Fant(ass)y Creatures

animal counterparts. Will hunt down real unicorns, basilisks, griffins, aliens, and jackalopes to discover this and more as we answer the angel question why would anyone throw out a perfectly good para testicles? So we're fascinated by myths, even to the point of our own psychological detriment. A lot of kids were terribly disappointed by not receiving their Hogwarts letter. Urban Dictionary even has a term for it, ben curtains to phobia, the fear of not receiving a Hogwarts letter

on your eleventh birthday. And also after watching James Cameron's Avatar, some people felt situational depression as they experienced the cognitive dissonance between the beautiful fantasy world and their blander reality. Well, fear not. Today we're going to talk about the stories behind mythological creatures and find out that they have real

life animal counterparts who are just as magical. When you look at the variety of behaviors and morphology of real animals, you'll begin to realize that you don't need to escape into a fantasy realm or already living in one. Joining me today is Alex Schiffman, producer of Science, The Live Show About Science. Hi, Welcome Alex, Hi everybody, thanks for welcoming you. Katie. Of course, so I got admit. I just went to the Getty Museum and I learned a lot of this content that's going to be in the

show from this exhibit. It's really good. It's the Book of Beasts exhibit. I think it's a limited one. So if you're in l A, you should check it out. Now, in l A and you're a snob or you're really trying to impress somebody on a date, go check it out right exactly. I mean, the Getty is free, but

parking is expensive. That's where they get the shipping right, right exactly, but it is technically free, so great, great date location, as long as you like uber over and don't have the paper parking or you walk there like walking what I don't. Don't worry about it. We'll talk about that mythologically, right right, The mythological walking distance places in l a um all right, So we're going to

get right into it. You know, Alex, if you couldn't use weapons or your fists or like weapons, which our weapons legally registered weapons. Mind too, by the way, anybody can legally register their fists as weapons. Right, I'm a purple belt? Is that a belt? I'm sure you could. Yeah. The reason I bring this up is I'm going to talk about the boncon. Have you heard of this mythological creature?

I have not heard of this mythological creature? All right, Well, the twelfth century illuminated text The Aberdeen Beast Theory describes the bonacon as such. So in Asia an animal is found which men call bonacon. It has the head of a bowl, and thereafter its whole body is the size of the bowls, with a main neck of a horse.

Its horns are convoluted, curling back on themselves in such a way that if anyone comes up against it, he is not harmed, but the protection which is forehead denies This monster is furnished by its bowels, for when it tries to flee, it discharges fumes from the excrement of its belly over a distance of three acres, the heat of which sets fire to anything it touches, And this way it drives off its pursuers with its harmful excrement.

That's so round about. That's the most beautiful description of a of an animal that destroys things with fiery poop I've ever heard. So does it ship fire or does it breathe out it's fire, it craps fire, It breathes lightning and craps fire. Yes, it's uh uh and it it's I love these illustrations of it. It looks so kind of bemused by these people tacking it. And it's like, you do know my poop is made out of fire, right you guys chose the wrong right right? Uh? Yeah?

So that um is oh wonderful animal. And as you may know from listening to the podcast, if you've listened to our Weapons of ass Destruction episode, the idea of weaponized poop is far from being a fantasy, so we could still be your fantasy, your personal true, but it is real, so your fantasy is reality. Good news, Good news. Um,

So we did. Actually we talked about one of the closest real life examples of this, which is the Bombardier beetle uh and how when they're threatened they shoot at noxious chemical spray out of their butts as a defensive mechanism. So I want to talk about how hot that butt spray is, which we may not have discussed last time. Is always hot, so it reaches boiling points by the

resulting chemical reaction from combining hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide. And another interesting parallel is that the Bombardier beetles are mainly found in Asian Africa, where the bonicon was said to be from. They have quote horns, which are really just their antenna that can crawl inwards. Uh. And I wonder it makes me wonder. I have no actual evidence of this, but I'm just theorizing that maybe there were some descriptions

of this beetle. Um. And then it just like telephone kind of like got past by word of mouth, and then eventually it became the size of a bowl and just this bowl that spewed fire over three acres. Yeah, that's interesting. I also I love how they say it's got the head of a bowl and then it's the side of the bowl also where it's like that's kind

of redundant. Well, but if you look at a lot of these animals in the beast area, it'll be like it's got the head of the bowl, and it's the size of the mouse, and it's got feet like a duck. And so they really just like to mix and match.

Things had no measurements criterias, so they're like things are either bull size or mouse size between the bombit of your beetle is a really fascinating animal to me, especially evolutionarily because so it's got these two jets it shoots, and when they mix, it's like the opposite of Ghostbusters. You very much won across streams. But like, how did it get from normal ass beetle two bomba deer beetle?

Like what were the stages where it was like, oh, well, this one shoots out hydrogen product peroxide from its ass, and that helps because you know when it's babies get cut, you know, like ships hydrogen peroxide on their cuts and then what were like the new the mutation accidents to eventually get it to like well now I'm shipping flames.

I mean, it's that's hard to say. I think that it's just kind of one of those things where you've got millions or of years of evolution and you have, you know, a few different chemicals that can result on when we have a lot of like you know, it could have been something where it was originally, um, just kind of some waste material and then like one of them just had a mutation where it was like a a a specific chemical and then when it mixed it

was like quite quite noxious. Um, it's one of it's It is one of those things where it's like you feel like all this feels so weird for it just to be random. But you have to remember that especially with insects where they are there are so many generations. They rapidly reproduce so much so there are so many individuals within just like one year and then you have millions of years. It's like, yeah, it's eventually gonna just

explode and must get weird exactly. Would literally yeah, literally, I would love the the intermediate stage when it's got it going, but it doesn't have the projectile like my ass. No one wants to eat me, but my ass hurt's got a case of the hot ass. I also wonder if the bonakon got confused with hippos um because they do spray dunk um. Yeah, yeah, they love spraying dung. We've also talked about them before. I could hate hippos, but they're so cute and they want to kill you. Yeah,

they're so deaf. So I want to go down on a trip to imagination Station with you as we as we do on this show, Alex. It's very serious. It's not laughing matter. Um. So imagine that you're in the late fifteen hundreds in warsaw o. God. Yeah, so many leeches and I definitely have dysentery. Keep going exactly there you go. You're also I'm Jewish, so I was probably not living in a nice point. No. I mean, yeah,

it's it's been well hundreds. It's going to be a rough time anytime you go down and go go down in the time machine pretty much. So two little girls go missing, A mother and her maid go looking for them, and you know they're calling out. You know, everyone's kind of noticing that that they're searching for these girls. And then finally they go to an abandoned home and they look down into the cellar and they see the girls lying there, and they call out to them, but they

don't respond. Uh. And the maid walks down the steps into the cellar and freezes completely petrified. The mother, you know, scared shitless, like, runs off to the town and starts telling everybody about what's going on. So you're hearing this story from her. Rumors spread and an investigation is launched,

and people go down to the cellar. Uh. And you know that people are telling you that when they went to visit the seller, the air felt thick and foreboding, and nobody was brave enough to go down and recover these bodies. So they got some iron hooks and pulled them out. Uh. And when they were examined by a physician, I mean, they were obviously dead. Uh. And he found that their bodies were unnaturally swollen and their eyes bulged from their skulls. Uh. And if you were living at

this time, like, what would you think had gone down? Uh? Witchcraft? I think the other people would have probably blamed it on me. Well, yeah, I mean Jewish people, we we don't. We are witches, this is true, but we don't go around like exploding children. That that is a myth. Yeah, that's a dang line. And whoever heard that on Alex Jones. Yeah, I would probably think was some sort of witchcraft or

basilisk or something like that. Yeah, well you're very close, because this is actually the historically verifiable and at least partially true story of the Warsaw basilisk. According to writings, officials who investigated the incident pinned the murder on a basilisk. Uh. So, first, for people who don't know, let's talk about what a basilisk is. It's a serpent with a rooster head who can kill by staring at you. Uh. It was said

to leave a trail of poison wherever it tread. Even its blood was poison and could drip down any weapon used to try to kill it, and if it contacted your skin, you would die. Uh. And some basilisks were depicted as having rooster legs and leathery wings, and they weren't actually supposed to be very big, so they were like about the size of like a large rooster or

a small dog or something. So the fear factors that they can stare at you and kill you or something just right, and they just they look super goofy though when you look at the illustrations of them. Um, but people were terrified. I mean especially you have these two dead little girls whose bodies are very disturbing, and it's

you know, that's that's horrifying. According to the historical writings about the Warsaw Basilisk incident, uh, since nobody was brave enough to go down and try to kill the basilisk, convict was sent down to capture the basilisk, either Jan or Jan Bowdensen Bondosen, author of the Fiji Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History, describes the hunt for the basilisk as such quote. The convict was dressed in creaking black leather, covered with a mass of tinkling mirrors,

and his eyes were protected with large eyeglasses. Armed with a sturdy rake in his right hand and a blazing torch in his left, he must have presented a singular aspect when venturing forth into the cellar. He was cheered on by at least two thousand people who had gathered to see the basilisk get beaten. Today. This this convict covered in mirrors like a disco ball uh, carrying a rake and going like, well, I'm gonna kill this ruse just sna I guess got history is so dumb. It's

so dumb. What else did you have that too? I mean, but think about it like you're in fifteen hundreds Warsaw. You're you've got you know, jack crap to do. You're just like like, well, I hope I don't get the pox. There's a disco ballman about to kill a magical lizard rooster thing. Hey, isn't that the dude who stole my bread? Yeah, they were going to chop his hands off, but they thought this would be funnier. Oh man, that would be great.

It's I mean, it's like reality TV but old Timey's his outfit sounds like it sounds like when you think of the coolest D and D get up and then you put it in real life, because it's like, oh yeah, I imagine the sound too, just like ching ching ching, leather under it too, ching ching. I'm going to kill Basseles. Well, this was not how I thought my wife would go. I was supposed to be an alchemist, so incredibly according to historical writings, he did in fact find and kill

a basilisk um. But as we know, there's no such thing as like an actual basilisk So was this a bit of creative license on the part of old historians or did he actually find some kind of snake in that cellar that they just were like, yeah, that's it, that's the basilisk Uh. So there are a few parallels to an actual snake bite of that could have happened to these little girls. So snake venom can cause swelling,

which is what the physicians observed on the girl's bodies. Um. But the problem is there aren't really that many venomous snakes in Poland. Um, but there is one. So the European adder. Uh, they're not actually typically all that dangerous, but they are venomous. Uh. They're not aggressive, their bites aren't typically fatal, but children do in fact succumb to their venom at times. So so some of the deaths that come from adders are typically among children, which and

the victims were children. So I wonder like if this account is true, um, like, could it be that these two girls were playing with an adder like kind of just like molesting the snake until the snake lost it in like bit both of them and then that killed them. And then when the convict covered in mirrors went down, he found the snake. Uh And the maid was frozen in terror because obviously because there are two little girls who were like bloated and dead, and that's she's got

like some trauma. Now the maid, no, no, she was um uh So it's the so people thought like, oh, because she's frozen in terror, that's because of the stare of the basilisk. But really it's probably like she just found the bodies of these two little girls. She could have even seen like a snake, like we have of this, Like even if you see a snake or a spider out of the corner of your eye, you get really anxious,

even if you don't consciously register seeing it. Uh So, I think that it's really interesting to me, how you know, Mythical creatures are used to give explanation to really frightening, inexplicable occurrences because like when like when a child is killed and it's either a random accident or like even more horrifying, like another human being, we want a monster to pin it on, like a monster that can be vanquished and held up in the town square and like, yeah,

I got it, and it's not humans, then the things you know aren't actually dark and evil. It's something outside of yourself. And it's also not just a random sad tragedy. It's like something you can blame rather than just random chance.

Is it's so much easier to live in a world where there's something blame worthy rather than life is just right because you take a closure once you kill the basilisk, whereas if it's like, yeah, snake bit it and there's there's a snake bit these kids and there's a bunch of snakes could happen so or like a murder killed them, those are both way more scary because it makes you feel like I'm not safe. Anything could happen. But if but if you like kill the bass, looks like, well

we took care of it, this won't happen again. Um So. Another potential origin of the basilisk myth in general um is that of the spitting cobra um. So it can't kill with a stare, but if you stare at it and it spits its venom into your eyes, you will go blind. Um So, spinning cobras are found in Africa and Asia. Um. There expectoration is very dangerous. Uh. So it's not actually spit, but venom from glands that are

being um shot out by muscle contractions. Uh. They can spray up to two meters away, so you've got to give them a lot of personal space. Uh. And while the venom isn't dangerous when in contact with human skin, it can cause permanent blindness and corneal swelling when in contact with the eyes. Corneal swelling. That's a good I love that. That's a good D and D name if we're on that topic, sir, corneil of swelling. Um. But a spinning cobra doesn't really have the look of a basilisk.

And what I think actually inspired artists in terms of what the basilisk look like is a very real lizard who's actually called the common basilisk um. And it looks a little bit like a chicken and a lizard combined when you think about it. That makes sense because chickens and lizards are both descendants of you know, dinosaur relatives. Um and Uh, this basilisk lizard has a crest on its head and a fin on its back that when it's moving could probably be mistaken for like leathery wings.

Let me get a picture of this where you would like to see this. You can kind of see right right. You could kind of see how that would confuse people because it's it's it's noses pointy, and it's like different colors, so you could maybe mistake that for a beak. It's got this like crop on the top of its head or a or a crest on the top of its head that could look like a rooster crest. And then it's got this big fin on its back and its tail that like when it's moving around, you could think like,

that's a big wing. If I were a Marco Polo type, like somebody who grew up in a in a world where there were not basilists, and then I traveled to a place where one existed, all bets were off, like, yeah, okay, anything is possible. This thing is insane looking. It'll kill me with the stare. It'll know my name just by looking at me. It knows the exact day and time I will die. Um, it smells like cheese. This thing is, it's real and anything is possible. So what's cool about

these lizards um. So. First of all, they're found in Central and South America UM. Which so if you're a European and you like hear a story about it or you see one somehow, like it's gonna be like it's gonna blow your mind. Um. So they're small, they're only about two ft long. UM. And this allows them to achieve a little trick that merits them the nickname the Jesus Christ lizard, which I love that it's like how

Jesus Christ lizard um. So wind fleeing predators, they're able to build up enough momentum that they can run across the surface of water. Uh. Their feet have scaly fringes that increase the surface area, distributing their weight such that they don't actually break the water tension uh. And also by rapidly slapping their feet against the water, they create air pockets that give them further buoyancy. Um. And another

fun thing about just the word basilisk. So you may like basil and basil looks sound really similar, right, that's not a coincidence. So they both share the root Greek word little king. So the basilisk is the little king serpent and bays is little king of plants, I guess. Um. So there was this medieval myth that if you ate basil after being bitten by a snake, you would feel no pain. Um. The truth is, if you eat basil after being bitten by a snake, as you'll feel a

lot of pain. With like a hint of sweet aromatic pepperinas it's a nice taste, it's a nice it's a nice sort of like um after taste to being bit. But you will be incredible pain and should go to a hospital. Definitely should. But if you really like a good scone, you should try to get bit by snakes as much as possible. So now I want to talk to you about the Rock. Not the rock but no, not Dwayne, damn it um, but similar So the rock R. O. C. Was a giant bird in Middle Eastern mythology that could

carry off entire elephants. So, uh, which you know I mean, when you think about it, the rock could probably carry off I think he can fly to Secretly, I think he just knows that if he reveals he can fly, Um, his fame would become too intense movies. Anymore him to fly, we would we would adopt him as our god. And then like he couldn't make move like sort of mediocre actions anymore, because yeah, exactly. Uh. What I find so interesting about the rock myth is that there were really, really,

actually real life giant flying birds. One such bird was the Argentavia's magnificence. Uh it was it lived about seven million years ago. Um, so it went extinct before humans were around. But it had a wingspan of up to one feet. Uh. They were the largest flying birds to ever exist. Um. But as you may not know, not the largest flying animal. We talked on the show about parosaurs and the catskotalists. Uh forgot the rest of its name, but it's it's the It was a huge flying reptiles,

the cats coal. Yeah. Um, it was about the size of a small airplane. That's so cool. That's so I This is why I host a show about science because this ship is so rad. Yeah. So I loved when you said the Latin name of the Argentinian. It was a giant condo chargents magnificence. It was very similar to a condoria that the people who named it were like, this is magnificence. We got no better name for this thing when it was standing. So as the name implies

it was found in Argentina. The fossil records um when standing on the ground, it was as tall as a person, and based on the the anatomical structure, researchers think it just like swallowed its prey hole. That's so cool. How big could a thing like that? Like? How much could it? What were its gains? I mean, you know, I think that it probably One of the things I read is there a speculation that it probably just instead of actually doing a lot of hunting, it's scared predators away from

the prey. That its so like scared giant carnivores away because here's this huge flying thing of death coming at you, and then they would leave and then just like swallow, just grab their plate prey and swallow it whole. If you saw a thing with a twenty ft wingspan coming, yeah, it doesn't matter if you are to look for it, I would actively like like say, hey, you come here, I will cook for you. Yes, please, I'll let you eat me. Honestly speaking, God, now you are my God.

Now exactly so there are the rock Johnson and my God God. He can fly. I know it. We know you can fly the rock. If you're listening. You don't need to hide it anymore. Then then I know you are a fan of this podcast, right, and I know you and Dwying the Rock Johnson the best of terms. They both they both can fly there there, I mean everyone knows, but Vin Diesel. It's more like how those snakes can fly, right, it's a gliding can get can get sick altitude? Yes, he can. He can Pereguin falcon

that yeah. Jason Statham can jump like a flea, but he can't fly. That is true. Kevin Costner can't actually make any air. He well, he can walk, he just can't. He can't jump. He can't lift a foot. No, no, he's too he's actually too entangled with the gravity of the Earth, like he cannot It's it's actually every step he takes is tremendous. You know the term gravity toss, Yes,

it's for him, it's literal. He has literal gravty toss when he tries to move, so his feet he's always sliding right right right, that's he actually kind of moon walks around and just everyoneody noticed anytime you've seen Kevin Costner run, that's a body that is yeah, exactly. So there were also, uh, these giant birds called terror birds. Um again this is what I am. Yeah, so they went extinct about two point five million years ago. Um and uh so they were the apex predator in South America.

Um again like the like the argent Taivis magnificence. Humans weren't around, luckily because we'd be boned. So some species reached up to nine feet in height and weighed over half a tongue. These are flightless birds, though, so they had long, agile legs, huge beaks, and massive talents, according to Brazilian According to the Brazilian ornithologist Herculno Alvingetu names sorry, he says, quote an ostrich the largest living bird, can

swallow an apple. But phosphor rosid, that's the terror bird can swallow a medium sized dog in one gulf. Just like, oh that's okay, So an apple is our scale. What's next? Up from apple? What about watermelon? No dog? Dog? Dog? Well, because these were carnivores, so yeah, it's it's pretty. You can imagine these things just like stomping around, you know, squawking really loudly like and just swallowing tiny dog like animals. And those animals are like yeah, no, do it. Yeah,

I'm not going to run from you. Yeah, just like well, okay, I give up. There goes my genetic lineage. This god wants me dead. The flightless bird, I think, in some ways is scarier than a flight full bird because all the things that make you flight right, the things that let you fly, like tiny legs, so you have to have delicate features. It features tiny legs to fly, and you you can be crazy muscular, but like not, you

can't take a big thigh. It's those thigh thickness, thick thoughts, those thick ass meaty thighs where it's like thighs forever, thighs four weeks, thighs for years, for eons. Uh so there. The theory why these one extinct is actually that they were too awesome. Well no, sadly, when the North American predators like sabored tooth tigers migrated, when North and South America like smooshed together and started the Great Continental Smosh, the Great Continental smoosh. Um, so the sabre tooth tigers

took over their niche. Oh so they like hunted. They didn't hunt the terror bird, but they hunted the terrible r exactly. So they couldn't get enough, right that, I guess they were too. The problem was they were too awesome, so they never had to compete. Exactly, they were not they were. They peaked in high school, like evolutionarily speaking, and then like as soon as this, like who used to be a nerd in high school? And then they turned out to be awesome. They have a great personality,

exact hobbies, and really long teeth. Right. They used to get made fun of for their orthodontics, but then it turned out that these massive teeth and just like Agile is ship that guy who's really into karate in high school and you thought was a Nina warrior, right exactly. The Chimera was a mythological beast that had the head and body of a lion, with an extra goat head sticking out in the head and body of a snake

as its tail. It was said to breathe fire, and it's thought to have been inspired by the real Unartist Mountain area in Turkey's Olympos Valley. Here, gas vents under the ground allows small fires to continually burn, making it seem like a place where magical creatures breathe undying fire. Even stranger there are real life chimeras found throughout the

animal and human realm. A genetic chimera is an individual who has cells of more than one genotype, typically meaning two or more zygoats used to form a single organism. And animals, this can cause stark, bilateral symmetrical patches of different fur or eyes, like a cat with black fur on one half of its face an orange fur on

the other. Hetero chromia two differently colored eyes can be caused by chimerism, but it's more often caused by mosaicism, a genetic scenario where an individual has more than one genotype but only from a single zygote, meaning that there was some weird cell replication abnormalities within that zygote. Chimeric humans are extremely rare, with only about one hundred currently documented cases, one of whom is American singer Taylor Mule, whose torso is pink on one side and lighter on

the other side. But there aren't any chimeras like in myth where multiple animal DNA in one organism or are there in Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego injected human stem cells into a pig embryo, creating a human pig hybrid kinda sort of the pig embryo was only about zero point zero zero one percent human and was only allowed to develop for twenty days in the pigs womb. So no talking pigs of my nightmares yet. Speaking of nightmares, we have to take a break for

some bad advertisements, but we'll be right back. When it comes to understanding human and animal behavior in psychology, we've had a bit of a rough start over the past few centuries. In medieval times, Beasti area authors thought that lions breathed life into their young, and bears licked their young into shape. We know, of course, that they were likely licking the amniotic sack off their newly born young, but it's easy to see how such a behavior was misinterpreted.

Human behaviors, too, have been wildly misinterpreted, and the history of psychology is a doozy. Throughout human history, people have thought mental illness was a sign of demonic possession. In fact, in ancient times, people practiced treppending, the art of drilling a hole in the skull or chiseling a chunk of the skull bone out, which was thought to release evil

spirits from the brain. Not all Trumpening patients survived, but some did even as far back as the Stone Age, as we have artifacts of Treppen skulls where the skull hole healed over. Drilling a hole in your skull sounds bad, but what about biting off your own testicles? What would you rather, alex uh, drilling a hole in my skull? Yeah, because if I bit off my own testicles, I'd have to somehow figure out the logistics of getting my mouth down there, which would I think hurt almost as much

as the actual act. Right, You'd have to remove a few vertebrae first, or like a few ribs or something, or I'd have yeah, a few, or someone really strong will just have to force yikes. I'd have to get Dwyn the Rock Johnson to do it for me. Well, at least you're not a medieval beaver. That's something I often remind like when I'm feeling down and I've given myself a pep talk, I'm like, well, at least I'm not a medieval beaver. I really want that as a poster.

I'm moving apartments right now and I'm doing a lot of Etsy shopping for cool posters, and I would love a poster of you saying that at least you're not a medieval beaver. Our other catchphrases don't you noodle, stay in scoodle, which is about not noodling catfish. So here's a medieval theory about beavers. They were said to chew off their own testicles and throw them at hunters to avoid being captured. So you may be asking why would this be helpful in any way, shape or form. So,

beaver testicles used to be prized for their medicinal value. Um. Hunters were after that sweet sweet juice called castorium, which we talked about last time as uh, it's actually used as artificial vanilla flavoring today. What yeah, beaver nut is used as artificial vanilla flavor. Sorry, I need you to stop. No, I'm not gonna, but they wait. So like when I eat cheap vanilla ice cream, it's not made in a lab. It's taken from beaver testicles, not always, but it is

FDA approved as generally regarded as safe. So fuck damn it. I mean most vanilla things are probably vanilla extract. Sorry I almost said vanilla astract, which is more accurate when it comes to castoreum um. But in medieval times, this was thought to be medicinal um. So the thought is that if beavers bite off their own testicles then lift a leg to show hunters that they no longer have

those sweet, sweet castoreum balls. Uh, then they would be safe. Uh. This is also a weird Christian parable for living chastely so you wouldn't be captured by the devil. So basically sacrificing your your gonads to not like get tempted by Satan or something, which I don't know. I guess they're saying, like, cut off your own ball, cut off your own balls, and then then spread your legs for Satan to say, look at this, at this Satan, Satan, I can't come. Actually,

I don't know if that's true. But castrated people, that's not my area. Well, it's definitely you're not you'd be shooting blanks, that's true, So maybe you can still. I got no juice. You know the phrase vanilla sex. Yes, I'm never again going to think that that means boring sex. It's gonna mean something beaver like. I suppose something beaver like and with castration. In the last time I was on the show, we like talked about a lot of interesting sex practices and hot Water for being a little

too judgmental, and I'm not going to do that year. No, don't judge, don't judge. I don't want my testicles bitten off. Well for vanilla sex, I'm gonna I'm actually going to judge people for biting off testicles. There, I did it. Hot I said it, hot take, hot take. It's contra virtual. But you know, so hunters at this time, we're wrong because what they thought they were getting were testicles, but they were actually, uh this is disgusting, but they weren't balls.

They were just glands that were holding the castor am Why is that more disgusting than if it was Okay, yeah, I'm like two in it, right, Yeah, yeah, it's a bit. I'm doing a bit. But the real testicles were inside the beaver the whole time, because they were the balls are coming from inside the beaver um. And they did

not bite off their own testicles. But they may have believed this because the testicles weren't internal, so they were like looking for testicles and they couldn't find them, and they're like, oh, it's clearly they put them off or something.

Did they bite off? No? They didn't do anything. No, that the amount of intelligence, the amount of human type intelligence ascribed to the beaver to say knows the hunters coming from my balls, I will therefore bite my balls up and throw them at the hunter, plus show the hunter my empty ball area. Is like, that's at least a fourteen or fifteen year old human level of right, right, that's yeah, I mean beavers, they have their strengths. I don't think intuiting that people want their balls is one

of them. I could not build a dam with my teeth and change in ecological niche for myself, but I could figure out if hunters were coming from my ball, right, And you could figure out that if you rip off their your balls, you no longer have anything to offer the world. But that hurts because it's true. So I couldn't find any examples of an animal biting off its

own testicles. Um uh. And we do know that there are cases where animals do ditch a part of their body to evade predators, like the autonomous tales of reptiles. They'll pop off, wiggle around, distract the predator why the wizard escapes. But there are some orb weaving spiders called Nephilingi's malabaronet cys there we go. Who will detach their penises during mating? Didn't we talk about this last time?

Is on this podcast? We may have talked about I think a different detachable penis um because you talked about the king missile song. Yes, yes, the Dutch very catchy song. I think we're talking about c slug. Yeah that was it. Yeah. Um, But so the female or weaver of the species is a sexual cannibal. She'll eat the male after mating. So the male, by detaching his penis, allows his penis to

keep working after he's dead. Uh. Scientists found that the penis continued to pump sperm into the spider's reproductive tract long after being detached, to twenty minutes. That's straight up. So there are two other theories why this is beneficial. Uh. There is the plugging hypothesis, which is that it literally just plugs up the females genital opening, preventing other males from copulating. But my favorite one is called the gloves

off strategy. UM. The ideas that Unich spiders are better fighters. Um by dropping their palp, which is basically their penis um, it allows them more agility to fend off competitors, like punch them away from trying to mate with the female that they just made it with. Um. So the one thing keeping you back from being tough is your dick in this instance, Yeah, if you're an orb weaving spider,

because like Pickle, I mean, I don't think so. It's interesting because like researchers did find that Unich males were more aggressive and by dropping their penis they increase their endurance and speed dramatically. Um that this keeps I know I keep talking about dungeons and dragons, but I want that to be a character feature. Buff Yeah. Now, um, the amount of things evolutionarily that creatures go through to

make their sperm win is so fascinating. Have you ever I I know this book has gotten a lot of pushback, but have you ever read Sex at Dawn? I've heard about that book. Yeah, I hadn't read it. It's interesting. I think it deserves a read with a critical eye. But there hypothesis about human mating behavior is sperm competition. So it's not like man to man fighting because that you know, we're not guerillas, We're not built like gorillas. So it's like we're competing with our sperm, and it's

a it's definitely a bit utopian. You reading, you're like, oh yeah, I like want to live in a tribe where everyone's sucking all the time and people are happy, like but Nobles, Like, it's definitely pushing for that, and they have good evidence. But I've also seen other you know, biological anthropologists pushing back against that evidence. But that the whole human penis anatomy is for sperm competition, Like it's

just trying to pull the other competitor sperm out. I mean, it's possible, but there are there is evidence of that in other animals, like um, we talked about it on the show, but like there are penis shapes in animals that literally are used as like shovels to scoop out competitor sperm. So it's it's very possible that that's the

case for humans. I think it's just like as we can tell, like with these whole mythological things of misinterpreting the evidence to mean something like in old times, we do the same thing today where we can misinterpret um evidence like the shape of a wiener uh to mean something that may or may not be true. It's that's it's such a tricky thing with evolutionary history. But I would be really interested in I think I think that maybe would present a difficulty for studies to try to

find out, like how human wieners work during sex. I think they've done it just with anatomical models, like really interesting, because it's I think pretty good for pulling it out. I'd love the idea of a programmer spending like like hours and hours in weeks and weeks, like doing a mathematically correct model for how a wiener works during sex. That's oh, I was thinking they did it with like physical models, But I like the idea of like it's

still good, still good dynamics. Someone just like like thoughtfully watching a fake rubber wiener just going not right. You know, it needs more liability. So, speaking of sexual cannibals, in medieval times, they thought that female vipers conceived by biting off the male heads. According to the Aberdeen Beastierry, the female viper conceives by biting off the male's head, her young bite through her stomach to be born, and then

she dies, which fuck, that's so metal. It's not true though, vipers don't do this, but certain species of praying mantises do bite off heads, and I think a lot of people are aware of that idea that mantis is will bite off the female mantis bites off the males after copulation. But one kind of myth busting thing is that they don't do the us all the time. So even amongst

the species, certain species don't do it at all. Amongst the species that do practice sexual cannibalism only do it between thirteen and twenty eight percent of the time according to studies. And I love this so. Sydney Brannock, a mantis expert at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, says, quote, maybe if the female is starving or the male irritates her, she might engage in that behavior. But they don't always

do it. Just like the males like being being a real sex pest and she's just like eats his head. Well that's how you know then if you're a good lay, if you're praying mantis. Right, I'm still alive. I've had sex three times. No one's killed me yet, right, right? Uh? And it actually there is a benefit to biting off the male's head, so it may be good for for the children. Think of the children bite off the male's head.

So when female Chinese mantises eat their partners, they lay twice as many eggs, and the amino acids they get from the male's head are incorporated into the eggs they lay, So there is a there's an evolutionary benefit and a good dad. And then right exactly, just like our dad may be dead, but hey we got we got that

sweethead juice. I thought my dad sacrificed the well. Speaking of sacrifice, when you think about moms who sacrifice, typically think about like, you know, picking it up from school every day and and helping you with your homework, maybe working a job, and uh, you know, always being there for you. But what about literally letting you drink her life blood? Yeah, that's pretty cool. Tell me about this awesome thing. So this is called Any sort of form

of eating your own mom is called nature Fiji. Yes, I love Latin sciences. I love that there's a word for this. Of course there is. So the writers of Best Here were like super into it. These board monks, just like these board heteronormative monks, these probably hornyren't for pelicans.

So they would talk about that there's this myth that the pelicans were thought to bleed themselves to feed chicks, so they would use their beaks to stab their chest and then use that to have the chicks look at a pelicans stupid face structure and say, oh, that giant pocket beak, it's for like bleeding yourself. How can you not you know, I guess you're right if you're a board medieval monk, I guess that's where you go with it. Like a lot of the stories in the beast Eeries,

this was another Christian allegory. The so the story goes that the pelican um like got annoying. This is a really funny story. So, like the one of the main recurring myths is that there's this pelican it's young, grow up and they're really annoying. So she like sits on them and then accidentally kills them, and she feels so guilty that she like pierces her own breast and then her blood revives the chicks and they come back to life.

And this is like Christian imagery of like the fall of man kind and then the blood of Christ redeeming man or something. I don't it's a it's a bit of a um what if sin is like being sad on by a pelican, and Jesus is sack or so Waite is God the pelican who sits on us. Yes, I guess, yeah, yeah, that's about right. So really we know that pelicans feed their chicks with sweet sweet ragurgitation, just like most birds. But you know, I was curious that there's like a real example of a mother animal

allowing its babies to drink its life. But it's called mat um like matrimony, but matrophegi um, and there kind of is an example. So we actually have talked to im. I swear this is not a clip show, even though I keep referencing other episodes. Um, there was the Woe Mama episode where we talked about, you know, matro Fiji and animals where they often eat their own moms, but I don't think we talked about this example. So the female um it's called a sticko dipus lineatus uh spider uh.

It's found in Mediterranean Europe. They're pretty smaller, about half an inch big um, and in order to feed its babies, it will regurgitate its last meal as well as of her body mask out of her face, including her own guts and stomach. So she just like basically disembowels herself by vomiting everything out uh to feed her young and she dies obviously, and the babies gleefully eat the mom pudding. God, here's a picture if you like it. Fuck no, fu

shit funk. I'm sorry to the editor for hearing me scream. Oh damn it, that's so bad. But I just showed Alex and what'll probably post online for you guys to enjoy is a picture of this spider with a bunch of babies just covering her face eating her. I can just think of the single spider of the species that hasn't had kids yet and like all of its friends who are about to die. No, it's so great. It'll

just love it. You're gonna love being a mom. Being a mother is like the greatest sacrifice you can make because you're litterally dying. There's nothing more beautiful. There's nothing more beautiful than when you vomit your guts out of your face and you know that, like, yes, you will die for sure because your guts are now outside of your body, but it's to nourish your children. It's beautiful.

You're dying for something bigger than you. God, I mean Mother's Day for these spiders must be a odd affair, right. Just as myths were an attempt to understand animal behavior before more scientific methods were discovered, legends may be a way to describe unexplained dangers in our environment and may

help keep us safe. An example is that of the nine eighties six Lake Nios disaster and Cameroon, when an eruption of c O two from the lake killed thousands of people and animals, displacing the breathable air and suffocating them. But even before scientists investigating the incident understood the disaster, local legend had documented magical killer springs that killed animals

that approached to drink the water. Learning about these myths led scientists to discover that the hot springs had high concentrations of volcanic gases, and that's such a spring was likely at the bottom of the lake, spewing gas and causing a high concentration of c O two to build up, and this may not have been the first time the lake killed. Local legends warned people the haunted Noos Lake

that could explode or swallow up and kill people. The indigenous people consider the shores of Lake NEOs to be cursed and only newer immigrants lived there. In this case, the superstition actually saved the lives of those who followed it. I'm not saying every myth is true, but if someone warns me about a haunted lake, I'm think I'm gonna pass Before a more modern understanding of evolutionary biology. Humans have been weaving fantastic tales from fossil records and animal artifacts,

like how dinosaur bones were thought to be dragons. But unless you think modern society is immune to coming up with fantastic explanations for odd discoveries, here's a contemporary example. You may have seen the image of a small, strange looking humanoid mummy. It has an elongated skull, elongated limbs,

and looks like the remains of a tiny alien. The skeleton, called Atta, named after chilis Aticama desert in which it was found, was thought to be evidence of aliens by ufologists, or is thought to be the ancient remains of some strange humanoid. But when researchers analyzed the body, not only did they find that it was only forty years old,

but it was unmistakably human. The genome sequenced identified it as a female fetus with a number of genetic mutations that affected its connective tissues, as well as a bone aging disorder that resulted in the fetus is alien like appearance. But back before we had the technology of genetic sequencing, we had to rely on hunches, like in the case of the mystical unicorn. So you like unicorns, alex uh, personally no, But for the sake of this bit, why

don't you like unicorns? I don't like unicorns because I think they've come to like mean like I'm wacky. Oh I see, I'm unique because but that's silly, because I like the appeal of a magical unicorn and so universal. It doesn't make you wacky way or unique. It's like, oh, I like pizza, like I'm interesting. So not everyone likes pizza. Magical horse, a magical horse that like grant two wishes, Like, yeah, of course you're gonna like it. What's not to like

a magical battle horse? Right exactly. So the legendary unicorn may have arisen from real animal bones and sidings, like from the description of the monoscerous or rhino. So the most iconic unicorn horns look eerily similar to the narwhale husks,

the husk of the tusk of a narwall. In fact, the Vikings used to sell narwhal tusks as unicorn horns, which were ground into powder and used to neutralize poison supposedly and cure melancholy like which is a form of depression, I guess, And obviously it couldn't do either of those things. But hey, you know, so here's the real story behind that unicorn horn, which is actually just the narwal tusk, and it's actually super incredible and more incredible than a

unicorn horn. Um. So you may have already heard this if you listen to Stuff to Blow your Mind episode on teeth or I talked about the narwhal horn um. But here's a quick rundown. So it's actually an oversized canine tooth um and it's uh, typically the upper left canine, so it's asymmetrical, uh. And it's very rare that an oral actually has two symmetrical tusks um. And it's a

bit of a mystery as to why they have it. Um. One theory is that that is that it's a mating display, because it's typically males that have it, Although of females can have it. But the more interesting theory is that it's actually a sensory organ because it has millions of nerve endings and is actually composed of what's closer to the sensitive parts of the tooth than the outer enamel UM. And they have all the little holes and channels that allow the water to flow in and hit the nerves.

Uh So, the theory is that they could be collecting information about the water um and also that males who rub their tusks together aren't fighting or doing some kind of sexual competition, but they're like communicating about like the quality of the water, like sharing information by like sort of like rubbing I guess the water that was trapped in their tusks into the other tusks and showing them

where they've been. So awesome, that's so great. The the idea of different sensory apparatus trips me out so hard. We did a science the show show about like having different senses and um there there's always forget the name of this researcher, but I love him, and my co host, who's our science producer, loves this guy's research. But he's the guy who's like built the vest with vibrating motors on it that can like read the stock market and

give you extra senses. And the here of what kinds of senses are out there that we don't have is so and that your sense is just a giant ass tooth that's all the sensitive cold like the part of your teeth that you hate. What do you eat cold ice cream? And you're screaming like, let's just put that sounds like my hell yeah, it seems like there's got to be a good reason or like that the brain can interpret it not as pain, but as like another

sense um. One of the reasons it may be important for them to have that sensory tooth is that if they can detect salinity, like where there's high salt concentrations, it can indicate that ice is forming and getting trapped within the ice is a real danger for narwhals because because they they're they're mammals, they have to breathe air. They have to surface to breathe, so if they are trapped under the ice, they will die. Um. You know, the science is far from settled, but I think that

makes it more intriguing. Like I'm really interested to see as research on this develops. And see, like what the heck, because like, why would they have like supersensitive teeth that don't actually do anything so massive. It's like having the most sense. It's like having a comically big penis that you're just carrying around, waving around, waving around detected, like dipping it into water and the like this water is

just right, this is too salty. So now I want to talk about the legendary griffins who could carry away cows and humans alike. Uh, most people know what a griffin looks like. But it's got the head, wings and front claws of an eagle and the hind legs and tail of a lion. Um. And in the thirt hundreds they found evidence of griffins giant talents and giant eggs. So these claws were thought to be only obtainable by priests,

and so they're actually kept in church treasuries. Um and uh so, and they really do look like giant claws. Let me show you a picture of this thing. Um, Oh yeah, what the fund is? That? Is that a mammoth tusk? No? I mean that definitely looks like it. But uh so, uh the typical uh, the typical griffin claw was actually an ibex horn. So, uh, the Ibex is a species of goat that lives in the European Alps. The males have huge horns that are used in sexual contests.

So these horns can grow up to five feet in length and grow constantly. Uh. So horns are really interesting because they're actually live extensions of the skull. They have a bone core that's alive and then a keratin exterior, and they're actually, I think kind of an interesting thing is they're different from antler's. Antlers are actually dead bone material covered in like live skin often um, whereas horns

are live bone covered in keratin um. And then the eggs of a griffin were probably ostrich eggs, which are the largest eggs uh in the world currently, well not not the largest eggs. I think the largest actual egg is the whale shark egg sack, but they're the largest bird eggs. Why wouldn't you know that that was an ibex horn, like if you were living in the Alps. Well maybe they weren't living in the Alps. They just like showed up and everyone was like, don't tell that

fucking English guy about our ibex. Like you see an ibex just prancing around. A lot of them probably didn't see the ibex or if they. I mean, it's also I think just the it's like, why would you confuse a snake for a basilisk? You want? It's like when there are mysterious things like cows disappearing or people disappearing, having that monster that can be eat it, or this this actual thing and a reason for like the bad

random crap that just happens. I think it's so compelling that yeah, you know, like it's like the Fiji mermaid, Like yeah, we know, it's like a it's like a monkey skeleton sowned to a fish. But like just you want there to be weird mermaids and you want to be the one who knows about So I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, we were the Griffins. That was our our mascot because we didn't really play sports, because you know,

we're a bunch of like theater and art kids. But it's the same thing. We're like, well we know a thing you don't. We're smarter than yeah, Like we're actually a magical beach you can carry away cows. But only priests can find our cows. Um. So, Now finally I want to talk about one of my favorite mythical creatures, which is the jackalope. Uh So it's really it's been popular I is by North American folklore. Um. And it's a jack rabbit with uh so called antelope horns. But

these horns that you see aren't actually from antelopes. Um. I think the closest thing would be the North American prong horns, also called the prairie antelope, because they have those kind of like um pointy deer like horns. A little bit, but most of the taxidermis of these jackalopes that you have in your head, they actually just use deer antlers. So uh, the horned hair actually didn't originate in North America. So thirteenth century Middle Eastern art depicts

rabbits with a single horn. Uh. Seventeenth century natural history texts depict horn hairs throughout Europe and in Central America. Mythology has described horned rabbits for for many many ages. In North America, it was popularized by taxidermist Douglas Herrick in two who just like got a dead rabbit had some deer antlers and put it put them together. What do you got? You got a jack jackalope on and he coined the term jack lope and um. People were

really taken with it. They loved just this kind of American mythos um. But the origin of the jackalope throughout history may have actually come from real sightings of rabbits with horns um. So, the chope papaloma virus uh is a real virus that infects rabbits that can cause horny protrusions to form on these poor little bunnies. So let me show you a picture of a really severe case.

Oh fuck, that looks like a zeno bite. Yeah. Yeah, So it is these growths called keratinis Carcinoma's basically there growths made out of carraton, which is the stuff found in fingernails and coating the outside of horns. Um. Unfortunately for the bunnies, uh, these are real bad news. They can um a test to size, or they can interfere with feeding and functioning. Um. Yeah yeah uh. And it's actually uh, it's actually similar to the human version of the virus. No, it's a pepaloma virus, which is a

family of viruses that also can infect humans. So that includes HPV or that's human pepalouma viruses basically, and so you may think of HPV as being the thing that causes um cervical cancer, but it causes that. It's a whole family of viruses. So it's responsible for warts um all over your body can be like uh, you know, uh it can also as I mentioned, it can cause some cancers um and so uh, that's it's a similar

virus that infects uh, these wild rabbits. You can't get it from a rabbit, but it is really interesting and the show Papaluma virus was discovered in Midwest cotton tail rabbits in the US UM, but it can affect many species, so jack rabbits and European rabbits. So I don't see why not like this. You know, it's a virus. It's

probably been around for a really long time. And so those sightings of horn rabbits could have been real rabbits that had uh these uh, these growths on their heads that really do look like horns, and in fact, compositionally they're very similar to a lot of horns, and that they are made out of an outer layer of keratin. What a strange virus. I wonder what viruses evolved like anything else, Like why is this the evolutionary path? Does the does the horn help it spread like a fungus?

I don't think so. I don't think that. Yeah, I think it's that it is UM. It's a you know, the viruses. Whole thing is replication. Uh. And then if it is causing these like UM like with cancer and stuff, it Uh, A virus can cause a cancer by uh, you know, inducing these genetic abnormalities that cause these replication errors.

And UM cells normally have something where it's a it's a it's sort of a suicide function, so the cell will die, which is good for your body because you don't want to sell that has uncontrolled growth and doesn't die UM. So with a with a cancerous growth UM that sort of like it's called apoptosis, it doesn't go through that. So you get these uncontrolled growths UM, which is not necessarily like a quote unquote goal of the virus. It's just it's fussing with your with your DNA, and

it's UM causing these these abnormalities. It can even like cause your body to send out growth hormone transmitter signals that is telling your body to give resources to this this growth, like grow blood vessels towards a tumor um. So purely random, it's doing its own ship because not all because not all cancers are even caused by a virus, So the virus is just one potential cause of a cancer. The cancer and the growth is just your own cells going wacky. Um. So it's uh, yeah, it's a it's

a freaky thing. And if you look at these pictures of these poor bunnies, you can see some pictures like they just look like a couple of horns on the rabbit's head. I've actually seen one in real life. Yeah, it's it was, you know, It's kind of one of those things where you it was all surreal because you see this rabbit with a big horn on its head and you're like, ohh where were you? Just like it was in San Diego. It's just happened around. Yeah, it

was crazy. You immediate response wasn't to like kill it, no, no, because I knew what it was, um, but it was it's I did feel bad for it. I guess I'm one of the villagers with the torch and the with the race and a suit covered in mirrors leather. I'm here for the party excellent. Yeah, yeah, No, I feel like if i'm I'm too soft and too much for softy. I see a weird animal and I'm like, oh, I want to be friends with you. It's like eating my hand. I'm like, I'll get a little hand kissies. That's why

you have friends. And I'm a missing thro I see something weird and like, no, I'm not going to deal with it. I'd rather be alone. That's why I get peeted on by a lot of weird animals or insects that I pick up and then they just like pee goo on me. I'm like, cool, that is your claim to fame, Katie Golden. Been peered on by a lot

of weird things. Yeah, And like I I there's this big ball of bees that I found on the street and I was just like sitting next to them, like being like, whoa, you're a big bald bees on the ground. Like they didn't sting me, and I knew they probably wouldn't because like when they're when they're in that state, they aren't aggressive. What are they doing? They're looking for

a new hive, but since that's not their hive. They're pretty docile, they're not territorial, so but it was still fine because there's still like bees kind of buzzing around and like investigating you, and you're like, this could go very wrong. I wouldn't recommend it, but you know it was. It was so cool. That's very brave of you. We should all take a page out of your book, but only one. Well, don't screw around with bees, especially because

some people are allergic and can be really bad. I don't think I'm allergic, but yeah, you don't want to. You don't want to risk it. And don't screw around with rabbits with weird growths on your head their head, because you know they could be a deadly jackal. Probably you never want the idea of desecrating a corpse like that is terrifying to you mean, like a jack Oh, you mean like the taxidermy that someone is like, this will be fun. Let's so one part of this animal

onto another part of that animal. There's a taxidermist and I can't remember the artist's name, but they's so a bunch of animals together and they were actually really talented taxidermist. But it was extremely disturbing because some of the animals, I think we're like threatened or endangered, and it was just like really like they claimed that they hadn't been hunted, but it was still there's something off about it. And

I enjoy a good a good natural history taxidermy. I'm not put off by taxidermy for educational purposes, but like the novel Team Mice Taxidermy where they're like in scene that that kind of I've never gotten gotten that. I am okay, So I am recently single. I need to announce that to the looking for tax looking for taxidermists like you, when you're exploring the dating world, there's like

a subset. I'm sure there are men like this too, but like women which I'm singularly interested in or like into dark things and taxidermy and like dark shit is fine if that's your thing, but like once it's like dark shit. And also so I like taxidermy, like what you like, that's cool, but I am so put off by that. I talked to a woman who I was um when I moved to l A. I was looking for roommates and she is a taxidermist. And I hung out around taxidermy a lot because it was you know,

went to the Natural History Museum a lot. I watched um taxidermists professionally like stuffing birds, and it's like there's something sort of there's something a little unnerving about it. But it's also like when you're doing it with respect and doing it to preserve specimens, there's something kind of like almost you know, it's like how doctors have to like dissect cadavers. It's there's something a little bit more a bit about it, but it's for a greater purpose.

But then I was talking to her and she was like talking about how she was like collecting road kill and like when her dogs die, she's gonna like taxidermy their ears and keep them. Like, well, it was certainly nice talking to you. I'm sure she's a really nice person that I was just like, and I was thinking the smell for malde hyde is probably just everyone in that situation. But speaking of crazy frightening taxidermy, um, there's this artist Katie Clark who no, no, put that away.

It's what she likes to do. It's not a real human, but she she does taxidermy where it's an animal like an antelope with a human face on it and the human face looks a little bit like it's real, but it's not for anybody who likes anime. I'm getting a real strong, full metal vibe from that ship. Oh fuck, it's a it's quite upsetting. How are you just looking at this? Oh just at a at a human face plaster to a dead antelope. I don't know. I mean,

it is, it's weird. It's it's kind of it's a little bit fascinating, but it's also just like that's a bridge too far for even me. Is the You're staring at it so calmly? Well, you know, what have you seen that? This isn't well? I mean, I don't know if I should get into it. I've held a brain before, uh like human an a monkey brain. I mean, you know, held a dead dead sea angler with a the male attached to it. That was pretty cool. That's cool, But like,

why are you not disturbed by this? I mean, I am, I'm just like you know, it's all on the here's the key. You bottle up all your emotions and you never express them, and then that's that's how you go through your life. My recommendation, Um, well, it's been great. Havn't you on the show will end on the note of human faces attached to antelope. Um, so you've got anything to plow? Yeah, yeah, I do have stuff to plug. So Science the show, which is a live show, but

it's called Science exclamation point. The show is a live monthly show we do right here in Los Angeles. L A has some of the best comedy in the world, but it also, weirdly enough, has some of the best science in the world. We have JPL cal Tech. Uh, we have all the u S schools. There's so much amazing science that happens here. And we found that a lot of people don't know that science it's a thing

that happens right around the corner from you. Scientists are real people just like you, and that they are also down to party and like jokes and can be weird and nerdy and awkward and super fun to talk to. So our goal has always been to humanized scientists, um and the science they do. So we run it like

a night of stand up. We have an amazing local l A stand up perform Every month, we do sort of an impromptu science experiment among myself and the other to host Russell Cohen Hoffing, who's a working research psychologist in Dylan far who's an amazing, hilarious stand up. And then we end the night with uh, an amazing presentation

from a scientist. We we say it's like a Ted talk for people who don't know much about science presentations, but it's a lot more fun and a lot less like looking down its nose at you than a Ted talk. And then we have a Q and I so you can get all your burning questions answered. So find us wherever you find people on social We're on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We will one day have a podcast coming out.

We're just trying to figure out how to make that not just three dudes talking about science, because no one needs that in their life. And then, Um, I used to do a podcast called at Least There's this show about some of the small good things in our world of garbage. Katie was on an episode a bird. It was really fun. Um some of your favorites from this

network have all been on that episode. It's been on hiatus for about a year plus, but I'm gonna be bringing it back sporadically in the next few months, so a few more episodes will drop, so catch up with all of those. You can find that Facebook, Instagram, iTunes at at least pod and find me on Instagram at a period f period shiftman s h I f m

an check me out. And as always, you can find us at on the internet at Creature Feature pod dot com, on Instagram at Creature Feature Pod, on Twitter at Creature Feet Pod f e T not f e e T you'll find something very different. H. You can find me at Katie Golden and of course, as always I am at pro bird writes and you should follow that because

being a bird is pretty great, I gotta say. And we will be back next Wednesday with more Creature Feature and thanks to the Space Classics for their awesome song x Alumina