That Frog's Got A Knife!!!

these cuties with some devilish secrets. Discover this more as we answered the age old question are my eyes up here or are they down there? Joining me today to learn how not to croak from a stab from a frog is host of the Cold Brew Got Me Like podcasts, author of The Advice King Anthology, and probably human Chris Crofton. Welcome, Hi Katie, Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on back. I think the last time I had you on was pre Panino, pre Pennini. Uh, when we were

we were talking about um alien life forms under the sea. Yeah, I was wondering when I was come back on Creature Feature. I'm glad to be. And yeah, it was a long time ago. I had just done Daily Zeitgeist or something and then I met you or something, and yeah, we did a show about I didn't remember what we did the show about. It was what we do sea creatures, creatures, Mariana trench type stuff like those see through octopus exactly. Well today we're talking about frogs. Cool. What are your

what are your attitudes towards frogs. I've always been afraid of them if they're big, because growing up my my i'man not afraid of them, like I guess, I'm just

afraid of animals in general. So I like when I was a kid, everybody would go to this pond near my house and they would catch frogs, you know, bull frogs, and they'd like, I just remember the kids that are all like you know senators now would like grab the bull frogs, you know, and just be like, hey, look I have a bull frog and like hold it up, you know, and squeeze it. You know. I just you know what I mean. Like they were just like grabbing them,

you know what I mean, no problem at all. And I was like kind of I would pretend I wanted to catch one because I knew that was what I was supposed to do because to be you know, a dude, so right, you know, to impress the other people, but at the last minute would pull my hand away because I really didn't. I was just they were so big, the bull frogs back then, I don't know, it was the seventies. They were very like when I was eight

or something in nineteen seventy seven. I don't know if they're still growing them that big, but are pretty big. You know, they still get they still get pretty big. Yeah. So how do you feel, Katie? Have you ever I mean, aside from obviously not squeezing them, how do you feel about catching a frog? Have you ever caught a frog? Yeah? Little ones. When I was a kid, I lacked the moral compass that I have as an adult. So I would care frogs and I would try to keep them

as pets. I didn't know what I was doing there. There were mistakes made, lives lost on the altar of my journey of discovery about hey, you can't you can't do that to a frog. But I wasn't cruel. I wasn't intentionally cruel. I just thought maybe if I put them in like a jar with like a leaf, that would be fine, but it typically wasn't. Yeah. Yeah, I never got that far. But I do like little frogs.

I'm not bothered by I just remember there were so many writes of passage where I grew up in Connecticut where it was just like a bunch of macho bullshit, and part of it was like just grabbing the hell out of giant frogs, and I was hesitant. I was hesitant, but I but I like frogs and I think I think they're very cool, and I like little ones. But yeah, I just have a vivid memory of that being like one of the tests of masculinity where I grew up

that I failed. That's so interesting. It's it shows how much our concepts of masculinity is cultural, right, because I would never have thought that you'd have to prove yourself to be masculine by grabbing a frog. Oh, as we're gonna talk about, I think you will feel better about the fact that you were not one of the kids that wanted to grab the frogs, because that may, evolutionarily speaking, have been to your benefit. Hell yeah, I knew it

validated all of these years later. I love it. Thank you, Katie, You're very welcome. First, we're going to talk about the a frog, A little one, A little frog, and it has to pull some pretty interesting tricks to make sure that it is not someone's dinner. Because this is the Koyaba dwarf frog and the koyab a dwarf frog. I mean, so, you know, have you heard the saying that words are mightier than the sword? Um? You know, it's mightier than

both words and swords. Inflatable poisonous butts with eyes, Yeah, makes sense, it's deep. So yes, South America's Cuyabo dwarf frog has a butt that won't quit. It seriously, will not quit even if you beg it to. This is a little brown frog found in grasslands and near ponds and swamps, but it has many potential predators, including snakes, birds, bats, or coates who are long snooted carnivorous mammals related to raccoons.

So there's there's a lot of things out there that would want to eat this cute little brown frog, which you know it's it's it's not easy, as Kermit once said, it's not easy being green, But I'd also say it's not z being a little brown frog either. No, and this frog is frightening. I wouldn't pick this frog up just because it has those humongous eyes on its that's right.

So when it is threatened, the cleaba turns the other cheek, the butt cheek, it presents its butt, inflates itself with air, and shows off two huge, black, shiny, yellow ringed eye spots on its rear end. And they really do look convincingly like eyeballs. So these large eyes look like they belong to a much larger animal than the dwarf frog. The dwarfrog itself is only around three centimeters big, so

it's just a little guy. So if it has these huge eyes, a predator is going to see these and think, oh, this must be a larger animal than I previously thought. Wow, I'm gonna paint some big eyes on my butt cheeks. It's a time tested evolutionary um masterpiece. So sure, yeah, I mean, if you're I'm gonna have to get the red hot chili peppers uh tattoos I have they're already lasered off, though, mm hmm. I have Flea's face on

one butt cheek and Anthony Ketas on the other. I feel like that would be a pretty easy cover up tattoo, just you know, instead of removing their red hot chili peppers, you just turn them into giant frog butt eyes and you know that way, I think it's there are there are tattoo parlors running a deal where they will do discounts on but cover ups as long as they are um, you know, mimicry eyes. They call it a frog conversion

or something. I think that's really weird, Katie, because what's weird about the eyeballs thing is like, it's true they look like eyeballs, but I mean still the frog itself. It's if it's two centimeters big, I would wonder why predators get so scared. But anyway, I just that's very it's insane, what I mean, that is absolutely crazy that that nature came up with a big pair of eyes

on this. But yeah, well it's the It's what animals have learned is the proportion, right, Like, so if you have huge eyes, those eyes usually belong to a big body. So if you see, like imagine you're imagine you're a snake and you're going along in the grass and you just come face to face with a pair of giant eyes inside you know, in the grass, you're not necessarily gonna know that it's only connected to a three centimeter big frog. You're probably thinking this belongs to a much

larger animal. I need to back away right now, like this is the world's smallest German shepherd or something that'd be so cute, Like I met the snakes are scared, as imagine that would be so scary. I mean, I mean if you saw just like a pair of giant a pair of disembodied giant eyes, right like, that's that's scary on its own, Like you don't even know they're

attached to a butt yet. No, and I back off of regular frogs, so I'd be double I'd probably climb a tree and I back away from regular butts, so you know it's a double double threat, right. Well, I think that's interesting. I wonder if snakes do get scared, though, I think they just probably they probably don't have that in them. They probably just like get They probably divert. You know, I was imagining, since you said, imagine yourself being a snake, I was trying to think of mhmm,

you know what I mean. Snakes are probably just like instinct. They're just like big eyes turn left like they're not scared. I picture I pictured for a second a snake being like afraid, which I don't think. Yeah, shaking a little bit, gulping, yeah, getting a little sweaty. Yeah, I mean it is an

interesting idea. I don't know what it's like to be a snake, how it feels to be a snake, but I do think like start like the startle response, there probably is some adrenaline, and with fear and humans, we kind of have this emotion attached to it that we know is fear. But I would imagine for something like a snake, it is a stressful experience. They probably don't have an awareness of like I'm scared because of the

butt eyes. However, they may feel just this like jarring stress response, So it's probably not pleasant, No, probably not. And they also don't get any food. Yeah, yeah, they thought they were going to get food, but instead they got a pair of horrifying butt eyes. And if they try to actually eat this frog, right like, if they call this frog's bluff, the frog has another trick up it's but it actually has a pair of GLAMs that

secrete a toxin that is poisonous when eaten. One frog actually contains enough poison to kill a hundred and fifty mice. According to National Geographic and I do not know how they know that, Like, how they know it kills a hundred and fifty mice per frog? Yeah, I don't. I don't know how they would. I was just thinking that. I don't. I love when they measure stuff like that though. It's kind of like horsepower. I always think about when they say a horsepower, like six horses pulling a car, right,

But yeah, I don't, I don't. I wonder how they did that. I hope they didn't put a dard mice in a cage with those women monsters. I would imagine they probably do. You like, see how much it takes to kill one mouse, and then extrapolate from the volume of poison in the frog, like, oh, this is how much kills one mouse. Therefore, math, this is how much

kills a hundred and fifty mice. I really hope they worked smarter, not harder, and didn't just like, well, let's keep going, let's see how many mice this, this can this can kill, because that would be that would be pretty grim. That reminds me of a joke by the stand up I like named Ben Branfon, who had this joke where he said, like they say that, like a stingray has enough poison in it to kill a horse. And he was like, what kind of ecosystem is that?

Which I always like, I don't know why, you know, it's like, what's kind of measurement is that? He's like he also he said, you know what else would kill a horse? The ocean like that always I always like that joke. Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't think that this frog could kill a horse. If a horse decided to uh mosey over to this frog's territory. It actually has a bad taste and is irritating to the eyes.

So if a predator gets kind of a lick in, it's gonna taste nasty, feel bad, and it's gonna get a tummy ache, and if it eats enough of it, he's gonna start vomiting. So it's gonna yeah, it's gonna be really like it's like just this poor snake slung over a toilet, throwing up some other snake, you know, patting it on the snake back like frog. But yeah, I got into that frog. But that is uh, that's like so I think it's interesting how some animals are

so protected and some animals don't get anything. This one gets eyes on its but but you and and also poison and also I want to know what scientists tasted the frog to see to judge whether it tasted bad or good. It's definitely an intern You can't interview you know, you can't interview an animal and say how the frog taste. I mean, I think if they're vomiting, you have an idea. If they're gags, Oh, okay, oh that would be okay,

maybe that's it. Okay, Okay, I didn't realize. Okay, they vomited. Okay, that makes sense. That's a good way to judge. I guess if they lick their lips, it means it tastes good. If the snake is yummy, and if the snakes going yeah, then it's probably tastes bad less unless vomb Unless vomiting is how snakes celebrate, which I in fact, I don't know too much about. I don't know too much about how snakes celebrate. I don't think it's well, maybe if

the celebration is after they've eaten an egg. I know they do regurgitate the eggshell, so maybe that's kind of celebratory. Like I just date great splat, right. I think they dance around to those horns when they celebrate, they dance around horns. No, to those horns, you know, the snake charmer horns. Flutes. Yeah, yeah, I'm imagining like I'm imagining like a boo boogalow or a French horn. Like snakes like horns. No, snakes hire a guy to play the

flute and they all party. Yeah, but I'll stop you get back to the biology. I'm sorry. We were all in college, even snakes. Yeah, yeah, it's totally Oh yeah, Oh my god, that was my favorite kind of party in college, when you hire a guy with a flute. Oh my god, that was so yeah, pan flute party

in college. Oh yeah, everyone everyone. There are frogs out there who are not satisfied with just your typical sort of frog look, and they really wanna They have kind of bent the tradition of what a frog needs to look like. They've got some frog out coature. They have a duck bill, which I when I saw like pictures of these, I didn't think it was a frog. They do not look based on the face. They do not

look like frogs. They look like some kind of weird duck amphibian hybrid, maybe like a cross between a fox and a frog. It's very strange. And there are actually a number of species that have this duck bill look. And we're going to first talk about the Nicta mantus genus. And so these are small frog species that live in these tiny pond ecosystems inside of plants in South America. So just a quick note about these little pond ecosystems.

Bromiliads are flowering plants of a variety of species. The tank bromeliads actually have these sharp, spear like leaves that common these brilliant greens, reds, yellows, and pinks. They attach themselves to trees and they actually have a bowl structure in the middle of their leaves collects rain water and acts as a miniature water ecosystem for everything from little invertebrates like insect larva to even terrestrial crabs and frogs

will often use these little ponds to live in. Sometimes they will lay there tadpoles in So it's really incredible these bromeliad ecosystems, which I'm sure I'm going to talk about more on the show in general, but today we are just focusing on the Nicti mantis tree frog that will live in these little ponds. So if you are in these areas where there are these bromeliads, if you peer inside a bromelia, you may find a little frog looking back at you. That's crazy, that's crazy. That's so,

that's nuts. How can there be a frog inside a flower? That's crazy. It's that's I mean, living in a pond. I mean, I can imagine a frog hiding in a flower, but I can't imagine a frog living in a flower. But what a great place to live, my god. Yeah, And it's actually serves the bromeliads quite well because the I believe it's the the nitrogen that is excreted by

the animals that live inside of these ponds. It was actually good for the flower, Like they get free fertilizer from these little animals that live inside these little ponds, and then the animals get shelter and a nice little pond environment. That's it's like, you know, there it's their own little private pool, which is incredible. That's what I mean.

That's like, that's the that's like the dream of like you know, like I write poetry sometimes and like you know, that's a poetic image, like you live in a pond inside of flower That sounds like a poem, you know what I mean. That's like that's like a that's like a mine blow or like as far as uh a secret world like you know, I mean, you want to get away from the internet or something, you live in a pond inside of It's like it is a sort of fairy It's the fairy lifestyle that these frogs are living.

I hope they're digging it, like, I hope they get it. I hope they know. I hope they're like we are having the life. I really hope these frogs appreciate how good they have it. That's what I mean. Like, well, you don't if you think about all the all the

relentless capitalism that happens. It's all like all the cutthroat step on people's heads nightmares we live through is just so people can get to this, like the biggest sociopath in the world, you know, Jeff Bezos or or you know what's his name, what's the Richard Branson or whatever. Like after they after they step on everybody's neck, they they sit inside a floor, their own flower pool, right, and this frog does it without any violence or any capitalism.

It just gets in a flower. And I think that people should realize that they also could get into a flower if they skip all the all the meanness. Hold hold that thought about the violence part. I mean, I will, I will agree with you though there is not so much capitalism happening with these frogs, but there is. I mean when I say violence, I think it's personally. I think it's justified because these these little dudes are just trying to live, uh, and so uh, they need to

protect themselves. So the nick de mantis tree frogs. Uh, there is one that is particularly striking looking called Bruno's cast headed frog that lives in Brazil. And this frog is incredible. It's I mean, it's really striking looking. It's this ash brown with sort of darker brown spots. It's about the length of a pointer finger, so it's a cute little guy. And then it's got this long, duck like snout and these bright red forward facing eyes. It's

kind of cartoonish looking and it's absolutely adorable. Mhm. And is that wait, that's the one that lives in a flower. Yeah, have you, Katie, ever seen one of these frogs? That live in a flower. No, not in person. Have you checked the flowers? Do you check flowers? But I just like shove a hand in a flower. In one of these days, it's going to catch up to me because, uh, these these guys, these little Bruno's cascaded frogs, have a great defense mechanism against curious people or animals who are

trying to invade their idyllic little pond home. That duck built that you see is actually this bony late on their head and they will basically use their head to seal the entrance to their bromeliad pond to protect themselves from predators. And it's not just armor. Their skulls are equipped with spikes that can inject venom into an assailant by headbutting them. So these frogs are one of only

two venomous frog species. So you may be thinking, well, what about poison arrow frogs, poison dart frogs, like those little tree frogs that are brightly colored, So those are poisonous. Somebody, somebody might be thinking that what what what? Oh yeah, I was thinking that, oh yeah about oh yeah, what about poison arrow frogs. Well, the poison arrow frog lobby is is it may not seem like it, but they're quite strong and well funded, so I've got to be careful. Yeah.

So these are venomous, meaning that they actually inject a toxin rather than just the toxin being absorbed through the skin or being ingested. So, uh yeah, this is one of only two venomous frog species that are known. The

other species is the cory Fomantis greenegi um. So both of these frogs use the same method of basically using spines that are in their skulls that are laced with venom, and they will actually puncture their own skin and the spines come out like through their upper lip, and they will headbut you if you try to invade their little bromelia pad. And this venom causes incredible pain and is super potent. A grama venom from one of these guys could kill eighty people. Again, I don't really know how

they tested that. I don't know, but all I know is I wish that we could have gotten a lot of people out of the way who turned out to be evil senators bull frogs. If the bull frogs in New Canaan, Connecticut had had just even a little little dad before what I'm saying right like you you didn't grab the frogs, which, first of all good because that's nice,

nice to the frogs. You don't want to grab frogs and squeeze them, you know, if at most like maybe offer them a little bottle capful of water for them to sip from. You know, I don't think all interactions with frogs have to be negative, but if you grab one, that's that's got to stress the frog out. These are the type of guys. You know where I grew up in Connecticut, New Canaan, Connecticut, you know, home of the Financial Advisor. Uh, you know that they people there don't

have any attachment to nature. They just nature is just a backdrop for them to play golf on or drink whiskey. And they you know, so they see frogs and they just pick them up like they're freaking you know, they just grab things. They're just grabbers as humans. You know, there's like give me that frog, you know, give me that thing, give me that you know, like oh look on baseball, give me that give me that frog too. So there's just a lot of grabbing going on in

that culture. So they grabbed frogs the way they would grab a beer and I just couldn't. I couldn't. I didn't understand how you could do that. So I think

it's I hope I wish. I just wish one of those frogs could have at least headbutts, I mean, and shot some poison into their I would never want to subject the id never want to subject the rainforest to this, but it does seem like it would be fun to kind of have a rainforest tour for some of these these bros that just grab nature and just you know, let him, let him learn a little bit, yes, or balsa naro, just tearing down the whole rainforest. Yeah, I wish some of the one of the frogs pop out

of one of these flowers and head butt him. So these these brunos cast headed frogs, I don't I don't know if they could kill a person. I'm not sure they know whether or not they could kill someone. Because even though a gramma venom is enough to kill a whole bunch of people, the key is how much venom they actually inject per head butt. So while it's more potent than something like say a pit viper, if it only injects like a little bit, like it's a little

tiny stab. It's not going to kill you. However, there was a researcher who accidentally got jabbed by the less toxic C. Grinegy species and reported intense pain in his entire arm for over five hours. So I would imagine that the more potent frog, the Bruno's cast headed frog, if you got stung by one of those, it would be unpleasant, bad, bad for your health. Yeah. I think they should start measuring, like, get the measurement how many

how many people could this one kill? Eight? Well, we don't know how many it could kill through normal like headbutting, because we don't really I don't know if it's known how much venom it injects. But if you a graham of the venom is concentrated enough that it could take out eighty people. Wow. See I think they should start measuring it in like weirder stuff. If they're gonna say eighty people, they should be like a large dinner party, you know what I mean, like could kill a human

picnic like that. Put it in make it scarier because people will really leave these frogs alone if they If you, if you have the idea that it could take out a whole take out a third of a fish concert. Exactly. That's what I'm exactly what I'm talking about. Yes, that's what I mean. That's funny. Oh thinking about you. Well, if you actually look at one of the skulls of these things, it really kind of shows you the menacing

because you look at their sweet little faces. You're like that little guy, this will this all like weird dog faced, cute, little muppet looking frog. No, but their skulls are a nightmare. They have so many spikes. It's like, I don't I've been playing a lot of elden Ring. I'm gonna be honest with you, and that's definitely looks like something from that the game that does kill you immediately even though you did dodge a lot. Uh. It's a for those of you who aren't playing elden Ring. I mean, first

of all, congratulations on having a life. But secondly, uh, any any time you try to fight anything in that game, it is it's very mean to you. It's very mean. And this skull it looks like one of the mean bosses that kills you really badly over and over again. That's insane. I'm looking at this thing that is crazy. It's got the whole the whole front of this thing's head as needles exactly, and it's just in it, you know, Wolverine esque, just jabs it through its own skin without

a care in the world. It's like it's at the overall vibe of this frog, despite how cute it is, it's very menacing. It's like I'm willing to jab all of my skull knives through my own skin just just to get at you. And so, you know I am, I'm personally intimidated that. Yeah, that's like I want to know what these what are these frogs? What secrets of these frogs keeping inside? I mean, you know what I mean?

Like what this makes me think, Katie, This this discussion makes me think about you know, I just wonder why some some plants have prickers on them, like you know, thorns,

and then some some like you know, some peppers. If you eat the wrong pepper, you're gonna burn your face off, you know, like a hot pepper, you know, and then you eat some other peppers that, um, you know, don't do anything to eat like a green pepper or like a yellow pepper or whatever, you know, it's the pepper, or you just eat it on a salad so I'm

just wondering. It's sort of interesting to me when I think about why some some poor vegetables or animals end up with no defense, and then some end up with the most elaborate crazy you ever saw. And then I wonder if these animals have some sort of secret and that's why they have so much on them, And like why why hot peppers must have some something protecting? It's very important. You asking what kind of frogs you can put on a salad. No, no, no, certainly not if

I don't want to touch a frog. I definitely don't want to eat a frog. Uh. But yeah, I just I just think it's interesting that some animals get such like wild defense and some seem to get like very little, like you know, like a I don't know, I don't know, like a sparrow. I bet a sparrow would like to have I don't know who eats sparrows. I guess like hawks, you know, I bet a sparrow could have used a few spikes, that's all, you know. I was just thinking, like,

why this is a little fair. It does seem unfair. Yeah, I mean, I think it's you know, the simple rule of evolution is if you are able to survive. That's it. Like evolution doesn't care about how cool you look, how much fun you have in life. It really doesn't have any like quality of life, Like, hey, why don't why didn't humans get cool spikes? Well, if we're if we survived without the spikes, then you know, we just don't get to have them. So it's yeah, I guess that's right.

I mean that makes sense because like, it's not like green peppers aren't threa. They're everywhere. We just like to eat. Yeah, I cannot get. I cannot. I can't spit and not hit a green pepper, you know what I mean. No, it's insane. I'm coming out getting out of bed in the mornings in the yellow peppers. I'm all right with their chill. They're really delicious green peppers. Get out of here, stop it? Yeah yeah, yeah, and then then out of nowhere.

Do you think that you talk disrespected green pepper? And then they head right? Your arm is killing you for five hours And that green pepper's name Bruno's casquetted frog. And we've come full circle. Um. Before we move on to the next section, I did want to just briefly mention a frog I love this frog because it's just a frog who has a knife. Essentially, it's like normal frog, but then it's it's got it's it's just got a knife. This is Hilos. That's a great name for an indie

rock band frog with a knife. Yeah. Um, this is another small tree dwelling frog in Ecuador. I tell you these tree frogs they are nuts like they The dangers they must face in these rainforests are so intense that they have become hard. Uh, they have become hardcore. Uh, and they don't mess around. So Hilo skirt Us helicici is a gray little frog with gold flex and gold eyes. Is very pretty, and it's just got an extra knife finger.

That's about it. It's got an extra finger. That's knife. Uh. It is a sharp extra protrusion off the side of its thumb that the frog uses to stab other frogs. Uh, you know, predators, researchers. Apparently it was able to stab through a latex glove and scratch a researcher. So you know, it's just a cute little frog with a knife attached to it. An extra knife finger. Oh, it's got which one is the knife? The little thumb, little stick Okay,

I got it. Yeah, I just like that. I sometimes as much as I appreciate creativity and evolution, I also like it when evolution just kind of pops out something that it sounds like it's just kind of running out of ideas, like a frog. But uh, it's got a knife. Yeah, frog with a knife. Yeah, yeah, that is a very beautiful little frog. And you would never I think that it has a knife. It's just the way you would

not think any animal, at least in my experience. I never expect an animal that but I but I might want to adjust mm hmmm, start thinking about it. But that is crazy. It's a beautiful little frog and stuff nice. So now we are we are going to talk about one more frog that is menacing. And this frog is called Basil buffo beazel buffo. Um. It is wow, that's

another good name for a beazel buffo. It is combining the devil's name beazel bub or some people think it's not the devil, some people think it's the lord of the flies. Um, but it's combining beazel bub with Latin for toad, which is buffo, even though technically this is a frog. So just just a reminder, Um, all toads are frogs, and only some frogs are toads. Toads are just defined as dogs that kind of are. They have some certain characteristics like thicker, more rough skin, um stubby

your legs, things like that. So beazl Buffo is also known as the devil frog. It is an extinct species of frog that lived around seventy million years ago in Madagascar. It is estimated to have grown around a foot in length, around nine to sixteen inches or twenty three to forty two centimeters, and up to ten pounds or four point five kims, which is larger than some chihuahuas. Chris, how you how you feeling about this this frog so far?

Because you know, well, I'm just imagining, like in my head, I just pictured Kim Kardashian with one of these frogs in her bag. That's what I got. That's what I got, so fark that's what I got so far. Man. I would love to live in that universe where instead of toy toy dogs, we have toy frogs. And you got Paris Hilton with one of these these devil frogs just sitting contentedly in a Gucci bag. Yeah, or else a situation where an alien is carrying around Kim Kardashians. It's

just bags all the way down. Yes, like every every species dreams of having a pet. Yeah, but who's every Everyone is someone's pet in a bag, right, yes, yep Jane's addiction. Yeah, remember that song will make great pets? No, No, I don't about aliens. Oh it's a song called pets and it's about I mean, it's just about aliens having us as pets someday and how we'll make great pets.

And I just remember that was actually a thought that I actually was kind of like wow, I kind of mind blowing, like smoke some weed, be like I never really thought about that. But yeah, yeah, we would be pets and we would have our own purses filled with our own pets, and right, it would just never stop. There would have like a smaller frog and it's purse, and then that frog would have micro highland frog and it's purse because like they're trogs, like smaller than your

pinky nails. I would probably have like one of those. Yeah, no, I could. This situation could rapidly get out of hand. Um, this is the version of capitalism. I will if capitalism gives us nesting frogs and bags, then I will change my attitude towards the frogs carrying around. And right, this is this is the only like when people ask what are we what is our goal in life? Like what is the economy for? What are we striving towards as a civilization, it's frogs and bags and frogs and bags

and frogs and bags. Yes, exactly. And also I would liked I imagine, I mean, I I think about this because I was just on my own podcast. I was talking about golden doodles recently, and I was thinking about, you know, like I was talking about how I don't I don't quite like the idea of like people wanting a hypoallergenic dog, you know, because then it's just opens

this door to like genetically engineering them. So like I was just thinking about someone like shrinking a German shepherd to make it, you know, I think I mentioned a shrunk and German shepherd earlier in the show. I just have shrunk and German shepherds on my mind because I imagined having a German shepherd shrunk down so someone could have one in their bag, you know. And um, but I was also thinking about how much fun it would be to actually right around in a bag, and how

I would love to be a bag. And well, you could have potentially done that around seventy million years ago in Madagascar if you were small enough to be the prey of this devil frog, like if you're a baby dinosaur, like maybe hey, maybe in a past life you're a baby dinosaur. And these devil frogs have these huge pac man like mouths. Uh, they're similar, potentially similar, although probably

not very related to horned frogs that live today. These are these frogs that are just kind of triangular shaped and they have they're like mouth, they have this huge mouth to body ratio and so basically pac man with little frog legs. And so this suggests that these devil frogs ate large prey, probably even baby dinosaurs, and the bite force of their jaws is estimated to have been somewhere between five hundred to two thousand over two thousand Newton's.

So for reference, human bite force of our back molars is around one thousand, three hundred Newton's, so uh, potentially stronger than human bite. So yeah, I don't even want to think about how many Newton's my biting it just made me upset because I you know, I don't really bite things that hard, but I know that, you know, if someone really wants to bite you, it's now it's no joke. I think about my bite force all the time because I have bruxi is um where I it's

not really teeth grinding, it's more clenching I have. I have a really gorgeous retainer that's very fetching that I have to wear at night otherwise I will destroy, Like my my teeth. Clinching is so bad. I feel like if I continue to clench, I'm just gonna kind of hyper compress my teeth and start like a new black hole in my mouth. So the retainer is really important. Well, yeah, tis the season for that sort of This is a

this is definitely teeth clenching season. Yeah yeah. These last these last couple of years have been like Golden Age. Yeah yeah, it's uh, you know, I mean at least I'm working out my jaw muscles. I guess. So if I ever need to compete one of these with one of these, I mean, these are extinct, but I feel like if one of these beasel buffo's uh somehow unfawsed somewhere and we clone them from kind of like Jurassic Frog Park, because you know, they only have dinosaurs in

those things and plants. I don't know why they didn't have more like old frogs. But yeah, I've been working out my new new Tony in force, so you know, like, ah, maybe I could beat one of these frogs at like a biting competition. Oh man, just imagine what a life that would be. Biting competitions with frogs, frogs and bags. This would be I dream about it every night. It's probably why I'm clenching my jaw so hard in my sleep.

Now I'm thinking about bite force in terms of picnics, My bite force, my bite forces the equivalent of fifty picnics. May the this is what I'm gonna say next time, like like we're eating dinner or something like, May the bite Force be with you? And then everyone will just bust their guts laughing at my cool Star Wars humor. Oh no, oh no, I hope I'm not at that. I hope I'm not at that dinner. Well, now comes the moment everyone's been waiting for more Star Wars jokes.

Now I'm kidding. The actual moment everyone's been waiting for. It is the Mystery animal sound game. Guess Who's squawking? Every week we play a mystery animal sound and you the listener and you the guests, try to guess who's squawking. Who's making that sound? Could be anything could be from birds to insects, to mammals, to see creatures, to invertebrates, to vertebrates, to furry to naked. So many different animals that could be making this sounds, so anything is game.

Uh So, last week's mystery animal sound had this hint that it sounds like an adorable squeaking mouse, except it has way too many legs to be a mouse. And this is what that sound was. Yeah, I would guess a mouse sounds pretty mouth like, what are you gonna tell me? That is? What the what the hell is that? So this is not a mouse. This is, in fact, a poor, sweet little camel spider being harassed. So, oh

my god. So camel spiders get a pretty bad reputation because they're kind of scary looking, but they are mostly harmless to humans. Hooray for being mostly harmless. Uh, they do have strong chilic arrae. So those are the bidy parts which they can use. Now, stay with me, don't don't freak out yet. They can use to cut through bird feathers and light bird bones. But but they are not venomous, and so their bite maybe kind of a painful nip, but probably no worse than what you might

receive from a chihuahua. So you know, if I got bitten by a spider that hurt as much as a chihuahua, I would lose my mind. That is, that's crazy. I hope that never happens to me. How many Newton's are we dealing with Katie with the spider's bite? Do we? Do? We know? I don't actually have that information on the I want to know about I want about all. I don't want to know about all the MONA say, M,

I mean thousand Newton's, No, less five hundred. If we were a thousand, it's probably only two feet Yeah, yeah, I would say maybe three d I'm gonna guess. I don't know. Also, are you am I the only one who's picturing Sir Isaac Newton biting people right now? Yes? Oh? No, okay, not again. So these are found in dry climates, in sort of desert terrain. They are despite being called amal spiders or sometimes they're called wind scorpions. Uh, they are

neither spiders nor scorpions. They are actually solifuges um. So these are a variety of species of solifuges. They are actually in the same class as spiders and scorpions and arachneta, but they are not Uh. They are not spiders and they're not scorpions. So their appearance is somewhat strange and alarming, and for this reason, their ferocity is often much overreported. So some species do grow up to be quite large.

They can grow up to be about six inches or fifteen centimeters long, including the legs, so that's I can see that being pretty intimidating, but most species are only around two inches or five centimeters, so you know, adorable little babies they are. They are a light tan color with a long, oval shaped, segmented abdomen. They have eight legs and two large petal palps that kind of look like an extra set of legs, but they are actually

more used as sensory organs. Uh. Its head is acorn shaped with large chilicae which are those pincers um, and it breathes through sphericles which are tiny holes all over its body, which is a common method of breathing in a lot of invertebrates. So it makes this cute little squeaking sound, if you can call it cute. That sounds

like a mouse squeaking by stridulation. So it rubs its chillice together and creates this squeaking sound, much like a cricket will make a sound by rubbing uh its wings together. So this is a defensive sound. The soulfuges actually lack venom, and so some speed she's of solofuges will use chirps or hisses to ward off predators. So they're just skilled, just little scared babies. Yeah, I don't feel like I'm That's one way to look at it. Feel like I'm

not selling you on. I think I like, I have no against spiders, I actually at all, you know, I think there I try and leave them alone, you know, even even in my house. Um, but like I saw, and I saw, I saw I saw one hiking or I've seen two actually since the pandemic. Actually I never really hiked before that. And I was hiking and I saw like a tarantula twice and so beautiful, I mean it's just incredible to see one in the wild. It's

just I love it. It was I've seen a ton of deer and bears, and the spider was my favorite thing to say. Yeah, there are some tarantulas that are truly, truly beautiful. I've held one before. It's it was a friend's pet, and it's they're so like light and fluffy there.

It's it's both unsettling how light they are and it also kind of like disarming, where it's like, oh, you're just like a little little light poofball and then suddenly it's like crawled halfway up your My arm is like all right, I think we've we've made friends enough here today, But right, who is your who is your friend? Like p J. Harvey? Now I pictured p J Harvey. This is an elementary squad. Okay, so um yeah, but but yeah,

soul fugures. Uh they are not spiders um or or scorpions, but they do kind of look like a spider mixed with a scorpion. And because of this look, I think they spook people. They make them think they are much more dangerous than they really are. There are myths about it being able to outrun a human this isn't quite true. So they're about half as fast as the world's fastest sprinter. Uh. They do have top speeds some species of ten miles per hour, which is sixteen kilometers per hour, so like

pretty fast. Yeah, I think they could catch up to you. That's fast. That could catch me in a second. That's that's that's that's that's very that's very as if I can even run like five miles per hour, I'm you know, I'm I'm definitely not. If one of these soul if you just wanted to eat me, they definitely could. But they don't. They don't want to eat you. I'm glad. I'm glad you. I'm glad. Animals are just mostly minding

just because they could easily really franks up. So the only thing they want to have to do with humans is maybe mooch off of the shade that we make like with our bodies, so like they like to be in the shade. They don't want to sit out in the sun for too long because they can overheat um and so they may like the only cases that they would follow a human around would be because we have this nice shade in our path and they just want to chill out, which I think is kind of cute.

That is nice. I'm gonna carry an umbrella whenever I'm in the desert, a little just like a little miniature umbrella that you hold over it. Yeah, so cute. I love that. So while humans have nothing to worry about with solifuges, uh insects, spiders, scorpions, or even other smaller species of solifuges, as well as small birds and reptiles, do actually have something to be worried about. Because solifuges are voracious eaters. They will constantly hunt to feed their

very rapid metabolism. They're unusual in this respect. Often spiders or scorpions or other arachnids are ambush predators. They kind of like to hide and wait for prey to come towards them. But soul fugues are out hustling every day. They are. It's all about the hustle with these guys. You gotta you gotta respect it. Mm hmm. That's what I've been told. You gotta respect the hustle. I respect

the nap. I God, I love naps. Yeah, yeah, I mean, hustling is okay, But I'd put hustling like fourth like maybe or even maybe even sixth right behind going to the dentist. Yeah, I mean, but that's nice that these spiders are out there doing it for themselves there, you know. There they wake up every day with a little cup of coffee and like every every little leg and uh you know, uh little little uh. Each cup of coffee is like number one sales man of the month and

with a little tie. I don't know what. I don't know what normal jobs is. Honestly, Uh, I don't know what normal jobs is. That's a quote. I like that. Um, I yeah, I think that. I wonder, Yeah, I wonder about the like social lives of these spiders and about like, yeah, they don't get to have any coffee, which they don't need. You know. It's funny what you project all these human things Like it made me feel bad because I like coffee so much. I was like, oh, poor spiders can't

have any coffee. But you know, they don't get They're they're all ready to go, you know what I mean. They're not like me. They're not a coffee is bird bones or something? Yeah? Yes, And I can't believe they can bite through bird bones. I mean bird bones to be fair. Are pretty flimsy. I was about to say, what do you They're actually not that hard to bite through like a tooth pick. I'm chewing on something, you know, and they are not. I will I will sometimes crack

open chicken bones. But that's a discussion for another time. Yeah, that's a different podcast, Chicken Bone Chicken Bone crunch Our. It's for people who enjoy the audio environment of hearing chicken bones being crunched right now. Oh my god, whatever that chicken bonemr. Well, chick I'm sure they got me out on my other podcast. No bones about it, except there is bones about it because they're crunching on bones

right in your ear and HD binaural trinaoral audio. So you better cut this out of the podcast because this is a good idea. People would pay good money for that. The no bones about it except the bones about it with Katie Golden Knight pending copyright. Yeah, it's totally AMR podcast with Katie registered trade. Oh man, well crazy, I can't believe I heart radio about this chicken crunching podcast. I mean it is, it's pretty good. It's disrupting the

podcast industry. Um, you know, I'll help you out with round, I'll round up and we'll talk about this. We'll talk about this after the show, but we'll make it happen. So onto this week's mystery animal sound. Uh, here is the hint. When you find out how this sound is. When you find out how this sound is produced, I'll bet I could knock you over with a feather. Did you hear those like I did? Yeah? Yeah, it sounds like the sound of makes some like like a beep.

You know. It's funny about that is you can't see the video because it's a secret. But uh, this mystery animals but is facing the camera and it does actually do a little duty in the middle of it. So, oh my god. But the sound is not thank god, I don't have It's not coming from the duty. It's coming from something else. Do you have any guesses as to who is making this sound? That's that's a lot of clues, But I, I mean, I just might as well make a joke. I have no idea, like maybe

I don't know. Uh, I can't even think like like some kind of owl that lives on the ground, like an owl, a daytime owl, time owl that lives on the ground. I mean, there are no you're not. This is not absurd. There art Oh no, a thing growing owls? Yeah, there burrowing Oh my god, I'm never going to be outside bearing burrowing owls. Oh my god, I've wasted my time checking the trees for like, Oh my gosh, I've

got to get more. I've only had an owl, helmet and helmet when I went out at night, I didn't have our Okay, so my guess is a you know, my guess is some kind of bird. But I mean, I have no idea. It sounds like a digital It sounds like one of those birds that SIPs water in the window, one of those automatic like birds things, those those those mechanical birds, drinky birds that sucked the water. Yeah. Well, those are my two guests, either burrowing owl or one

of those sippy birds. Very good guesses. Um, The answer to this will be revealed next week next winter. It's hell, I'm not even gonna be here towards for me the rest of my life. I'll never tell you. Uh so you'll just have to sit with that. Suppose I could listen. I could listen. Uh So, if you think you know the answer, you can write to me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com. Chris, thank you so much for joining me today on this very froggy, very ribbedy

ribbety time. I loved it so fun. Katie, thank you very much and I'd come back any time. I really. Uh, this is not my wheelhouse, so it's very it's very fun to uh you know, I never find myself talking about this kind of stuff. Um, and uh yeah, I like to share share the wheelhouse. Uh cool. So where can people find Jim? Do you have got anything to plug? Sure? I got um you can find me at the Crofton show,

on Instagram or Twitter. Um. I also write an advice column called The Advice King for the Nashville Scene, which I've been doing for almost eight years now. And um, the big news for me is that, um, I have a book coming out on Vanderbilt Vanderbilt University Press. It's actually an anthology anthology of my advice columns called the The Advice King Anthology, The Advice King Anthology, and it comes out April fift and you can preorder it now

from Vanderbilt University Press website. And they started shipping just like I just started getting pictures from people that's showing that they got them in the map, and I still haven't. I don't even have one, but but it's beautiful and and I'm so excited. It's it's it's a big, fat book of my advice columns, and my advice columns range from being just silly to being quite serious, and so like that, it's a Pagliacci joke where it's like Pagliacci

goes to the therapist and it's like, I'm sad. How do I get cheered up? And the therapist is like, well, there's this great clown that cheers everyone up. And then the clown he's like, but I'm that clown. I think that's how that joke goes. For you. It's like, like I need some advice. It's like, well, have you checked out this advice book. It's like, well, that's my advice book and I don't even have a copy. Right. That's that's a cool problem to have though for me, I'm

very excited to have that problem. So Yeah, The Advice King Anthology on Vanderbilt Universe coming out April April fift that. You can preorder it now and you can find the show on the internet at Creature feature pot on Instagram at creature feet pot on Twitter. That's et. That is something very different. And you know I'm I'm Katie Golden, so I'm on Twitter too. Just you know, most of my tweets have been about Elden Ring latelad, I'm sorry,

it's just how it is. Sometimes about wondering the game, the computer game. Oh okay, right, I pretended to like I knew what that was. Um, I figured I figured what it is. It's like a fantasy kind of like a um, what do you call that? What's another famous one of those like I'm not famous enough for me I'm thinking about. I forget what I'm thinking. One more thing I forgot to say. I have I have a podcast called Colebrew Got me Like. That's on like you know,

all the podcast places, and it's good. And I forgot to It's a podcast me and my brother do and it's called Coldbrew Got me Like, and you can get it on all the places. Sorry, I forgot Yeah, No, it's well now you've said it, um, And I've admitted embarrassing facts about me, like that I play magic the gathering gather magic was on the computer, and the cards instead of being cards, it was like things moving around on the screen that hit you with big swords and

kill you very bad all the time. Oh yeah, I didn't know that magic the gathering was. I didn't know it was a card. But yeah, well I'm gonna check it. I'm gonna stop talking about Welcome to my new podcast. New podcast that happens at the end of this podcast where it's like I explain what computer games are to people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the world's oldest man. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. Uh and thanks to the Space Classics for

their super awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I R Radio app, Apple Podcast, or guess what wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I don't care. Do what you want, it's fine. See you next Wednesday.