Will It Cuddle or Kill You?

don't want to be cuddled by me. And as we'll find out, sometimes a cute little animal turns out to be a serial killer. So today we're going to be playing a little game. See if you can give us which one of these animals were about to discuss is more likely to kill you than to cuddle you. We're talking adorable widow sea creatures, terrifying toothy beasts, and birds who look like they come from a gym. I'm a handsome nightmare. Discover this more as we answer the angel question,

can you trim your hedges? With a crocodile? Joining me today to play the world's Riskiest game show is comedian cat Lover Garfield impersonator Joey Clift. Welcome, Joey, Hey everybody. Yeah, I'm excited to be back. I'm excited. I feel like I might do well in this game. But I also I just assume that every animal that looks adorable is probably also not deadly, So I feel like I might

die pretty fast. The last time I had you, and I think we talked about cats, right, Cats the Musical, Cats the Animal, Cats the Musical, and Cats the Animal, and I write, I still I still think that seeing the Cats movie live is the most fun that I've ever had watching a movie live. So my my taste is off, is what I'm saying. Yeah, all right, well, so let's get right into or play a little game on this show where we try to guess which one of these animals is gonna want to cuddle you and

which one will kill you. And when I say cuddle you, none of these animals actually really want to cuddle you, because they're wild animals. But you know, in a situation where it's like you have to choose either to cuddle it like to cuddle which one of these animals? Which one would you pick? And so first up, is the catfish versus the garry Ol crocodile. So I have provided you with pictures of these lovely animals, and which one would you like to cuddle? And which one are you

going to run away from? Joey so um. Looking at the pictures of these animals, I my immediate gut reaction based on pictures is like, Oh, that'd be cute to cuddle a catfish. It's got the word cat in its name, so of course I'm gonna be on board for it. But I think that I'm going to choose the giad

or the I think I'm gonna choose the garyl. Yeah, I think I'm going to choose the garryl crocodile because I feel like I might have heard stories of catfish like eating people, so like, I think that that's actually from the show Catfish, where a cannibal convinces someone to dator and then she eats them. It was okay in this situation, was the cannibal a catfish that convinced was like the cannibal and actually catfish on the show, Yeah, it was a catfish on the show Catfish, and and

the catfish catfished a human and then ate the human exactly. Okay, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I I believe that. Um. But yeah, so I'm gonna say the garryel crocodile just because I think I've heard of catfish eating humans. Well, I don't think catfish actually eat humans. Now, there is a thing that people will do called catfish noodling, where they will their arm in a catfish den and the catfish will chomp down on their arm and then they pull the

catfish out of the water. Now, this is a very dangerous way to fish because first of all, catfish will bite you and maybe hurt you that way. Also, it can pull you under and if you get stuck and you are trying to get this catfish and the catfish is pulling you under the water, you can drown. And there is another very important reason not to mess with catfish.

So catfish are a group of species of bottom feeding fish found all over the world, and they're called catfish because many of these species, most of them do have these whiskers on their mouth area. They are called barbels, and those are sensory organs. They're also called catfish because they love laser pointers, right exactly, Yes, yes, if you bring a laser pointer under the water. You're gonna have a fun time with the catfish. Not really, So catfish

do not have scales. They actually have this smooth, mucus covered skin which helps them respiate so they can take in oxygen and do gas exchange through their skin, which is pretty interesting. And the reason you don't really want to cuddle a catfish is that they possess very powerful weapons. They have spines on their fins that can wound you,

and in some species they deliver a stinging venom. In fact, so many species of catfish are venomous that the Sluri forms, which is the group of catfish, win the prize for the vertebrate order with the most venomous species. This is how I find out that I didn't win that award. Gee, sorry, sorry, the Joey Cliff's order does not have the most venomous species.

True nuts, it's actually wait, what was that? Goddamn I was gonna do a bit about Joan Rivers and then I forgot about what Joan Rivers name was, so you know, and she's also dead. So it's also dead because she was filled with too much venom. She produces all the all the people like under thirties something. Listening to this, I'm gonna be wondering what the hell is going on?

But yeah, yeah, yeah, so like next next you're gonna talk like talk about Charlemagne from a first person of like, look, I was telling Charlemagne this joke and he loved it. So the most dangerous species of catfish are the Heteroneustis and plotosas So. Heteroneustis are a genus of Asian catfish which can hospitalize humans with their powerful stings, which are also extremely painful. So you know it's gonna be a bad time with these catfish. Unfortunately, have you have you

ever been stung by anything with venom? You know, I have lived a blessed life where I have actually not been stung by that many animals. And maybe it's because they since I'm an ally or something, but I have never been stung by a bee. I've only gotten very mild spider bites. I don't think. I don't even think I've ever gotten a jellyfish sting. And I lived next to the beach for like growing up, so yeah, no, I haven't. Um I think that. I also, I am just such an indoor person that I don't think I

ever have. The closest I think I've come is when I was two years old, a bee flew into my eye. Oh no, it didn't sting me. And I remember literally like like pointing and like I have vivid memories of pointing at this large bee and being like, look, mom, a bee and then like just like track me with my finger as it flew into my eye and being like, so, you know, I can't really say from a firsthand experience what venom feels like, but like, if it's anything like

a bee flying into your eye, it sucks. It's bad. It makes you cry like a two year old. There's this biologist and I forgot his name, but he went around the world ranking the painfulness of stings and guess how he did it by just stinging himself with a bunch of different animals. Yeah, it's't that. What is what is that? The the Kinsey scale or what is that? No, the Kinzie scale is sexual? They think, Oh right, I'm dumb. How sexual you feel towards venomous animals? Okay, god, oh

then I'm like a twelve out of out of one. Um, yeah, yeah, I think, uh yeah, I I've definitely read about that. Guy. Um, I mean that's why, like it's it's a scale of like one to five or something like that. I think that like bullet ants and murder hornets are like the far are like the higher end of it. And then I want to say that there's also just like a guy with a YouTube channel. Now that's just like, watch me get stung by this bug? Oh really, is this a real thing or do you think it just no

is a real thing. It's like, well, I know what I'm doing after we wrap this up. Oh yeah, I'll send you a link. Everybody watching, everybody listening to this, just google YouTube sting guy. I don't know if it's actually what its channel is called, but I don't know. Guy getting stung by something will come up, Guy getting stung by something the name of the channel. So the other group of species of catfish that you really really

do not want to mess with our the plotosis. So Plotosis are a genus of catfish that live in the Indian Ocean in New Guinea and the Western Pacific. They live in fresh, brackish and marine water, so they're They're found in a good variety of places, and some species can get as big as four ft long, and their stings are extremely venomous. So one species, the striped eel catfish, has a sting so powerful it can be lethal. They are pretty unassuming looking. They're actually kind of cute in

my opinion. There it's that photo that I showed you. They've got the little whiskers, they've got that silly little catfish mouth. But I don't find that's something that cute could harm me. It's so cute. Yeah, they have these black and white stripes. They're like a little stripy water kitty. Cute little water kitty. But it will kill you if it stings you, and if you're it doesn't always kill you if you're stung by one of these catfish, but if you're lucky enough not to die, they can cause

necrosis and that can require amputations. So you know that's not great. I don't think. I mean, I think that, like, look, if that's the risk I gotta take to pet a catfish, then like that's the risk death or amputation, amputation or or cuddling as slimy animal. I will choose cuddle. You're willing to put it all on the line for these catfish. Yep. Uh So in contrast, the garyl crocodile is extremely frightening looking. So it is a crocodile, as is perhaps observable by

its name. So crocodiles are a very very old order of reptiles, originating over eighty million years ago, and garyles have been around a little more recently, so they're only five million years old, fresh and uh sort of spry five million years and they are found in very small numbers and a handful of Nepal and India's freshwater river systems.

They're actually critically endangered, and they used to be found in a much wider range in the northern Indian subcontinent, but now there is just kind of a handful of them left. And these are big, big, big guys. They grow from eight to nineteen ft long, and they way up to two thousand pounds. So you know, that's that's chunky. I am looking at the picture of you sent me

of this crocodile. I wouldn't have guessed that it's so big because it just looks so happy, like it's like a it's like a side view, and its mouth is open really wide, and it looks like it's saying high, howdy, yeah, yeah, it's and it's kind of cute because it has well, Okay, I guess my definition of cute is maybe, you know, unique.

But it has this really long, thin snout with a hundred and ten two hundred and twelve really sharp teeth, and they I don't know, it's just kind of funny to me that they have these huge bodies and then these really long, skinny snouts. I think it's I think it's kind of cute. There's there's not. It just does look like it looks kind of like, oh yeah, that that's a Pixar character. But they are actually carnivores, and they look kind of I don't know, they look very prehistoric,

maybe even more so than other crocodiles. Like just it's that weird proportion of these long snouts with all these teeth sticking out, and they just look like, uh, something from before humans were around. Yeah, I mean, what's isn't that the story of like crocodiles have evolved the least of I mean, it's like they're like a crocodile today and a crocodile ten million years ago looks like basically

the same thing. Yeah, Yeah, they haven't evolved all that much I mean, we know that they have evolved somewhat, especially because like you know, you see the garryl crocodile that's about five million years old, and then the older crocodiles are over eighty million years old, so there's some evolution and different species coming up. But yeah, they haven't really had to change all that much. I mean, I get it this, this crocodile definitely does look it looks

like it looks cute. I don't know that that crocodile doesn't have to change a thing. You don't have to. I I love it for the way it is. It doesn't have to change for me, and it is to make you fall even more in love. They're pretty shy, so they don't tend to trifle with prey larger than a fish. Those long snouts with all those scary looking

teeth are actually just used for fishing. They have sensory cells on the tips of their snouts that can feel vibrations in the water, so they just kind of snap up fish and skewer them in those rows and rows of teeth. Um, do you think that every time it does that, it makes like a gulping sound, like its small as a fish? And then just goes like I do. Yes, absolutely, oh,

and it gets cuter. So they actually typically kind of like run away from humans, and those really highly specialized jaws are not used for stalking and hunting and chomping down on bigger prey, and it probably so when it does attack a human, it can't really do all that much damage. I have seen these claims online where it's like, oh, it's jaw strength is really weak, but that's actually not true. As far as I can tell from the latest research, their bite force is the same as any other crocodile

its size. It's just that, first of all, it's non aggressive with humans. It's very shy, it'll shy away from us, and it just doesn't hunt big prey, so it doesn't really occur to it to go and bite you necessarily, and if it does, it usually realizes its mistake and runs away. So actually, biology professor and crocodile and alligator researcher Greg Ericsson describes the way that crocodile bite force

works like this. He says, quote, it is analogous to putting different attachments on a weed eater, like a grass cutter, brush cutter, tree tremor they all have the same type of engine. There are bigger and smaller engines with higher and lower horsepower, but they have the same attachments. So so I have a question, Uh, do you fill them with gasoline? Do you fill the gary with gasolink that they're an engine? Is that like? Do I? Is that

how you make them bite? Um? I wouldn't recommend it personally, I don't. I mean, I'm not a mechanic and I'm not a crocodile mechanic, but I don't think you should fill them with gasoline. I wish I wish that. I wish that. I was about to say, I wish that you were a crocodile mechanic, but then I was like, no, I'm gonna be selfish. I wish I was a crocodile can. But you know, if you if you get a garryle and you put some fish around your weeds, it probably

will trim the weeds. I guess it's yeah, like trying to go for the You're like holding this massive procodile and it's like snapping out the fish and maybe it'll get a few weeds in there. Yeah, I buy that. I mean, it's not like efficient, but I feel like I feel like it would work. It's not efficient. So yeah. So basically, the garyls are big enough to have a

big bite force, and they do. It's just they have these little weed trimmer snouts and you know, they probably could do a little bit of damage to a person if they wanted to. They just don't want to. And I find that really sweet and adorable. I feel like weed trimmers are like I don't like, if you got hit by a weed trimmer, it wouldn't if it was like the one with the string on it, Like, it wouldn't kill you, Like it would hurt, but like, well not if you're not doing it creatively. Yeah, wait what

do you mean by that? Nothing? Nothing? Nothing. So the garryl they're very shy. They haven't been able to find a single case of a garryle killing a human and there have only been three recorded cases of non fatal attacks since the seventies, which makes them far less lethal and less dangerous than a catfish than even dogs and deer. And do you actually kill a lot of people every year just because of car accidents? Yes, they're they're the

lemmings of the road. Like basically, instead of jumping off cliffs. Now I do have to do for legal purposes defending the honor of the lemmings. Lemmings don't actually follow each other off of cliffs. That is a dirty lie made to slander the Limmings, and they actually don't follow each other off of cliffs. But yeah, dear, do seem to love to get into car accidents with people. I think it's an insurance scam. I think the deer are trying

to get insurance out of it. Last, do you do you think that that that lemming lie has been spread by big lemming? Big lemming? Why would it be spread by big Lemming. It would be like spread by big Marmot or something. Yeah you got a point, Yeah, I get it. So with these garry attacks, most of them appear to be the garryle just being confused and thinking

that the person is a fish. So like if you're out bathing or swimming, they mistake body part of the human as a fish and they give it a bite and then they're like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. I I didn't realize you're a person, and they run away. And then then the one case since the nineteen seventies where it was like a serious attack. It was probably actually mistaken identity, so it was recorded as either being

a garile crocodile or a mugger crocodile. And mugger crocodile share the same waters as the garryles and they're much more aggressive and dangerous to humans, so I think it was a mugger crocodile. To be fair, the the human that that crocodile killed arms and legs were made of fish, so it was really asking for it by going in that. Well, didn it didn't even kill the person, So even if this is a garyl, there's not even a single case of an alleged garile attack where the person died or

even sustained really life threatening injuries. So yeah, yeah, that sounds like just the dictionary definition of like, oh yeah, they're more afraid of you than you are of them, so exactly, exactly, And just in case you haven't fallen in love with the garry ale yet, here are some more cute facts. So males have a little bulbous protrusion on the tips of their snout called a mud pot.

They use these as resonance chambers to help them make mating calls, and they also blow bubbles to impress the female. I hope that those males, I don't know. I love those males little mudpots. It's just such a cute. It's such a cute courtship thing of like, may I blow you a bubble? Ma'am. Well, it's also just that they're called mud pots is adorable. It is pretty cute. They also let out cries when they're in pain that has been described as sounding like bawling. They're like just these

long snouted, shy, little bubble blow and cry babies. Yeah, thinking about it, I really think I made the right choice, even if catfish don't eat people like yeah, I think I made the right child choice. And wanting to cuddle a gariel, Yeah yeah, I mean, don't don't cuddle it, just respectfully socially distanced, say hello to a gariel. Oh no, no no, no, I'm gonna cuddle. Oh oh please don't. The Creature Feature podcast is not endorsed cuddling any kind

of crocodile, including the gariel. Do not try this at home. Okay, good now that now that that's clear. Don't listen to her do it? It sounds great. Legalist flamer just makes me want to do it more. Yeah, no, they I mean it's gonna be they will be traumatized if you try to cuddle them. They are so shy. Just you know, be respectful, Be respectful of the gariel. And they're critically endangered, so I feel like we should really care about them.

Even if they're kind of scary looking. They are adorable and sweet and they need our help. Okay, So I'm not gonna Okay, so I won't cuddle a gariel. I will just appreciate. I'll just smile multiple times throughout the next week whenever I think of the term mudpot, that's perfectly fine. Why is catfishing called catfishing? You know the phrase that means someone pretends to be someone online, like pretending to be the King of Norway, but when you meet him it turns out he's just three dogs in

a trench coat. You think it's because catfish look cute but can be sinister. Sadly, that's not where the term comes from. The phrase gets its meaning from the movie Catfish, Uh, kind of documentary about a man forming a relationship with a woman who isn't who she says she is. The term catfish is used by the woman's husband, who talks about how live cod are shipped from Alaska to Asia, but due to being sedentary, their muscles get mushy and

they don't taste as good. So to keep them active, fishermen put catfish in their tanks to agitate them and keep them swimming around. Thus, the woman in the story is the quote catfish keeping others on their toes. But is this true? Well, I have no idea about the veracity of the events in the documentary, but what about whether catfish are used to keep cod in shape. One of the explanations I've seen is that catfish are cod's

quote natural enemy, But that's just not really true. God that would be caught near Alaska live in the Northern Pacific, their bottom dwellers, living deep in the cold ocean. And while there are catfish who live in the ocean, there aren't that many species in the Pacific Ocean, and those that are typically stick to tropical or temperate waters down near South America, far from the cold waters that the

Northern Pacific cod inhabits, so they're not natural enemies. Nor can I find any record of fishermen actually trying to use this tactic to keep fish fit. That means that the story behind catfishing is itself a catfish. Or wait, it's not because the story is not true, so catfish doesn't. Never mind, forget it. When we return, we're going to talk about another couple of water dwelling credits. One is a sweetheart and the other could kill around thirty people

and under a minute. Appearances can be deceiving or sometimes they're not. Sometimes an animal looks sinister with huge teeth and huge claws, and it turns out yep, it's a grizzly bear and it will definitely tear you to pieces. Making snap judgments about what animals are most likely to kill us probably saved a lot of our ancient ancestors keysters. But now that we have the modern technology of podcasting, let's take a look at some of these animals and

see if the science backs up our initial impressions. So, Joey, I think you probably know the answer to this section. But who would you rather cuddle a cute little octopus or one of the biggest sharks in the world. Okay, so I I know that the blue ring octopus is one of the most venomous animals out there, so I probably shouldn't pick the blue ring octopus. But the basking shark is a large shark whose mouth looks like it's

out of just a Cathulu story. I could be tricking you, like this could be the section where I'm like, they both kill you and eat you dead. Congratulations, you lose. I'm gonna say that I want to cuddle the I want to say I want to cuddle the basking shark. All right, well, let's take a look at the basking shark then. So the basking shark is the second largest shark in the world, second to the whale shark. It

will be the biggest some day, don't you worry? Buddy. Well, I feel like Finding Dory has kind of given the whale sharks some really good press, you know, because it was that that character in Finding Dory. What was the whale sharks name? I don't remember. Yeah, I'm sure if I've seen Finding Dory, but I'm sure it's cute. That movie look cute. There's this like near sighted whale shark and it's very cute. But yeah, the whale sharks are also cute and harmless. Um, but basking sharks look a

lot more menacing than a whale shark. Whale sharks kind of they're cute, they have little spots, they look kind of happy and friendly, But basking sharks have these massive, massive mouths. It has gray skin. It grows to be around twenty six ft, which is eight meters long, and it can reach lengths up to forty five ft and way up to ten thousand pounds, and they can live

to be around fifty years old. So they really are sort of a I don't know, just like this, they look like this ancient monster from the depths, and like looking at the photo, like its mouth really looks like like it looks like it's opening its neck into its rib change basically right, it looks like a portal into the nether world. And like, although like the basking shark picture that you sent me, like he does look puffy

like in a cute way. And then like it's like, oh, I I kind of would like to pet the stuffed animal version of a basking shark, but I also am aware of that shark skin. It's like if you pet the wrong way, can like cut you open. Yeah, it's actually they have denticles, little protrusions coming out of their skin that are actually quite rough. Yeah, it feels like sand papery. But but my point stands, I would like

to cuttle that shark. I will take that risk. They do look like pretus stark monsters, and because they kind of are prehistoric monsters, they evolved around four hundred million years ago, and one of their most notable features, other than just being ginormous, is that they have that huge mouth. They have rows and rows of teeth in the mouth, and they can open the mouths incredibly wide enough for an adult human to just kind of waltz right into if you wanted to just like do to do here

I walk into a shark mouth. But as you may have guests from this sort of overall redemption arc of this episode, they are harmless to humans. The teeth that are in their mouth are tiny, and the real business end of this shark are all of the little gill breakers. These are bristles on the inside of its mouth that help them catch plankton because they're just filter feeders. So okay, so basely I could I could walk into the mouth

of basking shark and not die. Ah Yeah, I mean I wouldn't try it because you could drown if you get stuck in there, you could you could hurt the basking shark, but it's probably not going to know what to do with you. It's probably just gonna try to get away from you. I'm not gonna want you in its mouth. I mean, did you ask the basking shark.

Did you ask, like hello, knock on its front mouth part and be like, you know, knock knock here I am, and it's just gonna be like, uh no, you're not planketon like please don't uh do you think I mean, do you think it basking shark has a doorbellancenout and no solicitors. H Yeah. I feel like if you knocked on the side of a basking shark like it was

a door, then it would open up. There's like a couch in there, and it's like the other version of Pinocchio, where instead of getting eaten up by a big old meanwhile they were eaten by the super chill basking shark and it's like, hey, we actually kind of like it in here. I feel like if if a basking shark mouth is big enough to walk into, like, I feel like a basking shark's mouth is probably bigger than most of our apartments. We should live inside basking sharks exactly.

It's good rent rent controlled basking sharks. Yeah, So they feed by moving forward with their giant mouth agape, and they suck in massive amounts of water, and that water flows through their mouth over their gills, and the plankton

gets stuck on their gill raker bristles. So when you look at that open mouth, you see all those white bands, and those are areas where the gill attaches to the shark, and then on those sort of like white bony structures are these raker bristles, and then it's just you know, the plankton and other small marine life gets stuck in there and it's got a nice snack. Um. I'm curious about, like how much how many pounds of plankton does a basking shark have to eat to survive, because like, yeah,

plankton is fairly small and basking sharks are gigantic. Are they sucking in like a ton of plankton per day? Like what? I don't know, I mean, I'm not sure how much plankton itself they suck in. They do suck in a thousand, eight hundred metric tons of water every hour. So that's like, what is that it's like for that's like, that's like four big gulps a lot. So yeah, that's

a lot. But they also have the smallest brain to body ratio of any shark, so we do know that brain size is not always an accurate predictor of intelligence. But it's also true that these basking sharks are really don't need all that much brain because they are very they're very chill dudes. They have a very passive lifestyle. They don't have to they don't really have predators to speak of. They you know, just swim through the ocean lazily slurping up plankton. They are the very picture of

chillness in the ocean. Ah, so it's a big old dummies what you're saying, So big old dom dum. So it's like it's like if if a shark was Garfield, it's that these are the car You're totally right, these are I'm gonna I'm gonna cram so much lasagna down the sharks. Well, if it's lasagna but it's made out of krill in plankton, I'm sure it would appreciate that. What do you think the shark's opinions on Monday's are I don't think it likes it. I don't think it's

fond of the Monday. Yeah, I don't think so. And then like normal is just like a pupper fit man, Let's okay, uh like a million dollar idea. Let's make shark field shark field. He's always trying to trying to male normal. The pufferfish to Atlantists, so they are they're so relaxed, they're not aggressive at all. They often bask near the surface of the water, so that's their name, uh, filter feeding and enjoying the warmth. But they're so incredibly

chill that they don't try to avoid boats. And so these poor guys often get injured by boats because they're just like two chill ax to like run away from a boat and they're like, oh, that looks like a new friend, and then they get bonked on the head and sounds I know, I know, but there's there's such big sweeties, we got it. We gotta protect them, gotta be careful, have good boat etiquette around these these just

big old fun girl garf sharks. So I'm gonna ask a shipping question, who who would you friendship ship a basking shark and a catfish, or a basking shark and a garryl crocodile. I would definitely be the basking shark and the garryl. I think, yeah, like they're like one is like really chill, and it's not that it's like super shy. Like the basking shark is not shy, it's just like laid back. But then the garryl is really shy.

So it's like, I think a laid back h shark and like a really shy crocodile would get along pretty well, just like it's okay, little buddy, it's just that Captain Hokey shut a jerk. They would not be found in the same environment, but you know, just as a thought experiment, they would definitely beat buddy up. I think I agree. Have a buddy comedy. That buddy comedy, me too, me too. So now let's talk about one of the smallest octopuses in the world, who is a lovely little cutie. I

love this octopus and it'll wreck you. It'll totally destroy you. So there is a group of small octopus species called the blue ringed octopuses, and Joey, I know you know about these guys and also are and appreciate these blue ringed octopuses. Yeah, something that I love about blue ringed octopuses is that like they look the most like a squeaky toy. Like it's just this bright octopus. That's like I think they're around like ten centimeters in length in

a lot of cases, including arm length. Yeah, they're like five to eight inches to twenty centimeters, like very teeny, meanie. They could fit in the palm of your hand, and like they just looked out of there, like they're covered in blue colored in like spots that are blue and yellow, and like it's just they look so cuddly, but they're one of the most venomous animals in the entire animal into them. Yes, they look like they come from candy Land and they're here to be your friend, but they

are most assuredly not. And speaking of fitting into your palm, I see, I've seen so many pictures of people like holding these in their palm, and it makes me shutter and cringe every time I see it. It's you you do not want to touch them, which you will find out why very soon. So the blue ringed octopuses are found in the Indian and Pacific oceans near Australia and Japan, and like many other octopus species, they eat small prey

like crustaceans, shrimp, and other small marine animals. And as their name suggests, they are covered in beautiful, bright blue rings. If you if you haven't seen a picture of a blue ring octopus, just google it. They genuinely look really cool.

They're very cool looking, and they can actually change their color like a lot of other cephalopods and octopuses, so the rest of their skin is often a kind of modeled round and tan, which helps them blend into their environment, and the blue rings aren't as noticeable, but if you provoke them, they will turn a brilliant yellow and they're

bright blue rings flash a warning at you. So they are able to do this like other octopuses, using chrematophores, which are color changing cells in their skin, and that allows them to turn from that sort of camouflage modeled color to a bright yellow and then to actually make

those blue rings flash, they don't use chrematophores. They use muscle contractions to create this like rapid flashing of these rings, and it's beautiful to look at and it might be the last thing you see, honestly, do you I'm gonna spill some blue ring octopus expert T yeah, do it okay? So Um. A couple of years ago, I was working on a national geographic show and we were doing a

segment on blueing octopuses. I was emailing with a bluing octopus expert whose name escaves me at the moment, but she was she was really great, and um, after doing an interview with her about the blue ring octopus, basically like sent me an all caps email that was just like, please don't tell people that their venom is located in the chromato force. And I was and like, at no point do I think that I referenced that to her as a thing that I was going to bring up.

I think it's something that she just felt like, Oh, this is what this researcher is personally very frustrated by. So oh I see, I see. So they're there people think that the venom is in the chromato force. Yeah yeah, or like the venom is like it's created by the camato force, or like the venom connected and yeah, It's like I got like an all caps of just like please love God, don't help help people that, and I was like, listen, it's a dangerous rumor that everyone's talking about.

It makes me very mad. It's trending on Twitter every day. Yeah, just like, yeah, so I guess what I actually So I'm gonna be a real sneaky one and say that they are caused by the crematophor. No, they're not. They're not. So it's funny because they're not super aggressive, but if you if they think you're about to eat them, they will kill you with the most venomous bite that you can get in the ocean. So they are the world's

most venomous marine animal. They are brimming with neurotoxic tetradotoxin, which they will release into you by biting you with their cute little beak, and they have enough venom in their little, itty bitty bodies to kill around thirty adult humans. So since we're under quarantine, that's more people that I've had in person interactions with in five months, which is actually, I'm not that cool. That's honestly probably how it would

have been even without quarantine. Another thing that's really interesting about blueing octopus venom is um. One of the ways that they hunt their venom is soap pot potent is they'll basically just drip their saliva out of their mouths into the water around them, and then fish will swim through the saliva and then get instantly realized and they'll be like, oh, this is easy, Well, don't mind if

I do. It's like, well, I guess if this is just paralyzed in front of me, so yeah, And but if it bites you, it can kill you within just a few minutes, and it kills There's a few things that happens when you get that venom in your body, and they're all bad. So you can get heart failure, respiratory arrest, and total paralysis of your body. And if you're not treated, you will most likely die, usually from suffocation because your diaphragm is paralyzed and you can't breathe.

So you need your diet the contraction of your diaphragm to be able to have your lungs function, and if that's not working, you can't breathe and you will die. So tetrad toxin, that narrotoxin that they are love to just like ooze out, works by blocking the sodium animals that neurons need to function, which prevents your brain from sending signals to the rest of your body, and you're basically your nervous system from working. And yeah, it's bad.

How many people do you think the last words were, Hey, Mark, check out this front the octopus? Oh you know probably several. Yeah, yeah, they'll they'll mess you up. Yeah, and there's no anti venom, so to survive, you have to have some form of artificial respiration until the toxin works its way out of

your body. So if you're put on a ventilator or you know, given CPR, and you know, basically you have to somehow have someone else, a medical professional, preferably giving you oxygen until you can work that out of your body. And yeah, so it's it's not a good time. You do not want that to happen to you. Do not pick them up. I've seen pictures of these in people's hands and they're like bright yellow and bright blue spots, which means it's piste and it's like about to buy you.

And it's just it's like watching videos of people like standing up on those big satellite towers or something. It's just every part of my body is clinching in total anxiety. Feel like there are a lot of YouTube videos of people like feeding bears out of their cars. It's just like, it's just like, oh god, it's just like this, And like, am I watching this on YouTube or live leaks? Because if it's YouTube, I probably find If it's live leaks, then I'm about to watch a murder, a bear murder.

So what you're telling me about the blue ring octopus is that if I were to start a YouTube channel where I was getting stung by venomous animals and telling you how it felt, I should not start with the blue ring octopus. Yeah. Yeah, that's you shouldn't start or in with it. Although if you do in with it, that would, yeah, it would basically if you incorporate that into your weird show where you try to mutilate yourself with animals, that will be the end of your show.

I mean, yeah, what I was about to say, I was about to say something something to the effect of like or what it, and then I was like, oh, yeah, no, I would wants I would not survive that thing. But in terms of nitpicking over where the tetrato toxin is located, like you were talking about where the researcher was saying it's not in the chromatophores. Stop telling people that. So it's actually most of its body is full of tetrato toxin.

It's found in almost every organ in its body, and it is created in the salivary glands, and it is actually produced by a symbiotic bacteria that lives in those salivary glands, and it helps them produce that toxin. And actually mother blue ring to octopuses will inject their eggs full of this u tetra to toxin. They hate their babies because they hate their babies. No, it helps them produce their own tech to toxin. So it's like they're giving them the bacteria and the recipe to create their

own deadly, deadly toxin. I love recipes from mom. You know, I wish my mom pumped me full of tetradoxin before I was born. Mom, I love your cookie recipes. Could you give me something deadlier? Yeah? If I had, If I had deadly venom, man, how would my life be different? Hue flashback, flashback flashback. Uh yeah, And it's it's immune to its own venom, which I guess is good because

otherwise would die. One thing I want to add for the blue ring octopus is if you if you're like hearing all this information about the blueing octopus and you're thinking, like, wow, bluing octopus seems real, full of himself, deadliest venom blah blah blah. They actually are hunted by like mantis shrimp, And if you go online, you can find a lot of videos of like mantis shrimp just using their fists to beat the ship out of bluing octopuses, really taking

them down a peg. And it's it's the most like real life Pokemon, but in a way that's not that's weirdly not like disturbing. It's just like, oh, yeah, this blue rey octopus is just or this mantis shrimp is just pummeling this blue I don't know. I have a soft spot for octopuses, even ones that want to kill me, so I think I would be sad to see it just getting punched reputedly. Do you think the blurring octopus

wants to kill you or no, they don't. They actually they kind of go out of the way not to kill you, so they will that's why they flash that warning at you. They're actually pretty shy. They don't like chase you and try to bite you. That it's like, if you pester it enough, it will eventually bite you because it thinks that you're about to kill it. But yeah, that that coloration is actually api semtism. So it's saying like, hey, I'm actually super deadly. You don't want to mess with me.

Look at me. I'm like yellow and covered in pretty blue dots. And then you know it's like, hey, marthall, look at this cool octopus. It's so pretty. Underest humans, we don't we we don't understand what you're telling us. Animals. When you're pretty and bright, we want to suck on you like a lolly pop. Yeah, I really want to know, Like how many famous last words if people were, hey,

check this thing out. I mean, it's funny that you would say that there are Like I remember reading about this thing in one of my biology classes where I was this guy who picked up a couple of cone snails and those are also they have very deadly harpoons that they can shoot at you with a neurotoxin. And he like picked it up and held it up and he was like like said something along those lines of like hey, check this out, and then it like shot

him in his neck. And how is it. Yeah, yeah, so don't if you don't recognize it and it's a wild animal, don't pick it up. Actually, unless it looks like a cat and go nuts because it's probably friendly. Right. Just have you learned nothing from our catfish section? I mean, look everything that I listened to win in one ear, and then in my mind I just remember the cat part, and then all the information just shot. It been too busy building the Garfield shark world to really retain any

of this information. We already established it's called shark field. Sorry, shark field all right? How come it's mostly non mammals like invertebrates, fish, and reptiles who get all the cool deadly venom. Mammals can have venom, such as the slow lorist platypus and Solenodon, a cute little shrew like animal with a poisonous bite, but most of us mammals are stuck with our fur, hair and milk. Well, evolution doesn't

really care about what we think would be cool. All that matters is whether you live to pass on your gene. And it turns out mammals have other more effective tools for doing that sharp claws, teeth and in primate hands and a brain, which means we can defend ourselves and

kill things even quicker than most venom works. While it's true that the blue ring octopus can kill things and under a minute, most venom takes a while to kick in, whereas teeth and claws can typically take something down much faster, so we don't really need venom to get the job done. Whereas an itty bitty, squashy octopus has very few other weapons at its disposal, so it needs something to keep other fish and marine animals from treating it like a

living couchh ball. When we return, we're getting out of the water crawling up on land to talk about a couple of very intimidating birdies. So birds, they're adorable, little feathery puff balls who chirp and cheap and steal the rito's. But once in a while there are bird species that remind us that they're actually living dinosaurs. So we're gonna meet two big birds and find out if they want to teach us about letters or you know, kill us. Joey,

you know what like birds? Right? Yes, I'm well well aware that you were, uh the pre eminent bird meme creator on the Internet. That's right, that's right, the bird memes. It's gonna it's gonna go on my tombstone. Like created the bird memes, coined the word burb. Every time I see the word burb on the internet, like I do think like Golden created that. Thank you. I think it's true too. I like did a little digging and I think one of my stupid bird tweets was the first

to use that term. There could have been like parallel creation, you know, like parallel invention someone else at the same time. But you know, I like to credit myself because it makes me feel good and powerful. So powerful, yes, you and you controlled the bourb Empire. I am in charge bird memes and soon the world. So I want to talk about two birds who look I think they both

look equally goofy and terrifying. And so you're gonna have to pick which one you want to just like chill out with and which one you're gonna try to avoid. So we have the cassowary and the shoe bill stork, and I have provided pictures of these guys to you. And the cassowary is a flightless bird who looks like a mop with the turkey head and the shoe bill stork is a huge stork like bird who has a massive beak and looks like the world's most terrifying bird muppet.

I'm gonna say, shoebell stork is the animal that I would cuddle one because it just like looks it just like looks like a muppet. And then too, if I remember correctly, cassowaries like kill people by cutting them. I also thought that catfish eight people. So I don't know, what do I know? Yeah, so you have chosen correctly. I think you're you're three for three, right you. Congratulations, you have survived the animal gauntlet. So yes, Cassa waries you don't really want to mess with. And I will

tell you exactly why. So. Cast A waries are a group of birds similar to the emu, but smaller, and they are actually related to the emu. They are found in Australia, Indonesia, the Maluku Islands, and Papua New Guinea. They grow up to five to six ft tall, so that's one point five to two meters and they have these bright blue heads, a pink wattle or an orange neck, and they basically it looks like a weird turkey head and the females are larger and more brightly colored than

the males. Feminism clean slay literally, so they have a hard keratin casque on top of their heads. So a cask in birds is it's like this sort of like keratin structure and it looks like a shark fin on top of their heads. And it's speculated that it is used as like a resonance chamber for their call. And they can run up to thirty miles an hour. They can jump up to five ft and they're good swimmers,

so you cannot escape these these uh, terrible beasts. It says a lot about how I view the world that when you said that, I looked up at the cast weary picture and then thought my initial thought when seeing it was like, why is that bird wearing that silly hat? And then I did not stop to it all analyze. The thought of just assuming that the bird was wearing a silly hat was weird, and I was just like, well, carrying on, I think it pulls it off, honestly, get

it works. Yeah. But they so they mostly eat fruit, and they are omnivores, so they'll eat invertebrates and small vertebrates. They don't hunt people, but they can absolutely kill you if they want to, if they feel like it. So they, like you said, they can cut people because they have an enormous dagger on each of their feet. It's like they have switchblades attached to their toes, so their inner toe has a five inch long sharp claw that can

mess you right up. And they are attached to these incredibly powerful legs, so they can kick you, they can stomp on you while stabbing you. I mean, I would watch a horror movie where the slasher movie villain is a cassowary. I mean, if you think about like how Jurassic Parks should have looked, where all the dinosaurs had feathers, that's essentially it, right, like it those raptors had feathers. You look at that and yeah, like it, like that's

just a feathered velociraptor right right exactly. Yeah. And they so you would think that they're probably just going around murdering everyone, And I think that the tails of their deadliness are a little bit overblown. So they don't hunt people, they don't go around killing everyone. But they are one of the only birds to have been definitely documented killing humans. So the other birds where there's like actual documentation of

them killing people are maybe EMUs and chickens. To be fair about the chicken case, is that the chicken had a knife attached to its foot because it was in an illegal cockfight and it killed its owner. I think so in that case, the chicken was armed. Yeah. Also, like I don't know, big ups to that chicken, like fight the power. Yeah, can't say. I you know, I think the chicken was in the right in this case. Yeah, that chickens are terrible. Yeah, that chicken's cool as part

of the chicken revolution. Yeah, I'm just gonna believe that. That's that's basically chicken chick of Vara, Like chicken used its knife to like to like slay its captor and then now they live on a chicken island and they're all super planet of the chickens. A chicken Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, like Abraham chick Lynnet. I was trying to make it um Abraham Lincock. Yeah. No, no, that's all right, chick lab Lincoln and Lincoln. No it's not. Yeah, we've got

to move on. We've got to move on. Kill us this a bit, well, no, we must, we must persevere. Like the mighty animals that we've talked to before that the person. So despite actually being capable of killing us, there have actually only been two recorded cases of a cassuary killing a person since nine nine. But they will mess you up if you tangle with them, so most of the time, even if they don't kill you, they will give you puncture wounds, broken bones, and lacerations, and uh,

they usually attack in self defense. But the other reason that they can be so aggressive is because humans feed them and they become like like bears. If you feed bears, they will start to become very assertive and very aggressive

because they want the food that you give them. Honestly, that makes me like cassuaries a little bit more because it's like a cat when it's like when it's like six in the morning, and like the cats, just like I want freck First, if you give a cassuary a cookie, it will stab you with its knife feet Yeah, I mean the children's book. But you know I'm a children's author. Now, if you give a Castwaria cookie, you will stab you with its knife hook knife yeah, yeah, my new book.

Yeah I read that. Let me know. Let me know in the comments if you want me to write that book. So they actually will attack cars because they associate them with food, which is a bold move, I think. Uh. And they will attack dogs unprovoked because often wild dogs are predators. But yeah, if you bring your dog on a walk around where these cast swaries live, it can you know, kill your dogs. So don't do that, and

don't feed them and just leave them alone. So them attacking cars because they associate them with food makes a lot of sense. But I want to believe that the reason that they attack cars is they want to they want to avenge their fallen Dear brothers, this is for you, dear, This is for you, dear, or it's another insurance scam. Yeah, these animals out for our insurance moneys. I get that.

So now let's talk about the shoe bill stork. So shoe bills look like terrifying gray, feathery dinosaur like storks with huge boat shaped bills. They're called shoe like. The descriptions are like their bills are shaped like shoes. I don't know what kind of shoes people are wearing. I guess these kind of look like wooden clogs maybe clogs look they look like I mean, honestly, they look not dissimilar to a lot of like Kanye West's shoe designed Easy. Yeah,

they look they look a lot like easy. So it's like the easy Bills short the easy Bill Stork. I mean, if they changed his name to the easy Bill Stork, I wouldn't hate it. Easy easy Bills. Yeah, So they actually are not storks. They are more closely related to pell likins, and they grow up to five ft tall with a seven to eight foot wingspan, and they can totally fly and they live in the swamps in eastern tropical Africa. So yeah, they are very intimidating looking birds.

But at the same time, they kind of look like a huge muppet, which is like it's like scary and cute and you're it's very confusing, and they have these like their eyes somehow have this expression of just like fierceness. It's hard to explain. It doesn't look it doesn't look scary like it's going to attack you. It looks intimidating, like it's super wise. And if you don't answer it's riddle correctly, you will just like disintegrate. What do you

think it's riddle is? And do you think it's about fish? Where should you charge me, point it on my bill. Oh that's a good that's a good rattle. Actually, Like I'm looking at more extures of them, and they look they they look very much like a human wearing a bird cast. Due. Yeah, yeah, it's that. It's a little uncanny, right, it's an uncanny. That's kind of why they look like a big muppet, like a big bird, like the first draft of Big Bird. That's like oddly terrifying or something.

It looks like they're like their legs look very bird like. Their upper body it's like you can almost see pectoral muscles and it looks like it looks like they have shoulders. Yeah, yeah, which they you know, it's just the wings. But yeah, it looks it doesn't It looks off. It looks a little uncanny. Although I'm just scrolling through Google images, Um, I found a picture of one opening its mouth and it's the cutest dancing like it definitely looks like it's

saying like, hey, guys, what are you doing? Well, the way it says hey guys, what are you doing is making machine gun noises with their So what is that? That's insane? Is that edited in any way? No? No, no, so It's called bill clattering, and it is a greeting to communicate with each other. It can be used like as a mating call too mates to alert other birds that this is their territory, and it can be used by nestlings as well to communicate with adults and vice versa.

So basically like they're high, honey, I'm home, is just machine gun noises that they make by clattering their bills. Um, do you remember paper Planes by M I A. Yeah? All I want to do is bing bing bing bing, and eat lots of fish. I really want to hear the shoebill Stork edit of Paper Planes by the shoe bill Stork cover of m I A Want to do and eat your salmon. There's a there's an all animal cover of drowning Pool. Let the bodies hit the floor. It's very good. Have you seen that. I'll show it

to you after the show. It's very good. But so they do hunt, but they hunt fish, baby crocodiles, eels, and monitor lizards. So they're not joking around when it comes to hunting in the swamp. Uh, And their way of hunting is actually kind of creepy. So they will

stand perfectly still waiting to ambush their prey. And it's almost they're kind of like the you know, like the doctor who Weeping Angels, because they're like they're gray, and they stand really still, and they do literally look like a concrete or marble statue, just like sitting in the swamp. That's something that I'm noticing even just scrolling through photos of them, is like they really do look like statuesque like they look they look like not like real creatures.

And yeah, I would walk past this thing and think, oh, what a weird statue, and then here a machine gun sound? Is it guns me down? Yeah? Exactly? I mean. And for these the fish and little reptiles that they eat, and even baby crocodiles, they will wait around and when they see their prey, they will jump out of statue mode, lunge at them and open those huge beaks that look like these like weird boats and engulf their prey and basically anything within you know, about a foot radius of

their prey. So like they'll get a bunch of water and mug and vegetation and everything in that beak. And then they start to use their beak as like a big colander and they shake their head back and forth, draining everything out of their beak that isn't their live prey, and then they decapitate the prey with the edges of their sharp beak. This this big bird first cut got real dark. Jim Henson was, Yeah, he was, he got pretty dark with those early versions of Sesame Street. Jim

Henson was going through some ship. But so they are like a horror villain for all of the small critters living in the swamp, but around humans, they're really harmless and somewhat tolerant of us, and they are totally docile. They're non aggressive, and they're actually a favorite among bird watchers for how easygoing they are around observers, and like the most intimidating thing they'll do is like get into a staring contest with you and just like stare at you.

And it's I feel like I would I would poop myself if this giant, weird statue bird was just staring at me. But yeah, they don't. They don't typically attack humans. They just like they're like, now you get the idea, like you're not gonna mess with me. I know we've done a little bit of friendship shipping before this, but do you think a shoe bill, a shoebill stork, and a gariel crocodile would get along because they're both shy. I don't know, because like the shoe Bill does baby crocodiles,

so I feel like that would be a point against it. Like, I mean, I want to get along with you, dude, but like you ate my babies and that's kind of not chill. You know. Yeah, I get that. So basically that that's a that's a buddy movie where they learned to trust each other, got it. I do feel like the the shoe Bill and the basking Shark would get along because it's like, hey, you've got a big mouth. I got a big mouth. A look at our big mouths um. I want to see the Tom and Jerry

re launched. That's just a shoebill stork and a gariel crocod I'd watch that, yeah, yeah, but it wouldn't be really yeah. I guess like a baby, so a baby gariel and a shoebill stork, because then that that would be sort of the predator prey thing. But then like the baby grows up to be really big and then it's like oh, but then he's just a shy shy There's there was that like Disney movie similar to that.

What was it called? It was a Lambert the Sheepish Lion, And it's like this, like a lion gets adopted by a sheep, it grows up to be big and then like kills a wolf for something and everybody loves them. But he's like, you know, very sheepish. Um. Oh yeah, I vaguely remember that movie. Uh More Disney lies about the behaviors of animals, Yeah, I feel like you know, And that's the thing about the lion King is like none of those animals would actually be able to be friends,

nor can they sing. I mean, lions do occasionally like adopt uh prey animals, but then they often end up eating them anyways. Yeah, so it's like maybe they would tolerate Zazoo for a while and then just like you know, I'm just gonna eat you today. It's Today's the day. You've been in my ear about our infrastructure budget for like way too long, and I am gonna eat you. But that's like, that's one of the things I love about cats is like you'll be petinam They'll be like

really loving it. And then they're just yeah. Yeah, house cats are just little tiny wildcats. If they were big, they would moll us every day. Cute cute, yes, but you know, if you if you like, I wish man now, I want a domesticated version of like the gariel crocodile, just like a little one, you know, to cuddle. Yeah, that would be I guess that of these animals, just based on like appearances, let's be very shallow here, which

of these animals would you want to cuddle the most? Okay, again with the disclaimer that you should never cuddle a wild animal. But we're on an imagination journey, I would say, so we have Now are we including the deadly ones or just the ones that aren't deadly? I guess that's we're including all of them, and it's this is a world where you have protections against whatever makes them deadly. I see, Well, I don't know. I actually I think it would be the shoebill. I love this freaking muppet.

It's so good. It's just it's so goofy, and I love the like scary goofy nous of it. It's like aggressively goofy, but it's not aggressive, so That's what's so wonderful about it. For appearances, I would say immediately catfish because it has the word cabinet. But like, realistically, I feel like the shoebill stork is the one that I

would like, and it just looks like a muppet. I would like pat it on the back and say good job, and then it would make something that would make a machine gun noise, and I'd be like classic, Oh, you feel like we'd go fishing together with a couple of brusquees, would be wearing one of those like fishing hats that's got the tackle dangling from it, and you know, we'd be just like sharing a beer, talking about our lives, you know, laughing about stuff. I'd use its machine gun

sounding beak to rob a bank. It would be great, a real Bonnie and Clyde situation and fun. I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Joey and learning which animals are friends and which ones. Well, they're still our friends, but they would kill us if we, uh were Yeah, we didn't say they were good friends. No, No, I mean we didn't say they were doormat friends. They

will assert themselves. Got anything to plug um? Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter at Joey tainment Um, follow me on Instagram at Joey Clift with like five eyes and then um, this is uh some context of the thing I'm about to plug. Um. I for a long time have been annoyed at Sufie and Stevens for not finishing his fifty States project. He's a folk musician who was popular in the mid two thousands and he said he was going to make a full album of music for every single U. S. State, but he gave up

after two albums. So this has been sticking in my cross since two thousand five, so for fifteen years. And finally at the start of Quarantine, I decided to finish sufi on Steven's fifty States project with the help of

the Internet, and I did it. So you drag him. Yes, you can go on SoundCloud dot com slash our fifty States project and listen to fifty three albums and two epis for every an album for every U. S. State, double album for Rhode Island, an album for the Moon because there's a U. S flag up there, so we gotta EPs for Washington State. Yeah, that means the state. It will be a state. Um, and the EP for Washington,

d C in Puerto Rico. It's five ten songs. This took me two months of NonStop work, so I don't know. Check it out, listen, look, check out the ciss of the sis of his project. I dedicated myself to to get through quarantine. That sounds incredible and worrying. Actually, oh yeah, it's definitely a cry for help in somewhere. You can find us on Instagram at Creature Your Pod, and I will be posting pictures of all of these adorable scary animals there. And you can find us also on Twitter

at Creature Feet Pod. That's f e A T, not f E T. That is something very different. And you can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden with my Katie thoughts, not necessarily related to the show at all, just you know, my Katie opinions. And I am also pro bird rites, where I, you know, basically make the case that all birds should be respected, whether they're the cassowary and they're trying to kill you or the shoe bill stork and they're staring at you creepily through the window.

Right now. Thank you so much for listening. You guys, if you're enjoying the show. Uh yeah, just like if you leave a review and a rating that actually really really helps out a whole lot. Uh. Thanks to the Space Cossacks for their super awesome song. Ex Alumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. To listen to more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio website I Heard Radio Apple. Guess what.

Whereever you listen to your favorite podcast, See you next Wednesday, m hm