The Nose Knows!

We’re getting to know some of the most fascinating noses in the animal kingdom with Hana Michels and Dave Bell! From a fantastical cryptid, to the real-life incredible noses that you couldn’t make up! Discover this and more as we answer the age-old question: why are bats? 

Footnotes:

1. Nosewalker cryptid!
2. A very "convincing" taxidermy
3. Another interesting "rhinograde"
4. Not quite factual taxidermy!
5. Unicornfish!
6. How handsome
7. Homer J. Simpson fish
8. Sawfish!
9. Cutie vampire bat
10. Horseshoe bat
11. Swordnose bat! 
12. Hammerhead bat!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology in school, and today on the show,
I wanna knows what we're talking about. I knows what
we're talking about. It's noses. We're getting to know some
of the most fascinating noses in the animal kingdom, from

(00:28):
a fantastical cryptod to the real life incredible noses that
you couldn't make up. Discover this more as we answer
the angel question why are bats? I mean, why are
why are bats? Joining me today to get nosy our
podcasters and comedians David Bell and Hannah Michael's welcome. Hello, Hey,

(00:51):
how are you? I'm good. How are you guys? I'm
quite well, I'm sleepy. Well, yeah, you guys? Are you guys?
Are you like cryptids? Right? That's correct? Yep, Rather I do,
and I made you that's correct. I don't not like cryptids.

(01:11):
I've watched a lot of the X Files, right, I
think you guys, aren't. You aren't quite at the level
of you are blogging about it seven swearing that by
God you will have your revenge on Bigfoot if it's
the last thing you do. But you're between that and
being like uninterested nonbelievers, encrypted right, It's it's somewhere between there. Right. Yeah,

(01:37):
I would say I don't believe in most of them,
but that's part of my fascination. Right, That's part of
what makes Bigfoot cool is that, like Bigfoot is our
reckoning with where we came from. Yeah, we were nothing
but mammals. So let's do it like we do it
on the Discovery Channel. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, But I want

(01:59):
to talk to you guys about a very special cryptid
when it comes to evolutionary biology, called the nosewalker cryptids
or rhino Graddentsha. So I've never heard of these. I'm
so excited. Yes. So they are a group of animals
that German zoologist Gerald Steiner created or are they secretly

(02:25):
real and the FBI just doesn't want us to know? Okay? Now,
they were invented with the intention of being very silly
but to mimic serious scientific description. In fact, Steiner's descriptions
of these animals are so formal sounding and so scientific
that they have been accidentally republished as real animals by

(02:49):
unwitting journalists and people who will sometimes mistakenly believe they're real,
even though they are absolutely ridiculous. So Steiner wrote the
book The snow Form in Life of the Rhino Grades,
in which he describes a hundred and thirty fake species
of snouters and loving fake scientific details. I love it.

(03:10):
So wait, this is just a maniac Yeah, okay, most
crypt did start with just some maniac We just did Luckness.
That was definitely a maniac. Yeah, well there was the
family who saw it across the road and then and
then it became a maniac um. He thinks Hitler killed Lackness.

(03:32):
It sounds correct. Damn it like that sounds like something
Hitler would do. I'm very tired just in general. Actually,
I think this book was published in nineteen fifty seven,
you know, the wild and crazy fifties, when we just
made up animals for fun. Like this was before we

(03:54):
had video games, so we had to write entire books
about made up animals in order to have a time.
But Steiner wrote, it was an entire book that describes
a hundred and thirty eight fake species of snouters in
loving fake scientific detail. Why well, have you ever looked

(04:16):
at the Star Wars wiki and seen how detailed people
go on and on about like batt O Grito, the
Star Wars fictional thing, where like the entire biology of boards.
It's fun. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Well, when I
was a kid, I actually created a entire species of
animals called zooks that were tiny, like microscopic creatures that

(04:43):
were like these little bipedal ants like things that had
little antenna that had like a big orb on each
end of the antenna. And I wrote out this whole
like like booklet about like they can lift weight up
to five hundred thousand times their own their own weight,
and they communicate by rubbing their orbs together and all

(05:05):
of this stuff, and like they can control electricity. And
like some kid in my class found this and I
was like in second grade or something, and he's like,
this isn't real. These are lies. I was like, no,
it's real, it's not lies. And then he showed it
to the assistant teacher and the teacher made me admit
it was lies. M You're not You're not still bitter

(05:26):
about this though, right, not at all? David. You know
you're describing what George Lucas did with medic Clarian's right, right,
that they control all energy and they're being microscopic. George
Lucas scooped second grade. Me. I just can't believe like this.
This assistant teacher was like, you have to admit that.

(05:48):
Stop using your imagination, admit that it's lying. Being creative
is lying. Yep, that sounds like teachers. It does. I
went to a religious school. Yeah. It. It just made
me dig in more. It's like, fine, I'm gonna I'm
gonna create war lines. What if that teacher was like

(06:10):
George Lucas in disguise, Yeah, going school to school and disguise,
getting ideas or the FBI inserted into the school to
prevent us from finding the truth about zooks exactly. But yeah,
So in this book, the snouters form in life with
the rhino grades uh, he describes a d species that's

(06:34):
commitment to the bit. Generally speaking, these fake species are
described as mouse like creatures with vestigial nubs for back legs,
and its four limbs have been modified for grasping, and
they have They all share in common a weirdly versatile
nose called ansarium, which is a made up word but

(06:55):
sounds science. E it sounds pretty science. Yeah, sounds n storium.
M hmm, I would mistake that for science. Yeah, it
sounds like a fancy room of a mansion. This is
the nice storium where we have cocaine exactly. So. Some

(07:21):
of these fake species walks with their nose, which is
will be a long leg like appendage with a weird
duck like foot on the end, or a claw, which
there have been loving illustrations of these that are incredible.
In fact, there have been fake taxidermis of these that
you can look up. I'll provide some of them in
the show notes, and they are absolutely wonderful. I mean,

(07:45):
it's just like, so it's so weird. It's like this
weird mouse with giant ears and then a long leg
for a nose with like a weird duck foot or
a claw, and I just it's it's all. It's all fake.
But I of how committed people are to try and
I guess to trick people. I'm not sure. I don't

(08:05):
think that's the intention. I think it's sort of a
loving thing. It's sort of like the jackalope, Like people
make like fake busts of jackalopes. But then it's really
sad because you realize the first few sightings of jackal
opes are just like rabbits with HPV. Yeah, no, there's
a real rabbit disease that causes these bunnies to have
these huge growths, these horn like growths from in bunny

(08:28):
HPV type virus uh that creates these facial tumors. And
it does look sometimes like antlers. Sometimes it looks like
they have antlers coming out all over their face, which
is quite horrifying. But yeah, no, you're absolutely right, Like
that's I agree that. I think that's probably where the
jackalope myth comes from. I mean, either that or some

(08:49):
redneck was bored, which is where a lot of these
six come from. Look, you know, I mean they did
think that when the guy who discovered the platypus brought in,
they thought it was just some some guy who like
sewed a bunch of animal parts together. So they must
have experienced other people doing that, just sewing animal parts together.
Of course, they protopuses are so weird. Oh my god,

(09:11):
They have poisonous barbs on their feet. They have a
third eye. What what is elector location? I still don't know. Yeah,
they sweat milk. We're going to talk about electro reception.
Later on in the show. But yeah, they don't have nipples.
They sweat milk out of their bellies. My favorite fact
about platypus they are the original Like that that I

(09:32):
wonder if the person who you know those nineties gatorade ats,
I wonder if they just like saw a platypus. Yeah,
where people are sweating gatorade. That is I like that
that it's like a platypus DNA that we would be
able to sweat gatorade to feed our young What if
platypuses are where we're heading like evolutionarily speaking, Like, what

(09:52):
if it's not that they're weird, it's just that they're
they're the answer right, Well, we'd be we'd be going back.
We'd be going back to laying eggs, know what, or
we're going forward to laying eggs. Maybe laying eggs is
very efficient. But also if you like also sweat milk
and have weird, weird bills. And here's the thing, we're

(10:14):
too smart to lay eggs. We need some sort of
um motivation to have kids. That's why sex feels good. Sure,
but eggs are delicious of our unfertilized eggs, and we
would stop propagating like you'd be like, I'm going to
keep one. Okay, there is that if we evolved to

(10:36):
have eggs again, that we would just our species would
die out because we would make omelets out of all
of our own human eggs. I mean, I don't understand
why people have kids, so this could be my not
did I'll let's stick a pin in that thought about
the end of the human race. Uh, back to the snouters.

(10:59):
Some of these species will use their okay, the fake species.
I have to keep saying fake species otherwise someone's going
to make a comment about like Katie Golden's Katie Golden
spreading lies again. Um. They sometimes use their noses like
a weird branching membrane that comes out of their nose

(11:20):
to catch fish like a net. Some have giant ears
that they flap around and fly with, and they use
their nose as a rudder to steer, and some even
have multi pronged noses that they used to walk on.
And I have very magnanimously provided you guys with pictures
of all of these interesting fake animals. Some of them

(11:41):
are some of them are probably using real animal parts
of fake taxidermy, which is cool. Some of the shrews. Yeah, well,
cryptids are always horrifying for animals, right, Like it's just
people hacking up animals we time. Yeah, yeah, often, Yeah,

(12:05):
this one's awesome. Yeah. What year I need to know though,
because of the ears and the rudder one? What year
did Dumbo come out? Oh, that's a good question. So
the book the Snatters came out in nineteen fifty seven,
Dumbo the movie came out. Now not the tim Burton,

(12:29):
damn it. No one's looking up the tim Burton. No,
so God Disney is going to sue the crap out
of this, poor Germans. Yeah so, I mean, but I
think that the whole like using using giant ears to

(12:51):
fly sort of a a classic kind of like I
think they were like these old beastiary books way in
the medieval times when they would speculate all these hilarious
things about animals of like, oh, yeah, well this animals
got bigger, so they use it to fly? Why not?
Oh yeah, oh yeah. You'd see something once and then

(13:14):
you'd commissioned an artist to draw it and be like
close enough, and then an elephant is basically just a
cow with a big nose and mad eyes. Yep. Did
you ever go to the Best Area exhibit at LACMA
It was I did. It's amazing, amazing. I love it.
I love the there's the My favorite one is the

(13:34):
cow that parts flames. What's that called? The cow? It's oh,
it's got a name an somewhere as dragon. It is
an ast dragon. I have to look up the name.
Could they possibly have named it the Bonacon? That's right? Okay, yeah,

(13:56):
Actually I think we talked about this like years ago
on the podcast The Bonacon. It's a it's a cow
that spews flames out of it. But which is funny
because there are actually like there's the Bombardier beetle that
sprays hot caustic uh chemicals out of its But oh,
was this was this medieval crazy person accidentally predicting global warming? Sure,

(14:19):
let's say that it's more fun a time traveler trying
to put global warming in a way that wouldn't get
them burned as a witch back in the day. Exactly,
it sounds right. As strange as these mythical rhino grades are,
they're really not far off from how incredible animal noses

(14:40):
can be. Take the star nosed mole who has a
multi pronged nose that looks like a mini legged starfish.
Each of these fleshy protuberances helps the blind mole since
vibrations underground to hunt down worms and insects, and as
well soon discuss there are animals who are us as
strange as what the imagination can come up with when

(15:03):
it comes to noses. Who was the first animal to
develop a sense of smell? Probably something like Lancelet, a weird,
warm like marine animal who almost looks like a fish,
but it's not quite a fish. It's sort of a
pre fish with a notochord, a bundle of nerves that

(15:25):
runs down its back instead of a spinal cord, a
mouth but no jaws, and eye spots instead of eyeballs,
and of course it's got its fair share of tentacles
around its head. They have no nose to really speak of,
but they are the most ancient animal known to have
old factory receptors smell cells that run along its body.

(15:47):
Not quite the sophistication of a pair of nostrils as
fish would develop, but starting to get there. So, guys,
I feel like when we think about fish, we don't
really think about their noses. It's no oversight I think
we think about our noses and just imagine that they
wouldn't work underwater, and kind of just assume fish don't

(16:11):
have them. Maybe. Yeah, I've definitely pictured a fish with
a human nose before. Just for fun, I texted you
a photo of a star nose small by the way,
because they look like they exploded. Yeah, they look like
they had a cartoon cigar, Yes, a cartoon exploding cigar

(16:32):
and it burst their face or they ran too fast
into a wall and its smoothed their their nose. I
used to beg my parents for one. Um, oh, yeah,
they can just get you a star nosemall. Yeah, I'm sure,
I'm sure it's fine. They were holding out on you. Yeah,
but yeah, no, we don't think about fish having noses.
I mean, like you said, like if we tried to

(16:53):
breathe or smell underwater, we couldn't. We would drown. H
And yeah, I mean thinking about out of fish with
a human nose, by the way, that I feel like
that is my sleep paralysis demon, just like the nose
standing over me. We have found a way to come
to land. Now we will drag you underwater. But you know,

(17:17):
fish do have nostrils. You've seen a fish, You've seen
a couple of little little nostril holes. Uh, And they do,
in fact smell out of those those little nose holes.
So smell is actually a really important since for a
fish because they have to use it to hunt for
food or to avoid predation. But you know, for most fish,

(17:40):
it's just like a couple of little nostril holes. And
we are going to talk about a fish who does
not go for subtlety when it comes to their face parts.
So a unicorn fish is exactly what it sounds like.
It's a real life unicorn in the form of a
tropical fish who lives in the Indo Pacific Ocean. So

(18:01):
this is also known as a nasal fish, which I
think I like unicorn fish better. They are a genus
of fish species with what looks like a long quote nose,
So it's technically not a nose. It is a rostral protruberance,
which isn't I like that rostral protuberance. It's a fleshy

(18:22):
horn extension of their forehead. But it looks like the
fish has a dangle nose. It really does. Yeah, it
looks like a fish with a with a dainty as
nose here, very long, very long, dainty nose. Yeah, like
a long, thin nose, very serious looking fish. The fish

(18:47):
looks offended, right, it looks snooty. And maybe I think
it is because of the nose. It's like when once
you have a nose to look down on it, I
feel like you kind of look snody. Yeah, the fish
looks like I'm met at the fish for having more
money than me. Yeah, and I don't think I don't

(19:08):
think that's accurate, but I want to rob the fish.
It looks like Mr Burns. It looks like Mr Burns does. Yeah,
it absolutely does. These fish range from tan coloration to
cool colors like purpleish pink blue. Sometimes they're white. Sometimes
they have fetching little red freckles and blue lipstick. So

(19:31):
that nose really isn't a nose at all. It serves
no nasal function and it is not attached to their nostrils.
So unicornfish is very accurate title it is. It's just
a fleshhorn coming out of their forehead. So I do
want to go into a bit about why fish don't
have human noses, Like have you ever asked yourself that question? Like, Hey,

(19:53):
why don't a fish just have a nose like I have.
You know, they just have these little nostrils, but they
never have like a full on human humanoid nose. They don't.
They don't. They also like don't have any kind of
mammalian nose. They don't have like a cat nose or
a dog nose like a cow knows. I know, now

(20:14):
it's cute. It's because it's horrifying. What it's a human nose?
Why is that? It's like a human nose on a
fish frightens and confuses me. But like a cat knows
on a fish, it's cute. Now. I would argue that
a fleshy human nose on any animal would be frightening, right,
there's no animal that would be improved by a human nose. Well,
it's it's the same reason a lot of cryptics are

(20:35):
human parts on animals, that it horrifies us to come
face to face with the fact that we're just animals
and to put ourselves onto other species. The idea that
maybe someone down the line had sex with an animal,
I think you're thinking more into it than people who
come up. I'm not sure anyone. I think that might

(20:57):
be a youth thing. Dave okay, ok of make a note,
but yeah, it's very uncanny valley once she starts sticking
human parts on an animal. There was a children's book
that I'm just remembering right now where it was like
about these cats, cat like creatures that would walk on

(21:17):
their hind legs, but for whatever reason, the artists decided
to give them full on human noses, and it scared
the dickens out of me. Nightmares. That's freaking When walks
on her hind legs, it already freaks me up. She
walks through the house on her hind legs, just how
do you? How do humans? Yeah, just casually on her

(21:39):
way to the litter box, like just a little rolled
up newspaper under tucked under her arms, just like gott
to keep up with the world affairs, little cat newspaper
the news. Let's check out the muse for today. L
O L perfect. But so fish, why don't they have noses?

(22:03):
What the heck? Are they just too good for noses?
Because they have nostrils. Well, so, the nose does a
lot of great work in protecting us in our terrestrial environment,
and it is we actually use our noses for breathing,
and it's connected to our lungs and throat, and so
it's important to filter out air impurities with these little

(22:25):
hairs inside of our noses, as well as to heat
up the air before it hits our lungs. And I'll
go into more detail about that later. But fish, on
the other hand, do not use their nostrils to breathe.
It's just to smell. So the they're basically like pumping
water in and out of their nostrils just to capture

(22:45):
some smells with their old factory receptors, whereas their breathing
is done through their mouth and their guilts, So they
pump water in through their mouth and then through their gills.
So yeah, then there those little nostrils really have nothing
to do with breathing, just for sniff in the water.
So you're saying, I'm a fish, Are you a mouth breather?

(23:07):
I can't. My nose is just decorative at this point.
It's I can't smell anything allergy. It's yeah, I I
apparently you can't say I lost my sense of smell anymore.
People freak out, but that COVID Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
I just fine. I lost it like five years ago.
That said, I mean having the ability to breathe separately

(23:30):
than smell is would be a godsend, right, Yeah, you
kidding for the bad smells. I'm very sensitive to smells,
and sometimes I like get close to passing out because
I just refused to breathe when there's a bad smell. Yeah. Yeah,
it's just like I don't want the bad smells in
in in my face, inside my nose. You know, it

(23:52):
can be so strong you can almost taste it because
they're exactly and like breathing through your mouth can help
a little bit. Then it's just like, now the bad
poop smells are getting in my mouth and I don't
like that. I don't like that idea at all. Yeah,
it would be nice to be a fish then, so
you get to just poop in the water and not
and forget about it. Yeah, and the farts just go

(24:14):
straight up right exactly exactly. Let the let the terrestrial
creatures deal with our fart. Do you fit sleep fish fart?
I don't know. I don't really think they do all
that much. I know manities fart like a lot which
are which are mammals, and they eat a lot of
a lot of vegetation, a lot of fiber and they

(24:34):
actually use their farts to be able to manage their
their floating. But it's a good question. I don't really
think fish fish fart that much, if at all, they're
missing out. So generally speaking, when fish have a a
nose like structure, like you see a fish and it's

(24:55):
got like a protuberance that looks like a nose, chances
are it has nothing to do with it being an
actual nose. It's probably just a rostrum or a fleshy
extension that has nothing to do with their actual nostrils,
or or like sort of old factory system, which is
exactly the case with the uniform cornfish. Despite having this

(25:16):
very mr burns like nose, it's not a nose. It's
just it's just a horn. And here's the thing. I
don't think researchers necessarily does what what it's for. I
have a guess, Yeah, what do you think to creep
out predators Like predators are just like, oh no, I'm
not eating that. I don't know, I'm not exactly sure
what that is. They look at them head on and

(25:38):
it's like I'm gonna eat this fish, and then the
fish turns and profile like oh oh, I don't like that.
You know, are there is there a species that survives
based on creeping out other species? I mean besides humans.
I mean, they're sure there's a lot of defensive behaviors

(25:58):
that are meant to spook off predators. But in terms
of like like there are butterflies or caterpillars that have
these big I spots meant to scare predators. In terms
of just like creeping them out, they are like some
caterpillars and spiders that look like poop. So you know,

(26:19):
I guess that's at putting right exactly. Yeah, that's that
seems to make the most sense in the animal kingdom.
I just like the idea of a certain one that
the predators just like mm hmm. Yeah, you're just unsettling. Yeah,
I don't know, I don't know what's going on with you,
like a deer that has human hands and and just

(26:40):
the predators like, I mean, I don't wanna, right, it's
not like an actual threat to me, but no things. Yeah,
if you're really hungry, you'll eat everything, but the hands
probably also just like unicorns, these unicorn fish are apparently

(27:02):
very tasty. Yeah. Nice, You just have to get past
the idea of eating a fish with a human nose again,
it's it's I think that's how it would work, right,
Like if someone slapped this on your plate, like served
it to you, you'd be like, no, thanks, Like I
don't see this a lot at restaurants, I assume. I mean, yeah,

(27:27):
I've I've never eaten a unicorn fish. I think i'd
remember we don't live near where they are. Yeah, but
i'd have to assume you have to like start children
on unicorn fish, young gir els. They're not gonna yeah,
because it's like eating a Simpsons character, Like they look
like a Simpsons character that the profile is. I mean,

(27:49):
it's so Simpson's esk. It's weird. It's like it's like
a cartoon face. If if people haven't looked it up,
definitely look it up. It's like I don't know like
if I was. This is why I don't go in
the ocean. First of all, I don't go in the um.
And it's not because the sharks. Is because of things
like this or like crabs. When it's like, oh, yeah,

(28:11):
the ocean has like ocean spiders and nose fish, it's like, no,
I don't need to be in there. I don't need
to be amongst that. Most of the crabs are in
the sand. Yeah, that's even worse. I'd love to just
like sort of why lay at the bottom of the ocean.
Just let all of them crawl over me, you know,

(28:32):
use my body as a playground. Where is pods? Deep
sea is so pods and crabs and see spiders get
all you know, it's gonna be fun. Tickles, It's lots
of tickles on the bottom of the ocean. Well, I
can't go to the next section without mentioning the sawfish.

(28:54):
So the sawfish are found all over the world in
tropical and subtropical waters. They are a species of ray,
so rays are related to sharks and manta raise and
the sawfish have a long, flat rostrum. So again, the
rostrum is that pointy uh, sort of like fleshy protuberance

(29:20):
from their head, which is not a nose but looks
quite a bit like a nose. Uh. And for the sawfish,
their rostrum is flat with chainsaw like teeth all the
way around it, just like a chainsaw. Hot. Yeah, what
what's happened? What's what? What's their problem? Like? What is

(29:43):
this coming in? Hot? With the judgments are sorry, like what,
what's their deal? Why isn't there more animals like this?
Just them? It sounds like you're saying, what's all of
our problem for not having a face? Chainsaw? Actually honest
kind of yeah, yeah, well you know, I guess uh

(30:05):
like different strokes for different folks is when it comes
to evolution. Um, So it really does look like you
stuck as sideways chainsaw onto sort of a flattened shark.
And there is a purpose of for this thing. Um.
First of all, so those teeth all the way around
the rostrum, you might wonder like, well, how did teeth

(30:26):
get over there? And that is a correct concern because
they aren't really teeth. They're not teeth like you would
find in your mouth. They are actually hardened dermal denticles.
So I dentical is a toothlike projection. So it can
be like a fleshy projection often found in marine animals.

(30:48):
But it can be fleshy, it can also be very hard,
which is the case for sawfish. Sharks also have a
lot of denticles on their skin, usually microscopic denticles. It's
what gives their skin this sort of harsh sand papery
feel um. But for the sawfish, they are these rather
large denticles that are hard and they look like teeth,

(31:09):
but they're technically not like mouth mouth teeth. They're not
mouth bones. So they can actually grow to be quite large,
up to about seven and a half meters, which is
about twenty five ft, which let a lot of people
back in the day, back in olden times, to think
that the sawfish would use its face saw to chop

(31:29):
people up and eat them. Mhm. I feel like it's
reasonable to think that if you came across this you
might never want to go into the ocean again. I
don't know if that's the case for you, or if
it's just New England not just oceans. Like, there's nothing
in the ocean that makes me want to go in
the ocean. We're just breezing. Pass the word denticles here,

(31:51):
dental tentacles. Yeah, dental tent tentacles. That's wonderful. What word
it is a good word, isn't it? I love it?
Dur so dermal denticles because that just means skin, skin bumps,
but you know, dermal denticles. Yeah, I mean, like I
love the idea of like some olden times, like because

(32:12):
you know, back in the day, people couldn't just go
scuba diving all the time. So you had this like
old fashioned scuba suit, you know, with a big, big
diving helmet. And this guy comes back up after his
adventure and they're like, well, what's it like down in
the ocean. He's like, yeah, ocean swall of chainsaws. It
was like, yep, yep, sharks, sharks have chainsaws. What's a chainsaw? Well,

(32:36):
you don't even know. You just need to know. Sharks
got him, and we can't go back in. Yeah, never
going back in because when you see one of these,
there's always I'm sure this how sea monsters happen. It's
like you see something like this and you're not even
sure if it's the adult or baby. Where it's like
do these get any bigger? Hey, how would you know? Yeah?
Giants squids are some of the few um cryptids to

(32:58):
be proven real because you describe that people are like no,
no dinner plates, right, and yeah, they can grow up
to be a healthy size there, you know, they're healthy boys.
They get pretty big. So the saw is not used
to chop up people or even to chop up large

(33:20):
marine animals. Humans are actually too big for sawfish to eat,
but the saw is used for hunting, so they can
use this saw to locate prey because like we're talking
about earlier, Hannah, Uh, they have electro receptors in it.
So there are these tiny bulbs used by sharks and

(33:42):
by these sawfish in there basically in their snout area.
For for the sawfish, it's in this the chainsaw nos area.
But these tiny bulbs used for electro reception are called
the ampule of Lorenzini, which I want. So I don't

(34:06):
know what champion is, probably Lauren. I think lauren Zini
probably named them, like, these are the ampule of me, Laurens.
That's what I want named after me? Actually kind of
that's something, right, yeah, actually leave your mark on the world. Yeah,

(34:28):
but yeah, So they these these little receptors can detect
electrical signals fish make as their muscles move. So every
time your muscles moving, even every time you think there
are there is a very faint electrical signal that is
released um and that can be detected by sharks in general,

(34:48):
and by this sawfish through its cool chainsaw noves. It
is probably the coolest fish, right, sure? He has lots
of cool fish. I mean, what counts as a fish,
because as far as I could tell, scientifically, the word

(35:10):
fish has no right. There was a whole thing about that,
like cuttlefish are fish. That fish is like a weird Yeah,
cuttlefish are mollusks. Yeah, fish is. It's similar to when
we talk about reptiles. It's kind of a weird classification. Yeah,
I mean, but we call jellyfish fish. We just we

(35:31):
just throw that so casually, Yeah, I would say if
the name is fish, like, if it has fish in
the name, that's maybe a lie. My rule is always
that if it's got like a vertical tail and gills,
then it's probably some sort of fish, like if I
saw it in the ocean, which I would never go into.
But if it's got like a horizontal, floppy tail and

(35:51):
like some sort of hole for air, then I'm sometimes
but sometimes it's a but sometimes it's an amphibian. Sure, gotcha,
boom roasted nice broad strokes, oh boy. Yeah. Like basically, yeah,

(36:12):
I mean like fish, And yeah, we do call a
lot of things like jellyfish fish. Jellyfish are not fish.
But yeah, in general, I think Dave, that is a
good call like, if it's got gills, if it's got
either cartilage or bones, uh, you know at least a notochord,
If not a spine, then it's a fish. If it's

(36:33):
made out of google like a jellyfish, it's not a fish.
If it's just all goo, or if it's all squish
like a like a cuttlefish, it's not a fish. That
that is actually you know they're related to squid and
and octopuses. Um. But these sawfish are indeed fish, just
like just like sharks are sharks is fish um. Whereas

(36:56):
as we know, whales are not fish because they are
confused mammals who went back inside the ocean. Perfect yeah
their failure mammals right like their mammals, Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah,
Like I just worship dolphins so much. Yeah, they just
decided to hold their bravery time. Ye. Why do we

(37:20):
think they're so smart? It's just insulation, it's brain insulation.
They get cold. Speaking of weird noses, they move their
nose to like the top of their heads. Weirdos, right, weirdos. Yeah.
So the sawfish right, who who's not a nose but
rostrum nose like saw deely? Yeah, can detect fish with

(37:46):
the electro reception. It also has a more sinister use,
which is smacking prey, so it does kind of use
it like a sauce, So it's not they don't really
slice and dice up prey like a saw wood. It
doesn't rotate and like make little little noises like an
actual saw. Um m m. Sorry, yeah, it's more like

(38:09):
well like you get like all around your your rostering. Yeah,
it doesn't quite. That would be fun like a little
like serving little or derves at like a fish party,
and it's got all or derves all all around. I
like that, but not probably not really not in reality,
you liar. But yeah, I mean it's more just like

(38:33):
it smacks them hard and it stuns them. Probably just
startles them more than anything, because this thing comes out
of nowhere with a software face. And then once they've
smacked them and incapacitated, and then they get to chomp
them up with their actual mouth, uh and and they
can use it for defense against predators or people who
are silly enough to like pick up a sawfish and

(38:55):
be like, hey, look Martha found sawfish, and then it's
gonna cut you because you know, yeah, while they don't
prey on people. They don't hunt people. They will like
smack you if you It's get everything about this species
is telling us not to do that. Feel like if
you do that, it seems just generally good for them

(39:16):
to have a saw on their face, Like it's not
one use it's just look, we got a saw on
our face. We're gonna use it the way we're going
to use it. Right. Well, are they evolving you think
so that they can be a chainsaw when organic chainsaw?
You think that's the goal. Maybe speak for them. I
can't speak for them, but I'm sure they are like

(39:38):
some sawfish like going around like slapping their slapping their
rosterrom going like we get some batteries in this baby,
get some you get a motor going, and now we're
cooking with gas. Now we'll see who's the apex predator
trying to unseek great white sharks. Yeah. All they need

(39:59):
then is like a huge woman knows some human hands,
a hockey, a hockey mask, a hockey man, sure, a
little hockey mask. Someone someone make a cryptid some maniacs stuff.
One of these fish. Would the would the Jason origin

(40:22):
story of the sawfish be that someone like beached beach
didn't turned into a ghost underwater, because isn't it Like
with Jason movies, it's like he was drowned as a child.
He drowned, but not really uh. And in the first
movie it was his mom who killed all the people,
and then in the second one he gets his mother's

(40:44):
head and it turns out he hadn't drowned. And then
I think in the sixth one, Tommy Jarvis um drowns
him successfully in the lake and then he stuck down
there until a tele kinetic powers of Tina Shepherd resurrects him.
If you wanted to know this, why would because there's

(41:06):
so many scary things. So yeah, in this version, the
fish would be um on the land. The fish would
be yeah, beached right. You know, there's something to be
scared of. The only time I touched the jellyfish, it
was a condom. It's I mean, that's something that scared of.
I guess it's creepy in there. It's been a long time.

(41:31):
It doesn't want it. You can't even drink the water
like it's it's you don't It doesn't want us. It's
literally trying to push us out of it all the time.
That's just wave after wave of the ocean, like get out,
get out? What's not what's not inviting about? Like saw
face fish and likes fish? Yeah, really fostering a welcoming environment, yeah.

(41:57):
Seeweed tangling your ankles. Yeah, just give me a little tickle,
something brushes up against you, Just a little tickle. High there,
it's a perfect I got a software nose. Hither Why
are fish and reptiles satisfied with nostrils while mammals go

(42:17):
all out for noses? It actually comes down mainly to thermoregulation.
Reptiles and other cold blooded animals are ectotherms who rely
on their environment to thermo regulate, like sitting in the
sun or shade. Mammals and coincidentally birds as well, are
warm blooded or endotherms and rely on internal body regulation

(42:41):
to keep our temperature steady. Endotherms have more rapid metabolisms
and must breathe the faster while making sure our internal
body temperature is warm but not too warm and not
too cold. So our noses actually perform a very important
function and air conditioner heat or purified and humidifier all

(43:01):
in one. Breathing quickly means that without a humidifier, we
would lose a lot of our internal moisture. So our
noses have structures called turbinates, bony protrusions. Bony protrusions covered
in a mucus membrane. The cilia hairs and mucus membrane
captures air as it passes and moistens it warms it

(43:24):
or cools it and purifies it so once it reaches
the sensitive tissues of our lungs, it's gone through a
whole premium treatment to make it suitable for our bodies.
When we return, we're going to discover even more uses
for noses other than sniffing and conditioning air and folks,
it's batty. The joke is, we're actually we're gonna we're

(43:44):
gonna talk about bats. We're gonna talk about bats. We'll
be our bat Belts are mostly known for their incredible
ability to echolocate, sending out clicks and re seeving spatial
information based on the echoes they get back, but not

(44:04):
all bats rely all that much on echolocation, such as
the mega bat. Fruit bats larger bats who like to
munch on tasty fruit all day, and bats aren't really blind,
they have functional eyes. It's just the bats who fly
dark night skies or hunt at night rely on their
echolocation much more than their eyesight. And while it may

(44:26):
not seem obvious, bat noses are some of the most
fascinating honkers in the animal kingdom. So we're gonna talk
about bat noses what everyone's been waiting for. Yeah, So, like,
I feel like this is bringing it back full circle
to the rhino grades, the fake like weird true mice

(44:48):
with the huge noses that they walk on or like
fly with their ears and stuff. Because like bats are
basically as incredible as like what this zoo all just
came up with in terms of like the diversity of
noses and uses for the noses. It's really incredible. Um. So,

(45:10):
you know, bats are mostly known for their sonar, but
they also use their noses in ways that are really important.
So some bats actually even use their noses in echolocation.
So they can echolocate with like their mouth or their
tongue or their throat, but they can also echolocate using
their nose basically as like a resonance chamber to send

(45:34):
out clicks like a megaphone. But they also have incredible
diversity in terms of like the shapes that noses come
in and the functions that they do. So one really
cool example is how vampire bats use their nose. So
they use those large upturn sort of like like pointy
shaped nose, uh to literally feel for heat coming off

(45:58):
of the blood pumping through their hosts. Arteries. Oh, it's creeps.
That's crazy. It looks like they're gently nuzzling their their
host like they'll be on like cow leg and you'll
see them kind of like sniffing around sort of nuzzling
with their nose. But it's really they're hunting down to

(46:20):
find where that tasty vein is so that they can
think in and get get some nice blood. Can you
switch tabs? I just want to see that nose one
more time? Did we know that? Okay, that's vagina. Sorry,
that's not that's not that's not the vampire. But let
me get a vampire bat. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, that's okay,
it's it's coming that with a vagina face. I'm sorry.

(46:46):
I actually find no, it's very funny. Uh No, I
actually think vampire bats are super super cute. Oh yeah,
did you write they have such cute little faces. Yeah,
they just want some blood. Give them my blood? Yeah?

(47:09):
Do they When we called them vampire bats, was it
just because they drink blood? Uh? Did we know at
the time that they apparently can sniff out blood like
a vampire would too, Like that's really vampiric of them
to be like I can sense your blood with my nose. Weird, right,
as if vampires are maybe actually real and the FBI

(47:33):
is just trying to keep us from finding out the truth. Yeah,
I mean they are real. There are people with an
issue that makes them obsessed with drinking blood, and there
are also people who react really badly to sunlight because
they have a condition. All of these things affect humans.
They're just very rare and often psychological, right. And then

(47:54):
there are people who dress up like bats to fight crime, right,
that's true life people who do that. Yes, But the
vampire bet noses actually have these like little tiny pores
in their nose that are these they're called pit organs,
and they're these like little uh thermo sensory organs that

(48:17):
can like actually detect heat coming out of it, and
so they can detect It's sort of like you know
how sometimes doctors have that vein finder. It's like this
thing that can can show you where the vein is,
so they can if someone's got hard to see veins
in their arm, they can give you injections more easily.
It's like that, except they use it to drink your bed.

(48:38):
Little cuties, little stinkers. They're very cute. If I wasn't
afraid of the specific picture that you posted, he looks like, uh,
like someone just threw a surprise birthday party. Like he's
a five year old boy and they've surprised him with
a birthday party. Is it's a bunch of this yeah,

(49:02):
right right, Like if rabies wasn't an issue, I would
totally volunteer to get my blood sucked by one of
these keys. Um. But yeah, if you throw a surprise
party for like a vampire bat, it's it's just like
a bunch of cow legs that are bleeding. It's like, oh,
you shouldn't have so cute. Um, so cute. But vampire

(49:24):
bats are not the only bats with a interesting specialized nose.
I can't There are so many different bat noses. I
if I talked about every bat nos this, it would
be the whole podcast for the rest of all known
time and space. And I can't do that. I simply can't,
but I beg you please look up just like google

(49:45):
bat noses and admire the bat noses. Is there one
with human nose? There one with a human nose? Yeah? Um,
depends on what your definition of human noses, like a
fleshy human nose, like a no, well not quite no,
I would say no. I would say, uh no, but

(50:08):
they have like mc esure drawing noses, like a puzzle
of a nose horseshoe. Bats use their noses for really
interesting things, so they have, uh, these incredibly strange nose
structures that it looks like a weird m c esure drawing.

(50:30):
Maybe a little bit uh, Georgio o'keef hannas you were
saying earlier, a little slightly slightly Georgio keep asked, I
would say, you know, slightly, Uh, I could have been
reading into it. Well, look, you know that it's got
a lot of interesting folds and things in shape and stuff.

(50:51):
So they are shaped so interestingly because these folds and
flaps and in beautiful nose structures can help focus sound frequencies,
so they can specifically focus their sonar better, which really
it's like it seems to defy physics, these noses and

(51:18):
I love them. And then there's also the sword nose bat,
which is that a sword on your nose? Are you
just happy to see me? I say to the bat
trying to deduce a bat? Anyways, Yeah, they have they
have a dang sword on their face. It's just a

(51:38):
big long sword. It's a genus bats or a genus Yeah,
I know, right, congratulations big nose energy. Uh you know
how much fun we would have with swords on our
faces or like horns. I guess if we had like
a unicorn horn, it would yeah, we would. I we

(52:00):
would either be having a blast or we wouldn't exist
anymore because we would all died out stabbing each other
with our horns. Right, but like we wouldn't invent I'd
use it to change the channel. Oh yeah, I'd use
it to change the channel and my television remote sensible
chuckle weekly Um No, I mean we would definitely. We

(52:24):
would definitely sword fight ourselves to death, wouldn't we If
we had face swords, we'd we'd have like we'd have
to cork them. People would be sharpening them, you know,
like real edge lords would be like sharpening their their horns.
I mean they would have to grow during puberty because
you can't give birth to that and that is the
worst time to start having a hord. Yeah. Now, luckily

(52:49):
for these bats, uh, these nose, these sword noses are
actually not sharp. They're not hard, They're flappy there. It's like,
you know, like a kid ear kind of looks like
it's a sharp point, but you poke it into flippity
floppy like that. Yeah. So, uh, they are a genus
about species that looks like they have a long blade

(53:10):
coming out of the tops of their noses. It's longer
than their entire head. So it's quite impressive. Uh. They
are found in South and Central America, and they are
insectivores like a lot of bats. Uh, and so insectivore
of bat species, sonar is really important to them for hunting,
to be able to find those little insects at night.
And so these bats have a bat hunting technique known

(53:34):
as aerial hawking. So aerial hawking just sort of like
the bird the hawk is a technique where the bat
catches insects midflight. And because they need to do this,
having super precise, really strong echolocation skills is super important
and there is a research on there these interesting noses,

(53:56):
and they are finding that this is likely an adaptation
and to be able to use more precise echolocations. So
research seems to suggest that the rainforest canopy environment that
they live in requires them to have adaptive sonar that
allows them to precisely target prey at long distances, even

(54:16):
though there's a lot of stuff, like a lot of
sort of extra stuff and and noise going on inside
of their forest environment. And then also that this sonar
is so precise that they can actually detect the glinting
echolocation off of an insect's beating wings. So like they
hit like imagine just like you kind of glance off

(54:38):
of a moths beating wing and you know where it is.
It's amazing, that's pretty that's impressive. Batman, they're like that
makes sense. Well, they're they're like man bat, you know,
bat bat, they're they're bat bats. The bats, they're bats.
They're just bats, all right. It doesn't have to be
a man all the time. They seem to be having

(55:03):
a great time, right, Like has there been like there's
not like a kid's cartoon about the world of bats. No,
but it feels like it would be a lot of fun. Yeah,
like the Zack Snyder Owl movie. But the Guardians, the Guardiens,
have you seen that, it's a real bummer. It turns

(55:25):
out Owl's lives are a real bummer. But I feel
like bats are having a great time. Just sore and
you're sniffing sniffing out things with the weird sonar and there.
I mean, your life would be honestly, Yeah, it's a
bonus that technically hnah, it's not poop. They are pellets
and they are distinct waste material. That's yeah. I think

(55:49):
they're having a pretty good time because like they're they're
like bat society is surprisingly chilled, Like they're pretty social
and they're don't really fight that much. They are you know,
maybe they'll have the occasional squabble, but they really don't
attack each other munch. They they don't. Which is they do?

(56:12):
They do communal upbringing of young and they help out
new new mother bats and also guys, the the male
bats will give the females oral sex just as much
as the females give the males oral sex. Yeah, bat
society is great. Bats are having a great time, a

(56:33):
great time. And the last bat I want to talk
about one of my favorite bats. I just love them
so much. They're called the hammer head bats, and I
have covered these on the show before on our Bats episode,
but I think they deserve an encore, especially on this
nose episode, because they have such impressive honkers. And I

(56:55):
really do mean honkers, because they honk with them. So.
They are large bats found in West and Central Africa,
and they are the largest bat on continental Africa, with
a wingspan of up to one meters or about three feet.
They eat fruit and they don't use that much sonar,
just like a lot of other fruit bats that don't

(57:16):
really need it to hunt because fruit does not generally
move around all that much. You can just swoop down
there and get it. But still, the males have this
impressively large and chalky nose. It looks like someone glued
a boombox to their faces. I want you guys to
go and appreciate the hammer head bat, Like, right now,

(57:36):
I have a picture of it. You've got to look
at it. The last one right that looks it looks
like a Simpsons character. It looks like, yeah, it's adorable,
it's so cute, right, Yeah, I want to boop the nose.
The nose must be booped. It's an interesting thing, right,

(57:56):
because they don't really need to use much echolocation. What's
with a big fancy knows uh? And it is used
to seduce the ladies, just like a boom box. They
used this box like nose as a residence chamber to honk.
Sexual honking the best part of right. They can do

(58:20):
up to a hundred and twenty honks a minute. That
is a lot of honks. That's two honks a second, right, math, Sure, look,
I can't do math. I'll just trust whatever numbers you say.
But I think so right, Yes, sixty seconds in a minute.
A hundred twenty honks a minute would mean yeah, you're

(58:43):
right too. Hanks a second? Whoa, That means I did math.
Congratulation that means you did math. Oh my god, but
you win the award for best at Math on this podcast.
So when I say honk, you probably kind think of
it as like a goose honk. But the bat honking

(59:04):
sounds a lot more like an alien abduction than like
a car honk or a goose honk. So take a
listen to this, you guys. To be honest, I was,
I was hoping for a goose honk sounds like you

(59:26):
know sweaky hammers, those squeaky hammers that you like. Yeah,
I was hoping for a real like or like a
truck honk. Yeah, like like something just really disruptive. I
mean that's cool too. That sounds they make, that's what
humans used to seduce ladies, and it is really disruptive

(59:47):
of our lives. I want like one of those personalized honks,
like one of those horns that you get on a
car that's like, yes, every time you honk, but no,
it is the alien sounds. In fact, like people who
have to live near these bats often find them to
be quite a nuisance because of all these like alien

(01:00:07):
honks that keep going on every night, all night, all
the time, horny baths making lots of noise. I mean,
I love them. I think they're cute, but I suppose
I could imagine if you're trying to sleep every time
every night and then you just hear a bunch of
horny baths going like hey hey, hey, hey hey, it's annoying.
Oh yeah, do they live? Where do they live? They

(01:00:28):
live in western Central Africa? Oh okay, so not the
same place as how their monkeys. Thank god that there
are parts of the world's where the screams of horny
animals are the vein of humans trying to sleep. Oh yeah,
I mean, like if you live near coyotes and foxes,

(01:00:49):
that's certainly true. We do, but we don't hear them
that much. They're they're good about it. They're polite, Yeah,
I think. Uh, I think that's a that's something that
an animal has to learn, right, is to have I
feel like, if they're too loud, then we'll just show
up and start killing. Yeah, I'm sorry, you want to
mate too loud. So they have to be polite if

(01:01:10):
they're near unless they can fly like these bets. Like,
if if they have too much of a nuisance to kill,
then they're just going to annoy it. This is why
parrots exist because they can fly away at any point. Yeah,
they can. It's like that's why they're the only talking animal.

(01:01:31):
They get to insult us and then fly away. Exactly.
We're like, I always thought it was the correct vessel
for Jello Biafra's voice to come out of was a parent.
He sounds like a human parrot. He does, he really does.
That's the that's the correct version of his voice. Who
is wait, sorry, repeated lead singer of Dead Kennedy. Are

(01:01:52):
you a Dead Kennedy's fan, Katie, I'm sorry. I don't
listen to music. I just listen. I don't no music.
I only listened to like horny animal sounds. That's my music.
The leader of the Dead Kenny's kind of sounds like
a horny animal. Sound like his voice seems like it
would come out of some kind of animal. Definitely, Like

(01:02:14):
if you can't imagine how a parrot would sing about
I might like the Dead Kennedy's then if it sounds
like a horny animal, I'll like it. Oh yeah, you'll
love it. Yeah. Well, you guys, I think we've gone
through every nose in the world. We did. We did

(01:02:34):
every nose, every single one, a complete collection of noses.
Thank you guys so much for joining me on on
this this nasal adventure. So hey, you got anything to plug?
Doesn't have to be about noses, could be anything anything
you want to plug. Yeah, where we are going to
because we're getting our stuff together, have a podcast about

(01:02:57):
crypti It's called Cryptibits and it will be awesome. We
don't know when it's coming out. We're really organized over here.
And and I definitely did not settle Dave with yet
another podcast which he already had too many. Um, yeah,
that's coming out. I I'm assuming by munch March. Um

(01:03:18):
it'll be on Gamefully Unemployees Network. That's me and Tom
Ryman's podcast and streaming network. If people are interested, they
can go to gamefully Uh no, sorry, they can go
to patreon dot com slash Gamefully Unemployed and see all
our stuff there. We have exclusive podcasts. We watch movies
with people every Friday night. So yeah, it's fun. Check

(01:03:41):
it out. Thank you guys so much for listening. If
you enjoyed the show, please leave rating or review. I
read all of them. They all warm my cold little
fish heart. And if you are interested in asking a
question or just getting in touch with me sending me
pictures of your pets, please send your emails to create
your future product gmail dot com. You can also find

(01:04:01):
me online at Creature feature Pot on Instagram, at Creature
feet Pot on Twitter. That's f t e et then
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(01:04:22):
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