December 18, 2024 • 61 mins
Happy holidays! While I'm frantically making gingerbread apes, enjoy this Kringletimes special from last year! From hibernations to teeny naps, these wintery animals know how to catch a few z's! I'm joined by guest Jeff May.
Footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dEiKigGPXidNf5Jaa_LQ8HvJkP0h-9Tz6KNzC-OkFds/edit?usp=sharing
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Creature Feature. It's Creature Cringle Times, a holiday special about
our furry friends. Today we'll learn how hibernation works and
what's up with these chabby bears, snail hibernas, leivers with
(00:29):
fat tails.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Join us as we learn and love in the sleepy
little penguins perfect power naps. It's a sleepy, cozy winter time.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeart Radio. I'm your
host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and
evolutionary biology, and on today's special Kringle Time show, we're
getting cozy and snugly and talking about the world's best,
most creative, and most interesting sleepers. From hibernations to teeny naps,
(01:06):
these wintery animals know how to catch a few holiday z's.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Happy Creature Ring, Happy Creature, Ring, Happy Creature.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Joining me today is comedian and host of the podcast
Jeff Has Cool Friends and Other great podcasts.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Jeff May welcome. Hey, I just woke up. This is great. Yeah, fact,
I just dehibernated. Be mad. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
What's your favorite way to get cozy during the winter?
I mean, I think you're still in La, right, I am.
It doesn't get too cold there, but it's still nice
to get cozy.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
So it actually gets really cold inside. I don't know
if you remember La, but there's no insulation in any
of the houses, so for example, like in my house
right now, it's like the high fifties. So yeah, not
what you would think would be great. I actually prefer
(02:16):
a fireplace. Yeah, airplace. I had a fire last night.
It was delightful. That really is something for me. It's
getting pricey, getting a little pricey. The wood has gone up.
But I do like that. I like being inside where
(02:37):
it is not bad while the weather is bad.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
It's the best feeling. It's the best. I'm finally living
somewhere where it does occasionally snow, which I love. And
I also just like being inside watching either rain or snow.
But you're cozy and you're warm, and you're under a blanket,
maybe you even have a hot drink. It's just such
a good feeling. It's like this intense smugness about your
(03:05):
position versus like the weather outside. It's like a very
cozy smugness and I love it.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, it turns out that the weather outside is actually frightful, right, but.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
The fire inside.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Meanwhile, wow, that's delightful.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Right, that can be delightful.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, no, I very much am that as a new Englander.
Like snow is two is two things for me. One,
it is a dangerous labor because you have to like
shovel your driveway or you know, you have to drive
extra specially careful carefully. I don't know I didn't add
an adverb into that sentence. But then on top of
(03:42):
that too, like being inside when it snows is the best, right, Yeah, no,
you like you forget you're just sitting there. Although when
I was a homeowner, I would look outside and see
the snow and be like, yeah, should I go pre
shovel right now? So it's not super bad tomorrow. Like
that's the energy that I was bringing to homeowners, real
dad energy.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, I've never had a home while I lived, like
a suburban home where I'd actually have to shovel snow
or deal with it. So I've always just had a
good time in the snow because i haven't had a
car or home while being in an area with snow.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
So that's the labor of snow.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, disappears right exactly, But yeah, very very on theme,
because today we are talking about animals who do their
best to avoid the discomforts of winter in bad weather
and we'll just sleep it off, but in very specific
physiological ways. So first we're going to talk about bears
(04:43):
and this idea of bear hibernation. Now there's going to
be a twist here, so get ready for that. But
first let's talk about fat Bear Week. So have you
heard of fat Bear Week?
Speaker 4 (04:56):
I love fat Bear Week, so good course, standard Bear
Week as a Massachusetts former Massachusetts residence Bear Week itself,
of course very popular in Provincetown in the summertime. Fat
Bear Week, that is a winter holiday.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
The Fat Bear Week is a celebration by the Cathmeae
National Park and Preserve in Alaska of the bears in
the park putting on their winter weight. This year, it
happened in October and ended on what the Park Service
calls fat Bear Tuesday. So the way it works is
that the public is allowed to watch the bears on
(05:33):
these park cams and then vote online at fatbearweek dot org. Obviously,
fat Bear Week has already happened, so a winner has
been crowned. It was a female bear named Grazier, who
is a light brown bear with blonde, fluffy ears who
is described by the Fat Bear Week website as a
(05:55):
very tough lady. She's raised two sets of cubs and
is so protected her cubs. She'll go on the offense
against male bears who get too close, even bears that
are bigger than herself. She is famous for being the
most defensive bold mother bear in the current bear lineup
in Catmi National Park.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
I love this. I love all this information, but I
do feel like we did sort of gloss over the
fact that they do Fat Bear Tuesday, yeah, which is
what Mardi Gras d'Ors or something like that, like it's
Mardi Gras, Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for bears, I love.
I love all of that energy in there. And I
love that she just partied. She's got some bead around,
(06:40):
beads around her neck, and she is just chasing dudes off.
I love that about her.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yes, And she and these bears. Every year, bears put
on an enormous amount of weight in the summer and
fall uh to survive the winter. And so the point
of Fat Bear Week is to celebrate these bears and
all their girth and you know, pick out one of
the bears, who has one. I mean, it's like, I
don't think it's necessarily just a way in right, they're
(07:05):
not because they're not weighing these bears. It's not all
just about the size. It's about the public's favorite. So
the favorite one usually it's one that has indeed put
on a bunch of weight. But there's you know, other
aspects to their personality that can win them boats.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Now the photo that you shared first off, must hug bear. Yeah, bear,
it's friend. And then the information that you shared bear
is not friend.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Bear is not friend.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yeah, it's also but also bear's friend.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
This is the contradiction of bear. This is the biggest
sort of like it is an The oxymoron of the
bear is that they look like the world's most huggable animal,
and in fact, they may be one of the world's
least huggable animals in terms of the speed with which
they could rind your bones from flesh and absolutely turn
(07:59):
you into a sort of meat and bone salad. Is
it's very impressive, like you know so, But on the
other hand, they do look really huggable a friend, Yes,
like if I had to if I had to be
executed for some reason for one of my many crimes.
I feel like I'd want to do execution by bear hug, Like,
(08:21):
let me hug a bear. Yeah, death by bear where
I give it a hug and it, you know, does
its thing and at least I go out on a
high note.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
And you get to help out fat bear week, right exactly,
be like I'm going to feed myself to my favorite
bear that I have put money on.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I become part of the bear. In reality, this would
be really bad because then once the bear gets a
taste of delicious human, it would probably go after other
people and then they'd euthanize the bear.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
It is it? Historically speaking, we don't taste great? Is that?
Is that right? Like? I know that like sharks, sharks
aren't actually fans of our flavor.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
It's I think it's a fat to like bone ratio.
And also we have clothing, and I think all of
that is kind of off.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
But there are frogs legs, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
There are, Yeah, We're a little We're just not. It's
like like with insects, right, Like we are not used
to eating insects. I mean some cultures, certainly they do
eat insects, but when you're raised in a culture where
you don't eat them. If someone's like, here, you have
this cricket and you're like, ah, this kind of feels weird.
But it doesn't mean the cricket tastes bad. It's just
that you're not used to it. So for a lot
(09:31):
of animals, I would think they're just not used to
the human taste and or texture. But there are a
copy Yeah, it's like it's an acquired taste. But certainly
there are animals like polar bears who will absolutely look
at a human and be like, yeah, I could, I
could chow down on that.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Yeah, I mean in nature there's there's options, but if
there's no options, they are like women to eat that obviously.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Right of course. Yeah, and bears will potentially eat people.
I mean typically though, like even grizzly bears don't generally
go after humans, but but they can. They will if,
especially if they feel threatened or you try to get close.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
To them, or they do a lot of cocaine.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, I know, there's that Cocaine Bear movie, which is
really kind of I feel like you're really setting a
bad example for bears, and I feel like we need
to do like a dare program for bears like bear
Beardar to teach them that no cocaine is actually really
bad for bears. Don't do it just because you saw
a bear on the movies.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Maybe you could do it not being so lame.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, well you know.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
With that, maybe stop trying to ruin the party.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
You know, I just I want my bears thick and
fat and full of salmon.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
So bear body shaming are you because no.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm saying that. I'm I'm I'm just saying that the
best bears are fat bears.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Okay, well I'm saying all bears are beautiful. So like
mark that down. Put that in the notes for people
when they listen to by bears.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So why do these bears put on so much weight?
It's not just to look amazing. It is which you
can actually see these before after photos of these bears.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
If you go to Rubenesque Bears.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
They are Rubenesque bears. Go to explore dot org slash
meet the dash Bears. I'll put that link in the footnotes.
But yeah, it's really cool because you can see live
streams of parks, old videos of bears like eating fish
and stuff, and also the before after pictures of bears
(11:37):
after having bulked up. But yeah, they put on this
huge amount of fat so that they can get through
the winter, and they go into this state of dormancy
during the winter. This is often called hibernation, but if
you're being really picky, bears are not true hibernators. It's
kind of weird because they're like kind of the poster
(11:59):
bear for hibernation, and yet what they do in the
winter is technically not exactly hibernation. So hibernation is a
type of prolonged inactivity characterized by physiological changes where the
rate of breathing is slowed, the heart rate is slowed,
and body temperature drops. This helps slow the metabolism so
(12:21):
the animal can live off of their energy stores and
survive the winter, which is generally harsh and nutrient poor,
and so lots of animals hibernate, from rodents to bats,
But technically bears do not hibernate. They do enter a
state of torpoor, which just means a state of reduced
(12:43):
activity and which includes a lot of sleep, a lot
of rest, a lot of like not really doing anything.
Celebrities just like us, just like just like podcasters, there
are some physio changes that bears go through, including bulking up.
Their heart rate, breathing and metal ballic rate do slow
(13:06):
down when they are in deep sleep, but their body
temperature does not drop, and they can actually wake up
relatively easy, which is unlike hibernators. In fact, female bears
generally have to wake up from their torpoor in order
to give birth during the winter, which is when they
(13:27):
typically give birth. So they'll be, you know, in the
state of torpoor, snooze and be like, op, gotta gotta
wake up, gotta gotta push out of the cups. Yeah,
but this winter dormancy that bears go through is still
really impressive. They can go for months without needing to
urinate or defecate. The poop in their intestines actually remains
(13:49):
there whatever's left before because they go before they hibernate.
So they have like basically this fecal plug. They're very like,
I guess, hard and thick, and it stays in the intestines.
It's slow moving and then it just kind of like
dries out. The intestines absorb a lot of the fluids
(14:10):
from this fecal matter and then it forms this hard plug.
And so this their intestines basically slow down, their kidney
function grinds to a halt, and they don't urinate. Like
you know that feeling when you're super cozy in bed,
you're really warm and it's cold and like you have
(14:32):
to peep, but you're like it can wait, Like I
know I should get up and pee, but it can wait,
and you just stay in bed and you're like, ah,
I should pee, but then you don't, and then you
dream about like trying to find a bathroom, but you
can't find one all because you just don't want to
leave bed because it's too warm.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
You know what's funny is I have this weird, insane
fear of beeing the bed. I don't know why, Like
I've nevergett had then to have that fear, but I do.
I have that fear. And so if that feeling, if
I'm cozy in bed and that feeling hits, I'm like,
I got to do this or else I'm going to
pee the bed and everyone will find out they'll have
(15:11):
to buy a new mattress. Like I very much have
that thought in my head at all.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I like to roll the dye. Someday it might burn me,
but I like to roll that dye. Yeah, actually, so
with the with the urination for bears, they can still
produce urea, but what they do is they recycle it
into proteins and that means they don't have to pee
and they there because while they're you know, in their
(15:40):
state of torpor, they are converting the fat that they've
built up into usable nutrients to keep them alive, to
keep their muscle mouse from deteriorating. So they're living off
of that. So even though that process does create urea,
they recycle that into helping them build muscle. There is
(16:00):
actually a paper studying the bear eurothelium, which is the
lining of the urinary tract. The paper is called the
eurothelium of a hibernator, the American Black Bear. So like
just so you know, like a lot of people still
call what bears do hibernation, even like researchers and biologists,
even though.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
It's colloquialism at this point, like it's a widely it's
like when literally and figuratively are now interchangeable because the
language has accepted it as so yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
No, exactly, and it's like it's a subtle distinction, right,
Like true hibernators their body temperature drops and bears theres don't.
They can wake up easier, so it's like it's a
subtle delineation.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
My question for your New England listeners is when Katie
said black Bear, did you guys immediately because of what
we've been talking about, did all of you start thinking
about Clark's Trading Post in New Hampshire. Because Clark's Trading
Post is a very famous New England attraction that is
(17:03):
propagated and sort of pushed as this big trained black
bear haven. It is the most New England kind of
quote theme park slash experience that you could possibly imagine,
where it's just trained black bears and weird stuff the
whole time, but it's an aggressively New England thing.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Is that the one where like the bears stand on
their hind legs or something.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
For They do a lot of stuff. They climb up
poles for fun, they like roll around in barrels, they
eat ice cream, they live like they do. I'm assuming
that the version of ice cream that they have is
something that they make for the bears. I'm not going
to pretend that I know enough about Clark's Trading Post
to guarantee you that these are not abused bears. But
(17:51):
what I can tell you is I have seen the
bears many times.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I don't want to make any
judgments not knowing exactly what what it is, but in general,
I'm skeptical. I'm always skeptical of like when animals are
in entertainment, like SeaWorld or this Clark's Trading Post.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
But yeah, and nothing can be like, oh, well, we've
been doing it for so long. I'm like, yeah, that
kind of makes me feel like, you guys did it worse. Yeah, yeah,
it's Clark's Bears. Do they call it Clark's Bears now?
They literally changed the name named Clark's Trading Post until
twenty nineteen. This is huge.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I mean, it does make sense if your main thing
is bears to have bears in the title, because like
when it's like Clark's Trading Post, that sounds super boring.
If you're like Clark's Bears that eat ice cream, now
you've got something.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
If you do a quick cursory Google image search, the
second photo will give you the entire gist of what
Clark's Bears. I hate saying that Clark's Trading Post is
all about, because there's like a weird mountain man that
like chases the train tour. There's trained bears. It is
a glorious experience. And coming on here talking about bears,
(19:02):
I would feel like it was my duty to at
least say there is an absolute trained bear theme park
that was from my health.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
There's like a bear in a small car. Look, I'm
not gonna lie and say like I don't get some
kind of you know, enjoyment out of seeing a bear
in a tiny car. But I don't think this is
probably the best thing.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
For the bears, probably not the most ethical.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Not probably not the most ethical thing for these bears.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
I get it, you know, I like, I understand that
they're my footprints are bloody in the world of of
of consumption and entertainment, I recognize this.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, I mean, you know this is this is exploitation
is woven into the fabric of America. What can you say?
But uh, but in this uh, in this paper, I know,
I know, like talking about bears in tiny cars sounds
really interesting, But what about it paper on the Eurothelium?
Jeff does that not?
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Also?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah? Exactly so? So they My point in bringing up
this paper is that it actually so they like were
doing studies of the bear urinary track because of this
interesting way in which these bears hibernate and they don't
urinate like during hibernation. But like, so they went through
this whole thing of like they used euthanized bears to
(20:27):
like look at their urinary tracts, and in this section
where they were they had discussed the properties of these
euthanized bears, like the cause why they were euthanizeding, you know,
very sad like some of them like hit by car.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Or abandoned driven by another bear, by a.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Tiny car driven by another bear. Horrifying bears.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
I worked at a trucking company where a truck driver
ran over a bear. Oh god, and just like didn't
report it. He just kept going, no, you could realized,
and then like immediately all of his lights went on,
just like absolutely destroyed his truck.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, no, he ran over a bear. Yeah you can't.
I also think you have to report it, right if
you hit.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
A bear, you'd think so, And I think he thought
he might not have.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
To, and then do I'm pretty sure, Well, especially if
you're a bear law doctor, trailer shuts down, yeah, and
you're like, well, there's no way of getting around this,
I hit a bear.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, yeah, so that's very unfortunate. But there were some
bears that were euthanized because they were called nuisance bears,
which I guess is the technical term for bears who
are interacting with humans in a less than ideal wayl bears,
No exactly, I mean rebel bears, bear rebels without a cause.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I just add out some pause.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, I mean pretty sure they don't have pause anymore.
They've probably been have some other researchers studying bear pause,
but yeah, I mean it is. It's one of those
things where it's like I get it right, Like if
you have a bear who's going around neighborhoods, you know,
getting into stuff and like interacting with humans or being aggressive,
Like I get why they have to euthanize them, but like,
(22:11):
do we have to add insult to injury by calling
them nuisance bears? That feels like we're blaming the bears
way too much. Like it's not really the bear's fault
that there's like a suburb near them that has trash
cans full of ice cream that they can get and
then when they do you know what I.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Mean, Yeah, they got to do what deer did and
just create a new disease for to combat suburban sprawl.
Like lime disease exists because the deer were like, screw
these guys starting Connecticut, by the way, another New England tradition.
Oh yeah, brain bears and lime disease. Is there nothing
(22:49):
we can't.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Do, Like there are a ton of lime in Martha's vineyard.
Probably I think there's, like because it's like weird, it's
something that like there's a lot of lime disease and
like wealthy people because they all get it from Martha's
vineyard or somewhere nearby.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah, it would make sense too, because here's the here's
the tragedy is the more outside you are, the more
apt you are to get it because deer ticks are
a much harder to spot tick, yeah than your standard
would tick. So yeah, so we would, we would. We
were taught, you know, because I grew up in the
eighties and nineties, so that was when lime disease was
like all the rage. Yeah, so so we were we
(23:29):
had to be very very careful to look out for
those and my brother ended up getting it.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Oh oh no, I'm sorry, it's his fault.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
These bears However, they're not nuisances. They're just cool.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, I know, like calling them like nuisance sparits, it's like,
could we call them something else, like, you know, yeah,
cool bears.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
The spirits had to take out some cool bears and
everybody would get it.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, like we had to ethanized the spar for being
too cool, which is a tragedy, but you know what
I mean, like, yeah, this is like the this is
the body and Clyde of bears. It's you know, so yeah,
I get it. I get why they have to use
the nize of them, but can we give them a
nicer label? Anyways, So after winter, bears will emerge from
(24:19):
their dens and their metabolism will slowly kick back into gear.
Sometimes they will lap up snow fleas to kind of
like as an appetizer before they fully get their appetite.
So snow fleas are actually tiny black springtail hexapods. They're
these little little hexapods that can survive and live in snow.
(24:42):
We actually did a podcast about this, I think last winter,
about ice worms. So they're not really fleas, they're not parasites,
but they feed on organic matter in leaf litter and
in snow and they're teeny tiny, but there's so many
of them that base these bears are like great protein popsicles,
(25:03):
and we'll like lick at like melting snow or the
leaf litter and just have kind of like these like
protein popsicles that looks like kind of a really organic
mint ice cream. But the mint chips are bugs.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Honestly, I mean, let's give that a dry Let's call
saltan straw and the.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Flavor saltan straw. So I miss saltan stra so much.
I think it's a California thing, right.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
It's a West Coast thing. I believe it's actually a
Portland thing to say.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Okay, okay, so it's a West Coast thing. Man, if
you live on the West Coast or you visit the
West Coast, saltan Straw is the best ice cream place
I've ever been To't.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
You the land of Gelato?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yes, But honestly, like look no offense to to northern
Italy where there is some amazing gelato. Salt and Straw
is still really holds its own like it's really good. Also,
like in the US, they know how to make waffle
cones really well, whereas here it's much more rare that
(26:08):
you get asta because they're made out of dry pasta, like.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
They kind of ice cream. We have a.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Basket, yeah, they we have like a basket out of pasta. No.
I mean, you know, the gelato is great, especially in Florence.
But you know, like, honestly, America, you got some amazing
ice cream there, so be proud.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Yeah, we have nailed the tastiest, most absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Food, right, which is why these bears are eating it
at the trading post.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Fish a bear sitting there eating like ice cream and
a grilled cheese or like, this doesn't seem like this
is the thing they should be eating. Probably not fairy.
Is dairy a big thing for bears? Because I don't.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Really see how that would think so, But you know,
I still feel like if I saw a bear their
nose deep into a tub of ice cream, you like,
you know what good for her?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Let it out, girl, be there in your feelings.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
You've had a week. Yeah, you've earned.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
This, you've earned this. Well, we are going to take
a quick break, but don't go to sleep. When we
come back, we're going to talk about a couple true
hibernators that are perhaps not what you typically think of
when you think hibernation. So, Jeff, did you know that
snails hibernate?
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Are they true hibernator?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
They are true hibernators. They also estivate, so estivation is hibernation,
but during hot or dry seasons. So both terrestrial and
aquatic species of snails can hibernate when the temperature gets
too low and estivate when the season gets too hot
(27:56):
or dry. So during hibernation, terrestrial snails such as garden
snails or fresh water snails like apple snails, will regulate
their bodily processes to survive the cold, so they are
true hibernators. Because their metabolic rate drops, their respiratory system,
(28:18):
their circulatory system, everything like slows down, and their body
temperature drops. Their body temperature actually basically has to endure
the ambient cold temperature. One of the problems with freezing
is that if you freeze like your cells kind of
(28:38):
get ice crystals in them, and that's really bad. Once
they start to thaw, they essentially rip apart because of
these Yeah, exactly, frostbite like that is necrotic tissue because
your cells have basically been torn asunder by the ice
crystal formation. But the way a lot of animals, including snails,
who can survive freezing work is they actually have in
(29:02):
their blood or in the snails case, hem aloof which
is basically the bug version of blood. They have anti
freeze in their blood. So this is like glycerol and
glucose in their blood that prevents the formation of ice crystals.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
You have anti freeze in your blood. Sounds like a
grinch lyric. That didn't make it into the song.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It does, doesn't it? Man? I can hear the voice too.
Can you do the voice?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Earl Thurl ravenscrop It's Tony the Tiger.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Oh he did, Tony the Tiger.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Yeah, if you listen to the song, it's literally Tony
the Tiger's voice. He doesn't doesn't really Garler in your soul.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Mister, Oh my god, oh my god, my mind has
been blown.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Two huge Christmas songs. Sorry, I always have to bring
Christmas into it. Two huge Christmas songs are named are
sung by people whose last name whose names are you
are l. We have Burl Eves and Thorough Ravenscroft, and
those are two names you do not hear every Berlin
Thurle are responsible for a good I'd say ten percent
(30:15):
of your holiday listening.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Berlin Thurle sounds like an artisan like sheets company, like
a company that makes sheets, like wool sheets for your bed.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
And it's already yeah that they're not that comfortable, but
they're like, yeah, they're sustainable, and then you're like all right,
and then you try to sleep in them, you're like,
this was a huge mistake.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Itchy, but it costs five hundred dollars, so you do
use it all the time. Burl and Thurle, the sponsor
of this this week's podcast Berlin use code Creature to
get ten percent off the itchiest blankets you'll ever have.
But they're made out of one hundred percent human hair
(30:54):
at geosophical rash ethically sourced rat hair. So yeah, this
is these snails drop their metabolic rate. They have this
antifreeze in their blood. They actually these anti freezing compounds
like glycerol and glucose become more concentrated in the winter,
(31:15):
according to research by noahsaka at all. Thanks guys for
cutting open snails and looking at their hemal lymph. That
must have been delicious. So they also produce something called
an epiphragm, which is a temporary mucous membrane that they
form to reduce water loss in like hot dry conditions,
(31:36):
or prevent water absorption during too wet conditions, to maintain
a balance of their bodily fluid because if they dry
completely out, that's bad. Or if they absorb too much
water and then they basically don't have the right balance
of fluids and salt ions, et cetera, like that can
also be bad. Just like humans, we can either die
(31:58):
of not having enough water, having too much salt, or
having too much water and not enough salt.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Some would say that adding another mucous membrane onto your
body is gross, and I would say, you're not a snail.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, you're not a snail. You're not thinking snail.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
You got to think you're thinking people. Yeah, I don't
know how. I probably wouldn't do great with an additional
mucus membrane on me, But not a snail.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, I mean, like, I don't. The other cool thing
about this mucus membrane, this epiphragm, is that they can
use it to stick onto things. So have you ever
like had a snail and it's like inside its shell,
you can't see any of the like meat of the snail.
You're trying to pull it off of like a tree
or a rock, but it's like stuck.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
No, you know what, I didn't have access to snails
when I was a kid. We had slugs, but no snails.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Well, I'm so sorry. That's that's a terrible childhood to
not have snails.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
It is, well, we made up for it with the
lime disease in the transmit.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Well, I have lots of childhood experience somehow.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
San Diego, we had a lot of snails and I would,
I guess, harass the snails a lot. I was curious,
and so I would try to like pick them up,
but they'd be like stuck, and so you kind of
like try to pull them off and like it. They'd
be like the suction and like you could kind of
rip them off. But I'd kind of feel bad when
I would do that because it feels like, oh I
did something, I broke something. Well, what that is is
(33:28):
the epiphram. It's this temporary mucous membrane. And they would
probably use this because it would be the summer it
would be hot and dry, but they can also do
it in the winter. Both if the winter is too
dry or if there's too much moisture or cold to
you know, basically protect their their soft, vulnerable, squishy bodies.
(33:48):
So another thing is that I have seen on the
internet too many things, but among them this factoid that
snails can hibernate for three years. And that sounded wrong
to me. That sounded right, That doesn't sound right. And
I love it when I find something like this and
(34:08):
find out that it's correct. This is not one of
those times. The longest they can hibernate, as far as
I can tell, is around four months. And so I
do not know where this three years figure comes from.
It seems like it is maybe a rumor or something
that keeps getting repeated. But I could not find any
(34:31):
like real sources for this three years thing. I have
seen that there are multiple studies that they do over
the course of two to three years, and so I
wonder and someone was like skimming one of these studies
and said, like study period was two to three years,
and they're like, oh, that must be how long the
(34:52):
snail's hibernating, and it's like, no, that's the duration of
the study.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Yeah, So come on, guys, you know how this works.
You know words this is academia, come on, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I mean, to be fair, a lot of academic papers
are very difficult to understand, and dare I say it,
sometimes written poorly in a way that's hard to comprehend.
But yeah, still like, uh, this seems to be wrong.
If someone out there is like, hey, I actually know
where this comes from, or that you think it is
(35:24):
real and you have a source, you could send that
to me. I would love to be wrong about this
because hibernating for three years as a snail sounds super chill.
That's like ultimate cozy. I just don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
It also seems a little wasteful, like how long are
you living, man, I don't know, three and a half years.
We want to readjust what we're doing with our time here?
Our time management needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Maybe the snail shell is like a pokey ball and
there's like a whole universe in there though, you know
what I mean, Like to the snail, this could.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Be what an effective Pokemon? That would be right? Get
out immediately. It's pikachuwed to death, all right, it didn't
react quick enough, nail.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Well, you know, snails have their strengths. Combat is not
generally one of them, but you.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Know, I mean, to be fair, there might be a
snail Pokemon that I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
There has to be there. I'm googling snail Pokemon because
there had there has to be snail Pokemon, like weirdly, Uh,
there's mag mag Cargo, which is a magnum snail. It
looks like it's made out of lava an obsidian.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
I mean that sounds like a pretty bad ass snail. Yeah,
there you go, so lava snail. There's some going to
pick that one up off a tree.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
There's some aquatic looking snails like ohmannite, ohmanite. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Have you ever done a creature feature that was just
like sort of about the sort of apocrypha of Pokemon? Yeah,
just play it in a real episode.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Well no, So I actually had Ellen Weatherford, she hosts
a podcast called Just the Zoo of Us, and we
talked about Pokemon and then like the real life animals
that are seem to either have inspired these Pokemon or
by coincidence, these Pokemon are very much like real life animals.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
So or that or that one magician that sued Pokemon.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Someone sued Pokemon.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yeah, Urigeller. Urigeller had like an injunction on one of
the characters, because it was clearly a dig on him.
It was like this really corrupt It was this corrupt
magician that would like hold a spoon and he was
famous for like us as a spoon bender that ended
up becoming sort of revealed as a fraud.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
And yeah, it was this whole thing. He'd like just
he just rescinded the lawsuit like very recently.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
But I thought that was like a I thought that
the fake spoon bending was like a classic thing, right.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Like I think it's because of your igeller. Really yeah,
I think it was like a whole thing with Carson. Yeah. Well,
I mean I think it was like famously like that's
where like he's the fame famously debunked magician and it
was like this big scandal. And uh so he like
just recently rescinded his lawsuit or complaint and like apologized
(38:27):
to like the children of the world for like, has.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
He apologized to spoons, because like what the hell of
the spoon's done that He's just like I'm gonna bend
this perfectly good spoon.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
I mean, I don't know the spoons not have feelings?
Am I A utensilist.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
If I say that, I just think it's sad to
be a spoon and then not get used for ice
cream instead get bent by.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
A jerk, or get kidnapped by a dish.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Right man, the dish ran away with that spoon, But
did it ask the spoon for It's what it wanted
to do? I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
So.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, snails they can hibernate and uh with that anti
freeze in their hemal lymph and but they do not.
I have not seen anything to indicate they can hibernate
for three years. They can hibernate for around four months,
which I still think is pretty impressive. Now we're going
to yeah, no, it's good man, like, why are we
(39:25):
making stuff up? That's pretty impressive. One of my favorite
hibernators is actually a completely different animal. This one's acutie.
It's the fat tailed dwarf leamur. So uh oh yeah,
I shared a cute little photo with you. These are
cute little babies that I want to cuddle. Yeah yeah,
(39:49):
so fat tailed dwarf lemurs. You may have guessed it.
They have fat tails. We're gonna talk about why so uh.
They are primates found in in Madagascar, they're pretty small.
They're only about seven ounces in the summer and nine
ounces when they fatten those tails up in the winter.
(40:10):
And you know, Jeff, can you guess why they fatten
their tails up in the winter.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
I don't feel like I need to guess on this one.
I feel like it's pretty much been established that this
is where they store their fat and nutrients, yes, for
their torpor or their their hibernation or whatever they can do.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Exactly exactly, so these can be considered true hibernators because
they kind of meet all the requirements. Their metabolism slows down,
their heart rate, breathing all slows down, and their temperature
drops and that fat tail allows them to hibernate without
needing to feed. So just as bears developed that big
(40:52):
belly for winter, these dwarf flamers developed this like fat tail.
They put all their fat in this tail. I mean
we see this in other animals right where they kind
of store fat in these localized regions like a camel's hump,
not filled with water, actually filled with fat to allow
them to survive long periods of time without eating. But
(41:15):
this means that fat tailed dwarf lemurs are actually the
only primates known to hibernate. Yeah, which is.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Really interesting, so exciting for them.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, good for them. Look these little guys.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
What what Mada Gascar movie? Do they address that in?
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Oh gosh, you know what? Like they have so many
fun like like actual animals in those movies, like Fosses
and a bunch of different lemurs who I think I
think basically all of the lemur characters are actual lemurs, Like, yeah,
I don't think they made any lemurs up. And there's
a lot of them, Like Madagascar is lemur Land essentially,
(41:56):
so that there could.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Definitely They eat ice cream and they play around in barrel.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Pretty much the closest thing lemurs get to a resort.
But yeah, like it's it's like a lot of these
these lemurs are endemic to Madagascar, meaning they're not found
anywhere else. So there is this research center called Duke
Lemur Center, and they've done a lot of research on
lemurs in general, including these fat tailed dwarf lemurs.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
And you say Duke, you just mean like Duke University.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yeah, but it's Duke Lemur Center. Be fun, Yeah, and
you know what, Like I feel like I would I
would love to be a card carrying member of the
Duke Lemur Center. So they've done all this research on
these dwarf fat tailed dwarf lemurs. It's actually really cute
because they have they have like lemurs that they studied
(42:50):
that are in captivity, but they you know, they make
sure their environment is really really good and they like
to hibernate and sleep in like little nooks and crannies
inside trees, and so they've you know, done all these
things where they try to like recreate these spaces for
them and apparently like they've had basically these cute little
(43:10):
like fabric nests and like all these like very cozy
looking things. But their favorite thing is PVC pipes. Like
the lemurs love going to sleep in PVC pipes. Same, yeah, man,
Like you want to just curl up into a little
ball and be in a PVC pipe? Who doesn't?
Speaker 4 (43:29):
I really do? I really do want them, That's.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
What That's how like whenever I'm like working with my plumbing,
I'm like, man, I wish I could shrink down and
curl up and go to sleep in this you trap.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Yeah. I hope they don't fall asleep in a potato
gun though, because that could be a problem, could be.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
A problem, could be really cool, But you know, it's
just a matter of perspective. So yeah, the their research
has found that these uh fat tailed dwarf lemurs can
rouse from hibernation every six to twelve days and hibernate
for up to seven months. So just because you're hibernating
doesn't mean you can't occasionally, like wake up during the winter.
(44:08):
Like some hibernators, especially like smaller hibernators, will wake up
occasionally to move around, maybe even eat something like if
they have something stored, and then go back. Yeah, exactly.
But it is harder for hibernators to wake up in
response to say, a threat, versus just torpoor. So if
(44:31):
you're just in torpor, you can wake up more quickly
if there's something threatening. If you're in hibernation, it's actually
a good deal more difficult for your body to rouse
from that even if there's a threat. So finding a
good hidden PVC pipe is very important because these guys
live in Madagascar. They're not protecting themselves from the cold
(44:53):
and the snow because it doesn't get that cold in Madagascar.
It's instead believe that they're protecting themselves from drought where
like in the winter, because it's really hard to get
enough nutrients. So like they feed on insects, fruits, and flowers,
and so these things are going to be harder to
find during a drought, and so they're just like I'm
(45:14):
gonna eat a bunch of stuff, put it all in
my tail fat, and then when there's not as much
food around, just.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
Go to sleep, Go to sleep with my big fat tail.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, just wrap that, man, you could also use it
as a pillow. It's just it's such a good idea,
like this is Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
Of opportunities with that.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah. No, absolutely, I.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
Store the food I eat in my ass a lot too.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
So that makes it, does it? Is it? You know
like Thanksgiving butt is a more comfortable butt.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
I gotta say, yeah, you're we're in prime. But right now,
these these these months that we've been in, you know,
it's just like really just we're getting ready to hibernate as.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Humans, though we don't really get to. We don't like
store all our fat like in one perfect pillowy location.
It goes wherever it goes, usually based on a combination
of genetics and your activity or whatever. But it would
be really nice if it's like, yeah, I just want
my fat to go in like my butt or my
tail so I can use it as a pillow. So yeah,
(46:19):
I feel like these dwarf lemurs really have it figured
out west. So yeah. Also, according to this Duke Leamer
Center's research, these little guys tails account for around forty
percent of their body weight, and during hibernation, their breathing
(46:40):
can drop to a rate of about one breath per
ten minutes and their heart rate drops to about one
beat every ten seconds.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
I mean, that's it's pretty great. That's like college I
mean college athlete level.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
I mean, I know that some people can't hold their
breath for a really long time, like they're divers who
like work on it and practice it. I think there
are some divers who can get near that level, right
of holding your breath for that long.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Yeah, I know that they're like like three minutes tends
to be like a big threshold for people like your
average person. And then it was it ranks up. I
remember I was running for a while and I got
my heart rate tested when I was running, and it
was like really good. It was like forty two beats
a minute. Or something like that.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
It was like really impressive. My breath holding is so bad.
I don't know how to do it. Brain it. I'm like,
I don't think I can.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, I just I did a quick Google search and apparently,
like there are some professional divers who have held their
breath for over twenty minutes, which is just ridiculous. You
can't do you can't. I want to caution everyone, you
cannot do that. You can't just like you can't do that.
(48:06):
You cannot decide I'm going to go try to do that.
There have been people who have drowned trying to hold
their breath in the pool, Like people who are practicing,
like say they want to be a good surfer or
a good diver or something, and they practice holding their breath.
If you want to do that, you need a buddy.
You need to be there with someone, because if you
do that alone, you can lose consciousness and drown, which
(48:28):
and it has happened really sadly. But yeah, to work
your way up to that long it takes I would
imagine years and years of practice. And you know it's
not it's like any kind of like you can't just
like lift an enormous weight because you decide to try
really hard one day. But you know it is true
(48:50):
that with like you can responsibly trained to hold your
breath for longer, with a coach or someone to spot you.
Speaker 4 (48:59):
Or just on a thing to couch, a fainting couch.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
That's what they were invented for.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
To hold your breath in the Victorian age.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Anyways, we're gonna take a quick break and when we
get back, we're gonna talk about penguin micro sleeps. All right,
we are back, and Jeff, penguins are cute.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
Right, I think that, well sort of. There's that one
with the red eyes and the.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yellow like a rock hopper penguin.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say no that that's an ugly
ass penguin.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Well, chin strap penguins are some of the cutest penguins.
They They are these little guys who live on islands
near the Antarctic or Southern Pacific Ocean waters. They have
this characteristic strap of black feathers that go under their chin,
and then they also have like a black cap on
(49:57):
their heads, so it looks like they're wearing like a
little black helmet with like a chin strap.
Speaker 4 (50:02):
It looks like they have little cartoon faces.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
They're adorable, and I must have one. I must, I
must illegally acquire this penguin. So they they are adorable. Uh.
And they are, but they're they're not the biggest penguins. Uh.
And they have a lot of stuff to worry about.
So how do they get a good night's sleep? Well,
(50:27):
there was some research by Leborel a all, sorry, let
me do that again because I got too French with
that Liborel at all, who strapped sensors onto the chin straps.
So they already got their chin straps. Now they got
sensor straps. These are strap strap penguins.
Speaker 5 (50:47):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
And they measured their brain activity and motion. They used
like this remote electro encephalogram uh. And they found that
the penguins engaged in my grow sleeps, which were four
second long bouts of dozing, so like four second naps
around ten thousand times a day.
Speaker 4 (51:12):
Well, okay, like in my head, I'm like is there,
I'm like doing them? Are there forty thousand seconds? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (51:19):
That's forty no, no, yeah, there are forty thousand seconds in
a day, because this is about eleven hours of tiny naps.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
Yeah, so there's ninety thousand seconds in a day roughly.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Yeah, yes, that map is probably wrong math. No, that
sounds right ish almost sure almost so yeah, forty thousand
seconds of tiny naps, which is about eleven hours total
of tiny naps. And so this is really interesting, right
because you'd think, like, well, but sleep in order to
be good sleep, you need like long sleep. You need
(51:53):
to like really kind of get into it. You can't
just have like little tiny sleeps.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
Well like little Einstein's right line signs, wasn't that his thing?
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Like, yeah, little naps, little cat naps, that's true.
Speaker 4 (52:07):
Call catnaps, penguin naps.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
We should call them penguin naps.
Speaker 4 (52:11):
I guess chaps chin strap penguin nap.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah, that's like a really fast one. That's like head
down on the table and then you lift it back
up so fast you get whiplash.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
So that means that you fell asleep and then hit
the table and then you're like, that's.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
A chin strap nap. So, uh the yeah, they found
that these penguins were still able to successfully nest, forage
all the normal penguin behaviors. Uh. So the question is, well,
why are they doing these micro sleeps rather than like
just a full night of sleep or even like an
hour nap at a time. The idea is that this
(52:49):
might be too risky for the little penguins because the
way that they they protect their offspring is they have,
like you have a couple of parents that they're both
looking after the egg and the chick, and so one
has to like incubate the egg or keep the chick
warm and protect it while the other one goes out
(53:10):
and forge, and then they have to switch off. And
so there's not a lot of time for napping in
that situation, especially when you have rampaging birds like scuas
who go around trying to steal eggs or chicks right
from underneath these penguins. And so the penguins must be
(53:31):
vigilant at almost all times. And even the adults have
their fair share predators like leopard seals. So they've got
to protect their egg, they got to protect their chick,
and they have to go out and forge for like
two you know, for their partner and for their chick.
So it's a lot of stuff going on. So like
the best way it seems for them to get their
(53:54):
rest are these four second naps.
Speaker 4 (53:57):
Little micro naps, little micropus delightful.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
It does. I feel like human, Like new human parents
would be really envious of these micro sleeps.
Speaker 4 (54:08):
This is how I sleep on planes, by the way.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
Oh yeah, oh it's so weird man. Plane sleep where
you fall asleep and then you wake up and you're
like that must have been an hour, and you look
at the clock and it's like that was five minutes.
Speaker 4 (54:20):
Three minutes. Yeah, yeah, I always think I can, Like
whenever I would go home, I used to take the
Red Eye and I would be like, you know, I'm
going to sleep on the plane. This time. It turns
out I'm too big to sleep. Yeah, Like there's no
comfort when you're when you're of a certain height, Like
you can't comfortably sleep, there's no like you're it messes
every part of your body up. And I was so
(54:42):
stupid I forget every time, So all of my sleeps
would be like me falling asleep and then wake up
and be like that was eight seconds. Yeah, that was
an eight second.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
I very much sympathize. I am a small and compact person,
so I can sleep on planes. But my husband is not,
and he he has a lot of trouble just even
kind of like sitting planes are really like made for
us sort of average smaller folk, which I think is unfair.
Speaker 4 (55:14):
It's like turn of the century Eastern European factory workers, right,
Like that's exactly like that's when I was like house
shopping back in Massachusetts, Like that's who the houses were
made for half the time. So I wouldn't fit in
the room because I'd be like, this is for where
the tallest person was five to nine, And I'd be like,
that's fair. I can't walk through this house. I'm not
(55:35):
going to pay money for it, right, same thing with planes,
Like it's tough. These penguins, however, they would do great
on these planes. And imagine getting on a plane and
it was just a sea of those penguins in each season.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
I would smell horrible, but I'd love it.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
Like probably it would probably be very cold in there.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
It would smell like rotting fish, probably like fish arts
essentially like.
Speaker 4 (56:01):
A Spirit airline, just like Spirit.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Airlines, so it wouldn't be that different actually, So yeah,
that is an amazing superpower that these chin strap penguins have.
I'm incredibly jealous. And I'm actually a very good napper,
but my naps tend to be longer, like about an
hour at least at a time, Like I wish I
could do really short naps. I'm sorry, I love napping
(56:24):
so much.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
If the sun is out, I'm awake, Like, for example,
like I woke up at five thirty this morning, not
by choice, but I because I'm an early morning person,
and once if the sun peaks through my window, my
brain is immediately like you're up. And I've tried.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
I'm a little jealous of that. I have struggle a
lot with like maintaining a good sleep schedule.
Speaker 4 (56:50):
I don't have a good sleep schedules, like you know.
I found it out. I found that out I had
done during college. I got two good paying jobs that
were on opposite ends of the day. I was so
at night, I was a doc worker, so I was
a forklift operator basically from like six pm till ten pm,
and then I was a mail sorter the next morning
(57:11):
every and I would have to arrive at four am
to the post office. And I was like, well, I'll
just sleep four hours at night and then four hours
during the day. And that's when I found out, like, oh,
I've never actually slept during the day. Yeah, And I
would try and I didn't, and I legitimately like went,
I started hallucinating. Oh god, I would see like motion,
like like mailboxes would look like they were running out
(57:33):
into the street while I was driving. It was crazy.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
Well some of them do do that, like you know.
Speaker 4 (57:38):
Yeah, like like cartoon ones. Yeah, yeah, it was leg
yeah ones sometimes, but yeah, so that was That's how
I found that out. So I'm jealous. Anytime you mentioned
somebody being able to nap, I'm super super jealous because
I'm like, I wish I could do that.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
We got to like inject you with some like uh
chin strap na penguin DNA.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Yeah, of a man half penguin. Yeah, I think that
would just be the penguin, right, You'd just.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
Be the penguin, but instead of like kidnapping people, you
would just be napping in your house.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
Wave the kids out of it.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Jeff, where can on people find you?
Speaker 4 (58:21):
Well, you can find me across all social media, including
my YouTube at hay There Jeff Row. I do a
lot of really neat stuff. I mean, obviously we brought
up Jeff has cool friends. I do the Great Show
Tom and Jeff watch Batman with Tom Ryman employed. I
do a lot of shows with Adam Todd Brown on
that you Don't Even Like podcast Network, such as you
(58:41):
Don't Even Like Sports, which is a sports podcast for
people that hate sports. Lots of fun, that irony, It's
a lot, it's most of our fans. It's why we
did Why we did that show Jeff has Cool Friends.
If you listen to that, you can also hear the
Amazing Nerd with Dre Alvarez, which is also under the
Jeff has Cool Friends umbrella and at patroon dot Com
Slash Jeff May you connect early access to unsunsed episodes
(59:02):
with bonus content, including the exclusive ug Fine with Kim Krawl.
So that's podcast. If you want to see me live
and you live in southern California, I do a Mint
on Card, which is my live stand up show, and
a toy store and Blast from the Past on Magnolia
in Burbank, California. I also open packs of trading cards.
It's so fun, Katie. I open packs of trading cards
(59:24):
on camera every Wednesday at two o'clock Pacific on my
YouTube at Hey Jeff row on a show I call
I Must Break You luck Man.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
I would love to watch videos of people just like
cutting soap up into little pieces. So, oh that sounds great.
Speaker 4 (59:39):
Oh the sounds yeah. So there is an ASMR aspect
when you open up a pack of trading cards as well.
But like, man, just it's so fun opening those cards
and I give them away to follow up my Patreon
but it's just so fun, Like it's just this glory
of like it's like the first childhood form of gambling.
You got us a because.
Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
You're like that it is actually it's like literally gambling though.
That's the thing is, it's like it is actually gambling,
but you know, but for Pokemon or whatever other trading cards. Yeah,
that sounds fantastic. Do check those out. Jeff is a
fantastic podcaster. And if you enjoy any of those shows,
(01:00:21):
thank Jeff's mother for giving birth to a frighteningly large baby.
Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
My poor mother, Katie. It was a blast having you on.
You're an absolute delight and even though we are across
the world, I'm glad we are so yes.
Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Right now, Yeah, and thank you so much for coming on,
and thank you guys out there for listening. If you're
enjoying the show and you leave a rating and review,
that is that really helps the podcast. And I read
every single review. Hope you're all having a great winter time,
and thank you so much to the Space Cossacks for
(01:00:56):
their super awesome song Ex Solumina. I hope you're all
cozy out there ready for your winter hibernation. Happy Creature,
kringled times everyone, and uh go hug a bear, Don't
do that. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio
(01:01:17):
app Apple podcast, or Hey, guess what more have you
listened to your favorite show? I don't judge you. Just
sip on your hot coco, watch the snow or the
rain or basically nothing fall down outside, and get all
cuddling cozy and I'll see you next Wednesday.
Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Creature Feature. It's Creature Cringle Times, a holiday special about
our furry friends. Today we'll learn how hibernation works and
what's up with these chabby bears, snail hibernas, leivers with
(00:29):
fat tails.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Join us as we learn and love in the sleepy
little penguins perfect power naps. It's a sleepy, cozy winter time.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeart Radio. I'm your
host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and
evolutionary biology, and on today's special Kringle Time show, we're
getting cozy and snugly and talking about the world's best,
most creative, and most interesting sleepers. From hibernations to teeny naps,
(01:06):
these wintery animals know how to catch a few holiday z's.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Happy Creature Ring, Happy Creature, Ring, Happy Creature.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Joining me today is comedian and host of the podcast
Jeff Has Cool Friends and Other great podcasts.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Jeff May welcome. Hey, I just woke up. This is great. Yeah, fact,
I just dehibernated. Be mad. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
What's your favorite way to get cozy during the winter?
I mean, I think you're still in La, right, I am.
It doesn't get too cold there, but it's still nice
to get cozy.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
So it actually gets really cold inside. I don't know
if you remember La, but there's no insulation in any
of the houses, so for example, like in my house
right now, it's like the high fifties. So yeah, not
what you would think would be great. I actually prefer
(02:16):
a fireplace. Yeah, airplace. I had a fire last night.
It was delightful. That really is something for me. It's
getting pricey, getting a little pricey. The wood has gone up.
But I do like that. I like being inside where
(02:37):
it is not bad while the weather is bad.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
It's the best feeling. It's the best. I'm finally living
somewhere where it does occasionally snow, which I love. And
I also just like being inside watching either rain or snow.
But you're cozy and you're warm, and you're under a blanket,
maybe you even have a hot drink. It's just such
a good feeling. It's like this intense smugness about your
(03:05):
position versus like the weather outside. It's like a very
cozy smugness and I love it.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, it turns out that the weather outside is actually frightful, right, but.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
The fire inside.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Meanwhile, wow, that's delightful.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Right, that can be delightful.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, no, I very much am that as a new Englander.
Like snow is two is two things for me. One,
it is a dangerous labor because you have to like
shovel your driveway or you know, you have to drive
extra specially careful carefully. I don't know I didn't add
an adverb into that sentence. But then on top of
(03:42):
that too, like being inside when it snows is the best, right, Yeah, no,
you like you forget you're just sitting there. Although when
I was a homeowner, I would look outside and see
the snow and be like, yeah, should I go pre
shovel right now? So it's not super bad tomorrow. Like
that's the energy that I was bringing to homeowners, real
dad energy.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, I've never had a home while I lived, like
a suburban home where I'd actually have to shovel snow
or deal with it. So I've always just had a
good time in the snow because i haven't had a
car or home while being in an area with snow.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
So that's the labor of snow.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, disappears right exactly, But yeah, very very on theme,
because today we are talking about animals who do their
best to avoid the discomforts of winter in bad weather
and we'll just sleep it off, but in very specific
physiological ways. So first we're going to talk about bears
(04:43):
and this idea of bear hibernation. Now there's going to
be a twist here, so get ready for that. But
first let's talk about fat Bear Week. So have you
heard of fat Bear Week?
Speaker 4 (04:56):
I love fat Bear Week, so good course, standard Bear
Week as a Massachusetts former Massachusetts residence Bear Week itself,
of course very popular in Provincetown in the summertime. Fat
Bear Week, that is a winter holiday.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
The Fat Bear Week is a celebration by the Cathmeae
National Park and Preserve in Alaska of the bears in
the park putting on their winter weight. This year, it
happened in October and ended on what the Park Service
calls fat Bear Tuesday. So the way it works is
that the public is allowed to watch the bears on
(05:33):
these park cams and then vote online at fatbearweek dot org. Obviously,
fat Bear Week has already happened, so a winner has
been crowned. It was a female bear named Grazier, who
is a light brown bear with blonde, fluffy ears who
is described by the Fat Bear Week website as a
(05:55):
very tough lady. She's raised two sets of cubs and
is so protected her cubs. She'll go on the offense
against male bears who get too close, even bears that
are bigger than herself. She is famous for being the
most defensive bold mother bear in the current bear lineup
in Catmi National Park.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
I love this. I love all this information, but I
do feel like we did sort of gloss over the
fact that they do Fat Bear Tuesday, yeah, which is
what Mardi Gras d'Ors or something like that, like it's
Mardi Gras, Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for bears, I love.
I love all of that energy in there. And I
love that she just partied. She's got some bead around,
(06:40):
beads around her neck, and she is just chasing dudes off.
I love that about her.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yes, And she and these bears. Every year, bears put
on an enormous amount of weight in the summer and
fall uh to survive the winter. And so the point
of Fat Bear Week is to celebrate these bears and
all their girth and you know, pick out one of
the bears, who has one. I mean, it's like, I
don't think it's necessarily just a way in right, they're
(07:05):
not because they're not weighing these bears. It's not all
just about the size. It's about the public's favorite. So
the favorite one usually it's one that has indeed put
on a bunch of weight. But there's you know, other
aspects to their personality that can win them boats.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Now the photo that you shared first off, must hug bear. Yeah, bear,
it's friend. And then the information that you shared bear
is not friend.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Bear is not friend.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yeah, it's also but also bear's friend.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
This is the contradiction of bear. This is the biggest
sort of like it is an The oxymoron of the
bear is that they look like the world's most huggable animal,
and in fact, they may be one of the world's
least huggable animals in terms of the speed with which
they could rind your bones from flesh and absolutely turn
(07:59):
you into a sort of meat and bone salad. Is
it's very impressive, like you know so, But on the
other hand, they do look really huggable a friend, Yes,
like if I had to if I had to be
executed for some reason for one of my many crimes.
I feel like I'd want to do execution by bear hug, Like,
(08:21):
let me hug a bear. Yeah, death by bear where
I give it a hug and it, you know, does
its thing and at least I go out on a
high note.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
And you get to help out fat bear week, right exactly,
be like I'm going to feed myself to my favorite
bear that I have put money on.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I become part of the bear. In reality, this would
be really bad because then once the bear gets a
taste of delicious human, it would probably go after other
people and then they'd euthanize the bear.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
It is it? Historically speaking, we don't taste great? Is that?
Is that right? Like? I know that like sharks, sharks
aren't actually fans of our flavor.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
It's I think it's a fat to like bone ratio.
And also we have clothing, and I think all of
that is kind of off.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
But there are frogs legs, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
There are, Yeah, We're a little We're just not. It's
like like with insects, right, Like we are not used
to eating insects. I mean some cultures, certainly they do
eat insects, but when you're raised in a culture where
you don't eat them. If someone's like, here, you have
this cricket and you're like, ah, this kind of feels weird.
But it doesn't mean the cricket tastes bad. It's just
that you're not used to it. So for a lot
(09:31):
of animals, I would think they're just not used to
the human taste and or texture. But there are a
copy Yeah, it's like it's an acquired taste. But certainly
there are animals like polar bears who will absolutely look
at a human and be like, yeah, I could, I
could chow down on that.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Yeah, I mean in nature there's there's options, but if
there's no options, they are like women to eat that obviously.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Right of course. Yeah, and bears will potentially eat people.
I mean typically though, like even grizzly bears don't generally
go after humans, but but they can. They will if,
especially if they feel threatened or you try to get close.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
To them, or they do a lot of cocaine.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, I know, there's that Cocaine Bear movie, which is
really kind of I feel like you're really setting a
bad example for bears, and I feel like we need
to do like a dare program for bears like bear
Beardar to teach them that no cocaine is actually really
bad for bears. Don't do it just because you saw
a bear on the movies.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Maybe you could do it not being so lame.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, well you know.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
With that, maybe stop trying to ruin the party.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
You know, I just I want my bears thick and
fat and full of salmon.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
So bear body shaming are you because no.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm saying that. I'm I'm I'm just saying that the
best bears are fat bears.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Okay, well I'm saying all bears are beautiful. So like
mark that down. Put that in the notes for people
when they listen to by bears.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So why do these bears put on so much weight?
It's not just to look amazing. It is which you
can actually see these before after photos of these bears.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
If you go to Rubenesque Bears.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
They are Rubenesque bears. Go to explore dot org slash
meet the dash Bears. I'll put that link in the footnotes.
But yeah, it's really cool because you can see live
streams of parks, old videos of bears like eating fish
and stuff, and also the before after pictures of bears
(11:37):
after having bulked up. But yeah, they put on this
huge amount of fat so that they can get through
the winter, and they go into this state of dormancy
during the winter. This is often called hibernation, but if
you're being really picky, bears are not true hibernators. It's
kind of weird because they're like kind of the poster
(11:59):
bear for hibernation, and yet what they do in the
winter is technically not exactly hibernation. So hibernation is a
type of prolonged inactivity characterized by physiological changes where the
rate of breathing is slowed, the heart rate is slowed,
and body temperature drops. This helps slow the metabolism so
(12:21):
the animal can live off of their energy stores and
survive the winter, which is generally harsh and nutrient poor,
and so lots of animals hibernate, from rodents to bats,
But technically bears do not hibernate. They do enter a
state of torpoor, which just means a state of reduced
(12:43):
activity and which includes a lot of sleep, a lot
of rest, a lot of like not really doing anything.
Celebrities just like us, just like just like podcasters, there
are some physio changes that bears go through, including bulking up.
Their heart rate, breathing and metal ballic rate do slow
(13:06):
down when they are in deep sleep, but their body
temperature does not drop, and they can actually wake up
relatively easy, which is unlike hibernators. In fact, female bears
generally have to wake up from their torpoor in order
to give birth during the winter, which is when they
(13:27):
typically give birth. So they'll be, you know, in the
state of torpoor, snooze and be like, op, gotta gotta
wake up, gotta gotta push out of the cups. Yeah,
but this winter dormancy that bears go through is still
really impressive. They can go for months without needing to
urinate or defecate. The poop in their intestines actually remains
(13:49):
there whatever's left before because they go before they hibernate.
So they have like basically this fecal plug. They're very like,
I guess, hard and thick, and it stays in the intestines.
It's slow moving and then it just kind of like
dries out. The intestines absorb a lot of the fluids
(14:10):
from this fecal matter and then it forms this hard plug.
And so this their intestines basically slow down, their kidney
function grinds to a halt, and they don't urinate. Like
you know that feeling when you're super cozy in bed,
you're really warm and it's cold and like you have
(14:32):
to peep, but you're like it can wait, Like I
know I should get up and pee, but it can wait,
and you just stay in bed and you're like, ah,
I should pee, but then you don't, and then you
dream about like trying to find a bathroom, but you
can't find one all because you just don't want to
leave bed because it's too warm.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
You know what's funny is I have this weird, insane
fear of beeing the bed. I don't know why, Like
I've nevergett had then to have that fear, but I do.
I have that fear. And so if that feeling, if
I'm cozy in bed and that feeling hits, I'm like,
I got to do this or else I'm going to
pee the bed and everyone will find out they'll have
(15:11):
to buy a new mattress. Like I very much have
that thought in my head at all.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I like to roll the dye. Someday it might burn me,
but I like to roll that dye. Yeah, actually, so
with the with the urination for bears, they can still
produce urea, but what they do is they recycle it
into proteins and that means they don't have to pee
and they there because while they're you know, in their
(15:40):
state of torpor, they are converting the fat that they've
built up into usable nutrients to keep them alive, to
keep their muscle mouse from deteriorating. So they're living off
of that. So even though that process does create urea,
they recycle that into helping them build muscle. There is
(16:00):
actually a paper studying the bear eurothelium, which is the
lining of the urinary tract. The paper is called the
eurothelium of a hibernator, the American Black Bear. So like
just so you know, like a lot of people still
call what bears do hibernation, even like researchers and biologists,
even though.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
It's colloquialism at this point, like it's a widely it's
like when literally and figuratively are now interchangeable because the
language has accepted it as so yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
No, exactly, and it's like it's a subtle distinction, right,
Like true hibernators their body temperature drops and bears theres don't.
They can wake up easier, so it's like it's a
subtle delineation.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
My question for your New England listeners is when Katie
said black Bear, did you guys immediately because of what
we've been talking about, did all of you start thinking
about Clark's Trading Post in New Hampshire. Because Clark's Trading
Post is a very famous New England attraction that is
(17:03):
propagated and sort of pushed as this big trained black
bear haven. It is the most New England kind of
quote theme park slash experience that you could possibly imagine,
where it's just trained black bears and weird stuff the
whole time, but it's an aggressively New England thing.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Is that the one where like the bears stand on
their hind legs or something.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
For They do a lot of stuff. They climb up
poles for fun, they like roll around in barrels, they
eat ice cream, they live like they do. I'm assuming
that the version of ice cream that they have is
something that they make for the bears. I'm not going
to pretend that I know enough about Clark's Trading Post
to guarantee you that these are not abused bears. But
(17:51):
what I can tell you is I have seen the
bears many times.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I don't want to make any
judgments not knowing exactly what what it is, but in general,
I'm skeptical. I'm always skeptical of like when animals are
in entertainment, like SeaWorld or this Clark's Trading Post.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
But yeah, and nothing can be like, oh, well, we've
been doing it for so long. I'm like, yeah, that
kind of makes me feel like, you guys did it worse. Yeah, yeah,
it's Clark's Bears. Do they call it Clark's Bears now?
They literally changed the name named Clark's Trading Post until
twenty nineteen. This is huge.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I mean, it does make sense if your main thing
is bears to have bears in the title, because like
when it's like Clark's Trading Post, that sounds super boring.
If you're like Clark's Bears that eat ice cream, now
you've got something.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
If you do a quick cursory Google image search, the
second photo will give you the entire gist of what
Clark's Bears. I hate saying that Clark's Trading Post is
all about, because there's like a weird mountain man that
like chases the train tour. There's trained bears. It is
a glorious experience. And coming on here talking about bears,
(19:02):
I would feel like it was my duty to at
least say there is an absolute trained bear theme park
that was from my health.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
There's like a bear in a small car. Look, I'm
not gonna lie and say like I don't get some
kind of you know, enjoyment out of seeing a bear
in a tiny car. But I don't think this is
probably the best thing.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
For the bears, probably not the most ethical.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Not probably not the most ethical thing for these bears.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
I get it, you know, I like, I understand that
they're my footprints are bloody in the world of of
of consumption and entertainment, I recognize this.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, I mean, you know this is this is exploitation
is woven into the fabric of America. What can you say?
But uh, but in this uh, in this paper, I know,
I know, like talking about bears in tiny cars sounds
really interesting, But what about it paper on the Eurothelium?
Jeff does that not?
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Also?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah? Exactly so? So they My point in bringing up
this paper is that it actually so they like were
doing studies of the bear urinary track because of this
interesting way in which these bears hibernate and they don't
urinate like during hibernation. But like, so they went through
this whole thing of like they used euthanized bears to
(20:27):
like look at their urinary tracts, and in this section
where they were they had discussed the properties of these
euthanized bears, like the cause why they were euthanizeding, you know,
very sad like some of them like hit by car.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Or abandoned driven by another bear, by a.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Tiny car driven by another bear. Horrifying bears.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
I worked at a trucking company where a truck driver
ran over a bear. Oh god, and just like didn't
report it. He just kept going, no, you could realized,
and then like immediately all of his lights went on,
just like absolutely destroyed his truck.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, no, he ran over a bear. Yeah you can't.
I also think you have to report it, right if
you hit.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
A bear, you'd think so, And I think he thought
he might not have.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
To, and then do I'm pretty sure, Well, especially if
you're a bear law doctor, trailer shuts down, yeah, and
you're like, well, there's no way of getting around this,
I hit a bear.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, yeah, so that's very unfortunate. But there were some
bears that were euthanized because they were called nuisance bears,
which I guess is the technical term for bears who
are interacting with humans in a less than ideal wayl bears,
No exactly, I mean rebel bears, bear rebels without a cause.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I just add out some pause.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, I mean pretty sure they don't have pause anymore.
They've probably been have some other researchers studying bear pause,
but yeah, I mean it is. It's one of those
things where it's like I get it right, Like if
you have a bear who's going around neighborhoods, you know,
getting into stuff and like interacting with humans or being aggressive,
Like I get why they have to euthanize them, but like,
(22:11):
do we have to add insult to injury by calling
them nuisance bears? That feels like we're blaming the bears
way too much. Like it's not really the bear's fault
that there's like a suburb near them that has trash
cans full of ice cream that they can get and
then when they do you know what I.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Mean, Yeah, they got to do what deer did and
just create a new disease for to combat suburban sprawl.
Like lime disease exists because the deer were like, screw
these guys starting Connecticut, by the way, another New England tradition.
Oh yeah, brain bears and lime disease. Is there nothing
(22:49):
we can't.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Do, Like there are a ton of lime in Martha's vineyard.
Probably I think there's, like because it's like weird, it's
something that like there's a lot of lime disease and
like wealthy people because they all get it from Martha's
vineyard or somewhere nearby.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah, it would make sense too, because here's the here's
the tragedy is the more outside you are, the more
apt you are to get it because deer ticks are
a much harder to spot tick, yeah than your standard
would tick. So yeah, so we would, we would. We
were taught, you know, because I grew up in the
eighties and nineties, so that was when lime disease was
like all the rage. Yeah, so so we were we
(23:29):
had to be very very careful to look out for
those and my brother ended up getting it.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Oh oh no, I'm sorry, it's his fault.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
These bears However, they're not nuisances. They're just cool.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, I know, like calling them like nuisance sparits, it's like,
could we call them something else, like, you know, yeah,
cool bears.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
The spirits had to take out some cool bears and
everybody would get it.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, like we had to ethanized the spar for being
too cool, which is a tragedy, but you know what
I mean, like, yeah, this is like the this is
the body and Clyde of bears. It's you know, so yeah,
I get it. I get why they have to use
the nize of them, but can we give them a
nicer label? Anyways, So after winter, bears will emerge from
(24:19):
their dens and their metabolism will slowly kick back into gear.
Sometimes they will lap up snow fleas to kind of
like as an appetizer before they fully get their appetite.
So snow fleas are actually tiny black springtail hexapods. They're
these little little hexapods that can survive and live in snow.
(24:42):
We actually did a podcast about this, I think last winter,
about ice worms. So they're not really fleas, they're not parasites,
but they feed on organic matter in leaf litter and
in snow and they're teeny tiny, but there's so many
of them that base these bears are like great protein popsicles,
(25:03):
and we'll like lick at like melting snow or the
leaf litter and just have kind of like these like
protein popsicles that looks like kind of a really organic
mint ice cream. But the mint chips are bugs.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Honestly, I mean, let's give that a dry Let's call
saltan straw and the.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Flavor saltan straw. So I miss saltan stra so much.
I think it's a California thing, right.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
It's a West Coast thing. I believe it's actually a
Portland thing to say.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Okay, okay, so it's a West Coast thing. Man, if
you live on the West Coast or you visit the
West Coast, saltan Straw is the best ice cream place
I've ever been To't.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
You the land of Gelato?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yes, But honestly, like look no offense to to northern
Italy where there is some amazing gelato. Salt and Straw
is still really holds its own like it's really good. Also,
like in the US, they know how to make waffle
cones really well, whereas here it's much more rare that
(26:08):
you get asta because they're made out of dry pasta, like.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
They kind of ice cream. We have a.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Basket, yeah, they we have like a basket out of pasta. No.
I mean, you know, the gelato is great, especially in Florence.
But you know, like, honestly, America, you got some amazing
ice cream there, so be proud.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Yeah, we have nailed the tastiest, most absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Food, right, which is why these bears are eating it
at the trading post.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Fish a bear sitting there eating like ice cream and
a grilled cheese or like, this doesn't seem like this
is the thing they should be eating. Probably not fairy.
Is dairy a big thing for bears? Because I don't.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Really see how that would think so, But you know,
I still feel like if I saw a bear their
nose deep into a tub of ice cream, you like,
you know what good for her?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Let it out, girl, be there in your feelings.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
You've had a week. Yeah, you've earned.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
This, you've earned this. Well, we are going to take
a quick break, but don't go to sleep. When we
come back, we're going to talk about a couple true
hibernators that are perhaps not what you typically think of
when you think hibernation. So, Jeff, did you know that
snails hibernate?
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Are they true hibernator?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
They are true hibernators. They also estivate, so estivation is hibernation,
but during hot or dry seasons. So both terrestrial and
aquatic species of snails can hibernate when the temperature gets
too low and estivate when the season gets too hot
(27:56):
or dry. So during hibernation, terrestrial snails such as garden
snails or fresh water snails like apple snails, will regulate
their bodily processes to survive the cold, so they are
true hibernators. Because their metabolic rate drops, their respiratory system,
(28:18):
their circulatory system, everything like slows down, and their body
temperature drops. Their body temperature actually basically has to endure
the ambient cold temperature. One of the problems with freezing
is that if you freeze like your cells kind of
(28:38):
get ice crystals in them, and that's really bad. Once
they start to thaw, they essentially rip apart because of
these Yeah, exactly, frostbite like that is necrotic tissue because
your cells have basically been torn asunder by the ice
crystal formation. But the way a lot of animals, including snails,
who can survive freezing work is they actually have in
(29:02):
their blood or in the snails case, hem aloof which
is basically the bug version of blood. They have anti
freeze in their blood. So this is like glycerol and
glucose in their blood that prevents the formation of ice crystals.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
You have anti freeze in your blood. Sounds like a
grinch lyric. That didn't make it into the song.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It does, doesn't it? Man? I can hear the voice too.
Can you do the voice?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Earl Thurl ravenscrop It's Tony the Tiger.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Oh he did, Tony the Tiger.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Yeah, if you listen to the song, it's literally Tony
the Tiger's voice. He doesn't doesn't really Garler in your soul.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Mister, Oh my god, oh my god, my mind has
been blown.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Two huge Christmas songs. Sorry, I always have to bring
Christmas into it. Two huge Christmas songs are named are
sung by people whose last name whose names are you
are l. We have Burl Eves and Thorough Ravenscroft, and
those are two names you do not hear every Berlin
Thurle are responsible for a good I'd say ten percent
(30:15):
of your holiday listening.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Berlin Thurle sounds like an artisan like sheets company, like
a company that makes sheets, like wool sheets for your bed.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
And it's already yeah that they're not that comfortable, but
they're like, yeah, they're sustainable, and then you're like all right,
and then you try to sleep in them, you're like,
this was a huge mistake.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Itchy, but it costs five hundred dollars, so you do
use it all the time. Burl and Thurle, the sponsor
of this this week's podcast Berlin use code Creature to
get ten percent off the itchiest blankets you'll ever have.
But they're made out of one hundred percent human hair
(30:54):
at geosophical rash ethically sourced rat hair. So yeah, this
is these snails drop their metabolic rate. They have this
antifreeze in their blood. They actually these anti freezing compounds
like glycerol and glucose become more concentrated in the winter,
(31:15):
according to research by noahsaka at all. Thanks guys for
cutting open snails and looking at their hemal lymph. That
must have been delicious. So they also produce something called
an epiphragm, which is a temporary mucous membrane that they
form to reduce water loss in like hot dry conditions,
(31:36):
or prevent water absorption during too wet conditions, to maintain
a balance of their bodily fluid because if they dry
completely out, that's bad. Or if they absorb too much
water and then they basically don't have the right balance
of fluids and salt ions, et cetera, like that can
also be bad. Just like humans, we can either die
(31:58):
of not having enough water, having too much salt, or
having too much water and not enough salt.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Some would say that adding another mucous membrane onto your
body is gross, and I would say, you're not a snail.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, you're not a snail. You're not thinking snail.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
You got to think you're thinking people. Yeah, I don't
know how. I probably wouldn't do great with an additional
mucus membrane on me, But not a snail.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, I mean, like, I don't. The other cool thing
about this mucus membrane, this epiphragm, is that they can
use it to stick onto things. So have you ever
like had a snail and it's like inside its shell,
you can't see any of the like meat of the snail.
You're trying to pull it off of like a tree
or a rock, but it's like stuck.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
No, you know what, I didn't have access to snails
when I was a kid. We had slugs, but no snails.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Well, I'm so sorry. That's that's a terrible childhood to
not have snails.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
It is, well, we made up for it with the
lime disease in the transmit.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Well, I have lots of childhood experience somehow.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
San Diego, we had a lot of snails and I would,
I guess, harass the snails a lot. I was curious,
and so I would try to like pick them up,
but they'd be like stuck, and so you kind of
like try to pull them off and like it. They'd
be like the suction and like you could kind of
rip them off. But I'd kind of feel bad when
I would do that because it feels like, oh I
did something, I broke something. Well, what that is is
(33:28):
the epiphram. It's this temporary mucous membrane. And they would
probably use this because it would be the summer it
would be hot and dry, but they can also do
it in the winter. Both if the winter is too
dry or if there's too much moisture or cold to
you know, basically protect their their soft, vulnerable, squishy bodies.
(33:48):
So another thing is that I have seen on the
internet too many things, but among them this factoid that
snails can hibernate for three years. And that sounded wrong
to me. That sounded right, That doesn't sound right. And
I love it when I find something like this and
(34:08):
find out that it's correct. This is not one of
those times. The longest they can hibernate, as far as
I can tell, is around four months. And so I
do not know where this three years figure comes from.
It seems like it is maybe a rumor or something
that keeps getting repeated. But I could not find any
(34:31):
like real sources for this three years thing. I have
seen that there are multiple studies that they do over
the course of two to three years, and so I
wonder and someone was like skimming one of these studies
and said, like study period was two to three years,
and they're like, oh, that must be how long the
(34:52):
snail's hibernating, and it's like, no, that's the duration of
the study.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Yeah, So come on, guys, you know how this works.
You know words this is academia, come on, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I mean, to be fair, a lot of academic papers
are very difficult to understand, and dare I say it,
sometimes written poorly in a way that's hard to comprehend.
But yeah, still like, uh, this seems to be wrong.
If someone out there is like, hey, I actually know
where this comes from, or that you think it is
(35:24):
real and you have a source, you could send that
to me. I would love to be wrong about this
because hibernating for three years as a snail sounds super chill.
That's like ultimate cozy. I just don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
It also seems a little wasteful, like how long are
you living, man, I don't know, three and a half years.
We want to readjust what we're doing with our time here?
Our time management needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Maybe the snail shell is like a pokey ball and
there's like a whole universe in there though, you know
what I mean, Like to the snail, this could.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Be what an effective Pokemon? That would be right? Get
out immediately. It's pikachuwed to death, all right, it didn't
react quick enough, nail.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Well, you know, snails have their strengths. Combat is not
generally one of them, but you.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Know, I mean, to be fair, there might be a
snail Pokemon that I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
There has to be there. I'm googling snail Pokemon because
there had there has to be snail Pokemon, like weirdly, Uh,
there's mag mag Cargo, which is a magnum snail. It
looks like it's made out of lava an obsidian.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
I mean that sounds like a pretty bad ass snail. Yeah,
there you go, so lava snail. There's some going to
pick that one up off a tree.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
There's some aquatic looking snails like ohmannite, ohmanite. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Have you ever done a creature feature that was just
like sort of about the sort of apocrypha of Pokemon? Yeah,
just play it in a real episode.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Well no, So I actually had Ellen Weatherford, she hosts
a podcast called Just the Zoo of Us, and we
talked about Pokemon and then like the real life animals
that are seem to either have inspired these Pokemon or
by coincidence, these Pokemon are very much like real life animals.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
So or that or that one magician that sued Pokemon.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Someone sued Pokemon.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yeah, Urigeller. Urigeller had like an injunction on one of
the characters, because it was clearly a dig on him.
It was like this really corrupt It was this corrupt
magician that would like hold a spoon and he was
famous for like us as a spoon bender that ended
up becoming sort of revealed as a fraud.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
And yeah, it was this whole thing. He'd like just
he just rescinded the lawsuit like very recently.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
But I thought that was like a I thought that
the fake spoon bending was like a classic thing, right.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Like I think it's because of your igeller. Really yeah,
I think it was like a whole thing with Carson. Yeah. Well,
I mean I think it was like famously like that's
where like he's the fame famously debunked magician and it
was like this big scandal. And uh so he like
just recently rescinded his lawsuit or complaint and like apologized
(38:27):
to like the children of the world for like, has.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
He apologized to spoons, because like what the hell of
the spoon's done that He's just like I'm gonna bend
this perfectly good spoon.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
I mean, I don't know the spoons not have feelings?
Am I A utensilist.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
If I say that, I just think it's sad to
be a spoon and then not get used for ice
cream instead get bent by.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
A jerk, or get kidnapped by a dish.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Right man, the dish ran away with that spoon, But
did it ask the spoon for It's what it wanted
to do? I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
So.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, snails they can hibernate and uh with that anti
freeze in their hemal lymph and but they do not.
I have not seen anything to indicate they can hibernate
for three years. They can hibernate for around four months,
which I still think is pretty impressive. Now we're going
to yeah, no, it's good man, like, why are we
(39:25):
making stuff up? That's pretty impressive. One of my favorite
hibernators is actually a completely different animal. This one's acutie.
It's the fat tailed dwarf leamur. So uh oh yeah,
I shared a cute little photo with you. These are
cute little babies that I want to cuddle. Yeah yeah,
(39:49):
so fat tailed dwarf lemurs. You may have guessed it.
They have fat tails. We're gonna talk about why so uh.
They are primates found in in Madagascar, they're pretty small.
They're only about seven ounces in the summer and nine
ounces when they fatten those tails up in the winter.
(40:10):
And you know, Jeff, can you guess why they fatten
their tails up in the winter.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
I don't feel like I need to guess on this one.
I feel like it's pretty much been established that this
is where they store their fat and nutrients, yes, for
their torpor or their their hibernation or whatever they can do.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Exactly exactly, so these can be considered true hibernators because
they kind of meet all the requirements. Their metabolism slows down,
their heart rate, breathing all slows down, and their temperature
drops and that fat tail allows them to hibernate without
needing to feed. So just as bears developed that big
(40:52):
belly for winter, these dwarf flamers developed this like fat tail.
They put all their fat in this tail. I mean
we see this in other animals right where they kind
of store fat in these localized regions like a camel's hump,
not filled with water, actually filled with fat to allow
them to survive long periods of time without eating. But
(41:15):
this means that fat tailed dwarf lemurs are actually the
only primates known to hibernate. Yeah, which is.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Really interesting, so exciting for them.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, good for them. Look these little guys.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
What what Mada Gascar movie? Do they address that in?
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Oh gosh, you know what? Like they have so many
fun like like actual animals in those movies, like Fosses
and a bunch of different lemurs who I think I
think basically all of the lemur characters are actual lemurs, Like, yeah,
I don't think they made any lemurs up. And there's
a lot of them, Like Madagascar is lemur Land essentially,
(41:56):
so that there could.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Definitely They eat ice cream and they play around in barrel.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Pretty much the closest thing lemurs get to a resort.
But yeah, like it's it's like a lot of these
these lemurs are endemic to Madagascar, meaning they're not found
anywhere else. So there is this research center called Duke
Lemur Center, and they've done a lot of research on
lemurs in general, including these fat tailed dwarf lemurs.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
And you say Duke, you just mean like Duke University.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yeah, but it's Duke Lemur Center. Be fun, Yeah, and
you know what, Like I feel like I would I
would love to be a card carrying member of the
Duke Lemur Center. So they've done all this research on
these dwarf fat tailed dwarf lemurs. It's actually really cute
because they have they have like lemurs that they studied
(42:50):
that are in captivity, but they you know, they make
sure their environment is really really good and they like
to hibernate and sleep in like little nooks and crannies
inside trees, and so they've you know, done all these
things where they try to like recreate these spaces for
them and apparently like they've had basically these cute little
(43:10):
like fabric nests and like all these like very cozy
looking things. But their favorite thing is PVC pipes. Like
the lemurs love going to sleep in PVC pipes. Same, yeah, man,
Like you want to just curl up into a little
ball and be in a PVC pipe? Who doesn't?
Speaker 4 (43:29):
I really do? I really do want them, That's.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
What That's how like whenever I'm like working with my plumbing,
I'm like, man, I wish I could shrink down and
curl up and go to sleep in this you trap.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Yeah. I hope they don't fall asleep in a potato
gun though, because that could be a problem, could be.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
A problem, could be really cool, But you know, it's
just a matter of perspective. So yeah, the their research
has found that these uh fat tailed dwarf lemurs can
rouse from hibernation every six to twelve days and hibernate
for up to seven months. So just because you're hibernating
doesn't mean you can't occasionally, like wake up during the winter.
(44:08):
Like some hibernators, especially like smaller hibernators, will wake up
occasionally to move around, maybe even eat something like if
they have something stored, and then go back. Yeah, exactly.
But it is harder for hibernators to wake up in
response to say, a threat, versus just torpoor. So if
(44:31):
you're just in torpor, you can wake up more quickly
if there's something threatening. If you're in hibernation, it's actually
a good deal more difficult for your body to rouse
from that even if there's a threat. So finding a
good hidden PVC pipe is very important because these guys
live in Madagascar. They're not protecting themselves from the cold
(44:53):
and the snow because it doesn't get that cold in Madagascar.
It's instead believe that they're protecting themselves from drought where
like in the winter, because it's really hard to get
enough nutrients. So like they feed on insects, fruits, and flowers,
and so these things are going to be harder to
find during a drought, and so they're just like I'm
(45:14):
gonna eat a bunch of stuff, put it all in
my tail fat, and then when there's not as much
food around, just.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
Go to sleep, Go to sleep with my big fat tail.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, just wrap that, man, you could also use it
as a pillow. It's just it's such a good idea,
like this is Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
Of opportunities with that.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah. No, absolutely, I.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
Store the food I eat in my ass a lot too.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
So that makes it, does it? Is it? You know
like Thanksgiving butt is a more comfortable butt.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
I gotta say, yeah, you're we're in prime. But right now,
these these these months that we've been in, you know,
it's just like really just we're getting ready to hibernate as.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Humans, though we don't really get to. We don't like
store all our fat like in one perfect pillowy location.
It goes wherever it goes, usually based on a combination
of genetics and your activity or whatever. But it would
be really nice if it's like, yeah, I just want
my fat to go in like my butt or my
tail so I can use it as a pillow. So yeah,
(46:19):
I feel like these dwarf lemurs really have it figured
out west. So yeah. Also, according to this Duke Leamer
Center's research, these little guys tails account for around forty
percent of their body weight, and during hibernation, their breathing
(46:40):
can drop to a rate of about one breath per
ten minutes and their heart rate drops to about one
beat every ten seconds.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
I mean, that's it's pretty great. That's like college I
mean college athlete level.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
I mean, I know that some people can't hold their
breath for a really long time, like they're divers who
like work on it and practice it. I think there
are some divers who can get near that level, right
of holding your breath for that long.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Yeah, I know that they're like like three minutes tends
to be like a big threshold for people like your
average person. And then it was it ranks up. I
remember I was running for a while and I got
my heart rate tested when I was running, and it
was like really good. It was like forty two beats
a minute. Or something like that.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
It was like really impressive. My breath holding is so bad.
I don't know how to do it. Brain it. I'm like,
I don't think I can.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, I just I did a quick Google search and apparently,
like there are some professional divers who have held their
breath for over twenty minutes, which is just ridiculous. You
can't do you can't. I want to caution everyone, you
cannot do that. You can't just like you can't do that.
(48:06):
You cannot decide I'm going to go try to do that.
There have been people who have drowned trying to hold
their breath in the pool, Like people who are practicing,
like say they want to be a good surfer or
a good diver or something, and they practice holding their breath.
If you want to do that, you need a buddy.
You need to be there with someone, because if you
do that alone, you can lose consciousness and drown, which
(48:28):
and it has happened really sadly. But yeah, to work
your way up to that long it takes I would
imagine years and years of practice. And you know it's
not it's like any kind of like you can't just
like lift an enormous weight because you decide to try
really hard one day. But you know it is true
(48:50):
that with like you can responsibly trained to hold your
breath for longer, with a coach or someone to spot you.
Speaker 4 (48:59):
Or just on a thing to couch, a fainting couch.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
That's what they were invented for.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
To hold your breath in the Victorian age.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Anyways, we're gonna take a quick break and when we
get back, we're gonna talk about penguin micro sleeps. All right,
we are back, and Jeff, penguins are cute.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
Right, I think that, well sort of. There's that one
with the red eyes and the.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yellow like a rock hopper penguin.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say no that that's an ugly
ass penguin.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Well, chin strap penguins are some of the cutest penguins.
They They are these little guys who live on islands
near the Antarctic or Southern Pacific Ocean waters. They have
this characteristic strap of black feathers that go under their chin,
and then they also have like a black cap on
(49:57):
their heads, so it looks like they're wearing like a
little black helmet with like a chin strap.
Speaker 4 (50:02):
It looks like they have little cartoon faces.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
They're adorable, and I must have one. I must, I
must illegally acquire this penguin. So they they are adorable. Uh.
And they are, but they're they're not the biggest penguins. Uh.
And they have a lot of stuff to worry about.
So how do they get a good night's sleep? Well,
(50:27):
there was some research by Leborel a all, sorry, let
me do that again because I got too French with
that Liborel at all, who strapped sensors onto the chin straps.
So they already got their chin straps. Now they got
sensor straps. These are strap strap penguins.
Speaker 5 (50:47):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
And they measured their brain activity and motion. They used
like this remote electro encephalogram uh. And they found that
the penguins engaged in my grow sleeps, which were four
second long bouts of dozing, so like four second naps
around ten thousand times a day.
Speaker 4 (51:12):
Well, okay, like in my head, I'm like is there,
I'm like doing them? Are there forty thousand seconds? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (51:19):
That's forty no, no, yeah, there are forty thousand seconds in
a day, because this is about eleven hours of tiny naps.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
Yeah, so there's ninety thousand seconds in a day roughly.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Yeah, yes, that map is probably wrong math. No, that
sounds right ish almost sure almost so yeah, forty thousand
seconds of tiny naps, which is about eleven hours total
of tiny naps. And so this is really interesting, right
because you'd think, like, well, but sleep in order to
be good sleep, you need like long sleep. You need
(51:53):
to like really kind of get into it. You can't
just have like little tiny sleeps.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
Well like little Einstein's right line signs, wasn't that his thing?
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Like, yeah, little naps, little cat naps, that's true.
Speaker 4 (52:07):
Call catnaps, penguin naps.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
We should call them penguin naps.
Speaker 4 (52:11):
I guess chaps chin strap penguin nap.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah, that's like a really fast one. That's like head
down on the table and then you lift it back
up so fast you get whiplash.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
So that means that you fell asleep and then hit
the table and then you're like, that's.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
A chin strap nap. So, uh the yeah, they found
that these penguins were still able to successfully nest, forage
all the normal penguin behaviors. Uh. So the question is, well,
why are they doing these micro sleeps rather than like
just a full night of sleep or even like an
hour nap at a time. The idea is that this
(52:49):
might be too risky for the little penguins because the
way that they they protect their offspring is they have,
like you have a couple of parents that they're both
looking after the egg and the chick, and so one
has to like incubate the egg or keep the chick
warm and protect it while the other one goes out
(53:10):
and forge, and then they have to switch off. And
so there's not a lot of time for napping in
that situation, especially when you have rampaging birds like scuas
who go around trying to steal eggs or chicks right
from underneath these penguins. And so the penguins must be
(53:31):
vigilant at almost all times. And even the adults have
their fair share predators like leopard seals. So they've got
to protect their egg, they got to protect their chick,
and they have to go out and forge for like
two you know, for their partner and for their chick.
So it's a lot of stuff going on. So like
the best way it seems for them to get their
(53:54):
rest are these four second naps.
Speaker 4 (53:57):
Little micro naps, little micropus delightful.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
It does. I feel like human, Like new human parents
would be really envious of these micro sleeps.
Speaker 4 (54:08):
This is how I sleep on planes, by the way.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
Oh yeah, oh it's so weird man. Plane sleep where
you fall asleep and then you wake up and you're
like that must have been an hour, and you look
at the clock and it's like that was five minutes.
Speaker 4 (54:20):
Three minutes. Yeah, yeah, I always think I can, Like
whenever I would go home, I used to take the
Red Eye and I would be like, you know, I'm
going to sleep on the plane. This time. It turns
out I'm too big to sleep. Yeah, Like there's no
comfort when you're when you're of a certain height, Like
you can't comfortably sleep, there's no like you're it messes
every part of your body up. And I was so
(54:42):
stupid I forget every time, So all of my sleeps
would be like me falling asleep and then wake up
and be like that was eight seconds. Yeah, that was
an eight second.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
I very much sympathize. I am a small and compact person,
so I can sleep on planes. But my husband is not,
and he he has a lot of trouble just even
kind of like sitting planes are really like made for
us sort of average smaller folk, which I think is unfair.
Speaker 4 (55:14):
It's like turn of the century Eastern European factory workers, right,
Like that's exactly like that's when I was like house
shopping back in Massachusetts, Like that's who the houses were
made for half the time. So I wouldn't fit in
the room because I'd be like, this is for where
the tallest person was five to nine, And I'd be like,
that's fair. I can't walk through this house. I'm not
(55:35):
going to pay money for it, right, same thing with planes,
Like it's tough. These penguins, however, they would do great
on these planes. And imagine getting on a plane and
it was just a sea of those penguins in each season.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
I would smell horrible, but I'd love it.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
Like probably it would probably be very cold in there.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
It would smell like rotting fish, probably like fish arts
essentially like.
Speaker 4 (56:01):
A Spirit airline, just like Spirit.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Airlines, so it wouldn't be that different actually, So yeah,
that is an amazing superpower that these chin strap penguins have.
I'm incredibly jealous. And I'm actually a very good napper,
but my naps tend to be longer, like about an
hour at least at a time, Like I wish I
could do really short naps. I'm sorry, I love napping
(56:24):
so much.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
If the sun is out, I'm awake, Like, for example,
like I woke up at five thirty this morning, not
by choice, but I because I'm an early morning person,
and once if the sun peaks through my window, my
brain is immediately like you're up. And I've tried.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
I'm a little jealous of that. I have struggle a
lot with like maintaining a good sleep schedule.
Speaker 4 (56:50):
I don't have a good sleep schedules, like you know.
I found it out. I found that out I had
done during college. I got two good paying jobs that
were on opposite ends of the day. I was so
at night, I was a doc worker, so I was
a forklift operator basically from like six pm till ten pm,
and then I was a mail sorter the next morning
(57:11):
every and I would have to arrive at four am
to the post office. And I was like, well, I'll
just sleep four hours at night and then four hours
during the day. And that's when I found out, like, oh,
I've never actually slept during the day. Yeah, And I
would try and I didn't, and I legitimately like went,
I started hallucinating. Oh god, I would see like motion,
like like mailboxes would look like they were running out
(57:33):
into the street while I was driving. It was crazy.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
Well some of them do do that, like you know.
Speaker 4 (57:38):
Yeah, like like cartoon ones. Yeah, yeah, it was leg
yeah ones sometimes, but yeah, so that was That's how
I found that out. So I'm jealous. Anytime you mentioned
somebody being able to nap, I'm super super jealous because
I'm like, I wish I could do that.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
We got to like inject you with some like uh
chin strap na penguin DNA.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Yeah, of a man half penguin. Yeah, I think that
would just be the penguin, right, You'd just.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
Be the penguin, but instead of like kidnapping people, you
would just be napping in your house.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
Wave the kids out of it.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Jeff, where can on people find you?
Speaker 4 (58:21):
Well, you can find me across all social media, including
my YouTube at hay There Jeff Row. I do a
lot of really neat stuff. I mean, obviously we brought
up Jeff has cool friends. I do the Great Show
Tom and Jeff watch Batman with Tom Ryman employed. I
do a lot of shows with Adam Todd Brown on
that you Don't Even Like podcast Network, such as you
(58:41):
Don't Even Like Sports, which is a sports podcast for
people that hate sports. Lots of fun, that irony, It's
a lot, it's most of our fans. It's why we
did Why we did that show Jeff has Cool Friends.
If you listen to that, you can also hear the
Amazing Nerd with Dre Alvarez, which is also under the
Jeff has Cool Friends umbrella and at patroon dot Com
Slash Jeff May you connect early access to unsunsed episodes
(59:02):
with bonus content, including the exclusive ug Fine with Kim Krawl.
So that's podcast. If you want to see me live
and you live in southern California, I do a Mint
on Card, which is my live stand up show, and
a toy store and Blast from the Past on Magnolia
in Burbank, California. I also open packs of trading cards.
It's so fun, Katie. I open packs of trading cards
(59:24):
on camera every Wednesday at two o'clock Pacific on my
YouTube at Hey Jeff row on a show I call
I Must Break You luck Man.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
I would love to watch videos of people just like
cutting soap up into little pieces. So, oh that sounds great.
Speaker 4 (59:39):
Oh the sounds yeah. So there is an ASMR aspect
when you open up a pack of trading cards as well.
But like, man, just it's so fun opening those cards
and I give them away to follow up my Patreon
but it's just so fun, Like it's just this glory
of like it's like the first childhood form of gambling.
You got us a because.
Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
You're like that it is actually it's like literally gambling though.
That's the thing is, it's like it is actually gambling,
but you know, but for Pokemon or whatever other trading cards. Yeah,
that sounds fantastic. Do check those out. Jeff is a
fantastic podcaster. And if you enjoy any of those shows,
(01:00:21):
thank Jeff's mother for giving birth to a frighteningly large baby.
Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
My poor mother, Katie. It was a blast having you on.
You're an absolute delight and even though we are across
the world, I'm glad we are so yes.
Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Right now, Yeah, and thank you so much for coming on,
and thank you guys out there for listening. If you're
enjoying the show and you leave a rating and review,
that is that really helps the podcast. And I read
every single review. Hope you're all having a great winter time,
and thank you so much to the Space Cossacks for
(01:00:56):
their super awesome song Ex Solumina. I hope you're all
cozy out there ready for your winter hibernation. Happy Creature,
kringled times everyone, and uh go hug a bear, Don't
do that. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio
(01:01:17):
app Apple podcast, or Hey, guess what more have you
listened to your favorite show? I don't judge you. Just
sip on your hot coco, watch the snow or the
rain or basically nothing fall down outside, and get all
cuddling cozy and I'll see you next Wednesday.
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
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