Weapons of ASS Destruction

ever heard of. So as we'll discuss evolution is how should I put it inventive when it comes to weaponry? But how about some good old American ingenuity? How do we compare to the animal Kingdom? In World War Two, the O S S, America's espionage agency, tried to put a little stink on our military strategy Day. Along with their British counterparts, were developing a stink bomb. A top secret memo detailed the S liquid, an oily substance with

a quote highly persistent smell suggestive of personal uncleanliness. It could be deployed via a gel capsule, a perfume atomizer or pesticide sprayer. The intent wasn't to down the German targets, but to make him the subject of quote derision or contempt, ruining their morale by rendering them too stinky. Further developed stink weapons were meant to have the quote revolting odor of a very loose bowel movement and was codenamed the

who Me. Ultimately, this never really worked, in part due to the unfortunate fact that the deployer of the stink weapon usually got a taste of his own medicine, getting contaminated with the fetid poop smelling oil. But as we'll find out, animals are much more crafty and successful when it comes to butt bombs. Joining me today is actor writer bird Lover kimme a Pornia. Yeah you did it. Wow. Very honored to be here on this butt weapon every Yeah. I do love a butt. But this seems like the

dark side of the dark side of the butt. Yeah, exactly. And now is that like a Pink Floyd album? Yeah, I think that's exactly the but that's exactly the title. Yeah, yeah, but stink Floyd. There you go. Boom um, why do you like birds? Um? You know what I I like birds because they're just really fun to look at. There there's a lot of birds that are just dumb looking um, and the way they move is so silly. They're very The thing is, I like how I like all of

what you said. I like that birds looked dumb. They act dumb too. They certainly do, most of them. I mean, obviously there's the African gray parrot and the corvids, and those are all very smart. But like your your average pigeon, just like the way they kind of like bob around. Yeah, just they also have an expression of just like what happened? They don't know what's going on? Four or four brain off. That's right. Pigeons are actually my favorite type of birth.

They are everywhere and they're uh full of rocks, right, they have to be addressed eat rocks. Um. So let's talk about exploding ant butts. Let's let's do it. Um. So, there's a species of carpenter ant found in Malaysia and brunet Uh. It's called Camponotus cylindricus um. So when they're attacked, they'll violently contract their abdomen, exploding a sticky yellow glue from their gaster. So the gaster is the posterior portion

of the ant's body. It's um basically the closest we're going to get to an ant ass but there is So the act of their butt exploding does kill the ant um, but it's a suicidal sacrifice to ward off enemies or invaders, and so the adhesive goog kills the enemy by really really really sticky and gross. That's it. It's just very very stick sticky and sticky and gross. And just like you know, like that scene in The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible gets Have you seen that gets

attacked by those googballs? Oh? Yes, and they like start growing and you can't move like that. Yeah, that's insane. There it was. There was a product at home depot well when I was in high school that my English teacher was telling us about that was exactly this. It was like, you can spray on a burglar and oh, because I've heard of sticky traps for like pest, but like this is a human person. I see, I see like a giant. That would be cool though, like a

giant sticky trap for like a burglar. And they're like, oh, yeah, do you like spray on their face? And it turns into a big goo that grows like a foam on their face. So this is not the same. Wouldn't that kill the burglar? No, no, they just can't see your police get there, right, yeah right, yeah totally. So ants don't have the only exploding but termite don't know they don't. Termites also have one. So aging termites grow a sack

of blue fluid that can suicidally explode onto enemies. Um So, a lot of termite species shoot poop at their enemies as a defense, but the toxic explosive blue goo takes it a step further. It's this costic chemical one that becomes increasingly toxic as the termite ages. It's like a fine wine just really kind of like why would you say that, I mean just really brewing in that that

termite ass, you know. Um So, older termites whose manibals have become dull with age and so they can't forge as well, and there's like not a little teeny tiny termite dentures, so you can't. Uh, this is cute, I know, that's like just like it's a little grandpa termite is like got good dentur Wow, time to s blown by ass. Just about time and agesh wine for a long time. Uh, and so because they're basically useless, which the termites are basically none of the older termites horrible when if you

think about it, like personify them. But you know, okay, it's like logans run. Yeah, so they can provide one last service for the colonies. They can blow themselves up. What that's it? They can, but the blowing up is just to get rid of themselves, doesn't do anything else to help anybody. Or yeah, well they blow themselves up on an enemies, like they're like they're like, hey, fella, you want some more others, originals, termites just old people.

So you might wonder how to suicidal termites and ants exist, Like it seems kind of counter productive. I was wondering why they have to die after they protect themselves. Yeah, I mean, like, so the reason is that ants and termites are you social. They live in a big colony where only the queen reproduces, and this makes it so they can sacrifice themselves and it it's not as important because like they're not really relying on their their personal

genes getting passed down. They're relying on the fact that ants are um haploid diploid, and like basically they're they're sort of like clones of each other, so that that gene that's sort of genetic template is going to get passed down regardless of whether they actually, you know, give birth to a brood of horrifying little larva. So basically they're just disposable, yes, no matter how you look at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And a slightly different story is the Bombardier beetle, which they're found all over the world except Antarctica because who would want to live there? Nobody. That's true, it's a that's a bit of a misnomer. It's uh more like no ants Arctica. Yeah, we should rename it. Yeah, it's it's an irony that, like the one place ants don't live has an ant I mean, come on, you guys, come on, I really dropped the ball in I don't know.

So at the Kobe University of Japan they studied these beetles and found that they can escape from toad stomach by spraying a hot chemical from their butts. Just toad stomachs, but I mean toads seem to be the thing they studied, so I would assume the toads are the beatles nemesis. So they just blow a hole through the toad. Well it's so what happens is there these tiny explosions of butt chemicals that occur inside the toad stomach, which causes them to vomit up the beetle. And actually it's kind

of happy ending because the beetle survives. Uh, and the toads also seemed to survive. Well that's great. Yeah, it's just like you learn a hard lesson. It's like, man, that's like this feels like Chipotle, you know what I mean? Chipotle, that's a topical. You know how like sometimes when you eat Chipotle like upsets your stomach. That's I'm doing a

thing about that, like as if Chipotle is like a beetle. Beetle, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what if there's some like toads out there with body dysmorphia that oh no, toads, toad you're beautiful, don't live mass marketing of unrealistic expectations hurt you that don't need to make yourself vo no, no, no, and don't just nobody try to eat beetles. Yeah, just don't

do it. Just don't doesn't even sound good. No, they're they're I mean, like even in terms of insects, like like have a nice grub or something that's that'll go down smooth. But a beetle girls think so they have like pinchy faces they got Yeah, they got little dongles that are sharp. Yeah, yeah, I like what you said better sharp dongles. That's a scientific term. So let's talk about scorpion in this is you're already scary. They are, um, but they're good moms take care of their babies real good.

Some of them let their babies eat them. We talked about that on another episode. Wow st we scorpions. So I got a question for you. If you could detach one body part, what would it be for defense or just because? Well defense defense? They're down because like I feel like if it's just because, I'd be like, obviously my head because that would be really funny. Yeah, dang, I was going to pick head anyway, I know. But well, well,

what's your reason for being for defense? I would throw Well, I guess I just assumed that my severed head could still do stuff like I could toss my head at people. You could like spike your head down on someone. Yeah. Well I was thinking I could just verbally abuse people farther avera for me, just kick my head to a distance yeah, back, and tell him to not come any

closer to me. You could make like a morning star your head on the end of a chain and like be throwing inside says, you're like whipping your head around, being like you suck that. Yes, that's my answer. That's what I want to do. Yeah. So the and A terrorist Scorpions of South America. I'm sure I pronounced that

high percent. Sounds good to me. So when attacked, they detached their stingers, which wiggle around, probably to ward off predators, kind of like lizard tails, Like their tails will detach kind of wiggle around, and it's like, not only is it sort of like allowing them to escape because they can now run away, but then they've got this like tail to contend with, so it's it's like it's a nice decoy and also a way too to sort of like rip, rip and pull, you know, like report kind

of thing with parachuting. I've tried to catch a lizard before. Yeah, I get it from the lizard thing. You get those tails litters Like I used to try to catch lizards all the time when I was a little Kiden, like, just get a handful of lizard tails. Yeah, they just detached the tailing, right, Yeah, I can't. I can't. And I was like, I think I tried to keep one of the lizard tails once because I was like, well, if I can't have the lizard as a pet, I

guess this tail will do. Because it was still moving, so I assumed it was like alive. I think a lizard was just going to grow out of the end of the tail there, sure, sure, why not happen? What works the other way? Why not? You're right? Who am I to tell you? Well, So for the scorpions, unfortunately, their stingers also include their anus, and so when they detached their stingers for purposes of evasion, they lose their ability to poop. Oh jeez, they die. Well. No amount

of prune juice is gonna solve this situation. Um, So some of the scorpions turned into I guess you would call it poop balloons. Okay, so they just fill up with their own peah. They can live for about eight more months. Wow, that's a lot of time to just know. Um, I mean, I think that's longer than a human can be constant, definitely. So one of the scorpions that was observed lost their tail stub due to the trapped pressure of the poops. So I guess it's like exploded. Oh

the scorpion exploded. Yeah, it was so full of yea um. But they can still hunt and mate. So the whole thing with evolution is as long as you can pass your genetic load off when yeah yike. So there's some other scorpions that are just mating with a poop balloon. Yeah, and it's fine. I mean maybe they're into it. I don't know, maybe they are into it. People got different flavors, that's fair. People in scorpions. Yikes. What if they explode while mating, well that I mean then they could just

be like surprise, they'd be dead. They would be dead. What an exciting thing that I'd want to see boot baloon scorpion explodes while meeting. I wish I had that video for you, uh but instead, you know how Marvel, I'm sure this episode is not going to come out right now, like, but there's the Marvel movie that should always be relevant. Yeah, I suppose. So the Avengers H Final Battle Game, Avengers the Last one End game Adventures. Well we did it, guy, I just told you what

it was Avengers. That was a great time we had um. But you know what if I just just humor me. What if Captain America never got a shield? What if the soldier Juice the game him not only made his little noodle body into big old muscle mcmusseles, but made his perfect butt into a shield. So like he never gets a shield, but he's got a big butt. And then like so he's got Nazis coming, he just like shields everyone with his butt, and you know it's like the bulls just bounced right off it, and he like

can crush people between his cheeks. Like red skull just boomed like a like a nut down and advice. That's Buns of steel. Buns of steel just deflects tests rats and you know age of Ultron, you know, you know, based on what you thought the title of this Avenger, we'll see like he collects the gemstones of Dustiny on his butt though, and then so he can make butt snaps. That well, so let's talk about wan bats. Okay, I was really into this book snaps and that's my that's

my alternate universe. O c um Captain America but with a really big butt that does heroic things. That's amazing. I think a lot of check out my dad aren't. Oh yeah yeah I will. Um. So wombats are like Captain America except their shield is there. But except also they live in Australia, so they'd be like Captain Australia and their wombats. Damn, I mean, can't argue that logic. I can't argue much of the logic so far. So wombats, for those of you who may not know, they're adorable

fluffy marsupials native to Australia. Um, they're pretty fierce and they can bite and scrape effectively, and they can well be a little chunk boys. They weigh up to eighty pounds of just pure cuteness. They look sort of they have like kind of big noses. They kind of dope. Have you ever seen a wombat? I think I've seen a wombat. Let me show you one. Joe. You said chunk boys, and now I really want to see a pig. Chunk boys. Yeah, yeah, they're they're big old chunk boys. Um,

here here's a whole hell. Yeah, yeah, I've seen one of those they are chunk boys. There are some thick little boys and they're very cute. Um. And they also have a butt that is reinforced with cartilage. So this is a quote from Alice Swinburne, or actually, since she's Australian, it's probably Alice Swinbon, PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. Um, should I try an Australian accent? I dare you. It's accents aren't my thing, but what we're going to try it?

So there, then hang on, I gotta think down Unda, down and let's see Australian goody, good eye, good die Steve, Steve Irwin, Stave Irwin crokey. Here we go. The normal shield is essentially full fuse backbones or plates covered in cattledge fat, thick skin and fuh damn, that was good. Wow, you hustled me. I thought it was going to be. No, it's I have to work up to it. I can't go from I can't go cold into that accent. Um.

So basically, they have a super butt. It's a super It's like it's reinforced with bone, cartilage, fat, They've got extra thick skin and extra thick fur. It is the boss, but the boss of butts. So the wombat, when threatened, will run into its burrow and just block the opening with its big, old armored tush. You oh my god, just enemies bouncing off it, just completely Uh, it's it's invincible. But that's amazing. I really want to touch that butt. No, it's I mean it would probably be kind of like

firm um so. Uh. There's also evidence that it can use the butt to crush the skulls of persistent predators. It'll slam its booty against the sides of its burrow, crushing predator skulls who are unlucky to get stuck between a rock and a hard butt. Oh boy, look what you did. I mean, what a way to go to be crushed to death by the butt of one of the world's cutest animals. Yeah, I know. It's a real mixed bag for me. I love it. So I begged

the question do humans have an analog? Yes, we do, actually, and but it's only through good old fashion German engineering, not just German. Actually think it's Swedish. I'm really not good at uh. Anyways, it's called it's called the Vulcan personal air bags and then there's also another company called hip Air. Um we're talking air bags. Well, their personal wearable air bags. Oh, we're talking airbags. You can wear on your chest, on your button, yes, on your wat

like a wombat. Um. So these are for the elderly to prevent them from breaking their hips during a fault. Because actually that's one of the most, um, the highest risks of just being elderly with no other health complications, just of like physical trauma is breaking your hip. Um. Yeah, because like as you get older, it's harder, too harder to balance, you have less like natural protection, and it's it's it's uh, this is actually really great. It's funny,

but this is a great invention. So the bags you wear this like thick belt and then when it's the sensors since that you're you're falling, the bags inflate, uh and it just like creates an inflatable ass for you to like bounce on. And I think I have I think I have a video. Wow. It is just a big old side butt. Though it looks like, yeah, I think it's on either side though. Oh it's so, I see, So it's a full it's it's either side of the butt can have this a big inflatable cheek that will

protect you from falls. That's great. I need that maybe now, really just for fun, that would be pretty fun. Like like you you trip, you stumble, You're like, oh no, I'm gonna make full out of myself. But then you get this big inflatable but bounce right back up and you're like, oh, what's the time. I'm all casual. Yeah, I would just walk around waiting to fall down if I had one of those. Yeah, just bounce off cars like oh you just you didn't stop for me and

I'm at a crosswalk, No problem, I just bounce. That's right, like a ping pong ball. That's right, pong ball. So what's up with humans and our big butts and round butt cheeks? Walking upright gave us an added bonus of gaining nice butts. Our bipedal gate requires us to have thick gluteal muscle masses and water pulvis is to allow for a water range of leg movements side to side. So that explains the muscles. But one of that nice

cushy fat we got on our tissues. There's not really a definitive answer, though some anthropologists suggest it may simply be a convenient place to store fat on our bodies in preparation for times of scarcity. There's also the theory that women have more fat in our butts because of the added strain of breastfeeding and childbirth. Maybe we're like the fat tailed dwarf leamer, an adorable little critter found

in Madagascar who likes to hibernate. They store huge amounts of fat in their tails to be used as fuel for their extended torport. So if anyone tells you that you have a big butt, thank them for the compliment and tell them you're well stocked for winter. Hold onto your butts. We'll be right back after a few quick messages. So do humans have weirdly gross biological defense mechanisms? After all? When we're scared, we can react by urinating, having bowel movements,

or vomiting. Most of this is due to the fight or flight reflex. The reason we're not constantly peeing ourselves is due to the communication between the prefrontal cortex and the area of the brain that controls the bladder called the pontine micturition center. When the Olympics system takes over during times of fear of stress, the signals from the prefront to cortex to the pontine mixturtion center gets interrupted, so there's nothing telling your platter not to pe everywhere.

The same principle goes for number two. Irritable Belle syndrome is a cluster of symptoms that include stomach pains, cramping, and or diarrhea. For many people, IBS is triggered by stress. In fact, it's associated with psychiatric disorders. Over half of people with IBS also have panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder,

social phobia, post traumatic stress disorder, or major depression. It's a somewhat mysterious syndrome, but there are theories that it's not simply a disorder of the Belle's but the brain, a miscommunication between the brain and the gut. In fact, there could be an imbalance of serotonin in the gut. Some poopologists suggested depression of the second brain, meaning our butt brains. Our butt brains is known as the entire nervous system. It's a bundle of nerves in the walls

of our guts. It controls the functioning of the gut independently of our brain, though there's still communication between the two brains and our gut brains can even have an inflo. It's over emotions. Think about like when you get nervous and your bowels kind of churn and you get butterflies and you get more nervous. So maybe people with ib should be seeking couples counseling between their head brains and their ass brains. So you like hippo's, I do. I

also like the word poopologists. Thank you. Yeah, it's the scientific it's it's actually they study, um, they study trees. Said, um, we're actually gonna have a herpetologist on later and it's not it's guys, be mature about it. Yeah, man, it's not herpies. Yeah yeah, there I said it. Yeah yeah, yeah, we said it. This is yeah, we did the joke first, So don't even think don't don't even think it. Grow first of all, grow up, put on your pants, put

on your big adult pants. Move out of your parents house. Move out of your parents house, because we're about to talk about hippo poop rocket. Um. So I found this book and it's called the Social Life of Hippo's and it's just it's just wonderful. It has a whole section dedicated to defecation. It does. Quote from the book The Social Life of Hippo's, defecation plays a prominent role in the life of a hippo and often involves more than the mirror elimination of waste um David enbro thank you.

So what happens is the hippo's tail is quote wagged vigorously while it's pooping, so that the quote loosely constituted, dung is sprayed around. Often this is done in a bush. I guess the book felt like I should know that. But but they it's not exclusive to bushes. They like to poop in general. So The Social Life of Hippo's book argues that though this was once considered to be territorial behavior, that hippos are not actually territorial on land.

So we're going to get into a big controversy about hippo's can't wait. So this idea was supported by a study done in nineteen seventy four that showed no territoriality amongst Mirror River hippos. This study was contradicted by a more recent study done that looked at the territorial behavior of a male hippo that involved poop sprang onto the wall when a female hippo was introduced to his habitat.

This was done in captivity, so like, some people argue that this is a different behavior than would be found in the wild. However, the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology notes that dung spraying is territorial and that the areas that are sprayed by the poop usually follow along the hippo's grazing path in territory or boundary into new territories. Um. And but here's the thing. I don't know whether it

you look like, you're like, what's happening to me? It's like what dogs do when you take him on a walk and on everything everywhere you think like, and I mean like, some biologists think it is territorial and some don't. And here's but I have a theory. Okay, I think they just love it. I think they love pooping. So another hippo behavior, according to the Social Life of Hippos, is dung showering of other hippos, used as a display of dominance. Um. The San Diego Zoo notes that dominant

males spray there poop onto subordinate males. Here's the thing. Supportinate males will also spray their poop in the faces of dominant males. I don't know, is that really a display of dominance or do they just like getting brown showers all the time? Gross to say, but I do. It does sound like hippos just love it. Seems like they love it. There's a lot and if you're eating something right now, I apologize, sorry, sorry, but there's a lot of smelling, licking and eating of the dung. Yeah, yikes.

Is it good for them? Is it like they're supposed to eat that stuff? Don't think so. I think it's okay. But it's not like there's certain things like like they're ruminants animals that um uh will eat stuff and like they have um they'll actually like pass things like rabbits and getting pigs will pass like poop and then like eat that. And it's actually like a special type of

poop that has um. It's just like once digested, but stuff that can still have nutrients taken from it, and so that can be But I don't think this is the case of that. I think this is just purely for the joy of rolling around in their own films. So how many times a day what was just pop.

It seems like all the time constantly bikes. And you said, their tails just like spread around like the wagon pop. Yeah, if you have seen, if you've ever gone to the zoo, hang around the hippos for a while because it will happen. And it's quite interesting because they're a little tails just like like goes like like poop everywhere. Wow. Um. But so they're not not the only ones guilty of using poop as a sort of projectile. But this is not a weapon. This is just they just like they just

love it. I just included it because I mean, there is the there is a theory that it is territorial or it is used to a certain dominance. But my thing is, I think they just like it. You um, as a as a hippoologist. Um, So let's go into the ocean and to one of the most majestic creatures that resides in the ocean, the pygmy sperm whale. So pygmy sperm whales can spew over three gallons of brownish red but syrup. It's an intestinal fluid distinct from poop,

and its purpose is to distract enemies. While the pygmy sperm whale escapes did you say brownish red poop syrup. Yes, it's like a it's an intestinal fluid. It's not poop, but it's not not poop, it's it's a but syrup. And it just makes the water murky so that the thing can run away. Essentially. Yeah, it's sort of like a squid ink. Probably doesn't smell great either, I'd imagine.

I also imagine that. Um. So, what we like to do on this show is we like to go on on the Imagination train, stop on off at the Imagination station, really kind of dive into the world. And we're in a topic that is a little tricky to do that, to get too deep into imagination world, because you know it's but so here's this is actually real story. Um, It's about how I've weaponized my own grossness. Okay please.

Um When I was a kid, I had the flu and I would go to choir every morning, and so I was pretty stoic, so I still went to choir, but I could feel trouble brewing inside me, and we were singing do re me uh, And as we reached the sort of crescendo of do remi, a geyser of

flu Vomit just spewed out of me a little tiny body. Um. Either through pure luck or some kind of evolutionary instinct, I managed to aim my arc of puke directly at this girl who was super mean to me, and just like a hundred percent like barely got it on anyone else but this one girl. And it was just like and it was also my birthday, Happy birthday. Yeah, I was like, thank you, thank you, flu virus. This is a great birthday present. I mean, I've never bombed on anyone,

but if I could, I would have aimed at someone. Yeah. I don't think I was trying. I think it was just the universe allowing my vomit to reach a target. So it's like it's you know, it's like I feel like the universe balances out it always does you have to vomit during quire at least do it on someone who's mean to you. Yeah. Have you ever liked either inadvertently or advertently weaponized just something gross? Yeah? I don't know. The only thing I can think of is like a

terrible fart making people go away. Have you like just on purpose? Um, I haven't done it on purpose. I sort of like to try avoid farting in public. It gives me a lot of anxiety, even though we're supposed to embrace the fart we I mean, you know, there's a whole yoga position about it. Oh there is, yeah, where it's like the wind release post. Definitely. Um, but yeah, I feel like um, I mean, I feel like I do feel like vomit. It is sort of it is

a room clear. So like if you're ever in a situation where you need people to evacuate, but somehow you can't, like nobody's paying attention to you, you just vomit. You just keep a bunch of beetles in your pocket. Pop one and yeah, yeah, one of those one of those toad vomit beetles. Yeah there, Yeah, don't do that. But don't do that. You were just saying, I know, but sometimes I lie. So the US Navy contracted a company named Invocon to develop a vomit ray, or quote non

lethal standoff weapon as it's otherwise known. And here's a quote from the the invocon website. It's a i VC. Invocan proposes to investigate the use of beamed r F radio frequency energy to excite and interrupt the normal process of human hearing and equilibrium. Uh. They say it can penetrate through walls and causes emotion, sick, dizziness, and vomiting. Oh my god, so they just point that thing at you and you feel off balance, start throwing up. Oh

my god. Have they used this thing before? I don't know. I don't. I don't think they tell as if they have. I don't know why. Why terrible like social humiliation weapons. I mean, I think this one is more practical, where it's like you can just disable someone if they're just like on the floor throwing up. Oh gosh. Um So, defensive vomiting in animals is a whole category of evolutionary defensive strategies. Um. So, later we're going to have an

interview with Dr Greg Polly. He's a herpetologist and curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and we'll talk about some exorcism level vomiting, defensive maneuvers and animals. Um. But, just to give you a little taste, there's a bird called the European roller. It's a little bird found in Africa, Europe, and Asia who would make a real nice little snack

predators lungeable sized. Um. But the babies will vomit nasty smelling orange liquid onto themselves to make themselves too revolting to eat. Gross. Yeah, look on to each other, onto themselves, you think, onto themselves, just like they are. They're there. They're nasty little things. They like to get nasty. But speaking of nasty, we're we gotta go back in the ocean. There's one. There's one more, the noble and majestic. See cucumber,

I do. I how you say very positive beautiful attributes and we're about to talk about a gross thing that this thing does shaped like a pickle, But you know that doesn't mean we can't see its inter beauty. And in this case, we're gonna literally see its interview beauty. Because they're capable of self evisceration. They shoot their internal organs out of their butt to ward off predators, and

then they were growing. You know what, Yeah, just like it's like, I guess I don't need these internal organs and shoot them at predators, so allowing them to escape, and then they can regrow their organs. So these things just never die, then, is what I'm as saying. Well, I think they can. They could still die, Okay, I mean just like, well, it's like, how you know Wolverine. Sure, he's like he can regrow himself, but you can still kill him. Can you kill Wolverine? I mean I think

they did. They did? Did they rip in peace? The Hugh Jackman one? Oh, I thought they did. I don't know. Well, anyway, scientists are sequencing the C. Cucumber genome to look at the genes behind their regeneration. So maybe someday medical science will advance to where humans can shoot their organs out of their butts and grow them back. Oh yeah, that's super helpful. Well not the first part of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I feel like Bezos is already probably doing this. Like he's rich enough that he's probably just like, like, give me c cucumber jelly and he's like injecting it into veins. My god, Zuckerberg. Maybe that's a Zuckerberg thing to do. What about an Elon musk? That sounds like that they're all doing it. They're all just a little it's all a shadowy cabal of c cucumber like cultists eating just like conjecting they're more c cucumber than man. Now, you're

totally right, is totally going on? Oh my goodness, it explains so much. It sure does. Those people will never die. I was right, They're never gonna die, and they're slowly just going to become like a big tube like a c cucumber. Oh my god. So you're saying, not only will they grow more insides, they're going to turn into cucumbers on the outside. I mean, look at Zuckerberg, it's

already happening. Good roast, boom roasted. Do humans ever try to defeat their enemies through gory intimidation like a self eviscerating c cucumber? In ten nine seven, Turkish soldier regarding a fortress in a city within Asia minor when Christian Crusaders rolled up with their catapults. Though the catapult was already a terrifying siege weapon, the Crusaders decided to get a little funky with it. Turkish soldiers watched with horror as a torrent of bloody human heads rained down upon them.

The Crusaders had lopped off the heads of dead Turkish defenders and loaded them up as projectiles. After a week long siege, the Turks surrendered. I'm not saying that c cucumbers are better than us, but shooting your own organs out of your butt is a bit classier than launching dead people's faces at your enemies. So yeah, maybe I am saying c cucumbers are better than us. Stay tuned. Just ahead, we have an awesome interview with reptile expert Dr Greg Polly, who has some crazy stories of gnarly

animal defensive strategies. Will be right back you're with me. Today is friend of the show, Dr Greg Paul, herpetology researcher and curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, to talk about one of the most metal animals I've ever heard of. Uh, so, you know, I'm excited about this. Uh, tell me a little bit about the horned lizard, where it lives, what its diet is in why it squirts blood out of its eyes like

a haunted super soaker. So first, everyone should be excited about horn lizards because they're either adorable and be they're amazing. They're like little they look like a little pokemon like they have like little spikes everywhere and really cute faces. I think that's fair. Uh, they're adorable, They're really adorable. Um, and so this is a this is a this is

actually a group of lizards, the horned lizards. That depends on who you want, who you ask, which what what research you believe, but let's call it roughly fifteen species. And these species are found from southern Canada down into Mexico and here in California we have a couple of these species of horn lizards and they are absolutely adorable. They are little lizards that mostly rely on camouflage and crypsis to go undetected. And so can you explain what

crypsis is? Yeah, So basically, um there pretty much just trying to match the background. And they do this by a couple of ways. So they're they usually like if you imagine, like a lot of these are sort of desert adapted lizards, and so they're often on sandy backgrounds, and so they're kind of rotund. There's a reason that people call them horny toads, and it's because they kind of look a little toad like that. These are very rotund lizards, and they kind of look a little like

a disc. And but they have you know, they usually sort of have like red and brown kind of patterns on their back which then really closely matched the background that they usually are living on and then instead of having like a very crisp sort of outlined, they've got all these spikes and horns and elongated scales and so forth that really break up their outline so that you know, if you're like say, an aerial predator like a hawk, you're unlikely to see them because it doesn't fit your

sort of typical lizard search. Imagine there's this like rotund hawk key disc, you know, hanging out on the ground and you can't even pick it out as a lizard. But let's say that all that fails, like something still finds it even though it has this amazing camera like a hawk with heat vision or something, I mean something you know, coyote smells it out or you know, if they move, if they're running, you know, something might see them.

And so if something grabs them, what they what not All the species of horn lizards can do, but most of horn lizards, most of the different species of horn liars do this is, Yeah, they shoot blood out of their eyes, and they can shoot this stream of blood actually with pretty good accuracy for several Yeah, so it seems like they can aim. And what they mostly are aiming for is they are aiming mostly for the mouth

or the head reach of whatever is attacking them. And this doesn't work on snakes as far as we know, which is one porn lizards, but on dogs like like coyotes, foxes, um, it works on them, and it seems to also work on bobcats. This blood happens to be incredible distasteful, and we actually don't know why it's distasteful, which is really interesting. We can speculate, there's like lots of speculation as to

why it's distasteful. It seems to be super distasteful, and so coyotes and foxes and bobcats you'll actually see you can actually find videos of this on YouTube. Liked gets in the mouth and they make the yucky face and they're like clearly trying to get this grossness off they're doing. And it turns out that horn lizards it varies by species, but for most of them, like of their diet, there's things like carpenter ants and harvest or ants sometimes also

termines termines, but mostly these big ants. And so we think that whatever is in the blood for the horn lizards, it must be that they're taking sequestrian toxins from the ants. And of course ants are full of formic acid, so we think that that's probably what's going on, but no one's ever actually like done the or you know, done the chemistry to figure out that that's what it is mystery, and we do know, like incredibly, this happens very rarely, so it's very rare that the horn lizard will even

shoot blood as a person. But we actually know from a couple of different accounts that if that blood actually gets in the eye of the person, that it is incredibly painful and can actually cause temporary blindness for a couple of hours. And there's only that's only happened to a few people where it's ever been reported, but it technically can't happen. So this is like acidic blood of

some kind. Presumably it's it's there's something going on, and we presumably that's not blood that is circulating throughout the entire animal because there in their tear ducts right well, they're shooting the blood basically out of the tear ducts, but it's not clear whether that blood is being I mean, if you see a horned lizard when it gets when it's getting stressed out, you actually see that ocular sinus kind of filled with blood, Like you basically see their

eyelids start to get like and like filling with so you know, like it's unhappy. And so that's obviously not always like that. So there's something but like, is it that the circulating blood is that distasteful? Will probably not because that coyotes try to eat it, and they're still trying to eat it, So it must be that at something like it must be that parts of it are good. Yeah,

so we don't. They're still like a lot of research ingret Can you imagine if people like to like when people are upset, they just start crying blood, which is I think that's kind of the point. That's probably why this evolved. Like if if you're a predator and you're like, I'm gonna eat this tasty thing and then suddenly it starts him blood, you're like, there's something wrong with that I eat that, It's probably how this in part evolve. Well, so it kind of reminds me of this historical story.

Um around four nineties six to four six b c h. There was this king, King gug Uh. He was the ruler of the Kingdom of You, which is modern day Eastern China. I probably didn't pronounce any of that, right, but um So, he was allegedly known to scare his enemies before battle by sending in a front line of soldiers who would cut their own heads off or at

least like maybe get one hacken and then time. I think it'd probably be pretty hard to just content like hang on a minute, I gotta I gotta more to go. Um So that was to intimidate the enemy. And what the enemy may not have known is that these were all condemned prisoners, so they were going to be executed anyways. So here was there sort of um chance to kind of you know, help out their families, earn some money,

or like have some kind of final glory. Um. So it was it's like this that like, man, anything that's gonna like like squirt blood out at me is not something to tangle with. I think it's anything that anything

that is just so crazy. Yeah right right right if someone started just like vomiting blood at you or sure, yeah yeah, yeah, it's it's I mean, you know, it is kind of an interesting thing because like when when you are nervous, sometimes you like will vomit or or urinate or poop and and I don't think there's any evidence to suggest it's necessarily a survival strategy and humans, um it more that you're your autonomic nervous system is

just like, well, you're too scared to really control your bladder. But on the other hand, I think it may have some benefits for us where it's like you know, maybe uh, you know, like you're fighting with someone then suddenly they smell some really nasty things or you throw up on them, They're gonna be like, all right, too much trouble to forth it. Yeah, I was going to mug you, but then once you pooped over everything much less inclined. Um. Are there any other examples of animals using bloody or

gross intimidation strategies to evade predators? Yes, there's, Tony asked, as if I didn't know, But yeah, there are so many. I mean, as a herpetologist, I obviously think about reptiles, nintins, and it's so common in snakes for example, that are

really common defense strategy. Mean, because snakes are kind of limited, right, Like they don't have arms, they can't you, they can't punch you, they can't kick you, so like they're kind of limited with what they can do, and so you want to make yourself distasteful to a potential predator, how about smearing yourself in your own feces? Super common, defensive I get like in Jurassic Park or the New Jurassic Park where they like cover themselves in dinosaur poop. It

was it was one of the news. Well it's in one of the newer ones, the lesser Jurassic parks. I've just saw those, and I told I don't I can't believest I feel like I'm obligated to remember all popular references to smearing one. It may have been a cut scene, it may have been a director's cut scene. Um, but yeah, they cover themselves in That's actually I love when movies like that actually do incorporate things from sort of biological reality,

like this is really common for snakes to do this. Um, because snakes eat such large meals, and vultures do this too. Like animals, they eat huge meals oftentimes puts them. It's sort of a locomotory disadvantage. So if something then goes after they peple have a way to get away. It's like imagine a line and then a big ball in the middle and that just so we can't we can't defend itself. Vultures sometimes eat so much that they actually

can't fly very well. Yeah, and so for both, you know, for vultures and also for a lot of snakes, if they have a big meal, the first thing that they do if something is like threatening them is they vomit. And not only is I mean, especially with vulture, I mean vulture vomit has to be like one of the most disgusting things in the world. So it's like rotting

carrion that's been sort of marinating and digestive juice. It was like, in case the rotting carrion wasn't disgusting enough, you then get to like put it into this stomach. Like I once had food poisoning after eating some chicken that may have gone bad, and that was pretty bad. But that times like a billion So so yeah, I mean, vultures do that. A lot of snakes will do that to get away, um, and it kind of just doesn't

distract the predator or gross them out. I think probably, and it makes them more mobile because it makes more mobile, but I don't think it's probably like it's I mean, if a snake does out of the vulture does that, it's still moves away from that vomitant, so then the animal is still there, whereas like the snakes smearing themselves in poop, like the animal is gross like the animals now yea and is still poop covered. And then there's also like there's these great snakes called hog no snakes

and actually fainted death. They roll over on their bellies and thanatosis, yeah, and they open their mouths and they stick there. They sort of low. They emit this odor that sort of sounds like death and decay. But then they're not even the only animal that does that. Like when we think about like you know, you scare a possum and the like pretends to be asleep, what's it really doing is it's like pretending to be dead and it actually gives off this really disgusting So we see

that a lot. And then there's all these other animals like um. I spent seven years in grad school at the University of Texas and Austin, and like we would go out, you know, driving around that night looking for snakes on the crossing the roads, and one of the things you would times come across are armadillos and one of the things you learned very quickly. If you ever try to catch and armadillo, is that there a defense mechanism is to just start pooping and pee. Okay, yeah,

you feel like that. That's like a baby's defense mechanisms, Like if you're if you're an and you try to pick up a new baby or something, just like starts pooping and teeing everywhere, and uh and this is what frogs do. You try to grab a frog, it's first

defense mechanism usually is to just peel. I think I learned that as a kid because I would I would try to catch frogs and lizards all the time, and like the amount of times where I just get like the first time it happens, you're like, oh no, gross frog p And then then you just got to learn like, all right, buddy, I'm onto your trick exactly. Totally not intimidated by that, you know, if I think like stuff.

One of becoming a herpetologist is like just accept the fact that you're gonna get pooped and pete making peace with frog and lizard poop and pea. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah. Lots of things smeared themselves in various bodily fluids to

because oh, that's that's excellent that this is uh. I feel like, um, there was a I'm trying to remember if it's like a c I A thing, but like they're they've definitely been um government military operations where the research stuff like really bad smells, like really nasty smelly things as a weapon. So it's not quite chemical warfare because it doesn't I don't think they're meant to like actually damage people, but it's just just debilitate you with

like these smell bombs. Yeah. Um, but maybe we should just uh, like if soldiers just covering themselves in and in poop and the job wasn't hard enough one more step. Well, thank you so much for joining me. Um, do you have anything to plug or anything that people should check out? I guess as always, I would just plug participating in uh in citizen science project. Yeah. We talked about this

before on the show. Um there's an app that they can download, right, Yeah, So there's this amazing app called I Naturalists and people can download the app have it on their smartphone. If they're out one and around and they see wildlife, plants, fungi, whatever you get excited about. Um, some for the living animal or a sign of a living creature, take a photo uploaded to the app. And so it's just like me might end up using that photograph in their research. Yeah, stop taking photos of your

food and take photos of animals and help science. Yeah, and you can even take photos of animals eating some of your friends. Right right, you're you're you're amazing latte you got from Starbucks. A lizard starts to drink it. Boom, you've you've helped your science. Just don't stress out the animal so much that it poops and peas all over itself to take your photo. But if that does happen, take a photo of it. Take a photo. Yeah. All right, well,

thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely thanks for having me. So we're back with Kim. We just heard some stuff about, you know, some pretty gross things that animals do. Yeah, more peine pooping, vomiting blood hears you know what. I think that it's just maybe humans that think that it makes like vomiting pe poops, so taboo. Why don't we I mean, we could use it as a web I mean like I mean, like certainly some of our primate relatives they do. It's a were just

we're just we're two. We're prouds. That's the thing. That's it. I think I'm just going to use my poop as a weapon. Now, okay, you know you know what though, like when I'm taking my dog on a walk and I have that baggy of poop, like I don't know, I've talked to another person that resonates with her words like it's at night, You've got your bag of dog poop,

and you're like, I am armed. I have dog poop and like if there's someone comes up and tries to smug me, you know, dog poop into the face like it's a it is now like a maze, totally out. Hey that speaks to me too, that that's great, that's awesome. Um so gross, do you have anything to plug? Yeah? Sure, Um if you guys watch TV, watch Abbie's on NBC or Hulu. It's a cool trope and I'm on it. Woo. Yeah, probably less gross than this. It's not gross at all.

It's about a bar fairy, So no poop, h no, no pooping in the is going to be listen the bars outside so technically there's bushers and you can fool Okay, hippos would love them. Yeah, they totally would. Yeah, uh huh. And can we find you on social media? Oh yeah, you can follow me on Twitter at child Clown underscore. I had to put the underscore in there because some other free quantic greet clown and on Instagram at child

clown just playing. I got that one first, that kind of weirdo would watch besides me, what other weirdo wants that? So you can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden um. And you can find podcast online peach podcast pod dot com. And then on Twitter Creature feet pod not feat as a stink gross feet, but feet as in f e a t so puture deep pod is Twitter. And then also I got Twitter called pro bird Rights and that's probably the best thing I've ever done in my life.

It is the best thing I've seen. So yeah, check check me out there where I'm a bird, but I don't sleep on myself or vomit on myself like that bird tacticut. Yeah, just on my enemies. You had to toss that. And thanks to the Space Classics for their awesome song ex Alumina