Friends 5ever!

see speciation as a barrier to friendship. We'll talk about the difference between mutualism and commence alism, why every birdie loves a cappy barra, and how the beaches of the Galapagos are a great place for friendship and also the only time you want to be inside the mouth of a giant moray discover the some moore. As we answer to the angel question, do some animals actually enjoy getting crap from their friends? Just so you know, our producer Joel Monique will return in a few weeks, so we'll

get to hear her lovely voice again soon. Today on the show, I've invited my good friend, artist and filmmaker Randall Maynard. Welcome, Thank you. Do I talk now? This is where I talk. You talk now, This is where you talk. This is how all of our this is how all of our conversations go. Where I have to tell Randall like, this is where you talk now, this is where is this? What's what's going on? I say, what's going on? Where am I? And then you explain

the situation. I'm so confused, but I just go along with it because it's like, why, let's just let's just go ahead. That's that's fine. I'm talking about animals. Yeah, we're talking about animals. I just want to let you know that I came prepared by bringing a tiny plastic turtle that I'm shoving into the webcam. And it's also unrelated to every animal we're gonna be talking about in this episode mostly. But yeah, no, I appreciate the turtle, the turtle drop as we like to I don't feel

like you do, but I thank you for lying. Yeah. Now that's what keeps, Honestly, what keeps friendships afloat are nice lies, kind lies like yeah, that's great that that plastic turtle you're showing me. I love it. Oh, but you did give me a very nice gift. You gave me a Creature feature podcast action figure of me surrounded by various like scorpions and horn toads. It's very lovely. I will be posting that to the Creature Feature Instagram, which is at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram. So check

that out to see. It's definitely on the shelves at every store. You know, It's at Target and Walmart and Price Co and Toys for Kids remember that are us, we are toys. Yeah, but that thank you for I couldn't think of a toy store that was currently open, either to uh just closing in general or because of the pandemics, so wherever toys are found. But it basically has just like a fistful of plastic creatures jammed into the package with you, which I thought was the best

representation of your relationship with animals. Were just to be literally surrounded by them, Yeah, in a closed type quarters in a transparent bubble. Yeah. Could you could you make these like they're like action figure these sort of special action figures where it's you know how it has like the plastic box that it's in and then the cardboard

backing and then it says Creature Feature Podcast Special. So it's very very lovely you've made all sorts of these two Um will definitely plug those later, you're Yeah, this is I just I'm gonna yeah, it's gonna just lead to the whole episode is gonna be talking about toys that I make. Yeah yeah, and co opting your podcast to talk about toys. But also no, because because I will be arrested by the podcast. Try funeral for for DV.

And you know, today we're talking about friendship and I feel like there is a lot of complexity between animals, and often we just kind of called them symbiotic relationships. Sometimes people get confused about like symbiosis, because often symbiosis is just a general term for animals who work together or benefit from each other, when in fact, symbiotic relationships describe any linked relationship between two animals. So it can be positive, it can be negative, it can be deadly.

Um So, parasitism is a symbiotic relationship, and that is, of course where one animal leaches off of another to its detriment or even death. There's a movie about that called Venom that if you can watch that, and it'll tell you all you need to know about symbiosis. It's where an alien attaches itself to Tom Hardy and it becomes a big monster, and it's just it's a perfect

example of what you're talking about. Let me go through the terms and you tell me, what is symbiote and Tom Hardy's relationship in that movie, because there is there are positive symbiotic relationships such as mutualism where both organisms benefit and commence ali is um where one benefits but the other is neither harmed nor hindered in any way. So it's it's kind of a lopsided relationship, but the one of the animals just like it's totally indifferent. It

doesn't matter at all. I actually haven't seen what's that? What's the movie? It's called Venom? Venom? Yeah, how would you describe Tom Hardy and the goose suits relationship. It's parasitic, But it's confusing because I think it combines a few of those things where it's there is a there's a mutual benefit also, but there's also there's a parasitic nature.

But I think once it's I think, honestly, like if if I'm being totally candid and respect to the creator's venom, I think, once the it's it's just I'm just parasitic. But then once it it gets on a certain host and it becomes cool that it's it's not a danger anymore in the sense of for the sake of drama. The parasitic part only comes back if it's necessary. Otherwise it's a mutual, beneficial sort of thing where they're they're helping each other. I guess yeah, so um yeah, yeah,

so it's combining. It's kind of like it's it's rolling through all the levels of friendship, yeah, where it starts off as a sort of parasite and then turns into mutualism as all healthy relationships. I was gonna say, just like our friendship, where I started off where I was very you described me as very parasitic, but then eventually came around to finding it to be mutual, and then now have evolved in to complete indifference. Just exactly at

first sucking all of my blood. Then I was like, hey, I had too much blood anyways, too much blood floating around. I'm glad he got rid of some of it. And then now it's just like I don't care whether or not my blood is gone. Just take the blood. It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters. It's who cares well. So our first group of animals we're going to talk about are on the Galapagos Islands, which is home to really incredible creatures that have evolved in very difficult evolutionary niches.

Of course, it's the famous place that Darwin went and farted around in and wrote his silly books about. But it really is incredible not just to see like the cool animals, but also to see how their relationships are with each other. And I think the best demonstration of this is the seaside friendships along the coast of the Galapagos Islands. And let's start with the marine iguana, because the marinea iguana is very interesting animal who has a bunch of friends. So the marine iguana is it looks

very dragon like. And this is the really mean description that Charles Darwin had for marine iguanas that I think is kind of unfair. So he said, quote, the black lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large two to three foot or point six to point nine most disgusting and clumsy lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl and seek their prey from the sea. Somebody calls them imps of darkness. They assuredly will become the land they inhabit. Did he say

somebody called them that? Like he heard that? Yeah, real weasel words. Darwin just like insult them to their face, not be like, oh, somebody said you're an imp of darkness. I heard out there that they're calling him. It's not me, it's it's you know. That's just what I hear. This is a that's word on the that's word on these the word on the beach, word on the beach, on these rocks, is that you guys are called imps. Who

else was there that was calling him that? Nobody? He's he doesn't even want to is he's scared of He's scared of disparaging these creatures, even in writing, like taking a finch and giving it a swirly gonn to cancel, Darwin. He's just angry and just calling animals ugly. That's not scientific. You're like, oh, this one's really dark and ugly. Look at that piece of ship. It's an imp of darkness.

And the poor little Maria Bile just like I know, he's just minding his own business, trying to regulate pal. I'm just trying to get some thermal regulation. Didn't ask for your opinion. You're interrupting some really good therma regulation

just to spew your hatred, Darwin. And to be fair, what's sad is that Darwin missed out on an opportunity because this, I want to clearly has a better relationship with a rock that it does with a human, and being that visited the island, they could have could have had a great time with the partying with the iguanas. I mean seriously, like, if Darwin hadn't been so judging, probably would have had a great time with these iguanas

because they are really cool, cool reptiles. So they are indeed ashy, black, are kind of chunky, they have sort of a snub face, um, they have spines running along their backs, they have long, thick tails, and they're about the size of a small to medium sized chihuahua. And they do like to hang out on the lava rocks on the coast of the Guapagos Islands because they are cold blooded, which doesn't mean that their blood is always cold.

It just means that they are ectothermic, meaning that they have to warm themselves up by sitting in the sun and cool themselves off by being in the shade or in the water. And so when they aren't hanging out on the rocks heating up, they're actually often diving into the water because They are excellent swimmers, and their diet is made up mostly of algae, so they're very they're

just little vegetarians. They nibble off of rocks this algae, or they dive underwater and swim very gracefully, like some kind of sea dragon. And one of the consequences of them eating algae is that they take in so much salty water with their diet they have to expel some of the excess, which they do with these like salty wet sneezes. So yeah, just like a seed dragon, except they snort out salt water instead of fire of fire.

It's just this horrible right sling. It's not saltwater everywhere mucus. That's projection as human. Sorry, that was that was That was very darwinianen of me to just so judgment salt. Now it's really just like a spray of salt water. Yeah, that's gotta be grosser, it's gotta be awesome at the same time. Uh. I don't know why, just because it's like an experience. I don't know why not. I don't

know why. I think I sneezed dragons a little shot of like vizzy, you know, clear out your yes, Yeah, what's you're problem, Like, you haven't had that names of spray that helps clear the sciences. Just shove one of these marine iguanas under your nose and there you go. Go find an iguana. Find it clear you right up. Don't actually do that because they're actually they'reguas. They're not dangerous. We're dangerous to the iguanas. We can actually like they

are they lit humans pick them up. They just because I just don't think they understand how much danger of human poses. So they're pretty chill, especially when they're lethargic and they haven't warmed up on the rocks yet. They get very sleepy. So when you pick one up, it's just kind of like chills out. But you shouldn't do that. I mean, yes, they could potentially bite you, but more importantly, you carry pathogens that could hurt the iguana. So don't

do it. Leave those iguanas alone. As we've learned this year, the one thing Americans care about the most is not hurting each other with I mean, it's funny because like on the Galapagos Islands, they tell people to stay like six ft away from the iguanas. So already we've tried to get people to social distance from the vulnerable. So right, and so the iguanas does standard chance. But we still

love them. They're great, Darwin dar No matter how much should Darwin talks about these, they're fantastic, right, And a lot of animals do love the iguanas, so they actually have um. They do have a few predators, so they will be kind of snippy when disturbed to protect themselves, but otherwise they're pretty chill, and they will be extremely

permissive of little visitors who come to them. So among their friends there are Darwin's finches and sally lightfoot crabs who come over to the iguanas and pick off mites and ticks and dead skin and basically give them free skincare in return for just being able to eat whatever they find. So it's not in common to see crab crawling all over an iguana picking at it, and the iguana is perfectly happy to let this happen because this

is a case of mutualism. The iguana gets free skincare, gets its parasites taken off of it, and the crab gets a tasty meal of skin junk. Yeah it's uh and and and to be h to paint a picture of this. It looks horrifying, and I would assume, as a human that that I would need to intervene if I saw something like this, because it looks like an iguana is being eaten by a swarm of crabs, and I would be like, no, don't, I gotta save us

iguana and broom he. I guess as much as a lizard can show happiness on there with their limited facial expression, I would say it's more of a contentment, like he looks he doesn't. He doesn't seem alarmed. It doesn't seem alarmed that he's covered in crabs. However, if I woke up covered in crabs this way, this would be terrifying. But so yeah, I guess. I guess the lesson to take away is let creatures eat things off your skin if you want, exactly. That's the lesson of the day.

If you see if you see an iguana covered in crabs, don't freak out and bring a broom and start sweeping them off because they're doing their own thing. You gotta let let animals do their own right exactly. And another thing you should not be alarmed if you see is an iguana wearing a little lizard as a hat. So there are these little tiny lizards called lava lizards that are just like a few inches a few centimeters big, so they are literally like smaller than the head of

one of these iguanas. But they will climb up on the iguana for a better vantage point when hunting flies. And this doesn't necessarily help out the iguana because I don't think flies are able to really pestor the the iguana have such thick skin that the flies can't really bite them, it can't really get bother them. But the lava lizards don't bother them either, so they just ignore the little lava lizards let them crawl all over and catch flies from this great vantage point. And it's it's

very cute to see because it's this tiny lizard. It's adorable. It's a lizard hat. And it's funny because the lizards, like I have the high ground, but it's at the top of the head of another animal, which is a

little bit confusing to me. I think it would find there's probably higher things to get on top of, but they've just decided that unless it's alive, they're not gonna Technically, though, there is a taller perch that they do use, which is the sea lion who welcomes the little lava lizards because the lava lizards eat up these flies, and the

sea lions are actually pestered by these flies. Seem much more bothered by them than the iguanas do, probably because they you know, they get in their eyes and and they kind of like bother them. They get they can get on their fur and it's annoying. So the lava lizards will just crawl over these sea lions and jump. They literally leap in the air and snap the flies

right out of the air. As the sea lions seems very content to have this happen because it's a personal fly swatter going around getting rid of all the flies. I'd be stoked if I could have a setup like that, I know, right, just your personal fly hunter going around. Yeah, I love that. Put them on your put them in your ear like a like a flower or a bluetooth little headset, and you get a little lizard there and you're like, hey, buddy, right, anybody just hang out right here,

don't even worry about it. And then if you see a fly, just get that thing exactly. And the sea lions and the marine iguanas also co exist peacefully, so they don't really help each other, but they don't really bother each other either, And the sea lions even allow the marine iguanas to kind of crawl on top of them because you know, there it just doesn't they don't really compete, they don't have many conflicts, so you have,

um uh, you know that. This just very interestingly how you can see all sorts of different relationships between animals living on this shoreline. Where you have mutualism where the sea lions like the little lizards snap up flies around them. You have commence alism where the lava lizards snap up flies around the marine iguanas even though the marina iguanas don't really need the help. And you have mutualism of the crabs eating the skin and parasites off of the

marina iguanas. It's just it's really cool. It's like, you know, this big old beach party of all these animals. Gonna say, there's a whole shoreline culture that's outstanding because it's just creatures crawling all over each other, freely, using each other as mountains they watch whatever. It's basically it's bay watch with lizards. Don dun dun dun dunt John. And by the way, we edit that out of the show because that we can pitch that right right, I'm just imagining

a lizard running across the beach and slow motion. Definitely not imagining a lizard with boobs. That's not happening. So don't god lizard and a mikini. Don't think about a lizard in a bikini, do you think about it? Think about a lizard covered in crabs and how that is okay? And it's beautiful. Actually it's horrible looking. It's a beautiful it's friend. It looks like monsters eating each other. But we should we should think of it as a beautiful thing.

I blame Darwin for this feeling that I have this this bias that I have against the lizards, and and you know, I feel like this this set off a chain reaction because he comes back, he writes his book. By the way, you can find all his writing. Darwin did about the shoreline of uh can you edit in? That sounded like I know what I was talking about here in the O the Virgin Islands speak the Cayman Islands or whatever. Lava Town, USA, Lava Town. It's actually

just called lava Town. Yeah. When he's Darwin write about his lizard adventures and all this ship talking. You can read about that in his book Lizards are bullsh by Darwin, and it's just a lizard with the middle finger pointing at it on the cover. You can't miss it. Yeah, but I think that led directly to Godzilla and a stigma to lizards. I have read that the lizards are Bullshit.

It's actually kind of a required reading and most evolutionary biology courses it's considered the seminal text on evolutionary biology. So yeah, no, I am familiar with with that famous work. Thank you. I wasn't questioning it. But that's okay, you can go ahead and just just go ahead and brag about that. And then his his sequel to lizards are Lizards are Bullshit? Two? Oh, it turns out we all

are lizards. We all came from lizards. Right. It's like, sorry, it's a redaction mostly, but it's it's fine, what do we know? Lizards are bullshit? There's no way we're related to them. Part two? Whoops, we are sorry, but that turns out by Darwin, and that's why, you know, That's an important thing about science. It's constant evolution of theories.

Gross I'm editing. People are wrong a lot, No, no, leave it in it all stays in the Galapagos Islands are not always such a friendly place, especially for babies. As soon as marine iguanas hatched from their eggs, they are immediately cast into the most dangerous peril of their lives, running from their hatchery towards the coast to escape the jaws of the swift, merciless Galapagos race or snakes who

love to pick off hatchling iguanas. The iguana sprint as soon as they hatch, trying desperately to outrun and dodge the many snakes who congregate to feast upon them. It's amazing that these poor little iguanas grow up to have such a mellow disposition. When we return, we're going to visit the reigning champion of chillness, the most bodacious buddies of the animal kingdom, the cappy baras. Who's the biggest rodent of them all? Is it the rat? Not by

a long shot? Is it a spiny porcupine? Close but not yet. How about a beaver who can topple trees and capnee. Nope, the biggest rodent in the world is the capa bara and it is one of the most laxed animals in the world. Now, as I've been saying this, Randall has been holding a dinosaur in the camera and making it talk, which I feel like I have to um just sort of inhabit the space, the mental space of the capybara to be able to ignore the shenanigans

going on with the dinosaur. So thanks for the dinosaur interlude. But now we are going to talk about the capybara, which is the largest rodent in the world that lives in South America near bodies of water in Savannah's and forests. And it is a big old guinea pig and and most famously the pet of the Tick from the animated series The Tick where he thought he found a dog that could talk, but he was hallucinating and it turned out he stole a capybara from the jungle and it

was in very terrible shape. Yes, yes, I I too remember that episode of the nineties famous popular TV animated series The Tick. Yeah, but now they are actually kind of the size of a dog, like imagine a guinea pig just sized up to be bigger than a golden retriever.

It weighs about seventy two hundred and forty pounds, so that's thirty two to sixty four and they grow to be almost five ft long one point five meters and two ft high point six meters, so g D huge is what terms are chunk masters, they're they're they're just big. They're big, they're chunky, and they're funky and so yeah, they are like guinea pigs in a lot of different ways to other than just their appearances. They are very

chill social animals. They are living groups from about ten to up to a hundred, and they um like guinea pigs and rabbits and other rodents. Uh, they eat their own feces or it's actually a special type of poop that they eat called the Sika trope that has undigested fermented sugars in it, which sounds great. I mean, yeah, if it's sugar even then why not? Yeah, I mean you know what I say, If it's sugary, why if it's sugary and it comes out of your butt, sure

why not? Yeah? Yeah great? Yeah, So you know, they eat their sugary duties, so they are actually semi aquatic as well. They are extremely good swimmers with webbed feet, and they can take naps in the water to stay cool, so they just float in the water with their snouts resting against the shore and just sleep. They're like the surfer dudes of the animal Kingdom, except they mostly lived near freshwater sources. But yeah, they're just like very the

very definition of chill. Like you look up chill, you just see a capybara sitting eyes closed, chilled, chilled out. A capabara capabara always looks like you just smoked and j and he's like, what's up, man's let's go on. What do you want to do? Yeah? You want you want to eat some of my sugary poop I just had.

I just I just dropped some for you. And you're like, you know, you don't want to be rude, but you gotta be like, I'm not gonna do that, but thank you, No, d it's fine, pooped enough for both of us, head in and out. Now that's and there's like, that's okay, I already. Me me poop is too poop, Yeah, you know me me dukie is sued dukie as they say, as they say, as the Cathy Barra says. So, yeah, they are very calm animals, and they have a lot

of cool bird friends. Who doesn't like to have coolbird friends? So many cool birds and they are all friends, coolbird friends, cool bird friends. Coming this Saturday on Saturday mornings on Fox Fox Kids, which doesn't exist anymore, because that's a hundred year old reference. Yeah, coming a bird friends. So black vultures, Jukana's cowbirds and many other birds perch on capa baras and clean ticks and other parasites off their skin.

So again a bit a bit like the light footed crabs cleaning off ticks and junk off of the iguana. These birds will sit on the capa bara and clean ticks and stuff off of them. Let me also just point out, by the way this objectively, if you saw a capa bara laying down on land and the vulture was on top of it pecking at it, right, you

would not assume that was a positive symbiotic relationship. It would look like you just ran into the corpse of a capa bara being eaten right, just viciously, mercilessly devoured by a vulture, and you'd be like, oh my god. And then it's like and then someone would, hopefully someone would explain to you, perhaps the spirit of Darwin would come to you and say, do not be afraid. It is a chet friendship therein what Darwin would what Darwin would say would be God, damn, that is an ugly dog. Yeah,

he'd be like, look at these ugly animals. That's stupid giant pig am I right, and try to ghost hie five you and you'd be like, get out of here. It looks like hell. Earth is hell. That's what That's what Darwin said. And Darwin's my favorite quotes. I'm just saying Earth is hell. And then right before he died the Origin of Species, a book of total ugoes. Yeah, Darwin was a mean It was a mean, mean girl. So the capa bara will even allow birds to write

on them like they are the bird's noble steed. And birds not only clean parasites off the capa bara, which is a mutualistic relationship, they also will perch on them as a cappa bara trots around and wait for insects to get stirred up from the grass that the cava barra is striding in and then they will go off and snap up the insects. So basically they are like hunting on capa bara back and the cappa bar is

happy enough to let them do it. It doesn't really get anything out of that specific relationship, but it's you know, they're just very chill, they're all right with it. Yeah, birds kind of trade them like horses. I would say this was the parasitic exploitation if if I don't know if that's part of the thing, but I would I would add that on there, onto the one of those levels,

because they're not parasitic exploitation. Yeah, because this is just a bird going like, oh look an animal I can hang out on, and if it rides around then I don't have to fly or walk or anything. That's cool. Well, but if it doesn't negatively affect the capa bara, which it doesn't, then it's just commence ali is um. Because the bird benefits in the capa bar is like whatever, it's fine, it's cool. That's true because it has course

for it's got that. It's got like the layers of fur, right, because it's because since since it goes in the water, it's got that what it's called the water hair for and they don't really you know, bird feet don't really bother them that much. I don't think the bird feet

are really bothering them too much. I mean, I mean, it's it's like you could pick it all apart and say, like this bird is kind of an asshole, right, like if it picks too hard at it, like that bird specifically maybe in a hole, but yeah, in general, like the relationship with the birds, like it either helps the cap of barrow because the bird is cleaning their fur, or it just it's fine. It's like, you know, it's got a bird on its back. Now, who's going to complain?

That looks badass. One thing I'm really resentful for when I see nature and I see how far we've disconnected ourselves from animals, because I really I love animals and I don't want to brag, but I eat plant based. I don't need any I don't need animals love it. Uh uh they're the best. And the thing that bums me out is how in nature animals just land on

each other and they're super cool. And I wish as humans we had evolved to just be super chill with animals and landing all over us where we like to land on us, like the most Quito, the noblest that's a little different, Yeah, the dynamics a little different. And then there's other animals that that that try to grab us and it's horrific, like the like the condor which tries to just grab a human and just lifted off the ground to go. Do you think this happens, Oh,

I've heard all of it. It happened. I like how you just casually drop this, like you know, like how condors go and grab you. You know how that happens all the time. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know that's what they're doing out there. But this pro bird behavior with Cappa barros means that in captivity they lit ducks just walk all over them. And I provided a video which I will include in the show notes that shows ducks just trouncing all over this poor capa bara who

doesn't seem to mind they are eating. I think they are eating like parasites off of the capa bara, So I think it's getting some benefit. But it does look like it's a gang of ducks just bullying this capa barbing. What are you gonna do about it? I'm sitting on it I'm sitting on you. What are you gonna do about it? Nature? So far, aren't you? You just come over here, lazy boy, let me sit on you now. But the ducks, the ducks are actually helping him by

cleaning his fur. Yeah, I see, that's so they're they're cool. And the capavar is cool with everything, so it doesn't matter. He's like old school chill. He just doesn't he doesn't care about anything. The baby capa bears, by the way, if you see one, we'll just melt your heart. That's that should be a good test of like whether or not someone is capable of empathy or some sort of like, right, the new psychopath test baby capybara. And if it doesn't, if they don't go, oh my god, oh that's the

cutest thing I've ever seen. Oh, I don't even know what to do. Then there it's like, you know, it's like blade runner. Then you just got to shoot them whatever they right, right, I forgot you forgot holp. You know. They just you know, if you don't cry when you see a capabara, you have no soul. That's what science says. That's the takeaway. Yeah, well, so I want to talk about another instance of an animal being surprisingly chill when another animal just kind of like sits on it goes

all around. And have you ever heard of this thing where like it's actually a myth of birds sitting inside of crocodile mouths and picking cleaning their teeth. The idea is that these Egyptian plovers will sit inside a nile crocodile's mouth and clean meat from their teeth without getting eaten by the crocodile. Like their nature's little dentist. I

guess it's like one of those factoids that gets spread around. Yeah, it's like the ostrich with the head and the sand kind of right, right, Like there's just not that the evidence of it is paper thin. So it's just something that like probably some like old dude noted in some diary, like yeah it was it was all a nile crocodile and it had buds in its mouth. Who would have fought? And we just take that as fat But he's really

just tripping balls on opium or something. Yeah. Right, it was about on my journey is and I I began to see a bird and I'm sure it was some sort of dentist bird. I mean, that's that much, we can surmise confidently. Then in the sun turned into a baby's head. But there is an actual, real instance of something like this happening that to me is even more impressive.

And you have to go under the sea, you know, like the screen wipe wher it goes all like and there's like bubbles and so it looks like you're going underwater. Imagine that happening like water. Yeah, that's how it sounds. Wooboy booby, that's really good. Fully work. That's very good,

fully work. Thank you. That's so buddy. But so under the water, there are these cute little fish called cleaner rass, and they like to dart in and out of the toothy, demonic smile of large moray eels that could easily just snap the little fish right up like it's nothing and just slurp it up like it. Have you seen more a eel before, just like hanging around like in person or uh yeah, like when you get picked up and

they drafted me into the water. Yeah, when I fight it off and I landed into the shore, Yeah, then I like I'm like, oh, the eels carried me to safety. Uh yeah, that's of course, of course. I mean, we've talked about this before. I don't know how many times I have to tell you about it. Yeah. No, they're flotsam and jetsam. In Little Mermaid they're mores. That's a more. And so the Little Mermaid the flotsam and jetsam, they're the eel. They're the eel things that are Ursula's pets,

the companions. Oh I forgot that part? How could you forget? The Ursula and those eels were the whole movie? To me, I could give less of a Cara Aeriel and her whole like teenage drama, Like there's a cute bool, I'm gonna I'm gonna abandon my tire ecosystem just for this cute boy. But no, like where it's at is octopus, Ursula and her cool more friends, she's I don't remember. The bird combing is feathers with a fork, And that was my big takeaway from the movie was that birds

don't know a bit about combing the hair. Well, they do know about like grooming their hair, just not with forks. You know, I'm not with forks. Yeah, you can't. You can't learn everything you need to know about being a human through birds, especially through seagulls. You cannot trust seagulls. I think that is the other lesson. Yeah, you can't trust seagulls. You may think this is unrelated to what we're talking about if you're listening to this, but and

it is not, because it comes back full circle. So don't trust seagulls. So don't never trust back to the eel, because always trust an always always, because they're they're honest and they don't eat the little fish that go in their mouth. Right. Well, what happens is the more is actually a client of the cleaner rass who goes around the more's mouth and its lips and its head and picks off little parasites and cleans their mouths. So it is acting as like a little fish dentist and dermatologists

all rolled into one cute little package. And these cleaner rests, they're little fish. They have this blue streak or another bright colored streak along their side that actually signals to fish that these are the cleaner rast So it's like this dark band on their side, and then it's it's branding essentially that fish learn that if you live, these little cleaner wrasts clean you up, then you're you will get a nice bit of free skincare. It's not just

more a eels. They will offer free parasite removal for mini fish and they actually have little cleaning stations where fish literally line up like they're at a car wash. So the one accurate thing in that terrible movie what was it, like a shark tail is sort of trying to ride on the coattails of finding Nemo. Nobody remembers had an eye right right, but they didn't. I don't know. All I remember is the fish like making sex faces. And then also like they had a fish car wash,

and that is actually accurate. So yeah, and so like you'll have fishes lining up to get serviced by these cleaner rass and get get fully detailed, and the cleaner rass get to eat parasites from the fish. And we've actually talked about this before on the show, how there's this whole really interesting kind of economy of fish and cleaner rass where the cleaner rass, if they start to nibble at the fishes flesh itself, where like at their

stress coat, the fish will boycott the cleaner rass. And then if the fish like eat a cleaner rass instead, of just patiently allowing the pickoff parasites, the cleaner rass will ban them from their services and a northm so other cleaner raps will be like, no, you ate my friend, I'm not your you know, no no shoes, no shirt, no eating my friends. Please, you ate with cleaners. So it's like if you rob a bank and you get that exploding ink on you version of that he except

it's like you we all saw you eat Fred. You can't come back. You can't come back to bow Jangles. You ate, one of our waiters. Speak from experience, but just something to be clear about because when these little fish are called cleaner rass and it keeps sounding like cleaner ass and it's cleaner rass w R A S S E, and it could sound like either cleaner rats, which you don't want to get confused. You want people to be confused with rats and fish. It happens all

the time, and that's that's terrible. And then cleaner ass just sounds like that's not we should all strive for to be honest. But right, but but but I mean that on its own time and its own podcast. Although with the cleaner wraths you could get a cleaner ass is what I'm saying. Yeah, so if anyone, if we can mark this down, is host creature, your future host Katie Golden Uh endorsing that you put fish into your butts. Yeah. Now, let's let the lawyers come at me. I don't care.

So I feel like the trust between the cleaner wraths and the more a eel is more impressive than the alleged relationship between birds and nile crocodiles, because al right, first, I gotta put this in perspective, because more eels, there are many different species and more eels, but the big

ones get huge. So the largest more A, the giant more which lives in the Indo Pacific Ocean in coral reefs, can grow to be nine ft long or three meters and sixty six pounds or thirty whereas cleaner wrath tend to be around four inches or ten centimeters long, so teeny tiny compared to the more a and more eels. When you're a little fish faced with this more eel, they are have a more terrifying set of jaws than a crocodile because they actually have two sets of jaws.

The teeth that you see as they open their mouths, but inside their mouth, near their throat, they have a second set of jaws, a smaller set of jaws called fairyngeal jaws, which looks like the little alien that comes out of the alien mouth and alien. Yeah, I was just gonna say, it's like the alien mouth. It's like, yeah, if you imagine, you think you're going to escape the jaws of a more a eel and then it's like, oh, sorry,

there's a second mouth inside. Go freak yourself. You're still getting eaten exactly if you're a little turtle to his mind in your own business over there, Right, that's good. It's good to like he's holding up a blue plastic turtle, And it's always good to like incorporate prop comedy in an audio medium. But I like to do I like to do a lot of visual aids and right, yeah, yeah, there are visual learners and they are not listening to this podcast. But imagine if we were scuba diving, all right,

imagining it. Ah, the water is so cold burr. Yeah, right, there we go where I hope everyone I forgot to do the roder water we're scuba diving. I'm ignoring the fact that I'm terrified because I'm basically hydrophobic. Normals water roader water. And then we both do bain impressions to each other the entire time. But most importantly, I point out this horrific giant eel that I don't know about it because and I go, oh my god, what's that? And you go, that's a more clap clap clap clap, night,

good night, good night. That was a long that was a long walk or that, and it's totally worth it. I regret nothing. Friendships are a wonderful thing in the animal kingdom, but sometimes there's a little stinker trying to take advantage of mutual friendliness. Giant mores may not seem to risk much when allowing a tiny cleaner rasp into their mouths, but the cleaner rass could nip at the

morays flesh instead of at parasites. The rass knows that these sorts of actions can get punished and typically stick to gentle cleaning. However, there are other species of fish that can take advantage of this trust, such as the

tiny and terrible saber tooth blinny fish. This little deviant impersonates the cleaner rass and tricks the more into trusting it long enough to get a good bite out of the moray before quickly darting away from its shocked mark when a saber tooth blinny hits your eye like a big pizza pie that somewhere Anyways, when we return, we're going to talk about some animals who share their meals, or well what used to be their meals. I guess this.

You know what I mean. Ants. You may be familiar with these resourceful little insects making a pest of themselves at picnics, are in your own kitchen. They are often indomitable conquerors, but sometimes they are little heroes or should I say anti heroes. You get a randal anti anti heroes because they're talking about ants anti anti heroes. Yeah, I'm waiting for the laugh. Ye, I'm waiting for the last year. Where is still? Is there a delay? Is there a delay? Didn't hear me laugh? I think there's

of the lay. There must be some sort of interference. My microphone is I'm picking up the cut off when you were like busting a gut. Yeah, it clipped, it clipped. Is too loud? The laughing was so loud it clipped the laughter we're going to talk about meat ants. Bump bump umb. I'd like a good threatening name for an ant, meat ants, meat ants. I like the idea that these were named meat ants because we used we farm them

for meat. Like these are some media and succulent ants. Yeah, I know it's a weird name, and it's it's for the worst reason. Little ants on a skewer, just like like an ant kebob. These are the media stunts I've ever had. No. Meat ants are relatively normal looking ants found only in Australia, so you know, some weird stuff's about to go down. So they of course, of course

they're Australian. I knew it. They're so horrific. So meat ants do eat meat, typically from carcasses, but they do attack and successfully defeat large prey such as the cane toad. And the cane toad, as we've discussed before, is a horrible toxic, invasive toad who is devastating the local fauna of Australia. And meat ants are actually immune to the cane toads toxin and they can attack the toads and

devour them. So they are little Australian heroes defeating the horrible toads get at their anti heroes, so I think there's a delay is that anti heroes get it. And they're also helpful to farmers because they clear away animal carcasses and they can actually skeletonize an animal carcass over the course of a few weeks. So that's that's cool. I think that's pretty cool. I like the words skeletonized. That's like that really takes the murder out of it.

They didn't murder the animal carcass with it. Was the animal killed or was it just skeletonized. I think in the case of really big animals, it's that they don't kill the animals. It's that the animal is dead and the ants come in and helpfully turn it into a skeleton and you can hang it up as Halloween decorations instead of just having a moldering animal. Here's the thing. I respect that you know what you're talking about, because I don't. But I'm just gonna say I've seen some okay,

and I've seen I've seen an aunt killer guy. I'm just saying, is this the same day that you got picked up by a condor and got thrown into the ocean. You've got a lot going on. One thing we know about nature is that it's completely unscientific and its total mystery and that anything can happen, Like I just have to trust you when you say you saw an aunt kill a guy. There's no way to confirm exactly. There's no way to confirm it, no way to deny it,

and definitely can't prove a negative. No, never been done, So it will back to science. Thanks, thank you for

your very inventive anterlode, But back to science. So the ants actually dabble in farming because they form symbiotic relationships with tree hopper nymphs, which is actually so nymphs are like young forms of insects, so they can go through sort of these different metamorphosis and so the nymphs stage is a like baby stage of the metamorphosis usually after like their larval form, So like these baby tree hopper

insects such as the jacid tree hopper. And that's actually what you see in that image which also included in the the show notes. It looks like a looks like a wingless b that is red and black but with no stripes, if that makes sense. But it's actually plant hoppers and tree hoppers will attach themselves to a branch or a stem and shove their proboscis inside of the plant and suck out some of the sugary juices flowing

through the plant and get a nice meal there. But sometimes but they suck out so much sugary juices that sometimes they can't process all of it, so some of it uh comes out of there, but as something called honey dew, which is this sugary fluid, and so ants love to eat this like sugar poop. So they will protect the tree hopper nymphs by acting as shepherds, and they actually do this with a number of young insects such as caterpillars, which are the larval forms of moths

and butterflies. At a pillar can also excrete honey dew as a byproduct of eating leaf material, and the ant can also partake of the caterpillar. So they're basically like shepherd's protecting the tree hoppers and caterpillars and harvesting their sugary butt juice. Nothing wrong. That is a really nice way of describing a human centipede like scenario between ants and these things just spring sugar and the I literally I didn't know what I was looking at at this

reference photo. I'm looking at an image of a creature that looks like a rejected like concept dark from a rejected David Cronenberg movie. And then it's it's springing something sugary and an ant is on its but eating it right out of it. But as they're on this branch together, so they're they're creating this, this this chain of horrific insect interaction. What sort of this is this benefit? Is

parasitic beneficial? No, no, it's not parasitic at all. Parasitic is only when one animal is harmed and the other gets something. So this is actually mutualistic. No, I mean, I mean to to me. I mean to me, not to the bugs, because I'm learning something. But it's parasitic, so it's taking away from I see. Yeah, it's painful, but it's hurting me and it's taking away from my my soul. But but then I yeah, but then I learned something. So in terms of evolutionary biology or feelings

aren't actually valid. But this is a mutualistic relationship because both of the insects benefits. So the aunt, you know, it gets the crappy end of the deal. But that's what it likes the crab, and then it protects the tree hoppers and caterpillars. So another beautiful friendship that is based around food is dolphins and birds and how they

come together to screw over fish. So there is this fascinating relationship between the Great egrets and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins who both inhabit the tidal marshes outside of Savannah, Georgia in North America. So basically what a tidle marsh is, it's a marsh land that is connected to the sea, and so as the tide goes out, the marshes like get really shallow, and then the tide comes in and the marshes get really full. Uh, And they're all these

like winding snakelike pathways that the water can take. So it's it's really pretty when you look at it, but it's all it's it's all saltwater marsh, and dolphins can actually go up these winding paths up the marsh, and they will do it during low tide, which seems really risky, like why because it almost seems like when the tide gets really low there can be only like a few inches of water in certain places, So it seems like they would be risking stranding themselves, but they actually have

this really interesting hunting tactic that they do at low tide, where it'll be a group of like three to four dolphins all coming together and then suddenly just all three or four of them rush onto the shore like they're just trying to like shore themselves all at once, but instead, what they're doing is they're forcing fish up onto the shore that they've corralled, and the fish are then stranded, and the dolphins just lie on their sides snapping up

the fish as they fall back into the water. And the dolphins haven't completely beached themselves so they can still like get back into the water, so they're fine, but the fish are definitely not fine. But then these great egrets and other birds have taken notice of these dolphins doing this hunting tactic, which this is the only in

these marshes in Georgia. These are the only place, this is the only place that these dolphins have been observed doing this hunting tactic where they force fish to like become stranded on the shore on these mud banks. But the birds, well classics, but these birds will watch the dolphins and wait for them to do this, and then they go and they start eating up the fish that the dolphins can't reach that have like flipped out of

you know, just like the excess fish. So they just kind of like some of the egrets that observe dolphins doing this have become so dependent on the dolphin hunting habits, they like basically stopped hunting for themselves and they just wait for these dolphins to do this interesting hunting. Oh

my god. And so this I would say this is a case of commence alism because I don't think the dolphins are negatively impacted by the bird's presence unless the birds are like eating fish that they would have otherwise gotten. But I don't think so, because I think a lot of these fish gets shoved like way up the shoreline, so they're not going to get them anyways. And we're sure they're not blocking the dolphins and eating them. No, they're definitely no, they could be like annoying them. I guess,

like the dolphins. This is like they didn't ask the dolphins if they could eat with them, and they're just like bothering them, and like, you mind, if I mind if I grabbed some salt, That's how I imagined that conversation going between those animals. It's especially funny because they're in saltwater, so you don't really need anymore. You see the humor, it's a it's salt saltwater, marsh salt. Right.

I appreciate what you did there, that's fine. But this is like, this is like a nation of It started out as feeling like a World War two story where I was just like captivated and like, oh my god, I can't believe what's happened. And then and then it turned into like when people tell they tell you not to feed bears because you're gonna like domesticate or you're gonna make them depend not domesticate, but you're gonna depend make them dependent on human sandwiches and beef jerky picnic baskets,

and they want to wear a little bow ties. You know, where else you get a lunchable out there, it's devastating to the bear population. And they get picnic baskets. And then they like start wearing bow ties and just like they have no survival skills and they have to be

put down. They have to be put down. Like when once they start wearing bow ties, they've actually got to be put down, so and the hats hats and little tie like they wear like actual ties and collars, but they don't wear shirts, which doesn't make any sense, and it's really sad, and they do have to be euthanized, and they don't have jobs, so they're just mocking winds and capitalism. Basically, the zoomers that are listening to this

are like, I think, really into Yogi bear content. So I think this is a good move to bring in the Yeah, it's it's very timely, So this is great, this is this is great. I have more references from a hundred years ago that are going to go over fantastic, But yeah, I mean it is it isn't like that. I think that's an actually very good point, which is that these dolphins are because they are creating this different dolphin culture where they do this specific hunting tactic. These

other animals are becoming dependent on the dolphins hunting. And it actually happens in the ocean as well, where dolphins will create these bubble nets where they force fish up to the surface out in the open ocean, and these birds will watch for that and come and descend, and they get a lot of their food just from taking advantage of dolphin ingenuity and could you who's smarter though in this situation, the dolphins doing all this work or

the birds who work smarter not harder, And just you know, the birds are like the c e O s in this situation where they let the dolphins do all the work. I was just about to say that the dolphins are the workers. And then the Jeff Bezos of the of the scene comes down and takes all the fish and is like, well, maybe if you would work harder, you would have had more fish, Jeff birds, and you're like son of the birds. Yeah, yeah, I which there's like a do you do sound effects on this? Could be

like a little ding or something there? What kind of ding like like like I want want want is that the ding that's not a ding? What I mean like a bell? Like a like a bell sound like a ding dong sound? I need to know what sounds just like a dan like if you know, if you go to a place and they're like ring the bell for service, just like ding. You know it's like that kind of thing. I'll put it. Hang on, you're doing this on purpose? Go on for half an hour about bells, No that's fine.

I'm gonna put a right about now. Did you hear it in the future because I put it in there. Wow, that's spooky. Why is this speaking now? Well, this is part of this is the spooky segment. We're talking about ghost dolphins. Well, now that we've started talking about ghost dolphins, I think that's a good time to end the podcast, to stop recording the podcast, Like, let me go ahead and stop you right there, let me go ahead. We've done it. We can't do any more podcast now that

we've sort of jumped to the ghost shark here. Um no, but yeah, thank you so much for joining me today, Randall. It has been really fun other than the ghost part. You know that that part is bad and I didn't like it was too spooky. I was scared by it. I was not a fan of what you said. Scientifically, my feelings don't matter. But that's like, you know why, because this episode is about friendship. Yeah, that's true. It's friend and when your friends say they don't acknowledge your feelings,

what do you say back? That's perfectly fine. I don't care anymore. Yeah, that's the ghosts of my feelings leaving my body and leaving me a husk of a emotionless friendships all about friendships, also about letting your friends plug things on your podcast. So you've got anything, I got so much going on? I got you can. You can find my custom toys and merge at Perfect Retro U with a c K on Perfect on both Instagram and

on eBay, you can buy stuff. So feel free to follow me, look at what I'm doing, and then buy things if you want to, and maybe support an artist maybe if you want, you know where you want to do, that's up to you. And then I'm also on this website called the Twitter dot com. Twitter. There's it's on that Twitter Twitter bird. It's like a little blue bird, but they call it Twitter, and then they put up the you write things on there. You put up like

little messages, tweets. So I'm on there and I go like if you go to uh as my name my first and last name, random manner, so it's the ad sign, you know that little the little appreciate at random manner, Twitter to or dot and the Twitter dot com. So then like you just go there and then I'm on there and then you can click follow and then you'll see all of my and then you know, right, so like if you want to do that, if you want

to do that, fel I like the site. I feel like it's a good way to express feelings and you know, I have really nuanced conversations and all that stuff. It's great. It's great Twitter dot com at random Maynor to Twitter, Yeah, yeah, great at random Mayer at Twitter, Twitter dot dot com. The website, and I'll on your on your web. Yeah, I'll post a picture of the creature feature action figure.

Unfortunately it is not available for sale anymore. It has been recalled or isn't it is actually has been like just spontaneously come busting. I've heard like it just like suddenly gets like it just goes up. Well, it was filled with real wasps, right, I hope you let them out,

which right, which was I thought a cool feature. But parents have been complaining also the head, like the head of the dolls like turning around three sixty degrees and saying like like I'm your Ii'm your best friend, and then like a laugh and and like fires, good, a lot of fires, which was actually not a defect, like we that was that was a feature that we'd advertised. Yeah, and I don't understand why parents have a problem with it,

is what I'm saying. I don't know. I feel like you did just acknowledge a supernatural though which is a huge hurdle for the podcasts and not for it, just for you as a person, just finally admitting that that it's not haunting. It's not haunted. Its yeah, it's branded by you know, yeah, Demonic Grantic, come on, get with it. Well, you can find us on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram, at Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. That's f E A T not f E T M something

very different. And you can find me on the internet as well at Katie Golden GEO L D I N and you could just hear my Katie thoughts. And then also as always I am at pro Bird Rights where kiss what birds are. Birds are just better than all of us, is what I'm saying, because you can just find that out right there on the bird website at bird Rights. And thank you for listening. I appreciate it very much if you leave a rating or review, I

super appreciate that. That really helps us out with the robot algorithms, and the robots are like beat boop, this is a good show. Boot Bop and then I also read all the reviews and I really appreciate it for so thank you for writing those. They make my day when I read them. And if you want to send in episode ideas or questions, you can also write to Creature Feature Pod at Gmail. That and that is Creature feature the Gmail. So Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.

That's how that's how mail. Webmail works. Yeah, you just send send a webmail over there. Can they email you some money? Can they email you the podcast money? But you can't put money in the computer. That's dumb. That's a dumb question. Thanks to the spaces you can't put money in a computer. Everyone knows that. Thanks to the Space Classes for their super awesome song x Alumina. Creature

features a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hate just between you and Me. Anywhere you get your podcast doesn't matter if I don't judge. See you next Wednesday.