Evolutionary Horror Stories

more evil worms. Discover this and more as we answer the angel question how much DNA do you have to steal to survive radioactive blasts? So guess what I bought you? A one way ticket to a little place I like to call imagination Station. Imagine that you're happily living your slow pay, comfortable life, eating a salad and being a generally chill person. One day you notice your salad tastes a little funny, but paint no sweat. But that's when

all the trouble starts. You begin to feel weird inside, as if something is happening in your body, as if something is growing. Then you start to feel a strange pressure in your eyeballs. It feels like something is shifting, moving, multiplying. Over the course of a few weeks, your eyes begin to swell, bulging out of your skull. As your eyes swell, you begin to lose your sight, and you can only imagine how horrifying you must look. With two huge, ballooning

eyes hanging out of your sockets. All you can make out is the faint difference between light and dark. You feel dizzy and out of it, and only compelled to follow the faint light up up, ascending almost blindly up a staircase until you feel a gentle breeze on your horribly mutated face. Are you on a roof? Is that the sun? The next thing you know, a huge bird descends upon you and rips your eyes out of your skull. Joining me today is writer, retired film critic, elephant apologist,

and co host of the podcast Night Call, Emily Yoshida. Hello, thank you for having me. Did you enjoy our little uh? I am a story? They're so intrigued. I'm so glad I came for a gross episode. Ready to do this? Um? Did you watch the movie bird Box? Yes? You know how? Okay? So I watched it? Actually had an advanced screening of it because I was doing I have pro bird rights is my Twitter and so did a little advertisement on it, and so they said it was like, huh, interesting, the

birds don't fare very well. I feel like in bird box. Now they're put in a box. Yeah, outrage, it's an outrage.

So I called it out on its anti birddhism. But yeah, I guess the premises like you, if you look the thing, it infects your eyes and makes you go crazy, right that, like there is something in the atmosphere, something we never really quite see that is so horrifying that it makes you lose your mind in your eyesight right right and into a zombie type creature, right, and you like do something crazy and you try to get other people to

open their eyes right right exactly. And then John Malkovich is like, Hey, it's me John Milkovich in this movie. How's it going? I forgot he was in that. Um this this the movie. I watched that movie maybe on Christmas Eve, I can't remember. I had to write about it, and it was like a really bad way to bring out last year. Wise, I did not enjoy that movie. I totally forgot that John Malkovitch isn't it. I have

wiped most of it from my brain. Well that's good news for you, because I have a real life version of that is much better. Um. So, I want to talk to you today about luco Chloridium paradox um. Okay. So it is an indo parasitic flat worm, and indo parasites live inside the body. And it lives in the temperate forests of North America and Europe, so you know,

close close to here, close to home. Yeah. It likes to parasitize snails and birds, and it does this in a really weird cronenberg Askay, first, I'll just the cute little snail happily munched on leaves and being cute and harmless snails much on leaves. Yeah, oh, I didn't realize that. That's so cute of them. They're very they're very cute animals. Yeah uh. And they accidentally eat the eggs of a Lucochloritium paradox um. Then these eggs begin to hatch inside

the snails bodies. So think back to our little horror story where you feel something growing and shifting inside you. This is the this is the life of the snail. Now, the first stage larva are small, thin, transparent worms with no mouths, and they travel through the snail's body and up into its eye stalks. Uh So, inside the eye stalks the lucochloridium paradox um. I'm going to say that

word as much as I can go. Chloridium paradox um. Yes, they transform into sporro cysts, which is a sack of undulating tissue that, after a process of asexual reproduction, contains up to hundreds of luco claridium paradoxum larva. I mean, same big mood, Yeah, so sack. So these these spores cysts cause the snail's eye stalks to become unnaturally engorged. So just big throbbing sacks of spor a cysts are they?

Is this like noticeable? If you saw a snail, you would know like is there a picture of a little better than a picture. I have a gift for you, a video, and it is this video that you get to watch with me right now. So here you have the snail. What's that? Well is that the worm? Oh my god, Oh my god. I'm going to paint a visual picture for the listeners, strobing and pulsating. It looks like a thing is throbbing and breathing. Inside of the ts, it looks like it has a heartbeat, like the eyes

have a heartbeat. It's crazy. It looks like it looks like a terrible organic accordion scrunching, and inside of the eye there's bands of green and white and it's it's moist, I would say, very moist, moist looking. That's always a good, good descriptive moist. So they pulsate in the snail's eyes and create a strobe effect of red, green, white, and yellow bands and brown spots. It's very hypnotic looking, very psychedelic. Yes, it kind of looks like two wriggling caterpillars attached to

the snail's head. This is accurate, and this is the exact effect that the luco Chloridium paradox um is after. So birds find this caterpillar mimicry displayed to be very enticing and tasty looking. One thing you've got to understand about luco Chloridium paradox um is that it has one goal in life to make it inside of a bird and mature into their adult forms, at which point they can reproduce in a decadent hermaphroditic orgy inside the bird.

I gotta get inside that bird kinda get inside that bird. I like. I can imagine this being a musical And from the point of view of the worms, like the opening number is like the I want I'll be inside of a big bird. See that bird up there. I'm gonna be inside at one that would be inside of that bird mating. Oh God. So the luco cloridium has one problem, which is that snails don't really want to be eaten by birds, so usually they are within the dense foliage of the forest where birds are less able

to access them. And the loucal Cloridium paradox um. Gonna keep saying that word as much as I can do. Could you know what each parts of the Latin mean or can you break it down? Well? Paradox Um I think means paradox right, that seems like a good And luco chloridium I think means luke you have chloridiums luke? Oh, chloridium isn't that didn't like isn't MITOCHLORIUMA cloriums is the thing in Star Wars? Yeah, so we're very we're in that neighborhood. It sounds like a Star Wars name doesn't

Luco cloridians paradox um. Yeah, that does. It's like it's a very it sounds like, oh it's it's a paradox, so it's a paradox um. Star Wars Universe it's he's a bad guy, so he's bad drags mean face uh, like like a vaguely altered synonym for bad right mean bar gross texts. Yes, that's great, that's really good. There should be more parasites than um in Star Wars. There

should be. Maybe maybe the Force is a parasite. Well, that's the whole thing with the midichlorines is that it's like, oh, it's just a little organism that lives in your blood that will tell you that like whispers the force to you. Yeah, it sounds like a parasite to me. But they, I think they go and it causes wars, right, So maybe, yeah, maybe that's how it happens. Oh my god, you should do a whole episode on cloris. Nerds would love it. I'm sure they would love it and not criticize me

every tiny inaccuracy. So, uh, the Luca Clordium has the problem needs to get inside bird. It has a solution mind control so it controls the snail's tiny brain and over rides these snails instinct to avoid sunlight. UH. So the snails crawl up the plant or tree into the sun, where it's easily spotted by hungry birds. The birds eat the snails dancing, strobing eye stalks. Uh. And if the snail survives, it can actually regret them and start the

horrible process and new. But when the eye stalks are eaten by the bird, is the is the luco clarity and then out of its system or out of the snail out of the snail. It's a good question. I guess it depends on sort of the timing of events, like if it ate a bunch of it and like there could be more inside of it still um, but it could be at that point if it's alive. The birds are not discerning, they're not snail eyes exactly. The question is how do these terrible luco clarity in paradox

um control the snail's brains? So, uh, we're not sure. The short answer. The long answer is a study by UH. I believe it. It's a university in Poland. I think it's called row Claw. UH found evidence that the local chloridium does indeed mind control its snail victims. But they said that quote, both the ecological influence of the parasite and the mechanism by which it accomplishes its visibility have

remained more of a puzzle than one might expect. We think that such a situation is quite embarrassing, and thus we would like to encourage the readers to undertake studies of this host parasite association. Which I think. So, I think this is like a translation thing of probably from Polish to English, but I just think it's funny, like this is embarrassing that we don't this parasite controls a brain and we don't know how. It's embarrassing. It's a

scourge for the scientific community. Well, I mean, is it not just something as simple as I mean, I'm sure. I'm not a scientist, so they can't figure it out. I can't figure it out. But but it's not just like it turns off whatever part of the brain of the snail wants to seek darkness and be it could be.

It could be because we know so. Another parasite that we've talked about on the show before, and it's quite famous, is the toxoplasma gandai or gandhiai uh, and it uh infects rats and makes them unafraid of cats, and that they've found it, there's an actual they cause an actual lesion in the rats brain that kind of fuses two parts of the brain that the fear and arousal sort of parts of the brain, and it makes it so that rather than fearing the cats, they actually feel the

slight attraction towards them. Yes, it's definitely possible that they could be just physically shutting off that part of the brain, like with a legion or something, or it could be modifying the neurochemical balance of the brain. It's hard to say because it's embarrassing, but they don't know yet. Somebody's got to get on this. So once the bird eats the parasite, it reproduces inside the birds and the bird poops out their eggs and it doesn't really hurt the

birds other than it is still a parasite. It siphons off some of the bird's nutrients, so that's always a negative thing for the bird, but it doesn't it doesn't kill them, um. But then it poops it out and the whole cycle begins a new The circle the circle of worms Circle worms. So this body wore kind of makes me think of the thing, you know how, like like the thing and infest the people causes and then it's what does it like, Okay, remind me of it.

It eats them and turns them into a thing. Yeah, I can't remember the exact mechanics of it, but yeah, something like that. I yeah, it's um. Yeah, Like I think I any kind of organism or a thing that feels like it just as easily exists as sort of like a disease, like a possessing force, not just not just a worm or an organism that's got like a parasite, but something that you know, shifts your mind and everything.

That's always really creepy to I mean that, like I don't know if this is on the docket for today, but if you talked about the the barnacles um that infect the crabs, we talked about this, We talked about this on nightcall. This is a big focus of obsession for us. I believe we have an entire up like or it's like it's in the title of the episode

because we were so into these guys um. But they do a similar thing where they they kind of Um, they actually like effectively switched the gender of the crab that they they've infected, and then um kind of also infect its brain as well to make it um want to reproduce. Like it's pretty wild, like that stuff is. I mean, I guess we're lucky as humans that so far, nothing as far as we know, can really do that to us or cannon. Maybe I don't know that that's

so interesting. Uh it says it's okay, it's called uh sacculina carcini. I've actually not heard of this parasite. I'm really excited. It is parasitic castrator. Yeah, crub it gets into that's a nice combination of words. Parasitic castrator. Um. So it's uh, it basically turns, it takes over its reproductive system, robe prices that with the barnacles reproductive system. It like grafts itself onto it and then turns and

then tries to get like its eggs fertilized. I believe I don't know it spent a second since I looked at this, but yeah, so the parasite messes up with the development of the crabs genitals and then they atrophy. Uh, and then the I see so the parasite makes the male crab developed feminine characteristics. The eggs of the parasite are secured under the abdomen um. Yeah, it's it's a

feminist hero. Oh I see. So so if the parasite is removed from the host, the female crabs will regenerate their ovaries, but males will start developing ovarian tissue and basically turn into females. That's so interesting, that's crazy. It's yeah, that that one kind of blew my mind a little bit when we had a listener send that to us. I want to so the thing in the movie it like basically steals like human DNA. You know, at least there's not like a real animal that steals DNA or

is there boom uh there is? Yeah. Okay, so welcome to our horrible little stage. The deloid rotifer. So I bet you're wondering, what's a deloid rhodifer. Well, it's a class of rotifer. Well, so what's it's a wheel animal? Does that clear things up? A wheel animal? Okay, So you want to know what a wheel animal is. It is a microscopic or near microscopic invertebrate or type of zooplankton.

They live in mostly fresh water all over the world, and they're called rotifer or wheel animals because their mouths look like a teeth wheel. Uh, it isn't like the tart degrade. Is it like that? Similar to that he has a little he's got a circle mouth to mouth. Yeah, but his doesn't actually, so he's not a wheel animal because his doesn't look like it's rotating. These ones they almost look like, you know, the the like electric shaver

with the rotating blades. It looks like that. They look like a tube with a sharp butt and a rotating shaver head mouth. Um, and their mouths don't actually rotate, but there's fan like movement of the cilia, which are the little moving hairs, which makes it look gives the illusion that they're spinning. So let me I've actually got a video here for you to enjoy. Oh they're so tiny, Yes they are. They are almost microscopic, although some of

them can grow up to about a millimeter. Kind of cute. Cute, I say, description is so much more scary than the actual I like catching his little beads. This video that we're watching, there's this caption that says their favorite mode of locomotion is creeping. Uh So they their appearance is weird enough, but it's actually their DNA stealing that makes them like a movie monster. So the deadlaid Rhodifer are an all female class of animals, so they have reproduced

a sexually for around eighty million years. Despite being a sexual reproducers, they managed to increase the diversity of their genetics by borrowing DNA from other animals. Uh. They have acquired about ten percent of their genes from other creatures, including bacteria, fungi, and plants. So these are acquired through a process known as horizontal gene transfer, which is the transfer of genes from one organism to another uh, rather

than through reproduction. So reproduction is vertical transfer. Like you have babies, They get your genes horizontals, like some random stranger just gives you their genes. That happens all the time, Right, you bump into somebody on the subway, you got your genes on me. Jesus. So pro karyotes, which is like bacteria um, are really good at horizontal gene transfer um, but you carryoute are They're more complicated. Their cell cellular structure is more complicated. Uh. So it's a little more

difficult for them to do this. UM when they gather genes from other organisms. It's thought to maybe be from a process called endocytosis, where the eukaryotic cell engulfs another cell and it starts to break it apart, and then like some of the genes survive that process and then get incorporated into its own DNA. So this occurs in many different species of animal, but the deloid rotifer is unique in the extent to which it uses foreign DNA,

so it's collected genes from over five species of organisms. Uh. These genes allow the deloid rotifer to survive extreme environments, so they're aquatic, but they can survive being dried out desiccated for at least nine years. So imagine like a fish, just like you dry it up, it's basically a mommy, and then nine years later you sprit some water on

it's just like flops back to life. They can survive high amounts of radiation UM, and they can break down the toxic chemical benzel cyanide, which allows them to live in sludge like sewage treatment plants, so they're almost indestructible. Uh, and they kind of I know, so you mentioned the tartar grade, which is another one of these very tiny animals that are really good at surviving. This this one gives them a run for their money. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it feels like it feels like a superhero power

or something to be able to absorb. Yeah, because she she absorbs other people's powers like siler from heroes, like eat their brains and gets their powers. R Yeah, yeah, it's exactly like that. I mean, how come It's the thing I always wonder about, Like, I mean, not that I know of too many species like this, but like why do they remain so tiny? Like why wouldn't isn't there like some gene that they could absorb that would like make the absorb as a bigness gene. But if

they're so small, how are they going to absorb an elephant? Huh? I guess that's true. I have to eat the entire organism or just like so, the real reason I think that they're that's small is that there there. It's similar to the reason why like insects can't get really huge

and such. So it's like when you have a certain cellular structure and metabolic system, it isn't really sustainable at larger sizes, so through evolutionary processes, obviously sometimes these very tiny organisms do end up becoming larger animals, but a lot of them just there's not really any reason for them too, And they wouldn't survive being like blown up, like say they have some kind of gigantism gene that like just blows them up. They wouldn't they wouldn't necessarily survive.

There is um something and we've talked about it a little bit on the show, something called deep sea gigantism, where UH animals who are on the ocean floor are often bigger than their counterparts that are more towards the surface of the ocean. And that's due to uh some of the difference in environment like that deep And is it like a pressure thing or something or that it's actually yeah, it's actually thought that maybe because the uh the nutritional density is so low, like you have to

be bigger. First of all, the bigger you are, the slower your metabolism, so the log you can go between feeding, and also the more distance you can cover so you can pick up food uh over longer distances. UM. I mean, I wasn't shaming the rotor for whatever. A little bit like you were. I just I want I would love my micro schaming. I would love I would love for

it to be whatever size it wants. Then you can cuddle it like I love a giant tartar grade or a giant rotor for just like little baby, cuddle like giant comparatively like we're we're we're like size and no larger. I would be yeah, I would love that, like i'd like a pet rootifer. You use it and then you use it to mop things with just something like yeah,

like organic room. But that's an amazing idea. Let's do you think horizontal gene transfer is reserved for freaky zooplankton, Other animals, including humans, can get on on this freaky sideways gene action. It's thought that humans can acquire foreign DNA through retroviruses when they infect reproductive cells and inject their genetic material. However, studies on how much of the human genome is from virus is very, some claiming we have up to two D three genes from viruses, while

other studies call this number into question. While pro karotic organisms such as bacteria are experts at horizontal gene transfer, karyotes which include plants, animals, spongi, and single cell protozoa are usually less adept, except for our friend, the deloid rhodafer. However, there's also a wily protozoan that has stolen human DNA to engage in some cellular espionage. Plasmodium vivax is a protozoan and a parasite one of the causes of malaria.

There's evidence suggesting and it has adopted some human DNA into its own genome, which allows it to stealthily stay inside the human body and may help it evade the immune system. It's like a protozoan put on a human mask and waves to our white blood cells, going hello, Yes, nothing to see here, just a normal human cell doing norman human things. What's that somebody has been infecting red

blood cells. Oh no, that's terrible. Hope you catch them anyways, see you in just a bit we'll discuss more devious, dastardly creatures, including an animal who's obsessed with death. But first, I have a quick message to deliver from bombas the sponsor of this episode, So I'd like to welcome you now to Creature Feet Pod. That's right, we're finally talking about feet, specifically the things we put on our feet. Here's the problem with human feet. They're naked, no fuzzy

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dripping off bones. This is not typically the kind of imagery we like to dwell on, but there are some people who are obsessed with the thought in an unhealthy way. Those with Coutard delusion, also known as walking corps syndrome, believe they are dead or decaying. In some case studies, the sufferer even described smelling themselves rotting from the in

side out. As this is a rare mental illness, it's rather mysterious, though there have been a few documented connections to schizophrenia, depression, brain tumors, or migraine, and it's thought to have something to do with lesions in the parietal lobe, the part of the brain that processes body sensory information. And spatial awareness. A dysfunction within the parietal lobe may cause a self negating delusion where you think you don't

exist or are dead and rotting. But there are some animals who are obsessed with decay and happily so their whole lives revolve around future faction. They live, eat, breathe, and mate within the underworld of decay. So, Emily, you want to talk about carrion beetles, sure, as if you have a choice anyways. Carrion beetles are a family of beetles found all over the world who like to eat. Well, ye um, I'm afraid to do the Google immage. It's not so bad. They just look like beetles and probably

eating a dead thing. So Carrion beetles have an adorable habit of laying their baby larva onto the carcass of a decomposing animals so their babies have a corpse to feed on. Us they pupate nice good parents, Yeah, nice parenting. So the problem that they have is that a lot of other insects also love to eat dead, rotting things,

so they have a lot of competition. Carrion beetles have developed a few interesting solutions so the genus ncrophorest or bearing beetles are the are the undertaker of the animal kingdom. Bearing beetles will engage in wrestling matches. It's just like out of nowhere to determine who will be the undertaker. So males will fight males, and females will fight females until only to emerge victorious. These undertakers, damn it? What

is that? Alright? Sorry? Last one? I promise. They work in pairs to bury the bodies of recently dead animals like rodents, even up to the size of a rat, So a pair of these undertakers can bury a rat in just a few hours. They dig under the carcass, which sinks deeper and deeper into the earth. Then the bearing beetles complete their undertaker duties by shoving the loose soil on top of the carcass so inside of the tomb. The bearing beetles stripped the fur or feathers off the

carcass and use it to line the burrow. So cute and sweet, so cuddly and cozy, to have my final resting place inside of my own skin and rfe right exactly so then it gets better. They rub their butts and mouths all over the body, releasing antimicrobial excretion anti microbeal excresia. So GoF that was pretty goffe. So these excretions helped preserve the body and prevent odors of decay

from attracting other scavengers. The female bearing beetle will then lay her eggs in the nursery tomb, where they have a soft, delicious dead body waiting for them to feed on. Nursery. True, it's kind of paradox man life death. It's all the same new life sprouting out of dead things. D uh. So in a lot of insects, parents are kind of like they lay their eggs and then they just go and then that's it. But the bearing beetles are really nice, good parents, so the parents continue to care for their

larva inside of the crypt. They will feed the larva regurgitated rat corpse in response to begging from the larva. I know I've talked about in this. In certain species of bearing beetles they have that wrestling match, but in other species they will bury large cadavers as a group effort, and then they raise their larva communally adorable, so sweet, just like everybody's sharing a dead body getting along singing

much more harmony than many humans. Exactly if we could all just come together over one, over one corpse et corpse's plur bum. Yeah. So some carrion beetles have developed a rather different strategy from burial. Here. I want you to look at this photo, boy and enjoy it. Oh boy, So what could you describe that for viewers? It looks like a beetle that has a bunch of maybe little beetle larva all over it, A coat of babies basically

of little mites, is what's going? Yeah, so he's wearing a It's from a distance like, oh cool for coat you've got there. Oh it's moving. So some carrion beetles species and mites have developed a symbiotic relationship. The carrion beetle allows mites to completely cover its body like a taxi for mites. Um the mic hitch arride to the

nearest dead mouse or whatever. Once the carrion beetle parked itself next to a dead animal, the might disembark, but rather than eating the carcass, they like to eat the carrion beetles competitors. So the mites will eat fly eggs, maggots, and the larva of other scavengers. Exactly, yes, so incredible.

So the mites will leave the carrion bee beetle alone, who enjoy its metal beetle beetle meets uh it's meal of rotting mouse while the mites destroy the beetles competition and clears the path for the beetle to lay its own eggs on the body. It feels like succession or something. You're right, succession and might just you know, like in that movie Willard where he he makes friends with the rats.

It's it's got this like Ben, you are a rap, but I love you, goes right, um, And it's this like loner, reclusive guy who like he's browbeaten by the rest of society and his work and his boss and everything. And then he makes friends with a bunch of wraps and the rats eat eat all of his like competitors and stuff. So um, that's basically this, but with a beetle and lights on it good to have friends, it is, that is like yeah, like might it's good to have

a lot of friends eat all of my competition. So many species of carrion beetles actually have warning coloration because surprised to They taste like death, probably after eating all those dead things, I would imagine. So they are bright red and orange, kind of like biohazard signs, um. And they can excrete nasty stuff out of giftswear gifts where yeah, I mean where else exactly. So these this nasty go that they excrete out of their anuses turns predators off

and it apparently smells like death but death. So who would have thought that a beetle that like eats lives, mates, raises their children inside of dead things would have, like their perfume smell like death. Yeah. I mean it's like your lifestyle at that point. Do more? Yeah? Um? So, speaking of smelly dead things, have you seen stranger things? Yes? I didn't mean to call stranger things of smelly dead things, but I'm going somewhere and you see the demogorgan yes face.

Um So I want to talk about the Reflegia ARNOLDI, which is also known as the corpse Lily. That's pretty golf, isn't it. That sounds like a like a goth name. High they're on corpse Lily Lily. You can call me Lily Corpse. That's actually a really good like goth character. Yeah. So here's here's a picture of the reflegia or corpse lily. It's such a big boy. It's a big boy, a big flappy boy with the big mouth in the center. The hole. Is that the alarming thing? It's like that,

you know, the fear of holes. Yeah, that's really triggering for Yeah. The the it's sort of that that gingi eto kind of look of like a thing that just has a big hole in it. What's in the hole? Is it more death? Yea, a mouth filled with death. So um. So it uses it's cadaverous odor to entice things rather than deter them. So it is the largest of the genus roughly Asia. Uh. And it's the largest single flower on earth, with a diameter of three and a half feet, and it weighs up to twenty four

pounds and basically the size of a small dog. Yeah. Is most of that way the corpses of corpse beetles that are in its flower stomach. Yes, probably the weight of the flesh and there the corpse smelling goo inside of it. I've never seen one of these in person. I mean I know of them, but like it's because they're extremely rarely so they're found almost exclusively in the

rainforests of sumatra Um. And it is a dark blood red with white spots and uh, like I said, it looks like that demogorgon face has got these concentric flaps and then a big hole in the middle. So uh, it is extremely rare and in fact endangered due to its convoluted way of reproducing. This plant is actually a parasite.

It can't grow on its own, and it has to infect a host plant in this case, and it infects a specific species of grape vine um and the seeds embed themselves into the host vine and sucks nutrients out of it. Uh, which is a you know, about what I would expect from something called a corpse. When it's ready to reproduce, it creates a bulbous growth in the vine,

which develops into a bud. The bud forms over a year and it just looks like it's like a normal vine, and then you just have this big bulbous like pustural coming out of the vine, and then the bud will bloom into a huge red flower with a cavernous center. And it's one of the worst smelling things on the planet. Uh. It has a very powerful smell of rotting flesh designed to attract flies and beetles. Uh. In fact, the chemical composition of the odor is extremely similar to actual rotting flesh. Um,

how does it? How does it get that? How mean does it come from? But well, it's it just produces the the chemical It's sort of like, you know how we can create mimic smells like fake banana. Have you ever seen Nathan for you? Um, a little bit of it? Yeah, just can't watch Comedian And he like pretends to help businesses, but really he's just doing terrible stuff. And he convinces a frozen yogurt place to try out a poop flavored

ice cream. So he has to go to this like production place where they make um, artificial flavoring, and he makes artificial poop flavoring. So something. It's something like that, but happening inside the flower. The flower only last a few days. It is unisexual, meaning that it is either male or female, and so the pollinator, the flies or beetles who are hoping to get some of that sweet corpse goo, have to cross contaminate the male and female

flowers in order for them to be successfully pollinated. And the of course, because they can't do anything that's not disgusting. The pollen of the corpse lily is the consistency of thick snot um, and it just kind of coats the beetles and the flies that that gets in there, and the rare instances that they actually are successfully pollinated. Uh, they produce a fruit that's filled with tiny seeds that looks like a pile of poop. Basically, um, why is

it so foul? Why is everything about It's like, it's like my name is corpse lily, and my seeds are poop. It's like I'm not afraid to offend. It's not precisely known exactly how the seeds are dispersed. Um. It's thought

that they're eaten by tree shrews and perhaps ants. One theory is that maybe the tree shrew poops on or around the host vine, or another theory is that ants pick up the seeds and carry them to the vine or to their burrows near the vines, and the horrible process begins a new But they're like, I mean, it's unpleasant, but it's overall like it's like a it's like a part. It's a vital part of an ecosystem, right, Like, don't you need to have a corpse flower and a rainforest

or something? I don't know, or is it like a horrible aberration that like, I mean, the only thing it's really hurting I think are the vines, right not? I mean, here's the thing, the um the flegia is highly endangered, whereas I don't think these vines are so uh And I guess the only other thing it's hurting is like humans who have to live near it and smell something that smells like a horrible corpse just di spewing odor everywhere. But otherwise I think it's a lovely thing. And I

hope it doesn't go extinct. Uh. Man, it's you can see like it. It is truly humongous. It's it's pretty. Just the way it looks is pretty unsettling to me. It looks like it will eat you, like you've you've gone into a real Mario hell world where the plants want to eat you and they fall into it, right, like a gritty, realistic Mario where once you die, there's no one ups. Yeah, So why are we so freaked out about clowns hanging their folks? I swear this is relevant.

So they're big red ringed mounds, their white faces, and blue accented eyes. There's a theory that the grinning faces of clowns land us right in the uncanny valley, evoking the grim rictus of a decomposing head. Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Steven Schlasman told Vulture quote, the uncanny explains a lot of horror tropes where you look at something and it's not quite right, like a human face that's decomposed sing. It's recognizable, but just enough away from normal to scare you.

A study published in the journal New Ideas in Psychology found that surveyed people consider clowning to be the creepiest profession, followed by sex shop owners, funeral directors, and taxidermists. They perceived those death obsessed for sex obsessed professions to be

the creepiest. Could clowns be considered death obsessed due to their ghoulish faces, or, as another theory suggests, is it that their emotions are ambiguous, making it impossible to know whether their leering smile is painted on or is a genuinely threatening expression. Anyways, I don't know. Why don't you ask the clowns standing right behind you. When we return, we'll discuss evil worms. Why are they so evil? How are they so evil? Have the evil worms been inside

you the whole time? Hi, it's me again and welcome to another edition of Imagination Station. Today. I'd like you to imagine that something is growing inside you again. You know something is wrong as you feel your body being filled up with some kind of massive, wriggling creature. But at this point it's too late. You can't speak. There's some dark force preventing your voice from working. There's nothing

you can do about it. It continues to grow, filling up your torso like you're being filled with some sort of nightmare spaghetti. Finally, you feel your mind start to crumble. Water. You think water, I need water. You stumble your wretched body towards a lake, numbly, aware that you probably can't swim. Oh well, a voice commands you louder water, so you

jump into the cold, dark depths of the lake. As the light of the sun fades away and you feel yourself sinking into the dark waters, You're dimly aware of something happening, and impossibly long hose like creature wriggling its way out of your guts. Squirming to freedom as you drown. Luckily, guess what you're not a cricket or a grasshopper? Well, I don't think so. No, I as far as I know, I certainly hope not. You look you look like a human.

But you know, look I'm I'm not. I'm not going to judge if there's any If there's anything we've learned today, it's that, um, you know, not all creatures are what they appear to Fankly, we could be filled with crickets. Yeah, so, Uh, the cricket is a very unlucky animal, as is the grasshopper and any other insect that is the victim of the parasitic hairworm a k A. Nematomorpha, which is a phylum of nematode Um. So, like many parasites, the parasitic

hare worm is a sadistic creep. Uh. It infects insects and arthropods. There are two species of parasitic careworm that parasitized crickets. You want me to try to offer through these uh, these Latin names she spinal Cordotes tellini and Paragordias tricuspidatus. Good, good, good effort. I think I got this perfect um so they parasitize crickets and grasshoppers and force them to do their horrible bidding. They grow inside of their host cricket or grasshopper, and they occupy the

poor insects entire body cavity except for the head and legs. First, they short circuit the cricket's brain and stops them from chirping, making them less likely to be eaten by predators. Uh, they release a protein that alters the cricket or grasshopper brains chemistry, causing them to deliriously seek out bodies of water. Once inside the water, the hair worms wriggle out of their hosts like eating spaghetti in reverse out of your butt? Does that make sense? So I've got a video for

you because I know you want it. You've been looking forward to this video this whole time. I've been talking about it. Here we go. So here's the cricket and it's in the water. And what's that coming out of it? Oh? God? Is that? It's interesting? Though? Is that Is that a huge worm? That's a huge worm. It's so big, it's so big. How is that whole worm in that cricket? It's jammed in there, it's just it's just coiled up

in there. And oh it's so gross that there's another video of it if you want to keep watching it. There's like a bunch of them coming out of that one ker. Don't you worry, folks. I'll include a link to this video in the show notes so you two can experience the demon spaghetti that is the hair worm. It's like the way it's like swinging around, just like like seeking its way out out of the butt, out of the butt. It's actually I think it's actually bursting

through the abdominal cavity, which is great. Yeah. Um, So the crickets and grasshoppers drowned. They don't normally like to jump in water because they don't really like to drown. They usually just sip things like do drops and stuff like adorable. They don't they don't try to, but like when they're infected with a hair worm, they'll just like jump right in the water is fine, and the worms are coming out of me. I mean that is that

is pretty devious. See that feels more like morally, um yeah, like it feels more predatory than hes heinous some of these other ones. I don't know. It's like the body takeover a thing. I guess right. It's just the the how incredibly invasive it is to like take over the entire body like be spooled up inside of it like

a coil of hell. And then uh, just like then it drives it to kill itself unintentionally, and then it like bursts out the bodies and then it goes and mates, and so it's it needs it needs to grow inside of the crickets body. It absorbs nutrients. It's absorbing the nutrients from the cricket like just directly through its skin like a you know again, it's I mean really demonic spaghetti is the best way I describe it. It's like

possessed spaghetti. Getting possessed by spaghetti is what happens to crickets. Well, so how long does it so it basically matures to like adulthood and then and then finds the water and jumps out, and then what does it do for the

rest of its life? Mates and a little uh yeah, that will then get unintentionally eaten by the crickets, and I don't yeah, I mean there's so there's like fearfules, right, but there's also like there's something about that like a curvy I have like my my iPhone headphones right here, but it's like that kind of thing, or just like noodle phobia. Noodle phobia extremely things, especially when they're moving. It's likely. Yeah, well, at least we're humans, so we're safe,

or are we? I got some bad news? Yeah, oh no, because I gotta tell you store about guinea worms. So guinea worms infect humans and they manipulate us in a similar way. So normally I'll maybe jokingly say, oh, don't google this, but then you actually google it. Uh, and it's fun. Seriously, if you are eating, if you have any kind of sensitivity to things like, do not this. Really, I'll describe it. I will describe it and lure details

so you don't have to google. And I refuse to put it in the few show notes because that is really Yeah, exactly, So, the guinea worm will infect humans when we drink water containing water fleas who they themselves are infected. Uh. So the fleas die inside of the humans gut and they release the guinea worm larva. The larva develop into adults and reproduce inside the the person's intestinal wall. Um. And the here's where it gets fun. The female adults migrate down the host's leg, which is

apparently extraordinarily painful. Um. And then it tries to exit through the foot, which is again extremely painful, as you can imagine. So a painful blister forms on your foot as the female burrows her way outside. Uh. And this causes people to go seek out some cool water to

wash their foot because it's an incredible pain. Uh. So when you put your foot in the water to soothe the blister, the female bursts out and it SPUs its offspring into the water because that's exactly where she wanted you to go, um, so that it could spit out all its babies into the water. And then those those babies will infect water fleas, and then we drink the water fleas and the cycle begins. Anew wait, wait, what's

this call? Like? Doesn't have a guinea worms? Isn't there another kind of um worm or something that can go in through your feet, maybe goes into your feet? Those are hookwormsokworms? Yes, Okay, that's what I was saying. Worms just going in and out of our feet. Why do they want our feet? So it seems like so feet is the window into the world. Yeah, I was, I was going to say, it's like the like the eyes of the window into the soul, but the feet or like the gate into the rest of the world, the

feet or the revolving door into the body. Uh. Yeah, so this is extremely gross. Um. I have a pretty good constitution, but like seeing an image of like this white worm coming out of like a blister in the foot, it's not good. It's bad. It's a bad experience. I don't recommend. It is the war. It's not so it's okay. That part isn't so bad. It is spaghetti. It's like a spaghette. It's pretty long. Yeah, it's pretty long. I want yeah, I don't want any I do have some

genuinely good news. This used to be a much bigger problem, but policies of water filtration and protecting water sources have nearly eradicated these parasites in humans. So get this. In six there were over three million cases of guinea worm annually UM and this has been reduced to only about thirty cases like three zero in So from this is a really big success story of you know, humans conquering horrible parasite. Um. Where did these tend to show up?

I think in Asian Africa, although it can be I think it wasn't. Um South America to a certain extent as well. I think in a lot of regions where you can have sort of the tropical and subtropical areas is where you get it the most. But yeah, now I think it's like there, it's you can count on your fingers how many cases there are, so that that's a real real success story. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't kill

you or anything. If you have you probably get infected, I guess, yeah, so so yes, the complications that arise from it are like, um, infection of the of the blister and a lot of pain and um, I think you could get dangerous side effects from it, but it No, it doesn't. And the and the way that it, you know, compels you to get to the water. That's mostly just

because of the pain and you because the pain. It's not a brain infection as far as we know, no, um, we There's the only real, I think documented case of a parasite controlling the human brain is again are a show favorite, the Toxoplasma mosisum, which is the same one that infects the rats and makes them cozy up rats, and that that is it's not so much that it doesn't control our behavior like it controls the rats, but it can potentially cause um sort of trigger certain mental

illness like schizophrenia, depression, even o c D, which is yeah, human mind is so fragile. Yeah yeah, but no, this is not See this is not as bad because it's just causing horrible blisters on your feet. Yeah. I mean that's all very understandable. That doesn't have quite the kind of existence, right exactly. I just wonder because there's so many there's so many parasites that their whole thing is

mind control. It's just like it feels like a matter of time before something evolves to hijack the human brain, cause a cause a horrible apocalypse. Yeah. I'm kind of shocked that hasn't happened, right, I know. Right, Um, well, knock on wood unless the parasites are coming out of

the world just like brain infecting termites crawling up your nose. Yep. Um. So, speaking of horrible things, remember the chest burster from aliens um or like the brundle fry fly from The Fly with Jeff Goldbloom and how it's like this fly like he gets he goes in a transporter, and he merges his DNA with a fly and then like and he starts to transform into a fly. But in the final stages he just like this fly creature just bursts out

of his entire body. Good news. This actually happens in a certain species of ribbon worm, who have a very unique way of maturing. So, uh, these are called heteronymous Wait, well let's try the skin. It's okay, I'm just looking at more gifts of parasitic worm. Oh good, that sounds like a good plan for you to do. Have you had lunch yet, Yeah, so he do. Heateronnumertians are a species of ribbon worm um. They start out as tiny near microscarpet near microscopic larva who look a bit like

bobbily jellyfish. Here, let me show you they're not so bad looking, honestly, until you understand what's going on. So like, they look like they look like a little uh like a little like mushroom. They're really baby tiny guys. They look yeah, they look like a baby pacifier, but they're not. There's nothing pacifying about this. So rather than growing and changing in sort of the normal way, they start to

grow a little worm inside of them. Uh. And as the larva goes around eating plankton and nourishing itself, it's also nourishing this little worm that's growing inside of it and getting But you're rocking yourself back important, I mean, so far it sounds like my childhood. Yeah. So there are two worm inside of me, a white worm and a black worm, and they both try to eat all my nutrients and then burst out of me. All right, So once the worm reaches a certain size, it starts

to eat the larva from the inside out. Um, so here's the here's stage one. You see, like, here's the worm kind of inside of it. And then the ending stage is like this huge thing and then it eats this like little mushroom shaped larva. And then once it starts to eat the larva from the inside out, it actually like bursts out of the larva. And it's actually, this worm is not a parasite or anything. This worm is the juvenile stage, the next stage of life of

the larva. So it's basically as if you if your teenage self chest bursts out of your child it's like, hey, I gotta acne, check me out. It's like you just look like a weirdly bloated twelve year old and then suddenly a sixth year old just like bursts out of you. It's like, I hate stuff. Oh my god, that's so incredible. And my name is Corpse. Like I've literally burst out of my twelve year old salf It's like they look like poop. Um. Oh my god, that's so incredible. That

feels like a gingieto thing. Yeah, it feels like, yeah, just like stepping out of the shell of your old, old husk of yourself. This is known as catastrophic metamorphosis, which it sounds sounds like what any other kind because it is very it is a catastrophic thing to happen and to hear about. Also, oh my god, wait, so how big is it when this happens. It's it's pretty pretty small. But you know, like if you scale that up and you think about that happening, just like this

creature just bursting out of this, it's pretty awful. Oh my god. Yeah, So do you still want these these tiny organisms to get really big? Um? No, I'm fine with I'm fine with that size of that. I mean that one. It feels like I would like it to be bigger, maybe just so I could see the chest burst t happen, Like that'd be exciting, Like it'd be funny if more like dogs. But that's what I was

thinking of. If I was like, yeah, like if you have a cute little puppy and then like a full grown dog just bursts out of it, would that make you feel Would that feel like? Um, it would feel kind of like a like a thought experiment, a little bit of like is it the same, like it's the whole like like seconds or like the body duplication thing

like yeah, still my dog. Well I've had that thought a lot, especially about like so if you compare me to my well, okay, if you compare me to my ten year old self, No, no, you gotta go back further because I'm basically still tin Do you compare me to like my five year old self? Um? Very different people? And so is five year old me dead? And am I a new creature? It's crazy to think about, is like none of the cells that we're in your five year old self are still around? Well actually so some

of them are. Some of them are which one? So a lot of brain cells, um, so the average lifespan of cells in your body, I think is a several years. UM. Some cells turn over at faster rates than others, So you're a lot of your like your skin, your epithelial cells lining your stomach and all turn over. A lot of cells will turn over in the course of just like a week. UM. Some turn over in the course

of a few years. There's other tissue that you're born with and you die with, Like there's certain cells in the disc of your eye that you're born with and you die with so does never regenerate. And then in your brain, your your brain goes through a lot of changes as a child, and then after which point there's

not as much like uh, cellular change and turnover. There's still a lot of neural plasticity in your brain, because your brain can change at any age basically UM, although it slows down and the amount of plasticity is much reduced once you're about twenty five years old, but you can still develop new synaptic connections and your brain chemistry can change. But in terms of new cells, like, there's

not really that much UM cell change. What you're around um or or even younger, I think it the like you you're basically it's the same kind of cellular tissue. But yeah, but you know, when you think about it, like a lot of our body is replaced from like our five year old self. Um, although it is, it does make sense that our brains are not as frequently replaced. We wouldn't forget a lot of things. But yeah, it is. It is still freaky. Like if you look at your

your skin that you're in right now, that's all new skins. Yeah, this is like new from probably a year ago. It's like none of the yea, your bones that your bones over It does turn over quite slowly, yes, yes, but it does turn over, so even even your bones, and so yeah, it is it's that ship of theseus thing of like, well if I'm sort of made out of

new parts, now I might like the same person. Uh. And even though the cells, your neurons don't literally change out, your neural structures change and so it's like, you know, is that still you because you form completely new synaptic patterns and all these things. So it's and you're building off the stuff and it is. It is kind of it is a weird, but your body is like playing a game of telephone. Yes, it is a really interesting way to put it. I like that a lot. It

is like, yeah, that's the that is true. And then aren't we all just like adults bursting out of children and not understanding what's going on. I'm bigger now, but nothing else is still essentially a child. Uh but yeah, that's um, the human condition is basically the same as the ribbon worm. I feel like, oh man, the ribbon worm. So I, because this was a particularly disgusting episode, I wanted to do a chaser of a kiddy discovering that he has ears. Um, so here, this isn't a trick.

This is actually cute. Don't worry. So here's the kitty and she's I'll post a link to this video. But uh, what's that? What's that? She's looking in the mirror and then she's looking at her ears, and then she stands up on her hind legs and then she starts like touch. Oh my god, she's like on her hind legs looking in the mirror, like touching her ears and staring at herself. Wow. Um. So there's this thing in animal behavior called him your test, where you try to see if an animal has an

awareness that it's looking at itself in the mirror. And you can do it by They've done it in primates where they put like a red dot on them and they subedate them so they don't know they're getting marked at the dot and then they look in the mirror and then they rub the dot off and that shows some awareness, that does them. I think primates, elephants, dolphins all show some awareness of themselves in the mirror. I don't think cats have ever shown this, but this is

a cat. This is some compelling evidence it really, it really does look like it thinks very human right right now. Of course it could be something like it thinks it's another cat and so it's signaling to the other cat. But it really this does look like some kind of genius cat just figured it all out. It's a very cute cat. It is an extraordinarily cute cat kind of cat, that is. But it looks very very I don't want

to get about five cats. Um, so thank you for hanging in there at this cat chaser at the end. It's a little cat chaser. Yeah. Uh so you got anything you want to plug? Um? Just Nightcall. Nightcall is on this very podcast network. Is you put out new episodes on Monday's And I co hosted with Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch who's also been guests one and yeah, yeah, you got caught us all um, we are all three put um. Yeah. And you can follow me on Twitter

at Emily Yoshida And that's kind of it for right now. Um, but yeah, night calls also on Twitter social media. I gotta, I gotta come on on your show. Yeah, definitely disgusting things. Yeah, I feel like, well, we tend to do a lot of like creature stuff or whatever is in the news that week about some new weird species that was discovered. So it would be great to have an expert it such as yourself to chat about stuff with. That would be great an egg expert and with with an exploding eggs.

Exploding eggs. You can find us on the internet Creature feature Pod dot com, Creature feature Pod on Instagram, Creature feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e A T, not f E E T. That's something very different. You can find me on Twitter. I'm Katie Golden and I'm also pro bird rites, where I try to fight for the bird's rights to eat parasitic worms. Thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show, we hit the subscribe button, the stars, the things that happened below the

thing in the app wherever you're listening. Thanks to the Space Classics for their super spook tacular song Exo Lumina. Creature feature is a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You next Wednesday