Glam Rock Animals!

They are on glam Discover this Morris Ma answer the asual question was that rainbow Fish Children's book of Body Horror. Joining me today is Front of the pod podcast person frequent voice on Fake Doctor's Real Friends DJ and twitch Man Dan L. Goodman. Hi, how's it going good? Do you mind if I call you twitch Man? Twitch Man? That is perfect? Twitch Man is excellent. I'm I'm honored

by the title. Yeah, yeah, I'm a pod woman. I feel like I missed the times where it's like like Blacksmith or you know, can't you know what I mean? Like when we have these these names like lamp lighter or you know, like like we have podcaster, but like what about pod smith. I was just thinking, how fun pod Smith would be, Yeah, it sounds like real work, which it's not. I go to the kilns of pro

tools and craft strong by hand. Had handblown podcast technically true because you know, you breathe out with your mouth as you make mouth sounds. Anyways, we are talking about glam rock animals, animals who are glamorous, incredible looking, the rock stars of the natural Kingdom, and they're glitzy and glamorous appearance have probably real reasons for it, actual survival reasons which we will discuss. What do you think of

when you think of glam rock in general? Yeah, I mean, you know, there was definitely I'll tell you a very short story. The very first vintage T shirt that I ever got at this place on Lebrey called jet Rag was an old Poison T shirt, a Poison Tour T shirt, and on the back I think it said rock the

Funk Out. And my mom didn't see that at the time, so she let me buy this shirt that said funk on it, and I was like, so I think of that shirt, but I think of hair, I think of Neon, I think of Sparkles, I think of like yeah, so I think of a lot of like you know, we're talking wall of sound, we're talking big. So I thought that's what I think. Everything big hair, big, eyeliner big, you know, mega big, the hole on the ozone from

the Hairspray big. Perfect. But yeah, So the first animal we're going to talk about is the Elvis war Um, which has is named after the King of Rock, Elvis, because it is iridescent and glitz and glamorous and also kind of an asshole. Oh yeah, I mean it's not I don't think. I don't think they named it after Elvis because it's an asshole. But I think it's fits right because he was kind of an ass wasn't he. That is my understanding. Yes, you know, I'm look, I'm

keeping it real. I'm not saying Elvis. It's not cool to like Elvis, but you know he had he had a big sound, but also a big ego. That is what I hear. Is my understanding as well. Shout out to listener Vincent Jourgensen for this idea that I don't know why I have not talked about these on the show before, because they are incredible. They have this rainbow

and purple shimmer. Now, Daniel, I want you to look at this, this little little cutie I haven't pulled up right here, And this is a shimmery is a shimmery looking little worm. How big is this worm there? You know? Um, i'd say about like palm sized. Oh that's that's big. I guess so not that big. Well, fair fair play, but to be this is and this is truly an error on my part. But looking at this image just on the just on the raw, just like stark black

of it, it almost felt like a slide. I was ready to be looking at like a microscopic worm here. I was ready for you to say, oh, you could fit about a thousand on your hand right now. I'd be like, you know, not not not super huge. But yeah, they are definitely like not. They are not microscopic. They can can see him with the naked eye. Hold them in your hand, you know, let him crawl all over you. I would get the I would get the willies. I believe it's the willies. I get the willies very quickly.

I call I call it the Jimmy skin. But yeah, I mean that works too, that's very funny. But yeah, so they are absolutely beautiful. They look like holographic nail polish or you know, the most the glittery, most glittery glam that you could find. They were discovered by a team of researchers at Scripts Institute of Oceanography at UCSD. Shout out to my dad who works at Scripts Institute of Oceanography. He's actually in the ocean Physics group, so

they deal with the physics of waves. Not necessarily the critters, but yeah, you know, got it. Good, good job, guys. Can't wait to see all for a beer. And I'll say, hey, good work on that worm, you know, good, good work on that worm. Good good warming you guys. Oh got me. I'm looking at this worm also, and it reminds me remember that book The Rainbow Fish. Yes, yes, oh oh man,

I love that book as a kid. Just very similar color scheme of just like that, you know, super iridescent glowy but also like some solid color but also looks like there's just like super flexive rainbow everywhere. Just trying to just trying to paint as as vivid stone to picture as I possibly can of this world I look

at at right now. You know, man, it's like that book The Rainbow Fish, because it's like they had this like iridescent glittery scales on this fish was so fun as a kid because you could like touch it and like feel like emboss Yes. It was also I felt kind of sorry for the rainbow fish because it was like he's got all these rainbow scales on him, right, and like his fish friends who don't have those are jealous.

So he it's a book about sharing, like you share this with others and generally speak I'm very pro sharing, you know, pro sharing or resources with others. But it's part of his body. So a little strange, right of a weird message. It's like if you are hanging out with friends and you're like, oh, I really like your hair, and you're like, you do it and then you just like cut off a big tree here you go, rip it off. And that's the thing. And that's the thing

with kids that are unpredictable. It's like they'll take the note to the letter. So it's like, I know the story of the rain it's about sharing. They're like, okay, so I like rip off my skin for my friends, Like no, no, no, no, no, no no no no not quite that. Well, you know that is a horrible kindergarten scene that I do not want to see. But so yeah, these do look these do look like the rainbow fish. They are They are in fact a worm. I know, like sometimes we call things worms but they

aren't really, but they are. They are warm. They're actually a type of scale worm, uh and which is actually related to very distantly related to earthworms, a little more closely related to bristle worms. You may know some bristle worms, like there is We've talked about some of them on the show, like the bobbit worm. This horrifying tremors, Like did I were you on the show and I talked about the bottom I think, Wow, I love it. I love how somehow that worked out because I did not

plan for that. I was gonna say, I feel like we talked about like I remember you describing something because a tremor's like worm, and I was like, wait a minute, I just well, I'm flattered either way. But like if it was if it's a worm that lives under the sand at the bottom of the sea, it lunges out of the sand and we'll grab onto an unsuspecting fish and pull them back down, sort of like a tremor's worm or like a sarlac. But it's also very shiny

and iridescent. Now it's it's not super closely related to this one, but fairly it's it's a bristle worm, so they are, you know, so scale. But this the elvis, it's actually called p elvis idea kinda gotta have it sound scientific. I was gonna say it's to sound that sound good, but yeah, they did name it that because of its sort of glittery, glamorous look that they thought looked flashy like elvis. And um, so here's what it looks like. So it's not it doesn't actually look super

like a worm like you think of an earthworm. It has a series of interlocking scales on its back that are shiny like that. It's like it looks like plate armor. And it's kind of flat, very shiny and earduscin. And underneath it has these gold shiny bristles jutting out of it that you might mistake for legs, but aren't actually legs. They're just these these bristles. Um and at its head it has these things that look a little bit like pincers.

They're actually not quite pincers. They're called pelps. So pelps are these appendages at the heads near the mouths of m Arthur pods. You can see them in spiders and insects as well. Um, so those are its palps and so yeah, it's it's kind of but it's it's rather flat looking and it's kind of oval shaped and so like you know, it's kind of alien and bizarre looking. But it gets way weirder than what you can just

see at a glance. So being on being on this show, you know, I will say I wasn't entirely surprised by that potential, but like I'm excited. Please go on. When you said that, I was like, you know, I had a feeling you were gonna say, Well, you know, there's always something hidden underneath the surface for these animals. So like these are found in the deep sea near like uh, hydrothermic vents, as well as on the carcasses of fallen

sea creatures, including whales. So when whales die, it's certainly sad for for the whales, but it's a great moon for all of these underwater Arthur pods. Uh, these deep sea creatures that will feed on the whales carcass and it can feed a hell of a lot of animals in life. I have a question. Isn't there a term for like the kind of like minor or like micro ecosystem created by a whale carcass? Am I thinking, am, I could be I may I may just be this. I could be pulling this all the way out of

my ass right here. But I felt like there was some word for like the micro eco system created ecro micro ecosystem created by a dead whale in the ocean, because like, yeah, you're right, feel that. I feel that, I feel like there is. I mean, I thought it had a specific I mean I think it's called like whalefall, actual walefall. I think that's it. Yeah, I think you're right. That's it. You're right, whalefall. That's it. Nice that whalefall. Well,

thank you for reminding me that that term exists. It is a cool like whalefall. Yeah, so, I mean it's pretty straightforward. I guess it's what a while full too, But yeah, it is. It's something where there's something kind of grim and ghoulish about it seeing this to kaing whale, But it's also incredible how much life that can support. It's kind of like when a tree falls, a huge tree falls in the forest. There's something sad about that, right,

this this ancient tree falling and in decaying. But then that tree feeds so many animals, In fact, an animal we're going to talk about later on the show. A lot of a lot of these glamorous animals like to feed on dead things. But hey, look, you know it's a living so they will feed on things like whale carcasses. I know that the research team that collected some of these specimens actually found them on a whale carcass, so that must have been a fun treat. You're like zooming

around looking at this whale carcass. It's all it's all strange and kind of creepy. And then you see this like glitters glamor or this little uh scale where I'm going like, hello, I'm here, and here I am eating a dead whale. I don't know how Elvis sounds, you know, just like you, I was transported. You know what I'm saying, the dead whale. That's a little better. Okay, words, that was funny. Um, But like I said, like Elvis, not

only in appearance, but a little bit assholy. They like to bite each other when they're not biting on some delicious whale fall carcass. So they that is one of the reasons that they have these scales is for protections. Protection not only from other animals and predator, but from their competition literally from each other. Yeah, from each other

and when they bite each other. It's fascinating. So I want you to before I say anything else, just take a look at that picture that I've provided for you. I uh, I mean, I'm horrified, obviously this This is a terrifying picture of I'm seeing a demon of the soup with it's almost like, um, I want to say,

I mean, okay, okay. It looks like a faceless worm with a with a like a bird's beak coming out of the center, but it's surrounded by like a statue of liberty of like it's just outward appendages, Like I know they're not horns, but it looks like a wreath of horns sticking out around a bird's mouth coming out of an eyeless worm. Demon. Yeah, that's about right. They actually have a proboscus that they can avert. So proboscis

is basically like a fleshy probe. It can mean like a nose, it can mean a variety of different things, but it's basically a flesh probe, which flesh probe, it's not really that's not really a am rock name is it could be a song though, could be a song. I feel like this show is good at producing metal names more than glam rock names, like flesh probe. That would be a name, so they can avert it, which means basically like pushing it out from inside of them.

And then in this proboscis, what you're seeing is a set of jaws, set of sharp jaws that they can use to snap at their food source like a dead whale or each other if they if they're feeling feisty. Okay, so just you know, like in Aliens, like how the alien shoots out a smaller alien tongue with a set of jaws. It's just like that. It's like boop, I'm gonna snap you up. Another similar feature of the of the Bobbitt Warm where they can just basically shoot out a thing and like snap up. So uh do do

check out this video. I'm also including all of this in the show notes as always, but there is a cool video of them to video fighting. Okay, oh that they are well, yeah they are. They are pretty their sizeable there. Oh yeah, you'd see them. They're they're real. Oh oh, you just stuck his tongue out. What are the other one's gonna do it? I bet Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, he's so patient. Goodness, you gotta grit.

Mm hmm whoa. In fact, their fights can be so violent that they can rip the scales off of each other. So a pretty like dark reboot of The Rainbow Fish where it's just violently ripping off each other's scales. Yeah, exactly, my scale, No, my scale. But yeah, that thing that looks like a tongue like it's going like boop, that's actually it's proboscis. And it has that gnarly set of jaws in the center of it that it's using to bite that other elvis worm. That is a lot. Yeah,

that's a lot right there. Oh my gosh. I bet you're wondering why they're so iridescent and shiny and beautiful. That's that's I mean, that's you know, that's on the list of questions mostly I I wonder it too, but I don't know, and nobody knows. Isn't that fun When I'm just like, hey, you wonder this thing. Sorry, nobody knows. It's a literally don't you wish you could just ask them, like, hey, what's up? Why are you guys so angry all the time?

What's with that weird like mouth boop thing that you do? Yeah? I mean, so they are actually blind. There's no reason for them to need this eardescence for like com specific communication, So like it's probably not for sexual selection or anything like that because they can't see it. It's possible it's for some some way of cryptsis, I suppose, seems unlikely.

It seems like it would just make them stick out. However, in these deep sea and ironments, you never know, Like how that I wonder, like maybe it interacts strangely with bioluminescence. It's that's a possible thing, Like the refraction of bioluminescence may have some advantage. My suspicion is that it actually serves no purpose the actual visual of it. Rather, it's

just a byproduct of forming these tough scales. So like having these very tough maybe crystalline structures and its scales um the nature of having them really tough at this molecular level also affects like how light um is refracted off of the surface of these scales, so that would be sort of my uh my gifts is just a byproduct of making sure that these scales are really tough. Yeah, I mean, like you think about how like a diamond is really tough and it's beautiful and it's ring glittery. Yeah,

it makes sense absolutely by with you. And I also like that, you know, it's it's it's really subverting expectations, like to be tough, you have to be glamorous, to be first first, you mu Shine. Speaking of the bobbit worm, twenty million year old fossilized tunnels have been discovered beneath the ocean floor, over seven ft or two meters long,

but only a couple of centimeters wide in diameter. It's thought that these were once home to an incredibly long worm, perhaps the ancestors of the bobbit worm, as there's fossilized imprints made by these worms that seem to indicate they use these tunnels to drag their prey to an extra deep in watery grave. When we return, we're going to talk about a thought provoking intersection of fashion and entomology. So Danial, you know that animals and humans have a

weird relationship sometimes. Yeah. I mean, for instance, like my dog, I think only sees me as like the peanut butter provider. You know, at least the peanut butter warm blanket, right, that's true, a warm blanket, peanut butter human radiator, a butt scratcher and peanut provider, peanut butter provider. Oh, I'm king butt scratcher. I'll tell you what I feel like. That's what I feel like that if I'm being real. Everybody's like, oh, that's a trick with dogs. They love

getting scratched on the butt. Like, at what point is it not a trick anymore? It's like, oh, of course a dog loves a good butt scratch right there. That's just you know, that's it. That's that's baseline baseline dog knowledge are they say, It's like it's like a Konami code for a dog. I feel like the dogs are

really obvious about what I mean. Like my dog, Cookie, Cookie will literally walk up she does this every day all day, like this is her favorite thing to do, not joking, walk up to you, turn around so her butt is near you, and then look over her shoulder as you know, like kind of look between you and the butt like exactly you're doing it? Yeah, thinking about this, Yeah, scratch.

You can like hold your hand out and start wiggling your fingers and she will come over and sort of like dock her butt under your fingers and then so you can scratch it. That is a that is a smart that's smart Cookie you got raised there. Yeah, she's smart whenever it serves her own answer. I love that. A purpose like a purposely smart and stupid dog. That's like, Cookie, we need to do this right now. I don't know, I'm a dog. I don't And then I say, do

you want to get your butt scratched? She knows that she knows what that means. Oh, I want to get my butt scratched at hearing that's what she knows what a chicken pill is. When I she has these like chicken flavored, chicken flavored to hip point supplements and if you want to you want a chicken pill, she knows what that means. When I say you gotta sit, you didn't know what that means. That suddenly doesn't know what

that means. Have you seen that Simpson's episodes like the Thing that Translates Baby talk, but are like translates animal talk, like what is your animals saying it's like this leash demeans us both a great I wait for that day. I wait for that day where we get that where we get the translation device. And Cookie was just saying, look, I sit on my own schedule. Okay, right right, you shall provide me with but scratch, cheese and peanut, But

are your services for anything else? Are not required? Not required? But so that's all to say that I want to talk about something that it's both really interesting and it provokes a lot of thought in conversation. I think about, like our relationship to animals, because we're talking about insects, and are our feelings towards insects as a species can range from like they are delicious food too they are gross and I don't want anything to do with them,

to their beautiful jewelry. So I think one case that really exemplifies this complex relationship we have with insects are the beautiful bejeweled living beetle jewelry originating from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. So these living brooches are called mckesh so they are beetles of the Zopharis genus, which is a group of species of beetles who are kind of long um with this very like thick exoskeleton. Um. They're kind of shaped like bowling pins a little bit um.

In fact, they're exoskeleton is so tough. There is a species called the ironclad beetle. And if you're trying to mount them as a specimen, you know how like you have like a butterfly specimen where you stick a pin in it. They do that for all all sorts of insects. Um. You actually have to drill a hole into them because you can't just push a pin through it. They're they're ship yeah, they're They're exoskeleton is that tough? So um,

they are flightless. They have this little stubby head around thorax, so the thing that actually kind of looks like their head is actually their thorax. And then they have a long oval abdomen and they range in color from black to sort of a black and white pattern, uh, lots of other different colors. They also come in this like really pretty gold color, not not a shining gold, but kind of a matte gold. And it's this species this kind of gold so fiter a species that is often

used for mckesh jewelry. So the jewelry is made by taking a living beetle and gluing like rhinestones on it or a variety of jewels or decorations on it, or something like colorful thread or other ornaments. So there's like, um, some adhesive is used, like some kind of glue, uh, and then like you you bedazzle the beetle, and then they attach a gold chain to the beetle just by gluing it um. And then that's attached to like a pin that you pin to your blouse, and the beetle

crawls around on your blouse. It's it's still alive and just kind of like crawls around with all of this uh, this sort of bedazzlement, and it's it's hard to know like when the tradition started. There's a lot of like uh, sort of mixed information on it. And it's you know, I don't think that I'm comfortable, you know, saying anything definitively because it doesn't seem like it's been studied definitively in terms of like the orgins of the cultural practice.

This particular beetle, the mccash is actually the name of the jewelry. But the zo faris beetle chosen because it's got this kind of slow, sluggish nature. It's pretty chill um, it's got that that pretty exoskeleton. But it can also survive for months without food or water. So yeah, I know, so, I mean it's it's like, it sounds pretty creepy. So we'll get two more of that. But first I want to talk about the beetles in the wild. So in the wild, the beetles live in dry forests and feed

on rotting wood starches. So we're talking about earlier. You know, like the whale fall, well with tree fall he gets tree fall is great for a lot of organisms and forest environments. Uh, these beetles are one of them. They have a metabolism that allows them to survive on small

amounts of starch and very little water. So in theory, if you treat a mckesh beetle right like you have a terrarium, and you provide them with some starch and just like a little bit of water like a moist sponge, you can keep them alive for their whole lifespan of about three years um. But of course there's a few catches to this, as there are for most things when we when we're talking about using animals for our own purposes, First and foremost is that they can spew formic acid

out of their anus. Great. I mean actually, to me, that's like a benefit. Like I want a brooch that like you know, like I kind of poke it and it just like sprays out formic acid. That's that's a great James Bond weapon. That is a great James Bond weapon. Very like, Now, what are the what are the effects of that kind of acid on on your skin? Or? Is it smelly? Is it? Is it? It's unpleasant? It gives you Yeah, it could give you a bad skin rash, like not a fun time. Yeah you should you shouldn't,

you know, try not to get it. Yeah, you don't want to get it on on you. Um. Traditionally, that issue has been solved by making the Beatles very tiny diapers, like a little cloth. Yeah, like a little cloth diaper that goes near their backside and just sort of absorbs

up that thing, the the formic acid. Unfortunately, I was reading something that seemed to indicate I don't know how true this is, but there was some like rumor about like how some vendors will use glue to actually seal up the the anus and then that's bad, like you can't do that, it's it'll it'll kill the beetle um. And so of course, I think the the issue that is probably on a lot of people's minds is like, well, is this cruel? Is this cruelty towards these beetles? And

I think it's really it's a really complex issue. And I think whenever there's like a different cultural practice than our own, it's really easy for us to go like, oh,

this is cruel or this is this is strange. It's like too strange, because you know, it's like it's not normalized in our society, so like like in the way that a lot of our practices towards animals are like you know, so I think that the fact like it's living jewelry is so such an unusual concept that I think it's easier to think of it as like, oh, man, that's unnecessary and kind of cruel. But then you think about a lot of the things that we do in

our culture. We kill insects all the time, and not super nice ways. We also you know, just in our homes, like we kill pests all the time. Look, I'm not above killing you know, ants who try to eat all my cereal. I would be lying if I said I hadn't killed a bug before. That's it's foolish. I I do my best to be you know, sympathetic, especially to our spider friends who do a lot of the bug killing for us. But like, look, I've I've smashed the flies.

I've smashed them bugs. That's just no matter. I'm not I'm not innocent. I try to relocate spiders whenever I find them, But I have to admit, like a few weeks ago, I saw a pretty big spider and just instinctively stomped it, like I didn't even think. And then immediately after some I was like, oh, I'm so sure that immediate us. So, you know, we we kill insects all the time, and so you know, I feel like this aspect of like, oh it's really cruel to do

this is somewhat relative. The other argument would be like, well, but you know, we kill insects maybe out of necessity. Keeping them as an ornament in this way like seems sort of unnecessary. It's like, well, we also have things like we have state fairs where we have food animals there for you know, entertainment purposes, and like we'll we'll have like petting zoos with animals that will eventually go

and be used for food. So I guess my point is, like they're certainly complaints you can have about certain cultural practices when it comes to animals, but I'm always hesitant to like point the finger at another culture or it's like, ah, see this this thing that they do that we don't do, Like that that's super that's super weird, you know what I mean. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's I think

that's completely fair. My only complaint would be that I think the I mean, maybe it's you know, and and as I explore the culture of this a little bit more, and I see in your picture down here, there's definitely Katie. But by the way, for all the listeners, Katie has provided excellent resources for the for the guests to look at it and and get familiar with and just like

see what is what what we're talking about. I'm surprised these people aren't going further with the bug itself, like you know, I mean, like at a little top hat or yeah, or just like it. Maybe it may it might just be the video, but it's like this seems pretty like Ryan Stones on gold chains kind of ship when we could get some real like I mean, you know, if this is a cultural thing here, I could see some like Swarovski ass like really glitzed up, glitzed up

bugs crawling around on your chest, premium bugs. Premium bugs. Yeah, I mean I think that. I mean, these aren't necessarily super super fancy things, like they you know, they often sell them for not that much money, like it could be like chin us dollars or something. Uh, and you know it's it's also often sold to tourists, so I'm not super clear on how much of it is directed towards tourists to the area, and like how much of it is that locals do just sort of as a

local tradition. So it's you know, I can't pretend to be a cultural expert on this, and I couldn't quite suss that out in my research. But there is one thing that that the artists who do this do seem to try to do is they don't like inhibit the Beatles movements, so they keep it like to the backs of the Beatles, So they don't like put it, you know, like on their actual heads, Like it looks like it's on their heads, but that's actually their thorax and they

don't like put it on their legs or anything. So they can because like the point is for them to still be able to move around as long as they're not putting glue on the butt. I don't think I mean, I'm sure that like the bejeeling of the Beatles isn't great for the Beatles, but I don't think it necessarily, Um, is that all that harmful again because they have that

really thick exoskeleton. Uh, the harmful thing would be, of course if you don't like feed it or or you know, like you know, actually keep it in a terrarium, if you just kind of like keep it in a drawer for a few months until it dies like that, then the beetle will not survive. That For me, I guess like the main the main issue I think that needs to be explored by ecologists, which I mean is they

are doing. I'm not scolding them like a cologists get on this, but is whether or not like this is sustainable for the beetle population, because like on a local level, it's probably fine, but if it gains a huge amount of popularity with tourists, um collection of the beatles may exceed their ability to reproduce. The beatles are really like they have a very slow lifespan compared to other insects like they they it takes them a long time to

reach sexual maturation. They don't lay a huge amount of eggs. It's hard to estimate their population size because they like to live under logs, like under leaf litter and logs, so like, actually finding them is kind of difficult. So getting a good sort of census of how many of

these beetles are out there is actually quite tricky. Um But because they don't seem to reproduce that rapidly, there's fear that without some regulation, like, there could be over collection of the the beatles and that would endanger their population, which I think just kind of shows how like it's really important for ecologists and biologists to work with people who study human culture to be able to come together and research things together so that we can like figure

out ways to both preserve human culture but also preserve nature. Teamwork makes the dream work. I couldn't have said it better myself. The mckeesh is not the only insect worn as jewelry. In ancient Egypt, scared of beetles were worn

by soldiers to offer them spiritual protection. And in two thousand and six, fashion designer Jared Gold included giant hissing cockroaches in his collection, basically copying the style of the mckesh broaches by bedazzling his cockroaches with Swarovski crystals and keeping them on a golden chain. These runaway ready cockroaches came with instructions of how to care for them and

could live for over a year. Personally, I'm content to just admire the natural beauty of hissing copproaches from nature photographs. When we return, we're going to investigate a lizard. There's aquatic fashion is all about function. So now I want to talk about an extremely glamorous lizard that I think gifts like David Bowie a run for his money in terms of like how incredibly shiny they are and also just how I don't know, you know, how like like

the Space Odyssey thing. Well, these lizards like to go under the water and be a little little diver diverman, Okay, what's the what's the David Bowie thing. It's like Rocketman, right, yeah, rocket Where is that? Dalton John? You think of the ziggy Stardust? Yeah, I mean like that's very Yeah, David Bowie is super super glam. Elton John glam rock not really is he. I'm gonna google is Elton John glam rock? This is very important for an evolutionary biology podcast to

know whether Elton John or not. I would say so other performers associated with British glam I see, I see, I mean, I guess it depends on whether you're using the phylogenetic classification system or the Linnean classification system of glam rock. I mean, I'll say this. You know, look, the only people who are going to get mad at you about someone being or not being glam rock are the Yeah, exactly aggressive glam rock. British glam was very strictly different from US glam rock, and I think that

needs to be noted. It actually fits more in the mod category. Thing keep very much, but he's certainly glamorous and certainly a rocker. We'll go. We'll definitely go with that. Instead of spending time in outer space in a space suit, these lizards like to spend time underwater in a water suit or an air suit anyways, a diver suit, a diver suit. So these are water annolies a k a. Scuba diving lizards. So, water annolies are a species of

small lizards found in Costa Rica in Central America. They're pretty small. They're about the size of a thumb. They're brown, although males do have this brilliant yellow dew lap. So what's a dow lap. It's a flap of skin under their chin they can fan out, which they use to attract females and intimidate males. What I mean, have you ever seen a lizard like like kind of stunt in like, you know, flapping out lap? For sure? For sure? You know, for a second I thought, so, I'm you know, not

skipping ahead, per se. But I'm looking at this picture and I thought for a split second that it's dow lap. Was the clear thing coming out of its nose, which is an air bubble, that is bubble. He's got the dow lap on the top of his head. Now it's clear and you can breathe it. I think I forgot to include an image of the dow lap, but it's very pretty. It's like brilliant yellow. The ladies love a

dow lap. The ladies loved but because these little lizards are such tasty little snacks, not just for the females of their species, but um, you know, for predators, and they're not like the fastest lizards in the land. They will take to the water to escape predators. They'll literally leap off of a rock and billy flop into the water. And so once underwater they are safe from a lot of terrestrial or airborne predators. But they need to breathe

because you know, they can't can't breathe water. These are reptiles. They are They do not um although you know, there are some reptiles like um turtles who do do gas exchange near an area near their cloaca a k. Their butt hole. Um. But these lizards cannot. We have no evidence to suggest that these lizards can breathe through their butt holes like turtles. I know, darn it. I hate it when I'm like swimming and I'm like, wait, let me try, let me try it for a second. Can't

I can't do it. I can't breathe through my butt So they have a problem because they either stand or water and drown or they go above the water and get eaten by a predator. So there is recent observations of these lizards that seem to suggest that they can create a wetsuit made out of air and form a bubble around their head that they can breathe through. This is I you know, truly again, your research is so good.

You've vided videos. I could not even imagine what this would look like, but now I have a video to look at, and it is extraordinary. I'm like blown away that they're able to, like what is holding the water to their face this way? That's a really good question. And while I haven't been able to find studies that are really exact about it, I would say that it is very similar to other times that we see water

adhering to animals underwater. So with their diving bell spiders that can actually go underwater and water, they will also form these kind of underwater For the spiders, it's like this diving bell that this little bubble that surrounds them that they can do gas exchange through. And the for them, the air sticks to these teeny tiny little hairs all over their bodies. Um, So the air literally sticks to these really small fine hairs. For these lizards, I don't

think they rely on hair. Rather, I think it's the skin texture. So I think they have these probably these really tiny st ructures on their skin, like these little tiny, probably microscopic indentations and texture on their skin that actually traps air on their skin and holds onto it through sort of a manner of surface tension. I mean, even like when you dive underwater, sometimes little bubbles can stick to your skin and you can see little air bubbles

still sticking to you. Um, But like for these lizards, their skin is such that I think it's probably have really small structures on their skin that that uh is able to really cling onto this water such that you look at these lizards and underwater it looks like they have this whole silvery sheen all over it, like their skin is made out of a mirror like material, and that's all that trapped air all over their body, reflecting light underwater like a mirror. That's so cool. Yeah, they're like,

it's it's it's beautiful. It's one of those things were like, wow, why do they look this cool? And then they come out of water and you're like, okay, hey, you know what I'll save it, save it for the underwater crowd. You know, if they want to be less less shiny on top, the underwater crowd, they deserve it more. They're not trying to eat you as much. Yeah. Um. So

they can form this bubble around their head. And while this the research on this is by no means complete, so this is all conjecture at this point, there's this idea that their heads have this kind of concave structure just so this air bubble can form, like this pocket can form um over their nostrils and when they like breathe out, it kind of bubbles up and they breathe in, and then it kind of bubbles down. So it's like this little bubble going up and down as they breathe.

That's that's so wild. Again, if I didn't have this video, I wouldn't be able to put it together. I mean, you know, I can understand and imagine, but it's just like it's truly a bubble coming off of their face and then just sucking back in, right, you know. Wild, Like have you ever like blown a bubble with some bubble gum and instead of just like blowing the bubble,

you kind of like breathe in and out. You're like, yeah, when you do like a Darth Vader and voice like I'm sure to chop off hands and chew bubble gum and I'm all out of bubble gum? Could you imagine? I want to see that re cut? But yeah, I mean your reaction is kind of similar to researchers who discovered this because they just incidentally discovered that they that

they seem to breathe this way through observations. They put underwater cameras down there because they noticed that some of these lizards would like dive underwater and then they would pop up a few feet away, but some of them would dive underwater and then just disappear, and they're like, now that can't be right, Like that can't be a good survival strategy to just drown yourself whenever a predator

comes at you. So sure enough, they they found that these guys can spend up to about fifteen minutes underwater, and using these underwater cameras, they found this this behavior of like them seeming to breathe through these bubbles. Now it hasn't been like scientifically proven that they are actually breathing through these bubbles. It's just observation, like you looking at this video, um, but it seems fairly likely that

that's the case, because that seems to be what's going on. Hm. And also because they can last so so long underwater, it seems like this helps them last longer without having to hold their breath the whole time. Wow, these are These are fascinating little beasts right here. They really are. You've really done it. And they're so shiny. I love how just like they have like mere skin, you know what I mean totally the shine especially like again of

that it's primarily for the underwater crowd. It's like they're just so so so shiny and it am I almost feel like you would mistake it. I mean mistaken, but like you might think that there's like a small like pocket knife in the water if you were to look and see just like the body of one of these long guys down, they're just like whoa that is yeah, yeah, my gosh. I do. I Also, I do like the idea that like above water, it's like yeah, but underwater

it's like Miley Cyrus turning into Hannah Montana. That's where they shine. But yeah, it's like Miley Cyrus whatever, just normal girls, and then she turned into Hanna Montanna. Wow. Well, I think we I think we've done it. I think we've found some of the coolest glam rockers in the annual Kingdom. These are truly glamorous animals you have shared with me today, Katie. I'm touched. These are awesome. Thank you. I do before we go, I do want to address

a listener question. So listener IZZYB writes in and says, hey, creature peeps, There's been a meme Twitter thread popping up now and again claiming that the Uncanny Valley exists as a deep psychological remnant from our early hominid ancestors interspecies competition for resources. So frequently these conversations use the idea that animals, even our own pets, don't experience the Uncanny Valley as proof, but that rings false to me. I am a puppet maker and have lots of Sorry. I

love it. I love this email so much. I love it when you guys right into me. Um. When I when I was reading this and then I got to I am a puppet maker, Like, I almost screamed in excitement. Anyways, I'm going to continue reading this, but like sorry. I am a puppet maker and have lots of experience of dogs and cats absolutely losing their their quack in terror of puppets, usually human based puppets, but sometimes those based

on other animals. What is this if not the uncanny valley, the mental rejection and innate fear of something that resembles the familiar but doesn't achieve a fully believable resemblance. As someone familiar with animal psychology, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the matter. On a completely different note of the arc of the universe bending towards crab, one of our latest puppets is a massive crab dragon. Although it fails to copy the evolutionary perfect crab body plan,

it is painted to look like a coconut crab. We were even listening to the Carsonization episode while painting her. Here are pictures, Izzy B. Thank you so much. Izzy. These. When you said you were a puppet maker, I was excited. I love puppets. I it's I mean like but I was expecting a small puppet, which I was still excited for. I was still really excited for. This is a life sized, freaking dragon. It's massive, it's three people are operating this thing.

It's a huge, actual real life dragon puppet, the size of a freaking real life dragon, and and it is painted like a coconut crab. It's absolutely beautiful. It's amazing, and I, if possible, I am going to include a link to these photos in the show notes. It's I'm so blown away by this. This is a beautiful puppet. I actually like a note about the Uncanny Valley before I get into answering the question. I actually love the Uncanny Valley, Like I actively seek out feeling that feeling.

It's a it's a fun, exciting feeling for me. It's like, now, I don't like roller coasters, Like I hate roller coasters. They scare me. Um, But I imagine the feeling that other people get when they go on a roller coaster, of like that it's like kind of scary but exciting, real that thrilled. That's what I get from like looking at weird animatronics or Uncanny Valley things. I love animatronics, I love puppets. I just love that feeling of like

there's a certain sort of awfulness to this thing. It's like not quite a human, but it's almost a human like I really it's just thrilling for me. So this is a really exciting thing for me. This is an incredible puppet These are these are true. This is truly you know, I would totally expect to see this at the front of a very well produced parade. This is like or you know of a like it's a puppet show. Not like a puppet show though, but like like a CC. Yeah,

it's definitely a circlet production. Yeah. No, it's it's the centerpiece right here. This is like The Dark Crystal, you know what I mean. I loved by the way I love The Dark Crystal loved I al feel like the year the reboot, the remake or not remake with Yes, I haven't checked out there, it's good. I liked it. Yeah, if you liked the the original one, you'll definitely like the remake. It's or not remake. It's just a reboot, but it definitely recaptures sort of the it's it's all

practical effects. It's really really beautiful. In terms of the question about whether animals feel the Uncanny Valley, I actually really agree with this listener. I think that we don't. While we don't necessarily have evidence that says that animals definitely do, uh feel the Uncanny Valley. It's like hard to you know, uh quantify what an animal is feeling. I definitely think that animals would have the capacity to

feel that based on uh certain animal behavior. So some of the things that we know, like, well, first of all, this is maybe not super scientific, but I've definitely seen a lot of videos of cats on like TikTok and stuff reacting to their owners having a like a cat filter on their face, you know, like a snapchat or it's like a cat a cat face like filter on

their face. So it looks like the human has a cat face on the phone, and the cats like look at the phone, look really startled, look back at their human and look at the phone and like run away. So, uh, that's that's interesting to me, that the cats get really freaked out, um by humans wearing like a cat cat makeup or or having that like cat filter. Of course, that's that's that's totally anecdotal. Uh less anecdotal, I think,

is well now I guess it still anecdote. Anyways, Another thing that we've seen is like there's this TV show called Spies in the Wild where they put like animal yeah, Spy in the wild. It's they it's it's hilarious but also a great nature documentary. They create these animatronic versions of animals so that they can have cameras like watching the animals up close. But it's also kind of funny because like most of the camera work in the show

isn't from the animatronic animals. It seems like that's something of a chemic, but it's still really interesting. I think the most interesting part of the show is not like the up close shots that these animatronics get, but it's the reactions that the animals have to the animatronics. So a lot of animals don't seem to really think anything of it, but once you start to get to primates,

their reactions are very interesting. There are these langers that were very tentatively playing with this animatronic linger, and then it fell down and like broke and stopped moving, and then a bunch of Lingers all came over that this uh Lingers are a type of monkey, and they came and surrounded this thing, like like twenty or thirty of them, just like looking and like carefully touching it and looking.

It was almost it looked like they were holding a funeral almost, but it was like I think they were just so freaked out and fascinated by what this was, where like it seems kind of like a dead monkey, but they weren't sure what it was, but they were

fascinated and and it seemed kind of freaked out. So I think that And you also look at like things that we have done research on where dogs seem to pay particular attention to human faces on the side of the face that's more expressive, Like we're not our expressions are not completely symmetrical, Like there's usually one side of the face that is a little more expressive, and the dogs seem to prefer that side of the face. Um, And so I think that that kind of like facial recognition.

And it's the whole kind of concept of this idea that like only humans would be in some sort of like competition with other hominids. That doesn't make any sense, Like there are so many species who have very similar species that they are in competition with. I mean, like you know, canines like you like wolves and other canads would be in competition, you know, I mean like a dog in a coyote like Kyo will often kill dogs, so like they have to be very careful around each other.

Different kind of feline species like uh, you know, uh, cheetah is no friend to like a lion. So it's you know, it's um, they're all sorts of competition amongst species that maybe don't look exactly like each other, but are somewhat similar. So this idea that the uncanny Valley evolved in humans because we were competing with other species and we had to be aware of like ones that were kind of off. It's like, well, I would say

that would apply to you know, most most intelligent social animals. Great, I support that entirely. I don't. I obviously do not have a professional opinion on the matter, but I would like to think that, like you know, obviously language is something that is created by humans for humans. Um, but I think for to be for the suggestion to be that dogs and and you know, certain animals don't have the capability to semi recognize something or have to wrestle

with something is recognizable or not. I think, you know, to say, do they experience the uncanny Valley? It's like, well, they don't. They don't call it that, but they know when something is there and doesn't it's like, this is not quite right, this is not I'm confused by this. I support you entirely. I think it's I think it's in fact, there there's a study, uh, there's a study of machex that looked at their eye gays of like computer generated images of macax and like ones that were like, uh,

sort of realistic, actually kind of cartoonists. They sort of looked at a little bit, didn't really seem to care. They're real photos they looked at for a long time because they were interested. But ones that were almost exactly realistic but not quite they were like c g I. They didn't like to look at it all. They like spent as little time looking at it as possible, which you know, it's it's hard to know exactly how to

interpret those results. But one way of interpreting them is that they did not enjoy looking at that that c g I version of the the macaque, and so they would avert their gaze because they found it unpleasant, which

is how humans experienced the Uncanny Valley. So I would say this has not been researched enough to really say definitively, but I think all the research that we have as well as general trends and animal behavior, I think would indicate that, yeah, this could definitely happen for animals, and I don't see any reason to rule it out for animals. Right, That's why my dog hates Polar Express movie. I thought it was just because she hated Tom Hanks, but I

think it's all those all those weird kids. It's all those weird looking kids. That's funny, that's wonderful. Also, when I make a weird noise, she gives me such a look,

like she does a little head turning things. But like if I do sort of a weird whistling noise, like where I'm kind of sucking errand through my teeth or something in a weird way, or or if I blow across a bottle and it makes that like weird hoot you noise, like she just like she looks at me like I've been possessed, and she's clearly she's like she's interested, but she's concerned. I've been bewitched. Totally totally different noise,

I'm unfamiliar. And she hates it when people ride on bikes or skateboards, like really just it's something like about the human going faster than they should that, like she loses her mind over she hates so much. Like you're a human but way too fast. This isn't right. Why is one part of you moving but the other parts of you are not? What's up with that? It's a bicycle human centaur? Evil? I'll bite off its legs. What the devilment is this? Yeah? Amazing? Well I think that'll

do it for today. Thank you so much for this email. Love the pictures of the puppet. I will share those. And yeah, if you haven't have a question and you want me to answer it, uh, send an email to Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and I will either try to answer it over the email or even on the show. So yeah, thank you so much for that. And Daniel, thank you so much for being on here today. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. It's

such a great show, one of my favorite podcast. Honored to be included. Oh my goodness, thank you so much. You used to you used to engineer the dang thing. Did used to engineer the dank thing. But then we got so you know, I got so big and busy. They spread spread us all out there. They're like, Danny can't do that anymore, you gotta go do this other thing. I'm like that. But the bright side is now we've got Zack. Hear you, guys, he's um, he's actually he's

actually shrouded by waves. He's actually he's actually adolphins, so he can only speak in squeals and ease yes and the confettia emotions saying saying yes, I engineered lovely. Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you? You can find me on Twitter at dj Underscore damil and you can find me on Twitch at the same twitch dot tv slash dj Underscore d A n L and check it out. We do fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah, and listen the podcast shoot listen to Creature feature. I

mean you're already here, so great job. Check out the other podcast on the network. Yeah, check out other podcasts on the network. Uh, thank you guys so much for listening. Um. You can find us on the internet at Creature Creature Pod on Instagram at Creature feet Pod on Twitter. That's et that is something very different. Uh and as always, I'm Katie Golden. You can find me on Twitter just for my Katie thoughts and uh, yeah, thank you so much to the space Classics for their super awesome song

x Alumina. That song is great. I know it's so good it can get Can I get it? A corny joke before we leave? Do it? Do it? Do it? Since sind you said creature feet, You're like, no, it's create your feet. F e A T, not f e T. That's a different website. That website is only Finns than you. Don't never apologize. Thank you so much for that. Oh

my god, thank you so much. Creature Feature is a production of I Heart Radio for more podcasts like the one you just heard because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or Hey guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows? See your next ones day Only finn