Go Home Nature, You're Drunk

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to Creature feature, the show where we
explore all the weird things in nature that your seventh
grade biology teacher was too much of a prood to
teach you. I'm Katie Golden, I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and I'm your host of many parasites. Today we're talking
about anatomy that just seems well made up, like if
you gave Salvador Dalis some bad weed and told them

(00:29):
to invent some animals. We're answering some of the weirdest
questions about evolution and anatomy, like how do woodpeckers keep
from scrambling their brains? What animals have not one, not too,
but three vaginas? Why would a doctor want to sew
your leg on backwards? Discover this and more as we
answer the age old question what are some of the
most bodacious boobs in the animal kingdom? So medical science

(00:56):
has advanced to the point where we now have a
pretty good idea of human anatomy, the heart bones connected
to the leg bone and whatever. But we haven't always
been so intimately familiar with our inner workings. In fact,
we used to have some pretty fantastical ideas about how
the human body worked before doctors decided to dig up
dead bodies and really settle the matter once and for all.

(01:18):
For instance, in the late seventeen hundreds, phrenology was the
quote science of measuring someone's psychology by feeling their head bumps,
the theory being that the different parts of the brain
controlled different emotions, so when they worked out more, they
got more swollen something. Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, on the
other hand, had theorized that the heart was where your
consciousness resided, and the brain and other organs were simply

(01:41):
cooling mechanisms to keep the heart cool for some reason.
And in the eighteenth century, the preformationism theory held that
each sperm contained a tiny, fully developed human that simply
grew larger in the woman's womb like one of those
you know, like grow your own dinosaur capsules. This all
sounds crazy and stupid, and well, yeah it is, but

(02:02):
we're about to discuss even crazier and stupid or sounding
anatomy that is actually scientifically accurate. Joining me today are
the host of the podcast Ridiculous History, Nold Brown and
Ben Bolan. Welcome you guys, Thanks for having us. Yeah,
I'm excited to see some weird animals, as the slideshow
in front of me promises. Well, we say that now. Yeah,
I haven't looked ahead, I have not cheated. I'm ready

(02:24):
to be like you know, I'm ready to give a
completely realistic reaction and challenge. Yeah, this may challenge some
of our preformationist or preformist views. Uh did I did
I get that right? I think? Yeah, it's performationism. Performation
is m yeah. Yeah, so let's be open minded. We
think the performationism. Uh, science is pretty solid. Uh, I

(02:48):
mean willing to be wrong. I mean it is just
like you know, I mean I don't know how else
of fetus is supposed to develop? What like, although the
thing with the performationism that's interesting saying is the ideas
that it's already this fully formed human that just didn't
exists inside you. Then like is there does that fully

(03:08):
formed human also have like a fully formed hum and
like is it fetuses all the way down? Yes, it's
basically like Cabbage Patch Kids rules, you know, Like I
don't know what that means exactly, but you know, I
have no idea what what cabbage Patch kids? You mean?
Just like cabbage patch kids just kind of are like
they just are birthed into existence, like fully formed from
the cabbage cabbage, right right, So maybe that's the the

(03:31):
cabbage sub discipline performation is another think about. I went
to there's a place in Georgia called baby Land General.
It's like where the cabbage patch babies are born. And
there's a really creepy tree that they shove the cabbage
patch babies out of and that's how their birth into
the world is through this magical tree and their heads
pop up, their heads. I've been there too. It's a
really creepy place. What is this? This is like a

(03:53):
real what are you what the yeah, what are you
guys talking about. It's called baby Land General Hospital, and
it's like the home of like where it's like in
the town I think it's called Cleveland, Georgia, where cabbage
patch babies were invented by you know, Jonathan cabbage Patch.
It's the only thing in the town too. It's this
mansion that used to be their house, and it really
does look like a creepy kind of like a psych

(04:14):
ward or something like that. It's a very strange place
and kids have birthday parties there so it's like actually
affiliated with the cabbage Patch company. Absolutely, yes, HQ. I'm
gonna send you a weird YouTube link after this episode.
They have a really really serious collection with Andy Warhol.
Andy Warhol paintings of cabbage Patch kids are all over
the wall pictures of celebrities. But that's neither here nor there,

(04:37):
really isn't. That is pretty messed up, But we're about
to get even more messed up. You get um, So
have you given much thought to woodpeckers? Actually? Yes, I
grew up with some woodpeckers in our yard, and I
was always disappointed because they seemed radically different in comparison

(05:00):
to the other woodpeckers I saw in the media, like
woody woodpeck These were just these very like, I don't
want to say, aggro, but very myopically focused birds who
just kept hitting their heads against trees, and it blew
my mind. I didn't understand. My parents explained to me
that they were doing that to eat bugs. Is that correct? Yeah? So,

(05:23):
uh they do. Actually, as their name implies, peck would uh,
And they'll bang their heads against the tree with their
their well, they're they're banging their banks against the tree.
Bark to create these holes so that they can reach inside.
And it's but for the insects, you know, to eat

(05:43):
up some ants or larva or whatever is living in
the tree bark. They also will do it to help
themselves nests, So sometimes they pull away tree bark to
access holes in the tree, uh to nest there, to
to increase the size of a hole and excavate there
a little nesting area. They also do something called drumming,
where it's just wrapping against the tree for seemingly the

(06:07):
only purpose is uh sexual behavior like mating mating call.
But as people may know, if if there's any metal
fans out there, like head banging is extremely unpleasant. Even
when you're just banging your head against air, it it's disorienting,
it hurts, So you can imagine that if you're banging

(06:28):
your head against solid wood, that would be pretty unpleasant
and probably give you a lot of head injuries. So
it's really incredible when you think about how rapid these
little jackhammers are going and how that seems like that
would instantly destroy their tiny little bird brains and smack
their skulls and just explode their heads. But uh, there
you have developed a few very interesting evolutionary traits that

(06:53):
allow them to keep on head banging without actually getting
brain damage. So first of all, kind of the obvious
one is that they have thickened skulls uh, and they
have powerful neck muscles for for that control. Another more
subtle one is that the beak is actually kind of
designed for shock absorption. So they've got this over bye

(07:16):
and the top of the beak is more fleshy than
the lower beak, which is bonier. So then that directs
the force of the impact towards the lower beak um,
and then that directs it away from the brain case area.
But you guys are here for the real gross weird stuff,
So one more trick up their sleeves or well, I

(07:40):
guess up, there's skull UM. I want to talk to
you about woodpecker tongues. They're very interesting and weird. So
woodpeckers often have pretty long tongues. Uh. They're covered in
sticky barbs so that they can stick it into those
tree holes uh to slurp up ants and larva um.
Someone peckers species have shorter tongues with more bristles, so

(08:03):
there there's variety amongst the woodpecker species, but for many
of them, uh, it has to be long so that
they can get get in there and get those ants
out of the wood. So, but we don't see woodpeckers
just with this tongue flopping out, And they're not like
hummingbirds where they have a really long beak. So where

(08:24):
where do they keep it? Well, it's in its skull.
It winds up kind of like a measuring tape. It
literally will wrap around the back of their head and
up over their skull and then towards their nasal cavity.
And the way that it does this is actually even

(08:44):
weirder than just the fact that it winds its tongue
around around its school, because I think that that fact
is maybe out there. Um, but how it does so.
First of all, the tongue is bifurcated in the back,
which means split into um. So think like a reverse
snake tongue, where instead of coming out and then splitting

(09:06):
at the end, it's like it's split at the sort
of uh up in the mouth and then it comes
together into one point um and uh. So the reason
it has this length is actually that its tongue is
not just tongue flesh. It's partially made out of bone.

(09:26):
So there's this bone called the hyroid bone. And so
if you guys could just put your fingers near your
throat where your tricky is, you know, gently, don't strangle yourself.
Don't don't do that. Um yeah, yeah, So up along
the front of your throat where your tricky is and

(09:47):
where your jaw meets your your trichya basically, and you
should feel a couple of bony kind of protrusions. Do
you feel that that's the that's the hyroid bone. So, uh,
it's the sub metrical kind of butterfly shaped bone. Um.
It supports an anchors the tongue and it helps in swallowing. Uh.

(10:09):
And woodpeckers, these bones wrap all the way around the
skull and up towards their nasal cavities, and it's all
covered in tongue tissue. So they basically have bony tongues
uh that wind around their skull. And I actually sent
you guys that that picture of it in the slide show.
Um yeah, I was. I was gonna ask are those

(10:30):
the same bird? Like the the two images, Like we're
seeing how the tongue is deployed. Got it? Okay, yeah, exactly.
And I question to here because in this illustration, which
is fascinating not yet disturbing all the go with fascinating,
I see that the tongue has this barbed tip on
there is that bone as well. No, that's just that's

(10:54):
just tongue bristles. So the tip of the tongue is
just tongue kind of like ours. It like it the
bone it attaches to the tongue way back there where
you have that that dual structure. But I think those
barbs are it's sort of like you know how cat
tongues are spiky. So when the tongue has retracted, the

(11:17):
bone winds all the way around the skull. And not
only does this have a nice nifty storage place for
the tongue to go, it also offers extra structural support
and shock absorption for when the woodpeckers smashing its face
against a tree. Um. So it's sort of like you
it's like having a weird tongue helmet inside your your head.

(11:42):
I have kind of a dumb question. Maybe it's not
dumb question. Presumably woodpeckers, outside of their superpower ability to
you know, smash their heads against trees and not get
brain damage, have all the same stuff that other birds have. Like,
why is it advantageous to them to eat in such
a bizarre and comfortable way. I mean, it's finding a

(12:02):
niche really, because you have a lot of competition for
insects that are easily available. If you're able to get
into the tree bark where other birds can't access it,
you've just opened up this whole mine of food that
you don't really have as much competition for. H So
that's that's finding their niche and their specialized hunting strategy. Uh,

(12:26):
that is really advantageous. So like if you can't, you know,
there are a lot of birds who will try to
get insects that are kind of embarked that are more
easily accessible. So once you start developing adaptations where you
can get deeper and deeper into the bark and get
more and more insects, you're going to do a lot
better than those that you're competing with. I also have

(12:46):
a question, and I hope it's not super dumbling, but
here goes. I'm gonna shoot my shot first. The woodpecker.
Now I can see that tongue in a high ooid apparatus.
It reminds me in some ways of an ant eater
in some kind of like parallel evolution thing. But my
question is given that this, given that this bird has

(13:07):
adapted to prevent I guess, concussions and brain damage from
its very specific life choices. Uh, how effective is it?
Are there woodpeckers that get concussions or brain damage that
is a thing that can happen. Yeah, Actually, there was
a recent study that showed that woodpeckers do still get

(13:28):
some structural damage that's consistent with CT injury like football
players get. Um. So it's so it's not effective, but
certainly you can imagine that without these protective structures, they
just instantly scramble their eggs or brains, their brain eggs,

(13:50):
the old brain egg. So there's one other. There's actually
a couple other weird adaptations that they have to help
protect them from the blunt force trauma of repeatedly smacking
them cells against a tree. Uh. Their brains are extra dry,
so they don't have as many fluids surrounding the brains,
so they don't just like uh and I guess this,

(14:10):
I think this is the scientific terminology, So their brains
don't slash around a lot. Uh. And then they also
have nictating membrane, which is that weird transparent eyelid that
you'll see on your cat, and that covers their eye
as they're pecking. So it's like a set of goggles.
So because otherwise their eyeballs would probably pop out. Wow,

(14:34):
because of the constant impact. Yeah, the force of that,
you know, like it's sort of like if you're riding
a bike and you the bike is suddenly stopped, you'll
fly off a bike that but with eyeballs. I had
a similar experience like that with one of those bird
scooters recently, So I totally understand this scenario, right, right,
Is it a coincidence that it's called a bird scooter? No,

(14:56):
that was my point. No, it's not. It's absolutely not
a question. It makes me uniquely qualified to have this conversation, right,
you're basically an ornithologist. Now. No, Actually, I don't know
if I think I probably told you this last time
we were on. But I am definitely afraid of birds
and woodpeckers in particular, just just the more freaky the adaptation,
the worse. Like I have nightmares where I wake up

(15:16):
and there's like woodpeckers under my covers and I wake
up like in a cold sweat, and and yeah, it's
it's a thing that I struggle with. Um, so I'm
pretty triggered right now actually, but trying to hold I'm
trying to hold it together. Well you know, I mean
I did present you with the night's diagram showing its
tongue wrapping around its skull and how long it is
and how pointy it is, and I'm sure that will help. Yep, Yeah,

(15:39):
feeling good. Well, if you're uncomfortable with birds, why don't
we pivot to something a little less less weird. Uh
kangaroo vaginas? Oh finally, yeah, great, I'm here for it.
So kangaroos, wombats, qualas, Tasmanian devils. Uh, these marsupials have
three vaginas. Uh. So first of all, I want you

(16:00):
to get your minds out of the gutter. Uh, they
don't have three volva's. It's not like the Alien and
total recall where she's got uh you know, victory breasts. Um,
it's not the Australia version of that, right right, So
it's not just like three volva's just kind of like
randomly placed on the kangaroo somewhere. Um. So, the vagina

(16:24):
this is it's gonna be a little bit of sex
said here. The vagina is an inside organ. Um. It's
the canal that you do use sex inside that sperm
travels up and babies come out of. That's where a
menstruation and discharge come out. And that's also where Gwyneth
Paltrow puts her jade eggs in. That's what the vagina is.
That's what we're talking about. Um. So, you know, we

(16:46):
we like to use our imaginations on this show. I
wanted you to imagine a naked female kangaroo. So and so,
a kangaroo not like wearing a suit or something like
no boxing gloves, totally naked. So it's gonna it's gonna
have a normal looking kangaroo vulva as far as kangaroo

(17:07):
volva's go. But once you look inside the kangaroo, the
vagina splits off into three canals. Uh that meat back
up sort of like a weird steering wheel or like
a no smoking logo or like that that London like
subway logo, the underground logo. So if you actually you guys,

(17:30):
proceed in the slide show, you can see the interesting
complex sort of it looks a little bit like a
French horn. Honestly, I know what this means. I just
want to point out that there's a one diagram. It
says middle of vagina, Joey travels down, and that just
I just like saying that out loud. Just Joey travels down.
I mean, Joey likes to take the middle of Vagina's

(17:54):
classic the path of least resistance. You know that the
middle of vagina exactly. I mean, Joey could be more adventurous,
but that refers to you know, the juvenile kangaroo, right, Yes, yes,
so Joey is a baby kangaroo. I have a question
looking looking at this, which it also looks like it
might be a made up musical instrument in a sci

(18:15):
fi film, like a Doctor SEUs book or yeah, like
the Fifth Element or Doctor SEUs or something in Huville.
But apparently it's very real. Um. I have always heard
that kangaroos, female kangaroos are an animal that can either
suspend its pregnancy or some somehow control when and how

(18:36):
it gives birth, or when it gives birth at least.
Is that correct? Or is that something that my college
friends made up when we were hanging out too late
at night. Yeah, so it can kind of time it. Um.
So what the beauty of the kangaroo reproductive system is
that it can have three Joey's at once, basically and

(18:57):
at different stages of developments. So you've got one and
Joey that is think of it as like a toddler
where it's like outside of the pouch, walking around, you know,
maybe still like reaching in the pouch forum milk and stuff,
but it's a it's a sort of what what you
would associate Joey to look like. Um. And then you

(19:18):
have the second one, which is the Joey that is
inside of the pouch. So that's usually, uh, the really
young Joey that's either at a very early stage of
its development when it looks like those weird little pink jellybeans,
or it's a little older, but it's so it's developing
inside of the pouch. And then you have a third

(19:38):
Joey that is still developing inside of the uterus or
traveling down you know, once the middle Joey leaves the
pouch and that one uh starts to travel down and
leave uh and then makes that heroic crawl from the
vagina to the pouch, which is kind of incredible. So

(19:58):
I don't think they can conscious control it, like you know,
oh well, you know, I've got this. This Joey is
a real pain in the in the the real pain
in the middle of vagina. So I'm gonna stall off
that other, that other Joey. But yeah, there is a
This timing allows them to be perpetually pregnant. It's like
an assembly line of Joey's. So what's interesting is some

(20:23):
biologists think that so as you can see from the diagram,
the middle vagina is a little narrower than the other
ones um and some biologists think this is why Joey's
are born so premature, because it's just too narrow for
a bigger baby. So that's why they have to make
that crazy crawl from the vagina to the pouch. If

(20:45):
you if you don't know what I'm talking about, Joey's
are born very tiny, like they look like little little
gross pink beans, and then they have to they crawl
all and there. They look like an embryo. They don't
look they're fully developed and they're not. And then they
crawl from after they give birth they crawl from the
vagina and they go all the way up into the pouch,

(21:09):
so that having that narrow middle vagina is like, maybe
that's why this is this happens. Oh. They also it's
important to note that they have two uteruses to uterie.
I see that yet, Um, And that's actually not too uncommon. Um,
they're bifurcated uterie in deer's, cats, dogs, elephants, whales, and

(21:31):
a lot of other cool animal ladies. Uh. In fact,
humans only having one uterus were more of the weird ones.
I guess I've always thought that, Yeah, yeah, it's just
one more thing to shame women about. You only have
one uterus? What's wrong with you? Boy? Oh no, I'm
not associated with that at all. I did notice so,

(21:54):
um when when I've seen pictures of Joey's and how
how they're so they're so newly formed and undeveloped. It's
pretty amazing that they can instinctually climb up the parents
body towards that that pouch. But the pouch always weirded

(22:14):
me out, like is the I never thought I'd say
this on the air. Is this treble vagina adaptation? Is
it something that occurred around the same time that the
pouch was developing, or like why, why and how? That's
my question, Why and how? I just I'm baffled. Just why,
just why. It's a really good question. It's a little

(22:36):
bit of a mystery, at least to me, UM, because
I was trying to find why exactly they have three vaginas.
And so there's a few theories. One is that um,
male marsuvials actually have a two pronged penises, so maybe
they can do double time fertilizing the vagina um. But

(22:58):
actually kangaroos do not have the two pronged UH penises,
which I guess is really unlucky for the lady kangaroos. UM.
But so that's that's one theory. But it could also
be helpful for creating like that endless, perpetual Joey production machine. Um.

(23:19):
You got one in the pouch, one in the oven,
one fending for himself. Um, and you know uh I
I would really like to hear if there are any
marsupial biologists out there if they have any theories about
why they have three vaginas. But there's one other thing,
and it's I think, so first we have to kind

(23:39):
of talk about um you know, uh what a spandrel
of evolution ists? Have you guys heard of that term?
I note so, uh spandrel is the term that comes
from architecture. Actually, so the spandrels this triangular wedge between
and arc way and like ceiling. So uh it actually

(24:03):
serves no inherent purpose other than being a structural byproducts.
So you have the arch and then the ceiling, and
then where that kind of like meets you you have
that little wedge where it's like the the where the
semicircle meets that kind of triangle. Um and uh so
uh it was coined as a term to mean an

(24:24):
anatomical feature of evolution that's just kind of a result
of how the animal got built. It has no inherent purpose.
It's just you know, it's kind of like, I don't know,
I guess like you could also describe it as like
the taint like of of evolution because it's like it
doesn't serve any purpose. It's just there because you gotta
you gotta have a place between the the front in

(24:47):
the back. Um so uh So there's a possibility that
having the three canals is like a spandrel of having
to uterie um, and that the fact that they have
it's that for some reason they want a separate birthing canal.
And then just the fact that we're typically speaking in

(25:09):
many structures are symmetrical just in terms of how they
develop in the fetus. But you know, I don't know,
it's it's really it's kind of a mystery. And we'll
actually see kind of in another animal maybe a proto
kind of a proto pouch, which is really interesting. Uh,
later on that will discuss. But first I want to
take you guys on the imagination train to imagination station.

(25:35):
So this one's actually really easy. Just imagine an elephant
in your head, close your eyes, got it there and gentle,
such kind eyes and all of its elephant e goodness,
does it have big tusks? Now you're doing you're doing
it wrong. It's female elephant. Didn't expect that? Um, Now

(25:59):
imagine that with it is a smaller elephant. Little baby?
Is it cute? Oh? Boys? That ever? Adorable? Now that
baby elephant, he's gonna be hungry and it's got to
drink milk from its mother. How does it do this?
Where like like trying to imagine where do you think
it's getting the milk from maybe through the trunk maybe

(26:22):
how maybe they're like secret elephant utters. Have you ever
have you ever tried to imagine this like an elephant's utters. No,
this is this is a first for me, Katie. It's
never come up. It's never come up in my line
of thinking, right right, Well, you know because like you

(26:42):
don't it's not just like cow arders attached to the elephant.
So it's well, I gotta tell you guys this. Did
you know that elephants have big old honkers honkers as noses. No, no,
they got big old, very big old set of very
human looking boobs. So if you advance in your slide show,

(27:06):
oh my goodness. So yeah, I'm not doing a pearl
clutch situation right now. What I'm doing is like they
literally look like those fake boobs you buy it like
the joke store, like because the scale is all off
kind of the elephants so very close together and they're
very close together, and they look like yeah that there. Wow.
I don't I don't want to use the word traumatize,

(27:28):
but when I first when I first looked at this,
I was pretty uncomfortable and I was thinking, Okay, how
many things in this slide show or photo shops. I'd
better be a good sport about this. But if I
were in the wild, I've only seen elephants in you know,
zoos or nature preserves. So if I were in the
wild and I saw a busty elephant running at me,

(27:50):
I would freak out and trampled. I'd be tramped, I'd
be I would die trampled by the feet or by
the boobs. I don't know, that's the problem. Clear. I
love the I love the caption you on the slide too.
It just says very non you know, it's just like
very matter of factly some hot elephant. It's it's it's you.
Guys are welcome for the slide show. By the way,

(28:11):
I'm going to see if I can post the slide
show online actually for the listeners. Um, but this is
this like something they always have and that I've just
never noticed noticed. Yeah, well they have it so when
they're when they're nursing, they definitely swell up. But but yeah,
I mean they they've This is not new. It's not

(28:32):
like a twenty nineteen weird new millennial thing like they've
always had. Elephants have always had breasts um. And also
I would encourage my listeners to google elephants boobs um
and do it with the safe search off for sure
um and and just just roll those die. Uh. So

(28:53):
what's really interesting about the elephant mammary glands is that
they are some of the most human looking boobs an
animal that I've actually ever seen, and that includes primates,
because if you think of primate boobs, they actually, you know,
they're they're pretty small, they're kind of flat as kansas, um.

(29:15):
But the elephants actually have more extensive breast tissue. So
the reason their breast tissue is so voluptuous is so
the baby elephant can reach better. Because elephants are big,
baby elephants are less big, and that's tricky. And it's
also interesting because those boobs are in the front, like
on their chest like you would see any human, which

(29:37):
you may wonder like why aren't they in the back,
like uh, you know, a cow or something. So there's
a very simple reason. The back just has no room
for boobs, and this has to do with how they
give birth. So in order to give birth and not
drop a little baby Dumbo on his sweet little head
and kill them immediately. Uh, the vagina is actually under

(29:58):
the elephant, like the between her legs, so the calf
doesn't have as far to go. So in other unulets
you may know, like like and cow's the vaginal opening
is it kind of like closer to the butt, like
near the tail um, and so the calf kind of
drops a little bit. If that happened with an elephant,
that would be really bad for the baby. Uh yeah, yeah, right,

(30:22):
So because they give birth down there and that's where
the vaginal opening is, there's just no room for the breasts. Uh.
So that's why they're between on their chest. Okay, sorry,
I'm catching up the speed. Just I'm a little baffled.
And this is changing changing some things, for changing how
you look at elephants. Literally the elephants like Mark trunk

(30:44):
shop here. Yeah, I guess so, I guess so. I
mean because elephants are already such amazing and intelligent creatures
and cognitively, the more we learn about them, the more
we learn that their thought process are are very, very sophisticated,
and they feel increasingly, I don't want to say human like,

(31:06):
but increasingly like a pure species in some ways. So
now finding out I do I do want to interrupt
you to say, I do like that you're thinking about
the elephant's mind and not just her chest. That's really
woke of you. Thank you, thank you. I try to
be elephant woke. This is so much information though, like
how how human are they? I don't well, I don't know,

(31:29):
so to put your mind at ease. This isn't it's
a it's another case of parallel evolution, um. But it
is really interesting because most animals don't actually have large
breasts or like it's like an utter situation where their
utters swell during pregnancy nursing, and certainly they don't have
the kind of like large breasts that elephants have. And

(31:50):
that's uh. Those are as I mentioned before designed to
make it easier for the baby elephant to reach. But
humans human breasts are actually really kind of an evolutionary mystery. UM.
Scientists are baffled by boobs uh and it's uh. There
are a few theories, like some are nutrition, like maybe

(32:12):
it's kind of like camel humps, where you store extra
fat for nourishment. My humps, my humps, my lovely um.
One of the more popular theories that I actually think
is probably more convincing is that it's sexual selection, um
that they somehow It's just kind of this thing in

(32:32):
nature where some times certain characteristics are attractive because they
may signal sexual maturity or uh some kind of sexual fitness,
and then that trait becomes more and more exaggerated because
that that signal uh is very powerful. So an example
of that is, um, there are certain birds that if

(32:53):
you give them a big egg, like a big fake egg,
they care about it even more than the smaller eggs
because that signal is just like really powerful. So that's
kind of like potentially with breast, like the you know,
having more voluptuous breasts is like this overpowering signal that
just uh mesmerizes like our early human ancestor males or something. Yeah,

(33:21):
that's okay, I see the I see the point you're
making here. I want to point out something too, like
I maybe I haven't been to the zoo or on
safari enough to see elephants, you know, in their natural habitat.
Typically thinking them, think of them is rearing up on
their back legs too too much. Because the image that
you have for us in the slide show is an
elephant and kind of an awkward squatting position that's allowing

(33:42):
us to see these uh, these elephant boobs. Um, but
it typically wouldn't something you would notice, I would think, right, right, Yeah,
I mean it's uh if when they're standing. I think
that's also why this is an image that is capturing
so many people's attention. Um, you really when you see
an elephant there, uh, it's a little harder to see

(34:04):
they're rocking tits um because that they're angled, not in
such a way to show them off. And so yeah,
it's sometimes do that. I'm actually trying. I'm kind of
trying to figure out why she's kneeling in this picture. Um,
it could be to go the bathroom, could be um,
that she tripped. That's how I want to think of it,

(34:24):
as like it's a Marilyn Monroe situation where she just
kind of stumbled and she's like, oh, sorry, is my
my is my beautiful chest showing exactly the baby looks
like it's about to get on her back or something too.
It's it's a weird situation there, baby kind of coming
up behind to check on him. He's just like really
embarrassing moms toar mom. Um, so I teased earlier that

(34:52):
I wanted to talk about animal pouch kind of like
a potential um sort of proto pouch situation. Uh. And
it's actually a very interesting animal. Um. So it's called
the Colugo Flying Lemur and it's actually not a lemur
and it doesn't fly, So what the heck? Why? You know? Yeah,

(35:13):
is that like it's just a street name or something.
It's just that's that's the it's it's a type of drug. Actually,
it's called Colugo Flying Lemur. It's really gonna make you,
really gonna make you fly, dude. Um. So then this,
this creature definitely looks like he's tripping balls. He's got
these giant like dilated pupils. Yeah, I thought, yeah, I

(35:34):
thought I could see tripping. Iways thinking more like a
studio ghibli anime animal in some kind of magical woodland environment. Yeah. Sure,
it looks like the lead thirteen year old me off
on an adventure. So to describe this for the audience, like,
it's it kind of looks like a DreamWorks version of

(35:55):
a flying squirrel, like remember what was his name script
the little squirrel from ice Age? Oh yeah, yeah, like that,
but with like big old skin flaps Um, so they
live in Southeast Asia. They're not lemurs, but they are
close relatives of primates. Um. They like I said, they're

(36:17):
kind of like they look a little bit like flying squirrels,
but way more fucky. Uh. They have a big flap
of skin they can use to glide huge distances up
to five feet without even losing that much altitude. Um.
They kind of look like they should be close relatives
of bats, but they're not. That's just another case of

(36:38):
parallel evolution. Um. And they're really bad at climbing and
are super clumsy, so it's it's very fortunate that they
have built in parachute. They kind of climbed by like
awkwardly hopping up a tree. Um. They eat shoots and leaves. Uh.

(36:58):
And uh, they actually use their skin flaps sometimes to
carry their babies. Now they're not, uh, they're not. This
is not necessarily like, oh, this is how pouches evolved.
But I think it's an interesting thing where you have this,
you have some anatomical feature, and then you can kind
of see how potentially, like a another structure could be

(37:23):
start to be used for caring for offspring, Like how
the pouch like was evolved to be a protective area
for the offspring. You have these arm flaps which are
not to be used as a pouch, but then they
do get used as that, and that's really interesting to me.
It's fascinating. It's it's almost like a an evolutionary crossroads

(37:45):
or adaptive crossroads, like what what will win the day?
Will it be more useful to uh glide and have
a built in parachute because you're crappy at climbing, or
it would be more useful to have a pouch to
protect your young I don't know exactly, And I think
that's that's also what makes uh studying evolution so tricky,
because you can look at a characteristic and say, Okay,

(38:08):
clearly this evolved to like allow them to flyer something,
but it could have started out as something else, like
a structure. Uh maybe maybe it did start out as
like a structure that helped with their child rearing, but
then it as it got bigger, like it actually helped
them with gliding, and then it turned into that. So
that so evolution is a twisty turney uh kind of

(38:30):
kangaroo vagina situation, uh, where it's just like you have
all these twists and turns and weirdness. So one other
fun fact about them is that in order to poop,
they have to lift their skin flap over their body
and it's really weird looking. If you guys check out
slide number seven. I've discussed it. I am trump. This

(38:53):
is you know, I thought I thought I had gotten
over the tough part with the elephant breast, but this
is traumatizing. I didn't know what I was looking at
for a second. I thought it was a weird dragon fruit. Uh,
I mean, is it turning? Is it turning its pouch
inside out? We're seeing the inside of the pouch like right,

(39:14):
So it's well, it's not really a pouch. It's just
this like well, yeah, no, I got it. The flaps. Yeah,
it's like it took its cape up right, and all
in the entire cape turned out to be made of asshole.
It's like an animal kingdom goat sea kind of it?
Really is? It looks prolapsed. Oh my god. Well so, uh,
it's the membrane that makes up its flap. Like on

(39:36):
the top, it looks kind of cool because it's covered
in fur, but from the bottom it's nude. It's not
covered in fur, so it's all veiny and weird and
pink and translucent. Uh. And it's when it folds itself up,
it kind of looks like it's turning itself inside out.
Uh yeah, it's uh stuff of nightmares kind of a

(39:58):
like a you know that that painter runimous Bosh, like
all his paintings of humans being tortured in hell. That
looks like, yep, can you imagine there? But for the
grace of randomized evolution go us. You know, humans aren't perfect.
But I'm so glad I don't have to go through

(40:18):
that just to use the restroom. I mean, I don't know,
because like maybe if we had evolved big skin flaps,
we'd consider that sexy, Like like maybe colugos have a
whole category of corn that's just like skin flap. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. It was the worst upscirt videos ever.
Uh yeah, I'm just I'm really glad that I don't

(40:40):
have to pull my asshole over my back to use
the restroom. It sounds a little sounds a little overrated,
to be honest to me, what is he using to
do it? I don't understand what I'm looking at. So
you see, you see that that kind of line that's
going down. That's that's yeah, that's like his tail owns

(41:00):
uh And I got it. Okay, I see. For a
second I thought he was like using his mouth to
like pull it up over like that's even more disturbing.
And you just kind of turns inside out and disappears
and does the thing is that you don't need this
to be any more disturbing. It's fine, just the way,
Thank you very much. Okay, great, want some got some

(41:21):
new nightmare fuel? Now this is really helpful. Well we
can take a quick break up. But then I'm gonna
throw more stuff at you. All right, I'm ready, Yeah,
I'll steal myself. So can you look like a regular
human on the outside but an alien on the inside.
There was a recent news story about a ninety nine

(41:42):
year old woman who donated her body to science medical
students at Organ Health and Science University in Portland. We're
using her cadaver in a gross anatomy class. When I
say gross anatomy, it doesn't mean disgusting anatomy. It just
means anatomy that can be seen with the naked eye.
In this case, the anatom me was particularly well odd.

(42:02):
The ninety nine year old woman had lived a long
and healthy life without ever knowing that her organs were backwards.
Her liver and other abnominal organs grew on the left
side of her body. Typically they grow on the right.
It's a rare condition called sit us and versus with
levi acardia. She's thought to be the oldest person to
survive with this condition, and I mean, at ninety nine

(42:24):
years old, she's probably one of the oldest people to
live period. This is a one in twenty thousand condition
with a typically bad outlook, where only one in fifty
million lived to adulthood. So this nine year old woman
was truly one and a billion fold. Onto your livers.
We'll be right back with more wild anatomy. Sometimes animals

(42:51):
are so strange scientists don't believe they're real. This was
the case when the platypus was discovered in sevente The
biologists George Shaw couldn't believe that the platypus specimen he
was looking at was real. After all, platypus has what
looks like a duck's bill and a beaver's tail with
no nipples, and it lays eggs. Surely people thought it

(43:12):
must be a hoax. But as you know, the platypus
is very real, as are the freaky fantastical animals were
about to discuss. These animals may not have heard of alright, guys,
So I want you to imagine that you're walking in
the beautiful forests of Southeast Asia. Awesome. You're there among

(43:33):
trees and plants and various wildlife, and suddenly you smell
the delicious scent of popcorn. You look around. There's no
theaters to be found here, it's a forest. Suddenly you
see what looks like a cross between a lorex, a
bear cat, and a monkey. It's the bent a wrong
is it? Is this the source of this popcorn smell? Yes,

(43:57):
it is, which we will discuss. Uh, do you guys?
E I sent you that image of the Venturung just
chilling on a tree. It's a mood for sure. Yeah.
And uh and the second image I show you you
can see how shaggy it is and how big its
tail is. It is it chunky chunky tail? So um,

(44:19):
it looks like a Doctor Seuss creature to me, like
like an old gnar or like a Jim Hinson. Oh,
you know, like in the dark crystal the what what
are those the sears? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it kind
of looks like that. So it's um uh Like I said,
it's found in Southeast Asia. It looks it's like black

(44:42):
and gray, shaggy, big tufted ears. Yeah, like a big
honey badger. But its face is like floppity. It looks
like it also seems like it does give a fuck.
It's got kind of kind eyes. It looks like it
would give you wisdom and kind of like take you
under its wing and nurture you as a traveler, like

(45:03):
in the jungle. I think that's that's what I'm picturing.
Maybe the first picture. In the second picture though, the eyes,
and maybe it's the gradation of the facial hair. But
in the second picture it looks like a villain. It's
like the first picture is sort of the Simba or
Mufasa and the second picture is the scar version. Oh man,

(45:23):
they should have they should have made the Lion King
remake with bent t wrongs. That would have been so
much better. I know that they didn't answer my tweets,
but there's always next reboot, right is it? Is it
a prehensile tail? I mean tunkey? Like? Okay, got it?
It is indeed so prehensile means it can grasp and
hold things, and it can do that. In fact, when
they're young, they can actually hang by their tails. But

(45:46):
when they get older, they're just too fat, too heavy,
chunk as you said, So that adaptation becomes less helpful
as they get older, or like does it does it
still serve a purpose for them, still serves a purpose,
still allows them to balance as they climb on trees.
And you know, for for young bin Turrong that's maybe
less adept at climbing, that being able to actually support

(46:10):
their whole weight on a tree is very much more
useful probably than an adult. So it's actually not a
cat or a bear. It is. Try to guess like
some of its closest relatives. Okay, not cats, not bears,
not badgers. Uh your cat? Uh yeah maybe like uh oh,

(46:31):
what's what's the one? Um whatever? Red panda is well,
actually your closest with the cat's guests. So they're member
of the Vivarid family, which includes palm civets and genets,
which civits and genets look like cats, but they aren't.

(46:53):
Civets are the ones that make the great but disturbing coffee. Yes,
the poop coffee. I think you're right about that. So
they eat these coffee beans and then they poop it out,
and then you collect the pooped out beans and drink
that up as your your nice hot poopy bean juice
in the morning. It's really expensive to Yeah, I love
my expensive poopy hot bean juice. So they're related to cats,

(47:22):
but they're also related to hyenas and weasels, so that
whole sort of group of I know, hyenas seemed like
a kind of weird, like you would think they would
be more related to dogs. But there that's actually also
parallel evolution, which we talk about a lot today. But yeah,
so that's what that thing is. This bent a wrong.
It's omnivorous and uh, it's about four ft long from

(47:45):
head to tail. The tail is about as long as
the body, so it's like a two foot long tail
two foot long body. Uh. They weigh about fifty pounds,
so you know, like a slight kind of a big dog.
They're like a big dog. Uh, bunch of shaggy fur
and eyes that have seen into the heart and soul
of the universe. Um. Females are actually larger than males,

(48:10):
which is pretty rare amongst mammals. Usually male mammals are
larger than females as you know, and um insects, the
female is often larger. So, like I mentioned earlier, they're
famous for smelling like popcorn or corn chips, a real
yummy smell, and that that nice, pleasant popcorny smell is

(48:32):
coming from their scrotal or volval glands. Oh it's their stink. Yeah,
it's their musk. So they have they have some scent
glands located near their genitals that they used to mark
and uh that it smells like fresh buttery popcorn. Wait

(48:52):
a minute, So I think I heard and didn't believe
one time, that vanilla extract, something from vanilla extract comes
from like beaver scent gland ends. Is that true? I
don't know. I don't think so what well, it seems
to make sense based on what you're saying, I mean,
vanilla extract. I thought vanilla extract came from the vanilla
bean plant for sure, But I but I heard. I

(49:16):
heard there was like a synthetic version of it that
came from like beaver scent pouches. But you know, people
say all kinds of stuff, but at the same time,
like what they can't bottle this uh this gland juice
and make buttered popcorn. I don't know that's a good question.
I'm actually I actually looked up beaver butt uh and
vanilla and I found a National Geographic article that says

(49:37):
beaver butts emit good use for vanilla flavoring. Yeah, substitute
vanilla flavor uh and then sometimes raspberry or strawberry. It's
called castareum um and the US f d A list
castoreum as generally regarded as safe. I wish that they would,
like do like, generally regarded as safe but disgusting. Yeah. Also,

(50:02):
I just sounded when last fact about that. I also
found castorum was used in Sweden to flavor schnops, and
they have one called Literally it translates in English to
beaver shout. It's it's beaver butt juice booze. This. This
is weird too, because now I'm thinking, like, when I

(50:24):
go to movie theaters, am I smelling actual popcorn? Or
am I smelling bent a wrong booty? Probably not bent
wrongs unless you're in a forest in Southeast Asia. Okay,
I mean it is interesting. I think these are pretty
these are threatened or endangered animals. Um. Otherwise it'd be
great to harvest their butt juices to make artificial popcorn.

(50:49):
Can people keep these as pets or do they? I
don't know. They shouldn't and you wouldn't want to. But
do people keep exotic animals as pests that they definitely shouldn't.
I mean that does happen. Um. They are at the
San Diego Zoo. Uh. And I looked up the They
say that they get fed a diet that includes primate biscuits,

(51:13):
which is so cute, sounding like we made you a
little special biscuit. Bent Wrongs aren't primates, but I guess
that they are have a similar diet because they're omnivorous.
Are they intelligent, I don't know. I think they're, you know,
about as intelligent as like a like a weasel or
a cat, which is to say, possibly like just containing

(51:38):
the wisdom of the universe. But sometimes they sit there
and like their own butt hole for hours, so it's
hard to know. It's because of the popcorn smell. Man,
if my butthole smell like popcorn. Uh. And then one
other cool fact is that they can turn their ankles
and eighty degrees, so in theory, they could open doors

(51:59):
like no, too far, too far. So if you if
you're like at home and you suddenly hear a door
creak open and the scent of popcorn wasps in the air,
and you hear the footsteps and a black, shaggy figure,
it's probably me actually, and I've come over and brought
some some popcorn and I'm covered in dog hair. Classic, right,

(52:25):
I'm loving the horror movie set up here. So now
let's go back to imagination Land, imagination station, home of
the Brain. Uh So, now, imagine you're in the grasslands
of South America. You smell something distinct and it's not popcorn,
but yes, it's the unmistakable odor of that dank ass

(52:47):
or my dude, some four twenties, some of that old
devil lettuce. You look around, ready to choke it up
with someone, but instead you see a deer. No wait,
that's no, dear. It comes closer and closer, with long, long,
spindly legs, a red body, a black maine, the tail
of a fox, and the head of a wolf. So

(53:10):
this is the main wolf, which is not a wolf,
and they're not a fox but a distinct species of kenid.
So if you guys, I've sent you a picture of
this this guy, and it's really incredible looking because its
legs do not look like they go with the animal.
It's got a real set of gams. Yeah, it's it's

(53:30):
also it's all kinds of wrong, You're right, Like the
proportions seem off, like the head size versus the legs,
and it's got this dainty little posture with the front
legs crossed over each other and has come hither. Look
and these acted to this wolf. Look, I'm working through
some feelings right now. Um yeah, a k A wolf Maine.

(53:52):
Because it smells like it smells like weed apparently right,
it does smell like weed in fact, But how much
cooler can this wolf? It looks it looks like, again,
like a character you would see in Spirited Away or
something from Princess. No, it totally looked like the spirit
of the forest, like the human face and spirit. Yeah, okay,

(54:12):
yeah exactly. And it smells like we this cat is
this is too cool for school? So yeah, they have urine,
uh that they used to mark their territory. And it
smells so strongly of marijuana that at the Rotterdam Zoo
where they kept main wolves. Cops were looking around, uh,
scouring the zoo for pot smokers because they're like, we

(54:36):
keep we keep smelling pot. But it was just wolf
p weird. Okay, I think it's less cool now that
I know it's the urine that smells like marijuana. But
still I visited in the zoo. Wait a minute, are
you saying it's not okay to smoke weed at the
Rotterdam Zoo? I guess not. That's my that's my take away,

(54:56):
you know what. I actually, when I was researching this,
that was the most surprising thing to me. Not that
their pie smells like marijuana, because like, I'm so used
to whatever weird animal things they get up to. But
the fact that, like in Rotterdam, they're so invested in
stopping people from smoking pot at the zoo blows my mind.
It's like a known issue with the Rotterdam Everyone goes

(55:20):
there to get high. Well, I mean, you can smoke
weed openly in Rotterdam, right, I guess what I was.
I don't know. I guess not at the zoo though
maybe not. It's for children. You got to stick to
your your hashbars and your like the proprietor. I'm thinking
of pulp fiction. Now. It's four twenty pm right now,
just definitely in here in Atlanta, Georgia. It's only one
twenty here. Um. That is funny though for twenty dude.

(55:46):
Uh So, like I said, main wolves aren't actually wolves. Uh.
They are this this species of canad that um uh
evolved these like weird dear like legs. Uh. And they
kind of look like a fox, a deer and a
wolf had an orgy and just like popped out. There's

(56:07):
a weird animal. Um. So they're about three ft tall
and they weigh about fifty pounds, so again kind of
like uh purport like their proportions are all different. But
they're about the size of a bent a wrong um
And Uh. They're omnivores and they're solitary hunters, so they're
not really like wolves in their social structure. Uh. They're

(56:30):
this is cute. They're actually monogamous. So they lived together
with their life partner and they'll um stick together. And
so I think they their partner do hunt together to
some extent, but I don't think they actually work together
in the same way that like a wolf pack structure does.
But they do stick with one partner typically speaking, which

(56:51):
is really cute, and they also have a roarer bark,
which is really unique. Wow, that's cool. It does kind

(57:12):
of sound like like death metal screaming. Imagine hearing that that,
like like you smell weed and you're smoking weed and
you hear that. Yeah. Oh, I couldn't deal with that.
So you're one of your stoner metal brethren are coming
to join you, you know, because they're they're out there
vocalizing and that's crazy. So now I want to move

(57:35):
on to one of the most unfortunate looking monkeys I've
ever seen. So this is the black and white, young
and snub nosed monkey. They're Old World monkeys who live
in China, and they lack nasal bones and they have vibrant,
huge pink lips. Uh. And honestly, they kind of look

(57:56):
like those pictures of like when someone gets plastic surgery
and it goes terribly wrong. So I showed you guys
that picture. As you can see, they have no nose
and just these huge, voluptuous lips. I mean, it looks
like a photoshop fail. I'm not gonna lie. I mean
it really does. The lips look very Uncanny Valley. The

(58:18):
tone of them doesn't match anything else on their body.
It looks like absolutely all mixed up. I was so,
I was so taken with the nose. I've seen these
monkeys before, and I remember I was in a conversation
with someone about what they do when it rains, like
they can't look up because the water would get into

(58:38):
their nasal passages. But I never noticed the lips. I
was so taken by the nose. And now these yeah,
I'd agree, I'd agree with you, man. These these lips
look photo shops from real like Kylie genneral lips. Yeah. Why, Well,
I feel like I'm asking that question continually here. Well
to know why, first, let's talk a bit about their habitat.

(59:01):
They're one of the um highest altitude of all the primates.
They live around fifteen thousand feet above sea level UM.
The freezing cold at these high altitudes mean that if
they had a nose, it would probably just get frost
bite all the time. So they just don't have one.
That's how they solve that problem, is like nose keeps

(59:23):
falling off, Well, just don't just don't be born with
enough um And yeah, when it's it rains. They'll also
sneeze a lot because it gets in their nose and
they have to sneeze it out. Um. And there's not
that much food and nourishment up here, so they actually
have evolved to be able to eat lichen off of trees,

(59:44):
which normally you can't really digestive, but they've developed special
digestive techniques for being able to get nutrition from the
lichen um. And as for those juicy lips, uh, that
actually could be sexual selection, which is really interesting because
just like in humans, how big red, plump lips are

(01:00:06):
considered attractive. This may be considered attractive among these snub
nose monkeys, but it's more important for the males to
have these big, red, juicy lips. Um. It's also it
tends to happen where the older males have redder and
thicker lips, so that could be a dominant signal. It
could be a sexual maturity signal. And it's uh, it's

(01:00:30):
just it's so great. It's like they look like they
have had way too many fillers in their lips. No,
but it sounds like a terrible idea. It's a bad idea.
Don't do it. But it looks like that like someone
like put a vacuum hose against their mouth and then
pull it away and have these like big lips. But
they're definitely these are just things they are born with

(01:00:50):
that increase, I guess in their extreme nature as the
animal ages. Yeah, man, how are they doing like in
terms of like as a species or they prevalent or
are they They're they're very they're very threatened, uh, you know,
and endangered their um. They have a very small population size,
so like in the just like severals of thousands um

(01:01:16):
so uh. And they also have such a unique habitat
that uh. And they're so isolated. Uh, there's actually a
little bit of genetic bottleneck. Uh. So researchers have like
looked at their genome and found lack of diversity because
they are such a small population and so insular, which

(01:01:36):
is always a little bit of a concern with a
unique species like this, because, um, when you lack a
certain amount of genetic diversity, if a change to their
environment happens or some kind of new disease pops up,
they are much less likely to be able to cope
with that. Yeah, maybe you're you know, maybe you were
onto something with the Kylie genera e kind of earlier,
because if you could get her on board with this,

(01:01:59):
uh and get her to some stuff on Instagram, if
we if we could make these monkeys Instagram models like
Instagram stars like that that, and then people would get
on board with protecting their earth, even them exact monkey influencers.
Oh my god, I can't believe nobody else has The

(01:02:21):
time has come. You know, if you went in for
an amputation and the surgeon sowed your leg on backwards,
you might think you've got a medical malpractice case. But
in some cases this is an intentional procedure. Rotation plasty
is a procedure in which the leg is amputated, usually
to excise bone cancer. Then the lower part of the leg,

(01:02:44):
if healthy, is reattached to the thigh backwards. The purpose
of this is to create an knee using the foot.
The ankle has the same hinge motion as the knee,
just backwards, so rotating it gives the same locomotion as
the knee. This allows people who have had an amputation
to have a better range of motion and to adapt

(01:03:06):
prosthetics with more ease, being able to operate a below
the knee procethsis more easily. It may look a bit strange,
but it's an innovative procedure that can give people a
better quality of life. It just goes to show you
so called weird anatomy can be incredibly useful. When we
get back, we'll look at some of the more intimidating

(01:03:26):
examples of animal anatomy. Dinosaurs. They're big, leathery, with bony
claws and pointy heads. Our conception of what dinosaurs look
like maybe a misconception due to what's called shrink rapping.

(01:03:47):
Shrink Rapping is when paleo artists artists who try to
reconstruct what an animal looks like based on its fossil record,
don't include as much muscle, tissue and fat as an
animal may have in reality had, which makes them look
only in skeletons sunken, sort of like the dinosaurs in
Jurassic Park. In the book All Yesterday's Unique and Speculative

(01:04:08):
Views of Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, artists made a
series of pictures of what did it look like if
you did the classic shrink wrapping artistic rendering of living
species based on their skeletons. Suddenly swans are horrible monsters
with needle like pointy arms. Baboons and squirrels look like
grotesque demons. In fact, as we now know, dinosaurs may

(01:04:29):
have been feathery and brightly colored, maybe even a little chubby.
Sometimes a t rex may have looked more like a giant,
threatening chicken. As we'll find out, our concept of what
animals can look like may need to be expanded, and
we'll start out with a very large, extinct monster who
flew the skies. Sorry you guys. Fans of the Jurassic

(01:04:51):
Park thing franchise, Yeah, one of the first ones really good,
and then the most recent one was pretty okay. But
the ones in between, I wasn't a huge fan. Maybe
you just maybe you just got older and lost the
magic of the Jurassic magic. Jurassic Park one totally holds

(01:05:12):
up on repeat viewings, Like even though like it was
like the effects looked really great. I can actually I
can verify that because when I was a kid, I
was too scared to watch Jurassic Park. Um, And then
I watched it as an adult, and it really does
hold up. It's really good, it's got quotables. Even even

(01:05:32):
just the way the story is structured, you'd still very
watchable despite the fact that, as as you pointed out,
Katie H, science is showing us that dinosaurs, what we
call dinosaurs, may have had a ton of feathers, right
instead of just scaly skin. Yeah, they may have been
a little fuffy chicken like creatures. Um like imagine t rex,

(01:05:55):
but just like a big old chicken with big, old
fuffy feathers. They could have been areful. They could have
had like um like gol or pouches and head bobs
and yeah, exactly. I think artists are now reimagining dinosaurs
more to be more fancy and I love that. And
one group of dinosaurs that I think we have a

(01:06:18):
certain conception about them, but it is a misconception is
the pterosaurs. So parasaurs are think like the pterodactyl, that's
one species of pterosaur, and they're not actually dinosaurs. They're
winged reptiles that are extinct that are of the Mesozoic era.

(01:06:39):
So they are just defined as this group of extinct
reptile that would have these you know, they have those
leathery wings that they can use to fly like a pterodactyl.
But I want to talk about one of the most
incredible species of pterosaurs, which is the cats acts north raw.

(01:07:00):
Does that sound right? Yeah, catsl coldal is Um. It's
a reference to Mayan culture. Yeah, yes, that feathery serpent.
God right, the plume serpent and this this thing is
I have to ask just looking at maybe a recreation
or a model of this. Uh, my first question is

(01:07:22):
could it actually fly? Because that head is ginormous. Yes,
I mean I think it could have flown. The scientists
actually there were like physicists trying to figure out whether
this thing could fly. And it's a little bit of
a controversial debate, but most researchers, I think agree that
it could indeed fly. Um. Which is insane looking at

(01:07:48):
it because so far our listeners it was it looks
sort of pterodactyl like, but it was as tall as
a giraffe with a thirty five ft wingspan. It's about
the size of a Sas No. One seventy two airplane. Um.
It has a long, sharp pointed beak and a really muscular,
stiff neck. Uh. And so when they're on the ground, uh,

(01:08:12):
they can fold their wings kind of like I mean
like when you see in uh fantasy movies how dragons
walk on the ground. Where when they don't have fore
legs like uh in Game of Thrones, how the dragons
would walk on their folded up wings. That's exactly how
these guys would walk on the ground. Paleontologists think, uh,
so they actually have a um sort of physical structure

(01:08:37):
similar to large ungulates like giraffes, so they may have
been able to walk UM with a similar ease as
a giraffe. UM, probably not quite as good because of
those big old flappity wings UM and uh. Some researchers
actually think that they could have made transcontinental flights because

(01:08:58):
they're just so dang big. They may be caught the
right thermal or something and could cost for a while.
So looking at this thing, though, like I mean, I
leave flying out of it. I don't feel like they'd
be able to stand up right. That head is so huge.
I feel like they would just like topple over. But
I guess the only the only explanation there is was
the beak like really light or something like does it

(01:09:18):
just looks so top heavy and unwieldy. I mean, I
think it's just their their vertebrae. If you look at
um a skeletal uh, the fossil and the skeleton of it.
Their vertebrae were huge, just these really thick, thick u
structures um, and then couple that with some really swollen
neck muscles, and then I think a beak, which is

(01:09:41):
you know, a lot of their head is, you know,
the the beak structure, even though that's quite large, it
is hollow for the most part. And then you know,
the head is obviously pretty heavy, but then that the
little bump on top of the fleshy bump on top
of their beak is probably pretty light too, So I
can see how they do it because like if the
their neck vertebrae are just real chunky, yeah, they definitely

(01:10:05):
have feathers, right, They may have had feathers, so there's
evidence other pterosaurs had primitive feathers to keep them warm.
So there's a real good chance that they were just big, feathery,
huge monsters, which is pretty incredible. So in DARFA, you know,
the defense contracting company that they like to do robots

(01:10:30):
and weird technology stuff, they used one of these guys,
the cats akodalists north Ropy as a model for an
unmanned ornithopter. Uh So that's a flying vehicle that uses
flapping wing motions and it was this unmanned flying uh

(01:10:51):
like tarosaur. Vehicle was eighteen feet and had a weight
of forty pounds. And I can't find out what like,
I think they just have it in a museum because
it doesn't sound like it worked too good. No, but
that would be funny because like now we have drones,
which are less funny, but the like if drones just

(01:11:14):
like we're big things that were like flapping their wings
trying to go unnoticed, like don't mind me, normal giant
pterodactyl soor yeah, that's you know, there's a reason that
we don't catch a lot of ornithopters at the airport
now it right, Yeah, it's not when you can have

(01:11:36):
a plane like structure where you the energy is not
in the flapping motion but rather uh fuel situation, that
is a lot better. But they didn't learn their lesson
because in two thousand and nine they created a hummingbird
sized ornithopter um, which it actually worked a lot better.
It looks like and it's really creepy, and I guess

(01:11:57):
now we kind of have to worry that maybe a
hummingbird is a government robot. Have you guys heard of that?
Like birds Aren't Real campaign. I support that entirely. I'm
just putting that out there. Um. I hate to say this,
but this is another feather in their cap, so to speak,
because they did create robot hummingbirds. Um. I'm always getting

(01:12:21):
harassed about that because I owned the pro bird rights
Twitter account. Um, so people are always like saying, well,
did you know birds aren't real? Um, which is offensive
to me and my people. Actually, yeah, we get a
lot of that on our other show stuff they don't
want to know, but it's mainly from flat earthers, So
we feel your pain on that. Yes, yeah, really like

(01:12:43):
just people writing in and saying like that the Earth
is flat and yeah, basically you guys are that. You
guys are idiots, and uh, you know, get off your
high horse. I'll send you. I'll send you some some
choice words. Typically have been a him of some rebuttal
videos to regarding the flat Earth, and I found them

(01:13:05):
massively endearing. So, you know, if you're fighting a good fight,
whether bird rights or the shape of the planet, you
just gotta you gotta take the long game. Look, I'm
actually a kangaroo vagina earther. I think that's the shape,
you know. I have been reading the blog of your organization,

(01:13:27):
the Kangaroo Vagina Earther's uh dot blog spot dot yeah, yeah, yeah,
And I gotta say I I, uh, I don't entirely agree,
but I think you raised some valid and fascinating points.
Would you agree nor? Oh? Absolutely? I just want to
I just want to start a conversation. I'm just looking

(01:13:48):
for a new movement to get behind, you know, and
this this seems like the one for me. Well, you, guys,
I want to take you back to imagination station. HM.
Imagine you're trapesing through the zag Gross mountains of western
Iran and suddenly you see a spider crawling on a rock.
Oh no, it's a spider. But maybe you listen to

(01:14:09):
this podcast, so you know that most spiders are friends, uh,
And you reached down to pet the spider, which I'm
not actually recommending that you do that. Don't pet spiders,
you know some of them are venomous, but also just
like they don't want to be pet by you. But
you do it for some reason, and suddenly the rock
transforms into a viper and eats your face. So yea,

(01:14:34):
that's I want to talk about something called the spider
tailed horned viper, which is how it sounds like. UM.
It is found in Iran UH in the in western Iran,
like in the mountains. UH. It has a unique adaptation

(01:14:55):
to lure in birds to prey upon, So it has
UH it's called a caudle lure, which is science words
for a bamboozel tail. The tail ends in a bulb
and along the tail are these elongated spindle le scales
UH that kind of look like insect legs. So the

(01:15:15):
total effect is that it looks like this weird spider.
And then what the snake does is it kind of
twirls and slowly moves its tail around, and the effect
looks extremely convincingly like a crawling spider. When I first
saw this, I didn't know what I was looking at,
so I just thought it was like a spider crawling around.
And then suddenly this viper appears out of nowhere, because yeah,

(01:15:41):
the the viper itself has camouflaged, so it blends right
in with the rocks, except that its tail, which sticks
out and looks like a spider. So the birds all
they see is this juicy looking spider moving around, and
then they go and attack the tail, and there was
one video I particularly liked because it showed a bird

(01:16:03):
attack the tail that it thought was the spider, and
then the viper kind of like um lunges at it,
and the bird flies away temporarily, and then it comes
back and attacks the spider or the fake spider tail again,
and then the snake like eats. It's just does not
learn its lesson. Oh may, but I want to say,
like this, this viper needs to get a job with

(01:16:23):
like the Jim Henson Company, because there's some serious finesse
to this, like puppeteering with this fake spider. I mean
it's not just I mean it's there's some real subtlety
to the way the thing moves to make it look
like a crawling creature. And you're right, like I was
totally taken viper. I'm like, what am I looking at?
I thought it was a rock with a spider crawling
on And then yeah, the plot twist is when you

(01:16:45):
realize the viper's there the whole time, right right exactly.
The Viper's just like eat is me? I am? I
am kermit? The spider do not worry. So it's it's
interesting because this looks like, uh, this is an amazing adaptation.
It reminds me very much of the adaptation that rattlesnakes have.

(01:17:08):
It's like the same what did you call the caudal area, yeah,
which just means tail area. Yeah. Okay, so they went
into a different direction, and I gotta say, these are
I don't know. I've always loved the rattlesnake adaptation because
it's like they have their own Morocca, you know. But
this is like a level up version though, right, it's crazy. Yeah,

(01:17:29):
they sacrifice puppeteer. They've sacrificed percussion for puppeteering, you know
what I mean. If you could get like a rattlesnake
and one of these vipers together, you got a show.
Yeah right, it's got a whole presentation. You might get
bit at the end. Yes. So, speaking of reptiles, I

(01:17:49):
want to talk about the Mexican mole lizard. It's a worm,
it's a snake. Nope, it's some mole lizard. It's found
in Baja California, and it looks like a pink, squiggly
little spaghetti guy. It really does look like a warm
at on first sight, but it is actually a type
of reptile in the Amphysbania group, which is warm lizards.

(01:18:15):
So a lot of worm lizards just don't have legs
at all. They're legless lizards. They're not snakes. Actually are
distinct species of lizards. But this one, the Mexican mole lizard,
does have legs, but they're really tiny and stubby and
they only have four legs um, which is really it's

(01:18:38):
very funny. So if you guys look at that little
picture of it, you see it looks and they're so
brightly colored pink. They look like, you know, they don't
even look like real worms. They look like those gummy
worms just and then but they have those little two
little legs out in front that they used to kind

(01:19:00):
of burrow into soft sand. Are they dragging themselves completely
with those legs their muscles constrict and relax like a
snake's for movement. No, yeah, so it's it's partially the muscles, uh,
moving them along along the abdomen um and the little
legs may help a little bit with movement, but it's

(01:19:21):
also helping them with burrowing and crawling down holes. But yeah,
it's not just like them like putting one leg out
like drag and then the other one is drag. So
they're about eight inches long, and it actually has an
autonomous tail, which is think about like lizards and how

(01:19:42):
you can yank their tail off. Don't do that? Actually
be nice the lizards, but if they are caught by
a predator, they can remove their tail. Uh, and the
tail kind of wiggles around. So these guys have that,
except unlike lizards, their tails don't regenerate, so they got
like one or two shots, I guess. And uh. In fact,

(01:20:04):
it's quite useful when they're burrowing down and like their
tail detaches because then it also plugs up the burrow
on keeps the predator from getting to them. But like
I said, they they can't blow their load too soon
or else they're out of a tail. Yeah geez, I've

(01:20:25):
got to say. Also, these things look kind of like
a slinky that someone had coated with a pink I
don't know, like a pink curtain wrapping around them and
then kind of just messed it up. Get it slammy.
The little close up is really strange, like on the
first slide, you guy here, where you've got like a
long shot where it really does look like a worm

(01:20:45):
minus the tiny, tiny little arms and then it almost
like made me laugh out loud when you zoom in
and you see it's tiny little lizard face and these
bizarre little turtle hands. Yeah, that's kind of what they
look like, is a little miniature turtle hands. Yeah. How
does this thing live? How does this thing survive? Why
does this thing exist? I mean existentially? I can't really

(01:21:07):
answer that for you. But actually, if you like, go down,
there's a little video of it moving around, uh, and
it's you can see that the little legs does help
it as it's burrowing down into the sand, and you
can actually see its body undulating to that the that
abdominal movement of the muscles helping propel it forward. But

(01:21:27):
it's kind of funny because it is just walking along
with the legs to uh. So it uses the legs
to dig and burrow, um, and then uh the uh.
It's it's sort of a similar to how you know,
one imagine snake evolved, where it's like, well I don't
really need the back legs, but in this case, the

(01:21:50):
front legs are pretty still pretty useful and cute. It
is cute. It kind of looks like a little baby,
do you remember do or like trimmers like a little
baby sand worms and beetlejuice. Yeah, um, but pink uh.

(01:22:11):
It is actually like the dune sandworms or or tremmors
because it pulls its prey underground to eat them. So,
like if you were a little insect sized, these would
be pretty horrifying. Oh yeah, yeah, I can imagine so,
but now what you said. They're eight nine inches long, right,
there's primarily primarily underground, so I don't have to worry

(01:22:35):
about accidentally running into one on the street unless you're
unless you're like in Baja California and you're like rooting
around in the sand. Are they venomous at all? And
I'm sorry if I missed it, And if you said that,
like would they would they give you a bite? Or
they might they might buy you, But I don't think
they could hurt you, And I don't think they're venomous.

(01:22:55):
Looking at their face, it looks like they could. If not,
I don't know if it would be so much as
of a bite as like a really aggressive gumming. Yeah, yeah,
they would gnam at you angrily, sort of like a
like an unfriendly hickey. Yes, yes, it's a great band name.
I think the unfriendly hickies and the purple ner bullets.

(01:23:21):
Um So, finally our last animal, I wanna give the blobfish.
Shine some light on this blobfish and kind of clear
its name a little bit, because I think it's been
slandered by the media for far too long. Um So,
you guys might all be familiar with the blobfish. Do
you guys? Have you guys seen these pictures of the

(01:23:43):
blobfish before? I've seen the first one definitely, because it
comes up whenever you're searching rabbit hole for like weird
creatures of the abistle planes in the ocean. Uh and
it looks like it looks like a guy having a
bad day, right, It's that it's that viral picture of

(01:24:05):
like this pink, big nose deflated blobs. It kind of
looks like a ziggy cartoon head exactly. Um And uh
So that you know, we're probably when you think about it,
you think of this little blobfish like looking like that
in the ocean, just swoorn around looking sad and blobby.

(01:24:25):
But this this is media lies and slander and liberal
and all those bad things. Um So. Blobfish are deep
water fish that live off of the coast of guess,
guess guess what coast? Uh, the a Pacific coast. Nope, Australia. Oh,

(01:24:48):
that makes so much more sense. So the pressure at
four thousand feet underwater is over a hundred times that
of the surface. So for animals living down there, they've
been and specialized such that they can survive in these
crushing depths. But just as you'd be crushed diving that deep,
blobfish and other fish, when brought up to the surface

(01:25:11):
will kind of explode. So the blobfish, when alive in
its natural habitat, looks kind of like an ugly but
relatively normal fish. So I showed you guys the picture
of the blob fish when he's alive and healthy. Uh,
And you can see he's actually his skin has a
different texture. He's not just uniformly pink and gooey. He's

(01:25:35):
got some spines on his skin, he's got some color differentiation,
and he's got ice sockets and a and a distinctive fins.
And I mean the mouth is pretty still pretty moby,
to be fair, Uh, but it does it looks recognizably
like a fish, just a bit of an ugly fish. Well,

(01:25:56):
it's like a r right, Yeah, with a big floppity mouth.
But once it reaches the surface, it kind of turns
into that weird pudding and that's why it has that
distinctive ziggy look. That's that's the desecrated corpse of a blobfish.
And so I think it's one of those things where

(01:26:17):
that kind of demonstrates how easily we can misunderstand, uh,
natural discoveries. Um because while that's not a doctored image,
the one of the blobfish, there's nothing fake about it.
It's just that's not how they would look in their
natural environment. Um. So our conception of these these ziggyheads
just kind of floating on the ocean floor is not

(01:26:39):
quite correct. You Know what I think would be great, Katie,
is to have a have these two pictures in a
P s A. Because they're great before and after, you
know what I mean, Like meth not even once? Or
what's what's not even once? Yeah, I was gonna say,

(01:26:59):
what's a hot button issue with the ocean? Plastic straws,
not even plastic straws, ocean acidification? Uh, you know, worms
on hooks not even once. Apparently tie pods are back, y'all.
I've got a ten year old daughter, and she informed
me that tide pods are back because they now have
non toxic tide pods, So the kids are really going

(01:27:20):
to town like actually, ah children. Yeah, I know this.
This has been a blast as always, Katie and and
been looking back through our exploration today and wondering if
I had to pick one adaptation for myself, what would
I pick? And right now, all I've got is that

(01:27:41):
I feel very fortunate to be human. We're not perfect,
but but there's a lot of there's a lot of
weird stuff. We don't have to do this at least
we don't have to pull a skin flap up over
our bodies to be able to poop. That's what I'm
thinking of. Yep. Well, thank you guys so much for

(01:28:02):
joining me. Uh why don't you tell people where the
heck they can find you? Yeah, we are Ridiculous History.
We have new episodes coming out every Tuesday and Thursday.
You can find us on our website Ridiculous History Show
dot com. Yeah I think so. I don't really go
to the website, but the best way to reach us
as you can email us at Ridiculous at I heart
radio dot com, or you can check me out on Instagram.

(01:28:24):
I am at how Now Noel Brown. You can find
me getting kicked into and out of various countries and
communities at at Ben Bolan on Instagram or at ben
Bowland h s W on Twitter. And you can find
our show Ridiculous History wherever you find your favorite podcast.
It's True All of Its True. You can find us
on the web at Creature feature pod dot com. You

(01:28:48):
can find us on Instagram Creature feature Pod and on
Twitter Creature feet Pod f e A T. Be sure
to put that in or else you will get some
weird images. I've been Katie Golden. You can find me
on Twitter at Katie Golden or also pro bird Writes,
where I am really fighting against the medializing slander about

(01:29:08):
how birds aren't real. In fact they are and sometimes
their tongues go inside. There's goals And thanks to the
Space Classics for their awesome song Exo Lumina

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