It's A Conspiracy (Of Lemurs)!

corkboards to connect the dots and sometimes spots. We're also going to reveal the answer to last week's guests Who's talking Mystery Animal sound contest Discover the s'moor as we answered the angel question, should you trust that cat across the street or is it c I A joining me today to redacted and Redacted is host of the hit podcasts Ridiculous History and Stuff they Don't Want You to Know, Ben Bolan. Katie, thank you so much for having me

on this show. This is this is amazing. We have we have hung out together on air before, and I have I've definitely learned some things that surprised I remember I was I was gonna say, and in some cases haunted me. I will never look at woodpeckers the same I know what's going on with their tongues now. And you told me that there was going to be a conspiracy episode of Creature feature. When you said that, my mind went in a million places. But I cannot wait

to dive into this with you. Yes, yes, I I feel like conspiracy theories have gotten really stupid lately. I mean just low, low effort, dumb the stuff, the anti VAXX stuff. It's just really you're just gonna take horse medicine, you know, Yeah, like like that's not the kind of animal conspiracy that that eye indoors personally, you know, leave the horses alone. Yeah, let him. Let you know, horse medicine should be for horses. And I know that's something

that a lot of hot take. Yeah, fans of recreational

academine hate me for that one. But but the the point of the matter is, Yeah, with with the term conspiracy theory, it's often, especially the modern day, associated with things that are maybe politically frauds, or things that start with a a grain of some grain of often misunderstood truth, right and then or some iteration of an older conspiracy theory, and they spin out in the age of ubiquitous community cation, and social media so on stuff they once you know,

we apply critical thinking to think to everything that you could imagine occurring on an X Files episode basically and H and animals I think can be a surprisingly big part of this. A lot of people maybe aren't aware of just how many strange allegations there have been about what humans do with animals and against animals themselves throughout the span of civilization. Yeah, there's a lot of interesting

folklore when it comes to animals. We I love to talk about it on the show the from dolphins river dolphins that emerge from the water and seduced your daughters to animals that, oh, people are licking these toads to get high. There's all sorts of all sorts of fun like little Old Wives tales, sometimes they turn out to be true. Um. But in terms of like real animal conspiracies, I was surprised to find how many, like actual verifiable

conspiracies do involve animals. Uh. And I'm I'm talking about real like we're really getting conspiracies like c I a level we're going to be put on a list somewhere conspiracy theories that we're going to talk about. Uh, because like if you thought like, Okay, yeah, you're probably gonna do sort of like conspiracy like animal like a squirrel

stealing another squirrel's nut, and that does happen. But now I'm actually going to talk about literal ci a conspiracy theories or sorry, literal CIA conspiracies involving animals during the Cold War. I think I I think I have an inkling of where we're going, and Katie, I love that you have. You have made a very important distinction already, a brilliant distinction, which is between the distinct between something we would call a conspiracy theory, which is also the

way it's used is not is not. People aren't using the scientific definition of theory when they're saying conspiracy theory. I bet, I bet bees run television. I bet its bees, like think about it, other than the one one channel that has a peacock as a mascot the rest of its bees. But but there the other idea, like the thing you specifically mentioned here with the CIA is you said conspiracy not conspiracy theory. I guess in the case of television, it would be a conspiracy. I'm sorry, banned,

banned from the show forever. But but but you're You're absolutely right, and that's something that Um, that's something that people should be aware of in the in the in the modern world, and in even historical anecdotes. Right, Like, if something there are proven conspiracies, and then conspiracy theories

often are just masquerading is fact right exactly? I mean you know, a conspiracy you can sometimes like FOIA like Freedom of Information Act request document, actually read about it, real documents find out that there was indeed a conspiracy, Whereas a conspiracy theory is you're up late one night and you're like, I bet birds are all surveillance drones and you're you're up drinking coffee trying to take photos of the birds. Um, yeah, that's but yeah, in this case,

these are as far as they can be verified, verified conspiracies. Uh. And of course the Cold War was chock full of conspiracies because of all the spycraft going on, all the fun little games we played when we both US and the USSR had nuclear weapons that could wipe out all

life on Earth. What a fun, fun time that was. Yeah, the US trained animals to do spy work during the Cold War because the c I A is frightening lee weird, it's like, you know, these these guys control so much, they have so much to do with geopolitics, the CIA, and then they're really just a bunch of dudes going like bet I could train a spider, but I could

do that. Yeah. I always imagine this, you know, whenever here, especially about Cold War era plans, whether it's assassination attempts against Castro of Fidel Castro or something like that, or whether it's the stuff that we're describing. My my first

thought as always like, what is it? What is it like in their you know, pitch room, and they have the equivalent of that is somebody, you know, is there like a mental image with a bunch of scrawled out fans on a blackboard, a bunch of crumpled paper, and then people just holding their heads in their hands. And then somebody's like, no, yea spiders. Yeah, yeah, I imagine some guy just like tossing pencils up into the ceiling, going, you know what, we should try out birds birds as spies.

Birds would make good spies. You guys remember birds? Right? Remember birds? Yes, you said you said Russia was not that far as far as the crow flies. That got me thinking. That got me thinking hard I like how increasingly bio you know, like boys forget about it and forget about it. We'll deal with these Russians, no worries. So the c i A in fact recruited some of the most talented animal trainers, people who had studied B. F.

Skinner's techniques. So B. F. Skinner was, of course the psychology is who came up with the Skinner box a k a. Operant conditioning. You can place a test animal like a rat, into a box and reward it with food, or, if you're unscrupulous, punish it with a slight electric shock, and through reward or punishment, you can teach it to pull the right lever to get the reward. So this idea that you could take an animal as seemingly simple

as a rat. Obviously we know that rats are quite complicated and intelligent, but you could train them to operate levers or or turn on a series of lights or something in order to receive the best reward or avoid the electric shock that it might receive was kind of a revelation. But so so these animal behavioral experts who framebee of Skinners techniques, who were these really good animal experts able to train animals in really unbelievable ways were

recruited by the CIA for Cold War Shenanigans. So one of the animal trainers recruited by the c i A was Bob Bailey, an animal trainer who worked for animal behavior enterprises in Hot Springs, Arkansas. So he trained animals to perform in roadside attractions, including something that was called the i Q Zoo, where children and their parents could watch chickens play tic tac toe or raccoons play basketball.

Just a fun All American time quick question, Katie, So, I I have heard of i Q Zoo, but I know this is something a lot of folks listening in today are going to wonder as well. Are the chickens really playing tic tac toe? Are are these animals that appear to be doing you know, cute, c human and eligent things? How in there? Oh right? We can literally say in their bird brains, at least in the case

of the chicken, what What's what's happening in? Uh? In this scenario often what is really happening is a Clever Hans sort of situation. So Clever Hans was that horse that could quote unquote do math and uh it was a horse. Uh. That was training. I think it was back in the around the turn of the century. And it could stomp. Uh. So you would give it a math problem and it would, you know, stop, like what's two plus two? And it stopped four times eight plus ten.

It's stomp eighteen times. But it was actually looking to cues from its owner, subtle cues of when to stop stomping. And that's how it did math. So still using being very intelligent, but no, not actually doing math. Now, with chickens being trained to play tic tac toe, of course they are likely not thinking through the rules of tic tac toe. They don't understand the concept of the game.

But they are likely able to be trained to use visual cues of the tic tac toe board uh in order to do the thing that they know will get them the treats. So they could probably do some pattern recognition, but they don't think like I am winning at this game of tic tac toe. I am mr Chicken. I

cannot wait for my corn reward. Uh. Okay. But to the c the c I a UM operatives or agents who were considering this guy specifically as an asset, where they is this like a movie moment that people might see in um in a heist film, like where where you know? In a heist film, and there's always like the ringleader folks who go and observe a special and then say, you know, like that's our that's our first

guy picks a lot like this one. It's two of them driving on a road trip to do some c I A spooky stuff and then like some of the spy work, it's so easy. I think a chicken could do it. And then they see a chicken playing tic tac too. He's like, I got an idea, I got an idea. White bulb, anybody else feel that light bulb over my head? Uh? The chicken cross the road to spy on the rooskis the the original and redacted punchline to that joke. So this is uh, And it wasn't

a joke in the beginning. So this this really happens. So what did they? What? How? Like how do you how do you start that conversation if you're the c I A like, do you is it? Is it like that Willem Dafoe me where you're like, you know, I'm something of a tic tac toist myself or something to the chicken. You're talking to the chicken. Yeah, I'm not. I gotta say I'm impressed with your work here, Mr

Mr Kluks. Sorry, It's just you could imagine, like I love the CIA operative, like bypassing the human trainer right and then just talking directly to the chicken like fingers steeple the little pile of corn on the table. Listen, Mrs Nugget, I'm very interested in what you're doing here at this organization. Here's my card. Yeah, yeah, no, it's it is. If it sounds kind of silly and absurd, I mean it is, it's uh. But you know, the c i A like got wind of these these trainers,

fabulous trainers at the i Q Zoo. The trainers would use the same methods they used to train a chicken to play tic tac toe or raccoon to play basketball to help the c i A create animals for use of sp eyes during the Cold War. So this included cats and pigeons and ravens. Um Bob Bailey, the trainer we're talking about, also helped train dolphins for military use. So uh, you know, a lot of a lot of

a lot of shady animal stuff going on here. One of the things that UH that Bob Bailey and his other animal trainers did during the Cold War was trained ravens the bird to fly to a location and drop would appeared to be a piece of fallen roof slate, but actually it contained a spy microphone inside of it. So a raven would land on a roof, a piece of slate would like drop down somewhere. You wouldn't think

much of it. You just think like a piece of the roof, uh fell down, and then the raven would fly off and there's it would leave a microphone there in its place. That's a pretty actually so far of the like the three that we've named, that one's not a terrible idea of Ravens are so crazily intelligent. They're very smart, Yeah, Corvid's including ravens and crows. Yes, very very intelligent. Trainable in the sense that if it sees a benefit to your relationship, maybe you could get it

to do something. It's not not like a dog that is naturally willing to work along with humans. But yes, they are strictly speaking trainable. And yeah, that that in terms of spycraft is rather impressive. Also, I think I read that Raven is also the name of a male spy who is meant to seduce people. So, uh, thet

to black Widow. I'm not sure if that's what that's just the Marvel name for it, but yeah, but I think it's from Yeah, I think the spy me is um actually confirmed it, which is which is a thing we're not doing a bit, that's yeah, yeah, because you know, spy spy work. Eas since I like those kinds of things were used in spy work, it's hard to know like how successfully and how often, but definitely yeah, I mean, but yeah, I guess these Ravens were not really seducing

anyone necessarily. They were just dropping microphones on on window ledges. But so that that plot is actually kind of cool and interesting. But other things they tried to do are a little more you know, shows that maybe are bloated, uh military and spy budget, we're not always used to the best that we could have done with that money, such as trying to train arthropods like bedbugs, mosquitoes, or ticks to detect the approach of humans. Now, to be fair,

it's not a terrible idea. Bad bugs, mosquitoes are ticks are parasites that will feed on humans. So the idea that they would maybe get a little bit excited at the approach of a human. It's not it's not dumb, it's not it's not a bad idea that the trick is.

You know, how do you train a mosquito? Yeah, there's I can I'm not an expert, but I can also already imagine there would have to be a lot of science that I am not aware of, or there would have to be some mosquitoes that are much more intelligent than I have ever acknowledged. And if that is the case, then I would like to get in front of this

and apologize wholeheartedly to the entire mosquito population. Luckily, you're probably never going to have to pay for your anti mosquito crimes and mosquito court because indeed, they are not very smart. Another problems they don't live very long, So you go to the trouble to train a mosquito and then you're gonna be dead pretty soon. So you got

to train a whole new generation mosquitoes. But yeah, they did see some potential use of mosquitoes to see like, okay, maybe a mosquito could detect an incoming human uh, the other insects that they tried on. It didn't really work that well. Um, But yeah, I don't think that technology was ever really useful. I think modern technology like you know, heat sensing, vision and and things was much It just there was no way to compete with the evolving technology

like mosquito. Having a mosquito in a jar to see if someone was approaching turns out not to have been the amazing military technology to win the Cold War. I didn't think I'd be saying the sentence today. But with with all due respect to uh, both both the members of the CIA and the mosquitoes in question, you're you're

absolutely right. It's not it's an idea that has an understandable genesis or evolution, right A. Mosquitoes and these other parasites can rely on people for sustenance, so they're smart. They're smart enough to find people on their own right or quote unquote smart enough. So maybe we can just

sort of weaponize this or focus it. But I do think one thing we should mention when we're talking about these stories, which are by the way, just going to get more ridiculous, folks, is that when when intelligence agencies, especially especially the CIA and some some of the other, uh, some of the other, like their foreign counterparts during the Cold War, when they had these ideas that seem so out of the box, they were kind of first they

were on a mad search for any kind of edge. Secondly, there was not a ton of oversight, so you could have this thing where people are just sort of like yes, ending themselves into stuff that feels most insufferable. Improv troup it is, and it's the only improv troup with a lot of money, right, So this is so that's that's

what happens. It's it's highly unlikely that some some person just walked into the CIA headquarters and like clapped their hands, yeah, and stopped everything and said I had the most I like, I got stung by a mosquito when I was coming to work. And it's guys, it was like the when the apple fell on Isaac Newton. I just saved us me Harold Hill, mosquito salesman. Yeah. It just it like drifts that way over time. And also, I mean, you know, the c I A doing all sorts of experiments with LSD.

I'm sure there was some you know, as if none of them tried it, I mean, come on, come on, but didn't pan out? Huh No, no, I didn't really. Another thing that didn't quite pan out is, of course, you may have heard of this, the cyborg cat spy.

That's one of my favorite ones. Yeah, because I have I full disclosure, folks, I have two cats that live with me, and I, like a lot of people, during the pandemic, I was, you know, Katie, you and I are making a ton of podcasts, right, so I had I started recording at home and now these cats are just like the worst producers I've ever worked with. And I have to be careful because they so that they

don't hear me. But cats already, um, from what I understand, occupy a pretty interesting position in human society in terms of relationship with us, because there's a there's an open question. I guess the way it gets phrased in layman terms is the open question is did cats domesticate themselves? Like? To what degree are they? Would? Would you consider them, um domesticated? Would it be the same way as something like a dog? Are they? And then you know the

big question. The reason that question is important here, I imagine, is because the next question is can you train them like a dog, right, what this is all the So I believe this experiment occurs before that other study which is way more recent that seems to indicate cats do know their name and they do know when you're talking to them. They simply don't care. Yeah, they just don't

choose to acknology you at this time, which is their choice. Well, to answer your question, which is something that I think comes up a lot, because of course, I think we're very naturally curious about the two most popular pets in the world's dogs and cats. I love them both. I can't pick a favorite. I have a dog, I'm hoping to soon get a cat, so I'm on both teams. Um, but like, uh yeah, I think in terms of domestication,

for sure, dogs are far more domesticated than cats. It's just that is that is how it is in terms of genetics and in terms of our history with them. But in terms of training an animal. You can train a cat, it's very difficult, much more difficult than with a dog. Just based on I mean dogs, again, we've had this really long evolutionary history with them where they have co evolved with us to pick up on our cues that we give them our our you know, gestures

are cues. They're highly attentive, and they're more social than a cat is, so they have that social intelligence is that a cat doesn't necessarily have. A cat's plenty intelligent, but it does not apply that intelligence towards being social as Nevertheless, Bob Bailey and the CIA did create a trained cyborg cat, basically a cat with acoustic devices surgically implanted in it that was trained to eavesdrop on human conversation. So half nightmare, half kind of cute concept like ah yes, spycat.

But also it had all this junk implant into it, which is a little weird. So it was remote controlled by tones that were played in each of its ears, so like a sort of just a solid like beeping tone and uh one year or the other, and that would direct it to go left, right or forward. And it had a recording device implanted I believe in it's rib cage, which you know, Uh, it's a it's like a RoboCop cat, kind of a kind of a nightmare situation.

It's a it's a real life cyber cat. It's interesting too that the I think for a lot of us in one as we're recording this episode. It seems like some pretty pretty advanced technology, right, and advanced conditioning I believe to somehow teach a cat to turn at a tone, to remote remotely control an animal like this, um also not great for the cat. No, that kind of invasive surgery, I imagine. No. I mean generally speaking, I don't really like the use of animals in uh in the military

or in war. I just it's not not my favorite thing. Doesn't It's not very heartwarming to me. It's just kind of like, well, that's that's gotta suck. You know, war sucks for humans and animals. It's just just kind of sucks. Yeah. I don't really like the idea of a cat being implanted with a bunch of things and it's like, all right, go spy on the Russians for us, you know, and then maybe we'll give you some wet some of the

good wet food. But you know, it is it is fascinating in the sense of that first of all, that you can't train a cat to do these things, which really I mean borderline train a cat to do these things, but also that we would come up with this side It just it seems it's absurd, and I think it's kind of there's always this sort of decorum around war, that's the super serious, like we are serious people, serious men making serious decisions about the fate of the world.

And it's like, let's just make a cyber cat, I don't know, just a cyber cat and set it out there and have a listen listen to people, and it's it's so wacky and crazy and goofy, and it really does kind of make you take a step back and like, oh yeah, like like Cold War stuff was actually as scary as it was, and you know, the whole like, oh, we could destroy the whole planet tension going on. It's really kind of goofy. Just a bunch of nerds like

threatening to kill each other. I love I love that servation. This is also for for larger context, folks. This is also when the same era during which someone in the US government said, Hey, what if we just sort of nuked the moon? You know, like that The Mr Show's sketch about that is not it. They're brilliant writers, but it didn't come from nowhere, And so I I completely see what you're saying. It's a very important point. So legit, someone in the CIA was proposing we nuke the Moon. Yes,

the idea was that, uh. I can't remember if it was exactly the CIA, but there was a report in the nineteen fifty nine UH that outlines plans to not not completely destroy the Moon, but to UH to deploy nuclear weapons on it and something called Project A one one nine. Because the government is usually terrible at naming things in the US and at least their secret projects, I'm only bringing this one up because they wanted to use these weapons, I think, to ultimately build a colony

on the Moon. But the reason that's important for today show is that it just gives you a sense of the broad swave here, Like in this context, the idea of cyber cats is is not that crazy. Indeed, it might seem like an affordable um alternative to putting in a human asset inspy. Right. Yeah, yeah, I guess. Uh. If it's between nuking the Moon and creating an army of cyber kitties, I guess I'm team cyber kitties. I don't know, it's that's a tough one. Yeah, it does.

I mean, the more research you do into this, the more it's just like you realize these people were like working at the level of the CIA are often just like big kids, you know with the magnifying glass, look

like burning up aunt colonies. A little scary, but yeah, I mean in terms of cyber Kitty, Uh, it is a sad ending to it because basically, by the accounts that seem to make the most sense, the cat was dropped off by some American operatives in in Soviet Russia to go do its spy work and then immediately run

over by a taxi. Just almost immediately run over by a taxi, like um took a few daring steps to go on its little kitty mission, you know, like uh, spy music playing and this head you know, and then boom taxi. Yeah. Real sad. Some people who were part of the CIA animal training program dispute this account, but they of course they would because it's horrible and embarrassing and sad. Um. They vague, but their defense was not just. They would vaguely say like, no, the the program was promising.

They didn't like say like no, of course the cat didn't die. They just was like, no, no, it was it was a promising program, very promising. Uh yeah, very promising. Uh. But Tom Vanderbilt wrote a great article for Smithsonian mag which I used a lot of this for my research for this section. Uh. And apparently he put out a request for a freedom of information of FOYA on the cat project and was met with rejection from the CIA. So this is still kept tightly under wraps. Uh. Yeah.

The only unredacted information on the program basically is summarized as uh, quote, the program would not lend itself in a practical sense to our highly specialized needs. That's it. And then the rest is just redacted. So what else did they do with these damn cats? Mm hmm and why? And what was the rationale? I bet embarrassment. I bet

I bet they got humiliated by these cats. I bet they got scratched, like like you know, Agent Smith reporting that he got scratched by Mr Mittens, uh, And he got very angry and Mr Mittens called him a stinky cat. And then when we went back to his office, it turns out that Mr Mittens had left him a quote unquote deliverable on his chair, and of course, so we needed to terminate the project. So I love it. I

love it. It's all all the redactions are are just cute see names they gave the cats and they're embarrassed or or their names that are like would have been bad for their careers if they got out. You know, I don't know where the puns go, but that that is fascinating because that that does mean that there's there is some sort of secrecy. Yeah, you know what else? You know what else been the records of the animal behavioral Enterprises, that roadside attraction company that the CIA like

uh plundered for consultants. All of their records burned in a fire in nine nine. Huh, Yeah, I don't it's it's just like all their records like oops, all burned in a fire. Oh well, look, I'm not gonna say it's a conspiracy to cover up some like deep state chicken nonsense, but I'm also not going to not say that. Yeah, I cut to cut to like a trail of gasoline, like drops the gasoline, and they're like around the corner

Hayden in a in a nearby building. We see that just the silhouette of a chicken in a window, and it's justly yeah, exactly bark bark, bark, bark. That's how chickens cackle. That is something that Katie and I researched work bark pork pork pork bark. So yeah, so that's that's that's nuts. Though I had no idea that those right words had burned down. And we do have to say, in fairness for a long time, having records quote unquote

accidentally destroyed was could be a believable thingure. I mean, fires do happen, and well, I mean like, but this is almost the nine nineties, so things things could burn down in I think more plausibly when there wasn't a ton of electronics storage is I mean, it's not quite like the age of the Internet, but that's still the kids would call it sus. Yeah, I just wonder what like sort of dark chicken psychic stuff projects, like a

psychic chicken they created. We'll just never know, you know, maybe basketball playing raccoons that uh, you know, then we're trained as assassins. We'll just will never We'll never know. We do have to take a quick break, but when we get back, we are going to talk about another animal conspiracy, this time with no humans involved. So we have talked about CIA conspiracies where they trained cyber kiddies. Uh, but you know, it's um, like, are we the only

animals who can actually form a conspiracy? Uh? You know, is it our humans just uniquely devious, uniquely plotting? And I would say no. In fact, there is a very real conspiracy out there. You'll have to go to the island of Madagascar to find them. Because a group of lemurs is a conspiracy. What that's the name, that's the group name. That is the group name. A group lemurs is called a conspiracy. Now, likely they get this name because they like to huddle up together as if they

are planning something. Um, but maybe that's not too far from the truth. So first let's talk about what lemurs are. There are actually many species of lemurs, all found on the island of Madagascar, which is an island that has an incredible amount of biodiversity. Uh. Lemurs are primates. They are quite social, and they're typically arboreal, so they live in or near trees. The most well known example of

a lemur is a ring tailed lemur. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, so yes, and uh literally there's not too much the name their ring tailed lemurs because of that distinctive pattern on their tails, right exactly. I always thought lemurs were so fascinating because you know, not everybody would think of them immediately when they think of primates, right, but they have but they have a I think they have some

surprising surprising behavioral aspects to them social animal would right. Yeah, I mean, so lemurs are interesting because they are primates, um. But they're very they don't have the face of like you know, a typical like what you would see on a monkey or an ape. Uh. And they are thought to be much more a much sort of earlier offshoot of the primate phylogenetic tree, and so they're a little

little less developed, a little less intelligent. Uh and uh sort of like in our evolutionary path from sort of like tree shrew like animals to humans. The lemurs are a fairly early little branch off the tree. However, they do have some pretty interesting social behaviors. They also are extremely diverse. So the I think the ring tailed lemur is probably the most well known example. They've got that ring tail, they've got the cute little mascara, so they're

very photogenic. Um. But there are lots of different lemurs. Actually, the smallest lemur is the mouse lemur uh, and specifically the species that is the smallest of the mouse lemurs is Madam Bertha's mouse Lemur or maybe Madame berte Is. I'm not sure. It might be a German Madam Bertha's or Madam Berta's uh mouse lemur. That name sounds straight from a children's Yeah, to be honest, but ve get that Madam's burt mouse lema out of the tea room. It doesn't belong in the tea room once upon a time.

And then very yeah, exactly this this and these these dudes are tiny, tidy tiny, like I'm always fascinated by uh when I when I see animals like this, like if you well, I'm maybe I'm saying if you're if you're like most people because I want to feel better

about my incorrect assumption here. But when if if I saw a picture Madame Bertez or no, if I just saw a picture of any mouse slimmer, I would think the immediately, immediately, the same thing, and I would be like, that's a rodent, right, surely, that's a matter that's mouth size.

They're rats bigger, well, they kind of look like mice too, So it only reaches up to about under four inches long, which is nine centimeters and just about an ounce, which is about thirty grams, and they got mouse like ears, little mousey face. They have a thick tail, so a thick, preinsile tail. But they look like grumpy, cute little mice. They're adorable, very fluffy, looks like um looks a little bit like a chinchilla with a really long thick tail

and bigger eyes, bigger front facing eyes. That's the big difference between them and like a rodent, a typical rodent. They have those front facing eyes, which is typical of predators or foragers who really need very good uh eye sight, whereas a lot of rodents don't have the front facing eyes they have. It's a little more side to side. Yeah. So these are actually lemurs, not mice. Uh. They're not the most complex of the lemurs in terms of their

social behaviors. They're not antisocial. They'll sometimes chill together, but they don't really form complex groups like the ringtailed lemur. And they mostly forage for food and trees. They're very opportunistic. They'll eat fruit, but they'll also eat insects. Uh. And yeah, they are they are absolutely adorable. Ringtailed lemurs, on the other candor, are bigger They're about the size of a cat, with a long, bushy ringed tail, bright orange eyes, and

a fantastic smoky eyeshadow that I'm highly jealous of. Got gray fur on its back, white tufted ears, a white belly. They're also adorable, absolutely adorable. Uh, And they are highly social. They form large social groups of around thirty individuals and they live in a matriarchy. That's right, that's right. We got we got one, we want we won one, gals, and these are these are pretty big societies too. You know,

just thirty individual jewels is pretty impressive. Are they So if they're matriarchal, then are they also are are these groupings largely like family based or do they have different and I guess my other I have so many questions because these are fascinating. So we know that sometimes there's inter group conflict between other like other kinds of primates, right, you know, chimpanzees and one side of the forest will say you guys, total bastards chips to the other side

of the force. Do do lemurs typically like are they known for exhibiting uh, inter group aggression of any sort? Or is it more like we're cool, You're cool? I guess what I'm asking is what's their vibe. Their vibe is it's not It's sometimes very chill and sometimes it's not chill. Dude, it's not chill at all. Yeah, So they go from they go from being very chill to being kind of unchilled, but in a little bit of a chill way. I'll explain in detail. So, uh yeah.

So they are a matriarchy, and they do have a core to each of their troops, which usually is family members or relatives of female lemurs. They're not they don't all have to be related, but usually you have this core group of female lemurs. Sometimes they can be relatives. Sometimes they will come in and join a new group. Um, but they are they're the core of that group. And

then there is a hierarchy amongst them. Usually the strongest, most dominant females went out in terms of you know who they get to boss around and and access to mating opportunities. But in terms of males, males are typically automatically um more subordinate to any of the females in the group, and males don't really have a hierarchy that much. They do have one loosely based on their age. So the older males are going to be UH take precedence

over the younger males and the groups. But males kind of like are like satellites to these lemur troops because they will sometimes stay with a troop and then sometimes they'll move off to another another troop of lemurs. And this is a thing that often happens in UH social

groups of animals, like even lions. This is the case because you have UH, you'll have males who really are kind of a temporary presence, either they move off to a new group, or they die fighting a new male who comes in, or or are chased out by new males.

Because the females kind of are the core of the prides for lions and with lemurs, not only are they the core group of these these troops, they also are socially dominant, so they do actually have conflicts and so one of the ways that males will resolve conflicts with one another is and it can be conflict over territory, it can be over mating opportunities, and often troops will

will conflict somewhat with this. But they UH have what are known as stink fights where the UH, both male and female lemurs have some glands uh, near their butts that they can use to mark their tail, mark their

tails and their territories. And they also have males have these very stinky spurs on their wrists that uh it's basically a gland, a stink gland with their musk and a spur on there is that they can use to scratch at a tree and leave their marking, but they can also rub it all over their tails and anoint their tail with their own personal brand of stink. And then when they are in a conflict with other males, they will waft their stinky tail at them until one

of them gives up. Wait, wait, that's the fight. Yeah, I mean they do have physical fights, but often animals will attempt to establish who would be the most likely to win the fight without actually doing the fight, so that because it's costly to fight. Uh. This is often the case with like say, let me see what's another example. Oh, there's a lot of animals, like a lot of fish

species who will compare jaw size or reptiles. They'll open their mouths and try to see who's got the bigger mouth, and then they whoever gets the bigger mouth wins because then they get to avoid actually fighting each other, and it's just assumed, Okay, you have a bigger mouth, you could probably chomp me better. Well, let's assume you would win this fight, and then neither of us have to get injured fighting. So yeah, so it's a similar thing

with the lemurs. It's like they do resort to physical fighting sometimes, um, but in order to reduce some of the injuries having a non physical fight of like, look, I've got a stronger musk than you. I'm just overall,

I've got a better stage presence than you. Just give up, bro, like and then yeah, I'm picturing a victory the some I don't want to anthropomorphize, of course, Okay, all right, well they we're going for But it's just as a as a human analog, I'm picturing like, how would you know, uh, college dive bar fights go if if humans did this, like if someone like they that compared bo with their arms up. College guys don't do that. I feel like they do. I feel like it might depend on the

school or the bar. I feel like they definitely do, like check it out, check out my gym stink, brad stink. And so someone's like, oh, you want to go, you want to go, and then they're like raised their arms and they're going you sure, you sure? Guys take their shirts off before fighting is to like, like, you want to sniff these pits, bra I'm kind of lonely, That's why I lash out. No. But but like the other

the other comparison would be reps. This is slightly more apt, though this is not to be clear scientifically, It's not the same thing as as a mus cardinal plan there. But what if what if people were like, oh, you wanta you want to go? You want to go, dude, let's settle this uh old school Milwaukee style, and then they just like start farting at each other. I don't know, I think no, I bet they do do that right into confirm Directed all to Benjamin Bolan on Twitter. Oh

my gosh, so but this does I mean. You make a brilliant point though, like the idea of avoiding injury the wild win possible. Yeah, absolutely, because if you are like so, especially among com specifics, that means like members of your own species, you're not fighting them to eat them typically sometimes sometimes, but you're not actually going to gain anything from injuring them other than reducing competition, gaining

access to territory and mates. So if you can have your like quote unquote fight like basically sports, you know, a fake a sport is kind of like a fake you know, fight between two teams, and then you can kind of be like, Okay, we're pretty sure we would win, so we don't none of us have to get our eyes cloded out right, Like we don't. We don't have to go through that. So like, uh, not chill on one hand, but kind of chill on the other hand.

You know, it's like going to the going to the beach and having a really intense surfing contest where it's like, you know, maybe someone's cutting into your wave. It's like both chill vibes in on chill at the same time. It's sort of a form me chill paradox. That's a quotable for this episode. Yes, But another cool thing about

these little guys, I love them so much. They sunbathe regularly and they will sit in the lotus position with their arms outstretched, their their heads up, just sort of sitting on like um with their knees up like a human and just like chilling out in the sun. And they look like they're doing yoga and it's it's amazing. It's so it's such such good vibes. I'm pulling up a picture now and I've I recognize some of these things from my my years in the meme minds of

the Internet. This is probably my favorite thing in the episode because this is the energy that we, I think all primates need, you know, I I cannot imagine see this in real life. Like if you are if you live in this area, is it just normal or you're like, oh, that's you know, that's just the lemur. Yeah, just a chill vibes lemur. I mean I think so. Yeah. Just they like to they like to sun themselves. They're there.

Fur on their bellies is a little thinner than their fur on their back, which is good for thermoregulation when it's hot. But when they want to warm up, they gotta they gotta sunbathe their bellies, so, which is why it's lighter colored to right, Yeah, exactly. So they love and also they per when they're happy. What is going on with these dudes? What is so I did not know that was a primate thing. Yeah, well, I mean

it's not exactly, but lemurs do it. So you know, primates make a lot of vocalizations, but purring when they're happy. I mean, that's that's a that's definitely a lemur lemur thing. Yeah, but it's it is. It is weird because again, while these are primates, they are not very like us. They're they're not much like us at all except maybe a little bit of their ability to scheme. So I didn't bring them up just because the name for a group of lemurs is a conspiracy of lemurs. They are able to,

in a very basic sense, conspire, So what uh. There's a lot of research on lemur intelligence because of course we're interested in the evolutionary trajectory of primate intelligence, and it's assumed that they're not really that smart that you know they're and you know, there's so shure they're they're adorable, like they per the best animal ever, but maybe they're

not that intelligent. However, there's some research that seems to suggest they do have some tricks up their cute little sleeves, which is they are able to plot a theft out and so they will be presented with some treats in some boxes and they know that if a researcher who's in the room catches them trying to get a treat, the researcher will cut off access to that treat uh And so they will not try to get the treat when the researcher is watching, but as soon as the

reacher researcher turns their back, then they'll go for it. And they time their their treat extraction based on whether the researcher is looking at the treats or if the researcher has their back turned so right, so they are intelligent enough they understand that they cannot get away with a crime if they are currently being surveilled. So it may seem like a low bar or intelligence, but it's it is actually quite impressive. It's something that dogs are

capable of, and dogs are highly socially intelligent. They co evolved with us, we may you know, in fact, a lot of primate research is like being replaced with dog research because dogs are we've discovered over the years so highly socially intelligent that that a lot of kind of research that is hard to do with primates because you know, it's it's hard to do it ethically, it's you know, logistically, but with a dog, you can have someone bring their pet dog in to do a study where they get

treats and it's great and it's fine. So that's pretty amazing too, because that's patterns, pattern recognition. That's um object permanence of a sort, right, Yes, theory of mind, a very basic basic theory of mind, where they show an understanding that if that this other being, this human researcher has a visual perspective, and that visual perspective, if it is on them, they can't get away with stealing, and if it's directed somewhere else they can get away with stealing.

It's very good. Um, of course there's a limit, will limit to their intelligence. They found that they do not seem to understand how to keep things on the down low. Uh. So if you need to keep things quiet, Lemur is

not your guy to get for your heist. Uh. They found that when they rigged boxes with a booby trap of like bells to make some noise, so they reach their hand and the treat box and then some little jingle bells go off, and then the researcher notices and they don't get their treat Lemurs couldn't couldn't understand this cons stuff. They did not show any preference. They kept you know, triggering the jingle bell alarm, the very very clever jingle bell alarm system, and I kept getting caught

in the act. So, you know, really easy security to stop a lemur from stealing your stuff. Not you don't have to invest a lot in a security system. I see. And so this might be part of the reason that despite their comparatively high intelligence, they wouldn't be the best spies. Well, there are number of First off, the KGB would have been like, what why is that? Don't you'll tell me boris? Have you seen? Is lemur indigenous to this area? I did not think so, No, he's you know, what is

this weird raccoon? Yeah? Like stock Naya. I get to make these jokes because I'm roughly half Russian, so I'm allowed. You're allowed this. This is uh is interesting because um, when you first said they wouldn't be great at keeping things on the down low, I did anthropomorphis and I thought, oh, these are the these lemurs are the If they add social media, they would be the open sharers. Yeah, I

imagine they would. Though, well, maybe we could train them to use social media, because we have been able to train them to use touch screens. So there was a study that showed that they could figure out how to use a touch screen to get Sugarcube rewards by clicking the correct symbol on the touch screens. So it's the only matter of time before they get their little stinky paws on Twitter. They're gonna be all over Twitter and Instagram and they'll it'll be the minute stink fights on Twitter.

That's what we should call Twitter fights. To stink fights. They would be like, uh, yeah, they would. They would probably also use a lot of abbreviations. They would be like today is hard a f but I uh but tbh, I just won I R L wave mistink and then oh d lowell and uh. People would love it. People would love a Lemur on the internet. On the Internet would yeah, it'd be an internet sensation, book deals, movie deals, influencer,

uh influencer, you know, just game over, game over. But there's okay, But that's that's interesting because I know one of the one of the thoughts at least that I'm aware of about, well, what Lemur intelligence can show the human species um about our own story, right, because we're so self obsessed, is is that they their intelligence is

at least partially. I don't know what the if there is a causal relationship or how you would how you would articulate this, but their relationship with one another, their social aspect is like an inherent force of intelligence, right yeah. Yeah, if you are an animal and your means for survival is social, the idea is that being social requires a

lot of intelligence. So it's something that because you are having to on a very rapid basis use your cognitive skills to understand what another individual in your group is doing, what their motivations are, what what you are, how your interaction with this individual is gonna fly out. So the in so general terms, the more so the more social and animal is often they can reach greater heights of intelligence. And we see this kind of as a as a

as a theme. So like, uh, dolphins, elephants, primates all very social. Some of the most intelligent animals. See, we see it with birds as well. Some of the most intelligent birds are highly social, corvids, crows, ravens, magpies, very social, parents, very intelligent, highly social. They live in huge colonies sometimes of hundreds of individuals. So yeah, being social really really

helps you wise up because your survival. It then doesn't rely so heavily on just your physical abilities but also your mental abilities to be able to get along with your group and provide things for your group and then you will get things in return. And so yeah, you um,

it's it is very interesting to me. It seems like most of the it doesn't mean that if you are social, you will necessarily uh evolved to have a really very high intelligence or or meta cognition like humans do, but it is one of the things that seems to um

really you know, be a determinant of of intelligence. Now, counterpoint, you can have something that's not social at all, like an octopus that's evolved its brain completely independently from humans, uh, And I mean it like they branched off so early.

We're basically branched off at the point of like a worm thing with like just a few yurons, like our common ancestor is like yeah, basically like a little flesh tube with maybe some neurons, and then they evolved their own set of eyes, their own brain independently from mammals and humans. And they're very intelligent and they're not social. So there is I would not say that the only intelligent animals are social. There does seem to be a correlation,

but it is. It's crazy because octopus octopuses are the most alien thing we can really have access to on this planet, and they're very intelligent, very and they seem to have a sort of you know, obviously we can't get inside their heads, but they seem to have a curiosity about humans. So yeah, very interesting. Well also with the with the idea of the octopus. Their octopus is what fascinates me. And I think this happens to you as well. Can you find yourself in these in these

rabbit holes? Right? And for me, the rabbit holes are often towards the end of the night, you know, when when I should be Yeah, two am, it's it's the best time to google stuff. It's the time to go, you know. And then for me it's like I'll I'll whipout like my old textbooks and start trying to trying to figure out some weirdly fictional scenario I've made my head. And the main thing for me with with octopuses is I would love to find a way to extend their lifespan.

A lot of anti octopus people are against this, of course, but but just imagine what your mothers against octopuses. I hate them. Yes, yes, that's that's a different now. But the problem with that is like, um, well it's not a problem. Be great for spycraft kind of maybe at least for maritime surveillance, but you're right about octopus intelligence, and you know there is a way actually to extend

their lifespan. Is it surgical? It is surgical, So if you remove it is it is basically I forgot what the name of the organ is still me, but it is basically a hormone gland similar to like the um, the thyroid and a human that will release release basically sex hormones for the octopus. And if you remove this in a female, uh, it does not die immediately after

basically caring for it's it's a brood of eggs. So normally in the wild the female will mate, um, it will lay a bunch of eggs in sort of this like beautiful it almost looks like a strand of of jewels or beads, and then it will aerate them. It doesn't eat this whole time. It starves itself for months and months and it'll gently aerate the water and oxygenate the water and take care of these eggs, and then

it will die because it's malnourished. Uh. And it's spent months, just like expending all of its energy into making sure that its eggs have the best chance of survival. If you remove either sever or remove this gland, the octopus females no longer have this instinct and they do not care for their brood and they continue living. So that's the trade off. So like I, I remember, we've read

some of the same things. You know, this is this is one of those moments where I have the I don't know if this happened to you, but I have the like the dark night of the research soul where you know, I noticed the time and I go, oh boits it is for a um, I've learned a lot about octopus surgery. Maybe I can maybe I could tell people. That's why are you a subscriber of Octopus Surgery Monthly too? Yes? Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm actually in the Octopus Surgery of the Month club.

I love that you get a new surgical implement every month. Yeah, I know, I have no idea how I y octopus surgery. Yeah, that's what that's what you and I are going into as a side hustle for podcasts like the Pandemics when we're off on everyone all right, yes, yeah, it's it's a it's a gig economy, you know, really octopus surgery train. You got to train all your life for new things. And uh so it appears to that, like now I'm thinking of the nature of quote unquote conspiracy in the

animal world with lemurs. I I believe that I have underestimated them. I have no idea that they were this intelligent, because, as you said, the fact that they are kind of an earlier offshoot of the things that eventually down the line become human beings made me sort of assume, quite incorrectly that they were also an intelligence. This is this

is fascinating. I mean, I know, I know that there is a like, uh compelling physiological reason for the sunning, as you as you explained, But I'm I'm just gonna choose to think they're meditating. I mean, you know what, like we don't we don't know. Maybe they do get I'm sure they probably get some kind of psychological um benefits from that because they're relaxed there with their buds. They got sons out buns out. I'm sure it's a

relaxing it may even be meditative experience for them. I wouldn't rule it out, but we do have to take a break. When we return, I want to quickly cover one of the most infuriating stories I've ever covered on the show. It is a conspiracy to frame snakes for the evil deeds of humans. And then finally we will reveal the answer to last week's guests who's talking mystery

sound contest? So we will be right back. So, Ben I, this actually lived jet makes me really mad, So I don't want to spend too much time dwelling and stewing on it, but it was something that I discovered in my research and I just it's yeah, it makes me angry.

So one of the most despicable types of conspiracies is to frame someone for your own misdeeds when you agree, like if you you're framing someone for a horrible thing that you committed, that's just the lowest of the low and it's it's even worse when you already take someone who's kind of a social outcast or a misfit and you frame them for something you do. And in this case, uh, snakes and birds of prey are being set up to look like the bad guy in videos that really portray

human uh human evil. So in this case, snakes and birds of prey are being set up to look like the bad guy and videos where it is actually human committing the evil act. So, according to National Geographics Dina Maron, Uh, there is apparently a trend of YouTube videos that portray daring quote unquote animal rescues. So, for instance, there's a hapless gibbon being attacked by a Burmese python and then a brave person steps in and saves the gibbon. Or a crocodile is about to chomp down on a duck

and some hero steps in and saves the duck. Um. Now, I think listeners of the podcast and probably YouTube and like you already sense something's wrong here because uh, intervening in nature when like a predator is about to eat its typical prey is you know, it's it's I understand the empathetic response you have, but it'd be kind of like if an alien came down to Earth and then smacked burger out of your hand as you were just about to eat it, uh, you know, or or even

an apple and said Hey, that apple is a living thing too, and smacks it out of your hand and then you can't eat. Uh. So you know animal rescues where someone is intervening with the predator prey dynamic, it's like, well, okay, I guess you saved that cute duck, but now that crocodile won't have a meal. So uh and you know that it's uh, animals gotta eat too, they got to

eat to live. Yeah, there's there's something, um although it surely well intentioned, there's there's something incredibly um self important you could argue about entering, Yeah, entering into this this huge system, this grand like this grand story that was

doing just fine before we got on the scene. Like like I think, you know, we have to understand that if if the croc a dial or the alligator could think in historical terms like this, human beings would be a very new, in somewhat irritating thing, you know, like what what it would be? It's the alien smacking the apple, Yeah, for sure, And I think that's a very I think

that's a very smart way to put it. Um And I know that there are arguments to four intervening in some situations like protecting maybe some animal that's already endangered from an invasive species. Of course, that's that's kind of an exception, like protecting a pet from a wild animal. And I totally understand the empathy that people feel when they see a predator eat some prey. Like I as much as I love predator species, I love snakes, I

love birds of prey. Doesn't mean I don't feel bad for the prey that they're about too about to eat. But it's just, you know, it's a it's a fact of life that, you know, snakes gotta eat, and sometimes snakes gonna eat something cute. But the thing is, that's not just what's wrong with these videos. It's something much, much, much worse. So according to herpetologists and other wildlife experts who have reviewed these videos, and I'm not gonna say

which ones because I just they don't deserve the clicks. So, but such as the one with the Burmese python and the gibbon, uh that that they watch these videos and they say these are definitely faked, and uh so that means that some butt hole grabbed a Burmese python, tossed it onto a gibbon, and then staged a heroic rescue, traumatizing both a gibbon and a python in the process, just for YouTube views. Terrible, terrible, So there were a

few tip offs that the video was fake. According to herpetologist Mark Alia, as we've talked about in the show before, uh pythons are ambush predators. It may not seem like, hey, they don't have legs, how can they run up and ambush you? But they're they're sneaky. They will uh sneak up on their price. Sometimes I'll even drop down. They can get up a tree and then drop down on you, quite a terrifying prospect um. And then they bite down

onto their prey, because that's important. If you're trying to coil yourself around some prey that's trying to get away from you, you may not be fast enough to coil around before it runs away, but if you bite down and then you start wrapping around them, that's it. That's game over for that that animal that you're about to eat.

They're also typically nocturnal, so most of their hunting is done at night, but in these rescue videos, miraculously, for the benefit of good videography, all of these are happening during the day. Go figure. Also in this video, the herpetologist noticed that the Burmese python, which basically always bites down its prey before wrapping around it, was not biting the given so it shot during the day, was not biting the gibbon, just kind of was flopped over it

looped around it. It seemed extremely likely, if not absolutely certain, that this was a faked video where the person put the python on the given and terrified the poor little gibbon, probably confused the python, maybe even traumatize the python as well, because they don't like being handled. They don't want to be scratched like. They don't even typically eat gibbons. They will if they're big enough and they see an opportunity, but they they'll mostly eat you know, um more like

a rodent or rabbits um. I'm also gonna just you know, as a not a herpetologist, I'm gonna just throw it out there. I think I think most snakes don't like being thrown. I would imagine no, no, no, I don't think so. I don't think snakes like being thrown. I don't think they like. In fact, they may not seem like delicate creatures, but they are they they are they don't like being man handled. They can get very stressed out. Um, And so yeah, you don't. You don't want to just like,

you know, man handle a snake for YouTube videos. You don't want to traumatize a given for YouTube views. It's completely ridiculous. Um. Other videos are clearly staged because they use the same damn snake over and over again. Yeah, so of course, maybe, like when you look at a snake, and you know, I'm not going to act high in mighty if I saw one python and then I saw another python, I'm not going to be able to tell necessarily the difference between the two pythons. They're gonna look

the same to me. But in fact, they do have facial markings that are very specific to each individual. So if you study these videos and you look at their facial markings, you can see it's the same individual python used in multiple video. So this poor python just keeps getting like involved in these videos where it's like placed with some cuter animal I suppose, and then the rescuer grabs it away from it. Whereas this python is like, I'm literally not doing it. Why are you doing this?

Like I'm just being a snake, you know, just I'm just trying to snake. I'm a big living pool noodle, and you won't leave me alone, right, You're throwing me at things, Yeah, tearing me off things, and now I'm the bad guy. Oh, I see, I'm the bad guy because I want lunch and you keep like shoving some lunch in my face and I don't even really want to eat it. But then you're like, no bad snake, and then then you get a million YouTube views? What is this? Yeah, it's horrible. This gibbon hates me nowt

Like what like that is? That's another that's another uh weird human analog. What if what if you met someone because someone else just threw them at right right? You know, but your personal I don't want to even if they're the nicest person. Yeah, you know, they're still always going to be in your head the person that got thrown at you. Yeah, that's like a rock. It's a very awkward situation. But yeah, I mean like it's it's very

it's very clearly animal abuse, very cruel. Uh. Sometimes you can see like if a bird of prey is in one of these videos of like hey falcon, leave that random like smaller animal alone, that you know, we've arbitrarily decided you should not eat you know, while we eat our burgers and so on. Yeah, the falcons in these videos will sometimes have their wings clips, so and ornithologists can see like, yeah, it's it's had its wings clip.

It can't fly away. It's it's a it's horrible, um and you know it's It's just it's one of these things where my feeling is that nature is so incredible on its own. I mean, we talked about lemur sting fights right like that that you can there are so many there's so many things we don't need these sensational uh fake videos. And it's the thing that I think makes me the most angry about this is it praise

on people's sense of empathy. Um. So I don't I have no anger towards people who watch these videos and like them, because I don't think that they are getting duped. Uh And of course you're not, like, it's not you don't even have to be stupid. I don't think like someone who watches this video and thinks it's a genuine video. It's like you don't expect someone to like kidnap a snake and throw it on a given and use it in multiple videos. That's just not something you're expecting. And

our empathy response is very strong. We see this given, we can clearly see this given is scared, and we feel the and we're like, I want someone to go save that gibbon, and then someone does and you feel relief. That's very natural human empathy. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's nothing that I think is wrong or bad. But it's so so slimy to take advantage of human empathy like that. It makes my skin crawl. I absolutely agree. And if you want to see incredible moments in nature,

there's there are a lot of things out there. There are documentaries, there are you know, amateur videos made in good faith by people who are seeing these amazing things take place, like gibbons sing you know what I mean, and you you can you can watch that. That's that's pretty um inspiring now, genre of music wise, this singing may not be for everybody, but it is real. It's not faked to um just kind of prey on our

own psychological tendencies. And snakes, you know, I know, snakes like a given song aren't for everybody, but they are They are amazing amazing creatures. You know, I like they're playing life on hard mode, you know what I mean, no legs, no arms for just just tube, just tube

in it. Yeah, I mean, I mean it is. Yeah, it's it's very frustrating for me as someone who I think is I really love the less I guess they're sort of the less charismatic uh species of animals, the less gregarious animals that get really popular because I love you know, like we love pandas and koalas and and uh and cute little monkeys, and of course I love

those animals too. Um, but I think things like snakes and spiders and hawks and um, you know, bats, these are all these are all amazing animals that also deserve our respect. And so it's just so infuriating when someone is first of all abusing animals and then doing it in a video where they're like kind of getting you to manipulating you emotionally to hate the snake for just snaking around. In terms of spotting these fake videos, um, it can be tricky. And again I do not people

who get like taken in by these videos. You're not dumb. It's just you're being manipulated by someone who has no scruples, and it's like, of course you see a snake attack, given it's your first thought isn't like maybe someone carefully doctored this um. But if you want to know some tips to kind of like look, see if you can

spot the fake video. One thing is if you notice the channel has a bunch of animal rescue things that are similar highly unlikely, So like if they're constantly saving some animal from like a snake or a hawk or a crocodile, and it's like the same channel those things, first of all, just don't You don't encounter that very often. A lot of predators are nocturnal, so you're not going

to see them during the day. It's very difficult to catch those things on camera documentaries like Planet Earth where you see these incredible and gory scenes where you see a shark like tear seal and half or something horrific, or you know, you see lions like takedown some some prey.

It can take years or at the very least many months to get a really good shot of something like that, to get really good footage of predator and prey, and certainly you're not typically going to be up close and personal to that happening, You're going to freak out both the prey and the predator animals. So so typically if the channel is just like nothing, but like a bunch of these like I just saved a duck out of the mouth of a crocodile and it keeps happening, It's

like that should set off a red flag. Another red flag is they're all shot during the day. You know, just look to see eight are these animals actually uh do they are the most active during the day or active during the night. That's another tip off. Um. Typically uh, sort of legit naturalists aren't going to intervene, so like there may be a video of some cool predation going on, but a naturalist or a researcher or biologist is not gonna snatch that prey out of that predator's mouth. So

that typically doesn't happen in like legit videos. You might hear you might hear a narrator talking about the beautiful, slash brutal site, right right, exactly. You might hear the voice of Sir David Attenborough. Yes, yes, but David Dave, Dave's not the type of guy to intervene unless nature. Yeah, yeah, exactly, So that those are just a few tips for spotting fakes. I've certainly been faked out by, not not by this type of video, but there have there have been like

Internet videos or like wait is that real? And I think maybe it's real, and then I find out now it's completely fake. So just some tips and tricks to sort of suss out those those videos, you know, and if it seems like too incredible to be real, just like just do a little Google search. You know it's it's actually you can find out those things. And I think that's like such an important lesson, especially now when we just have so much disinformation, like through Facebook, just

this constant pipeline of bull honky. It's so frustrating. We talked about the horse medicine at the beginning of the show, where people just start getting this information like don't trust science, just to trust this one terrible study that had to be retracted that maybe when you put horse medicine and a petri dish it does something to COVID And it's like, no, that's not how research works. Don't take horse medicine. Uh, you will not turn into a horse, but you might

go sterile. Yeah, yes, that is that is true, folks, if if you and you can check this very easily, there is a there are indications of a distressingly high likelihood of of this horse of horse medication. One in specific, that we don't have to give airtime to uh causing sterility in men's Yeah yeah, so you know, uh, and you'll get a lot of diarrhya. So nobody needs that, uh, unless unless you're planning on a stink fight. Yeah, stay away from it. Yeah. But in terms of incredible footage

that is very real. Here's an example of thing that seems like it's it's fake footage, but it's actually something that was taken by researchers. So, um, there was footage of a giant tortoise in the Schell's Archipelago stalking and killing a baby bird, which we typically have thought that giant tortoises are strict herbivores, So the fact that it went on the hunt for an adorable baby bird was not only horrible to look at, but also really surprising

from a behavioral perspective. So the bird was a turn chick, very cute, very small, very lovable, and then this out of freaking just nowhere, this giant well not out of nowhere. It's a little bit slow, but slowly out of nowhere, this giant tortoise creeps up on it and approaches the bird and then just chomps right on its head and swallows it whole. What is that a usual thing? Nope? Uh so the general understanding is that giant tortoises are herbivores.

So the fact that it ate a baby bird, and in fact not just eight but seemed to stalk and eat a baby bird is mind blowing. So now researchers are scrambling. Uh they're wondering, Okay, is this just one weird perverse turtle or is it uh turtles that do this occasionally, or is it like when certain food sources are scarce, Like, what's going on? Why are the turtles eating the baby birds? Is a sign of the apocalypse?

Uh so, yeah, it's a it's it just goes to show you, like, uh, you know, whenever they're these fake videos out there, it's like when you find a real video, it's usually way cooler, way more intense than any of the fake stuff, agree us. So yeah, with that, before we go, I actually want to reveal the answer to

last week's guess Who's talking contests. So every week this is a new game that I am playing with you the listener and you the guests, where I play a mystery sound of any animal on the earth, and you have to guess who is making that sound? Uh, and I only give one little hint. So last week the hint was it is an argument between two Canadians and here is the sound. So do you want to guess ben who is talking in the mystery sound segment? Yes? And is there is there a clue? Yeah? Yes, Uh

these are two Canadians having an intense conversation. Are they our producers? No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, kidding, our producers are not. Show has been canceled. We're sorry for the interruption. So yes, so this is um okay. Initially I was going to guess goats, because I know I've heard some strangely human like vocalization can screen pretty good. Yeah, yes, but given that clue, without using a lifeline or cheating via Google, I am going to guess was it Canadian geese? Oh?

You're so close, but alas no. Uh So congratulations to the first three people to write in with the correct answer. Uh. Pepper Lapew Alison Key and Enrique who guessed drum roll Canada lynxes? What congratulations, Oh Canada, you guess the weird ass noise? Yeah, so these are two Canada lynxes. Uh. Canada Lynxes are fluffy, muscular swoll felines with amazing sideburns. They live in boreal forests in Canada. They also live in Alaska in the very tippy top of North America.

They have amazing fluffy feet that look like egg boots that cover their toepads to keep their tipsies warm during winter. Typically, they're not very social. They don't hang out much. So the fact that someone caught on video two lynxes space to face yelling at each other having some kind of argument, probably over territory, is pretty incredible. And yes, they really do sound like two people just screaming at each other, and like you know, a Walmart arguing over some some

mountain dew. You know, that's how it happens. That's what happens. And you try to take my mountain dew. I just screams some what we've we've discussed about cats earlier, I have I have much more appreciative of my own pets for not talking that way they do not talk to you in that tone of voice, not while they live under your roof. Hey, I will I will throw this mountain dew outside. Yeah, yeah, exactly, I will. I will

turn this kitty tree right around. Uh yeah, you got you got all of them knows who's boss or they're gonna walk all over you, probably literally, they probably already do. It's too late. Well, so for this week, I have another mystery sound in our game of guess who's talking? Um, I will give you another hint. It is you do not want to get in a knife fight with this guy? And now here is the sound. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. All right, So Ben, you got any guesses

who's making that incredible sound. Oh I'm scared to go over to here, Katie because I'm not an expert, but I want to say something about it. You say you don't want to get in a knife fight. Something about that clue, plus that sound makes me want to guess in the direction of amphibians. Maybe is there a frog that can like or frog or toad that can break its bones and kind of like again wolverine out there

is It's called a hairy harry frog. But my I have a poker face on I reveal nothing to you of this game for the answer will only be revealed next Wednesday on the next episode of Creature Feature. Uh. So, you know, make your guesses if you want to. You want to bet on bowling, you might guess the Hairy Frog or make your own guesses. Uh. Not to put any pressure on you, but thank you so much for joining me today. Tell the people where they can find you so they can get mad at you if you

make them lose the bet. Thanks so much, Thank you so much. Yeah for having me on the show. You can find me in a number of places. I'm in a burst of creativity calling myself at Ben Bolan on Instagram, vo w l i N. You can find uh, you know when you're on Twitter following Katie what you should

already be doing. Then you can also follow me. I'm aptin Bowlin hs W. And if you want to learn more about critical thinking applied to conspiracy theories, please do check out stuff they don't want you to know, available on you know, podcast platforms available kind of kind of petered out at the end. They're available in podcast uh yeah, And you can find me on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Twitter, at Creature Feet Pod on Instagram,

and at Creature Feet Pod at gmail dot com. And that's where you can send me in your answers to the get Who's Talking Mystery Animal sound guessing game And if you are both lucky and clever, you can get your name right out on the show if you guess the correct animal for next week's animal guessing game. And thank you so much for listening. I really do appreciate it. If you're enjoying the show, uh, and you leave a rating or review, it really does help me out a lot.

I read all the reviews and I cherished them all, print them out, put them under my pillow, kiss them every night. Uh literally, Yes, I absolutely do that. And thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or Hey guess what? Where have you listen to your gosh darn favorite shows? I don't judge you, not the podcast police, gosh darn it.

See you next Wednesday to da