Listener Questions: Sea Apes and Adventurous Leeches!

am very excited about these questions. I don't know if there's much of a theme to the questions, although I feel like every time I do this, somehow the questions all nicely fitting into each other, like some kind of wonderful animal quilt. So let's get right into it. The first question I got was a nice little quick one from Twitter favorite extinct, extant and crypto animals from Quietus Swain.

And another related question is from Vincent on Twitter who asked quats actalists greatest terasaur to ever live or greatest animal. So quats actalist is one of my favorite extinct animals. It was a terasaur related to paro dactyls, but it

was the size of a giraffe. It had a long neck and thick, thick neck muscles, so it kind of looked like It went to the gym and did neck day every day of the week, but kind of mislegged day, so it would walk on all fours using the elbows of its wings, and biologists think it could in fact fly despite its gigantic size. In the air, it was the size of a small Cessna aircraft. So a real life dragon bird thing. Not quite a bird, not quite

a dinosaur, not quite a dragon, but a giraffe sized terrasaur. Amazing. My favorite extant animal, that is surviving animal is kind of impossible to answer. There are too many wonderful animals. But I will tell you a story about how my interest in animal biology really I mean, I always had an interest in animals ever since I was a real little kid. I would chase after birds and chase after lizards.

But I think my most intense interest in animal biology started in the fifth grade when I got a book about naked mole rats and seeing pictures of these weird little dudes that looked like wrinkly little sausages. This bald rodent that lived in a colony built complex underground tunnels, including bathrooms and a birth chamber. They had a giant queen who had just become engorged with babies and constantly

be giving birth. Their teeth grow outside their lips. They have these tiny, beady, almost nonfunctional eyes that indicate evolution living underground. They have this really super stretchy, wrinkly skin that it just all blew my mind, both visually and

learning about how they lived. It was incredible, and I think it kind of was one of the first times I realized that even if something wasn't cute and maybe even a little gross or weird looking, when you learn about it, you can completely fall in love with those animals. They continue to be fascinating the more I learn about

naked mole rats. They are highly resistant to cancer. They have special genes that seem to stop cell replication when cells start to crowd against each other, which helps prevent tumor growth. So just kind of superpower cells that can

prevent the growth of cancer. Other reasons for their cancer resistance maybe that their ribosomes, the protein factory of the cell that pumps out new proteins, are more likely to produce are free proteins, so they have a much lower air rate with their protein production, and which is really good when it's protecting against cancer because of course, cancer is usually caused by some air and a protein that

causes uncontrolled cell growth. Another potential factor is their low oxygen environment, which is thought to be a contributing factor because when naked mole rats are raised outside of their typical low oxygen underground environment, they have increased cancer rates. So another really cool thing about these little guys is they live a really long time for a rodent, so

up to around thirty years. They have increased DNA repair capabilities, and they can slow their metabolism during times of scarcity. So you compare a naked mole rat to another rodent like a mouse, which can live maybe three to four years in captivity, probably even shorter in the while, or something like a rat which has a pretty short lifespan. Uh, And these guys can live enough to thirty years. It's

it's pretty incredible. Another thing that makes them just superpowered is that their skin is pain resistant to superficial injuries such as acid. This means their skin doesn't get itchy or uncomfortable in their environment, which may be important because the lack of ventilation in their tunnel systems could lead up to a build up of acid in their skin. Tissues, which would normally be quite unpleasant, but because they don't have these superficial pain receptors on their skin, that acid

does not bother them. They are also highly efficient breathers. They are able to very efficiently respirate in their low oxygen levels in these these underground tunnels, and they can live for almost twenty minutes in a zero oxygen atmosphere. It is a comp completely incredible, hardy little animal, very strange looking, but I think the more you kind of look at them, the cuter they get. At least in

my mind. They seem like mythical, amazing creatures to me. Uh. Speaking of myth the question asker also requested my favorite cryptid. I feel like cryptids are interesting to me because whenever I think about a cryptid, I think there's probably a real animal that's just as incredible then naked mole rat to me, seems more unbelievable than most cryptid stories. But one of my favorite cryptid stories is Stellar's see ape So.

In seventeen forty one, a German zoologist by the name of George Stellar's traveled to the Shumagen Islands of Alaska, and there he spotted a very peculiar sea monster, a furry five ft long creature with a dog's head, law long whiskers, no fore limbs, and a fish's tail. The monster was playful and curious, so Stellar likened it to a monkey, thus came up with the name see ape. It sounds truly fantastical until you realize that George Stellar just saw a fur seal with its front flippers tucked

against its body, as it often does. But George Stellar didn't realize this thought it just was this weird fish ape monster. But some of the art imagining George Stellar sea ape based solely on his descriptions is really hilarious and or terrifying, especially when you realize he just saw a fur seal and a little cutie popping enough to say hello. So another question I got on Twitter is do gong versus manity? Why are they so similar yet different? And is a do go basically a whale or dolphin

that got lazy halfway through evolving? And this is from Michael Thank you for your question. Uh so, yes, speaking of mistaken sea creatures as sea monsters, do gongs and manatees are famous for being misidentified as mermaids. In fact, the order that contains both do gongs and manatees is called Syrenia, after the Greek term for sirens or mermaids. But you know who could blame those old sailors because

do gongs and manatees are truly beautiful and gorgeous. So first, the difference between do gogs and manities, They are indeed different species. Uh so, do gongs are one of the five species of Sirenians. The other four are the Western Indian manity, the African manity, the Amazonian manity, and the extinct Stellar's sea cow. That's right, the same George Stellar who came up with sea ape, who seems to have the same naming convention for every animal he quote unquote discovered,

like see ape sea cow. Probably if he discovered sting rays, he would have called them sea pancakes, and porpoises would have been sea donkeys. Great job, George Stellar really nailed it, nailed the naming. But yeah, so, so there are four species in the Sirenian family that are manatees called manatees, and then one species that is called a doo gong, and uh they are the only living member of the family do gang day and the rest are unfortunately extinct.

Manatees are in the family tried Kekus. And aside from the taxonomic differences, do gongs differ from manites? And that doo gongs are exclusively marine animals. They do not live in fresh waters as well, so manatees can be both in seawater or freshwater, whereas do gongs only live in sea water, so they live so do gangs live in the Western Pacific and Indian oceans, while manatees can either live in Western Atlantic coastal seas or freshwater rivers. Do

gong tails are pointier than the manatees rounded tails? And also do gongs are a bit smaller than manatees in general? Other than that they have a lot of similarities. They both have very tiny brains and are very slow moving animals. They're herbivores with a very chill, laid back, gentle lifestyle, so the adults lack natural predators they're just too big. Both do gongs and manatees, though, face threats from humans,

either through hunting, habitat destruction, or boat traffic accidents. So in terms of the second part of the question, are our manites and do gongs just whales that got lazy halfway through evolving. So first let's talk a little bit about way sales how they evolved. So all whales, from the toothed whales like dolphins and killer whales to the enormous baling whales like blue whales, they all evolved from

land mammals. They started from little deer like mammals which eventually evolved into larger, more terrifying semi aquatic carnivores that look like a nightmare version of an otter mixed with a crocodile. And these were called the ambulu sedus so ambula stas. There were many species of them, and they had limbs that worked both on land and underwater, much

like a river otter. Not related to the river otter, however, so species in the Ambulo citis genus ranged from four ft to over ten ft long or about one point two to three meters long. And by the way, somewhere along the evolutionary path from those little deer to the Ambulu cetus to whales, hippo's actually branched off and are actually the closest living relative to cetaceans to whales, So hippos and whales close relatives. Ish uh compared to what

you would think. So like a whale is more closely related to a hippo than it is to other marine mammals like seals or manatees and doo gongs uh Sirenians. Manities and doo gongs have a different evolutionary story. They're not closely related to whales. In fact, it may be that their closest living relatives are actually elephants. So this is wild whales more closely related to hippos than they are to manities, and manities are more closely related to

elephants than they are to whales. It's it's mind blowing, especially given the difference in terms of their intelligence and manity. Look, I love manatees. I think they're precious little blubber babies who deserve to be loved and protected. But they're not that intelligent, whereas elephants are highly highly intelligent, and whales and dolphins to to be highly intelligent as well. But that doesn't mean that they are. Just because they're more similar,

maybe or you would think that. You know that whales and manatees are more morphologically similar, just doesn't mean that they are more related in terms of their evolutionary history, So unfortunately, uh Sirenian evolutionary history is not as easily traced as that of whales. But it's thought that their early ancestor was a land dwelling herbivore that turned into a semi aquatic herbivore that looked like a mix between a pig and an otter and a hippo, although not

related to hippos. This was called Porostomus and it lived forty million years ago off the coast of Jamaica or within sort of watery regions near Jamaica. And they were extremely cute, very very adorable, very silly looking kind of like a manity but with stubby little legs. So while whales and Sirenians both of all from land mammals, they evolved separately, which is an example of convergent evolution, which is always really fascinating when evolution seems to take a

similar path but a different one. And I think it really speaks to the evolutionary pressures and how powerful they can be. It's just like how flying squirrels and bats.

They are an example of convergent evolution. They didn't evolve from each other, they don't share the same evolutionary path necessarily, so, just to preface this email, the episode this listener refers to in his question is the recent episode called Whale of a Tail where we talked about the Kinderu otherwise known as the penis fish, which is a very real fish that lives in the Amazon that is purported to swim up peace streams into your urethra. However, that are

to the story has been proven to be false. The only way a candio could potentially get up your your your retra is if your p zone is fully submerged in water, and even then the evidence that this has even ever happened is questionable. If you want to hear more about it, listen to that episode Wail of a Tale. But here's this email. Your episode this week reminded me

of a story my stepdad told me. He told me when he was in Vietnam, he was waiting through rice patties and someone got a leech in there your wreathra. He had to be metavact out to get it surgically removed. After that, everybody wore condoms when they were waist deep in water. Would it surprise me if my stepfather misremembered or lied? No? Could it be true. Maybe I don't know anything about leeches. You're the one that loves parasites. I love your podcast, will h thank you so much

for sharing your story. Will and And I cannot confirm or deny the story your stepdad told you, but I can give you info on whether it's possible for a leech to get inside your your wreathrough because you are absolutely right. I love parasites. But if you don't love parasites and your squeamish, you might now want to listen to this part of the episode because we're gonna talk about leeches in human orifices. Uh so you know that's that's what to expect. Do not google this. I highly

highly recommend against googling this. I have a high gross out threshold, and even I found these images to disturbing, so uh yeah, I wouldn't do it. I'll just describe to you in beautiful detail what happens here so you don't need to look it up. So here we go. Leeches can indeed get into unwanted places in the human body. Typically they just hang off of your skin. They'll bite

you and sip at your blood. It's not great, but you know they are at least just a ectoparasite, meaning they're on the outside of your body on just on the surface of your skin and uh. However, in regions where leeches are common and people bathe or swim in leech infested waters, such as in tropical areas, occasionally your leeches will manage to make their way inside the human body. They've been reported being found by doctors in the nose, throat, vaginal, canal, rectum,

and yes, even the bladder. And you know there's oh one way to get to the bladder, and that is through the urethra. So if your image of a leech is this, like big fat slug uh, you may be wondering how on earth could it get into a space as small as a urethra. But leeches actually very in size, greatly both depending on the species, the age, and how much blood it's head. So a leech can start out

very thin and expand after having a blood meal. But they can be very very tiny, very slender, and actually can easily get into well maybe not easily, but they can feasibly get into a urethra. And their bodies are also very soft, so unlike the candero, whose skeleton and size makes it very unlikely for it to be able to get into urethra. Uh. The leech has a very soft, flexible body. They can be very thin, and so they can actually get in there. Um just like the candaru.

They cannot swim up a peace stream. So if you're peeing, you gotta got a nice peace stream. A leech isn't gonna like swim up your your peace stream into your urethra. Physics just won't let that happen, Thank you, physics. But if you are submerged in water, they could conceivably get into your urethra. It is not common. Uh, there have only been a few documented cases, but it does happen, and it has been cited in modern medical literature numerous times.

And indeed, uh, to the email writer, will, this has happened in Vietnam. It is one of the countries in which this medical phenomenon has been documented. Now, what is even more rare is for the leach to stay inside of the urethra. Typically, it either comes out or it goes all the way up into your bladder, but remaining

inside the urethra is extremely uncommon. Even amongst these already very uncommon cases of the leach getting getting into that area in the first place, which I guess, you know, I guess I'd rather have the leach either out or in the bladder than in the URETHRAA it sounds less uncomfortable, but I don't know. I still don't, you know, I

don't want anybody in my bladder. Essentially, either way, it is necessary to get it removed, which doctors can typically do with catheterization in irrigation of the bladder, just basically flushing it out. And the rare cases in which the leeches actually stuck inside the urethra, doctors have used forceps to get it out, which just sounds lovely. So again, don't look up pictures of this, trust me, you don't

want to see him. It's just like surgery photos of people pulling leeches out of places that you don't want the leeches to be. So to answer your question, will your stepfather's story is definitely possible, but whether it's the truth is between him you and I guess the leeches. So thank you guys so much for listening to this little listener question episode. If you would like your questions to be answered on the show, you just gotta send me an email at Creature Feature Pod act gmail dot com.

You can tweet at me at Creature feet Pod. That's ep EPI see that is something very different. Also on Instagram Creature Feature Pod on Instagram. And yeah, just send me in your questions, your your your pet, pictures, your Please don't send me pictures of leeches though. That's that's all right. I don't need to see that. And if you're enjoying the show, uh, leave me writing a review, you know that's great. I really read all the reviews.

They make me happy. If you have any suggestions like if you want more listener questions episodes, fear listener questions episodes, want me to talk about stuff? If you write it in a review, I guarantee I will read it. Uh. And I take note of everything you write. And I really appreciate all of those reviews. Thank you so much, and thanks to the Space Costics for their super awesome song. X Aluminum Creature features a production of I Heart Radio.

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