Upsetting Spaghetti

Welcome the Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show Upsetting Spaghetti. These are tubular creatures that just don't feel right, but maybe they'll worm your way into your heart. From a morbid fashionista to an obg wormman, these worms are a bit odd, and one of them is definitely metal. Discover this and more as we answer the age old question why not live

We hate him.

We're booing sorn Or.

We're booing I'm going Sorn.

Yes.

I like to imagine that the very worst of my haters listen, and then I win them back. So right, I psack myself up by booing myself to begin.

That makes a lot of sense. I psych myself up by booing you as well.

It feels good, doesn't it.

I just feel really good. I suggest everyone try it, Booing Soren, so Soren. Today we are talking about it's not just worms. That's why I'm calling them spaghetti because they're they're the animals that come in tube form. And there's a lot of different types of tube anels.

Terrible tubes, the terrible nightmare noodles.

Nightmare noodles. That's a good one. That's a really good one. And this first story is one that you might have read, actually, because it's in the New York Times, which is like a.

Little pretty much guarantee I didn't.

You're more of a Wall Street Journal kind of guy.

Then I like to say that I am. I do tell people frequently when I find out new facts that I read it somewhere, when what I really mean is that I was scrolling through TikTok and.

So yeah, yeah, well, this is a this is a it's a newspaper, which is sort of a okay, both a physical sometimes an online medium where there's like words on a page and sometimes pictures. And this time they had pictures of something pretty horrible looking called a bone collector caterpillar, a bone collector.

There's a movie called The Bone Collector. Yeah, there is. Let's see right.

Now, bone collector.

Let's see if I'm right about this. I think it's a Denzel Washington movie.

You're correct about that, and in it he is.

It's tough to say. Maybe he's an undertaker who's secretly really good at fighting. I don't know.

Uh, well, no, it's close. But he's a forensics expert whose bed bound after an accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. So you know, close.

And not doing the same job as No. Yeah, apparently in Nightmare Noodles, close is cigar?

So close is cigar? That is? I've heard that expression actually before. So the bone collector caterpillar was featured in the New York Times because it's one of these animals that does freak stuff that we all love, and there's this one. Is It's interesting because there are actually a lot of caterpillars like this that will craft a case around themselves. It's a protective case. And we'll get into what the bone collector does specifically. But first of me

I'd love to hear about bagworms. First. I'm going to put a little pin in my bone collectors and i want to hear.

We will get back. We'll get back to the bone collector after this brief announcement from bagworms. So, there are quite a few species of moths who when they are in their larval juvenile form, they build elaborate cases around themselves using some of their sticky silk, sometimes poop as like an adhesive and then you know the old poop adhesive trick, and then silk, and they will make it out of basically whatever is most common in their environment.

I can't do that, I guess. I mean, I've definitely been on trips before, I've been in a sleeping bag and in the morning night they're like, we got to get up, and I'm like, you know what what I just what if I lived here forever?

Yeah? What if I lived here, laid some eggs and then died. Yeah.

People just came to me and like, right, I got all the stuff done in the world that I need to do from the sleeping bag.

It's I've heard, like I'm I'm not super up to date with what the kids are talking about on TikTok, but I know there's this idea of girl rotting where it's you spend all day in your bed. I read about that, yeah, on on the New York Times.

Yep, they write they write an impact bold on the New York Times, right.

Right, right, Yeah, they definitely do with an outline and with like a penguin in the middle of it. The Yeah, so this, I think this we all got to pack it up. Girl rotting is over because these bagworms have already mastered it. So it's it's over. We've done it peak girl rotting. So onto the bone collector caterpillar. So similar to bagworms, they build a case around themselves out of materials that they have available. Those materials just happen to be their own murder victims. So this is found

I'm looking at it now, it just got it's a it's just wearing trophies of the things.

That yes, yes, and it does. It does this in a very meticulous way. It doesn't just slap them on. It kind of makes sure it's rotated correctly and it puts it on and even cuts them down to size. If it's too big, they sort of well like, ah, this head's a little bit too big. Chew, chew, chew. Okay, now it's small enough, and I'll put it on where it is a brooch?

How is it getting it on its back like that?

So it just like the other bagworms. It uses sticky milk maybe feces to as an adhesive, and then it kind of creates this It's almost like a cocoon, except it lives in it and it can move around in it.

It crawls around. Yeah, man, So what I'm looking at here, it's a lot of legs. First of all, they are leg heavy. There's like a lot of like looks like cricket legs, and yeah, stuff like that. And then some weavil heads and things, and they've covered their entire entire body in the limbs of their enemies or like whatever they killed.

That's right.

And then the moth itself, I mean you just undersell it. It's got some kind of like fringy wings. It's yeah, like a beautiful white fringe coming off of them.

It's a little a little bit late, I can see that.

Yeah, yeah, certainly one is more or less horrified than the other.

El say that much for sure, And so they create these elaborate cases out of the the exoskeletons of victims, and the whole reason they do this is really really

Our beautiful death mosaic, something nice to lighten up the spider web. Yeah, why isn't Why aren't these maybe you don't know the answer. Why aren't these caterpillars sticking to the web?

Well? They that's a really that is actually a good question. I would think that given they are also a silk producing animal, that they just have the skills to sort of traverse the silk with their little little claws.

They're wearing the right gloves.

They've got the right gloves there. It is interesting because they're The case that they build around them doesn't really stick to the web. But I assume they're able to just drag that along. They have the strength to drag

That makes sense. So there are a lot of caterpillars that make sort of light, and I think it was what you were describing. They make that like it is a webby home. It's like a webby almost looks like a snot. But I'll tell you a quick story. We're camping in the desert, speaking of sleeping bags. We're camping in the desert, and you put down a ground tarp when you can't, but you always necessarily need something on top. But the ground tarp is just a big piece of

That's so, what did these caterpillars look like? Were they fuzzy? What was their color? No?

I think so these were not. They were hairless, and in my memory they were either brown or green, but I can't remember which. And they're long, I mean they're like pretty long, guys. They're probably like two inches two and a half inches. But and they're in the deserts of Utah. Okay, you know what any ideas I mean I think and they sound like this.

They sound like, oh my god, there's weird underneath her. Yeah, they I mean I believe they would be a type of social caterpillar. It's yeah, which social what it sounds like? Well, I mean like that would be what they're called scientifically as well, not just to compliment to them, like you're a real social caterpillary, but in terms of their specific species, I don't know exactly what species had live there, but yeah, they're they're essentially called the type of caterpillar that is

Yeah. Okay, and then and now I need to also hijack your podcast to get to tell you a different story about a nightmare caterpillar. There's there's something. There's an elm tree in our neighbor's yard that uh this basically come on this podcast to make sure that you can answer questions for me that I sure.

Go for it if you have. If you have questions out there that you would like me to answer, you can write to me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com and I'll answer all your caterpillar questions too. Now go for it, soar and let's see if I can answer this one.

There's, uh, we have an elm tree that's near us, and there's some type of caterpillar that really loves it, loves it, and I know that it eventually will become this black butterfly with maybe like some tinge on the end of its wings that it's either white or yellow. But when they're young there, when they're a caterpillar. There's a bunch of them. My son found one and we were like, let's let's get it to form its Let's see,

That sounds like a good omen though.

Right I would, Yeah, you'd think so blood's always good, right, that's a good omen.

So that it's so that the Moses version of God knows not to steal your children. Yeah, so that I think that's the spiny elm caterpillar or it's they are also which a fun thing is they're also known as morning cloak butterflies. Yeah, so which is it seems really also like a good omen to me.

Yeah, these are them, these are this is definitely the butterfly. Let me see their crystalist too, morning cloak butterfly.

They're like they're red and black, and the caterpillars themselves are kind of spiny as well.

Yeah yeah, yeah, this criz is the crystalist. These are horrifying.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is the thing. This is the thing that broke my toe and made me take it curs organs out of my body.

It cursed you for uh imprisoning its chrysalis, by the.

Way, that would never even hatched. It was just there.

It just remained a very vengeful goo inside.

Yeah, so I guess my question is is that that's true? Right? They're bad, They're bad luck those ones, are they? You know? Curse you? Well?

You know, when caterpillars turn into a goo, they retained some of their neural crust cells and they can remember things. So I do believe that one cursed you in goo form because it had a grudge.

I think probably. Yeah, I took it away from the elm tree that it was on in our neighbor's guard and we put it in a jar. Okay, I'm not doing that.

Again, precious elm. That's right. So the the bone collector caterpillar, the bagworm like caterpillar, they essentially they just cover themsells in skulls of their enemies, which are you know, the exoskeletons. So the spider doesn't recognize that it's a thing that has a delicious treat inside and just chills with the spider, steals its food and lives a great life. Apparently sounds great.

I'm I love the idea of collecting. If I'm going to be a dude, like a D and D campaign, I'm collecting something from my enemy, I'm collecting some sort of trophy and I'm wearing it the rest of the time.

I like the idea of your armor just being a bunch of skulls piled together, not just just you know, your your entire chest breastplate is just a bunch of skulls, your legs covered in a bunch of skulls, sort of like the Michelin man. But it's all like skulls.

Yeah, and to leave just like you leave one open, right, And then whenever you're fighting an enemy, you're like, this is this is your spot. That's where you will go exactly when I remove you from your bones?

Right? Wait, no, remove your wait, who's the U?

You're right though, just a horrifying way of putting it.

I think I just kind of thing where it's like, wait, but are you wouldn't you be the bones? And it's like, no, you're not the bones and the stuff in the bones? Yes, right, Well, man.

See you off of these whoa.

This is as trippy as when I saw the x ray of my wisdom teeth trying to break into my sinus cavities. I'm like, whoa, whoa, man, look at that my own soul is betraying me and trying to kill me.

You have swung a door open onto like a part of your life I didn't know existed it, just like you realize when you hear these things from other people. Life has so many chapters.

So many chapters, like the chapter where all four of my wisdom teeth had to be removed and two of them were growing into my sinus cavities with a vengeance, trying to reach my brain in time before I got rid of them.

What a story. Yeah, right, that they were trying to kill you, that's right.

They were like, we will, we will find your brain. And the orthodontist was not concerned at all. If you're wondering, if you thought, like maybe he would be concerned that my wisdom teeth were trying to grow into my sinus cavities. Like I see it all the time. It happens all the time. Don't worry about them, Like, am I gonna have holes in there? Oh? Not serious ones?

Yeah I had.

He couldnt be less concerned. Yeah, we all take these out.

They've seen it all. I had a lism teeth only on the bottom. But when I tell the X ray you see it obviously from silhouette from the side profile. I mean, and one of them you could see, like basically in the topography of the top of a tooth coming directly at you. Yeah, And I was like that seems wrong, and they're like, yeah, it's coming out sideways.

Yeah.

I was like, Okay, they're so silly. Those are some silly teeth. Yeah, wisdom.

Yeah, you don't know which Tame'm gonna come for you. I'm ironically named. All right, Well, we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to talk about a more positive but equally disgusting worm tale.

If I'm being honest, we're not going to get there. I've got a lot more.

Stories sour in. There is a worm out there that, without really meaning to, acts as a midwife to squits. Do you need me to repeat that sentence or did you get it the first time?

Well, I guess I'm curious as to because they don't lactate, so how what would we be doing to help raise the young.

I mean, no, they don't lactape. That's a really good call when it comes to squids.

Yeah, people always said about me every time I talk about how squids dn't lactate. Yeah, calls good call.

Call, really you really, uh, you really nailed that squid fact. So, yeah, it's it's a worm that helps the basically the young squid in the birthing process like a like a midwife.

And oh, I see, I see. Yeah.

So let's first talk about the squids, because the squid themselves are freaks. They're called opalescent squid. They're found all along the western coast of America from Mexico to British Columbia. They're pretty common, and they're very squid like squids. They're kind of gray, sort of opal esson. I suppose they grow rapidly from two millimeter big hatchlings to about the size of like a banana or a subway sandwich foot long,

So orgy to death, big.

Orgy to death. And this is a surprisingly common tactic among animals, particularly yeah, aquatic animals. So they the males will grab the females with their tentacles, which flush red, which is likely both a signal to the female being like hey, I'm mating with you, how's it going, But it's also a signal to the other males to back off, where it's essentially like a red occupied sign. You know, you go to the bathroom, the green turns to red, a little occupied.

Occupied occupy.

Well, they're squid. It's close. It's very close. It's so close though.

I'll go.

So they yeah, they it's just a big mess. They're all trying to mate with each other, and they the male will when it's like it sounds really rough and intense, but the actual mating is really innocent because the male just hands the sperm packet to the female where he's like here you go. Mel was like, okay, thank you, and I can use it to fertilize her eggs.

Transaction complete, goodbye, yeah, transactional turn my limbs back to their normal color.

Now, yeah, exactly. And so then they then the females fertilize the eggs, and the eggs kind of come in these white, kind of oblong cases, and they're just it looks like a weird forest of all of this stuff. It looks like a weird kind of coral like growth happening. But it's all these egg cases. These females are laying and then they all die, okay, and it's like a feeding frenzy for scavengers because they are all these dead squid that just did it. They've completed their life story.

I mean, there's a real lesson there in terms of like people who engage in orgies when they still have when they have children in their life. You're just taught impossible to be there for your kids when that's your lifestyle.

I mean, yeah, especially when it's underwater.

Mmm.

You know that's the key, that's I think a key problem in this situation. So yeah, So for most right, these egg cases are completely unappetizing except for a worm called Capitella ovincola, which are small, white, pinkish. They're called polykeets. These are marine worms that are just a couple millimeters long, and after the eggs have some time to kind of ripen, these are actually really attractive to these worms, and that sounds like it would be bad news for the baby squid.

Oh that's awesome. It's greazingatic relationship. I don't think that. It's sort of sad to me that they will never know the other one. You know, Yeah, the worm just knows that here's a meal, and like and then then the squid comes out. I was like, fuck, that was easy. Yeah, life's gonna be good. Life's easy. Neither one of them never know will know how much they helped the other, which.

Is like I'd like to think that there's like at least a few of them who are preternaturally smart, and they wave to each other like hey, what's up. I know what's going on here. You and I we both know what's going on here.

The worm just waves its body.

Yeah, no one will know. No one will ever know. They actually have all these like little bristly appendages all along their bodies, so they could wave some of those in a truly disturbing manner.

But I didn't ate the outside of your chicken eggshell.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, it's a it's a beautiful symbiotic, mutualistic relationship between these two.

You need more of that in the world.

Right, Yeah, I'm saying more eaten membranes and less building walls.

Less. I don't want to see seagulls swooping down and eating baby sea turtles. They just pick them up, lick off the viscera, and just carry them gently to the sea.

Ah yeah, yeah, licking like I think that would be nice if they, you know, licked off the viscera.

Yeah, all those eggshells they are full of that. Great still, just.

Like just have the viscera part, right, the sort of the afterbirth, if you know, and you're.

It's an investment honestly for those seagulls, because now you've got more sea turtles that are gonna lay more eggs.

Right, and exactly. There's actually a fishing strategy for certain types of squid where fishermen go towards the end of their life cycle like this with the with the squid where it's like, hey, after they've laid their eggs and they're all going to die anyways, that's when we go fish them because they're all going to die anyways, and why not you.

Know, Yeah, they put them to good use, that's right here. Yeah, I invite those in fight, all these creatures to eat my body when I'm dead. Yeah, well you're welcome to it, squids, because I also want to be cast into the sea.

Yeah, you know, turn about spare play right with the squid? They like do you think they have little bibs but with us on it when we are when when our bodies are at sea?

Yeah, and like they're already they've already got forking knife in their hand that they're working with while they're tying the bib on.

Yeah, they're tying a little bib that has like a person shape on it.

Oh, I like that a lot.

Do you think they have those little lemon scented hand wipes for their little pincers.

I mean guarantee right right for.

The try divors when they're like going to town on a whale carcass, Like, well, let me just wipe my little hands off here.

That's a that's like a Red Lobster specific thing.

Like I've been I've been known to. Uh. I have never once in my I have never been to a Red lam Katie.

You got you got just for the cheddar Bay biscuits I've heard.

I've heard those are very good. But you know, my cousin once made them just by herself. As like, these are very good. I don't need to go to Red Lobster because my cousin made them.

Yeah, but you want to get them from the source.

It's like, I'm going to tell my cousin that you said you just negged her biscuits.

I really appreciate that she did it and then she tried, but I'm going to tell you those were dogs.

Oh thank goodness. They don't listen to my podet. So uh, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to talk about blood worms. Oh god, So this is very metal worm and so my husband is super in the metal and I told him. I was doing an episode on worms and he was like, you should talk about lord Worm, and I forgot. Uh. He's like a I don't know what he does in the band, but he he's like a like he was part of the group Cryptopsy. Cryptopsy, which is a metal

Yeah, he left after the nun So Vile tour in nineteen ninety seven. That's just a lot of information about it.

Anyways, my so, what my husband wanted me to say about this guy is that he apparently would eat worms on stage as part of his act, and that thus his name was Lord Worm.

He took a look at Ozzy Osbourne. He was like, you ate that off a bat. I don't do well with big animals just eating them live. I think, yeah, I can eat a worm. I think that I could recreate how to eat fried worms.

I do think. I do think it's probably better in terms of zoonotic diseases to go for the worms rather than the bats. So I gotta say it's more sustainable to eat the worms.

Maybe he's just more ethically responsible.

Right, He's like, you know what, it's way more sustainable to eat worms than bats.

So I'm looking at him, and I really wanted this guy to look really impressive, and he just.

He just seems like some guys. This is what's This is what is very funny about a lot of metal is it has some name like death Bloat, corpse Parade, and then you look at them and they're all sort of just like I work at a library in my spare time, just these five eight guys with a goate It does look a little bit like Gary Oldman.

Yeah he does. He's got, you know, to his credit, he has that early Gary Oleman and Dracula look.

He does. He does. He's got the early Gary Oldman and Dracula look, which is very specific. I just I think that it's if you're gonna do, I just hope that these worms were of an edible grade. I don't know how you make sure worms are edible, but there's gotta be somewhere, right, because don't don't go around just eating a random bugs you find in your backyard, because that's a good way to get like a weird parasite.

Oh my god. I didn't even consider the possibility that those bugs would have parasites and them that could affect me. I'm gonna stop doing that.

Random if you eat random slugs you can get it's like rat lungworm, which is really bad.

Oh my god.

Yeah, I so.

Also, my assumption would have been, like you eat crickets off the ground or something, which obviously don't.

Do it, but you could get anymatoad.

Yeah, but you I assume it would also be like the stuff that they're carrying, or like worms that they've got. There's wriggling around in some pretty filthy soil. I imagine I could get some equal eye or something from just the outside of a worm.

I mean you probably could. There's at least like what I mean, you're not supposed to just have eat dirt rot dirts, right, Yeah, I'm supposed to eat rod dirt because of the disease is like hysteria you can get from that. You can get hysteria. Apparently you can't garden when you're pregnant unless you're wearing gloves because of the lhysteria on the soil.

Oh my god. All I know is about turkey meat. They're like, don't eat cold cuts. But I never said anything about don't grow roses or anything.

You know, you're not allowed you're not allowed to have fun. You're not allowed to uh, you're not allowed to play in the dirt or eat worms. It's frankly ridiculous.

So which has no fish.

No, no dirt, no much.

Cheeses, no cheese, nothing.

No cheese nothing. Well, you know I thought that, Wait is it the opposite? I thought pasteurized cheeses.

Okay, yeah, I think maybe that's okay, it's the stinky ones. It's like you're not supposed to have, like the those French cheeses. Oh boy, I can't remember now all this information leaves you immediately.

Cheeses. That's what they call them, the gym sock cheeses, the French gym sock cheesus.

Yeah, let's get off this topic and get onto blood worms advertising.

So they are also called glyceara dibrayan chiata. What a wonderful phrase. Which they grow a little over a foot long. They are blood red and horrible looking. These are also like remember the nice little midwife worms we talked about earlier, That are polykeets. These are also polykeets. It's a type of marine worm. It's a huge group of worms, so it's not they're not super closely related. And so they are a little over a foot long. They are venomous. They have copper fangs, and they're irritable.

I'm looking at their fangs right now. Oh man, wait, so they will they it would bite me. It wouldn't like me.

Yeah, they wouldn't like you. They're irritable. They're like boo sore. And that's also how they pump themselves up is booing you. So they are found all along coastal North America. They're predators and they like to hide in the sand and ambush their prey with those horrible little things on their proboscis. So let's talk a little. You want to talk about proboscis just for a minute. Let's talk about love to love to talk about a proposcos So it's kind of

Yeah.

Yeah, anyways, apparently that's how it works.

I'm looking at it, and I mean, there's obviously, oh way more apt descripsion than that this guy is clearly avoiding. And it's clear that that's exactly what he was thinking about the entire time, because he was like, don't say, don't say foreskin, don't say.

Yeah you can't.

Yeah, yeah, it's the head of your your body, the head of your body, how you know, it expands out like a balloon and eats and then and then goes back in Yeah, oh god, and then just runs off into the woods. He just leaves the interview.

This is a very this is a very foreskin like creature. Uh. And then at the end of the tip of it is our four little things.

Just like a normal penis.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's the thing is what's funny is there's so many penis like marine animals. There's more than one species that are not related called penis fish. Anyways, we're not here to talk about them. We're here to talk about the bloodworm. So they will inject venom into their prey off in small crustaceans. It's enough to paralyze or even kill them. For humans, it's not so bad.

Like, yeah, it looks like internal organs.

Yeah, like like that my like leg guts are coming out, Like I think that there's like leg intestines that I have that are coming out or something. It looks very intestine like. It's not a good it's not a good looking animal. I think spiders are cute, so I am pretty generous when it comes to finding animals cute, and this one just looks it does not. It's very visceral.

Yes, it's that's exactly right. It's a very visceral looking animal at every turn. It's also because it's so like flesh colored. It's just yes, it's it's just it really, it's tough to look at It reminds me of if if people can't see this obviously, if you that remake of King Kong when they all fall into that pit and like they get eaten by those worms. They look kind of like those worms.

Oh yeah, it was the one with the gull with gollum in it. Yeah, what's normal person?

Yeah he's he's a cook in that. Yeah, but yeah he gets eaten by those worms. He gets like sloiced devoured by them. Those have a lot more teeth. These only have four teeth that are like teeth is wrong, obviously, they're fangs. And the fangs don't even like sit together. Well, it's not like well designed like a shag like a snake, where like the fangs like, oh, they retract and they pull up and then they bite. These are just like poorly placed four fangs that just sort of over each other.

It just looks it looks very It looks like it would be a painful existence to be this thing, right, Like it hurts looking at it because it feels just like a raw scab that is alive somehow. So apparently though, those things are really interesting because they have a very high copper content, more so than I think any other kind of organic animal part. And apparently they are made out of melanin, copper, and a small protein melanin. I know you're thinking like, well, that's like the pigment, which

We should be stripping them.

We should be These are valuable worms.

I'd love to see some people take these words down a.

Peg, right, Such a tiny amount of copper in there, but you know, still you need I'm trying to think of how many worms you'd need for a penny. Yeah, I'd say fifty worms for a penny.

That feels like south of what I was thinking. These are so tiny, these fangs. I feel like I need get pure copper. Yeah, I think one hundred maybe even like.

Huns were coming, we'll try it, you know, we're coming for you. Glisarah di bran Kiata.

Even they don't know that that's them. They're like, what, Oh was that me? Is that my name is so complicated? I can't if that one's me.

Yeah, that's why. That's why we just call them blood worms. There's got to be a band called blood worm. There's probably multiple bands band surely called blood worm. Blood worm. Yeah there's yeah, yeah, there's like a few of them. Oh and they look exactly expect them to look pink and slimy and yeah.

There's just it's just a bunch of guys with balloon heads.

Yea. They have a very foreskin forward sort of Yeah, you know, I mean I think that it's it is, Uh, it's we on the show. I try to appreciate everything for what it is, and I gotta say, for to this worm's credit, it spends most of its time buried under the sand. So I feel like that's really something that we could admire and appreciate about this thing, Like it's horrible to look at, but most of the time it's it has the self awareness to bury itself.

Yeah, that's my first thought too. As soon as you like it spends most of the times waiting the sand, I'm like.

Good, yeah, yeah, it's like say there, yea, we know, we know.

That is how it sounds like trying to talk around those stupid fangs. We for trying not to poke themselves in their own face, their own pink raw face with their fangs. Will they talk?

Yeah, it's really it's it's quite awful looking. And yeah, just imagine that's the last thing you see coming at you, Just this thing that looks apologetic for existing. It's like, so we anyways, before we go sour, and we got to play a little a little gom he'll go. We gotta play a game called Guess who Squawk, a mystery animal sound game. Every week I play a mystery sound for you and you the listener, and use the guests trying to guess who is who's making this sound. It

All right, horrifying.

You know, you go out in the nature to relax and then some bird comes up to you and goes.

Ah, yeah, it's like a siren. Almh. Yeah, I'm trying to identify even what that sound is. Okay, you said the loudest bird My first thought was like a parrot or a cockatoo. Those are so loud, But that does not sound like either of those things. And it did sound like context clues. It did sound like it was near body of water, like rushing water, or it was in the rain, which means that this bird lives somewhere wet. I don't think it's a sea bird. I think it's something inland.

Can you try, can you try to guess the country or the region?

All right, I'm gonna say South America.

All right, well, sir, you are correct that this is in South America. This is a bird that has a call that is one hundred and twenty five decibels or more. It is as loud as having your head right next to a jet engine during takeoff. This is the white bell bird.

Uhl bird. Yeah, of course.

It looks like a dove, except for it has this like big wattle that goes from its beak down hangs down. It's quite long, sort of wardy looking wattle, and it has a giant mouth. And it apparently, even though it has such a loud voice, and it's thought like this is so that it can be heard over really long distances.

So you got you've got the chop, you got the pipes, my boy?

Yep, uh yeah this.

I'm really disturbed by this wattle. It looks like if I saw a burn a tree, I would think it was carrying a worm in its mouth, but it just like hangs off the top like a turkey's. Yeah, it's sporting a rat tail on the front.

There's a taxidermy of one of these where someone just had a dead one and didn't know what they looked like when they were alive, so they just assumed it was like a unicorn worn just this like straight up taxidermy of this like pointy horn like protrusion on this bird because they didn't realize it was so floppy.

How could you have predicted it would be this silly?

Yeah? Yeah, So, according to researchers, the bellbirds have the facial anatomy of a trombone because their mouths open so wide, and that's how one of the reasons they are so loud, so you know, but why exactly they have to be that loud. It doesn't seem to be known because again they yes, it helps them communicate over long distances, but as soon as the female is like right there, they're like, all right, let me again. Yeah, here's an encore and just shrieks in her ear. And they also don't know

Yeah, because to themselves.

Yeah, exactly, having.

A gun next to their own face every single.

Yeah, that's uh, you know, that's why you gotta wear your protection if you like to go to concerts a lot, because otherwise you start to lose it, yeah, damage your hearing. But yeah, they don't. They don't seem to be affected.

That's a fun one like that when the answer is something that I've never heard of, and then I get to look at it and what the is it wearing? Yeah, you do.

Like, I do highly recommend looking at a video of these guys because they'll like shriek and then kind of like move their head around in that bird like way, and it's like, all right, onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint is this found in eastern North America. You might find this little guy boogie woogieing and who can blame him with a call like this? Sh sh.

Oh, my god, that's a cute sound.

They're so goofy. We don't do another one.

That's that's such an adorable sound.

It's so cute and okay, another hint, the actual animal behind them is equally super cute. This is not a deceptive sound. They are as cute as the sound is. Oh. I love these guys so much.

They sound to me like I don't know the name they had. There's like that little round frog. It's like a frog that almost looks like a dime. And this is what I thget it's a frog.

Well, we will find out next week if sorn is correct or not. You can write to us at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com with your guests, or your questions or your disgusting caterpillar stories. Sorn, thank you so much for joining me today, you guys pleasure. Where can people find you?

Oh, you can find me on Blue Sky hang out there a lot and do some jokes, jokes and what you can find it. You can find us on our podcast I think that I do with Daniel O'Brien called Soren and Dan. No, it's not called that, it's called Quick Question with Soorn and Dan. Uh and uh. That's pretty much it. Or you can just watch my episodes on American Dad. Yeah, or as.

I like to call it, family, Dad's family Dad, family Dad. He's everyone's family and everyone's dad. All right, Well, thank you guys so much for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, please do leave a rating or review. I read them all and I look at all of the the ratings as well, each individually, even when it's just like counting all the little stars each separately. So it gives me something to do. And I appreciate that we all need

I do not like it.

Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Yes, what where have you listen to your favorite shows? I do not judge you. I'm not your mother. I can't tell you what to do, but don't go around bothering blood worms. They're just gonna bite you, and they don't want to be seen, and you don't want to see them. Respect that. You've gotta respect that. I'll see you next Wednesday, you guys,