Slimy Pearl!

be in the next generation of Pokemon. Discover this and more as we answer the angel question who's got the most boobable Snoop joining me today is the co host of Just the Zoo of Us, an amazing animal podcast that rates and reviews animals, just like you should rate and review our podcasts. I'm so excited for this animal podcast crossover event. Welcome Ellen Weather for welcome. Thanks Katie, Hi,

it's so good to be here. I'm so excited. It's about time we joined animal forces to bring to the world. Are both our animal knowledge and Pokemon knowledge, which I have to admit I'm not the biggest Pokemon expert. Well, I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I have played all the generations and I think that counts for something.

I think that makes you an expert as as as far as I can see, because for me, I don't know if I can tell a Pikachu from you know, from a Jigglie Puff Gigglie Puff from a from a ratitat. You know. So you've got three Pokemon names right then, so like you're already pulling ahead of something. Is one of them that that was a great try. Yeah. I started playing um when I was five years old, when my mom got me for Christmas a purple transparent game Boy color and Pokemon Gold version UM, so I started,

which was the second generation of Pokemon games. So I started there and I've played every generation ever since. So we we go way back me and put on. Yeah, when I was a kid, I got bootleg versions of video games on floppy disks that I played on our personal computer. And one of them was sort of like kind of a Pokemon clone but you raised like slug monsters, so you know, that's yeah exactly, So that's my kind of background. But no, I do. I do love Pokemon.

I played the the Pokemon Pokemon Go for a little bit, uh, and then you know, when that was a thing, and people were walking into traffic to get those Pokemon. And

you know, I love the little guys. They're adorable, and but the biggest thing that I love about them is that a lot of them seem to be based on really whimsical versions of real life animals and all the fun kind of I feel like it trains kids to think in terms of a biologist right there, like sort of this, uh, there's like a phylogeny that you have different clades of Pokemon, water types, bug types, you have these abilities, and you have their their behaviors, and so

I love that about the whole Pokemon universe. Yeah, it's interesting because you know, kind of the origin story of Pokemon was that the creator of Pokemon, I believe it was to Toshi Ta Jerry Um created Pokemon out of a childhood spent collecting bugs outside, like just outside and nature, collecting bugs, and he was just so inspired by his passion for nature and bugs that he kind of combined that with this like very imaginative world building and developed

Pokemon from it. So like, yeah, has a roots in you know, entomology and naturalism and biology. So you can see so much of that play out in the world of Pokemon like some of them. Actually, there's actually like ecology plays into it, like in some of my notes, like some of the aspects of the actual real life

animal play out in actual game mechanics, which is really interesting. Um. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that were inspired to begin, like lay the groundwork for an actual career in biology and zoology being inspired by playing Pokemon as a kid. Like it really does work. Yeah, No, I love that, Yeah, because it gives you this appreciation for biodiversity, even though it's a whimsical, made up biodiversity.

It I think that it turns on that part of the brain that's like, oh man, I just love you. Know you've got a cat jamal, you gotta classify them. I'll discover everything. Of course, real life biologists are not trying to catch all of the animals, but they are trying to classify and learn about all the animals, and certainly not getting their subject species to battle against each other.

Typically no, poor ethically that is, that is not the case. Um. But yes, So what we're gonna do is that I'm going to talk about an animal that I think should be a Pokemon now I don't really like I said, I am not a pocologist, so I don't know all the Pokemon, so there could be a Pokemon that is similar. But still, these are the animals that I think are like real life Pokemon and definitely should be in the

next generation of Pokemon. And then Ellen is going to tell me about a Pokemon that has a real life animal counterpart or inspiration. So I am so sided me too. This is gonna be great. So I want to start off with one of my favorite animals because it is just the goofy ist doofy ist, weirdest, ugliest, and cutest turtle in the world. I already love turtles. They appeal to my intrinsic desire to curl up into a little

shell and yell at people from the safety of it. Um. But yeah, so these are found in the Amazon Basin. It is a fresh water aquatic turtle. And so now this is a podcast and it is an audio medium, but it's hard to even have words do justice to this turtle. So this is the Mada Mata turtle. I love this turtle. You gotta look at it. You've gotta google it. If you're driving safely, pull over to the side of the road and google it. I will try my best to describe it, but I highly suggest you

look up motto moto turtle. It'll also be in the show notes a lot of pictures of it because it is one of the most Jim Henson Pokemon looking animals in the natural world. It's amazing. It'll fill you. It fills me up with warm feelings. They have contagious bliss. Yeah, it's like a super weird looking animal and it's kind of ugly cute, but it's one of those ugly cutes where it makes you happy, kind of like you know how like Stitch is like kind of a scary cute thing.

He's got all these teeth and stuff, and then this is like a this like an ugly cute and it just makes me happy. So all right, I'm gonna take a real, a real shot at describing this. So first, you know, visualize a turtle, like an aquatic turtle. You know, it's got webbed feet, lives in the water, so you're gonna want to run it over with a steamroller. It's an imaginary steamroller, so we're not actually hurting any real turtles. But yes, so you flatten it. You've turned this turtle

into sort of a turtle pancake. And then now you stretch out its neck and you give that neck some leaf like frills on the signs uh. Its head is a triangle. We're gonna want that head to be a triangle, and we're gonna want to glue a leaf to the top of its head. So are you with me? A dead leaf? That is important? Yes? So um yeah. And its shell is sort of a a chunk of bark,

let's say that. So we're almost there, but you gotta take its nostrils stretch those out as well, kind of extrude those, make them long flexible tubes, like a pig snout that's stretched out, and it's very thin. It's like a spaghetti pig nose. So one of its most important features, both in terms of its diet and behavior, as well as the most important feature to me is its mouth. I know. The saying is eyes are the window into the soul, but in this case, the mouth to me

is the window into the heart. Does that make sense? The door the mouth is the gaping doorway into the heart. So it's a very wide mouth. It has a big mouth when it's closed, it looks like the world's most cartoonishly goofy, wide smile, like it's thinking about a joke it wants to tell you I was thinking. It looks like it's not thinking anything at all. This is truly like no thoughts, head empty turtle. Yeah, no thoughts, pure bliss.

When it's open the mouth, it looks like it's laughing too hard at its own joke, or just the emptiness in its brain has made it is funny to it and so it started laughing. Uh. It also just has the beady little eyes that are heavily litted, making it look really just completely out of it. It's like you take the heavy lidded Garfield eyes but make them small and beaty, and it's Yeah, I think you're getting the idea. Can I tell you what vibe I get from the

motomatic turtle like looking at a picture of it. Did you ever watch the cartoon Jimmy Neutron in like early two thousands, Yeah, remember that Carl from Jimmy Neutron. Yeah, I remember Carl. That's the exact energy that I get from the motomatic Turtle. Carl Weezer from Jimmy Neutron. Yeah. I remember Carl Weezer and his obsession with Lama's That was a oh yeah, that was a I feel like that was that show was ahead of its time. That was a good show truly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lazer, I

loved that. Carl Weezer was like the nerd stereotype, but he was dumb as heck, like really not very smart, um, which is like great for like sort of the stereotype, like nerds equal smart, Like no nerds could equal someone not very smart, but who loves llamas? You know what I mean? Right, It's more of a passion thing that it is a knowledge thing exactly. Yeah, no, it is. It is like the Carl Wheezer of Turtles, I think so at least. But it's got more dangly bits on

its face than I remember Carl Weezer having. It's got barbles, so the whisker of a catfish, but rather than being long whiskers, the Mada mata has these stubby, nubby little barbels. Uh. It's got three on its chin and four more on its jaw. So just do hickeys here and there, just little flappy bits, just flappy bits, little little dongles. So in terms of size, the turtle is about thirty seven inches long or and can weigh up to around forty five pounds or twenty kill graham. So it is not little.

It's kind of big. Yeah. Yeah, it is solidly. Its presence is solid and profound. Uh So. Its feet are webbed for swimming, like I mentioned earlier, and it uses its weird leaf like frills and ridged bark looking shell to blend in with vegetation and to lay in wait

for some poor unsuspecting fish. When the fish gets close enough, the turtle uses its mouth like a vacuum and just suddenly snaps its mouth open really wide, which creates this um cavitation in the water, So it creates the suction and just vacuums up this vacuums up this unsuspecting fish, then snaps its mouth closed, swallows the fish whole, and

then resumes having that little smile on its face. Very uh, kind of terrifying in a way because it seems like really happy and dumb and silly, uh right, just like a kind of Winnie the Pooh. But then just opens up its mouth wide and swallows a fishhole and it cannot chew. It's cranial anatomy is too weird to allow it to chew. It in fact, just swallows things whole

instead like a shark, but it's way cuter. I mean, I think sharks are cute, but this, Yeah, sharks don't have Sharks don't have a goofy smile, you know, like they've got a dad joke just sort of waiting in the ways. Well, I think of the whale shark. Yeah, okay, that's goofy smile. Yes, whale sharks do have a goofy, goofy smile. I also think goblin sharks have a pretty goofy smile. There's it's a scarier goofy but it's sort of more like a Mr. Burne smile. But it's still

a little buzy. Say that, like, smile was not the is not a word that I associate with the goblin's shark A grin. Okay, all right, I could see that. I can see that. I feel like the matamata has made a lot of sacrifices for that smile. Though it has its sacrificed its ability to chew in any sort of fear you could have of it. That's true. They've lost their intimidation factor completely. I mean, look at that face.

It looks like it's got an ear to ear smile, and then this long, thin pig nos and these it's just the most ridiculous looking thing. We may feel very differently about it if we were perhaps small fish that might be on their menu. That to them, maybe this is like the most terrifying thing you can imagine. I feel like there'd be a lot of things I would feel the prently about if I was a small fish,

namely toilet. But I guess the idea of the automato is that you shouldn't be seeing it anyway until it's too late, right, so right, you can't be deceived by the smile, like it's a pile of very doofy looking leaves until it opens its mouth and you realize, hey, those aren't some exceptionally dumb looking dead leaves. That's an exceptionally dumb looking turtle. And it only looks dumb. It's not that dumb in real life. It's just that's the

way it looks to us. I mean, I don't think it's that's smart, you know, can we judge it to back it up? It's all it's all about how you define smartness, right, Like, if smartness is the ability to like do complex puzzle solving or you know, have some kind of language or something, maybe it's not, you know, but if your definition of smartness is having a weird mating dance, it does, then this one's yeah, because it

has a really weird mating dance. Really yeah. So a male will seduce the female by thrusting out his head, neck and limbs, and by opening his mouth as wide as he can and then closing it repeatedly, sort of like some kind of weird muppet mating dance. It'll it'll keep thrusting its head and opening its mouth and opening its mouth like a deranged cuckoo clock. And if that doesn't have her swooning, it will also wiggle its head flaps. That's I gotta say. That's how my husband won me over.

Yah for him. You gotta wiggle your head flaps sometimes, everyone out there, are all your singles out there, Wiggle the head flap, notes, wiggle the head flaps. Always, wiggle the head flaps. It's all in the head flaps. People don't give it enough credit, but no not. I think things like a personality or a job or passion that those are the kinds of things that people look for in a partner. No head flaps, it's head flaps. Actually yeah, if it's working for the turtle, it must work for me.

I think we Yeah. I think it's hubrious to think that these are not universally applicable uh flirtation methods. But Ellen, what do you think? Do you think that this animal is worthy of being a Pokemon, or should I say our pokemon worthy of being this animal? I will say yes. And I also want to add that there there is a Pokemon that is at least visually Reminisce sent me tell me now I need to see. It is called Turtonator. Which is which is? I will say the goofiest Pokemon names.

So at least they did keep the energy in naming it turtonatord. Now it is a fire and dragon type pokemon. Um It lives in volcanic craters and camouflages itself as a rock, and it has more of like a volcanic look to it. So it has these kind of like spikes that look like rocks jutting out of lava. It

kind of looks like a cartoon bomb. I think, um so As far as similarities to the Madam mata, I really think it begins and ends with just the way it looks, because it has like that flathead, has the tube nose, and it has some kind of like jagged appearance. So like, I don't think it shares a lot else with the mate mata other than just like some general

appearance things. Um. But I mean, and it's at least looks like a moutomata, so it's I think it's as close as you're going to get to a moutematic turtle to a modemotic Pokemon. UM. I would love it if they took another stab at the modemata and made one that was a little bit more like aligned with the actual Pokemon. But I do admire the creativity that they

took with this. With Totoenator, I've never used a Tertinator on my team because I personally I don't love the way that they look I admire that it is cool and creative, but it's not my aesthetic and my team building strategy is one aesthetic based, so was not did not fit into my team vision at the time. The Pokemon I collector based on cuteness factor a h it is based solely on how they look. Yeah, this is

this is giving me madam matauh. But it's also giving me a little bit of homestar runner, sort of like if you fuse the two. Uh yeah, no, I see, I can see this being the moutomata. But I think we do need another one. We need one that it's got, it's leaf based, and one that really emphasizes that smile. Yeah, for sure, there's like thirty salamander Pokemon. So I think we can make room for another mottomata. I think we

can for sure. I think that can be arranged. Someone give me call up Nintendo or or you know, Mr Pokemon, Mr Pokemon Company. My in boxes open at all times. Dmn me, Dear dear Mario, I've noticed the problem with your with your video game Pokemon. Dear Mr Super Mario, dear Mr Super Nintendo Chalmers. Um yeah, so so I think we can have another mottom mata I and give them another chance. Yeah, bigger smile, more phase dongles and elite, thank you in advance. Thanks. It would be cool if

it was a water tight. Yeah yeah, I mean fire types cool too, but still yeah, yeah, it lives in the Amazon Rivers Freshwater Rivers, so you know there and then every time it like defeats defeats a Pokemon should like donate uh fifty cents to the Amazon. You know, I would love it if they made some sort of like Pokemon game like for a cause, yeah, would be

so cool. Can you imagage again Pokemon Company in box? Yeah, dialing Mr Luis gi Mario slide into those d M So allen, uh, you have some Pokemon to tell me about? Can you tell me about a Pokemon and and and teach me teach me the ways of the Pokemon and the real life animal that it has gained inspiration from. Absolutely Okay, So I'm bringing one that I feel is particularly relevant right now. This is gar Chomp. Guard Chomp is a ground and dragon type Pokemon that was introduced

in the fourth generation of Pokemon games. Those those games were Diamond, Pearl and the sequel Platinum. So I really wanted to talk about this right now in honor of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, which are the remakes of those fourth generation games. So they like reworked the whole game top to bottom, gave them fresh fresh graphics because Pearl Diamond and Pearl came out on the Nintendo DS, so these these games just came out for the switch.

Um So, guard Chump first appeared in the Diamond and Pearl games on the d s. They were guard Chomp was infamously on the team of champions Cynthia, the champion of the game. Sorry if this is a spoiler if you haven't played it, I don't think it's a spoiler. Um It. Cynthia famously the champion that you beat, like that that you have to battle at the end of the game. Getting like completely wrecked by Cynthia's gar Chomp

is like a rite of passage for Pokemon players. Like she it's just famously so incredibly difficult to beat her. It's like they just really cranked the difficulty up on Cynthia's gar Chomp in particular, it's like so incredibly vicious. So I know a lot of people are playing the Diamond and Pearl remix right now, a lot of people are probably reliving that trauma of having been completely obliterated by Cynthia's gar Chomp. So I wanted to talk about

black eyes, like a doll's eyes. It's just like, I know a lot of people are are processing that still, Like I saw a tweet the other day that was like getting getting destroyed by Cynthia's guard Chomp, Like I'm nine years old all over again. So I think a lot of I think it'll resonate with a lot of people right now. If you are a long time Pokemon player or if you're new to the series, you know there's a remake out now, so you you might be

getting familiar with guard Chomp right now. Yeah. I'm looking at this guy and it is intimidating. It's like half shark, half pterodactyl with a lot of spikes. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, it's a very very cool looking Pokemon, very edgy, very sinister looking. Guard Chomp is a dragon and it is is a ground and dragon type, but it's based on a hammer head shark, which I think is really really interesting.

I like when Pokemon does this kind of like with Tertinator, where it takes a Pokemon and like redesigns it but removes it from like its original context in real life and like reworks it to be like in a different biome. So this is like a hammer head shark for the desert, which I think is really cool. But guard chomps design incorporates what I think are some really interesting features of

the hammer head shark. So most notably, like you look at guard chomp and you can see that it has this head that has these two lobes on either side of its head that really resemble that iconic hammer shaped head of the hammer head shark. But the structure on the hammer head shark has a name. It's called a cephalo foil. Have you talked about cephalo foils before? I have not. Let's do it. It's so cool. So the cephala foil is. So there are lots of hammer head sharks.

By the way, there's not like one species of hammer head sharks. They can be really really big, like I think it's the scallop tammra head shark is maybe the biggest hammer head. That's the one with those like sensory bumps on the front of the hammer head. Yeah, it's called the scallop hammer head because the front edge of their cephalo foil has those sort of bumps on it, like you said. And then there's little ones there's like

the bonnet head, which are really common. It is it looks like a baby hammer head In fact, a lot of times fishers will fishermen will catch a bonnet head and mistake it for a baby hammer head, and they'll say, oh, I caught this baby hammer head, but it's actually a bond a head that I actually happened to us one time. We were um walking along the beach and we found a bonnet a dead bonnet head on the sand, and we thought it was a baby hammer head, but it

was a bonnet head. They're really little and they have like a small little cephalo foil, and they're actually omnivorous, which I think is interesting. It's a shark that eats plants. I don't think that's a super common thing. Um. Anyway, there's a Yeah, so there's a lot of different hammer head sharks, and that cephalo foils can kind of change

depending on which one you're looking at. Some of them have really long, exaggerated ones, like there's one that's called the wing head shark, where it's just like super cranked up. The thing goes like it's completely like T shaped. Uh, the winghead I think has the most exaggerated one. Um. But for you know, they all kind of follow the same general plan of it being like this sort of T shaped head. So the advantages it gives to the shark are really interesting. First of all, it really buffs

up their field of view. They have that those eyeballs located on either one of these lobes sort of like yeah, so it's it's not these aren't just like decorative. They actually how is the eyeball and so they're looking in one direction and then an entirely different direction. Yeah, So with their eyes being like at the ends of those lobes, they can see in three hundred and sixty degrees all around them. They can see in three hundred and sixty

degrees all around them. But they also have this really really big overlap between what their left eye and their right eye can see. So there's like this very large point in the middle of their vision where it's called I think it's called binocular overlap. So in the wing head shark, like I mentioned that has this really exaggerated stephalo foil, they have up to forty eight degrees of overlap between their left and right eye. So what that's

really really good for is depth perception. So like you know, how like if you cover one eye and then you cover the other, I what you can see kind of changes a little bit because of the angle, and that's what lets you perceive depth. Um So for hammerhead sharks, they have really dramatic depth perception. They're really good at seeing how far away things are, so it's really good

for their eyesight. Another thing the cephalofoil helps them with is that that whole thing, like you mentioned, is lined with electro receptors, So the edge of their cephalo foil is lined with these sensory cells that can detect magnetic fields. A lot of sharks, a lot of fish really in general, have electro receptors. And what's is what it's really good for for hammer heads is that it makes them really sensitive to the movements of prey that might be hiding

under the sand. So a lot of the prey that they're looking for is things like stingrays, or flat fish or all sorts of little fit like goose fish and stuff like that that might be burrowed under the sands. So if you're swimming over them looking for them only using your eyes, you're not gonna see them and you're gonna miss them. But the hammer head shark can detect

their movements. It can even sense things like heartbeats. Right, Like, you can't hide that because your heart, your heart sends out an electrical uh polse every time it beats, like this electrical rhythm of of your of the chambers of your heart. That's why when the heart is out of rhythm, uh, you use sort of a little bit of electricity to get it back and rhythm with with you know, the shock paddles with a with a de fabular order. Yeah, so the you can't disguise that, right, You can't like

make your heart stop beating. So the hammer head can can detect even totally hidden prey. And then once it does detect that prey, it can use the cephalo foil as a weapon, so it can actually pin prey down to the sand and immobilize it so that it can eat it. Or if it's hunting something like a stingray or a flat fish that's like down flat against the botto them, they can wedge the cefal foil underneath the prey and flip it over like that's like a big

it's like a spatelaae it is. They use it like a big spatchelor to flip This be called spatchelor head. Sharks instead of hammer heads because they don't use them as a hammer, they use it as a spachelor. Yeah, I mean I I also have never really seen a hammer shaped like that, you know, like the hammers I've used have only ever had like, you know, a blunt end and then kind of like a curved end and it doesn't really look like a hamper. But oh well, I didn't call him that, So that's maybe an old

timey hammer. Maybe an old timey hammer that it didn't have that curved back bit bit where you like pull out the nails, but just like the two hammers on each end, like a ball peen hammer that's been flattened out. I don't really know, I'm not I was about to say, like, I'm the wrong person to be talking to about what tools look like. I'm not handy. I'm sorry, I'm handed, but I just don't bother learning the names of anything. I'm like, just give me the small one and then

the twisty one and the U shape attorney bit. Yeah, exactly, I feel it. Um So, yeah, I think the cephal foil is a really interesting thing to be including on on guard chump. It's identifiable you look at it, you know, exactly what it is, and also on Guard on Guard Chump, they made the lobes kind of look almost like jet engines, which is really cool. It's like incorporating some like jetplane

elements into the design. Now, I do notice that it's it's eyes are not on the cephalo foil, though they are sort of you know, I think they were doing that to make it look more like a cool dragon. I imagine if they put the eyes on the cephalo foil, they probably tried it, because I know a lot of times like Pokemon, go through a few drafts of the design before they reach what what you see in the game.

So if I had to guess, they probably tried it. Like, there are probably some old like deleted draft of Guard Chomp with the eyes like on the sides, um, and it probably looked pretty goofy and they decided not to do that. I think it's probably also an early draft of Guard Chomp where it's just like Garfield as a dragon chomping on. Definitely, for sure, it's primarily praise on Lasagna right. Um. So aside from the cephalof oil, you know, it has some other shark elements. It's got that like

identifiable that vertically aligned fin um. It has the dorsal fin and the pectoral fins. Let you really know, it's supposed to be based on a shark um, but it has something on its design that I think is a nod to the shark inspiration in a really interesting way. So you see how it has all these little white spikes all over its body, on its arms and legs,

it has these white spikes. So those white spikes look exactly like its teeth, like it looks like you copied and pasted the teeth from its mouth onto its body. I think that that is a reference to shark's skin, which is covered in tiny scales called thermal denticles. Yes, denticals. Have you talked about these? It not tentacles with a T. Denticles, Yes, denticals like a dentist. Yes, the tiny the tiny skin

teeth that we know and love. Yes, skin teeth. So if you if you're not already familiar with what skin teeth are, if you're a more recent listener, um, these are these skin teeth are really built just like the teeth inside of the shark's mouth. They have an inner layer of pulp and nerves, and then an outer layer made of dentine um. They're just much smaller and they grow all over the body, pointing towards the tail. Um.

This gives sharks a really distinct texture. I should also say this is not specific to the hammerhead sharks built like um, so it gives sharks a really distinct texture. Have you ever touched a shark before. I haven't. I've touched a ray before, and I think they have a similar dentical situation, but it's like it's rough. So on a shark, if you start with the head and move your hand towards their tail, it feels really smooth, like a like a ray or like a dolphin or something

like that. But if you start with a tail and you move your hand towards the head, it feels sand papery. It feels really rough. So the texture changes based on what direction you're feeling. And that's because those denticles are all pointing towards the tail. So this helps them by reducing their drag in the water, and it helps them swim faster. It's really good for aerodynamic, uh, hydrodynamic, I

should say, like swimming. And I know that I was talking to some shark scientists and they mentioned that this shark skin like scale sort of thing has been used in the development of wet suits for athletic swimmers. Um that they've like used this like sort of scaly design to reduce drag for Olympic swimmers, which I think is

just so cool. Yeah, yeah, No, I like it when we borrow things from animals, Like we look at things like geck um paths and they're like, oh, this is this takes advantage of physics that is really hard for us to achieve. And so then we look to these amazing physical aspects of animals and then you know, steal it as long as we're not skinning the sharks and wearing them as as wetsuits. Right. I don't think he

would want to do that. Um. I mean they've got to figure it out, right, so might as well copy what they're doing. Um. This also is I think why guard Chomp is incredibly fast in the game, has a pretty high speed stat and the polkadex entries described guard Chomp as having speeds rivaling those of a jet plane. It flies rather than swimming because it does live in the desert, not in the ocean. Uh. And so this is this goes back to something I said earlier. The

dermal denticles actually factor into in game battle mechanics. So if you are battling with or against a guard chomp, guard chomp can have a passive ability called rough skin, and in battle this damages opponents who make physical contact with it. So if you use an attack against a guard chomp that actually physically contacts the guard chomp, so like tackle might be an example of one, then it that will actually do damage to you nice not all the time like they can. It's one of of more

than one possible passive abilities it can have. But I just think that's a really cool nod to like actual shark biology. That that rough skin very cool. Yeah, I love that. I did look it up and and raise and skates actually do have the dentical So it's the same situation. You pet them in wonder and it's really smooth, but then you get that you go the other way and it feels rough that you know, kind of like a cat tongue. Yeah, that's so cool. I've like done

little stingray touch tanks before. Um, it's just petting them the right way. I mean, they tell you too, you haven't vigorously rubbed array like. No, I'm a I'm a very lawful, good sort of rule following, like you know, doing the two finger only pet in one direction. So I think that's probably for the best uh to do in a touch tank because those poor things are probably stressed out enough as it is. No, I'm just trying to give them a good time. It's okay, I'm just

trying to be respectful of their space. But yeah, that's a that's guard chomp. I mean, I think he's a guy. He was a cool guy. Remember I remember, you know, try eating one up when I was playing Pearl version when I was younger, and um, it took a thousand years because they are they take forever to train, but it's worth it. They're They're super strong and a great Pokemon to have on your team if you can catch one.

And you can also use them to help stand down um you know, woodworking projects with those denticles, so they're functional exactly multipurpose car chum. So we've talked about the Moto Moto Turtle, who should be a Pokemon and maybe even is with the what was it turtle Tron absolutely should be the name. Yes, I mean turtle Nader is pretty good too. Um. And then we've talked about the guard Chomp, the hammerhead shark inspired pokemon with h denticles

on its skin. And now I want to nominate another animal that I think should be a Pokemon, or if it is already a Pokemon, I want to know about it. And this is the cus cuss of Northern Australia and New Guinea. So they cast cuss c u s c us. Wow. So they are a marsupial uh. And as we all know, marsupials get really weird. They are strange animals. Uh. And

so for the cuss cuss they all look incredible. So there are different species, um, but they all basically look like if you took a chameleon and gave it for so yeah. Yeah. So they have this long, prehensile tail that and they are not using it to grab tree branches. They curl it under them chameleon style. And further adding to that sort of weird reptile effect is that the bottom side of the tail does not have for it

is sort of this pink rough texture. It's got these rough bumps on it, and that scale like texture of the underside of the tail helps it to grip branches and even food like leaves, fruit flowers, small animals, eggs, so that it can be very opportunistic with its food and grab things. So let's get into some more general information about the cuscus. So it has it is ar boreal,

it is tree dwelling. Thus the importance of these chameleon like features because when you whenever, they are traits in one animal that are similar to traits and a completely unrelated animal, right like chameleons, reptiles, cuss cusses, and marsupial totally different evolutionary pounds, but we see these similar features,

like these opposable digits. So they have these two opposable digits on their hands, just similar, very similar to those digits on a chameleon, so that they can grab tree branches. And it has these big bulging eyes again kind of similar to a chameleon with snake like slits that they can use to see in low light conditions and then constrict in highlight conditions. So they're about the size of a house cat. Some species are a little smaller, some

species are a little bigger. There are a few different species, all having some sort of different range of coat colorations. So the biggest is the bear cuss cuss, which is the most intimidating looking of the cuss cusses. Uh. It has this dark gray fur and then these like sort of yellowish irises black peoples, and then black sclera around the eyes that make them look kind of haunted and intimidating.

But they are just herbivores, although it is true they'll sometimes grab a little animal and pop it in their mouth just to give it a shot. Uh. So they will, they will, uh that they're opportunistic. Is this the one that you've got a picture of here, that's like the gray one at the end, let's see. Yeah, probably it's the solid yes, that one that guy. Do you think is this in your notes anywhere? Do you think that this could be the origin of the drop bear mythos?

Have you heard of this? Yeah? So the drop bear is the Australian legend of uh, some kind of terrifying bear dropping out of the trees and maulling you. I thought the origin of that is just like that is sort of it's like an irate koala that they I'm looking at him like if you describe a drop bear to me, I would imagine this dude right here. The only problem is I'm not sure this one is in Australia or if it's just in New Guinea or in Indonesia. So this one is actually only found in Indonesia, so

it can't be a drop bear. Okay, it's ruled out as the possible drop bear candidate, although maybe one of them like floated over to Australia, like on a raft of coconuts or something. And then you know rogue. So there are other species of cuscuss, all adorable and strange in their own ways. There is the black spotted cust cut us that looks like a dalmatian with a red face and a long curly tail. And there is the common spotted cuss cuss that has these reddish brown spots

and sort of an orange face. And then there are white cuss cusses. But the white cuss cuss is not a different species of cuss cuss from the common spotted cuss cuss. They are females, so female cuss cusses do not have spots whereas the males do. So the females are usually a solid color, either all white or a creamy color or kind of grayish the females. Also, because they are marsupials, they do have a pouch where they're young can stay while nursing. So while they are absolutely

adorable looking, they are very pugnacious. They're not they are ready ready to get into a pokemon fight. So males often fight with each other for terror tory, and they are solitary animals. They're ready to throw down at a moment's notice. They are ready to exactly. Yeah. Yeah, So they're one of the most bizarre looking marsupials, most bizarre

looking mammals in my opinion. It it really does look to me like someone crossed a chameleon with a mammal and then you came up with this animal and it's it's but it is absolutely adorable in a very weird way. Yeah. I'm trying to think of like other mammals that have that like prehensile tail, and all I'm coming up with

are like certain types of monkeys do possums do? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, I can you know what now that you say that, I am seeing some similarity some family resemblance this guy and our possums. Yeah, and both opossums and possums are like the North American apossums and the Australian possums are um marsupials. In fact, they are the only marsupial found in uh North America. I love them so much. They're amazing,

my pals. I do. Now that you say that this guy does look like and please don't ask me about this. This might ruffle some feathers, but I think this is a cuter opossum, Like this is cuter than the opossum. Now are we talking about the the American opossum? Are we talking about the Yeah, the Virginia opossum, as I think it is called. It's it's not the cutest thing

in the world. I mean, I think they're cute. But I'm looking at what you have, the picture you have of the spotted cuscus, and I really it would have to go to this one in the essance department. As much as I love apossums as well as as the possums, just p O. S. S U. M. Found in Australia

another marsupial. Yeah, I I these guys have stolen my heart, They've stolen me away from It's just they're just so because I love chameleons, right, and then if you're if you were like to tell me what's the one feature of a chameleon you don't like, and I'm like, not fluffy enough, can't pet it, And so you add the fur to it and it's like you've done it. Now. Unfortunately, the cuss cuss cannot move its eyes independently like a chameleon can, so that would be by one improvement would

be to have those independently moving, cool telescoping eyes. But no, it doesn't have that, but yeah, it is. It is absolutely adorable and strange and functional like this tail it can use to climb, can use to grab things, and same with its little hands. It's a little weirdly almost, you know, too close to being humanlike. And it's not a primate, which is always throws me for a loop when they have the little graspy hands like with with with a possums or with raccoons. It's like, you're not

a primate. What are you doing with your little hands, your little functional hands, Like, what are you even do? What do you even? You're not doing homework with that right holding pencils? Yeah, you're not texting. You cannot tweet with those thumbs. That would be if I saw one of these things, like a little tiny cell phone tweeting, like just angrily tweeting the show like well, actually, yes, in fact, I do I have a TikTok too. Yeah,

oh I bet they would too. Yeah, you were mentioning their hands and their hands actually do look like chameleon hands to how they have that kind of like split between the fists. Yes, that's just like a million hands. Yeah, yes, that's like kind of I mean I wouldn't go as far as to say it's like parallel evolution. They're not close enough for that, but it they have these features that are definitely very similar. Yeah, I mean it makes sense, right,

similar conditions. They're both like living in trees, climbing branch. These these guys do not eject their tongue and then hit prey with it, but you know, give me a shot. Sometimes they should hang out and like sort of brainstorm together because you know, it seems like it seems like a good collab to me. Oh my gosh, can you imagine that crossover event? It's I can't, I truly can't.

It's making me go cross side. Maybe we could get the cuss cust to get to develop a nice cask would be the customers, Oh my god, a cask we get we put for like the chameleon gets for the cuss cuss gets a cast. It's this is gonna this is gonna work. We're all eventually going to become some amalgamation of cuss, cuss, chameleon, and crab. I think it's the ultimate, the ultimate form. That's true. It's eventually going to wind up as a crab anyway, So I waste

but a fluffy crab like YETI crab. Yeah, yeah, those actually exist. I was gonna say that I don't think that there is a cuss cuss pokemon. Um, but if there there was, or if they made one, because I'm just saying prime opportunity right here, Like you know, this is definitely a great candidate for one. I was thinking maybe it would be a yeah, it's right there, you guys. It would make a great like grass type, I think because it lives in the trees, so I think it

would be a really cool grass type. That's my thought. Maybe a starter. This would be a great grass starter. And then you could have a move called tail grab where it grabs you with its weird bumpy tail and then it just like picks you out a little bit. You're like, so, Ellen, tell me a story about another Pokemon. Okay, my second pick for a Pokemon is A It's another ground and dragon type. Like you see, I have a I have a an aesthetic that I like. Um, but

it's very, very different. This is a ground and dragon type introduced in the third generation of Pokemon games, which were Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, and it is called flag On. There we go. Yeah, is a really and I could not, like, I could not paint the full picture of flag On without talking about the Pokemon that evolved into flag On. Yeah. Um, so I included the whole like evolutionary line there, I'm looking at these little dudes, I'm looking at them and

I'm loving it. I'm really loving it. And that's already see where I'm going with it. If you're looking at the evolutionary line, you're probably going to talk about this. But one thing that's interesting about Pokemon is like these stages, right, they call it like it evolving, but it's more like a metamorphosis. Right. And with most animals, like uh, most mammals, you know, birds, you kind of start out as like a smaller, more maybe more hairless, and ugly looking version

of the adult self. Of course, there are things that happen, you know, puberty, um and and and changes. Your body may go through changes as you grow, but most animals basically start out or not most animals by numbers, but many of the animals we are familiar with sort of start out as a smaller version of its adult self. But this is not true of insects. They can go through Obviously, we have things that start out as larva

and then metamorphizes into adults, like caterpillars. But there are insects that will go through many stages of nymphs and in stars before they reach their fully mature version, and they can look ridiculously different. Like if you've ever seen a nymph of a ladybug, it's freaky looking, it's spiky, it's scary looking, cute at all, not cute, and then it metamorphosizes metamorphosis. I cannot say it, Danny Kafka. It's a cop casque nightmare that they go through metamorphosis into

a beautiful adult. But uh so when I see a pokemon that is a bug type pokemon, I'm like, yeah, this this is accurate this tracks because it has these very different evolutions. Yeah, a lot of times people like propose changes to like Pokemon's evolution line based on like, well, I think this Pokemon actually looks more like it should evolve into this other Pokemon because the first stage looks

more like the third stage. And while I get what they're going for, where because it looks like a more gradual transition in the real world, that's not you know, you can have a larval form of an animal that looks nothing like it's adult form, which really plays out in flag On, because I will admit, you know, for most of my life, I don't live in a place where the real life flag On lives, so I did not know that it was based on a real animal.

So I'm looking at this evolutionary line from there called Trappinch to Vibrata to flag On, and trap Inch is definitely the odd one out here. Trap Inch looks nothing like it's later evolutions. Yeah, it looks like a little bug turtle. It does. So. Vibrabra and flyg On have these big wings, they have long, thin bodies. They look more more insect like um but they look like dragons, look more like desert dragons. We got the middle stage that looks kind of like a fly with diamonds for wing,

like diamond shaped wings and diamond shaped tail. It kind of looks like it actually looks sort of like a mayflies larval stage with wings. And then the adult version looks like a little dragon but with big bug eyes um. And then like the other and diamond shaped, big diamond shaped wings and a in a big tail. And then the but the babiest version, the most baby of them,

looks like a weird trap bug bug turtle. Yes, yeah, so trappinge, you know, just kind of looks I always thought that it looked like it's head looks kind of like a crab claw. Yeah, you know, like it has these big bear trap jaws that are with this big round head. So I always as a kid, I feel like I really thought it was like a crab. And it was so so confusing to me because I was like, this doesn't it doesn't look anything like what it evolves into, what it grows up into. So I really did not

understand what this evolution line was all about. But it wasn't until like adulthood when I started to learn what more animals were Um that I found out that flagon is based on the real life ant lion. Did not know what ant lions were until very recently, because it makes so much sense, doesn't it. Um. So, as you know, ant lions are insects that live in dry arid regions,

which is not where I live. I live in Florida, which is the opposite of a dry and arid region, so we don't have those where I mushy region Florida lions, I think is called wet and mushy, it's called yucky. Um. But so if you, like me, are new to ant lions and did not grow up with them. Uh. They as an adult they look kind of like a damselfly. Uh for a dragonfly, I think they look like dragonflies. But if you know what damsel flies are, look like those two there's a long, skinny bod with two pairs

of large wings. Um, they're not related. Antlions are not related to damsel flies or dragonflies. It's just a coincidence of convergent evolution, like you were talking about. Um. There are over two thousand species of ant lions, so there's lots of different types of them, including over a hundred of them that live in North America, but lots of them live elsewhere, like in Africa or the Middle East. I think there might be some in Asia, probably um.

But there's lots of different types of antlions, but you can find a lot of them right here in North America where I live, just not in Florida. So trappinch being the baby form of flag on, is based on the larval form of ant lions, which are probably the form that most people are familiar with, because ant lion larva have massive, jagged, sickle shaped jaws and they hold their jaws open like a bear trap at the bottom of a funnel shaped pit that they dig in the

sand by burrowing backwards in a spiral. And when they do this, it's really funny because they're kind of wiggling their butt backwards. They're like torking in a giant spiral like backwards to to dig this little cone shaped m burrow. So they wait with their jaws open. You know. That's how you got to get comfortable in the couch. You can get that little bit but a formulation. So the reason they do this is so that ants who are

just crawling around on the sand none the wiser. They fall down the slope into the funnel that they've created, and then once they hit the bottom, the ant lion snaps its jaws shut and eats the ant so kind of a diabolical situation. I think this is like the inspiration for like the Sarlac from Star Wars, which was in turn, I believe inspired by Dune Um. I'm not unfortunately I have not seen done yet, but it's you

see this in a lot of sci fi. There's a lot of worm like snappy tunneling creatures that that there that have this theme, like the babbitt Uh worm. Yeah, it's got those pincers just like the ant lion. It's a lot longer, a lot longer of a thing. And then yeah, and then it pops out of there, grabs a fish and pulls it in there. It's horrifying, but yeah,

these ant lions. You know, it's interesting because when I was a kid, I played a very different game that involved the ant lion, and that was I think it was just called aunt sim or sim Ant might have been called sim Ant, and it was an ant simulator and you went around as an aunt and basically you were trying to because you were an aunt it was all about the success of the colony, not necessarily one individual ant, which took me a while to learn, because

I would keep going around as one aunt and I kept dying, and I was like, well, I keep dying, and then it's like, oh, no, I can switch to the other ants. And and because you're it's about the success of the ant colony, and one of your nemesis is NEMESSI Nemesis was an ant lion, and you would walk. If you accidentally walked over ground, you had to pay very careful attention to the ground. If you got too close to something that looked like kind of a little indentation,

you would get snapped up, and that was bad. It made me sad. That's incredible. That is such an interesting like mechanic for a video game. So when you were saying that, like you used to play us, I didn't think that you were going to say a video game. I thought you were going to talk about like actually playing with ant lion larva, because like, no, if you if you kind of like look around, a lot of I guess a lot of kids like to play with

ant lion larva. They like to like drop little bugs into their pits and oh my, like as if you if you kind of just like touch the sides of their funnel, then they'll snap their jaws shut because I think they're they're like detecting the vibrations in the sand so you can just get a sandwich. Yeah, like like give it a little something for its troubles. I'm sure that's energetically expensive to snap their jaws shut like that.

But um, so while they're when they're digging their traps, they leave these little trails in the sand that make these little designs, which has earned them the nickname of doodle bug in North America. So some people in doodle bugs, which I guess is like way too cute of a nickname for such a horrifying looking little critter, Like it does not if you just look at a picture of one, they do not look like something you would call a doodle bug. That seems very benign of a name for

the sinister looking creature. Wow, yeah, yeah, it's they are quite sinister. And then they kind of evolve into something more elegant and and pretty. A dragonfly. Yeah, have you heard of a thread wing ant lion? I don't think so. They are weirdoos so they are. It's just kind of like the same situation as the other antlines. Um, they evolve into something that looks like a cross between a

dragonfly and a butterfly. It's quite beautiful. But they start out life like like the antline creepy body, creepy pincer head, but just take that head and put it on a long stick. Like they have this bizarre giraffe head, and uh, it's just the weirdest looking thing. It's like kind of scary when you think about it's pincer head and all these things, but then the fact it's got this long like stick neck, it makes it kind of more goofy

than it is scary. It reminds me of those things that you can get that's like, yeah, like a t rex head on a long things that you pull the trigger and it closes the jaws. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, agree agree. I'm so glad that they have been like, yeah, I'm actually going to do that with my body right, yeah, just like I can't reach well, I don't want to know. She's just soup. Get along your neck. Yeah, that's really funny.

Like I feel like the next time my taller husband puts something up high that I can't reach, and I'm like, well, I've got a trick and just scratch my neck out like two feet up, just go go, gadget neck. Yeah. So if you if you catch a trapp inch in so the trappinches like based on the larva and not the full grown form um. If you catch it in Pokemon ruby, it's Polka dex Entry says trappinches. Nest Is is a sloped, bold like pit dug in the sand. One patiently waits for prey to tumble down the pit.

It's giant jaws have enough strength to crush even boulders. Yeah, so trapped inches a little bit more serious than doodle bug. You don't want to stick your finger in that hole, and that that is the saying of this podcast. You don't want to stick your finger into strange holes. Don't make sure that you're uh super familiar with the hole

you're about to stick your finger into. Yes, um, Pokemon, like Poka x entries are always so over the top like this, like like it has the strength to crush boulders or with guard chump, it's like it's as fast as a jet plane, you know, Like that every Pokemon will it'll be like something the size of a house cat, and they'll be like it can crush a mountain, like they have the most like they're over the top all

the time. It can be also over the top like dramatic, like Cubane is this adorable little dinosaur with like a skull on its head, and it's like this was its mother's skull that it wears on its head to help it sleep at night as it cries. It's like, ohkay, Pokemon, ghost type Pokemon. There are some ghost type Pokemon where like the Polka x enter will be like, yeah, this is a ghost of a person who died. Okay, okay game. This is a game played by kids around the Thanks

Mr mcreel Um. But so you know, I like to think about how like the real world biology of the animal plays out in the game itself. Um, And there is an interesting way that this plays out for trappinch Um. The ant lions spend most of their life in their larval stage. So you're probably more familiar with the larval stage because that's how they spend most of their life.

Once they assume their adult form, where they have wings and look like a dragonfly, they only live like that for about a month, and during that time that I would have expected, actually, because sometimes, yeah, those adult stages can last for like twenty four hours. Yeah, you're really on the clock is taking for at that point. But they can survive off of nectar and pollen while they're in their adult forms, so they have a little bit

of time. They got about a month. Um. But I think that that like lengthy larval stage is referenced in trap inches life cycle in the game. It doesn't evolve so like it takes the next form until level thirty five, which is far above average for the first of a

three stage evolution line UM. I checked Bulbapdia and Bulba Pda says that the average the average level for the first stage of a three stage evolution is about twenty three, so it's twelve levels higher than the average UM So it does take quite a while to train a trap Inch up all the way into a flag on. So I think that's like an interesting nod to like the real ant lions life cycle, Like, oh yeah, it's gonna stay a baby for most of its life. I think

it's pretty cool. Yeah, I like it when they just like incorporate that into the game. Mechanics. Yeah, the next the last Pokemon I have to talk about. There's a very interesting way that ecology plays into the game. I really can't wait to talk about it. Well, I'm excited, so I'm going to take a break to scream in excitement, which you guys don't want to hear. Uh, And then I'll be and then we'll be right back. Oh, I can't scream. I have a baby in the other room.

I'm screaming in my heart. What's that thing from? Like that Japanese side where it's like, please scream inside your heart, scream inside your heart? Thank you? So tell me about the Pokemon. Okay, I for my grand finale, I have a really interesting pokemon that is actually a new one. Um. This is a poison and water type pokemon introduced in Gen seven, which were Sun and Moon, whose were actually

like somewhat recent games. These pokemon are called Marini and Toxic pex m. I dropped a couple of pictures of them for you. Like that they are such like almost silly looking pokemon, but in a very interesting way, they're like endearing I think. So. These Pokemon both have these thick, spiky tentacles that sprout out from their heads. So in Marini, which is like the baby version, they resemble hair I think they look like Medusa if she had like thorny

tentacles instead of snakes for her hair um. And then in toxo Pex, they form a dome around the pokemon's body, and the pokemon's actual body is like, really really small. It's like a small body suspended inside of a dome made out of spiky tentacles. It looks like an umbrella, but with like that can move like across a tween and an umbrella and like ap peeled banana. Yeah for sure, I see that, and a little angry dude in the middle of it. Inside. Oh yeah, he looks all mad.

He's got jagged teeth talks. Pex is kind of silly looking inside of his little dome. But the reason for this is that both of these pokemon's designs are based on the real life Crowd of Thorns Starfish love this creature. Well, I mean, I love him when he's doing the right thing. So the crowd of Thorne's starfish, like their Pokemon counterparts, have many arms. They can have up to twenty one arms. Um starfish don't only have don't only come in that like five raid form, but I think is the most

common that you'll see. They could have tons of arms, um. You know, they can come in so many different shapes and sizes, but the crown of thorns starfish has up to one max I think is the highest number ever recorded. Um. And then all of those arms that they have are covered in venomous spikes, which is why marinas are part poison type UM. So you can see that like play out in the Pokemon. So for the crowd of thorn starfish, the venomous spikes protected from predators makes it really difficult

for things to chomp them up. Yeah, I feel like I like to eat seafood that has fewer venomous spikes than the one you guys have fewer, not none, but yeah, I mean you got to keep a few in there to like make it a little spicy. That's how it's a cannopy. You can pick it up by the spikes. But this this is just Yeah, they are really not an inviting meal, but they themselves are predators. And crayon is coral polyps um. I don't know if you've talked

about coral. Yeah, I do. The sort of massive mating sex events of coral some of the biggest mass mating events where it's just just disgusting. And the polyps of that that coral r and D living creatures and in their larval stage will settle down on a reef and eventually grow into the weird mineral like organisms that we know. But yeah, they do not. They do not start out life as sessile, as sedentary. They start out life moving

around and trying to find a place. Yeah. So um that is the coral polyps are absolutely the bread and butter for the start the crown of thorn starfish, that's their favorite meal. And they do this in a really gross way, like they eat the coral. This is kind of like how starfish eat, but I think it's nasty

and some kids might find it interesting. So they eat by puking their guts out out literally, so they take their insides and make them outsides by just like vomiting their guts out through the middle of their body through uh. I believe the technical term is their mouth butt um, I think, but the scientific term is their mouth. But because they just have the it's just the one hole right for everything um going in coming out. It's just just the one central sort of portal to inside of

the starfish, so all purpose utility hole. Yeah, it's just the one hole. So they invert their insides out through this hole, and then they wrap their guts around the coral and digest the tissue around their skeleton and eat them like that. When you see a piece of dead coral, even it may feel like this sort of hard rocky thing with all these little like divots in it um.

But when that coral is alive, each of those divots is going to hold a little pall up and these little polyps kind of it's like like little tiny sea an enemy. I mean, like some coral can actually grow to be bigger, so the polyps are visible and larger and more flower like. But for some of these coral like it just looks like sort of fuzz. But that fuzz is made up of all these individual little polyps that look like these little teeny tiny trees but or

or an enemies. But they are alive, and so when they do get peaked on by the starfish they do that does kill the polyps straight up, not having a good time. And and there is a pokemon based on coral. It is called Corsela. It was introduced in the second generation, so it's actually been around for a long time. Um and this plays out in a very interesting way in

the games in which Marini intoxic pecks were introduced. Um So in the Sun and Moon games, there is this mechanic called an s O S battle where if you're in a battle with a wild Pokemon and the wild Pokemon has been injured and is running low on health, it may call for help from an ally, so it may you know, call in a buddy to join its

team and fight against you. So if you're in a battle with a wild Corsela, which is the coral Pokemon, it may call for help from an ally, which could summon another Corsela, which would then join the battle against you the player. Or sometimes it may alert instead of a of an ally corsela, it alerts a marine, which joins the battle, but it attacks Corsela instead of attacking you. I think that if you attack the Marini, then it will then like attack you in retaliation, but until you

attack it, it will attack Corsela instead. So that is, as far as I know, the only like Pokemon interaction in which an s OS battle will like call a hostile Pokemon. Um. But just I think that is just absolutely such an interesting little like nod to ecology in the game of course, Oh no, Corsela isn't trouble. Oh come help me another Corsela. And then a Marina is like, oh, that's my prey. I'm going to join this battle, which I love because that's one of the risks in the

Animal Kingdom. Of course, not not necessarily with coral because they don't uh, they don't call to each other necessarily, but like the like when you have an animal who has a call to its conspecifics, that is, other members of its own species, it does risk telling a predator,

Hey I'm over here. Yeah, so, and I just think it's like an interesting way to help people like learn ecology, Like oh now I know that like starfish eat coral because I played the game and I saw it happen, you know, Like, I think that's one of the coolest things they did in that game. I love that. I

love that so much. Yeah, and and this there's one other way that Marini and toxic Pex in the game mirror like real life Krown of Thorn starfish, and that is that they can have a passive hidden ability, and that's called regenerator restores some of them. So in the game it restores some of their health when they're switched out of battle. Uh. And this is a reference to the crown of thorns starfish is ability to regenerate its own limbs. It's not as easy in real life. It's

a while. Yeah, it takes around six months from the times you have sort of this weird baby short limb in the meantime, a little nub of like in the Deadpool movie. Um, where it's like growing the limb back and it's like tiny for a while. Um. But I saw that in some rare cases they have actually bounced back from being cut in half. You can cut the whole starfish in half and they just grow a new starfish.

So um. In this this has caused some problems in the situation in which okay, so, in in normal healthy numbers, crown of thorn starfish play really important role in regulating the population of coral to make way for new growth. Um. So it's important to have them around in normal numbers. But in some cases the starfish is population can boom

and you have way too many crown of thorn starfish. UM. So this could result from things like overfishing of their predators, like the giant triton is a fish that eats them a lot, so if you over fish the triton, they have fewer predators, there's more starfish. But it can also happen from an excess of nutrients in the water, so farmland can run off into the water, and then starfish larva are like, oh delicious, Yes, lots of nutrients in the water, so then you have more starfish making it

into adulthood. Or it could be weakened currents, like with if current change and currents are weaker, they're not pushing the larva around, and then starfish larva get concentrated in a small area. So all of these factors kind of play into these outbreaks of crown of thorne starfish which can actually which can just completely devastate a coral reef. I saw a stat that said they could strip away up to nine of the living coral tissue on a reef,

so um, big problem. And then you know, I was reading about how some people have tried to tackle this crown of thorne starfish outbreak, and one of the things that did not work was trying to cut the starfish in half. Tried to cut them in half to kill them,

and that just made more of them. So don't try. Yeah, that's kind of the hydress situation, you know, where you're like, I'll chop off this head, and then two more grow and you're like, all right, I'll chop off those heads, and then at a certain point you're like, Hercules, my dude, my poor dummy, my himbo, you gotta stoptop heads. He really was the original. He sent the blueprint, he did

the lovable Himbo. So so don't pull the hercules and don't get starfish in half, and take care of the environment. It's it's delicate. Yeah, that was actually a big theme in like in more recent Pokemon games. There have been some major like ecology like environmentalist themes in the narratives

of more recent games like Gen seven and eight. Um like they really went in they even like I didn't compile notes on this, but there are like conflicts between like invasive species because the Moon games were like kind of based on Hawaii, so you see this problem of like invasive species hunting native species. And then like there's like diverse like Pokemon have different forms based on like

where they're where they're born. It's so interesting, Like more recent games have gotten so creative and incorporated so many interesting themes of like real life zoology. That is just fascinating. If you really like zoology, I feel like you could go either way, Like having a passion for zoology could get you really into Pokemon, or having a passion for

Pokemon could get you really into zoology. I feel like that's just a lot of Pokemon is a gateway drug for zoology, and zoology is a gateway drug for Pokemon. Pokemon is like how biologists like set up a candy van outside of a school where they're like, hey, kids, you want to turn and then when you get close, they kidnap you and take you to a biology teach you knowledge like some kind of sick freak. Oh dare

they so? Yeah? I mean I feel like a childhood spent playing Pokemon played an important role in my development for a passion in zoology. And you know this, these I feel like these are just some examples of like what you can actually learn from Pokemon. Yeah, no, I love that. And I feel like this is kind of a coincident or kismet, but an animal that I want to nominate as a pokemon is another marine animal, and it is the conch or or conk or uh sea snail.

So you may only know the conch for its beautiful shell, or I guess Lord of the Flies, or I guess that one episode of SpongeBob where they have the talking, magical talking conch shell. Um. But I feel like if you have a decorative shell, it's probably conk shell, right, Yeah, you've seen it. Um. So the shell is very pretty, but in the ocean, it has live animals in it. So conscious are shells of a variety of large sea snails.

So the Queen conch has that pretty pink and cream shell that is so famous, But there are many species of sea snails that have these that are called you know consch uh conscious so uh sadly because of those pretty shells, and also because their meat is I guess apparently delicious. Uh, they are often fished and harvested to sell. So um. The problem with taking these animals out of the environment is one you know, any time you hunt or fish something, if you do it to excess, then

you can depopulate them. And also these conscious are very important uh in their environments, so they provide a home for a lot of different marine life. So there are I mean, it's obviously the shell is its own home that the sneak sea snail grew all by itself. Um, but it also is a home for other animals like porcelain craw slipper snails and cardinal fish who will cohabitate with the sea snail while it's still alive. And this is a commence a relationship because they neither hurt nor

really help the snail. So they're just kind of couch surfing. Uh, they don't pay rent, but you also don't really notice them. So but they also buy their own food, so it's not that big a deal. They're not stealing your resources, you know, not stealing anything, but they're just kind of couch surfing and they clean up after themselves. Um yeah. And then after the conch dies, the snail inside of this shell dies. Their shells can be used by hermit crabs.

Even the larger species of conscience can be used by giant hermit crabs. So these shells, while they may look very pretty above your mantle or something, they are actually really important to the environment. So while it doesn't necessarily hurt, like when one person takes a shell, obviously one to have a whole industry, and it's these are being collected for their shells and being bought and sold, and you

know that presents a problem. And so even though the queen conch uh that one with that really pretty pink shell, it's not necessarily endangered globally speaking, but in certain areas it is. So that's important. It's significant because when an animal is starting to be threatened in a specific location, that can cause that whole small ecosystem in that area to have problems. So even if it has no like, the conscience's not gonna go extinct necessarily because it's got

many different populations. But if that population, uh, you know, goes extinct, then then all these benefits that it provides to other animals in that area, either as shelter or as food, uh, is suddenly lacking. And so other animals in that area may run into two problems. Their populations may even be threatened. Um, so these are very important animals. But that's not even why I'm nominating it as a pokemon. It's because it is so goofy looking. It looks like

a cartoon. It's it's the eyes. It's the googly eyes. So these shells have been so long and sort of our consciousness is just these decorative things. You don't even think of it as having a live animal in it, litt alone one with like cartoonish googly picks our eyes. So they have two eyeballs on long eyestalks, and the eyeballs have pupils pupils and colored irises which make them

look like, you know, picks our eyeballs. Yeah, they look kind of human like cartoons, which is not something that feels. It feels a little unsettling seeing it come from like a snail with human eyeballs. It's a little uncanny. But I think they kind of pull it off a little bit because like it's so goofy looking. It looks like if you kind of shook it around, which please don't do, but it looks like it would make sort of rattling

sound like as these eyeballs walk around. Yeah, but you know, just the most the cute like Gary from SpongeBob, but in real life and sort of different anatomy. So these I stalks are pretty interesting themselves. They have a little sensory tentacle on them below each eye. Um. It also has a long proboscis between the eye stalks where the mouth is located. So we're all about those weird proboscis is on this show today, like the modom Modo turtle

that had that. Yeah, I love a proboscis. Uh and uh so they will use this weird long mouth to eat green algae mostly. Um So you can often see these googly eyes just kind of peeking out of the conch shell or even like the whole proboscis ey stock combination kind of poking out. I highly encourage you to look at images of it. I've included those in the show notes stock and you can just google conscience plus eyeballs and you will find so many great results. So,

uh it has it's pretty cute. I will think that I'll give it that. It's pretty cute. I've given keys. I mean I wouldn't, but you know, they're like the fact that they look like they're kind of peeking around the corner, and that's why it's cute. It's just like shyly peeking, Yeah, just kind of peeking out of their shell, not too sure if they're going to come out, just scoping out the area. Uh, but yeah, it's it's overall

anatomy is kind of weird. So it's got a foot, as snails do, so that that foot is that flat base of the snail, and on the back end of the foot they have a claw called the aperculum, which in terrestrial snails that is flat and hard, and that is used as a trap door to close up the entrance of the snail shell. And this helps seal in moisture because land snails still needs they still need moisture to be able to breathe and function. But uh, when conditions dry out, they can just kind of close this

little door on themselves and then keep that inside. But in the cunch snails, it is actually not flat. It is talent like it looks like a big claw, and despite it looking like a claw, it's actually not used aggressively. It is used for locomotion for this punch to move around, so it digs the talon into the sand and that anchors the snail so it can basically thrust the rest of itself forward, so it's basically whole vaulting around every

time it walk. So grappling hook sort of thing, Yeah, like a grappling hook but backwards, because it's like it puts it behind it and then uses it to throw itself forward like backwards ice pick climbing, which sounds very difficult, like a like ski poles live in Florida. I'm sorry, I don't know ski terminology to push yourself into. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, now that that's that's right. Um, that's how that's how

skiing does it. Yeah. Or if you're like me, holding them awkwardly as you as you whimper softly going down a bunny slope, its thought that they do this really weird locomotion to make it harder for the counch to be tracked by prey because they're not leaving like a trail. They might be leaving weird like indentations, but they're not leaving like a chemical trail of slime or goo or anything, so it's they're untrackable, like the Jason Bourne of weird

goofy animals. You know. Snails are known for being super stealthy, especially this one just thumping its way through the sand pole vaulting around so unlike many other snails, conscious are actually gonna achoristic, meaning that they are either female or male. In contrast, a lot of snails are hermaphroditic, meaning that each individual is both male or and female at the

same time. It's a little different there. And the penis of the male conscience is this weird little tentacle with a leaflike protrusion on the end, so, you know, just strange, interesting all around top to the bottom. It's a weird guy. Yeah. And while I was talking about the queen conscience earlier, this general anatomy is also true of other species of conchi snail who also have the lovely little googly eyes

and weird long snouts. They're all very adorable looking, and they all have very different, beautiful, beautiful shells, which I think, uh kind of gives you a lot of material to work with for a Pokemon, because you can have a shiny version, different versions of these lovely, lovely pokemons. And they could also host like smaller Pokemon inside their shells, because that happens in nature too. You know, you could summon a Pokemon from inside of its shell, some kind

of crab like Pokemon. Yeah, maybe it would have a mega evolution where something else pops out and like to Pokemon exactly. And it also it comes with its own poke ball. Oh my gosh, yeah, you're right, it does. Can you imagine just throwing a conk shell into battle? Like I choose you picks Pisa, It's little eyeball down, It's like, no, thank you. But yeah, know, even though its claw is not really used aggressively, it's used for

moving around. I don't see why I couldn't use it to like slap around Pikachu, you know what I mean. Certainly potential there, I know that, like, especially because like when you're designing a Pokemon, you're already taking some artistic liberties with like actual animal anatomy, so you might as well just give it like a giant combat claw, like

it's right there, Yeah, exactly, I do. But I do feel like this, if if you were to make a Pokemon out of a conk, I feel like it would be more of it would play more of a tank role in the team, where it would probably be like very high defense, very low speed. It's more for like taking Like it's more for like absorbing damage and like taking a lot of hits, right, Because I feel like it would probably be very withdrawn into its shell, So I think it would probably be like a high defense,

high HP, maybe low attack and low speed. I feel like that would maybe be the spread you're you're looking at, like the stat spread you're looking at for a conk Pokemon. Yeah, and it could have an attack called like hard stare, where it just like pokes its eyeballs out of its shell and makes the enemy feel really bad about attacking at Yeah, there are quite a few like creepy stair based Pokemon moves. There's mean look, um, which I believe prevents you from being able to switch out of battle.

I think there's a move called glare. I don't remember what it's called stink I there might as well be. I'm already like crafting this Pokemon's move set in Well, uh, we we cannot rewrite the we we cannot create a new Pokemon game just yet. Um, because before we go, we have to play a game. Um guess who's squawking the mystery animal sound game? So first I will reveal the answer to last week's mystery squawker. So, just as a refresher, here was the hint. It may be related

to an elephant. But you're in for a surprise when you see who's saying hello. So I will play this sound now kind of sounds like a peculiar sound, like a little little like he's saying hello, but really angrily. It sounds like he's coughing. Hmm. Do I get to take a guess? Yeah, take a guess, go for it. Was that a higher rax? Yes, it was. Congratulations Ellen, and I did it. You did in Congratulations to Auntie B, sarah In and Houl guests from Twitter who also correctly

guessed hierax. Amazing animal detective work, guys. So this is a rock hix. So rock hiraxes may look like overgrown gophers or some kind of cat sized rodent, but they are actually in the same clade as elephants, wooly mammoths, and manatees. So what's interesting is I actually did get some gisses about manatees, which is very smart, guests, because they are also related to elephants, and they also make noises. But these are the kinds of sounds that manatees make.

There's also these kinds of sounds. All right, I think I kind of enough weird noises. So they make a bunch of weird noises under the water. To a Florida girls ears, Yes, they communicate squeaks, chirps, and grunts and farts, so not a bad guess at all, but in this case it was a rock hierax. So rock hiras is

also have a variety of sounds they make. That barking grunt that we heard that sounded like a cough or some kind of weird angry hello was probably a warning that he's a tough guy and he will not tolerate any nonsense. Another common sound is a shriek they make that sounds very chilling, but it is actually, uh surprisingly innocuous. Sounds kind of like a cross between a blood curdling scream and air being slowly lit out of a balloon. I was thinking it sounds like your tea's ready does

a little bit, doesn't it. But this is used by the hot rock hiracks to communicate with other hiras Is about their location. So a little bit of info about the rock hiras. They live in rocky regions in Africa and the Middle East. They are herbivores and they can

eat plants that are deadly to us, like nightshade. They are highly social and can live in colonies as small as five individuals or up to eighty individuals, and there are different species of higher axes that can live together communally, so there are rock and bush hier axes too similar but different species that can coexist in the same colonies.

They'll even cuddle with each other. Uh, And cuddling is very important because they actually don't thermoregulate as well as other mammals, and they need the warmth of the sun or other cuddly little higher ax bodies to keep their bodies at a good temperature. So sometimes you'll just have

these piles of higher axes cuddling in the sun. It's adorable and a little hint that they are indeed related to elephants distantly, but uh, they are still in the same clade is that their front incisors are long and pointy and kind of tusk like, so you can't see it when their mouths are closed, but when they open their mouths, you see these little tiny tusks, and it it gives you a clue of how they share a

common ancestor with elephants. So you grow out those tusks, you give them a longer snoot, bigger feet, stretch out their ears, lose that fur, and maybe gain about six tons and you hide yourself an elephant. Baby, you've got an elephant going there you go and so yes, So that is the story of the higher ecks. Congratulations everyone on their great guesses. So onto this week's mystery animal sound. This bald beauty is found in the forests north of

the Amazon River. It's named for its friar like appearance. But don't confuse them for another monk like animal, because this mystery squawker is not monkeying around. Huh. This is a tough one, very weird sound. Um. I don't really have any great guesses. It sounds like a bird to me. Honestly, if you just completely ignoring the clues that you gave, but just based purely on the sound it makes it sounds to me like a poe too. Hmm. Interesting, like the poe too bird, which does not fit with any

of the clues that you gave. Tragically. Um, so I don't think that's it, but that is what it sounds like to me. Is a po to? It is not, I'll tell you that much. That's I guess. That's another hint for everyone. It is not a po to, not po too. But the answer to this week's mry animals sound will be resolved in dramatic a dramatic conclusion next Wednesday on the next episode of Creature Feature. And thank you so much for joining me today. It was a real treat having you on the show. Tell folks where

they can hear hear more from you about animals, of course. Yeah, I think. First of all, thank you so much, Katie. This has been so much fun. I really love y'all show, so it's been really get to actually be on it. This is so exciting. Um. Like you mentioned earlier, our podcast is called Just the Zoo of Us. Sometimes I do episodes with my husband, but sometimes we bring on guests who may be scientists or researchers or zookeepers or

people that are experts in animals. And what we do is we review animals by rating them out of ten in different categories being effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. Um, that sounds cool to you. Come check us out where on Spotify and iTunes all the other places that you get your podcasts. Um, we're over on the Maximum Fun network, which you can find at maximum fun dot org where you can listen to us and the other Maximum bun shows. So that's where you can find us. Thank you guys

so much for joining me today. If you think you have a guest to the Mystery Animal sound game, you can write to me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com, Creature feature Pod on Instagram, or Creature feet Pod on Twitter. That's f T nott epet. That is something very different, uh, and thank you guys so much. And thank you to the Space Classics for their super

awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio or more podcasts like the one you just heard is the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or Hey guess one? Where have you listen to your favorite shows. I'm not judging you, I'm not staring at you from the corner of a Conchell. See you next Wednesday.