Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show Eurovarmns, we're talking about animals who belong on stage at Eurovision or not. I guess I'm being told that that is against the rules. So why are we talking about Eurovision. Well, for starters, as an immigrant living in Europe, I have become a convert
to Eurovision. And secondly, I am very excited to be joined by the hosts of Eurovangelists, a podcast all about Eurovision and why Americans should maybe start caring. Welcome Jeremy Bent and Dmitri Pompeii.
Hello, thank you so much. Honored to be here. Guys.
Your podcast really speaks to me because until I moved to Europe, I was like barely cognizant of Eurovision, and now I love it. I watch it every year.
It's a very common American condition to be completely unaware of your vision but then immediately upon finding out about it, falling deeply in love with it.
Yeah, America brain is like I need to get groceries for five weeks every time I go and not knowing about Eurovision, yep.
Yeah, and then European brain is, oh, I'll just go to the grocery store every two days, and then also I will watch an international song competition every single year.
That's that's exactly what life is like here.
Yep, I figured as much.
So.
I mean, first of all, I just want to tell the listeners and i''ll post links to these in the show notes because it's so wonderful you guys shared with me an entire list of Eurovision songs that are like and have animals in them, and they're incredible. I both thank you and curse you for that, because that penguin song has been stuck in my head.
Oh boy, yeah, oh Bengal, it's it's yeah. I apologize to your listeners because if they seek it out, it is an earworm that never truly leaves you.
It's sort of like that arc thing in the Indiana Jones series where you open it up and your space melts off. But it's just like about a penguin.
And an old man in a penguin costume.
Oh man, that guy really really like really oscar worthy penguin performance there.
Commits to the bit is what I'll say.
When was that, like, just give give me the rundown on that. When when was that song?
Yeah?
That was nineteen that was nineteen eighty. That erovision nineteen eighty. That was the entry from Luxembourg that year. Imagine, if you will, dear listener, a pair of twins in space age David Bowie esque could not be more sequence on those suits.
Yeah, when space could adds.
They're singing a song about a penguin who wants to travel the world and a very old man who I believe wrote he can't.
Be more than sixty years old. Come on to me.
That's fair, that's fair.
He comes out dressed as a penguin and acts the acts out the sawe. He's searching for meaning. He's dancing around the twins at one point give him a spanking.
They did, you know.
It's cool and fun, it's cool and normal, and ultimately the penguin decides that home is where the heart is and he decides to return to his ice flow.
Well, also, there's like two hot lady penguins that are backup seating.
Yeah, that's true. Dmitri, How did that do in nineteen eighty That got ninth place? Wild. That's really good, pretty.
Good, incredible Eurovision. Like I can definitely see the slow ratcheting up of the wackiness of Eurovision, where it probably started off being a little more tame, like it's just two sort of lovely ladies singing into a microphone, maybe be swaying gently. And now we have like rotating cubes that people are jumping around and they look it looks like a bunch of wrestlers in a bathroom and they're all kissing each other and it's beautiful and perfect and I love it.
If you think Katie is just, you know, saying random things, she is not. She is referring to specific performances from last year's Eurovision, but it's very true. I think something people don't realize about Eurovision is that it's been going since nineteen fifty six and like nineteen fifty six Eurovision is very sedate, is quite quite low key, and twenty twenty four Eurovision, you'll find has a different flavor.
Yeah, I just I am a very proud pop popping ranchow because Jeremy on our show is in fact the Eurovision Nube.
That's true. He comes to the show at the least amount of Eurovision knowledge.
Also, yeah, while on the other hand, I come in with twenty years of your experiences.
Only through our show have I met people who know more about Eurovision than Dmitri. And it's only a couple of people.
And I am I am but a humble student. I am not a pro. There are so many people out there who know much.
More than I agree to disagree.
Are any of them Americans?
Though?
That's like no, I would argue not.
I would argue I can go toe to toe with pretty much any America.
I would be impressed if I met someone from the US who knew more about Eurovision than Dmitri, because we've had a couple of guests, one from the UK, one from Sweden who are extremely knowledgeable about Eurovision, but they're sort of steeped in it, you know.
Yeah, they're euros so they know they have the vision.
Yeah they have the vision.
Yeah. Well one more common about the penguin song, and then.
I'll forget no, no, it's hard to let go.
It is about a father penguin, like abandoning his family, and I would just like to say that you know a lot of penguin species, the father penguin is actually quite an attentive.
They would never do that.
Yeah, you will sit on the egg. The emperor penguins famously, and in other penguin species as well, the male penguin gingerly takes care of the egg as well as the female penguin. But it is a joint venture there. But speaking of birds, let's talk about our first. Let's call them contestants. These are animals, folks, but they are on
It's not really contained to Europe, but it is. I think they belong on the Eurovision stage just because of the flamboyants, because if you have if you can know, like just one thing about Eurovision is it's not necessarily about the best music in the world. It's about the most outrageous spectacle that can be put on a physical stage for you. Have you guys heard of frigate birds?
Frigate never like the ship a frigate Yes, like the ship Okay, they know they know if it was something else, absolutely.
No, yeah, yeah, forget.
Bird oh yeah yeah, frigate birds birds you know, like when a bird takes a dump on you to go frigate bird bird.
Yes. So they are found in Barbuda, an island in the Caribbean, so they are. They participate from August to October, so by the time you're listening to this, they probably are still going uh there is an important song and dance competition.
Oh okay, now we're so.
They put on this incredible show during this mating season, this magnificent frigate bird mating LC. I'm not hyping them up. That species is actually called magnificent frigatebirds and they do indeed, Wow, how are you Their performances in something called a lek, which is a large stage in which groups of males show off their talents competing with each other.
This is fantastic, amazing, you know.
If I may make an early Eurovision connection to these birds. One of the greatest Eurovision songs of all time is the two thousand and nine winning song fairy Tale by Alexander Reebuk. It is a Norwegian song and the stage performance of the song is literally what you describe.
That is true.
Actually it is the It is the port performance of what is called the hauling, a tradition in the Nordic countries in which men do all sorts of ridiculous physical feats to impress women so they'll marry them.
I didn't realize that Norwegians had lex That's fascinating.
They like the act that they specifically are performing in Alexander Reriebuks reforming is kicking hats off a broom, right well, yeah, and that's a thing, that's the real thing that Yeah.
Maybe that's measuring their physical fitness and ability to sire strong children.
I mean, I will say the guys doing it on stage are fit. They are in great shape. I don't think I could do what they are doing kick a hat. I'm not with that negative attitude. You can.
I don't know. I kind of feel like I could kick a hat off a broom, don't you think?
But there you got to watch these guys.
Do it all right, well special, It's just.
Nice to know that the Animal Kingdom, you know, perhaps inspired Norwegian men like, look, those birds have a whole stage performance and look at all the chicks they're getting.
We should do that. I will also say. I will also say I have looked up the Magnificent frigate Bird and they got a look that would play on a Eurovision stage, is what I will say.
It's angular. They kind of look like a brutalist architecture.
So Yeah, excellent, strong color story they're telling here. Oh wow, right, just looked it up too. Wow. Okay, due's plant for the frigate. A lot of drama in that look, is what I'll say.
It's high fashion culture, so I will paint you a verbal picture with my word mouth. The largest of their genus, the magnificent frigatebird, are sea birds with shiny black feathers, a long, hooked beak, and forked tails similar to a swallow. They have a wingspan of up to eight feet long, which is two point four meters for my European friends, and weighs around three pounds, which is over one and a half kilograms, so not too heavy but very large,
perfect for flying about. They have these elegant angles and curves like some kind of weird, chunky European race car, which allows them to fly up to ninety five miles per hour, which is about one hundred and fifty three kilometers per hour. Now that speed is probably going to be achieved while they are diving, and they are. They're
very elegant, but they're also menacing. They look a bit like pterodactyls, and indeed they terrorize fish and other birds that they steal their catches from so they are both pirates and hunters until the males decide they want to get down with the females. Then they turn into red balloons.
The pirrating apparently not attractive to the females, but I will say I was like, you can tell that this is some sort of like sexual attraction characteristic for the frigatebird. The male frigatebirds seem to have this like giant red balloon under their neck. This is wild.
This is an inflatable goal or pouch. Now I'm going to touch back on the piracy issue here.
With females later.
You don't get away with anything on this show. This show is about facts.
Nice try bird.
Your feelings about birds. So, yeah, the males have something called a gol or pouch, and that's this beautiful red sack. They inflate it and it's this bright clown nose red and they pump it full of air. It forms this big red balloon, big and flashy, catches the attention of females that are flying overhead, and they do this incredible performance with their wings outstretched and then they make this sound that is like, well, I'm just gonna let you listen.
Okay, I'm curious. Yeah, here we go.
So this is from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
One of our best ornithology labs, one.
Of our best. And this is was recorded by Martha Fisher. So here we go the magnificent frigatebird, who sounds very amazing and good. Are you feeling sexually attracted to these birds?
You know?
I'm just gonna throw it out here. That is the bubble wrap of sounds like.
I like it.
It's nice.
I listen to that for a while. I actually do like that sound. I will say, based on the ballooning, I expected a very different sound sound. I was expecting more of a honk or or a sort of like you know when you blow up a balloon and you just let it go around a room. Yeah, like like kind of an that sound. Because you think this is a Looney Tunes character, I mean, I mean you got it. In some ways. It is a Loony Tunes It is take a.
Pen in one of these guys and see what happens.
Oh, don't do that. They're not going to enjoy that.
No animal's cruelty is highly discouraged on this show.
But I am curious.
So they will, so it is incredible to see. I do all include a link to it in the show notes. But they have this wonderful display. Their wings are outstretched, they cut this striking figure, big red balloon, and they're making this like sort of weird like bubble wrap sound
like you said. I love that description of it. And they are not only trying to attract females based on their performance, their song and this kind of like you know, swishing around kind of dance thing that they're doing, they have also competed to secure the best spots in the mangrove trees on which they are doing their performance. So it's this big group and these mangrove trees are so close together that it forms it almost looks like just
this giant group of like hedgy bushes. And then in like sort of situated in them are so many of these males, like hundreds of them all together, and they are buying for a really nice position on these mangrove trees,
trees where they will build their nests. And the females all are the judges, just like in real life, and they circle above like these vultures looking for love, and they browse for their preferred males, and they select them for them based on the call that they make, how beautiful, bright and bouncy that weird pouches, and also how good their spot is where they are roosting on these mangrove trees.
Yeah, okay, let me get this straight beautiful plumage song that could that sounds like nothing you've ever heard in the world. Competing for a higher rank or location or placement, this is this.
Is trying to curry favor with the judges. It's right, it's this is your v And I'll also say I also looked up mangrove tree because I was like, what does a mangrove tree look like? It looks like a set of Eurovision song very visually distinctive. I'm like, okay, this is all coming together.
Yes, it is that they have such really they are semi aquatic trees actually, yeah, brackish water their roots.
Which most trees can't stand at all.
Yeah, that their roots will actually dip into the water. One of the most incredible experiences I've ever had was this was a long time ago. This This was in like twenty I'm gonna say twenty two thousand and nine or twenty ten and I was in Puerto Rico and there was a kayak tour of this mangrove forest and it was during a season where there were these bioluminescent diatoms dinoflagellis sorry, and they were like every time you would paddle the kayak, you'd see this blue flash in
the water. They are all these mangrove trees where they're roots were dipped into the water. I felt like I was about to have like an almost kiss with a prince and an evil octopus. I don't know, it felt magical.
Sure you'd trade your voice for that kind of scenario.
There we go. I want a man who doesn't care what I say or think.
So, yeah, it would be best if she couldn't speak.
At all, right, body language, you know, if she just knew ASL, then all things would.
Have been or just write in any language.
Right yeah? Or gestures you know, like you know octopus, wiggle your arms kind of big, giant, bad, evil octopus. I feel like I could, you know, everyone, I.
Would be curious to see the ASL for a witch stole my voice.
Divine stole my voice. Yeah, So I did want to touch on an earlier thing you said, Jeremy, I'm going to grill you.
Get ready, okay, Grilly. You said that the.
Females aren't attracted to piracy, and that may or may not be true. But the females are actually the bigger pirates than the males. They are literally bigger, and they're better pirates. So they are larger than the males in part because they do the majority of raising the chicks, and they must be tough enough to be able to murder a bunch of fish or steal enough fish to feed themselves and the chicks. Before you get mad at the fathers, they aren't actually the worst fathers. They will
build the nests. So they help build the nests, okay, gather all the time. That's they also help incubate the eggs. It's just once the eggs hatch, they're like, all right, I'm out of here, Like that's that. Part of my life is over.
I gotta be working on my performance for next year.
Yeah exactly. I mean to be fair to them, Yes, they work very hard on their performances, very hard on constructing the nests. But yeah, you see, Actually it's very interesting. With a lot of bird species, you have different types of relationship where some are monogamous for their whole lives, some are monogamous over a breeding season, some are just no rules, only what feels good. And sometimes you have parental care that's shared by the birds. And often sea
birds can be quite similar. This kind of sexual dimorphism, where one.
Is one of my favorite phrases.
Oh yeah, sexual dimorphism.
What a great sound.
Yes, it just means that the two sexes look different and so like for a lot of aquatic birds. A lot of sea birds, especially like the males and females are fairly similar, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they both take care of
the offspring. And you really only see this kind of sexual dimorphism when you have one member who is really investing a lot more into the care of the offspring, because then the other sex, right, the males in that case, have to really prove their worth to these females otherwise the females are going to be left with this offspring. Whereas in other species of birds like albatrosses are very similar.
There are a lot of seabirds that actually both try to impress each other, like puffins, and in these cases it's because they both will raise and take care of the egg, and both the male and the female are trying to assess each other for whether they're going to be good parents, rather than just the female trying to assess whether the male is really physically fit and is gonna stick around long enough to build that nest and incubate the egg and then pass on really good genes.
So it's all that, you know, it's there's so many different dynamics in these birds. And I love this example of these frigatebirds. I'm sorry, magnificent frigatebirds.
There's these respect to the frigatebird. Please, I will, yeah, Because it's like like even among primates, like gorillas have like a really strong sexual dimorsism where it's like male gorillas are sort of huge, but then like bonobos, which are sort of closer to humans, are like pretty like the males are a little bit bigger, but it's the
difference is quite small. But because they're a very social primate, where like kind of both male and female are doing all of the you know, all of the humping they do. Like I said, they're a very social animal.
I think the main takeaway here, especially for you notorious woman hater Jeremy.
Then, is that.
Is that you know, piracy is not limited by your gender in Jeremy, Yeah, women can do anything.
Jeremy. I said that women weren't attracted to the piracy, and that's born out because it turns out that women are doing the piracy. But that is an excellent point. Uh, They're like, there's a really good Uh, Katie, I'm sure you are familiar with the anthropologist David Graber.
Just tell just tell me.
Well, he he talked about like, uh, Dawn of Everything is like his is this massive, massive book that is basically all about how like the Enlightenment in Europe was basically like, oh, they went to America and saw how Native Americans lived and then brought back all these new ideas that like really smart Europeans came up with. And then it turned out.
It's just like let's not burn down everything, yeah, restoring the environment. Yeah, And it turns out like, hey, if you like teach everyone how to do everything and like live collectively, it's very it's much easier and people are happier and so like. But one of the examples is like there's this sort of like pirate oasis that is one of his examples, and it is largely like women pirates who are like running things.
It's wild. It's a fantastic book.
Yeah, there's a lot of different that. There's a lot of cultures in humans where you do you see a glimpse into like, yeah, we don't like it's not that sort of our typical patriarchal culture that we have. I could go on a huge rant, and I won't because otherwise I'll get bad podcast reviews. But yeah, you can definitely see you can definitely see a lot of really
interesting human cultures. That does indicate that, Yeah, no, things are quite a bit more complex than just like you know, man goes out, hits a sabertooth tiger on the head and drags it back into the cave.
Yeah, there's a little bit more at play here, a.
Little bit more at play. Although man going out hitting a sabertooth tiger on the head and dragging it back to a cave does sound like something that would happen in Eurovision, except that the cave would be a dirty bathroom and the sabertooth tiger would be a bunch of naked wrestlers who are kissing each other.
Yeah, that'll honestly checks out sounds accurate.
All right, Well, we're going to take a quick break while you process what I just said, and when we get back, we're going to talk about another wonderful contest who is coming in to a genre of music that is one of my favorite. All Right, guys, I don't know if you know this about me, but I really like metal, not the you know element or periodic table element, but you know, uh, the the sort of musical genre.
Well you're in luck because in the last ten or twenty years at Eurovision there has been a I would say a pretty strong current of metal running through the show.
Yeah, I mean I would say I would say it's it was it was just nothing and then truly zero and it hasn't left, and then it won in two thousand and six, and then it has been a big part of it since then.
Yeah. I was really there was the god, uh the what.
Was I assume you're money the oh oh at at Paris Olympics. Yeah, yeah, oh god, what is that band not go Jiro?
Is it?
Yeah? Yeah it is Gojira.
Yeah, and so uh, I thought it was great. They did a great performance and it made me feel happy. Because it's like, man, Europe is really like I feel like metal is becoming a lot more like just mainstream, which I'm yeah, totally, I'm not one of these people. I don't want it to become mainstream. That's good. I want to hear more of it and have it.
And also like go Jira, a very well regarded French metal band, like of the bands that you could have put in the Olympics opening ceremonies to play metal. Yeah, GoJ You're an excellent choice, very very good.
This is the official call out to go Jira. Give it a try, give your vision a shot. You know you got the money, you can do it.
I believe in you. Risk it. Guys.
Yeah, I don't know. They might feel like that's kind of a reach, but yeah, the the but they had a beautiful performance. And the thing that made me angry was that I think it was the like the was it was either like the Canadian broadcast or the Yeah, I think it was the Canadian broadcasters kept talking over the and I well, like they would not do that for any of the other musical acts. But like there's this assumption that oh, because it's metal, that's just background noise.
We can talk now and it's like, guys, it's like music. Also look Mary Antoinette, just like art form. Mary Antoinette has like streamers coming out of her neck hole that look like blood. It's so cool, Like, shut up, I want to watch this.
Absolutely like metal is a one of the greatest Eurovision songs, not even there's there's been some great metal songs, but I'm thinking of the one that occurred in twenty nineteen.
This is called it.
This is Hittari's song, and it's basically a song about how evil will prevail. And they imagine this world in which all the worst things have happened. The worst people are running every country, the climate has collapsed, the environment is unbreathable, evil has.
Efficient what an impossible scenario, especially in twenty nineteen.
I know, shocking truly, And then there's there's a there's a little fleck of hope at the end of the song is like this doesn't have to happen, we don't have to let this occur. It's a metal song that on its glance, at first glance, could be terrifying or confusing or unsettling, which it is, but it also has something beautiful to say about not giving up hope and making improvements to the world in which we live.
I mean this is.
An art form, yeah, absolutely, I mean there are a lot of metal I mean, personally, my choice of metal bands tend to be like progressive metal, so it's already a little more soft, a little more ethereal. But like, yeah,
there's definitely a lot of like metal bands. Where you're listening to it, it sounds super scary, like they're gonna tell you something about how like satan is, you know, eating your eyeballs or something, But then it turns out it has like a pro environment is or yeah, like it could be something about like hey, you should join a union, or like hey, the environment is cool. But they're just singing it in this kind of like rob no voice, and that's you know, we're going to do that again.
By the way, my brother in law is a is a very very good musician, but specifically bass player. Like I've seen him play based many times with a number of different bands, and I think the only bass player I've ever seen in real life who I think is better than him his Thundercat. But he currently tours with a band called Number twelve. Looks just like you which is taken from a Twilight Zone episode and actually truly
one of my all time favorite Twilight Zone episodes. But they're they're a pretty long running metal band that has that kind of vocal and like I went to see them when they played in La because he was he was staying at our apartment, and like that kind of vocal does turn me off a little bit, but also the music is really good, So yeah.
I get it, though, I get your perspective.
Yeah, but I but I think metal is like is like pretty much every genre of music. Like we all had friends in college who are like, I listened to everything except country and rap, right. It was like that was such a thing in the two thousands where it was like, yeah, but there is good country music and there is good rap music. You just don't want to identify with those genre.
Well, but like it's also just like I only I don't listen to like essentially like music that's poetry and music that has I don't know, any sort of rural element to it. And then you're like, if you put it that way, then it's like, Okay, that's really weird.
Though, what do you mean, Yeah, that's messed up, dude, exclusively Gregorian Chit.
Yeah, no joke that I'm interested. I will say I'm interested in that guy. What's that guy? I thought?
Sleep to gregoryan Chance though, Oh sure, I do mess around with Gregory and Chance, But I do mess around with all music because I think all music can be good.
I completely agree, because it's like because like, yeah, it's like, do I love all country music? It's like, no, I'm not going to rep for like bro country, but I'm also not going to pretend that I don't listen to like Willie Nelson or like Orville Peck for a more recently part, Dolly park God's Sake Dolly part like.
If you don't like Dolly Porton, there's something wrong with you, But obviously.
Most of them like anyway, we'll get into our country discussion on a different podcast, But yeah, I.
Understand maybe like that so that that type of voice is called a death growl, and it does not appeal to everyone. I get it, Like I like, I do like progressive metal the most, and there's not as much death growl in that, but some metal is really primarily that death grawl, and a really good death growl I think can be really exciting when I hear it too much, my own throat starts to hurt, kind of in sympathy.
But there is our next Eurovarmint competition entrant is one of the world's best heavy metal death growlers.
Oh okay, okay.
Can you guys just like guess, like, what what what do you think would be the best at this?
Well? I have I have seen the death metal Rooster video where they've edited some heavy metal riffs under a rooster going pretty full out, and it does work, you know what I mean?
Have you seen me? Have you seen the animal version of let the bodies hit the floor with the bodies.
But sounds great? Well, look the look that up.
Anyways, the best animal who just really masters this death growl is the howler monkey. Have you guys heard of hower?
Yeah, of course, yes, yes, that was right there on the in the name, much like the magnificent friggin bird.
Yet they're not giving it away. They are giving it. Yeah, there's no mystery here. Yeah, these howls the howler monkeys.
Yeah, these are called the kick ass howler monkeys. That's their literal form, So howler monkeys. They are actually multiple species of howler monkeys. They are a genus of monkey who live in South America and the tropics. They are capable of incredible death growls, incredible sounds. There are many species like I mentioned, with fur ranging from black to brown to red like red red fur. It's really really pretty.
They have these wide set faces, these large shaggy jowls, and they grow from around two to three feet, which is about sixty to ninety centimeters, not including their tail, which is super long as well. They have a long, prehensile tail. They live in the trees, and of course they howl. So I am going to let you listen to this. This is a red howler monkey from the Houston Zoo.
Like it works, Yeah right.
We put you this way. My best friend in the world is actually in a metal band. He's the lead singer Great American Ghosts.
Check him out.
I want to tell him to go down to the Houston Zoo and pick this monkey up and put him on the next album because that was terrifying and I loved it.
Yes, it's fantastic. So they make these wonderful, wonderful death growls that can be very very loud as well heard over long, long distances, and so in this case, it is mostly the males doing this. I'm sad to say that in real life and in how well, I guess howler monkeys are also real life, but in human metal bands and monkey metal bands, males dominate the death growling space. Although there are some very accomplished female death growlers out there,
I mean, just look them up. I can't remember their names because I don't have Dimitri's brain can remember everything.
Our greatest resource on euro evangelists. I try my best, Thank you so much.
So. Typically males are larger than females and they do the majority of this loud howling, and they do it to attract females to stake out their territory. It is a form of communication that can be from like hey, I'm a hot sexy male, come check me out, to like back off, this is my area, to like, hey, I'm over here, what's up? So many different types of communications.
Somebody ways to communicate? How many ways kind of goes into the whole death growl you know, art form, because even in the music, it's not always anger that's being portrayed here. It often is, but it is there's so many different messages that you can communicate through. Through that
type of singing. So I'm glad to know that the animal kingdom operates exactly the same way, and I hope it's incredibly a thing because the type in my humble experience, the type of women who like that music are always really cool. So yeah, yeah, cowler monkeys are the same way.
In my experience. Yes, women who like metal are very cool.
Little homersm there, that's okay.
So the yeah. So there are essentially two types of howler monkey social groups among these species, and this gets into really interesting kind of It's a great detail that I love to talk about because it teaches you a lot about evolution and it's also silly. So there are social groups in some species where there's basically one male who has a bunch of females. Will call them groupies. I don't know, it's just it's a it's a mating structure, and he will have a really, really loud howl.
It is not it is not our place to judge the howler monkey polycule.
Look man strokes for different folks, different howls for different monkeys. So the other social group style is multiple males that don't maybe have as powerful of a howl, and then multiple females, So you know, another just a different type of polycule. One's a little more mormon, one's a little more like tumbler.
Okay, sure.
They So the living situation actually depends on two of the male's body parts, the hyoid bone and the testes. So I guess that. I mean, you could say that's three body parts. But okay, the hyoid bone and the testes testies. I don't know if I need to explain it.
If I do, if you're I went to school in America, can you explain what the testes do?
The testes are an organ that produce sperm, which are the genetic messengers that are used to pass down the genes of the male howler monkey hopefully to the next generation. So very important. Now, the hyoid bone I probably don't even need to explain that. Everyone's familiar with.
I'm well acquainted with the highway.
Who among us has not encountered the hyoid bone?
But I guess, I guess if a young person is listening, but maybe the children in the audience who don't know it.
Yet, A baby out there doesn't know what a hired bone is is found in mammals, including humans. You've got one too, unless something's wrong and it helps inkor you sure you're looking around.
Reach for your hyoid bone right now.
Uh oh nosing.
So it is a bone that helps anchor our tongues, lower mouth, and larynx. It's actually the only bone in the human body that isn't attached to another bone. If everything's proceeding, is typical for human body.
So just a loose sky just floating around.
It's a loose guy just floating around. It's attached to muscles, not attached to other bones. So it's short of sort of shaped like the forehead of an ox. It's got these two horn like structures. And the hyoid bone shape determines things from like it helps us swallow, It keeps our tongues anchored down. It also helps our larynx function. And so in these hawler monkeys, the size of the hyoid bone, I mean, in all how howler monkey males, actually the hyoid bone is quite in large. It's very big.
And so the bigger the hyoid bone, the louder the call. So in haler monkeys that have these really really loud culls, and then they basically have this sort of like you know, the mormon structure of like one male in a polecule with a bunch of females. They have this huge hyoid bone. But guys, there's a cust Can you guess what that is?
I'd imagine that having such a huge high odbone kind of limits what else can be done with the vocals. Imagine it's howling and maybe nothing else.
Maybe that I mean, they don't talk for sure, But you.
Remember how that's the only reason why.
I mean, you remember when I mentioned these testes. There's a simple little rhyme you can use to remember it. The louder the call, the smaller the balls. So, uh, the testes size is inversely correlated with the hyoid bone size. So the bigger the hyoid bone actually the smaller the testes. It's called an evolutionary tradeoff. This is actually a pattern that you see in multiple species where whether it's a weapon,
whether it's the loudness of their call. Sometimes when you invest heavily into one thing, like say a weapon size, or in the case of this howler monkey, the size of the hyoid bone, there's a bit of a trade off where the testes shrink because you're investing less resources into say testes size.
In the world of video games, we call that min max. Yeah, I do like that. The Howler monkey is sort of like a self regulating like the developers put in a lot of like balancing, so it's like, wow, you can really go crazy on the hyoid bone, but then your testes are put all your attribute points in the hyoid bone.
They should have they should have done that in Balder's Gate three.
Yeah right, go nuts or your high eyed bone and beg three.
Because you could see the outcome of those particular character choices. Anyway, So the ones that have the smaller hyoid bones but larger testies are the ones who live in these groups that are more like a tumbler polycule. There's multiple males and also multiple females, Whereas the ones with the really loud call the big hyoid bone but smaller testes are the ones that are more Mormon. There there's the one
one male. I don't write to me. I know that modern Mormonism doesn't do this, but whatever.
I do, I do like that. The female Hower monkeys who go for that big hyoid bone are kind of like size queens when it comes to the I need a guy just screaming in my ear as loud as humanly possible.
My my sort of philosophy is that everyone's a size queen, But it just depends what the size of the thing is, you know. Yeah, Like for me, it's empathy. It's the size of the empathy that matters.
Yeah, good answer, good answer.
I'm glad you told me this in advance, because I was gonna I was gonna put that I have a huge highway bone in matating profiles, and now I do not want to do that anything.
Yeah, you got to Dmitri when Dmitri starts howling baby. Yeah.
And so this is really interesting because what is happening here, right, why you have these different social groups, is that you have a competition happening on different levels. For the species where the males have these big hyoide bones, the competition is happening with their calls, right, like they and then they don't have to compete as much in terms of their testes size, right. And I'm not even talking about the females like being into big Testies or small testies.
It is literally when you have smaller testees, you got fewer soldiers, right, You have less sperm to play around with you can clip that and put that out out of context. But yeah, right, it's a numbers game. And so if you are mating, if you're a bunch of males and say you're mating with the same female, right, uh, you want to have more sperm to compete with other males and so that it's more likely that one of your guys is going to get in there and reach
the cross the finish line first. So but if you've already secured your females, like I have the best death browl around and you guys are loyal to me, and also I'm intimidating to other males, so they're not going to come around and try to fight me, then you don't need to compete as much on testes size. So yeah,
I mean it is. It is a really interesting like these howler monkeys really demonstrate this very interesting evolutionary trend that you see also from from insects to mammals to fish, Like this kind of like trade off thing and sexual selection and like the difference between say sperm competition and like actual like competition with say weapons or vocals. It abounds in animals and maybe Eurovision, I don't know, fellas what do you think I.
Mean, that's a great point. There's now oftentimes there you go Oftentimes in Eurovision, you know the people, it's it's the visual spectacle gets a lot of hype and people tend to forget that it is in fact a song contest.
But there are some there are.
Some performances, especially even in this last year. The guy who came in fourth place was a way. It was a French ballot and not much in terms of staging, visual almost nothing, really almost nothing terms of staging. But the voice was so peerless. That's got that got him all the points he needed to get for fourth place. It just goes to show that the voice alone, and we've seen this multiple times in Eurovision. People who do
call what is a parking bark. It's just them nothing else, singing into a microphone, and because of the quality of that voice, they often find themselves getting great ranking.
If you've got the goods when it comes to the singing, you might be okay. It's one people Eurovision before it's best to maybe have a little of both.
Streamers at least put some streamers.
In there on do something but like or cover your.
Drum set and crochet they did that last year or this year.
That's right, do what you gotta do. But sometimes that voice is enough.
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean exactly. So there's trade offs in Eurovision. There's trade offs and monkey testes as well.
So you know, as the old saying goes.
The old dog goes. Females do also howl, and they can be quite loud, but they are usually well basically always not as loud as the males, much lessnnoying. And but yeah, I mean so it is really interesting because it kind of sounds like they're rude, right, they're yelling at each other, howling all the time, but actually this is something that keeps their aggression and fighting relatively low. Like it diffuses tension, it solves conflicts without them having
to actually resort to violence. So they basically are using their words, not their fists, even though their words are just like ooo.
Well, they do often say that Eurovision is the thing that has prevented many European wars. Many Europeans say, we do eurovisions so we don't fight each other. So there is some merit to that idea.
Yeah, there is, there is, I actually like, even though obviously there are still wars and it's I mean, Eurovision can get really political. I mean this year's Eurovision got quite.
Political because frequently does will continue to.
Yeah, and so like you know, it's a but there is something to that, right where essentially what happens in terms of animals, right, is that if you can basically predetermine who's probably gonna win the fight before you actually fight, then you don't have to go through the fighting, right like that, And that's kind of a it's sort of an interesting sort of theory about like maybe sports, like if you have two groups of people and you play like some kind of sport or game with each other,
like and there's even combat styles where sometimes it was more like a sport less killing, so that you could determine basically, okay, who really is gonna win this, but maybe we can do it without killing each other, and then whoever wins it, we're just gonna say, like, okay, you win, we'll back off, uh, because we don't want to die. And even if you win, you don't want to incur those casualties. So like humans do do that,
and now it's become kind of more eurovisiony. But throughout our history we've also had conflicts, conflicts where it's like kind of like, you know, we're we're just sort of like trying to scope out whether we're gonna lose this fight really bad.
I don't know about you, folks, but I want to watch the Disney or Pixar or DreamWorks movie about a young howler monkey who can't sing.
He doesn't have the gift, and they.
All all the other ones are, you know, mocking him for not being able to sing. Can't any can't any howling him, howling him.
Down if you will.
He goes on a worldwide journey to learn about the power of song and the music within him, and he comes back to become the boss Howler Monkey of all this is like an annoyingly plausible pitch for a movie.
You're just described. I'm really sorry to break this to you, but you're literally just describing happy feet.
Yeah. Yeah, Well.
The good thing is Hollywood is not, how do we say, allergic to the idea of repackaging an old idea and selling it as.
A new one.
Really, I don't know that I.
Could you could you give one example of this? I've never heard of it.
Okay, we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, we're gonna meet our final contestant, who I don't know may surprise you. So, guys, do you like techno?
I like some technow Yeah, you like you like it.
When that that thick and soupy bass drops, that is usually my favorite part. Yeah. I used to listen to Infected Mushroom when I was in high school because I that was before I started getting migraines. But no, actually quite like, I quite liked it. Like I'm not trying to I'm not trying to be mean to techno. Techno can be really cool. I love I love some like interesting beats there. Uh did you guys know that fruit flies seeing sweet romantic techno songs to each other?
Okay, this is news to me. I don't know. Yeah, they made much of a sound besides a buzz even kind of they're they're a pest, but they're one of the least intrusive pests. They're very small, they don't make a lot of noise. And also it's like it's in the name. It's like, hey, man, we're here for the fruit. Yeah, we're not even here for you.
No, no, no, We're just here for your bananas that you loved out.
On another animal, another animal that tells you exactly the whole story is in the name.
We got man. We're all three for three on that. It's that magnificent friget. I mean, I guess frigate birds aren't literally like eating frigates, but they kind of look you know.
I guess, but like.
It's because they're swift, you know, like they make sure they dive verious monkeys. Fruit Flies. Oh sorry, these are called the pretty pretty neat fruit flies. That's their home.
I love it they're being humbled. Yeah, I love managing expectations about the fruit.
Pretty pretty neat fruit also known as the Drosophila melanogaster. They they do sing sweet techno songs to each other. We usually cannot hear them because they are very very quiet.
That's about to change. I've been around some flue fruit flies, and I have not heard any sweet beets.
So, but you know, I am going to let you listen to this. This is courtesy of a recording by Professor Mala Murphy's neuroscience Lab at Princeton. So here we go.
Okay, all right, so it's pretty minimal, it's pretty. It feels a little experimental, but I can get I can mess with it. It's the start. It's the start of the techno sad like things.
Yeah, you gotta sample it, you gotta sample it.
Yeah. I was gonna say, you could sample that and make that into something.
You could totally sample that. So this lab is examining these fruit flies and they are like doing this incredible mapping of the fruitfly brain. Because fruitflies brains are very little and tiny, it presents a great opportunity to be able to study it in detail, and specifically, they want to look into the decision making behind like when and
why they drop these sick beats. So, uh, first of all, how do they make this like sound that like sort of little like like little I guess you'd call it kind of like drumming or it just it sounds just a little bit like a synthetic beat almost. Yeah, And he's doing this by Yeah, he's vibrating his wings. It's called stridulation, and he can vibrate each wing independently and that can change sort of the the rhythm and the.
Complex they're playing with that stereo field.
That's right exactly. And so males serenade females in order to get their attention. They want to draw in these females without freaking her out, and they will change the beat of their song depending on how close he's approaching her, whether she's responsive, whether she seems a little bit of skance.
It's like, rather than just sort of sitting there and sending out this call, they are very sensitive to what the female is doing, and they'll change their call based on her behavior because she ultimately decides whether they may like, it's not going to happen without her saying, yeah, let's do this, And so he will often spend up to twenty minutes, which is like forever in flute fruitfly years. So he'll spend twenty minutes wooing her, going through hundreds of these sensual beats.
It was like a year of his life.
Yeah, okay, So what I'm hearing is this fruitfly male values consent and a just base on the needs and preferences of a woman green flas. This fruitfly is a gentleman.
You know, it's fruit fly.
It's very funny because all three of these animals, it's like, oh, well, they make a sound to like attract women, to tract females of the species and We're like, what interesting animal behavior animals do? And you're like, man, you go to any college quad in the entire us, and you're gonna see some dickhead with him guitar. It's like, is it so different to sing Blackbird on the quad? Yeah, it's very.
Similar behavior, and you can even change the song based on the truly.
Yes, yes, you get the reverence that we work for you. Well, good old fashioned wonder walls waiting us right there.
Wonderwall's always there for you. It's better than pulling literal magic tricks out of your pocket and trying to use that to flirt. Actually happened to me.
This is not oh, this is my life, not wow, I'm sorry, I must Was it like a was it.
A card trick?
It was a card trick and a little.
Rope thing, okay, because like a cardon was like, maybe you've got a deck of cards if you're good at it. But once you have more props than that, I'm like, this is a lot to carry around and you're gonna pull like.
A rope out of your pocket when talking to a woman you don't know.
Don't do that. Don't do that.
I don't do that, sir, And you're gonna a.
Real trick, is that the woman?
It's funny because it's scary. So we're talking about these fruit flies who they're not scary at all. They're sweet, little o beautiful romantics.
Yeah, these guys can read the room, they really can.
And they do, and they will increase the complexity of the song once they've got the female's attention. Females seem to select for males with more complex beats, like and it may be an honest signal. So we have, like in evolutionary biology, honest signals. That means that when an animal is giving off some signal, it is actually uh honestly portraying something that is real about them, right, Like I am actually quite fit here, So this is an
honest signal about the male's fitness. A smarter, more physically fit male will be able to produce more complex songs. Uh, you know, just like DJs. The the more physically fit, the more the smarter the DJs, the more fat beats they.
Can do mm hmm, the harder they can drop that beat.
That's right.
Well, that's when they ripped their shirts off and they're they're cut, yeah, you know, muscle like that's how you know, there's a real genius in there.
That's right, it's got you know. That's like, there's a lot of stuff you do with your arms that I'm sure you gotta get a bit of a work out.
There, got Yeah, you gotta be buffed to crossfade effectively. Yeah.
So here is the most romantic thing you're ever going to hear about a fruitfly. This is a direct quote from the head of this lab, Professor Murphy, who says, quote, it is a conversation with a back and forth. He sings and she slows down, and she turns, and then he sings more. He's constantly assessing her behavior to decide exactly how to sing. They're exchanging information in this way. Unlike a songbird belting out his song from his perch.
He tunes everything into what she's doing. It's a dialogue.
Keep talking, all right, Please tell me the romantic novel that.
Yeah, I would like this to be the next Twilight. But it's instead of being like a vampire, it's a guy who's like fruit fly.
But where's the harlequin romance fruitfly novel?
Yeah? Just like you know, like you could have ended what is it the Cronenberg's that the fly.
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, come on, Jeff Fly.
What was that movie called guys? Fly turns into the Fly? You know, the fly gets into the transporter and so he turns into the fly.
Do you know what that movie is? That was that the bug was the guy whose face fell off.
So yeah, you could have had Jeff Goldbloom making sweet beats for Gena Davis.
You're gonna that would have been a huge hit.
Geena Davis was so pretty in that movie.
Also, that's why they got married. They were both incredibly they.
Were very attractive. I would still consider it with both of them even if you had a flyhead.
Honestly, yeah, I think she probably preferred them with the fly, you know.
I mean, look, if he had a fruitfly brain, right, he wouldn't be a monster.
He'd be there, actually a decent guy.
Really nice guy, like and not like a nice guy TM, like a genuinely nice guy who's like, I am listening to you, I am hearing you, and I am changing my dialogue in response to your your preferences. So, given how simple the fruitfly's brain is, even though it's a beautiful brain that all men should aspire to it is
still capable of incredible complexity. One reason that they're doing this study on fruitflies is because it's they're very simple, so they can actually map out all these neural networks. It's it's really incredible work to be able to pick apart how these brains make decisions. So yeah, but also it's just it's inspirational. Guys like be be be more fruitfly, you know, I mean everyone, let's I shouldn't even be
like genderest about it. Everyone should be like this fruitfly and like listen and dialogue and dance around and drop fat soupy beats. I don't know if anyone's ever described beats as soupy, but I do.
Sometimes I will say. It's like, if you've got a tiny brain and the only things that end up in there are I love fruit, I love making beats, and I love attending to my partner. You can do worse than those three things.
You know, there are many creatures with much more complex brains who waste their potential. So I think you're also in there, Fell, You know.
That's that's a beautiful message to end on. But but, but but before we go, we have to play a little game. Sound game, I guess who's squawk? And every week I play mystery animal sound and you the listener, and you the guests, try to guess who who the heck is making that sound. It can be any animal in the world, on the world, around the world.
So this was We've trained up a little bit. We've already listened to three different animals this episode, so.
This the the This one comes from actually an episode from I think two weeks ago, the Belly of the Beast episode. But if you listen to that episode, My hint was just like, if you listen to this episode, you'll probably get it. Uh, So you could either go back and listen to that episode or if you want another hint, because I'm feeling generous here, it is remember to say peace and thank you for your meals. Guys.
I really hope they're drinking water here, all right, don't. I don't like how long the second half is.
Okay, So to get this correct, you not only have to guess the animal, but you also have to guess what they're doing.
Okay, okay, mm so there sounds like they're maybe not drinking water because.
You know what, I'm gonna take a while guess all right, I'm gonna go nuts and go nuts.
I think that is a peacock bathing itself.
Mmm mmm, so we've got some sort of foul bathing going on there.
I think that might be a duck and perhaps they are wading into the water or sort of paddling with their with their duck fees.
Okay, so Jeremy, you're half correct.
This is okay, I'll take it.
But both of you are not quite right about what is happening. What is actually happening is these ducks are frantically, frantically a bowl of wet peas.
I can't believe you.
Did not You didn't. This is this is the thing, is that your your brains are too attuned to your vision and not attuned enough to waterfowl. I am just as but because you did, both guess at least some sort of bird, your prize is. I'm sending you a link to the video of the ducks eating a bowl of peas, which when I need like a little pick me up, right like I'm you know, just throughout the day, if I watch this video of ducks eating a bowl piece,
I feel better. It makes you feel good fast, like it's like a little shot a series.
They really they're all about these.
Piece going to bowl wet peas. Congratulations.
They know they know that the bowl is coming, and they are like it is go time.
Oh yes, yes, congratulations to Emily and for writing in and guessing correctly. So, guys, some tips about feeding ducks. Don't feed them bread. Bread's not good for them. It's also just eat the bread. Bread is good. I like it, You like it.
Don It's good good for us, it's good for it, well for us emotionally, it's good.
For it's good for our souls. But like the ducks, it's not good for the ducks or for the duck souls. Too much bread and they'll get vitamin deficiencies. It's also like, yeah, so like there are other nice treats you can feed ducks in moderation, including peas. But you can also feed them lettuce, corn, grapes, oats, and earthworms, which I saw as a suggestion somewhere, And I'm just trying to imagine someone going like, technically, yes, that.
Is true, about to go back, you know.
What, Just chew them up and spit them directly to the duck's mouth. Sure, yeah, that's how you make duck friends. All right, so onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint is this. It's a bit of a complicated hint. I've actually used this sound before on this very game, but it's one of my favorite animal sounds, so longtime listeners of the show maybe you'll remember. But I'm pulling
it out again because I love it. I love this animal, I love this sound, and I just feel like this should be sampled in some kind of like europop or like techno song, so.
We'll get our best people on.
I'm glad you said that because the new songs for euro Vision twenty twenty five are just now according into their natural collections. So yeah, if you're listening artists out there, you haven't finished your song unique sound. You need.
The sound you've been looking for. Or I'm I'm because we were talking about your vision. I was saying a europop a europop song, but maybe I should say something more along the lines of Colombian music because this little guy is from the Andes. All right, do you guys have any guesses.
As to what could be making I mean, we can work that into a song, is what I'll say.
Yeah, that's a good sound. Isn't it.
And I'll also say last year I had a fantastic song called Lanoya, which was from Italy, but it had Cumbia elements, which is of course a Colombian music form.
So the president is already there and she came in I believe she came in seventh, So just saying yeah, same, I have no guess this is what this sound is.
I believe it is some sort of bird.
All right, Dimitri, you's still going with birds, what about you?
Jeremy, No, I'm gonna switch it up. I'm gonna say this is some sort of weird Colombian. Oh, maybe it's one of the I don't know if they're Colombia.
Should not just stop that sentence there, I'm gonna it's a weird Colombian.
No, no, no, I'm saying, I don't know if they're Columbian. But you know those those squirrels from South America that are like super colorful. Maybe it's one of those.
Sure, well, fellas, I'm not going to tell you because we're gonna have to find out on next week's episode of Creature Feature. That's right, I'm making you wait, where we will reveal who is making the sound if you think you know and you want to write to me or to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com with your guesses. You can also ask me animal questions. I on occasion will answer your questions on the air
and special listener questions episodes. Sometimes I'll respond directly to your email, depends on how rejuvenated I am that day by the video of ducks eating peas. But yes, please write to me or if you have cute pictures of your pets or if you have that you feed peas too, I want to hear about it. Guys, thank you so much for joining me today. Where can people find in Just go and listen to their Eurovision podcasts.
It's very easy to find wherever you get your podcasts. Eurovangelists is the name. We've got new episodes every week and the new Eurovision and the new Eurovision season starts in literally next month. We will start hearing new songs.
And it's happening.
Yeah, it's all. It's nearly upon us. But we also have many episodes about Eurovision history. We did a whole series of three episodes where we ranked all of the twenty first century Eurovision winners, which might be a good entry point for people who are like, what's this thing all about?
We also cover We also cover subjects that we just kind of want to speculate on, and group songs together.
We most recently did.
An episode about Eurovision's guilty Pleasures, the songs we like but arguably we shouldn't, so we do. Also it's a fun stuff. You can also find us on the Instagram. You're Evangelist is right there on Instagram. We do all sorts of fun little updates, news. Sometimes we do the occasional giveaway of Eurovision and or your Evangelist merch.
So yeah, we're everywhere. You can find us. You're Evangelist everywhere.
Of course to meet you. And he's talking about guilty songs that they shouldn't like, but do you like. He is, of course talking about the power ballad about committing war crimes.
Time history. That's not my pick. I like the silly songs.
Guys, Thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating review, you know that I love it. You know I read all of them and I absorb your comments like a happy little sponge. And thanks to the space Cussics through their super awesome song ex Alumina. Creature features a paraduction productionon of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the One Who Just Heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what you
listen to your favorite shows. I don't judge you. I'm not your mother. I can't tell you what to do, but you know, try to eat some peas along with your bread. See you next Wednesday.