Hot Fuzz

Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show Hot Fuzz, we're talking about wuffy animals who manage cairdoos without hair per se. That's right. These are furries without the fur, critters that look really petible, but you probably shouldn't. So how do you get fuzzy

Welcome, what's up? Hello, let's go. I probably just clipped my mic, but that's okay.

All right, we're getting mad hyped for fluff on this show. We're talking fuzzy guys, and these aren't mammals, so it's not technically fur, but boy, they're bringing it. They're bringing the fluff. Look in like the sort of Paris Hilton wearing.

Was it?

Like? I think it was fake fur? Maybe it's real for I'm not really sure, but it's very Paris Hilton.

Yeah, the like a like a fluffy boa for a moment. Yeah, the the like gothic, sort of like widowed, like standing in the doorway with a glass of wine, answering the door, like very suspiciously. Yeah, going my husband, No idea where he was that evening.

My husband's been missing for a you would you like to see my rose garden? It's been nice and in the shape of a single funeral plot.

Always with that cigarette that's like a foot Yeah, the one on the cigarette holder that she has, and she kind of like makes little shapes.

In the air with it, Like, of course I didn't murder my husband. I'm too busy planting roses in the shape of a human body outside.

I have no idea where who was that evening? For the questions, no one.

Eh, how I hated him and would have benefited financially from his death.

So that's that's what the vibes of these crabs are. I'm gonna say. So we're first, we're going crab Ellen. You ready for crab?

I have never been more ready for crabs.

It's crab times. We've talked about crabs on the show. How the Universe the arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards crab. These crabs are perhaps my favorite crab now that I've learned what they are. These are fuffy crabs with sponge chats.

Now, the image you've provided for me is putting a lot of work in. There's a lot of heavy lifting being done by this image, and so it's so good the word picture. Okay, So the lower crab, the lower image is a crab with arms outstretched, sort of like if a crab could t pose. It's in sort of like a has arms sort of straight out in front of it, like it is perhaps like Superman flying through

A lovely crabby lump. So, yes, these are We're going to talk about both of them. Let's first talk about the one with the fluff and the lumps. So this is Lamark Dromia beagle. It is a spies. Yeah, it's Lamark Dromia beagle. It's a say species of crab that has two amazing things going for it. It wears a completely vegan fur coat and then a not exactly vegan hat made from a living sea sponge.

That's an animal product for sure, Yeah, it's it is.

I guess it's still technically an animal product if it's alive, right, Like, uh.

Now, I think there's a suffering component to be considered here, Like I think it has to be, like because I don't know if the animals not suffering, is that is that vegan friendly?

You know? Like because in this situation, the sponge is fine, it's alive, it's getting a free piggyback ride. It is technically a hat though, so I don't know if I would call it a vegan hat. But it's also not.

Like being exploited.

It's being It is in a way being exploited for both fashion and also to protect it from potential predators. But as far as I understand it, the sponge is okay and possibly but it's great. The sponge is doing just fine, possibly benefiting from it. I don't know how strong the evidence is of the sponge benefiting, but it does get a free move around, and it maybe has more access to filter feeding options and gets distributed in

It is everything's coming up, sponge, everything great for this.

It's kind of like if mister Crabs had like a super seventies beard and hairstyle and like war SpongeBob as a hat. And I'm sure there's already art online of that that you don't want to look at, So yeah.

Don't look up mister Crabs and SpongeBob Fani.

Yeah, don't, Yeah, just don't. Mister Crab's wearing SpongeBob. Not a good idea, don't do it, sad search, bad search, and then yeah. But this crab, called the Lamark Dromia beagle is not called that because it looks like a little fluffy puppy crab, even though that certainly certainly helps.

Anyways, he was ahead of his time, that's all. We were ready for him. We were ready.

He was a time traveler, and he was like, I believe if you have a swool giraffe, it's gonna have a baby's pool giraffe. Because he didn't really understand what was going on. So, uh, this crab was discovered in Western Australia in twenty twenty two. So this is a recent discovery.

Uh, wake up, babe, wake up new crab. Just trup you fluffy crab.

Just dropped in Australia. Are you surprised? It's Australia and all the cool stuff they really do. So Uh, it's only about nine millimeters wide, so it's it's pretty little. That's probably why it hasn't been discovered before. There's just so many different crabs.

Uh.

It is covered in golden fur and it's a sponge crab, meaning it wears that sponge on its back. There are many species of sponge crabs, most of them are not fluffy like this though, so sponge crabs have specifically adapted tiny hook like back claws back legs that they use to hold sponges onto their backs, which provide them camouflage and protect protection from predators, especially when they choose species of sponges which have toxic compounds in them that definitely

I've heard that. I talked to a biologist who worked with freshwater sponges, and she mentioned that if you were to kind of like you know, I don't know, squeeze or like, you know, feel the texture of a sponge, it would feel very gritty because they're made of a lot of like silica, Yeah, a lot of like glass like structures, so it would be very it would be like just kind of crunching on fiberglass. I guess.

Yeah. It's like when you see insulation as a kid and you're like, that looks like hot and candy, and then you stick all your mouth and then boom, you've got mess with thelma.

Childhood is a series of discoveries about like the differences between something looking tasty and being tasty.

I still contend that those little white crusty things in dirt are pretty good. They tasted pretty good. They're like some kind of fertilizer. Don't eat them, they're bad.

Squad rise up.

Yeah, I like you dirt.

It's it's it's the little egg pieces from the Wingspan game for me. Yeah, just I want to put them in my mouth.

I do appreciate it now when restaurants make sort of like a dirt crumble around ice cream, because I'm like, yes.

That's exactly what I want to think, thank you. So yeah, don't eat sponges, don't eat sponges, and don't eat dirt.

I'm gonna say you can get I do.

I feel like I've heard a lot of I've heard a lot about crabs putting other sessile creatures just right on their old noggin. I feel like this is a thing. Crabs are really.

Yes, like pom pom crabs sessile. It means anything that basically latches itself onto a rock and they're like, I'm good for the rest of their life and they just sit there like sn Enemies say like sea squirts do that, sponges do that, coral they're all sessile. Uh And yeah, there are a lot of crabs that make you say of that, like the pom pom crabs that they hold little sea an enemies on their little front claus like

And then this it's an infinite glitch.

It really is. And they feed them and it's it's like having a sentient pair of gloves. Uh. And these ones, well they're maybe sentient is possibly overstated there for sea enemies, but yes, so sponge crabs, they wear sponges on their hats. I highly recommend uh you look up sponge crabs online. I'll have the picture of the fluffy one. But there's so many different flavors of these guys and I love all of them. They're all like they're like the little

You can't go wrong.

They're like great, they like sea cobalds. I love them so uh yeah, they also look so grumpy. They you mean my head alone, don't you dog me? Don't you do me here by head? Ever again?

I do like how often crabs come upon an animal just sitting there minding its own business, and you're coming with me. Let's go, let's ride.

We're rolling a damn jen.

You're going. I like the crab character my sponge.

Road little boot lega some sea moon can. I can only do this for so long before my throat gives out.

I love this little guy.

He's amazing. I love sponge crabs are incredible.

You didn't tell me you had another guest booked for this episode. That's incredible, snake sponge crab.

So the reason it has fluff, well, it was discovered in twenty twenty two. So the basic answer is we don't know. Nobody really knows yet, but the guess is that it might help them camouflage better. It might make their outline more indistinct. So like when a predator comes up, it's like, this thing is covered in a sponge and it's furry. I don't know what's going on here, and the spongecrab is like heye, Kevin. So this is an

Uh.

Yeah, this is yet another victim of carsonization who has gone I shouldn't say victim, another beneficiary of carsonization. Yeah, this is the Yeti crab. And it's called a Yeti crab because it looks like a crab, but technically it is not a real crab. Uh. It's in its own family of weird hairy arm decapods. Like it's just its own thing.

Uh it is it is, Yeah, pioneer.

It's Kineff all right. So it's found in the depths of the South Pacific Ocean on the ocean four at about two thousand, two hundred meters below, so that's like seven thousand, two hundred feet. It's deep down in there, and it's about five inches long. Its arms are like most of its body length. They are blind, and their

That's so cool.

Yeah, So it's it's really fascinating. And the reason I bring them up is because I suspect we'll find some kind of interesting quality about the the Beagle the Beagle crabs in terms of what they use that hair for. It could be just for camouflage, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was. If we found some interesting bacterial growth in there, that could be another example of symbiosis

Just it's the more the merrier with crab exactly.

Well, we are going to take a quick break and when we get back, Ellen is going to drop some dope moth facts on me.

Mouths. All right, we are back.

It's moth time.

It's moth time. It's real moth hours. I hope you're listening to this at night, because that would be real moth hours. Yeah, there's a isn't there a Star Wars person named moth mon Mathma.

Mon Mathma, Is he a mothman? I would love that ona.

Unfortunately they're not brave enough to put moth doesn't he.

Doesn't have just like a moth. He's you know, they really.

Well, mon Mathma is a woman.

Okay, it's mon Mathma mom Yathma.

Yeah, yeah, have fun trying to say that wars on Mathma.

Oh, she's just a lady. That's disappointing. She should have had big moth eyes at least, and like.

Cre more moth elements, I feel it, really they.

Really drop the ball on that, and I really want mothman to be cast in movies more.

You know, we need more roles for cryptid actors.

We do need more roles for cryptid Cryptid representation, I think is a good idea. So so let's let's talk about moths. Uh, they're basically fluffy butterflies.

I'm gonna say butterflies exactly. You switched to night mode, right, Yeah, So Lepidopterans or the family of the moths and the butterflies, and the butterflies are the ones that are more active in the day, so they're bright and colorful, and then the moths are usually the ones that are more active

I mean, it's fluff, Ellen, It's just fluff.

It's so often during like while doing like research for this, I was like, what does it matter? What the difference?

Like, it's flocking. You dip you dip him in hot mod podge and then you flock them.

It's like functionally, you know, it works so similarly to hair or feathers or things like that. So for for moths and for butterflies also, their coating is made up of lots and lots of tiny, tiny elongated scales. So even what looks like hair on their body, those are just long, skinny scales. And I think sort of a key difference between like the scales and how like hair would be is that they are they're not just growing

So are they like a dandelion where if you pick up one of these guys and blow hard enough, all of that fluff is just gonna come off because it's so loosely attached.

I feel like you'd have to blow really hard for that.

But get out, my heart driver.

Put one of these dudes in one of those like wind tunnels.

Oh, the poor little babies, don't they're too cute.

Don't do that, they are cute.

I don't want tunnel.

I don't want anything bad to happen to a moth ever, I.

Know, I know, just sit them in one of those like G force training units for sending off astronauts.

That does seem like something some board scientists with with like a spare grant.

Yeah, it's a little proboscous, like waggling behind them.

With the moths they got those fluffy antennas would just be like spirally like like a dog with its head out the window. So cute, They're so cute and so okay. So there's a few different reasons why moths have this fluff, which can be all over their body even like they can even have like fluffy wings, which is pretty interesting to see. Oh. But so moths are typically nocturnal. They're out at night and during the nighttime temperatures are cooler. It is a lot colder than it is during the daytime.

It's the classic move like if say, you know someone's got you buy your jacket, you just slip out of your jacket.

I'm not saying a Scooby Doo move.

It's a Scooby Doo move. I'm saying I'm not encouraging people to use this move, you know, to say get out of doing righteous crimes. But you know, if you were doing a righteous crime and someone grabbed you by the jacket. If you slip out of your jacket.

Jackets are always doing righteous crimes.

If the jacket don't fit, you must have quit. I'm not a tire.

That's a real Cinderella crime right there. You leave your jacket behind, and they have to like gokay, all of the princesses checking to see whose jacket is.

Whose dope bath denim jacket is this?

They have to try it on everybody to.

Say, yeah, I've got a panther patch on it.

They're just checking to see who's cool. Yea jacket I just wanted to know. So they can pull the scooby Doo move to get out of spider webs. But also if something grabs them, like if a predator grabs them, they can sometimes just slip right out because of those scales. But another reason for the fluff, which I think is pretty interesting, is that it dampens sound and it can reduce echo, which is very important if you're an insect who flies around at night, because who else flies around

This is so interesting because it's a technique use for podcasts recording. I'm just like a like I put, I have fluffy right here, I have fluffy things. I have a fluffy mic phone. Can you do this? Yeah? Yeah, we're just like moths. And it's to help reduce echo and stuff in the room so that the podcast sounds nicer hopefully, hope you'll like it. Uh And so yeah, that's that's you know, I hadn't really thought about that, to be honest with you, but yeah, that completely makes sense.

It's not that it absorbs the.

Sound, that it scatters it in multiple directions so that you never you no longer have this like sharp hard echo.

Yeah. And and this was actually a pretty recent like development. So the paper I was reading about this is called Thoracic scales of moths as a stealth coating against.

Banter title bangers.

Really cool, like every cool word. It's just borassic scales and stealth coding against scales. Really cool. Title that was by Thomas r. Neil and that was in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface and that was in February of twenty twenty, so not you know, this is pretty pretty recent stuff. And basically, so there's there's kind of two different bat evasion methods that that moths can use,

I am looking this up because yes, I knew it. I knew it so good. I call this the sorbe moth.

Yes, it does look like just the little like a little pink lemonade.

It's so, it's a delicious looking little little guy, just fluffy with right back to right, yeah, right. This is how I interface with the world. It's bright pink and bright yellow. I remember these guys from yes the Autoba on Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders, And I remember seeing this like sorbet moth and being like, whoa, why am I not? Why isn't this in school? Why

Guys like this is have a lot more entomologists if we were more forward with that in I.

Really think so this was this was a This was sort of a pivotal moment in my childhood. Was seeing this moth was like, this is actually we live in we live in a fantasy world.

It's real the wait bug.

Wait, wait a minute, I like bug.

Wait? I don't like bugs.

Good bug is good.

Yeah. So these moths are bright pink and yellow. A lot of times people who take pictures of them will kind of bump the saturation on it to kind of lean into it, like you don't even have to, you know, I mean, it's it's cute, but like they just naturally are this like very very bright pink and yellow. And so since I've never seen one in the wild, so I am just going off of pictures, But the every time I see a picture of them, I think, why, why would like bright pink and yellow doesn't seem to

Wow, yeah, that's it's so you are so right. It looks because it's kind of a greenish yellow and it's those wing like seeds the kind that like when they it's the two kind of wings.

With the little seeds pod samara.

And then when you like let it go, that structure lets them twirl in the wind. So they disperse better.

Very whimsical, super whimsical.

They it looks just like I totally see it. In fact, there's like a rosy maple moth image on top of these seed pods, and it totally blends in. That is fantastic.

Yeah, like they they you wouldn't, they wouldn't blend in outside of that context. But when they're like in their element with like their host seeds, like it's perfect.

And you can and you can remember it with this handy neumonic device, which is uh, pink and yellow kills a fellow yellow and pink makes you stink.

I thought you were gonna say, makes you think hmmm, see you.

Know, there you go. Anyways, I hate useless mnemonic devices about color order on snakes, is my point. It's never helpful. I'm always confused. Uh so that's incredible, Yeah, no, it completely. I mean Also, these maple seed pods are beautiful, man.

I just want to put those in my mouth too. Yeah, a lot of delectable looking stacks.

I would rather put the seed pods in my mouth than the adorable because I do feel like the mouthfeel would be worse for the moth. Also, it's cute and alive, and I don't wanna. I don't wanna get it hurt.

Get that call it a dimorphous expression, I get that cute aggression.

That's oh yeah, scralert.

So rosy maple moth, extremely extremely cute. The next moth that I really wanted to highlight is has leaned super far into the fluff, but more so as a caterpillar, and that is the Southern flannel moth, which their caterpillars are also called asp caterpillar.

Yeah. Sometimes, of course it's Southern flannel because she's wearing the ug boot all over her body.

She's got very Yeah, it's very Stanley Tumblr.

Yeah, it's Stanley Tumblr. Basic girl boots, Yeah, yeah, which there's nothing wrong with you know what, I know people call it basic. There's nothing wrong with being comfortable.

I love like basic. Just I love a Stanley tumbler, I love an ug boot, I love a pumpkin spice latte. Yeah, I love it. It's great. There's a reason there is. There's so many people like it.

Because flannel is comfortable, and fluffy boots are comfortable, and pumpkin spice tastes very good. Like personally, I don't wear that style but every time I see someone wearing it, it's like I would I would be in those clothes because they look very comfortable.

It's nice. It's very the Southern flannel moss. So as a caterpillar, the caterpillars are so fluffy that you actually can't even see the body under.

No, it's just pure fluffs, like a it looks like a.

Wig on the ground. Yeah, tiny, tiny little two pegs on the ground.

It does look like a certain American authoritarian leader did, like, yeah, hair fall off and on the ground.

A very obvious comparison.

There is a very obvious comparison to a certain American authoritarian leader that you know, like I don't want the Musk's future groc to like get me into the grock Rey education camps. But yes, it does definitely look like that, but cuter.

The caterpillar has a better stock.

Way better way, fuller. It looks richter.

The caterpillar looks style.

It's like what a certain American authoritarian leader wishes his hair look like. But in reality it's nothing. It's got He's got nothing on these caterpillars.

The profile picture versus the tag.

Yeah, yeah, it's like one of those AI images that they make with the really buff Donald Trump with the cool hair, and it's like in the yeah, kissing Amnion, I've seen that, but even the even I mean the the caterpillar is for sure super fluffy, but the adult has it going on when it comes to like the sort of color coordination, Dude, like.

It's still hitting, it's got sitting.

Because it's like the caterpillar is more uniform. But then the adult has this beautiful sort of it's got a bit of that camel color on its back, its wings are tipped in white.

It's got allow it's it.

It seriously does it's little, it's got the and it's got the sort of little black boots fashion going on.

You know.

It's like it's like a tope sweater with like black boots. You know that look right, Like it's an incredible look. It's beautiful. It does look like a toasted marshmallow. But you know what, it also kind of looks like to me bird poop, which I'm saying not to be insulting, because.

That what they're going for.

I think they might in some ways be going for a little bit of bird poop because it does have like the black when whenever there's sort of like black white and sort of brown mixed together, you could get a little bit a bird poop vibes from it, which I don't. I think it's really cute. I'm gonna say.

It's apothetically bird poop.

It's aesthetically pleasing. I'm just saying to something that might be a predator who's taking a quick glance around, it might just be like, that's bird poop and move on.

Yeah. So the thing about the caterpillars is that they are very very fluffy and very very cute and also very very very venomous. So those those fluffy hairs are hiding in like amidst the fluffy soft hairs are sharp venomous spines. It's diabolical, Yeah, And all it takes is just kind of brushing up against one. Like you don't have to like grab it or harass it or anything. You can just kind of like brush up against one. And those spines can, you know, really inject a lot

Way that they are fluffy, it looks it's fluffy.

It's it's unusual, right, Yeah, it's something if you can't see the body, right, so it's hard to see, you tell what it is immediately. Kids are curious, kids are tactile, kids are sensory seeking. Yeah, so they see these little things and they just grab I.

Had one hundred percent do that as a child, by the way, so yeah, I had to be My mom had to come get me from school one time because they grabbed a cactus off of a teacher's desk, like one of those fluffy cactuses.

I just grabbed it with my whole hand. Of course, of course, yeah, my mom had to bring me home.

I was constantly picking up bugs. I probably shouldn't have, but like, yeah, I mean that is a good rule of thumb, is that. Yeah, fluffy caterpillars. I know, like there are some that are safe to pick up, but unless you really know which ones those are, there's a really good chance that at the very least those are gonna be irdicating hairs. They're gonna be like really irritating. Uh, and then on the other end of the spectrum, you might have to go to the hospital.

Like nothing, it can't be good.

It isn't You're probably not gonna be good.

Like you you're not gonna pick up a caterpillar and suddenly you're like super buff and strong and can jump ten feet in the air. Like it's not gonna.

Help, but you when you say that, like that's specifically now, I wonder if maybe you do, and I kind of want to try.

It maybe the like have I not been living up to my full potential?

Like right, I feel like I feel like.

I haven't tried to pick up anything really heavy.

I feel like when you specifically make a warning about that, I'm like, all right, you're hiding something from me, just like the raw milk. You're hiding the raw milk and the fluffy caterpillars, And I'm gonna have a bowl of raw milk and touch some caterpillars.

There's only one way to know. No, the the adult moth is harmless. The adult moth can't do anything. They lose like the venomous spine, everything that the adult moth. They're still fluffy, they're not venomous.

They're to find them and pet them. Then that's it. Gotta find for you, you adult moths. I'm gonna pet all of you.

Then, So the venom of the southern flannel moth caterpillar and being like really fluffy but also don't touch it. Uh makes a lot of people make that same conclusion about wooly bears, which are also a tiny, little, very very very fluffy caterpillar. If bushy, black and red fluffy sort of hairs on them also not hair, technically hairs,

Probably, yeah, yeah, unless you're like it, unless you're like a professional caterpillar whisperer and you're like, I know this caterpillar, we're buds.

And yeah, me and this caterpillar go way back, right, well, probably not that far back. Because I don't live that long.

Well, you know, it's you know, it's whole life life.

There was one more fluffy moth that I wanted to touch on, and it's you're gonna have to go for a ride on this because it's called called I'm putting in air quotes the Venezuelan poodle moth.

Oh yeah, I you know what I think. I'm I'm actually aware of this one because I have seen it, like a feltered version of it that people think is real. Yes, so like this is the one where where people so like people, so people think it's a there's two camps,

Yeah, so the it is a real moth, but the Venezuela the poodle moth is a very informal name. It's not. So what makes us even weirder is that it's an unidentified species. Like it was just photographed one time in Venezuela by a zoologist named doctor Arthur Anker. He posted the photo on flicker, like it's on his Flicker account, you can go see it, and he just titled it poodle moth. Nobody knows like this, it doesn't seem to

It's also it's also that it's fluff comes out in like little tuffs like a poodle, right, you know how like the poodle has the I forgot what that haircut is called for the poodle, but it's the one where you have the little like butt circles and little like pom poms on its legs and then the tiny legs stick out. And this photo, the one the sort of famous photo of the real one. It's like that it's got little tufts on its little legs and then it's

It's very cute. So yeah, just it's just an unidentified species of moth that it was. The guy called it a poodle moth, and it was photographed in Venezuela, so everyone called it the Venezuelan poodle moth. And then that kind of gets like thrown around like it's like the species name and it's not, I mean, right, because there would be a common name anyway. But you know, it's just it's just an informal name for an unidentified species.

And it's not that there aren't other photos of fluffy white moths that are found in Venezuela.

There are.

The point is that it's not it has not been determined which species this belongs to or what exactly this one is.

There's a lot of fluffy white there's a lot of fluffy.

White moths, and it's not so surprising to me that we don't know exactly what it is because like in Venezuela and in sort of especially like very like like in South American rainforest areas, there's such a huge diversity of animals and it's so like densely packed like with different species, it's really hard to identify them all.

Yeah, I believe it. Yeah. So the those are my those are my heavy hitters. Those are my my big ones, my big three in the family.

Those are incredible, and I do love them. I kind of like, you know, I feel like I want to be, uh, sort of just have that be the person that walks around the neighborhood with a bunch of moths on my shoulders and be known as that, like as the moth.

All you have to do is just carry a little lantern.

Right, yeah, exactly, just walk around, you know. I had a sphinx moth land on me once and refused to let go, and I was chosen and it did it did eventually die so like it wouldn't like I tried to get it off of my shirt. I was hiking and I tried to get it off my shirt, and it really like as soon as I would kind of pull it off, it would fly back on and like it did this like death grip on my shirt. And I was worried about crushing it because I couldn't like

And so attracted to your inner light.

My my, my inner mothiness, my appreciation for months. Anyways, that was a magical experience and I really connected with this moth and I feel like, uh we got to be really good friends. And it did leave me in its will, and it left me like a stick.

It left you some dust.

Yeah, some scaled us. We are going to take another quick break and when we come back, we're going to talk about some more blah blah blah. All right, we are back and on exciting news coming out of Australia. There news clearly gunning for like some Olympic metal in country with the most fluffy arrapods because a new fluffy beetle has been discovered in Australia. Actually kind of around the time of the fluffy crab was discovered. I think it was in twenty twenty one.

This beetle is big news. I feel like beetles aren't usually fluffy.

Beetles are not typically fluffy. There are some beetles that are fluffier than others. They have more bristles called setee than your average beetle, and it happens. But this one is particularly fluffy and is so. This is called the ex Castra albo pilosa. It is a longhorned beetle which was discovered in Australia and it is cute with very

Guy.

It's a little guy. I if I saw this beetle that you've provide a photo of, just like out and about my first guess if I if it wasn't like actively moving, would be that it had been overtaken by a fungus. It is really interesting.

Yeah, it looks.

Like it's coded in a sort of like because I used to work at a pet store and we had like, you know, a bunch of fish tanks, and one of the things we would have to look for on the fish was like white fuzz because white fuzz was commonly like a fungal infection. So I when I look at it, that's that's what it looks like to me. Is it looks like a white fungus.

Yeah, it looks like a Cordyceps infection. We've talked about Cops on the show. It's type of fungus that invades UH, infests various arthropods. It's that's the fungus that if it sounds familiar and you don't know where to place, it's from the video game and TV show The Last of Us. Obviously not scientifically accurate, but yes, it is a real fungus that infects UH animals ophiol cord aceps UH. But

Yeah, so when it gets fluffy, exactly, stuff that's white and fluffy.

Yeah, I definitely throw away my bread when it's fluffy. So it is, uh, it is called it's about ten millimeters long, so it's like, you know, it's a little guy. And uh it is called extra castra albow pillowsa which means from the camp covered in white hair, which is It's an okay name, but I think he should have named it. I think he should have named it. Sorry, thought you were bird poop, but you're not. Uh my bad. I uh yeah, sorry, I.

Thought you were bird poop, then thought you were weird fungus.

Yes, but yeah it is. It's a it's thought that, yeah, the the these these bristles that look very soft and fluffy, may be uh, some form of camouflage because it doesn't seem like they're venomous or irritating or anything. So it's like, maybe it's meant to look like fungus. Maybe it's meant to look like bird doodoo. Maybe it's a little bit of both. Maybe it's meant to look like fungus covered bird doodoo. Either way, this beetle is very humble, trying

Yeah, you can't fool me. I know you're cute under there.

You're beautiful because you don't know you're beautiful and you're trying to look like fungus covered bird poop. Is the song? Yeah? Yeah?

That? Wait? Was that direction?

I don't know. I think the song was girl, You're beautiful because you're trying to look like bird poop.

That that's a quote directly from one direction.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's I know their entire discography.

I have a lot of songs about bird poop.

You're just saying, all right, Ellen, how long do you think would be the velvet ant?

So short? I have one paragraph on velvet ants real quick.

Let's let's let's cap off with this episode with uh with something something small and probably not touchable.

No, no, you don't want to touch these. It doesn't stop a lot of people. People do it anyway, because I think they just don't know. This is another one of those things. It's like you find out about it as an adult and you're like, oh my gosh, why weren't we all told about this? They're velvet ants and they are beautiful, lovely little guys. They are are not actually ants. They are wingless wasps, which is like, okay,

Yeah, but you know you fo evolutionary history and they have a common ancestor with with winged wasps.

Yeah. But the velvet ants are like not even in like the ant group. They are just wasps. They're not social either, They're they're solitary. Now what velvet ants are known for. First of all, they're fluffy. There's lots of different types of velvet ants. The velvet ants where I am from are red velvet ants. So they're red and black and very pretty actually like this downy sort of like like hair like structures covering their body.

There. They are our widow who definitely didn't kill her husband, uh with the red with the red going, yeah, yeah, I would never kill my husband for his substantial inheritance. This new four coat, I didn't buy it with my dead husband substantial inheritance.

Now, don't look too closely at the update to his will submitted the day before he disappeared. Yeah, so the red velvet ants are really really pretty. They're pretty well known. They're called cow killers, although they probably don't actually kill.

Never, I would never.

They do have extremely painful stings. Yes, they were given a three out of four on the Schmidt pain Index.

Isn't that that guy who like stung himself?

When they say the Schmidt pain Index, it's a guy. It's a guy Schmidt. He's like, got stung himself. Yep, that's smart insects.

Yeah, no, we're not joking. We aren't joking. This is not a bit. It's a it's a guy, a biologist named He was like, I'm gonna rank the stings and how much they suck. And he's stung himself and he was like, that's a Nate.

He's like, that's pretty bad.

Yeah.

So they they got a pretty high ranking on that one, not like the highest, but like about on par with most other wasps. So do you have a very painful sting. It's said to hurt for about thirty minutes or they're somewhat common where I'm from in Florida. I saw them in the wild in Florida. Once again. That problem with like little kids where they see something like bright and colorful and they don't know any better, and they just

I think are those found in southern California, because I think I've seen some version of those as Yeah, I think I've seen some version of those in southern California. I don't know if it's that exact species, but I've seen white velvet wasps or sorry, white velvet ants who are wasps in southern California.

And for a long time it was thought to be like because they're mimicking a type of like seed pod, like a fluffy, white type of like seed that is found in that area. But there was a more there was more recent research. Unfortunately I didn't write this one down, but there was research within the last few years that suggested that it's not that they're mimicking the seeds, is

So essentially like when you have each other, when you have like a knockoff of a show and then like or or franchise, and then there's a knockoff of the knockoff, and then there's like a big knockoff of the knockoff.

Yeah, they're all they're all kind of mimicking each other, but they do they do look like these little seed pods. I just I can't think of why that would deter a predator, you know, Like, I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with that seed pod. Maybe it just makes them not look like an ant.

Yeah, I found the one. The one that's in southern California is white and fluffy and it's called seconds velvet Ant. Oh yeah, adorable.

I do like the ones that are called thistle Down. I like that because thistle Down sounds a lot like the person from Bridgerton.

It also just sounds fanciful, like a little fairy.

Very cool name.

My name is this Down and.

Grand true wishes Dan you a lot of character there.

You cry. It's hard not to. They're so fluffy. I just want to like when something is fluffy. And I do this with my dog, but I just I have to give them a stupid little voice. So I'm constantly like I'm constantly talking in the voice of my dog to my husband. Uh. And I've gotten him to start doing it. And it's a it's a it's a shared madness.

We have always done that, like, you know, narrating the internal dialogue of your pets. Yeah, thing, It's like we've always done that, and we do it with our cat, who's a monster. He's a goblin, he's the worst, and we do it so often. We have a four year old and the four year old has just started trying to do that, like trying to be like his name is Aki. The cat's name is Aki. Sorry, the four

Yeah, ya, he is probably much more into what the cat's actual thoughts than you guys.

He probably would say that I.

Think he's I think he's probably got a better beat on this cat than you guys, because like what is going through the cat's head probably yam yam, yam yao.

You nailed it, dude. That is so him. That is so classic cat.

He's gonna be great at impressions as when he gets grows.

Up, Aki's like.

Fantastic.

So I was. I did try. I earnestly tried to look around to see if I could get like an explanation as to why velvet ants in general tend to be fuzzy. Could not find anything. Found absolutely nothing. It doesn't seem like it's a question a lot of people have asked, so if anyone knows a better answer, I would love to hear it. I tried to come up with a few guesses of my own. They don't live in cold places, so I don't think it's for thermoregulation, unless maybe they're like coming out at night, so I

It could also be a part of their sort of warning, right, like I'm pleasant to put in your mouth look at like, because you know, even though the thing is something that's like really fluff like poofy and fluffy in nature, like especially an insect. Insect. Even though to human beings we're like I want to pet you, it might be to an animal that's thinking about putting it in its mouth, like I don't want a mouthful of fluff like that.

I know that the the Saharan silver ant is a type of ant that lives in African deserts, and they also have they're coated in hairs. They're not like fluffy. I wouldn't call them fluffy because the hairs are more like streamlined, but the hair is real selective. Yeah, and they help like reflect light from the sun. So that is a beautiful regulation in the other opposite direction keeping

Think, yeah, yeah, for sure. I feel like given that some of them have really either really long bristles or short ones, but really brightly colored, I feel like that being like a warning of like I'm not palatable. You don't want to eat? Ye feels the most right to me, but I don't know.

I did just have a mental like image of putting cotton balls in your mouth. If you've ever had to do that, like it's.

A good well I played the godfla. You come to the you come to my daughter's wedding right after a.

I've heard actors say that that's how they do it. All Australian accent is believe that they like just pretend they have cotton balls in their mouth.

Well, I'm Australia. I'm not. I'm not hearing it. I don't I don't get down. You come to my dollars wearing in Australia.

It's in there, it's in there. You got it.

All right? Well, before we go, we got to play a little game, a game called guess you squawk on the Mystery Animal Sound game. The last last year we had a Mystery Animal sound the last sound from twenty twenty four, and this is the hint for that. Just let him grab his winter coat and he's ready to start caroling because this was done around when this time. And then we had a bunch of interlude episodes and now, hey, it's January twenty seventh. Man, I'm back. I'm back in business.

In a few days.

But hey, we're back. More game, new year, new sounds. Let's Oh. I love this. I love this little guy. So you got any guesses?

It's I see it in my mind's eye. I see it. It's a little bird? Is it? Is it a ptarmigan?

It is? Indeed? Good job?

Oh nice? I like, I just was cracky. I was showing my kids videos of them making this stupid little sound, and my kids were very delighted by it. So the timing could not have been better. I was just like a couple weeks ago watching videos.

Nice little nice.

Uh.

Yeah, so absolutely correct. This is a willow ptarmagin uh. These are found in the cold parts of northern Europe, Alaska, Scandinavias, Iberia in Canada, so they you know, they like the tundra. They are very round birds. In the summer, they're brown. They just kind of look like brown round birds. And they're about fifteen inches or thirty eight centimeters tall, so they're you know, they're they're a handful of bird and

Let me copy your homework, just change it up a little bit so yeah it doesn't notice.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's yeah, it's it's fantastic. Uh they're fluffy. And then the sound and the sound they make is so goofy coming out of Would.

You spell that sound like waddle like.

Glaggle glaggles? How I would spell it. I feel that.

We'll just we'll just not be putting them in any comics where we have to be uh putting an automn. I don't know.

I feel like glaggling is a great sounding word, glaggle exactly. All right? Onto uh onto the next oops, Nope, ignore that, Onto the next mysteral sound. The hint is this, I got some wild news for you guys. Fat bay all right, Ellen, you got any guesses?

What gosh? At first it sounded like a like a pig, like a pig of copcon. And then it sounded like a like a large frog, like.

A Sorry, I was kind of gassy, I was. I just drank a bunch of a bunch of soda.

It sounds I think it's giving like like a bullfrog, like large frog. That's what I'm gonna Say'm gonna say's a large frog.

All right, we got large frog. If you think you know who is making that sound, you can write to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. You can also write to me your questions, your comments, your observations, or pictures of your adorable pets. Ellen, thank you so much for joining me today. Where can people find you?

Just the Zoo of Us is on the Maximum Fun Network. You can listen to that where you get podcasts. Also, my other podcast, which is not for kids, by the way, is Spellbound and Gagged. Katie's been on talking about parasites. You've also been on Just the Zoo of Us, so I have.

I've been in the Extended Ellen Universe.

Yeah, you're in the Cinematic Universe.

I'm in there. I've got my own wiki page.

You're canon, You're in the fan wiki. So yeah, those are places where you can listen to my boys. I'm also on Blue Sky. I think that's probably the only ski media I use regularly these days. Yeah, I'm skeating, all skating everywhere, set on the rig.

Yeah, uh well, you know what, I highly recommend those shows and not just the ones I'm on. I do recommend those two as well, because if.

You want to really focus, if you really you.

Want a full dose of Katie. But the whole shows are great, definitely recommend, so do check those out. Guys, thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave me a rating or review, you that tangibury helps me. I'm gonna say that like I'm not Scooby Doo, that tangibly helps me, And thank you so much for listening. Thanks to the Space Cossics for their super awesome song XO. Lumina Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you

Guess what already listen to your favorite shows.

I can't judge you. I'm not your mother. I can't tell you what to do. But don't pet the velvety. They don't want it, they don't need it, and they will sting you until you're like, oh my god, that Schmidt guy was right. This hurts real. This is twenty schmidtz.

It hurts bad.

See your next one. You need to see you next Wednesday.

M m hm mm hmm