Starwar Animals

But I bet good old Mother Nature has whipped up some animals are even weirder than what you can find in a Star Wars. We'll look at some of the habits of real life porks, find ourselves unable to hide from a monster scarier than the starl pit, and explore the world of an adorable alien looking antelope. Discover this and more as we answer the angel question, why does Fluke Skywater have hundreds of lightsabers? Is it to throw a Jedi rave? So why does everybody love Star Wars.

I'm not talking about any movie or trilogy in particular, but even when people are mad at Star Wars it's because they love some aspect of Star Wars and they get frustrated when it's not Star Wars ng the way they want it to. What causes this intense passion? Well, Harvard law professor cast Sunseten argues that Star Wars is

about behavioral psychology. The popularity of a New Hope, he claims, was due, in part two, informational cascades, where people base their decisions on the decisions made by other people, like limings going off a cliff, or in this case, people lining up at the theater, causing rumors to spread about long lines, causing more people to line up at the theaters, and so on. However, limings don't actually follow each other

off cliffs. That's a misinformation campaign against lemmings. Likewise, not all of Star wars popularity is due to people being sheep or do backs. I'm not actually sure what the Star Wars version of sheep are, but to me, the success of Star Wars is due to two basic ingredients. A solid hero story where we feel like we could be Luke Skywalker, poles eyeing womper outs from our t sixteens back at home, rising from irrelevance to save the galaxy.

But the second part of its success is the rich creature filled universe were dropped into, getting to discover completely new animals, beings, and ecological biomas. A diverse painting of Star Wars monsters and critters isn't just I candy. In the original Star Wars, we got a sense of history with these alien creatures, that they had complex behaviors and evolutionary stories. Today, I want to celebrate this aspect of Star Wars by revealing that, hey, we kind of live

in a Star Wars. The animals right here on Earth are just as insane, if not more so then the things concocted by a caffeinated George Lucas jo me today to have a Star War is actor, writer and film analyst Maggie may Fish. Hello, I'm so excited to have you for this one. I'm so excited to told me what it was about. So yeah, I knew you would love this one, and I feel like you will bring so much the conversation because I like I like a

Star Wars, star like a Star Wars. I don't think I've delved into the mythos probably as much as you have. I mean, well, actually, as you were talking. I did remember that growing up I had it was like a fake biology book. But it's all about Star Wars. That is so cool. Yeah, I actually was. It was too in depth for me to understand as a kid. So I just looked at the phone. Love that. I love

that so much. I I when I was a kid, I would sort of draw pictures of fake animals and you know, all sorts of animal habits for them and mating rituals and all that ritual I was an innocent kid, so I didn't. I just when they sing songs to each other and they get married and then somehow babies. I don't know important though. But so first I want to talk about Porgs because they're one of my I

know that the new Star Wars is pretty controversial. It's got its ups and down, twist turn sideways is us, some plot things that maybe aren't great, some plot things that seemed like exactly that it's a war. We're doing a fast knock on a star war. Uh. Yeah, But Porgs are I think perfect. I think that they did a perfect job on that. Yeah. As when the last one came out, I saw a lot of tweets going

around that was like thank Ryan Johnson for porgs. Just thank him because they weren't needed, and they were there anyways. You know, actually they were necessary in terms of the cinematography. So they the part of Star Wars where Luke was a grump. So like Ray, the new Jedi, goes to Luke to get training, but Luke is old and crotchety, and he's like, I'm tired of Star Wars, get off, Get off of my rock. And this rock is actually uh skelling Michael, I hope that's I'm pronouncing. I was

actually just there about like two months ago. Yeah, we went to where they filmed those scenes in Ireland. Yeah. Yeah, it's off the coast of Ireland. It's just a big craggy rock in the middle of the ocean. It's actually the roosting spot for a ton of puffins. And when they filmed it, they're like, this is the perfect rock for us to put Luke. But there's so many puffins here. We can't edit out all the puffins. So instead of

editing them out, they just turned them into pork. Those are my favorite film stories where like there's this huge obstacle and then through creativity they kind a way to like make work. You know that? To me, I think that is sort of like the Mother of creation is like when you get a random animal that you just can't edit out of the films, Like, I guess we got to work with you. How would you describe a porg? It is a I would say a penguin, A puffin, and a pug. That's what it is. Lastly, the thing

in the face is a pug. But I do I do have a couple of animals that people may not have heard of that I think are very poor glike. So, but first you want to talk about puffins, I do, I do want to talk about because puffins are pretty great. I think even without adding a like a pug face to a puff and they're already pretty awesome. So puffins are a group of species of ac or. They're these small seabirds and actually there used to be a larger version of this called the great ac but they are extinct.

They they they're sleeping with the fishes now that so they're almost are I feel like a lot of large versions of animals that used to be are extinct. Yes, probably because we're the top predator and so yeah, I mean it's I mean part of it is resource Like, when you're bigger, you require more resources, and it can be harder for you to find that ecological niche without going extinct. And yeah, I mean you're also probably because you're bigger, maybe you don't have as many many chicks

per per season and such. So it's like you're you're kind of putting all your eggs about it. One big old Bassay. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of my audience is already already used to me being their dad. Um, it's fine, I'm everybody's dad. I'll be your dad. My dad is great, but you was good. Both. We can be co dad. It's fine. Everyone's welcome onboard the Dad train. So all living species of ox can fly in the

air and underwater, including puffins. And I want to show you this because it's incredible to see that little little flapping creature that is a puffin just flying underwater. Oh my god, it looks it's different from what you would expect that you kind of you don't think of when you think of. What I realized researching this is that when I try to picture penguins or puffins swimming, I just picture them diving. I didn't really picture them flapping underwater,

but that is exactly what they do. Yeah, so, and they kind of like jet it's almost like they flapp and then write it for a while. Yeah, and they're extremely nimble. They're totally comfortable underwater, but they can't walk, so good good And oh you're not so you're not too jealous, right there, there's they nurfed that stat a little bit. So there are three species of puffins. The Atlantic puffin, which is the most iconic. I think it's like the puffin you think of. It's the puffin on

that trigger Joe's cereal, remember puffins? Yeah, uh, it's then there's also the horned puffin and the tufted puffin. So first the Atlantic puffins. They are the smallest and they're about a foot long and way about twelve ounces one dollar foot. Don't eat puffins, Well, some people eat puffins, and that's okay, But well if you do already eating already, that's fine, but don't don't. Yeah, don't don't like accumulate

the habit of eating puffins. Right, Yeah, But they live in the North Atlantic or Northern European skin naving, Canadian and Northern American coasts. Uh so kind of up in that, like you know, colder northern area. They will fly to Morocco and New York in the winter, fly south to escape some of the big coldness. So they're they're like rich people in the east. You know. They go to Oxford during and then we summon in Morocco, you know.

So they have brightly colored orange, black and yellow beaks, white faces and bellies and black backs in a black hood like that kind of wearing a tuxedo. I mean, these are like rich. These are the These are very bougiebirds right there, like the sons of like the right. They're zuckerbirds. Oh my god, I'm gonna I'm gonna kill Maggie in this episode. She's just gonna like choke and then fall over too many bonds. Okay, I killed her with my dad powers. It's like it's like the force

choke but it's Dad. But it's just cut your circulation. Let me show you a picture of these guys. They're very, very cute, just a little dude. They are so iconic. They must be on I think there was a national geographic that was pretty popular with their face on it, and it's like burned into my it's it's very iconic. And they've got those kind of like triangle eye situation. They have a little bit of a cat's eye, but it's going directly up, which is really you know, I

don't innovative. You may not have heard of the other two species of puffins, so the horn puffin. Let me show you a picture of these guys, because they're they're pretty cool. They're I don't know if you've heard of these guys, but they're pretty cool. They're pretty cool. Look at that guy's eyeliner. They are very cool. Looks like Lady Gaga, like it's very Gaga asked, Yes, it's so that horn is actually really interesting. So they are about fifteen inches long and a little over pounds. A little

bigger than the Atlantic puffin. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, it's like like but pork size. I guess it's a handful. Yeah, A good a good puffin full you know, hand of puffin solid kind of yeah. And they live in the North Pacific and they winter south to California and Baja California, so more of these bougiebirds. They have a larger beak, like vertically it kind of is taller than the Atlantic puffin.

Their beak is light yellow near the face and tipped and orange, and they have that really dramatic eyeliner going straight up and it's actually a it's not eyelashes. It's actually a fleshy extension like kind of horn that grows out of their eyelid. And they're they're just like these little little d dadsting. Yeah, what is the purpose of that on their face? As far as I know, I think it's just sexual selection. It's I think that, Yeah,

they're they're fancy coloration. It's kind of like their beak is so brightly colored to all all puffins have that really brightly colored beak for sexual selection, and they actually shed that beak in off mating seasons because and then it's all right. So it's like it's like bright during the mating seasons and they shed it and regrow it, and when they're not mating, it's dullark because they you know, they're regrowing it and they don't need it to ben

all the time. Like when I wear my pajamas around outside, right, I don't at me. I like fancy. I like fancy, like day to night pajamas. You know, like like sequin pajamas. Yeah, it's just it's pajamas. But no one knows, no one has to know. So next are the tufted puffins. I feel like these are especially dramatic puffins. So they've got hello yes, uh and he looks like Bradley Cooper. What they have these big old tufts of feathers coming off of the sides of their faces. So uh, they're They're

also a little bigger than the Atlantic puffin. They they're almost two pounds. My god, you could fit half funny, you could like weight lift these puffins for a mild exercise, for mild slash not at all exercise. Listen, everybody's got their own goals, all right, everybody sets their own goals. I'm comparing myself to me, not to anybody your year's goal,

because your resolutions coming. So they also live in the North Pacific, and they have black bodies with a white face mask and these two tufts of feathers just shooting off. And you don't like the twilights in in Star Wars. Are the twilight Yes, yes, you know how they have those flushing the flushbarns, the head tails that come off. It looks exactly like that. Yeah, weird, right? Who was the real star war the whole time? Star Wars are puffins?

What came first? The animal or George? Yeah? I don't know. So some quick puffin facts too, because like, puffins aren't just a pretty face with crazy dongles coming off their heads. Puffins are unusual in that they don't they have little sexual dimorphism, meaning that both males and females have the pretty bright coloration, which is that's fun, that is fun. It's usually usually the male birds are the ones putting on all the effort and all the makeup, and it's

just nice to see some gender parody there. And they eat mostly small fish like herring, and they can dive into the ocean almost two hundred feet underwater. Just I have no visual concept for that, but it sounds like it's a lot of feet. About two hundred feet feet is about two dred I can't picture, but it seems like a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. I mean if if one puffin is about a foot, puffin lengths yeah. Uh. They can also carry huge numbers of fish in their

little beaks. They can carry tin fish per trip. Sometimes they can carry even more, but tins about their average and they have these rasping, hooked tongues, large bill and these denticles which means tooth like projections coming off of their beak. So if you look inside the puffin beak, you pop open the hood of a puffin and it's

it's kind of gnarly. Yeah, it looks like an alien. Yeah, it's like it's like it's got these cute, chubby cheeks and cute little eyeliner and then it's just got like, I don't know, like a xeno morph coming out of its face. Puffin. Other here's some other stats about puffins. They can flap their wings up to four times per minute in the air. Pretty impressive. I think that's not No,

that's not gonna do it. Yeah. During mating season, thousands of Puffins gathered together on Rocky coastlines to breed and to interrupt Star Wars shoots. Oh yeah, hey, well you know what a better what a more romantic date and being onset as new Star Wars Like, look, Maureen, there should his doar wartar war? Sh would just do war? That's great? Should we go some royal? Oh? Just do

it here? Okay? You and they are they are sweet birds because they often remain monogamous, sometimes up to twenty years, which is about their lifespan. That's the lifespan of marriages. You want it, put a wing on it. That's a oh god, I've killed her. Uh. Mackie Mayfish was a much beloved YouTuber and film analyst who sadly passed away after being dadded to death. My parents would not mourn me. Well, i'm your dad now so here maybe this will bring

you back to life. A baby puffin is called a puffling. Stop. I won't stop. I will not stop. Just to quickly get through the sad things. Is that seagulls like to eat them sometimes? Is there that's actually interesting? Yeah, you would think they'd be on the same team. But now birds, birds, they're all in it for number one, I think if

we've learned anything about birds. But another thing that threatens the puffin is over fishing in pollution, and there's been an alarming decline in the Shetland puffin population off the coast of Scotland. So yeah, I mean we should care about the puffins. Yes, they're not gone yet, They're they're not going on away anytime soon. But there you know, we gotta care keep an eye out. Let's uh you know, I Katie will go say, just march on out there. Your dad's here to say, your kids. I oh, I'd

love to be the daddy of all the Puffins. That would be just your kids, like, come to me, my pufflings. Look, my army of Pufflings have arrived. So to get a porg, we have sort of the The Puffin body is pretty pretty apparent in the porg. I mean they had to I guess, sort of match the Puffins pretty closely for the filming. But you also, I think there's a couple of animals who's got that face the face cuteness. So first is the Japanese dwarf flying squirrel. They are these

adorable big eyed squirrels. Oh my god, I don't think I've ever seen this. It doesn't look real right, No, it looks like it looks like Thumper the bunny bandy. Yeah, it's got huge, like cartoonishly big eyes, and it's just it's adorable. It seems like it's almost as if it evolved to be torrible. There's no way you wouldn't need me. You wou much more satisfy. It's like they have the cute face, but they didn't really evolve the voice to match.

So they live in the subalpine and boreal forests of Japan. They're about five inches eight inches, not not big, not big, and they weigh about half a pound, a little under half a pound, little guys. Yeah, okay about this, yeah about baseball. Sometimes they're used as baseballs now, which is why Japan. It's pretty good. So they are very fluffy, with light gray fur on their backs and white tummies and fluffy tails. And as their name should suggests, they

can kind of fly. Well, it's more like controlled falling. So they have a peta geum, which is a membrane of skin between their little four limb ankles in their their hind feet ankles, and they can stind that out and glide down like like a person in a body flying. What's it called a flight suit? Flight suit? The light suit. Yeah, also buzz Lightyear falls of a style. I see, Yes, exactly they are. They really are the buzz light Years of the animal kingdom. The probably actually a lot more

adept than buzz Lightyear. Probably very helpful. No, what did he even do? Nothing? Nothing? Garbagebage, garbage calls to sturb he did, cause he did make what he developed as a character, which I guess is good. Yes, here's a video of one of these these guys, and it is extremely cute. They just kind of, yeah they can. They love. They love jumping around, jumping from a tall man to a short man. That's what they're sort of cost playing his trees, I guess to help the help the flying

squirrel feel more at home. Another little little animal that I think is pretty pretty poorglike is the Desert rain frog. And I've talked about this guy on the show before, but I think it is an animal that bears repeating. It's not a bear, it's a frog, but repeating so it makes a very very cute sound. So so you know the little pork. Uh. This I think is even cuter. And here's a picture of one of one of these guys. It is basically just a frowning bubble. Oh, I love it.

It's just a grumpy frown, so that little perpetual frown that the porks have. This the desert rain frog and the black rain frog have that expression. You nailed it, those animals together exactly exactly pork. And so these guys live in South Africa, They live in the Cape Old Belt in forests and Faint Boss, which is a belt of shrubland vegetation. They live in a climate of dry summers and mild wet winters. They actually don't need to

live right near a big body of water. They do find with like moisture inside the sand and the ground. They are so round that they can't hop they oh my god. That they also give birth to froglets, so just a little no eggs, just like tinier versions of themselves, which is such a weird way to give birth. Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, not just pops out or be like hey it's me

and do that like hello. So they burrow into the sand, and they have these huge eyes that like big old perpetual frown and as if to kind of underscore their appearance as a little grumpy ball, they also squeak angrily when provoked. That's what you're hearing me, That is their angry squeak. Oh my god, so we've done it. We've made a pork. Now if we can just get this dangle, scientists to put all those genes together in a big old, the big old vial, right, you just chake it around.

That's how science works. That's how you do it, and you pour it out. It's got pork. Yeah, if they do that, I don't know. I mean scientists. I'm not going to tell you how do you do your jobs? But maybe do your jobs? Do your job? Jeez. The force is important for jedies and sith, but is the force important for animals? Behavioral researchers have studied how the perception of control over your environment can affect your performance

on tasks. Remember that scene where Obi Wan tells Luke to turn his Google Maps off and to take out the death Star using the force. That kind of confidence in being able to manipulate your world really does lead to a performance. In the nineteen seventies, researchers conducted studies on people and animals, testing to see how they responded to control or a lack of control over their environments, especially when faced with an unpleasant stimulus. And let's just

say the researchers were kind of Darth vadery. In one study, they gave dogs small electric shocks, allowing one group of dogs to stop the shocks by pressing a metal bar, but the other group had no such option. Real ninth Darth vade nerds Anyways, the dogs who were given control over the shocks were able to figure out an escape path from the shocking room, whereas the other dogs had given up, probably while giving subtle middle paw fingers to

the researchers. This kind of result has been replicated in other studies, where control over one's environment improves the health and ability to accomplish tasks in both humans and animals. So even though the Force may not let you lift up spaceships, believing that you have the force, maybe a powerful thing itself still doesn't let me. Will the remote control over towards me? Oh well, wait, maybe I believe

really hard? No, no, not doing it. When we return, we'll explore the dark side of the Force with a very real and very horrible monster who haunts my dreams. Screen Crawl, episode four, Imagination Station. It is a period of oceanic civil war. Fluke Skywater, a young, handsome and slightly irritating fish, has been captured by Boba Fish and is being held by Blubber the Hut along with his friends Finn Solo Finces Rayfish and other cool fish friends.

Blubber the Huts evil squid guards have led Fluke Skywalker and the gang over to an unassuming pile of sand on the ocean floor. Sand huh, says Fluke Skywalker. That's all you've got. I'm not afraid of some stupid sand. Suddenly the sand starts to churn like a volcano about to erupt, and as fast is underwater lightning, a pair of huge, blade like jaws burst from the ground, followed

by a long, iridescent, purple worm like body. Fluke Skywalker barely has time to register the site of this tentacled, per lescent, blade faced, warm creature before he's cut clean in half by its massive jaws. So yeah, that's uh. I feel like a better version of the Starlac Pit. That was a better version than the movie that I saw a couple of weeks ago. I mean, like, okay, I get in the movie you can't kill off the hero howeverever. It would have been pretty rad. It would

have been red and no spoilers. But they did, but then they didn't. They didn't, then they didn't. So with the killing off the hero thing back and forth, just one of them, just like measure twice with the Starlac Pit and cut once is my thing. Then you don't have to keep bringing the hero back and forth and back and forth from death and stuff. Just die, just die and star like. I think that would have been great. Star war Over. Star War Over would have been really

small exactly. The massive beak in tentacles symbolizes uh Hebron says, yeah, the man's at Uh yeah, you need a Johnny Monster. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I want to talk about a real life Is it called the Sarlac Sarlac worm or is it just the pit? It's called the Sarlac Pit. You know that was in this heavy, big heavy book that I had growing up that I could not read. I think I'm not so I didn't read it. I would assume that the pit is just the pit that the starlock. Right, but it is,

but it is called the Sarlac, right, yes, right? Okay, So, um, a real life watches kidding murdered just like Twitter is like, um actually games um actually, if you refer to the compendium of Star Wars. So this is called the Bobbit worm, which is also known as the sand Striker. It's a scientific name. Is a little less menacing. It's Eunice afroditos afrod did toys Unice? Maybe nice so it is pretty if you look at it through a very different perspective

than normal. So it's a species of bristle worm that lives on the ocean floor in the Atlantic Ocean. It's not a deep sea fish, despite how horrifying it looks. It often inhabits coral reefs because that's where it's unsuspecting prey likes to hang out. The reason it's called the bobbit worm is allegedly because of the John and Lorna Bobbit case. Do you know of that one that was

the things in the nineties or eighties. It's actually kind of I feel like it's always kind of awkward when it's joked about, because so the short version of it is Lauren and Bobbitt is a woman who uh cut off her husband John's penis after alleged domestic abuse. Oh this is yes, okay, and it's actually so that's kind

of horrifying. But then the media back in the day was like, look at this funny thing, and I do actually, yes, I know the controversy right right, and you know, look in the natural world, they're all sorts of fun penis hi jinks, but I think in this case it's kind of inappropriate how it has made fun of. There's a lot of other weird penises to laugh at, right exactly, maybe not in this case that involves domestic violence and things.

Uh and uh it's uh yeah. But I think that the bobb it warm is allegedly named after that, not because it's like phallic, but because of its ability to cut things in half, which you couldn't. Because it feels like it's a double entendre. Maybe it is. I think I think whoever named this this, this scientist was a dirty bird. Dirty bird. So the bobbit worm is even more unbelievable looking than the sarlac to me, let me get you a picture. See how it's like rainbow and iridescent.

It reminds me. I am one of a very few people that I that I don't find cockroaches very gross. They look like the look of it doesn't creep me out, and that kind of looks like a cockroach where it's I think cockroaches are kind of like a pretty color. It's kind of like that red brown. You know what's funny is I am probably one of the most like accepting random people of like insects, but cockroaches is one

thing I'm not accepting of. It's like, I have no like the bobbit worm to me looks kind of pretty. It's like your rainbow and you got giant jaws. That's cool. But yeah, I don't know cockroaches. I think it's that they're so they get right in there, you know. The about the thing for me that's like that is millipedes are centipedes. Yeah, well, I actually I like I like those guys. But and I like the giant hissing cockroaches because somehow it's the ones that I just associate with,

Like you know, in the kitchen. In the kitchen, you're walking late at night, your foot touches something crunchy on the floor and you look down. So this guy, though, is a long, old, long, long, long, warm. It is iridescent, it's got like a rainbow sheen. It's got a hard segmented exoskeleton, and it's also got kind of a purplish hue to it. Unfortunately, you can't see it's horrifying beautiful majesty because most of the time it's buried under the sandy ocean floor. Um, it can grow up to ten

ft long. Oh my god, that's that's ten puffins. That's tin puffins and ted puffins. Long, it's just the puffing walking around like dude, I have seventeen kids. Um, it's actually kind of a thin noodle guy, because it's only about an inch in diameter, so I don't know that it could fit a puffin inside of it, which I guess is good news for the puffins. Uh. It's got spiny leg like appendages all over its body, which is

just great. It's got a horrific feeding apparatus called a pharynx, which includes these massive jaws that are like these just two sabers that just close on anything unlucky enough to have that happened to, which is mostly fish and sometimes octopuses. And it it also has five striped antenna that looked like little tentacles, which it uses two cents prey as it approaches, and those giants set that the set of giant bone hard serrated man mandibles will just like snap

clothes as soon as those tentacles, uh detect movement. Yeah, it's like it's like a mouse trap, but that's really yeah, like mouse trout. Uh. And at night it his head out of its little little hidy hole and it goes like, oh, time to catching fish. I don't know why. It has a cute, cute little voice like that. It's funny. He's only skinny, a big old noodle boy, and I'm going to eat me some fish. Rebranding the Bobbit Worm isn't a lovable children's characters exactly, it's some marketing. The snore

SNAs a pokemon. I think. I guess this one could be a pokemon too, to be honest. So once it's that antenna mouse trap gets set off and those jaws close in, they can actually cut a fish in half. That's how powerful they are. And if it will certainly stun the fish. And once that fish gets grabbed, it will pull it under the sand, never to be seen again.

And as the fish tries to escape that sound, sand ground can just kind of pulsate with like the fish kind of trying to see surface and the and then yeah, and the bob it you just see it like yanking it and then like stillness. You want to see it. Yeah, it's bad. So there it is, laying in wait, and it's like it's kind of pretty. It's rainbow colored. It's it's gorgeous. Actually, I would love nail polish and with that kind of like sheen on it other than the

big old mandibles, it's it's pretty neat. And then once it grabs it, you can see this like the struggle and it yanks it down. Isn't that horrifying? Whoa when it's gone and it's gone, and then you can see the ground kind of like pulsate and yanks it so forcefully. It's like such a horror movie thing, isn't it? But also weirdly beautiful. Yeah, when just when an animal so well adapted like that, it's just like fascinated to watch

them do it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, go get a girl, that's your Do you think you know who you are? You're horrifying hel bees to snatches fish and drags them underneath to the nether world, and you do it well? Do it well with a beautiful rainbow sheet. Find your niche, right exactly. Apparently the mandibles may even inject some talks in two into the fish, which I feel like it's

kind of gilding the lily. I was gonna say, this is the wouldn't even need that, I don't know, and feel like it's just a little like Okay, calm down now, we're not eating puffins here. Okay, if you do, that's fine, but don't start again if you don't. So so, bobbit worms are actually a big problem for aquarists aquarium owners, from hobbyists to even like public aquariums. So baby bobb

it's uh baby, baby bobbit. They can hit your ride on commercial aquatic plants for saltwater aquariums that can even hide in coral that you can buy at the store. And then once they get in your tank, they don't stay baby bobbit's for too long. They can grow and ground and and some some people will be like, huh, my fish are just disappearing. Oh no, and it's a big mystery. And then you dismantle your tank and you

find a bobbit in the bottom. Or well New Quays Blue Reef Aquarium in the UK there was a news story about this where it's and it's this you know, aquarium open to the public, big old tanks, and they found that their fish just were going missing. It was like this like like what's happening to our fish? This this murder mystery and they finally realized it was a bobbit warm and they couldn't catch it, they couldn't lure it out of its hole, so they hadn't dismantle the

entire aquarium. Oh my god to get this huge bobbit warm out. Yeah, that's what a stinker. An stinker, that's and also it's not like you chose that life, so the bobbit life. Yeah. So yeah, if you own an aquarium, a saltwater aquarium, and your fish are just disappearing, you may have a horrifying worm living in there. I would love a tank though, just filled with bobbit worms. Yeah, and you just buy fish to like feed it. Like this fish is like, wow, this is a nice new

horror serie. Silence, wonder where are the other fish are? So I think to fight the bobbit worm, we need a fluke skywater, and I have just the fish for the job, the secret lightsaber sharks. So these are species of sharks who can glow in the dark using biofluorescence, which is this it's a relatively recent discovery because we can't see it with the naked eye. I actually, I guess I have been being ching uh nature talcumentaries um and yeah, because the app by the way of that

thank you. Yes, because there's something like that we can't see. We didn't realize that they were emitting it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So biofluorescence is naked to those of us who are not strong in the shark force. So to see it, marine biologist used a blue light camera which mimicked the shark eyes that see in blue and green. And so for sharks, this glowing green biofluorescence just pops out like a Christmas tree and sorry, like a creature Kringle times tree.

I'm sorry. What I meant was, so the biofluorescence lights up in these beautiful green, glowing patterns. I know you've probably seen it before, but let me just show you because it's great. Look at that. That's gorgeous. It looks like, uh, you know when you see those maps where it's like here's Paris from spin That's right, that's right, like a like a satellite map of the Earth, as the cities are all all a light. Maybe we're just a big shark. Oh god, this is too this is too much for

always fish. So this has been found in cat sharks and swell sharks, and it's thought to be in many other species as well. Cat shark and a swell shark. They're cute little guys. You can you can hold them like a baby. Yeah, I mean they might nibble on you and try to hold they're they're generally non threatening to humans at all. They they're really they're cuties. They're

cute little sharks. I know, they're adorable. And this recent discovery reveals that they may use this biofluorescence to communicate with each other. The glowing patterns are unique to eat each species of shark and even to each sex of sharks. So there seems to be some community like almost like a business card of like or like a text yeah exactly what yeah? Or like or like a profile like like a Facebook profile or something like some kind of

form of communication. Um I like adventures asl And this glow is generated by newly discovered glowing compounds that are amplified by these tiny rigid denticles, so denticals, like we talked about it with the puffins in their in their beaks. Denticles are tooth like projections, so they don't have to occur in the mouth. They can also be on the skin, so on these sharks, they have tiny teeth all over their bodies. You're making a face. You're just as you're

describing to me. I don't like it. You don't want to be covered in teeth. Well, to each to each their own. So so that but these little, these little projections, these little spiny projections, actually help amplify the glowing compounds like lightsaber. So the scientistics describe them as being like these hundreds and hundreds of lightsabers all over the sharks skin. You specifically describe them as lights, Yes, they did nerds.

So biofluorescence, you may be thinking of bioluminescence, but similar, similar vibe, but they are different things. So biofluorescence absorbs light from the sun and re emits it as a different color, whereas bioluminescence is light that's been created from a chemical reaction. So biofluorace. That's explains also why we can't see this biofluorescence with our naked eye. It's not

we can see bioluminescence with the naked naked eye. It's light that's been created from this from these chemical reactions. It's very bright, very bright, whereas the biofluorescence it's almost like it's reflect it's like translating the sun into a different color and it's visible to a shark's eye. And it also another weird finding is that this biofluorescence may have antimicrobial properties. Oh yeah, that in there, you know,

just rub it up against his teeth, light teeth. I wonder if they like I wonder if in Star Wars they use lightsabers and like surgery, like a surgeon has like a tiny lightsaber, you know, like a scalpel light exactly, like like a Jedi neurosurgeon with a tiny scalpel like made out of lightsaber. Right, there are so many more uses different lightsaber toast toast, toast, you cut, you slice

the bread, and you toasted at the same time. This is That's what I wanted to see, the Mandalorian toasting bread. What's up with riding on Variety dot com. The Mandalorian fell short of expectations. I wanted to see a more versatile lightsaber, such a I don't know, tiny when we cut people lean open. Yeah, I would like to see some lightsaber saber surgery, you know, yeah, where's the doctor's

I know, where are the doctors? One? Right, the robot orb with a big old syringe, Yes, robot arm and then also m whoever was taking care of pod May when she died from sadness, So like, can we even truss? Oh, no, you've got some guy doesn't like from the Simpsons. Yeah, just doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah, and then I guess, but and then another doctor. I guess Luke was in

a vat of some kind to grow. But that's like most of the doctors are just like a vat, like a big old that going like yod in wine, tell me and I'll heal you, you know, or like an orb that's like, you know, it's me me doctor. Vaccine, here's your flu shot. Why are you ready? Yeah, come back and flu sees it is bad this year. Get your flu shot. It's free. Why do you love monsters so much? Sometimes monsters are a response to cultural fears.

In Star Wars, the monsters are often gargantuan or of unseen proportions, like the star lac pit, the spaceship eating worms, the mysterious tentacled creature that lurks in the garbage masher in the detention level. Even the man made monstrosities like

the Death Star can destroy entire planets. This kind of catastrophic level of mom sters seems to me to reflect the fears of the Cold War nuclear weapons that are a constant threat, but one that seems to be lurking in the shadows, one that could emerge suddenly and destroy our world. Throughout our history, there have been many monsters. Monsters like vampires may have been a response to the fears around sudden illness and death and mysterious wasting diseases

like consumption otherwise known as tuberculosis. The zombies are the two thousands, may have reflected our fears of the masses. As our world became more connected through vast cities and our ability to travel, We also shared our problems, such as epidemics. My prediction is that new monsters will emerge in the twenties, ones that reflect the fears of today, such as climate change and extinction. Maybe huge gluttonous monsters

that devour resources in level entire forests. Maybe just maybe we were the monsters the whole sign and I'm just kidding. The bobbit worms are definitely the monsters. When we return, we'll rip off our Darth vay or helmet and return to the light side of the force with an incredibly goofy creature. My favorite part of Star Wars is trying to figure out how all their goofball creatures could have evolved. Why is the tonton bipedal on huge kangaroo legs? Is

it to hop over icy crags and chasms? Why do banthers have such huge horns? Are they used in mating contests or sexual selection? Does the wampo like to capture live prey and store it and it's larger like a shrew? Does the rain corps have a good relationship with its keeper? Can it be trained to do fun tricks? There's no amount of goofy no, as Star Wars can throw at us that doesn't exist in real animals in the real

world with real, incredible explanations. So let's look at one of the wackiest looking mammals in the world and figure out why it looks so dang lovable and cookie So. Have you ever heard of the saiga antelope? No? I don't think so. The saiga antelope, hope, is like a cross between a tan tan and an antelope, and like an elephant and a tape beer. It is a real goofball.

So these are critically endangered species of antelope. They are found in grasslands and semi deserts in Central Asia, which includes a little part of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. They used to have a much wider range and a much bigger population, but of course, of course, after overhunting, their population declined. We did it again, We did it again. We extincted. Yeah, remember Britney spears. It's twenty twenty um.

But no, they're not extinct yet, but they are critically endangered. And these guys are goofy as hell. They're real, they're real goofballs. Let me let me show you. I got a whole slight changer of these guys. Yes, so here's an adult and they have a big, big nose that's just this it's like a it's like a big old macaroni, right, and it just kind of looks like it's just sitting on it, right, right, like something kind of like as an afterthought gluted on. And then that the baby one,

this is a fawn, looks adorable. It still has that big floppy nose. Very cute, I think. I think the adults are cute too. They're they're goofy goofy. They're silly, right. They look like a muppet or like a Sesame Street muppet, like the snuffle lophiguss, but with a shorter nose so that the snout, which is called a proboscis, it kind of looks like a truncated elephant trunk, truncated trunk. And I don't I'm just bad at talking. That's not actually,

So they're not that big. They're about two to three feet tall at the shoulders and about six fifty pounds. So yeah, they kind of seem like they would be bigger, like a big almost horse like or they're like, but they're yeah, no, they're They're like, yeah, they're they're not that big, more taller than them to take that, take that trouble. So they're light brown tan in the summer and they their coat changes in the winter to a

fluffier grayish white coat. It's pretty pretty nice. And they have they are most famous for that huge tubular nose. These big you could you could do some sick flips off that, and they're not they have like biologically speaking, their nostrils are just inflated, I guess, just huge nostrils that forms this this well that's a good question, and I actually have an answer. So that huge nose has a few purposes. One of them looks looks good, functions, great,

whisper quiet. So it helps filter dust as huge herds kick up things as there because they do these mass migrations. And if you're that is but when you're in the midst of one of these mass migrations, everyone's kicking up dust. You're gonna get a bunch of dust in your lungs and that's no that's no fun. So these huge noses prevents that dust from entering the lungs by making it It It basically has to like go through this labyrinth of like chambers and vestibules, and it just like captures the

dust and it can't enter the lungs. It also, this big nose confunction as an a C unit just like this free this air conditional shoved onto its face because as it sucks in is the blood runs through it and the air passes over the blood. It cools the blood that is circulating what I know that is tubular man. In the winter, it converts to a space heater. I mean it doesn't actually go through that much many changes.

It's just as air is entering. It's it's cavernous and it's surrounded in blood vessels and stuff, so it warms the air coming in. Uh so yeah, it's a multi functional. Uh it's sexy multi functional. I mean, what can't this nose? Do? You know? That's a great question. Probably maybe they could play it like an insta boat like Max Rebo from Star Wars. Doesn't he isn't there like a like there's a little Star Wars animal who he doesn't have an instrument.

He's like playing his nose like it's like a pipe, right, ye, Like he's holding it and playing it. Yeah. Yeah, So, like I mentioned earlier, Siga's journey on these massive migrations. Uh. And it when you look at them from the sky, and this is sadly, like you pointed out, this may not become a thing if if these guys continue their decline. But when you look at it from the sky, it looks like this huge river of like fluff of these antle just like migrating together, and they're so fluffy and

they're so cool. It's just like this, this flowing river of cute fluff. In two hundred thousand, Siga mysteriously died off which was a huge blow to them because I was like over half of their population. And researchers recently discovered the cause of this mysterious plague as being hemorrhagic septicemia. Ye, hemorrhagic septichemia, which was caused by a bacteria called Pasturella moltosita, which usually this bacteria is found in these antelope, but

actually grows in their nose. The nose is nice cavernet, it's like a little cave, so cores, pockets, got pockets of things. This is a big pocket but yeah, and so it's a nice, nice place for bacteria to grow. And normally that's okay. However, as the weather that was much warmer and more human than it usually was, uh, these bacteria grew out of control and causes hemorrhagic septic kemia. Yeah, septickemia um. And so now only about a hundred thousands

IgA remain in the wild. That's like the things that we don't think about with like temperatures rise, like like when people brush it off its lights like there. You did not know that that was going to happen, and things could predicted that you have an animal that has a huge old nose and then the bacteria can grow better than the nose when it's hotter and more human crazy, right, it's like, and that's just the right exactly, it's yes,

And that's just one example of millions of things. Like it's like you take out a Jenga piece and then suddenly all these noses fall from the sky, but is cavernous noses? Yeah, but I mean too. I don't want to end on such a bummer. Note, there is some good news, which is that there are these ecological protections aimed at saving the saiga that are starting to gain tractions.

So China has banned saiga antelope horns from being covered by health insurance, which is a pretty big thing because I know that I think that the antelope horn has been used in some traditional medicine, which unfortunately, you know, then poachers will take the antelope horn and that's bad for their population. The US and Mongolia have backed a plan to ban the trade of siga antelope horns, and

their population is slowly starting to increase in Kazakhstan. So I really hope we can pull it together because I would be devastated if these guys were no longer around, because they're they're just such God, they are such lovable goofballs, and they're also kind of like inspiring in a way. It's like use your imagination. You know, anything is possible. Look at these guys. This exists. Like if they can pull it off, we can pull anything. We can do, right,

we can save the planet. Yes, exactly, one puffing one, one big old, big old proboscis at a time. Yeah, there there. I don't know, there's something I think I love that they basically look like a normal antelope and then just with a big elephant seal nose stuck on the front of it like an afterthought. It's wonderful. Um. Yeah, I don't know. I'll definitely include links in the show notes to pictures of these guys because they're they're incredible. Like, yeah,

maybe I should should you know what I mean? Like that'd be great, right, or just like a nose attachment, you know, a ball of clava that's just like with the with the nose, you know, like like like a sort of crochet one and then it has that big nose. Maybe it'll maybe it'll work for me too, Yeah, se pull that off. I think I could do it. I think you could do it. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. Got any before I would go?

I guess, like any kind of like thoughts about Star Wars man, I mean, well, yeah, from your opening, I think that is the reason why people like it, you know, the different biomes, the joke about like each planet being a different type of planet of popt uh here's hilarious, but also the human planet of your orb the water planet with water, do you get it? This planet is grass. I guess, yeah, that was not that important. This one's a city, this one the desert. This one's a casino.

It goes on and on and not. This one is a smart and saved so that I didn't see that in the Mandalorian didn't see spartans planet. Oh my god. If the Mandalorian and the Yoda went to like a smart and final planet and they're like, I gotta feed around. Yeah, like baby Yoda's like pulling things off the shelves. Now you can't eat that. Now it crying. He's like, okay, just one, but then too, that would be I would. I would. And he's got like a baby Bjorn, He's

like carrying it around. Yeah, he's really all of a sudden, he's like one of those he's like doing his assassinations with the baby Bjorn and nothing. That's that's a Mandalorian I would approve. Well, you got anything to plug? Yeah, you guys can find my film video essays on my YouTube channel at just my Name Maggie made fish may Spell on m A E. Not like the Buns. Yeah, so check yourself, check your check your small preconceptions at the Okay, Uh yeah, we have some really fun ones

coming out. We have an hour long video about Cats, the movie the play Anti May that cat's content, it's banana. It's gonna be great. I would be in fold cats costume for Oh my God. Okay, I'm sold. So it'll be exciting. But we're still working on and so. But you can check out my past ones. Um, you can follow me on Twitter again. Just got my name. You've got like you've got a Star Wars or episode or two, right, I do. Yeah, we talked about we talked Star Wars.

We talked dads. I have sears on dad's dad's dads. It was meant to be. I was meant to be your dad. Unexpected heart warming conclusion. Well, uh, did you mention your Twitter handle. Oh yeah, it's just it's just my name, just your name, my name Magan Meatesish. Yeah, before follow me, I'll talk some fun stuff. Yeah. You can find us on Instagram at Creature Creature Pod. You can find us on Twitter at Creature Feet Pod. That's f F E T. There is a Creature Feet Pod.

But it's different. It's it's actually fun. It's just a bunch of animal feats. And I know that I think that there's a change happening with the website. I think we're now on my heart. But yeah, if you just check out the the the you just check out the Twitter and the Facebook and Instagram and funnel links are on there. Um and you can find me on Twitter. I'm at Katie Golden UM not like the month Golden. Also GEO l D I ND and I'm also pro bird Rites where I fight the eternal struggle to get

birds the presidency. I really admire your work, um, and I meant to bring it up. Thank you. I appreciate it. I mean the fish myself. Um, you know we are aligned with the birds. Yeah, I mean, uh something we well, I mean sometimes we eat each other, but that's what's what's a little bit of predation amongst friends. That's how Yeah,

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