Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, I a new tongue of toad, well, more like excreation of toad. We're talking about the natural poisonous, which is bruise of the animal kingdom, from trippy toads to petrifying platypuses. We're talking about animals who snow white might want to keep some distance from. Discover this and more.
As we answered the age old question, should we talk about the birds, bees, and snakes given that snake bites can reverse puberty. Joining me today is author of the John Dyes at the End series and the new book Zoe Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia.
Jason Pargin Welcome.
Very eager to talk about this because my understanding of all of nature prior to today was that everything on Earth exists for humans to eat, like that's why the planet is here. It is a buffet. So finding out that some of these things can really mess you up in ways that seem like a witch's curse is very shocking.
I mean, look, you still can't eat it. Technically what happens after is just you know, that's.
Up to you.
I just feel like it's irresponsible on the animal's part, right because it's like, what's what's the point of that? You are, you're walking food. You you surely realize this.
It's as if they don't want us to eat them, which can't be true.
I don't understand, but we'll get into it because they may have ulterior motives, but ultimately I think it's just something it's a misunderstanding.
Well, Jason, I'm sure you've heard of psychedelic toads. In fact, I'm one hundred percent sure, because you were the one who was interested in talking about them today.
Yeah, I only know it as a pop culture phenomenon. It's something that you constantly hear, you know, you see it in movies or whatever, where they will lick a toad in the desert. I think there's a Simpsons episode where it happens. And I have always assumed that that is not strictly true, that you could not just literally pick it up, lick its back, and then suddenly start tripping. I assumed it's one of those things that just pervaded into pop culture. But it's more real than what I thought.
But I've never known why such a creature exists or how we found out such a creature exists.
Yeah, so it is a mixture of truths and half truths, but mostly it is as weird as pop culture would make it sound. Of course, I'm going to start this by saying, don't lick toads, even if you think you'll get high. They're much more likely to make you sick. And also it's mean to the toad. Did you get that toad's consent? I don't think so. So that being said, it is true that psychedelic toad toxin is a real thing,
and human beings do ingest it recreationally. Typically though it is not through licking the toad, but it goes through a whole process before being ingested. Usually it's smoked. I'm not gonna go into detail about how it's made, partially because I don't know, and partially because I don't want
the dea on my butt. But yes, I suffice it to say that people can and do have psychedelic experiences with toad toxin, and it's usually processed before they ingest it, and it's not the best thing for the toad to do, so it's not a victimless crime.
Generally, if you've been rolled up and smoked, you're probably not still alive, regardless of what kind of a life form you are.
I mean, it's I don't think they make just a fat dube out of the toad. They generally will scrape the toxin off the toad. It doesn't have to kill the toad, but it's not a good situation, Like the toad's basically getting milked getting scraped, and that is not a great situation for the toad. In fact, there are like poachers who try to get these toads. There's also people who try to farm these toads, and farming is actually quite bad for toads because there are a lot
of fungal infections that really threaten toad populations. And when you have a bunch of toads kind of in a concentrated area on some kind of toad farm, you greatly increase the chance of these fungal infection spreading and then it could potentially spread a wild population. So it's not exactly a sustainable drug toad psychedelic toxin, but that doesn't stop people from necessarily.
Trying to do it.
By the way, there could be a whole separate episode in the fact that we humans tend to assume that basically anything can be farmed. Yeah, a big controversy over octopus farming because it's a delicacy and they're like, well, let's just farm them, as like, these are intelligent creatures. Not everything has been domesticated over tens of thousands of years to be suitable to be herded and bred or whatever en mass. So yeah, it's not just these tots.
There's lots of creatures that don't do well because that is very unnatural in terms of environment for them.
Yeah, I mean exactly right, Like there, you can't just farm an exotic gam animal and expect that to turn out well for either the animal or for you. The farm animals that we have right now, I mean, of course farming is not always great even for them, but they have been selected over many thousands of years for domestications, so yeah, that's quite a bit of a different situation. You can't just saddle up a toad and expect it to be like a cow or something where you can
go and milk the toads every morning. But toads do produce a toxin, and it's not created to make us get high. It is actually there to protect them from predators. So there are lots of toads and frog species as well that produce toxins, and that toxin is truly intended
to ward off predators. So the toad will ooze toxin when it feels threatened, usually from a few glands on its body, and predators will either get sick or disgusted and will either stop trying to eat the toad and release it, or become sick after eating the toad, learning a very painful lesson and in some cases, potentially lethal lesson that this toad is not good to eat.
I find this absolutely fascinating because it is something I had literally never thought of before, that you have a defense that doesn't necessarily save that individual toad, because, as you can imagine, you've seen predators eat a lot of them, do not gingerly test the food before they A lot of them just snap it up and swallow it, and so it would be them getting sick and then learning not to eat other similar toads. In other words, the
fence is not necessarily to save that toad. It's a collective defense, like, hey, don't I have sacrificed myself to teach you not to eat the other toads like me, which, of course the toad does not have that thought or any thought. But the way that a defense evolved in that manner, I think is really interesting. I think it's kind of inspirational because it's like, well, sometimes in your own life you may run into a disaster, but this is the world using you as an example to teach other.
People, right, I mean it is so there are animals, including these toads. The toads can sometimes survive this, and in fact, sometimes like the predator will just get a whiff of this tox and like kind of get it on their nose or on their mouth and lips and realize something's off. Some toads are able to spray it a little bit so that it's definitely a warning to the predator to back off. But there are animals certainly where it is rare for them, despite their talks and
to survive a predator encounter, including butterflies. So butterflies, there are a lot of butterfly species, like monarchs, who are toxic. They are not good to eat, and they do not necessarily survive if a bird tries it, Like they're very delicate creatures. The bird, if it even does spit it out,
that butterfly is probably not gonna make it. However, you still see this protective effect of butterflies, like butterflies like monarchs, having this warning coloration called apisimitism, which deters predators like birds from eating them, despite the fact it doesn't necessarily prevent that first individual that gets eaten by a bird. So it's not an altruistic thing, right, Like, it's not somehow these butterfli having a collective consciousness of we are
going to save future butterflies. So because like you can imagine, like say you have a butterfly who develops this trait and it doesn't help itself at all, it gets eaten.
Well, those genes.
Don't get passed on, So how does this ball even get rolling in the first place. You need like a critical mass of the butterfly population who have this mutation or development that actually survive. And so one of the theories is that the same adaptation of the bright colors and the toxicity also helps it survive in other ways.
So the bright coloration, the.
Toxicity may make them more viable to be able to produce offspring, even beyond just being preyed upon. So, for instance, that bright coloration makes it more noticeable to the opposite sex and allows it more mating opportunities, and maybe the toxin helps protect it from parasites, and so those things already make it more likely to pass on its genes. And then you get this added benefit of predators learning, hey, these really bright butterflies are nasty and they give me
a tummy ache. So you have this kind of two pronged thing where it enough of them evolve this characteristic, perhaps for unrelated reasons, but then it also has this population protective effect of these predators learning the really bright monarchy butterflies are discussed and they make me puke. So it is really interesting. In fact, there are butterfly species who are not toxic who have adapted to take advantage
of this apisomatic protection that the toxic species have. So you'll have a mimic it was not toxic, could be eaten, you know, delicious butterfly, and then it copies the look of a toxic butterflies. This is called Baitsian mimicry. Uh So then the tasty butterfly benefits from that protection because a bird looks at it and says, this looks like one of the yucky butterflies. I'm not going to eat it.
The really interesting thing is if these mimics are too numerous, it actually dilutes the effect efficacy of the protective coloration because then birds learn like, actually, when I eat these are really bright butterflies. Uh, they they're fine. I'm okay. It's like, you know, you have enough of the false signal to bury the real signal. So you have these population dynamics where the mimics have to be in low enough numbers in order for the bait the for the
apisomatic coloration to actually benefit them. So you see this like these poppy dynamics where the if the mimic population gets too many, you have this like crash in the population and then a rise in the population of.
The toxic butterflies.
It's really it's very interesting mathematically, which we won't talk about the math because I cannot no, but I love.
This because it's such a great demonstration of how this is all a machine. So, for example, if you have coloration that is supposed to signal to predators or I keep using terminology like it's designed you are supposed to you as if the butterflies play in this. I of course know that's not how this works.
It's just so hard to get away from that language because this is how human beings work. So like we have intention, we have we design things, and so we use that kind of language when we're talking about things that don't have that. But it's really hard, even if we understand that's not the case, it's hard to not use that language.
You and I are primates and tool users, so we want to see things through the lens of This is a tool they designed, because that's how we always see the world. That's our evolution. But for example, if you have a specific predator, say a bird, your coloration only works in a range of colors that that's bird's eyes can see. It does you no good if that so your color is somewhat is partly dictated by the design of the eyes of the birds that are eating you.
And whether or not this mimicry works gets back to the whatever the rudimentary psychology or decision making of the bird. I know birds do not have psychology, but they do have a decision making process in terms of in terms of the risk reward, Like am I going to risk if I know the only one out of fifty of these is poisonous and it's like no, fine, I'll happily risk that. But every animal has different concept of risk. That is something else that evolves. You know that the
scarcity of food changes that equation. So the the way, the decision making, the eyes, the sense organs of your enemies dictate what you will look like and how you act.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean these these relationships between animals can be very close, regardless of whether it is you know, symbiotic in sort of a mutualism where it's mutually beneficial or symbiotic and predator prayer relationships. You know, you can have a very close relationship with between two animals where they are constantly trying to either evade or kill each other, but they still have this very intimate connection because they are shaping each other's evolution and in fact they can
have in it. Like if you know, people think, well, if you remove a predator, that's really good for the prey population because they never have they don't have to contend with that predator. Well, in fact, sometimes if you remove a predator, the prey population is in danger because they become too numerous, they compete for more resources, they spread disease. So yeah, these relationships relationships are very fascinating, and you really there is no animal is an island.
Everyone is sort of you know, pushing and squeezing on the other through evolutionary history and shaping what the other animal looks like, what it does, everything about it, I mean, ourselves included. Now that we've talked a little bit about the background behind why animals have these toxins, let's talk about one of the most famous psychedelic toads, the Sonoran desert toad. It is found in southwestern United States and
northwestern Mexico. It is a brownish green warty toad that lives in areas that go through wet and dry seasons, and actually during the dry season, the toad lives in burrows underground and it comes up during what summer seasons. They emerge and they congregate in rivers, streams, ponds, or swimming pools because human neighborhoods are often within the fro within the toad's range, and this is the call it makes when it's trying to find a mate. That's a
pretty sound. I like it, little little humming sound. So they seem really innocuous, and yet they excrete a potent toxin from glands behind their eyes and on their legs. So this toxin can be deadly or at the very least make predators very sick. And you know, hopefully the predator will release the toad after getting a mouthful of this toxin, but you know, if they go through with consuming it, they can either get really.
Sick or even die.
And this is actually a problem for domesticated dogs who can be very curious about the toad. But in terms of human interactions with this toad, the toxin also contains DMT, which might sound familiar to some of you. It is a psychoactive compound and when smoked, this compound can cause a psychedelic trip with hallucinations, sometimes feelings of euphoria. You know, sometimes it can go very wrong. Like psychedelic trips can
either be pleasant or be horrifying. It's I think somewhat dependent on your frame of mind at the time, your own individual physiology. But yeah, so the compound in this toad toxin binds to serotonin receptors and other neurotransmitter receptors, which alters the concentration of neurotransmitters and neural activation. So it very directly interferes with the firing of your neurons
and the abundance of neurotransmitters in your brain. And so it is a really interesting thing that you know, this toxin, which is not created so that we can get high, it's for a totally different reason, can directly bounce around in our brains make us go into a completely altered state of mind where people see things, that they feel things very differently how they normally would.
It is truly.
Bizarre, and is other things in nature that caused us effect, like of course mushrooms, and I think there's various types of even there's like a lichen or a fungus to something else that if you lick it off a rock you can get you high. Is it all the same thing? Are these all defenses against because other creatures would find that fatal rather than t off that as a generally? Have they all evolved for that same reason?
I don't know if every single one of them has, but all of the ones that I know of are defensive toxins that have that are there for, uh, trying to deter predators that might eat them, certainly on toads.
Yeah, I think that is the case.
Uh, And I mean it's kind of funny because even though those are meant to be defensive toxins to prevent predators from eating them, occasionally animals will actually catch on to the fact that this can get them high and they will try to lick the toxin off of the toad. So this is I don't know all of the animals who do this, but dogs, domesticated dogs and horses have been observed licking these toads, and it's not a great thing.
Like Australian dogs, Domesticated dogs in Australia often lick cane toads and while it isn't necessarily deadly if they just do a few licks, if they overindulge in the cane toad, they can get really sick and have to go to the vet. And in South America, horses have been known to lick the waxy tree frog, which is another psychedelic species of frog. And it yeah, they they seemingly just do it because they've learned it gets them high and they likes to do it.
I find that equally fascinating because I would assume, like to what degree a horse can hallucinate, Like, I assume this is something that we simply that we simply don't know the details of, Like we can observe their behavior, we can observe that they seem to go into a state or don't seem aware of what they are or whatever.
But I would assume from the animal's point of view, it's just a feeling of care free pleasure or whatever, because from an evolutionary point of view, you would think this would be extremely risky to put yourself in a situation where you're now not aware of your surroundings or are seeing things that are not there, Like, even if it's fun, it seems like, especially as nervous as horses are, being prey animals, it's very easy for them to harm themselves.
Like if I can imagine one hallucinating, you know, a wolf for a bird of prey or something else that's frightened up and then running itself to death or whatever. I find that fascinating that they do it anyway, because again we know that people do it, but when people do it, you always describe some very human reason that we're trying to fight off our anxiety or we're trying to find some deeper meaning in the universe. But a dog is not doing that. A dog is just it just feels feels good.
I guess yeah.
I mean, I do think any animal that can perceive the world in some way can hallucinate, because hallucination is just the activation of your perceptive areas of the brain, your sensory areas of the brain, without there actually being an external stimuli. So any animal, I think with that, with the ability to perceive, has the ability to hallucinate. We of course wouldn't necessarily know what those hallucinations would
be like. But I do think that the dogs and the horses who are doing this are doing it for
the euphoria. And animals are not perfect machines, right, like, including humans, we can't know, Like, even though evolution favors us to do things that are in our own best interest in terms of survival, that doesn't mean we're going to do it when they're The reward system that keeps us alive also is activated by things that hurt us, so they they like, you know, the this is the serotonin system that is you know, part of the the impact of the toxin has on serotonin receptors, which is
one of the sort of reward systems of the brain. And so getting that getting that high, getting that reward is so appealing. I mean, you see that with with human habits, right, Like, we do things all the time that are bad for us, but we have such a
powerful reward system in the brain. You know, evolution cannot predict all of these sort of you know, loopholes in terms of things that like, hey, I feel good when I eat an apple when I'm hungry, and that's good because that keeps me from keeling over and dying of hunger.
Uh.
And there's no way, as we're evolving for evolution to some how have kind of a omniscient understanding that like, well, I better make sure that the same system I do when they eat the apple also doesn't activate when they like drink too much wine or eat a bunch of sugar,
because those things aren't good for them. You know. It's if those reward systems are still activated, we're gonna do it, perhaps absent some sort of wisdom that this is harming us because it feels good and our brain is completely primed to give into those reward systems, because generally those things have kept us alive for thousands, hundreds of thousands of years.
You get these paradoxes where things like hot peppers, you know, those are that is a mechanism to deter certain animals from eating, to deter the wrong animals from eating the fruit of these of these plants. Right, they have the capsaisent or water the chemical is that will burn their
tongue or whatever. And then here we people breed these things and make them into sauces because we have decided that the whatever it is, the adrenaline rush of the mild pain on the tongue enhances flavor or the experience somehow like the pain that this thing is trying to generate. It's like, yes, we have evolved to enjoy that, if in a specific amount. But if you could, if you could somehow make a chili pepper scentient and then make it watch that YouTube show where the people eat the
wings with the increasingly hot sauces on them. The pepper would probably be very surprised.
I mean, the pepper would think we're all perverts because we're all masochistically subjecting ourselves to this pain. I mean it is weird, wrong, it is very interesting. I mean, there are other benefits to spicy food. It makes you sweat, which can help you cool off in uh in hot
or humid environments. And it also has some ability to mask the taste of food that's gone off a bit but you can still eat it, or food that's maybe not you know, great tasting, but then the spiciness makes it taste okay because you're so focused on the spiciness, and it's you know, people do you know.
I mean, I'm one of them.
I enjoy spice, not extreme spiciness. I can't eat when my eyes are full of tears and there's not running down my face. But I like a good amount of spice. And it takes a little while to ramp up to getting some spice. But it's it's like a weirdly Yeah, it's like you associate it with You start to associate it with this good flavored food and the spice somehow enhances the flavor of the food or enhances the experience
of the food. It's really interesting. So, yeah, we will subject ourselves even to pain because our reward system is very complex and will activate even when we're doing things that doesn't seem like it's in our best interest. Although spicy food, as long as you don't over indulge, won't hurt you. If you do overindulge, you'll punish yourself and your bathroom.
Huge spots of human behavior falls into this category of things where we are mildly abusing ourselves in some way that provides us some different pleasure. The whole complex interaction of that is basically how all of society works.
Yep.
So we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to talk about an animal who is surprisingly dangerous and also, in the spirit of what we've been talking about, how humans look at that and see opportunity. All right, so we are back and we're going to about a cute little animal who is kind of surprisingly terrifying.
So platypusses.
Platypusses are small, cute, little monotremes found in Australia. I think sometimes people are surprised by the size of them, because like, at least when I used to think of platypus, I would think of something like that's beaver sized, because for some reason I put them in the same category as beaver. Hey, it's an aquatic mammal and it swims around and it's got that long, that flat tail, so I thought, you know, it's like beaver size. They're actually
quite small. They can fit into your cupped hands. They're much smaller than a beaver, and they eat earthworms mostly.
They lay eggs. They have a bill.
Female platypusses will seep milk out of their bellies to feed their young, so they don't have nipples. They just have pores on their tummies that basically leak milk, and so they are this kind of archaic version of mammals. They're still mammals, but they are monotremes. They're related to echidneas as well, and males have a venomous spur on their heel that can dose you with a potent, very painful toxin.
Okay, before we get into the point of this, which is the fact that males have the toxic spurs, is there honestly no type of plat platypus that is like big, because I instantly in my mind am imagining many, many thousands of photos and videos of these things being like big enough to sit on your desk and cover most of it, like a large eyes a beaver bilt maybe
slightly larger than a beaver. No, I'm very eager to hear if there are other listeners who are stunned to find out that platypuses are small, because I don't know where this started, but this is like a Berenstain Bears thing for me. I'm now going to go look, and I know for a fact it's going to turn out that you're right. I'm not going to find a single photo of somebody like cradling this thing in both arms. But man, I'm for some reason, I'm really surprised to hear.
That, Yeah, they don't get that big. The things that do get big. It's interesting. Echidnas actually do get large, Like echidnas can get much larger than a platypus. Wombats too, those can get quite large. So there are monotremes u and marsupials that can get big, and yeah, it really is. It's one of those things. For me, I suspect it's because I have placed beaver and like platypus is Australian beaver essentially, and beaver's can get to be quite big.
But yeah, the platypus is no, they they tend to stay relatively small. You know, it's about chihuahua size or smaller. Very weird, right, No, I get it because I had this misconception as well, and I was surprised to find out that they really don't get that big. But despite being small, they can pack a punch with that venomous spur. So it's thought that this venomous spur was common among archaic mammals and that the platypus inherited it from its ancestors.
It is actually found in echidnas, the other this other type of monotorum, but it is a vestigial trait, so the spur does not actually contain any venom and the echidna so the venom is only found in the male platypus. The spike is this curved, hollow, caratinous structure, so it's the same material as claws or fingernails, but it is attached to a venom gland that is potent enough to kill a dog. The venom actually doesn't seem to kill
other platypuses. There seems to be some amount of resistance to their own venom, though they can be immobilized by it or paralyzed by it, so the venom cannot kill a human. You might be breathing a sigh of relief, but hang on, it can ruin your day, your week, or possibly many months, because it can have an effect that is very painful, lasts a long time, and is
resistant to most of our strongest painkillers. So the pain was first described in scientific literature in eighteen seventy six by a natural William Webb Spicer, who wrote of this unnamed victim quote, the pain was intense and almost paralyzing. But for the administration of small doses of Brandy, he would have fainted on the spot. As it was, it was half an hour before he could stand without support.
By that time, the arm was swollen to the shoulder and quite useless, and the pain in the hand very severe.
So, I mean, medicine was awesome. I've tried every type of liquor on my shelf and the patient still has not recovered. It appears that this bite is with stands even the finest of whiskey.
I mean, honestly, so these stings are The pain is resistant to morphine and other painkillers, modern medical painkillers. So I don't know. I don't know whether brandy wouldn't be better in this situation because morphine does not really seem to work very well against platypus venom, which is kind of horrifying given that the pain can last hours or days or weeks, or in a few extreme cases it's
lasted months. So there was a case of a fifty seven year old victim whose afflicted hand remained sensitive and in pain for around three months, which you know, you might think, well, like three months, you know, I could handle that, but just it's your hand, Like, imagine it being swollen and in pain, just from this little cute duck mammal that you found, and it just it seemed like it was gonna be fine, and it heal kicked you into pain for three months.
See, that's the thing, because if you spend time on say TikTok, you find out that, especially in the social media era, we people have decided that the whole world is just full of our pets and potential pets. Like people will approach bison and elk and all of these because after all, this is nature. These are animals. They are peaceful animals who coexist in nature. So they will go get a selfie or a photo or a video of them petting a bison or a bull or whatever.
So something like a platypus. If you were an American vacationing in Australia and trying to get some great video and you've saw one of these things by somebody of water, oh my god, would you want to pick that thing up and get video of it? Because it's a little
duck duck build duck build mouse thing. So when this thing stings you and then you find out that this is like worse than the average snake bite, apparently because most snake bites aren't that bad, and you're so having paid weeks later, I think you would be very surprised and disappointed in nature.
Yeah, I have seen this trend on TikTok of people picking up animals and then twirling around with them like they're in that scene from the Titanic. I'm gonna go ahead and say don't do that. Maybe don't do that, primarily because that's gonna annoy the animal. The animal is not Rose from the Titanic. It does not want to be twirled like a baroness. It wants to be left that heck alone. Secondary reason is you never know when an animal got a poisonous barb and is gonna sting
you with it. I'm not gonna say that. There aren't many animals out there who are secretly poisonous or secretly venomous just so people will not mess with them as much. Bison, they've got a giant unicorn horn that can invenimate you. Actually, no, they can just gore you. And that's probably good enough.
I am telling everyone in the sound of my voice, all of these creatures can move faster than you think. Yes, there is horrifying video of people who thought it would be fun to approach an alligator or a crocodile, because, after all, they are very slow. They kind of float in the water like logs, and they would get It's like, well, I've watched Steve Berwin. You know, they'll like get on top of it and get a video of it, like stroking it's back or something. And they can bite so
fast yep, that the camera doesn't capture the motion. There's a splash and then your hand is gone. Yeah, because you have to understand, these things evolved to be able to bite faster than a deer can react and you're just a person who works in an office. I promise you you do not perceive how fast nature moves and how fast the average predator can bite because they have to bite faster than you can see or they would starve. They can bite in a fraction of a second. They
can complete the motion. You will not get out of the way. I think a lifetime of watching movies and wild animals and movies where it's a cg animal and the guys having to fight it or whatever jump out of the way. It's like, no, in real life, if it decides to buy you, you're not going to know it until your hand is already gone.
Yeah, there's this like famous photo of a human arm in I believe it was an alligator. It could have been a crocodile, but it had it in its mouth and it's just like this inert hand in its mouth. I think it was at It may have been at a zoo or a nature preserve, so I think it was actually the hand of a professional. So if a professional sometimes lose this is hand to alligators and crocodiles,
most of us don't really have a chance. But you know again, human beings, we're endlessly innovative and interested in running towards the danger in case it might improve our lot. The very horrifying venom of the platypus that is resistant
to painkillers and can last for weeks or months. Some people are like, hey, that's great, let's study it because we might actually discover more about pain management and new ways to relieve pain that doesn't involve opiates, or to address pain that doesn't respond well to our current painkillers. So I do appreciate that part of the human spirit where we were like, this is horrible and deadly. Maybe
it's medicine, and often it is. It's like we've done this with stak venom, We've done this with various dangerous compounds, where we're like, well, this is horrible and does bad stuff to our blood and our bodies. Maybe that means it can be medicine. And that's how we've created things like anticoagulants or pro coagulants that can help people because we're masochists who enjoy the thrill of subjecting ourselves to weird and terrifying stuff.
Or maybe it could be a weapon, if you're looking for some sort of a chemical weapon that could not be treated by painkillers. It's like, hey, the platypuses have mastered this, let's learn their ways.
I like the idea of having our armies just be little platypuses. That would be adorable. Most adorable war crime would be torturing someone with a platypus.
Just dropping them out of planes, little tiny pear chutes.
Well, we're going to take a quick break, but when we get back, we're going to talk about an animal who actually does have a medical use and sometimes creates a medical marvel that is very rare and very weird.
So we will be right back.
So, Jason, you actually brought this up to me, which I found really interesting. I was skeptical and then I looked into it and it is actually true. It is a snake bite that has been known to cause so called reverse puberty to the rare, unlucky victim. So this is courtesy of the Russell's vipers. So Russell's vipers are found in and near India. It is a large brown snake about four feet long so over a meter, with
brown oval patterns. It is I'm not gonna say it looks like a rattlesnake because it's missing the rattle and rattlesnakes are much bumpier. But the patterns on its skin are somewhat similar. This is exactly the kind of snake to be wary of. I do love to talk about snakes on the podcast that you do not need to be so scared of and that we should love and appreciate.
This is one you should be scared of.
And while we can love and appreciate it, we gotta do it from afar because it is venomous and they like to hang out near human areas. They do this because when there's human activity, there is rodent activity. The rodents like to eat our food and our waste, and the snakes like to eat the rodents, and so these snakes will be found around people. And their venom is very potent and it can hurt and kill people, and
it has so. Without treatment, their venom can be very deadly to humans and cause problems such as black from the gums, blood in the urine, blistering, and necrosis that means the death of the tissue near the bite. Can cause facial swelling, vomiting, kidney failure, blood clots, blood poisoning, and heart failure. Pain can last for weeks following the bite.
Like a lot of snake venom, it can interfere with clotting blood clotting, so the venom can cause both blood clotting and bleeding, so destruction of the blood vessels and the increase in blood clot formation, which is a kind of weird and horrible combination. But it's so good at inducing blood clots, which can cause problems in vivo in the human body, but in vitro. It is used in medical laboratory settings to test the clotting ability of blood, so this is really useful actually to look for the
presence of something called lupus anticoagulant. So if the blood clots in the standard amount of time when given a little drop of this snake venom, it means that this lupus anticoagulant is not present, But if it takes longer, it indicates the presence of this lupus anti coagulant that
interferes with the development of clots. I could get into a whole explanation about what lupus anticoagulant is, because it's actually a pro coagulant in the body and it's confusing, but that seems like a topic for a medical podcast, not this one. But the point is that this snake venom is actually an important and useful medical diagnostic tool, and.
Me today it is. But the reason I wanted to talk about this one is because I have this belief that I think most cultures, most human cultures, have specific beliefs about snakes and that they are you know, because obviously, and you know in our culture we have the snake and the Bible and whatever it refers to serpents, they're very apocalyptic or devious. I think the idea that snakes are cursed in some way comes to the fact that when when they get a bite, it's not just that
it swells up and hurts. You get effects that are weird, Like you look at the list of you know what in the urine, bleeding from the gums. It would have to seem like a curse like you had been if you were an ancient people, it not seemed like you were bit by an animal, but that this animal has cursed you with a whole range of ailments that don't seem to have anything to do with the bite.
Yeah, that's what's spooky about snake venom is that it has such a wide range of effects, like over the whole body, and it creates these like hellish symptoms and people that are scary to look at, even more.
Scared as one of them. Your face swells up was one of the symptoms. So it's uncontrollable vomiting and your face is swelling and there's blood in your urine, like you would just have to feel like this is a league you've been attacked with.
Yeah, it's horrible, horrible, horrible, it's I mean, you know, it's so important that we have anti venom because anti venom treatment can prevent or help reduce symptoms and it can save your life. An answer to your you wanted to know if we still use the snake venom in diagnostic tests, and yes we do.
It's called diluted Russell.
Viper venom time dr VVT, which is a very popular test used in labs for trying to find this loopus anticoagulant. So, as far as I know, this test is still used. It sounds like archaic, but if it works, it works. I mean, once you have a compound that can induce coagulation and blood, that is very useful for testing whether the blood is able to coagulate at all. Another interesting medical phenomenon with this snake is the so called reverse
puberty that it can cause. So reverse puberty doesn't really mean you turn back into a teenager and go full Benjamin Buttons, but it does mean that sexually mature characteristics can be either interfered with or revert. So medically speaking, this is a case of hypopituitarism, so that means that the pituitary gland is not as active as it should
be or is not at all active. So the peituitary gland is responsible for producing hormones that they regular a lot of bodily processes, but that includes things associated with puberty and post puberty. So the way this snake messes with your sexual characteristics is that the Russell's viper venom can cause bleeding or clotting in the pituitary gland, which damages it and disrupts its function, and this can cause in rare cases, and in the rare cases that this happens,
this can cause pubic or armpit hair loss. It can interfere with the minstrel cycle, either stopping it or causing irregularity. It can decrease libido and cause rectile and sexual dysfunction. So yeah, very much like a witch's curse this venom.
It's so bad because it's actively damaging the tissue of the p puuritary gland in these cases, and so you know, in these rare cases that this happens, people sometimes have to go on hormone treatment for life because the puritary gland it can no longer function, it can't heal, and so they have to receive hormone treatments for the rest of their life to treat these issues and to keep their body functioning normally.
And it seems to an ancient people or even just in a part of the world where they don't have great modern education, it's so different from you know, if you get bitten by a lion or an alligator, it bites you, it is chewed off a part of your arm, it's trying to eat you. That's extremely clear what's happening there, the idea of getting bit by a snake and that over the course of months, your whole body changes in ways.
It seems to be reverting you to youth or whatever, like certain hair falls out and you're sexual performance changes or all of these various effects that are just hormonal. If you don't know the mechanism of that, you would have to think like you would have to go looking for the snake to find out how to appease it or something to reverse the curse. You would have to regard it as as some sort of a magical thing.
I would think it just it feels mystical. It doesn't feel like something an animal should be able to do to you with a bite.
I mean, it's so funny too, because the snake has no interest in causing us harm like this. It really could not care less about whether our pubic hair falls off. That venom is mostly for its prey, so it uses that venom to shock and paralyze and kill its prey,
and that is its preferred usage for it. In fact, there are a lot of snakes that are venomous, but when they bite you, they actually do what's called a dry because they don't want to waste their venom on you because they would much prefer to use it on their prey. But if they feel very threatened they will, or if they mistake you for prey like that, they're
happy enough to use their venom to protect themselves. And it is it's just weird and kind of unfortunate that it has such a profound effect on us and has such like truly like you have.
Been cursed.
And it I definitely can see why snakes are involved in a lot of sort of folklore and mysticism because it is it is such a such a potent natural toxin that they have. Before we go, we do got to play a little game called the Mystery Animal Sound game.
Every week I play.
A mystery animal sound and you the listener, and you the gest try to guess who is making that sound. It can be any animal. So last week's Mystery animal sound, the hint was this, This raptor is all about no shave November?
All right?
Could you hear that thing that sounded like a broken squeaky toy?
You've already in the hint told us that it's a raptor, right right, Like it's a type of bird of prey.
That's right, And you made a.
Reference to no shave November. Let me try to visualize it and try to think of what are the mustache related birds that I know, because there are so many. I am going to say that is the sound of a Siberian mustache goal.
I love it sounds like it could be a real bird. However, this is the bearded vulture. Congratulations too, the Western Australian Insects Study Society Anti be and saga E for guessing correctly. So you're close with that Siberian mustached goal which I don't believe is a real bird. But maybe if we, you know, keep our minds open, we will discover such a bird. Certainly, there aren't.
Any more ridiculous than the thing you just said there are.
You can't come up with a bird that doesn't at least have a counterpart in real life. That is just as if not more ridiculous. So yes, this is the bearded vulture. It is found in southern Europe. Actually it's kind of near me. It's in Grand Paradiso National Park. I have gone out so many times trying to see this bird. Never once, never, once have I seen one. Someday hopefully. It's also found in East Africa, India and
the surrounding area as well as Tibet. So they are a very large raptor that is a bird of prey. They have a wingspan that can get up to over nine feet, so that's nearly three meters of wingspan. That is Jesus yep, it's a big, big, big old bird. They are a wonderfully spooky, halloweeny bird because their diet is almost entirely bones.
That sounds very cool, but I'm telling you, every single listener who is imagining in their head this bearded vulture is picturing the wrong thing. There's almost no way it has the thick look jurious beard that all of us want it to have. And I'm worried that if I go look up a picture of it right now, I'm going to be extremely disappointed.
I don't think you will be, because it is a beautiful bird, so look it up. The reason it's called bearded is because rather than being bald like most vultures, it has full head of hair, full head of feathers, and around its neck and chest it has these beautiful, scruffy feathers that it looks fantastic. And these feathers often have this beautiful kind of pink reddish hue, which I'll talk about why that happens a little bit. But Jason, have you looked up a photo and are you disappointed?
I have, and I'm not trying to contradict you, but I don't think it's called bearded because of the red feathers on its throat seems to have a little black goatee style beard dangling down from the base of its beak.
It could be it does have a little.
Straight up seems to have a very bad beard, but again.
It does have a weird little sideburns.
Like I guess, okay, I see yeah, Like from the side, I can see someone thinking that it's that that's its little beard.
That it's got a little go tea. Yeah, that actually might be why you might be right, Yes, it has.
It has that.
Little weird go tea and then a pink these pinkish red scruffy neck feathers and then sort of black and white feathers on the rest of it. It's truly an amazing looking bird. I think it's beautiful, actually it is.
The problem is that the beard is the least impressive part. The beard looks like it's kind of been dyed black, like a worst dad who grew out like a go tee and doesn't know he's like trying to start a band or something, and he's like in his forties and he's like got a dyed black go tea. Like it's
the least impressive feature of the animal. And I think it's kind of sad that they named it the bearded vulture, like they're calling out this one feature because that is the least impressive thing about it, should.
Be called the soul patch vulture. But nevertheless, they eat bones, which is pretty metal.
I love it.
And it's not just the bone marrow. They eat the entire bone. They can digest the whole bone. Over ninety percent of their diet is just bones. Their powerful digestive juices dissolves the bone. They do need to break apart the bone into chunks that are small enough that it can swallow whole, So they either snap apart brittle bones on the ground, or for the more stubborn bones, they can pick them up and and drop them from a height and then it shatters on the ground and they
pick up the little pieces and swallow those whole. So even though they look like they would attack you and try to rip out your livery, the most you have to fear from them is them accidentally dropping a bone on your head, which is pretty unlikely because their populations are not that not that big, and their populations have declined, which is sad. Another cool thing about these guys is,
despite being spooky, bone eating soul patched gods. They also love makeup, so that beautiful kind of reddish orange pinky hue on their chest feathers is actually makeup that they have applied. It is rusty, iron rich dirt and mud that they have intentionally rubbed themselves with. And while it's not one hundred percent known why they do this, the thought is that it makes them more sexually attractive. So both the males and females do this, so gender equity hooray.
And they probably do it to appear more mature and more attractive to mates, and they might also do it to make themselves look more impressive to their peers, regardless of whether they want to mate, so that they know, like, this is a fit, healthy, beautiful makeup wearing bearded vulture, and I probably shouldn't try to mess with them or
invade their territory, so you know it is. It's one of those things where like anyone who wears makeup might feel the same way, whereast you do it sometimes because you want to be attractive to people you are sexually interested in, and sometimes you do it because you just want to look impressive and send a message about yourself, or just because you like how you look in the mirror.
See it looks to me and again I am pulling a fact straight out of my butt. It looks like that. It spreads the red dirt around its face to look like blood, as if as in I just got finished eating some big, bloody animal. Don't mess with me.
You think that.
But the thing is, these guys don't get too much gore on themselves, given that they eat bones.
They you know, that's not what they actually do. I'm saying that maybe just it's like a it's it's an affectation they see they saw like polar bears. They get like the blood all over the fer and it looks so bad at r yeah yeah. Or it could be could look like barbecue sauce.
Barbecue sauce. I think it's the barbecue sauce because like if you know someone's got a good sauce on like that, they have a barbecue sauce that's so good that they don't feel self conscious about it, dribbling everywhere.
That's the barber.
I want to go to w I hang out with that guy right, well know war about him? Can you imagine being someone who can eat bones whole and be at a barbecue. It's like you've got even more ribs to enjoy. All right, So onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint is this, This ferocious wild carnivore would eat you if only it didn't fit inside your pocket. All right, did you hear that little sound?
So that sounded to me like a little kitten meowing. But but because I know how this show runs and that it is a labyrinth of lies that is probably trying to throw me off, so I'm going to say that is a he said it's a predator that can fit in your pocket. So I'm gonna say that is a South American microgator, the brand of tiny little four inch long alligators that live down there.
Oh man, I wish, oh, I would love that. I would break my own rule of one shouldn't keep exotic pets if there were microgators that would stay tiny forever.
Ugh, so cute.
They're chubby, they're almost round, and they can barely walk over the stumpy legs.
Aw so cute. Ah.
But yes, that is a great guess. We will find out next time on Creature Feature what this little mystery muling sound is. Uh. If you think you know you can write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com. You can also write to me with questions every so often. I have a whole episode dedicated to answering your questions, and I also respond to your questions via email. Jason, thank you so much for joining me. You got anything to promote Slash? Where can people find you?
A new book is out on October thirty first, twenty twenty three. If you are listening to this in the future, it's already out. It is called Zoe Is Too Drunk for This dystopia part of the Zoe Ash series, available in every possible format. If you want to follow me on TikTok, I am Jason K. Pargin p r gi N on TikTok, but I'm also that on Twitter and threads and blue Sky and Instagram and YouTube and several others.
Thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating or review, I am just so grateful because they help and I read all the reviews and I appreciate all that feedback is so good. It feeds me, it nourishes me. And thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina. Reach Your features a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts like the ones you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. I don't care. I'm not your mother. See you next Wednesday,