Lisa Frankimals - podcast episode cover

Lisa Frankimals

Feb 21, 202454 min
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Episode description

Today we're talking about animals that look like they jumped off of a page from Lisa Frank's notebook! Pink dolphins, rainbow squirrels, surprisingly fabulous pigeons, and the most beautiful butts in the world. 

Guest: Joelle Monique 

Footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12uHLiRYjc0_-rKv_fCFSpkTMN8f4ysX9do1j_uLC0r4/edit?usp=sharing

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Mini Putt. I'm your host of Many Parasites. Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on this show, we are looking at animals that are peeled right off of the page of a Lisa Frank notebook. These are animals that you would not expect to be so vibrantly

rainbow colored hued, and yet they are so. We will talk about pink dolphins, multi colored primates, even a squirrel and a pigeon which you would not expect to be so very Lisa Frank. Discover this in more as we answer the age old question why is it important to have a rainbow But joining me today is friend of the podcast, also friend of meet Katie and all around awesome person producer at iHeartRadio. You know her, you love her? Joe. Well, welcome, Hey.

Speaker 2

How's it going.

Speaker 3

I'm so excited to talk Lisa Frank.

Speaker 1

Were you a big Lisa Frank fan back in the day?

Speaker 3

Yeah, okay, so the way Lisa Frank folders, binders, trapper keepers were a premium right like, they were not cheap. So my mom would let me get like two Lisa Frank things. So she was like, you gotta get these regular ninety nine cent folders, but if you want one Lisa Frank.

Speaker 2

Folder and a Trapper keeper or two weeks.

Speaker 3

Of Frank folder, like, you could have two things maximum. And I coveted them so bad. I typically went with a dolphin or a snow leopard as they were topics and yeah, so super cute to look at, but yeah, I mean adorable animals, cute psychedelic backgrounds. Very my lane as a child, and you know, to be fair to today, still love me alas a Frank.

Speaker 1

They are very cool kid. I never actually bought this stuff so much. I don't know why. I think, I just it never occurred to me that I could do such a thing. But I would passively stare at other kids binders that had the least Frank designs on them. I might have gotten like one or two things over the years. I don't really remember, but I remember just kind of like the making me hungry because everything looks like it was made out of candy or something.

Speaker 2

It was just so, it was.

Speaker 1

So it was so they were just so glossy and edible looking. I also just I thought I think I found it very strange as a kid, this idea of like mammals being brightly colored, because you know, you're used to like maybe fish and even birds being colored, but like mammals, it was a It was a weird concept for there to be a rainbow colored like a leopard or dolphin.

Speaker 2

It was not, as you might say, logical.

Speaker 3

It's very illogical, yeah, coloring, But I think that's sort of what I loved about it.

Speaker 2

There's a.

Speaker 3

Like hyperrealism, fantasy sort of element happening where why not a taied die cheetah Here unicorns are very real and they're gorgeous. I like that her unicorns were white, but it was their tails and their mains that were tied.

Speaker 2

Ie super bright colors.

Speaker 3

I just think it's fun to look at and pretend you're in a world where there are mega waterfalls and aliens driving like what do you call those punch buggies.

Speaker 2

Everything about Lisa S.

Speaker 3

Frank's world was just gorgeous and peaceful and exuberantly vibrant, and I appreciate that to this day.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think it's a really lovely art style. I think when I was a kid back in the nineties, I feel like girls in terms of sort of being classified into like animal obsessives, were either super into horses or super into dolphins. I don't know why that happened, but that like when I was a kid, it was you were either in horse camp or dolphin camp.

Speaker 2

I personally would had.

Speaker 1

No you had to either be a horse girl or a dolphin girl. I was like into cats because I had a cat, but I felt like horses and dolphins were like the thing, right, Like if you had a Barbie, you could get her a horse or you could get her a dolphin. For some reason, I don't know why Barfi Barbie could have a dolphin. Maybe it was Skipper who had a dolphin's.

Speaker 3

I think it had something to do with all of us wanting to be marine biologists. I don't know who planted this idea in children's heads, but for a while, it was like, you be a horse girl lover and you wanted to sort of like work on a ranch and like live in the wild West and tame wild horses. Black Beauty was obviously a staple for many of us in our youth, whether it was the classic black Beauty film or you're reading the novel. I think it really

cemented this idea of running away and racing horses. And then or you were a marine biology camp and you're like, I will swim under the ocean sort of be a mermaid, but not really also super smart scientist, and there'll be very cute dolphins who make the best little sounds and do tricks. This was before we knew see world was a terrible place.

Speaker 1

Guys.

Speaker 3

We were children and dolphins were doing dope tricks and you could be their trainer and they would high five you if you fed them a fish. And it was really we were living in a dream world. And I really think that's what separated and divided the camps, is like you were either into the rune biology of it, or you were prepared to live.

Speaker 2

On a farm.

Speaker 3

I didn't like the smell of horses. At first I thought I might be a horse girl. But then I went to ride horse, says I said, it smells awful.

Speaker 2

I hate it.

Speaker 3

Also, they were really tall and I was scared to heights, so horses were hard for me. My mom's a horse girl, she was disappointed. But I came a dolphin girl very early. And then Lisa Frank can introduce me to the snow leopard, And I said, is there a more beautiful creature on God's Earth?

Speaker 2

There isn't so.

Speaker 1

Fussy. Yeah, if I had to be in either horse girl or dolphin girl camp, and probably be dolphin girl as well, because horses intimidate me. I'm thoroughly intimidated by horses. I can see the like they're so muscular, and then they have really hard nails for feet, and so they can just they could like hit you and permanently cave in your head. I do not find that peaceful. I

find that intimidating. Whereas dolphins, I don't know. I guess a dolphin could drown you, but I don't think they typically do.

Speaker 3

I know that we don't see that in our culture a lot, and in our dolphin me Typically dolphins are very kind, loving, sweet creatures, whereas horses are temperamental creatures in a lot of our media, like there, you're like, oh, you gotta be careful because they're wild spirits. They might buck you off. You know, you got you gotta be careful with a horse. My mom got kicked in the shin by a horse. Oh no, teenager, so she has a permanent horseshoe imprint on her shin. She likes to

think it's lucky. I said, you were kicked by a horse in the shin.

Speaker 1

I hate it when stuff happens to the shin because it's like one of the bones where it's like right there, there's nothing. There's like a thin layer of skin and tissue covering it, but there's no cushion. It's just a bone there. And I hate it. I hate but I'm shaving my legs. I hate shaving over it because I'm like, that's there's a bone right there, Like it's not that far delicate bone, so like I do have a horse kicking right I want to throw up. Anyways, it's horrible.

It's a lot that's horrible. It's so funny because I have like such a tall I have such a tolerance and love for a weird, disgusting animal, spiders, snakes, everything. And then you're like, it's like with horses, I'm just like, I don't know about horses. Man. I like them. I like looking at them. I respect them. That's the thing is like I don't fantasize about, like you know, being buddies with a horse because I respect them too much

for that. They are thoroughly to me. They are intimidating enough that I want to give them like a wide berth. But yeah, dolphins are not as everyone knows like, They're not the sweet, peaceful creatures in terms of like other sea life. They're predators and so they like to play around with their food. They like to hunt, and but you know, in terms of their relationships with humans, they generally do not pose any threat to humans. They actually can be quite curious about humans, and they can be

quite friendly. But the reason I bring up dolphins is I remember there were always these beautiful multi colored dolphins, sometimes like these pink dolphins that Lisa Frank would draw. And it turns out that Lisa Frank was not making this up. There indeed are pink dolphins. These are the Amazon River dolphins found in where else but the Amazon River. We have talked about these on the show before, but I mean, I think it's worth repeating information about pink dolphins as much as possible.

Speaker 3

I mean, look at how cute they are. Yes, they're so adorable. I think popular media has really let us down by not featuring more of these pink dolphins.

Speaker 2

You know, we see a.

Speaker 3

Ton of I don't want to call them regular bottle nose dolphins. I feel like, are maybe the ones.

Speaker 2

We see, yeah, the most your.

Speaker 3

Typical blue, white bellied looking thing, and they're cute. Listen, there's no dolphin shaming here. I'm just saying out in the world, there's a light pink dolphin who constantly looks like it's smiling and a little bit high. Its eyes are very small, and who it's precious. I would protect it. It should be a mascot for several different teams. People should be fighting over the rights to be like, no, we're the pink dolphins. Look at how perfect they are.

Speaker 2

It's away.

Speaker 1

It's so funny. It's so funny because we think of pink as this soft, cute color, right, Like something that's pink is sweet and cute, and of course with our culture, something like in modern sort of like Western culture, pink is like a girly color. I'm not saying it is, right. I don't put that kind of baggage on colors because I think pink is everyone's color. Anyone can like. I don't. I think it's weird to like limit what colors people can use. That's strange. But you know, our culture is like,

you know, girls, pink, girls, pink. The thing is this pink for these Amazon river dolphins also known as the Boto river dolphins are a male characteristic. So the pink is a male characteristic because it is actually scar tissue as a result of fighting with other dolphins or with other creatures, and it's attractive to females because the more pink that they are from just this like frequent abrasion,

because their tissue scar is very easily. This is an evolutionary trait and it will turn pink from all of this scarring. And so the brighter the pink from this skin irritation essentially from fights and shoving and rough housing is attractive to females. So this pink, basically, the pinker you are, the more like tough and aggressive you are, and the more rough and tough from anywhere from like just serious fighting to just kind of rough housing with other dolphins.

Speaker 3

So I was right, they are the perfect mascot. Yes, that's a bright neon pink dolphin mascot to be like, hey, we're ferocious, we'd be fighting all the time and the ladies love us.

Speaker 2

What about it?

Speaker 3

Like, my god, if I was starting a sports team tomorrow.

Speaker 2

This will be my mascot. Imagine the imagine the mascot super It's.

Speaker 1

Perfect, man, I am actually imagining it, and it's it's really funny because like these are these all dolphins alf have also have really fat foreheads and long snouts, so it's just they already are very goofy looking, so in mascot form with a human sort of awkwardly inside this like dolphin suit with the legs sticking out, perfect, just perfect.

Speaker 2

I am obsessed with this little guy. He's so cool.

Speaker 1

They also love.

Speaker 2

That his pinkness comes from fights.

Speaker 1

They are also drummers, so they will actually hold branches or pieces of vegetation in their mouths and then beat the water with that to impress the females. And like I mentioned before, dolphins are not known for their kindness to other creatures. They will sometimes lift live turtles up as a courtship as a courtship display, just because they're they're kind of jerks, but in a pretty cute way.

Speaker 3

Continuing on my mascot theme, imagine everybody gets a like leaf shaped tube. So in somebody's if it's basketball, someone's going to make a free throw. This is how we use our distraction. We're just mimicking the dolphins drumming style as a form of intimidation. Don't let us all whip out a turtle. It means it's over for you. It really, it truly means death, or we're about to enter recording ritual. Either way, very very dangerous time to be around us and dolphins.

Speaker 1

I'm seeing if anyone uses this dolphin as a mascot, I don't see. I don't see any like sports teams that do.

Speaker 2

I mean, like I'm trademarking it right now, and Hollywood WNBA, give me a team.

Speaker 1

I mean, Indigenous communities do appreciate these dolphins. I wouldn't say it's like a mascot, but there's a lot of folklore about them. So like Native Amazonian folklore has stories about these dolphins transforming into a human and coming out of the water with like a hat on their head to disguise the blowhole. I just love that. It's like

it's like a transformation mermaid story. But like they keep the blowhole, Like they turn from a dolphin into a human, but there's no way for them to also get rid of that blowhole.

Speaker 3

All good magical tales have consequences. You can never fully hide true state of being.

Speaker 1

Yes, it's kind of like with AI. Now, like if they start making AI human clones, you just look at the number of fingers that they have or the number of teeth that they have to find it out. Also, they believe that they could turn into a beautiful woman who could seduce a married man. Uh, and then after having sex with him, turns him into a baby and then puts him inside his own wife's womb, so.

Speaker 2

You know, diabolically.

Speaker 1

Yeah, well, you know, I think that is It's an interesting concept. It actually sounds like the plot of Being John Malkovich.

Speaker 2

Right, I never understood the plot for Being John Malcovich. I'm going to take her word.

Speaker 1

I think it's Yeah. I think it's a river Dolphin place by Catherine Zeta Jones, who, uh, you're right, like and then she impregnates Uh.

Speaker 3

Yes, this is I haven't seen this movie in so long. Wait a minute, Okay, So here's the thing. Popular culture has given me a dolphin, and it gave it to me in the weirdest possible way. What I have to go back and watch it.

Speaker 1

John Malkovich doesn't actually have an Amazon river dolphin, but it does have Catherine Zeta Jones and gosh who's the other actress. They fall in love, but then one of them gets pregnant with their own ex boyfriend kind of or the ex boyfriend gets trapped inside their own baby but is not in control of the baby. It's weird, it's very it's a it's a weird movie. I highly

recommend it. But essentially it's the same story indias. It's the same story as it's a folklore about this river dolphin, which in a kind of in a certain sense, it's the same story. But anyways, but yeah, they they really in real life. These dolphins pose no threat to humans. They can't transform you into a baby, but they don't do well in captivity and they can't be trained. They are fiercely independent pink battle dolphins.

Speaker 2

They saw what happened to their cousins and they were like, can't catch us.

Speaker 1

No, thank you?

Speaker 2

Who am not conformed?

Speaker 1

Yeah?

Speaker 2

Weird human ways?

Speaker 1

Yeah, free Willie, how about screw you? All Right, Well, we are going to take a quick break and then when we get back, we are going to talk about bright multi colored squirrels. So I want to talk about the Indian giant squirrel which has a beautiful coat. I have mentioned this before on other episodes, but again it's a giant, multicolored squirrel. I have to give it another shout out during the Lisa Frank episode. So this is a They live in tropical forests in the Indian subcontinent

and they eat a lot of fruits nuts. They are, you know, your typical squirrel, but they are about a foot long from their nose to their butt, and then an extra foot for their tail, so they're about sixty centimeters total in length, which is about two feet, and they are they are a beautiful color combination. Joel, can you describe this squirrel to the listeners?

Speaker 3

Sure, it sort of looks like an outphant Meganus stallium would wear. It's like a very dark navy blue on top and bottom, and then in the middle it's like a beautiful mauve purple. It's not quite tigh eye, but more like ombre switching from one color to the other and then back to the original. I also really appreciate the coloring on its face. If you're into the tie dye makeups, definitely inspired by this creature.

Speaker 2

I'm talking like purple eye shadow.

Speaker 3

Also purple lips, but like pink maybe around the ears. Beautiful creature, gorgeous.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's color coordination is really on point. It's kind of like jewel tones mixed with a few earth tones, which is very very cool. I didn't realize is there there's a tie dye makeup trend?

Speaker 3

Yeah, so there's if you're into maximalism, which I really am, A lot of folks are doing some very fun things with both, like their lips and their eyes.

Speaker 2

Whoa who You're putting on.

Speaker 3

A bunch of colors like around the eye or on the lips, sometimes both, and then blending it out to get like a tie dye effect.

Speaker 1

Oh my god, I'm looking at a picture of this. This is incredible. I like, this isn't fantastic. I feel blessed when I can do a wing that doesn't look like I just dragged a sharpie across my face, so I could never accomplish this, But this is that's amazing. Yeah, like just it's it looks like because it looks like they did the rainbow colors and then sort of like sort of dragged some kind of smudging tool to get that like tied eye swirl effect that's really cool.

Speaker 3

My favorite effect is sometimes they'll tape a piece of string and like wind it up and make kind of loop whoe and then tape it to the other side, and so then they'll do the makeup over the string and then just remove the string, so you get skin color as sort of the white tied eye line. Sometimes people will use a white Uh. If you did not come for the show for makeup, I'm so sorry, But

here we are. He's like a white eyeliner to sort of highlight and make some cool color swishiness amongst all the colors.

Speaker 1

This show is all about how animals and humans aren't so different and the fact that we love to put color on our face. Animals also are these beautiful colors. Look, it's just I think it's super creative and super awesome what people do with makeup.

Speaker 2

Can I ask you a question?

Speaker 3

This coloring is so bold and unique, and I know it lives in the India subcontinent and there are very bold and beautiful colors in the forest there. But this guy sticks out like you would see him if he was running around.

Speaker 2

There's no bunding in for this little dude.

Speaker 3

Is this specifically for mating is because it can't be for hiding.

Speaker 1

Well, that's what's interesting is that sometimes coloration to our eyes will look like something that stands out that could not possibly camouflage them, but then to their predators, because they have a different different types of vision, like they don't have the kind of color vision that we have.

Something like this, like this blocky, patchy coloration with a lighter under belly and a darker thought might actually be harder to spot because like if you have a light belly and a dark top, Like if you have light coming in from a top source, say like you're in a rainforest, right and light is coming filtering through the leaves above, and so when you look up, things are lighter, and when you look down kind of like things are patchier and more like the shadow lights up on them.

So something that has a light belly but then sort of a blocky, darker top might actually be harder to spot, especially if your vision does not process the same range of colors as human vision. But it can also be for mate selection, right, like having a lot of colors like you have this sort of you have two needs that can be in conflict with each other. The need to not be eaten by a predator, but also the need to stand out and be noticed by a mate.

So having coloration that attracts conspecifics like members of your own species that you want to make that you want to mate with, can be advantageous, but it's balanced with not wanting to be spotted by predators. So sometimes you have animals who are brightly colored in certain ways, but also maybe their coloration is in certain sort of like blocky patches, so that it does somewhat break up the

pattern of what shape they're supposed to be. Or they are really colorful and really conspicuous, but they have other methods of escape, such as being able to fly away or speed away very quickly, or they're really big and so they don't have to worry about predators.

Speaker 3

Is that I think, Okay, I'm having a vague memory, so maybe I'm wrong or conflating things, but like that's why zebras are colored the way they are, right Like when tigers see them, it's like all green to them. Is that I kind of blend in with the grass with they're black and white.

Speaker 1

So yeah, it's so it's disruptive coloration. So for zebras, they would mostly be concerned about lions, and for zebras, they're going to be in herds where they are, you know, kind of blending in with each other. So the idea is it's difficult for a lion or even something like a mosquito to differentiate a individual and to be able to tell which direction they're going in. It's there's something

called a barber shop or barber shop poll illusion. It's like when you have the lines of the barber shop spinning around, sometimes you could interpret it as it going down or going up, just ending on kind of how you went or think about it. And that could be the case with zebras, where you have all these stripes, and so it makes it not only difficult to know where one individual starts and another one ends, but which direction the herd is moving or which in each individual

and the herd is moving. And then so for like, that's one of the questions about why if tigers are so brightly colored right there, orange and black, so to us they just pop right out. We can see them really easily, or even like a leopard right like, they're so brightly colored. Wouldn't in their ambush predators, wouldn't their

prey see them. Well, that has to do with the the way that the vision of most of their prey is, which is they they won't see so much the difference between oranges and greens, and so that orange and black striped coloration or that orange and black kind of dotted coloration will look like sort of a dappled light coming in in the in the jungle or in the forest and sort of like just light dappled greenery essentially, so they blend in really well, but not to us humans, which is good for us.

Speaker 3

We can tell the difference between orange and green. We can see it clear off. Yes, Okay, I definitely was conflating multiple stories in there.

Speaker 1

But they're all very interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you were thinking that is correct, that that is the same thing that I'm talking about. But yeah, speaking of sort of brightly colored little little forest animals, this is technically a bird, so it's not unusual for birds to be brightly colored. But the reason I'm bringing this one up is it's a pigeon, which we're so used to the drab,

boring pigeons of our cities. I actually love them, but a lot of people find them, you know, they're gray so they're not usually that interesting.

Speaker 2

But these arts of the sky we used to call them in college.

Speaker 1

Yes, the flying rats. I actually quite love pigeons, but they are I wouldn't call them the most beautiful of birds.

We do actually get a lot of color variations here because most city pigeons are actually descendants of domesticated pigeons, and so you actually do get like brown and white and you know, black, sort of like pigeons that have been bred specifically for their colors and then they're released into the wild and now are released out into the city, and now you have this feral pigeon population that has all these interesting colors. But this one looks like it's

a Lisa Frank pigeon. If Lisa Frank ever drew a pigeon, which I don't think she did, but had she, it would look like this. It is like, it's a pigeon that looks like it's made out of sorbet. It's beautiful.

Speaker 3

It does, it does, guys. It has bright, hot pink feet. It does so its shoe game is on point. Also, so many colors neck one color like front, breast area, different color head, different multi colored wings and tail, vibrant sunning.

Speaker 2

Send it to New York Fashion Week. It's ready for its close up.

Speaker 1

So these pigeons are related to our city pigeons. They are found in Southeast Asia, and both males and females are colorful, but more so the males, because females are more just kind of variations of greens and yellows, whereas males are a variety of color. Their faces are powder blue, their neck is a lavender color, their chest is orange, their belly is green, their back is olive green. Their wings have these yellow stripes, and then under their tail

is orange and their feet are hot pink. They are incredible.

Speaker 2

Truly a stunning bird.

Speaker 3

And there's a lot of competition for stunning birds, as we just discussed with the regular pigeons. You know, they look fine, Let's be real, they look fine. But when we're talking about freaking peacocks, and yeah, I don't know that whatever that one dancing bird in the Amazon is a competition is stiff. This guy a class of his own, truly unique. Have never seen a bird that looks anything like this just from a color perspective, and it's strange, I think, because it does just like a pigeon. I

has like, what kind of bird this is? I would guess pigeon. It looks like a pigeon, but just like a pigeon with incredible fashion sense.

Speaker 1

It's very pigeon coded because it is one hundred percent pigeon shaped, which is what's kind of interesting when you look at the whole dove family, because pigeons and doves are the same thing. Any you look at any dove, you look at any pigeon, rock, dove, roe, you know, pigeons, everything, They all are essentially the same shape. Just that shape.

Speaker 2

Does just have a better PR team.

Speaker 1

Doves just have a better PR team. They're like, oh, look at this pretty white dove. It's a symbol of peace. And then get away from me, you dirty pigeon. You can't have my fries. But yeah, this one is, this one is so so pretty. It lives in mangrove forests

or in regular forests. But they are similar to pigeons found in like the US, and I mean all throughout America and then also in Europe because they are really good at adapting to urban environments, so like in sort of farms or human settlements or cities near where they live, they can exploit these, and they can find food on farms and in people's gardens. They're frug of wars, so they eat mostly fruit and most of their diet is just figs. They love figs and they're really good for Okay,

who doesn't love a fig? Well, actually a lot of people don't.

Speaker 3

I was gonna say, can't blame them. Those people are incorrect. They are not to be judgmental.

Speaker 1

But yeah, when I was a kid, I didn't like figs almost literally, but I changed my mind.

Speaker 2

They're an adult taste for sure.

Speaker 1

It's acquired taste.

Speaker 3

Get somebody who didn't grow up with figs. Like, when you first come across them, you're like, it's like a brown fruit that looks kind of wrinkled and shriveled up, and you're like, oh, maybe that. Typically the foods I have had experience eating don't look like this, and so it was definitely like a learning curve.

Speaker 2

But once you.

Speaker 3

Start mowing on them, oh my god, they're very so sweet, so tasty, so getting so many different things.

Speaker 1

They're also I remember learning when I was young that like sometimes wasps would like go inside of figs and completely their life cycle inside figs. So I was like kind of scared of eating them because I thought I was just gonna find a giant wasp. I got older, I learned that while this is true, there are wasps that you know, lay their larva inside figs. They're tiny, They're teeny tiny, itty bitty bitty bitty wasps, not scary

at all. So even even if the figs, it's just free protein and they're like they're like ant sized or even smaller. So like, once you get to that size of an insect, if I eat it, I'm like, mmmm, it's garnish. So yeah, So these birds love figs and they're beautiful, and they're also very adaptable in situations such as volcanic eruptions. They have survived their populations, maybe not specific individuals have survived the eruption of Krakatoa in eighteen

eighty three. They were one of the only fruit eating animals to quickly return and adapt to the post eruption islands. Essentially, as long as there's some figs somewhere, they can They're fine, like figs or some fruit there, they will go there and they will make it work.

Speaker 3

I know pigeons for such good flyers, Like obviously I don't fly or whatever escaping a volcanos and the like the loan survivors. That's some pretty serious slapping, which I would not have thought could happen in a pigeon.

Speaker 1

I mean it's like, I don't know how well a pigeon could outfly like pyroclastic flow. Probably not well, but enough of them are gonna survive at eruption, right, like get out of there in time that they are able to re establish their population. But yeah, they are. They are good flyers. They don't actually migrate so much, but they're flying is used for locating figs and zeroing in on those figs and then eating those figs.

Speaker 3

I don't know, it's gonna be such a big heavy episode, but now I'm craving figs.

Speaker 1

I know, right, I've kind of tucked myself into wanting figs, you know, like you know how the inside of figs are, like they have all those little nodules, like the little I don't like just like it's a weird texture. It's kind of like it's like a flower that's folded in on itself, you know, like how like a daisy has

those little little nodules. I'm bad at plant biology, so I forget what they're called, but it's like essentially like that part of the daisy, that center part that's all bumpy but folded in on itself, and it's a very specific kind of fruit development, which is actually why wasps use figs to do their reproduction, because there's like actually these little nooks and crannies that these tiny wasps can lay their larva in. So it's it's a you know,

figs are cool. Figs are very interesting, and the list.

Speaker 3

They're rich in anti inflammatory and antioxidants, which I know is not a real thing, but who cares. It's a great excuse to eat more figs. They are so tasty and sweet, y'all. If you have figs on a pizza, oh, next level.

Speaker 1

It's a I mean, those things are real. It's just like you're not. There's not I don't really believe in like the superfood kind of thing where it's like if you just eat figs, you will never get cancer. That's just not how it works. But they're healthy, right, Like a fig is gonna be better for you than maybe like a dorrito.

Speaker 2

I bet they're beating the hell out of doritos.

Speaker 1

Yeah, not to single out dorito's. There's nothing wrong with having a dorito. I'm just saying, if you could choose between you think it's a bad food, it's well, it's probably not the healthiest food of dorito. I don't know. I don't know what damn it dorito causes exactly to the body, but I would say a fig is probably on average better for you than a dorito. Food science is wild, though, Like it's so it's very I have a lot of problems with like food science studies because

they're all over the place. Man, You'll get like a study that's like, man, you should be drinking wine all the time, and it turns out it's because like France has a lower death rate, like lower cardiovascular death rate. Yeah, well they drink a lot of wine, so maybe that's it. It's like, guys, that's not that's not like, that's not good to say science.

Speaker 3

I just want y'all to know there are probably many contributing factors. Yeah, I appreciate the excuse to drink wine. What was the craziest when I saw yesterday, Oh they were saying that staring at a woman's chest is how fier than like drinking.

Speaker 2

A bunch of water or something. I was like, that cannot be true. That just.

Speaker 3

Sometimes like what does it even mean? As it was a German study, so maybe.

Speaker 1

There there you go. No, I don't know. I'm joking. I'm up, but no, I mean it doesn't that doesn't make any like obviously you can't just stare at a woman's chest and not drink water for the rest of your life. You will die. I don't understand what they're trying to say, Like it like it's stick like maybe it like helps you in the moment or something like maybe it increases your heart rate in the moment if you like boobs, which, let's be honest, you.

Speaker 2

Does see what you're saying.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but like you're pretty great. They're they're they're good, like you know, but like if I'm dying of thirst and you're like, would you like to see the best boobs in the.

Speaker 2

World versus a glass of.

Speaker 1

Water, I'm still gonna have the glass of water.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I don't understand these things. Fell always something, but I.

Speaker 1

Will Fellas is it? Uh is do you guys think that you could not drink water? I shouldn't say just fellas anyone of the sexual orientation to whom boobs is important? Would you not drink water versus looking at boobs? Write to me, don't write to me about that. I'm joking. I don't actually want to hear about this.

Speaker 3

I will say I do save these studies when it's like helpful to me, when they're like, drinking coffee can save your life. Yeah, I'll keep that in my back pocket. So anytime someone's like, are you sure you want a third cup of coffee? I can be like, listen this study. I don't care where it's from or if it's real or not, but it says that I should be drinking as much coffee as I can.

Speaker 2

So I'm gonna do it. I who am I to a if.

Speaker 1

It makes you feel good? That's I read something at some point that said that dark chocolate's good for you, And then like whenever it's like, oh, did you know those studies are actually rad I don't want to hear it. Dark chocolate good for you?

Speaker 2

That study said it.

Speaker 1

Study said it. Yeah, no, I know. I read the most unhelpful like article the other day that was just like, coffee could either save your life or kill you. I'm like, that's literally everything. That's literally anything.

Speaker 3

We should definitely figure out which one of those is the final answer. Right, that's not even a good hypothesis, like a great scientist would be like, you need to go back to the jar.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

Water could either save your life or kill you. Man. It's this the state of health report, health nutrition reporting is we need we need help. Anyways, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to quickly shift the topic to mandrill butts. Oh all right, so we're back in Joelle. We are talking about man drill butts, which does sound like a pornographic title, but it's it's this is it's animals. It's animals.

Speaker 3

It's just okaynocent, not human males, no, no drills involved, but lots of butts.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's not man drill butts, but mandrill butts. All right, So man drills are these amazing primates found in rainforests in west central Africa. They are the largest monkey in the world. They're not apes. They are monkeys, even though they have like a stubby tail. They're a short tailed monkey. Uh and they weigh over seventy pounds, so they're they're big.

Speaker 2

They are big boy.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, I think they are uh, you know on Lion King the guy refec Yeah, it's rafiki.

Speaker 3

This is definitely rafiki. Blue and red nose, colorful.

Speaker 1

Blue yes, and so are. They're all very striking, and females are striking too. They have yellow beards, pink noses in this kind of subtle blue blush along the grooves in their face. But the males are the true beauty queens. They have bright red noses, bright blue ridges along their cheeks and noses. They have yellow beards and rainbow butts.

So females also have pink and blue coloration around their butts and genitals, but the males just have really really vibrant butts with pinks and blues and even like lavenders. It's quite quite beautiful and stunning.

Speaker 3

So okay, again, I was taught all color on animals has some meeting or drive or purpose. This to my human eyes looks like a target. But we've already discussed animals c with the human eye view scope, So but why a colorful ass.

Speaker 1

In this case? You are correct that this is more or less a target. There's a few functions for these bright butts, social and practical. So socially, these bright colors communicate things. They can even become more vibrant when the individual is excited or agitated. It is attractive to females. Females find a really vibrant butt on a male to be attractive. It can also signal dominance, both in their

faces and their butts. The higher contrast between sort of the red and the blue hues, the more respected, the more attractive typically goes along with being more dominant, getting more mates, and having a higher place on the social higherarchy. But the practical reason that they have these bright butts is that when they are walking in these sort of dark dense forests, these butts will stand out to the members of the troop behind them, so it's easier for

them to follow each other. And so it's kind of like you know, when you're like on a tour guide and the tour guide has like the flag that they're waving and it's kind of a unique flag, so you can see it and it's bright. It's like that but a butt, but a butt a mandrel.

Speaker 2

But okay, I'm not mad at it.

Speaker 3

The butts good. It's giving psychedelic fair coat, which, as we've already talked about, Lisa Frank. We love so psychedelics. Lisa Frank should have done a mandrel.

Speaker 2

But yes, the color scheme is very on brand for her.

Speaker 3

Monkeys can be cute and sort of you know, visious like a dolphin, but still a door Lisa Frank, if you're out here looking for new ideas, the mandrel butt, it's right there for you.

Speaker 1

Like your audiences, all adults, now, we can handle a mandrel butt. You know.

Speaker 2

You've already tackled crocs, the ugliest thing known to man.

Speaker 3

Mandrel butts will be Wait, there's there's Lisa Frank CrOx like the shoe.

Speaker 2

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3

Yes, okay, So friend of this podcast, Jamie loftis over the holidays, so I went uh to be a part of it.

Speaker 2

And she came in with.

Speaker 3

Platform crocs that were Lisa Frank branded, colorful leopard spots all over them and they are fabulous.

Speaker 1

Okay, I just found them online. Incredible. I'm speechless.

Speaker 2

Yeah, there's huge platform shoes.

Speaker 3

They're like almost like high heels, except even across the bright huge early to thousands chunky shoe.

Speaker 1

Huge pink platform that also looks functional right like, it looks like it's got a lot of grip, so I could be like, I could be using those in sort of a wet, slippery situation, but it's a hot pink And then on top of that, it's got this sort of like classic croc thing but in those bright rainbow Lisa Frank leopard spots and it looks like it's bejeweled as well.

Speaker 3

Crocs has these little chochkey things that you can write in the holes that I can't remember was the lot, but yes, and they come with little animals, so you can get the classic leopard, which we love. I think they also have the panda. And if you don't have a dolphin, they should because least Frank dolphins. It's synonymous with one another.

Speaker 1

I mean, it's this is incredible. I just the human ingenuity, right, but this is like, looks we did. We did not evolve from mandrels. In fact, we're not very close relatives to them. However, we are all primates and so you can't tell me that these bright Lisa Frank crocs don't serve a similar purpose to the mandril. But of establishing social dominance.

Speaker 3

I listen, and who would no one would dare call Jamie loftus anything but dominate Okay, uh, you can get a Lisa Frank five pack of gibbets. Is what the little charms are called, gibbets. That's that's their choice. Yes, they do have a dolphin.

Speaker 2

I knew it.

Speaker 3

They also had the Lisa Frank logo and the alien in the punch buggy car, and a unicorn jumping over a rainbow, and a shooting star and kitties.

Speaker 2

Little kiddies. Oh man, these are so cute. I have a problem. I don't even own these, but I'm considering buying these gibbets.

Speaker 1

Oh god, man.

Speaker 2

You know, permanently establish my social dominance.

Speaker 1

I just learned today what gibbets are. And to make room in my brain, I've forgotten like another year of high school math to make room for this new concept of gibbets.

Speaker 2

You'll never use it. This is much more valuable to you.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

No, gibbets I think are gonna be. It's gonna probably like if society collapses, we'll start using gibbets as currency. Perfect well, Joel, Before we go, we got to play the Mystery Animal sound game. Now we have this is like the first Mystery Animal sound game of the year because we came back from winter break and then we had some listener questions episodes and we had an interview. So like, this is the first like og style episode since since December, so we are this is the first

mister Animal sound game of twenty twenty four. If you guys remember the old Mystery animal sound from last year, the hint was this, these are the best friends to have in a gorilla style snowball site.

Speaker 3

What are the little monkeys that live in the snow and like, I want to say, japan Gee, it sounds like when my dog was a puppy, and it's making me very nostalgic. It's such a cube little sound. I don't know what it is, but I already love it. Please be somewhere between.

Speaker 1

It's somewhere between a dog in a snow monkey. Well that is closer to the truth than you may have realized, because this is actually an Arctic fox. Uh kind of making this little this little like weird laughing sound as a way to communicate congratulations to Danielle be forguessing correctly. This is actually one I believe that was rescued. So it is it lives with humans, and so when it's

human caretaker laughs. This little Arctic fox laughs as well, but the laughter is more of a case of not as much a case of the giggles as it is a form of communication. But yeah, arctic fox's coats change. So in the winter they have this beautiful white coat that helps them blend in with the snow so that they can ambush their prey and high from predators. So you would never see them coming in a snowball fight.

Speaker 2

What a good little fox. I would recruit them to my team immediately.

Speaker 1

So cute.

Speaker 2

Also, they are adorable, adorable us.

Speaker 1

The most fluffy little snow grimlins out there, and I love that when they so they have an incredible sense of hearings, so they can listen for like little little mice and voles and mammals that are deep under the snow. So you'll see them kind of on the surface of the snow listening, sniffing around, and once they've located some little mammal in their burrow, they'll hop up and then jump and like basically just face plant directly into the snow, like dive right in so that they can start digging

and digging up their prey. It is so cute. It's the cutest form of carnivore predation that I've ever seen.

Speaker 3

I really appreciate that they are that dedicated to getting their meal. They said, we could hunt above ground, we could stay in our burrows and just attack them as the house. They said, no, We're gonna wait to watch them go in and then just die like after them.

Speaker 1

I mean, it's it's tough in the winter because either a lot some predators will go into hibernation right and sort of try to try to go into a state where they're not using as much energy so that they don't have to face this problem. But these guys have developed an ability to hunt even in winter. Uh, and so it is quite amazing. Alrighty, So now onto the next mystery animal sound. The hint is this, these Canadians think you're a hoser.

Speaker 2

Okay, interesting, Well.

Speaker 1

Alrighty, do you have any guesses?

Speaker 2

Oh? Again, two very disparate guesses.

Speaker 3

But first I was like, oh, it kind of sounds like a Canadian goose. But then is like, I hear like a lot of shuffling on the ground that sounds like sticks and stowed. I'm like, is it like a deer of some kind?

Speaker 2

I know these are very far apart animals. I don't know. I don't know all right? Well is it?

Speaker 1

Is it a deer or somewhere in between. We'll find out on next Creature Feature Joel, thank you so much for joining me today. Where can people find you?

Speaker 3

Thanks so much for having me back, Katie, This is always a blast. I really appreciate you indulging my Lisa Frank Love. Y'all can find me all over the internet at tue money that's j O E l E mn.

Speaker 1

IQ And thank you guys so much for listening. If you think you know who is making the Mystery Animals sound, you can write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com. You can also write to me your questions. I do answer listener questions uh. And I also appreciate photos of your pets. Do not email me about that question about whether you can stare at boobs instead of drinking water. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Uh. And thank you to the Space Classics

for their super awesome song XO Lumina. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Hey guess what, wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I don't know, I don't care, and I don't judge you. See you next Wednesday. Alrighty

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