November 12, 2025 • 61 mins
I'm getting excited for the new season of Fallout, so here's one of my favorite episodes where we look at the mutated creatures of the Fallout franchise and discussing whether they could actually exist in a nuclear wasteland! It's a real optimistic episode and we discuss BIG BUGS! How can we bring back big bugs?!
Guest: Will Poole
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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're talking about the creatures
of Fallout, from the rad roaches to the like weird
naked more rap mutants. Is this accurate?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What this actually happened?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
What do we know about how animals might survive nuclear radiation?
Discover this and more as we answer the age old
question what kind of bogus pr campaign our cockroach is running?
Joining me today is friend of the show, host of
George Center the podcast Will Pull, also known as Christy
Yamagucci Mane.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Welcome, Thank you, Katie. I appreciate you having me again.
Glad to be back and talking about this weird video
game that my kids are obsessed with.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'm thrilled to discuss this.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I've been I've been doing research, mainly through my children
by asking them questions about the Fallout series in the world,
and they are They've they've been like kind of side
eyeing me, like why am I asking about all of
this all of a sudden. So I'm looking forward to
being educated so I can go back to them and
(01:25):
sound like I know what the hell I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yes, so, I mean using your kids for experiments is
very foulout. But yeah, I've actually so, I've played Fallout
New Vegas. I have not played the other games, and
there's a lot of them I do want to play,
like the really the first ones, the super old one
(01:48):
with the like sprites and isometrics that looks that looks
like fun. And I have watched the show. I've got
like two episodes left, So I'm actually not going to
do any spoilers for either the show or the games.
So if you are currently watching the show where you
want to play the games, do not worry. There's no
spoilers unless you would count like talking about the flora
(02:12):
and fauna of the universe as a spoiler. But personally,
I don't really consider it that we're just going to
talk about like these animals that we see in the
show and the games, and whether it actually makes sense
for them to be that way, and what would have
to happen for us to actually see these weird mutations
(02:32):
in these monstrosities the series.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I love Walton Goggins.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
He's probably my favorite creature from the series so far.
That I have seen, so I don't know if he
counts necessarily. I guess he's considered a ghoul, yes, And
I don't know what the rules are in the universe
of the video game that makes him a ghoul exactly
or why he is, how he kind of came to
(03:00):
be the way he is. Yes, so it does he count.
Are we going to be talking about goules in this series?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I mean, I wasn't gonna go to in depth about
it because that's sort of squarely in this science fiction
region where it's like when humans are exposed to radiation,
really we just don't do very well. So the idea that, yeah,
the idea that, so the the gules are humans in
(03:28):
the in the games and in the show that are
exposed to radiation and instead of dying horribly, they kind
of look like sort of like zombies, but they're still
cognizant and they can live a really long time. They're
essentially immortal, but then they can go kind of it's
(03:51):
like they can go feral. So if they don't get
enough of I don't know, it's unclear in the games
why this happens, but in this show, I think it's like,
if you don't get enough of a certain substance, you
you can basically lose your mind and turn into a zombies.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
So it's like the it's like the comic book fantasy
version of what we wish would happen if we were
exposed to nuclear.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Radiationally, yes, this is right. Yeah, in truth, there's not
the levels of radiation one when be exposed to in
sort of a post nuclear apocalypse situation, I don't think
would improve your longevity. There's like some research in that
into whether really really low doses of radiation can actually
(04:38):
be good for you because it can kind of encourage
anti oxidants in your body, like the production of these
anti free radicals, and so in order to actually kind
of combat the radiation, your body may also combat other
(04:59):
disease and stuff. But it's it's the research on it
is not super clear, which is why you should not
like intentionally expose yourself to low levels of radiation because
it could also just give you cancer.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah. It's just a little too much of a good thing,
is is?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, Yeah, it turns on a dime real quick.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, it's it's a it's not something to like, it's
not something to experiment with. Like a Keto diet or
you know, like I'm going to try cutting milk out
of my diet or whatever. It's like I'm going to
try just a little bit of radiation to make see
if it makes me immortal. It's probably not gonna work out.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So that I feel like that's why people that fly
a lot are probably doing with those body scanners. Oh yeah,
you get but yeah, they're just a little little dost
morning dust every every time you fly.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah. So the first thing we're going to talk about
is the I guess I don't know, probably people would
argue this with me, but they seem like the most
iconic creature of the Fallout franchise, the red roaches, these
giant cockroaches that have been radiated, of course, falling neatly
(06:11):
into the stereotype of roaches being the one thing that
could survive a nuclear war. So I'm sure you've like
heard that, like roaches would survive anything, they'd survive a
nuclear war.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I have heard that.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
That was like always like a cool factor, like alongside
the fact that you could cut a roach's head off
and it would survive, for like it would it would
keep on living, it would starve to death essentially like
it it would keep functioning but just wouldn't have the
capacity to eat. So, yes, that that was that was
(06:47):
what like twinkies and roaches were the only things that
would like survive a nuclear holocaust basically.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, which is not necessarily true. I mean that Actually
the head thing is more true in terms of like
it depends on how much of the head you cut off, right,
Like if you cut off so like there's parts of
the head you can cut off and the roach will
still somewhat function until obviously it can no longer survive.
But the same is actually somewhat true of chickens. If
(07:18):
you accidentally missed their basically the part of the the
brain stem, they can theoretically, and in one instance in
real life survive. There was one chicken that got its
head cut off and it but the chopping missed a
(07:39):
large section of its brain stem. So it's still like
chickened around just without and its owner tried to like
feed it by using a eye dropper to put food
and water down its neck hole. Yeah it's not great,
but the point is so with roaches, yeah, they can
(08:00):
survive a lot. They're very hearty, right, But in terms
of radiation. While it's true that they can survive more
radiation than a human, they're a weird like poster bug
for surviving nuclear falloup because they are by far not
the most impressive bug. They're not actually that great at
(08:23):
surviving radiation. They are great at exploiting human resources. They
can even like karate chop parasitoid wasps that try to
attack them. So, I mean, I don't love roaches because
I don't want them in my house, but I really
admire I admire their spirit. But yeah, in terms of radiation,
they're not actually that amazing. So there's this great article
(08:48):
called cockroaches and Radiation by Australian science communicator doctor Carl
Kuzelnikki in ABC's Science that goes into how various insects
can survive radiation. If you're interested, i'll have a link
to it in the show notes. They are heardier than
humans when it comes to radiation. So humans can survive
(09:11):
about one hundred to two hundred rads. You will probably
get radiation sickness from that amount, but it's not fatal.
Radiation illness gets progressively worse and more fatal as you
go from two hundred to a thousand rads, and at
a thousand rads, you're doomed pretty much to die in
(09:32):
a horrible way. And this is that too, you're very
likely to die. But it just gets progressively more and
more bad.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, the like I've never.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Like calling them rads is like, yeah, like it's it's
the funnest sounding way to get poisoned by something measuring
something that's killing you. It's like, it's, uh like, I
want like exactly, like a want to increase the amount
of rads on being exposed to.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
No, the heck you do not.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, I just it's it's hard to uh like, I've
never heard that measurement before. So that's the measurement of radiation, Yes, radiation, Okay,
units of radiation.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I did not know that they were called rads.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's the first time that I've I've been exposed, well,
no pun intended exposed to that unit of measurement.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
They're not typically exposed to that, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, so so roaches aren't the best at this. Does
does the paper talk about what insect they have found
to be the the most hearty when.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It comes to being exposed to this stuff?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, so just for a comparison humans. The humans survival
like up to around two hundred rads and we're basically
okay other than that, like we can't survive higher, but
it gets more less and les survivable the higher it goes,
until like at a thousand, it's like you're definitely dead.
(11:06):
But even at four hundred you may very likely die
at the very least, it's not going to be good.
But cockroaches can survive up to six thousand rats, which is,
you know, like at least three times that of humans,
although after about a thousand they become infertile, so that's
(11:26):
not great for continuing your cockroach lineage. So yeah, better
than humans. But parasitoid wasps so we love to talk
about these. I mentioned them earlier as getting karate chopped
by cockroaches. So parasitoid wasps are wasps often quite small
(11:46):
that will lay their eggs inside or on top of
their prey, their victims, and when the eggs hatch, the
larvae either eats the victim from the inside out or
it like sucks the juices from on top of them.
They're called parasitoids because they're not only parasites, but they
actually end up killing their victims so they they suck
(12:08):
them completely dry.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
And one of the first episodes I was on, we
talked about, uh, like the zombie snail. Yes, like like
that that was just like a normal parasite, right Like,
I feel like we've talked about like almost every episode
I've been on, there's been some version of a parasitoid wasp.
There's a lot of these these things, right, like, like
the wasp.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I feel like the wasp is like.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
The the like land insect version of a crab, like
everything like it just like everything ends up being a
wasp at some point like that, I like, aren't ants
basically like wingless wasps?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I mean, I don't know they're they're uh, they're related
to wasps distantly, but I wouldn't necessarily describe them as
wingless wasps.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
No, Okay, okay, I feel like I feel like there's
a lot more insects that I thought were completely separate
from wasps that it just turns out there another version.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I see, Yeah, there's a velvet ant is actually a
type of wasp.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Maybe that's okay, okay, maybe that's yeah, maybe That's what
I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Of, But a velvet ant is actually not an ant
at all. It's it's just it is just straight up
a species of wasps. Yeah, exactly. So the one you're
talking about that we talked when when I had you
on the show earlier is called leucochloridium. It's a parasitic
flatworm that basically infects snails, turns them into a you know,
(13:40):
a yeah, raving brood sack. But yeah, so for UH,
in that case, I think the uh snail will accidentally
ingest the parasite. In the case of these uh parasitoid wasps,
the wasp will lay the eggs in or on the animals.
(14:03):
So these parasitoid wasps, one of the examples being the
habro break On parasitoid wasp, which is a teeny tiny
wasp actually, which can be like the size of an ant,
can survive nearly one hundred and sixty thousand rads, although
they were sterilized around four thousand rads, So one hundred
and sixty thousand that's like, you know, compared to humans,
(14:29):
where by around four hundred rads, things are looking pretty grim.
And yeah, I mean, obviously being sterilized is not great,
but still it's four thousand rads at which they are sterilized,
so that's still quite a big dose of radiation. In fact,
irradiated wasps often lived longer than non irradiated wasps, which
(14:55):
is the idea was that maybe the irradiation made them
a little more act, which may have made them live
a little longer through some kind of like acquired fitness
or increased activity like you've given them. Essentially, wasp coffee,
which is radiation, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are fitter, right,
(15:16):
Like if they're radiated and they live longer, but their
reproductive success is worse, that doesn't make it better for them.
But essentially radiations seem to be like parasitoid wasp coffee.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I can already envision an Instagram ad for like lightly
radiated coffee as like a new like grift, you know,
like like you know how you know how there's these
like trends in the health and wellness community or like
suddenly suddenly everybody needs to do.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Uh, I don't know, I'm trying to think of one.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Now coffee aenemas or activated charcoal or uh you know
whatever whatever like their current yeah exactly, uh you know, uh,
get sun in between your butt cheeks. You know, uh
that that type of thing I could I could imagine
there being like a like you were saying, like, light
(16:16):
doses of radiation have been found to free up antioxidants.
Will we radiate our coffee slightly? Yeah, and give you
a healthy dose each morning?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, there's a reason that we do things like our cts,
randomized controlled trials and health and safety testing because you know,
I mean, the Fallout series is a great, uh, a
great way to look at what happens when we experiment
wildly with things without any concern for users. Age. Sure, so,
(16:49):
uh but yeah, the the it is for these walls, right, Like,
if you're a parasitoid wasps parasitoid wasp, things are looking
pretty good for you in terms of nuclear fallout. So,
you know, if I just find it strange that cockroaches
are the famous ones, like these are the ones that
(17:10):
would survive. Like, actually, parasitoid wasps are much more likely.
First of all, they're smaller, so they require less nutrition
than a cockroach. And fruitflies are also extremely can sustain
a good amount of radiation, So there would be conceivably
some other insects for the parasitoid wasp to feed on.
(17:32):
So as long as some vegetation survives, right, some sources
of food, for like a fruit fly, parasitoid wasps could
survive and prey on the fruit fly, right, So you
could have like a little some mini ecosystems of fruitflies
and other insects parasitoid wasps. So I feel like if
I was, if I was a game developer or writer
(17:55):
for the show, you can hire me. By the way,
I'm I've got room in my skaled to talk about
parasitoid wasps with you. I would have something like this
where it's like, sure, make it huge and menacing in
legs and humans. That would be really fun. It's not,
you know, I don't know that there would be evolutionary
pressure to make things big and this we'll actually talk
(18:16):
a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That's actually one of the question the main questions I
have is like, is there any real basis for the
inclination to make these animals big.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
From nuclear nuclear fallout. So we wouldn't have to get
into it right now, but.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
We will, you know, we will very very shortly. I
just want to say that I would, you know, if
you wanted to have a scene where a mutated parasitoid
wasp lays eggs in you and then you they burst
out of you like your pinata full of baby wasps.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I think that would both.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Be somewhat based in science, but also have some of
the fun you know science fiction. Yeah, body horror exactly, exactly,
just free ideas you know out there for you for
all the Hollywood execs listening to this show about evolutionary biology. Yes,
but we're gonna take a quick break and when we
(19:10):
get back, we are going to answer that question of
wha of whether it would really be better for animals
to get bigger after nuclear war? Right? Is this something
likely to happen? Are we just going to get giant
axe Lotel's giant weird bears and stuff? So we will
be right back. So the TV show, and I think
(19:35):
a lot of the games are set roughly two hundred
years after the bombs drop. So would this be enough
time for these huge evolutionary changes to take place? Would
radiation speed up evolution this much? Now I know that
there's like in Fallout lore, without getting into spoilers, there's
stuff other than radiation driving some of the mutations in people.
(20:00):
And animals, So it's not all just like natural selection
and radiation. But let's talk about this idea because like,
I don't think this is too much of a spoiler,
but in the show, it's like, explain that these cockroaches, right,
they got really big to feed on, like bigger prey,
and so yeah, let's talk about whether this would happen
or whether things could evolve that quickly. I mean, the
(20:22):
thing that is quasi true is that radiation does increase
the rate of genetic mutations. Usually that's not a good thing, right, Like,
usually that's just cancer or an unviable pregnancy. I think
two hundred years is a little bit short of a
time span for things to change so dramatically. Sure things
(20:46):
could get a little bigger or a little smaller in
that amount of time you could have. I mean there
are some like we can't observe some evolutionary changes within
our lifetimes, right, Like you know the famous example of
like beak shape in Darwin's finches, Right, Like, they will
change over seasons in terms of which kinds of seeds
(21:07):
are more available. So you can sometimes get these observable
changes within shorter periods of time, within say two hundred years, Yes,
you could get observable evolutionary changes, but would you get
giant rad roaches like huge bugs? Would this happen? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:26):
And it also it also kind of depends on how
short the generations are from animal to animal, right, Like
the gestation period for like large land mammals is a
lot longer than it is for fruitflies.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yes, so the fruit fruitflies.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
You know, they have like a lifespan of three days
in some of them, some of the species. I think
so like that you would in those two hundred years,
you would have thousands and thousands of generations of fruitflies
that could evolve, you know, cool lasers that shoot out
of their foreheads versus versus like a giant bear or
(22:00):
a giant salamander.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
No, that's exactly right. Giant lasers are more likely to
evolve out of insects than like a bere No, but
that is correct. Like the smaller and more prolific the well,
I guess it doesn't have to be small, but generally speaking,
the more prolific an animal is, the more fagundity, and
the shorter the lifespan, the quicker the evolution will be.
(22:24):
If such if evolutionary pressures exist on it. So a
great example is like viruses in bacteria, they evolve very
rapidly because the pressure is there on them to evolve.
They're in a very fast paced arms race with our
immune systems, and they are they reproduce and replicate at
(22:44):
incredible speeds, an incredible rate. So we see evolution happen
in viruses and bacteria in real time, right Like it
happens within a year. That's why we have like you know,
yearly flo mutants that give us different versions of the
flu covid mutates, you know, and so we have to
(23:06):
like have updates on vaccines. So you know, we do
see rapid evolution in in things like bacteria and viruses
and you know, and so like in insects, you you
can see perhaps more rapid evolution. I would say that
in order for us to get big bugs, we need
(23:28):
to consider a few things. So like insects did used
to be really big, including not only insects, but also
just arthropods in general during the Carboniferous and Permian periods,
with the kind of famous examples of the giant dragonfly
like insect that had an over two foot wing span,
which is around seventy that serator.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
That yeah, that is I can't I can't picture something
that big. Yeah, in the insect form flying around my head.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, like I just eagle sized dragonfly.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah that that is terrifying and fascinating at the same time.
Like yeah it uh oh man, the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Nightmares.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
I would love what Yeah, I would be I would
be like, I would be so morbidly curious. I would
get killed by one because I imagine they have like
giant pincers, like their teeth or something.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I mean, yeah, they probably would go after larger prey.
I don't think human size though, I mean.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
No, no, no, probably, and I would just get maybe
I would just lose a finger or something.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
You know, potentially. But okay, quick question, big bug, which
one if you could choose, which one would you have
as a pet?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Okay, uh, probably a roly poly.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
It would be like a giant insect armadillo, you know,
and like all those all this tiny little uh some
people call him pill. I guess I always knew him
as roly Polly's. Probably roly Polies. Those are always my
favorite bugs to play with, like in the yard.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
You know what's fun about that is they are terrestrial isopods,
and there are actually marine isopods which are very closely related.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
That do get right. Yeah, yeah, it could.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Technically have a giant roly poly as a pet if
you're willing to kind of go deep diving in the ocean.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
That is that is very true.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Uh, and they are the giant isopods that I have
seen are like they don't look real. They don't look
real like I've seen. There is a restaurant in in
I believe Japan that does isopod ramen. Uh and get
(25:52):
giant isopod ramen if you if you google this, like
it's real.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's real giant isopods that they use.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Oh man, it's like that. It's like those scenes in
Emperor's New Groove where they're eating the giant isopods.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Okay, so I was I said Japan, But taype A
is the the the place that they have it. Uh
it is uh absolutely, Like yeah, it's like the size,
it's bigger than the bowl. Yeah, it's bigger than the
bowl that they serve it in. Well it's yeah, sorry
(26:34):
not to not to take it to like you.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I'm not I'm not like a vegetarian so I would
be a hypocrite if I were not to condone the eating.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I just don't think.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I don't think I could eat like I've never I've
had like chocolate covered ants before, and they just don't
they just don't taste like anything. Yeah, exactly, but but
I don't know that I could do that.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
We're to socialized to not see insects as food. It's
you know, I think it's I think it's a problem.
I'm very pro bug eating. Anyways, the let's let's talk
about these giant bugs. How do they get so big?
One of the reasons was a high oxygen levels that
allowed large insects to breed through spiracles, which are tiny
air channels distributed throughout their bodies. That would help the
(27:22):
dispersal of oxygen. And so you really want a very
high concentration of oxygen in order for that to sustain
a large insect body. But another thing is that birds.
There weren't really birds dominating at this time, and so
as birds became more dominant, they became predators and competitors
(27:44):
with these insects, and they out competed them, and so
insects got real small, which sounds counterintuitive, right, like, well,
if you're if you're smaller, doesn't that make you more
easily grabbed? Not necessarily, right, Like, the smaller you are,
the faster, more nimble you are, the harder it is
to catch you, Like what would be easier to catch
like a pigeon or a hummingbird. Like a pigeon, it's
(28:07):
much easier to grab.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
And all it ever matters is it's not about the
size of the species. Is just passing the genetics.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
That's it. That's all that ever matters.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
So whatever whatever traits you can evolve to help you
avoid predation is the thing that is going to be
propagated throughout the speci.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Like, if you live one hundred years and you're built
like a tank, but you have like one offspring in
your lifespan and you require a lot of food, you
may be less likely to survive than like a mayfly
that lives a day and has one hundred offspring.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yep, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Basically, what you want for giant bugs is high oxygen
levels and no birds, which is like a nightmare for
me because I love birds and I hate oxygen. I'm
neutral about oxygen. It's good, I like it. I like
to breathe it. So what would happen after a nuke
or a bunch of nukes. I'm not like a doomsday expert.
(29:06):
One of the things I do know, though, is the
nuclear winter is one of the most feared outcomes. That is,
when smoking debris from the bombs and resulting destruction of
like a bunch of buildings in Earth and everything would
kind of form these huge clouds kind of like after
a volcanic eruption, and would cover the Earth, blocking out
(29:27):
sunlight and causing a huge drop in temperature, and would
last for like years. Like there's different ap Like I've
seen estimations from like ten years to fifty years, ten years,
Like I don't know, let's just go with ten years, right,
to be as you know, optimistic as possible, because I
love aptimism. Sure, so right, it would this kind of
(29:50):
like this nuclear winter would potentially kill off a lot
of vegetation because plants need photosynthesis, and so if you're
blocking out the sun, you may kill off a large
portion of plants. This would lower oxygen levels and decrease resources,
and would be likely to kill off larger animals. So
(30:11):
really it would be the tiny insects or even microscopic
animals like tartar grades or non animals like bacteria that
would be most likely to survive in this circumstance. And
it seems like evolutionary pressures would actually drive animals and
organisms to be more small and require less nutrition rather
(30:33):
than being big.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
And this is how this is also the nuclear version.
This is how you get Cormac McCarthy's the road, right, like.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
The eaten babies.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, yeah, like this is how you get that result
with a nuclear winter. And this is what this is
essentially what like did in most of the large dinosaurs
right right.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, yeah exactly, there was a there was a meteor
strike and then all the debris and just a huge
dip in nutrition and rapid climate change that meant that
they could not get their nutritional needs met. However, uh
you know, the sort of ancestors to mammals survived. So
(31:16):
and also birds survived, and birds are dinosaurs. They are
just the dinosaurs that are left and they're hilarious and adorable.
Uh so, yeah, exactly, So a lot of things did
survive in that case. And so I do think that
following a nuclear winter, even though I cannot stress enough,
that would be really bad because like, the thing that
I care about is I don't want.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
To trying to avoid that people.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I don't want millions of people, including myself, to suffer
and die. That's not good.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
How I don't want to eat babies.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Like jelly babies, you know, the like British.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Wait wait what we'll hold on. I do not know
what a jelly.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's like a sour pouch kid without the good flavor.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Okay, so it's not candy in the shape of a baby.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
It is candy in the shape of a baby, a jelly.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh why would you make that as a candy? What
is that? Okay, all right, We're.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Gonna take this candy and put Look. Look it'll buye billy,
little bye billy. You can you eat that?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Will? All right? I don't want something inside of me.
I don't want to still awaken anything.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
So, uh you know, I do think that there would
be a good amount of things, maybe even including people,
that could survive this. It would be awful, uh, no
mistake about it. But so what would happen after nuclear
winter dissipates? Right, Because say it takes ten years, A
lot of things die off, a lot of you know,
(32:50):
you'd probably awful. But after that ten years, what could
happen would be with the sun and with a lot
of megafauna maybe dying off, like being eaten or dying
of starvation, you may actually have a period of time
where a lot of plant growth could bounce back. Right,
(33:10):
I'm not no strodamis in terms of nuclear war, so
this might not happen, but like you could conceivably have
like it might take hundreds of not thousands of years,
or if not hundreds of thousands of years, you may
actually have a new carboniferous period where you have a
bunch of plant life and not a lot of large
(33:32):
animals to be eating the plants, and maybe even not
a lot of birds to be eating the insects. And
so I could imagine a situation in which you have
the planet does recover in a way. Maybe humans don't,
maybe large mammals don't. Maybe you have a huge die
off of a bunch of species. But then I would
(33:53):
expect insects and plants to eventually make a comeback. And
in that case, yeah, you could have giant bug. I
just don't know that we'd be around to see it.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yeah it uh, it based on what you said about
the radiation levels and stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I don't I don't know that we would we would
we would be able to hang with all.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
The other the other creatures are around there and the
the the oxygen levels that you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
I mean, it's it's possible, right, like I I it
is strictly speaking possible that a small amount of humans
could survive, and especially if you're in a region that's
like not you know, completely irradiated, right, Like if we
can survive around two hundred rads and there are if
there are areas where it like falls below that, right,
and I think it's possible for humanity to survive, Like,
(34:47):
would we survive thousands or hundreds of thousands of years
after that by the time that you have like maybe
a new carboniferous period. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Maybe, well, I mean that's where the fallout shelters come in, right,
right exactly, So that's if we can survive underground and
these these uh these shelters, then then maybe we could stick.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
It's a wonderful, not suspicious at all shelters where that
ever happens. Uh. All right, So we are going to
take a quick break, and then we're going to talk
about a critter from the show that I think is
kind of the most spectacular one, which is the golper,
which is basically a giant axe a lottle with a
(35:29):
bunch of fingers for teeth, And we'll talk about it
when we get back from the break. So yeah, one
of the I guess the most fun monstrosities in the
show is the called this golper. It's a giant axe
a lottle and it's got like hundreds of fingers lining
(35:50):
its mouth and throat that it uses, I guess kind
of as as teeth.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Absolutely, Like they did a great job.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Fantastic Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Uh, the like the when when when it opens its
mouth like like they did. They did a fantastic job
depicting that thing. Yes, it was horrifying looking.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Uh. And I love the axe a lottle like that that.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
It's one of the cutest animals in existence and they
did such a good job making it a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah. Now I love acx lottls. They're adorable. They are
really interesting as well. And I uh, you know, when
I'm talking about my skepticism about whether this is accurate,
I want to emphasize I still really love the show.
I don't think this is a flaw of the show.
I think it's okay to get weird and creative with
(36:44):
things and have all out. Is not meant to be
as scientific realistic. Yeah, it's not meant to be like
this is exactly what would happen. It's meant to be fun, entertaining,
and you know, have some interesting philosophical ideas, and I
guess so I am having fun and being entertained, So
it's doing its job. But let's talk about this giant
(37:06):
ax a Lottel so would like we've already talked about
how the evolutionary pressures following the immense destruction of a
nuclear apocalypse would probably not favor larger animals in the
short run, right like in the few hundred years following that, Like,
being big means having higher nutritional demands, unless your metabolism
(37:29):
is really really slow, in which case you would not
be moving around as fast as this thing is depicted
as moving in the show. So like, you could potentially
be a large animal but have a really slow metabolism
so you don't require a lot of food very quickly,
and that might be a good survival technique. Like the
(37:51):
Greenland shark is this huge shark, but it's so slow
and it has a really slow metabolism and it actual yea,
maybe it could survive, but the at this like very
like vicious fast predator of the ax Lottle.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I'm skeptical. The fingers in the mouth, let's talk about
those human fingers in on the axe Lottle's mouth. Maybe
not exactly scientifically accurate, but I love this so much
because it actually reminds me of of penguin mouths. Have
you ever looked straight down the mouth of a penguin?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Do they have like all the turned in like kind
of spikes, those spiky mouths. Yeah, I saw, I saw
the I saw an image of the inside of a
leather back turtles yes as well. Yeah, they are absolute nightmares.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
It's like these leatherback turtle you know, see turtles, leather
back turtles, penguins adorable, you know, you want to They're
like the stars of a Pixar movie. And then you
look in their mouths and you're looking into a circle
of hell. Yes, it's it's actually quite devious because these
mouths are designed to allow fish to enter in one way,
but like road spikes not be able to get out
(39:07):
the other way. You know, like you go into a
parking lot and they have like the spikes that don't
allow you to back up.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, it's the it's the Hotel California.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
You can check in, but you can.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Never leave exactly. And it smells like fish.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yes, so yeah, no exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
So I actually really appreciate because I feel like these fingers,
the way that the show portrayed them is that they're
like keeping stuff from coming back out, so it like
takes a lot of force to actually pull anything back out. Also,
using a an ax lodel as this like mutant is
(39:45):
I think a smart choice. Again, I'm not saying that
I think that evolution would favor really huge animals in
this period of time, But salamanders can get really big.
There is a species of salamanders, the South China giant salamander,
who can grow to be nearly six feet long. It's like,
(40:09):
when I learned about this, I thought it was fake.
I was like, this is no, this is a photoshop,
This isn't real. If there was a giant salamander, I
would have already heard about this.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
This is like, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Don't know, like when I was a teenager or in
college or something, I was like young enough to have
never seen this, but also old enough to be like
I would know about this if it existed, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, it's like fantastical creature.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Why wouldn't anyone have told me? But yeah, it's this.
It's a huge salamander and they exist and they're amazing looking,
and so yeah, it's like I think technically an axe
lottel could get to be huge like this. And also
axe lottels are an interesting pick for this for the
(40:56):
reason that they can regenerate their limbs, so so they
and axi lottels, by the way, are basically the same
as salamanders, except that axi lottels are neotonous, meaning that
they retain the juvenile traits of a salamander. A salamander
goes through a metamorphosis and it has a juvenile form,
(41:19):
and then it metamorphosizes into an adult form, and that
adult form can either be aquatic, semi aquatic, or semi terrestrial.
The axi lottel is permanently retaining those juvenile traits throughout
its whole life. You can actually inject an axi lottle
with iodide, and it will force it to transform into
(41:42):
basically a salamander, but naturally they do not change. And
it's actually they're kind of like the dog, like a
dog is to a wolf, as an axi lottel is
to a salamander. Although axi lottels were not domesticated in
the same way that dogs were, dog retain a lot
of like puppy like traits that wolves have, like the
(42:03):
floppy ears, the friendliness, the playfulness, the barking. Those are
all traits that wolf puppies have, but wolf adults do not.
So dogs are kind of like neotonous versions of wolves, uh,
and they retain that throughout their whole lives. And in
the same way, axe lottels are the juvenile form of salamanders,
but in that species, in axe lottles, they retain that
(42:26):
those characteristic.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
I love salamanders absolutely, they're like they're like gummy lizards.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
I love them, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
It's they're they're like they look almost like translucent. Sometimes
like they they look like like there should be instead
of gummy worms and gummy bears, there should be gummy salamanders,
like as a candy.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, but then I feel bad eating them, I guess.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, i'd feel worse about the salamanders than the jelly babies. Yeah, probably,
but that I absolutely love, uh love saladmanders. They come
in all sorts of really rad looking colors, tool designs.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, really it is important. Some salamanders will
have like a skin toxin, so don't cuddle random salamanders.
They can also lick one. Yeah, don't lick one. Don't
cuddle them. Also, even if they are harmless, sometimes like
handling them can be harmful for them.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
But they absorb stuff through their skin a lot of
their environment, so if you have like chemicals or stuff
on your hand that you can.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
You can exactly exactly. But I also love them. And
if you like see one and you want to just
like hang out with it and be like, hey, bud,
how's it going? Nothing wrong with that making friends with
the salamander. So yeah, I do really love I love
this creature. I don't think it would happen right, like
(43:50):
I've said, with a lot of this stuff, but man,
i'd love the use of the ax lottel in this design,
and I do I agree. I think it's like it's
something that it's like, yeah, the human fingers, and I
know I'm not gonna do spoilers, but I know there's
like an explanation for it kind of that's implied at
some point in the show, but again not very likely,
(44:11):
but still really cool. And I love that they kind
of are like the design of the denticles that you
see in penguins in sea turtles and yeah turtles.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah it uh Like at the I think you just
nailed it.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Like at the end of like any and all discussion
you can have about like these animals or any design
from the show, is it cool, Yes, then then that's
all that matters. Like that that like I get you
want to find like follow some kind of logic, is
like here's the here's the rules to the universe. This
is what's causing all of these cool designs. But at
the end of it, like take a cool looking animal
(44:50):
like the axe Lottel and then just make it menacing
and even cooler and add some Cronenberg style body horror
to it and and make it giant, and it's like
that is awesome.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
That is a really really rad animal.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
And I like and I think like it's like because
they do combine some even if it's not scientifically feasible
or scientifically probable. I would say they do have like
smart design choices for these things, right, like the giant
the giant salamander design in terms of like, yeah, it
(45:26):
would make sense that its mouth is like that so
it can trap prey.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
I love the creativity of that. Another thing I really
love and appreciate about the Fallout series is the giant
mole rats. So I love a naked mole rat. I was.
I've been obsessed with them since the fifth grade, since
I got a book about them, and I'm just like,
this is the best animal. It looks like a monster,
but they're amazing and they're actually kind of cute if
you squint and change your mental perspective.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Well, I'm looking okay, I'm looking up images of the
giant morat from.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Fallout right now.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah, they're not so cute and fallout, but in.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Real life, somebody's on the back of one with like
a gatling gun. That sounds bad.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, that's awesome. So I don't think i've seen any
yet in this series. I haven't finished yet though, so
I don't know, but they are in the games, and
they're these huge mole rats and I hate killing them
in the games because I just love them so much.
But I do actually think naked mole rats have a
(46:30):
chance at surviving a nuclear apocalypse as long as they
get enough food, right, as long as they get enough
tubers root vegetables for them to survive and feed on.
Because naked molerats are actually incredibly resistant to cancer and
to they seem to be somewhat more resistant to ionizing
(46:52):
radiation when compared to mice and other rodents. They can
live up to thirty years, and they live in tunnels,
so I feel like it's got a lot going for them.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Thirty years.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, that it trips me out every time. I don't
know why, but every time I learn that some creature
like that, some animal has a much longer lifespan than
I expected, it's it's always a trip trying to wrap
my head around the fact that, like I could see
a mole rat and it could be legal drinking age
(47:28):
and and and just I don't know, it doesn't seem
like animals of that size should should live that long.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
But that's that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Well, there are some spiders that can actually live quite long,
Like there's some I think there's like a tarantula that
can live to be around thirty years. So yeah, oh
it's crazy, right, Like you could have like you could
have a tarantla or a naked mole rat and they
could be there like in the uh in the Manger
(47:57):
with Jesus and then also be there you know at
the end of that story.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. They could have witnessed both the Yeah,
why don't.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
We have like any weird animals and mangers, right, like
a tarantula and naked mole rat bearing gifts, So you know,
I I really like so naked mole rats are very tough,
They're very resistant. I mean, obviously they're not gonna survive
in the heart of a nuclear blast, but if they
(48:30):
get enough vegetation, which is a big if, right, given
a if there's a nuclear winter, but I do think
they could be a survivor. Would they become huge and
start eating people? I hope, So I think they should
do that. I want these guys to have a win.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Yeah, like we've we're destroying their planet that they were
just doing fine on, so we deserve it.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I feel, well, you know, maybe not all of us,
but like if they could just if they some how
learned who the oil executives are sure, you know, like
if we could just be like, hey, buddy, you know
who tastes the best out of all of us, those
really well fed oil execs, the or.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
The vault tech executives.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yeah, so I did. I really do appreciate a lot
of the weird, uh, these weird creatures in the show
and in the in the series especially, So Yeah, my
favorite is the the axe Lottel gulper and the giant
naked morat.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
The naked morat has like a like it like it's
the size, it's like a large rhinoceros, it looks like
in some of these images, So the the idea of
in their their front teeth look incredible, uh, scaled up
to this size, I mean at the size they are now,
they're a really fascinating creature. But uh, taking small animals,
(49:59):
it's it's like talking about that, uh the dragonfly earlier.
Being able to see like all the tiny features blown
up to a specific there's like an extra level of
horror to it. Uh, Like it's like the it's it's
the fascination of like, honey, I shrunk the kids and
you see when you see those yeah, when you see
(50:21):
those things scaled up, Yeah, it's like it is it's you.
It really puts into focus how much of the world
around you really is like alien. It's it's like you
you imagine the most like far out there creature you can,
like alien life form you could possibly imagine, and then
(50:42):
more than likely there is some animal on Earth. It
might be microscopic, it might be tiny, it might be
you know, a couple of inches long, but they it
exists somewhere within our our you know, uh food.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Chain, absolutely. And I mean, like I do think if
there were the appropriate conditions and evolutionary pressures and naked
morat could become huge, just as some like you know,
there are like the biggest animals in the world, the whales.
Then specifically, the blue whale did originate from a small
(51:17):
terrestrial like a tiny miniature deer like animal that was terrestrial,
and it eventually became you know this massive through you know,
hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of thousands, millions of years
of evolution, uh, through millions of years of evolution, Yeah,
(51:37):
became the blue whale. So yeah, I do think if
you have the right conditions, we could get giant naked.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Moratsh And yeah, the whales got it right. They they
came out of the water around and for like, screw this,
we're going back.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Us are going to be dolphins and just some.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
Exactly and now we have and now you and I
have like mortgages and have to pay taxes and like
you know, uh we we they they got the better
end of that year for sure.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah, maybe blue whales do have to pay taxes, but
we just can't understand like when they're when they're doing
they're like, who're talking? All right? So before we go,
we gotta play a little game called gets Who's Squawk?
(52:35):
And the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play
Mystery Animal sound and you the guest, and you the listener,
have to guess. Let's make that sound? Can be any animal,
any animal at all, all right, So let me the
hint is this. This animal makes this sound with its
body as it moves beneath your feet. You hear that
(53:09):
gurgling sound.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
Yeah that's an animal. That's not okay, But like that
sounds more like plumbing than it does like an an animal,
like an organic animal noise. So you said beneath my feet.
I really I don't even I can't. I gotta guess something,
(53:35):
but I can't even wrap my head around what that
what that would possibly be? Uh, I'm going to guess.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Under my feet? Can I have a hint, Katie?
Speaker 3 (53:52):
It does not have a spine, does not have a spine,
does not have a spine. It's going to be something
so obvious, and I'm I'm going to uh feel like
a fool.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
It's not actually that obvious, so you don't worry.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
About it, Okay, okay, beneath my feet doesn't I can't
think of anything that doesn't have a spine.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Is it an insect of some sort?
Speaker 1 (54:19):
In not an insect? You're getting close? What am i? Ah? Uh?
Speaker 3 (54:30):
I literally can't think of an ant like an animal
underground that doesn't have a spine. Like I'm just I
keep going back to thinking about, uh, like octopi and
or squid or something like that, and that's not underneath
my feet.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Kind of you're kind of getting sort of close, so
I'll just tell you it's a snail or like you
are so close. This is the giant Gippsland earthworm. Congratulations
to Marian d for guessing correctly it is what Yeah,
(55:11):
it's a giant earthworm. So the video is courtesy of
Giant earthworm dot org dot au. Taken by website Yes,
taken by the Gippsland earthworm researcher, doctor Beverly van Prague,
who has been studying these worms for over thirty years.
(55:32):
So these are huge earthworms found in Australia.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
They've seen before.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
They grow over three feet long, so that's over a
meter and about an inch in diameter. But their size
and width kind of change depending on like because they
can stretch and squash without coming to harm, so they
like their size can kind of vary, so they can
like get to nearly like ten feet long or three meters,
(56:02):
but like that's usually there that they're also thinner because
they're like stretched out. Sure, so they spin their entire
lives underground. They would only come to the surface if
we dig them up or they get flushed out and
flooded out by rain. But yeah, they they're really really cool.
Changes in their habitats due to farming threatens their survival
(56:25):
because they like really kind of loose, loamy soil and
then farming and sort of artificial stuff like changes the
texture of the soil. So you know, we got we gotta,
we gotta really consider, uh what we're doing, because these
are amazing, and what what kind of world do we
live in without giant earthworms that you could technically but
(56:45):
should not use as a jump rope.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Not not a world that I want to live in, exactly.
Can I keep one of these things as a pet?
Speaker 1 (56:54):
I don't know that it would survive. They've I think
they've tried to have them in captivity without success, so
it would be really hard to keep alive. Can you
keep certain worms and insects as pets? Yes, there are
some that are better candidates for pets. There's like a
(57:15):
you're mentioning, like an I wanting an isopod. There's apparently
these like domestic well, like these selectively bred isopods whose
faces are meant to look like little duck faces. It's
very cute. What it's you know, it's super weird and
it's very cute.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
So okay, so that sounds like a creature from Fallout?
What you just decide?
Speaker 1 (57:35):
I know, right, it's it'll it makes sense if you
look at images. I think they're just called like duck
roly poids. I'm not sure. Duck isopods. Yeah, they're like
they're sort of front segment is yellow, and I guess
is meant to look sort of like a little duck
bill or a little duck what. Yeah, it's cute, it.
Speaker 2 (57:58):
Does Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
And these things are selling for one hundred and a
blonde rubber ducky designer isopod ultra rare. This sounds like
I'm describing a Pokemon is one hundred and forty nine dollars.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Well, if that's your hobby.
Speaker 2 (58:17):
Yeah, holy cow, I did not realize that there. I
guess there's a there's a world, in a market, and
a niche for absolutely everything.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
There really is.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
So okay, I'm going to go buy some isopods now.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
I'm going to as long as they don't escape their
enclosure and then cause like some kind of ducky isopod
apocalypse as they take.
Speaker 2 (58:40):
Over the world. Wow, this is wild.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
There's all sorts of designer isopods with all sorts of
different colorings, and.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
Where's there where's our designer worms at? That's what I
want to know.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Good question, great question.
Speaker 1 (58:56):
So onto this week's mystery animals. Sound the hint is
this a picture is worth a thousand words, but this
critter paints a clear picture with its call. All right,
you got any guesses?
Speaker 3 (59:18):
I'm gonna guess it's some kind of sounds like a
lemur or something, or some kind of like small primates.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
Interesting, probably so far off. I know I am, I know,
I am. Well, I'm terrible at this game.
Speaker 1 (59:37):
I am terrible. I am just lucky that I don't
have to be the one playing the game, because I
do not think I would be very good either. But
fortunately I don't have to play it because I'm the
one making it up. Uh. Anyways, if you think you
know who is making that sound, you can write to
me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and
I will reveal the results next week. Well, thank you
(01:00:02):
so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Where can the people find you my pleasure?
Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Not in a follout shelter?
Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Yes, I let's keep our fingers crossed. You can find
me at the Wapple House on Twitter. You can find
me hosting the George Center podcast each week, and yeah,
that's pretty much it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Those are the only two places other than that. You
can catch me at work just being a boring dude
during the week. Buying. Don't do that though.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Buying up rubber Ducky isopods at work. Exactly getting into
bidding wars on rubber Ducky isopods.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
I really am low key considering like building a terrarium.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Now I have that thought frequently, like do I need
a terrarium? Well, thank you guys so much for listening.
If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating
and review, I read all of them, and all of
them help me tangibly help the show. And thanks to
(01:01:13):
the Space Classics for there's super awesome song. Ex Alumina.
Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app
Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what? Mayd you listen to
your favorite shows. I'm not your mother, and I can't
tell you what you to do. Say I live your
own life. 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're talking about the creatures
of Fallout, from the rad roaches to the like weird
naked more rap mutants. Is this accurate?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What this actually happened?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
What do we know about how animals might survive nuclear radiation?
Discover this and more as we answer the age old
question what kind of bogus pr campaign our cockroach is running?
Joining me today is friend of the show, host of
George Center the podcast Will Pull, also known as Christy
Yamagucci Mane.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Welcome, Thank you, Katie. I appreciate you having me again.
Glad to be back and talking about this weird video
game that my kids are obsessed with.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'm thrilled to discuss this.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I've been I've been doing research, mainly through my children
by asking them questions about the Fallout series in the world,
and they are They've they've been like kind of side
eyeing me, like why am I asking about all of
this all of a sudden. So I'm looking forward to
being educated so I can go back to them and
(01:25):
sound like I know what the hell I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yes, so, I mean using your kids for experiments is
very foulout. But yeah, I've actually so, I've played Fallout
New Vegas. I have not played the other games, and
there's a lot of them I do want to play,
like the really the first ones, the super old one
(01:48):
with the like sprites and isometrics that looks that looks
like fun. And I have watched the show. I've got
like two episodes left, So I'm actually not going to
do any spoilers for either the show or the games.
So if you are currently watching the show where you
want to play the games, do not worry. There's no
spoilers unless you would count like talking about the flora
(02:12):
and fauna of the universe as a spoiler. But personally,
I don't really consider it that we're just going to
talk about like these animals that we see in the
show and the games, and whether it actually makes sense
for them to be that way, and what would have
to happen for us to actually see these weird mutations
(02:32):
in these monstrosities the series.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I love Walton Goggins.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
He's probably my favorite creature from the series so far.
That I have seen, so I don't know if he
counts necessarily. I guess he's considered a ghoul, yes, And
I don't know what the rules are in the universe
of the video game that makes him a ghoul exactly
or why he is, how he kind of came to
(03:00):
be the way he is. Yes, so it does he count.
Are we going to be talking about goules in this series?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I mean, I wasn't gonna go to in depth about
it because that's sort of squarely in this science fiction
region where it's like when humans are exposed to radiation,
really we just don't do very well. So the idea that, yeah,
the idea that, so the the gules are humans in
(03:28):
the in the games and in the show that are
exposed to radiation and instead of dying horribly, they kind
of look like sort of like zombies, but they're still
cognizant and they can live a really long time. They're
essentially immortal, but then they can go kind of it's
(03:51):
like they can go feral. So if they don't get
enough of I don't know, it's unclear in the games
why this happens, but in this show, I think it's like,
if you don't get enough of a certain substance, you
you can basically lose your mind and turn into a zombies.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
So it's like the it's like the comic book fantasy
version of what we wish would happen if we were
exposed to nuclear.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Radiationally, yes, this is right. Yeah, in truth, there's not
the levels of radiation one when be exposed to in
sort of a post nuclear apocalypse situation, I don't think
would improve your longevity. There's like some research in that
into whether really really low doses of radiation can actually
(04:38):
be good for you because it can kind of encourage
anti oxidants in your body, like the production of these
anti free radicals, and so in order to actually kind
of combat the radiation, your body may also combat other
(04:59):
disease and stuff. But it's it's the research on it
is not super clear, which is why you should not
like intentionally expose yourself to low levels of radiation because
it could also just give you cancer.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah. It's just a little too much of a good thing,
is is?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, Yeah, it turns on a dime real quick.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, it's it's a it's not something to like, it's
not something to experiment with. Like a Keto diet or
you know, like I'm going to try cutting milk out
of my diet or whatever. It's like I'm going to
try just a little bit of radiation to make see
if it makes me immortal. It's probably not gonna work out.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So that I feel like that's why people that fly
a lot are probably doing with those body scanners. Oh yeah,
you get but yeah, they're just a little little dost
morning dust every every time you fly.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah. So the first thing we're going to talk about
is the I guess I don't know, probably people would
argue this with me, but they seem like the most
iconic creature of the Fallout franchise, the red roaches, these
giant cockroaches that have been radiated, of course, falling neatly
(06:11):
into the stereotype of roaches being the one thing that
could survive a nuclear war. So I'm sure you've like
heard that, like roaches would survive anything, they'd survive a
nuclear war.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I have heard that.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
That was like always like a cool factor, like alongside
the fact that you could cut a roach's head off
and it would survive, for like it would it would
keep on living, it would starve to death essentially like
it it would keep functioning but just wouldn't have the
capacity to eat. So, yes, that that was that was
(06:47):
what like twinkies and roaches were the only things that
would like survive a nuclear holocaust basically.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, which is not necessarily true. I mean that Actually
the head thing is more true in terms of like
it depends on how much of the head you cut off, right,
Like if you cut off so like there's parts of
the head you can cut off and the roach will
still somewhat function until obviously it can no longer survive.
But the same is actually somewhat true of chickens. If
(07:18):
you accidentally missed their basically the part of the the
brain stem, they can theoretically, and in one instance in
real life survive. There was one chicken that got its
head cut off and it but the chopping missed a
(07:39):
large section of its brain stem. So it's still like
chickened around just without and its owner tried to like
feed it by using a eye dropper to put food
and water down its neck hole. Yeah it's not great,
but the point is so with roaches, yeah, they can
(08:00):
survive a lot. They're very hearty, right, But in terms
of radiation. While it's true that they can survive more
radiation than a human, they're a weird like poster bug
for surviving nuclear falloup because they are by far not
the most impressive bug. They're not actually that great at
(08:23):
surviving radiation. They are great at exploiting human resources. They
can even like karate chop parasitoid wasps that try to
attack them. So, I mean, I don't love roaches because
I don't want them in my house, but I really
admire I admire their spirit. But yeah, in terms of radiation,
they're not actually that amazing. So there's this great article
(08:48):
called cockroaches and Radiation by Australian science communicator doctor Carl
Kuzelnikki in ABC's Science that goes into how various insects
can survive radiation. If you're interested, i'll have a link
to it in the show notes. They are heardier than
humans when it comes to radiation. So humans can survive
(09:11):
about one hundred to two hundred rads. You will probably
get radiation sickness from that amount, but it's not fatal.
Radiation illness gets progressively worse and more fatal as you
go from two hundred to a thousand rads, and at
a thousand rads, you're doomed pretty much to die in
(09:32):
a horrible way. And this is that too, you're very
likely to die. But it just gets progressively more and
more bad.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, the like I've never.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Like calling them rads is like, yeah, like it's it's
the funnest sounding way to get poisoned by something measuring
something that's killing you. It's like, it's, uh like, I
want like exactly, like a want to increase the amount
of rads on being exposed to.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
No, the heck you do not.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, I just it's it's hard to uh like, I've
never heard that measurement before. So that's the measurement of radiation, Yes, radiation, Okay,
units of radiation.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I did not know that they were called rads.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's the first time that I've I've been exposed, well,
no pun intended exposed to that unit of measurement.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
They're not typically exposed to that, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, so so roaches aren't the best at this. Does
does the paper talk about what insect they have found
to be the the most hearty when.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It comes to being exposed to this stuff?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, so just for a comparison humans. The humans survival
like up to around two hundred rads and we're basically
okay other than that, like we can't survive higher, but
it gets more less and les survivable the higher it goes,
until like at a thousand, it's like you're definitely dead.
(11:06):
But even at four hundred you may very likely die
at the very least, it's not going to be good.
But cockroaches can survive up to six thousand rats, which is,
you know, like at least three times that of humans,
although after about a thousand they become infertile, so that's
(11:26):
not great for continuing your cockroach lineage. So yeah, better
than humans. But parasitoid wasps so we love to talk
about these. I mentioned them earlier as getting karate chopped
by cockroaches. So parasitoid wasps are wasps often quite small
(11:46):
that will lay their eggs inside or on top of
their prey, their victims, and when the eggs hatch, the
larvae either eats the victim from the inside out or
it like sucks the juices from on top of them.
They're called parasitoids because they're not only parasites, but they
actually end up killing their victims so they they suck
(12:08):
them completely dry.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
And one of the first episodes I was on, we
talked about, uh, like the zombie snail. Yes, like like
that that was just like a normal parasite, right Like,
I feel like we've talked about like almost every episode
I've been on, there's been some version of a parasitoid wasp.
There's a lot of these these things, right, like, like
the wasp.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I feel like the wasp is like.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
The the like land insect version of a crab, like
everything like it just like everything ends up being a
wasp at some point like that, I like, aren't ants
basically like wingless wasps?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I mean, I don't know they're they're uh, they're related
to wasps distantly, but I wouldn't necessarily describe them as
wingless wasps.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
No, Okay, okay, I feel like I feel like there's
a lot more insects that I thought were completely separate
from wasps that it just turns out there another version.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I see, Yeah, there's a velvet ant is actually a
type of wasp.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Maybe that's okay, okay, maybe that's yeah, maybe That's what
I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Of, But a velvet ant is actually not an ant
at all. It's it's just it is just straight up
a species of wasps. Yeah, exactly. So the one you're
talking about that we talked when when I had you
on the show earlier is called leucochloridium. It's a parasitic
flatworm that basically infects snails, turns them into a you know,
(13:40):
a yeah, raving brood sack. But yeah, so for UH,
in that case, I think the uh snail will accidentally
ingest the parasite. In the case of these uh parasitoid wasps,
the wasp will lay the eggs in or on the animals.
(14:03):
So these parasitoid wasps, one of the examples being the
habro break On parasitoid wasp, which is a teeny tiny
wasp actually, which can be like the size of an ant,
can survive nearly one hundred and sixty thousand rads, although
they were sterilized around four thousand rads, So one hundred
and sixty thousand that's like, you know, compared to humans,
(14:29):
where by around four hundred rads, things are looking pretty grim.
And yeah, I mean, obviously being sterilized is not great,
but still it's four thousand rads at which they are sterilized,
so that's still quite a big dose of radiation. In fact,
irradiated wasps often lived longer than non irradiated wasps, which
(14:55):
is the idea was that maybe the irradiation made them
a little more act, which may have made them live
a little longer through some kind of like acquired fitness
or increased activity like you've given them. Essentially, wasp coffee,
which is radiation, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are fitter, right,
(15:16):
Like if they're radiated and they live longer, but their
reproductive success is worse, that doesn't make it better for them.
But essentially radiations seem to be like parasitoid wasp coffee.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I can already envision an Instagram ad for like lightly
radiated coffee as like a new like grift, you know,
like like you know how you know how there's these
like trends in the health and wellness community or like
suddenly suddenly everybody needs to do.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Uh, I don't know, I'm trying to think of one.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Now coffee aenemas or activated charcoal or uh you know
whatever whatever like their current yeah exactly, uh you know, uh,
get sun in between your butt cheeks. You know, uh
that that type of thing I could I could imagine
there being like a like you were saying, like, light
(16:16):
doses of radiation have been found to free up antioxidants.
Will we radiate our coffee slightly? Yeah, and give you
a healthy dose each morning?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, there's a reason that we do things like our cts,
randomized controlled trials and health and safety testing because you know,
I mean, the Fallout series is a great, uh, a
great way to look at what happens when we experiment
wildly with things without any concern for users. Age. Sure, so,
(16:49):
uh but yeah, the the it is for these walls, right, Like,
if you're a parasitoid wasps parasitoid wasp, things are looking
pretty good for you in terms of nuclear fallout. So,
you know, if I just find it strange that cockroaches
are the famous ones, like these are the ones that
(17:10):
would survive. Like, actually, parasitoid wasps are much more likely.
First of all, they're smaller, so they require less nutrition
than a cockroach. And fruitflies are also extremely can sustain
a good amount of radiation, So there would be conceivably
some other insects for the parasitoid wasp to feed on.
(17:32):
So as long as some vegetation survives, right, some sources
of food, for like a fruit fly, parasitoid wasps could
survive and prey on the fruit fly, right, So you
could have like a little some mini ecosystems of fruitflies
and other insects parasitoid wasps. So I feel like if
I was, if I was a game developer or writer
(17:55):
for the show, you can hire me. By the way,
I'm I've got room in my skaled to talk about
parasitoid wasps with you. I would have something like this
where it's like, sure, make it huge and menacing in
legs and humans. That would be really fun. It's not,
you know, I don't know that there would be evolutionary
pressure to make things big and this we'll actually talk
(18:16):
a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That's actually one of the question the main questions I
have is like, is there any real basis for the
inclination to make these animals big.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
From nuclear nuclear fallout. So we wouldn't have to get
into it right now, but.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
We will, you know, we will very very shortly. I
just want to say that I would, you know, if
you wanted to have a scene where a mutated parasitoid
wasp lays eggs in you and then you they burst
out of you like your pinata full of baby wasps.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I think that would both.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Be somewhat based in science, but also have some of
the fun you know science fiction. Yeah, body horror exactly, exactly,
just free ideas you know out there for you for
all the Hollywood execs listening to this show about evolutionary biology. Yes,
but we're gonna take a quick break and when we
(19:10):
get back, we are going to answer that question of
wha of whether it would really be better for animals
to get bigger after nuclear war? Right? Is this something
likely to happen? Are we just going to get giant
axe Lotel's giant weird bears and stuff? So we will
be right back. So the TV show, and I think
(19:35):
a lot of the games are set roughly two hundred
years after the bombs drop. So would this be enough
time for these huge evolutionary changes to take place? Would
radiation speed up evolution this much? Now I know that
there's like in Fallout lore, without getting into spoilers, there's
stuff other than radiation driving some of the mutations in people.
(20:00):
And animals, So it's not all just like natural selection
and radiation. But let's talk about this idea because like,
I don't think this is too much of a spoiler,
but in the show, it's like, explain that these cockroaches, right,
they got really big to feed on, like bigger prey,
and so yeah, let's talk about whether this would happen
or whether things could evolve that quickly. I mean, the
(20:22):
thing that is quasi true is that radiation does increase
the rate of genetic mutations. Usually that's not a good thing, right, Like,
usually that's just cancer or an unviable pregnancy. I think
two hundred years is a little bit short of a
time span for things to change so dramatically. Sure things
(20:46):
could get a little bigger or a little smaller in
that amount of time you could have. I mean there
are some like we can't observe some evolutionary changes within
our lifetimes, right, Like you know the famous example of
like beak shape in Darwin's finches, Right, Like, they will
change over seasons in terms of which kinds of seeds
(21:07):
are more available. So you can sometimes get these observable
changes within shorter periods of time, within say two hundred years, Yes,
you could get observable evolutionary changes, but would you get
giant rad roaches like huge bugs? Would this happen? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:26):
And it also it also kind of depends on how
short the generations are from animal to animal, right, Like
the gestation period for like large land mammals is a
lot longer than it is for fruitflies.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yes, so the fruit fruitflies.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
You know, they have like a lifespan of three days
in some of them, some of the species. I think
so like that you would in those two hundred years,
you would have thousands and thousands of generations of fruitflies
that could evolve, you know, cool lasers that shoot out
of their foreheads versus versus like a giant bear or
(22:00):
a giant salamander.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
No, that's exactly right. Giant lasers are more likely to
evolve out of insects than like a bere No, but
that is correct. Like the smaller and more prolific the well,
I guess it doesn't have to be small, but generally speaking,
the more prolific an animal is, the more fagundity, and
the shorter the lifespan, the quicker the evolution will be.
(22:24):
If such if evolutionary pressures exist on it. So a
great example is like viruses in bacteria, they evolve very
rapidly because the pressure is there on them to evolve.
They're in a very fast paced arms race with our
immune systems, and they are they reproduce and replicate at
(22:44):
incredible speeds, an incredible rate. So we see evolution happen
in viruses and bacteria in real time, right Like it
happens within a year. That's why we have like you know,
yearly flo mutants that give us different versions of the
flu covid mutates, you know, and so we have to
(23:06):
like have updates on vaccines. So you know, we do
see rapid evolution in in things like bacteria and viruses
and you know, and so like in insects, you you
can see perhaps more rapid evolution. I would say that
in order for us to get big bugs, we need
(23:28):
to consider a few things. So like insects did used
to be really big, including not only insects, but also
just arthropods in general during the Carboniferous and Permian periods,
with the kind of famous examples of the giant dragonfly
like insect that had an over two foot wing span,
which is around seventy that serator.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
That yeah, that is I can't I can't picture something
that big. Yeah, in the insect form flying around my head.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, like I just eagle sized dragonfly.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah that that is terrifying and fascinating at the same time.
Like yeah it uh oh man, the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Nightmares.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
I would love what Yeah, I would be I would
be like, I would be so morbidly curious. I would
get killed by one because I imagine they have like
giant pincers, like their teeth or something.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I mean, yeah, they probably would go after larger prey.
I don't think human size though, I mean.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
No, no, no, probably, and I would just get maybe
I would just lose a finger or something.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
You know, potentially. But okay, quick question, big bug, which
one if you could choose, which one would you have
as a pet?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Okay, uh, probably a roly poly.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
It would be like a giant insect armadillo, you know,
and like all those all this tiny little uh some
people call him pill. I guess I always knew him
as roly Polly's. Probably roly Polies. Those are always my
favorite bugs to play with, like in the yard.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
You know what's fun about that is they are terrestrial isopods,
and there are actually marine isopods which are very closely related.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
That do get right. Yeah, yeah, it could.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Technically have a giant roly poly as a pet if
you're willing to kind of go deep diving in the ocean.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
That is that is very true.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Uh, and they are the giant isopods that I have
seen are like they don't look real. They don't look
real like I've seen. There is a restaurant in in
I believe Japan that does isopod ramen. Uh and get
(25:52):
giant isopod ramen if you if you google this, like
it's real.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's real giant isopods that they use.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Oh man, it's like that. It's like those scenes in
Emperor's New Groove where they're eating the giant isopods.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Okay, so I was I said Japan, But taype A
is the the the place that they have it. Uh
it is uh absolutely, Like yeah, it's like the size,
it's bigger than the bowl. Yeah, it's bigger than the
bowl that they serve it in. Well it's yeah, sorry
(26:34):
not to not to take it to like you.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I'm not I'm not like a vegetarian so I would
be a hypocrite if I were not to condone the eating.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I just don't think.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I don't think I could eat like I've never I've
had like chocolate covered ants before, and they just don't
they just don't taste like anything. Yeah, exactly, but but
I don't know that I could do that.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
We're to socialized to not see insects as food. It's
you know, I think it's I think it's a problem.
I'm very pro bug eating. Anyways, the let's let's talk
about these giant bugs. How do they get so big?
One of the reasons was a high oxygen levels that
allowed large insects to breed through spiracles, which are tiny
air channels distributed throughout their bodies. That would help the
(27:22):
dispersal of oxygen. And so you really want a very
high concentration of oxygen in order for that to sustain
a large insect body. But another thing is that birds.
There weren't really birds dominating at this time, and so
as birds became more dominant, they became predators and competitors
(27:44):
with these insects, and they out competed them, and so
insects got real small, which sounds counterintuitive, right, like, well,
if you're if you're smaller, doesn't that make you more
easily grabbed? Not necessarily, right, Like, the smaller you are,
the faster, more nimble you are, the harder it is
to catch you, Like what would be easier to catch
like a pigeon or a hummingbird. Like a pigeon, it's
(28:07):
much easier to grab.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
And all it ever matters is it's not about the
size of the species. Is just passing the genetics.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
That's it. That's all that ever matters.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
So whatever whatever traits you can evolve to help you
avoid predation is the thing that is going to be
propagated throughout the speci.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Like, if you live one hundred years and you're built
like a tank, but you have like one offspring in
your lifespan and you require a lot of food, you
may be less likely to survive than like a mayfly
that lives a day and has one hundred offspring.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yep, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Basically, what you want for giant bugs is high oxygen
levels and no birds, which is like a nightmare for
me because I love birds and I hate oxygen. I'm
neutral about oxygen. It's good, I like it. I like
to breathe it. So what would happen after a nuke
or a bunch of nukes. I'm not like a doomsday expert.
(29:06):
One of the things I do know, though, is the
nuclear winter is one of the most feared outcomes. That is,
when smoking debris from the bombs and resulting destruction of
like a bunch of buildings in Earth and everything would
kind of form these huge clouds kind of like after
a volcanic eruption, and would cover the Earth, blocking out
(29:27):
sunlight and causing a huge drop in temperature, and would
last for like years. Like there's different ap Like I've
seen estimations from like ten years to fifty years, ten years,
Like I don't know, let's just go with ten years, right,
to be as you know, optimistic as possible, because I
love aptimism. Sure, so right, it would this kind of
(29:50):
like this nuclear winter would potentially kill off a lot
of vegetation because plants need photosynthesis, and so if you're
blocking out the sun, you may kill off a large
portion of plants. This would lower oxygen levels and decrease resources,
and would be likely to kill off larger animals. So
(30:11):
really it would be the tiny insects or even microscopic
animals like tartar grades or non animals like bacteria that
would be most likely to survive in this circumstance. And
it seems like evolutionary pressures would actually drive animals and
organisms to be more small and require less nutrition rather
(30:33):
than being big.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
And this is how this is also the nuclear version.
This is how you get Cormac McCarthy's the road, right, like.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
The eaten babies.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, yeah, like this is how you get that result
with a nuclear winter. And this is what this is
essentially what like did in most of the large dinosaurs
right right.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, yeah exactly, there was a there was a meteor
strike and then all the debris and just a huge
dip in nutrition and rapid climate change that meant that
they could not get their nutritional needs met. However, uh
you know, the sort of ancestors to mammals survived. So
(31:16):
and also birds survived, and birds are dinosaurs. They are
just the dinosaurs that are left and they're hilarious and adorable.
Uh so, yeah, exactly, So a lot of things did
survive in that case. And so I do think that
following a nuclear winter, even though I cannot stress enough,
that would be really bad because like, the thing that
I care about is I don't want.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
To trying to avoid that people.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I don't want millions of people, including myself, to suffer
and die. That's not good.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
How I don't want to eat babies.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Like jelly babies, you know, the like British.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Wait wait what we'll hold on. I do not know
what a jelly.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's like a sour pouch kid without the good flavor.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Okay, so it's not candy in the shape of a baby.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
It is candy in the shape of a baby, a jelly.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh why would you make that as a candy? What
is that? Okay, all right, We're.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Gonna take this candy and put Look. Look it'll buye billy,
little bye billy. You can you eat that?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Will? All right? I don't want something inside of me.
I don't want to still awaken anything.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
So, uh you know, I do think that there would
be a good amount of things, maybe even including people,
that could survive this. It would be awful, uh, no
mistake about it. But so what would happen after nuclear
winter dissipates? Right, Because say it takes ten years, A
lot of things die off, a lot of you know,
(32:50):
you'd probably awful. But after that ten years, what could
happen would be with the sun and with a lot
of megafauna maybe dying off, like being eaten or dying
of starvation, you may actually have a period of time
where a lot of plant growth could bounce back. Right,
(33:10):
I'm not no strodamis in terms of nuclear war, so
this might not happen, but like you could conceivably have
like it might take hundreds of not thousands of years,
or if not hundreds of thousands of years, you may
actually have a new carboniferous period where you have a
bunch of plant life and not a lot of large
(33:32):
animals to be eating the plants, and maybe even not
a lot of birds to be eating the insects. And
so I could imagine a situation in which you have
the planet does recover in a way. Maybe humans don't,
maybe large mammals don't. Maybe you have a huge die
off of a bunch of species. But then I would
(33:53):
expect insects and plants to eventually make a comeback. And
in that case, yeah, you could have giant bug. I
just don't know that we'd be around to see it.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yeah it uh, it based on what you said about
the radiation levels and stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I don't I don't know that we would we would
we would be able to hang with all.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
The other the other creatures are around there and the
the the oxygen levels that you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
I mean, it's it's possible, right, like I I it
is strictly speaking possible that a small amount of humans
could survive, and especially if you're in a region that's
like not you know, completely irradiated, right, Like if we
can survive around two hundred rads and there are if
there are areas where it like falls below that, right,
and I think it's possible for humanity to survive, Like,
(34:47):
would we survive thousands or hundreds of thousands of years
after that by the time that you have like maybe
a new carboniferous period. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Maybe, well, I mean that's where the fallout shelters come in, right,
right exactly, So that's if we can survive underground and
these these uh these shelters, then then maybe we could stick.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
It's a wonderful, not suspicious at all shelters where that
ever happens. Uh. All right, So we are going to
take a quick break, and then we're going to talk
about a critter from the show that I think is
kind of the most spectacular one, which is the golper,
which is basically a giant axe a lottle with a
(35:29):
bunch of fingers for teeth, And we'll talk about it
when we get back from the break. So yeah, one
of the I guess the most fun monstrosities in the
show is the called this golper. It's a giant axe
a lottle and it's got like hundreds of fingers lining
(35:50):
its mouth and throat that it uses, I guess kind
of as as teeth.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Absolutely, Like they did a great job.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Fantastic Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Uh, the like the when when when it opens its
mouth like like they did. They did a fantastic job
depicting that thing. Yes, it was horrifying looking.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Uh. And I love the axe a lottle like that that.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
It's one of the cutest animals in existence and they
did such a good job making it a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah. Now I love acx lottls. They're adorable. They are
really interesting as well. And I uh, you know, when
I'm talking about my skepticism about whether this is accurate,
I want to emphasize I still really love the show.
I don't think this is a flaw of the show.
I think it's okay to get weird and creative with
(36:44):
things and have all out. Is not meant to be
as scientific realistic. Yeah, it's not meant to be like
this is exactly what would happen. It's meant to be fun, entertaining,
and you know, have some interesting philosophical ideas, and I
guess so I am having fun and being entertained, So
it's doing its job. But let's talk about this giant
(37:06):
ax a Lottel so would like we've already talked about
how the evolutionary pressures following the immense destruction of a
nuclear apocalypse would probably not favor larger animals in the
short run, right like in the few hundred years following that, Like,
being big means having higher nutritional demands, unless your metabolism
(37:29):
is really really slow, in which case you would not
be moving around as fast as this thing is depicted
as moving in the show. So like, you could potentially
be a large animal but have a really slow metabolism
so you don't require a lot of food very quickly,
and that might be a good survival technique. Like the
(37:51):
Greenland shark is this huge shark, but it's so slow
and it has a really slow metabolism and it actual yea,
maybe it could survive, but the at this like very
like vicious fast predator of the ax Lottle.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I'm skeptical. The fingers in the mouth, let's talk about
those human fingers in on the axe Lottle's mouth. Maybe
not exactly scientifically accurate, but I love this so much
because it actually reminds me of of penguin mouths. Have
you ever looked straight down the mouth of a penguin?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Do they have like all the turned in like kind
of spikes, those spiky mouths. Yeah, I saw, I saw
the I saw an image of the inside of a
leather back turtles yes as well. Yeah, they are absolute nightmares.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
It's like these leatherback turtle you know, see turtles, leather
back turtles, penguins adorable, you know, you want to They're
like the stars of a Pixar movie. And then you
look in their mouths and you're looking into a circle
of hell. Yes, it's it's actually quite devious because these
mouths are designed to allow fish to enter in one way,
but like road spikes not be able to get out
(39:07):
the other way. You know, like you go into a
parking lot and they have like the spikes that don't
allow you to back up.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, it's the it's the Hotel California.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
You can check in, but you can.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Never leave exactly. And it smells like fish.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yes, so yeah, no exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
So I actually really appreciate because I feel like these fingers,
the way that the show portrayed them is that they're
like keeping stuff from coming back out, so it like
takes a lot of force to actually pull anything back out. Also,
using a an ax lodel as this like mutant is
(39:45):
I think a smart choice. Again, I'm not saying that
I think that evolution would favor really huge animals in
this period of time, But salamanders can get really big.
There is a species of salamanders, the South China giant salamander,
who can grow to be nearly six feet long. It's like,
(40:09):
when I learned about this, I thought it was fake.
I was like, this is no, this is a photoshop,
This isn't real. If there was a giant salamander, I
would have already heard about this.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
This is like, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Don't know, like when I was a teenager or in
college or something, I was like young enough to have
never seen this, but also old enough to be like
I would know about this if it existed, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, it's like fantastical creature.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Why wouldn't anyone have told me? But yeah, it's this.
It's a huge salamander and they exist and they're amazing looking,
and so yeah, it's like I think technically an axe
lottel could get to be huge like this. And also
axe lottels are an interesting pick for this for the
(40:56):
reason that they can regenerate their limbs, so so they
and axi lottels, by the way, are basically the same
as salamanders, except that axi lottels are neotonous, meaning that
they retain the juvenile traits of a salamander. A salamander
goes through a metamorphosis and it has a juvenile form,
(41:19):
and then it metamorphosizes into an adult form, and that
adult form can either be aquatic, semi aquatic, or semi terrestrial.
The axi lottel is permanently retaining those juvenile traits throughout
its whole life. You can actually inject an axi lottle
with iodide, and it will force it to transform into
(41:42):
basically a salamander, but naturally they do not change. And
it's actually they're kind of like the dog, like a
dog is to a wolf, as an axi lottel is
to a salamander. Although axi lottels were not domesticated in
the same way that dogs were, dog retain a lot
of like puppy like traits that wolves have, like the
(42:03):
floppy ears, the friendliness, the playfulness, the barking. Those are
all traits that wolf puppies have, but wolf adults do not.
So dogs are kind of like neotonous versions of wolves, uh,
and they retain that throughout their whole lives. And in
the same way, axe lottels are the juvenile form of salamanders,
but in that species, in axe lottles, they retain that
(42:26):
those characteristic.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
I love salamanders absolutely, they're like they're like gummy lizards.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
I love them, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
It's they're they're like they look almost like translucent. Sometimes
like they they look like like there should be instead
of gummy worms and gummy bears, there should be gummy salamanders,
like as a candy.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, but then I feel bad eating them, I guess.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, i'd feel worse about the salamanders than the jelly babies. Yeah, probably,
but that I absolutely love, uh love saladmanders. They come
in all sorts of really rad looking colors, tool designs.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, really it is important. Some salamanders will
have like a skin toxin, so don't cuddle random salamanders.
They can also lick one. Yeah, don't lick one. Don't
cuddle them. Also, even if they are harmless, sometimes like
handling them can be harmful for them.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
But they absorb stuff through their skin a lot of
their environment, so if you have like chemicals or stuff
on your hand that you can.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
You can exactly exactly. But I also love them. And
if you like see one and you want to just
like hang out with it and be like, hey, bud,
how's it going? Nothing wrong with that making friends with
the salamander. So yeah, I do really love I love
this creature. I don't think it would happen right, like
(43:50):
I've said, with a lot of this stuff, but man,
i'd love the use of the ax lottel in this design,
and I do I agree. I think it's like it's
something that it's like, yeah, the human fingers, and I
know I'm not gonna do spoilers, but I know there's
like an explanation for it kind of that's implied at
some point in the show, but again not very likely,
(44:11):
but still really cool. And I love that they kind
of are like the design of the denticles that you
see in penguins in sea turtles and yeah turtles.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah it uh Like at the I think you just
nailed it.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Like at the end of like any and all discussion
you can have about like these animals or any design
from the show, is it cool, Yes, then then that's
all that matters. Like that that like I get you
want to find like follow some kind of logic, is
like here's the here's the rules to the universe. This
is what's causing all of these cool designs. But at
the end of it, like take a cool looking animal
(44:50):
like the axe Lottel and then just make it menacing
and even cooler and add some Cronenberg style body horror
to it and and make it giant, and it's like
that is awesome.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
That is a really really rad animal.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
And I like and I think like it's like because
they do combine some even if it's not scientifically feasible
or scientifically probable. I would say they do have like
smart design choices for these things, right, like the giant
the giant salamander design in terms of like, yeah, it
(45:26):
would make sense that its mouth is like that so
it can trap prey.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
I love the creativity of that. Another thing I really
love and appreciate about the Fallout series is the giant
mole rats. So I love a naked mole rat. I was.
I've been obsessed with them since the fifth grade, since
I got a book about them, and I'm just like,
this is the best animal. It looks like a monster,
but they're amazing and they're actually kind of cute if
you squint and change your mental perspective.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Well, I'm looking okay, I'm looking up images of the
giant morat from.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Fallout right now.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah, they're not so cute and fallout, but in.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Real life, somebody's on the back of one with like
a gatling gun. That sounds bad.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, that's awesome. So I don't think i've seen any
yet in this series. I haven't finished yet though, so
I don't know, but they are in the games, and
they're these huge mole rats and I hate killing them
in the games because I just love them so much.
But I do actually think naked mole rats have a
(46:30):
chance at surviving a nuclear apocalypse as long as they
get enough food, right, as long as they get enough
tubers root vegetables for them to survive and feed on.
Because naked molerats are actually incredibly resistant to cancer and
to they seem to be somewhat more resistant to ionizing
(46:52):
radiation when compared to mice and other rodents. They can
live up to thirty years, and they live in tunnels,
so I feel like it's got a lot going for them.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Thirty years.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, that it trips me out every time. I don't
know why, but every time I learn that some creature
like that, some animal has a much longer lifespan than
I expected, it's it's always a trip trying to wrap
my head around the fact that, like I could see
a mole rat and it could be legal drinking age
(47:28):
and and and just I don't know, it doesn't seem
like animals of that size should should live that long.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
But that's that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Well, there are some spiders that can actually live quite long,
Like there's some I think there's like a tarantula that
can live to be around thirty years. So yeah, oh
it's crazy, right, Like you could have like you could
have a tarantla or a naked mole rat and they
could be there like in the uh in the Manger
(47:57):
with Jesus and then also be there you know at
the end of that story.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. They could have witnessed both the Yeah,
why don't.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
We have like any weird animals and mangers, right, like
a tarantula and naked mole rat bearing gifts, So you know,
I I really like so naked mole rats are very tough,
They're very resistant. I mean, obviously they're not gonna survive
in the heart of a nuclear blast, but if they
(48:30):
get enough vegetation, which is a big if, right, given
a if there's a nuclear winter, but I do think
they could be a survivor. Would they become huge and
start eating people? I hope, So I think they should
do that. I want these guys to have a win.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Yeah, like we've we're destroying their planet that they were
just doing fine on, so we deserve it.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I feel, well, you know, maybe not all of us,
but like if they could just if they some how
learned who the oil executives are sure, you know, like
if we could just be like, hey, buddy, you know
who tastes the best out of all of us, those
really well fed oil execs, the or.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
The vault tech executives.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yeah, so I did. I really do appreciate a lot
of the weird, uh, these weird creatures in the show
and in the in the series especially, So Yeah, my
favorite is the the axe Lottel gulper and the giant
naked morat.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
The naked morat has like a like it like it's
the size, it's like a large rhinoceros, it looks like
in some of these images, So the the idea of
in their their front teeth look incredible, uh, scaled up
to this size, I mean at the size they are now,
they're a really fascinating creature. But uh, taking small animals,
(49:59):
it's it's like talking about that, uh the dragonfly earlier.
Being able to see like all the tiny features blown
up to a specific there's like an extra level of
horror to it. Uh, Like it's like the it's it's
the fascination of like, honey, I shrunk the kids and
you see when you see those yeah, when you see
(50:21):
those things scaled up, Yeah, it's like it is it's you.
It really puts into focus how much of the world
around you really is like alien. It's it's like you
you imagine the most like far out there creature you can,
like alien life form you could possibly imagine, and then
(50:42):
more than likely there is some animal on Earth. It
might be microscopic, it might be tiny, it might be
you know, a couple of inches long, but they it
exists somewhere within our our you know, uh food.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Chain, absolutely. And I mean, like I do think if
there were the appropriate conditions and evolutionary pressures and naked
morat could become huge, just as some like you know,
there are like the biggest animals in the world, the whales.
Then specifically, the blue whale did originate from a small
(51:17):
terrestrial like a tiny miniature deer like animal that was terrestrial,
and it eventually became you know this massive through you know,
hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of thousands, millions of years
of evolution, uh, through millions of years of evolution, Yeah,
(51:37):
became the blue whale. So yeah, I do think if
you have the right conditions, we could get giant naked.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Moratsh And yeah, the whales got it right. They they
came out of the water around and for like, screw this,
we're going back.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Us are going to be dolphins and just some.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
Exactly and now we have and now you and I
have like mortgages and have to pay taxes and like
you know, uh we we they they got the better
end of that year for sure.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah, maybe blue whales do have to pay taxes, but
we just can't understand like when they're when they're doing
they're like, who're talking? All right? So before we go,
we gotta play a little game called gets Who's Squawk?
(52:35):
And the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play
Mystery Animal sound and you the guest, and you the listener,
have to guess. Let's make that sound? Can be any animal,
any animal at all, all right, So let me the
hint is this. This animal makes this sound with its
body as it moves beneath your feet. You hear that
(53:09):
gurgling sound.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
Yeah that's an animal. That's not okay, But like that
sounds more like plumbing than it does like an an animal,
like an organic animal noise. So you said beneath my feet.
I really I don't even I can't. I gotta guess something,
(53:35):
but I can't even wrap my head around what that
what that would possibly be? Uh, I'm going to guess.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Under my feet? Can I have a hint, Katie?
Speaker 3 (53:52):
It does not have a spine, does not have a spine,
does not have a spine. It's going to be something
so obvious, and I'm I'm going to uh feel like
a fool.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
It's not actually that obvious, so you don't worry.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
About it, Okay, okay, beneath my feet doesn't I can't
think of anything that doesn't have a spine.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Is it an insect of some sort?
Speaker 1 (54:19):
In not an insect? You're getting close? What am i? Ah? Uh?
Speaker 3 (54:30):
I literally can't think of an ant like an animal
underground that doesn't have a spine. Like I'm just I
keep going back to thinking about, uh, like octopi and
or squid or something like that, and that's not underneath
my feet.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Kind of you're kind of getting sort of close, so
I'll just tell you it's a snail or like you
are so close. This is the giant Gippsland earthworm. Congratulations
to Marian d for guessing correctly it is what Yeah,
(55:11):
it's a giant earthworm. So the video is courtesy of
Giant earthworm dot org dot au. Taken by website Yes,
taken by the Gippsland earthworm researcher, doctor Beverly van Prague,
who has been studying these worms for over thirty years.
(55:32):
So these are huge earthworms found in Australia.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
They've seen before.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
They grow over three feet long, so that's over a
meter and about an inch in diameter. But their size
and width kind of change depending on like because they
can stretch and squash without coming to harm, so they
like their size can kind of vary, so they can
like get to nearly like ten feet long or three meters,
(56:02):
but like that's usually there that they're also thinner because
they're like stretched out. Sure, so they spin their entire
lives underground. They would only come to the surface if
we dig them up or they get flushed out and
flooded out by rain. But yeah, they they're really really cool.
Changes in their habitats due to farming threatens their survival
(56:25):
because they like really kind of loose, loamy soil and
then farming and sort of artificial stuff like changes the
texture of the soil. So you know, we got we gotta,
we gotta really consider, uh what we're doing, because these
are amazing, and what what kind of world do we
live in without giant earthworms that you could technically but
(56:45):
should not use as a jump rope.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Not not a world that I want to live in, exactly.
Can I keep one of these things as a pet?
Speaker 1 (56:54):
I don't know that it would survive. They've I think
they've tried to have them in captivity without success, so
it would be really hard to keep alive. Can you
keep certain worms and insects as pets? Yes, there are
some that are better candidates for pets. There's like a
(57:15):
you're mentioning, like an I wanting an isopod. There's apparently
these like domestic well, like these selectively bred isopods whose
faces are meant to look like little duck faces. It's
very cute. What it's you know, it's super weird and
it's very cute.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
So okay, so that sounds like a creature from Fallout?
What you just decide?
Speaker 1 (57:35):
I know, right, it's it'll it makes sense if you
look at images. I think they're just called like duck
roly poids. I'm not sure. Duck isopods. Yeah, they're like
they're sort of front segment is yellow, and I guess
is meant to look sort of like a little duck
bill or a little duck what. Yeah, it's cute, it.
Speaker 2 (57:58):
Does Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
And these things are selling for one hundred and a
blonde rubber ducky designer isopod ultra rare. This sounds like
I'm describing a Pokemon is one hundred and forty nine dollars.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Well, if that's your hobby.
Speaker 2 (58:17):
Yeah, holy cow, I did not realize that there. I
guess there's a there's a world, in a market, and
a niche for absolutely everything.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
There really is.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
So okay, I'm going to go buy some isopods now.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
I'm going to as long as they don't escape their
enclosure and then cause like some kind of ducky isopod
apocalypse as they take.
Speaker 2 (58:40):
Over the world. Wow, this is wild.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
There's all sorts of designer isopods with all sorts of
different colorings, and.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
Where's there where's our designer worms at? That's what I
want to know.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Good question, great question.
Speaker 1 (58:56):
So onto this week's mystery animals. Sound the hint is
this a picture is worth a thousand words, but this
critter paints a clear picture with its call. All right,
you got any guesses?
Speaker 3 (59:18):
I'm gonna guess it's some kind of sounds like a
lemur or something, or some kind of like small primates.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
Interesting, probably so far off. I know I am, I know,
I am. Well, I'm terrible at this game.
Speaker 1 (59:37):
I am terrible. I am just lucky that I don't
have to be the one playing the game, because I
do not think I would be very good either. But
fortunately I don't have to play it because I'm the
one making it up. Uh. Anyways, if you think you
know who is making that sound, you can write to
me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and
I will reveal the results next week. Well, thank you
(01:00:02):
so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Where can the people find you my pleasure?
Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Not in a follout shelter?
Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Yes, I let's keep our fingers crossed. You can find
me at the Wapple House on Twitter. You can find
me hosting the George Center podcast each week, and yeah,
that's pretty much it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Those are the only two places other than that. You
can catch me at work just being a boring dude
during the week. Buying. Don't do that though.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Buying up rubber Ducky isopods at work. Exactly getting into
bidding wars on rubber Ducky isopods.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
I really am low key considering like building a terrarium.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Now I have that thought frequently, like do I need
a terrarium? Well, thank you guys so much for listening.
If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating
and review, I read all of them, and all of
them help me tangibly help the show. And thanks to
(01:01:13):
the Space Classics for there's super awesome song. Ex Alumina.
Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app
Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what? Mayd you listen to
your favorite shows. I'm not your mother, and I can't
tell you what you to do. Say I live your
own life. See you next Wednesday.
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
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