Invasion of the Murder Hornets!

Today on the show: INVASION OF THE MURDER HORNETS! I’ll also be talking with Alex Schmidt about two of the world’s other most notorious invasive species, a big toad with a bad attitude, and an adorable little fuzzy noodle who just loves to kill things! Discover this and more as we answer the age old question: how many decapitations a minute can the murder hornet do?

Footnotes: 

1. Murder hornet! 
2. Japanese Honeybees Roasting Murder Hornets to Death
3. Alien Cane Toad Call Via the Western Australia Museum
4. The Unstoppable Cane Toad
5. The Northern Quoll
6. Australian Water Rats Dissecting Cane Toads (Yay?) 
7. The Adorable Invasive Indian Mongoose
8. The Amani Rabbit

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Creature feature, a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied
psychology and evolutionary biology, and I've never been stung by
a bee. I guess that's why my blood type is
A being negative. Yep. Okay. Anyways, today on the show,

(00:28):
Invasion of the murder Hornets and More Invasive Species. That's right,
I've looked into this whole murder hornet business to see
if it's a big deal. You know, all the murders
these hornets do. And I'll also be talking about two
of the world's other most notorious invasive species, a big
toad with a bad attitude and an adorable little fuzzy

(00:51):
noodle who just loves to kill things. Discover this and
more as we answer the age old question how many
decapitations a minute can the murder hornet? It do more
than is necessary? Probably, so, murder hornets are they bad? Well,
first of all, let's call them by their real name,
Vespa Mandarinia, their giant hornets, and when they're in their

(01:14):
natural range, I wouldn't say they're bad anymore than any
other insect or animal. They've simply carved out their evolutionary
niche by being the biggest, baddest, most murdery hornet out there.
But when a non native species invades a new region,
either by accidentally hitching a ride on some cargo or
because humans are a bunch of power craze primates who

(01:36):
like to pluck an animal from one side of the
globe and drop it down on the other, this can
spell trouble for the local ecology. So should you be
afraid of murder hornets, Well, let's go on a learning
journey to turn that fear into education. Joining me today
is my friend, host of the Cracked podcast and also
host of the new podcast mini series One Way to

(01:58):
Make an Emoji, Alec Schmidt. Katie, thank you so much
for having me. This is awesome. Yeah, welcome back to
the pod, Alex, and you you just described, you just
described two podcasts that you're excellent on, so people should
go here those. Yeah. I got to be a guest
on Well, I've been a guest on the crac podcast,
and I got to be a guest on One Way
to Make an Emoji, which was excellently talked about bison. Yeah,

(02:22):
if people want to check it out, it's it's a
very special mini series to me. There's a lot of
personal stuff to it and the last stuff I've never
really done before and as a podcast or anything, but
it's about creating the Bison emoji. Any any citizen. Any
person can propose I don't know why I said citizen.
You don't have to be from anywhere. Anyone can propose
a citizen of the planet Earth exactly. Anybody can propose

(02:45):
a new emoji. And I proposed to Bison emoji and
they said yes. So sometime let's fall your your device.
Everybody's device will have a Bison and the emoji keyboard.
I think that's wonderful. And I love the podcast. It's
emotional and sweet and full advice and what more could
you want from a podcast? Spice and soup for the soul.

(03:06):
You made it really special, so thanks again for doing it.
Of course, Well today we're gonna do something a little
less heartwarming or I don't know, we'll find the heartwarming
somewhere because we're talking about murder hornets. I'm sure you've
probably heard of murder hornets. Alex. I'm pretty I'm pretty
excited because I, like you know, found out a few

(03:27):
seconds ago that that's the topic, and I have like
seen the phrase in trending topics on Twitter and don't
really know anything else, So that was great. I'm gonna
like find out what's going on. Yeah. Yeah, I think
a lot of people are a little scared right now
because it's it sounds very apocalyptic. We've been hearing things
about murder hornets have invaded the US, and the question

(03:51):
is should we panic And the answer is maybe a little. Okay, Yeah,
So want to get down to the facts about murder hornets?
What are they? Why are they called murder hornets? Are
they deadly to humans? Are they deadly to native honeybee populations?
How do we find them off? And what are they?

(04:14):
What's their story? How did they become so murdering? Yeah,
when you say we should panic a little, I'm glad.
I have so little else that I'm panicking about right now,
you know, like everything else is super chill, so I
have the bandwidth to everything. I mean, we've got our
plates are clear, it's you know, blue skies, and then
it's like we could handle this one bad thing in

(04:37):
the world happening. Murder hornets. That's fine. Yeah, Yeah, tomorrow
in the news I'm just gonna wake up and it's
like fire rain rain made out of deadly fire. But yeah, okay, cool.
So what is a murder hornet? First? So, so this

(04:58):
is the Vespa Andarinia, which are Asian giant hornets. They
are native to East, South and Southeast Asia as well
as parts of Russia, and they are the largest hornet
in the world. Mandarinia sounds like an Italian motorcycle. Are
you sure this is the right That's that's my bad

(05:24):
Italian accent. I'm sorry. I apologize for that, um, but yeah,
it does. It does sound. It kind of looks like
one too. They're very sleek, almost a motorcycle personified or
bugsonified into a horrible insane So what are hornets? So?
Hornets are a type of large youth social wasp, meaning

(05:48):
that they work together for a hive and a queen.
Because there are a lot of wasps that are actually
solitary they just kind of do their own thing murder
on their own time. But these are team murderers. So
that's neat. I mean, yeah, they're they're working together. At
least they're not having some kind of civil war or something.
That's good meant it it's a lot of team building

(06:11):
murders happening with with these hornets. And did you did
you say they're you social? Is that right? You social?
That's right, just like honey bees are you social? Oh yeah, sorry, yeah,
I was gonna say I've heard about that with ants
and humans. Yes, ants, humans arguably a little bit maybe ants, termites,

(06:32):
honey bees, other other bee species. And yeah, it basically
means you work for a colony and for a queen,
and it's this social structure where you are basically the work.
It's a it's a hierarchy where workers are all working

(06:53):
towards the common goal of the hive and the queen,
which is you know that cool? Because I I am
not an entomologist or an expert or anything, but I
read a book once by E. O. Wilson and and
the super short gist of it is basically that ants
and humans have spread across the earth because those two
species are very use social compared to other ones. Like

(07:15):
they work together and they see a greater purpose to
their group, whether it's instinctual or conscious or not. Yeah,
I mean that is true. I think that humans like
ants are and some bees. It's like our successfu lies
in our society and our ability to make a lot
of hexagons. So so these hornets, the murder hornets, they

(07:43):
apply those same ideas of teamwork, but towards murder, which
is neat. So they're about two inches long, about four centimeters.
They have a wingspan of three inches about seven and
a half centimeters, and they have a fourth inch long
stinger that can inject a large amount of venom. So

(08:04):
they're they're you know, they're they're big girls. These are
these are some some large ladies coming around to sting
you with a lot of vintage. Each one of them
is two inches long, Yeah, just a lot. Yeah, yeah,
it's a little bigger than can you'd imagine. Right, that's good.
It's cool. It's good. It's cool. So they have been

(08:26):
recently spotted in North America, which is you know cool
and yeah, yeah, I'm in North America too. The first
sighting was in Washington State last December, so a fun
Christmas surprise. They are a big threat to the honeybee

(08:47):
population that lives in North America, the APIs mellifera, and
also you know, a threat to basically a lot of
different insects, a lot of different like the wild bee
ease and bumble bees, and you know, probably us to
a little bit not not. I think the biggest concern

(09:08):
right now is the b population. Actually, so let's talk
a little bit about the honeybee in North America. The
APIs mellifera, so it's actually not native to North America.
It was introduced by European colonizers, and it is not
commonly called an invasive species because we don't consider it

(09:31):
to be harmful. But they kind of can be like
they can harm wild native bee species when they have
to compete for food. But on the other hand, they
have become incredibly important pollinators and honey producers for our society,
so they are responsible for a lot of pollination that
happens in our agriculture. So yeah, it's kind of it's

(09:54):
one of the cases where this is actually an introduced species.
But we're okay with a although maybe some of our
wild bees aren't as cool with it. I mean, if
anybody's gonna come to me and say, hey, that honey
bee on the honey nut cheerios box is some form
of invader, I'm gonna push back on that way into
that be he's very friendly he provides a delicious serial

(10:16):
like that. What's his name? Is his name? What's his name?
So he probably has a name. I don't know, is
it buzz or something. It's probably buzz. It's probably buzz.
It's probably buzz. I'm gonna say it's buzz. I'm not
even gonna bother googling it because I'm certain it's got
to be that. Yeah, I remember I got a I
got a buzz doll in a honey nut cheerio box

(10:39):
once and it was I thought it was going to
look a lot more like the thing on the box.
That's all I'm going to say about that. It was
like clearly made for b movie or something. But they
just made an error. And Joel Joel just wrote to
us Joel as a producer of the show. She just

(11:00):
told us Buzzby is the name of the v Thank you.
What like Buzzby, like Buzzby, like Buzby Berkeley or something
like the US b y. Yeah, but but no, no,
be you z z buz Buzzby. Yeah, Buzzby co Coruel

(11:21):
trivia fact about about the b on the honeynut cheero box.
Thanks for joining me on This Animal's podcast. So let's
go back to talking about murder hornets. Yeah, so murder
hornets are called murder hornets on account of all the
murders they do. So the worker hornets are all female.

(11:42):
So Alex, I want you to imagine a gang of
bloodthirsty women on motorcycles raising the countryside, going around with
huge machetes and decapitating entire cities, because that's basically what
murder hornets do. I feel like, I feel like you
would see like a double feature of at a drive in,
and like it's both movies are about the gang of ladies. God, yes,

(12:05):
I'd love to see that. They all for some reason,
they're all wearing impeccable makeup too, and perfect hair does
but they're just going around on their motorcycle gangs and
like and it's like, and this is what cannabis does
to women. So the murder hornet has gigantic mandibles that

(12:28):
can easily decapitate a honeybee. They can kill forty honey
bees a minute, which is bad or honey bees. Because
I I am not a super expert on bees and
hornets and stuff, but I feel like people associate hornets
with honey just because bees do that. But it seems
like these hornets just murder and that's how they get food,

(12:50):
Like they're just eating all these bees all this, yes, exactly,
so they are carnivorous and they feed these well, essentially,
they will take over these hives and then plunder it
for meat and then feed that to their young, whereas
honey bees will eat nectar and then you know the
whole process of making honey and royal jelly, and that's

(13:11):
how they feed their colony. So so these hornets are
like a tiny wolf for hyena or other pack animal
basically in terms of the exactly yeah, ok, yeah, no,
that's a very good way to think of it. Exactly.
So they work in groups to raid and destroy entire
honey bee hives. So what will happen is one of
the hornets will place a pheromone marker on a honey

(13:33):
bee hive, which will invite her sisters to participate in
a gold old fashion pillage. In so they efficiently kill
all the worker bees and queen, ripping their heads off,
and then they use the hive as a buffet, eating
the honey bee larva and pup a right out of
their little honeycomb cribs. So you know, just killing all

(13:55):
the babies and eating them, even the pupe combined, even
the pupe. They don't even spare the pupe monsters. So
in Japan, where the murder hornet is actually this is
its native range, the Japanese honey bees. I didn't I
didn't realize that was gonna rhyme until I said. The

(14:17):
Japanese honey bee, which lives in the murder hornets native range,
has developed a unique strategy to defend themselves from these invaders.
So when a honeybee in Japan senses the hornet pheromones,
it goes first oh, and then it forms a b ball,

(14:38):
so it sends its own messaging to the rest of
the hive to create a giant ball of angry vibrating bees,
and they beat their wings and dogpile on the invading hornet.
So what they're doing is they're vibrating their wings and
flight muscles and generating body heat in this giant dog pile,

(15:01):
and combined, a bee ball can create a core temperature
of over a hundred and fifteen degrees fahrenheit, which is
forty six degrees celsius, and also creates a chamber of
increased carbon dioxide so this will actually cook and suffocate
the hornet that is trapped inside this giant bee mosh pit.

(15:26):
I love how like each time I learned about an
organized society of animals, it's because they're doing something like that,
you know, like doing a mosh pit essentially. I mean,
have you ever found a society that doesn't include involved
mosh pits? I don't think so. The dawn of time
that the enderthal mash is on cave walls, oh yes,

(15:46):
I've seen it. So you might think that this would
be a self sacrificial thing that the bees do, but
they're actually much more adept at surviving this giant mosh
pit because they can withstand higher temperatures and the higher
levels of c O two. Although you know, some of
them may die in the line of mosh pit duty,

(16:07):
but you know there that's it's an honor. It's an
honor to die in the bee mosh pit, I think.
And this this thing with Japan's bees knowing how to
mash the hornets, like, is this like a centuries and
centuries old war between bees and hornets in their country
and then just the hornets came here and RBS are
like we we don't know any mashing, what do we do? Yes, sadly, Alex,

(16:32):
You're exactly right about that. So this is when you
have a predator and a prey species, you often have
these arms races where the predator evolves the strategy to
take advantage of the prey, and then the prey will
evolve the strategy to defend itself. And so you see
this like increasing complexity of attacks and defenses. Unfortunately, when

(16:54):
you have an invasive species, the native species have not
developed any of these strategy GE's, they are caught completely
off guard. So the honey bees who live in North
America have not developed this defense strategy, so they are
vulnerable to the murder hornets, which is why a lot
of conservationists are very very concerned. And if the murder

(17:16):
hornets are allowed to spread, they might decimate the already
struggling bee populations here in North America, which is not great.
I like I like bees. I like our honey bees. Yeah,
because I like all plants, and as I understand it,
they're important for that. I'm right. And and even if
you're like, oh, well, the honey bee itself is not

(17:39):
is you know, not native, It's an introduced species and
somehow you don't care about that. I mean, they're also
these murder hornets are also going to be really bad
for the wild bee populations and for bumble bees. And basically,
you know, it's whenever you I've described the ecosystem like

(18:01):
a Jenga tower before, it's like whenever you fuss around
with one piece, you're not going to know like at
what point, like everything's gonna crumble down. So, yeah, it's bad.
It's not great to have have this this murder hornet. Surprisingly,
I know it doesn't sound like a big deal to
have a murder hornet invade the US or not the US,
a murder hornet invade North America, but it is shockingly bad. Yeah,

(18:25):
because when I saw that name murder hornet coming up
on Twitter, for one thing, I thought, just like everybody
had seen the same Nature documentary. I was just laughing
about it because you know, everybody, especially in quarantine, will
like I'll see tiger king at the same time, and
suddenly there's memes I don't know about. But oh god,
I wish there was a Netflix special called like murder
Hornet and it's just about beekeepers and all of their drama,

(18:49):
like like, I want to see in an apiary that's
actually a cult, Please Netflix deliver. Yeah, But and it
turns out with this one like, no, it's just a
news event going on. And I feel like everyone like
found the name murder Hornets so funny. They didn't talk about, Hey,

(19:10):
there's like a new invader that's a two inch long
sky wolf you know, sky Wolf. Yeah, Skywolf is cool.
I like that. It's just just a pilot about an
airplane I'm working on. To worry about it. It's cool, Alex,
I told you can't pitch your pilots on this episode. Okay,

(19:31):
so it's like air Wolf, but I changed the name
forget it forget So yeah, I mean there's actually a
little bit of debate about naming the murder hornets. Some
biologists are saying like, ah, but you don't, you know,
this stigmatizes animals. You don't want it to be like,
you know, to dramatized. But other biologists are like, no,

(19:52):
this is a big deal, Like we it's good that
people are scared of this, this terrible hornet. So it's
interesting to see that back and forth of now now
everybody calmed down and like some biologists are going like, no,
they have to panic, Yeah, wow, because isn't that isn't
that a story with especially the movie Jaws, but kind
of the book to or suddenly people needed sharks, even

(20:14):
though sharks have like a positive role in the overall ecosystem. Like,
I guess they're worried about that with hornets, huh, right, exactly,
because you know, hornets are not I don't want everyone
to hate hornets or even hate murder hornets when they're
you know, not invading North America. That sounds weird, But

(20:35):
let me be clear, I don't hate the murder hornets.
I'm concerned because they have been introduced to a region
that they are not native to, which is really bad
for the populations of other insects in that region, so
that you know, it's they have their place, Yeah exactly.
And like if it takes a sensationalist name to get

(20:57):
people interested, like maybe that's good. Maybe it's like I
don't know, maybe it's a bad strategy in the long run,
Like we need to be able to be interested in
stuff without having a super metal name applied to to
the insect. But I don't know, I mean, yeah, I
kind of I'm okay with the name murder hornets personally
because I think it does make people interested in what

(21:18):
what is happening and so that yeah, which is good. Yeah,
I never would have heard about it otherwise. Right, And
they do murder, it's accurate. I mean they murder a
lot of bees. Yeah, I guess. I wonder if we're
going there. But have they ever murdered a person in
the United States? Not? Not in North America as far
as I know. They have killed people in their native

(21:41):
range unfortunately, So they are actually pretty nasty to humans.
I want to preface this with the main problem of
them being in the US is not that they're going
to kill us all, but it is they are actually
somewhat dangerous to people. So with these murder hornets, about
fifty stings can kill you due to kidney damage, even

(22:04):
if you're not allergic. Fatal encounters are more likely to
happen if you stumble upon or disturb a hornet hive.
So if one kind of flies on you and stings
you once, it's unlikely unless you have an allergy, that
it's going to really harm you. It'll it'll give you
like I could give you a nasty well, but in
Japan about fifty people die a year from murder hornet stings,

(22:27):
which I don't want to realize that that's it's horrible,
but it's you know, it's not like five zero people
die a year in Japan from murder hornet stings. Yeah,
I mean, like that's about the it's a little bit
more than people die a year of just wasp and

(22:48):
be stings in the US per year. So but that
again it's like a it's I think there's about I
think about thirty to forty people die per year in
the US from wasp and beastings, so it's about on
the same scale. But again it's just one species doing
all of that damage. So they are they are more

(23:08):
dangerous than bees in and other wasps. So it's like
I would say, it's something where it's concerning and it'll
it's really sad that it hurts people. I don't want
to trivialize that. But it's also not like it's not like, oh,
we're all going this is going to kill us all like,
it's not. It's this is not the the final male

(23:32):
and humanity's coffin. Wow, that sounded grim, But because when
because when they're scary things going on. You wanna as
a person know which things are less scary like these
these a problem, but not not something to panic about. It, right,
a problem, and I understand people's concern about it, and
I think it is worrisome, but I think like the

(23:54):
main worrisomething about it is the impact to the ecology
in North America, which is a it's a big deal.
And of course, I mean, I don't think it's silly
to be concerned about something that can hurt a person.
I think that's always concerning, Like it's concerning, But it's
not like these bees aren't going to like raid a

(24:15):
human town and decapitate everyone. That's just what they're going
to do to the honey bees. Yeah, just because you
saw ladies do that in the nineteen fifties Motorcycle Woman
movie franchise does not mean that these Japanese hornets will
do that. It's very different, Right, So you might be wondering, like,
how should we get rid of these murder hornets, Like

(24:36):
maybe we should introduce a species that murders the murder hornets.
But we are in the next section going to talk
about why this logic is not great because when we
return after a break, we're actually going to talk about
the cane toad story. That this is not a bug
at all, very exciting. I mentioned earlier that honeybee populations

(25:01):
are already struggling. Over the past decade or so, beekeepers
have reported higher and higher loss of honey bees, either
due to colony collapse disorder where worker bees abandoned a colony,
or due to winter deaths. Currently, colony collapse disorder is
not as much of an issue, but increased bee deaths continue.
This is estimated to be due to the combined factors

(25:24):
of agricultural growth reducing the amount of diversity of flowering
plants for bees to eat, pesticides killing the bees, and
parasites such as veroa destructor a tiny mite that wedges
itself into a bees exoskeleton, spits out digestive juices into
the bee and drinks up the bee smoothie yum. So,

(25:45):
as you can see, there are a lot of things
that bees are struggling with, not to mention the possible
introduction of a giant murder hornet. But as humans were
not helpless when it comes to helping the bees, we
could reduce agricultural growths much that there are more areas
of diverse wildflowers and vegetation to feed the bees. We
could reduce pesticide usage and use less dangerous pesticides, which

(26:10):
will allow bees to be healthier and more able to
fight off things like parasites and disease. As for the
murder hornets, beekeepers can set traps for the hornets to
hopefully slow their spread. So we can't just give up
every time a new murder hornet comes to town. We
gotta fight, fight for the bees. Be a hero like

(26:30):
buzz All drin. I'm sorry, Okay, no more bee puns.
I'll behaved. Sorry, okay, just that one, No more, no
more starting now, will be right back. I'm sorry, I
have to. I'm sorry. Imagine you're minding your own business,

(26:53):
eating bugs or whatever you like to do on a Wednesday.
I don't judge oft In the distance, you hear a
strange sound. You've never heard such a sound before. Often
the horizon, you see a large group of strange, huge,
bumpy skinned aliens approach. They crawled towards you on stubby legs.

(27:17):
They lose poison out of their shoulder blades, and they
are opening their huge hungry mounths and shooting out their long,
disgusting tongues to eat you. So, Alex, have you heard
of the Kane toad in Australia story? I think it

(27:38):
rings a bell and the only thing I thought of
beyond when you said Kane toad, that rang a bell
and I thought of Australia maybe, And that's that's about
all I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well this will
be a refresher course for you, and I think this
is one of my well, I don't want to say
favorite stories of invasive species because it sounds like I'm

(27:59):
happy about it, but it is a really interesting story
about an invasive species. So little background on the cane
toad first, So it is a big, old terrestrial toad
that uses toxins from a gland on its shoulders. So
it is from South and Central America. These are beefy
toads that can grow around five to six inches long,

(28:22):
which is about ten to fifteen centimeters. But they've been
known to be able to reach a length of nine
inches centimeters, which is I don't know, too big. Maybe
I don't want to I don't want to judge. But
when you gave those inches honestly, I thought of it
in hornets. It was like, oh, three to four and
a half hornets of measurement. The murder hornet m H

(28:45):
is Yeah, so, like I mentioned earlier, it excretes toxins
from the glands near its shoulders, so its skin is
highly toxic and will kill animals that try to eat it,
which you know, I mean, that's that's a good idea.
I guess if you're a cane toade and you don't
want to be eaten, to just make yourself deadly. I

(29:10):
feel like what I learned about poison dart frogs as
a kid, I was like, oh, any colorful amphibian is
probably full of murder. That's probably what's going on. It
seems like this is kind of one of those Yeah,
it's not even colorful. It's like it barely even warns you.
It's just kind of a sandy color, brownish, yellowish, all
of sandy color. It seems pretty innocuous. But nope, it

(29:32):
is full of ooz eating poison. It's more of more
of a low key hit man kind of guy. I
get it. Cool. Yeah, yeah, it's it's less of a
less of a man. It's less of a mad Max
and more of a Liam Neeson. Are those two murder
people in the media. I'm trying to think of different

(29:52):
styles of murder people in movies, and I feel like
Mad Max versus Liam Neeson makes sense to me in
this moment. Yeah, that works. Like, isn't John Wick generally
dressed pretty conservatively? You know, like maybe it's a John Wick. Yeah,
I guess I think of John Wick as being flamboyant
just because the movies are kind of in your face.
But yeah, yeah, like I'm thinking of like a really

(30:15):
drab murderer, like I'm here to kill you. Don't mind me,
I'm here to kill you. So they have a lifespan
of about ten to fifteen years, but one individual was
recorded as having lived to thirty five years, which is

(30:36):
older than Jesus. Not to brag, not to brag. Listen,
we measure lengths in hornets that we measure ages in Jesus.
And that's how we do it. Okay, Like like, hop
off if it's not for you. Yeah, this is like
one point zero zero five Jesus about Yeah, please don't

(30:57):
check my math on that, because I can assure you
it's wrong. So they have warty all of brownish skin,
and they are great at reproducing, which is fun to know.
So females lay thousands of eggs at once which come
out in jelly like strings, kind of like remember nerds ropes, nerds,
nerds ropes, whereas like those like uh, ropes of candy

(31:20):
covered in nerds in this case, unfortunately I do remember, yes, yeah,
but imagine that except toad eggs. So it is an
absolutely unstoppable monster that can replicate itself almost infinitely. So
of course Australia decided they had to have it. Australia,

(31:42):
don't you have enough crazy animals, you scamps over there.
So in ninety five Australian farmers were having a problem
with cane beetles which were destroying their sugarcane crops in Queensland,
and they saw that prayer to Rico introduced the cane
toad to their sugarcane crops and had some success in

(32:06):
finding back the sugarcane beetles there. And the cane toad
was known to have a voracious appetite and eat basically
anything alive or dead. So what could possibly go wrong?
I don't, I don't know if anyone knows this, but
like the toad is called the cane toad because it
likes hanging out in sugarcane and generally being around that

(32:26):
crop or something that's fun. Yeah, because the other thing
I think that is the frog and toad books where
they're both dressed pretty fancy and maybe they would have
a cane like a gentleman. You know. That's the only
other reason I could pick or that or that Looney
Tunes the Looney Tunes puts on the little top hat. Yeah.
Oh it's a frog. Yeah yeah, hello by hello Ma Darland,

(32:47):
gonna poison all your native species. So yeah, like let's
just introduce this unstoppable like insatiable poi is in this toad.
What could go wrong? Well a lot. So the toad
was introduced, and first of all, it didn't actually help
at all with the cane beetle problem. So the cane

(33:10):
beetles in Australia, as opposed to elsewhere, like to live
at the top of the cane plant. So the toad,
which is not a good climber or a good jumper,
could not reach its prey, so it can't actually eat
the beetles it was supposed to eat, and the cane
fields in Australia did not provide enough cover for the

(33:30):
toads to hunt undetected. But the toads are like, yeah,
but I'm voracious. I'll eat basically anything, So yeah, I'm
gonna go do that somewhere else. And they turned their
attention to the rest of northern Australia. So when they
were introduced, they were about I've seen different numbers. I've

(33:53):
also read that they were like contained within two suitcases
or something. I think there was like under a thousand possibly,
And now there are over two hundred million Kane toads
in Australia, two million, two hundred million, over two hundred million.
How do they How does that island fit people? Now?

(34:15):
I don't. I don't. I want to know, Like it's
more toads than island now, yeah, I mean like there
are a lot of them and they will sometimes just
like be out on these roads and a bunch of
them get flattened by traffic. There there are these like
huge groups of them. Yeah, it's it's, you know, kind
of horror. I'm imagining that, like if I watched the

(34:36):
making of about Crocodiles and just out of frame they're
stepping on toads everywhere they go, every scene, you know,
like that's that's obviously what's happening. The gaffer is a
toad toad get dangling off the microphone. Yeah, it's full.
It's full of toads, apparently in northern Australia. So they
are slowly taking over Australia, killing native animals and plant

(34:59):
species as they go, threatening their native populations of biodiversity.
So they are advancing towards the west at to thirty
seven miles per year, which is forty to sixty kilometers
per year, which may not seem very fast, but it
means that in like sixty to seventy years they could

(35:20):
go from one coast and expand all the way to
the other coast. And they've already started so unless that
time they could reach the western coast of Australia. So
they are voracious omnivores. Basically they'll eat anything they can
work their mouth around. According to the Australian Museum website,

(35:42):
they will eat beetles, honey bees, ants, wing termites, crickets,
marine snails, smaller toads and native frogs, small snakes, small mammals,
carrion and pet food that's been left outside. Hey, leave
some of that for me. Toads, So the pet food
or the carrion, all of it, you know, oh, Alex.

(36:04):
So they have no predators or diseases specialized to take
them out in Australia, given that they are and introduced
species and they are highly poisonous and Australian predators have
had little success with them. In fact, they are very
dangerous to domesticated dogs, which is probably not news to

(36:25):
people who live in Northern Australia who have dogs like
that is a big concern often because if a dog
eats cane toad, that's a trip to the vet for sure. Yeah. So,
not only do they kill off price species, but they
actually kill off other predators, either by poisoning them or
out competing with them or destroying their nests. So here's

(36:47):
an example. There's the Northern qual, which is a cute
little marsupial who looks a bit like a giant mouse
with brown fur and white spots. Oh hey, hey, buddy,
I wish I'd didn't see you in the context of
this story. You look so cute. It's a quality qual
quality quals. Yeah, so they are very very cute. It

(37:10):
is a carnivore who eats small mammals, reptiles, insects, and birds,
and they they are populations have been completely decimated in
cane toad controlled regions because when it tries to eat
the cane toad, it is poison and killed. And it
doesn't it hasn't evolved with the cane toad, so it
doesn't really you know, it has no idea. It's like

(37:33):
I'll put this tode in my mouth. Whoops. Oh problem. Yeah,
I think I think the main upshot of this is
to not be a small mammal, reptile, insect or bird
in Australia. There are way too many species coming, don't
do it. Yeah, generally, most of the times I talk
about animals on this podcast, it's going to be bad

(37:55):
news for small mammals, reptiles, insects and birds in Australia.
It's always bad news for those guys. I'm sorry if
you're if you're a mouse, build a disneys the rescuers
playing and get out of there. Just just don't be
there anymore. But yeah, it is. It is actually very
very concerning because it is threatening the northern qual populations

(38:19):
and that's you know, and it's these these poor quals.
You know, they're just trying to do their jobs as
a small predator, but they either get out competed or
poisoned by this insane toad. So it sounds like this
has been building for a while, right, because the toads
showed up in the nineteen thirties and now into the
modern day they are bothering species. Yeah, yeah, it's still

(38:42):
a big problem. We have not solved the cane toad problem,
although there have been attempts. In two thousand and four
there was the Great Cane Toad Trap Competition that was
run by Australia's Northern Territory local government, so just trying
to like award money to people who could come up

(39:04):
with the best cane toad trap because it's a big problem.
Researchers are also trying to control the cane toad population
because yeah, they're not They're not just threatening the qual,
although I think the qual is cute enough for that
to be the main reason to be concerned. But yeah,
there are They are also threatening crocodiles, freshwater turtles, tortoises, lizards, birds,

(39:28):
and anyone who wants to walk barefoot in a field.
At night because you will just probably step on one
of these toads. And that's an icky experience. I mean,
because these these toads sound like just a bag of
poison walking around, right Like, that's basically the situation. Yeah,
they're big, hungry bags of poison pretty much. That's yeah.

(39:49):
But there may be some hope and it comes in
the form of the Australian water rat. Da da da. Yeah,
it looks like it looks to me like a woodchuck,
but with like some kind of duck boots on, like
if you could get duck feet. It's a boot from
a store and then put that on so you can

(40:10):
fight toads. That's what this looks like. Yeah, exactly, that's
exactly what it is. I and I subtitled this this
picture featured hero because these are these are little heroes.
So the Australian water rat is also known as the racali,
is a large aquatic rodent who looks a bit like

(40:32):
a mix between an otter and a rat with duck feet,
and they have learned how to slice open cane toads
with surgical precision and eat their hearts out and other
internal organs, avoiding the poison skin and glands, which is
a little serial killery. But I guess like when it

(40:54):
comes to the cane toad, that's what you have to do. Yeah.
If the cane toes didn't want that to happen, they
should have been made of less poison. I think I
think it's their fall. Ultimately. I feel like this is
very silence of the lambs, where you you can't like
you're like, oh, we gotta take down this kane tone.
It's like, well, hello, Clarice, I know how to vivisector

(41:17):
toad if you'll just please letally out of my confinement
I'm around. And then because it's captors are Australians, they're
just like all right and just like immediately, no worried, no,
nothing wrong. Yeah. So but these are these are actually

(41:41):
native species. So it's it's good that they're murdering the toads,
is what I'm saying. And so these smart little murderous
water rats will even remove the gall bladder which contains toxins,
and they just eat the good stuff inside the toad
that isn't covered in poison. So Dr Morrissa Parrot, reproductive
biologist and conservationist, said this of the water rats habits

(42:04):
quote the rats appeared to hold the toad on its
back and then inside the thoracic cavity to consume organs
while the toad was still alive. And he does that.
If I'm looking at the thumbnail of that article, right,
it has like a picture of the toad after that happened. Wow. Yeah,

(42:26):
I put that in there just for for you to
look at. This is just a fun little image of
a toad that's been dissected, probably while still alive, so
it's organs could be eaten by a giant water roadent
I mean this, this arms race has to stop at
some point, right, like like the road and gets hunted
by an eagle with a gun or something like it.

(42:47):
Where where does it go? Where does it end? A
bunch of murder hornets riding vespas holding machete. Oh and
just just um, I know I've been really mean to
these toads. So just a fun fact I want to
just toss out like a fun fact about toads in general,

(43:10):
just because like it's true that there are an invasive
species and that's not great in Australia. But I don't
want people to hate toads. I think they're cool and
I here's a here's a fun fact about toads. In general,
males have something that is called a bitters organ, which
regulates sex hormones, and if the male toads testes are

(43:33):
injured or removed, the bitters organ will develop ovaries. So
that's pretty cool, right, So so male toads, if their
genitals are injured, can generate female sex organs. Yes, yes,
guess how we know that, alex Uh, we asked them, Oh,

(43:53):
it's only no. We researchers cut off their dusties. See
what would happen. I'm I'm very much for research and science.
Sometimes once in a while I'm like, how did why
did okay? But why did you think? How did you

(44:15):
think of this idea? Though? Like were you just like
sitting there and me like, I want to see what
happens if we cut off some tote testicles, like you know,
I'm just I'm just a little concerned. Yeah, I assume
when the scientists had their press conference, at least one
of them was in the middle of drinking a Foster's
as they shared this information, Like this is crazy. Why

(44:37):
are you doing this? Think that to be wild? Listen,
we're gonna cut off now listen, cut off its bowls
and see what hapens. That's not that's not an Australian
next at all. No, that didn't do it. That wasn't good.
Just decided to drinking a fosters and smoking like science
science science? Like why science? Science don't seem professional if

(45:03):
it's bulls all. I don't know if these were Australian
researchers either, so, but I imagine they must be. They
must be. Sorry, sorry my Australian listeners, but you gotta
admit they have to be right. Yeah, I mean it
could be them, but it's them. Yeah it is. I
love you Australia, I truly do. Cane toads aren't the

(45:29):
only type of frog wreaking havoc on the world. And
by the way, toads are a subset of frogs. Sorry, kermit,
your cousins are monsters. The North American bullfrog is fine
and dandy when it's hopping and swimming around east of
the Rocky Mountains in North America, but it's decided to
invade the rest of the world as well. It's been

(45:49):
found further south in America, decimating the chericho, who leopard
frog and Mexican garter snake populations in Arizona. They've invaded
west in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. And
let's not be too hard on these little guys. Humans
imported the frogs to California and other parts of the
world for frog leg culinary purposes. And oops, now they've

(46:14):
escaped and are unstoppable. And wait, did I say little guys?
They can actually grow to be around eight inches long,
the size of a dessert plate, and way up to
one and a half pounds. Normally, in their natural habitat, alligators,
snapping turtles, and other predators prevent their populations from exploding,
but when introduced to a new environment, they can propagate

(46:36):
without natural predators, devouring all sorts of little animals in
their path, including other frogs and smaller bull frogs. They
also may be immune carriers of the katrid fungus that
is deadly to other frog populations. So when you introduce
a non native species to a new area, there are
all sorts of deadly surprises, the worst kind of surprise.

(46:58):
When we return, we'll talk out an adorable animal with
a not so adorable ambition of global domination. Remember riky
Tiki Tavi, the adorable mongoose sidekick that protected people from snakes.
Mongooses are a family of carnivorous, weasel shaped mammals. Mere Cats,

(47:23):
by the way, are a species of mongoose. While mongooses
look similar to a weasel, they're actually more closely related
to cats and hyenas. Many mongoose species are prose at
eating venomous critters like scorpions and snakes. They can tear
off the poisonous stinger of a scorpion, and they're thick
fur protects them from stings and bites. They even have

(47:45):
specialized neurotransmitter receptors that don't bind to snake venom, providing
resistance to neurotoxins. So these are some incredible little fur noodles,
but sometimes they have a dastardly side on a global scale. So, Alex,
I think that often we judge animals based on their looks.

(48:06):
So I've talked about a murder hornet and a poison
cain toad, and they're both a little scary looking, and
so I think it's easy for us to naturally think like, oh,
look at these scary, murderous, decapitating poisoning animals. How awful.
But I want people to understand that it's not just

(48:28):
the ugly ones that are people in nature. So sometimes
a little animal that is super cute and very gregarious
looking is actually a horrible murderer who is destroying the plant.
So the small Indian mongoose, also known as the job

(48:50):
in mongoose, is a cute little fella who doesn't seem
like it would be a big deal if it invaded.
I have a picture of that for you. I mean,
look at his little fingkule faith it's like almost I'm
thinking of that c g I Stuart Little movie where
Stuart Little is very cute in it, like it kind
of it kind of has that facial expression. It's like
I'm a rodent and sentient and I just want to

(49:12):
love you. I just want to love you. It is
a brown long mammal with nubby little ears, a pink nose,
and a long furry tail. So you know he's all
he's kill at noodle boy. It's cute, ki little furry noodle. Well,
I'm sure that's all I need to know about it. Anyway,
go on. It's also one of the worst invasive species

(49:35):
in the world. Oh what a scamper noodles. So it
is native to the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia,
and it's you know, I love I love mongooses. They
are champions, they love to kill venomous snakes and scorpions,

(49:55):
and love love a ricky tiki tavi. They're they're awesome animals.
So unfortunately though, it has traveled extensively, including to Hawaii,
the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Croatia, Puerto Rica, Honduras, Panama, Colombia,
Venezuela and more places. But I ran out of breath,
so yeah, a lot. It's it's in a lot of places. Now,

(50:19):
So did mongooses just like hop on a boat to
explore the rest of the world after college, you know,
just of their own volition. Why no Royal Caribbean had
a deal. So there you go. Yeah, I mean, you know,
I think one important thing to point out is a
lot of invasive species is actually anthropogenic, so meaning like humans,

(50:41):
we did it because we introduced them willfully. The murder hornets,
I think that was I think they were unwitting hitchhikers,
probably did some hitchhiking on some cargo or something, and
that's how it got to North America. But the mongooses
are a different story, because apparently we've been trying this
whole You know, the little lady who swallowed a fly,

(51:03):
swallowed a frog, who swalled a cat, and then then
a dog, and then eventually a horse, because a horse
somehow helps I don't know. She ate a mongoose and
brought it here, that lady a little exactly little ladies
swallow the snake and ate a mongoose and just basically
she was dead as soon as she ate the snake,

(51:23):
but we kept trying to shove more mongooses in her.
That's the situation, is what I'm saying. So the mongooses
were introduced to these new regions by humans, and Alex,
can you guess why we would do something like that?
Probably a really well thought out plan about some some
past we're trying to deal with. Yeah, and is it what?

(51:45):
Trying to think? What could it be? What could have? All? Right,
it's sugar cane again. So apparently we tried the old
introduced a new species to protect our precious sugarcane from
pest trek back in the late eighteen hundreds. But with mongooses,
that's right, Australia. We already tried it. It was bad then,

(52:08):
and then you tried it again with toads. Why do
we keep doing I guess everyone wants to eat sugarcane,
like everyone is me looking at a package of cookies.
It is true, sugar is the best tasting thing in
the world. So it kind of makes sense that we

(52:29):
are willing to introduce murder beasts to our various countries
to protect our sugar cane. So in this case, the mongoose,
who is a voracious predator who eats small mammals, reptiles, insects, crabs, frog, spiders, scorpions, snakes, birds,
and eggs, was introduced to help kill off pests in

(52:53):
sugarcane plantations in Hawaii and other regions. So while it
did help kill off some of the rats, mice, and
insects around the sugarcane plantation, so you know, at least
fulfilled some of its purpose more than the cane toad.
It's not like it dusted off. It's a little positives
like job well done, Time to go home. I did

(53:13):
did what I came here to do. They just kept
killing things, you know, because that's what they do. They're like,
all right, I murdered. I murdered these things around these
sugarcane crops. Now I'm gonna go murder other things because
that's what I do. I told you, I told you
I'm a murder noodle, and you invited me here, and
I'm murdering things now right. The police can't let Dexter

(53:37):
get one guy, He's gonna get more guys. That's the
way it is, like Texter anymore. I thought it was
apted anyway. Yeah, I think I'd like Dexter if it
was a like played by a mongoose though, like Ricky Ticky, Yeah, exactly,
And the mongoose is like, I have a code and
then it just like devours an endangered bird and it's

(53:59):
like that wasn't part of my code. So these mongooses
have threatened bird species and sea turtles by eating their
eggs in Hawaii. They've harmed the green iguana population. In
the Caribbean. They have wiped out the St. Quaix St. Quax.

(54:20):
I always stumble over that because now I think of
laqua the drink, but the St. St. Quaix ground lizard
from the island of Saint Quix. So like the lizard
has its own Ding Island, and the mongoosees took it
from him. It's not called Mongoose Island. It's called Saint
Quis Island, but still now it's mongoose Island, I guess.
So it was introduced to Okinawa Island in Japan in

(54:44):
nineteen ten and two amani Oshima Island in nineteen seventy
nine to try to control the venomous snake populations there.
Guess what they were trying to protect on those islands,
alex sugar cane. Well, I what is it with us
in sugarcane? Guys? You know, fool me four times about

(55:06):
sugar cane chain on you, But we have to calm
down about this sugar not so yeah, So we introduced
the mongooses to these islands to try to protect people
who worked around the sugarcane crops and other residents on
the island from these venomous snakes. Unfortunately, the venomous snakes

(55:28):
were nocturnal and the mongooses are diurnal, so it didn't
actually work to control the snake population, and now they
are threatening endangered species on Okinawa Island and the locals
have been trying to stop them with traps and fences,
which is like when is awake during the day and

(55:49):
then the others awake at night, and they just are
on like a shift schedule for terrorizing everyone, right, exactly exactly, yes,
exactly exactly. So diurnal means they at night and are
awake during the day, so as humans were diurnal, Nocturnal
means you sleep during the day and are awake at night.
And so the snakes like clock in for their night shift.

(56:09):
It's like another day of terrorizing the population. And then
the mongooses clocking in the morning, they're like, hey, Jeff,
I'm just coming in to terrorize the human population and animals, sorry,
human and animal populations. And then and then they don't
like catch each other sleeping because that would be like uncool,
Like there's your code, right, like you don't you don't

(56:30):
get them sleeping and then you get them awake otherwise
forget it, right, well, right, I mean they do. They
sleep in burrows, which protects them, so everything. So I
want to veer into the part of the show where
I talk about military propaganda on an animals show. So

(56:52):
there was an article on Stars and Stripes dot com,
which is a military publication that was titled quote Marines
helping Oka Nolan's fight the mongoose, And I just like
imagined all these like military guys, all heavily armed, like
trying to shoot down mongooses. Now it actually looks like
it's just that the military is allowing Okanawans to put

(57:14):
traps around their military base, which seems like saying like
we're helping them fight the mongooses, like overstating slightly what
they're doing. It's not quite like Heart of Darkness but
with mongooses. But you know, what do I know? I
don't know anything about military tactics. It's not the it's
not the like third act of an Avengers movie where

(57:36):
everybody finally teams up and gets down to business. They're
just letting up set up traps. Man. That would that
movie would have ended differently if it was the Avengers
versus a bunch of angry mongooses, like that would be
immediate defeat, just like they like done Da Da Da
Dune and they stepped through portals like oh they're in
my life. Oh God. Sadly, the mongooses are suspected of

(58:05):
being responsible for the extinction of four species of Haitians.
Shrews endangering the Cuban souland on which is a long
nose true like mammal, the extinction of the dwarf Kutia
in Cuba, which is a guinea pig like rodent, or
was a guinea pig like rodent. They are also threatening
the endangered Ammani rabbit population on amani Oshima Island, and

(58:29):
Amani rabbits are these really cool black, stubby eared wild
bunnies there. I think they're really neat looking very cute
as well. Oh I'm sorry, I just saw it. It
looks so cute. It is very cute. It's got like
it looks like you were creating a rabbit and then
you ran out of material, so you just kind of
like made the ears real short, yeah, and left it

(58:53):
black for like, you know, like like the reason the
model t was black. Like it's just basic. It's good.
Leave it black. It's it's a it's a sleek redesign
of the rabbit. So the mongooses can also carry leptospirosis, rabies,
and antibiotic resistance strains of eat Coli neat. So we've

(59:17):
really been hoisted by our own mongooses here by trying
to bus around with nature and introduce them to regions
where they are not from and off of that ecol
I think, folks, this is why I do not let
mongooses work at my restaurant. I've taken a lot of
flak for this, taking a lot of negative comments about it,

(59:38):
but that's how we're keeping it. It's people only and
certain other species. No mongooses. No more letters. Please again,
I don't want to come off as an anti mongoose podcast.
Despite Alex just saying he would discriminate against mongooses is great,
but yeah, it's not. I think mongooses are even this

(59:59):
spe she's the small Indian mongoose. They're wonderful animals and
they are an important part of their habitat where they're indigenous.
But the problem is when humans are like, oh, we
got a problem with snakes, Well, let's just throw some
mongooses on the snake fire. That'll be fine. You gotta
fight snake fire with mongoose fire, and then that's that's

(01:00:20):
where the problem happens. And so I would say, when
we are looking at all of these extinctions and endangerments
of other species, this is not really the mongoose is fault.
The mongoose is just gonna mongoose. You can't like say, hey, mongoose,
stop doing mongoose things. It's like, but I'm a mongoose.
I'm gonna keep doing mongoose stuff. So yeah, it's like

(01:00:42):
again it's this is this is our fault as people
not understanding the consequences of introducing this animal to an area.
It's also why things like the exotic pet trade isn't
great because like if you take a species of animal
that is not native to a region and then you
accidentally release it, the same thing with plants as well,

(01:01:04):
it can cause all of these problems. So yeah, again,
like I don't want this to come off as like, ah,
let's hate these animals. It's like, yeah, you know, the
the ecosystem is very delicate thing, and then when we
just try to like shove a mongoose shaped peg in
a snake shaped hole, it's not gonna necessarily be good. Yeah,

(01:01:25):
when you when you said the name mongoose, I thought
of going to our local library where my grandma worked
in the VHS section and getting that animated movie about
Ricky Tiki Tavy and watching it a whole bunch and
like that's basically all I know the Chuck Jones animated.
Yeah yeah, and like that's pretty much all I really
know about mongoose is. But I think a lot of
community leaders maybe know about that much too, and just

(01:01:48):
brought a bunch of mongooses in any way, Like that's bad.
Don't do that, Like no more than I did, you
know going in? Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, mongooses are
I love them. When I was a kid, I loved
Ricky Tiki Tavi. I absolutely love mongooses. It's just like
it's like a cute little animal that like is able
to spar with scorpions and snakes. That's super awesome, and

(01:02:11):
they are really awesome animals. Yeah, it's just again, like
we can't just like throw a mongoose on every problem
and expect that to work out. Yeah yeah, be more
judicious in your moose. So I'm saying, right, if if
you think that we should bring in a bunch of
mongooses to fight the murder hornets, you are misguided. Although

(01:02:32):
I would I would definitely pay per view to see
that like this Sunday Sunday Sunday Murder Hornets versus murder mongoose.
Just a very confusing way in trying to trying to
get him on the scale. Well what do we do? Yeah, yeah,
but but but don't but don't do that, guys, learn

(01:02:53):
learn from the mistakes that we repeatedly made without learning from. Yeah,
any any of us, at any time can be the
time humanity finally wises up. You know, it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Maybe we'll we'll just stop, We'll stop trying the like. Yeah,

(01:03:14):
you know it is. It is funny that we like
have not learned from the wisdom of the little lady
who swallowed a fly, because like, remember, she dies in
the end because she eats a horse and that's bad
and that's basically our planet. It's a metaphor for our planet. Yeah,
she ate a horse, So you don't have to exactly
exactly learn from learn from the old old ladies are

(01:03:36):
eating horses, so we can learn how to take care
of our environment. Is that the lesson? Did you learn
that lesson today? Alex? I learned that precise lesson? Yes, great, good,
so I've done my job as a science educator. All right, Well,
thank you so much for joining me today. Alex. Did
you learn? Did you laugh? Did you you know, hopefully

(01:04:01):
not murder. Hopefully I was about to say yes to everything,
no murder, but yes, right, no, that's amazing. Now I
now I know what's going on, especially with with these
murder hornets that are like an emergence than going on,
because there's there's like past invaders kind of all the time,
and a lot of ecosystems. Like when I was growing
up around Chicago, there were Asian kerp in the like

(01:04:22):
Great Lakes and in the water system, and we would
just hear the name and be told to be worried.
But you have to like actually find out stuff to
know what's going on. And now I now I know
exactly how to feel about the murder hornets exactly. I mean, like,
you know, to feel a little wary, but also to
realize that they're not it's not they're not bad because
they're scary looking and an insect that we typically aren't

(01:04:46):
fond of. Their they're bad for native populations in the
North America because of the way that it messes up
with the indigenous ecosystem in the same way that the adorable,
lovable little noodlely mongoose is bad. Like it's cute, it's lovable,
but it's still killing off a lot of species of animals,

(01:05:08):
which is really bad. Yeah, so you know, don't judge.
Don't judge an invasive species by its covered. Judged invasive
species by how many creatures it murders. That's lesson number two. Well, Alex,
do you wanna plug anything? And I know you want to,
so you gotta do it. Caught me a good Uh,

(01:05:34):
there's a wonderful and uh, if folks want to hear
the Cracks podcast, Katie Golden is on a recent episode
and as amazing. Uh And and then I'm also I'm
proud of that. And I'm also very very proud of
this new mini series it's called One Way to Make
an Emoji, which also features Katie Golden an episode three
out of four, just four episodes, so you can get
them all at once and do the whole story. And
I think it's great. Us we talked about bison. Yeah,

(01:05:58):
we talked about bison, and I learned you are as
zoo tour guided. My mind was blown. Yeah. I I
am finding more and more that I need to tell
people that early on, but especially someone like you should
have known immediately, like I should have sent you a letter. Yeah,
when we met, you should have should you know, shook
my hand and said, Alex former Zoo tour guys, you
know that should should just be you should have hand

(01:06:19):
out a little car basically. Yeah. And where can people
find you online? I'm at Alex Smitty on Twitter and
then Alex meitty dot com is my website wonderful and
you can find us online at Creature Future Pod on Instagram,
at Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e a T.
That not feet, that's one point, very different. You can

(01:06:41):
find me on Twitter at Katie Golden if you want
to see my Katie thoughts, not necessarily related to the show,
just random Katie thoughts. Uh. And as always, I am
also at pro bird Writes, where I am taking none
of the lessons that I we should have learned from
this podcast in saying that birds should take over the world,
just because that is a simple fact. And um yeah,

(01:07:05):
thank you guys so much for listening. If you guys
want to leave a rating or review or download, subscribe,
those things actually really help. I know you're like, oh,
what could pressing buttons from thousands of miles away do
for Katie? Not true? In fact, I I can sense it.
I have the sense like you pressed five stars and

(01:07:25):
like I'm like, oh my god, someone just pressed five
stars on my podcast. That's amazing, and it teaches the
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robots about our show is good by pressing those buttons.
That really does help out a lot. Thanks to the
Space Classics for their super awesome song. X Alumina. Creature

(01:07:47):
features a production of I Heart Radio or more podcast
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Tete