Festive Swole Deer

the age old question or Dragon's herbivores. Joining me is friend of the pod, friend of ungulates everywhere, and host of the show, secretly incredibly fascinating Alex Schmidt. Hey, Katie, it's amazing to be here, and especially thank you for teaing up mega fauna. It's very very I love it. Yeah, mammals and bison in my heart is dancing around and very heavy fun. Well look at the size. So yeah, we're all about angulates today. Alx, you like an ungulate?

I think I learned the word ungulate from a Far Side cartoon. I don't know how many other people had that experience, but there's it's like a guy in a back alley it's like the strip is like a guy in a back alley. It's the trope of like a guy with a coat full of illicit watches or whatever. But it's a guy in a back alley saying, hey, you want to buy an ungulate, and then there's a bunch of like antelope in the shadows. It's great, Oh

my god, that's amazing. That's amazing black market ungulate. Yeah, they are a clade of quadruped mammals. Typically they've got hoofs. This includes animals you'd probably expect like horses, deer, cows, camels, and sheep, but also animals you might not expect, like rhinos, giraffes, tape ears, and even cetaceans, which is dolphins and whales. And the reason dolphins and whales are in that clade is they evolved from terrestrial ungulate ancestors, so they do

not have hoos. They are the you know, thinking of a dolphin as an ungulate is very strange, but they are in that clade because they did evolve from weird little dear things. I didn't know they got to remain in the club. That's amazing. Yeah, they're still in the club. I mean I don't. I think if you called a dolphin an ungulate, you might get some weird looks. But they are technically in the same clade as ungulates, so

you know, you might get some side eyes. You're like, yeah, dolphins is an ungulate because I care about scientific accuracy and I also care about, you know, fitting in with the cool marine biologists exactly. So it's important to kind of a west side story situation where you have the marine biologists and then the terrestrial animal biologists snapping their fingers and right, the sharks and something besides the chats, the silic cants or whatever old ocean thing they care about.

Wikta's in the chevrotines sounds sounds really bad as but those are two of the cutest examples of cetaceans. And uh so, first let's talk about what a hoof is. So not all ungulates have hoofs, but most hoofed animals are ungulates. A hoof is the tip of a toe of an animal where the nail or claw has evolved into a very thick and hard, coratinous chunk that the

animal can walk on. So there are both even toed ungulates like deer, who have an even number of toes on each foot, or the odd toed ungulates like horses who walk on an odd number of toes. For instance, horses walk on one big old toe which has grown to incredible proportions, so yeah, they're just walking on their tiptoes. Ungulate legs are typically pretty interesting anatomically. So the part of the horse that you would probably think of as

the knee is actually its wrist. So that big knobby thing on the horse and you're like, that's where it's knee, is right, That's that's where it's walking. That's that's its ankle and or wrist. So below that are the elongated infused bones of the metacarpals. In humans, the metacarpals are actually that first segment of our fingers and toes. You guys can't see it because I'm in your ears, but I'm showing Alex my fingers because this is the metacarpals.

So so yeah, it's just then the rest of it is. Katie's hoof actually continues into her and they fuse into a single horrifying hoove that I like to prance around on, which is, you know, really an interesting image. But yeah, I mean basically, horses are walking on one long toe. So that's interesting and a little bit upsetting. I guess this is really changing my whole understanding of like the whole essentially bottom half of what I think of as

their leg is basically a foot. Like that's incredible. Yeah, yeah, so like yeah, because if you think of a horse leg, it bends in like three places kind of So you've got the shoulder part, but then under that you have the actual knee and or elbow um, and then under that you have where you would kind of think the knee would go is actually the wrist or ankle joint, and then below that you have the finger joints. So it's weird. Yeah, it's like I'm thinking of that meme

where it's like how would a dog wear pants? And it's either across or at the back, Like now I'm thinking of how would a horse wear shoes? And the shoe is like half the leg, you know, because it's it's the foot or whatever. I think there's a some kind of drawing of like what a human would look like with horse proportions. It's called BoJack Horseman. It's very good show. A lot of people like it. There's a lot of fun diagrams of people walking like horses, and

it's showing sort of the the similar stuff. Well, my Google searches certainly very strange and interesting, but not very scientifically relevant. So moving on, it's weird toe walkers. But it gets weirder and we can look back in time to some extinct species that were absolutely just bonkers. So there used to be a gigantic deer that would roam around in Ireland and Russia and parts of Europe called the Irish elk, and it was not an elk, it was a deer. It was also known as Megalosara's giganteus

because it was giganteus. So it's skeletal remains have been found in the bogs of Ireland, which those bogs are really amazing at preserving dead things. Uh. It probably went extinct over seven thousand years ago, so humans definitely overlapped with this thing. So it had a massive set of moose like antlers. So you have two types of antlers. You have sort of the antlers you see on like a deer, but then the antlers you see on a moose or like a I think it's called a fallow deer. Yeah,

a fallow deer are palmated antlers. So a palmated antlers basically means handlike antlers, just like a moose. You know, they're there. They have sort of this uh solid palm and then it branches off into quote unquote fingers. So yeah,

palmated antlers. And it was absolutely pants weddingly huge, gigantist, gigantic. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm imagining the first human to invent pants overlapping with the end of this animals, So like they finally finished pants and immediately peeed them because you know, well I think they were invented to be peed in like like you know, some very early human like, oh my god, that deer makes me want to pee my my pants, and then he invinced pants and peas them promptly. Yeah.

So the big old deer stood it around seven ft tall, over two meters at the shoulders. It could weigh over one thousand, five hundred pounds or seven It was similar in size to moose plus you know, maybe maybe a little bigger than a moose, but it had much bigger antlers. The antlers were the biggest known of any deer, and they spanned twelve ft from side to side. So that's three point six meters of antlers and they weighed almost ninety pounds or forts over twice the size of the

antlers of a moose. So yeah, big antlers, right, that's the freakiest part that it's the same size of the rest of the animal. Pretty much just pile on so much. Do you remember that old the Grinch who Stole Christmas car tune version of the Jim Carrey version. Yeah, yeah,

the car like the check the Check Jones cartoon. And he's trying to disguise his little dog into a deer, so he puts a big set of antlers on the dog, so the dog tips forward, and he keeps having to shave off the antlers until it's the right size for the dog to wear. Yeah, keeps tipping forward. That's how I imagine these deer just like tipping forward all the time. But yeah, that's why their bodies had to be so

huge and muscular. They even had like this big hump on their backs, similar to a bison that would help probably kind of balance them a little more and also gave them the ability to both store fat and have longer legs strides. Uh. At the attachment of their shoulders. So yeah, just beasts, big old beasts and probably almost

like hair owing to see. Because because I have family and Colorado who've seen a moose in the wild and real life, and they described it as a little more scary than majestic, you know what I mean, Like they're that big and they're kind of aggressive, and they only have you know, like one percent of these antlers or whatever. I don't want to see an Irish elk in life. Oh boy, forget it. Well, absolutely, yeah, I think moose are scary. I appreciate them obviously. I think they're beautiful animals.

I respect them. I would not want to be face to face with a moose. That is terrifying. They're they're big, dangerous wild animals. I think that sometimes and certainly not people who live with moose, I think they probably understand and have a healthy respect for the moose. But deer and moose and unguluts in general, I think maybe other than bulls, we kind of don't think of as dangerous,

but they certainly can be. Yeah, Bulls, bulls, I think, because of media, are the one exception where we're like, oh, yeah, that plant eater is dangerous. But otherwise we have this weird like dinosaur I think based concepts where we're like, oh, if it eats plants, you can hug it, and if it eats meat, it's it's the bad guys in the movie. Yeah,

but really not the case. Even like if you've seen um, these herbivores fighting back against the carnivores, especially in the sub Sparan savannah, like the giraffes kicking lions, and you know it just just they can really, I mean, they can sometimes kill lions like a giraffe, even something like um, you know some of the bigger, bigger unguluts like a hippos uluts. Hippos are on gullets and they can certainly ruin your day and stomp in your head. Yeah. Will

the beasts can really mess a line up. Absolutely just reck allion. So yeah, I mean it's they are very capable. Moose are very capable. Even regular sized deer can hurt people. They can kill people, they can stomp you, they can gor you, you know, if you anger a deer up close.

I mean, we have a great advantage with our weapons and stuff, and generally they're afraid of us, but if they feel like they've got to fight you, uh, to get out of a situation you're in a lot of trouble, because yeah, they are, they're dangerous animals and so and so this this thing with antlers twelve feet wide antlers that's like to like it could carry two do in each set of antlers. You know, like that's insane, that's

it's it's absolutely the deer of your nightmares. And yeah, I mean we did apparently hunt them, which I guess or the humans were just like, yeah, mammoth, giant deer, no big deal, just gonna go up to this thing. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure there was a good amount of collateral damage of early humans of like, what's this thing? And the next thing they know, like they've been cleanly hewn in half by a giant set of antlers.

But yeah, I mean, uh, one of the theories for why these went extinct is because of those huge antlers, because they are very costly in terms of nutrition. You need a lot of nutrition to build up that those muscles and to be able to actually grow such huge antlers. And you they're also kind of, you know, not the most aerodynamic things in the world. So if you're trying to run through a forest away from the group of

human hunters. I would imagine they'd get stuck in things, like in trees, and you know, it's probably not the most um advantageous feature. The reason they got so huge was for probably sexual selection, because they were huge in males, and it was probably to impress females and to signal to other males that like, they were awesome and great and don't even bother trying to compete. Yeah, they're essentially built like Johnny Bravo. It's that he doesn't need all

that hair up there. Yeah, definitely sort of the ornamental bodybuilders of the unguill At world, where it's kind of it's kind of decorative. You know, it looks intimidating, but a lot of it is decorative. I mean, they could definitely crush you if they fell on you, but you know. So now we're going to talk about one of the most uncanny, weird just getting we're getting real freaky with

these with these deer alex. We're going to talk about photos Sura today, which is a family of even total ungulates of North and Central America that went extinct over four million years ago, whose bodies looked similar to deer, but their heads looked like a deer from Salvador Dali's nightmares, So not as good dreams where stuff also melting but it's happy. Although maybe with Salvador Dali, maybe his nightmares were just realistic things like cute teddy bears, normal looking things,

and he's like, I just dreamed about o'clock that wasn't melting. Yeah, I could tell time. No. So my inspiration for this section is actually from a Twitter thread by an ecology student Aditya Stranath and some paleo artists discussing one of the weirdest extinct families of ungulates out there, so protosaur. Today. If you look at one of these skulls, you will be convinced that dragons were real. Alex, I have shared with you some of these schools, these walls to be

in the show notes. They you know, they look like dragons or dinosaurs, right, Yeah, it's got dinosaur vibes and then also sort of a horse mouth as I understand skeletons. Yeah, Like if you came upon it in the desert southwest, all bleached and stuff, you you would assume it's some sort of dark tower situation where a dun slinger was fighting monsters. Yeah, so there are many different species with really wacky looking skulls, but typically they would have four

horns quote unquote horns. They're actually most likely occone, So an accone is something like you see on a giraffe. They are a bone structure covered in skin and fur.

For the section, I'm gonna use terms like horn and antler just to describe the shape of these things, but technically, horns are a structure covered in keratin, and antlers are a bony structure that are shed and regrown every year, and they, like a deer's antlers, will actually start out covered in a thin layer of skin and fur which is shed, whereas asa cones, which is what we're talking about here, are structurally similar to antlers, and then they

have a bony bony base and they're covered in skin and fur, but they're permanent and so they never shed that skin in fur coating. Yeah, I mean, like the little the little knobs on a giraffe head. I don't think about them too much, but when I do, I realize they're kind of weird, right I do, I because I used to give tours of a zoo at Brickfield Zoo, and we had a lot of giraffes that were part of the tour about, and I think people always thought

of them as just silly. But then those little I guess asako on the top of the head, they indicate some sort of more warlike past to make of the giraffes. I don't know if that's true. And then, as you said, giraffes will totally fight and kick in the modern day, they still got it, Yeah, but with their next but yeah, I mean it's interesting. I I don't know exactly what the oscans are used in giraffes. That may be for

mate selection. I don't think they're used for fighting, but they may have had a relative that used them for fighting or for mate signaling. So yeah, so in these extinct species, these were probably used in sexual selection because it was the males that had the most just bananas

situation going on with these as accounts. So yeah, once again, Johnny Bravo, Johnny Bravo's most species, it turns out, folks, I don't know if you're familiar with the cartoon, I think the nineties maybe nineties cartoon where it was this guy who's like body mass was n the the pectorals and uh and biceps and then tiny little legs. Uh. And actually, you know what that Johnny Bravo analogy is going to hold out throughout the show, especially with our

last one we're going to talk about. So hold onto that thought scientific name Jonica's Bravonica in the you know, the finer scientific texts out there. So most species of proto sur today had too horny protrusions behind the eyes and two on the snout. But depending on the species, these horns were in all sorts of different weird shapes and yeah it was the males ran particularly wild with it.

So one species called Synthotosus had a nose antler that started out as like one long and unicorn horn and branched into two, so kind of like kind of like a sling shot. I could imagine, you know, you're wrapping a rubber band around it and using it as slingshot. Was that old show with like the Caveman family who would like ride around on weird dinosaur things and like, no, I mean flint Stones is one of those things. Definitely flint Stones would use this as like a mobile like

a slingshot creature. But now there was another one, the movie The Crudes. I have not seen the movie. I googled cartoon dinosaur times eighties, and that didn't help me really at all. Slingshot at an old cartoon. I almost thought you were going to say Bart Simpson, like what, he just goes around sling shotting things. But but of Ustada, especially in the early seasons, they were like, he's a

real troublemaker. And part of it was that he had a slingshot in his back pocket, which no child has done since I don't know, FDR, that's very old fashion to be. Yeah, yeah, the fling shot in the back pocket. Herculoids. It was herculoids. Do you remember herculoid's No, I don't know it. I don't know it. Yeah, I never heard of it. I mean it was a little before our time.

I think I only saw reruns and stuff. But they had like weird like dinosaur monsters and like a rhino that would shoot stuff out of its forehead, and like a gorilla made out of stone, and then these just like big goo things. Anyways, it was a really weird show. And this makes me think of something from that weird show. I think it was from the seventies. But yeah, so so in addition to the slingshot on its nose, it also had these two horns behind its eyes that were

curved and even weirder. So there's this dip in the nasal bones that some people, including paleo artists Vile sincon In uh speculate uh may have been because of an inflatable skin pouch at the base of the horn that males could have used, similar to how animals like elephant, seals or frigate birds inflate a pouch for sexual displays, but like right on top of its nose. So I'm definitely including a link to a hilarious and really interesting

animated three D recreation by Vile sink In. It's this such a goof osaurus, like, I mean, it's a it's an ungulate, mammalian ungulate, but it's so goofy looking. And then on top of that, the potential for this inflatable nose pouch just incredible, magnificent. I'm looking at this little video and look, they did a really professional job. It's really well put together, and it makes it funnier to me.

It's just this it looks like it has like Edgar Allan Poe tell tale heart underneath the front of its face really good, like it won't stop beating in a way that's unsettling. Yeah, yeah, it's it looks like it would make a little like bicycle horn honking sounds, yeah, or have like that wheezing nerd voice that's in cartoons, like it's trying to talk, but there's just wheezing all the time. Yeah, yeah, no exactly, I mean there's and

this is just one species. There are several species of really weird looking ones, and I'm including in the show notes a a diagram of a few of them. One of them was paratosris ward eye, which appeared to have two big triangular horns right above the eyes, like almost like I eye lashes that fused into a horn, and then two smaller bony triangular protrusions in front of the eyes, and this weird little wishbone shaped bone right on top of its skull between the ears, like it's wearing one

of those little propeller hats. Yeah. Yeah, it almost looks like old TV antennas and pictures of old TVs in a way that no one has now, Like, yeah, like it's picking up channels two through seven for free and it's really proud of it, you know, beating the Kal Company. I mean it's it's ridiculous. And there's Protocera Celaire, which was I don't I struggled to figure out how to describe this. It has fangs, that's important, like vampire things.

It has like two bony shark fins um or dolphin fins like at the sides of its nose, and then just a complete chaos as you go up the face. There are ridges around its eyes, like a square ridge right above its eyes, and then two joysticks right behind its size. So that's the thing. It basically has one of the landscape backgrounds from Wiley, coyote and roadrunner on top of its head, like several maces in a way

that would be our greatest national park but doesn't exist. Yeah, it's a it's a skate park built on top of a deer head. It's just these things are they're so I mean, so ambitious. They just the ambition of these creatures that thought they could get away with these horns.

It also, I'm not a hunter, but I feel like the hunting community would be losing its mind if it could have this many different kinds of antlers to count and rate themselves on right, like they all love just the amount of points deer antlers have, they would they would be like like weird stat had baseball nerds, it was available to them today, these antlers would require some long division. It's it's a situation. It's a whole situation. So now we're going to talk about truly the most

Johnny Bravo of of all deer. It is a species of giant guerrilla bear deer that went extinct over seventy eight thousand years ago, found in North America, Eurasia, and Africa. So these are did you did you say guerrilla bear deer? Did no? Actually it's a giant guerrilla bear deer. Oh I'm sorry. The fourth animal there is giants like in Jack of the Beads duck. Really cool. So these were

odd toed ungulates. And though they were odd toed ungulates, they didn't really have the same hoof leg structure as ungulates such as horses. Instead of hoofs, they had these three big claws, kind of like a sloth um. And the way they walked were very strange. Do you know

those like strider costumes. I think they're in like the dark crystal, and a lot of people wear them for like parades or Halloween or something where you're kind of you have two stilts that you hold with your arms and then you're on a set of shorter stilts with your back legs, and people kind of walk around like some kind of weird animal. Um, it's basically shaped like that. It's like it's like clover Field monster posture. Yeah, that's where you have like big, big, big front legs and

then little back ones. Everyone does shaky camp footage. That is what these are. Absolutely and they liked to eat leaves and shrubs. So they had these little short hind legs and really really big beefcakes arms obviously skipping leg day but doing like quadruple duty on arm day. And they walked on their knuckles of their forelimbs, kind of similar to a gorilla, sort of like side side knuckling. It actually more like an ant eater walks. Because they

had such huge claws on their front limbs. They couldn't really walk directly on these claws. They had to curl them inwards and walk on the sides on their knuckles. And then their heads were horse like, uh, and they had like the you know, basically a big, big horse mouth, and they would so a review of what's happening here. Beefy body of a gorilla walks like a cross between a gorilla and an ant eater, has claws like a sloth,

head and neck like a horse. They weighed over one thousand, three hundred pounds or six They were about six ft tall at the shoulders or one point eight meters and over seven ft long or two meters, and it could use it's huge claws to pull down trees and strip off limbs for them to get at leaves or probably to fight off predators. Yeah, they could just put up those dukes and do it and maybe fall over if it picks up its front legs, but you know, still

pretty good until that pretty good. Even funnier, they probably were able to rear up on their hind legs to get at tall trees. So just these little teeny tiny like I mean, their legs aren't that tiny, they're like bare legs, but compared to the front of them with these huge arms, they do look disproportionately small. And yeah, I mean like, yeah, looking at this thing, it's like it's like a mule or a donkey cross with like a bear or a giant sloth and with huge claws

that could definitely decapitate you. Ah yeah, I don't know absolute cuties it is. It's like pretty nice looking for being the exact nightmare collas you have described. It's it's pretty fun to look at for being parts of seven different mammals. It almost feels like somebody was vaguely told about mammals in passing and tried to draw what that is. Yeah. Yeah, it feels like a b stary drawing from a monk who has never seen a horse or a gorilla, uh,

and tried to draw a combination of the two from memory. Yeah. I mean, and they're like, you're a monk, aren't you supposed to be focused on the Bible, And they're like, it's part of it. It's part of it. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I've creative. Yeah. Yeah, man. They love to draw their their weird animals and those little inserts in the side. I mean, I don't blame them, dad.

It must have been boring to be a monk. Oh yeah, yeah, And you know, enough time staring at the wall and brewing beer that will be better later, you know, you want to start drawing weird lions that don't Yeah, I'm going to try to draw a line despite never having seen one or even heard a description of one. I

think it's like a dog with spikes. Yeah, but I would absolutely like feed one of these sugar cube, call it sea biscuit, and right around on it until it like decided it was annoyed by me and just slice sliced me cleanly into it. Could it could definitely be the tank in your like fantasy role playing group of four or five characters. It could definitely be the one that receives a lot of damage. Well, somebody else is a mage and there's an archer or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No,

it's it's a It's definitely the tank. And yeah, are like a Star Wars creature that you know that makes some ridiculous fully sound effect as as you ride around on it. Yes, Star Wars. I feel like throughout that franchise they're very anti megafauna, right, Like there's some people ride and stuff, but the Wampa and then the rain Corps and then that big thing in the seventh movie and stuff. There's a lot of like if it's a big animal. It's a monster. No thanks, big animals are cool.

Get out of here. Star Wars not into it, but yeah, I do. I do think like if if if Creature

Kringle times Reindeer need a break, I don't know. I would love I would love to see a sleigh driven by like a couple of a couple giant irish elk, a couple of weird protocerotidae with just absolutely Bauschan mc escher like faces, and then you know, bringing up, bringing up the rear, maybe a couple of these guerrilla dear I love it, just just following like a celebrity's bodyguards, Like yeah, sunglasses and those like little little ear wires. It's like, you know, baby reindeer to to Papa Papa,

Papa Santa eyes on the package. And then later in the movie you find out they're actually really sweet guys. You judge them for their size, but actually one of them does a lot of needle point willed the movie into existence, Like later in the movie about this crew of non reindeer. I've been storybarding this whole time. My

hand is very tired. Yeah, it'd be called Santa Claus and then there'd be like in the poster art, these fake claw rips and then blood dripping down right, I am astonished that is not already a movie title, Santa Claus movie. Oh, it certainly is. It's got two stars on IMDb. So there's different types of Santa Claus movies. There's one that's starring kittens as it looks like one kittens like a reindeer, one kittens like an elf, So Santa Claus the Kittens Movie. Then there's Santa Claus starring

as skeleton dressed as Santa, carrying a axe. Well, hold on, So they were like, we're going to make a horror movie called Santa Clause. What's the first monster we pick? Definitely something that has no clause, a skeleton. Perfect. There's also a two any fourteen movie called Santa Stole Our Dog. Um, I'm not sure. And then there's another Santa Claus movie with kittens that seems to be pretty popular. One Santa

Stole Our Dog. Santa. It's just a huge jerk. I know this is not this is not necessarily the theme of the podcast, but I do have to see if I can read the description of this this movie, the Santa Stole Our Dog? So Santa Stole Our Dog is a twenty seventeen Christmas movie. It's called Santa Stole Our Dog. A Merry Dog on Christmas um by Brian Michael Stoller Bryan Michael Steeler. Of course he wrote this, of course he did. Um. So the summary is is pretty simple.

On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus accidentally steals the family dog, so begins an epic journey through the twelve Days of Christmas as the family ventests to the North Pole to get their beloved canine back. Now, the cover of the Santa Stolar Dog has a Dodo bird on it um which I'm not sure I understand that this is definitely something I'm gonna have to watch and get back to you guys on what's going on with this uh with this movie because it looks I'm astonished that this movie

connected to mega fauna. There's a Dodo on it. Incredible, great those are mega fauna, right, I feel like they're medium fauna. Santas Sole Our Dog. I don't think I'm allowed. Maybe I could play just a little clip from the trailer. Let me let me see this is a this is a this is a special creature feature. First me playing a clip from a trailer that only has a tenuous

connection to uh animal biology. I have also pulled up this IMDb page and I'm seeing a very cock eyed Santa, who is apparently played by Ed Asner R I P. And I'm also seeing the subtitle of Santa stole our dog is a merry dog on Christmas exclamation point A lot going on. Yeah, okay, so I did I did manage to get the trailer. It's a creature Kringle Times miracle m there is um okay, giving Santa a lot

of credit upfront. Maybe he's a thief guys, Okay, Yeah, it stars Ed Asner's Santa Claus bad c g I Reindeer and uh you know, yeah, I know this is a wow. The trailer is basically just the kids going, um, Santa stole or dog, and then the adults going like, Santa stole our dog. And then there's a newspaper that reads Santa Steele's family's dog, and then Santa going like, Who's dog? Did I allegedly steell? Who do you belong to? Wonderful?

It feels so blessed to find this. It's just nineties straight minutes of people making surprised faces back and forth. That's the entire stole a dog. A dog was stolen by sunchel Ah. Well that's enough of that, but before we go, we do have to answer the question of guess who's squawking. It's the Mystery Animal sound game where every week I present to you a mystery animal sound

and you guess who is squawking. So last to week's Mystery Animals sound hint was this happy little corn eating animal may sound cute, but it's a little stuck up alright, so, uh, like you have any kisses? First, I want to hear your oppression of it. My My favorite part is that there is there was like some tapping noise within it that sounded like it was using a computer. That's my favorite part is that it was eating corn. This tidy

little freak was also blogging, so really good. Uh if by using a computer you mean eating corn, then yes, oh they're the same to me. Um wow. And you said it's a little stuck up, Is that right? That was part of the hint? M m hm uh yeah, I mean I'm imagining so many mammals it's is is that what I'm gonna go very vanilla and gasa squirrel a squirrel. Hum, well, that is not correct, But congratulations to a bunch of listeners who did get the answer right.

I'm very proud of you all. But the three fastest on the jaw were Aaron Kay, Eric p and Twitter user Dave Blogger. Great job you guys, into everyone else who wrote in and gifts correctly or gifts at home and sent me telepathic vibes that this is a porcupine. This is a North American porcupine named Teddy. So, I mean the individual porcupine's name is Teddy. They're not named

Teddy in general. So yeah. North American porcupines have around thirty thousand sharp quills, modified fur fibers that are sharp and ready to embed themselves in your skin if you're not careful. They can also emit a strong, cheesy odor if threatened, and they like to grunt and make noises when they are eating things like corn. Apparently, I mean I can relate. Yeah, I mean I know when I got a corn cob, I'm just getting getting in their garnan.

Did you did you say thirty thousand quills modified quills? Yeah, they're so, I mean they're not small, small, but that's astounding that body. It's a lot. And they're little ones too. They're the big ones on their backs and then just smaller ones. Uh. And they're all sharp and pokey and you don't want to, you know, I'm in your face

and they don't, I think. I mean, I don't know if this is still a common misconception, but I know it used to be like when I was a kid growing up that like they could shoot quills, and no, they can't do that. They don't like shoot quills at you. They will just sort of stand up, uh and present their quills to you. Uh, you know, and like if you get your face in their business, they will, you know, get you right. They're not the needler gun from the

Halo franchise, right, as awesome as that would be. Although there are spiders like tarantulas that actually can fling their irdicating hairs at you, which are these much smaller, uh, irritating hairs, So if you get in their business, they can like sort of rub flick their irdicating hairs at something that's threatening them. So, but porcupines don't do that, just you know, sort of stick up their spines and

then if you get invade their personal space. Well, you're gonna get what's coming to you, which is about thirty thousand sharp sharp skin piercing spines. Right, and they're they're too busy to throw any quills too. They're all about that corn life. Yeah, they're all about the corn life. Also. I always like to answer the question of like, how

do porcupines mate very carefully? Which is actually true the females um Basically all mating has to be consensual with porcupines, and the females if they approve of a male, they will curl their tail up, revealing sort of they're underside a little bit so that the male can mount them without getting eviscerated, which I think is sweet romantic. I like that. It just is the joke very carefully. Yeah, no,

I mean it's correct. Yes, that is correct. So onto this week's Mr Animal sound a hint to the season. So who do you think is talking? Yeah, Katie, I'm sorry I burped eight times there you can sound now no more soda during recordings? Do you think that? Should I guess it for next week? Well, yeah, I'll answer next week, but you can try to guess this week. I mean, tis the season makes me think I'm very

excited to learn what it is you are actually correct? WHOA, But of course I'm going to jingle you out so that the listeners can get a chance to guess correctly. Uh yeah, so my guess was filthy. She had to censor it. Just absolutely disgusting. He gets the most inappropriate animal in the world. Just disgusting. I've never heard such horrible language on this show before Christmas, you know. But yeah, happy Creature Kringle Times everyone. Next week we will have

a Creature Creature, a Creature Cringle Time special. Yeah. Yeah, I hope everyone's enjoying the season, celebrating whatever they would like and staying safe and healthy and warm. Yeah everybody, So thank you so much for joining me. Alex. Where can people find you? Think? It's always great, always, always great. And I make a podcast called Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. I really hope people check it out. At each one's about one thing that people think is ordinary, and then we

get into history science Laura about why it's amazing. And there are many wonderful episodes with Katie Golden what Yes, you should check them out, especially they will one started January, a new one. It's exciting. I love the topic. Yeah, the topic might make you make a series of high pitched noises as you enjoy might thank you go here. Yeah, and thank you so much for listening if you're enjoying the pod. Uh, and you leave me a writing and review.

I read all the reviews and I cherished them, and I print them out and I hang them up in my house. I'm like, look at that one from We'd Go K sixty nine. He liked my show, So thank you so much. Uh. And if you think you have an answer to the animal U sound gissing game, you can write me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com, Creature feature Pot on Instagram, creat your feet pot on Twitter.

That's eighteen et something very different And of course thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Alumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio ap Apple podcast or hy Guess what prby listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday. M