March 13, 2025 • 61 mins
From the shiny and splendiferous scale worms of the deep, to scuba diving lizards, these animals all have one thing in common: they are 100% glam. I'm joined by Danl Goodman to rock out!
Footnotes: Elvis worm! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-elvis-worms-shimmer-and-sparkleand-fight-tough-180974989/
Elvis worms fighting, oh no!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgQvuYljX8g
Scale worm jaws, extra oh no! https://anatomytoyou.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/openmouthteeth_2144136i.jpg?w=640
Living beetle jewelry https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/meet-makech-bedazzled-beetles-worn-living-jewelry-180955081/
Shiny diving lizards, oh my!
https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/web/196097_web.jpg
Shiny diving lizards caught on video! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/bu-lc032019.php#:~:text=Lindsey%20Swierk%2C%20assistant%20research%20professor,time%20to%20escape%20from%20predators
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
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 glam rock animals.
Animals who are glamorous and glitzy and on occasion also
tough as a rock. From the shiny and splendiferous scale
worms of the deep to scuba diving lizards, these animals
(00:29):
all have one thing in common. They are one hundred
percent glam Discover This Morris answer to the angel question
was that Rainbowfish children's Book of Body Horror. Joining me
today is friend of the pod podcast person frequent voice
on Fake Doctor's Real Friends, DJ and twitch Man Dan L. Goodman.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hi, how's it going good?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Do you mind if I call you Twitchman?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Twitch Man? That is perfect? Twitch Man is excellent. I'm
honored by the title.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, yeah, I'm a pod woman. I feel like I
missed the times where it's like like Blacksmith or you know,
you know what I mean, Like when we have these
these names like Lamplighter or they you know, like like
we have podcaster, but like what about Podsmith.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I was just thinking, how fun Podsmith would be psmith.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, it sounds like real work, which it's not.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I go to the kilns of pro tools and craft
strong by hand.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Had handblown podcast technically true because you know, you breathe
out with your mouth as you make mouth sounds. Anyways,
we are talking about glam rock animals, animals who are glamorous,
incredible looking. The rock stars of the natural Kingdom and
(01:56):
their glitzy and glamorous appearance have probably red reasons for it,
actual survival reasons, which we will discuss. What do you
think of when you think of glam rock in general?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, I mean, you know, there was definitely I'll tell
you a very short story. The very first vintage T
shirt that I ever got at this place on Lobra
I called jet Rag was an old Poison T shirt,
a Poison Tour T shirt, and on the back I
think it said rock the fuck Out. And my mom
didn't see that at the time, so she let me
buy this shirt that said fuck on it, and I
was like, wow. So I think of that shirt, but
(02:31):
I think of hair, I think of Neon, I think
of Sparkles, I think of like yeah, so I think
of a lot of you know, we're talking wall of sound.
We're talking big, So I thought's that's what I think of.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I think everything big, hair, big, eyeliner big, yes, you know,
mega big, the hole in the ozone from the Hairspray big.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I'm perfect, yes, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So the first animal we're going to talk about is
the Elvis war which has is named after the King
of rock Elvis, because it is iridescent and glitzy and
glamorous and also kind of an asshole.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh really, yeah, I mean it's not I don't think.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't think they named it after Elvis because it's
an asshole. But I think it's fits right because he
was kind of an ass wasn't he.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
That is my understanding.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes, you know, I'm look, I'm keeping it real. I'm
not saying Elvis. It's not cool to like Elvis, but
you know, yeah he had he had a big sound,
but also a big ego.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That is what I hear. Is my understanding as well.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Shout out to listener Vincent Jorgensen for this idea that
I don't know why I have not talked about these
on the show before, because they are incredible. They have
this rainbow and purple shimmer. Now Daniel, I want you
to look at this, this little little cutie.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I have it pulled up right here, and this is
a shimmery, a shimmery looking little worm. How big is
this worm there?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
You know, I'd say about like palm sized.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Oh yeah, that's that's big.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
I guess, so not that big.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Well, okay, fair fair play, but this is and this
is truly an error on my part. But looking at
this image just on the just on the raw, just
like stark black of it, it almost felt like a slide.
I was ready to be looking at like a microscopic
worm here. I was ready for you to say, yeah, oh,
you could fit about a thousand on your hand right now.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I'd be like, you know, not not not super huge.
But yeah, they are definitely like not. They are not microscopic.
They can see them with the naked eye. Hold them
in your hand, you know, let them crawl all over you.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I would get the I would get the willies. I
believe it is the willies. I'd get the willies very quickly.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I call it. Call it the Jimmy skin. But yeah,
I mean that.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Works too, that's very funny.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
But yeah, so they are absolutely beautiful. They look like
holographic nail polish or you know, the most the glittery,
most glittery glam that you can find. They were discovered
by a team of researchers at Script's Institute of Oceanography
at UCSD. Shout out to my dad who works at
(05:27):
Scripts Institute of Oceanography. He's actually in the ocean Physics group,
so they deal with the physics of waves, not necessarily
the critters, but yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Good, good job, guys. Can't wait to see y'all for
a beer and I'll say, hey, good work on that worm.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
You know, good, good work on that worm.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Good good warming you guys.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Oh you got me. I'm looking at this worm also,
and it reminds me. You remember the book The Rainbow Fish.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yes, yes, oh oh man, I love that book as
a kid.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Just very similar color scheme of just like that, you know,
super iridescent glowy but also like some solid color but
also looks like there's just like super flex of rainbow everywhere. Yeah,
just trying to paint as as vivid stone a picture
as I possibly can of this world. I'm like cat
I right now, you know, man, it's like that book
(06:20):
The Rainbow fish.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, because it's like they had this like iridescent glittery
scales on this fish. It was so fun as a
kid because you could like touch it and like feel
like embossed are fun. Yes, it was also I feel
kind of sorry for the rainbow fish because it was
like he's got all these rainbow scales on him, right,
and like his fish friends who don't have those are jealous.
(06:42):
So he it's a book about sharing, like you share
this with others and generally speak, I'm very pro sharing,
you know, pro sharing sure, yeah, or resources with others.
But it's part of his body.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So yeah, it's different, a little.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Strange, right of a weird message. It's like if you
are hanging out with friends and you're like, oh, I
really like your hair, and you're like you do it
and then you just like cut off a big trip
here you go rip it off.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
And that's the thing. And that's the thing with kids
that are unpredictable. It's like they'll take the note to
the letter. So it's like, I know the story of
the room. It's about sharing. They're like, okay, so I
like rip off my skin for my friends, like no, no, no, no, no,
no no, no, no, not quite that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Well, you know, that is a horrible kindergarten scene that
I do not want to see. But so yeah, these
do look these do look like the rainbow fish. They
are They are in fact a worm, I know, like
sometimes we call things worms, but they aren't really, but
they are. They are warm. They're actually a type of
scale worm, uh and which is actually related to very
(07:50):
distantly related to earthworms, a little more closely related to
bristle worms. You may know some bristle worms, like there
is We've talked about some of them on the show,
like the bobbit worm. This horrifying tremors. Like did I
were you on the show and I.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Talked about the bottom I think I was, Wow, I
love it.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I love how somehow that worked out. But I did
not plan for that.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I was gonna say, I feel like we talked about
like a I remember you described something as a tremor's
like worm, and I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Well I'm flattered either way, but like if it was
if it's a worm that lives under the sand at
the bottom of the sea, it lunges out of the
sand and will grab onto an unsuspecting fish and pull
them back down, sort of like a tremor's worm or
like a sarlac. But it's also very shiny and iridescent.
(08:42):
Now it's it's not super closely related to this one,
but fairly it's it's a bristleworm. So they they are,
you know, so scale. But this the Elvis, it's actually
called p elvis. I gotta gotta have it sound scientific.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I was gonna say it's got sound though, sound good.
That's so funny.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
But yeah, they did name it that because of its
sort of glittery, glamorous look that they thought looked flashy
like Elvis. And so here's what it looks like. So
it's not it doesn't actually look super like a worm
like you think of an earthworm. It has a series
of interlocking scales on its back that are shiny like that.
(09:23):
It's like it looks like plate armor, and it's kind
of flat, very shiny and eardescent. And underneath it it
has these gold shiny bristles jutting out of it that
you might mistake for legs, but aren't actually legs. They're
just these these bristles. And at its head it has
these things that look a little bit like pincers. They're
(09:44):
actually not quite pincers. They're called pelps. So pelps are
these appendages at the heads near the mouths of arthropods.
You can see them in spiders and insects as well,
So those are its pelps. And so yeah, it's it's
kind of but it's it's rather flat looking and it's
(10:05):
kind of oval shaped and so like you know, it's
kind of alien and bizarre looking. But it gets way
weirder than what you can just see at a glance.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So being on this show, you know, I will say
I wasn't entirely surprised by that potential, but like I'm excited,
please go on. I had to drop when you said that.
I was like, you know, I had a feeling you
were gonna say, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well, you know, there's always something hidden underneath the surface
for these animals. So like these are found in the
deep sea near like hydrothermic vents, as well as on
the carcasses of fallen sea creatures, including whales. So when
(10:52):
whales die, it's certainly sad for the whales, but it's
a great boon for all of these underwater arthropods, these
deep sea creatures that will feed on the whale's carcass,
and it can feed a hell of a lot of
animals in life.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I have a question, isn't there a term for like
the kind of like minor or like micro ecosystem created
by a whale carcass? Am I thinking, am, I could
be I may, I may just be this. I could
be pulling this all the way out of my ass
right here. But I felt like there was some word
for like the micro ecosystem created ecro micro ecosystem created
(11:33):
by a dead whale in the ocean, because like, yeah,
you're right, feel that.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I feel that, I feel like there is I mean,
I thought it had a specific I mean I think
it's called like whale fall action whale fall.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I think that's it. Yeah, I think you're right. Whale fall.
That's it. You're right, whale fall. That's it. Nice. Yeah
that was the whale fall.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well, thank you for reminding me that that term exists.
It is a cool like whale fall. Yeah, so, I
mean it's pretty straightforward. I guess it's what a whale
falls to, but yeah, it is. It's something where there's
something kind of grim and ghoulish about it, seeing this
decaying whale but it's also incredible how much life that
(12:13):
can support. It's kind of like when a tree falls,
a huge tree falls in the forest. There's something sad
about that, right, this ancient tree falling and decaying, But
then that tree feeds so many animals. In fact, an
animal we're gonna talk about later on the show. A
lot of these glamorous animals like to feed on dead things,
(12:33):
but hey, look, you know it's a living so they
will feed on things like whale carcasses. I know that
the research team that collected some of these specimens actually
found them on a whale carcass, so that must have
been a fun treat. You're like zooming around looking at
this whale carcass all it's all strange and kind of creepy.
And then you see this like glitterus glamorous little scale
(12:58):
where I'm going like, hello, I'm here, and here I
am eating a dead whale. I don't know how Elvi sounds.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
You know, just like you, I was transported, you know
what I'm saying?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Dead? Who that's a little better.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Okay words, But like I said, like Elvis, not only
in appearance, but a little bit assholely.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
They like to bite each other when they're not biting
on some delicious whale fall carcass. So they that is
one of the reasons that they have these scales is
for protections. Protection not only from other animals and predator,
but from their.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Competition literally from each other.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, from each other, and when they bite each other.
It's fascinating. So I want you to, before I say
anything else, just take a look at that picture that
I've provided for you.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, I mean, I'm horrified. Obviously, this is a terrifying
picture of a dean. I'm seeing a demon of the
suit with it's almost like I want to say, I mean, okay, okay,
it looks like a faceless worm with a with a
like a bird's beak coming out of the center, but
(14:22):
it's surrounded by like a statue of liberty of like
it's just outward appendages, Like I know they're not horns,
but it looks like a wreath of horns sticking out
around a bird's mouth coming out of an eyeless worm. Demon.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
That's about right. They actually have a proboscis that they
can avert. So a proboscis is basically like a fleshy probe.
It can mean like a nose. It can mean a
variety of different things, but it's basically a flesh probe,
which is flesh probe. It's not really that's not really
a gl rock name is.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It could be a song though, could be a song.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I feel like this show is good at producing metal
names more than glen Rock names like flush probe. So
they can evert it, which means basically like pushing it
out from inside of them. And then in this proboscis,
what you're seeing is a set of jaws, set of
sharp jaws that they can use to snap at their
(15:25):
food source like a dead whale, or each other if
they if they're feeling feisty. Okay, so just you know,
like in Aliens, like how the alien shoots out a
smaller alien tongue with the set of jaws. It's just
like that. It's like boop, I'm gonna snap you up.
Another similar feature of the of the bob At Warmer.
They can just basically shoot out a thing and like
(15:47):
snap up. So do check out this video. I'm also
including all this in the show notes as always, But
there is a cool video of them.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Okay, oh there they are, Oh well, yeah, they are
pretty their sizable. Oh yeah, you'd see them. They're they're real.
Oh oh, you just stuck his tongue out one of
the other ones, gonna do it, I bet Oh my gosh,
Oh my gosh, he's so patient. Ooh goodness, he got
a grip.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Whoa.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
In fact, their fights can be so violent that they
can rip the scales off of each other. So a
pretty like dark reboot of The Rainbow Fish where it's
just violently ripping off each other's scales.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, exactly, my scale, No, my scale.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
But yeah, that thing that looks like a tongue like
it's going like boop, that's actually it's proboscis. And it
has that gnarly set of jaws in the center of
it that it's using to bite that other elvis worm.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
That is a lot. Yeah, that's a lot right there.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I bet you're wondering why they're so iridescent and shiny
and beautiful.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
That's that's I mean, that's you know, that's on the
list of questions mostly I'm I I.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Wonder it too, but I don't know, and nobody knows.
Isn't that fun When I'm just like, hey, you wonder
this thing. Sorry, nobody knows.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
It's literally don't you wish you could just ask them, like, Hey.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
What's up? Why are you guys so angry all the time?
What's with that weird like mouth boop thing that you do? Yeah?
I mean, so they are actually blind. There's no reason
for them to need this aridescence for like conspecific communication,
So like it's probably not for sexual selection or anything
like that because they can't see it. Uh, It's possible
(17:50):
it's for some some way of crypsis, I suppose. Seems unlikely.
It seems like it would just make them stick out. However,
in these deep sea and ronments, you never know, Like
how that I wonder, like maybe it interacts strangely with bioluminescence.
That's a possible thing, Like the refraction of bioluminescence may
(18:10):
have some advantage. My suspicion is that it actually serves
no purpose the actual visual of it. Rather, it's just
a byproduct of forming these tough scales. So like having
these very tough maybe crystalline structures in its scales, the
(18:32):
nature of having them really tough at this molecular level
also affects like how light is refracted off of the
surface of these scales, so that would be sort of,
my guess, is just a byproduct of making sure that
these scales are really tough. Yes, okay, I mean, like
you think about how like a diamond is really tough
(18:53):
and it's beautiful and it's hiering glittery.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, it makes sense absolutely. I by one thousand percent.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I'm with you, And I also like that, you know,
it's it's really subverting expectations, like to be tough, you
have to be glamorous. I like that.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
To the first first you must shine.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Speaking of the bobbit worm, twenty million year old fossilized
tunnels have been discovered beneath the ocean floor, over seven
feet or two meters long, but only a couple centimeters
wide in diameter. It's thought that these were once home
to an incredibly long worm, perhaps the ancestors of the
bobbit worm, as there's fossilized imprints made by these worms
(19:41):
that seem to indicate they use these tunnels to drag
their prey to an extra deep and watery grave. When
we return, we're going to talk about a thought provoking
intersection of fashion and entomology, though Daniel. You know that
(20:03):
animals and humans have a weird relationship sometimes, Yeah, totally.
I mean, for instance, like my dog, I think only
sees me as like the peanut butter provider.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
You know, at least a peanut butter warm blanket.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Right, that's true, a warm blanket.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Peanut butter human radiator, a butt.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Scratcher and peanut provider, peanut butter provider.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Oh, I'm king butt scratcher. I'll tell you what I
feel like. That's it. I feel like that, if I'm
being real, Everybody's like, oh, that's a trick with dogs.
They love getting scratched on the butt. Like, at what
point is it not a trick anymore? It's like, oh,
of course a dog loves a good butt scratch right there. Right,
that's just you know, that's it. That baseline baseline dog knowledge.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Are they sing? It's like a Konami code for a dog.
I feel like I feel like the dogs are fair
really obvious about one. I mean, like my dog Cookie,
Cookie will literally walk up to She does this every
day all day, like this is her favorite thing to do,
not joking, walk up to you, turn around so her
(21:14):
butt is near you, and then look over her shoulder
as you know, like kind of look between you and
the butt like exactly you're doing it. Yeah, eh eh,
thinking about this.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, gotch And you can like.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Hold your hand out and start wiggling your fingers and
she will come over and sort of like dock her
butt under your fingers and then so you can scratch it.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Wow, that is a smart that's smart Cookie you got
raised there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, she's smart whenever it serves her own insist.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I love that. A purpose like a purposely smart and
stupid dog. That's like, Cookie, we need you to do
this right now. I don't know. I'm a dog. I
don't speak.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
And then they say you want to get your butt scratched?
She knows that. She knows what that means.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Oh, I want to get my butt scratched.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
You got hearing? That's what she knows. What a CHICKI
pill is. When I she has these like chicken flavored,
chicken flavored hip point supplements and if you want to
you want a chicky pill, she knows what that means.
When I say you gotta sit, she doesn't know what
that means. That suddenly doesn't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Have you seen that since this episode. It's like the
thing that translates baby talk, but or like translates animal talk. Oh,
like what is your animals saying? It's like this leash
demeans us. Both great. I wait for that day. I
wait for that day where we get that where we
get the translation device. And Cookie was just saying, look,
I sit on my own schedule.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Okay, right right, that you shall provide me with butt scratch,
cheese and peanut butter. Your services for anything else are
not required.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Not required. That's funny.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
But so that's all to say that I want to
talk about something that it's both really interesting and it
provokes a lot of thought in conversation. I think about,
like our relationship to animals, because we're talking about insects,
and our feelings toward insects as a species can range
(23:14):
from like they are delicious food to they are gross
and I don't want anything to do with them, to
their beautiful jewelry. So I think one case that really
exemplifies this complex relationship we have with insects are the
beautiful bejeweled living beetle jewelry originating from the Yucatan Peninsula
(23:34):
in Mexico. So these living brooches are called makesh So
they are beetles of the Zoferis genus, which is a
group of species of beetles who are kind of long
with this very like thick exoskeleton. They're kind of shaped
(23:54):
like bowling pins a little bit. In fact, their exoskeleton
is so tough. There is a species called the ironclad beetle.
And if you're trying to mount them as a specimen,
you know how like you have like a butterfly specimen
where you stick a pin in it. They do that
for all all sorts of insects. You actually have to
(24:15):
drill a hole into them because you can't just push
a pin through it there. They're oh yeah, they're They're
exoskeleton is that tough? So they are flightless. They have
this little stubby head around thorax, so the thing that
actually kind of looks like their head is actually their thorax.
And then they have a long oval abdomen and they
(24:38):
range in color from black to sort of a black
and white pattern, lots of other different colors. They also
come in this like really pretty gold color, not not
a shiny gold, but kind of a matte gold. And
it's this species, this kind of gold sofitera species that
is often used for mkesh jewelry. So the jewelry is
(25:01):
made by taking a living beetle and gluing like rhinestones
on it or a variety of jewels or decorations on it,
or something like colorful thread or other ornaments. So there's
like some adhesive is used, like some kind of glue, uh,
and then like you you bedazzle the beetle, and then
(25:22):
they attach a gold chain to the beetle just by
gluing it. And then that's attached to like a pin
that you pin to your blouse, and the beetle crawls
around on your blouse. It's it's still alive and just
kind of like crawls around with all of this this
sort of bedazzlement, and it's hard to know like when
(25:45):
the tradition started. There's a lot of like, uh, sort
of mixed information on it, and it's you know, I
don't think that I'm comfortable, you know, saying anything definitively
because it doesn't seem like it's been studied definitively in
terms of like the order of the cultural practice. This
particular beetle them cash is actually the name of the jewelry,
(26:08):
but the zofers beetle chosen because it's got this kind
of slow, sluggish nature. It's pretty chill, it's got that
pretty exoskeleton, but it can also survive for months without
food or water. So ah man, yeah, I know, so,
I mean it's it's like, it sounds pretty creepy. So
(26:31):
we'll get to more of that, but first I want
to talk about the beetles in the wild. So in
the wild, the beetles live in dry forests and feed
on rotting wood starches. So we're talking about earlier. You know,
like the whale fall, well with tree fall it gets
tree fall is great for a lot of organisms and
forest environments. These beetles are one of them. They have
(26:53):
a metabolism that allows them to survive on small amounts
of starch in very little water. So in theory, if
you treat a mkesh beetle righte like you have a terrarium,
and you provide them with some starch and just like
a little bit of water like a moist sponge, you
can keep them alive for their whole lifespan of about
(27:14):
three years. But of course there's a few catches to this,
as there are for most things. When we when we
were talking about using animals for our own purposes, first
and foremost is that they can spew formic acid out
of their anus.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Great.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I mean actually to me, that's like a benefit, Like
I want to broach that, like you know, like I
kind of poke it and it just like sprays out
formic acid. That's that's a great James Bond weapon.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
That is a great James Bond weapon. Very like, right now,
what are the what are the effects of that kind
of acid on your skin? Or is it smelly? Is it?
Is it? It's unpleasant?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
It gives you, Yeah, it could give you a bad
skin rash, like wow, not a fun time. Yeah, you shouldn't,
you know, try not to get it. Yeah, you don't
want to get it on you. Traditionally, that issue has
been sold by making the beetles very tiny diapers, like
a little cloth Yeah, like a little cloth diaper that
(28:17):
goes near their backside and just sort of absorbs up
that thing, the formic acid. Unfortunately, I was reading something
that seemed to indicate I don't know how true this is,
but there was some like rumor about like how some
vendors will use glue to actually seal up the anus,
and then that's bad, like you can't do that, it's
(28:39):
it'll it'll kill the beetle. And so of course, I
think the issue that is probably on a lot of
people's minds is like, well, is this cruel? Is this
cruelty towards these beetles? And I think it's really it's
a really complex issue. And I think whenever there's like
a different cultural practice than our own, it's really easy
(29:01):
for us to go like, oh, this is cruel or
this is this is strange. It's like sure too strange
because you know, it's like it's not normalized in our society,
so like right, like in the way that a lot
of our practices towards animals are like you know, so
I think that the fact like it's living jewelry is
so such an unusual concept that I think it's easier
(29:25):
to think of it as like, oh, man, that's unnecessary
and kind of cruel. But then you think about a
lot of the things that we do in our culture.
We kill insects all the time, yes, and not super
nice ways. We also you know, just in our homes,
like we kill pests all the time. Look I'm not
above killing, you know, ants who try to eat all
my cereal.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I would be lying if I said I hadn't killed
a bug before. That's it's foolish. I do my best
to be, you know, sympathetic, especially to our spider friends
who do a lot of the bug killing for us.
But like, look, I've smashed them flies. I've smashed them bugs.
That's just fast matter. I'm not it is.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
I try to relocate spiders whenever I find them, but
I have to admit, like a few weeks ago, I
saw a pretty big spider and just instinctively stomped it,
like I didn't even think, and then immediately after something's like.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Oh, I'm so sorry that immediate up, I don't It's okay.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
So you know, we we kill insects all the time,
and so you know, I feel like this aspect of like, oh,
it's really cruel to do this is somewhat relative. The
other argument would be like, well, but you know we
kill insex maybe out of necessity. Keeping them as an
ornament in this way like seems sort of unnecessary. It's like, well,
we also have things like we have state fairs where
(30:49):
we have food animals. There for you know, entertainment purposes,
and like we'll we'll have like petting zoos with animals
that will eventually go and be used for food. So
I guess my point is, like, there are certainly complaints
you can have about certain cultural practices when it comes
to animals, but I'm always hesitant to like point the
(31:09):
finger at another culture where it's like, ah, see this
this thing that they do that we don't do, like
that that's super that's super weird.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
You know what I mean, Yeah, absolutely, and I think
that's I think that's completely fair. My only complaint would
be that I think the I mean, maybe it's you know,
and as I explore the culture of this a little
bit more and I see in your picture down here,
there's definitely Katie. But by the way, for all the listeners,
Katie has provided excellent resources for the for the guests
to look at it and and get familiar with and
(31:39):
just like see what is what what we're talking about.
I'm surprised these people aren't going further with the bug itself.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Like you know, I mean, like add a little top
hat or yeah, or just like it.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Maybe it may it might just be the video, but
it's like this seems pretty like Ryan Stones on some
gold chains kind of shit when we could get some
real like I mean, you know, if this is a
cultural thing here, I could see some like Swarovsky ass
like really glitzed up, glitzed up bugs crawling around on
your chest, premium bugs. Premium bugs.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, I mean I think that. I mean, these aren't
necessarily super super fancy things like they you know, they
often sell them for not that much money, like it
could be like chin us dollars or something. And you know,
it's also often sold to tourists, so I'm not super
(32:37):
clear on how much of it is directed towards tourists
to the area, and like how much of it is
that locals do just sort of as a local tradition.
So it's you know, I can't pretend to be a
cultural expert on this, and I couldn't quite sus that
out in my research. But there is one thing that
the artists who do this do seem to try to
(32:59):
do is they don't like inhibit the Beatles movement, so
they keep it like to the backs of the Beetles,
so they don't like put it, you know, like on
their actual heads, like it looks like it's on their heads,
but that's actually their thorax. Yeah, and they don't like
put it on their legs or anything, so they can
because like the point is for them to still be
able to move around as long as they're not putting
(33:20):
glue on the butt. I don't think. I mean, I'm
sure that like the bejeweling of the Beatles isn't great
for the beetles, but I don't think it necessarily is
that all that harmful again, because they have that really
thick exoskeleton. The harmful thing would be, of course, if
you don't like feed it or you know, like you know,
(33:41):
actually keep it in a terrarium, if you just kind
of like keep it in a drawer for a few
months until it dies like that, then the beetle will
not survive that. For me, I guess like the main uh,
the main issue I think that needs to be explored
by ecologists, which I mean as they are doing. I'm
not scolding them like a cologists get on this, but
(34:01):
is whether or not like this is sustainable for the
beetle population, because like on a local level it's probably fine,
but if it gains a huge amount of popularity with
tourists collection of the beetles may exceed their ability to reproduce.
The beetles are really like they have a very slow
(34:22):
lifespan compared to other insects like they It takes them
a long time to reach sexual maturation. They don't lay
a huge amount of eggs. It's hard to estimate their
population size because they like to live under lugs, like
underleaf litter and lugs, so like, actually finding them is
kind of difficult. So getting a good sort of sensus
(34:42):
of how many of these beetles are out there is
actually quite tricky. But because they don't seem to reproduce
that rapidly, there's fear that without some regulation, like, there
could be over collection of the beetles and that would
endanger their population, which I think just kind of shows
how like it's really important for ecologists and biologists to
(35:04):
work with people who study human culture to be able
to come together and research things together so that we
can figure out ways to both preserve human culture but
also preserve nature.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Teamwork makes the dream work.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
The makesh is not the only insect worn as jewelry
in ancient Egypt. Scarab beetles were worn by soldiers to
offer them spiritual protection, and in two thousand and six,
fashion designer Jared Gold included giant hissing cockroaches in his collection,
basically copying the style of the makesh brooches by bedazzling
(35:46):
his cockroaches with Swarovsky crystals and keeping them on a
golden chain. These runway ready cockroaches came with instructions of
how to care for them and could live for over
a year. Personally, I'm content to just admire the natural
beauty of hissing cockroaches from nature photographs. When you return,
(36:06):
we're gonna investigate a lizard. These aquatic fashion is all
about function, So now I want to talk about an
extremely glamorous lizard that I think gives like David Bowie
(36:26):
a run for his money in terms of like how
incredibly shiny they are and also just how I don't know,
you know, how like like the Space Odyssey thing. Will
these lizards like to go under the water and be
little little diver diverman? Okay, what's the what's the David
(36:49):
Bowie thing? It's like Rocketman? Right, yeah, Rocketman?
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Or is that Elton John That'ston John. Is he glamor
the Ziggie startist. Yeah, I mean like that's very yeah,
David Bowie is super super glam.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Elton John glamrock not really is he.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I'm going to google is Elton John glamrock?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
This is very important for an evolutionary biology podcast to
know whether Elton.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
John is I would say so other performers associated with British.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Glam I see, I see. I mean, I guess it
depends on whether you're using the phylogenetic classification system or
the linean classification system of glam rock.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I mean, I'll say this. You know, look, the only
people who are going to get mad at you about
someone being or not being glam rock are the Yeah,
exactly aggressive glam rock. British glam was very strictly different
from us glamrock, and I think that needs to be noted.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
He actually fits more in the mod category.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Thing you very much, but he's certainly glamorous and certainly
a rocker. We'll go. We'll definitely go with that.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Instead of spending time in outer space in a spacesuit,
these lizards like to spend time underwater in a water
suit or an airsuit anyways, a diver suit a diver suit.
So these are water Annolly's aka scuba diving lizards. So,
water nollys are a species of small lizards found in
(38:29):
Costa Rica and Central America. They're pretty small. They're about
the size of a thumb. They are brown, although males
do have this brilliant yellow do lap. So what's a
do lap. It's a flap of skin under their chin
they can fan out, which they use to attract females
and intimidate males. What I mean, have you ever seen
(38:51):
a lizard like like kind of stunting, like, you know,
flapping out its stew lap?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
For sure? For sure? You know, for a second I thought,
so I'm, you know, not skipping out head per se.
But I'm looking at this picture and I thought for
a split second that its do lap was the clear
thing coming out of its nose, which is an air bubble.
Is he's got the do lap on the top of
his head. Now it's clear and he can breathe it.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I think I forgot to include an image of the
do lap, but it's very pretty.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
It's like this brilliant yellow wo awesome.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
The ladies love a do lap.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
The ladies love a doude.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
But because these little lizards are such tasty little snacks,
not just for the females of their species, but you know,
for predators, and they're not like the fastest lizards in
the land. They will take to the water to escape predators.
They'll literally leap off of a rock and belly flop
into the water. And so once underwater they are safe
(39:52):
from a lot of terrestrial or airborne predators. But they
need to breathe because you know, they can't. They I
can't breathe water. These are reptiles, they are They do
not although you know, there are some reptiles like turtles
who do do gas exchange near an area near their cloaca,
aka their butthole, but these lizards cannot. We have no
(40:17):
evidence to suggest that these lizards can breed through their
buttholes like turtles. I know, darn it. God, I hate
it when I'm like swimming and I'm like, wait, let
me try it, let me try it for a second.
I can't do it. I can't breathe through my butt.
So they have a problem because they either stand or
water and drown, or they go above the water and
(40:39):
get eaten by a predator. So there is recent observations
of these lizards that seem to suggest that they can
create a wetsuit made out of air and form a
bubble around their head that they can breed through.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
This is I you know, truly again, your research is
so good. You've videos. I could not even imagine what
this would look like, but now I have a video
to look at, and it is extraordinary. I'm like blown
away that they're able to, like what is holding the
water to their face this way?
Speaker 1 (41:12):
That's a really good question. And while I haven't been
able to find studies that are really exact about it,
I would say that it is very similar to other
times that we see water adhering to animals underwater. So
with their diving bell spiders that can actually go underwater
and water, they will also form these kind of underwater
For the spiders, it's like this diving bell that this
(41:34):
little bubble that surrounds them that they can do gas
exchange through. And for them, the air sticks to these
teeny tiny little hairs all over their bodies. So the
air literally sticks to these really small fine hairs. For
these lizards, I don't think they rely on hairs rather,
I think it's the skin texture. So I think they
(41:56):
have these probably these really tiny stroke ructures on their skin,
like these little tiny, probably microscopic indentations and texture on
their skin that actually traps air on their skin and
holds onto it through sort of a manner of surface tension.
I mean, even like when you dive underwater, sometimes little
(42:17):
bubbles can stick to your skin and you can see
little air bubbles still sticking to you. But like for
these lizards, their skin is such that I think it's
probably you have really small structures on their skin that
is able to really cling onto this water such that
you look at these lizards and underwater, it looks like
they have this whole silvery sheen all over it, like
(42:40):
their skin is made out of a mirror like material
and that's all that trapped air all over their body,
reflecting light underwater like a mirror.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
That's so cool.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, they're like it's beautiful. It's one of those things
where are like, wow, why do they look this cool?
And then they come out of water and you're like, eh, okay.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Hey, you know what, I'll save it, save it for
the underwater crowd, you know, if they want to be
less less shiny on top save for the underwater crowd.
They deserve it more. They're not trying to eat you
as much.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Yeah, So they can form this bubble around their head.
And while this the research on this is by no
means complete, so this is all conjecture at this point,
there's this idea that their heads have this kind of
concave structure just so this air bubble can form, like
this pocket can form over their nostrils, and when they
(43:42):
like breathe out, it kind of bubbles up, and they
breathe in and it kind of bubbles down. So it's
like this little bubble going up and down as they breathe.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Makes that's that's so wild. Again, if I didn't have
this video, I wouldn't be able to put it together.
I mean, you know, I could understand and imagine, but
it's just like it's truly a bubble coming off of
their face and then just sucking back in, right, you know. Wild,
Like have you ever like.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Blown a bubble with some bubble gum and instead of
just like blowing the bubble, you kind of like breathe
in and out. You're like yeah, and then you do
like a Darth Vader voice I'm here to chop off
hands and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of
bubble gum?
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Could you imagine I want to see that recut? Wow?
Speaker 1 (44:34):
But yeah, I mean your reaction is kind of similar
to researchers who discovered this because they just incidentally discovered
that they that they seem to breathe this way through observations.
They put underwater cameras down there because they noticed that
some of these lizards would like dive underwater and then
they would pop up a few feet away. But some
(44:55):
of them would dive underwater and then just disappear, and
they're like, now that can't be right, Like that can't
be a good survival strategy to just drown yourself whenever
a predator comes at you. So sure enough, they found
that these guys can spend up to about fifteen minutes underwater,
and using these underwater cameras, they found this behavior of
(45:18):
like them seeming to breathe through these bubbles. Now, it
hasn't been like scientifically proven that they are actually breathing
through these bubbles. It's just observation, like you looking at
this video, but it seems fairly likely that that's the case,
because that seems to be what's going on.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
And also because they can last so long underwater, it
seems like this keeps them last longer without having to
hold their breath the whole time.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Wow. These are fascinating little beasts right here.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
They really are.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
You've really done it.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
And they're so shiny. I love how just like they
have like meer skin, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Shit, totally the shine, especially like again that it's primarily
for the underwater crowd. It's like they're just so so
so shiny, and it almost I almost feel like you
would mistake it. I mean you shouldn't say mistake it,
but like you might think that there's like a small
like pocket knife in the water if you were to
look right and see just like the body of one
(46:18):
of these little guys down they're just like whoa that
is yeah, yeah, my gosh, I do.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
I also I do like the idea that like, above
water it's like nah, but underwater it's like Miley Cyrus
turning into Hannah Montana.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Wow, that's where they shine.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah, it's like Miley Cyrus, eh whatever, just normal girls
and then she turned to normal.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Wow, Well I think we I think we've done it.
I think we've found some of the coolest glam rockers
in the animal kingdom.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
These are truly glamorous animals you have shared with me today, Katie.
I'm touched. These are awesome than I do.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Before we go, I do want to address a listener question.
So listener Izzybe writes in and says, hey, creature peeps.
There's been a meme Twitter thread popping up now and
again claiming that the Uncanny Valley exists as a deep
psychological remnant from our early hominid ancestors interspecies competition for resources.
(47:22):
So frequently these conversations use the idea that animals, even
our own pets, don't experience the Uncanny Valley as proof,
but that rings false to me. I am a puppet
maker and have lots of Sorry. I love this. I
love this email so much. I love it when you
guys write into me when I when I was reading
(47:45):
this and then I got to I am a puppet maker.
Like I almost screamed in excitement. I anyways, I'm going
to continue reading.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
This, but like, please please, sorry.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
I am a puppet maker and have lots of experience
of dogs and cats. Absolutely losing their their quack in
terror of puppets, usually human based puppets, but sometimes those
based on other animals. What is this if not the
uncanny valley, the mental rejection and innate fear of something
that resembles the familiar but doesn't achieve a fully believable resemblance.
(48:17):
As someone familiar with animal psychology, I was wondering if
you had any thoughts on the matter. On a completely
different note of the arc of the universe bending towards crab,
one of our latest puppets is a massive crab dragon.
Although it fails to copy the evolutionary perfect crab body plan,
it is painted to look like a coconut crab. We
were even listening to the Carsonization episode while painting her.
(48:41):
Here are pictures, Izzy be Thank you so much. Izzy. These.
When you said you were a puppet maker, I was excited.
I love puppets. It's I mean, like, but I was
expecting a small puppet.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Which I was still excited for.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
I was still really excited for. This is a life sized,
freaking dragon. It's massive, It's three people are operating this thing.
It's a huge, actual real life dragon puppet the size
of a freaking real life dragon and.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
It's incredible, and it is incredible.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
It is painted like a coconut crab. It's absolutely beautiful.
It's amazing, and I, if possible, I'm going to include
a link to these photos in the show notes. It's
I'm so blown away by this. This is a beautiful puppet.
I actually like a note about the Uncanny Valley before
I get into answering the question. I actually love the
(49:40):
Uncanny Valley, Like I actively seek out feeling that feeling.
It's a it's a fun, exciting feeling for me. It's like,
now I don't like roller coasters, Like I hate roller coasters.
They scare me. But I imagine the feeling that other
people get when they go on a roller coaster, of
like that it's like kind of scary but exciting. That
(50:00):
thrill that's what I get from like looking at weird
animatronics or Uncanny Valley things. I love animatronics, I love puppets.
I just love that feeling of like there's a certain
sort of offness to this thing. It's like not quite
a human, but it's almost a human. Like I really
it's just thrilling for me. So this is a really
exciting thing for me.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Nice, this is an incredible puppet These are these are true.
This is truly I you know, I would totally expect
to see this at the front of a very well
produced parade. This is like or you know of a
like it's a puppet show. Not like a puppet show though,
but like like a The Muppets.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah, definitely a cirqu of silet production. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
No, it's it's a centerpiece right here.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
This is or like The Dark Crystal, you know what
I mean. Ye Oh, I loved by the way. I
love The Dark Crystal loved. I also like the the reboot,
the remake or not remake the was I haven't.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Checked out the It's good.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I liked it. Yeah, my skeio, if you liked the
original one, you'll definitely like the remake. It's or not remake.
It's just a reboot, but it definitely recaptures sort of
the it's it's all practical effects. It's really really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
In terms of the question about whether animals feel the
Uncanny Valley, I actually really agree with this listener. I
think that we don't. While we don't necessarily have evidence
that says that animals definitely do feel the Uncanny Valley.
It's like hard to you know, quantify what an animal
is feeling. I definitely think that animals would have the
(51:37):
capacity to feel that based on certain animal behavior. So
some of the things that we know, like, well, first
of all, this is maybe not super scientific, but I've
definitely seen a lot of videos of cats on like
TikTok and stuff reacting to their owners having a like
a cat filter on their face, you know, like on
(51:57):
Snapchat or it's like a cat a cat face like
filter on their face, so it looks like the human
has a cat face on the phone, and the cats
like look at the phone, look really startled, look back
at their human and look at the phone and like
run away. So, uh, that's that's interesting to me that
the cats get really freaked out by humans wearing like
(52:18):
a cat cat makeup or having that like cat filter.
Of course, that's that's that's totally anecdotal. Uh less anecdotal
I think, is Well, no, I guess it's still anecdotal. Anyways.
Another thing that we've seen is like there's this TV
show called Spies in the Wild where they put like anima, Yeah,
(52:39):
spy in the wild. It's they it's it's hilarious but
also a great nature documentary. They create these animatronic versions
of animals so that they can have cameras like watching
the animals up close. But it's also kind of funny
because like most of the camera work in the show
isn't from the animatronic animals, so it seems like that's
(53:01):
something of a gimmick, got it, But it's still really interesting.
I think the most interesting part of the show is
not like the up close shots that these animatronics get,
but it's the reactions that the animals have to the animatronics.
So a lot of animals don't seem to really think
anything of it, but once you start to get to primates,
(53:21):
their reactions are very interesting. There are these langers that
were very tentatively playing with this animatronic linger, and then
it fell down and like broke and stopped moving, and
then a bunch of langers all came over that this
langers are a type of monkey, and they they came
and surrounded this thing, like like twenty or thirty of them,
(53:41):
just like looking and like carefully touching it and looking
it was almost it looked like they were holding a
funeral almost, but it was like I think they were
just so freaked out and fascinated by what this was,
where like it seems kind of like a dead monkey,
but they weren't sure what it was, but they were
fascinated and and it seemed kind of freaked out. So
(54:04):
I think that And you also look at like things
that we have done research on where dogs seem to
pay particular attention to human faces on the side of
the face that's more expressive, Like we're not our expressions
are not completely symmetrical, Like there's usually one side of
the face that is a little more expressive, and the
(54:26):
dogs seem to prefer that side of the face. And
so I think that that kind of like facial recognition.
And it's the whole kind of concept of this idea
that like only humans would be in some sort of
like competition with other hominids. That doesn't make any sense,
Like there are so many species who have very similar
(54:49):
species that they are in competition with. I mean, like
you know, canines like like wolves and other canids would
be in competition, you know, I mean like a dog
in a coyote Like coyote will often kill dogs, So
like they have to be very careful around each other
different kind of feline species, Like you know, a cheetah
(55:10):
is no friend to like a lion. So it's you know,
it's they are all sorts of competition amongst species that
maybe don't look exactly like each other, but are somewhat similar.
So this idea that the Uncanny Valley evolved in humans
because we were competing with other species and we had
(55:30):
to be aware of like ones that were kind off.
It's like, well, I would say that would apply to
you know, most most intelligent social animals.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
Great, I support that entirely. I don't. I obviously do
not have a professional opinion on the matter, but I
would like to think that, like you know, obviously language
is something that is created by humans for humans. Yeah,
but I think for to be for the suggestion to
be that dogs and and you know certain animals don't
(56:01):
have the capability to semi recognize something or have to
wrestle with something as recognizable or not. I think, you know,
to say, do they experience the uncanny Valley? It's like, well,
they don't. They don't call it that, but they know
when something is there and doesn't. It's like this is
not quite right. This is not I'm confused by this.
(56:22):
I support you entirely. I think it's I think it's one.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Yeah. In fact, there there's a study, uh, there's a
study of mackex that looked at their eye gaze of
like computer generated images of mckx and like ones that
were like, uh, sort of realistic, actually kind of cartoonish.
They sort of looked at a little bit, didn't really
seem to care. They were real photos they looked at
(56:47):
for a long time because they were interested. But ones
that were almost exactly realistic but not quite they were
like CGI. They didn't like to look at it all.
They like spent as little time looking at it as possible,
which you know, it's hard to know exactly how to
interpret those results, but one way of interpreting them is
(57:07):
that they did not enjoy looking at that CGI version
of the the macaque, and so they would avert their
gaze because they found it unpleasant, which is how humans
experienced the Uncanny Valley. So I would say this has
not been researched enough to really say definitively, but I
(57:28):
think all the research that we have, as well as
general trends and animal behavior I think would indicate that, yeah,
this could definitely happen for animals, and I don't see
any reason to rule.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
It out for animals, right, I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
That's why my dog hates polar Express. I thought it
was just because she hated Tom Hanks, but I think
it's all those all those weird kids.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
It's all those weird looking kids. That's funny, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
Oh, Cookie, Also when I make a weird noise, she
gives me such a look, like she does the little
head turning thing. But like if I do sort of
a weird whistling noise, like where I'm kind of sucking
airin through my teeth or something in a weird way,
or or if I blow across a bottle and it
makes that like weird hooty noise, like she just like
she looks at me like I've been possessed, and she's
(58:16):
clearly she's like she's interested, but she's concerned. I've been bewitched.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Totally totally different noise, I'm unfamiliar.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
Oh, and she hates it when people ride on bikes
or skateboards, like, uh, just it's something like about the
human going faster than they should that like she loses
her mind over she hates so much. It's like you're
a human but way too fast. This isn't right.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
Yeah, why is one part of you moving but the
other parts of you were not? What's up with that?
What's that?
Speaker 1 (58:50):
It's a bicycle human centaur? Evil?
Speaker 2 (58:55):
I'll bite off its legs?
Speaker 1 (58:56):
What is this?
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Yeah? Amazing?
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Well I think that'll do it for today. Thank you
so much. Yeah for this email. Love the pictures of
the puppet. I will share those. And yeah, if you
haven't have a question and you want me to answer it,
send an email to Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot
com and I will either try to answer it over
the email or even on the show. So yeah, thank
(59:25):
you so much for that. And Daniel, thank you so
much for being on here today. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
It's always a pleasure. It's such a great show, one
of my favorite podcasts. Always honored to be included.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
Oh my goodness, thank you so much. He used to
you used to engineer the dang thing.
Speaker 2 (59:40):
Did used to engineer the dang thing. But then we
got so you know, we got so big and busy.
They spread spread us all out there. They're like Danny
can't do that anymore. You got to go do this
other thing. I'm like that.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
But the bright side is now we've got Zach yay
here you guys. He's he's actually he's actually.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
Shrouded by waves.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
He's actually he's actually a dolphins, so he can only
in squeals and ease yes and confetti emotions. That's insane thing. Yes,
I engineered.
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Lovely.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Where can
people find you?
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
You can find me on the on Twitter at dj
Underscore Daniel and you can find me on Twitch at
the same twitch dot tv slash dj Underscore d A
n L. Check it out. We do fun stuff. Yeah yeah,
and listen to the podcast shoot listen to Creature Feature.
I mean you already here, so great job. Check on
the podcast of the network.
Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Yeah, check out other podcasts on the network. Uh, thank
you guys so much for listening. You can find us
on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at
Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e a T
not f e et hood is something very different. And
as always, I'm Katie Golden. You can find me on
Twitter just for my Katie thoughts and uh yeah, thank
(01:00:59):
you so much the Space Classics for their super awesome
song ex Alumina.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
That song is great.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
I know it's so good. I love it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Can I get it? A Can I get it? A
corny joke before we leave? Do it? Do it?
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Do it?
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Since? Did you said creature feet? Yeah, you were like, no,
it's creature feet f e eight not f e e t.
That's a different website. That website is only Finn's.
Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Thank you, No, don't never apologize. Thank you so much
for that. Oh my god, thank you so much. Creature
Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like
the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or Hey guess what where have you listened to your
favorite shows? See you next Wednesday, Only Finn
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 glam rock animals.
Animals who are glamorous and glitzy and on occasion also
tough as a rock. From the shiny and splendiferous scale
worms of the deep to scuba diving lizards, these animals
(00:29):
all have one thing in common. They are one hundred
percent glam Discover This Morris answer to the angel question
was that Rainbowfish children's Book of Body Horror. Joining me
today is friend of the pod podcast person frequent voice
on Fake Doctor's Real Friends, DJ and twitch Man Dan L. Goodman.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hi, how's it going good?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Do you mind if I call you Twitchman?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Twitch Man? That is perfect? Twitch Man is excellent. I'm
honored by the title.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, yeah, I'm a pod woman. I feel like I
missed the times where it's like like Blacksmith or you know,
you know what I mean, Like when we have these
these names like Lamplighter or they you know, like like
we have podcaster, but like what about Podsmith.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I was just thinking, how fun Podsmith would be psmith.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, it sounds like real work, which it's not.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I go to the kilns of pro tools and craft
strong by hand.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Had handblown podcast technically true because you know, you breathe
out with your mouth as you make mouth sounds. Anyways,
we are talking about glam rock animals, animals who are glamorous,
incredible looking. The rock stars of the natural Kingdom and
(01:56):
their glitzy and glamorous appearance have probably red reasons for it,
actual survival reasons, which we will discuss. What do you
think of when you think of glam rock in general?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, I mean, you know, there was definitely I'll tell
you a very short story. The very first vintage T
shirt that I ever got at this place on Lobra
I called jet Rag was an old Poison T shirt,
a Poison Tour T shirt, and on the back I
think it said rock the fuck Out. And my mom
didn't see that at the time, so she let me
buy this shirt that said fuck on it, and I
was like, wow. So I think of that shirt, but
(02:31):
I think of hair, I think of Neon, I think
of Sparkles, I think of like yeah, so I think
of a lot of you know, we're talking wall of sound.
We're talking big, So I thought's that's what I think of.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I think everything big, hair, big, eyeliner big, yes, you know,
mega big, the hole in the ozone from the Hairspray big.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I'm perfect, yes, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So the first animal we're going to talk about is
the Elvis war which has is named after the King
of rock Elvis, because it is iridescent and glitzy and
glamorous and also kind of an asshole.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh really, yeah, I mean it's not I don't think.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't think they named it after Elvis because it's
an asshole. But I think it's fits right because he
was kind of an ass wasn't he.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
That is my understanding.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes, you know, I'm look, I'm keeping it real. I'm
not saying Elvis. It's not cool to like Elvis, but
you know, yeah he had he had a big sound,
but also a big ego.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That is what I hear. Is my understanding as well.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Shout out to listener Vincent Jorgensen for this idea that
I don't know why I have not talked about these
on the show before, because they are incredible. They have
this rainbow and purple shimmer. Now Daniel, I want you
to look at this, this little little cutie.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I have it pulled up right here, and this is
a shimmery, a shimmery looking little worm. How big is
this worm there?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
You know, I'd say about like palm sized.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Oh yeah, that's that's big.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
I guess, so not that big.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Well, okay, fair fair play, but this is and this
is truly an error on my part. But looking at
this image just on the just on the raw, just
like stark black of it, it almost felt like a slide.
I was ready to be looking at like a microscopic
worm here. I was ready for you to say, yeah, oh,
you could fit about a thousand on your hand right now.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I'd be like, you know, not not not super huge.
But yeah, they are definitely like not. They are not microscopic.
They can see them with the naked eye. Hold them
in your hand, you know, let them crawl all over you.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I would get the I would get the willies. I
believe it is the willies. I'd get the willies very quickly.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I call it. Call it the Jimmy skin. But yeah,
I mean that.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Works too, that's very funny.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
But yeah, so they are absolutely beautiful. They look like
holographic nail polish or you know, the most the glittery,
most glittery glam that you can find. They were discovered
by a team of researchers at Script's Institute of Oceanography
at UCSD. Shout out to my dad who works at
(05:27):
Scripts Institute of Oceanography. He's actually in the ocean Physics group,
so they deal with the physics of waves, not necessarily
the critters, but yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Good, good job, guys. Can't wait to see y'all for
a beer and I'll say, hey, good work on that worm.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
You know, good, good work on that worm.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Good good warming you guys.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Oh you got me. I'm looking at this worm also,
and it reminds me. You remember the book The Rainbow Fish.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yes, yes, oh oh man, I love that book as
a kid.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Just very similar color scheme of just like that, you know,
super iridescent glowy but also like some solid color but
also looks like there's just like super flex of rainbow everywhere. Yeah,
just trying to paint as as vivid stone a picture
as I possibly can of this world. I'm like cat
I right now, you know, man, it's like that book
(06:20):
The Rainbow fish.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, because it's like they had this like iridescent glittery
scales on this fish. It was so fun as a
kid because you could like touch it and like feel
like embossed are fun. Yes, it was also I feel
kind of sorry for the rainbow fish because it was
like he's got all these rainbow scales on him, right,
and like his fish friends who don't have those are jealous.
(06:42):
So he it's a book about sharing, like you share
this with others and generally speak, I'm very pro sharing,
you know, pro sharing sure, yeah, or resources with others.
But it's part of his body.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So yeah, it's different, a little.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Strange, right of a weird message. It's like if you
are hanging out with friends and you're like, oh, I
really like your hair, and you're like you do it
and then you just like cut off a big trip
here you go rip it off.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
And that's the thing. And that's the thing with kids
that are unpredictable. It's like they'll take the note to
the letter. So it's like, I know the story of
the room. It's about sharing. They're like, okay, so I
like rip off my skin for my friends, like no, no, no, no, no,
no no, no, no, not quite that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Well, you know, that is a horrible kindergarten scene that
I do not want to see. But so yeah, these
do look these do look like the rainbow fish. They
are They are in fact a worm, I know, like
sometimes we call things worms, but they aren't really, but
they are. They are warm. They're actually a type of
scale worm, uh and which is actually related to very
(07:50):
distantly related to earthworms, a little more closely related to
bristle worms. You may know some bristle worms, like there
is We've talked about some of them on the show,
like the bobbit worm. This horrifying tremors. Like did I
were you on the show and I.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Talked about the bottom I think I was, Wow, I
love it.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I love how somehow that worked out. But I did
not plan for that.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I was gonna say, I feel like we talked about
like a I remember you described something as a tremor's
like worm, and I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Well I'm flattered either way, but like if it was
if it's a worm that lives under the sand at
the bottom of the sea, it lunges out of the
sand and will grab onto an unsuspecting fish and pull
them back down, sort of like a tremor's worm or
like a sarlac. But it's also very shiny and iridescent.
(08:42):
Now it's it's not super closely related to this one,
but fairly it's it's a bristleworm. So they they are,
you know, so scale. But this the Elvis, it's actually
called p elvis. I gotta gotta have it sound scientific.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I was gonna say it's got sound though, sound good.
That's so funny.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
But yeah, they did name it that because of its
sort of glittery, glamorous look that they thought looked flashy
like Elvis. And so here's what it looks like. So
it's not it doesn't actually look super like a worm
like you think of an earthworm. It has a series
of interlocking scales on its back that are shiny like that.
(09:23):
It's like it looks like plate armor, and it's kind
of flat, very shiny and eardescent. And underneath it it
has these gold shiny bristles jutting out of it that
you might mistake for legs, but aren't actually legs. They're
just these these bristles. And at its head it has
these things that look a little bit like pincers. They're
(09:44):
actually not quite pincers. They're called pelps. So pelps are
these appendages at the heads near the mouths of arthropods.
You can see them in spiders and insects as well,
So those are its pelps. And so yeah, it's it's
kind of but it's it's rather flat looking and it's
(10:05):
kind of oval shaped and so like you know, it's
kind of alien and bizarre looking. But it gets way
weirder than what you can just see at a glance.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So being on this show, you know, I will say
I wasn't entirely surprised by that potential, but like I'm excited,
please go on. I had to drop when you said that.
I was like, you know, I had a feeling you
were gonna say, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well, you know, there's always something hidden underneath the surface
for these animals. So like these are found in the
deep sea near like hydrothermic vents, as well as on
the carcasses of fallen sea creatures, including whales. So when
(10:52):
whales die, it's certainly sad for the whales, but it's
a great boon for all of these underwater arthropods, these
deep sea creatures that will feed on the whale's carcass,
and it can feed a hell of a lot of
animals in life.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I have a question, isn't there a term for like
the kind of like minor or like micro ecosystem created
by a whale carcass? Am I thinking, am, I could
be I may, I may just be this. I could
be pulling this all the way out of my ass
right here. But I felt like there was some word
for like the micro ecosystem created ecro micro ecosystem created
(11:33):
by a dead whale in the ocean, because like, yeah,
you're right, feel that.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I feel that, I feel like there is I mean,
I thought it had a specific I mean I think
it's called like whale fall action whale fall.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I think that's it. Yeah, I think you're right. Whale fall.
That's it. You're right, whale fall. That's it. Nice. Yeah
that was the whale fall.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well, thank you for reminding me that that term exists.
It is a cool like whale fall. Yeah, so, I
mean it's pretty straightforward. I guess it's what a whale
falls to, but yeah, it is. It's something where there's
something kind of grim and ghoulish about it, seeing this
decaying whale but it's also incredible how much life that
(12:13):
can support. It's kind of like when a tree falls,
a huge tree falls in the forest. There's something sad
about that, right, this ancient tree falling and decaying, But
then that tree feeds so many animals. In fact, an
animal we're gonna talk about later on the show. A
lot of these glamorous animals like to feed on dead things,
(12:33):
but hey, look, you know it's a living so they
will feed on things like whale carcasses. I know that
the research team that collected some of these specimens actually
found them on a whale carcass, so that must have
been a fun treat. You're like zooming around looking at
this whale carcass all it's all strange and kind of creepy.
And then you see this like glitterus glamorous little scale
(12:58):
where I'm going like, hello, I'm here, and here I
am eating a dead whale. I don't know how Elvi sounds.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
You know, just like you, I was transported, you know
what I'm saying?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Dead? Who that's a little better.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Okay words, But like I said, like Elvis, not only
in appearance, but a little bit assholely.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
They like to bite each other when they're not biting
on some delicious whale fall carcass. So they that is
one of the reasons that they have these scales is
for protections. Protection not only from other animals and predator,
but from their.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Competition literally from each other.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, from each other, and when they bite each other.
It's fascinating. So I want you to, before I say
anything else, just take a look at that picture that
I've provided for you.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, I mean, I'm horrified. Obviously, this is a terrifying
picture of a dean. I'm seeing a demon of the
suit with it's almost like I want to say, I mean, okay, okay,
it looks like a faceless worm with a with a
like a bird's beak coming out of the center, but
(14:22):
it's surrounded by like a statue of liberty of like
it's just outward appendages, Like I know they're not horns,
but it looks like a wreath of horns sticking out
around a bird's mouth coming out of an eyeless worm. Demon.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
That's about right. They actually have a proboscis that they
can avert. So a proboscis is basically like a fleshy probe.
It can mean like a nose. It can mean a
variety of different things, but it's basically a flesh probe,
which is flesh probe. It's not really that's not really
a gl rock name is.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It could be a song though, could be a song.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I feel like this show is good at producing metal
names more than glen Rock names like flush probe. So
they can evert it, which means basically like pushing it
out from inside of them. And then in this proboscis,
what you're seeing is a set of jaws, set of
sharp jaws that they can use to snap at their
(15:25):
food source like a dead whale, or each other if
they if they're feeling feisty. Okay, so just you know,
like in Aliens, like how the alien shoots out a
smaller alien tongue with the set of jaws. It's just
like that. It's like boop, I'm gonna snap you up.
Another similar feature of the of the bob At Warmer.
They can just basically shoot out a thing and like
(15:47):
snap up. So do check out this video. I'm also
including all this in the show notes as always, But
there is a cool video of them.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Okay, oh there they are, Oh well, yeah, they are
pretty their sizable. Oh yeah, you'd see them. They're they're real.
Oh oh, you just stuck his tongue out one of
the other ones, gonna do it, I bet Oh my gosh,
Oh my gosh, he's so patient. Ooh goodness, he got
a grip.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Whoa.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
In fact, their fights can be so violent that they
can rip the scales off of each other. So a
pretty like dark reboot of The Rainbow Fish where it's
just violently ripping off each other's scales.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, exactly, my scale, No, my scale.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
But yeah, that thing that looks like a tongue like
it's going like boop, that's actually it's proboscis. And it
has that gnarly set of jaws in the center of
it that it's using to bite that other elvis worm.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
That is a lot. Yeah, that's a lot right there.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I bet you're wondering why they're so iridescent and shiny
and beautiful.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
That's that's I mean, that's you know, that's on the
list of questions mostly I'm I I.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Wonder it too, but I don't know, and nobody knows.
Isn't that fun When I'm just like, hey, you wonder
this thing. Sorry, nobody knows.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
It's literally don't you wish you could just ask them, like, Hey.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
What's up? Why are you guys so angry all the time?
What's with that weird like mouth boop thing that you do? Yeah?
I mean, so they are actually blind. There's no reason
for them to need this aridescence for like conspecific communication,
So like it's probably not for sexual selection or anything
like that because they can't see it. Uh, It's possible
(17:50):
it's for some some way of crypsis, I suppose. Seems unlikely.
It seems like it would just make them stick out. However,
in these deep sea and ronments, you never know, Like
how that I wonder, like maybe it interacts strangely with bioluminescence.
That's a possible thing, Like the refraction of bioluminescence may
(18:10):
have some advantage. My suspicion is that it actually serves
no purpose the actual visual of it. Rather, it's just
a byproduct of forming these tough scales. So like having
these very tough maybe crystalline structures in its scales, the
(18:32):
nature of having them really tough at this molecular level
also affects like how light is refracted off of the
surface of these scales, so that would be sort of,
my guess, is just a byproduct of making sure that
these scales are really tough. Yes, okay, I mean, like
you think about how like a diamond is really tough
(18:53):
and it's beautiful and it's hiering glittery.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, it makes sense absolutely. I by one thousand percent.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I'm with you, And I also like that, you know,
it's it's really subverting expectations, like to be tough, you
have to be glamorous. I like that.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
To the first first you must shine.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Speaking of the bobbit worm, twenty million year old fossilized
tunnels have been discovered beneath the ocean floor, over seven
feet or two meters long, but only a couple centimeters
wide in diameter. It's thought that these were once home
to an incredibly long worm, perhaps the ancestors of the
bobbit worm, as there's fossilized imprints made by these worms
(19:41):
that seem to indicate they use these tunnels to drag
their prey to an extra deep and watery grave. When
we return, we're going to talk about a thought provoking
intersection of fashion and entomology, though Daniel. You know that
(20:03):
animals and humans have a weird relationship sometimes, Yeah, totally.
I mean, for instance, like my dog, I think only
sees me as like the peanut butter provider.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
You know, at least a peanut butter warm blanket.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Right, that's true, a warm blanket.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Peanut butter human radiator, a butt.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Scratcher and peanut provider, peanut butter provider.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Oh, I'm king butt scratcher. I'll tell you what I
feel like. That's it. I feel like that, if I'm
being real, Everybody's like, oh, that's a trick with dogs.
They love getting scratched on the butt. Like, at what
point is it not a trick anymore? It's like, oh,
of course a dog loves a good butt scratch right there. Right,
that's just you know, that's it. That baseline baseline dog knowledge.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Are they sing? It's like a Konami code for a dog.
I feel like I feel like the dogs are fair
really obvious about one. I mean, like my dog Cookie,
Cookie will literally walk up to She does this every
day all day, like this is her favorite thing to do,
not joking, walk up to you, turn around so her
(21:14):
butt is near you, and then look over her shoulder
as you know, like kind of look between you and
the butt like exactly you're doing it. Yeah, eh eh,
thinking about this.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, gotch And you can like.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Hold your hand out and start wiggling your fingers and
she will come over and sort of like dock her
butt under your fingers and then so you can scratch it.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Wow, that is a smart that's smart Cookie you got
raised there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, she's smart whenever it serves her own insist.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I love that. A purpose like a purposely smart and
stupid dog. That's like, Cookie, we need you to do
this right now. I don't know. I'm a dog. I
don't speak.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
And then they say you want to get your butt scratched?
She knows that. She knows what that means.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Oh, I want to get my butt scratched.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
You got hearing? That's what she knows. What a CHICKI
pill is. When I she has these like chicken flavored,
chicken flavored hip point supplements and if you want to
you want a chicky pill, she knows what that means.
When I say you gotta sit, she doesn't know what
that means. That suddenly doesn't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Have you seen that since this episode. It's like the
thing that translates baby talk, but or like translates animal talk. Oh,
like what is your animals saying? It's like this leash
demeans us. Both great. I wait for that day. I
wait for that day where we get that where we
get the translation device. And Cookie was just saying, look,
I sit on my own schedule.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Okay, right right, that you shall provide me with butt scratch,
cheese and peanut butter. Your services for anything else are
not required.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Not required. That's funny.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
But so that's all to say that I want to
talk about something that it's both really interesting and it
provokes a lot of thought in conversation. I think about,
like our relationship to animals, because we're talking about insects,
and our feelings toward insects as a species can range
(23:14):
from like they are delicious food to they are gross
and I don't want anything to do with them, to
their beautiful jewelry. So I think one case that really
exemplifies this complex relationship we have with insects are the
beautiful bejeweled living beetle jewelry originating from the Yucatan Peninsula
(23:34):
in Mexico. So these living brooches are called makesh So
they are beetles of the Zoferis genus, which is a
group of species of beetles who are kind of long
with this very like thick exoskeleton. They're kind of shaped
(23:54):
like bowling pins a little bit. In fact, their exoskeleton
is so tough. There is a species called the ironclad beetle.
And if you're trying to mount them as a specimen,
you know how like you have like a butterfly specimen
where you stick a pin in it. They do that
for all all sorts of insects. You actually have to
(24:15):
drill a hole into them because you can't just push
a pin through it there. They're oh yeah, they're They're
exoskeleton is that tough? So they are flightless. They have
this little stubby head around thorax, so the thing that
actually kind of looks like their head is actually their thorax.
And then they have a long oval abdomen and they
(24:38):
range in color from black to sort of a black
and white pattern, lots of other different colors. They also
come in this like really pretty gold color, not not
a shiny gold, but kind of a matte gold. And
it's this species, this kind of gold sofitera species that
is often used for mkesh jewelry. So the jewelry is
(25:01):
made by taking a living beetle and gluing like rhinestones
on it or a variety of jewels or decorations on it,
or something like colorful thread or other ornaments. So there's
like some adhesive is used, like some kind of glue, uh,
and then like you you bedazzle the beetle, and then
(25:22):
they attach a gold chain to the beetle just by
gluing it. And then that's attached to like a pin
that you pin to your blouse, and the beetle crawls
around on your blouse. It's it's still alive and just
kind of like crawls around with all of this this
sort of bedazzlement, and it's hard to know like when
(25:45):
the tradition started. There's a lot of like, uh, sort
of mixed information on it, and it's you know, I
don't think that I'm comfortable, you know, saying anything definitively
because it doesn't seem like it's been studied definitively in
terms of like the order of the cultural practice. This
particular beetle them cash is actually the name of the jewelry,
(26:08):
but the zofers beetle chosen because it's got this kind
of slow, sluggish nature. It's pretty chill, it's got that
pretty exoskeleton, but it can also survive for months without
food or water. So ah man, yeah, I know, so,
I mean it's it's like, it sounds pretty creepy. So
(26:31):
we'll get to more of that, but first I want
to talk about the beetles in the wild. So in
the wild, the beetles live in dry forests and feed
on rotting wood starches. So we're talking about earlier. You know,
like the whale fall, well with tree fall it gets
tree fall is great for a lot of organisms and
forest environments. These beetles are one of them. They have
(26:53):
a metabolism that allows them to survive on small amounts
of starch in very little water. So in theory, if
you treat a mkesh beetle righte like you have a terrarium,
and you provide them with some starch and just like
a little bit of water like a moist sponge, you
can keep them alive for their whole lifespan of about
(27:14):
three years. But of course there's a few catches to this,
as there are for most things. When we when we
were talking about using animals for our own purposes, first
and foremost is that they can spew formic acid out
of their anus.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Great.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I mean actually to me, that's like a benefit, Like
I want to broach that, like you know, like I
kind of poke it and it just like sprays out
formic acid. That's that's a great James Bond weapon.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
That is a great James Bond weapon. Very like, right now,
what are the what are the effects of that kind
of acid on your skin? Or is it smelly? Is it?
Is it? It's unpleasant?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
It gives you, Yeah, it could give you a bad
skin rash, like wow, not a fun time. Yeah, you shouldn't,
you know, try not to get it. Yeah, you don't
want to get it on you. Traditionally, that issue has
been sold by making the beetles very tiny diapers, like
a little cloth Yeah, like a little cloth diaper that
(28:17):
goes near their backside and just sort of absorbs up
that thing, the formic acid. Unfortunately, I was reading something
that seemed to indicate I don't know how true this is,
but there was some like rumor about like how some
vendors will use glue to actually seal up the anus,
and then that's bad, like you can't do that, it's
(28:39):
it'll it'll kill the beetle. And so of course, I
think the issue that is probably on a lot of
people's minds is like, well, is this cruel? Is this
cruelty towards these beetles? And I think it's really it's
a really complex issue. And I think whenever there's like
a different cultural practice than our own, it's really easy
(29:01):
for us to go like, oh, this is cruel or
this is this is strange. It's like sure too strange
because you know, it's like it's not normalized in our society,
so like right, like in the way that a lot
of our practices towards animals are like you know, so
I think that the fact like it's living jewelry is
so such an unusual concept that I think it's easier
(29:25):
to think of it as like, oh, man, that's unnecessary
and kind of cruel. But then you think about a
lot of the things that we do in our culture.
We kill insects all the time, yes, and not super
nice ways. We also you know, just in our homes,
like we kill pests all the time. Look I'm not
above killing, you know, ants who try to eat all
my cereal.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I would be lying if I said I hadn't killed
a bug before. That's it's foolish. I do my best
to be, you know, sympathetic, especially to our spider friends
who do a lot of the bug killing for us.
But like, look, I've smashed them flies. I've smashed them bugs.
That's just fast matter. I'm not it is.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
I try to relocate spiders whenever I find them, but
I have to admit, like a few weeks ago, I
saw a pretty big spider and just instinctively stomped it,
like I didn't even think, and then immediately after something's like.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Oh, I'm so sorry that immediate up, I don't It's okay.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
So you know, we we kill insects all the time,
and so you know, I feel like this aspect of like, oh,
it's really cruel to do this is somewhat relative. The
other argument would be like, well, but you know we
kill insex maybe out of necessity. Keeping them as an
ornament in this way like seems sort of unnecessary. It's like, well,
we also have things like we have state fairs where
(30:49):
we have food animals. There for you know, entertainment purposes,
and like we'll we'll have like petting zoos with animals
that will eventually go and be used for food. So
I guess my point is, like, there are certainly complaints
you can have about certain cultural practices when it comes
to animals, but I'm always hesitant to like point the
(31:09):
finger at another culture where it's like, ah, see this
this thing that they do that we don't do, like
that that's super that's super weird.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
You know what I mean, Yeah, absolutely, and I think
that's I think that's completely fair. My only complaint would
be that I think the I mean, maybe it's you know,
and as I explore the culture of this a little
bit more and I see in your picture down here,
there's definitely Katie. But by the way, for all the listeners,
Katie has provided excellent resources for the for the guests
to look at it and and get familiar with and
(31:39):
just like see what is what what we're talking about.
I'm surprised these people aren't going further with the bug itself.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Like you know, I mean, like add a little top
hat or yeah, or just like it.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Maybe it may it might just be the video, but
it's like this seems pretty like Ryan Stones on some
gold chains kind of shit when we could get some
real like I mean, you know, if this is a
cultural thing here, I could see some like Swarovsky ass
like really glitzed up, glitzed up bugs crawling around on
your chest, premium bugs. Premium bugs.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, I mean I think that. I mean, these aren't
necessarily super super fancy things like they you know, they
often sell them for not that much money, like it
could be like chin us dollars or something. And you know,
it's also often sold to tourists, so I'm not super
(32:37):
clear on how much of it is directed towards tourists
to the area, and like how much of it is
that locals do just sort of as a local tradition.
So it's you know, I can't pretend to be a
cultural expert on this, and I couldn't quite sus that
out in my research. But there is one thing that
the artists who do this do seem to try to
(32:59):
do is they don't like inhibit the Beatles movement, so
they keep it like to the backs of the Beetles,
so they don't like put it, you know, like on
their actual heads, like it looks like it's on their heads,
but that's actually their thorax. Yeah, and they don't like
put it on their legs or anything, so they can
because like the point is for them to still be
able to move around as long as they're not putting
(33:20):
glue on the butt. I don't think. I mean, I'm
sure that like the bejeweling of the Beatles isn't great
for the beetles, but I don't think it necessarily is
that all that harmful again, because they have that really
thick exoskeleton. The harmful thing would be, of course, if
you don't like feed it or you know, like you know,
(33:41):
actually keep it in a terrarium, if you just kind
of like keep it in a drawer for a few
months until it dies like that, then the beetle will
not survive that. For me, I guess like the main uh,
the main issue I think that needs to be explored
by ecologists, which I mean as they are doing. I'm
not scolding them like a cologists get on this, but
(34:01):
is whether or not like this is sustainable for the
beetle population, because like on a local level it's probably fine,
but if it gains a huge amount of popularity with
tourists collection of the beetles may exceed their ability to reproduce.
The beetles are really like they have a very slow
(34:22):
lifespan compared to other insects like they It takes them
a long time to reach sexual maturation. They don't lay
a huge amount of eggs. It's hard to estimate their
population size because they like to live under lugs, like
underleaf litter and lugs, so like, actually finding them is
kind of difficult. So getting a good sort of sensus
(34:42):
of how many of these beetles are out there is
actually quite tricky. But because they don't seem to reproduce
that rapidly, there's fear that without some regulation, like, there
could be over collection of the beetles and that would
endanger their population, which I think just kind of shows
how like it's really important for ecologists and biologists to
(35:04):
work with people who study human culture to be able
to come together and research things together so that we
can figure out ways to both preserve human culture but
also preserve nature.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Teamwork makes the dream work.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
The makesh is not the only insect worn as jewelry
in ancient Egypt. Scarab beetles were worn by soldiers to
offer them spiritual protection, and in two thousand and six,
fashion designer Jared Gold included giant hissing cockroaches in his collection,
basically copying the style of the makesh brooches by bedazzling
(35:46):
his cockroaches with Swarovsky crystals and keeping them on a
golden chain. These runway ready cockroaches came with instructions of
how to care for them and could live for over
a year. Personally, I'm content to just admire the natural
beauty of hissing cockroaches from nature photographs. When you return,
(36:06):
we're gonna investigate a lizard. These aquatic fashion is all
about function, So now I want to talk about an
extremely glamorous lizard that I think gives like David Bowie
(36:26):
a run for his money in terms of like how
incredibly shiny they are and also just how I don't know,
you know, how like like the Space Odyssey thing. Will
these lizards like to go under the water and be
little little diver diverman? Okay, what's the what's the David
(36:49):
Bowie thing? It's like Rocketman? Right, yeah, Rocketman?
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Or is that Elton John That'ston John. Is he glamor
the Ziggie startist. Yeah, I mean like that's very yeah,
David Bowie is super super glam.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Elton John glamrock not really is he.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I'm going to google is Elton John glamrock?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
This is very important for an evolutionary biology podcast to
know whether Elton.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
John is I would say so other performers associated with British.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Glam I see, I see. I mean, I guess it
depends on whether you're using the phylogenetic classification system or
the linean classification system of glam rock.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I mean, I'll say this. You know, look, the only
people who are going to get mad at you about
someone being or not being glam rock are the Yeah,
exactly aggressive glam rock. British glam was very strictly different
from us glamrock, and I think that needs to be noted.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
He actually fits more in the mod category.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Thing you very much, but he's certainly glamorous and certainly
a rocker. We'll go. We'll definitely go with that.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Instead of spending time in outer space in a spacesuit,
these lizards like to spend time underwater in a water
suit or an airsuit anyways, a diver suit a diver suit.
So these are water Annolly's aka scuba diving lizards. So,
water nollys are a species of small lizards found in
(38:29):
Costa Rica and Central America. They're pretty small. They're about
the size of a thumb. They are brown, although males
do have this brilliant yellow do lap. So what's a
do lap. It's a flap of skin under their chin
they can fan out, which they use to attract females
and intimidate males. What I mean, have you ever seen
(38:51):
a lizard like like kind of stunting, like, you know,
flapping out its stew lap?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
For sure? For sure? You know, for a second I thought,
so I'm, you know, not skipping out head per se.
But I'm looking at this picture and I thought for
a split second that its do lap was the clear
thing coming out of its nose, which is an air bubble.
Is he's got the do lap on the top of
his head. Now it's clear and he can breathe it.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I think I forgot to include an image of the
do lap, but it's very pretty.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
It's like this brilliant yellow wo awesome.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
The ladies love a do lap.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
The ladies love a doude.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
But because these little lizards are such tasty little snacks,
not just for the females of their species, but you know,
for predators, and they're not like the fastest lizards in
the land. They will take to the water to escape predators.
They'll literally leap off of a rock and belly flop
into the water. And so once underwater they are safe
(39:52):
from a lot of terrestrial or airborne predators. But they
need to breathe because you know, they can't. They I
can't breathe water. These are reptiles, they are They do
not although you know, there are some reptiles like turtles
who do do gas exchange near an area near their cloaca,
aka their butthole, but these lizards cannot. We have no
(40:17):
evidence to suggest that these lizards can breed through their
buttholes like turtles. I know, darn it. God, I hate
it when I'm like swimming and I'm like, wait, let
me try it, let me try it for a second.
I can't do it. I can't breathe through my butt.
So they have a problem because they either stand or
water and drown, or they go above the water and
(40:39):
get eaten by a predator. So there is recent observations
of these lizards that seem to suggest that they can
create a wetsuit made out of air and form a
bubble around their head that they can breed through.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
This is I you know, truly again, your research is
so good. You've videos. I could not even imagine what
this would look like, but now I have a video
to look at, and it is extraordinary. I'm like blown
away that they're able to, like what is holding the
water to their face this way?
Speaker 1 (41:12):
That's a really good question. And while I haven't been
able to find studies that are really exact about it,
I would say that it is very similar to other
times that we see water adhering to animals underwater. So
with their diving bell spiders that can actually go underwater
and water, they will also form these kind of underwater
For the spiders, it's like this diving bell that this
(41:34):
little bubble that surrounds them that they can do gas
exchange through. And for them, the air sticks to these
teeny tiny little hairs all over their bodies. So the
air literally sticks to these really small fine hairs. For
these lizards, I don't think they rely on hairs rather,
I think it's the skin texture. So I think they
(41:56):
have these probably these really tiny stroke ructures on their skin,
like these little tiny, probably microscopic indentations and texture on
their skin that actually traps air on their skin and
holds onto it through sort of a manner of surface tension.
I mean, even like when you dive underwater, sometimes little
(42:17):
bubbles can stick to your skin and you can see
little air bubbles still sticking to you. But like for
these lizards, their skin is such that I think it's
probably you have really small structures on their skin that
is able to really cling onto this water such that
you look at these lizards and underwater, it looks like
they have this whole silvery sheen all over it, like
(42:40):
their skin is made out of a mirror like material
and that's all that trapped air all over their body,
reflecting light underwater like a mirror.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
That's so cool.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, they're like it's beautiful. It's one of those things
where are like, wow, why do they look this cool?
And then they come out of water and you're like, eh, okay.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Hey, you know what, I'll save it, save it for
the underwater crowd, you know, if they want to be
less less shiny on top save for the underwater crowd.
They deserve it more. They're not trying to eat you
as much.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Yeah, So they can form this bubble around their head.
And while this the research on this is by no
means complete, so this is all conjecture at this point,
there's this idea that their heads have this kind of
concave structure just so this air bubble can form, like
this pocket can form over their nostrils, and when they
(43:42):
like breathe out, it kind of bubbles up, and they
breathe in and it kind of bubbles down. So it's
like this little bubble going up and down as they breathe.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Makes that's that's so wild. Again, if I didn't have
this video, I wouldn't be able to put it together.
I mean, you know, I could understand and imagine, but
it's just like it's truly a bubble coming off of
their face and then just sucking back in, right, you know. Wild,
Like have you ever like.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Blown a bubble with some bubble gum and instead of
just like blowing the bubble, you kind of like breathe
in and out. You're like yeah, and then you do
like a Darth Vader voice I'm here to chop off
hands and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of
bubble gum?
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Could you imagine I want to see that recut? Wow?
Speaker 1 (44:34):
But yeah, I mean your reaction is kind of similar
to researchers who discovered this because they just incidentally discovered
that they that they seem to breathe this way through observations.
They put underwater cameras down there because they noticed that
some of these lizards would like dive underwater and then
they would pop up a few feet away. But some
(44:55):
of them would dive underwater and then just disappear, and
they're like, now that can't be right, Like that can't
be a good survival strategy to just drown yourself whenever
a predator comes at you. So sure enough, they found
that these guys can spend up to about fifteen minutes underwater,
and using these underwater cameras, they found this behavior of
(45:18):
like them seeming to breathe through these bubbles. Now, it
hasn't been like scientifically proven that they are actually breathing
through these bubbles. It's just observation, like you looking at
this video, but it seems fairly likely that that's the case,
because that seems to be what's going on.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
And also because they can last so long underwater, it
seems like this keeps them last longer without having to
hold their breath the whole time.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Wow. These are fascinating little beasts right here.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
They really are.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
You've really done it.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
And they're so shiny. I love how just like they
have like meer skin, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Shit, totally the shine, especially like again that it's primarily
for the underwater crowd. It's like they're just so so
so shiny, and it almost I almost feel like you
would mistake it. I mean you shouldn't say mistake it,
but like you might think that there's like a small
like pocket knife in the water if you were to
look right and see just like the body of one
(46:18):
of these little guys down they're just like whoa that
is yeah, yeah, my gosh, I do.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
I also I do like the idea that like, above
water it's like nah, but underwater it's like Miley Cyrus
turning into Hannah Montana.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Wow, that's where they shine.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah, it's like Miley Cyrus, eh whatever, just normal girls
and then she turned to normal.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Wow, Well I think we I think we've done it.
I think we've found some of the coolest glam rockers
in the animal kingdom.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
These are truly glamorous animals you have shared with me today, Katie.
I'm touched. These are awesome than I do.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Before we go, I do want to address a listener question.
So listener Izzybe writes in and says, hey, creature peeps.
There's been a meme Twitter thread popping up now and
again claiming that the Uncanny Valley exists as a deep
psychological remnant from our early hominid ancestors interspecies competition for resources.
(47:22):
So frequently these conversations use the idea that animals, even
our own pets, don't experience the Uncanny Valley as proof,
but that rings false to me. I am a puppet
maker and have lots of Sorry. I love this. I
love this email so much. I love it when you
guys write into me when I when I was reading
(47:45):
this and then I got to I am a puppet maker.
Like I almost screamed in excitement. I anyways, I'm going
to continue reading.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
This, but like, please please, sorry.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
I am a puppet maker and have lots of experience
of dogs and cats. Absolutely losing their their quack in
terror of puppets, usually human based puppets, but sometimes those
based on other animals. What is this if not the
uncanny valley, the mental rejection and innate fear of something
that resembles the familiar but doesn't achieve a fully believable resemblance.
(48:17):
As someone familiar with animal psychology, I was wondering if
you had any thoughts on the matter. On a completely
different note of the arc of the universe bending towards crab,
one of our latest puppets is a massive crab dragon.
Although it fails to copy the evolutionary perfect crab body plan,
it is painted to look like a coconut crab. We
were even listening to the Carsonization episode while painting her.
(48:41):
Here are pictures, Izzy be Thank you so much. Izzy. These.
When you said you were a puppet maker, I was excited.
I love puppets. It's I mean, like, but I was
expecting a small puppet.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Which I was still excited for.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
I was still really excited for. This is a life sized,
freaking dragon. It's massive, It's three people are operating this thing.
It's a huge, actual real life dragon puppet the size
of a freaking real life dragon and.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
It's incredible, and it is incredible.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
It is painted like a coconut crab. It's absolutely beautiful.
It's amazing, and I, if possible, I'm going to include
a link to these photos in the show notes. It's
I'm so blown away by this. This is a beautiful puppet.
I actually like a note about the Uncanny Valley before
I get into answering the question. I actually love the
(49:40):
Uncanny Valley, Like I actively seek out feeling that feeling.
It's a it's a fun, exciting feeling for me. It's like,
now I don't like roller coasters, Like I hate roller coasters.
They scare me. But I imagine the feeling that other
people get when they go on a roller coaster, of
like that it's like kind of scary but exciting. That
(50:00):
thrill that's what I get from like looking at weird
animatronics or Uncanny Valley things. I love animatronics, I love puppets.
I just love that feeling of like there's a certain
sort of offness to this thing. It's like not quite
a human, but it's almost a human. Like I really
it's just thrilling for me. So this is a really
exciting thing for me.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Nice, this is an incredible puppet These are these are true.
This is truly I you know, I would totally expect
to see this at the front of a very well
produced parade. This is like or you know of a
like it's a puppet show. Not like a puppet show though,
but like like a The Muppets.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah, definitely a cirqu of silet production. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
No, it's it's a centerpiece right here.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
This is or like The Dark Crystal, you know what
I mean. Ye Oh, I loved by the way. I
love The Dark Crystal loved. I also like the the reboot,
the remake or not remake the was I haven't.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Checked out the It's good.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I liked it. Yeah, my skeio, if you liked the
original one, you'll definitely like the remake. It's or not remake.
It's just a reboot, but it definitely recaptures sort of
the it's it's all practical effects. It's really really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
In terms of the question about whether animals feel the
Uncanny Valley, I actually really agree with this listener. I
think that we don't. While we don't necessarily have evidence
that says that animals definitely do feel the Uncanny Valley.
It's like hard to you know, quantify what an animal
is feeling. I definitely think that animals would have the
(51:37):
capacity to feel that based on certain animal behavior. So
some of the things that we know, like, well, first
of all, this is maybe not super scientific, but I've
definitely seen a lot of videos of cats on like
TikTok and stuff reacting to their owners having a like
a cat filter on their face, you know, like on
(51:57):
Snapchat or it's like a cat a cat face like
filter on their face, so it looks like the human
has a cat face on the phone, and the cats
like look at the phone, look really startled, look back
at their human and look at the phone and like
run away. So, uh, that's that's interesting to me that
the cats get really freaked out by humans wearing like
(52:18):
a cat cat makeup or having that like cat filter.
Of course, that's that's that's totally anecdotal. Uh less anecdotal
I think, is Well, no, I guess it's still anecdotal. Anyways.
Another thing that we've seen is like there's this TV
show called Spies in the Wild where they put like anima, Yeah,
(52:39):
spy in the wild. It's they it's it's hilarious but
also a great nature documentary. They create these animatronic versions
of animals so that they can have cameras like watching
the animals up close. But it's also kind of funny
because like most of the camera work in the show
isn't from the animatronic animals, so it seems like that's
(53:01):
something of a gimmick, got it, But it's still really interesting.
I think the most interesting part of the show is
not like the up close shots that these animatronics get,
but it's the reactions that the animals have to the animatronics.
So a lot of animals don't seem to really think
anything of it, but once you start to get to primates,
(53:21):
their reactions are very interesting. There are these langers that
were very tentatively playing with this animatronic linger, and then
it fell down and like broke and stopped moving, and
then a bunch of langers all came over that this
langers are a type of monkey, and they they came
and surrounded this thing, like like twenty or thirty of them,
(53:41):
just like looking and like carefully touching it and looking
it was almost it looked like they were holding a
funeral almost, but it was like I think they were
just so freaked out and fascinated by what this was,
where like it seems kind of like a dead monkey,
but they weren't sure what it was, but they were
fascinated and and it seemed kind of freaked out. So
(54:04):
I think that And you also look at like things
that we have done research on where dogs seem to
pay particular attention to human faces on the side of
the face that's more expressive, Like we're not our expressions
are not completely symmetrical, Like there's usually one side of
the face that is a little more expressive, and the
(54:26):
dogs seem to prefer that side of the face. And
so I think that that kind of like facial recognition.
And it's the whole kind of concept of this idea
that like only humans would be in some sort of
like competition with other hominids. That doesn't make any sense,
Like there are so many species who have very similar
(54:49):
species that they are in competition with. I mean, like
you know, canines like like wolves and other canids would
be in competition, you know, I mean like a dog
in a coyote Like coyote will often kill dogs, So
like they have to be very careful around each other
different kind of feline species, Like you know, a cheetah
(55:10):
is no friend to like a lion. So it's you know,
it's they are all sorts of competition amongst species that
maybe don't look exactly like each other, but are somewhat similar.
So this idea that the Uncanny Valley evolved in humans
because we were competing with other species and we had
(55:30):
to be aware of like ones that were kind off.
It's like, well, I would say that would apply to
you know, most most intelligent social animals.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
Great, I support that entirely. I don't. I obviously do
not have a professional opinion on the matter, but I
would like to think that, like you know, obviously language
is something that is created by humans for humans. Yeah,
but I think for to be for the suggestion to
be that dogs and and you know certain animals don't
(56:01):
have the capability to semi recognize something or have to
wrestle with something as recognizable or not. I think, you know,
to say, do they experience the uncanny Valley? It's like, well,
they don't. They don't call it that, but they know
when something is there and doesn't. It's like this is
not quite right. This is not I'm confused by this.
(56:22):
I support you entirely. I think it's I think it's one.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Yeah. In fact, there there's a study, uh, there's a
study of mackex that looked at their eye gaze of
like computer generated images of mckx and like ones that
were like, uh, sort of realistic, actually kind of cartoonish.
They sort of looked at a little bit, didn't really
seem to care. They were real photos they looked at
(56:47):
for a long time because they were interested. But ones
that were almost exactly realistic but not quite they were
like CGI. They didn't like to look at it all.
They like spent as little time looking at it as possible,
which you know, it's hard to know exactly how to
interpret those results, but one way of interpreting them is
(57:07):
that they did not enjoy looking at that CGI version
of the the macaque, and so they would avert their
gaze because they found it unpleasant, which is how humans
experienced the Uncanny Valley. So I would say this has
not been researched enough to really say definitively, but I
(57:28):
think all the research that we have, as well as
general trends and animal behavior I think would indicate that, yeah,
this could definitely happen for animals, and I don't see
any reason to rule.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
It out for animals, right, I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
That's why my dog hates polar Express. I thought it
was just because she hated Tom Hanks, but I think
it's all those all those weird kids.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
It's all those weird looking kids. That's funny, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
Oh, Cookie, Also when I make a weird noise, she
gives me such a look, like she does the little
head turning thing. But like if I do sort of
a weird whistling noise, like where I'm kind of sucking
airin through my teeth or something in a weird way,
or or if I blow across a bottle and it
makes that like weird hooty noise, like she just like
she looks at me like I've been possessed, and she's
(58:16):
clearly she's like she's interested, but she's concerned. I've been bewitched.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Totally totally different noise, I'm unfamiliar.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
Oh, and she hates it when people ride on bikes
or skateboards, like, uh, just it's something like about the
human going faster than they should that like she loses
her mind over she hates so much. It's like you're
a human but way too fast. This isn't right.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
Yeah, why is one part of you moving but the
other parts of you were not? What's up with that?
What's that?
Speaker 1 (58:50):
It's a bicycle human centaur? Evil?
Speaker 2 (58:55):
I'll bite off its legs?
Speaker 1 (58:56):
What is this?
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Yeah? Amazing?
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Well I think that'll do it for today. Thank you
so much. Yeah for this email. Love the pictures of
the puppet. I will share those. And yeah, if you
haven't have a question and you want me to answer it,
send an email to Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot
com and I will either try to answer it over
the email or even on the show. So yeah, thank
(59:25):
you so much for that. And Daniel, thank you so
much for being on here today. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
It's always a pleasure. It's such a great show, one
of my favorite podcasts. Always honored to be included.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
Oh my goodness, thank you so much. He used to
you used to engineer the dang thing.
Speaker 2 (59:40):
Did used to engineer the dang thing. But then we
got so you know, we got so big and busy.
They spread spread us all out there. They're like Danny
can't do that anymore. You got to go do this
other thing. I'm like that.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
But the bright side is now we've got Zach yay
here you guys. He's he's actually he's actually.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
Shrouded by waves.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
He's actually he's actually a dolphins, so he can only
in squeals and ease yes and confetti emotions. That's insane thing. Yes,
I engineered.
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Lovely.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Where can
people find you?
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
You can find me on the on Twitter at dj
Underscore Daniel and you can find me on Twitch at
the same twitch dot tv slash dj Underscore d A
n L. Check it out. We do fun stuff. Yeah yeah,
and listen to the podcast shoot listen to Creature Feature.
I mean you already here, so great job. Check on
the podcast of the network.
Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Yeah, check out other podcasts on the network. Uh, thank
you guys so much for listening. You can find us
on the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at
Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e a T
not f e et hood is something very different. And
as always, I'm Katie Golden. You can find me on
Twitter just for my Katie thoughts and uh yeah, thank
(01:00:59):
you so much the Space Classics for their super awesome
song ex Alumina.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
That song is great.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
I know it's so good. I love it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Can I get it? A Can I get it? A
corny joke before we leave? Do it? Do it?
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Do it?
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Since? Did you said creature feet? Yeah, you were like, no,
it's creature feet f e eight not f e e t.
That's a different website. That website is only Finn's.
Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Thank you, No, don't never apologize. Thank you so much
for that. Oh my god, thank you so much. Creature
Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like
the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or Hey guess what where have you listened to your
favorite shows? See you next Wednesday, Only Finn
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