On The Shoulders of Giant Sloths

of the awesome podcast Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. Friend of the show, Friend of All Animals, Alex Schmidt. Hey, it's adder to be here every time. Thank you for letting me like book on my holidays with humongous mammals. It's a real joy. I made the bison emoji. If people don't know, eight very nicely helped out with with a podcast about it, and and I can just something about humongous mammals is

relatable to me. I don't know if everything is a mammal this week, but I just really like a big animal. Everything mammal. You get a mammal, you get a mammal. Everybody gets a mammal. Yeah, no, it's all mammals, all of its mammals. They're all big mammals. Um. Yeah, Alex likes to look under your chairs. It's like a megatherium verthing. It's definitely been there the whole time. Yeah, yeah, just

you hadn't noticed yet. Um yeah. No, it's these are modern day mammals that have ancestors who are either really big or really surprising. And yeah, I figured we could start our new year with looking back at the past, I mean the very distant past sort of a you know, didn't like yeah, yeah, like the eighties and saber tooth tigers round Los Angeles. Yeah, Reagan, am I right? What

a dinosaur? Yeah no, absolutely, although we are more so talking about tens of thousands of years ago, more like so tens of thousands okay, yeah, so pretty recent, you know, just just like twelve thousand years ago, you know, not that not that uh this skip pop and jumped back

into yesteryear. In fact, we uh humans overlapped with these extinct mammals, which, when you think about it, as we go over these ridiculous animals, it's going to be surprising to think about early humans just being next door neighbors with them. Yeah, especially I feel like with dinosaur stuff, like there's a point where you're a kid where you're initially like, great, I'll bet people road t rexes, and then somebody tells you, no, humans didn't overlap with dinosaurs.

Get it out of your head. Get it totally out of your head that humans can ever overlap with these huge animals. So it's it's almost like a mental flip back to start seeing some of this ancient stuff as stuff we were at the same time as really cool. Yeah, and I mean like humans could have written these animals, except probably they would have been shortly thereafter demolished, but technically possible. So first, let's look at some modern day

animals that I'm sure you're all familiar with. The Slavs. So modern Slavs are an adorable group of arboreal mammals, typically not much bigger than a medium sized dog. They are own in Central and South America, and they come in two flavors, the two toed genus and the three toed genus. So the most famous species of the three toad sloths is the brown throated sloth. So that is the sloth from Zutopia and most popular culture sort of conception of a sloth with that little bandit mask, very slow,

very cute. Uh, hangs and trees all the time. You know, your prototypical sloth. Yeah, you said, you set the picture. I'm just looking at it having a good time. So there are three other species of three toad sloth in order of increasing rarity. There's the pale throated sloth, the main three toad sloth, and the pigmy three toad sloth, which looks like an adorable, tiny Chihuahua sized version of

the brown throated sloth and is critically endangered. Uh. They are actually found only on an island in the Caribbean called Vera Guras, found only in the red mangroves over an area of under two square miles or four point three square kilometers. There are only about eighty pygmy sloths left and they are primarily threatened by loss of habitats. So super adorable, very rare little dudes. Yeah, I hope, I hope conservation efforts you're happening. I know I would

give a kidney for one of these slavs. Just I mean, come on, just a little it's a little it's such a little biscuit. Look at this thing. It's just a little ball of fluff, of lazy fluff, and all they want to do is hang around. So yeah, this one picture you sent, a sloth is sticking a little bit of its tongue out like that one cat on the internet that I forget the name of. Yeah, that's yeah,

like it's doing pure golden joy face. Okay, yea. So the two toad sloths, while looking very similar to the three toad sloths and similar behavior and often living in the same forests, evolved from a common ground sloth ancestor independently to adapt to the arboreal lifestyles. So they independently evolved from terrestrial versions both into the trees, but two branches of parallel evolution. They are in general slightly larger

than three toad slavs, and they include two species. There is Linnaeus's two toad sloth and Hoffman's two toad slav u. And I guess Linnaeus and Hoffman own all the slav I don't. I don't get it, Like who died and made them ceo of Slavs? Right? It's all it's like we always say we need more than two sloth parties. Right, how do we have a system where there's only two slot parties and only two choices. You're barely even voting at that point, Right, we need a sloth parliament. Yes.

So the two toad sloths typically have more of a solid brown coat or reddish brown coat and light faces, but they don't have those little bandit masks. Hoffman's two toad sloths often drools and spits with its mouth open, which reportedly looks very silly. Scientifically speaking, it's called looking very doofy. They're nocturnal, which is actually in response to competition with the three toad brown throated sloths, so they're both trying to kind of like they have the same

ecological niche. They're both these tree dwelling, leaf eating animals, and so by switching to being nocturnal, they don't have to compete as much with the three toad sloths. But in areas where actually there aren't as many three toad sloths, they can have different schedules, so they can be diurnal or crepuscular, so it's definitely seems to be in response to competition. They also have cute pink noses. That's very important. But despite having evolved separately, three toad and two toad

sloth species have some common characteristics. So they're both very slow moving. Both eat leaves and digest have to digest them very slowly. They live in trees. They have special long claws that can grip onto tree branches, and they actually their muscles have adapted so they automatically at rest are gripping onto the tree. In fact, if they are asleep, they can keep gripping. They can even be dead and still be hanging in the tree, which is equal parts

funny and sort of coub so um. Yeah. They also only poop every week or so and descend from the tree to do it in a great uh migration down to the ground to do a poop once every five to eight days or so. Wow, So they there must be some reason they've decided to not just drop it, and I hope it's nice manners. I'm sure there's some survival reason, but I hope it's just like they come on, we're put together. I mean the way that they sort of first of all, the way that their muscles work.

They don't they're like hanging upside down so I think if they just like pooped, be much more likely to get stuck to their for um. And you know, it's also apparently there's some benefit to them going down and pooping in the dirt, because it's in addition to being more hygienic. I think they actually will collect some like microscopic organisms that go onto their coat and are involved in sort of a symbiotic relationship. So yeah, it's actually

really interesting. That's amazing. Yeah, because with animals pooping that are also animals that spend time high up. You know, you always think of birds just letting it go, like there's man I always think about the fire side. I think of animals, there's that far side where it's a bird's view of the world and it's just target signs on everybody's heads and on the back of a dog and stuff. But slaws very different approach. I love it. They're like, we're going to migrate down, We'll drop it off,

you know, we we don't. We aren't like them pointing

at a bird. We aren't like them. We're better. Yeah. Actually, what's really interesting is pooping on the ground, uh feeds into this whole symbiotic relationship that they have with these moths that actually, uh will use the slots and moths dynamic duo and yeah, so like it'll be an area where the moths can lay their larvae who are nourished by the poop, and then they hatch into moths and then they live in the sloths fur and then they the moths in turn nourish algae that grows in the

slaws fur that the slaws will lick off and provides important vitamins to them. So there is a Yeah, this whole by pooping in the ground, they're basically creating this whole amazing symbiotic life cycle of moths, algae and sloths. I've never heard of that before and I love it. That's so cool. Yeah, just very excited. Wow, I guess there because I've I think I I never assumed their fur looked like clean, but it also didn't look like it had stuff in it. But it's full of algae

and moths. Algae and moths. It's a whole forest on their backs and you can actually see sort of a green tinge to their for sometimes. Wow. Yeah, it's incredible. They're like those mythical turtles that have worlds on their back. Yeah, exactly. Actually, some turtle species river turtles do grow algae on their backs and it can look very mystical. Oh that's awesome. But their ancestors were very different from these adorable little, slow moving living ecosystems who poop on the ground once

a week. Their ancestors were the giant ground sloths, who not only pooped on the ground, but did everything else on the ground too, So they were found in South and North America. Many species of ground sloths existed and evolved. Some were closely related, some were very similar anatomy, but due to parallel evolution, they caused them to actually repeatedly evolve these similar characteristics despite not being like super closely related, similar to the two toad sloth and three toad slavs.

They're not unrelated, but they're not as closely related as you would think because they both evolved from a common ancestor who is a ground dwelling and they both independently evolved to be tree dwelling and evolved these very similar characteristics. And this is actually called homoplasy when you have these very similar characteristics being evolved due to very similar evolutionary pressures in a population that is related, but maybe aren't

following the exact same evolutionary path so uh. In fact, the two toad sloths, so the little brown the ones that are sort of more of a solid brown, they do not have that bandit masks. Uh. They are most more closely related to their ex inked giant ground sloth relative, the polar bear sized sloth M. Jefferson I of the Megalonis genus, than they are to their three toad sloth cousins,

which is amazing. Meanwhile, the three toad sloths belonged to an evolutionary lineage that includes the genus Megatherium, whose most famous species is the giant ground sloth, which is the size of an elephant. So the giant crown sloth. Yeah, Alex getting excited. I can see it, I think because I didn't mean to step by it. But I think

I mentioned the megatheris. Did I think it's because it's I think it's because one of the natural history museums we used to go to a lot had a skeleton that might be an invented memory, but I remember just the humongous nous of the skeleton being yeah, yeah, it's big. So the Megatherium, Uh, It was one of the largest terrestrial mammals that ever existed. It weighed around four tons

and grew over six meters or twenty ft long. It was thought to walk on all fours, but it was able to stand up on its hind legs to eat leaves or survey its surroundings, and was even capable of walking short distances on its hind legs, which is cute and scary, right, Like, so could Godzilla? Woa, Yeah, it's like a fluffy Godzilla. Basically, it had these massive curved claws that let it pull down leaves like a tree trimmer.

But if you think about it, a sloth has these big claws and they're not scary to us because we know they just use them as these hooks to hook onto trees. But imagine those except proportionately just as large, but on an animal the size of an elephant that they used to like just as scythes to cut down the tops of trees. It's incredible and scary. Yeah right if if none of this like just gently reaching for branches like get down here, Yeah, it's mortal Kombat. Yeah,

exactly the same way. Like I love it, great man, that that m night Chamalian movie with the with the plants, the evil plants, the happening, all the happening. Yeah, all you need is some giant ground sloths and that's it. The evil trees are going to go running. Just Mark Bahlberg talking about megatheriums, yeah, way into it. Yeah, it's a freaking megathereum, megathereum. Oh my god. I would love to see Mark Wahlberg being like confused about megatheriums and

then just get his face dumped in by a megatherium. Yea, and then basically every performer acting very flatly because it's a Shamalan movie too, So just look the megatherium. It's coming. But it just really weak, decapitated Mark Wahlberg, I mean whatever his character's name is, right, So, because of these massive claws, it actually had to walk on the sides of its feet, similar to how modern day aunt eaters walked.

And I think the last time you were on the show, we actually talked about another animal that was more phologically kind of similar to a giant sloth, the Anisodon grande. Yeah, the gorilla bear deer I think, yeah, the men here yeah yeah, which also had big claws and had to walk on the sides of its feet kind of awkwardly. Yeah. That this is a popular shape back back in the day. Yeah, it's what scientists like to describe as a big lug. These guys were big lugs folks, indeed, sort of Peluccas

of the animal world, the big galoots. Yes, it may have also been nude. Some studies suggest a hairless giant ground sloth similar to the elephant, rather than a furry one. And I can't decide which reality I want to be true more, the big furry ground sloths or a big nude ground sloth. It's tough. It's close, too close to call. This is so I love that whole thing with restory ancient species where we are somewhat guessing at the general look of it. And yeah, and of course it could

look like an elephant. Sure now, now I'm imagining a very Chihuahua looking Megathereum sure, great, just ready for Olympic swimming, you know. Yeah, yeah, just saggy and baggy in all the right places. Um. So. The giant ground sloth and other species of ground slovs likely when extinct around ten thousand years ago, probably due to habitat loss due to the changing climate of the time. It's not we're not really sure whether human hunting really contributed to their extinction

or not. But humans did exist at the same time, and they probably did try hunting them as we We basically tried to hunt anything, any even things that could definitely kill us. So I wouldn't be surprised if you know, humans hunt to these. I think there's some evidence that maybe they were hunted by humans, but um, you know, it's what's not clear is whether we actually drove them to extinction or not. We may have we tend to do that, but it could have also been climate change

in habitat loss. But they're also and there are these giant burrows that you can find in areas where giant ground Slaws lived. And while I'm not sure whether it's known whether they were made by giant ground slaws, they're definitely a candidate for these big I think they're called paleo burrows or these huge tunnels. Yeah, and they have these huge claw marks on them, uh, indicating they were

dug out by some animal. And so it's it's like, man, this could have I'm not sure what where the evidence is pointing to, but It's like there could have been these giant burrows that these giant sloths lived in, and just imagine sort of wandering down into and then you know the hulking figure of this giant sloth rearing up at you, chewing on leaves. I feel like the club marks either indicate any megatherium or one human prankster, one little scamp right trying to fool everybody. One one little

cave boy with the brake. So, Alex, you're probably familiar with rhinos, right, familiar with them? I am? Yeah. We went to We went to the Brock Zoo at around Thanksgiving and they have a super prominent rhino exhibit. It was one of I think the first big animals they had. It's very nice to see them, some rhinoceros. I like a rhino. I've been to the San Diego Zoom many

a time. I love the rhinos. You are separated from them by a nice sturdy fencing while thing, But I feel like they're pretty curious, Like they often approach visitors and they kind of look at you and they get close enough that you feel like if you wanted to risk getting your hand sort of impaled on their horn, you could like reach out and touch them. Of course you don't because you're not rude, but they are. They're beauty.

There there's something I think surprisingly gentle about them. They're often seen as being these big, aggressive animals, and it's true they can be aggressive you don't want to play around with, like getting in the path of a rhino, but when they're relaxed, they're pretty chill. And of course yeah, and of course they're these big, horned, leathery skinned mammals, most famously from Africa, but also from India and Asia. And let's just do a quicker view about rhinos. So

there are five species of rhino currently living. There is the white rhinoceros that you just mentioned, Alex, and there's the critically endangered black rhinos. Both of these rhinos are from Africa. Despite their names, they're actually both a grayish color. The main difference is actually the lip shape. So the black rhino has a point to your beak like upper lip and the white rhino has a more square, rounded lip.

So it's likely that the misnomer is a bad interpretation of the Afrikaans word wide or wide, which I mean, it's just they're basically just called wide rhinos like wide lipped rhinos, but I guess it was misinterpreted as white rhinos. That's fascinating. Yeah, yeah. And there is also the Sumatra in rhino that is the smallest rhino in the world, roughly half the size of a white rhino, maybe a little less. Uh. It's reddish brown and in rainforests and

cloud forests of Asia. It's critically endangered as well, and there are only a round and estimated thirty individuals left in the world, so they're in a little bit of trouble there. Yeah, yeah, it is sad. There's also the Indian rhino with much more clearly segmented armor plating and this bumpier wardy hide which distinguishes them from the white rhino and black rhinos. And then there's the Java and rhino, which is another critically endangered species and is found only

in Ujun Coulon National Fart. It's not a national fart, it's a national park usion Coulon National Park on the Java Island of Indonesia. So woh I did another outside of Africa too, that's amazing. Maybe that's well known. I had no idea. I don't know that it's well known. And that's why I'm bringing it because I think, like we think about the white rhinos and the black rhinos, but you know, there are other species of rhinos in the world, and so there is still a little bit

of diversity among rhino species. They are all sort of precarious, I would say, like a lot of them are critically endangered,

some of them are vulnerable or near threatened. So it's you know, I think it's it is like something to appreciate these species before they potentially disappear or hopefully we can reverse the disappearing, because we do not want our current rhinos to go the way of the wooly rhino, because the wooly rhino is this incredible extinct rhinoceros that once roamed uh all around the world, are once roamed

all around Europe and Eurasia. So actually, this Tyson nicely with a listener question I got recently, and here is the question. There have been mammoths found preserved in the Siberian ice fields. Have there been any other prehistoric animals found frozen there as well? How about an Antarctica keep featuring creatures from Michael D of Texas. Thanks for your question. Michael D. Indeed, there are other animals that have been found preserved in ice fields, especially the Siberian ice fields,

lots of animals they're including wooly rhinos. So last year in eastern Siberia, the body of a young wooly rhino was found frozen with skin and internal organs intact, which is, yeah, like that, it's an amazing find. Uh. There's so much you can learn about an animal once you start to get soft tissues, including internal organs, that you cannot learned from fossils. Yeah, I mean we're gonna clone it, right,

let's do it. I mean machine, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, there is a de extinction project where it's sort of the speculative thing of like once we get to the point where maybe we could clone species, and I think wooly rhino is one of the ones that they are interested in. I'm not sure how feasible that is. It's a similar problem of cloning the wooly mammoth, which is like, okay, say you can clone it or replicate it genetically, then where does it go? Where do you

put it? Because it's a environment no longer exists, not my house, nimby, not back. Uh back era, nimbe it's fridge yet so oh no, no, no, like chumping up a data that stere rhinos. So yeah, this young wooly rhino is one of the best preserved frozen animals ever found. It also came with a small horn that they found also in the ice that was just a few feet away from its body. So what what is this wooly rhino all about? What's the situation with with this fun

and fuzzy friend. So, like the name suggests, it was a rhino with long, thick fur to survive the cold of ice age Europe and Asia. They were pretty darn big. They were over twelve ft almost four meters long from tail to head, and possibly up to six thousand pounds or two thousand seven ms. They were as tall as a human six point five feet or two meters tall at the shoulders. Uh. This is actually around the same size of a white rhino except oi flaw fear with

a much bigger horn. So they had two horns, similar to a lot of species of current rhinos, but their front horn was much more massive than modern rhino horns. Yeah, this artist's depiction you send, it's it's like it's just huge. That's what I have to say about it. But I feel like when you see modern rhinos, and I've only seen the white kind of the black kind of thing, but when you see those, it's like almost surprising how much we focus on the horns because they're just not

that big. It's a prominent horn, but it's nothing like this. It's it's pretty judgment to me, humongous, like simbatar. Yeah. Also I I I have like Simon Cowell's style opinions about rhinos, like not good enough. Next that was I didn't load up a British accent time, but you know what I mean, Yeah, it's a it's I feel like he who has the biggest horn should cast the first horn.

Is that I don't know? But look, yeah, when you compare the wooly rhinos horn to modern day rhinos, you're like, oh, I mean, like modern day rhinos have like kind of elegant, slender horns, like like a unicorn or something. But these wooly rhinos just had like big old honkers. I mean horns, big old horns, not honkers, but you know, horn, big old horn. So these horns were so impressive. Early people who recovered the fossilized horns, thought they were the claws

of giant birds or griffins. I like somebody saying, like, it's either a bird or a griffin. Like, it's either this real kind of animal. Maybe it's a giant bird or some kind of lying lion bird. The same monk who brought you the drawing of what they thought a lion looked like, which was just like an angrier, spikier dog. Is the griffin some kind of bird with maybe cat feet or something. Right, Yeah, Like these remains are either a dog or a tonton from Star Wars. It's one

of those two. I'm equally confident, folks, And we have a terrible memory as a species because we actually did live with the wooly rhino as contemporaries, So early humans were around at this time, and they're actually cave paintings depicting them. Some of the paintings seemed to indicate that wooly rhinos used their large horns to fight off other animals, so early artists drew these like battle sea between a wooly rhino warding off other animals with their big old horn.

That's so cool. Yeah, and I've looked at some of these cave paintings, and I think they're actually pretty good. Like when I think about cave paintings sometimes it's like, oh, you know, early artists, we hadn't learned perspective yet. The paintings can't be that good. And I'm looking at this and like, hey, it might be marginally better than what I could do. And then meanwhile, I'm Simon Cowell, old school enough terrible. There we go, there's your perfect accent,

perfect accown. But that is that's that's really cool that they did such evocative art of this thing that, yeah, I have to assume happens. It really looks like a weapon horn. It looks like a big saber or something. Well, if they used them like anything, that anything, like how modern day rhinos use them. They do use them as defensive weapons as well as tools to like dig up grasses and stuff or to like help guide their calves gently.

So use gently. They can be sort of a communication tool, but used less gently, they can definitely be a defensive weapon. And so I would not be shocked if these were used as defensive weapons. They may also have had something to do with like sexual signaling, like hey, look, at look at my horn. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Yeah, I mean really interesting. They also had a large hump near its shoulders, both to help support the huge horn and where it stored fat reserves to help sustain it during

the winter. So like your favorite kind of like a bison, Yeah, yeah, bison stuff. Yeah, if people don't know, a bunch of an American bison's weight as its head and so they have a huge hump to just hold it up exactly, not fall forward all the time. And due to preserved specimens that we've found, we know something about its diet. It ate grass, flowers, moss, and even branches, so you know herbivores with a giant uh just skull penetrating horn. Yeah,

I'm amazed. I feel like wooly mammoth's get so much ink, They get so much press up so much. And then and I think it's partly because we love elephants, but then this other packeter and we love the rhino, has a wooly version that I'm learning about right now for the first time. I think it's it's unfair that the media has been so much time on elephants. Mammoth Oh my god, But yeah, you got you got wooly rhinos, which I think are you know, they're basically like a

big bison unicorn lovely creatures. Wouldn't want to get chased by one, but I do love them, so you know, time to shine a light, you know. And what's what's the Washington Post thing like sh finding a light on wooly rhino's at last or something. You know that their journalism tagline for God's tagline is mammoths are the only wooly animal. Typical mainstream media, typical armadillos. You like Armadilla's, I like Armadilla's. What about you? You like Armadilla's I'm

pro armadillo. Yeah, if they make me think of the Southwest. We used to have a lamp from Target where the whole base was on armadillo shape from Southwestern thing we got. But yeah, I didn't you know, grow up near him or anything. But yeah, but I like an armadillo good stuff. Yeah, yeah, there are some of the weirdest mammals in the world, though,

no doubt. Armadillo. The name comes from the diminutive of the Spanish word armatto or armed man or armored man, but the as text called the armadillo's turtle rabbits, which is a wonderful name. A turtle rabbit. Yeah, that's just better. It's so good. It's so good. It sounds like something from Avatar The Last Airbender, the cartoon series they had like turtle ducks and stuff, but like a turtle rabbit. It's so good. I love it. It's perfect too, it's

the perfect description. So that show man armed man, armed man is not the vibe you get from this, like what like one ft long little guy. N I mean, I think it's really like small armored man, like a small armored man. But yeah, turtle rabbit better turtle rabbit petition to change the name rabbit. Yeah. So they're found in the same super order as slogs and ant eaters,

and uh, they are actually any species of armadilla. So there are twenty one species of armadillo, all found in the America's and they all share a similar trait amazing plate armor made up of caratin that protects their bodies. So some species can roll up into an impressively well armored ball, whereas other species cannot roll into a ball. So the ones that can roll into a ball are able to tuck in their more vulnerable body parts into

a relatively impenetrable sphere. So perhaps the most impressive species in terms of ball rolling ability is the Southern three banded armadillo and Brazilian three banded armadillas. So they have armored heads and tails and can in the blink of an eye, jump and roll into a ball, tucking everything in. They interlock their head and tail into place like a ying yang, sealing them into the most perfect pennetrable armadilla ball. They truly have achieved pure sphericality. I'm going to share

this gift with you. Amazing how easily they can snap into a ball. And the claws of these three banded armadilla are so long and sturdy they can walk on the tips of them, almost like their hooves, And most armadillas need really strong digging claws for digging up the ants and termites. Katie, Katie, I'm I'm looking at this chif of an armadilla becoming a ball, and if if any listeners do not look up this chif, I will be very upset with them. The greatest thing I've ever seen.

There's no excuse, it's in the show notes. I'm confident it's there. You need to go see this. It's like it's like it's standing there and then it does a little turn and then boopball mode just immediately like yeah, ball of the guy who impressively pops out of folding chair as he's walking so he can go see stuff. It's that energy, like time for me to do this. It's great. It just sees some business. It doesn't want it doesn't like going on. It's like nope, ball, I'm ball,

look at me ball now. So we've actually covered some of the weirder armadillos on the show before, like the pink fairy armadillo that kind of looks like a piece of sushi, and the screaming hairy armadillo, which is harry and it does scream. But let's look at the most prototypical armadillo, the nine banded armadillo. These are gray armadillo's found in north, South, and Central America. They're the most widespread armadillo, so probably the most famous in North America.

They are found in southeastern United States and they can grow to be about the size of a chihuahua. They cannot roll into a ball like the three banded armadillos, but they are still protected by that hard caratinous armor. Because they can't roll into a ball, they rely on burrows for further protection, so a predator trying to dig them out of a burrow is just going to be met with a hard armored uh top side of the armadillo, and it's gonna be very hard to get at them.

But the largest species, the largest living species of armadillo is the giant armadillo of South America. They can grow to weigh up to seventy pounds or thirty two and a half kilograms, but captive set specimens can reach up to a hundred and twenty pounds or fifty four ms minus the tail. They grow a little over three ft long, which is about a meter. So they're they're big. They're

they're big little dudes. They're they're hunky and chunky. But this is actually nothing compared to the extinct genus of close armadillo relatives, the glyptodons. They were bigger than a Fiat about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, and weighed up to over one thousand, eight hundred pounds or eight hundred forty ms. So imagine our armadillo, but the size

of a Volkswagen beetle. So I'm imagining that turned into a bul jeft, but it just creates a crater and like a building collapses behind it, you know, I mean, probably could easily be used as a wrecking ball. Yes, yeah, wow, incredible. So they um when extinct a few like around the same time, I would say, as like the giant slaws

probably around ten thousand years ago. Unlike the more flexible shells of current armadillos, they had a big turtle like shell that provided their body with coverage and an armored tail. And while they couldn't withdraw their head into their shell like a turtle, the top of their head had this hard armor as well, and they had Speaking of their heads, they were very thick jowled, with massive jawbones, which indicated

big old chewing muscles. Um. They also had these ridged teeth that kind of looked like corrugated metal, and they just used these as like grinding mills for hard plant matter. Their tails were so hard and cratinus that they were able to use them as weapons, and there have been wounds found in some of the fossils of these glyptodons that indicate they were used in battle within the species,

so between males, maybe fighting over territory or mates. So yeah, just like big old armored tail fights m And the cutest and most surprising thing about these is they had nasal passage structures that seemed to indicate there were areas for large muscle attachments, which may have indicated they actually had a long snout, maybe even a proboscis or trunk similar to a tape here, or even a small elephant like trunk, uh, which I love so much, Just a

big old giant Harry mammalian turtle with maybe a little trunk on it. Uh. The shells were so big that humans actually may have used them as shelters from weather. It just incredible. Wait what and where? I mean? It is shaped almost exactly like an egglue or something. I can see why, but I had never made that jump that humans would just be like perfect a house here. Yeah, I mean probably more like a tent, because I don't think it would fit more than maybe a couple of

people in it. I mean, you know, it's like a Volkswagen Beetle. You can't you can't fit too many people outside of it, right, only a couple of prehistoric humans or a hundred clowns. Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's all you can do. Well then, because also with the Bronx Zoo visit, I'm fresh off of seeing tape beers and they are really soft fellas, you know, they're really they're really squishy, and so they're like a living snuffle off against version. Yeah. But yeah, the the hard armored

it's just like like time to get serious. And then with this big doofy shell. Yeah, like it's a like it's a soldier in a Red Wall book or something instead of the little goofy goofs that I saw in the zoo. Really fun. I think I keep up bringing up the like seventies cartoon Herculoids, but this definitely looks like one of the weird characters from Herculoids, which I mean, I would say I'm dating myself, but I'm not even dating myself because it was way before my time and

for whatever reason I saw it on TV. Sometimes I think they would do like Boomerang classic cartoons or something, and I would that's fascinating. So anyways, maybe there's too much of a tangent, but that will be a thing. Like I was in a meeting once where I brought up Scooby Doo and apparently one of the other people decided I'm really old. Yeah no, it just re aired. I'm not from one that was a show. No, I wasn't alive when this first aired. I just somehow caught

it on TV later on in the nineties. Yeah right, things get rebroadcast, like you know what Scooby Doo is? You must be like a hundred and ten. I didn't realize Civil War veterans were still alive. Yeah, yeah, I'm the last widow from that war. Like that article. Yeah, well, I think that just about does it for old, decrepit things in this podcast. But before we go, I do want to answer the question that we proposed last week

of Guess Who's Squawking? Every week we play a Mr Animal sound and we ask you the listener who is talking. So last week's hint was people will pay out the nose for their poop. Who do you think is talking? Alex mm hmm out the nose for their poop. This is a two can thing. It was birdish to me. I don't really know that's a good guess because two cans do use poop to seal up their nests that they have in tree hollows, But no, this is actually

a palm civet. Congratulations to this week's winners who gets the animal correctly Anti be Trish H. And Elizabeth P. Yeah. So, uh, this is an Asian palm civet. Uh. They are small field forms found in South and Southeast Asia and forests, and they eat a type of coffee bean fruit and poop out the bean which are harvested and made into a very expensive and highly sought after coffee. I guess due to the fermentation that happens in their gut, which

makes it good poop coffee, very fancy. Unfortunately, this has led to civit farms that cage in force feed palm civets. So personally I would avoid drinking the poop coffee for ethical reasons, but also it's expensive poop coffee. Guys, what are you doing? Yeah? Man, because I googled the picture of this animal while you're talking about it. It's very cute, and I immediately became concerned people were like doing something shady to keep it and look at it all the time. No,

it's extremely cute. It looks like a raccoon cat with a prehensile tail. It's adorable. Leave the poop alone, folks, Let him poop in peace. Yeah, you can get dunkin Donuts coffee, and you can get a cat. If you want crappy coffee, you can go get dunk and Donuts coffee. I'm sorry. Duncan is great. I don't know anything about coffee. It's probably good. I apologize everyone. If you like Duncan, if you run on Duncan, it's fine. I don't even drink coffee, so what do I know? Please don't sue me.

So onto, this was going to rise up there? That back uh so onto. This week's mystery animal sound a hint. As adults, they look like a beautiful sunset, but as babies they just don't want to be someone else's grub. Wow, and he guesses, Alex, that's not two animals. That was. That was like the highest squeakiest noise event. Probably I'm gonna give you this. The background noise probably some kind of owl. Um. That's not what we're focusing on. What

we're focusing on is the little squeaky noises, the mystery squeaks. Yeah. Wow, um let's see and I'm thinking of the hint. There was something about grubs. There's something about being very colorful like a sunset. Is this? Is this some sort of that also does Michael Winslow style sound effects? Maybe well? The answer will be revealed in next week's Creature Feature. Thank you so much for joining me today, Alex. Where can the people find you? I hate? Thank you so

much every time? And and people can find my show Secretly incredibly fascinating if you just search. The name Secretly usually comes up in your podcast player. But it's about one people, but it's about one thing people think is ordinary, and it turns out it's amazing if you discover the history and the science and the lore. And it's me and funny guests such as Katie Golden and on January third episode, she is the guest we talk about maze, which is also known as corn. Thank you guys so

much for listening. You can if you think you have an answer to the mystery animal sound game, you can write to me at email, Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com, or on Instagram Creature Feature Pod or on Twitter Creature feet Pod. That's at the eight, not at the et Sen something very different. And if you're enjoying the show and you leave or rating and review, I

will be eternally grateful. I read every review. I get a cup of hot coco, bundle up by the fire, and read every review out to a bunch of random children. Um like story time where I'm like, you know, Apple iTunes user, you know we use our fan nine hundred rites like you know, Hey, cool pod anyways, thank you so much for listening, and thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song. Ex Alumina. Creature Feature is a production of I Heart Radio for our podcasts like

the one you just heard. Visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast, or Hey guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows? I don't judge. See you next Wednesday.