The Birds and the Horny Murder Bees

judge animals if they get a little freaky. Parents, you might want to listen to this one first if your kids are in the room. We're talking about strange equipment, bizarre courtship, and fatal attraction, Discover the s'mores, We answer the angel question, the kidnas Are you Kidney? Today's guest is an actor, writer, producer who's been on Chelsea Lately, Orange is the New Black, Shameless, Insatiable, Key and Peel,

among many other shows. She's the host of Will You Accept This Rose and has just authored a memoir titled Little Miss Little Compton, which comes out September twenty nine, and you can pre order now. And I don't know when she has time to sleep. Welcome to the show, Art and Marine. Oh my goodness, Thank you so much, Katie. Wow, what an intro that is. I'm going to have you introduced me. Wherever I go, I'll be I'll be your hype woman. Dude, I need a hype woman. We can

set up ringing people's backyards. Maybe I'll wrestle, wrestle neighbors and stuff like that. Yeah, we can have a you know, walk around. You can see what round we're on. We'll deal with animals, We'll have snugglapp time, but like hype in between exactly exactly like we're gonna go hard with arden, but then that sounds a little bit in your indoing

the topic. I give you permission to say we're gonna go hard with art and then and then when people get weird about it, we're like, oh no, that's your problem. We're just too innocent ladies going hard and your back, your look at us, so naive and innocent, and you're bringing all this weird energy. You're the one with the creeper vibe, not me holding a sign up. That's your Yeah.

I do like the bikini and high heels. Look. It's very It's like hel utility built a trucker hat right right, It's like you've got a little bit of an outfit for any occasion, come water, ballroom dancing, and gotta repair an engine, anything, anything, you know what, I feel like. It like shoved us, and it thought we weren't going to shove back. And here's the reality. We're adaptable, down and we will come to your backyard in a bikini with their utility deal and we will go hard with hard, right,

go hard with art. Yeah. And I think this is kind of the theme of the episode this this time around, because we are talking about animals who are highly adaptive with their sex and seduction. And you know you, I'm not you. I think you're you're down with it. But like some people may find it a little strange what these animals do, but when you think about it, look, they are getting creative. They're thinking outside of the box, sometimes literally to to pass on their jeans. And that's

what it's all about. I'm not here to kink, shame walrus. I come here to pooh poo some kind of a mola skirt or something, just looking for love, you know, just because I'm a human being, you think that I'm the only one that is mating, you know, right, Gotta do what they gotta do. That is actually our number one rule for guests on this podcast is no kink shaming. The walrus is we've got a sign. They're very touchy

and they will try to cancel you. They will very so artn't tell me a little bit about your relationship with animals. Thank you so much, I would say my present day relationship. I was a dog lady who has stumbled into much afraid of cats. Much to my surprise,

about five years ago, my friend's cat. I was living in New York, but I kept working out in l A and I would stay with her, and her cat picked me as his lady wife like and and would like and when I would go back to New York for a couple of days, he would punish me like and walk asked backwards into the room and bite me. And then we were cool again. So he was definitely a fickle lover. But I felt like that he would sleep on my neck, and I felt so hard for

this cat. He played it the hot and cold game on you. That's how they get you, the one too hot and cold, like I'm into you, but I but I but you, I'm not just a sure thing. And and then so I my I really liked the cat, and I saw how sort of lomade as they are. And I was with this gentleman and with this gentleman who like a straight male cat lady, and so I was like, okay, okay, we can get two cats. So we went to the shelter. We went to Sante Door and last and like and less Felis, which is a

great no kill shelter. Shout out Sante Door and he this ding dong made the air of saying, all cats bond Let's just pick two that like to you. So we picked this one that is a lane stretch. She's like an old lady. She was thirteen. Just picture her with a cigarette, a white button on shirt, black note pants, black tights and like a character shoe. She's completely in love with Dan wants to kill me in my sleep. And then we got this kitten and they could not

have bonded less. And we started feeling really badly for the kitten. So we're like, okay, okay, the kittens lonely, let's go get another cat. Surely. Of course that's how it start going to get another cat. We'll get a kitten for the cat, surely, adding more cats to the cat fire is gonna cure the cat fire? Well, maybe it's because there's two women cat. Maybe let's get a male cat to neutralize this. We'll go get this cat. So then I got a male kitten who's so cute

but like the town deviant to. Now we have three non bonded cats. And then last year I had a relative pass away who had a cat, and my brother refused to take it, and he was like, what's the difference between three and four? So really is you know? I mean, honestly, the one big difference is the cat that loved me, that was like my familiar attached cat hates this new cat like I ruined the life of So now I have four non bonded cats in a small world. That's my present day past day. I grew

the dogs, grew up in the country. You know, I loved my dogs. I will say my brother and I grew up in the country. It was there was very little supervision. My brother and I were very small, rascally kids, and we would chase each other around, and we had a sheep dog and a lapdog that would both when we get too wild, try to knock us over and then hump us into submission. So it's like like that us, they're just babysitting you somewhat literally. They would like nip

at her ankles. It was like a hurting dog. It would nipput her ankles and then like subdue us where it would just like sit on us and then like basically just start pounding a way until we calmed down. The little dog. We would hear like at the dining room table when guests were over. We were here, like the dog Mindy was humping my mother's ankle. This is all in the book. I's gems like. This was humping my mother's ankle and uh. And she was sort of

cocky about it. She was like, yeah, flattered, I can't help it, favors my ankle. Let her have some fun. So I grew up with a very sexualized animal household and then humped cockapoos and sheep dogs. Yeah no, it's I mean, look, dogs hump for a variety of reasons. My my dog actually doesn't do that. Um. But she was at the dog park a long time ago and she was friends with this beagle who was a major hump hump stress, and she humpstress in and I'm a

major humpstress. But she watched this beagle go around doing a lot of humping, just kind of show showing other dogs's boss and my dog, bless her stupid little heart, she went perpendicular to a dog, so so arrived at the dog perpendicular, like went sidesidle like like over the dog's back and sort of like tried to do this awkward humping movement where she was like lifting her little toes and sort of doing this like like is this right? And then I was like, Cookie, no, And we were

all laughing at her. And I think that embarrassed her, and and she was too embarrassed too. Ever, Yeah, she got she got hump shamed. And I do feel a little guilty that I humped shamed her so because now she doesn't do it. Keith, my cat, that's was the third one on the pile. He's so horny and we got him fixed. He's a little cat. We got him fixed. That dude well has never met a blanket that he didn't want to like need the bread and then just like start grinding. He just like punts his blanket. I

don't know what it is about me. I I feel like I look I look like the devia. Well maybe it's maybe it's the ginger cat. You know, you know what they say about as Ginger's right, you can't, you can't fix us. Let me tell you what. I am a real ginger and I talked about that. I have evidence right here on my my back. There's my stix green picture. Words my dad said about me was she's not a blonde, she's a redhead. I never met a redheaded woman. I trusted. First words of the redheads are

supposed to be kind of spicy. Yeah, yeah, exactly, love it. I love it. Yeah, you can't. You can't tame us. You can't. You can prior spfs away from our cold dead hands. Yes, I put like SPF eighty thousand on every day, all day, everywhere, and I still am just like a symphony of frickles my hands from the driver's side, like just it's you can't win. You're not going to beat the man, and the man is the sun, and

the sun is you can't win is unwinnable. One thing that is winnable, though, I think, is the reproduction game in nature. And that was a weird segue, but I'm going to stick with it. Actually plotting, I was like, she'sn't realized this is rong is. We can't defeat the sun, but hey, we can reproduce until the sun is so grossed out it hides behind what I'm saying out the sun. It's like, get a room, Get a room, And here

are some animals who are doing just that. In this first section, I want to talk about not just their behavior, but the strange equipment that some animals have. So strange genitalia um and it's one of the most interesting things. When you look at the genitals of various species of animals, like insects and reptile it is fascinating. They don't just look like how you necessarily expect them to look. Some of them look like morning stars, like uh, like snake

penises look like some kind of medieval weapon. But this one I thought is really interesting because this is the crane fly, and crane flies have musical penises, so we're

kind of a musical instrument. It's like, um, one of those scraping blocks where you remember in like an elementary school, where you would get everyone would get an instrument, and some people would get the scraping blocks, or you just get the little wooden dowl that has these ridges, and then you go like that penis of the crane fly is like that exactly. So you know how like when crickets chirped by rubbing their textured wings together, it's called stridulation.

That is the technique. That's what you're doing with that little instrument, and that is what the crane flies do with their instrument. If you know. That is so exciting. Yes, And what's even more interesting is they don't actually I don't think a human could necessarily hear it, and it is not I don't think it's for attracting another mate, like calling to them. It's more just to make the mate feel good and to keep her around her her pleasure. I love this so far. I give thumbs up for

the musical pianist. I feel like it's very sex positive. Absolutely, a good crane fly musician can keep his mate interested in copulate for up to ten minutes. That's a long time when you're that little in your life's brand is probably eleven minutes. So that yeah. Well, so it's interesting because crane flies don't live very long and they look like it's kind of like that thing when you see in your house and you're like, oh my god, that's a huge mosquito. They they're like they could fit in

the palm of your hand. They look like big scary mosquitoes. They're harmless to humans, but they just look a little bit alarming. As adults, they don't have that much time. It's like about ten days. So yeah, ten minutes is like, wow, that's a big chunk. I mean, that's a large portion of getting at it, going to the right right, it's like spending a year just you know, getting it done, getting at it. That's exciting, Like good for that with a crane fly with a little bit of you know,

accompanying music, I think that's so it's so sweet. It's like romantic, romangic and yeah, exactly exactly. And crane flies are not the only insect that uses their their tool as an instrument. There is also some species of moths who have musical genitals and they use their penis like very much like the crane fly does. They use stridulation to create an ultrasonic noise that both attracts mates and it also jams the sonar of bats who are trying to hunt them, So it's a signal jammer for the

bats and then it attracts me. It's like a multi use tool. It's incredible. It's like a force field. Ween like it's like the perfect like the undercarriage that can both protect you and like bring up your all the

ladies to the yard. It's it's like I'm in imagining this thing with like a little like a little satellite coming out and going like boop boop boop, and then and then like a little attachment that plays music and just like a radar system and we're not there that has like built some super dude that's got all that business in his pants. It's like great idea, right, sort

of like a smartphone. Yeah, it's like the Inspector gadget. Yeah, oh there's yeah, there's probably some Inspector some erotica about Inspector Gadget. I'm certain of it. So now onto um a bit of a bigger animal who has This is one of those things where when you look at it, it's just confuses your brain as to what you're looking at. It's very cute. It's very cute. This isn't a kidna,

and kidnas are monotreams. Like the platypus um. They have a narrow pointed snout and spine similar to a porcupine like the platypus, though they lay eggs, they don't have nipples and they just kind of leak milk out of their bellies because monotreams are the this really old group of animals that have a lot of these transitional features from before mammals were around, when we had like this common ancestor sort of reptile like ancestor and then it

transitioned into these these mammalion features. But montreams are sort of this like weird, very old group of animals that have still are like they still have eggs and they still don't have um the same kind of memory glands that mammals have. So it's really interesting. Well, Australia and New Guinea, that's very cool. That feels right. Australia gets all the weirdos and Australia you know what. I feel like, it's it's like a fun wild card, like you know,

I like that for Australia. I feel good about that for Australia. Yeah, I'm very jealous of Australia's uh biodiversity and also it's not just biodiversity. Feels like they get all of the wildest animals. It's like, is this a cool, completely alarming animal that could either kill you or blow your mind? Like it's probably in Australia. I like that we want badlor in Australia on our Patreon page. And I gotta tell you there's like a little white there's a bit of a fun wildness of the the you know,

the contestants that's different than here. And I feel that that's true in the same animal kingdom because they don't know if the spider they see, like crawling on the wall is going to kill them. Like they could like find some kind of you know, there's like you go in the ocean, there's box jellyfish everywhere, these invisible little

things that can Yeah, so kid knows. Despite looking very menacing with all their spikes, they are They just like to hunt ants and termites, so kind of like an it looks like an ant eater and a hedgehog got together and had it offspring. But they have this long beak that hunts for ants and termites. But that's not why I want to talk about them. I mean, they are really cool animal. They're cute, They're very cute, very adorable. I know. I they just look so huggable. They're They're not.

They're absolutely not. You shouldn't just hug one. No, looking at those claws. I mean, there's no part of me that thinks I would have both of my eyes left in my socket if I hugged it. That actually not. Yeah, yeah, I mean it uses those to dig for ants and termites, and it could probably dig your eyes out to you. I don't know. Going hard with the harden that means that's the cold king is going hard to ripping my

eyeballs in my like tricky way. I'm don't lose, and I know that, and that's why I'm not going to go harder. Okay, but you respect you respect them. I respect it. I know when I'm outmatched. And here's another reason to respect them. The males have a four headed penis. Yeah, it's just it's just it's just wonder Oh I'm looking at it. Whoa, it looks like an elephant's foot. Yeah, it looks like a cartoon Simpson's hands. Okay, wait a minute, So does it does do all four of those ejaculate? Yes,

that's disgusting, like its breaker system. Well, here's how it actually works when they are invading, so it's actually like to only two heads work at once, like I guess, sort of a stereo system. But like so when they're mating, like at first, only two of them on the same side will ejaculate, and then after that is done, then the other two will ejaculate later. So it's sort of like you get more bang for your buck by having right four heads. So that is the craziest looking penis

It really is. He doesn't look like that big of an animal. The size and the it is like it is like a stump has come out, is stumped with or like a rhinoceros foot. It's just jammed out with a pedicure that will not be denied. And I I know, I'm so immature that if I saw it, I would not stop screeching and taking photos because look how second, like he's smiling like yeah, man, look at a like check it out. He's really like a little bit deviant. I mean, is like what you've got a problem? Like

you can tell he's into it. It's like, yeah, oh you've got you've got like one head on yours. That's that's cute. And look at his claws on his back foot like adorable. That's great. Well, what's interesting too, because their monotreams the other parts of their plumbing are very different from mammals. So monotream actually means one hole, and that's why they're called monotreams. Scientists are weird, they're they're they're really perverts, all of them. I can see that.

But like they actually have a cloaca that does the urination and defecation. Females just have the cloaca that basically handles everything. Males have this ridiculous penis and the cloaca. The penis is just for having sex, the kloacas for everything else for waste disposal. Actually, that makes a lot of sense, like why did we why did we merge everything into one organ as as mammals, I mean it does.

It does have to do with like the arrangement, like how we have babies and we have give live birth, whereas um monotreams can give birth to eggs, and so it's just there are reproductive system gets all rearranged whenever we make an evolutionary decision like hey, I'm going to give live birth to a big baby versus like giving birth to an egg. You're fantastic. Can I just say, I'm like, I feel like you would be my brother's

dream girl. You have the people that have crushes on you, must have gigantic crushes on you, because it's all about talking about the reproductive system scientifically. Actually, just like I think you know what it is. It's just your passion for animals. You're so charming, you're so sweet. Well, you're

wooing me right now. Actually, you know, on my first date with my current fiance, I started talking about parasites as a pickup line, just like, let me tell you about all the insane parasites out there, Like there's one that takes over a fish tongue, and I think I think that's what sealed the deal. You're sole and adorable, like chefs kissed you. You are so sweet. Well, I love the praise. But let's talk more about a kidnapenis is because I think that's that's what people are here for,

the sod. They came for the kidnapenis and we can serve them that on a platter. Um. So there's the question of like, why why would they why would they have like a sprinkler as as as a penis, especially because they can only really like fit two of them in the female at once, So it's like they go with two and then they go with the other one. And the answer is actually that they have this really

intense sperm competition. So when males are competing to reproduce, sometimes they compete basically for access to the females, and sometimes it is not necessarily like the mating itself. Um, the copulation is not where you're competing. It's at the level of your sperm and your sperm fitness. And that's the case with the kidnas. So a kidnas hibernate, but male kidnas will come out of hibernation before females and

so they will go around mating with hibernating females. And so that seems awfully unfair because the females and you're thinking, like, well, how do female select for the fittest male if they're just like hibernating. Well, females are able to select for sperm by going into torpor, which is another word for sort of an extended state of stasis or hibernation between matings. They can delay gestation and they can even abort their egg like self abort um in order to make sure

that they are getting the fittest sperms. I mean biologically speaking, they aren't mentally like through like Okay, this sperm is pretty good and I don't like this one, you know this one, but like, biologically their reproductive system really is selecting for the best sperm that comes along for the males. Like they can go around and try to mate as much as they want, but if they you know, don't have the right stuff, it's just not gonna necessarily work

for them. Wow, that is amazing. That is amazing. And so for them being able to basically say, you have an a kidna that went and mated with a female, if another male comes along and he has better sperm and and more of it, uh, then he can actually like sort of resurp the previous mating of the other kidna. You're like, sorry, bro, I'm here and I've got four valves and mine are working better than the exactly That's

exactly it. And it's it is. It's kind of um, it's a it's a very strange form of sexual selection, but it you know, it all works out in the end. Mother nature, she's she's a she's her own beast. What comes out of this is an adorable baby a kid night. I've never seen a picture of a baby kidney. The cutest little like squishy. It looks like a water balloon with a face. They're so cute. And they are called puggles. Oh my god, I just I can't even come on.

It's just it's it sounds like a Jim Hanson character, like you know, we're going to puggle rock being out with the Puggles. I'm looking that up right now. I'm looking at up right now. I'm going to see this. Oh my god, oh my god. It kind of looks like a character that would be in the like the Star Wars like bar, like the bar scene, you know, like or the canteen. The canteen looks like Max Reebo from Star Wars, that little like weird elephant thing. Oh my god. And you can kind of see that like

the crazy the crazy Genitalia just getting at it. Well, this is fat like what I'm learning today exactly. And you know, female a kidnas are not the only animals who get to be choosy when it comes to sperm, so a little less cute, but still very interesting. Dung flies are found all over the Northern hemisphere, and as their name very rudely implies, they love dung I mean that they love everybody's got their own thing, yeah, exactly. And females have sperm stores in her vaginal tract that

keeps sperm house before it reaches her egg. And this is these like sperm storage containers become a sort of sperm thunderdome where male dung flies will try to displace other male sperm and the one with the best sperm wins in this like sperm thunderdome. In the female we all are taught to be so uptight like when we were, you know, at least I grew up in a world that was very sort of buttoned down about it. And it's like it's just like natural, the world is just bonkers.

Just you know, do do what mother nature intended for you to do, Yeah, which is a sperm thunderdome. Exactly. Yeah, It's it's truly, it's truly incredible to me. And this is a little less relatable. I just had to share it with you because I was looking I found this on accident as I was doing the research for this show, and this I was like looking at different, like like if there's interesting facts about different animal Genitalia. And I found that there are bull penis canes walking canes that

people make out of bull penis. I so the the the mental wiring, that's like, that's going to like procure that, it's going to give your hard earned money. It's like, no, I need that, and like, I think you need to walk like I am the man. It's almost the equivalent of having the balls hanging on the back of your truck. But I felt like a walking cane, like a dapper adapper. It's a it's a dress, a gussied up version of truck nuts, for sure. It's the black tie. Where is

the oscars meeting the queen? But you still want exactly This is from Fashionable Canes dot com. This is bull Penis tourist handle walking cane for the lolo price of nine dollars. Hashtag worth at worth it and this is I love the description. This is a genuine bull Penis cane. This cane has been used for hundreds of years. It represents good stamina and strength. This is a collector's cane

that is a must for any cane collector. A taxidermy process is used to sterilize and properly cure the tissue. The organ is stretched over a metal rod to make it sturdy. Brass tip with rubber tip included. Gotta get gotta get that traction. It doesn't even look like I mean, I guess it's a penis, but you wouldn't look at it. And no, I'm more penis right, like just sort of your stroll around with shaped But no, it's like it looks like it's look honestly looks like a giant slim gym,

which kind of upsets me to saying it. Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, like how dogs often chew the boy sticks. Yeah, it's made out of that is also made out of. I mean, there's many uses apparently horrible penis um. One of them is cruising around town in style. Yes, it's fantastic. I love it. Human penises are lacking in something a bone. Most mammals, including our primate relatives, have a penis bone called a baculum. Even our close relatives, the chimpanzee, have a penis bone. So

why not humans? Why didn't Mother Nature throw us a bone? Well, humans simply don't have sex long enough or frequently enough to need the extra support. Mammals who have more prominent baculums tend to mate for longer durations, like walruses who have marathon underwater copulations with multiple females. Chimpanzees who mate very briefly have a much smaller vacuum, but males also

mate with multiple females, sometimes within a short period of time. Humans, on the other hand, seem to have evolved with a less frantic system of mating, with less intense mating sessions and fewer partners, so no need for the extra structural support of a penis bone. When we return, we're talking about some of the most interesting mating rituals on the planet, including a very prickly situation. Romance is subjective. Some people like aromatic candles and rose petals, some people like dancing,

Some people like a rubber chicken and car batteries. The point is there are a whole lot of different ways to get in the mood, and animals are no exception. So now that we have talked about very interesting equipment when it comes to mating, now I want to talk

about mating rituals that are fascinating. And first I want to talk about whiptail lizards, because this is a we're getting into some real Jurassic Park stuff with these, because whiptail lizards are a species of lizards found in Arizona and New Mexico, and in a win for feminism, they are all female, not a not a single boy, and wow,

that's amazing. How do you reproduce? That is a good question, as Jeff Goldbloom says, life, Uh, find the way, and so they actually reproduce via parthenogenesis, which means that they can reproduce without male sperm, and so a lot of times what like a sexual reproduction is is basically cloning. You create a clone of yourself and then give birth to that clone and then basically just have a clonal species. But what's interesting about whippedtail lizards is their offspring aren't

exact clones. They actually have three sets of chromosomes that they can shuffle around kind of like shuffling the decks of these chromosomes around, and they can create a genetically unique offspring that is not a clone, and that allows them to be an all female species and still maintain some amount of genetic diversity by basically they have all of this big library of chromosomes and just you know,

shuffle them up. That is so interesting. And when you think about how many different species are on earth, just that there's this whole variety and that we get so we just think we're the only ones doing. You know, we're out there going after our dreams and paying our mortgages or whatever. You're putting gas in the car. It's it's so interesting. There's all these little universes happening all over exactly. And just because they reproduce a sexually does

not mean that there is no room for romance. Because these whiptail lizards will engage in what's called pseudocopulation, so they will essentially dry hump each other. And it's not just for fun, although I'm sure it is. It also helps them regulate their hormones, which is more likely to create a successful self fertilization. So it's basically getting them in the mood to have a baby. I love this and I'm a fast signing up for a whiptail lizard.

They're so thing also really charming about it, where there's not really any competition sexual competition between them. They're just all like, you know, I just need to get in the mood, and so they just all kind of end up helping each other out because it's mutually beneficial to you know, give each other backrubs and light some candles and lay some flower pedals out or whatever lizard you get when you have all female world, they're like, got

your sister takes a village. I got you a little a little heart shaped box full of like dead maggots for them to eat. You had a hard day, Karen, here's some here's some maggots for you. John at the office, let me give your shoulder massage. Man, How much better would Golden Girls and Sex in the City Ben if it was like a whiptail lizards? Just you know, I just did that show. I said no gifts, and I brought the host Bridger a Golden Girls Clue game. I

played that. It was fun because I really wanted to say it, but I bought it for him. I was like it was out wrapped. I wanted to open it, like was it fun? Yes? Yes, my friend Dave Bell and Tom Rayman had had like a game night we played the Golden Girl's Clue. It's great. They're like objects like cherry pie or something. I don't I didn't watch a lot of Golden Girls, so some of the references went over my head. But it was, I know, the test of it, and I'm like, I get you there.

I know they had like a feather healed slipper, and then we had like somebody's handbag and then there's like you know, tissues or it's so fun great if they would be getting each other in the mood mine. One complaint about the game is it doesn't come with a bag of Whether's originals, which I think would have like just fully sort of you know, got the full immersion.

You need some hard candy like to be able to like win when like that's the goal as you get to go to into like Nana's handbag and get yourself

right exactly exactly. Speaking of going into Nana's handbag, I want to talk about nuptial gifts, so which again a little bit of a strange segue, but this is a thing that happens, especially with insects or arachnids like spiders, where they will give their partner prey item like a unlucky fly or something that they give to their mate so that their mate will be eating this while they're mating and it gives them more time to mate. So hanging flies are predatory insect in the scorpion fly family.

They actually look they also look like a crane fly, like is some kind of huge mosquito, but they are actually they can actually prey on crane flies, so they're much more, much more serious news. If somebody gave me a gift to snack on while I was mating, that is a sure fire way to my heart. Yes, exactly,

And that's what these hanging flies do. They just give the males give the female a snack to munch on while mating, which you know, it's just like hand like hand in handing you a HOGI being like, all right, you work on that while I I do my business down here. I love that when my blood sugar gets well, pittycats gotta eat, you know. So have you brought me like a taco or something? I you know, I put me in a good mood. I'd feel relaxed. I feel

like it could just be free. Great idea, right right, I mean I think that like having snacks is like an underrated seduction technique. A comfortable bed maybe like a temper pedick with the nice settings like and then snacks like a bowl of pretzels, maybe some in and out, you know what I mean, Just like you know somewhere

there's originals too. I do like where there's originals. And ironically, I have not had one in a long time, and I know every time I've had one, I thought, well, that's really buttery and good, like that's really good, rich and satisfying, hard candy butter scotch. Yeah, I always get one. One I get like a sore throats, like, oh well, I need this for my sore throat because I don't like cough drops. They taste like ass. So you know where there's original, it's good for you. I you know

it's your it's your regal, exactly exactly. The game for the male hanging fly is to get the female a large enough snack that she will eat it long enough for him to complete mating. So if it's too small, uh, and she finishes eating, she's like, all right, well I'm done with this, like fly burrito you gave me, Now get the hell out, and she'll like kick him off. But if it's big enough, he can complete mating, get a bunch of his genetic material sent out, and once

he's done. He will sometimes try to steal the gift back from her. I mean that's where I'm like Bylicia hit the road jack and then he tries to re gift it to another partner, gigantic and like, you've gotten at with me. So I'm chowing down to my burrito. You're getting at it. Whatever, do your thing. And then I'm still enjoying my burrito, which you've distracted me with, and then you try to pry it from my like slightly disinterested hands and then go bing it over to Katie.

That's we got your we talk. We know, we got your number. Yeah, we've got a group text. Yeah that that hanging fly. A group text has got to be blowing up all the time with our Shenanians. People. They know you cannot regift a snack you've brought to a lover to woo a lover. People know people talk exactly. Now. I want to talk about porcupine sex because one of the biggest questions people have with porcupines is how do they do it? How do they have sex? And the

answer is very carefully. They're so cute, so cute. So there are many different species of porcupine. There's not just one species of porcupine. There are Old World porcupines who have sort of like they have these black and white striped spines, and they are actually monogamous, which is really cute. Um. But North American porcupines are free spirits and they are

into really freaky mating rituals. So females are only fertile for less than a day every year, so in that in those few hours, she's got to make the most of it. Um. So they used secretions to attract males, and once the males arrive, they can they often like fight each other, have these gruesome porcupine battles. Window even if you are successful at this porcupine battle, you are not guaranteed anything. She's still got a battery of tests for you to go through. One of them is a

urine tests. She's gonna make your piano cup, well not really piano cup. She's gonna make your pee on her. So the males will urinate on the female with a special kind of like sexual urine that gives her a chance to smell the urine and determine whether he is physically fit. She's like she's like a doctor, Like she she's like going yeah, this seems this seems right, or she's like, no, you're you're dehydrated. You don't you know your your hormones are off. I don't like I don't

like your levels here bonkers. Yes, And if she does not approve of the male's urine, she will scream at him, shake the urine off, and chase him away. Game over, you fail your urine tests, you know, I mean, that's the right response. You can try to tell her, oh, it's just a poppyseed muffin, I trust me, believe me, but no, she's not gonna buy it's But if she's into it, she will allow the mail to meete with her.

And now there is she is always in control because you the male cannot mate with a female unless she has made it possible for him, because he will impale himself on her spines. So what she does is she will curl her tail upward over her back and lay the spines flat so the male can mount her without getting impaled. And if she doesn't do this, he will just impale himself. So that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's like she's she's a strong, sexy doctor who's covered in spines.

I mean, I love that I love that with her. You know, we did talk about the old world porcupines and how they're monogamous, and it's like people people sometimes like the opposite of king shaming. I feel like it is vanilla shaming, where you're like, oh, that's boring, you're too boring. Well, but consider this, Like, you know, the New world porcupines they have their style which is really cool, but Old world porcupines will often mate shortly after the

female gives birth. Um again, the female has to allow the male to mate with her into it, but right, but like, if she's into it, they will mate. And there's actually no reproductive reason for this mating because she's not fertile after she gives birth. So the just to strengthen their bond because they love each other. They're porcupines, you know, They're just two porcupines and love right exactly exactly. And I think that's that's like just as fascinating as

like the weird, kinky porcupine stuff. Is just like that they have this monogamous bond and they're like, hey, look, you know we've got you know, the kids asleep. You know what that means, It's time get over here. It's time. Sometimes spikes are in a much more unfortunate location. When it comes to mating, male cats have an infamously barbed penis. Their penis is covered in tiny caratin barbs which scrape

the inside of the female cats vagina. This can both help remove the sperm of the male's competitors, and it also stimulates the female in a way that triggers hormones to help her ovulate. So it sounds like the female is get in the rough end of the stick. But is mating really unpleasant for the female. There's some evidence that mating can cause discomforting cats of particularly unhappy female

may lash out and attack her mate. But some species of big cats, such as lions, cougars, and leopards, all of whose male sports barbed penises, have high rates of mating that seemed to be too excessive to be purely for reproduction. Female lions, when in heat can sometimes made up to one hundred times a day with multiple partners, which may indicate that she either enjoys mating or reaps some benefit. When we return, we're going to talk about

some truly dangerous mating habits and fatal attractions. In French la petit mort means the little death, and it's often a phrase used to describe orgasm. Basically, la petite mort refers to a brief break with consciousness or transcendence from your conscious state, which has also been likened to the feeling after sex. But in some animals, la petite more that little death is a bit more permanent. Now I want to talk about fatal attraction, and this is of

course there's always very uh. We love the tales of fim fatals in in literature and movies. Um, but nature is just tops all of that. You can't there's no like fim fatal Stephen King character or you can't. You can't compete with nature. She's got she's got the Yeah,

she's got the most horrific soap opera you've ever seen. First, I want to talk about brown widow spiders because we know, we all know about the black widow and the whole Like she she will sometimes eat the mail I mean, and I feel like she's given him a bad rap because a lot of spiders and a lot of insects like praying mantis is will sometimes engage in sexual cannibalism, where they eat their partner after mating, but um black widows don't always do that, they sometimes do, just as

pragmantis is don't always decapitate and eat their mate after um mating, but they sometimes do. But brown widows are really interesting because the males make a very interesting choice when it comes to mating. So brown widow males show a very strong preference for older females, even though reproduction with the older females is riskier, so younger females are more fertile and less likely to eat the males after mating.

Older females know what they want, and what they want is possibly sex, but also to like have a snack after mating, which is you like the male spider um. And take a look at that picture of the brown winds hard to even look at it. It's so gnarly. He's this tiny, like this tiny little I compared to the female just just aty biddy less than fourth her size, So he stands no chance if she decides to eat them, that's it game over. And these older like cougar females,

these sexy older women love to eat the males. Yes they do, yes, But and so researchers thought, okay, obviously the males are gonna go for younger females because they don't eat males as much. But oh contraire, the males seem to like to live dangerously with these sexy older women. Get those kids, and they will mate much more often with the older females, and researchers aren't exactly sure why

this is. I think it's because it's like sexy as hell, But it's possible that the older female brown widows have more powerful pheromones that help attract the males, so as they're older, maybe they put out the signal. Yeah, put out that signal. But I love that because it's really kind of like subverts that Hollywood trope of, like the you know, young film Fatalit, like these spiders love an older lady even if he bites your head off. Sign

me up. Another deadly liaison occurs with Anaconda's now Anaconda's these two photos. I cannot even it looks it looks a bit squishy. I gotta say. Anacondas are huge snakes from South America, as we know from that documentary film Anaconda. They live in swamps and marshes. They're sort of slower on land, but they're great swimmers, they have no venom. They kill prey by wrapping around them and strangling them to death. And females can grow up to be around

twenty feet long, which is six meters. Typically, they only grow up to be a measly sixteen feet though, about five meters not that's not so bad. Males only grow up to be about ten feet or three meters long, so they are smaller than females by a good amount. When mating, females will waft out pheromones, which attracts males and more than one, so they will form what's called a breeding ball, which is a bunch of giant snakes wrapped around each other, like a big pile of giant snakes.

Spaghetti not easy to look at. It's like spaghetti in a pot. Though you know what else? Python? Oh my god, it's not. They're not pythons. Though it's sort of inaccurate. I just had to do it for the acronym. It doesn't scare you that photo. It doesn't scare me because they're gonna be too preoccupied mating to like try to strangle me. I would say it's unappetizing, like it makes me not want to have like you know, pina or spaghetti or you know kind of the squitting pasta. I

will wait on that after looking at the photos. But they in this breeding ball, these snakes will wrap around each other and the males will compete to try to get their sperm to reach the female, and they'll even try to like push out the other male's sperm if they've already mated with the female. And they also the males have what's called a pelvic spur, which is a claw located near the kloaco which, as we talked about before, kloake is that hole that kind of does it all, um,

I don't want to spur near there. But that spur is actually the remnant of hind legs that these animals used to have because they lost their legs to become the snake or danger noodles as we like to call them on the show. And they use this pelvic spur to like tickle the female and like stroke the female. But which is nice, but it can also be used to fight other males or try to shove them off. So fascinating. Yeah, yeah, very It's again very interesting tools

that that these males have. Some males will get lucky and get their way to the female. Um, but some will get a little unlucky. They'll strike out and they will get eaten by the female who's probably pretty hungry after all of the mosh pit mating and like, researchers have found whole snakes inside of these female anacondas and it is indeed a male anaconda that they figure probably you know, just got eaten during one of these big

mating balls. I mean, it reminds me. Did you watch the documentary Wild Wild Country and Sheila the head, like the lady that was sort of the head of the cult. Oh, I don't think so. Which was this about um Rajnish she's up in Portland. Oh no, I haven't seen this documentary. It's really good. But like she was just charming but top like a top head and like the number two of this and I feel like I feel like she could she had like the temperament. I mean, she was

kind of terrifying and adorable at the same time. It was like, Wow, she could eat somebody and she might need somebody. Yeah, it's sort of it's sort of like, Oh, another another documentary that the Tiger King documentary Carol Baskin right, she's like she's so charming and yeah, you know, but like she she definitely like she definitely ate her husband of her husband. I know that is I mean, that is just absurd. Yeah, okay, me dressed like a tiger

and eat my husband. You don't you can't believe you read online she like burps like a whole Famer exactly. She burps like like the whole Famer and then looks like the guy Robert Durrs', like I did it. I killed him all picks a little bit of mustache out from between her two for sure. For you know, something happened out in that backyard for sure. So too and are very naughty show about mating. About the birds and the bees. I thought we could talk about some bees.

So I want to talk about Dawson's burrowing bees. I love bees. I think they're adorable. These are no exception there, these little fuzz balls that buzz around. Um. They can also be found in Australia. Don't they look cuddly? They look they're very cute, you know. I I um, I would cuddle a bee like if it was safe for

the bee. Um. But unfortunately, when they sting you. It also like with honey bees, not with all bees, um, but like with honey bees, when they sting you, the stinger actually comes out, and the bleeding that they suffer after stinging you actually is mortal. Yeah, and so I feel really bad, Like actually, for the first time in my life, I got stung by a bee last week, and I start like it hurts, Yeah, it hurts a

little bit. That the worst part was that I then like I don't right, I felt so bad, buddy, Like you didn't need to stay. I wasn't gonna oh cheese now now now you did not I was. I would have put you, I would have picked you, carried you to the nearest flower, and you didn't have It actually didn't hurt that bad because it was on a fingertip. And also like what you want to do is like scrape it away as quickly as you can, just kind of like flick the singer out and that way because

it can keep injecting venom. Like the longer the stinger is, the longer the singer is, the more venom you're gonna get. UM. So like you kind of like very very quickly, like you don't want to like um squeeze the area too much. You don't want to really like shove your fingernails and then try to like because then like by tugging on the actual sort of meaty part of the stinger, you

can actually push like squirt more venom into it. So you want to like like just take a fingernail or credit card and just kind of like swoop it, you know, just scrape it off, just a little flick. It should should come right out if it's in a an accessible area, and then just like rense your finger off with some some cool water, wash it off, and then it should I mean, like it's sometimes it's in a place where it's going to be worse. But yeah, it wasn't that bad.

But yeah I did feel guilty for the poor little bee. But these bees, these Dawson's burrowing bees, are found in Australia and they are not like honey bees. They actually do not form hives. They, like many species of wild bees, are solitary and each female will reproduce on her own in her own nest. Now, just because they're solitary breeders doesn't mean they aren't sort of communal, because they do form these like big almost like an apartment complex of burrows.

Like it's like the ground and you see a bunch of holes in the ground and there it's like a it's a it's a bee apartment. Um, you know, welcome to what was that? What was the apartment? Like corny soap opera comic, like three B apartment? Apartment three B? Is it? I think three B? Yeah, but this is like apartment like hundred bees. I love the idea of the apartment. Yeah, and alright, just like buzzing around, like

like hey, Barbara, and you're just buzzing. But yeah, So the females, like in when they reproduce, the females will actually dig a pretty deep burrow, uh lay their eggs which will develop into larva, and they provide them with food and then the larva grow and then they crawl up and emerge from the holes. And it's actually, to me really cute to see these little bees coming like poke, they poked their little fuzzy heads out of the hole.

They're like, oh, here's the thing. Male bees will actually emerge before the females, and the females as they emerge, the competition to get access to the female is very fierce and the males will start fighting each other and

they once a female emerge. It's like when it's early on in the breeding and everyone's competing all at once and there's only like a few females, and like all of these males they will form these big breeding balls much like the anaconda's, but even more violent, where they will decapitate each other, fight and claw their way just

these like this like deadly ball of horny bees. I don't want a deadly ball of horny and they like it's literally looks like a battle field with all these like bees, like some of them are like decapitated, and it's nobody wants that. I don't want that. He wants that.

It's just complete, complete pandemonium. Can you just be a little more patient, you know, you just chill it out, Like you don't need an angry mass of a ball of horny fighting bees right right, And they look they look so fuzzy and cute, and I don't these these

little sweet cutie pies. But then they just they horn it out on the battlefield and it is like they can accidentally like they're trying to mate with each other, and they can accidentally like behead their own mate in their fears attempt to like try to be the one that gets to me. It's truly terrifying, you know, So think about that when you know what, I feel that I've learned my I feel like I've learned my lesson,

and I will think about that. To be fair, though, a little little honey bees like their their whole system is much more civilized where they have, you know, their whole hive structure. And it is interesting because like when you see sort of the alternative to you sociality. So that's when you have this hive structure where you have one queen that reproduces and all these sister bees um that are all related and working together to ensure the

success of the hive, but they're not necessarily reproducing. It does make that seem like a lot less unfair when you realize, like an other like solid Harry Beak populations, like the competition to make is so fierce and so deadly. It's like, you know, the hive structure can actually be a quite successful strategy. They just have to play it cool when they're the big horny ball at the end playing cool. You know, nobody nobody likes someone who comes to the b orgy too early and too eager. Yeah,

you got cool. Let's just play. You's gotta like slow your role a little bit. It's play a little bit hard to get exactly exactly I want to. I want to teach these bees sort of the art of you know, just like like you got you know, we were talking about your cats earlier, like they know the art of seduction. You gotta like play it hot and cold. Please bees coming hot? You like, I am not a sure thing.

A little bit of yeah, hold off on some of the horny decapitations, just a little bit, a little just it's just a bit well Arden, thank you so much for joining me. I can't believe how anything, as you know, I mean, I have to talk to you. It's really like what a fascinating I will never forget that panis that foreheaded penis and also looking at it, it's a little baby, I mean, just the whole thing. The puggle.

Those are cute. I feel that I've learned a lot and uh and I appreciate that, and I appreciate you hig on of course, and you know, but the inspiration for this episode was reading Little Miss Little Compton, and again I love the chapter on sex education. It's hilarious if you're if you've ever had a childhood you know, which I think most of us have somebody childhood some some of us, you know, like this is it's just

a wonderful book. It's so fun and funny. And I think it's like, I love the way that you capture just the inevitable awkwardness of childhood. You know, I've ever I feel like everybody, everybody's families has their works, and this is mine, and but that you don't maybe you don't feel alone. And I think it's a fun book for just the world right now. I think it's fun and lighthearted, but I think there's a lot of hearts

to it. And um, we're actually doing a thing where we're going to have a book release party virtually at the Dynasty Typewriter. It's gonna be like a variety show and a party. Lauren lopkis who is us from the Wrong Missy. She is Missy, So she and I are doing it together. It's just gonna be my co host and we're gonna read from the book. And um, because I can't tour right now, so this is this is my The good news is that you can be in any time zone. So it's gonna be Saturday, September twenty

six at five pm. If you go to Dynasty Typewriter dot com is it Tickets are five dollars, which also goes to help support the theater. And um, we're gonna have uh Ryan Sophie from Throwing Shade, who's hilarious. He's gonna come on, Rob Benedict from Supernatural he plays God on Supernatural one, and he's gonna say, your literally having God come on to promote your book, my book. He's gonna do a Katie Perry cover. My brother is gonna be there, and we're gonna have some special surprise guests.

So for five dollars and you can interact with us and what's fun about it? If you can't make it at five pm Pacific Saturday, the link will be live on YouTube for one week afterwards, so you can watch it anytime. And you can also order through the Dynasty Typewriter website. If you want to get a for the price of just a regular price of the book, you want a custom signed to you, so not even just not even just a signature. If you want me to be like, hey, Katie and watch for those horny killer bees.

You can keep a page third Team, but you can write him what you want it dedicated to, and you can get a like as a gift for yourself. You can get a custom signed books. I would like to request a book that says, Hey, Katie, watch out for those horny horny bees. You know what. I feel like that's your destiny. I feel like that used to happen. I think we can make that happen. And so where can people find you online? Where what's your socials? I'm on Instagram and Twitter at art and marine dot com.

Our marine is eight but it looks like Myron so A, R D E. N M and the Mary Y and and yes r I and and Nancy Um Instagram and Twitter. And then my podcast will you accept this rose about the Bachelor franchises on my Heart? And that's really fun and I'm so grateful to be part of this. Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun. Yeah, thank you for being here. And you can find us on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram, at Creature feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e A T

not FET. That is something very different and you can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden's just for my Katie thoughts not necessarily related to the show, and as always, I'm also at pro bird Writes, where I you know, it's not that I'm a real bird, I'm not like a bird in a in a ski in human suit masquerading as a human to indoctrinate you to accept birds as our new overlords, which is exactly what someone would say if they're not any of those things. So, you know,

go check it out. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you're enjoying it and you leave a review, I will read it. I read all of them, and I really appreciate them. All the kind words you say really mean the world to me. Um Thank you so much to the Space Classics for their super awesome song. Excelumina Creature Feature is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or hey guess what,

I don't know where. If you get your podcast, you're listening to one right now, aren't you see your next Wednesday