March 5, 2024 • 57 mins
On today's show I subject my guest to a gauntlet of strange oddities, and he (and you) must guess whether these are animals, minerals, vegetables, or something else entirely...
Guest: DJ Danl
Footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rRUT2Ywx6B9XF-1SyNJ8lxVyLX94eY2n06FjiE4x-O8/edit?usp=sharing
Mystery animal sound credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMwAgft_kZ8
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show, we are playing a little game.
This is a fun, fresh and funky new format for
the show. We're gonna play a game of whether it's
(00:27):
an animal, a mineral plant, or fun guy. I am
giving my guests a bunch of pictures and he will
describe them to you in detail, in disgusting, porous detail,
and you can play along too. I will have links
Tobby's images in the show notes, or you can just
(00:48):
form a mental picture from our words, from our word
paintings that we paint, and we will go through this
and my guest will have to try to guess is
it an animal, a mineral plant, a fungi or something else.
Entirely Joining me today is friend of the show producer
(01:09):
at iHeart Radio. He does so many things. I don't
really even know where to start, uh, DJ Danel.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Welcome, Katie, happy to be back. Thank you so much
for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm just gonna have you plug everything at the end
because I can't. I don't even know how. There's so
many things. You you have your hands and so many pies.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
There's lots of pies. My fingers are sticky and disgusting
at this point. Very stick Yeah. I've over the years
touched many pies and am therefore again very sticky.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
If you've listened to a podcast or eaten a pie,
chances are there's germs from Danel on it.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I do love pie.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, pie is good.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I love pie. Pie is good, savory or something great both.
I mean, if I had to pick one, actually, damn,
I was about to just pop off an answer, but
now that I'm think about it, it's really hard to say.
I was very lucky enough to travel to Australia a
couple of times, and eating savory meat pies in Australia
is just on another level. They just hit so differently.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
There used to be an Australian pie savory pie shop
in Los Angeles. I think they may have moved, which
is really sad because it was incredible, absolutely incredible, just fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Really are I love?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I think I like a savory pie. I think I'm
sort of a you know, fifteenth century noble. I like
a savory pie. So today we are talking about some
things that may look like maybe they belong in a
savory pie. Hard to tell. These are images, and it
(02:54):
is up to you, Daniel, to try to guess what
it is. It could be an animal, a mineral, a plant,
fung guy, something else.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I'm already confused, or rather not confused, but like I'm
looking at these pictures and I'm just I know that
I'm going to be surprised. I know I'm going to
be enchanted, and i know I'm going to have a
new fear at some point.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I'd also like you to answer the question of whether
you would eat.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
This thing gladly? Oh man, glad.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
So let's get right into it. Let's start with the
very first image the candidate number one. Great, First, I
want you to describe this image to the audience.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Sure, okay, audience. I want you to imagine, you know,
you've ever seen a huge strawberry that looks really amorphous. Now,
just like double the amount of amorphousness of that weird strawberry.
Make that strawberry white, and you've got kind of what
we're looking at here. You know, it's just like kind
(03:56):
of like a It looks like a globule but also
has a pretty defined shape. It looks like it has
tiny seeds on it and it's currently sitting or the
image has it sitting on a bit of wet sand.
So a white, ghastly kind of looking giant globule strawberry
little dots of look like seeds and all sitting on
(04:16):
some sand.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay, that was beautiful. That was like you you're like
Monet with your words. You know, when strawberries like are
weird and they're like a double strawberry or even a
triple strawberry. That's actually something called fasciation. It happens in
plants when they have basically sort of a situation where
(04:40):
there is this like extra growth where like this basically
the plant like stem cells are telling it like grow
that thing. But again over here it's really interesting. Yeah,
so yeah, this does kind of look like a white
mutant strawberry totally, but it is already amorphous. It's blobule
(05:04):
and it has these sort of like light tan speckles
on it. Yeah, kind of like strawberry skin. It's it's interesting.
Would you eat this danile?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
First of all, absolutely, Okay, I'm looking at this thing.
It looks like a laffy taffy that washed up on
the shore. I might look around, dunk it in the
water real quick and then chow down. Looks like it
would be delish. And if I had to guess, I
had to Is it time to guess?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Are there more time to do it?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Okay? Cool? Cool? Cool cool? If I had to guess,
And I'm trying to use some context clues here, looking
at like that, it looks like it's something that washed
up on the shore. So I'm like, it could be
a plant, it could be an animal. I think I'm
gonna go. I'm gonna go animal.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You are absolutely correct, Congratulations, Yes, this is an animal.
It certainly is a strange looking one. Yes, this is
something called a tunicate, also known as a sea squirt,
or when it's washed up on the beach like this,
it is called sea pork just because people. Yeah, they
(06:20):
like to have a name that I don't know. To me,
this doesn't look like pork. I guess it could kind
of look like pork fat. Yeah, it's kind of a disgusting, Yeah,
very it makes it more gross. I think it's it's
a name that that makes it much more gross.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So under the ocean there they look like these strange,
beautiful or sometimes kind of creepy like flowers or even
like coral, but they are not coral, and they are
not flowers. There's a few images that I've also shared
with you that are various examples of tunicate. Some of
them are solitary where they look sort of like this
(06:58):
weird almost like a like a flower or like a
bulbous thing with this kind of like purply coloration. But
sometimes they are in colonies, so like sometimes they form
like chains. So you'll see this thing that looks like
this giant chain and it's all these tunicits that are
linked together. And sometimes they form like a blobby colony
(07:23):
like that initial image. Also like what that's when it's
kind of discolored. Sometimes when they're fresher, they're like pink
or red. And yeah, so they are. There's many different
species of tunicate, from those who live as individuals to
those who live as colonies. And they all start out
(07:43):
in this like free swimming stage. This larva that kind
of looks like a tadpole sperm, like a sperm that's
the size of a tadpole, and right they will latched.
For the ones that are sessile, they will latch onto sessile,
meaning that they stay fixed in one location. They no
(08:07):
longer move around. They will latch themselves onto a substrate
and go through a metamorphosis where they sort of lose
their ability to move and then form this like siphon system,
so they turn into kind of like just this almost
like bagpipe looking thing some of them. Others will form colonies,
(08:28):
so they look like that weird like mutant strawberry lumpy thing.
And so they they will essentially act as filter feeders.
And unless they are part of this like chain like organism,
like some of them form this like long chain where
they're floating around as a chain. They will mostly stay
(08:49):
motionless or at least like stuck fixed in one place
for the rest of their lives while filter feeding. They're
called sea scortes because a lot of them will do
this like siphoning of water, like sucking it in one
tube and pushing it out the other. It's a it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Really quickly. I want to jump back just two seconds
to make sure I understood some terminology you said. They
attached to a substrate is like that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes, that is like sand or rock or any it's
basically floor. It's a science word.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
For floor, a science word for floor. I like that cool.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But it's a floor that could be made out of
rocks or sand or gravel.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I had a feeling it was at a feeling it
was the hard surface. I just wanted to be sure.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Specialized surface of some kind. Yeah. So, despite sometimes being
called sea pork, most species of tunicits aren't edible. But
notice how I said most. There are some species that
are edible, and people actually have them in various cuisines.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And you know, really, yeah, is there a particular regional
cuisine that eats these the most?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I mean, I have, I think because there are so many.
There are various countries where they are featured in cuisine
from anywhere from Korea to Chile. So yes, So let's
go on to the next image here, great, Yes it is.
(10:35):
This is gray looking thing with sort of red splotches
on it, Danield.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Do you think it's a it's a looking thing, all right?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah? I mean, first of all, describe it to the audience.
Use use the art of poetry to paint a picture.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
How to describe a summer's day. Well, this thing we're
looking at here, I would say it's dominating. Colors are
I would say, imagine something that is an eighty percent
kind of muddy gray with twenty percent of a very
vibrant orangey red, and these little tiny splotches all over it.
(11:16):
It would appear that there are these very small dots
of red around this object. Now, this object is kind
of like this thing creature. I don't even know. This
thing is almost like the shape of an avocado maybe,
but it almost looks like it has a protrusion, like
a protrusion that has lesions on it. So imagine like
a avocado shaped thing that almost looks like it's covered
(11:40):
in little like calcified ringworms or something like. It looks
like these like tiny little wormes on it that are
hard like petrified worms, tiny little specks of red, and
then these open lesions that look like small pools of
lava on this weird avocado shaped rock looking thing. It
(12:03):
looks both hard and rough and also sticky and gross
at the same time, Like parts of it look like
you could sharpen a knife on it, and then other
parts of it looked like they could give you a
disease if you touched it. So yeah, it's very strange.
It also looks like it's looking at me like a
hundred times, like it looks like several parts of it
(12:24):
are looking at me because the red dots are placed
in such a way or are in such a place
that they look like little eyes. It's like a pair
of red dots in several places around this thing. No idea,
but it is definitely again we're seeing it on top
of what looks like very wet sand, maybe wet mud.
But it is out in nature. It looks wet and
(12:49):
it looks gross. But also I don't want to, you know,
shame the thing. Yeah, body show no share, certainly not
certainly not, But it is something I don't know if
I would want to touch.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Right so that I would assume you wouldn't eat it.
Then if you don't want to touch it.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, okay, hold on. You know there's there's there's some
things I don't want to touch. Then necessarily I throw
on the grill and then you know I'm touching them
with my mouth. You know, I will say, off, rip, no,
I don't want to eat this, but I am curious.
I don't know. It feels so violent to say I
want to see what's on the inside. But at the
same time, these these lesions of of you know, bright
(13:33):
red and orange color are like, what's going on in there?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah? Is that violence or just curiosity?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
There we go. I appreciate that there's some aliens that
are going to probust and say it's not violence, it's curiosity.
I'm gonna be like, well, my arm's off now, so
I don't know scientific amen to that. All right, I'm
going to I'm going to take a guess.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yes, go for it.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I'm going to go with my gut and say that
this is a mineral.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Interesting, Well, no, it is in fact an animal. And
I'm seeing kind of a jerk here because this is
yet another tunicit. What I got you? Yeah, So this
like leprous looking gray avocado is a tunic kit called
pyra chilinasis uh wait wait sorry, I pronounced that totally wrong.
(14:28):
Pya chill and sis uh. And it looks like a
gray rock with weird tubules that has flesh inside. And
that's essentially what it is. It's a flesh rock.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, Okay, I just need to be very clear with
the audience. So Katie has provided, you know, like we
were talking about with the first tunicit, is the name
of the creature right, yes, tunicit. So so so Katie
provided four different images of the first tunicit and they
all look pretty different then, but but there are some
similar qualities. This picture, this second picture, or rather fifth picture,
(15:05):
at this point, could not look more different than the
prior four pictures. There's nothing about this picture that says, well,
that's the same creature. Yeah at all.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, to be fair, it's a different species for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
But being like, you know, look, you showed me two birds.
One could be big, one could be small. They both
look like birds, right, this does not even this is
this doesn't even look like a globule of strawberry.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, no, it kind of looks moldy. But yeah, it's
so that gray rock like exterior is the exoskeletal structure
of a colony of tunicates. Inside that red flesh is
you know, they're flesh, the flesh of these kits. So
this is a colony of tunicts. And yeah, just like
(15:52):
other tunicates, they siphon in water and filter feed and
essentially just hang out and seem like a rock until
they are dragged out by fishermen. And I know you
said you were on the fence about eating this, but
these are an example of an edible tunicate, and indeed
they are featured in Chilean cuisine. Yes, what.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
So because it does look like a flesh rock from hell,
it's not a particularly popular food in Chile. And this
is not like some kind of like common cuisine, but
in areas where like there's a lot of fishing, it
can be eaten in fishermen. Well, what they do essentially
(16:37):
is they take out the inside. You don't eat out
the exoskeleton, just like you wouldn't eat like the exoskeleton
of a clam. And then they take these like basically
like globules of meat from inside, dry them out, and
it's used in soups. So you know, I would I
(16:58):
I would try it. I would.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I mean now that I mean, now that we're having
this conversation, I'm like, yeah, I mean, throw it on
a plate. Let me see what some see what we're
rocking with. But like, wow, I'm shook. I'm shook. I mean,
you know, that's.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
When it's like, when you're essentially giving me the option
of eating a living rock made out of flesh, it
does sound a little appealing.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Actually, that sounds like some pokemon stuff. It's like, do
I want to eat a geo dude.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Hell yeah, Katie, those traps they've got delts that look
you know, delectable, delectable.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Though there's meat there.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
All right, So do you want to move on to
the next image. Let's do it, all right, This is
candidate number three. I want you to describe this image
for the audioka gladly.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well, I'm going to avoid the rather explicit connotation that
these things have and say that they are They do
look like blue wieners. They look like they look like, uh,
doctor Manhattan wieners sticking out of the ground. They look
like and the thing is so again, this is a
scale thing where I'm like, don't know how big these are,
(18:22):
but they I'm going to guess small. They look like
small stalagmites, translucent bluish stalagmites. They look like, you know,
you can see there there may be gooey blue center.
It's almost it's almost like a it looks like one
single piece that is like attached to a rock with
(18:43):
a lot with a lot of little like you know,
blue wieners sticking out of it.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
But it is a meadow of blueis.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
A meadow of blue wieners is a great way to
say it there is also as part of them. It
almost looks like you're looking into like a cave, a
cave of blue wieners that are being exposed to light
for the first time. I'm also going to guess this
is guessing this is also I'm guessing this is underwater,
(19:18):
but there's no evidence of that. You know what, Actually,
I take that back. There's no water evidence in this picture,
so I'm gonna say it's not water. I'm going to go.
I'm trying to think there's any other physical descriptors that
are worth mentioning here. I mean, like, you know, uh no,
I think I think we I think we kind of
nailed it all.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I'm going to thank you. I'm going to go I'm
going to go with a fungus hm.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
But also, would you eat it? You gotta answer that one.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Too, Oh right, of course, yes, they look like they
they look like they explode in your mouth like gushers.
So yes, absolutely due.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
They look gummy, they look like delicious gummies. They do
look gummy, you know, like how you're at a bachelor
party and you get some weiener gummies. They look like that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, I would know personally, have been very familiar with those. Yes,
I've seen those images and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I've been to a lot of bachelorette parties. There's always
some kind of weier thing, and it's just like, come on,
aren't we adults here, Let's grow up, Let's just grow up.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Let's grow up.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Anyways, so that is a fantastic guess. This is a
fun guy. Sadly it is incorrect. This is actually a mineral.
So yeah, I gotta I gotta throw in a mineral there.
I gotta guess, switch up a curveball, a little bit
of curve.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
These are things, definitely aren't These things definite aren't squishy
that No, no, it looks There are so.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Many minerals that I would put in my mouth and
chomp down and break every tooth because they like candy
and I want to eat them.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yes, these absolutely look like candy. One.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
These are chrysocola. They are this blue color. They're actually
quite beautiful. I think it's actually due to the copper
hydroxide content of the mineral. Obviously, copper is typically copper colored,
but when it is oxidized it's blue. Like have you
(21:19):
ever seen a gross old penny that's like kind of
wet I have. Yeah, I turns blue and sometimes it
turns your pocket blue too, and so yeah, it will.
That is where this blue color comes.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
From, and that was where blue jeans come from.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
People just have penny penny washed jeans.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Penny washed.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
So I think, I mean it's possible, though, that oxidized
copper was used in paints. I'm not I'm not a
paint expert or mineral mineralist, but yeah, I mean, that's
that's very possible. It's used as like coloration in things.
But that bulb, that sort of bulbous valley of penises
(22:08):
type thing that's going on that they can look like
little tentacles. Sometimes it looks like little bubbles like it's
it's literally sort of bubbling up. It's called a boeroidal formation.
It is when there are many seeds from which the
crystal forms. So when I talk about seed, it's essentially
like maybe it's a piece of sand or a small
(22:29):
particle of mineral from which a crystal sort of starts growing.
So again, I'm not a mineraloid, I'm not a professor
of mineralogy.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
But what was my favorite aliens from Star Trek?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Mineral Oid just a bunch of rocks. It's just a
geodude rebranded. So it's essentially like the way I learned
it eons ago is that you'll have sort of a
structure of a crystal, and then once you have like
if you have like things that it's stuff that kind
of knocks things into place or like it forms this thing,
(23:07):
and then you start to get this formation and everything
sort of settles in this this structure form because you
have a seed structure that enables this type of formation,
and so the crystal continues to form sort of like
a domino effect. And so if you have a multiple
number of these like seeds that will grow these crystals,
(23:28):
then you have this like bubbling form or forest of Weena's.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Most certainly it's beautiful. I have a question to go
for it now now that we now that we know
that it is a mineral, can we get what is
the scale of the image that we're looking at? Here?
Are these tiny? Are they large? Are they kind of
like in between? Like what size are we looking at?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Sometimes they can and it depends. Some of them are
like bigger, some of them are like small, like sort
of like smaller than a pencil. These I think are
about pencil size.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Pencil said, that's still pretty I mean, gang, if you
were to look at these like saying that their pencil
size means they're probably like the thickness of like a
water bottle. So these are pretty substantial minerals right here.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, okay, maybe pencil is a little big, but they're
certainly like like uh yeah, like a thin sort of
the head of a pencil maybe, oh like like the
like the like you know, the like the not like
the lead points, but like the conical part of the pencil,
like each one of those is kind of like I
(24:32):
would think sort of like that. But I've seen ones
that are also really small.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Like gotcha, okay, wow, okay, but they but they are
small in range. We're not going to go into a
cave and see two foot three foot tall ones of
these bod mines right here.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Not that I am aware of.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
No, Okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
And sometimes they don't I mean, sometimes they don't form
like those sort of like Wiener shapes or bubble shapes.
Sometimes they're like different shape, like it's just it kind
of depends on how they form. Uh. This form I
thought looked really organic and weird and possibly would throw
you off, which it did, and I'm proud you.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Nailed it, proud of lying to you, you know, an
appropriate situation to me, And I'm proud of you too.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So let's move on to the next image.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
If you're ready, I'm super ready.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
All right, let's do it. So first, describe this to
the audience again. Let's let's let's be adults here.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, let's be let's be adults here, all right. So, gang,
imagine that you were looking at a top down brain
that was like flattened, like it looks like a flat
cross section of a brain with a a very suggestive
slit down the middle.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Looks like a brain vagina.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
It is a brain virgin. It looks like there are
a couple surrounding it. It looks like a little bundle,
maybe maybe a three pack of brain vaginas. They're sitting, honestly.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And get those big old tops of brain vaginas you do.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Uh, they look like they're sitting in a pot filled
with pebbles. So maybe this is like some sort of
I mean, the pot looks I'll say this, Okay, this
could be one of those things where like the geological
formation was just so perfect and this is like underwater.
But something tells me this is more of like a
succulent and is actually a plant. But the last thing
(26:43):
I'll say is in terms of so again, remember we're
talking like a flat brain looking thing here. It's like
a It's like a cross section of a brain if
you were to cut it in half, all the wrinkles
and stuff like that, same coloring as a brain, with
the with all the folds and all the wrinkles being
kind of like a the silk and ego being like
a reddish hue. It's got kind of a pink look
(27:04):
to it. There's kind of like an outline of yellowy
orange all around, and I feel like I can see
the root below it. I think I'm pretty confident that
that is a succulent plant.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And you say, you, hell, yeah, well you are absolutely
correct that this is a fantastic I would not eat it.
I don't think it'll kill you, but I think it
would taste garbou and possibly give you a tummy age.
(27:37):
But yeah, it is a plant. It is called a lithops,
which means easy to kill in Greek. That's not true,
I'm kidding. No, it actually means stone face in Greek.
It is a very for me personally, maybe for other
people too. It is a difficult succulent to keep alive.
I have owned about three of them and kill every
(28:00):
single one. I but they're so cool that the next
time I see one being sold by a plant person,
I will buy it again and probably kill it.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Probably kill it. Yeah, So what what was so difficult
about the care that made them made it easy to kill? So?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
These are These are succulents that are found in Africa,
and they tend to do really well in very dry conditions,
and so you really need very good drainage and to
water it just enough but not too much, because if
you water it too much and the drainage is not adequate,
(28:39):
it will actually make the plant explode kind of because
it absorbs too much water or the roots rot. So
you water it like I've I've heard some advice where
you water it like once a year, but I tried
doing that and it die once a year. So I
tried watering it more than that, but it also died.
(29:02):
So I don't know what I'm exactly doing wrong. Probably
I should stop buying these. So but yeah, they they
are actually flowering succulents. So when they are in sort
of the flowering season, a flower will emerge from betwixt
(29:25):
the clefts of this. Really, yes, I'm probably I mean
it is very labial. I'll probably get some obgi and
mad at me for calling it a vaginan. Obviously that's
not the vagiants, it's the labia. But yeah, so you'll
have a flower that sprouts from it, and their appearance
is thought to be camouflaged, so looking so much like
(29:48):
a rock, meaning that it's less likely to be eaten.
They're beautifuls.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I mean they are, you know, honestly. Okay. Another another,
another crass example for our listeners at home who are
trying to picture this. Imagine you're very old and you
put your naked butt cheeks on the xerox.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Old pancaked butt cheeks.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
That's right, old pancakes butt cheeks on the xerox machine.
You got what we're looking at right here.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
That's exactly it. That is exactly it, and it's beautiful.
I think that it is. I think that's the thing.
Is like when you say old, wrinkly pancaked, but it
makes it sound, you know, unappealing. But when you think
about you, when you think about all the different shapes
and folds that happen in nature. Look, we're just we're
(30:44):
just nature baby, and we're just nature baby. We're just
like succulents. Well, let's let's move on to the next
to the next one. Dan, You're you're you're doing amazing
at this game.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Oh, thank you, thank you. This game is amazing.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
This is fun. I'm having fun me too. This is
candidate number five. Describe candidate number five if you will.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
So, this honestly looks like a haunted oil leak. We
have a green slime that looks like it is coming
out of something. The image is on what looks like concrete,
and it looks like the green slime. There's there's a
couple different like trails of you know when you like
(31:35):
splash water or there's a liquid on concrete, and you
can see the kind of residue. This definitely looks like
it has been leaving a residue or something has been
leaving a residue around it. Maybe this, whatever it is,
has been moving. I'm honestly now looking at it, my
first thought was fungus. Now I'm thinking creature, but also
(31:56):
it might be a plant. It is very shiny, it
is it is a it is a bright It.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Is Nickelodeon's slime green.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
It is ghack green firs.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Sure green?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
No, no, no, no, you're right, no, no, slime, it's
slime green. Gak is something different, but no, it's definitely what.
I can't remember, Man, I need to google this whole.
I'm googling gag wasn't gak?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Jak was a toy?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Right?
Speaker 1 (32:20):
But was it all?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But it was made by Nickelodeon. It was multiple colors. Yeah,
but Nickelodeon slime is what we're talking about. Nicolas, You're
one hundred percent right, Gang, it is Nickelodeon slime. Uh.
This this, this floor is looking like Katy Perry's face
after she accidentally opened that box. Uh, it's it's gross.
(32:42):
It's long. There is something next to it for scale
that almost looks like maybe a fishing line.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So you're, oh, God, you're sure locking the hell out
of this. I can tell by the angle of the
shadows that this was taken into approximately fifteen.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I'm gonna say I'm going to go with animal. I
think this is a creature that is very interesting.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Would you eat it? Your face says no, But your
face says no, But your voice.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
My face says no, but my body says me, I
don't know. It looks like a it looks like one
of those. Honestly, it looks like a whole pack of
gummy bears melted down the side of the street. And
you look around and you're like, no one's going to
see this. Pop them all in your mouth at once.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
The story time, when I was in high school, a
classmate was doing this thing where we had like a yeah,
I don't know how he came into possession of this
many mint mints, but he had a bunch of peppermints,
the green kind, the green and white striped peppermints, and
so we were all bored, and uh he decided to
(34:02):
try to fit as many as possible in his mouth,
and so of course we all egged him on. It
was a massive choking hazard. He could have died, but
we didn't think about that. He ended up fine, But uh,
I think what happened is he is trying, uh to
(34:24):
he was trying to keep going, and I said, come on,
just one more, man, you can do it, just a
little one. And that's for some reason, that made him
laugh and he started laughing and he spewed out this
long tendril of green spit melted mint candy. It smelled
(34:44):
very minty. It went everywhere. It was hilarious, and we
got in trouble.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
You got in trouble with him.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
No, I mean just like the teacher was like, guys, oh, yeah,
don't do that. We didn't get like detention or anything
like that. I was just like, guys, come on, because
she spit like a massive glob of semi mouth digested
mint everywhere. The poor teacher, leaguered chemistry teacher. This is
(35:16):
what that looks like to me.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I totally see that. Yeah, and that is horrifying.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, but your guess is that it is an animal.
You are correct. Let's see. I want to see if
you like, let's go, like, where do you think this
animal lives? Let's see if we can get even more
specific bonus round.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Okay, So I may be reading too much into the
quote unquote fishing line that's next to it, which I
still think is a fishing line, And I'm going to
say this thing lives in the ocean. I'm going to
say it's some sort of like sea slug type joint.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
That is very good. Guess, Yes, it does. Live in
the ocean. It is not a sea slug, but it
is is a ribbon worm. It is a green ribbon
worm found in the ocean off the coast of Taiwan, Japan,
and the Philippines. It is a bright green, mean clam
(36:13):
eating machine. Uh. It like a lot of ribbon worms.
It's kind of horrifying looking. It's actually not like super
closely related to say, like earthworms or anything. They're just
similarly shaped, but you know, not not very closely related.
(36:34):
But yeah, it is a ribbon worm. And ribbon worms
have this thing called a preboscis, which is a great word,
and it is this long, sticky, tongue like organ, yes exactly,
that they can evert meaning sort of turn inside out
and spit out through their mouth. And this can both
(36:58):
ensnare their prey and also it contains venom to further
incapacitate their victims, which can be yes like clams, other
aquatic worms, snails, basically anything small enough and unlucky enough
to find itself tangled up in its lethal proboscus. But
as you can see from this picture, they're not tiny.
(37:20):
They can be very long.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Actually, no, this thing, this thing looks frighteningly.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah. I think this one's like over a foot long
and like thicker than a pencil. It's yeah, interesting. So uh.
They then, once they have entangled their prey and their
venomous proboscis, they pull it in and basically like slurp
up their own proboscis like spaghetti and then engulf their poohole. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, wow, that's so kind of it's kind of snake
like in the assumption of it.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
But though even though snakes are not.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
You know, but they have no job, yeah or face. Really,
they're just a evil spaghetti.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Not the way I'm trying to go. It gets swallowed
by evil spaghetti. Yeah. Yeah, Well I want to look
I want to look my killer in the eyes if
they're going to eat me.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, which is hard to do with this thing. It's
like where is it which it's hard to even know
which end is the butt.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Where it's exactly yes, exactly. Well, it sounds like we
won't know until much much too late.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Gross.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Gross.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Well, let's move on, all right. Ultimate mystery image Candidate
number six. Describe what you're seeing here, Daniel.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
All right, so this looks like okay, this this looks
like what you would tell chat Gpt to draw if
you were, like, can you draw lollipops growing out of
the grounds?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
It looks like an AI art thing, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It really does. The orbs are so perfect, or rather
the the it's almost like the reflection on them is
so perfect it almost looks not real. So imagine, let's
see here, just say like many, Let's say like at
least ten like stubby hairs sticking out of the ground.
(39:17):
And at the end of each stubby hair is like
a shiny, perfect orb and either a red orange or
a flesh color. Now, not all of these things are
perfect orbs, but it's just these like rounded shapes that
are like perfectly glossy, shiny on top of what looks
like a gangly beard hair sticking out of the dirt.
(39:39):
I believe it's dirt. It could be it could be
wood perchance perhaps to dream, but yeah, this definitely looks
like it looks like like stubbly beard hair on a
piece of wood, with like lollipops or balloons at the
end of it that are just these shiny, glossy globules.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Globules.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Love a globule, Love a globule, big fan big globbers.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Would you would you eat it?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I'm super duper tempted.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I know.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Don't they look like each one of us crunch?
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Don't they look like little chupa chuops?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah they do. One hund.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I would eat them.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Do you have a Do you have a favorite chupa
chube flavor? No?
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I don't even pay attention to the flavors.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Honestly, I respect that, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
I look at it, It's like wow, that's cheep chop,
and I stick it in my mouth.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, there you go, Okay, totally fair. The only reason
I have a favorite flap yes, just because just because
it's one of those candies that has this flavor, and
that flavor is root beer. Oh yeah, I love love
a root beer flavored candy.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Nosed to have like those little root beer candies that
were shaped like root beer barrels that would have my
lame jumper or other sort of you.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Know, hundred her scent.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, those were good. Those were so good. Sometimes they'd
sort of split in like form sharp edges and like
cut my mouth. Worth it, absolutely worth it, absolutely yeah.
This one I think is like this is the one
I'm like second to the one that was actually a mineral.
I'm it's like very tempting to like want to eat it.
(41:22):
Sorry you didn't. You didn't guess what it is yet, right,
Oh you're right, I did.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Not guess what. Oh my goodness, say, what do you
think this is? I think this is a fungus. Interesting,
I think this is a fungus I see growing out
of the wood, and something tells me that this is
like some sort of fun guy that has killed some
curious creatures out in the forest, being like, looks yummy.
But then again, the colors would have earted them. I
(41:46):
don't know. I mean, like, look, I'd fall for it.
I'm kind of a goof so I would be, oh,
yummers and then be dry heaving twenty minutes later.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
I mean, I'd do it even if I knew that
it was bad. For hell, yeah, they just look a
tiny If you gave me like something, You're like, this
is a poisonous miniature TUBEA tube.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
I'm like, I mean it exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Well, you said we'll pay the price later, so you
are so close. Oh this is I mean one of
the things I'm most impressed was that you guess that
this is wood, because this is decaying wood. And this
is not a fungus. This is a little unfair because
it is very close to a fungus in terms of
(42:26):
like the way it's actually not that closely related to fungus,
but it is something that is like sometimes seems similar
to fungus. It is a slime mold. So are actually
not in the fungus kingdom. There are creatures, aren't they
(42:47):
They are different, so they are there. They are eukaryots,
just like humans, plants, fungus, but they are a variety
of eukaryotic organisms who typically will have like a single
selled individual stage and then glom together with other individuals
to form a slug and then a fruiting body. So
(43:08):
uh so, slime molds are kind of it's sort of
an et cetera category in biology where it's like it is,
it is just a bunch of unrelated, uh, single celled
eukaryots who come together form these group organisms and often
tend to have sort of a similar thing going on,
(43:31):
even though they're not really that related. But they are.
They are all eukaryots, and they are not fungi. They're
not They are not in the fungus kingdom, and They
are not to be confused with mold because like mold
is typically like what we would say, say like on
a on an orange or something, that mold is like
(43:52):
a fungus and so it is not a mold really
in that sense. It's a slime mold, which is sort
of it's own thing. It's like a kind of miscellaneous
category of totally of eukaryotic organisms that I'll do a similar.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Thing there you go, yeah, wow, gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
So uh they find yeah, so they are. They are
basically when you see it like this right, like where
you can actually visibly see it, this is a colony
organism of like many individual organisms. So uh, this one
specifically the image that we have is Comatrica nigra, which
feeds on rotting wood in forests. So very good identification
(44:35):
of the substrate, which we have learned means floor. So
they feed on rotting wood in forest. They're found all
over the world. It's interesting, right because it's like they
have these stalks and then this like a balloon at
the top. Right, they look like they kind of look
(44:57):
like tiny balloons with this like black st on the bottom.
What if this is so like preceding this, they would
form like something that's kind of like a slug that
can move. It's not a slug because it is actually
this like colony of many, many different individuals. And in
(45:17):
order to reproduce the they release spores. But in order
to release the spore, they need to get off of
the surface of the substrate and go upwards, like build
a skyscraper upwards so that they can release the spoor
and it can go up and be distributed. Because if
(45:37):
they're just trying to release spores, well they're stuck on
the ground. Then they it just like plops really close
to them, competes for food with other it's not a
good situation. And so they'll form this slug. And then
after they form the slug, they all try to basically
get on top of each other. They're trying to go up.
(45:58):
And so what happened in terms of both their behavior
and just like physics, is they form a stock and
then a body on top of the stock, like a
bulb on top of the stock. And while this kind
of seems so the ones in the stock are kind
of screwed. They just die and they're unable to distribute
their spores. And that seems like that's altruism, but it's not.
(46:22):
It's just they're unlucky. They are all trying to do
the same thing and they lost out, whereas the other
ones won out in terms of getting to be on
the top of the stock and they'll be able to
release their spores. But yeah, it is a fascinating it's
a highly sort of studied, fascinating thing where you have
this group behavior resulting like of like individual competing unicellular
(46:48):
organisms coming together to do a thing that they could
not accomplish on their own. But they're still competing with
each other and trying to behave it's behaved sort of selfishly.
And it's interesting because it's a way in which we
can see how in our own bodies, like we are
basically an extremely well developed colony of individual cells, right,
(47:12):
and sometimes our cells actually will compete like are you know,
like we've all learned about, like when you have a
fertilization of an egg, all these sperm or racing to
the finish line, you have like competition between sex cells
and so like. But then somehow our bodies are able
(47:33):
to come together and function well as a unified organism.
And so this is an interesting sort of like precursor
to a functional multicellular animal. It's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
That's wild, very very cool, and you shouldn't eat it.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Don't eat it. Even though it does look like tiny
tube chupes.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
You would look at these gang. I'm telling you you
will look at this picture and be like, I mean, okay,
case is not to eat it, but I'm gonna eat it.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
I don't do it.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I okay out it's sick.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Probably I don't actually know how sick.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
I'm gonna say face some of you from the hospital
being the kadio, I'm sure get it.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Just get it. This episode was brought to you by
chupa Choops. I wish like if I could get some
free cheep choops for talking about it. You know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
What I'm saying, I gotta imagine. Let me let me
just say this. I haven't heard them sponsor a single podcast.
This is a market that they have not been attacking enough.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Frankly, you want one now right now that I've compared.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
It, absolutely, I am one serious about Like, okay, no joke.
I did just google chupa Choops to make sure that
A they had the root beer flavor and B where
can I get those rupeer flavor?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
So you think I can get them in Italy? Which
is great?
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Ooh, talk about to go up.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
There's a Cheep Choop website in Italian. So I'm set.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Really, you're good, You're good.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
I want to get some squab we got it looks
so good? Anyways, that yes, so slime mold. Uh, fantastic job, Daniel.
But you know what, actually we actually have another game
because every week, even though this is a special episode
where the whole episode was a game, every week we
(49:21):
also play a game called Guess who squawkings? The Mystery
Animal sound game?
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yes, yes, so I love this game.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
We are going to play and uh, last week's mystery
animal sound hint was this? This animal sounds feeres, but
the most you have to fear from him is plamidia.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Oh I know what it is?
Speaker 1 (49:45):
You do already? Can you want to listen to the sound?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
I do? Yes, I do?
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Okay? Was the clammyia? The tell?
Speaker 2 (49:58):
It was? Well, I mean maybe it if I'm thinking
of the right animal, then yes.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
All right, so you've said you already had a good
idea of.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
What this is. What do you think this is?
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Daniel?
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Okay, So My experience with chlamydia in the animal kingdom
is that it is a particularly big problem for koalas.
And I think I just heard someone in the background
maybe say something with an Australian accent. I could have
been wrong, but also after listening to that, that did
not sound like a koala. So my knowledge of chlamydia
(50:40):
being a big deal for kuala's might be in vain,
but I'm still going to go with my guess that
the answer is koala's.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
You gotta go with your gut because you are correct.
Is a koala which sounds very much not like a koala,
But that is the mating call of a male.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
Koala, the maiding call.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yes, isn't it sexy?
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yes? I can't even do it deep in guttural. That
was way more guttural and horrifying than I thought it
would come out of a koala. Those things are so
small and cute, and I will say, I know that
you know they got the fangs like they will throw down,
and it's simply that they're just constantly eating eucalyptus and
or highest that they're chill, but like wow, that.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
To digest like the worst plant. And so they're tired
all the time.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
She yeah, exactly, But yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Koalas do have a problem with chlamydia, which is a
sexually transmitted disease in koalas, just as it is in
humans caused by a bacteria. Researchers are trying out vaccines
to protect the quala from chlamydia, which is important as
it is very bad for the kualas and can kill them.
And the antibiotic treatment that is so effective in humans
(51:53):
is actually not great for koalas because it impairs their
ability to digest eucalyptus. Because eucalypse this is not an
easily digested plan. It's got all these like uh slightly
toxic compounds in it that it's very very hard to digest,
and so like when you give them antibiotics, it actually
(52:14):
makes it harder for them to digest. And so, uh,
the key thing here is we gotta we gotta get
a vaccine for these koalas because they're not even common.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Certainly are not nothing about that.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
We tried that and all these like you know, like
look this is you know, just you gotta pack it
before you you go go down onto And they didn't listen.
Sex said for kulas did not work.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
No, they were not paying attention.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
That's funny, fantastic job, Daniel. But uh one more sound
this week, christ sound and uh here it is. Oh wait,
I didn't give a hint, did I. When you hear this,
you know to pack your bag. Hey guys, Katie here
with a bit of a warning. This sound is like
(53:06):
Satan screaming into your ear after inhaling a bunch of helium.
So if you have your headphones turned all the way up,
I turn them down a bit. I tried my best
to make the sound as quiet while still audible as possible.
But you know, if you're sensitive to like high pitched
sounds straight from how I just to you know, take
(53:31):
a minute to maybe turn down your volume just a bit.
Or if you have a dog who will start barking
if they hear this, you know, maybe have your dog
not listen to this. And anyways, enjoy this terrible sound
that I'm going to play now. But are you hearing it?
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Yes? It is very loud my.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Mind, Harriet, I'm sorry about the sorry about the noise.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
You're like, wait are you hearing it? But it was
so I can't that one is aggressive? Do I do?
I make a guess.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Now, I guess, make a guess.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Okay, the hit was to pack your bags. That sounded
like I mean, it sounded like a bird. It could
also be like a primate of some kind. I'm going
to go with some sort of I'm going to go
with some sort of primate. I think it was some
sort of like. Yeah, I unfortunately cannot get more specific,
but I will say yowler tough to some sort of
(54:36):
tofted yowler.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Sure yet not a real thing made that up?
Speaker 2 (54:39):
Right? Right right, right right? Yeah, that's all I got.
I wouldn't say a small primate, all.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Small ish primate. Well, we will find out next time
on Creature Keeping you on tinter hooks. Damn well, thank
you so much for playing my little games with me.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
It was such a fun game. I look forward to
many renditions of this game. Everyone else who guests on
the show and let me know.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Guys, if you really enjoyed this game, you can write
to me a Creature Future pod at gmail dot com.
You can also write to me your guess is for
the Mystery Animal sound game. You can also leave me
a rating and review. In your review, you can tell
me whether or not you liked this game format where
we play a little guessing game and I will know
then whether to do it again.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Dale, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
You got anything to plug, anything to promote my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
Sure, I mean I would say, please listen to all
the shows on the network. You already listen to all
don at once. You already listened to Creature Future, So
good job. I work on these scrubs, Rewatch podcast, Take
Doctor's Real Friends. I'm the editor of Behind the Bastards
and the Cool Zone Media Network. I'm also the editor
of Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff with Margaret Kiljoy,
another podcast on cool Zone. I am also the producer
(55:54):
of the New Tosh Show podcast, which is really funny
starring Daniel Tosh. If if you were Tosh point zero
fans back in the Dizzy, He's back on the airwaves
via podcasting and on YouTube. It's definitely worth a listen.
You can find me on Twitch at twitch dot tv,
slash dj Underscore, danil d A n L. You can
(56:15):
no longer find me on Twitter, I don't do that anymore.
You can find me on Instagram, even though I'm also
divorcing myself from that social media. I'm not doing social
media anymore. Katie, I'm off. I'm over it.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
I was gonna ask you how you have time to like,
eat or use the bathroom given how much you are doing.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Well, that's very sweet of you. I don't your caf no.
I just yeah, I've just capped up, that is. That's
the other thing, you know what I did? So instead
of being into social media, you know what I did,
I got really into making espresso and so now I
have an espresso machine and to make myself alatte every
morning and it's nice. The bomb. I love it.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
I also got into espresso recently. I don't make it myself,
but I drink.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
It and I like it. Hell yeah, man, it's good.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
Espress so good. It keeps me a week to feel that.
But yeah, that's it. And support your local podcast, support
your community, wear sunscreen, drink water, I don't know, those
are the things.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
And if you see a tiny chube of chup on
the ground, a little lick one little Thank you guys
so much for listening, creat your future to the production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
So here is one where have you.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
Listening to your favorite shows? I don't judge you. I'm
not your mother, and I can't tell you what to do.
You gotta you gotta drive your own ship, baby. You
just be captain of your own destiny. Take that wheel
and turn it. That's my advice to you. See you
next Wednesday.
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show, we are playing a little game.
This is a fun, fresh and funky new format for
the show. We're gonna play a game of whether it's
(00:27):
an animal, a mineral plant, or fun guy. I am
giving my guests a bunch of pictures and he will
describe them to you in detail, in disgusting, porous detail,
and you can play along too. I will have links
Tobby's images in the show notes, or you can just
(00:48):
form a mental picture from our words, from our word
paintings that we paint, and we will go through this
and my guest will have to try to guess is
it an animal, a mineral plant, a fungi or something else.
Entirely Joining me today is friend of the show producer
(01:09):
at iHeart Radio. He does so many things. I don't
really even know where to start, uh, DJ Danel.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Welcome, Katie, happy to be back. Thank you so much
for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm just gonna have you plug everything at the end
because I can't. I don't even know how. There's so
many things. You you have your hands and so many pies.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
There's lots of pies. My fingers are sticky and disgusting
at this point. Very stick Yeah. I've over the years
touched many pies and am therefore again very sticky.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
If you've listened to a podcast or eaten a pie,
chances are there's germs from Danel on it.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I do love pie.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, pie is good.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I love pie. Pie is good, savory or something great both.
I mean, if I had to pick one, actually, damn,
I was about to just pop off an answer, but
now that I'm think about it, it's really hard to say.
I was very lucky enough to travel to Australia a
couple of times, and eating savory meat pies in Australia
is just on another level. They just hit so differently.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
There used to be an Australian pie savory pie shop
in Los Angeles. I think they may have moved, which
is really sad because it was incredible, absolutely incredible, just fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Really are I love?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I think I like a savory pie. I think I'm
sort of a you know, fifteenth century noble. I like
a savory pie. So today we are talking about some
things that may look like maybe they belong in a
savory pie. Hard to tell. These are images, and it
(02:54):
is up to you, Daniel, to try to guess what
it is. It could be an animal, a mineral, a plant,
fung guy, something else.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I'm already confused, or rather not confused, but like I'm
looking at these pictures and I'm just I know that
I'm going to be surprised. I know I'm going to
be enchanted, and i know I'm going to have a
new fear at some point.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I'd also like you to answer the question of whether
you would eat.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
This thing gladly? Oh man, glad.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
So let's get right into it. Let's start with the
very first image the candidate number one. Great, First, I
want you to describe this image to the audience.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Sure, okay, audience. I want you to imagine, you know,
you've ever seen a huge strawberry that looks really amorphous. Now,
just like double the amount of amorphousness of that weird strawberry.
Make that strawberry white, and you've got kind of what
we're looking at here. You know, it's just like kind
(03:56):
of like a It looks like a globule but also
has a pretty defined shape. It looks like it has
tiny seeds on it and it's currently sitting or the
image has it sitting on a bit of wet sand.
So a white, ghastly kind of looking giant globule strawberry
little dots of look like seeds and all sitting on
(04:16):
some sand.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay, that was beautiful. That was like you you're like
Monet with your words. You know, when strawberries like are
weird and they're like a double strawberry or even a
triple strawberry. That's actually something called fasciation. It happens in
plants when they have basically sort of a situation where
(04:40):
there is this like extra growth where like this basically
the plant like stem cells are telling it like grow
that thing. But again over here it's really interesting. Yeah,
so yeah, this does kind of look like a white
mutant strawberry totally, but it is already amorphous. It's blobule
(05:04):
and it has these sort of like light tan speckles
on it. Yeah, kind of like strawberry skin. It's it's interesting.
Would you eat this danile?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
First of all, absolutely, Okay, I'm looking at this thing.
It looks like a laffy taffy that washed up on
the shore. I might look around, dunk it in the
water real quick and then chow down. Looks like it
would be delish. And if I had to guess, I
had to Is it time to guess?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Are there more time to do it?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Okay? Cool? Cool? Cool cool? If I had to guess,
And I'm trying to use some context clues here, looking
at like that, it looks like it's something that washed
up on the shore. So I'm like, it could be
a plant, it could be an animal. I think I'm
gonna go. I'm gonna go animal.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You are absolutely correct, Congratulations, Yes, this is an animal.
It certainly is a strange looking one. Yes, this is
something called a tunicate, also known as a sea squirt,
or when it's washed up on the beach like this,
it is called sea pork just because people. Yeah, they
(06:20):
like to have a name that I don't know. To me,
this doesn't look like pork. I guess it could kind
of look like pork fat. Yeah, it's kind of a disgusting, Yeah,
very it makes it more gross. I think it's it's
a name that that makes it much more gross.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So under the ocean there they look like these strange,
beautiful or sometimes kind of creepy like flowers or even
like coral, but they are not coral, and they are
not flowers. There's a few images that I've also shared
with you that are various examples of tunicate. Some of
them are solitary where they look sort of like this
(06:58):
weird almost like a like a flower or like a
bulbous thing with this kind of like purply coloration. But
sometimes they are in colonies, so like sometimes they form
like chains. So you'll see this thing that looks like
this giant chain and it's all these tunicits that are
linked together. And sometimes they form like a blobby colony
(07:23):
like that initial image. Also like what that's when it's
kind of discolored. Sometimes when they're fresher, they're like pink
or red. And yeah, so they are. There's many different
species of tunicate, from those who live as individuals to
those who live as colonies. And they all start out
(07:43):
in this like free swimming stage. This larva that kind
of looks like a tadpole sperm, like a sperm that's
the size of a tadpole, and right they will latched.
For the ones that are sessile, they will latch onto sessile,
meaning that they stay fixed in one location. They no
(08:07):
longer move around. They will latch themselves onto a substrate
and go through a metamorphosis where they sort of lose
their ability to move and then form this like siphon system,
so they turn into kind of like just this almost
like bagpipe looking thing some of them. Others will form colonies,
(08:28):
so they look like that weird like mutant strawberry lumpy thing.
And so they they will essentially act as filter feeders.
And unless they are part of this like chain like organism,
like some of them form this like long chain where
they're floating around as a chain. They will mostly stay
(08:49):
motionless or at least like stuck fixed in one place
for the rest of their lives while filter feeding. They're
called sea scortes because a lot of them will do
this like siphoning of water, like sucking it in one
tube and pushing it out the other. It's a it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Really quickly. I want to jump back just two seconds
to make sure I understood some terminology you said. They
attached to a substrate is like that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes, that is like sand or rock or any it's
basically floor. It's a science word.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
For floor, a science word for floor. I like that cool.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But it's a floor that could be made out of
rocks or sand or gravel.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I had a feeling it was at a feeling it
was the hard surface. I just wanted to be sure.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Specialized surface of some kind. Yeah. So, despite sometimes being
called sea pork, most species of tunicits aren't edible. But
notice how I said most. There are some species that
are edible, and people actually have them in various cuisines.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And you know, really, yeah, is there a particular regional
cuisine that eats these the most?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I mean, I have, I think because there are so many.
There are various countries where they are featured in cuisine
from anywhere from Korea to Chile. So yes, So let's
go on to the next image here, great, Yes it is.
(10:35):
This is gray looking thing with sort of red splotches
on it, Danield.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Do you think it's a it's a looking thing, all right?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah? I mean, first of all, describe it to the audience.
Use use the art of poetry to paint a picture.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
How to describe a summer's day. Well, this thing we're
looking at here, I would say it's dominating. Colors are
I would say, imagine something that is an eighty percent
kind of muddy gray with twenty percent of a very
vibrant orangey red, and these little tiny splotches all over it.
(11:16):
It would appear that there are these very small dots
of red around this object. Now, this object is kind
of like this thing creature. I don't even know. This
thing is almost like the shape of an avocado maybe,
but it almost looks like it has a protrusion, like
a protrusion that has lesions on it. So imagine like
a avocado shaped thing that almost looks like it's covered
(11:40):
in little like calcified ringworms or something like. It looks
like these like tiny little wormes on it that are
hard like petrified worms, tiny little specks of red, and
then these open lesions that look like small pools of
lava on this weird avocado shaped rock looking thing. It
(12:03):
looks both hard and rough and also sticky and gross
at the same time, Like parts of it look like
you could sharpen a knife on it, and then other
parts of it looked like they could give you a
disease if you touched it. So yeah, it's very strange.
It also looks like it's looking at me like a
hundred times, like it looks like several parts of it
(12:24):
are looking at me because the red dots are placed
in such a way or are in such a place
that they look like little eyes. It's like a pair
of red dots in several places around this thing. No idea,
but it is definitely again we're seeing it on top
of what looks like very wet sand, maybe wet mud.
But it is out in nature. It looks wet and
(12:49):
it looks gross. But also I don't want to, you know,
shame the thing. Yeah, body show no share, certainly not
certainly not, But it is something I don't know if
I would want to touch.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Right so that I would assume you wouldn't eat it.
Then if you don't want to touch it.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, okay, hold on. You know there's there's there's some
things I don't want to touch. Then necessarily I throw
on the grill and then you know I'm touching them
with my mouth. You know, I will say, off, rip, no,
I don't want to eat this, but I am curious.
I don't know. It feels so violent to say I
want to see what's on the inside. But at the
same time, these these lesions of of you know, bright
(13:33):
red and orange color are like, what's going on in there?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah? Is that violence or just curiosity?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
There we go. I appreciate that there's some aliens that
are going to probust and say it's not violence, it's curiosity.
I'm gonna be like, well, my arm's off now, so
I don't know scientific amen to that. All right, I'm
going to I'm going to take a guess.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yes, go for it.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I'm going to go with my gut and say that
this is a mineral.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Interesting, Well, no, it is in fact an animal. And
I'm seeing kind of a jerk here because this is
yet another tunicit. What I got you? Yeah, So this
like leprous looking gray avocado is a tunic kit called
pyra chilinasis uh wait wait sorry, I pronounced that totally wrong.
(14:28):
Pya chill and sis uh. And it looks like a
gray rock with weird tubules that has flesh inside. And
that's essentially what it is. It's a flesh rock.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, Okay, I just need to be very clear with
the audience. So Katie has provided, you know, like we
were talking about with the first tunicit, is the name
of the creature right, yes, tunicit. So so so Katie
provided four different images of the first tunicit and they
all look pretty different then, but but there are some
similar qualities. This picture, this second picture, or rather fifth picture,
(15:05):
at this point, could not look more different than the
prior four pictures. There's nothing about this picture that says, well,
that's the same creature. Yeah at all.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, to be fair, it's a different species for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
But being like, you know, look, you showed me two birds.
One could be big, one could be small. They both
look like birds, right, this does not even this is
this doesn't even look like a globule of strawberry.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, no, it kind of looks moldy. But yeah, it's
so that gray rock like exterior is the exoskeletal structure
of a colony of tunicates. Inside that red flesh is
you know, they're flesh, the flesh of these kits. So
this is a colony of tunicts. And yeah, just like
(15:52):
other tunicates, they siphon in water and filter feed and
essentially just hang out and seem like a rock until
they are dragged out by fishermen. And I know you
said you were on the fence about eating this, but
these are an example of an edible tunicate, and indeed
they are featured in Chilean cuisine. Yes, what.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
So because it does look like a flesh rock from hell,
it's not a particularly popular food in Chile. And this
is not like some kind of like common cuisine, but
in areas where like there's a lot of fishing, it
can be eaten in fishermen. Well, what they do essentially
(16:37):
is they take out the inside. You don't eat out
the exoskeleton, just like you wouldn't eat like the exoskeleton
of a clam. And then they take these like basically
like globules of meat from inside, dry them out, and
it's used in soups. So you know, I would I
(16:58):
I would try it. I would.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I mean now that I mean, now that we're having
this conversation, I'm like, yeah, I mean, throw it on
a plate. Let me see what some see what we're
rocking with. But like, wow, I'm shook. I'm shook. I mean,
you know, that's.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
When it's like, when you're essentially giving me the option
of eating a living rock made out of flesh, it
does sound a little appealing.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Actually, that sounds like some pokemon stuff. It's like, do
I want to eat a geo dude.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Hell yeah, Katie, those traps they've got delts that look
you know, delectable, delectable.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Though there's meat there.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
All right, So do you want to move on to
the next image. Let's do it, all right, This is
candidate number three. I want you to describe this image
for the audioka gladly.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well, I'm going to avoid the rather explicit connotation that
these things have and say that they are They do
look like blue wieners. They look like they look like, uh,
doctor Manhattan wieners sticking out of the ground. They look
like and the thing is so again, this is a
scale thing where I'm like, don't know how big these are,
(18:22):
but they I'm going to guess small. They look like
small stalagmites, translucent bluish stalagmites. They look like, you know,
you can see there there may be gooey blue center.
It's almost it's almost like a it looks like one
single piece that is like attached to a rock with
(18:43):
a lot with a lot of little like you know,
blue wieners sticking out of it.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
But it is a meadow of blueis.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
A meadow of blue wieners is a great way to
say it there is also as part of them. It
almost looks like you're looking into like a cave, a
cave of blue wieners that are being exposed to light
for the first time. I'm also going to guess this
is guessing this is also I'm guessing this is underwater,
(19:18):
but there's no evidence of that. You know what, Actually,
I take that back. There's no water evidence in this picture,
so I'm gonna say it's not water. I'm going to go.
I'm trying to think there's any other physical descriptors that
are worth mentioning here. I mean, like, you know, uh no,
I think I think we I think we kind of
nailed it all.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I'm going to thank you. I'm going to go I'm
going to go with a fungus hm.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
But also, would you eat it? You gotta answer that one.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Too, Oh right, of course, yes, they look like they
they look like they explode in your mouth like gushers.
So yes, absolutely due.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
They look gummy, they look like delicious gummies. They do
look gummy, you know, like how you're at a bachelor
party and you get some weiener gummies. They look like that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, I would know personally, have been very familiar with those. Yes,
I've seen those images and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I've been to a lot of bachelorette parties. There's always
some kind of weier thing, and it's just like, come on,
aren't we adults here, Let's grow up, Let's just grow up.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Let's grow up.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Anyways, so that is a fantastic guess. This is a
fun guy. Sadly it is incorrect. This is actually a mineral.
So yeah, I gotta I gotta throw in a mineral there.
I gotta guess, switch up a curveball, a little bit
of curve.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
These are things, definitely aren't These things definite aren't squishy
that No, no, it looks There are so.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Many minerals that I would put in my mouth and
chomp down and break every tooth because they like candy
and I want to eat them.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yes, these absolutely look like candy. One.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
These are chrysocola. They are this blue color. They're actually
quite beautiful. I think it's actually due to the copper
hydroxide content of the mineral. Obviously, copper is typically copper colored,
but when it is oxidized it's blue. Like have you
(21:19):
ever seen a gross old penny that's like kind of
wet I have. Yeah, I turns blue and sometimes it
turns your pocket blue too, and so yeah, it will.
That is where this blue color comes.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
From, and that was where blue jeans come from.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
People just have penny penny washed jeans.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Penny washed.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
So I think, I mean it's possible, though, that oxidized
copper was used in paints. I'm not I'm not a
paint expert or mineral mineralist, but yeah, I mean, that's
that's very possible. It's used as like coloration in things.
But that bulb, that sort of bulbous valley of penises
(22:08):
type thing that's going on that they can look like
little tentacles. Sometimes it looks like little bubbles like it's
it's literally sort of bubbling up. It's called a boeroidal formation.
It is when there are many seeds from which the
crystal forms. So when I talk about seed, it's essentially
like maybe it's a piece of sand or a small
(22:29):
particle of mineral from which a crystal sort of starts growing.
So again, I'm not a mineraloid, I'm not a professor
of mineralogy.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
But what was my favorite aliens from Star Trek?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Mineral Oid just a bunch of rocks. It's just a
geodude rebranded. So it's essentially like the way I learned
it eons ago is that you'll have sort of a
structure of a crystal, and then once you have like
if you have like things that it's stuff that kind
of knocks things into place or like it forms this thing,
(23:07):
and then you start to get this formation and everything
sort of settles in this this structure form because you
have a seed structure that enables this type of formation,
and so the crystal continues to form sort of like
a domino effect. And so if you have a multiple
number of these like seeds that will grow these crystals,
(23:28):
then you have this like bubbling form or forest of Weena's.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Most certainly it's beautiful. I have a question to go
for it now now that we now that we know
that it is a mineral, can we get what is
the scale of the image that we're looking at? Here?
Are these tiny? Are they large? Are they kind of
like in between? Like what size are we looking at?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Sometimes they can and it depends. Some of them are
like bigger, some of them are like small, like sort
of like smaller than a pencil. These I think are
about pencil size.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Pencil said, that's still pretty I mean, gang, if you
were to look at these like saying that their pencil
size means they're probably like the thickness of like a
water bottle. So these are pretty substantial minerals right here.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, okay, maybe pencil is a little big, but they're
certainly like like uh yeah, like a thin sort of
the head of a pencil maybe, oh like like the
like the like you know, the like the not like
the lead points, but like the conical part of the pencil,
like each one of those is kind of like I
(24:32):
would think sort of like that. But I've seen ones
that are also really small.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Like gotcha, okay, wow, okay, but they but they are
small in range. We're not going to go into a
cave and see two foot three foot tall ones of
these bod mines right here.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Not that I am aware of.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
No, Okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
And sometimes they don't I mean, sometimes they don't form
like those sort of like Wiener shapes or bubble shapes.
Sometimes they're like different shape, like it's just it kind
of depends on how they form. Uh. This form I
thought looked really organic and weird and possibly would throw
you off, which it did, and I'm proud you.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Nailed it, proud of lying to you, you know, an
appropriate situation to me, And I'm proud of you too.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So let's move on to the next image.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
If you're ready, I'm super ready.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
All right, let's do it. So first, describe this to
the audience again. Let's let's let's be adults here.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, let's be let's be adults here, all right. So, gang,
imagine that you were looking at a top down brain
that was like flattened, like it looks like a flat
cross section of a brain with a a very suggestive
slit down the middle.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Looks like a brain vagina.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
It is a brain virgin. It looks like there are
a couple surrounding it. It looks like a little bundle,
maybe maybe a three pack of brain vaginas. They're sitting, honestly.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And get those big old tops of brain vaginas you do.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Uh, they look like they're sitting in a pot filled
with pebbles. So maybe this is like some sort of
I mean, the pot looks I'll say this, Okay, this
could be one of those things where like the geological
formation was just so perfect and this is like underwater.
But something tells me this is more of like a
succulent and is actually a plant. But the last thing
(26:43):
I'll say is in terms of so again, remember we're
talking like a flat brain looking thing here. It's like
a It's like a cross section of a brain if
you were to cut it in half, all the wrinkles
and stuff like that, same coloring as a brain, with
the with all the folds and all the wrinkles being
kind of like a the silk and ego being like
a reddish hue. It's got kind of a pink look
(27:04):
to it. There's kind of like an outline of yellowy
orange all around, and I feel like I can see
the root below it. I think I'm pretty confident that
that is a succulent plant.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And you say, you, hell, yeah, well you are absolutely
correct that this is a fantastic I would not eat it.
I don't think it'll kill you, but I think it
would taste garbou and possibly give you a tummy age.
(27:37):
But yeah, it is a plant. It is called a lithops,
which means easy to kill in Greek. That's not true,
I'm kidding. No, it actually means stone face in Greek.
It is a very for me personally, maybe for other
people too. It is a difficult succulent to keep alive.
I have owned about three of them and kill every
(28:00):
single one. I but they're so cool that the next
time I see one being sold by a plant person,
I will buy it again and probably kill it.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Probably kill it. Yeah, So what what was so difficult
about the care that made them made it easy to kill? So?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
These are These are succulents that are found in Africa,
and they tend to do really well in very dry conditions,
and so you really need very good drainage and to
water it just enough but not too much, because if
you water it too much and the drainage is not adequate,
(28:39):
it will actually make the plant explode kind of because
it absorbs too much water or the roots rot. So
you water it like I've I've heard some advice where
you water it like once a year, but I tried
doing that and it die once a year. So I
tried watering it more than that, but it also died.
(29:02):
So I don't know what I'm exactly doing wrong. Probably
I should stop buying these. So but yeah, they they
are actually flowering succulents. So when they are in sort
of the flowering season, a flower will emerge from betwixt
(29:25):
the clefts of this. Really, yes, I'm probably I mean
it is very labial. I'll probably get some obgi and
mad at me for calling it a vaginan. Obviously that's
not the vagiants, it's the labia. But yeah, so you'll
have a flower that sprouts from it, and their appearance
is thought to be camouflaged, so looking so much like
(29:48):
a rock, meaning that it's less likely to be eaten.
They're beautifuls.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I mean they are, you know, honestly. Okay. Another another,
another crass example for our listeners at home who are
trying to picture this. Imagine you're very old and you
put your naked butt cheeks on the xerox.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Old pancaked butt cheeks.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
That's right, old pancakes butt cheeks on the xerox machine.
You got what we're looking at right here.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
That's exactly it. That is exactly it, and it's beautiful.
I think that it is. I think that's the thing.
Is like when you say old, wrinkly pancaked, but it
makes it sound, you know, unappealing. But when you think
about you, when you think about all the different shapes
and folds that happen in nature. Look, we're just we're
(30:44):
just nature baby, and we're just nature baby. We're just
like succulents. Well, let's let's move on to the next
to the next one. Dan, You're you're you're doing amazing
at this game.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Oh, thank you, thank you. This game is amazing.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
This is fun. I'm having fun me too. This is
candidate number five. Describe candidate number five if you will.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
So, this honestly looks like a haunted oil leak. We
have a green slime that looks like it is coming
out of something. The image is on what looks like concrete,
and it looks like the green slime. There's there's a
couple different like trails of you know when you like
(31:35):
splash water or there's a liquid on concrete, and you
can see the kind of residue. This definitely looks like
it has been leaving a residue or something has been
leaving a residue around it. Maybe this, whatever it is,
has been moving. I'm honestly now looking at it, my
first thought was fungus. Now I'm thinking creature, but also
(31:56):
it might be a plant. It is very shiny, it
is it is a it is a bright It.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Is Nickelodeon's slime green.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
It is ghack green firs.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Sure green?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
No, no, no, no, you're right, no, no, slime, it's
slime green. Gak is something different, but no, it's definitely what.
I can't remember, Man, I need to google this whole.
I'm googling gag wasn't gak?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Jak was a toy?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Right?
Speaker 1 (32:20):
But was it all?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But it was made by Nickelodeon. It was multiple colors. Yeah,
but Nickelodeon slime is what we're talking about. Nicolas, You're
one hundred percent right, Gang, it is Nickelodeon slime. Uh.
This this, this floor is looking like Katy Perry's face
after she accidentally opened that box. Uh, it's it's gross.
(32:42):
It's long. There is something next to it for scale
that almost looks like maybe a fishing line.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So you're, oh, God, you're sure locking the hell out
of this. I can tell by the angle of the
shadows that this was taken into approximately fifteen.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I'm gonna say I'm going to go with animal. I
think this is a creature that is very interesting.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Would you eat it? Your face says no, But your
face says no, But your voice.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
My face says no, but my body says me, I
don't know. It looks like a it looks like one
of those. Honestly, it looks like a whole pack of
gummy bears melted down the side of the street. And
you look around and you're like, no one's going to
see this. Pop them all in your mouth at once.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
The story time, when I was in high school, a
classmate was doing this thing where we had like a yeah,
I don't know how he came into possession of this
many mint mints, but he had a bunch of peppermints,
the green kind, the green and white striped peppermints, and
so we were all bored, and uh he decided to
(34:02):
try to fit as many as possible in his mouth,
and so of course we all egged him on. It
was a massive choking hazard. He could have died, but
we didn't think about that. He ended up fine, But uh,
I think what happened is he is trying, uh to
(34:24):
he was trying to keep going, and I said, come on,
just one more, man, you can do it, just a
little one. And that's for some reason, that made him
laugh and he started laughing and he spewed out this
long tendril of green spit melted mint candy. It smelled
(34:44):
very minty. It went everywhere. It was hilarious, and we
got in trouble.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
You got in trouble with him.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
No, I mean just like the teacher was like, guys, oh, yeah,
don't do that. We didn't get like detention or anything
like that. I was just like, guys, come on, because
she spit like a massive glob of semi mouth digested
mint everywhere. The poor teacher, leaguered chemistry teacher. This is
(35:16):
what that looks like to me.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I totally see that. Yeah, and that is horrifying.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, but your guess is that it is an animal.
You are correct. Let's see. I want to see if
you like, let's go, like, where do you think this
animal lives? Let's see if we can get even more
specific bonus round.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Okay, So I may be reading too much into the
quote unquote fishing line that's next to it, which I
still think is a fishing line, And I'm going to
say this thing lives in the ocean. I'm going to
say it's some sort of like sea slug type joint.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
That is very good. Guess, Yes, it does. Live in
the ocean. It is not a sea slug, but it
is is a ribbon worm. It is a green ribbon
worm found in the ocean off the coast of Taiwan, Japan,
and the Philippines. It is a bright green, mean clam
(36:13):
eating machine. Uh. It like a lot of ribbon worms.
It's kind of horrifying looking. It's actually not like super
closely related to say, like earthworms or anything. They're just
similarly shaped, but you know, not not very closely related.
(36:34):
But yeah, it is a ribbon worm. And ribbon worms
have this thing called a preboscis, which is a great word,
and it is this long, sticky, tongue like organ, yes exactly,
that they can evert meaning sort of turn inside out
and spit out through their mouth. And this can both
(36:58):
ensnare their prey and also it contains venom to further
incapacitate their victims, which can be yes like clams, other
aquatic worms, snails, basically anything small enough and unlucky enough
to find itself tangled up in its lethal proboscus. But
as you can see from this picture, they're not tiny.
(37:20):
They can be very long.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Actually, no, this thing, this thing looks frighteningly.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah. I think this one's like over a foot long
and like thicker than a pencil. It's yeah, interesting. So uh.
They then, once they have entangled their prey and their
venomous proboscis, they pull it in and basically like slurp
up their own proboscis like spaghetti and then engulf their poohole. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, wow, that's so kind of it's kind of snake
like in the assumption of it.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
But though even though snakes are not.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
You know, but they have no job, yeah or face. Really,
they're just a evil spaghetti.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Not the way I'm trying to go. It gets swallowed
by evil spaghetti. Yeah. Yeah, Well I want to look
I want to look my killer in the eyes if
they're going to eat me.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, which is hard to do with this thing. It's
like where is it which it's hard to even know
which end is the butt.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Where it's exactly yes, exactly. Well, it sounds like we
won't know until much much too late.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Gross.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Gross.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Well, let's move on, all right. Ultimate mystery image Candidate
number six. Describe what you're seeing here, Daniel.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
All right, so this looks like okay, this this looks
like what you would tell chat Gpt to draw if
you were, like, can you draw lollipops growing out of
the grounds?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
It looks like an AI art thing, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It really does. The orbs are so perfect, or rather
the the it's almost like the reflection on them is
so perfect it almost looks not real. So imagine, let's
see here, just say like many, Let's say like at
least ten like stubby hairs sticking out of the ground.
(39:17):
And at the end of each stubby hair is like
a shiny, perfect orb and either a red orange or
a flesh color. Now, not all of these things are
perfect orbs, but it's just these like rounded shapes that
are like perfectly glossy, shiny on top of what looks
like a gangly beard hair sticking out of the dirt.
(39:39):
I believe it's dirt. It could be it could be
wood perchance perhaps to dream, but yeah, this definitely looks
like it looks like like stubbly beard hair on a
piece of wood, with like lollipops or balloons at the
end of it that are just these shiny, glossy globules.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Globules.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Love a globule, Love a globule, big fan big globbers.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Would you would you eat it?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I'm super duper tempted.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I know.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Don't they look like each one of us crunch?
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Don't they look like little chupa chuops?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah they do. One hund.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I would eat them.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Do you have a Do you have a favorite chupa
chube flavor? No?
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I don't even pay attention to the flavors.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Honestly, I respect that, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
I look at it, It's like wow, that's cheep chop,
and I stick it in my mouth.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, there you go, Okay, totally fair. The only reason
I have a favorite flap yes, just because just because
it's one of those candies that has this flavor, and
that flavor is root beer. Oh yeah, I love love
a root beer flavored candy.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Nosed to have like those little root beer candies that
were shaped like root beer barrels that would have my
lame jumper or other sort of you.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Know, hundred her scent.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, those were good. Those were so good. Sometimes they'd
sort of split in like form sharp edges and like
cut my mouth. Worth it, absolutely worth it, absolutely yeah.
This one I think is like this is the one
I'm like second to the one that was actually a mineral.
I'm it's like very tempting to like want to eat it.
(41:22):
Sorry you didn't. You didn't guess what it is yet, right,
Oh you're right, I did.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Not guess what. Oh my goodness, say, what do you
think this is? I think this is a fungus. Interesting,
I think this is a fungus I see growing out
of the wood, and something tells me that this is
like some sort of fun guy that has killed some
curious creatures out in the forest, being like, looks yummy.
But then again, the colors would have earted them. I
(41:46):
don't know. I mean, like, look, I'd fall for it.
I'm kind of a goof so I would be, oh,
yummers and then be dry heaving twenty minutes later.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
I mean, I'd do it even if I knew that
it was bad. For hell, yeah, they just look a
tiny If you gave me like something, You're like, this
is a poisonous miniature TUBEA tube.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
I'm like, I mean it exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Well, you said we'll pay the price later, so you
are so close. Oh this is I mean one of
the things I'm most impressed was that you guess that
this is wood, because this is decaying wood. And this
is not a fungus. This is a little unfair because
it is very close to a fungus in terms of
(42:26):
like the way it's actually not that closely related to fungus,
but it is something that is like sometimes seems similar
to fungus. It is a slime mold. So are actually
not in the fungus kingdom. There are creatures, aren't they
(42:47):
They are different, so they are there. They are eukaryots,
just like humans, plants, fungus, but they are a variety
of eukaryotic organisms who typically will have like a single
selled individual stage and then glom together with other individuals
to form a slug and then a fruiting body. So
(43:08):
uh so, slime molds are kind of it's sort of
an et cetera category in biology where it's like it is,
it is just a bunch of unrelated, uh, single celled
eukaryots who come together form these group organisms and often
tend to have sort of a similar thing going on,
(43:31):
even though they're not really that related. But they are.
They are all eukaryots, and they are not fungi. They're
not They are not in the fungus kingdom, and They
are not to be confused with mold because like mold
is typically like what we would say, say like on
a on an orange or something, that mold is like
(43:52):
a fungus and so it is not a mold really
in that sense. It's a slime mold, which is sort
of it's own thing. It's like a kind of miscellaneous
category of totally of eukaryotic organisms that I'll do a similar.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Thing there you go, yeah, wow, gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
So uh they find yeah, so they are. They are
basically when you see it like this right, like where
you can actually visibly see it, this is a colony
organism of like many individual organisms. So uh, this one
specifically the image that we have is Comatrica nigra, which
feeds on rotting wood in forests. So very good identification
(44:35):
of the substrate, which we have learned means floor. So
they feed on rotting wood in forest. They're found all
over the world. It's interesting, right because it's like they
have these stalks and then this like a balloon at
the top. Right, they look like they kind of look
(44:57):
like tiny balloons with this like black st on the bottom.
What if this is so like preceding this, they would
form like something that's kind of like a slug that
can move. It's not a slug because it is actually
this like colony of many, many different individuals. And in
(45:17):
order to reproduce the they release spores. But in order
to release the spore, they need to get off of
the surface of the substrate and go upwards, like build
a skyscraper upwards so that they can release the spoor
and it can go up and be distributed. Because if
(45:37):
they're just trying to release spores, well they're stuck on
the ground. Then they it just like plops really close
to them, competes for food with other it's not a
good situation. And so they'll form this slug. And then
after they form the slug, they all try to basically
get on top of each other. They're trying to go up.
(45:58):
And so what happened in terms of both their behavior
and just like physics, is they form a stock and
then a body on top of the stock, like a
bulb on top of the stock. And while this kind
of seems so the ones in the stock are kind
of screwed. They just die and they're unable to distribute
their spores. And that seems like that's altruism, but it's not.
(46:22):
It's just they're unlucky. They are all trying to do
the same thing and they lost out, whereas the other
ones won out in terms of getting to be on
the top of the stock and they'll be able to
release their spores. But yeah, it is a fascinating it's
a highly sort of studied, fascinating thing where you have
this group behavior resulting like of like individual competing unicellular
(46:48):
organisms coming together to do a thing that they could
not accomplish on their own. But they're still competing with
each other and trying to behave it's behaved sort of selfishly.
And it's interesting because it's a way in which we
can see how in our own bodies, like we are
basically an extremely well developed colony of individual cells, right,
(47:12):
and sometimes our cells actually will compete like are you know,
like we've all learned about, like when you have a
fertilization of an egg, all these sperm or racing to
the finish line, you have like competition between sex cells
and so like. But then somehow our bodies are able
(47:33):
to come together and function well as a unified organism.
And so this is an interesting sort of like precursor
to a functional multicellular animal. It's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
That's wild, very very cool, and you shouldn't eat it.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Don't eat it. Even though it does look like tiny
tube chupes.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
You would look at these gang. I'm telling you you
will look at this picture and be like, I mean, okay,
case is not to eat it, but I'm gonna eat it.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
I don't do it.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I okay out it's sick.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Probably I don't actually know how sick.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
I'm gonna say face some of you from the hospital
being the kadio, I'm sure get it.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Just get it. This episode was brought to you by
chupa Choops. I wish like if I could get some
free cheep choops for talking about it. You know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
What I'm saying, I gotta imagine. Let me let me
just say this. I haven't heard them sponsor a single podcast.
This is a market that they have not been attacking enough.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Frankly, you want one now right now that I've compared.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
It, absolutely, I am one serious about Like, okay, no joke.
I did just google chupa Choops to make sure that
A they had the root beer flavor and B where
can I get those rupeer flavor?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
So you think I can get them in Italy? Which
is great?
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Ooh, talk about to go up.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
There's a Cheep Choop website in Italian. So I'm set.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Really, you're good, You're good.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
I want to get some squab we got it looks
so good? Anyways, that yes, so slime mold. Uh, fantastic job, Daniel.
But you know what, actually we actually have another game
because every week, even though this is a special episode
where the whole episode was a game, every week we
(49:21):
also play a game called Guess who squawkings? The Mystery
Animal sound game?
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yes, yes, so I love this game.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
We are going to play and uh, last week's mystery
animal sound hint was this? This animal sounds feeres, but
the most you have to fear from him is plamidia.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Oh I know what it is?
Speaker 1 (49:45):
You do already? Can you want to listen to the sound?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
I do? Yes, I do?
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Okay? Was the clammyia? The tell?
Speaker 2 (49:58):
It was? Well, I mean maybe it if I'm thinking
of the right animal, then yes.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
All right, so you've said you already had a good
idea of.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
What this is. What do you think this is?
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Daniel?
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Okay, So My experience with chlamydia in the animal kingdom
is that it is a particularly big problem for koalas.
And I think I just heard someone in the background
maybe say something with an Australian accent. I could have
been wrong, but also after listening to that, that did
not sound like a koala. So my knowledge of chlamydia
(50:40):
being a big deal for kuala's might be in vain,
but I'm still going to go with my guess that
the answer is koala's.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
You gotta go with your gut because you are correct.
Is a koala which sounds very much not like a koala,
But that is the mating call of a male.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
Koala, the maiding call.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yes, isn't it sexy?
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yes? I can't even do it deep in guttural. That
was way more guttural and horrifying than I thought it
would come out of a koala. Those things are so
small and cute, and I will say, I know that
you know they got the fangs like they will throw down,
and it's simply that they're just constantly eating eucalyptus and
or highest that they're chill, but like wow, that.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
To digest like the worst plant. And so they're tired
all the time.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
She yeah, exactly, But yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Koalas do have a problem with chlamydia, which is a
sexually transmitted disease in koalas, just as it is in
humans caused by a bacteria. Researchers are trying out vaccines
to protect the quala from chlamydia, which is important as
it is very bad for the kualas and can kill them.
And the antibiotic treatment that is so effective in humans
(51:53):
is actually not great for koalas because it impairs their
ability to digest eucalyptus. Because eucalypse this is not an
easily digested plan. It's got all these like uh slightly
toxic compounds in it that it's very very hard to digest,
and so like when you give them antibiotics, it actually
(52:14):
makes it harder for them to digest. And so, uh,
the key thing here is we gotta we gotta get
a vaccine for these koalas because they're not even common.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Certainly are not nothing about that.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
We tried that and all these like you know, like
look this is you know, just you gotta pack it
before you you go go down onto And they didn't listen.
Sex said for kulas did not work.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
No, they were not paying attention.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
That's funny, fantastic job, Daniel. But uh one more sound
this week, christ sound and uh here it is. Oh wait,
I didn't give a hint, did I. When you hear this,
you know to pack your bag. Hey guys, Katie here
with a bit of a warning. This sound is like
(53:06):
Satan screaming into your ear after inhaling a bunch of helium.
So if you have your headphones turned all the way up,
I turn them down a bit. I tried my best
to make the sound as quiet while still audible as possible.
But you know, if you're sensitive to like high pitched
sounds straight from how I just to you know, take
(53:31):
a minute to maybe turn down your volume just a bit.
Or if you have a dog who will start barking
if they hear this, you know, maybe have your dog
not listen to this. And anyways, enjoy this terrible sound
that I'm going to play now. But are you hearing it?
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Yes? It is very loud my.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Mind, Harriet, I'm sorry about the sorry about the noise.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
You're like, wait are you hearing it? But it was
so I can't that one is aggressive? Do I do?
I make a guess.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Now, I guess, make a guess.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Okay, the hit was to pack your bags. That sounded
like I mean, it sounded like a bird. It could
also be like a primate of some kind. I'm going
to go with some sort of I'm going to go
with some sort of primate. I think it was some
sort of like. Yeah, I unfortunately cannot get more specific,
but I will say yowler tough to some sort of
(54:36):
tofted yowler.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Sure yet not a real thing made that up?
Speaker 2 (54:39):
Right? Right right, right right? Yeah, that's all I got.
I wouldn't say a small primate, all.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Small ish primate. Well, we will find out next time
on Creature Keeping you on tinter hooks. Damn well, thank
you so much for playing my little games with me.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
It was such a fun game. I look forward to
many renditions of this game. Everyone else who guests on
the show and let me know.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Guys, if you really enjoyed this game, you can write
to me a Creature Future pod at gmail dot com.
You can also write to me your guess is for
the Mystery Animal sound game. You can also leave me
a rating and review. In your review, you can tell
me whether or not you liked this game format where
we play a little guessing game and I will know
then whether to do it again.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Dale, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
You got anything to plug, anything to promote my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
Sure, I mean I would say, please listen to all
the shows on the network. You already listen to all
don at once. You already listened to Creature Future, So
good job. I work on these scrubs, Rewatch podcast, Take
Doctor's Real Friends. I'm the editor of Behind the Bastards
and the Cool Zone Media Network. I'm also the editor
of Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff with Margaret Kiljoy,
another podcast on cool Zone. I am also the producer
(55:54):
of the New Tosh Show podcast, which is really funny
starring Daniel Tosh. If if you were Tosh point zero
fans back in the Dizzy, He's back on the airwaves
via podcasting and on YouTube. It's definitely worth a listen.
You can find me on Twitch at twitch dot tv,
slash dj Underscore, danil d A n L. You can
(56:15):
no longer find me on Twitter, I don't do that anymore.
You can find me on Instagram, even though I'm also
divorcing myself from that social media. I'm not doing social
media anymore. Katie, I'm off. I'm over it.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
I was gonna ask you how you have time to like,
eat or use the bathroom given how much you are doing.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Well, that's very sweet of you. I don't your caf no.
I just yeah, I've just capped up, that is. That's
the other thing, you know what I did? So instead
of being into social media, you know what I did,
I got really into making espresso and so now I
have an espresso machine and to make myself alatte every
morning and it's nice. The bomb. I love it.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
I also got into espresso recently. I don't make it myself,
but I drink.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
It and I like it. Hell yeah, man, it's good.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
Espress so good. It keeps me a week to feel that.
But yeah, that's it. And support your local podcast, support
your community, wear sunscreen, drink water, I don't know, those
are the things.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
And if you see a tiny chube of chup on
the ground, a little lick one little Thank you guys
so much for listening, creat your future to the production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
So here is one where have you.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
Listening to your favorite shows? I don't judge you. I'm
not your mother, and I can't tell you what to do.
You gotta you gotta drive your own ship, baby. You
just be captain of your own destiny. Take that wheel
and turn it. That's my advice to you. See you
next Wednesday.
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
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