Think Outside The Butt

are some unconventional uses for a sea cucumber? And do you really need a butt to discover this? More? As we answer to the angel question. Are comb Jellies the best at improv joining me today to talk about animal Heinie's is friend of the pod, host of Secretly incredibly fascinating and probably too bolight of a person for this topic, Alex Schmitt, Katie, it's great to be here. I'm not dupil it at all. I'm very excited to talk about what we all have. Everybody grow up, we all have butts.

Let's just let's just get into them, or do we? Oh? No, I have spoken too soon. The edible kigdomes are basing well, we will talk about that later, but for now, let's talk about some some but daredevils. I think I'm hoping that at some point on your secretly incredibly fascinating show, which is an amazing show. I've been a guest on it before, that you will talk about you know, but

that's you know, that's a good idea. It is many Many of the topics for the episodes are things that maybe people don't think about all the time, and perhaps humans thinking about each other's butts is common enough that I can't but I'll think about it. It might be workable. No no pressure there. I do remember that when we were talking about we were talking about cows and cattle

on podcast, and we did talk about cow farts. So I think in any topic basically in the world, you do have to talk about some stuff regarding regarding the bottom. You know. Yeah, it is, it's it's It's almost the kind of thing where people are like, oh, I'm in mixed company or among children or whatever, I can't talk about butts, and then we skip over all this stuff that I assume we'll get into in this show. That's amazing about butts. It's it's in look it's funny. Butts

are funny. I will be the first to admit it. It's funny. It's okay to laugh during this episode. But I think it's also because it's seen as like, oh, that's potty humor, or you know, that's that's kind of inappropriate. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't get taught to kids in school regarding butts, especially when it comes to evolutionary biology, and I think that there's a lot that you miss out on in terms of how fascinating it is.

Uh So, yes, I am excited to go on this journey of checking out literally butts and what happens with those. The first darier adventure that I want to go on is what it's like to escape a frog. So I want to talk about imagine you're inside a frog. It's not it's not the most ideal of circumstances, right, you want to get out of it. I don't know about you, but you know you're in a frog. You want to get out of the frog? Yeah, not not ideal circumstances.

That's probably in the bottom twenty of days I've had being stuck inside a frog. Maybe bot I'm going to be that bold yeah, that's I mean, a bold statement, but I'll take it. And there's basically you have two choices, right, There's there's two ends of the frog, two openings that you can take um uh. And some insects will try to take the mouth, but one plucky little beetle has been discovered to take the rear exit. Now, this is called the regan barsha a tenuata, also known as the

water scavenger beetle. It is a tiny, black, iridescent aquatic beetle. It's it's very small. It can fit on the tip of your pinkie uh. And they are found in Japan in marsh areas and patty fields, and they are often eaten by frogs. So one of their predators is the dark spotted frog, which they're they're also pretty small. Frogs are about two inches or about seventy millimeters. They're they're

like these little green brown frogs. But when one of these frogs eats these beetles, the that's not that's not game over for the beetle. He's just getting started. So so after being ingested by the frog, the beetle manages to escape out of the back hatch. That's right, The butt. Yeah, so this is is this like the Beatles main defense against this predator is just just I won't I can't run away from it. It will definitely eat me, and

then I will depart instead of getting digested. I think number one is trying not to get eaten in the first place and try to avoid it. But if they do get eaten, they have Plan B, which stands for a plan but which means go out the butt. So lucky, lucky for all humanity. This phenomenon has been captured on video, which I will include in the show notes, and I

have sent to you Alex for you to view. Basically, you see a frog and it eats a beetle a little and then you're like, all right, well that's that's a common enough story. And then just about like a few minutes later and the time is sped up in the video, you see the beetle just come out, fully intact, out of the out of the butt and walk away. Yeah. This is I'm trying to remember how that Inside the Human Body Magic School Bus episode went, like if they

went out the butt at the end. This is basically that this is this bug is misfrizzled exactly the bug is is the magic school bus and it's full of full of tiny microscopic sized children. Never did this at my old insect that I lived in. So the beetle can escape the dark spotted frog's digestive tract in as little as six minutes, which is much shorter than the sometimes days it takes for a frog to fully digest and poop out food. So it's not just kind of

riding the lazy river down the frog's digestive tract. It is taking a fast track exit right out as quickly as it can. That's yes, and they can repeat this hoodini but routine with other frog species as well, but depending on the frog, it can take them up to six hours, like depending on how big the frog is. But still they typically survived the ordeal and Um researchers wanted to see how they do this and in order to discover what they are actually doing inside of the frog.

They do what researchers often to which is be incredibly mean to bugs. So since they suspected that the water scavendre beetles use their legs to crawl out of the frog, they didn't experiment where they immobilize the beetles legs with wax, and voila, the beetles that had their little legs immobilized with wax did get digested by the frog. So it turns out it is they are actually physically crawling through

the frog to get out. And it's also funny because I think like this is probably how the beetle mob operates. Like they put your little beetle legs in in wax like or instrument and then just TOSSI and the frog right the frog is that weird part of the Hudson River or New Jersey. Yeah, yeah, So the theory is that they climb their way through the digestive tract and

then tickle the sphincter until it opens. So if you don't know, the sphincter is this sort of like scrunchy like muscle that resides right at the butt, and that is how you sort of control the butt opening or closing, which you know, it's like yeah, yeah, it's it's uh, you know, it's it's the for this beetle, it's the little revolving door of of butts, well, not revolving. I don't think it goes back in. Actually, it's never mind

about that. It's like it's you know those like action movie doors in a facility where you have to put somebody's hands on a thinking and then it reads the hand. It's like that, but for tickling, Like there's a there's a pad next to the door, and if you tickle it right, you can exit the facility. There's a little keypad and and well a little eyeball scanner has to

go through to exit the frog. Exactly. I love I love like a keypad where the code is tickling, because then you have to know the code is like couchichi, COUCHI or whatever whatever tickle noise is your choice as the facility right code accepted. Ha ha ha he he

he he yes, I think that. Um. The reason it probably works is that probably that triggers the frog's pooping reflex, like oh I got a poop, but no, the poop is a beetle escaping and then it tumbles out and I imagine does a very tiny it goes all it goes along way. I'm I'm just because I'm so thrilled to learn that this is an active decision and maneuver by the bug. Because because this just let it poop, you back out could totally be a passive, lazy maneuver

by by insect. Right, but this is that like six minutes just sprinting out of that Like the frog must immediately know the mistake it's made, right, Like if my food started sprinting inside of me, I'd be pretty sure something's wrong fast. That beetle is not sitting well. In fact, I don't believe it it's sitting at all. Right, Yeah, yeah, And I mean my first thought about this is like, wait, why don't all beetles do this, because it seems like a cheek coat to get out of a frog? You

just sprint out of the frog. Yeah. And while there's more research that's needed on this topic, it seems that the main thing, the main reason most beetles don't do this, is that frog gets have very strong digestive acids so that they can digest through hard exoskeletons that bugs have. So normally you just get acidified and dissolved pretty quickly, so you're not going to be able to survive inside

of a frog. But these beetles, the water scavenger beetles that we've been talking about, seemed to have some extra resistance to the powerful digestive acids in the frog's guts that allow them to keep moving unscathed. And so why or how they're able to do this, I believe is

still being researched. But I just love that how many avenues of research has opened up by like one observation of, oh, oh, this, this beetle just escaped out of the frog's butt, because when researchers, they were curious because it seemed like a lot of these beetles lived around the same areas that frogs were, and so they figured they must have some kind of defense technique when faced with the frogs. They were just completely surprised to find out exactly what that was. Yeah.

That I also, I gotta say, just because of the topic, the few times you said digestive acids, I really heard it as digestive asses. I really heard that the frogs have powerful digestive asses, and I believed it. But but apparently not powerful enough to defeat these bugs. Well, you know, we're gonna talk about a couple of animals later on who do sometimes eat with their butts occasionally. Okay, so

not not. This is just such a fundamental flipping of what I understand nature to be, right, Like there's that super basic drawing you see when you're learning what the food train is, where a smaller fish gets eaten by a bigger fish, by a bigger fish by bigger fish, like like once something eats you, that's supposed to be game over. That's supposed to be like like the clock has wrought out this course on the board, it's done. But no, they're just getting out of the butt or

using the butt to start the process. Amazing, this is great. I mean, much like the digestive tract itself. I believe that this episode has a lot of twists and turns when it comes to how one would imagine a butt is how it can or should be used. So yes, oh boy, do I have stories to tell you. Not all beetles use the back door for escaping a frog. Some of the more dignified insects in the world like

to use the grand front entrance. The bombardier beetle doesn't really like being a guest inside shave frog, so if eaten by Mr Kermit, the bombar deer beetle will force the frog to throw him back up by releasing a stream of toxic boiling chemicals. And where does the bombardier beetles shoot its shot for um it's but of course it always comes back to the butt when we return. We're going to talk about the most interesting uses for a sea cucumber. Did you know that ce cucumbers are brainless?

I'm not insulting them. They literally have no brain. Instead, they have a bundle of nerves near its mouth, and nerves that run down through its digestive system. It also has a variety of nerve endings on its skin that seemed to help it respond to touch and light. But as we'll soon find out, the lack of a real brain maybe a merciful stroke of luck for the sea cucumber. So, Alex, are you ready to talk about se cucumbers and what a tragic life they sometimes lead? Katie, I am as

ready as I think I will ever be. I have a I have a general phobia of the animals that are like creepy crawley and on the sea bottom, like anemones and stuff. And then also jellyfish get lumped in it even though they float. But yeah, these these really spook me. I'm totally ready to talk about them, but I feel their brainlessness and the and their whole deal is another reason people should find them freaky. Don't like it, well, I think by the end of this you'll feel some

some sympathy for them. Um. First of all, like what I mean, they have butts, so they're not that different from me. But like we're talking about before, sea cucumbers occasionally use their butts as a second mouth, so they will often scoop in sediment and the like sandy sediment goes in through their mouth and then they poop it out as clean sand because they are extracting all of the nutrients from the sediment and fish poop, etcetera. But they will sometimes use their butt to to scoop stuff up.

It's uh, it's really interesting. But that's not why we're talking about the c cucumber today. The reason is because of an interesting little fish called a pearl fish, and pearl fish like to play the ultimate game of hide and go seek. So pearl fish are a family of little eel like fish found in tropical ocean waters. They're

often either dark brown, black, or translucent. They like to make their homes and the crevices found on other animals bodies, so they like to be inside bivalves like clams, Uh, they sometimes find their way inside of a starfish. Just get right in there, um, right in that hole in that starfish. Or sometimes they are found in sea squirts. Sea squirts are tuniquets, who are They look sort of just like these colorful tubes. So typically this is a

commencelistic relationship. So it means that the pearl fish is the only one who benefits. But it is not harming the animal that it is living inside, So it's not parasitic. Uh, it's not mutualistic. They're offering no benefit to their host, but only they are benefiting from this relationship. But sometimes the pearl fish likes to play dirty and des and decides to take up residents inside of a c cucumbers. But so the c cucumber is a relatively simple animal.

They are kindoderms related to starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars, et cetera. They're basically a tube. They're just a tube anel, they have a mouth, they have an anus, and they have a few internal organs such as go nuts for reproduction. And so pearl fish will see the c cucumbers but and think, hey, that looks like a nice place to live.

Have you ever just been on the market. You know, rental apartmitmentals are just so uf And honestly, if I'm on like you know, looking for a rental, what with the cost of living and everything, if someone was like, hey, you can get a great deal on a c cucumber, but maybe maybe I'll do it. Does it come with WiFi? Maybe I'll do it. Look, if it comes up on the Zello map, you're gonna at least like click right. You might close the tab right away. You might say no, thanks,

but you gotta check it out. I'm going to have to consider it. I mean, have you seen the prices of rentals in l A. I'm going to consider it pretty bad. Yeah. I also, I had never heard of a pearl fish, and I have pictures of it here

that you've nicely said. But also the name. You would think it's some sort of undersea princess, like a pearl fish, and then it's doing this like impossibly to my human morals, disgusting behavior, amazing, really great, right right, You'd think, oh, it's a beautiful fish, and it's like, Nope, I'm gonna live in side up, but ho this fish. It's like it's like Bart Simpson's first girlfriend who's love Joy's daughter. But it's secretly evil. Right, it's like that kind of thing.

It's great. I love that is that. I love that. This is how we are the describing the pearl fish is Reverend love Joy's daughter who's secretly evil. Yeah, it's it's true. It really is true. So and Bart is not being harmed necessarily, but he's not benefiting. He's getting he's getting accused of stealing from the connection collection plate and everything. Well, well we're going to talk about whether

the sea cucumbers fair okay with his relationship. Pearl fish will see the sea cucumbers anus and go right in there. They will wriggle their way into the sea cucumbers, but both taking refuge inside their intestinal tract. And also they will eat the cucumbers gonads. So when in Rome, I guess eat Rome's reproductive organs is the pearl fishes philosophy. Fact that they do do nibble on the gonads does make the pearl fish a parasite of the c cucumber because they are doing doing a harm to the c

cucumber by eating those conuts. That's a that's a no, no, that's a bit of a no, No, this is a slight digression, but I just put out a secretly incredibly fascinating all about concrete. So I've been reading about the actual main drain for the water system in ancient Rome, and it was called the Kloaca maxima. I believe that's where we get the word cloaca an I love it. Clock,

by the way, I think, means like one hole. And that's why in birds and reptiles the cloe it's called the cloak of because it is the one hole that does it all. They poop out of the key, out of it, and they reproduce out of it. So yeah, that that would make sense, but it does. It doesn't make me think like when in Rome have a giant

birds butt hole handle your your public infrastructure. Yeah, So it is puzzling why pearl fish would do this because the inside of the sea cucumber is actually quite toxic, which is a way for them to ward off predators and uninvited butt guests. But the pearl fish copes with this toxic environment with an extra thick layer of mucus on their skin that protects them. So they're just these little regularly mucous colored eels that like to live in

a butt, really attractive creature. A lot to speak highly of them. I mean, it's it's always that thing. Nature is just going to do what it does, and we find it gross, and we find it reprehensible that they're being Reverend love Joy's daughter. But it's just the way it is. And and I don't know, maybe maybe where I live there, like you a bunch of drywall and concrete. Where's their body not? Gross? Ye? They're so not covered

in snot? That's gross? Yeah, I mean, what are we to judge a creature that is covered in snot and lives inside of a butt? Can we really say? Like, who's the real Who's the real? Snot covered eel like fish living inside of a butt? The pearl fish or us? So usually there's only one pearl fish per se cucumber, but occasionally groups as large as fifteen will be found in one unfortunate sea cucumber. It maybe due to some kind of threat forcing them all to shelter, shelter in

place inside of a sea cucumber. It had better be. It better be a threat. If I'm a c cucumber and all fifteen of you're in here, there'd better be a house on fire, you know what I mean, maybe that's okay. Another theory is that they are congregating to mate, so get rude. I think that's a little rude, you know, coming in uninvited and then also having like a swinger party. It seems rude to me. And then you're like certain, you're like put your keys in the bowl and please

help yourself to see cucumber gonds. So the poor c cucumber is left with little defense against the pearl fish. They can't actually like shut their butts, like close the door on these pearl fish because they actually breathe through their anus. So it's you know, they've got to let the pearl fish come in at some point, you know. Fortunately, again, c cucumbers don't really have a brain, so I would say it probably doesn't have much of a experience of like,

oh no, there's a fish in my butt. True. True. Yeah, it's basically it's it's basically an Airbnb. The people have figured out they can do this stuff with B and B and Airbnb takes on all like all the all the reviews on the page have like really subtle euphemisms for an orgy, and then other people looking at it, just figure it out. It's one of these I guess I would imagine I haven't done that. Ah man, it's

just there. It's so nature is so creatively perverse. It's like, hey, not only are we going to have these fish live inside of c cucumber butts and happily feast upon their gonuds, but then hey, why not have a fish orgy in here? Look like we've already passed the moral rubicon when it

comes to like being inside. But I feel it's almost it'd be weirder to me if the fish were just not doing anything interesting inside of it, just like knitting, doing some like cross stitching inside, you know, reading Little Home on the Prairie inside of your your c cucumber. But that would be that would almost be creepier. That would be more disconcerting, right, Like they used the butt to listen to public radio. Okay, well that's weird. Now I'm creeped out. We have a caller from a c

cucumbers but who would like to complain about the cursing? Yeah, caller, what's your name? Well, Carl, Emily, we got robbed. Who else is here? Aaron Erin's here? Uh, it's like a clown car. It really is like a clown car, just and it's funny. The reason that we know so many pearl fish can fit ins out of cucumber is someone caught a c cucumber and a bunch of pearl fish

came out of it, which has to be shocking. I mean, I feel like if you're handling and dealing with c cucumbers, you're used to at least a little bit of weird, but to have that much weird, Like I feel like if it was one fish coming out of the c cucumber normal day, you're like, all right, sure fifteen, that would make me question my reality, right, Like there's a it's like those YouTube videos where they teach you to pull scarves out of your mouth like a magician. It's

like who who is doing the right? And then they go and they go back in the c cucumber as the finale, and the c cucumber turns into a rabbit or a sea hair God, the joke was right there and I missed it, which is actually a type of sea slug that has little They have these rhiniforms which are they look like bunny ears, but they are not there sensory organs we talked about on the show earlier. There's a on other episodes. But yeah, see hair. There

you go and see bunny. Those are cute if you want to have a good day, If you want to have a good day, here's my advice. Google sea bunny. It's very cute. It's a little are tiny new to brinks who have They look like they have a little bunny tail and little bunny ears and their ears are actually like sensory organs, and their tails are they're branching lungs. It's really cute. Wow, Okay, this is this is a new cartoon that can be made like sea bugs Bunny,

Sea bugs Bunny, Yeah saying saying what's up Doc? And then just getting eaten by a shark em fund with a spear gun. But it blows up in his own face somehow. I don't how a spear would blow up, but he'd find a way. If the pearl fish looks nothing like a pearl, can you guess why they're called pearl fish? It's likely because the person who discovered them found them in an oyster or other bivalve and thought, hey,

who does this fish think? It is a pearl. When we return, we're going to get back to the important business of talking about butts, namely, how many of them should you have? Having a butt is one of the most important parts of our development. When we start out as blast assists and then embryos, we developed but first we're deuterous domes. As we developed from a cluster of cells, the first opening, called the blast o pour becomes the anus.

This is a fun fact we share with all other chordates, which are animals with a nerve cord, as well as with the chinoderms, which includes star fish, sea urchins, etcetera, and a handful of little worm like animals. The opposite is true of protostomes, who's blasted for that first opening becomes the mouth first. This is the case for arthropods and mollusks, for example, bugs and snails, and it is also true for worms, nematodes, tart grades, flatworms, and a

whole bunch of other small, strange, squirmy creatures. But hey, what happens when you don't have a butt at all? So, Alex, on average, how many boots do you think most animals have? I really came into this thinking one, just one? Yeah, No, no, you're you're right, it's not a trick question. That is

also off of what you were just saying. I am finding myself surprised that, like you know, when you're told evolution is real, and it's like, but some people don't want to be descended from monkeys, and I'm like, I'm so wise to be cool with that. I'm really cool with being decended from bunkies. Somehow, I'm much less cool with mainly growing from my own butt. I want to be grown from my brain or or like a cool finger or something something elevated. What's your coolest finger? What's

your favorite one? I mean classic pointer, right hand, that's probably that's probably that's the leader. Yeah, that's the red Ranger, you know what I mean, the head of the team, the liddle one, the middle one. Dude, dude. Anyways, Yeah, No, it is humbling to realize that we grow, but first, isn't it. It's like, okay, yeah, we start out as basically we look like a little like a tiny little

sock with one opening and that one opening is the butt. Uh, and then we will form the mouth part later Okay, yeah, like a really gross client bottle. Mm hmm. Do people know what that is. Anyway, I have no idea what you're talking about. It's a mathematical salad that is all one thing, but it has an opening at the top. Anyway, That's probably the least relatable thing I've ever said. So, so, you know, most animals do have a butt because it serves a very good purpose, which is, you know, to

get the waist out. You you put food in one end and it comes out the other end. Or even if you're a c cucumber like you put into put food in the mouth in or the butt end and it comes out the butt end. So you know, it's it's good to have at least two holes. But sometimes you don't. And there is an animal that has zero butts, and you're actually much more well acquainted with this animal

than you probably think you would be. So the Demodex folliculorum, which sounds like an alien creature, but you probably have them in your circle of friends right now. Um. In fact, there's probably quite a few living on you right now. Uh. Demodex folliculorum is a microscopic might that lives in your eyelashes and hair follicles on your face. Yay, you got friends everywhere you go. You got friends wherever you go.

You just you just hear a really loud trimmor sound as I start removing all of my hair in a panic, like it's like really close to the bike. No, no, not do that. Well, they are teeny tiny and they can't be seen with the naked eye. Um, when you look at them under a microscope, they look like weird stubby worms with arms. I'm sorry to say. They're not

the happiest looking microscopic animal. I'm sorry, um, but you know, they are mostly harmless, despite their somewhat alarming look and the probably unwelcome knowledge that they are on your face. Most likely they feed on sebum, which is an oily substance produced in your pores, as well as dead skin cells, so they they're mostly harmless. They're not like, you know, they're not like suck in your blood or anything. They're

just kind of munching on your sebum. And typically if you have an uninhibited immune system, they will cause no problems and their numbers are kept in check, but very rarely, if you have an immune issue or skin irritation issues, they could cause some some skin issues like a rash or or skin irritation, so you know, but in most cases, and like like the vast vast majority of cases, you won't even know that they're on you and they really

cause no problems. They better keep it that way. Perhaps it's like maybe knowledge in this particular instance is not power, because knowing they're on your faces, you know, it's it's like it takes a little getting used to. I'm sorry to uh to you know, make this known. But hey, if I have to suffer, you do too. So when this is good, because I want to put all my parasites on notice, Like we're recording this, we're broadcasting it.

You're all, you're all taking a warning right now I'm watching. Yeah, I just learned one of your names. I can probably learn the other ones. I won't remember them, but I'll write them down and like a little file right out, a teeny tiny eviction notice and like stable it to

your face. Uh they yeah. I mean it's like it's a question are they parasites or are they commencelistic because they I think that they do technically qualify as parasites because they can occasionally cause skin issues, But I think in most people it might be considered commence realistic because they don't really hurt us, so but they don't benefit us either. Um, so they actually spend their whole lives on your face. And their life cycle is quite short.

They live about two weeks. And if you're thinking and all of this, like, wait a minute, I don't want a bunch of little guys on my face and all my eyelashes pooping on me. Well you don't have to worry because they don't poop because they can't because they do not have a butt. Man to week, I I don't want to retake my threat every two weeks. This is a real pain. Oh man, forget it. But so no, no, but they just if they have no but they just die of not being able to poop. Is that is

that kind of thing? I guess you need a butt if you want to live more than like a second time. Yes, they only live about two weeks, so their lifespan is so short that, yeah, they don't really need the butt. And I'm not sure whether it's the not having the butt that eventually kills them or if it's just like old age. I'm sure not having the butt certainly doesn't help with their longevity, but they are able to mate

before they die. And so that's all that matters to nature is if you can pass on your weird buttless jeans to your offspring. Nature has no standards, no standards. Their standard is whether you can do it, and you do it, hey, well we'll let you, will let you not have a butt if you can do it, if you can manage. So they're like, there's another message I may broadcast to nature. I started as a butt. Okay,

I'm very on top of checking that box. Don't need to keep having me re up my license or whatever I started from the bottom. Yeah, that's it's a rags to richest story from Yeah, but not these not these little little fellas. So, yeah, their lifespan is basically they are born on your face, They eat, they reproduce, lay eggs, and then die without the need to poop. Uh. And unfortunately that doesn't mean we don't get their waste matter on our faces because when they die, the poop has

nowhere to go but our face. So you know, I mean, maybe it's some comfort that they're not like pooping out of their butts. Is that comforting? Or is just like little little bean bags full poop that eventually just like explode poop on your face. Worse, if you might keep pooping on my face, I'm going to throw you in a frog as the mob does. Okay, that's the threat.

We're broadcasting the threat right now. I don't like it if you're weirded out by this or like kind of freaking out that there's a bunch of things crawling all over your face. First of all, I apologize. Second of all, they're so tiny. They literally are small, like they fit inside of like the caverns of your your follicles, your hair follicles. So they they like a few of them can be on a single hair follicle, and that you there's you can't see them. You can't see them. They're

the little John Cena's of your face. There's no seeing them without a microscope. And so you really don't have to work, like you don't have to worry, like if you're trying to someone's trying to kiss you and they're like, oh my god, what's that on your face? It's a bunch, you know. They're just they're tiny. I mean, we're we're covered in various organisms like bacteria and so on that that are all in inside and outside of us. And it just so happens that these are animal, little tiny

animals that live on us. Is that I feel like I'm being less, I'm being less and less helpful. Actually No, And I love how you always start the show with being host of many parasites, because it's just normalizing this thing that we should all be fine with. I've been joking before about the threats. It's it's whatever they could do, what they're gonna do. I can't stop it, and it's probably helping me somehow in the long run. Live and let live, even if it's a butt list two week lifespan.

But I will be back in two weeks to threaten them again. But market thank you the new generation. Yes, uh well, if you're not a fan of the no but lifestyle, maybe I can interest you in a lot of butts, like a plentiful butts, a bounty of butts. Just imagine that pitch on QBC or whatever late at night,

like I mean, I'm I'm sleepy. I guess I guess I'll hear this out for the working person who doesn't have time for only one but for easy payments, that sounds fine, one payment per but okay, yeah, I don't know how many nine and nine. Well, so this story is complicated because when I do my research for the show, I try really hard to find like original O G papers to back up what I'm saying, so that I've

am not contributing to fake button news. Uh, this is one I have not been able to track down the original paper, So please take this with a caveat that I am still kind of looking into this so um, you know, just a little grain of salt, grain of butt salt and um. But I have seen some rumors that there is a species of marine flatworm called the gold speckled flatworm or thy Sando's own nigro pal pep bilo some mount We'll go with gold speckled flat worm.

And they're quite beautiful. They are a marine flower. They look like a flat, velvety black pancake with gold speccles and a white fringe. So really beautiful. They only it's sort of like if a clown fish had an alternate jersey. It's great, right they look, Yeah, they look they look like a piece of underwater fashion, just a floating you know how. Uh. And doctor Strange his cape is like sentient and flies around and helps him out. This looks like a sentient magical cape. Uh yeah, so they they're

they're they're very mysterious and beautiful. They it's like it's like the starry sky, a starry night on on a sentient cape. But they're only about three inches big, so about eight centimeters a long. Some little guys. So according to a few articles I've read, and again I couldn't find like the original studies or the original descriptions in like a journal. So I'm uh worried that this isn't true. But I mean I haven't seen anyone like debunk this either.

So and I think I saw it in like the BBC, So it's not like I didn't read this in um, like the New York Post or like World News, the Amazing bat Boy and Butts but butts, so some reputable news sources. But again it's like sometimes uh, you know, I just like to double check make sure, um I do. I wish it was the New York Post, like the Gossip section, specifically like gold speckled flatworm coming out of one oak, you know, with with a new person on

its arm. What's going on there? You know, caught with multiple butts at once. They apparently have multiple anuses or some sort of multiple anal openings on their backs, which is impressive given that actually some species of flatworms don't even have a single anus. They just like they have a mouth, so they eat through their mouth and then they poop through their mouth. So it's you know, just

like one one hole does it all? Uh um? But yeah, so so I the fact that like it, I'm trying to rese like why do they have multiple butts and and how and what's going on? Like I'm still struggling to find research on this. So this is my call to any flat worm specialist who may have knowledge of multiple butts and how this could possibly happen to get in touch with me so that maybe we could together solve the mystery of the mini butts as as a

science community solved this mysteries. Please you should you should put up the weirdest at least understandable bat signal in the sky, like like what is that picture? Oh my god, flat worm and a bunch of butts. You're just waiting to got a roof with a trench coat like s Gordon, like somebody's gonna come. I put it up just doing it deep throat style where I'm like in a parking garage sliding a briefcase and it's like just just a

picture of a butt and a question mark. But yeah, I will look, I'll keep you up to date if I find anything more about the story about the story of the mini butts, the mystery Nancy Drew and the mystery of the mini butts. I mean, look, I don't I don't think this will be a thing I need to consider. But of all the things we've discussed, I

would consider the multibut situation. I don't know. Maybe it makes poopin easier and stuff, right, Like maybe that's maybe that's like the the advantage, right, like you can process

more waste or something. I really why this is so interesting to me is, as far as I know, there aren't really there aren't cases of multiple butts because it just doesn't offer that many benefits, Like you just have one system, you push it out that system, and hey, you're done, and so like, if this is actually true, it would be really interesting from you know, an evolutionary perspective, which is why like part of me is like scared that it's not true, because this would be like the

Unicorn of butts, and I need to know, I need some verification. But there is one that I was able to verify that it's still super interesting when it comes to butts, and that is the comb jelly. The comb jelly has the best of both worlds. They only sprout a butt when they need it. So Alex, I remember, I think we're talking earlier and you were mentioning that you have a slight um a slight aversion to like

jellyfish and so on. But I think comb jellies you might like because they are just like little like light up balloons. They um are a phylum of colorful, translucent blue like marine animals. They are not actually related to jellyfish that closely. Even though they look sort of jellyfish like,

they don't really have like tentacles like jellyfish do. They have these like iridescent strobe effects on their sides uh and sometimes they're bioluminescent even because like as they're silia, which are these like little tiny mobile hairs on their sides like move and allows them to move through the water that causes light to refract, so it looks like they have these like uh light this light show going off their their back of like lights just kind of

shining and going in sort of a wave effect all around their sides. It's really beautiful. And in addition to being pretty, when they've got a poop, they just open up a brand new butt hole every time. Oh so it's just like it's just like I could use a butthole here, right, that's pretty, that's pretty exciting. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. It's like, you know, new day new. But so basically it's like if that T one thousand and the Terminator movies was also just kind of casually

doing bodily functions as it as it remorphs and stuff. Great, right exactly, No, precisely. Basically, their digestive organ will fill up and then when the waste of cruise it is expelled through a new anal pore that just pops open. So this is life. Yeah, that is the life. You know, no need to no need to worry about like hygiene and stuff, just new but just get a new butt every time, just like these I'm imagining these jellies is like a couple at dinner and it's like we haven't

done a new butt in a long time. Do you want a but this weekend? Yeah? I feel like we're we're in a rut of the same butt and a butt rut. We need a new butt. So this is the first transient anus ever discovered, which, yeah, hey, congratulations scientists.

It's a it's an auspicious discovery because because so much of science it's like, oh, I have I have plumbed the depths of the sea or the wonders of the stars, And this one is you get to write the phrase transientanus over and over again in the journal that I have. I have discovered a new kind of bear, like that was back with science, like you know, of hundred years ago, when we still hadn't like discovered all the species or and or killed them all, and now like we're out like, well,

I've found a type of transient butth hole. It's a phantom butt hole. It must have been like legitimately hard to discover or spot because it comes and goes right. That's amazing, that's cool. They found one of these guys and they created a butt hole, and then they realized the boat hole has gone. They're like, wait a minute, Nancy Drew and the mystery of the missing butt hole, or maybe I should use Encyclopedia Brown. I don't know either way. The town police like, do step hit on

that case, Like, no, you are too young. I'm sorry, we we are. We'll have the real police look for it. You don't have a degree and but biology, I don't think so, little missy. We'll take it from here. And then the FBI steps in the Federal Butt Inspectors and they're like, no, will take it from here. Every member of the Federal but Inspectors bought one of the T shirts at the beach and did not know it was

a legally binding contract to work for it. And then the CIA steps in, the the the Colon Investigation A and see and they're like, no, we'll take it from here, and so on until you run out of butt puns with acronyms. So yeah, I mean I think it's uh, it's it appears that the rules to having a butt are much more flexible than one would think. Yeah, that's that's like you just think of a butt as being so fixed, and like, especially this this flat worm that

has many many butts. There's got that means allegedly legally, I'm multa say, allegedly has not been proven in a court of law. How many butts the flatworm has they have many butts and even more lawyers. We gotta be careful, we gotta look out. I thought you knew butts, but you didn't know but and but now you do. Now you know a little more about the wonderful world of buts. And thank you so much for for coming with me on this. On this journey, you discover more about butts

the science. But you know, I think you know. I think it's educational. I really know it, Katie. It's always a treat, and this this was like really fundamentally amazing. I'd really be like, I just didn't think it was that much for right, Like I thought it would be funny looking butts or something there was, but there was so much like fundamental systems of nature and of existing

as an animal that can be different, really exciting. Yeah, no, exactly. Uh, it's there's a lot to be discovered if you let go of your hang up of not talking about butts. So tell the people where they can find you, and hopefully not inside of se cucumber. But now it's book this weekend. They got it. So I'll be here now I you can hear my shows secretly incredibly fascinating it's sift pod dot fun is the Patreon or link tree slash sift pod for all the links to hear it

on various stuff. It's a free show and then bonus stuff for supporters. And it is about the history and the science and the lore of things that we think are ordinary that are actually amazing. And and it has many amazing guests, including the great Katie Golden on an episode about cattle and a whole another episode about musk oxen. And I think you will especially love those if you like this show. And and I would recommend the listen to this amazing show. You already do a good job.

I think the whole I think the whole series is fascinating. One might even say incredibly fascinating. Hey check that out? Did you did you tell the people your socials? Oh? At Alex smitty on Twitter and Alex smitty dot com see see those see those for mostly nuts related like Snoopy Snoopy related content. And you can find me on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram, at Creature feet Pod on Twitter. That's fpi e T not FPET. That is something very different. And hey, if you have

a question, even if it's not about butts. You can email me Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com and thank you so much for listening. I hope you had fun learning about butts and if you're enjoying the show, please leave writing our review. I really appreciate it. I read them all. They always make my day. Thank you so much, and thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song excell Alumina. Creature features a production of

I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or Hey guess what where have you listen to? You're hey, look, I'm not gonna judge you. Where have you listen to your shows? Do it go? And you're doing it right now. You're you're listening right now, so I'm sure you've figured it out. See your next Wednesday. H m hm