Home Sweet Home

Discover this and more as we answer the angel question, what the heck is that aunt doing with that larva's But first let's address the elephant in the room, which sadly isn't a real elephant, even though I'd love to be buddies with an elephant. COVID nineteen, the coronavirus that is now a global pandemic, is certainly scary. I'm not a public health expert, and you should always listen to

them over me. But here's what I've gathered. This is a very serious public health concern, but you shouldn't panic. This is survivable if we all work together to make ourselves and each other. Say. While COVID nineteen is not typically a serious illness for young and well people, more vulnerable groups such as older adults and those with serious pre existing diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and lung

disease are at higher risk. According to the c d C. Just because there's a good prognosis for most people doesn't mean we shouldn't take this very seriously. We can absolutely save lives if we take the steps necessary to protect the community. Some of the things that you can do are washing your hands for at least twenty seconds in warm, soapy water, avoiding touching your face, and practicing social distancing. A lot of us are now practicing self isolation, avoiding

large gatherings, and limiting social contact. This may seem extreme or scary, but it's actually really going to help out. By limiting social contact, we're slowing the spread of disease, and that's important. By slowing down the disease, we're helping to limit the number of cases so hospital roles and

supplies don't become overtaxed. Of course, a lot of people still have to work and can't work from home, And I could go on a whole long runt about how our society should be better prepared to take care of everyone in times like these, but I'll spare you that. But if you can limit your social contact. You're helping out everyone who can't and everyone who is more vulnerable to the disease. But of course staying home can be

hard on our mental health. So I thought this time i'd talk about animals who stay cozy in their little homes so we don't feel so alone. Joining me today to talk about cute and cozy animal abodes is our producer Joel Monique. Hey, there so much for that. I feel very reassured. Uh, we are obviously taking a lot of precautions here, which is why I'm back so soon. We're gonna try to limit our guests, but hopefully you guys will be hearing some familiar voices soon, so that'll

be really exciting. Yeah, I think we're gonna probably take this remote pretty soon if we can. But yeah, we're being very careful here. I know I'm in my apartment with two other people because we're all staying home working from home and ye. But yeah, it's I mean it feels I think it feels apocalyptic because you see, like nobody's out on the streets and like shows, But that's it's not because we're running out of food. I want people like, don't panic too much about food. We're not

going to run out of food. It's because of sort of the that group psychology of like you see other people buying it, and you see shelves empty and you start to panic and you start to load up on food and then it you know, and then other people it's like, oh, man, we're running out of food, so I need to get some food. And and it's not to say that it's like, oh, people are all stupid and overreacting. It's just kind of a it's a domino effect.

But we're gonna be okay, nobody. You know, We're not gonna like, uh, running out of food in the country. But yeah, I mean if you can help out people who can't go to the grocery store and like, say you have a neighbor who can't get food, you know, like like give them some of your some of your macaronis, and shout out to our farmers who are still working

out in the fields like picking plants and stuff. I saw some farmers aids videos on Twitter today, uh, and I was like, Wow, in the rain, in the cold, knowing that we have to eat, really appreciate you guys. Yeah, I'm excited to hear about ants and uh lava but though, yes, yes, which will come very soon. And it's so I did. And I think a lot of people are sticking at

home when they can, and some people can't. But for those of us who can and are doing it, you know, good job on, you know, kind of helping helping the community. And here's some animal homes I think that are really cozy and might make you feel a little better about being stuck at home. So first I want to talk about weaver birds. Okay, let's do this. So these are okay in this section. These are the animals who make

their homes out of leaves and straw. So, like the I kind of have a three Little pigs theme going on. I don't know how. I don't know if kids these days even know about three little pigs. Children, I hope you know that's I feel like that's the story everybody gets. My mom got it as a child. So yeah, is it all? Is it all like pep up pigs now? Though? And it's all dabs and tide pods and pepper pigs.

I don't I'm old dogs. I'm here for it. So weaver birds are a family of birds that we've complex nests. There are many different species of weavers with different habits, but typically they're small birds. They're kind of sparrow like and they create their nests out of grass and other plant fibers. So rather than that typical little twig bowl that other birds make, weavers while they we have complex

nests that can hang from branches. So first I want to talk about the bioweaver, and I sent you some of these photos, Joel, I'm looking at the bioweavers. Yes, okay, So these homes are like sixties modern sort of homes. Yeah. Have you've seen the fireplaces they had in the sixties before these sort of round, free standing with a tall chimney teardrop, Yeah, yeah, definitely. And birds are very mod Yeah. So there are bright yellow sparrow like weaver who lives

in Southeast Asia and India. They eat grain, seeds, insects, small amphibians, and mollusks sometimes too. Um. They're highly social and they will build little cities out of their nets. So they will take over a tree, build a bunch of these little tear drop It looks like it kind of looks like a weird Christmas tree because there's a bunch of these nests just dangling from the tree Metropolitan

nesting situation exactly. So the males are the homemakers. They will weave the tear drop shaped nests and there's an orb bottom with the nesting chamber and an opening on the side and a narrow top that connects it to a tree branch. And it's made out of strips of rice patty leaves which are very painstakingly gathered and intricately woven together to form a solid mesh. It's like it's very solid. It's not like a sort of loosely weaved nets. It looks look solid. I mean it's holding at least

two bodies and eggs in there. It's gotta it's gotta be sturdy. So they are known to make up to five hundred trips back and forth to gather plant fibers to weave the nest. And they are built on trees or man made structures if they're near an urban environment.

Typically they do prefer either palm trees or thorny acacia trees, which the thorny trees are great because that offers more protection from predators, and they'll often have the nests overhanging the water and that elaborate construction and location makes it harder for predators to enter the nest and steal their

eggs or their chicks. So if you think about a normal bird's nest kind of sitting in the like a crook of the tree, a snake can just kind of slither up there and be like, I'm gonna get you eggs and uh and snack on those eggs. But when you have this weird mod sixties tear drop shape dangling over water, a snake is going to be like, uh what no, what aliens bird aliens that they're not going to mess with that because they can't like figure out

how to get in there. That certainly offers much more of a challenge for them if they wanted to try to get out there right exactly, I mean, and they could always just like fall right in the water. And you know, there are some snakes that don't mind getting wet, but some of them do, so you know, they're also bizarrely all built on the east side of the tree

to protect the nests from southwest monsoon wins. Their breeding season is during the monsoon, so having that le extra protection from the winds is very important and uh, So the way the courtship works is that the males will partially build the nest, and females will come inspect the nest, you know, kind of poke around, be like interesting, interesting

use of joists. They prefer well constructed nests. But most importantly is the location of the nest, So like the primo location and you know, like up at the top of the tree are the most favorite of nests. This is like the Bachelorette when they go to the homes and they have to like be like, is your family crazy? Does this house fit my lifestyle? I did dangling from a branch over a body of water, this is that's my kind of guy. Yeah, yeah, and look at look

at this view. That whole probably offers a very cinematic lack of snakes. A lack of snakes is kind of my thing. Like, you know, like if if you have a snakeproof house, that's what I'm looking for. I think there was so in my hometown in San Diego. I think there was this big, like weird mansion that was built sort of in the Chaparral area, and they built like this huge wall to try to keep the snakes

from getting it. But the thing is it didn't keep the snakes from getting in, didn't keep them from getting out though, because that sounds like probably probably the snakes got in there, couldn't figure out how to get out, and then they just had the big snake pit. And that was just a snake man, just a snake mansion full of bougie snakes. Well, a little mustache and monocles. Someone draw this snake mansion, I would write, bat slurt amazing.

So once a female has selected the mate with the best constructed house, they will help the males put the finishing touches on the nest, maybe add a little bit of mud inside, you know, just those exactly. And sometimes though, there are sneaky females who will see a cute little couple with their beautiful house be like, hmm, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna lay my egg in there and they're gonna raise my baby and they won't even know it. Oh, well, that just seems great, you

raise it. These birds live some soap opera lives, like very yes, exactly, like that was my baby raise. Do they come back for their kids? Now? Do we know why they just don't want to carraise their child. Well, because it's it's actually pretty smart because then they don't have to spend the resources on that baby, and it gets raised by someone else and they spend their It's

a form of parasitism. So like, just like a parasite will feed on like say your blood or something, a brood parasite will steal resources from another pair of parents and get them to feed like cuckoo birds are famous for doing this. But yeah, but yeah, sometimes there will be individuals within a bird species that practice parasitism, like, not the whole species, just a few sneaky individuals. And it's actually kind of interesting how those dynamics work out

because obviously not everyone can do that. You have a critical mass of how many like sneaky you can get away with. Yeah, exactly, Linda, I see you trying to drop your eggs in this basket and girl know out raising your child. It's Easter, though I would say it's it's an Easter or present. I hear peeping from inside the egg. No. So another type of weaver is the sociable weaver. So if you could scroll down to the second image, it's gonna look like a weirdlax palm tree thing.

Loax palm tree is a really good description. I'm gonna go avant garde hut. Yeah, it's weird because it's like around mound like Okay, so you know the light poles that are in like grocery store parking lots where they have like the four square lights on the top, imagine that, but there is like a grass skirt hut underneath it. It is so weird to look at, and especially looking at a number of these trees in the background and none of them have the nests, so weird. Well, you know,

it's interesting. So I think that's actually telephone pole. It looks like a tree. I think I'm seeing things connected to it's a telephone pole. It looks like a tree that because the sociable weaver bird has built so much nest material that it looks like just the big shaggy tree. It actually the silhouette kind of looks like something you'd find it like some weird fashion weak thing, like a person with a big like hat made out of grass and a big like poncho made out of grass. But

you know, huge telephone pole sized. So the sociable weaver is a bird in the weaver family that makes giant communal homes. So they live in the Calahari Desert of southern Africa. They look like little sparrows and their nests look like those weird huge Lorex style trees with like a big tuft at the top and like a huge like skirt. They can be just different shapes and sizes, but usually it's just a huge mass of dried grasses.

So they will construct these nests on any pole structure, so it could be a tree, could be a telephone pole, any anything they can stick a bunch of dead grass onto essentially, and they will use these dry grasses and so many of them work together on this thing that they will make a giant apartment complex wehing up to a ton. Yeah, so it's basically just this massive bail of hey stuck up on a pole. How well, I mean, like with a bunch of individuals working together sticking stuff

on there. Eventually it accumulates and you have But it's not just like one big nest. It's a bunch of little apartment uh, like a little apartment rooms. It seems to defy the law of physics that it stays up there with any kind of base, Like it's just literally you can see the bottom of this telephone pole. Yeah, so it's not like it's from the ground or like they built it at one point until it reached the ground,

I guess. So, like the telephone pole probably has like some bars, like those little like sort of bars that show up the telephone pole. So probably once you have that lattice and they keep adding and adding and adding, and then at a certain point, the grasses are a sort of woe and together so that it is supporting itself by that. But I imagine if you gave that thing a good a good shake, like in an earthquake,

it probably would collapse. But it's pretty balanced on both sides. Yeah, you know, obviously it's not pulling the pole one way or the other. It's just a kind of like a really intriguing technical feat. Yeah, yeah, it is. It is bizarre to see, especially on a telephone poll, because like on a tree, you can see like, how okay, you got it all these Nike stuff. Yeah, but on the telephone pull, it really is sort of a house of

cards there. But yeah, so, um, even though it looks like a random pile of dry grass, it's actually full of these little individual apartments which the weaver's painstakingly construct. They tend to them all year round and make constant home improvements. That might be another reason it kind of remains stables. They're always kind of you know, refurbishing it,

making sure it's stable. And uh, they're little chambers with hallways leading from the entrance um and at the front of the entrance they have a nice little welcome map made out of spiky straw, which is actually an unwelcome matt because it's meant to ward off predators. And by building a huge apartment complex, these birds shelter themselves from the elements. Uh. They live in the desert, which can

become extremely hot and extremely cold. So it ranges from a hundred and ten degrees fahrenheit during the day in the summer to fifteen fifteen degrees in the winter, and so those thick layers of grasses both insulate them from heat and cold. And these apartments are so wonderful that even other birds will sometimes take over an abandoned department. Wells, pygmy falcons, redheaded finches, and the rosy face love birds

all love to kind of go in and squat. I don't know if they always like kick out a bird, but like if they find one that is not being lived in. Although the pegmy falcons are kind of stinkers because they well, they they're tight. Teeny tiny falcons are actually quite cute, like you know the do you remember Looney Tunes like Little Chicken Hawk, Like, yeah, yeah, they're like that. They look like falcons but mini. And they will sometimes note on a weaver bird or a weaver hatchling.

But right, I know, but they aren't so bad. They're not just going bananas. They kind of seem to try to keep it, keep it a little bit reserved there. They're they're trying to keep it in control because I think they realized, like they got a good situation here and they can't just eat eat all their fellow tenants otherwise they're picking get epic. Did so able cohabitate with the birds? Yeah? Yeah, I can't look just occasionally eat a chick like, come on those, it's not your place,

right listen, Okay, I get it. We all have to eat. Circle of life. Like I feel like if I had a really good apartment neighbor who always clean their trash and kept quiet and stuff and occasionally ate a bay be, that'd be okay, that'd be no problem given the living conditions of l A. You'd be like exactly. So now I want to move on a very different animal who also does social weaving, which is the weaver ant. So we were ants are found in Australian Asia. Did you

see the photo? You know, after birds, what my least favorite things are, And I know, I know, I'm sorry, I'm very sorry. So this is not just a swarm of things, but an organized swarm of things that are building a giant apparatus. Well that good, better and worse, like teamwork makes the dream work. So I'm not here to teamwork. Shame them for doing what they but it does make my skin crawl to look. Well, I don't know if elaborating on this is going to make it better,

but here we go. Anyways, I'm ready. So they're a family of ant species who we've nests using leaves and threads of silk. So the ants will line up along the edges of two leaves and pull them together. And then you have the other ants come along with larva in their mandibles, and I bet you're wondering what they're about to do. They squeeze the larva and apply the butts of the larva to the edges of the leaf like a hot glue gun. God, they squeeze out strands

of sticky larval silk to bind the leaves together. This is child labor beat. Squeeze a child, and squeeze a child, make them spit out sticky glue thread and stitch those leaves together. I just love school. I love the idea of it. You have all these ants pulling these leaves together.

To imagine like a Pixar movie of of this, all these ants together, but instead and then you like you have all right, Joe, bring in, bring in the glue glue team, And then they all have babies that they're squeezing the butts and just going sick the leaf together. We're good, next baby, bring in the next baby. So they keep adding leaves until they're happy with the nest size. And these can be quite big, so colonies can include

over a hundred nests and span over multiple trees. So on the you can also see the image of the the aunt with the little larva and its mouth and it's just kind of going back and forth and back and forth with that sticky thread. And then you can see like a whole bunch of leaves. I'd say there's like fifty leaves. They're all stitched together in this giant ball. Okay, so guys, when she was explaining like squeezing the baby, I was picturing like on the scene, you know, the

seam of a leaf who touched the sea. But this is like when you crazy glue with a child and you're like back back and forth across the span of the leaf. It's cross stitching with larva butt. And then we have like the the actual nest looks more it's it's more pop art. Wow, this is beautiful. This would make a great d I Y video, though, like how to how to like d I Y your own home

with baby butt. I'm imagine people like be like, oh, let me get some larva and some tweezers and we'll just squeeze and there you go, baby back in your container. It's still not as wacky as some of those d I Y videos. Or it's like here, cut a soda bottle in half. Now, now take a box of cereal and pulp it and then stick it in the bottle, and now you have a steam engine. The weirdest one I saw was a shredded hot dogs with a paper clip.

Why then they put it in an egg mixture, and then I like that in a waffle maker, and then they had like egg hot dog waffle stack, and then they covered that in melted beer cheese. It's the tower of babel, I'm telling you this is These d i y videos are our tower of babble, and some kind of cosmic being is going to strike us down like these are insufferable hot dog waffle You have gone too

far humanity. While keeping social distance is good for our health, in terms of the spread of COVID nineteen, it's tough on mental health. So how can you stay mentally and physically healthy while staying in relative isolation. First of all, don't let the isolation and all the cancelation make you feel doomed. The fact that big gatherings are getting canceled is actually a very very good sign that people are

taking this seriously and this will help slow outbreaks. Personally, I would be much more panicked if it weren't happening. School shutting down isn't apocalyptic, it's preventative. Right now in China, the number of new cases is going down, so it's possible to get this thing under control. Secondly, keep in touch with your friends and family. Call people and actually speak to them on the phone. I know it's weird when we're so used to texting, but it's important to

hear other people's voices. Have them here yours, and if you can use video calls, that would be great too. A study published in The Lancet looked at the psychological effects of quarantine and advises that communication with loved ones and friends helps reduce the negative impacts of quarantine. And remember when you call someone, you're helping them out as well. If you can try to stay in communication with your

social group and colleagues. Having a big support group and still feeling like you're a part of the community you're normally a part of is very important. Also, remember that if you have the ability to self isolate, your helping others, so you should take care of yourself, play some of your favorite games, do things that are relaxing for you, and try not to stay completely plugged into the news.

Reach out to other people, cuddle your pets, take care of your house plants, and look at adorable pictures of sea bunnies. Seriously google that you will not be disappointed. When we return, we'll look at some animal homes made out of sticks in mucus. When did people start constructing homes? According to some archaeologists, it was around one point eight

million years ago by some proto humans. At Oldo Pie, archaeologists discovered a circle of stones in a sunken spot of earth, leading some anthropologists to think that it's the foundation to some sort of ancient hut. Other anthropologists think this stone circle may have been made by accident by trees growing and pushing rocks in a circle. Personally, I think it's tree aliens, aliens disguised as trees who are making secret stone circles to confuse our scientists. I've got evidence,

I've got proof. Go to go to www dot tree aliens dot org, dot geo cities, slash angel fire dot com. Let's get into the conspiracy. I love it. So now I want to talk about some animal homes that are made out of sticks and also mucus too. So have you ever heard of bagworms? So they are a family of moth larva species. There are over a thousand species of bagworms and they all make these really interesting protective cases made out of silk and materials that they find.

So I want you to look in the dock and look at those little little log cabins. Okay, so those are actual like sticks that they built into a hole. Yes, that is made by an insect. That is imagine if instead of like a four door or a four wall structure of a log cabin, they were like, we're gonna make like a twisty spiral of logs. And it looks amazing. It's kind of like a pyramid. It looks like it looks like a helix, a double helix. Like, oh yeah,

but made out logs. Anytimes see the double helix in nature, You're like, how we're all really connected. It's like DNA but made out of twigs. Man, We're all, we're all, we're all the same on this planet Earth. We call this ship we call a planet earth Man. Just having the galaxy together is when you did so cool. Yeah. So the there's a lot of creativity that happens with what bag rooms can make their casing out of. So

this is just some species that use twigs. Um, but I do want to talk about them because I absolutely adore their little constructions here. So, Clinia crimeria is a bag worm native to India who carefully constructs a spiraling, tapering tower of tiny twigs. They purposefully collect twigs of the right sizes to make a log cabin that starts at the base with these thick logs, which are they're still really really tiny, like the scale of it, it's hard to tell from the photos, but they aren't logs.

They're they're just like twigs and probably like I don't know, under a quarter inch long, uh, pretty tiny, like think of a little little teeny tiny moth and then like

an even tinier tinier and larva. So it's it's about that size little teeny tiny fairy like fairy cabins, and they will get increasingly thinner and shorter, uh and kind of spiral at the top to a tapered point, and they live like they kind of stick out of the base of this little cabin and they can actually walk around like a turtle, but their shell is made out

of a log cabin. Okay, if you've seen Howl's moving castle picture, like instead of like a steampunk tech sort of front vibe, like it's all natural and that's exactly what you're getting. Like it's kind of looks like a beetle, but also mixed with an otter. He's got like weird whiskers on his face. Yeah. No, Howl's Moving Castle is a really good I love I love that movie, by

the way. Yeah, he's I love him too. I think that is one of my favorite I do like Spirited Away to Speired Away is such a classic and it's beautiful, but there's something very much about like an awkward young woman who feels like an old lady. Yes, I love it, who's like in love with angry boys? Come on, you get me, love me some angry boys. But yeah, I also just love the creativity of all his little critters

and creatures that he has in his movies. But yeah, absolutely this does look like a Howl's moving castle made out of beetles and twigs so they can move around hunt. Uh. The female bag worms actually live in this little structure for their entire lives. They will curl up in their little log cabins. Even after they pupate into adults. They will mate, lay eggs, and disintegrate inside their homes, which

is basically like my life right now. Waca waca. So the females pupate into their adult form, which is typically wingless and just chill out there for a few weeks, which also happens to be their entire lifespan and adult bag works like. Don't feel too bad for the females though, because even though the males get to go out of their little log cabins, they only live for two days, so they are they can fly on. Like the females. They're fuzzy black with transparent wings, and they really only

need two days to get their business done. And that business is mating meat, meat and mate, and then you're done. And it's a real hardcore twinter thing, like hey, looking for someone to like may and then immediately die afterwards with thanks. Listen, it's our life just sped up fast. And that is that like darker inspiring. I carently tell

I'm gonna go inspiring. Yeah, listen. They live a full life and days so many days to try maybe to them though, like they're like like like we're just like these huge giants that move really slow, and they're just like to them, two days is like forever. They're like these idiots, it's our seven get it together, all right, My wings already sprouted. I love in a bug's life, there's like a, uh, do do you remember that they had a fly at some I guess at a nightclub

or performance thing, and like they disliked the performance. Are like, I spent half of my life here is after the circus and they all got into the street. Yes, I just have one more photo of this log Cabinet's just it's so crazy, right, it's like this. It looks like it was made by a personally, like a little fairy

in a fairy garden. It's so lovely, and the size it seems like impressive that they're able to carry all of this too and balance it, and like if you're thinking about how do they build it on the outside of their body? It's weird too because they all have films, y'all. So how they used their sticky butt silk to keep

it together? Yeah? I wonder if stuff like this. Now I don't have any evidence, this is all speculation, but I wonder if this is like things like this, maybe not this exactly, but like little constructs like this is what made people think about like tiny fairies and little little tiny people. I think almost it must have been like the little weird things you find in nature, particularly when you don't have internet or large printing presses to

let you know, like you know what's happening. Your imagination runs with you. And and honestly, if you've ever spent extended time in nature, particularly if you come from like a a city or a more like urbanized space, there is fields magical out there. Like I went to the Redwoods recently and I was like, oh, wow, magic is real and it is there, and it's different from what you expect. Like in the Redwood forest there's bright green like in that grows off the trees. It looks almost artificial.

It's such a bright green almost yeah beautiful, but yeah, I mean, I know, like some legends about fairies are from how mushrooms will grow in circles, and that's just sort of due to the root structure of these these fungal colonies. But like they'll see this little circle of like toadstools and think like, oh, that's a fairy ring and that they all sit on these little toadstools or dance around in a ring, and that causes these circles.

I love human intervention. The idea of like interpreting these things is or like weird gifts or even like the Irish being like a way of dealing with sick babies that you couldn't help be like, oh, well this is a change link. I gotta go take it back to the forest. So fairy will my rightful baby, and like if it didn't, then okay, well that's fine. My baby is living forever with the fairies and very peaceful, loving life. Yeah. We did. We did some in the pass and we

were we were always thinking with our correct brain. Well, speaking of another animal that cares for its young in an interesting way, I want to talk about the African bullfrog, which is the ultimate introvert who creates home out of mucus. Home sweet home. So they are found all over the continent of Africa. So African bullfrogs are big old boys. The male's way up to four point five pounds and they can live up to like I've seen estimates up

to forty five years or thirty five years and frog. Yeah, and they'll pretty much eat everything they can stick in their big old mounts. So snakes, small birds, reptiles, rodents, smaller amphibians, their own children or your hand. Okay, don't mess with a bullfrog. They actually have sharp teeth that which aren't really teeth there, like these three large tooth like projections from their lower jaw. What that really hurt

when they bite you. So the females can lay up to four thousand eggs at a time, and the male will actually help with the child wearing, so they'll stand guard over the eggs and tadpoles when they hatch. But once in a while, you know, look, dad's dad's got to have have his snacks, and so he will occasionally indulge in eat a few of the tadpoles. So many animals that are just like I had to eat a baby. Look, look, you know it's hard your baby. You're like taking care

of the kids all day. Who's gonna blame you for eating a couple? I mean, when there's four thousand of them and you eat a few, I mean, come on, I don't know. I think it's but they are actually like kind of good fathers other than the eating some of their children, because they will painstakingly dig a channel from a pool of like if the tadpoles start to get dried out, like their little pool of water starts to evaporate, and they're a great risk of like being

dried out and dying. So the male will dig a channel from the drying pool to a larger pond or a bigger body of water and just kind of painstakingly dig dig dig this channel so that the water will flow in and save his babies. Wow. Yeah, And if he eats a couple, I think he's earned it, you know, the nutritious uh he gave life, you could take it away you under roof, I eat you sometimes exactly. That's

like our parents said, you're grounded to my mouth. So to protect themselves during dry season, they will dig holes and hibernate from ten months to up to two years. It's hibernation being lazy, get together frogs. So there's a problem though, of hibernating during dry season. And they do want to hibernate because dry season is not great for an animal who breathes through their mucus soaked skin, So they need mucus on their skin to help them breathe.

They extract oxygen from the air through gas exchange, and the mucus on their skin helps them absorb dissolved oxygen from the air. And they also do have nostrils and lungs that they can breathe through, but that's not really going to help them that much when they're hibernating underground. So, uh, they will build mucus cocoons for themselves, which is a big old ball and mucus that will keep the frog from drying out during hibernation. Cool. Cool you yeah, big old,

big mucus. Welcome to the podcast about Cute Animals. So the mucus cocoon actually becomes solid and it will only soften up when the rainy season returns, and that signals the bullfrog to wake up and emerge from its mucous cocoon unscathed but disgusting skincare routines and actually, so there's like some skincare products made out of snail slime. Have

you seen that? Yeah, yeah, it's like the ideas that I think, like snail slime has some properties at least for the snail where it helps their skin heal, and so the ideas if we put it on our faces, then our skin also heals. Not exactly sure of the science of it, I have, out of morbid curiosity, tried it. I couldn't really tell a difference to be not to cast the spurgeons on it. Maybe it were I don't know.

I'm not gonna like. I'm just saying, I'm not sure there is hard evidence that putting snail slime on your face will help you with wrinkles. I don't know if it will hurt unless you're allergic if your snails don't on your face. Snails also just don't like harass snails. You know what I mean, you're harassing snails. I'm saying, don't though, like, don't be like, oh, snail slime is good for my skin, and like pick up a snail.

Snails goes like, hello, friend, what are you all good? No? No, no, no no, that probably has to be processed and I don't know that. Don't do it. I don't know if anyone is doing it. But don't start. Don't start doing it. Please don't y yes, we we said no. We are not legally liable for anyone. It doesn't don't don't. Don't see what snails a little snail lawyer, snail snail it law. Now we're in b movie. You have snail lawyers. Yeah.

I want to make emotion very slowly. Some of our most incredible human structures are made out of natural living resources. A living root bridge is a suspension bridge. Made out of live tree roots found in Megalia, India. They're made from the massive roots of rubber fig trees. Builders guide the roots to interlock with the roots of another tree across the river or to the stones and land mass on the other side. These bridges are very strong against

weather and decay as they are alive and strengthen. Over time, the roots will grow and thicken and conjoin until it creates a very sturdy structure that can support a lot of weight. There's even a huge double deck or root bridge two root bridges stacked on top of each other, and you don't have to pay for upkeep. The living bridges are self renewing and sustainable. When we return, we'll talk about some little birdies who make their houses out of bricks and poop. As children, we were taught that

a homemade out of bricks is the smartest choice. But those little piggies could have gotten even more creative as there are some homes made out of innovative materials. Recycled rubber tires have been used, plastic bottles, recycled newspaper. There's even a Buddhist temple, the watt Pamaha Chetti Kawa Temple in Thailand made out of recycled beer bottles. There's even been attempts to use corn cobs as a replacement for wood. So now let's look at how animals use interesting and

unexpected materials to build their homes. So I don't talk to you about the red oven bird. Hute name very cute, kind of sounds like a recipe. Yeah, eighties a bird covered in hot cheetos. That actually sounds kind of good. Someone did it for Thanksgiving. One I did not partake is something I saw online. It looks beautiful. It's like oranges, crusty golden bird. Uh, if you tried it, let us know.

I feel like I feel like this is another Tower of Babbel situation that we're getting into, Like we're doing our crazy d I wise shredding wieners and making weener waffles and like now doing like hot cheetos turkeys. I don't know. Again, I think like tower of Babble, it's going to come crashing down on us. Yeah, it definitely came crashing down on somebody. There's indigestion involved, bad toilet times. So the South American bird lives in these structures that

kind of look like ovens. They will mate in monogamous pairs for life and build cozy little mud home so pretty adorable. Their homes are domes made out of mud and clay with a side entrance and an inner chamber for the eggs, and they sometimes reinforce it with plant material as well. So if you scroll down you can see these little home. These are so cute. First of all, shout out to telephone poles for being homes for birds.

They're so important for birds. Literally never thought about how birds were like, oh tall, like leafless tree structure and other animals can't climb for me, you know, it's funny. A lot of people ask why do birds sit on telephone wires? And I've been asked that, and it's like, because they like to sit on tall things and there's not a tree there. That's it's just available their homes. Again feeling sixties modern cheek. There's yeah, very mod three

like holes. Uh, basically if you stacked like three I don't know what those like clay oven pots are called kiva's Maybe yes, if you were to sack them, you can look at a little hole, but then they attach on the inside. That would be the spird's nest. Yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty incredible. So these domes can actually last for years because they're made out of a pretty sturdy material of that mud and plant kind of creating this like bird concrete, and they can actually also be used

by other birds once they're abandoned. But it's interesting. So I think why you're seeing these little little ovens stacked one on top of each other is that with each new brood, so every time they lay a new batch of eggs, they will build a new home for these new eggs. Keep building new homes, stay in their older siblings rooms. You're like, no, no, we'll just build you guys your own room exactically. I love that though. Not having to share a room with your stinky brother excellent.

I'm just kidding, brother, I love you. You know how they like travel with the mud or because it's like stacked on top of a telephone poll But I don't how do they move, But I think it's similar to that the weaver birds where they just make many, many trips, so they just kind of gather it up in their beaks and like slap it down and go back and

get more. It's it's very labor intensive yes, and really cute is that the mated pair will often sit on top of their oven and sing duets together and pick sorry this is the next exactly, And you know, I'm not actually sure why they do that. My gifts would be to strengthen their pair bond, to like, which is something birds due to kind of like they when they're monogamous and they form these long term relationships, they do

these things to kind of strengthen their connection and their bond. Listen, you can't end date night just because you got married, exactly to keep things fresh. So all you couples out there, stuck at home, self isolating, sting together, do it sent us video Come on and Slam and Welcome to the gym. It's so so like so my boyfriend I will trick him into leading me into that song sometimes, like calling up a jar of gym and be like what is this? He's like, what do you mean? It's it's gym and

slam and welcome to the gym. So it's a it's a consistent troll I've got going on. Um and that that's the of course the themes on to space jam in case you don't know, in case you're so lame. You don't know, please please fix your lady it is at some point. Yeah, but like also he wanted some more jam from the store, so I bought some and in the fridge I put a sign that said come on and slam and welcome to the and then just like the jam was under it's Yeah, are so cute.

So another adorable bird pair are the hornbills. So hornbills are that zazoo type bird like from the lion king, who live in tropical regions in Asia and Africa. So there are many different species of hornbill. The one you're probably thinking of are the ones with like that big, like weird bulky thing right on top of their beak, and that big bulky beak actually really helps them to fight, hunt,

and construct their elaborate nest. So a little bit about at hornbill beak now differs from species to species, but they typically have a hollow protrusion on the upper bill called a cask, which in some species just helped strengthen the bill, but in others it's so big it can act as a resonance chamber for louder calls, and in helmeted hornbills, the cask is actually not hollow and isn't filled with what's called hornbill ivory, which is a hard keratin and it is these casks that are just solid

are used as battering rams in jousting matches with rival males. So these are multi functional and multi purpose bills that very amongst species, but one of the most common things that they are used for is to build their weird, isolated nests. So hornbills are typically monogamous and they work together to ensure the safety of their eggs and chicks.

So female hornbills will find a tree hollow and leg their eggs and to make sure that snakes and other predators don't get their eggs and chicks, they will work together to seal the female in with her eggs. What's that like, Poe story the cask of manta or yeah, yeah, yeah, where they seal the guy in the tunnels under paris.

Yeah exactly. Yeah, it's like that, only lovely and sweet, right, So they will so they will use mud, poop and fruit pulp to create this kind of weird concrete and seal off the entrance of this tree hollow and before it gets too small, the female will actually squeeze into the cavity and she'll sit in there, and then they will continue to build up this entrance until it almost completely cements her in and it just leaves a teeny tiny hole just big enough for the male to basically

drop a little bits of food in through, so it's so small that snakes and other editors can't get in, and the male just has to kind of like boop, put a little berry in this hole so that he can feed the female and the chicks. And at this point, the female becomes completely reliant on the mail to go out and get food and bring it back because she can't. Thought, yeah, bring back all the non nutritious food. You're gonna be like, babe,

not burgers again. Yeah? Yeah, fresh fruit. He's like, I asked for berries, not oops, all berries, cap and cron come on. So, when the chicks are grown and big enough to leave the nest, the female will kool aid Man style burst out of this concrete while just like oh yeah, motherhood over. Oh my goodness. Okay, So worst case scenario is something happens to the dad the female at anytime, who's break down, be like listen, I'm hungry, I have to get out of here. Yeah, you know,

it's an interesting question. She might abandon her nest, but you know, unfortunately, like she might stay there and just kind of like keep hoping, and you know, could have a tragic ending. So it's really important for that mail to go out and get food. But yeah, yeah, it's a I'm not sure exactly what the strategy. I mean, my strategy would be a kool aid style burst out of there, find that male and give him a stern billing to with my big old beak. Okay, cool, Well,

I'm glad she has a way out. And when she's ready. That scared me. I was like, you have to break her out or do the baby birds like have special I don't know, juice dissolve it. Listen, I never know what you're gonna bring me. It's always wild and she bursts out there like a hulk. I mean, can you imagine how satisfying that is? Like your birds are ready to leave the nest and you're like, I am out of here, but he's got to be ripe to like

it's so much time in a very confined space. She's like, I have the shower and he watched his babies because I'm done now. So Finally, I want to talk about an animal who not only builds really interesting home, but like they look like pieces of art. So the cat is fly is a insect that is similar to the bagworm in that their larva builds protective casings. So catus flies are an order of insects with over twelve thousand species,

and the adults are moth like flying insects. They're related to, but not contained within, the order Lepidoptera, which is moths and butterflies, and they are actually the titular flies that the bait and fly fishing is meant to imitate. And the reason is that the catus fly is partially aquatic, so their larva and pupa are aquatic with gills that

they evolved after being terrestrial to evade land predation. So they first evolved terrestrial breathing apparatus and then they're like, oh dang, no, thank you and went back into the water because of all the predation. So most spectacular are the catisfly cases. So these are hard portable homes that the aquatic lava make to tech themselves. So they're made out of silk, saliva, and basically anything they can find. So this can be sand, pebbles, snail shells, plant material.

Some of them are even like the Crimeria bagworm that builds those little log cabins, except it makes it out of aquatic plant stems. And so if you scroll down you can actually see some example of these things. Stunning right Oh whoa the one I mean, like out of

what looks to be plant stems, it's so unique. It looks it's I'm having trouble describing it, but it looks like a weird It looks like a salad you would get at like a way too fancy restaurant, like a tasting menu menu, like at Spago or something where they're like, here's real salad that has been constructed into a tessaract. Some of these look like um oh gosh, I just have the word, I want to say, collages, but fancier.

Uh mosaics. Yeah, some of them look like mosaics. This one with the shells, it's kind of like, yeah, compact. And then the one with like whoever found this giant purple stone to put right at the top of his head? Is honestly like, I love it. One of my favorite colors. It's a beautiful accent to it's just like and this big stone button stones are kind of like earth tone colored, and this one is like just a beautiful purple Lady Gaga of cats beautiful. Holy crap, Sorry, I'm getting to

the second level. Well, this requires some explanations. So to demonstrate that they'll basically use anything in their environment, there is an interesting art piece by French artist Hubert Dup where he collected cattisfly larva, stuck them in an aquarium and planted a bunch of precious materials in their environment so they would build beautiful cases made of pearls, gold, opal and other precious gems. So in these photos you

can see they've got it's like this. They look like like jewelry because they've used like gold and they've lined their little bull larval bodies with gold and pearls and gems and they are really boogie. If you've ever had the privilege of seeing like very ancient jewelry, like the stuff um like the first um, oh gosh, what is the first pharaohs of Egypt? Like the early ones before became like a major plays or like for everyone discovered Egypt, where everyone was like, oh, this is our homeland to

um or like very early Greek stuff. It's like sort of they flattened out the gold pieces. It almost looks hammered in places, which obviously these guys are not picking up hammers um. And then they've wove been like gorgeous pearls and this blue sort of like opally thing. Oh my gosh, like really artsy brooches you want to specially, I thought they were. They thought they were like brooch. I call it a brooch. I don't know if there's an appropriate way. I don't know if there's a right

way I am. I'm really kind of revealing how unfancy a person I am that I don't even know what a brooches this. It does look like a brooch. I would wear this the bread, no katy, I've been wearing bread on me this whole time. It's super embarrassing. I thought it was the fancy thing to do. This is gorgeous. Like I didn't think anything a bug could create whatever

fuel trendy, but designers could use. I want to know like what their processes like, if they are just like slapping it on any alware, or if they there's some amount of intention. There seems to be some pattern, but not a lot. I don't know if the pearls were stranded first, you know what, I can't tell if it's a strand of pearls that they sort of woven in, or if they have individual pearls. I mean, they're using their sticky, sticky silk as as is often the case,

to attach these to their body. But yeah, I almost wonder if there is a pattern. I actually don't know this again wild speculation. My favorite thing to do on the podcast is that they probably try to make it as close to their environment as possible while still making it a protective casing. So it's both a level of camouflage and protection. So they probably want hard materials that

protects their soft bodies but also camouflage. So if they can get things kind of stacked up in there that I guess like is a nice random distribution of their environment that's still protective. Yeah, I don't know, because like like they seem to be kind of putting a bunch of gems around and and kind of clusters and maybe thinking like this will look this will look natural, and this my aquarium full of fancy gemstones. I definitely see that.

I was trying to figure out like it doesn't seem to be like a weight distribution thing at all, because one of them has some pearls like the head one on the very button one sort of in the middle. Uh, the stones don't seem to but the color seems sort of equally distributed, like where the blue is sort of like place evenly throughout. These are really fast, Like I could stay at these all days. I know, I know

it was beautiful. I kind of want one, right, Oh no, actually I would even take one of I'm going back to the photos now of the natural materials and like kind of comparing and contrasting. Very similar, would apps I would take any like this most gorgeous ever seen by animal before? I know, I mean, like, I know these are aquatic, so I couldn't have one live on me as a brooch on my chest, but I kind of want. Dude,

it has vacated. Maybe I could get like like bagworms that the other insects we talked about are terrestrials, So maybe I could get like a bagworm friend and have it live on me and be like I approach and I could go to a fancy party and be like, oh who are you wearing? And it's like, why column FAMMI, I would actually really love to see this us the bell of the ball, the bell of the ball covered in bugs. Well, thank you so much for joining me today,

Joel turving me back. Yeah, I hope this kind of makes people feel a little better about being stuck in their homes, because you know, we ain't alone on this earth. Lots of other animals are huddling in and making it work, getting through the day, making it work by filling it with precious gems and poop. So yes, fill your homes with precious gems, love, laughter, and poop. So you got

anything you want to plug? Uh? Yeah, you know. Keep listening to the podcast here and I heard Nerdificent Night Call is going to be if you guys are concerned about COVID and want to hear more at the developments happened. My call releases every Monday, and they are really the deep dive. This Monday, they'll have a call with UM, a doctor who kind of gives them like advice about like what do you want to be concerned about? What's

not so to be concerned about? How can you you UM continue to live a normal life while practicing social distancing which was really converting to me. Uh, and you know, we've got a lot of new inside stuff to coming up. So you can follow me on Twitter at Gela Monique and I'll give you guys see updates there. Yeah. Yeah, I think we are very very fortunate enough to be in an industry where we actually can keep doing stuff remotely, and I think that is a great privilege that we

get to keep keep doing stuff. And I'm absolute. I really appreciate everyone who is still listening to the podcast, and I am really rooting for everyone out there. You can follow us on Twitter at Creature Pod f a t not Feet something very different rolls on Instagram. I might go a little star crazy at home, so I'll probably post a lot of pictures in my dog, so please do check that out. It's Creature Feature Pod on Instagram. You can follow me on Twitter Katie Golden just some

of my Katie thoughts. I uh, you don't really if I mean, if you don't want to peek behind the curtain see all my Katie thoughts, I do not blame you, but if you do, I'm at Katie Colden on Twitter, you definitely do. And of course, as always, I am at pro bird writes, where listen birds, we we got it going on. We know birds know what they're doing. I think we should all just become slightly more be

the bird you want to see in the world. So, just so you know, as far as I know and and what my plans are is to continue to release the show every week, and I really appreciate you guys

still tuning in. And yeah, if and if you're enjoying the show, one way you can really help me out is rate, review, subscribe, and download the podcast like it's It doesn't seem like it does anything because you're just clicking buttons, but it actually really super helps me get up in those algorithms, and that is so important for me to keep this podcast going. So thank you guys so much for listening, and I will see you next Wednesday. Fet Your feature is a production of I Heart Radio.

For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the heart radio website I Heard Radio Apple wherever you're listening to your dang old podcasts. Thanks to the Space Cossacks for their super spooky song Exo Lumina. See you next Wednesday.