Killer Kangaroos & Flatworm Blues

point guard of the podcast Lour After Hours, Christi Yamagucci Mane. Hello, Katie, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here, of course. Yeah, I have wanted to have you on the show. I think you are an awesome person and I figured this would be this would be good because we're just like a corny copeia of animal topics. I I'm thrilled. I I did not know if we were going to focus solely on the killer kangaroos when I when I got the email earlier, UM, I absolutely

am excited for that topic. On Hour after Hours, we actually have a foreign correspondent, Morgan from Australia who keeps us informed on all of the the weird wildlife that happens around her. Although she has told me that she's never seen a kangaroo? What is she even really from Australia. It's either either she is from Australia and and has just never never seen a kangaroo, or it's the greatest single accent work I have ever ever come across, ever witnessed.

Not even a wallaby. You know, I've never I don't think I've ever asked her about a wallaby? A wallaby? Okay, okay, I will absolutely and keep like going down in size in terms of like marsupial, like have you seen a wallaby? What about a koala? Uh? What about a nikidna? And if it's like no to any of those, I think he got catfished? She uh? I know she is a super fan of Australian What is I'm going to butcher this? It's like Australian rules football or something like that. I

just whatever I just said. People are yelling at your podcast because I absolutely just butchered it. Because even though our our podcast kind of vaguely tangentially touches sports, I'm terrible at everything about them. So well, maybe it's a wallaball wallaby ball. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah maybe maybe uh similar to the way I think soccer developed originally from like and I could be making this up to using like a goat head the original soccer ball

to kick. I think that's true. Either I just made that up and it's completely awful that I I came up with that based on absolutely nothing, or that's a completely true fact. I mean it's it is awful, but it's also pretty metal, so trade off. But we are talking about kangaroos at least for this first question from Leeds who showed me this tweet and Leads writes, this is a picture warning that kangaroos in water will try to drown you. Is this really true? And there is

a tweet? Okay, so this is from Cormack Ferrell on Twitter who writes that fun kangaroo fact. This kangaroo is waiting for pursuers to come into the water with him, where he will try to drown them. They are extremely good at it. Never ever go into water with a kangaroo. Everything has lots of innovative ways to kill you here, So Australia. You're a beautiful country and I love you. But it's true that from everything from like your box jellyfish to your adorable but deadly blue ring octopus. Uh,

just like everything is trying to kill you. Guys. What's up with that? The the great I know, the great white sharks are are very common on the reefs down there. And uh even yeah, yeah, even the platypus. Doesn't the platypus have some kind of poisonous element to it? It does.

It has a venomous spine the on its behind legs that it can use to give you a dose of venom So so even something as doofy and looks like it was put together by a four year old after learning what a a beaver and a duck and a and a sea otter was, you know, and combined those, it looks like a pokemon, right, except it's still venomous, still venomous. So yeah, yeah, it's it's it's absolutely wild water in Australia. Well, speaking of something in the water,

is this kangaroo? Yeah kangaroos? Is this thing going to kill me? Well? Here's the thing is this isn't interesting. I think I actually have heard about this. I read or saw something about a kangaroo almost drowning someone's dog. Uh, And I think from what I've read, and I'm I'm not actually a kangaroo expert, although I do know that they have a female. Kangaroos do have too vaginas. It's cool, but they do. It's not necessarily that they're not predators, right,

They're not trying to drown you. They're not like, oh, I'm doing this for I'm doing this for all life. Oh no, I I don't know. I can't do an Australian accent. It's probably a defensive behavior. So from what I can tell, they aren't trying to bait you into drowning you. But they are putting distance between you and themselves. And they're strong swimmers. They may very well understand that they have a bit of an upper hand if they're

in a body of waters. So if they're in a body of water, some kind of predator may be less likely to be able to get at them, and then if they do try to get at them, uh, then they can drown them there. They have very very powerful hind legs. They can kick you, pull you down there. They're very strong and so they may have this advantage in the water where a predator may be less agile, less mobile. Uh. And then they can literally like just hold you under and drown you if you're trying to

pursue them. It's not that they're murderous per se, but they are definitely going to defend themselves from you. So I think with the case with the dog, probably this kangaroo thought like, oh, the dog is trying to attack me, so I'm gonna, you know, hold this little sucker under the water. Uh. And so I think that yeah, maybe they seek They might be seeking out the water because they uh see it. It's like basically like instinctively like, hey, I need to escape. This is a probably a good

spot for me to to escape too. And then if you still go in and pursue them, then they're like, all right, no, it's on now. It's on now, buddy. So I I raised three boys, Um, I know that when I'm in a swimming pool, I can launch them over my head and feel like a pro wrestler. Right, I can't. I don't have the same leverage whenever we're you know, whenever they were younger and I was in the backyard and we'd wrestle on like the trampoline or something.

But yeah, you you immediately become stronger in the water because a buoyancy and and and you don't you know, you don't have your own body weight to fight against um. But one of my favorite things that I see every usually happens like once a year or or you know whatever. The social media cycle is as soon as it's out of everybody's consciousness. But somebody will post a picture of a I'm assuming a male kangaroo up close, and people do not realize how jacked these things are. They look

like they're on steroids. Like if you Google search jacked kangaroo, it looks like it's photoshopped. It looks like they took a nineties baseball player on steroids and put a kangaroo's head and and arms on it. It is absolutely wild. If if you're listening and you have not seen one of these photos, just Google search jacked kangaroo. Absolutely wild. Yeah, because they are. It's there. They need these really powerful

muscles to be able to jump and move. Uh, and you know, it's it's sort of like if you look at a rabbit, which they're not related to kangaroos. I'm not implying that, but they have those really powerful hind legs, and especially if you look at a wild hair which we actually talked about in our episode recently about bunnies, which is they they actually look quite muscular and and lena and there behind legs can actually do some damage. So you scale that up to the size of a

big kangaroo. Absolutely, they are just covered in muscles. Yeah. So there's this quote by Graham Coulson of the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne. Is it Melbourne or is it Melbourne Melbourne? Yeah, this, yes, this sounds right Melbourne, who's a kangaroo ecologist. Uh says that quote. There's a very strong instinct kangaroos will go to water if they're threatened

by a predator. Uh So, I think it's it's questionable whether it's their intent to drown you once you go out there, but basically they're like, I can swim, well, I'll go in this water. This should be enough to deter the predator. And then if you still go in after it, even if you're going in to get a selfie, the kangaroo is like, oh my own, isn't it it's yeah, look at this picture. I hope folks can can see this this tweet. At some point, I'll have it in

the show notes. It is. It is so spooky. It is like there's no ripples in the water, There's no there's nothing else around it. Just if if I came across this kangaroo ever, I would not in a million years damned Like I might take a selfie at a distance. Um, but it's probably gonna be far enough away that you can't even tell what's what's actually in the water behind you. Um, but yeah, it is. It is one of the creepier what are the creepier photos I've seen? There is no

way I'm getting in the water with this thing. It's giving me a death stare. I can just I can just hear it, you know, like you want to get molded? Is that what you want? Did I get to die? You want to die to die? Do you? It's uh yeah, No kangaroos I don't don't think of as a friendly animal. Maybe a wallaby, sure, uh Koala no, they a little scared of Koala's kangaroo. No way, they will kick my whole entire face off going to swim with a kangaroo. Oh no, Rather, I'd rather swim with a shark. I

think I'd be safe for swimming with a shark. And I love, I don't, I love. I love going swimming. I'm not I'm not freaked out by by swimming in the ocean or anything like that. But there is no way in hell I would ever. Uh, you've got to be very hungry as a predator to to go into the water after one of these things. And I've seen those videos of I think there was one circulating not too long ago where this kangaroo came up to this this dude's sliding glass door and was just throwing himself

against the glass, like very aggressively. It was like a zombie Kane Garu was was trying to invade his home. And if you've ever seen it, they use those tails. Those tails are absolutely incredible where they lean back on the tail and it launches them forward. It's like having a third leg. Uh that It's it's incredible, Well fourth leg. For no, I wasn't. I wasn't going to go there, Katie. But okay, I'm sorry, No, no, no, don't apologize, but yeah, no,

it is. They are They're powerful animals. They absolutely are intimidating. There's this video of someone on a parachute gliding down to the landing spot and as he lands, this kangaroo comes up to him. He's like, oh, I skip, and then the kangaroo swings at him and punches him. That's that's what's so unnerving about a kangaroo. It's like we we have from what I understand, even though our foreign correspondent, Morgan as An ever seeing a kangaroo before, allegedly, Uh,

they're they're as common as like deer over there. They're they're super common there. They they seem to be. This is from my very myopic American perspective. It seems like they're everywhere except they're they're as tall as a human being. They have like they they have like deer like snouts, kind of this this absurd tale, these huge claws like there. Their talents are are significant, but it's the it's the physiology of almost being human like with their biceps and

their their their triceps. I don't know the muscle groups or anything. I'm terrible at that as well, but but there's it's like a blend between like a deer and a human and like a velociraptor and a velocoraptor exactly. That's perfect, that's perfect. Yeah, No, they're they're they're jacked, they're small, and they kind to have that a little bit of that like velociraptor. Look, I don't want to

mess with them at all. What's interesting is this whole thing of like an animal luring you into the water to drown you, is it has this precedent of mythology. So like, have you ever heard of the kelpie in Scottish folklore? I have not. I do not think I'm familiar with that. Yeah, it's one of the kind of lesser known mythological creatures. But a kelpie is a horse spirit from Scotland that lives in rivers and other bodies of water that lures people in and then pulls them

into the river and drowns them. Oh okay, all right, that's terrifying. Yeah. So there are a lot of versions of the magical kelpie. Sometimes the kelpie will turn into a beautiful woman, either fully into a woman or a woman with horse hoofs uh. Sometimes it's a spectral horse with backwards hooves. Sometimes it had a mane of serpents. It's very variable, like what these kelpies take the form of,

but typically horse like. Okay, well, men are completely idiots, so if you give it the vague shape of a woman, we will we will, you know, completely be lord to to anywhere you know. Allegedly that basically what I'm saying is that's a great excuse for men doing stupid shit anyway, just to say, oh, yeah, there was a beautiful woman that that lured him into the into the bog and he was never party with me in this river. I'm

a human woman. He check out my bodacious boobies. Whoa I love how quickly you find the voices of these characters, instantly, instantly, You're so good at this. I've got I've got. Everyone's got a little horse inside them. But yeah, so, why does the kelpie want to drown you? Some say it's for companionship, which is strange to me. The more reasonable

explanation is eating your entrails um. In some myths, the kelpie can extend its back to see many riders, so like become a long horse, like a stretched limo of horses, and then it gallops into the river and brings everyone to their watery grave. Wow. Okay, so so is there is this? You know how myths sometimes are formed, well not sometimes quite often are formed to explain away something that that you know, like the thunderbolts, you know, thor or Zeus or or whoever. Um. Uh. We create these

these mythologies to explain natural phenomena. Is that what this developed out of? It's a really good question. I think there are a lot of myths and this is a trend. I've noticed a lot of myths about uh some kind of mythical creature in or near water, uh worring people to drown. And I think it is in general way to explain uh sudden drownings of people who you would think, oh, well they wouldn't they know not to mess around in

the river, Like why would they drown? And I think it's kind of a this idea that like some kind of ramp like someone couldn't you know, my my dear cousin wouldn't have just like slipped on a rock, hit his head and drowned. Like that's too dumb of a death for him, Like no, it must have been like

a horse demon luring him with its horse boobies. Uh, like it's I think it's an explanation for like we've seen that with um at sea, you know, sirens or mermaids, which some speculate may have been manatees, with the idea of like, well, they couldn't have just run aground, like they must have been lured to land by some uh bodacious mermaids and uh right fish boobies. And but I mean, like I think there's an another one, like the river

dolphins in the Amazon. These boato river dolphins are said to like like transform into handsome men when they come out of the water to like lure women. Uh and they like cover their blowhole with like a fancy hat or something. And it's like again like well, how could she have just drowned like in the room, Like, no, she must have been lured there by a sexy dolphin man.

Uh So so yeah, I think I think it's like rivers are strangely dangerous sometimes, like you don't know, like you'll see you part of the river that looks calm and you think, well, I can wait across that, and you step in and it's much faster. Uh. Sometimes there are like these these rivers that look narrow but are very deep and fast moving, so if you try to wait across, it's like instant drowning. Uh So it's yeah, rivers are very very dangerous. Uh They you have to

be very careful navigating them. And I think a lot of people just accidentally die around rivers, especially you know back in the oldie Scotland, so like you had to have some way of like, you know, well, I I he was going across the river and he disappeared or drowned. It must have been a horse lady, a magical horse lady. It's it's incredible to me what we will come up with instead of just facing the occam's razor of a situation, which is probably these rocks are covered in moss. Uh

it rained last night. He probably slipped and fell. Nope, it was a blow hole covered handsome dolphin person. I live actually probably a tenth of a mile from the Cape Fear River, which is a real place. It's not just a movie starring Robert de Niro and remake of with Robert DeNiro and Nicknolty. And yeah, the the river

can absolutely be a a treacherous thing. There are drownings around here all the time, and it looks fairly calm, and it's not a fast moving river very you know, not a not a super moving river compared to some but it is where Blackbeard used to navigate his ship the Queensland revenge and escape, you know, the British Navy at the time, whenever, whenever he was up to up to his Shenanigans, so his old Shenanigans yet to put it mildly right, uh So, So basically it's it's a

very tricky place to navigate, and you know, if if you're on a small boat or something, you can you can very easily you know, drown out there. But I I, uh, that's that's still that's way less cooler than coming up with some mythological creature than than just having an accident.

It kind of makes me think of like, you know check Tingle, uh, the Tinglers, the like, you know, like seduced by a handsome t rex who is my boss books, Like I feel like we've been doing check Tingle things for for decades, for four centuries, Like these Scottish people are was like seduced to my death and a fast moving river by a handsome horse lady. It's I love it though they yeah, usually his ends up with some phrase of pounded in the at the end of his

book titles. I did not think this, uh, this episode was going to veer into Chuck Tingle territory. Well, I do. I love Chuck Tingle. I think he's a he's a cool guy who has got some cool ideas. I I completely agree. I wholeheartedly endorsed Chuck Tingle. And we won't get into the discussion. Yeah, we won't get into too much detail about Chuck Tingle, I think, but you know, yeah, he's he's he writes some he writes some funny books,

and but he seems like a cool person. So I was wondering, like, oh, like, I wonder if there's any like kelpie myths with kangaroos and like, so I looked for Australian kelpie and there is an Australian kelpie, but it has nothing to do with kangaroos. Well, the all Strillian. Yeah, the Australian kelpie is a breed of dog that is a sheep dog. It's a very cute little peppo. Uh. It's a chocolate brown, medium haired sheep dog and it's

a working dog often still used to this day. Uh on sheep farms, and so I was like, well, what why is this dog? Why is this dog called a kelpie? I mean, is this this dog luring sheep into a river by the sheep? Are we about to talk about dog boobies? No? No, luckily not. So. This breed of dog was actually named after the Scottish kelpie that we just discussed, because the first dog of this breed was owned by a Scottish man living in Australia. And I mean,

I don't know why he named the dog Kelpie. Uh, he just did because he's Scottish and he's like, man, I keep thinking about those sexy horse demons. Anyways, your name is kelpie um and so yeah, and so it is. It's a highly competent sheep herding dog. So that that's Uh, if you look for Australian kelpie, that's what you're gonna find. I'm looking at this photo here. It's kind of got the the coloration of like a chocolate Doberman a little bit with the lighter color around the muzzle. It is

beautiful looking dog. And he he or she is surfing on the back of some sheeping, yeah, sheep surfing, which honestly looks super fun. Yeah. Actually, a lot of sheep dogs do this where they kind of like moh orum crowd surf the sheep because if they are trying to get from the back to the front of the sheep or or organize the sheep from the middle of the sheep, crowd like, they need to be able to crouch surf

the sheep. So yeah, I I love I absolutely love working dogs, watching dogs that have been trained and bred with specific personalities to to do very specific tasks. It is so much fun to watch a good farm dog or a sheep dog do its thing because there is no animal in the entire world that is more tickled and thrilled to be doing something than one of these dogs.

It's so much fun. I'm like I in general, I feel uneasy about dog breeding because often it's this superficial thing of like I want a dog that looks like a freaking bear with a pixie face and weird wrinkles everywhere, and it's like, I don't think that's good for the dogs to just breed them for a specific, uh superficial appearance, Like I want my dog to look to be pink and not have a butt hole or something like, obviously that's not good for the and then it doesn't fact

when Okay, to be fair, if you could, I don't know, I would just be impressed, uh, purely for the difficulty of breeding a dog without a butthole. I don't I don't know. Uh, I don't think that's possible. So I would, I would, I would. I would feel very bad for the animal and it should not know, the genes should

not carry on. But if you did manage to breed a dog without a butth hole, like I would have to give you a very short applause for just a genius and either but nonetheless absolutely right, yeah, I mean, but yeah, but with working dogs, if they're bred in a healthy way both for their physical health and for their mental health, where they are happy dogs, you know, with with you know, then you know, I think that's kind of like the ideal thing, because you're you're breeding

them to be physically healthy and then mentally healthy. As long as like people will sometimes get sheep dogs like for their tiny apartment or something like, that's not good because they're not gonna be happy there. They gotta actually have be able to have the space to do to do these things because it's like it's fun for them to be active and feel, you know, like they're they're

doing something. Um much like people, you know, people like to have a purpose or or to have to be able to have exercise and go out and do fun things. So it's all about that environmental stimuli. It creates more neurons as the dog develops. Um. That's why. Uh, enrichment and enclosures at zoos that are you know, and I

not a huge fan of zoo. I love a good zoo that is all about conservation and education and stuff, but enrichment that creates more neurons and the brain is crucial to these animals that are that are you know, bred for for our companionship. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, no, I agree to with with the zoos thing. It's you have to it's it really does affect a brain development

for animals bred in captivity. If don't have enough and real quick on the zoo topic, North Carolina, to any listeners out there, is home to the largest walk through zoo in the world. It is in Asheboro, North Carolina, and there's two ends to it. There's an African end to it and a North American end to it. And it is incredible, Like they have these huge, huge environments for the animals to to uh roam around in and

it's a super fun place. And it's only like seventeen bucks to get in the door, so it's not expensive in any way. And they're all about conservations. So if you ever, it's about two and a half hours away from me. So that's the zoo that I grew up going to primarily. Uh And if you ever are passing through North Carolina and want to spend a day uh getting to to see these animals up close and in in you know, approximations of environments, that's that's a very

cool place to go to. Oh that's awesome. I love that. But uh yeah, I mean it's so interesting though, like how you can one topic like from kangaroos pulling people into the water to kelpies and it's like there's an Australian kelpie but it's a cool dog. That's quite the connection there that you you even thought to to look this up and it turns out that there was something even called in Australia. I know, I was amazed. It's incredible.

So we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back with a whole new question from another listener email, where we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics, parasites. So, Christie, what is your feelings about parasites? What is my feelings about parasites human or the rest of the the animal kingdom? Um? All of them? Any of them? So human parasites, I've known a few, I've been friends with a few that

haven't cut off throughout the years, um. But the the rest of the parasites, I know, I've kind of had to you know, the more I learned about the the animal kingdom, I think, the more I've had to come

around on the concept of parasites. I realized that there are a lot of beneficial parasites primarily you know, I don't want to say primarily beneficial parasites, but it kind of depends on what the parasite is doing to me, right It kind of it's kind of you know, it's like everything, it's it's what am I getting out of this deal type of response. I mean to be to be very pedantic about it. Anything that's a parasite on your body is going to be harmful to you. So like, uh,

a parasites. UM specifically means like something that basically takes from you and it's harmful to you and it benefits itself. There are a lot of symbiotic relationships, different one types of symbiotic relationships, So you can have a symbiote in your body and it can be either good or bad. UM. So like there's mutualism, which is like you both benefit uh from the relationship. There's commence allism where it's benefiting and you're not but it doesn't really hurt you at all.

And then there's a parasitism, which is that it's benefiting from your from your sweet body juices, and it's hurting you so real quick. Is a leech, depending on the use of the leech, a symbia and a parasite. Like if I was wading through a river and it latched onto me, it would be a parasite, but if a doctor uses it, it's a symbiate. That is so interesting. I've never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right.

So like in its natural environment, a leech is a parasite because it's sucking your blood and that's not good for you. But then if you take it, it's like a man made symbiotic relationship. That's so interesting. Yeah, if you actually have it in a medical setting, like let's say a current day medical setting, because like leeches used to be used in ways that they thought it was beneficial,

but it wasn't. But now like we actually do have say like um, maggots, their medical magic maggots, their medical leeches that are used in very specific circumstances with like uh, debriding tissue or like with leeches, Like I think it's something to do with like getting circulation back in a like getting blood flow into a part of the body

that's not getting blood flow again. They it's very rarely used, but like they do use them occasionally and um, but yeah, in those circumstances they do, it transforms from a parasitic relationship to a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. That is such an interesting point. I've just never thought of it that way. And some people have pet leeches adorable, I believe one

Jamie Loftus. I don't know if she's been a guest before she had she has, she has, and and I believe we talked a little bit about her pet leach. I listened to her story of her pet leach and I thought it was heartwarming. Uh. But yeah, so they're in bloss that like, parasites can be many different things, So can be anything from a leech to a tape worm can also be birds can be parasites. There can be brood parasites. So a cuckoo bird is a brood parasite.

It benefits from other birds nests and it lays its egg in the nest. Uh. And it it's bad for the other bird species, but it's good for the cuckoo. So even a cute little baby bird can be a parasite. So the idea of a parasite is not just like a worm thing with like teeth. Uh. It's many different, many different things. But we are fortunately going to talk about some of the grosser parasites with this question, Lucky Day.

So here is the question. Um, Hi, Katie, My now thirteen year old son introduced me to your show a few years ago while he was deep into a bird phase, and I've been a fan of the pot ever since. I'm not a creationist by any means, but I do have a few questions about the mechanics of evolution. Uh. There is one specifically that I'm hoping someone can help answer, how the heck do parasites do anything? Evolutionarily speaking, evolution is commonly explained as a series of adaptations over time

that are passed on from generation to generation. I get Darwin's finches for example. That makes sense, But how did parasites pass on their parasitic behavior from one generation to the next. Take zombie snails for example. Evolutionarily speaking, how did that flat worm discover to get into a snail?

Drive the snail to a prime location for a bird to see it, learned to pulsate in the snail's eyestalks in order to advertise itself to birds, survive being eaten by the bird, then release its eggs into the birds so that the bird's droppings lead to the continuation of that species. And almost all parasites have equally improbable life cycles. I don't understand how this came to be within the framework of evolution, and I'm wondering if you've heard of

any evolutionary biologists discuss or write about this. How are parasitic behaviors created and passed on? Thank you for your great job on the pot and this is from limb Uh and thank you. This is an excellent question. You're

not alone. A lot of people, a lot of scientists, a lot of evolutionary biologists, find this very fascinating, very interesting, because it is so surprising when you see such a specific evolutionary behavior, like you explained with the zombie snail or the it's a it's a flat worm that causes this like zombie snail to happen. It's actually called lucochloridium flatworm.

And it will talk a little bit more about the details of that later, but yeah, no, you're you are you are that That description that you gave Limb is pretty accurate. Uh, and it is. It's mind blowing. But first I kind of want to talk about evolution in general because I think sometimes when you talk about evolution, there's a sense of like there's a long term intentionality, so like an animal wants to evolve in a certain

way or something. I know. I know, like you don't necessarily literally believe that, but as humans are, our psychology is so attuned to intention because we're intentional creatures, Like we can plan for the future and say like when I grow up, I want to be on a podcast and talk about parasites, Like we we can think about

the future. Um. But an animal who's evolving can't think about the future of evolutions like I'm It doesn't think like I'm going to evolve a certain way, and not even evolution, like evolution itself has no desires or intention Like evolution isn't like I'm going to make a weird uh snail parasite. It's all based on just a few very simple rules, and those simple rules creates this uh

exponential complexity. There's only direction in hindsight, right, you can only see the direction that it came from in hindsight. The rest of it is just uh is. Honestly, it's like blind luck is to whatever allowed it to pass its genes on. So what you have to look at, I think with with something like the zombie snail, which I cannot stop staring at the gift that you sent me in this Google file, because it is it is like the hypnotade from from from Futurama. I believe the

the snail. It's so fascinating looking. It does not look like real. It looks like a toy almost, right. Yeah, So you have in its ice stocks, you know how, like snails normally have these little ice stocks. Ye, cutie

little snails. The these paris citic flatworms. Um, those pulsating things are actually brood sacks, so they're full of a bunch of these parasites and they are they they grow into the snail like through the snails like becomes longer and longer and actually grow into their eyes talks, and these things are pulsating and it looks like and there are these different colors like green and sort of this reddish brown, and it makes the snail look like a

weird techno party snail in the grossest way. And this is very attractive to birds who will then eat the snail. The flatworm completes its life cycle inside the bird mates and then lays more brood sacks that comes out in the bird's feces and it's poop. And then the snail will eat some leaves that has this bird poop on it, and then they unintentionally ingest this parasite and this horrible cycle starts again. Amazing are these now, these these eyes stalks?

Are they mimicking a certain type of caterpillar that these birds might might appreciate. Yeah, I don't know if it's a specific caterpillar, but it's definitely got the look of a caterpillar or some some kind of undulating grub that the bird would be interested in eating. So yeah, it's

it's really interesting. Um And normally I think these snails would avoid light, but the flatworms makes them less avoidance of light, so which is great for for the flatworms because then that makes it more likely that they're going to get eaten by a bird. But the idea that like, well, how okay, so so evolution basically has two basic rules that you have to follow in order to pass on your jeans, like don't die and uh mate, or pass

on your genes like reproduce. You can reproduce asexually. You can clone yourself and pass on a full copy of yourself, or you can reproduce by sex and pass on a partial copy of yourself. And you know, if you pass on your genes and you don't die before you pass on your genes, you're the winner, uh like, And then your genes get passed on. And the reason that's those are the rules. It's just genes that get passed on

get passed on. It's as simple as that, which is, you know, it's it's sort of a weird kind of circular logic. But that's how it works. So if if the genes make the animal live in a way that gets the genes passed on, the genes get passed on, it makes more of that animal. So I think in terms of like, well, how can something so simple, such a simple kind of binary rule, like you're either dead or you're alive, and you pass on your genes, Like,

how can that create such complexity. There's a old computer game called John Conway's Game of Life. Have you ever heard of that? I have not, No, it's it's an old one. It's uh, it's I think kind of before our time. But it was a very simple computer game where you would have these cells, which are these like pixelated squares, interact with each other based on only three rules. And this was like one of a really early computer game because this is like right when computers were starting.

He programmed in just these three rules, which was any live cell with two or three live neighbors will survive. Any dead cell with three live neighbors will become a live cell, and any other live cells, uh, like all other live cells will die in the next generation. Um, so all other dead cells will stay dead. So basically if you have a if you have one of these little pixels and it's surrounded by uh, two three living pixels, it'll become alive or stay alive, otherwise it dies. And

that's simple, simple rule. Uh creates incredible complexity in this game, like these these beautiful patterns will emerge. You'll have things like gliders, which are like these little like they almost look like little tiny birds that like fly across the screen. And there's no intentionality behind it. The pixels don't know what they're doing. The programmer all he did was program these rules and he doesn't have any designs on like

I want to create these things. It's just from those rules creates such incredible complexity that I think, like computer scientists and mathematicians are still like studying this stuff, like to this day. I certainly don't understand it that well. It's it's it's that's how complex it becomes. It's just it's mind blowing. One of my favorite, one of my favorite animals I know on I believe your last episode.

I believe it was with Maura Wilson Rude. You talked about just the sheer volume like for like turtles Sea Turtles, right you you have to have a large number of of offspring because the mortality rate is something like. One of my favorite animals is the Mola mola, the sunfish, and it's the largest bony fish in the world. And one of my favorite facts about it is at one time they will lay three hundred million eggs. And that is yeah, and and and the this thing barely can swim.

It loves the sunbathe that it allows. You know, seagulls out at sea will land on this thing and pick off parasites on the side of it. It eats jellyfish by all. It's it's and I hate to say this because this is me anthropomorphasizing it. I think I got that word right. It's a dumb anthropomorphizing thank you. It's kind of a dumb looking fish. Like it doesn't it looks like it's not all the way made yet, right,

It's just like kind of cuts off at one point. Uh. It looks like you like took a fish and just like flattened it into a fish pancake and then exactly ocean It's like, I guess I'm a living pancake exactly. That's it's basically what it is. It's a giant, swimming, very peaceful, living pancake. I love the thing though, and and that's one of them. Again, that's one of my

favorite facts about it is just the sheer. One of the reasons this thing has has uh is still around to this day is because of the sheer volume of eggs that it lays at any given time, and it's young that hatch from those are teeny tiny. They go from being like almost plankton sized to being this huge fish. In fact, a lot of the zooplankton in the ocean uh is larva or or the babies of a lot of bigger of like fish, of other of other sea creatures.

And it's just like you wouldn't realize that this like almost like microscopic like thing is like a baby, and like there's massive amounts of zooplankton in the ocean. Yeah, I love that fact. It's funny you bring that up because I was actually thinking about talking about the sunfish on on the brood thing just because they have so

many babies at once. But yeah, and so what's interesting about that is that kind of is one of the reasons that evolution can produce such incredible complexity is the sheer amount of time and scale of animals being born is hard to comprehend. So for something like a flat worm, it's not just evolving over millions of years, but there are billions and billions of generations of these flatworms because they breed it very fast rates. So you know, something

like this, this luco Chloridium flatworm. It's like I said, like those things you see inside of the snail pulsating, that's not just one flatworm, that's a whole rude sack of a bunch of flow worms. And so in each generation you have like like each flatworm creates like hundreds of more flat worms, and they do that, you know, multiple times, uh and a year, and then like you just you're you have an incomprehensible number of these horrible

little flatworms reducing over millions of years. And like you know, you run a simple program like the game of Life just for a few hours, you get these incredibly complex patterns. You run this computer program of just like you, if you can pass on your genes, you can pass on your genes and you make more of yourself you are. I think it's kind of inevitable that you're gonna get complexity.

It's kind of like the the universe, where it's like you have some simple rules for atoms interacting with each other, and from that you just inevitably get like galaxies and planets and these incredibly complex things in the universe, which is what gave rise to the idea UM And you know, not to get too in depth into this topic, but intelligent design, right, it's it's why we we look at something this specific and we say, Okay, there's no way

somebody didn't design this. Uh, you know, there wasn't There wasn't a creator. But like you said, the sheer incomprehensible volume of genetic lines that are happening at any given time is something that we can't we can't fathom, we cannot understand, and the complex situations that allows. Okay, because of the slight variation and color of these genes, this gene mutation, this offers uh an advantage that past generation has never had. And now suddenly the population explodes because

of that one tiny, tiny genetic mutation. Yeah. And I it's like, I'm sympathetic to people who can like believe

in intelligent design. Obviously, I I think that's right, copletely wrong. Uh. And but I do understand why you would think that way, because even I, like, even though I've been like thinking about parasites for many years, like and in appreciating parasites for many years and letting them use my body as a hotel now, but like I still when I read about like, well, you know, here's the orb weaver spider parasitoid wasp that lays its larva on the spider and

it controls its brain. It makes it. We've a little little nursery for the baby larva, and and then it eats it. And it's like, how this is diabolical? Like this is how did they? Uh? Yeah, it's incredible, and especially these ones that have these complex life cycles of like well, the toxoplasmosis Gandhia, I like, goes inside the rat, makes the rat like I think a cat is cool and fun and sexually attracted to the cat, and goes up to the cat and cats like cool, free lunch.

That's horny for me. And then it eats the rat and then this and then the taxoplasmosis Gonda breathes inside the cat and comes out and cap whop, and then and then in fix her outs again and it happens against like how like how did it know to do this? Well, it didn't. It's uh yeah, it just you know, these random mutations that happen will produce a slightly slight alteration in its behavior that uh. Sometimes you know, there's both like these very minor steps and evolution. Sometimes they are

like larger steps. I think they're both you know, involved

in evolutionary processes. Um. But for instance, so like let's talk about like what and there's obviously there there is a lot of research into specific parasites, like I know with the orb weaver parasite, the parasitoid wasp larva, which is like a little maggot that will turn into a wasp um but it it lashes onto the orb weaver spider, and they were trying to figure out, well, how does it make the spider uh stop weaving this beautiful web and start weaving a cocoon for the larva to live

in while the spider dies. Like it's it's just awful, very diabolical. But uh, the and the it's like because like, how can it make such a complex behavior of the spider. How does it? Well, it turns out the spider does do this behavior when it is molting. So the spider goes through these molding phases where it's like very vulnerable while it's molting, and so it will weave itself a

strong web to protect it. UH. That will and it's also more visible to like uh, birds and stuff because it doesn't want to like with its web it does. It doesn't want it to be too visible so that it like catches things before it's cocoon. It wants it to be more visible so that things don't run into it and knock it down while it's in this vulnerable state. So the larva, the parasitoid larva UH, some kind of chemical that it excretes triggers the hormones in the spider

to to make it think that it's molting. And obviously this is something that the larva has no idea it's doing, but it just so happens that like probably it started out just being happy enough to eat the spiders slowly eat it. But maybe some kind of digestive enzyme or something also triggers that that spider's hormonal response. And that's like that specific chemical or is something that researchers are looking into. And so like when people are interested in

the evolutionary history of parasites. Researchers look into like, Okay, how does this actually work? We don't even know necessarily, like what this chemical is, how it works exactly, but like their look, they're researching it like right now. And the thing that most folks and understandably kind of out of sight, out of mind situation, you don't see all

the times this failed throughout the court. You know, the hundreds of millions, if not hundreds of billions of times where the wrong chemical got secreted which caused a behavior where the the parasite was not able to pass on.

It's it's genetics. So that that's another thing too, is when we see again it's a matter of comprehension and our peon little minds not able to uh to to wrap wrap around the sheer volume of attempts, of of failed attempts here to where it got to the point whatever you're looking at, whatever form of incredible evolutionary biology you're looking at, is the result of so many failed attempts that you'll you'll it's a it's a number that's impossible to to probably even I don't know if I

don't know if science can even count that high. It's it's amazing I can count that high. I can do it. Yeah, No, I mean, yeah, no, absolutely, that's absolutely correct. It's our brand. It's not even that we're dumb. It's just that our brains don't work on that scale. Like we don't live. We don't live millions of years, so our brains only work, you know, on the scale of maybe like a hundred years. Is you know where we where we generally cap off at.

And so yeah, I mean it's kind of like one of those you know, like those like learn to draw things and it's like draw two ovals. Now you've got a bunny, and it's like this detailed bunny. You're like, what, I don't know how we got from the two ovals and a few scratch marks to the whole freaking bunny. Uh. And that's kind of like what evolution is, Like, we don't it's hard to see all the steps that you get to to get the to get the bunny or

snail parasite. But yeah, in terms of specifically this, uh, the louco chloridium flat warm. I wonder with a lot of these parasites where they have their life cycle, like you start out in a bird and then you get pooped out and you get eaten by snail and that

gets eaten by a bird. Blah blah blah. I wonder if it's like these like an accidental case of um my assis, which is where you actually it's not necessarily a parasite, but you eat something and then it's like, oh, well I wasn't a parasite, but now I'm in this environment where the only way to keep living is like

to feed off of where I am right now. And so like uh accent told my my a sis uh is like you you eat something like a larva or something, and it's typically not a parasite, but now it's inside your body and it's like, well, I'm gonna eat where I am uh, and then you can like poop it out. And so if this happens, like say you have this flat worm saying it's eaten by a bird on accident, it's not a parasite yet it's like hey, like I'm just trying to live my life and now I'm inside

a bird. Well, hey, I see another one that got eaten, Like we're gonna mate. That's great. Then it gets pooped out and then it's like, well, our our eggs got pooped out, okay, and then that gets eaten by chance by a snail and then they're like in side the snail, like, well, I guess now we're here, like we're gonna you know, like be be in the snail and like continue to develop, and then that gets eaten by aber and it's like,

well this worked out well. Like now we're back in the bird and we're in a single spar again, and we'll mate and make more of us. And then you start to get mutations and again, like you said, most mutations are bad, Like most mutations like are a game over, but once in a while they're go. It's like, why viruses don't just like uh, immediately turn into just world ending deadly killer viruses. Most mutations on a virus is going to be bad for the virus. So mutating virus, yeah,

it's not necessarily a good thing for the virus. It's just once in a while it's good. And that's why it's important everyone gets vaccinated because the more chances we give something to mutate them more likely it's going to turn into a mutation that benefits that organism. In this case, for viruses. That's bad for us. We don't want everybody get their their vaccine as soon as possible. Yeah that Uh,

let's let's put a stop to opportunistic parasitism. Like you're like you're talking about where you know, these things just find themselves in a uh well damn, this environment is a lot cozier than my last one. And uh and I got no choice but to hang out and here, you know, longer than this host is gonna want me to. So uh yeah, that's that's a bad news. So yeah,

we gotta we gotta put a stop to this. If there's any position your podcast takes, uh, it is to stop opportunistic parasitism, you know, plant plant your flag in that take Katie, if I feel like some parasites are cool as as not in my body, yes, exactly exactly like like again, uh, situational symbiotic paris no not, I'm gonna is the general term for anything you're living with in some way. So so uh if if if you can take a parasite and make it a symbiot, a symbiote,

a mutualistic symbiote, I own a mutualistic symbiote. I only know that word, by the way, from Spider Man, because venom, venom, and carnage. We're we're, we're. I love that. I love learning about science from comics. Yeah, it's it's the best. So uh yeah, that's primarily where I know that word from. And then of course the famous example of like the

c an enemy and the clown fish, the mutual mutual relationship. Yeah, so uh yeah, yeah, yeah, but no, I mean yeah, and so, like you can imagine with a flatworm, it's like it's already getting eaten by snails and birds on accident, and then it starts to get these little mutations that maybe makes it a little better, like at getting in in the one and so you just start and now it's to the point where it's like, man, this devious flatworm has this whole plan about how to make the

snail this like uh psychotropic looking thing that's really heapetizing to the bird. And it's like it had no idea. It was just like I'm inside this now. I if I can stay alive, I'm gonna stay alive. I mean, flatworms don't have brains. They don't think thoughts, I don't think exactly. Well they actually that's not true flatworms have I believe, well, it might not necessarily be a brain. It might be like a neural bundle ganglia. Yeah, like a ganglia. I'd have to look it up whether or

not it's actually classified as a brain or not. It's very basic, you know, they only have a few neurons to rub together. Really grasping at some of the some of this vocabulary. I took marine technology. I have a degree on marine technology back when I was college age. So we studied flat worms and and you know, like sea creatures and stuff and and very simple organisms you know on up until the you know, uh, mammals, marine

mammals and stuff. So um, some of this is scratching, scratching those it's yeah, I have that scratched in all very long time. So I'm loving all of these these topics. Uh yeah, the like the color of the snail, Like again, if you can find this gift of this, yes, So the color that this thing is it looks like you said, a snail out of rave, right, it looks like it's

skits and ties or something. Yeah, exactly. It's doing that pulsating thing to like like there's a like like a DJ Daniel is DJing the party that that this thing is at right, you should suggest this to him, give him a hey, you ever try one of these in your sets? He would probably put that on the screen behind him when he does a zoom set or something. Um. So, these colors, the number of times that this flatworm reproduced in this snail and it wasn't those colors is like

billions of times. Except and then there was one accidental mutation of the genetic code to where it add did like a ring of orange or a ring of purple to these eye stalks, and the birds started being attracted exactly what wild for it. And then by accident. It's not like they got that response and thought, oh ship, we need to change another genetic No, no, no, no brain power here you're thinking about it. It's just just survived. Yeah.

They just ended up exactly living longer. Exactly if you live, you live, is just kind of like the whole thing with if you live and and pop out some progeny, that's it. That's all you gotta do. Um. But yeah, I hope that kind of like puts things into perspective, like how you can get such incredible, complex, devious little parasites from such a simple rule like if you ran if you ran a computer program for billions of years, who knows what kind of Wait a minute, what if

for the computer program? No? No, what if for the simulation? The whole time blowing my mind, Katie. It's honestly, I don't like if we're a simulation. I don't care. It's fine. It's like the same thing, right, yea me either. I still got I still got bills to pay. I still like to exactly. Wow, if there was ever a response to the we're living in a simulation theory, that that's it right there, and I don't care. Peza still tastes

good that that's all that matters. Christie, have you heard of, uh, the way that everything is becoming crabs, that all things become crabs, eventually all things crabs, Eventually we all become crabs.

I don't think i've heard now. I am familiar with a certain gift that gets circulated whenever, maybe like somebody who's of of you know, not maybe not very liked online or something, people start dropping a certain advancing crabs celebrating Yeah, someone you know, maybe maybe like an awful politician or just terrible person, right, yeah, when when someone when someone loses at something, uh, and they're a bad person,

the dancing crab gift definitely comes into play. Um, Well, it's that's very relevant because so carsonization is this the thing that happens amongst crustaceans and other arthropods, which is, like you know, Arthur prods includes things like spiders and um, but like it's mostly with crustaceans, is that they keep

independently evolving into crab shape. Like you have the true crabs, but then you have something like more related to a lobster that just independently starts to evolve into a crab shape. And you even have spiders that will evolve into a crab shape. And so it's so common that there's actually a term for it called carsonization, which is when something just starts to go into crab shape because apparently crab

shape is really good. And we actually had an episode on this if you want to hear more about carsonization. But I bring it up because I've got this great listener question. Um who writes Hi, Katie, I love listening to the podcast because I love animals and all the gifts you have on the show. Uh, And I have

a question for you. Are there different forms of evolution that are similar to carsonization where there are multiple versions of the same body type, Like if a reptile moves to a body of water, it'll evolve into a croc or a bird will become flightless if X and Y happens. Or could it be that crabs are the ultimate life form and humans will inevitably evolve into them? L O L. Thank you, Enrique, Thank you so much, Enrique. This is a great question. I love it, it is and you're

absolutely right. Yes, this happens a lot actually, where there is just some kind of animal form that multiple animals related or unrelated, decide this is this is it. I love this. I love this shape. Of course, when I say decide, obviously I'm speaking facetiously. They don't decide anything. But you know, nature loves certain forms of animal uh.

And this is called both. This is called either convergent evolution, so these are like animals who are unrelated developing similar forms or parallel evolution, so animals share a relatively recent common ancestor, but then they independently evolve the same characteristics. Uh. And it's so fascinating whenever this happens the first one. I feel like our mammalian version of crabs carsonization is moles. Molarization, Uh,

nothing to do with teeth. Also, I completely thought when you were saying carsonization, I was thinking, like Johnny Carson's last name. So I have no idea how any of this stuff is spelled. But molar ization. I love that name already. It's probably like linguists don't like me saying that because I don't think a Mueller and well, maybe they share a root. I don't know. They certainly don't share a root in my mouth. Dent we're bringing dental

humor back. God, I can't wait to go to the dentist, Like, once I'm fully vaccinated, get those suckers clean. I I kind of this is so weird and I feel like it makes me, I don't know, unnerving for people to hear this. I like going to the dentist me too. Okay, you do enjoy that, I do. I mean I don't obviously don't want to get a cavity filled or a procedure done, but just the teeth cleaning. I like that smooth, smooth feeling on my teeth. You want to hear something

even weirder. I actually have a home dental kit with like the little picks and stuff. Okay, I have that too, do you really? Yes? I bought it for the pandemic because it's like, well, I need to I need to clean my teeth, like I'm going a hold over a year without getting my teeth professionally clean. Uh. And so yeah I got. I got like with a little rubber thingy and the little scrapy doodog, and like a mirror that I never used because I can't with my two hands.

Yeah I can't. I the visual like this spatial ability to know which direction to go while looking into two mirrors is something I can't wrap my brain around. Because I love I love getting the plaque. The with the build up is called calculus. When it turns hard um on you, it's because of a Is it because it's like calcium build up or no? I think it's because it's as hard as the math that it's named after.

Hum baby, we're bringing it back, bringing it back. And and speaking of of of teeth, some of these moles are incredible looking. Oh we're going to talk about these moles teeth. You better believe it. So moles keep evolving and they're not even necessarily moles. So uh, there are a family of animals that are moles, like true moles, um like things like the Eastern mole found in eastern North America. Uh. And this is the only one we're talking about that is actually a member of the mole family.

And this is like, this is, you know, like the mole from what's it called Wind and the Willows. I'm struggling to think of other popular media where you have a mole in it. You have a mole, I'm not familiar. I know the name that you just said, but I don't know anything about that as it's the one where, like it's where Mr. Toad's Wild Ride comes from. I think, oh, yeah, okay, so the mole is wearing like a little outfit, Yeah, a little waistcout waistcoat, vest things. I can picture it

in my mind. But they're those little they're those little fuzzy grayish black, blind mostly blind mammal. And it's found all over the world, but like in in North America. I think there are some European moles as well, Old World moles as they're called, uh, and New World moles. They have like a gray coat. They burrow into soft earth and they eat insects for the either the old ones the Old World ones are Italian. Correct? Is that

is that the difference between the two. They live Old world is like they live anywhere in uh Eurasia basically okay okay uh. And then uh they their eyes are mostly nonfunctional. They're kind of like grown over skin. Maybe they can detect a little bit of light some species of moles uh. And they have small sharp teeth with slightly enlarged incisors, so those front teeth, but not not really they're all these like little pointy teeth. But they

do have huge digging claws for digging through the earth. Yeah, they're they're their hands for claws, I guess. I don't know, but they look kind of like hands though there there's no hair on them or anything. They're they're very pink, which I imagine. Uh. And that the claws are are huge on these things. There, man, there their borderline. They're they're in this uncanny valley of being super cute and

really freaky looking, straddling that that bridge. Perfectly. Star nosed moles are freaky because they have that they have a nose that has like tendrils on it, and it actually helps them since vibrations in the earth because they don't rely too much on their eyesight. The only thing any mold species really uses their eyesight forested, hecked light and dark uh. And then they will rely on vibrations in the earth to sense their prey or to sense threats.

And having like the that star knows uh both like you know, it's both for the sense of smell but also to sense more vibrations uh. And so it's really sensitive. But it looks like like their face exploded. It's very weird looking. But there are a number of other animals that look like their moles. They're not technically related. They are not in the mole family. Um. There is the golden mole, which is found in the deserts of South Africa, and despite its name, it is not a mole at all.

It evolved independently. Uh. It is very cute. It's got a light golden coat. Uh. It burrows in sand instead of earth, and it eats insects much like the eastern mole uh. And it doesn't form permanent burrows, but it swims through the sand like a little sand shark. It is really fun. They look it's like a bugs Bunny cartoon where bugs Bunny is like exactly like that but

in sand. Uh and it is eyelis. Its skin has grown over its non functional eyes, and it uses vibrations entirely to see under under the earth, and it's sense of smells, so just very similar to the mole. It also has big digging claws that it uses, and and and hind legs as well that that it can use to like uh, to travel through the sand. So again, very similar to to the eastern mole. And its teeth

are very similar as well. So it's got small sharp teeth with slightly enlarged incisors but just a little like needle like teeth that it can snatch an insect with. And it's got no external ears like like the eastern moles. Um just kind of it's got ear holes, but it's just like there's fur over it. There's no little mouse ears or anything on it. So are these mole and mole like creatures are they using basically their entire body to pick up on vibrations like uh is kind of

are they? For lack of a better way of explaining, are they one giant ear drum. I mean, it's interesting. I don't know if they use every part of their body to pick up on vibrations, but certainly more than just like their feet or their nose. Like I think that they've got like whiskers and hairs that they can use to pick up on vibrations. I think they get it through their nose and through their feet as well, So I think multiple part of their bodies they can

use to sense vibration. Uh so, yeah, yeah, they are. They are kind of like even though it seems like they lack sensory organs in terms of their eyes, like they are making up for it for converting other body parts into sensory organs. They're the daredevil of the animal exactly. He should be called Moleman. He really should. I feel like there is a Moman comic book character, maybe not in the Marvel or DC units, the Simpsons guy his Moleman. Yeah,

maybe that's what I'm thinking. Maybe that that actually probably is exactly exactly what I'm thinking of. There's another mole which is not really a mole, called the marsupial mole, who is not a mole. Uh it is uh found in Australia. It looks uncannily similar to the golden mole, who again looks pretty similar to uh the Eastern mole. It also has golden fur like the golden mole. It also has pink little nose, little claws. UH. It also burrows in sand. It also swims through the sand just

like the golden mole. UH. It's eyes are also nonfunctional and covered in skin. It also has large digging claws. It also has small, pointy teeth, although their their teeth are a little blunter than the golden mole and the Eastern mole UH, and their claws are a little more side like, so they're a little longer, a little sharper looking. They also has no external ears. They are very similar to the golden mole. They're not even on the same continent.

Golden moles are found in the deserts of South Africa and marsupial moles are found in Australia. And they did not like. They didn't like get split like when you know Pangaea split or something. They they evolved independently of each other, complet completely independently. I am looking up additional photos because the photo in the Google doc it's it's eating. Uh, it's got like half of a lizard in its mouth, and it's hard to really get a grasp on where

even the quote unquote face is this thing. It's it's literally it. There's like a pink hub on the front, which is as the approximation of like the nose where the noses, but that's basically it. It's the rest of it is covered in almost like polar bear like light colored fur. Um. How big? And I just lost the Google doc for a second, but how big are we

talking about? Your not very big? Like that's a small lizard, so probably like about the size of your, well, maybe my hand, like uh, you know, just like it it fit in your hand. It's it's okay, a big thing. So so this one then and similar to the golden mole, than uh, I'm gonna go on the cute spectrum for for these guys because of their tininess. Um, if these things were had any significant size to them, terrifying silently moved through the sand and like and tremors emerged from

the sand like the sandworms. Yeah yeah, I know they would be terrifying if they were any bigger. Wow. Okay, and then the last one we're going to talk about is the mole rat. Again not an actual mole uh. There are lots of different species of mole rats. You may be familiar with the naked mole rat, which is that lovely little mole rat that is totally nude, lives the nude lifestyle and is proud of it. It's very progressive. But most mole rat species actually have fur uh and

so they can be. As we've talked about before, naked mole rats live in a colony much like a beehive and our youth social um. But there are some furry mole rat species that also have some form of youth sociality UM. But some of them don't so, so they're different species of mole rat. But they look like moles uh and they uh. Their eyesight again is like limited ranges from being very very poor to being completely blind um.

And they burrow in the earth uh so like all of these these are are called phosporal animals because they spend most of their time underground uh and they have large claws for burrowing no external ears. The big difference between mole rats and the rest of these mole like animals and moles is that they actually have these really large front teeth, so more like a beaver or a rabbit. They have these huge front teeth that they use to like tunnel through roots and and make these these big burrows.

And it probably serves them well in making these big colonies of like permanent burrows for them to live in, uh and to chew through like hard roots and things. So so it's it's if you see like something you think is a mole, but it has big like beaver teeth, It's not a mole, it's a it's a mole rat.

These teeth just look comical like and I know with with these types of of rodents, when with these types of animals that they basically if if they don't find things to chew on, then their teeth will actually like grow through their upper and lower lips sometimes. Um, so these these teeth are InCred This photo is so funny. I cannot stop looking at it because it does not look real at all. The the between the teeth and the it's almost like it has a shocked expression on space.

It's so yeah, look they look like Jim Henson creations. Yes they do. Yes, like like a dark crystal or one of those movies with the the Henson Henson, Mommy, that's exactly what it looks like. And yeah, so so moles are not or mole like animals are not the only ones that have these uncanny parallel or convergent evolution. So so these would whether this is convergent or parallel, um, I think it it's it kind of differs based on

your opinion as a biologist. Like some would say this is convergent evolution because they are, you know, not related enough to each other for it to be parallel evolutions. Some might say, like, well they there, they share a close enough common ancestor that this would count, or some cases of this would count as parallel evolution. I don't know. I think it's kind of borderline because they are pretty

distantly related. Um. But a definite example of parallel evolution or sorry, a definite example of convergent evolution is ichthyosaurs and dolphins. So ich theo uh sores are extinct aquatic reptiles back in dinosaur times early Triassic too late Cretaceous that these mini species of saurs lived and the species ranged from being only one m to sixteen meters long, So that's three to fifty feet long. So good. Some species were gigantic and some are cute and widow wow.

But yeah, they look kind of like weird dolphins. So they're dolphins shape. They have the long snout. Uh, they're often obviously, their anatomy is not completely the same as dolphins. They have that um vertical tail rather than the horizontal table. And that has to do with the evolution of dolphins, where they uh evolved from terrestrial animals. Um. Whereas atheosaurs you know, well they I guess they also may have

evolved from terrestrial animals. Huh. But I guess it depends on the pelvic shape of the reptiles that they evolved from must have been different from the pelvic shape of the terrestrial animals that dolphins evolved from. And so it's interesting. I always wondered if if the the finn shape had anything to do with the body eas of water. I guess, like the currents, Like what was more efficient as far

as swimming against or with the currents? Uh, the kind of kind of the you know, that's the primary one of the primary things as far as the what the tail does is is locomotion. So how how efficient it was for them to to have either a vertical or horizontal one depending on their environment and body of water. It really actually has more to do with the way that their pelvis and spine evolved. So with with terrestrial four legged animals, they're walking was like an up and

down undulation. So like you see you see like a horse walking or a dog walking, there's a sort of like they don't like do too much of the sachet from side to side. If you see like a lizard walking and it's doing that side to side thingy, it's got more of a side to side motion with its spine and pelvis and its locomotion, whereas a dog you see a dog or hyote eloping, it kind of has

this up and down. You sit on a horse, you're gonna bounce up and down and up and down because it's fine and it's pelvis has more of this undulating. The way that his legs work is more of an up and down motion. Where's the way reptiles pelvic girl kind of works as more of a side to side just a snake, yeah, which originally snakes had legs and then they eventually dropped their legs, but they kept that side to side locomotion. Um so the same thing with

the ichthyosaur and the dolphin. The ichthyosaur has that side to side motion with the vertical tail like fish do, and dolphins instead of have that flat, horizontal tail because they evolved from like little deer like terrestrial animals that had that up and down pelvic girdle motion, and so they still have that up and down motion of the

spine and the pelvis. So what what what kind of tail? Eventually, billions of years from now, kangaroos have stayed in the water, mean mugging the rest of the animal kingdom, you know, saying, come on, they're gonna look like terrifying dolphins. Okay, okay, man, okay, now kangaroo dolphins. Oh man, that's a that's a visual uh that that is scary as hell. Well, if you want to think, if you want to see approximately what a kangaroo dolphin looks like, just scrolled down in this document.

Because the Ambula stas, which is an extinct semi aquatic mammal, is actually the ancestor of all cetaceans like dolphins, whales, and it looks like a cross between a kangaroo and a crocodile. Wow. Yes, it does. Holy cow, I've never seen one of these things before, not just I just meant like, obviously, I've never actually seen any of these things before. Nobody has got a pet ambula cetis. Yeah,

oh man, that is wild looking. Yeah, it looks, you know, like the the hands and feet have kind of like an otter um, like a river otter type of vibe to them. But that tail is absolutely it's all kangaroo tail. And that that head, the teeth very much like the crocodile that you've got a photo next to it of. Man, that's wild looking. Yeah, it looks like you gave a crocodile fur and yes, and it's oddly horrifying, but yeah, that's that's uh again, here's I mean, that is another

example of um convergent evolution. You have completely unrelated crocodile, completely unrelated mammal just having this similar body shape, and then the ambulo seati goes on to evolve into the dolphin, which has a very similar body shape to the ichtheo store So it happens all the day time, a bunch of hacks. Really, yeah, it's it's uh, it's it's back to that molarization thing. There's certain environmental pressures that if you let the computer program go on long enough, it's

going to revert back to the most efficient one. It's like, I mean, humans do it in car design all the time, right, Like there's there's there's a reason most cars have a similar body shape to them because we've you know, had enough people attempt this and and and experiment with it. When it's like a three wheeled car that's sort of a wedge shaped, it just keeps falling over exactly exactly. There's certain certain environmental factors that just make it all

all come back to a similar, similar type vibe. Man. That is, if I that's a new horror. If you are swimming in like a river or a lake and you imagine and and say the word for me again and bets and bulla SETAs, that is a new that's nightmare fuel right there, Absolute nightmare fuel. Yeah, it's Uh. I wouldn't want to be in the water with one of these guys or a kangaroo. No, no, not at all. I don't I don't want to, UH don't want to get drowned by kangaroo or torn to shreds by the

teeth of this thing. God, Okay, that's scary. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's like one of those things where it's like, well, what if a crocodile was fluffy, would it be cuter? No, I'd rather spend time with the crocodile than this thing. God no, I uh not a crocodile, but I did. Um uh. This is probably very illegal for me to say, but a friend of mine was re homing a baby alligator that I got to I got to sit babysit for the weekend until he had to go out of town.

But it was like in the pond next to his house, and he wanted to rehome it to another uh like body of water because you know, he didn't want it to There's lots of dogs in the neighborhoods, you know we were talking about, and we have lots of alligators around here, so there's so this is like a this is like a natural alligator. This is not a pet. Yeah, exactly exactly. This was just he was Yeah, I said

re homing. I meant like, actually gonna be like like an alligator with a little collar on, and I'd have to have a conversation about alligators as pets do not keep alligators as pets. But I we he was kept in an aquarium for like two days, um, and then we re homed him to a larger body of water

that he could he could flourish in and thrive. But they're adorable when they're cute, so so adorable and uh but but yeah, add for to it and that would be that would cross that uncanny valley into just terrifying. I don't know, like a baby, a baby, I mean baby alligators are so cute, and the little sounds they make, they make this little like air a sound because they call out to their mommy's too. It's so pathetic sounding. It's just like it's like listening to a tiger cub

trying to roar for the first time. It's so cute. They are so adorable. Um, but yeah, they grow up into big alligators and those are not good pets. Uh and uh yeah. The but if you covered a baby alligator and for a little cute, but then when it grows up, no, no longer cute, very scary exactly. I feel like it would be like kind of have like a ferret vibe yeah, with a big mat like a longer mouth, longer mouth way way bigger eyes. Yeah, Gary,

we really came full circle, right. We got the we got the aquatic crocodile kangaroo that would definitely probably try to drown you, because crocodiles do actually use uh they will drown, try to drown prey in the water. Still grab something, yeah, death, roll it, bring it, bring it down into the water. So at least we'll know that there used to be the ambulacidas, which was looked like the cross between a crocodile and kangaroo and probably wanted

to drown me. I. Uh So the the only other experiences that I've had with alligators growing up, we did a lot of crabbing around here where we just tie a piece of chicken on the end of a string and you know, hanging off the end of a pier or stuff and uh and and catch blue crab with it. Um. Yeah, it was. It was. It was a quick way to uh to to bring home some blue crab um. And we a couple of times when we did it in the Cape Fear River because it's it's very brackish water.

Because we're also I've got the inter coastal on one side of the Cape Fear on the other, and uh, there's lots of alligators in in that river, and the alligator every once in a while would come up and grab the chicken and we would play tug of war with the alligator. And on my drive home from work, I drive a road called River Road that runs parallel to the Cape Fear and there was just like a six and a half foot or just chilling in the middle of the road and brought traffic to a screeching halt.

So I very stupidly, and I do not recommend anybody do this. Don't do this, don't, but I was afraid somebody was gonna was gonna hit this thing. And there's a golf course on the other side of the road with ponds on it. So these alligators will come up out of the river and go chill in the golf course. Uh for for you know, however long. And so I grabbed.

I had a pair of like bolt cutters or something in the back of my my pickup truck, and so I I stretched them out, I extend them, and I put on a pair of gloves, these leather gloves that I had, and I dangle one end of the bolt cutters in front of like the mouth the head of him to get his attention, and then I just grabbed his tail and slung him like as hard, you know, not not violently or anything, but just it is still to this day, I still get the tingly sensation when

I think about doing that, because it was the stupidest thing I could have done, but it was just a spur of the moment. I'm gonna try this and I hope it works out. And then he just waddled off and seemed completely fine headed, headed down towards the river. That's so yeah, don't don't do that. You're not never

do that. It's so funny though, because it's like yesterday I was like, oh, there was a there was a fledgling bird in the middle of a sidewalk, and it was like relocated it to a hedge, and I felt like, wow, I'm interacting with nature, and you're like, yeah, one time I grabbed an alligator and just like yeted it right

into a golf course. Honestly, I like the unpredicted, like the alligator is long enough that like grabbing its pale is still a good you know, six ft away from it, and I know alligators are extremely fast when they whipped that head around, but I I as soon as I grabbed the tail, I also started moving, so like the momentum the inertia kept him from like really doing anything.

But handling a bird is more stressful to me than than probably what I did with the alligator, because they are able to uh, their their talents and their beaks are so quit and so close to your hands. Yeah, I was in so much danger. You were, You were baby sparrow. Yeah, baby sparrows have right and I'm glad that you were that you have right. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. You're a wonderful gift. Although I know he's a very charismatic gift. Don't handle alligators, don't, please,

do not. Don't don't. It was very stupid of me. I I still think about it to this every once in a while, I'll think about doing that and just like, what the hell? And that's why we call him all one arm Christie. Ye, Well, hey, where can people find you?

So you can find me at on Twitter at wopple House w A P P L E h O U s e UM and I host, as you said at the top of the show, lour after Hours, which if you're a fan of the Dan Lebottard Show, this might be in your wheelhouse or something you might want to check out. If you're not a fan of the Dan Lebottard Show, honestly you're it's it's gonna be a tough listen. So if if that's not your thing, I completely understand. You can find me at George Center Pod on Twitter

as well. That's another podcast I do with some friends of mine because the world doesn't have enough dude sitting around talking about stupid stuff. So that's that's George Center, like Gene Shorts and yes, George Center Pod, and uh, it's not about sports, so it's also like George's not sports exactly, it's a bunch of dudes sitting around in George's uh laughing. So uh that that's where you can

find me. And you can find the podcast on the internet at Creature creature Pot on Instagram, at Creature feak pot on Twitter. That's f E A T, not f E T. That's it's very different. Uh. And if you want to send me in your email questions, you can send it to Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and I'll try to answer questions. Sometimes I'm a little slow, like I get I get kind of behind on stuff, but I am working through the emails. So if you sent in a question, I haven't answered it yet, Like,

don't worry, I am. I am working on it. Um. But yeah, yeah, keep sending those into me because I love to hear him and if yeah, sometimes I will answer them on the show. Uh and uh, you can find me at Katie Golden. That's just where I put my Katie thoughts. And as always, I am pro bird right. I'm a human, not a skin suit full of a flock of birds trying to trick humanity and into giving us more power for bread. Certainly not. Uh, thank you

so much for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review that actually does tangibly help the podcast. It tells tells the iTunes and web webpoons and pod pod place at Internet that we're a good show, and it tricks the robots into you giving us attention. Uh and uh. 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 Heard Radio app Apple podcast

or Hey guess what. Why have you listen to your favorite shows? I don't care, I don't judge. See you next Wednesday.