It's Just A Prank, Bro

for survival. We're going to fall down a web of lies, deceit, and outright mockery. Discover this and more as we answer the angel question. You can pick your nose, you can pick your friend's nose, but can you pick a monkey's nose? Joining me today to start our own YouTube prank channel is co host of Gamefully Unemployed Devious Friend of the Pod. David Bell. Hi, thanks for having me on. I love pranking animals. It's what I do. It's it's it's one

of my my favorite hobbies. Yes, yes, we know all the pranks you play on your cat, like the fake vomit. It's sort of like a payback though, because you your cat lays out real vomit for you. That's true. So yeah, when she's sleeping sometimes put her paw and a little bowl of warm water and then she peas and then I have to clean it because she's not going to do it. Sounds like these these pranks are sort of a piric victory. Yeah. We're also joined by our wonderful producer,

Joel Monique. Hi, guys, how are you ready for some some pranks? Some Ashton Kutcher. What was that show called pranks Pump? I'm a prank. I gotta tell you, I wish somebody would come around here and prank me with some water balloons or something. It is scorching. I'm ready to hear about the antics of others because I just feel like I'm yeah, yeah, I actually we are going to talk about some watery pranks. And it did just make me jealous that I wasn't the one getting pranked.

Have you guys seen these like prank YouTube channels sure, where it seems like they just the whole premise of it is they go around being mean to people and then they call it a prank, like prank like that. Yeah, I don't like that. I think there's a clear distinction between like a good natured like oh you fell for it, and a person whose feelings are legitimately hurt. That's why the best genre on YouTube is pranks gone wrong, where someone does a prank and it goes really bad for them.

Ye are we thinking of the same video? Possibly the one where the guy like throws a tiny net on someone and runs through them all and a guy karate kicks him. It's like, don't go run around? Well, what can you say? You know? The one I was thinking of was a guy dressed as like a Yeti or something, hid in a trash can and sprung out of the trash can and the guy that he startled just punched

him right in the face. I love that. I love it because it's like it's a perfect example to teach people about fight or flight responses, because a lot of people are going to have the flight response of like jump back, run away. This guy had the fight response, which was punched this thing right in the face, immediately move. I gotta respect somebody who's always on their toes. And it looked like he knock him out cold, like that guy drops into you. It's not nice, right slumps right

back into the trash. The only time I feel sorry for people who wear that, Like the fight or flight thing kicks in when like you're trying to spook someone. Is like, if you're at a haunted house and you're an employee of the haunt house and you spook someone and they punched, It's like, dude, you're you're in a haunted house. You should be expecting this to happen, Like, don't do that, right, that's literally while you're there, right, it'd be weird if you were there by some accident

you did not. As a scaredy cat who loves being scared, uh, frequently, I have been dragged places that are too scary for my own good, and then I feel overconfident and I'm like, no, no, I totally got this, not at all afraid, And then I scream in someone's face like a child because I've really been startled. And I've definitely seen people who are like I had a friend Hannah growing up, who was

scared of just anything. We would watch terrible horror movies and she would scream like shrill, screaming one was stabbing her at nothing like the fake jump everyone can call. She's screaming I would love to take her to haunted places because it's fun to watch people who are afraid be afraid. You know. Maybe maybe give her a pair of like those big inflatable sock em boppers on her so that she can punch as many people as she likes, but just won't hurt anyone. And that would be fun.

Wouldn't that be fun? Like you go to like a ghoul house, like a haunted house, and you get like a pair of sock'm bompers. Sorry, sock'em boppers adds a really fun element of like a person dressed as a ghoul jumping out at you, and you're just like body. Steal Katie's idea and make the nineties sock 'em boppers commercial but with the outtakes from the horn sock'm boppers was like a ghoul and a scared person. I love it.

I'm really here for this. So our first animal prankster really perfected these sneaking up on its victims and startling them. In this case, it is to kill them, to be honest, So I don't it's like prank I'm not sure that constitutes I'm gonna say, isn't it? I mean, but It has all the elements of a prank, like the sneakery and sort of the subter few which it's just it does actually end in a murder. This is like slashing someone's tires and being like, I pranked you. It's like, no,

you you just vandalized. Smacking someone with a baseball bat pranked you. Lord. Well, one of the smartest, most wise crack and spiders in the world is named Porscha. And she said lovely. Yeah. Also you put you immediately put the image of a spider laughing with like wise cracking, like there's I assume there's no spiders in nature that chuckle.

I think this one probably does, to be honest with you, and it's sort of spider way maybe a sort of a wiggle of the chillis arrae probably, But yeah, this is a genus of jumping spiders that are some of the most clever and sneaky spider hunters in the world. And they have to be so clever because they actually feed on other spiders and they have to really dupe them into becoming prey, and they will hunt spiders many

times their size. We're going to talk about one of these in particular called the fringed jumping spider or Porsche Fimbriata, which is a lovely, lovely gal. She's got these long gams with these it's she almost looks like she's on stilettos because the rest of her body is fluffy, kind of the the you know, the little fuzzy jumping spider. But then she's got these long stilts on the end of her legs that allow her to move sort of

in this more like careful motion. But it is she looks she definitely looks like she's rocking eight pairs of Platform's what we're trying to say is she's a model. Yeah, she looks like she's compensating for her like, yeah, the it looks like a little twitter is what I like about it. So it looks like a spider that's like, oh, I'm too short and like broke off some twigs and it was like I love it. Right. And they're pretty small. I would say they're about like can they fit in

your ear? Yea, of course your size the classic ear sauce. They could get right in that ear. They're about um, they're about five millimeters long, so in relation to the ear, how how big is that is? It a snug fit. Can they fit several in your ear? They're about six millimeters long, which is about point three, so you know, they're about like the size of a fingernail, So definitely

can fit in your ear. Just snug fit, a snug snuggle, sort like earbuds, except that your buddies and they're little spiders, saying I don't like this way of describing the side of spiders. They're deeply disturbing. They get right in that ear and then they give in your ear like instead of have earbuds, having a spider friend that's just in your ear, going like spiders spiders. This might be prejudice, but I don't think I could be friends with a spider.

I don't think that we would be good buddies. I feel like we're too different. They're creepy and crawley. They got lots of eyes, and they terrified me. Even if she's a stunningly intelligent and brave spider, I will honor by acknowledging her greatness very very far away. What about like the Charlotte's Web spider. No, even Charlotte's horrifying and probably would be killed immediately in my house. A spelling spider. Now it's intelligent. Can it hold a grudge like Ravens?

It's out, We're done across the line. That's well. Unfortunately, Joel, you may not be a big fan of this Porsche spider because they are extremely spookily intelligent. So so there are a few ways that these Porsche trick other spiders into becoming their prey. One is to hop onto the web of another spider and then carefully pluck the strand like they're playing a harp to entice the spider out. Because the spiders rely on this sense of vibration to know that their their web, which acts as a net

to catch prey, has worked. So they feel the web vibrating, They're like, oh great, there's I caught a tasty fly or something. They go down. No, it's portion she's going to eat you. It's literally a siren song. Get out. That reminds me of the Treehouse of Horror where Bart if they do the fly spoof and Bart gets caught in the web and does the help me and then the spider shows up. It flee flies away and goes

sucker like flies away and the spider lifts. It's a little spider legs like, oh yeah, it's actually just like that, except that Bart would murder the spider and then and then suck out its juices. Yeah. So the Porsche Spider. One of the really cool things about it is it is able to improvise. It is an improv master, which you know, it's just one other reason I guess to be afraid of spiders always trying. They're like, hey, you want to come to my improv shows. I don't think

it's not gonna happen. Could you just bite me instead, please? But they will like, say, the spider shows up as it's strumming the web and then it's huge, and the Porsche spars like, oh the spider could actually like kill me. It starts to do this very gentle, mesmerizing stroke of the web, almost playing the song for it, that lolls it into this falseness of security. And then the Porsche of spiders, it's really good at moving in these like

very slow jerky motions, kind of like a chameleon. And so it just like strums the web really soothingly takes one step. The big spiders like, I don't know what this is. This is interesting, It's like my food is playing me a song and it seems fine. I think I'm okay, and then it's just strumming and getting closer and closer, and then it fights it and that's game over.

Because it has extremely potent venom that especially affects other spiders, so it's actually not that potent against like insects, but with spiders. It has this incredible effect. What an amazing jerk. I know, it's great, Like I I love that it has it sees a bigger spider and it has a situation for that. I'll just do a confusing dance and while it's sitting there like wondering what the heck I am, I'll bite it. Real it's a great D and D character. Yeah,

that's a fighting tech totally. Yeah. Researchers think it may have the most diverse repertoire of hunting techniques of all animals except for humans and higher primates, which is quite impressive for an animal that has a brain the eyes of a head of a pen and only about sixty thousand neurons. For comparison, humans have around eighty billion neurons. So yeah, teeny tiny brains, and despite the simplicity, it is capable of very complex and improvisational behaviors. There are

a few more hunting techniques that it does. Do you guys remember the weeping angels and Doctor Who? Yes, who could forget their horrified It's this thing in Doctor Who are there these angel statues that couldn't move if you were looking at them, but when you turned away, they could like move towards you, so like you would look at them, blink and then it would be like five ft closer to you and looking more menacing, like the hedge animals in the novel version of The Shining there's

no there's no hedge maze. It's animals. Yeah, yeah, And like just the idea, the idea of something stalking you and you turn around and then it's like a little closer. You turn to look like a cat. You're describing a cat. That's what these spiders do. They will freeze in place when it's prey sees it, and then the prey, which isn't probably another spider, is like I'm like, huh, okay,

I guess it's fine. It turns around and then it stocks closer and closer and he's like wait a minute, and then like freeze in place until it gets close enough to bite right, or in the case of humans, nozzles in their ears just because closer and closer. Because they're like cute little kitty spiders. Though, yeah, I feel like if I was peta, I would name these spiders octo kittens because they have so many legs, a little

tiny octobidy kittens cute. So another thing they do is they pretend to be a male spider from another species of jumping spider. This other species of jumping spider, the males will construct a nest for the females out of leaves, and so if the female sees like a spider rustling leaves, it's like lured out because like, oh, this is a male showing off his construction skills. Like maybe we should mate, but no, it's Porsche. She's tricked you and then she

eats you. That's a classic bugs bunny move. Yeah, it's like an inverse bugs Bunny because she's like, yeah, her, here are I'm going to do some construction work for you, ma'am. Just here to colean your pipes, ma'am, and then you come out. It's like what like each other? I wonder if the black Widow feels like Porsche is really feeling her thunder here. Uh yeah, I feel like all of the scary wife's seductress tactics. Uh yeah, por she's got him nailed. I love this inversion of the trope though,

because she's seducing other females. It's like it's dare I say it feminist, but I would love I would love that, Like oh Man, Marvel writers people, comic book people. If you're listening, do like, if you want to do like a villainous to pair with black widow, color poor Sha and have her do all of these things. I think that would kick ass. You know well. It reminds me of another Scarlett Johansen character and Under the Skin, which

is I don't know if you would enjoy it. It's about an alien, maybe automaton, maybe um species, just luring men into being like slowly digested. It's Scarlett Johansson like cruising around in a van talking to guys and I won't go on a tangent, but they a lot of it was shot like improved on the street, with real guys that she would call over and talk to. Uh yeah, it's a very fascinating film. It's fantastic. I love this. Yeah, you should watch it. Everybody should watch it. All you

animal fans can watch it. Under the skin. Yeah, that's that's amazing. I mean, like it really is. The like this porschea spider would be a perfect horror villainous Like. Another thing that the spider does is they have this very jerky gate. It's meant to mimic the appearance of light coming through the forest canopy, you know how like when light comes through leaves and like the trees kind

of blowing the wind. The spider moves in that way to make it literally look like light coming through canopy. But it's it's the spider. Yeah, it's It's totally amazing how adept they are at being the perfect spies. And researchers wanted to see how intelligent these Porsche spiders were, so they tested P. Fimbriata, the ones that we've been talking about, that specific species, and they made little tiny

spider deserted islands. So they stranded Porsche on this little island in the middle of like this moat of water, and so to escape, the spider had to either jump and swim or just swim like it was too far for it to just jump out of the island. Also they gave it like a little teeny tiny volleyball and the spiders are like was there was there like a spider polar bear and like a really convoluted spider plot

that no one understood. That's a lost reference. Yeah, I gave up on loss like after the first episode on You Spide Yourself many years. So these littles on their little deserted spider islands with like a tiny I imagine like a little tiny palm tree that the researchers put in just to make it convincing for the They trained the spiders to use a specific technique of escape. So basically the spider can either swim the whole way or

like take a flying leap and then swim. So researchers would try to encourage them to use one technique over the other by like wiggling the water so it creates a little wave pool. So basically, like say they want the spider to swim when the whole way. Anytime the spider jumps, they would create waves in the water. So as far as like what what and has to go back to the island, And they were actually able to successfully train these spiders to use the escape technique that

they wanted to assign to them. So it shows that they adapt their techniques based on their environment, based on learning like what works and what doesn't, which is extremely impressive for such an idy bitty spider. It also proves, like a lot of these studies, that scientists seem very bored. They scientists kind of are jerks, aren't they. I'm sorry, I don't. I love scientists and I love science. This podcast would not exist without the work of evolutionary biologists

and behavioral researchers. But you gotta admit it's a little rude, you know. Yeah, And like if you told if you told the spiders like, so we learned this, they'd be like, great, why do you need to know that? What was the point of that? We were very stressed out. Yeah, yeah, we could have told you we rule already. We could have told you were smart. Was that really necessary? I mean, if the spiders are actually talking, the study really is

not necessary because we have genius spiders. There's like spelling out like Charlotte's webs, spelling out these webs like you bastard. Maybe the scientists were getting revenge on the spiders because they were spelling out webs that were like NERD four eyes just bullying scientists. Oh this is a funny thing I read in one of the studies on this um these PORSCHEA spiders is this? I was reading this line,

I was like, wait what? Uh? So here does I say these spiders should be able to focus accurately on an object at distances from approximately two centimeters to infinity? What? What? That was my affection? Yeah? I was like, wait, what do you mean these spiders can see for infinity? And this led me on a deep hole of trying to understand how lenses work and and uh vision and and basically the the physics of of sight and light travel,

which is kind of outside of my wheelhouse. So I might get this a little wrong, but apparently infinity focus is a thing that is really common, which is like, it's not that the spiders can see for infinity although we don't know they can't, um, but that their islands is can achieve infinity focus like a camera or a telescope. Basically, if the lens is at the right angle compared to the light source, and the light source is able to

reach you, you can see it. And so apparently this is the case for a lot of animal eyes, including humans, Like healthy human eyes have a focus from twenty cimeters to infinity. But like, as I was reading this, like for a split second, I was like, these spiders can see for infinity, right, they can see if your time? What just this like spider like staring up at the stars and like violent music playing just space and zooming in Werner Herzog voicing, Like these spiders can see into

our souls, into the very beginnings of the universe. Anyways, Oh, you know, guys, if you scroll down, there's a cool spider on the next page there. I just want you to take a look. See at that that cool spider. What am I? What am I seeing here? I see something eating a bird? I am speechless. I have no words what I can feel? My nightmares? What's going on here? Does this all right? So? Will this fit into an ear? Does? They will not fit into an ear? I will say

that much. But I want you, guys to try to because like I know what this is, but I want you to try to explain what you're seeing someone who doesn't know, like what is going on? Here's my guess is that My guess is that the first uh Jeff, that you have here is whatever whatever uh is? Uh is a spider of some sort crawling on a snake, and a bird trying to eat the spider, and the snake eating the bird. So my guess is that, oh, wait, no, no,

I know what I'm seeing. I'm seeing it's it's entirely a snake, and it's got a dumb tail designed to attract birds to try to eat it. Uh, and then it eats the birds. It looks like a rock. It looks like a bug crawling on a rock. The bird swoops down and it gobbles the bird. But here's the thing. The caption says, here's a cool spider. Okay, all right, I was like, the hell the snake with the tail, that's what That's what pen and Gillette Wait, Penengella, that's right,

that's what pen and Teller call a miss direction. Yeah. I think your description was perfect there. It's you know, weird. The tail is kind of spiny. At first, I thought, oh, like, maybe it's a millipede working in tandem with the snake. Is it's a dual prank. But then I see in the second one that it's not just a very effed

up tail. What the hell. So this is an Iranian spider tailed viper that hunts birds by pretending its tail is a spider, and its tail is shaped like a spider, like it looks like one of those little rubber spiders you get around Halloween time, right like, and it's just wiggling it around, like its tail has a bulb on the end that looks like a spider's abdomen, and then all these legs coming out of it, these fake legs, spines coming out of it, so it looks like just

a whole spider with legs attached to its tail. And then it wiggles it around like a lure for birds, so it does like sky fishing for birds. And then the birds come down and the viper is disguised as a rock because it lives in these mountain ranges in Iran. And then it's like the bird is none the wiser and it goes for a juicy spider, but it gets

it gets eaten. Yeah, it's it's so mean to eat something that's hungry like that feels it's like it's like a cotton candy machine eat us, you know, like your last thought is excitement for something to get to eat. And then you just get eaten. I mean, but if you don't know what hits you, right, like, yeah, the worst. Well, you know, I think this bird knew what hit it. That's probably actually true from what you're showing me here. Uh, it looks like I mean, it's a whole bird, and

we're not talking about like an anaconda here. It's it's like the bird could maybe win this fight in the right conditions, but does not know. I don't think this bird is going to win this particular fight. I would say no, no, no. I say this with much pain in my heart as someone who loves birds. But yes, I mean, I gotta hand it to the snake. Though. This is ah. It's not just that its tail looks like a spider, but the puppeteering of it is really professional.

It's like a Jim Hinson style puppet shaped like a burger, like like a McDonald style burger Mayor of Cheeseville, whatever his name is, and he's like, hey, kids, come over here, and then and it's like this happy muppet burger and I'll you like skip after it. And then it's just attached to this giant demon that I'm imagining the Swedish chef getting this in as like an ingredient like they were gonna. I love Swedish Chef, but I can't do his voice. I'm terrible at it. He's just like around

the table trying to catch a bird. Beautiful board board. Remember the first SpongeBob SquarePants movie where it's like basically Um Hillenburg, the guy who made SpongeBob used to be a marine biologist. So a lot of the jokes in SpongeBob show and understanding of marine biology, and one of them was like basically a spoof on the deep Sea Anglerfish where it was this giant monster who's lure was shaped like a little old lady offering them ice cream.

A classic, and the joke there is like the specificity of being able to evolve basically to look like a little lady offering ice cream. But this is essentially that, Like it's it gets that complicated. It's amazing, Yeah, it's I mean, it really looks like the second picture. It looks like a damn spider is like clung onto its tail. It's one horrifying thing revealed to be another. This is definitely a damn nature you crazy moment. I'm trying to think about the evolutionary like path of how he gets

his steal. It's how I would evolve because this snake learned, you know what, I want to just not move, let the food come to me. I want to move as little as possible. I just want to I want to bait something and then gobble it up immediately got what it wanted. Yeah, is there a Pixar film and a lonely spider befriending another spider that turns out to be the snake's tail and the snake feels like it doesn't want to tell the spider because then the spider will

be portrayed. Well. I like this. It's sort of a Cyrano de Bergerac kind of story where like the snake think like the spider falls in love with the snake's tail, and the snake falls in love with the spider, but it's afraid that if it reveals that this is just a form of aggressive mimicry, that then the spider won't love it anymore. But then it turns out at the end the spider really did love the snake the whole time, and it doesn't matter that they're two entirely different species.

It's like a less tragic ending to the squirrel saga and the Sword in the Stone that broke my heart. The little squirrel. Yeah, like in Merlin, Merlin turns a child version of King Arthur into a squirrel, and a little squirrel falls in love with him, and then he turns back into the human and she cries. Yeah, he has to break up with a squirrel, imagining having to do that. What I wanted to happen is for Merlin to turn the squirrel into a human, but with the

squirrel brain. So the squirrel is just like a romantic Katie. It's just like, no, they move all together, right, right, But then the squirrel just has like a squirrel brain, and and she's just like chewing on nuts all the time and like it, like and this is Queen jenever Chip, why not? I mean, why not? When we return, we're actually going to talk a little bit more about squirrel hijinks, speaking of which, so we will be right back. That's very promising. A classic prank is putting out a fake

spider to startle someone, which is a done prank. But what else can you expect from a prank that involves spreading anti spider propaganda. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, is very common phobia, and treating phobia's involves exposure therapy, where you're introduced to your fear incrementally. But treating or acnophobia can be tricky. After all, it's hard to train a spider to sit still while someone gets used to its presence.

But some researchers are looking into how virtual reality may help people with our acnophobia by having them explore digital worlds with digital spiders. Personally, the concept of a spider with AI scares me more than a regular, fluffy, real world spider. But hey, maybe Sunday I'll welcome our virtual spider overlords. When we return, we're going to talk about the pranks that squirrels pulled that are driving me nuts.

So we were just talking about that horrible, traumatizing scene in the Sword in the Stone Disney film where the squirrel falls in love with the transformed king Arthur, who was like, or I guess he's not a king yet,

just a little brat who gets turned new squirrel. They fall in love, and then Merlin's like, no, we gotta turned back into humans, Like screw these squirrels, and it's horrible and the squirrels are sad, right because back in the day kids movies wanted to traumatize us on many right, right, like you gotta you got any parents you love? Oh, don't worry, we'll kill them. Oh yeah, oh those parents are going down, Mickey Mouse, just with like a bloody

baseball back going like nice parents you got. There would be a shame of anything happened to them. But yes, squirrels lead a very complex life, even without the hijinks of an insane wizard. So squirrels like to hide nuts, such as the durn gray squirrel. But there are a lot of nut hiding species of squirrels and they need these nuts stashes to survive the winter, so it's very important for them. A problem, though, is that other squirrels, when they see one squirrel hiding a nut, it's like, well,

I'm I'm just gonna take that nut. Though there's no squirrel law, there's no there's no squirrel code of honor. It's just like it's a it's a squirrel nut nutty squirrel eat nut nut world, a nutty nutty nutty world. So squirrels are will bury these nut caches um and in order to stop other squirrels from stealing their nuts, they will kind of have this arms race of deception.

So squirrels will scurry over to a location, dig a hole, shove something inside the whole bury it, cover it with leaves, and then if you're that squirrel stalker and you dig this up, you're going to find a whole bunch of nothing because you just got squirrel pranked. Oh is it? Is it at least like like a little a little squirrel message, like a little yeah, it's a little note. Yeah, it's like a little note and says I owe you

one nuts, sucker. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And so they will sometimes do this multiple times just to throw these other squirrels off their tails, basically like oh, you think I'm putting my nut in here? You think it's going in here? No, no, it's not. And then they scurry off to another location. So they really try to trick

each other into digging up the wrong nut. The squirrel world, it sounds like every squirrel is living out their own version of the film No Country for Old Men, where like he has the suitcase full of cash and he's trying to he's trying to keep it away like every everything is just The more I learned about squirrels, the more it seems like all they think about is nuts, and everything everything that they do in life revolves around

the importance of nuts. It does. Yes. Actually, in college, for one of my classes, I had to go and observe squirrels nuts, which may as you can imagine as a freshman in college, like trying to make new friends is really good for sort of my social profile, Like oh, yeah, there there's someone sitting next to squirrels, muttering like, go on, get the nut, get the nut, pick it up. Go on, pick it up, your little bastard, pick it up. I don't know if you had to mutter, yeah, but was

the muttering was optional? Dave, you know nothing about observational studies. Anyways, The point of this, like class exercise, I think, was to see, like we basically planted these nuts that had a little some of them had little holes in them, some of them had um no holes. And it was basically to see like when a squirrel suspects there's a worm inside of acorn, like a larva eating the inside, sometimes they'll choose to immediately eat the nut because if

they bury it and there's a larva growing inside. The larva is gonna like eat the nut and then hatch

into a moth and the squirrel gets nothing. But if the squirrel eats it right, then gets the nut and also a little extra protein in the right exactly so bost right and or and In another study much like that one, where other students were also sent out to sabotage their own social life by staring at squirrels all day, they would try to dig up like, uh, nuts that squirrels had buried to like study like these seeds and stuff to see like what kind of seeds they're bearing.

But they had a lot of trouble actually finding these things, even after seeing a squirrel dig up a little cash and then like barry stuff and they're like, well, there's nothing in here, And it's the squirrels were tricking this students because the squirrels were paranoid that the students were going to dig up their seeds. I guess it's not really paranoia if it's true, because it's right. It wasn't. It was legitimately an anti squirrel conspiracy. So the squirrels

were right. The squirrels are watching like I don't think humans don't normally watch us this closely. I think those humans are up to something right, right, They weren't wrong, they were not wrong, And so they tricked the students and then so that the researchers of this day were like, huh, that's interesting. They're onto us. You gotta move to a new town, Fellas. They're onto us. The squirrels are onto us.

And then they did another study where they actually just like intentionally made squirrels paranoid and found that when researchers would dig up the squirrels nuts in sight of the squirrel, the squirrelled panic, run over to another nutt head buried, dig it up, and go berries it's somewhere else, Like, this is so much extra stress on these four squirrels. We're just trying to make sure they have enough food

to survive. Yeah. I think the lesson of this episode is that the real pranksters, the real jerks, were us, the scientists the whole time. I love that there was a study that boiled down to we're gonna bother squirrels. Yeah, we're gonna make them paranoid. Yeah, let's let's annoy squirrels. And I love that squirrels are like little addicts, like they're just like gotta get the nuts, gotta go, oh god, oh god, there after my nuts. I gotta dig up the nuts. Oh my goodness. Their whole world is nuts.

Can you imagine this devastation that like like you take a nut away from a squirrel, you steal its nuts, Like that's its whole world, it's its tove. Most like accurate portrayal of an animal in an animated film was really Scritch from ice age. Oh yeah, the prehistoric squirrel like animal that just all it wanted was that nut, and it's spent all four or five movies or whatever

continually trying to get the nut. In one movie like it, I think it like almost died and went to heaven, but then it was resurrected, and it was so sad because heaven was full of nuts, so it was willing to die if it could be with with nuts. Yeah, but that is at a moment of sweet release into the nut realm and then was ripped from it into nut valhalla. Yeah. Now I want to talk about another sort of prank situation in order to get food, and this one is much more devious than these poor little

squirrels just trying to protect their nuts. So Joel, I have a bird for you too, and you're allowed to dislike this one because this is a devious, devious little guy. This is called Africa's forked tailed drawn Go and it is a black, shimmering bird with red eyes and a forked tail like the devil itself. It's literally the devil. It literally the devil guy. It looks mean as hell. It's got that strong like anime evil brown right above

its red, bloody red eye. It's small, but you can tell that that doesn't condense the amount of hate it has for the world. It looks like it's possessed. Yeah, it looks like this is the earthly form that Satan has chosen. Yeah. It reminds me of the Omen or the Witch when whenever Satan shows up in the form of an animal in a movie, that's what this animal

looks like. It looks like James Bond's best dressed villain. Yeah, it looks like a real jerky and it is so the the fork tailed drawn go uh will do these alarm calls that warns everybody in the region that a predator is coming. So they are found in desert regions in South Africa, and birds in general will often issue alarm calls to warn other birds, and it's like a it's a way to sort of like protect each other. Um. And other species of animals like mere cats will also

issue alarm calls to warn everyone that something's coming. It's this this evolutionary trait that a lot of animals that find themselves as prey will use in order to protect each other from predators. It's citizenship, it's it's camaraderie and like having each other's back. I respect it. Now the drongo does this, Wrongo, sorry, and I had to. I had to do it. You hate to see it, but I had to do it. So um they will sometimes

they do actually warn, do legitimate alarm calls. So something's coming, like a predator or a hawk or something, and they'll issue this alarm call and it's legit. But once they've gained your trust, that's when they start crying wolf. So if a drongo sees a mere cat like with a tasty little meal, it can issue a false alarm calls, so the mere cat will panic and run away, and then the druga swoops in and gets a free meal. It's like, uh impersonating an officer and breaking up like

a high school party for free beer. That's exactly what it's like. That's exactly what that is. Yeah, it's something I've never done now of course, not how else would like why would you have such a specific example like that. Yeah, no,

it makes total sense. Yeah, so it's like and it also in order to keep animals from catching onto the grift, they have developed more sophisticated strategy, so like they will learn the alarm calls of other species of animals and switch it up so that these these poor little mere cats and other animals don't catch on. If the dranga would only do its own alarm call, eventually they'd stop listening to it. But if it imitates your alarm call in another animal's alarm called, then it's it's hard to

tell when they're crying wolf. So that way it keeps it fresh, keeps it mixed up, always changing the grip, that's the key. Yeah, this is what Steve Bannon didn't realize when he did his whole You always gotta be switching up to the grift, right, Like, you can't just like stick to one grip because people catch on you know why wasn't catch me? If you can, you know you gotta you gotta your doctor one day. Next day you're boat Captain. I don't remember that movie, but you

know it was captain right exactly. Um. Also another bird species who's kind of a jerk. Blue Jay's just straight up pretend to be hawks. So they will make a hawk call and it makes innocent birds scatter, and then they very smugly stroll up to whatever seeds and stuff the other birds have left behind to eat them at a leisurely pace. So what you're saying, if you ever see a blue jay get eaten by a hawk, it's it's just justice, right, I guess. So any way to

think about it, I do. I feel like the evolution of these birds as they started by going like hey, watch out, like they were just snitches. I'm sure the predators never appreciate it where they're like, come on, bird, I'm trying to eat too. Yeah, And then they learned after a while and they're like, hey watch everybody, watch out. People would scatter and they're like, oh, there doesn't even

need to be a predator here. Like it's like I warn you, I get a prize and then uh, and then it was like, oh, I can just get the prize whenever. I mean, I think that's exactly how this behavior came about, Dave. And it's it's interesting because you do see like you can't have to like in the story like of Crying Wolf, if you can't have that alarm be too false, otherwise they stopped listening to you.

So it's this really interesting kind of interplay of like switching it up also doing real alarms, like if they never actually alerted to real danger, this old scheme wouldn't work. So it's kind of like it's kind of like gambling like a casino. Casinos are very they're created to prey on human like reward systems, like our brains, giving us reward and dopamine for like seeking prizes. But basically they have to pay you out sometimes otherwise you don't want

to keep playing. So it's the same thing with these birds. These birds like have to pay out sometimes have to actually have a correct signal otherwise they would get ignored. Right, it's uh, it's the casino on average is making more money than it's giving out. I assume this bird is well, no, this bird doesn't even need to worry about that. It's just when it's hungry. Whenever it's hungry, it's just like, you know what, I'll do a fake one right now. Yeah.

I wonder if they're nervous, like the first time somebody shops lives and they're like, oh god, if I should, it's definitely not morally okay, but I kind of really need this lift. Have you guys seen seagulls shoplifting? Oh? Yeah, yeah, they they like strolling really casual, like, hey, what's up, Hey, Jimmy, how's it going? How's it going? Yeah? Just looking just looking at the chips here, just looking at the chips, just taking one of these chips, getting out, get out,

get out. They look like they know what they're doing is wrong. They know that they could get caught. Yes, I don't know if they understand that it is morally wrong. Also isn't morally wrong? I don't know. It depends on the story. You know, if they were in if they were in lame Is, like we would these would be heroes and they would be played by Wolverine. So what if they startently they haven't eaten in envo goal? Like,

come on, what if though? What if it's like a gateway thing where like then they're running bigger griffins, right, first artists, then it's bugles, then it's pring goals. Yeah, they don't know where to stop. Then they're stealing like vehicles, just a swarm of seagulls, like stealing people's cars. Tank We don't know how. Then they can't be stopped. No, once they get a tank, it's all over for us. Seagulls are very intelligent in terms of like being grifters.

They're very good at um stealing things. They also seagulls will have alarm calls that they used to warn each other. They also do mobbing behavior, so a group of seagulls will bully other birds or bully other predators in order to get their way. So there, they really are just like mobsters seagulls. Yeah, I don't. I don't think seagulls are aware that they are the dominant species on this planet, right, Like they must assume they're in charge because they are.

I mean they are to a theme park, the park seagull that is a bad seagull, That is a seagull that's seen at all. It's also kind of incredible because all of our attempts to destroy the world, like all of our trash. The seagulls are like, yeah, yeah, do it, do it, yeah yeah do food. Waste idiots will eat it like sure, yeah, Like you're destroying the planet, but we're gonna be here. I mean, you're all gonna die. But seagulls were doing fine. Yeah, smoldering waste land and

above it seagulls. Yeah yeah. The crime wolf effect is found all throughout animal behavior and human psychology. One area of interest in studying human psychology is alarm fatigue, which describes how after too many false alarms, people will stop paying attention from weather alerts to medical device alarms and safety alarms. Getting too many false positives or too many alert signals in general may train us to be less

responsive to alarms. Maybe we could learn from animal models to understand how to calibrate alarms such that we find the correct balance between false positives and false negatives. That is to say, studying animal pranks could potentially help improve human lives. When we return, we're going to take a look at some less consequential pranks and general monkeying around. Yeah, we will in fact be talking about monkeys too. We'll

be our back. Why do humans like pranks, at least the good fun pranks, not just bullying labeled as pranks. Maybe it has something to do with learning deception in a way that's playful rather than truly insidious. Or maybe it's just to see what we can get away with while still remaining friendly. But pranking isn't exclusively human, as

some of our distant hairy relatives demonstrate. So far, we've talked about pranks that seem to be mostly for survival and like for basically getting food hunting, And now I want to talk about pranks that don't necessarily have to do with survival. It's just animals, you know, being silly, being your being, your Saturday Morning DJ's, you know, like beepers and and the and the and the cheese. You know, remember beepers in the cheese, Beepers in the cheese, Beepers

and the cheese. Saturday Morning Radio Classic Classic Beepers in the cheese. Everybody, I Love, I Love the cheese is bit where he like he calls, like calls the pizza place and he's like, can I get it with extra cheese? Right? And then they say you got cheese? You just got cheese, and then the person working at the pizza place like, wait, did you know on a pizza? Or I don't, I don't get the joke? What right, classic, classic, classic, beeper in the cheese. Yeah, So some of the some of

the best pranksters are primates. And first I want to talk about Capucheans or those are like the fluffy things, the weird hairy ones. Yeah, they're the ones that are They're little monkeys. They are really fluffy. They're brown and white with sort of like the white poops on their faces. They are very cute and they will play these harmless

but kind of annoying pranks on each other. So Capucheans in Costa Rica will play a lot of pranks on each other, and behavioral researchers have been really befuddled by their behaviors. So they'll do things like pull each other's hair, they'll put their fingers in each other's noses, and then they'll pry open each other's mouths, just like little sibling

peak annoyingness hm. And they are trying they were trying to figure out like why they would do this, and they're like studying this one monkey named Napoleon who would like to go around ripping out tufts of other monkeys fur, and then he'd stuff it in his mouth for no apparent reason, and then the other monkeys would try to pry open his mouth to get their fur back, even though it's like once they get their fur back, there's

nothing they can do with it. It's fur right, right, you just took my my butt for like, give it back. Many groups of Capuchein's exhibits some of this behavior, but there's a particular group in Costa Rica, in Lomas Barbudal that displays them with the highest frequency, the most diverse repertoire of pranks and intensity, which means that these specific groups of Capuchin's have a prank culture which is pretty incredible. Here's a quote from Sarah brawsnan primatologist who was interviewed

by National Geographic quote. There's almost a visceral reaction when you see one monkey shove their fingers up another monkey's nose. It was markable to me that the one who is having it done to them was perfectly happy to just

sit there. That suggests that to them it's important somehow, Otherwise, why would they do it I love I love it when scientists are confused and don't know what's going on, because it's like, there's gotta be a reason why these monkeys are shoving their fingers up knows otherwise why would

they do it. Anyone who's watched it two year old knows there doesn't need to be It's the Simpsons with Stampy, where they're like, some animals are just cherks, you know, like primates are just there, are I right, Like they're just they're us at the most basic forum. So it's a combination of wanting to do like cool goofs and maybe bite faces off, and it's like that's really all we have in us too, but we've just found more

sophisticated ways to do it. We've, through our many many thousands of years of evolution, have invented YouTube where we do where we shove our right set people's noses. Yeah, Like I've seen a prank channel. Again, I don't really approve at all of prank channels unless they're actual nice pranks that you do with your friends. The old like get someone in a box that says like but um cream on it, and they open it up and it's like a Nintendo switch. That's a fun prank. That's a

fun prank. Yeah, because then you're like, but like, but but cream, Like I okay, I guess great, thank you for the butt cream, and then you open it up and it's something you actually want. But what if they were like, oh my thank god, but cream. I didn't know you knew. Oh oh my god, can I tell I was so afraid to tell you guys about this. But I have the worst hemorrhoids and my life has been a living hell. Yeah, I'm so grateful that you thought to do that. This is life changing. It's like

it's a switch. Oh okay, I'm sure I'll have lots of fun. I'm in so much pain. But one of the reasons that researchers and primatologists think they might be doing this is they are maybe just like humans. They're testing each other's social boundaries in a relatively safe way. So it's like seeing like how much do you like me? How much do you trust me? Kind of like siblings, like when you know you bother your sibling, I want attention, and I also want to see like how you react.

How much are you willing to tolerate? My sister used to every time when I'd stand up if I was sitting next to her, she'd kick the back of my knees as I'm standing up, so I go right back here. It works. It works very effectively. I mean, look, I do it to her too, so it's you know, I'm pretty sure that's still a thing that happens in our household. I used to like eat some candy and then like trying to perfectly arrange the candy rapper so it looks like it's full, and then like hand it to my

brother and be like, you want some candy? And he was like, oh sure, and this is empty, isn't it. It's like you just got pranked me. I know it's mean. I would give him real candy afterwards, though, break it was funny because I kept doing it even after my brother, Like every time I had handed He's like, it's you're handing me an empty thing candy. No, But then he knows he's going to get real kid, so you're conditioning him.

So another thing that these capuchans d is they will pass useless objects back and forth to each other, a game that seemingly has no purpose other than to test their relationship. To see how much the other monkey is willing to like buy into it. It's right, you just described capitalism boom roasted got him? Yeah, I mean, what are we doing really like right now? What do we think? We're hassen useless objects back and forth? That's all. That's

all it is. My head is spinning. I think I think you just I think he just roasted all of humanity, Dave, I did. I just solved. I solved everything. We're all just like right now us doing this podcast like it's it's if aliens watched us, and they'd be like, they're doing it for like no reason, right, They're like flapping there, They're flapping their mouth folds into this useless object for no reason. And then other people put these orbs inside their ears and listen to the flapping of their mouth

folds for no reason reason. Yeah. Uh So. One more primate trickster is the chimpanzee, who you know, they're quite intelligent and they're kind of jerks. So observational research has shown that chimpanzees will hide projectiles and wait until the time is right to throw these projectiles at zoo visitors. Projectiles do you mean poop? It's not always poop, it's there, right, No, Sometimes sometimes it's chunks of concrete. Oh no, that's not it. That's like when you put rocks in a snowball, not

a bring. Not funny. I am a d on their side though with this, because they're in they're in jail. They're in there in so like if I was in an animal jail. Yeah, if I was in a like a jail, that also, like visitors would get to watch me. I'd be like, I'm I'm pelting as many things as

I can. These people, it's kind of hard to blame them, right, I mean and so, but it's also interesting because they show an immense amount of planning in foresight, which I love that we learned so much about primate intelligence just based on their pranks. Like they're putting so much thought into these pranks. So they'll hide cases of things to

throw at zoo visitors. So they'll like get hay and create a pile of hay and then hide like rocks and fruit or something underneath it and put it in a position where they easily grab something out of it and quickly throw at visitors. And this is a dominance behavior, like throwing stuff at people. But there is this individual chimpanzee uh named Santino of brew vic Sou in Sweden, and he seems his whole goal isn't just a dominance display.

It seems like he really wants to be in these visitors, like he wants to hit him because like it's a game, because he'll like sit there pretend like he's not doing anything.

Like he'll have an apple, he kind of casually takes a bite out of it, and as a visitor approaches, he'll like quickly throw it at them to hit them because he's learned that like they back up, Like if he holds something in his hand and he looks like he's about to throw it, they actually back up, and he's like huh interesting, And so now he like hides the objects right before he's about to throw it or pretends like he's not up to anything, and then suddenly

throws it and smacks them. This is this has like serious uncle energy too, of like snowballs or something where it's like you learned after a while that the child if they see it coming void you, so you have to like surprise throw it at them. Yeah, I get it, but it's not just mammals and primates that are capable of these shenanigans. Octopuses are an incredibly intelligent animal that

is capable of pranking in this really delightful way. So they can squirt jets of water out of their tank at people or anything they want to squirt, so um, they will squirt the water at like marine biologists, handlers, at aquariums, anyone that walks by, grad students. They just it's like if anyone's coming by and they want to prank them or they are annoyed by you, they will squirt you. And they've actually had to put like barriers up to keep octopuses from squirting people in aquariums because

they do it with such a frequency. And they even have learned in some cases to use jets of water to cause power shortages so that they don't have these lights on. So octopuses don't necessarily like bright lights. So in this one New Zealand lab, this octopus would so routinely squirt water at light bulbs and short them, and they had to get so many replacement light fixtures that it was so expensive to keep this octopus they had to release it back into the wild. Won like you

can't keep me chained down. Yeah. I mean it's like it's like in Finding Dory the octopus escaping, except even I feel like this is even more clever than the plot in Finding Dories. It's right, just I'm going to destroy your lab until you release me. It's also a show for them where they learned, like check this out. Every time I squirt this lightbulb, the whole thing happened. Yeah,

Like someone comes out. They look disappointed and frustrated. They have to call somebody who shows up with a ladder or like with a with a new light bulb, and it's like a whole show. Yeah, and it's they're just like rubbing their tentacles together, just going like lights camera or wait, sorry, no lights camera. Action. Octopuses are the most suspicious creatures on this planet. They look like they're up to something. I mean, they are really know what

they're doing down the well. And we learned a few weeks ago that they just die after giving birth sometimes is committing suicide. It's crazy. No, I agree though, before like if they because they have such short lifespans and they are similar Paris, so they die shortly after reproduction. They gotta they gotta live while they can they gotta yolo it up? You only octopus once, right, they gotta

short some aquarium lights. Yeah. Another thing they do is they like to sneak out of their tanks and steal fish from other tanks and aquariums. And this can be a big problem, Like fish just go missing, and it's now have this fish go missing, and they look over to the octopus tank and it just burps and like a fish skeleton rises to the surface because like they'll they'll go, we'll like they'll sneak out and then return

to their tank. They're so sneaky, it's it's really incredible, especially considering that octopuses have evolved, like their brains have evolved entirely separately from like our sort of like evolutionary branch essentially, so that basically like it's inevitable. Pranks are inevitable,

like once you have intelligent life. This is the one piece of evidence that maybe convinces me that some of these UFO alien encounters are real, because there could be an alien race that just like pranks the crap out of us. I convinced this person that I probed them. Yeah, maybe maybe aliens do prank us. Maybe octopuses are the alien prank, right, They just threw a bunch of octopuses at our planet and we're like trying to figure that. Isn't that like the plot of Watchmen, like like like

rains octopuses in that show, rains squids. But I mean technically the plot was, will bring a giant squid on Earth? People think there's aliens and because there'll be another enemy, like all humans will fall in line and like agree to be friendly because now there's an an apex predator out there for But the truth is that it was just a human pulling essentially a frank on the worlds for peace. But it killed millions of people. It's there's

layers and it's not good. I wish what had happened is that the humans then teamed up with the cephalopods in the ocean, because basically this was an atrocity against both humans and cephalopod right, because like raining squid from the sky like that kills the squids too. So if we had teamed up with the cephalopods, like look, humanity and cephalopods now have this common purpose, which is these stupid as superheroes that are like destroying our lives and

we team up. You've got aquamand down there, like running them up, being a total snitch, and like interfering in your fish business. Let's team up and form the Human Cephalopod Coalition. M let me here for it. This is my pitch for not just a movie, but what we should actually do in real life. It's a new way of life, a new movement starting right now. You heard it here first, Well, thank you so much you guys

for joining me and getting pranked. I feel like a good way of ending the episode would have been play an actual prank on you guys, but it's I feel like the biggest prank right now is just real life. Yes, we are all. I don't feel like it's fair for me to add to that, so I will just genuinely thank you for coming on. This is thank you, thank

you for having me first of all. But also, it's generally not a time to prank people, right, That's good advice, unless the prank, again is like a nice prank, like I got you butt cream. Turns out it's switched, but also butt cream in case you do need it, like that would be the that's like the best prank, right, Like, here's a box full toilet paper that I bought you and it is actually toilet paper? Is that even a prank anymore? Because like it exactly it's like gold right

right now. If you TP someone's house, they're going to thank you. Yeah, like like that is like a nice prank. Now, like here's some free toilet paper than you. So thoughtful. I don't know why I had to be my trees, but I'm not gonna come clean. Yeah, no toilet paper toilet paper like if you and like if you, if you like TP a tree and like a public park, then it's toilet paper for everyone. Yeah, don't do that though. It's a waste of t P and also vandalism. I mean,

people have got to get it down. It's a big annoying thing. But just have the modern day t peeing just be you give TP to people in need and then you can still act like a jerk about it, be like yeah, you got t P and then you skateboard away and they're like thank you. And also like unused unused t people who used are like I'm just saying, I'm very is that like should specify. I don't know that we needed to, well we did. I don't think we did, though, I don't think we should need to.

I know you did. I don't think we needed to. I feel like there was a tacit understanding, you know, when I'm like, hey, we need to get some new toilet paper, not followed up by new or used, right, that's fair? Yeah, I mean yeah, it's just like a conversation around the house. I'm just saying, like podcast instructions of the world, I guess. I guess for legal reasons,

we should be as specific as possible. Like a Genie wish gift people with toilet paper, but it's not been used, and it's not so much toilet paper that it like drowns them or something. I guess, you know, no wishmaster, no wishma exactly. No, like monkeys paw toilet paper like it's toilet paper, but it was like made out of sand paper. Sand paper got well, at least she'll be exfoliated. Anyways, UM, guys, do you have anything to plug other than toilet paper?

I'll plug my Patreon for gamefully Unemployed patre dot com slash gamefully Unemployed. You can check it out. We have we have all sorts of podcasts. Um and if you meet a spider, be nice and let it, let it get right in that ear. Yeah. Uh, no, banished fighters from your ears. I'm gonna sleep with ear plugs tonight because now I'm terrified. Uh. If you guys are watching the new HBO series Love Paft Country and if you're interested in some behind the scenes what did that mean

or where did that come from? You can follow me on the ap club as I recap that series. So much fun. I'm really enjoying it. Uh. It's only the one episode right now so far. Yeah, the second episode comes out if you're listening to this podcast, it came out last and Okay, I'm so excited. I'm both like excited for the show and I'm also so excited to read your take on it. Go. Yeah, me too. I really like the first episode. I'm very excited. I haven't seen it yet, so don't spoil it for me. But

it's good good. Yeah, it looks really good. Okay, great. Uh. And you can find us on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at Creature feet Pod. On Twitter that's f A t. Not epet that's me, and you can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden where you know I just have my Katie thoughts and as always I am at pro bird rites where I argue is birds people? Yes, birds is people. Birds is people. Thank you so much to the Space Classics for their super

awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. For a more podcast like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or hey, wherever you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday, m HM.