,

even though that's supposed to be the case. I mean, you know, they like to cheat, so uh, sometimes they will cheat on him with another male, which I mean, come on, he's already got like twelve females acting double standards like big love when you're in the harem of women, right, So these cheating pairs have been studied in these observations, you know, like scientists just out there watching these gelata.

Is just sciences for science, for science. So often gelattes will vocalize while mating, making happy noises like oh yeah exact, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is yeah yea goal. Um. So while they're cheating, they actually keep those sex moans to a minimum so they're more Yes, yes, I find this quite this, This is quite enjoyable. Yes, right there and also there and

in addition, good day, wow, so they know they're doing something. Yeah, and if they're caught the male that got cheated on, we'll get really mad and throw a fit and like attack them. And yet domestic just like a real soap opera going on. Um, now when they get caught, like, I wonder, is there someone telling them that that's so interesting? I don't. I don't, like they just happened upon it, like they were going behind a tree, like they're like, wait a minute, there's just like a trail of like

clothes shoes. So the society may kind of seem unfair to females at first, but sort of like how lions, it's like seen as like, oh, these are um, you know, patriarchy. It's actually, in some ways more of a matriarchy, which is surprising. So females can basically elect their sex mayor, but um, so males will sometimes try to take over like a little sex group. And if the emails like their sex mayor who gets to mate with him, then they'll support him and they'll fight off the other male.

But if he's doing a bad job at being mayor of sex, they'll be like, no, dude, you're out office. And then that comes along. But how do you know if the new guy is going to be good at sex or is it just like, well we don't like our old guy. I guess you just take a gamble on. But yeah, I know he could never find a clid and we just retired, right, And like some males will typically assert their dominance not by violence, but by occurring

favor with the females by grooming them. So if he's like really bad at it, then I imagine they're like, well, we're going to try this new guy because you suck. Yeah, you're never really had charming and we were like your jokes, but really what I made was I was faking. I was faking it those sex screams. So now we're gonna

go onto some more dastardly sex capades. Um. So, fireflies are pretty spectacular and romantic, like I always like, you know in romance, you're like, you want to kiss in a field of fireflies, except you don't because then there's probably mosquitoes around. Getting up and catching flireflies kill them, like what you're doing a jar full of fireflies that

are dead in the morning, literal childhood. So they'll flash their luminous butts at each other to attract mates and like in a sort of sex morse code to be like you know b B B B, which is like Netflix and Chill. Now what is is it like Amazon Prime and Chill? Have we moved on from Netflix and Chills? No,

because Amazon Prime doesn't. The thing about Netflix is it has that like automatic like so it's like you don't have to be like you know, like in the middle of like you know, getting the cheeks clapped and then it's like, are you still watching so you can like binge watch the in place while having sex. Yes, yes, and it'll stay on for at least four hours. Yeah, just like just love that ted Dance right now that probably think it goes back to the home screen and

next thing, you know, you're just looking at I don't know, landscapes. Yeah, because like if you don't want to, you don't want to like have sex and then have it go to The Great British Bake Off because I mean that show is great, but it is the anti aphrodisiac. Yeah, right, exactly, you needed to keep playing whatever movie or whatever series that you're watching, especially if you have roommates, right right, Wait,

what would the roommates would suspect something? Off, like if I think they probably start hearing sex noises if I live alone now, thank god, but I think they start hearing the sex noises. All right, so you kind of needed as kind of a scrambling affright right. It's sort of like when there's that dead air and then the screen goes black and then you just see yourself. Oh yeah, Also, do you want to see your own reflection of you? It's gonna be because it's not going to be like importants,

gonna be extremely unflattering. It's gonna be your your butt in a way you've never seen it before. That is not becoming. Uh, it doesn't all look like That's how I imagine I look. You know, for years I didn't know that people were having sex with the lights off. I was having sex with the lights on all like, oh god, I'm having sex with this new guy. I gotta I can my poses together? Okay, well, speaking of sex with the lights on. Uh, these fireflies, so they

do their little beet their butts do the flashing light. Uh. And then but there's a serial killer living amongst these innocent fireflies. All they want to do is have sex with each other. So photerus firefly females are called the fim fatales of the fireflies. A woman who murders snaps women. Have you seen the ads for that? Like show like like why do women kill? Yes? I feel like because they want to get it girl, all those people. Yes, I actually no curb. Literally it's literally slack. So they

live in North America. They mimic the flashing pattern of firefly females of other species, so they're like deeping with their their shiny butts, like, hey, I would like to have sex. Come over here now, I would like to have sex as well, like a little NiFe the male fireflies like what's the knife emoji? Because of how sharp are sex will be. It's you know, that's a funny story.

When the male comes over ready to bone, then the photorists will just eat them, just be like, hey, thanks for showing up, munch, give me far like the black woodows at least get hurt and then she's like, okay, now you die right right right, which is you know, like with spiders and mantis is at least they actually do have sex. But this the male gets literally nothing except death. I love it. So this is a form of aggressive mimicry. So mimicry comes in many different forms.

We'll talk more about it later, but aggressive mimicry is when it's a predator or a parasite using the mimicry to attack their target, but the them fatil fireflight in her defense, has a really good reason to do this. Um. First of all, have you ever like had the like tender dates where it's just they're super annoying and they're always like sending you weird pickup lines or like weird erotica. I haven't had any of that. No one has ever

sent me a penis picture unsolicited. I don't know. Maybe I have a face that says I don't want to see your penis. Also, like, isn't this kind of cannibalism because she's a firefly like different species, but they don't eat like I don't know, well, well, so this one is carnivorous. It also has a really good reason for eating them, other than because they're annoying. So she sucks the uses out of them. And these juices have chemicals

that are essential for her self defense. So when attacked by predators, fireflies release droplets of blood containing luci boufagins. I don't I don't know you, but you try to. You try to pronounce it lucid luciboufigins. That sounds better than what I said, It's still wrong. So these lucibithfiggins

deter spiders and birds. They're like unpalatable. And the killer female fireflies don't produce their own lucibithfigins, so she eats hapless sex time gry males of the actual species who do produce it, so that she can suck out those sweet lucibithigans. Makes sense. She needs them, she needs them, she needs them, maybe have everything. Of course, they just are fourn with the defense stuff and we have to like exactly, we have literally suck it out of men.

So selfish. So fireflies aren't the only animals out there who get preyed upon by a sexy seductor. Humans are often the victims of romance scammers, people who go online and pretend to be some hot guy from Italy who just needs five hundred dollars for that plane ticket to

visit you. Researchers looked into the issue of romance scams and catfishing and found there are some shared personality traits among those who get scammed it's not just being gullible, no matter how smart you are, you're always susceptible, but being conned, especially if it taps into one of your vulnerabilities. People who are targeted by romance scammers tended to score higher on a romantic belief scale and believed in things such as love finds a Way or love at first

sight and there was one true soulmate out there. So, in other words, it's hard to blame the victims when there's a bunch of rom coms out there hawking these same ideas, teaching us that it's normal for some hot Italian stranger to declare their love to us and fly halfway across the world to meet us. One way to inoculate yourself against scammers, maybe to become the scammer, at least to pretend to become a scammer. When we get back, we'll discuss how learning to impersonate can help both humans

and animals survive. I'm sure you've heard endless chatter about fake news. Some news story or Twitter talks about fake news, and then that story gets called out for being fake news, and then there's such an endless back and forth between people yelling fake news. How are you supposed to be able to sift through what's real and what's fake. There are fact checking websites out there, but they themselves may have their own biases, and there's no fact checkers checking

the fact checkers. So instead of taking someone's else's word for it, there may be a way for you to become an expert propaganda and misinformation detector by becoming a misinformation and propagandist. A University of Cambridge study created a game where you become the propaganda ist. It introduces you and teaches you how to master six techniques of spreading misinformation, polarization, invoking emotions, spreading conspiracy theories, trolling people online, deflecting blame,

and impersonating fake accounts. Of course, this is not a complete list of all the various ways that propaganda is spread, but it's start. The goal of the game is to gather followers and credibilities metrics which are programmed into the game. The researchers found that participants who played the game became better at identifying made up news headlines when tested. In fact, the greatest improvement in skepticism was found amongst those who

were initially more glible. This is very encouraging because it means we can learn to become more savvy consumers of media. Or maybe I just made up the soul study huh huh, No I didn't, Or did I Now I didn't. You can look it up. It's by John rousen Beak and Sander van der Linden, published in Palgrave Communications five, article number six, five, two thousand nineteen. Or was it that last name sounded hell of fake? I know Sandra vander Lindon.

Sandra vander Linden. Yeah, it's like a Lisa and Bart pranks, like like, I'm Sandra vander Linden. Can I speak to seymore? But a study published in the Journal of Buttology. No, that's legit though that as a scammer and I'm a professed scammer. I tell me why I'm running small scams and cons um The more you know about scams, the

better you aren't identifying that. Yeah, because there's like tell tell signs that once you start to get your finger on it, you're like, wait a minute, Like because if you if you have long enough to think, so what it is about gullibility to it is about how desperate you are to want something like if you want it

really badly. And three, it's also sometimes about time, like if someone catches you when you're like really sleepy, or you're in a rush, or you don't have time to really think about what they're saying to you, of an opportunity to scam right, Which is kind of crazy because that's when people read the news, like in the morning, right before work, like when you're sort of in a rush, or like if you're like checking Twitter, like when you're on break, and you don't have a lot of times

right right, right exactly, so you're not always on your a game. So if there's like a news story that's like you know, like birds aren't real, Like you're like, yeah, sure, okay, no, yeah, actually on the news, girl, I said, the birds not real, hald drones, they're watching us, They're watching That's what they said last night at eleven, Like sure, fine, I'll believe that. Also, romance scams are like a hundred forty three million dollar industry,

Are you kidding? Yeah, so much money is made off romance scams, and a lot of it is because people are just so lonely, and I think that's so sad. Really said and they tend to skew older too, right, yes, and also like but older and also younger, like young women and men with a lot of just posible come especially like they're very susceptible because they don't when you were younger, like I remember when I was nineteen, like right, people just say stuff to me. They made no sense.

And it wasn't until I became like an adult that I was like, oh, or like my one of my ex boyfriends in college had a whole sugar daddy, and I know something was off, but he had a sugar daddy. It was like like, like okay. So we went to school and our campus was like ten minutes away from his internship, which was downtown. So he if they worked late, the sugar daddy would get them a hotel and they would stay downtown. And he lived ten minutes away from home.

I was like, you don't ever need to stay at home toil with this man? What is And I was young though, so I was like, I guess that's how they'd be working in the bank in the industry. I don't know. I don't work in the bank. Weirdly sweaty at the bank. Oh my god. They had robes that were like he would tell me all this stuff. I don't know why did not put two and two together. It was like robes that were monogramed, or like bank robes. You know what the bank bankers wear, you know what

the bank? You know what the bank when they have the robes, the terry cloth robes. Don't know what I'm talking about. You'll need those robes to handle the money. Don't make it weird. I wonder if there's like a perfect age at which we are immune to scam. I feel like it's got to be like thirty five and

that's it. Yeah. I feel like at thirty five, you're probably like a little bit more of a skeptic, but you're not like old enough that you're like worried about I guess what I'm trying to say is like when you get older, you as you also start to fall out of the way of technology. So the thirty five I feel like you're in tune with all the technology that's currently happening. You probably know how to text and

cinemogs and skype, FaceTime and everything. But I feel like the older you get, because there's grandpa scams to grandparents scams and um, and those on average grandparents are sending like nine thousand dollars to scammers. That's so sad, ye who are pretending to be their grandchildren. And with Facebook, you can get on Facebook and learn everything you need to know about someone, click around to find their grandchildren. Um, and even people put up videos so you can learn

how to mimic people's voices. It's so easy with deep fake. Now it's it's that's game over. Like once someone deep fakes a video of you going like, hey, grandma, it's me, I need nine thousand dollars for a bail and that's what they do. They call um. Actually just did a show about one where the phone call started as like, don't be afraid. It's me. I'm your grandson's defense attorney. He got into a d U I accident and he starts off with, don't be afraid. I trust it so much,

don't be afraid. So but the thing is going to be afraid. But he told me not to so Muchill I'm good. Naturally when I pick up the phone, I'm afraid, all right, I'm just I'm on the needles. When I answered the column, waiting for someone to reassure me not to be afraid. But that's the thing that was like when you learn certain scams or get into like scamming, you start to hear things like that and you go

with the like, this is great. But if you're not involved in that stuff, like your study was saying, I think that you're less likely to pinpoint it sometimes, like if they catch you at the right time because they call late at night or really really early in the

morning to write. Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like as a former psychology study research assistant, I was basically running scams as well, because you just you have to lie to people in order to test them because they can't know what you're testing otherwise that influences the results.

So there were some really weird studies. One of them was I had to convince these guys that we had a special camera that monitored their sexual arousal by looking at their pupil dilation, and then we showed them a sexy video and like I had to be really in college, I was not cool. It's I just wasn't cool, and I had I wasn't able to really I didn't know how to lie. I was just you know, kind of kind of doofy and stuff. I mean, you have like such an honest face. Though you have like these bright

blue eyes. I feel like if you tell me things, I would believe them. It's my honest face a k looking always startled, or as if someone who's farted in the room. Hey, it works, it works. I have the face of a liar people people, people know what I'm talking. If I'm breathing, I'm lying. And I mean because I have to work real hard to convince people when I am lying, I wouldn't say that, but then I have

the face of a gullible person. So and then the guys would sometimes question me like say like, wait, how can camera tell like I'm aroused? And it's like you know, by detecting your pupils And they're like, well, am I aroused right now? Like I don't know. If I'm not the camera, I can't tell that guy's a camera. It was like sounds. I didn't get good at scamming people, or I didn't get good at like lying, but I did learn like to do not trust anyone because if

I couldn't trust me, who can I trust? Right? And that's the thing too, is it's like also your experience is that will also cater to like how easily you're scam if you're someone who's had more privileged life, you know, people in your life have genuinely not been shady. If you have access to a lot of money, those people easiest to scam. Yeah, because you've been insulated in a bubble and everyone's treated you well up until, Like, you

don't know how other people live. So someone does tell you, like they work in diamond dealing, and it's dangerous that people are following them, like the arrested development, Like how much can banana's cost twelve dollars? I don't know. I mean I think because I do look kind of innocent. I think like a lot of people have tried to take advantage of me, so I've kind of learned a lot over the years. Like I remember in high school,

I was super gloable. People were always teasing me and bullying me in a sort of funny way that like even now I can like that was pretty funny, but like the only person looking back fondly on the bullying, right, I think about that, well, I mean I was I was bullying. That was not so fun, But you know the fun bowling where it's like oh, look at the ceiling, Katie, and I would or like like, oh, did you know if you like shake a salt salt shaker on your tongue,

you can like taste it them. I'm they're like looking like I'm, you know, going off. So another thing you can't trust is caterpillars. What a segue? Oh I'm great at segways. On this show, we're going to learn that just like humans can defend ourselves by learning to mimic our predators, so can animals. And we're going to start off with a very naughty little caterpillar. Um So, the hawk moth caterpillar of Central and South America mimics the

look of vipers by inflating itself like a balloon. Need to make it look like a snake, right, So they have these big fake eye spots and fake reptile scales, and they puff up their front parts and wave them around to look like a snakehead. They'll even like undulate and do Monck strikes. So I've got a video of this alright, So here's the hawksmouth caterpillar. That's the cat. Oh my, it looks like a snake. This is crazy.

Now it looks so it like twists itself around and then it inflates itself, just like part of it so part of it still skinny, and then it kind of creates a bulb at one end that looks like a snakehead. And it's extremely convincing like that, even even biologists and researchers who know about this caterpillar and are actively looking for it when they see it there. Yeah, because it's we're so programmed to be afraid of snakes that if you see this, you're gonna jump. Now the fake eys

at all? This is this the butt part of the caterpillar. I think it's the front part actually, Like, oh wow, because I thought it was eaten. Now I think that is. I think that is the front part. Oh okay, because I was like, that would be fly if you could just make your booty look like a snake, but you could just eat Yeah, there are examples. So auto mimicry is a type of mimicry where you are mimicking your

own body parts. So there are caterpillars and animals that have eyes on their butt um, and there's a there's this owl called the North American pygmy owl that has eyes on the back of its head. Um, here's a picture of that, so you can see from a distance that you would just think and it's looking at you right exactly. And alics can swivel their heads around. So this is like the next technology. They're like women need, like walking home at night, a whole face on the

back of my head. I feel like if you had two faces, that would be enough of a deterrent, like like two faces, Like, she's a look crazier than what I bargained for. Well actually, so um. In Indian Bangladesh, in tiger territory, people used to try to wear masks on the back of their heads to prevent tiger attacks

because they would attack you from behind. But they were only able to do it for a few months because reportedly the tigers like cut onto it and they learned to differentiate between the fake mask and like the real face. Right now, that's very smart. So I wonder who who was the first guy to get attacked. He was like, no, no, not, don't worry, I got my face mask. Do the first one. It's like, it's just a really bad face mask. And then they turned around in their face also looks like that.

I was like, I don't know what we're wrong. It was a perfect resemblance. That is a form of the The caterpillar pretending to be a form is a form of Baitsian mimicry. So that's a harmless animal mimicking a dangerous animal animal in order to scare off would be attackers. In addition to the caterpillar, other examples are taste butterflies mimicking the epis semitic coloration of unpalatable butterflies and moths. Like butterflies that will make like if a bird eats

that butterfly, it'll vomit. Those tend to be like like green and red. Yeah, like these bright colors like monarchs are a good example. Um monarchs aren't delicious, No, okay, they do look delicious, though I do buttery. There's there's a complex math to this actually, because if you have too many mimics who taste great mimicking the unpalatable mimics, then it gets all skewed where predators don't learn, so they'll just like because the signal has too much noise.

The predators lead all these tasty molds and only occasionally eat the moth or the butterfly. That is actually toxic. So they're kind of messing up the game for the person who is toxic because they like to take my chances right exactly. Like if like most ice cream you ate taste great, but like one once in a hundred like it tasted like like, then you'd still eat ice cream. Yeah, I probably would risk of that as Yeah. So so this really is kind of ruining it for the people

who had the armor right exactly. So the populations actually you see like these populations rising in declining as they kind of balance out because there has to be this balance of mimic population to the actual true signal population. Um. So, Another example, and this is just kind of funny, is there be flies who are totally harmless that look like bees. But they're really funny because they're just these little they look like little poofballs with with eyes and they're they're

just harmless flies. But I would never know these. I've never known if I've seen a bee fly before. I think the first time I saw one was um I think I saw one in the Sequoias and it was really funny because I thought it was a be, but it was also a lot less agile than it look like a great value brand, like one of those ice cream trucks serving like pocket Monster like ice creams where it's like Pikachu but it's all meltysed to be never were like it's it's sponge Guy, the poke Man, get

a Pokemon ice scream. I mean, I feel like this would work on humans too, Like you know how um Like when the whole tide Pod thing was a mean people were making like tide Pod jello shots and tide Pod colored cupcakes and cookies like as a joke. But I feel like if someone handed me a jello shot that looked like a tide pod, I wouldn't want to eat it because it would discuss. I would feel like I was maybe going to eat a tide pot, right, It's kind of like how um I think they're there.

There's been some research to show that when you have a certain flavor associated with cleaning products in a country, like there's a less gum that comes in that flavor, whereas like if in another country eat like the gum or that kind of flavoring isn't like a minty flavor being used in cleaning products. It's not, it's less likely to be to be because you don't want to consume

it exactly. Oh that makes total sense. I would turn me off to I wonder what kind of gum they're eating in Mexico because fabuloso flavor um and it's all delicious. Why do they make it look so good? They make it look too good. It's like a bright color like candy apple, grereen and chin and blue, and then it smells like candy. And then I'm like, but I can't eat it? But or can I can? I? I mean we learned with tide pots. Have you have you seen those? Um?

Like their coffee mug shaped like toilets? Yeah, I don't understand it because any any time, like there's some cute see things like oh, here's a cookie but it shaped like a poop emoji or like here's like the want that eat poop. Yeah. Somebody had a baby shower cake once and they had a very realistic of vagina. Yeah, with the baby hand was coming out. It was like would you like to eat this? Yeah, a lot of people would like to eat it, um, but but it

was like a baby birth reaching the Yeah. And I was like they did as a joke and I'm like, also, I don't want to eat I don't ever want to eat a baby shaped cake. Um. But also I saw I saw a baby cake where it was like the stomach was transparent. It was like this baby fetus in this transparent jellow cab. I don't under we've just because we can doesn't mean we should. Yeah, our society, man, I would eat a cake shape like a baby, though, I don't know. If I give me a little baby

foot baby, I already want to eat baby cheeks. I don't literally want to eat a baby, but I just wanted like nibble. That's true, just like yeah, yeah, just like it. So there's another kind of mimicry called Mularian mimicry, when it's two or more dangerous animals that develop a similar look so that that signal. Like we talked about, it's important that predators actually learned that that signal so

they don't eat you otherwise it's useless. So when you have too dangerous um or toxic animals teaming up looking alike, than their signal is going to be even stronger. So an example of this is the viceroy and monarch butterflies that are both mildly toxic to toxic, and they look very similar they basically look the same. It's really hard

to differentiate them, and there's actually some human examples. So evolutionary zoologist Thomas in Shat claims that marketers engage in this mulary in mimicry where products are colored similarly to signal brand identification better. So that would kind of be like Baitsian mimicry, So like a some Coke off brand, like trying to look like a Coke bottle, or having the same like Dr Pepper and Mr Pitts exactly exactly,

or like the I can't believe it's not butter. Have you seen like all the variations of that where it's like butter, No, I can't believe it. It's like, I don't know, it's not Maybe it's like the same kind of swooping texts like like the blue on yellow or whatever it is, it's like butter. Nah, maybe no, this isn't butter. Or is it the taste of butter? Perhaps the cousin of butter butter. You be the judge, and I would go for that. I mean, that's I mean,

that's what Walmart is. Every great value product is literally so close to cheerios, cheery boys, and then the kind of Mularian mimicry where it's like their signal boosting each other is like chip flavors often have similar colors, so like cool, ranch is like blue, salt and vinegar is like green exactly, red and yellow is just like you know, basic basic chip. Yeah. Um, so that's kind of interesting to me. It's like butterflies do it and chips do it.

So there's other forms, interesting forms of defensive mimicry. Um. So there are these three snakes who live in North Central and South America who look almost identical, the milk snake, the false coral snakes, and the deadly coral snakes. So the milk snakes are harmless, the false coral snakes are moderately toxic and venomous um, and the deadly coral snakes are um. So there's a mnemonic device to try to tell the difference between these snakes. It goes red on

yellow kills a fellow, Red on black venom black. Or there's another one that's like red touches black, it's a friend of jack, Red touches yellow. It's a bad for a fellow, or I didn't mean to do that, as like Italian it's a bad for a red touches yellow, you're a dead fellow, Red touches black, you're okay, jack. Um, I've never been able to learn these because I'm just like red on yellow good for a fellow, red on black,

you're okay, jack. You know it's completely confusing to close, but like you should, regardless of whether they confuse you, you should completely ignore these poems. They are useless. Researchers have found that there's no reliable color pattern that can help you determine the harmless snakes from the deadly coral snakes. So if you see like red touches yellow, just like, stay away from these snakes, right, don't be like, okay, red touches yellow or red touches black, rob it all

over your back. Um. So you might think that in this case, the milk snake and the false coral snakes are mimicking the deadly coral snake as a kind of Baitsia mimicry, but it's Some biologists actually argue that this is called Martensian mimicry um, where a deadly animal mimics a less deadly but still harm full animal. Because if you're deadly, it's hard to teach a predator a lesson because if they eat you, then they die, but you

also die. So so if you mimic a slightly less deadly animal but that's still toxic, then the predators live, but they learned that that is a yucky snake, and then they won't eat you, which is kind of a convoluted thing, and it's not it's somewhat. I can't tell my friends about the snake that I ate if I'm did right exactly, you can't do that anyways. I've found people don't like it. I hate a snake last week, and then then they're like, okay, well do snakes tastes good? Alligator,

don't think they taste super good. I think it's hard to cook them without them getting really chalky. Yeah, and like dried out. It's just useless. They're just useless little news like biting noodles, noodles. There's also Gilbertian emacry, so this is an interesting one. Uh here's an example. So passion flowers have developed growths that look like butterfly eggs to deter butterflies from laying their eggs on them, exposing

them to caterpillars. So Basically Gilbertian mimicry is you're the victim of parasites that then mimics the parasite in order to trick the parasite into not bothering you. Right, So this is like if um, oh, this is so dark, but it's like if someone shooting and you just lay down and pretend you've already been shot, pretty much. And so it's like, these these passion flowers actually have developed

growth that look like butterfly eggs. So the butterfly who normally likes to lay their eggs on these flowers will look at that and be like, oh, there's already competition here, I can't do it. Or it also attracts predators of the butterflies, and then that's good because that then kills any butterflies that will come and lay their eggs. Um, because it kind of just keeps them around, like it's

probably gonna be some butterflies by soon, munch on. I feel like this would be like if you got a scammer calling you and then you tried to scam the camera, Like like if they're like, can you give me your social Security number? And you're like, oh, I don't know what a social security number is could you give me yours as an example? Yeah, wait, repeat it? Thank you? Or like what's your driver's license? It's all of a sudden you're giving up on the information. Um. And then

we talked a little bit about automimicry. UM. That's the that's where you're mimicking your own body parts where it's like the eyes on the back of your head. Um. Actually you know the that Gilbert Tian Memicry reminds me of. UM. I think his name is James Veach. Have you ever

seen his stuff? He's like he um, scammers email him and then he like scams the scammers for comedy where he like, uh, like they'll they'll like try to get him to do a scam and then he tries to keep them engaged as long as possible, where he's like, oh, I'm in. But then he like starts like tormenting them by being like, you know, can you send me a photo of the briefcase? And like scammers, I haven't seen that, but scammers have to be really good at photoshop. It's

like a requirement. UM, And I can't imagine like him like putting them through like can you send me the bank statement like and they have to go to work making it all or they're like they'll say, like you've won this thing and he's like, oh yeah, I heard about that in the newspaper. So I also get a free toaster, right, And they're like, no, there's no free toasters, Like well what about this? And he shows like an advertisement for their scam, but it says like and a

free toaster. It's it's so good. There's one example of mimicry and evolutionary biology that isn't just unique, it's freaky, and like many freaky things in nature, it's all because of this weird fungus. Imagine a fungus that infects your body, hijacks your biology to make you look and smell like a delicious dessert. This is exactly what the disco mycet fungus monil in the Vaccini core bosy fungus do, or as I like to call them because that's impossible to pronounce,

the blueberry. The blueberry fungus infects the leaves of the blueberry plant and causes them to secrete sweet nectar like substance. Pollinators like bees come to sip at this sugary hoax and the fungus hitches right on the bee. Then when the bee moves on to a blueberry flower, the fungus infects the flowers reproductive system. Then the fungus hijacks the flowers ovaries, using them to produce mummified, inedible blueberries containing the fungus, which hibernate over the winter and goes on

to infect the plant again in the spring. This is one of the only cases in nature where a parasitic organism forces another organism, in this case the blueberry plant to engage in mimicry and then uses a patsy in this case, the bee, to infect the plant. Not only does it force the blueberry to smell delicious, it also alters its ultra violet coloration, making the leaves give off a flower signal to the bees. The blueberry fungus runs

one of the most complicated, dastardly scams in nature. When we return, we'll discuss how sometimes all you need to do to bamboozle someone is to just act casual and blend into the crowd. Sometimes the best way to trick someone is to act like what you're doing is totally normal. The greatest strength of humans can also be our greatest weakness. We are highly socially intelligent, and we depend on social groups to survive, and other words, were a bunch of conformists.

There's a famous study in psychology that puts us to the test it in an almost unnecessarily humiliating way. The elevator experiment was part of the Ash Conformity experiments that looked at how people coped with group pressures. Now imagine that you normally enter an elevator. You get in, face the wall with the doors and all the buttons, and

wait while desperately holding in that fart. And the elevator experiment experimenters placed research assistance in the elevator who were instructed to face the back, while when they got in with their backs turned away from the doors like a couple of idiots. Except when an unexpecting bystandard got in the elevator, they copied the two research assistants, also turning away to face the back. So are we all just

a bunch of stupid sheep? Well, the Ash Conformity experiments revealed that while people are heavily pressured by crowds and conforming,

were also extremely willing to listen to reason. His research show that it only took one person going like, hey, why the hell are you guys standing backwards yet holes to prevent people from falling for the group think um, which I feel like I would be easily tricked by this elevator experiment because I've been an elevator where they open on one side and then like I'm standing there, you know, like like a door, like facing the doors, and then like ding, and then I hear like from

like what there's like a big target on the brand that has those elevators where like they opened on the other side when you go out. I I would definitely fall for this because like I'm also the type of person and like black people joke about this. Alive is like if we see other people running, we will start running too, and we don't need to know why we're running or what we're running from or where we're running to.

We'll figure out when we get there. We're like, there's dangerous, so we're going to just run with this group of people. Sometimes it's a marathon. Uh. There have been prank shows where they just like have a horde of people who start running like towards some innocent person and then the persons like oh, it's like running, it's finally happening, and then they start running away too. I mean that's I

feel like that's not being gullible. I think that's just self preservation because usually when a bunch of people are running, you should run, right, And I think it's also self preservation. Sometimes. I feel like when we're conforming, because it's like sometimes standing out can be dangerous exactly. But me too, me too, me as well, I know why we're doing this. I'm not even gonna like I would definitely do the same.

I'd rather be sometimes. I mean it's like, I know we're all like, oh, you know, you want you don't want to conform, you don't want to be a sheep, But sometimes I kind of would rather be a sheep than like be the idiot who's like, wait, why is

nobody else what? Right? Exactly just getting pulled away is nobody else walking over because it's like an open man hole or right, literally, you don't want to be that one guy whose mask on the back of his head didn't work, my ex boyfriend who was wearing robes to the bank. You know, it's like, I guess that's whatever, but it doesn't the bank what if you want to bank like wearing a monograund robe and you're like, but my boyfriend said, this is what this is. No, where's

my hotel room? To all your business out of hotel rooms right now. So in the animal kingdom, there's something called los manny and mimicry, where the mimic resembles the animal that it's trying to live amongst. So kind of like it makes me think of that meme with um, what's his name? Who's going like, hello, what's that actor's name? Oh it's Steve, Yeah, yeah, hello, fellow kids, children, Yes, this is exactly that. So typically it's found in insects

who are mimicking social insects like ants and bees. So here's an example. There are several species of jumping spiders who do this to avoid predation and get lost in the ant crowd. So spider predators like spider wasps, which like to prey on spiders, don't like to prey on ants because ants have zero chill. They will oh yeah, and they will destroy you. I stepped in an ampile not too long and they descended on my foot. It was like seconds before, like my whole foot was bit.

I was like, damn, it was an accident. Is everybody Tina get kid out here? The out beat me up. I was like, damn. It's like when you accidentally bump someone in the grocery store and then they just they don't accept your apology. You're like, oh, I'm sorry, and they're like what You're going, Oh, wow, dare you. It's like there are people in traffic, like you cut somebody off by acts and you're like sorry that they hawk

at you for three blocks down. I want there to be a horn I can press where it's like, yes, I realize I've made a mistake and I'm very sorry about it. Please stop hawking at me. I understand my mistake, and I will endeavor to not do it again. And I wanted to be that law. Yes, that one you have to pause and let it finish. And I'm really sorry that I did this action. I have apologized. I know I didn't. We all do it. I don't know why people get so angry, don't know, but yeah, Aunt's

turned up real quickly. So they are they are, they are on board, uh for I feel like they're also just juiced up. I feel like they're like the roided up animal of the animal kingdom or of the insect kingdom because they can like lift like ten times their own body. Way. They're angry at fifty flannel bros all showing up to a party and they all like sign like one of them gets their drink knocked over and they're all like, you want to go? They're all on

pre workout there drinking pre workout in vodka. These are the antswering for loco, love for logo, like all the ants is simultaneously unison, like flannels off off. So these jumping spiders who mimic the ants will do a lot to try to really sell the allusions. And that's big. Um they can like the jumping spiders are actually quite small. They're pretty cute. I think they're adorable. I know, I know that's a controversial opinion about spiders being cute, But

if there is a cute spider, it's the jumping spiders. Um. So I'll show you a couple of pictures. Here's the actual ants, and then here's the mimic. This is a spider what and and this is another spider that looks just like the ant, except for you can tell that the mouth is different and the mandibles are a little different. So ants have those antenna which the spiders don't have. So the spiders will wave their front legs around as

if they're antenna. Um. It makes me think of those videos where you put human arms around a dog and it's like, look, I'm a human doing science. I love that. That reminds me of one time my girlfriends and I were trying to get into the v I P. Of this nightclub and it was like they had like really walled up and there were like some really famous people

in there. And we walked by a table and there was like a bunch of cups and like supplies on it, and so we just picked that stuff up and held it over our heads like we worked there, Like, excuse us, that's so good to put these cups, Jimmy, you know me. We gotta put these clubs back here. I think people are so we're so willing, we want to go with

the flow, we want things to be normal. That if if you are confident and you're just like I'm here to do a job, like people's default is like oh yeah, okay, yeah, you've got cups, you're especial. I also learned in my Psychology of marketing class that if you give people an excuse, any excuse, they're more likely to let you do what you want. So an example, if you want to cut in a line, they can just be like I do all the time at the airport, my flight sporting like

do you mind get in front of you? Works every single time, or or just any excuse. It doesn't even have to do with the situation. Could be at the aird diabetes and then your yeah line, it's like wait what it works? Just like well, I don't know if she got babeties, so she said she said she got to get through t s a fast because diabetes gonna flare up. I don't get it, I have it. My dog has a bladder stone. So you need your start. Sure, yeah, get your Starbucks faster. No, I was just gonna get

a lot time. But if you're dog like you know how it is you dog? Yeah? Okay sure. So some of these um jumping spiders that mimic ants will prey on the ants. Um They'll like I know, I know, They're like, I'm just a normal ants And it's like, well wait, why do you have another ant in your mouth? Billy an Billy come back, come back behind this dirt pile. I need you to see something. So some of the

some of the other I find that picture. So some of the other spiders, the bigger ones that can't get away with being ant sized, and so they just look like two ants like carrying another ant um. Here it is here, it is here, it is It's so cool. Okay, So this is an image of one spider who looks

like two ants. What the like? Here's the like it looks like one ant and then it carrying another ant because like and it's got little eyes where the ant right exactly, It's got little uh little spots in two places, so it looks like it has two sets of eyes. So it looks like a worker ant carrying like a dead or injured ant um. And so it gets away with It's like it's like it's sort of the reverse

of like two kids in a trench coat. It's like it's like one person looking like two adults that is insane. And then it's eating ants. Yeah, it's like just a paramedic ant here carrying injured Do you want to actually I got more ant on the It's like, is that are those two ants eating another ant? Just doing medicine,

which is working on his lick scalpel. Al Right, So now, um, I want to talk about zebra coloring because it's a really interesting phenomenon where like you look at a zebra, it's like that is a stupid animal because if it wants to not stand out, not be spotted by lions, like it's dumb because it's it's it almost like something is white and black right, Like it looks like it's an alarm sign going like here's a zebra eat it?

Um uh. Like it even looks like a diner, you know how like diners like have this sort of like black and white pattern, like like come and dine at the zebra diner. So actually there's a few theories as to why these stripes are advantageous and they're really wild. So zebras are actually have some defense against predators and biting flies because of this coloring. So one way is they confuse predators with what's called motion dazzle, which is

like the old razzle day. These zebras are like bootleggers from the twenties or something like picking their feed up. Wait, what like what do you mean by that? Is it like you look at them you think you're high for a second. That's also true, but it's like so bold patterns actually can make it difficult to assess speed and direction because of a couple of um illusions. So they

are two illusions at play. There's the wagon wheel effects, so like if you've ever seen I mean, we don't see wagon wheels, but it's kind of an antiquated term, like you know how well wheel. But when you see like a fan, like a ceiling fan, and sometimes it looks like it's going backwards in a weird way. Um, it's like the motion seems inverted when it's moving fast enough because like the the light and dark going like

light dart like dark. It's like it confuses your visual neurons and it's like because that is the same pattern as it would go in the other direction, so your brain keeps switching it back and forth. So this is similar to the barber pole illusion, which is also in effect with the zebras, where stripes on a barber pole,

so it's just a rotating thing inside that. It's like got like a blue and a red band, but it looks like when you look at the pole, looks like the stripes are moving down like vertically along the stripe rather than just turning around. So that's big because neurons in the visual cortex have what's called an aperture problem, which is that you only have a limited slice of visual information. You can't take in like everything about the

geometry of like that barber pole. So when there are two interpretations which like you have, it's like with the wagon wheel illusion, like you have the visual stimulation of like the stripes going around the pole is actually very similar to how it would look like if they were traveling down. Um, that's my brain is making it seem like it's traveling. It's like it's doing that right. And and in fact your brain actually will opt for the

slower moving interpretation. I'm not really sure why it does that. I think the neurons are just lazy. They're like slow, don't worry about it. That's when our brain just starts to like make stuff up. It's like, yeah, we think it's moving down. We don't really know, but that's what that's what we decided to. Yeah, Tom said it's moving down and around there's just loud chewing and like like

McDonald's papers like crinkly, like what moving down? Down. So with the Zebras with their stripes, they kind of they reap the advantage of both the barber pool and the wagon wheel allusions, so like uh, and they also when they're moving as a herd um, it just turns into this giant, flickering mass that to like a line, it's hard for it to you know what way it's moving, what it's doing, And it's also hard to pick out

an individual to like eat. You know, if you're a line, you can't just eat all of the Zebras you want to write once. You probably just can't stop Sarah Getti spread Sprinkle. But I mean that's another thing with scammers. You have to isolate a victim, right, Like if you try to scam a group of people, it's harder, yeah,

because then people can figure it out. And you also have to pick victims who are isolated, because if a victim has too many friends and then they go, you know, they're at brunch and they're like, yeah, so Federico told me, I gotta send him seven thousand dollars and then he's gonna get his visa and then he's gonna be able to come over here. But right now he only has a flip phone and he cannot contact me or show me any pictures of him. And you're like, wait, you

shouldn't do that. Well, but no, it's okay. His dog is bladders. Yeah, yeah, I know his dog is very much gonna die. I've never seen the dog either, No, but he once did have it bark on the phone, so I know it's real. Burk burk. Right. Oh, here's here's an image of the barber. Like it looks like it's like just moving moving up And even though I'm trying to tell my brain it's not, my brain, Tom is like, no, no, no, no, no, we told you

it's going right, it's going up. I mean. That's what's so interesting about illusions is that even once you know the illusion, you can't unsee it, and you you are actually flip back and forth, and sometimes you can force yourself to try to see. So another use of these stripes is they are unattractive to horseflies, which typically like to bite animals like zebras. But horseflies can't, like they're so stupid that like, and they expect light to act

in a certain way. That putting a dark color and a light color next to each other like that is like too confusing for them, and they they're like what you know what, never mind, never mind, we'll eat later. Come on, tim, Like this horse is uh confusing just because it's got different colors, Like it smells like a horse and broken. We don't want any of this nasty horse o. Horseflies like taking our blood out when they Yeah,

they're second or juices are delicious juices, horse juice. That's the best situation though, because horselies I have to kill anybody. They're just come bite. That's true, although um, like I'm not I think horse flies might sometimes carry disease. That's the thing that really gets you with like mosquitoes or the flies, Like they carry disease and then that's how they so it's not really their fault, it's the diseases that they carry. Now are they from biting people? Uh yeah,

I mean that's a good chicken and the egg thing. Yeah. So like like they get the virus um or the virus directly infects them and then like they'll get it from another infected animal and then they pass it on. But they're like living good with zeka like zukism. Yeah, yeah exactly. I think so they're the carrier. They're so lacy. I was thinking we could in the show with you talking a little bit about the scams that you know,

about the scams that you do. I'm really not insulting you, no, No, I don't talk about current scams right right, it's like you know, knowing, but when it's retired, and then I'll talk to retire scams exactly. So the scam Goddess that's coming out with new episodes, this is part of my inspiration for I love this. I love to see all the scammer animals, scam samins. That's the kind of fat

I want to have as a scaminal. Yeah. So what's some of your advice to to scam which obviously we don't we don't endorse them scam people, but yeah, it

depends on what kind of scams you're doing. If you're like scamming and hurting people that I don't approve of that, If you're scamming big faceless corporation, absolutely don't scam old people, scam old companies right exactly, Like they're they're they're scams themselves, like they've been running scams and work scams, so they need to be like like scam your internet provider into

giving you new like trial packages and stuff like. That's that's that's the good scam because they're you know, like they're the scammer exactly. They've they've all ripped us off so much, so we we deserve we're road. Oh this is a fun one um that I actually learned about. A listener mailed this one in. They said they retired the scam so I could share it, but I think other people should pick it up because I think it

could still work. So if you have a friend and you asked and like you asked them to like send you some text messages, so basically you change their name in your phone to like insert whatever food business promotion here, So like insert Taco Bell food promotion, right, So you change their name to that in your phone. Then you have them text you a text saying like, oh, you have received a deal deal in the day, and it's like ten corntraps for five dollars um, offered only for

a limited time at participating locations. And then like you have to make sure that the date is about to expire or is already expired, but maybe just like a date or and then you go into like these fast food restaurants and you're like, hey, I got this deal promotion for tin for five dollars. I know it says it's about to expire, like can I use it? And a lot of times like these, like these fast food

chain restaurants don't really communicate they'll honor it. And that was a wild because at first I thought you were going to like prank the friend and it's like, it's me. Don't your friends like prank talking? That's fine, And I'm

talking about those food scammers. As you look up like popular concerts in the area or whatever concerts are happening that day, and then you call ahead to Chipotle and you tell them that you're on tour with whatever concept that's playing whatever venue, and that they love to have some like free burritos because this artist loves these burritos. And most of the time they will give you like thirteen free burritos, and Sharon, he loves he said, I'm

in love with the ship of Time. I accidentally scammed a restaurant once because I was doing a report for school on Italian chain restaurants. It's like a an anthropology class. I was like comparing like American Italian chains like to to authentic Italian and like what kinds of things they're like mimicking and stuff, And so I like showed up with like a clipboard. I was like writing things down because like I was trying to take notes and I

didn't want to bring my whole laptop. So I was like there with a clip note, like writing about the food, and they were so nice to me, and they like gave me extra bread. You came in with a clipboard. Yeah, yeah, listen, a clipboard is in a scammers artillery. Okay, you gotta have a clip right right, It's like uh And I was like, well, gosh, they sure were nice. They don't know what you're reporting. A lot of times, like food critics, like you'd be shocked how much stuff you can get

for free. They might not give you free things, but they will be really nice to you. Yeah, there are definitely people who will like impersonate famous food critics that people may not necessarily know what their faces, and then those people will come in and you can get complimentary meals that way. Are saying that you're writing for like

a big right. I think that's kind of mean because if you know, like when waiters like, but like the also the cooks, like you have some like line cooks who are like, oh, I'm really trying harder than the like, yeah, you gotta get this right, like Gordon Ramsey like just screaming them out. It's like y'all serving this crap on

a plata. That would have never happened to me at the restaurant that I worked at ages ago, because we had photos of l a food critics that were really so you knew what their face like, putting like photos of counterfeit dollars up or putting real money. You knew how to be on diler if you did get a food critic and you're like, oh, I know who you are, like you have to, I'll give you the goods right like like Gordon Ramsey isn't a twelve year old boy,

but like im person Nation. Scams like those are really big. The biggest thing that I tell people though, because on Scam God Is we spent a lot of time warning you about scams because we only want you to get involved in my scams. Now I'm running this camp. Please do give me your social Security number, spinning a cup and mail it to me. Yeah, I need it like you wan't like meet a swamman. Okay, I already took your other water bottles. I helpfully labeled it with my

credit card information. Yes, that was very helpful of you. Too easy, right right? No, um, but one of the biggest things is is like if someone calls you and they're offering you information, like you should always be watching out so like, so think about it, like when you call your bank, like your bank basically acts like an angry ex girlfriend and interrogates you, like it's like, oh, you're wearing a you have a Bank of America account. Okay, sure,

what's your social Okay, what's your day to birth? Okay, what's your last name, what's your first name, what's your middle name? Who is your mama? Who is your mom? And what's your mama's favorite car? Like like they're gonna interrogate you. I heard your mother's dog has bladderstone. What's that dog's name? I don't know. You're not gonna be able to get anybody out of your account if you

can't tell me. Um. So, if a scammer calls and they're like, hey, I'm calling from your bank, and here's a reference number, a reference number, is like the biggest O G scam things like they'll give you some made up numbers too, one zero O nine is your reference number, like and we know it's a scamp. Oh, here's one for all the dog walkers. And we're talking about the animals obviously and animal lovers. I'm sure listen to this podcast Wags. So we've heard of WAGS, right, is that

the walking dog walking service? Dog walking service with the app. So there's some scammers. This is a recent one that um they'll get on the Wags app and they'll schedule a dog walking session with you and then they'll cancel it and then they'll call you because on the app it's like Uber how like when you can call people because you're about to have service with them, and like you know how Uber like scramble your number when you call the Uber driver and it does the same for

them for privacy. So when they've scheduled a dog walk with you, they get access to your contact and for nation through the app. So by canceling the dog walking service that they previously booked with you, then they'll call and be like, hey, we're calling from WAGS and we just canceled your dog walking service, but don't worry, you're going to get a ten dollar cancelation fee. So then that person will go through the app and send ten dollars to the person that they just canceled the walk on.

Then they'll be like, hey, we actually need to reverify your banking information. Um, we're like right after they've sent them the money, then they take their banking information and they robbed the dog walker and it's wait, wait, wait, so so it's a dog walk Wait, so who's getting scammed? Is it the person with the dog or the person who was the person who walks the dog, which is so sad because the person probably doesn't even have a dog.

The scammer is just getting on the app so that they can get in contact with the dog walker, and then it's like and through the app they can pay the dog walker and make it seem like they work for the Apple. I see. It's one of those things where they dangle a little bit of money out for you and then they take all of your money. So it's like it's like, oh, I sorry, I had to cancel here. Um, let me give you ten dollars, but actually,

could you give me a social Security number? Right? It's like it's like if I called an Uber driver that I had the number four because I was using the app, and I was like, hey Tom, that Uber drivers that we actually call him from Uber it's me um mr Uber from San Francisco. Um. Yeah, yeah, we just had to cancel that client. But we sent you the cancelation for you. We don't. You're banking information is at a date or whatever, and then you give me the information,

then I steal it. Yeah yeah. I think for me, like the general thing is like when I get a call from someone like pretending to be the I R S or something, and they're like they're like, you owe taxes, and I'm just like make me because I've actually because I've gotten like actual letters from the I R S. Because like whenever you owe taxes or something, um, the I R S will send you physical mail and they'll be like, hey, you owe some stuff like like send us,

which is so petty. Like if I don't get the letter, they're like, hey I open this pail or go to jail. Well, I mean they actually don't really threaten you with jail typically, like there they there may be something in the letter which is like you know, like not paying these things, we can't result in penalties or something. But they won't call you and be like, hey, you need to pay this now or you'll go to jail. They just don't

have the resources to send you to jail. They're so underfunded, like they you know, they'll try to get you to pay it, but but if someone's calling you, it's like I'm the I R S. And if you don't pay this, you're in danger of going to jail. It's like no, they don't. They do not have the manpower to do. That's how they they call like Hi, it's like maybe to leave. Listen, we trying to build a roses okay,

and we just really meet right. And it happens all the time too, especially like if you have kind of complicated taxes um you know, like you may make a miscalculation and they're just like hey, this is what you owe or like hey there's something could you tell us what you want, like what you want me to both

pay you and figure out what I owe. And that's literally the government's biggest scam is they oh yeah, because like Tibo tax uh and other like H and R backs and these other like tax prep like companies lobbied against legislation that would have them calculate what we all and just like be like, hey, here's your bill for taxes, which I would be fine with because then it's like then I don't have to do work and oh no, no, no,

I need to be able to run my scam. Honestly, my accountant is to law abiding and I'm gonna have to switch him out for more of a like a better call sault type because he'd be trying to follow all the laws. And I was like, that's not why I hired you, Like what is this? I literally like was shooting in Savannah, and Savannah took six percent of my earning for shooting um and it was a series regular roll, so they took a lot of money from me.

And so when I found out that this was going to happen, my lork my accountant called me and he was like, hey, Lacy, so when you get to Georgia like that, it's going to be a six percent tax for an outside contractor. I said, okay, so how can we get around that? He said, we can't. It's the law. It's like, what, oh side are you on? Are you talking about? Or the law? Shady what I want. You gotta get you gotta get a sweatier accountant because like you know that like in movies, ayre always sweaty if

they're like, you know, you're right. Mine is like completely dry. He's got photos of his family. It looks like he sleeps. Well. That was not you want. What's your favorite scammer like in history? Oh gosh, that's hard because I've fallen in love with a lot of scammers. One that I particularly love a lot. He's actually you heard if you heard the first episode my show that you heard about him. But it's Jerome Jacobson. I love that story. I love

him so much. There's another scammer that I'm trying to get the whole story on. But there was a woman and she worked for Walmart and she made over four hundred thousand dollars by just charging customers and extra nickel for a fake item and then taking that nickel out of the register. Oh my god, And I just thought the patients, that's like the office space kind of thing, right, Yeah, but yeah, that takes a lot of She did it for many, many and she said if people looked gullible,

she'd take a quarter. I mean, who checks the receipt for like no bad especially bag fees. Now, if I saw a quarter, I'd just be like, it's probably like a fee for printing out the receipt or something, right. And also I feel like there's no that's probably the hot new scam is charging for bags but not actually charging for the bag, because I don't think that stores are counting how many bags that they're giving away. Um, I know they're not at rouse because that's my biggest scam.

And when I got to like the grocery stores, I'll get all my stuff and I'll say no bags. Then I'll pay, and then they'll close the card and then I'm like I can't carry all this what was that again? And then I'll never ring me back up for the bags and just give me a bag. It's terrible. Let's self check out. They don't check Oh no, but I feel weird in the self check out, So I'll be like I got three bags when really I got Telly.

That's funny. Yeah, I'll give him a little bit, a little because then I'll go to the regular counter and be like like I can't carry this grocery car to be some bad I think it's because with that, you're like actually giving them a chance to do it. Charged? Yeah, where did charge on his? Like the honor system? And I think it's it's so easy to get away with, right, I don't know what it a challenge. She loved the chill. That might be it for me. I think I might

just enjoy duping people. It makes me feel smart, Like, Okay, what it that's so true? Why do I do that? Bags? As long as you don't do me? And that it was that it was okay that I gave you my social Security number? Is I'm just verifying it. Yeah, you're going to turn that into like big investments right. Oh of course we're credited seating social security number. Well, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. So tell people where they can find you in more

about the podcast. Oh great. So you can find me um Lacey Mosley at d I V A l A c I DVA Lacey on all platforms Instagram, Twitter, then mo the like. Um, you can follow Scam Gottess at Scam got his Pot on Twitter and on Instagram. And if you have any scams that you want to share with me that you're retiring or any time you've been scammed. U scam got his pot at gmail dot com And don't don't scam the elderly only scam big face. Yes, yes, please do not scam the elderly. That is so hurtful.

And also, guys, watch Florida Girls on pop tv um. The whole season is out now, so you can stream the whole thing on or you can get on iTunes or Amazon and download it. It's really fun, guys. And you can follow us on the internets. Uh, Creature feature Pod dot com, Creature Feature Pod on Instagram, Creature feet Pod. We couldn't get Creature feature pot on Twitter, creature like it's it's not it's f e a T. Don't type in creature fet because you will get you will get

something that's uh not endorsed by this podcast. And you can find me online at Katie Golden Um. And I'm also a bird on Twitter at pro bird Writes where I am a real, actual, factual bird. The greatest scam ever pulled was birds because they're not they are they are real. I don't know. I don't after listening to this podcast, I don't know. It's birds scams. Bird is scams. Birds is scams and thanks to the Space Classics for their awesome song Solumina.