April 26, 2023 • 45 mins
LIPS! The lovely luscious lips of living and extinct animals. Who has the best pout? Plus, a talking beluga! Discover this and more as we answer the age-old question: if you have a real long tongue, where do you keep it?
Guest: Anna Hossnieh
Footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hKwcP67esS0xOVIWmWJI9SXHbOByADpRbRMghZMCZHY/edit?usp=sharing
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show Lips the lovely luscious lips
of living and extinct animals. Who has the best pout
the most perfect kissable lips, from smoochable dinosaurs to some
of the toughest lips on the planet, or letting these
(00:29):
critters get lippy with us? Discover this more as we
answer the angel question, if you have a real long tongue,
where do you keep it? Joining me today to rate
these lips is producer at iHeartRadio and friend of the show,
co host of Ethnically Ambiguous, Anna Huseby.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome, Hi, thank you for having me Always always fun.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I am so so excited for this one because there's
big news. Anna. I don't know if you've heard about this.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
The t Rex.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You can kiss t Rex. It's it's canon now scientifically, Cannon.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm gonna need you to convince me on this one.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm not saying you won't die. I'm just saying that
they have all okay, all right, conced the most dangerous kiss,
so our understanding of how dinosaurs look like has changed
over the years. We once thought they were scaly, brown
or green, kind of gaunt creatures. They are sometimes scaly.
(01:32):
We still think that a lot of them were sort
of had tough, leathery skin, but we also think that
they may have been feathery or colorful and maybe not
as gaunt as they were once depicted. This habit of
reconstructing an animal from fossil records and not including enough fat, muscle,
(01:53):
or other soft tissue mass is called shrink wrapping, like
you've seen you've seen Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, that's where most of my dinosaur knowledge comes from.
Really that in Land Before Time.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, both very scientifically accurate movies. Land Before Time. You
know what, Actually I feel like in Land Before Time,
the dinosaurs are They've got a certain heft to them
and a certain chubbiness that I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
They're like children. They're like young kids who haven't lost
their baby weight yet exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
They are cute and I like that. I mean, I
do think that it is an interesting depiction of dinosaurs
visually now, of course, like they probably couldn't talk, they
probably couldn't go on adventures together, among many different species.
I would love if that were the case. But yeah,
they might have been more plump than we sort of
(02:45):
envisioned them. Like in Jurassic Park, t Rex is sort
of this like very angular, very gaunt creature, very scary looking,
and its teeth kind of jet out of it, Like
even when its mouth is closed, you can still see
it's teeth jetting out of it. And of course there's
not a feather to be seen in any of the
(03:05):
Jurassic parks. I don't believe so, right, I haven't actually
seen the most recent Jurassic parks, but they didn't put
any feathers in there, did they?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I don't think so. I mean I've seen them all,
even the ones that get like the very bad ratings
from the most recent franchises, and yeah, no, no feathers.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
No feathers. That probably would have made them better. I
think it would have been very important plot points. You know,
Feathery dinosaurs could have been a thing. You could have
been bold and done feathery dinosaurs. But they didn't, and
that's why they missed out on an oscar.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, that's what I always say, as well. More feathers, Yeah,
more feathers.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I mean, think about it like recent Oscar winners. What
do they all have in common? Feathers? So yeah, often
t rex is depicted with these menacing teeth, similar to
like the crocodile, where you know, when the crocodile's mouth
is closed, you can still see its teeth jutting out.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Wow, t rexes are kind of ugly. It almost looks
like they have hair on them, but I think that's
just texture, right, I think that's just texture.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I don't know about the evidence for t rexes having
like it wouldn't be hair, it would be like fine
feathery down. Potentially there may have been some species of
t rex like dinosaurs, large dinosaurs that had some sort
of like basically feathery coating, maybe for warmth, and certainly
(04:35):
perhaps their offspring had some downy fluff on them as well.
Maybe when they're younger, when they have less body fat,
that might have been useful. But yeah, I don't know
if it is a really settled thing about whether adult
t rexes had any kind of feathers or not. But
they do think that they had lips, which means that
(04:59):
technically they could wear lipstick, which I think you know,
you said they're ugly, but I feel like you put
a little bit of lipstick on a little bit of highlighter,
and you know that's a little bit of rouge. Maybe
some falsies. Then you're you know, look you're working with sulting. Yeah,
(05:21):
high cheek bones. They've got the bone structure, yeah they do.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
But it's also unfortunate they have to, you know, sort
of succumb to like societal beauty standards in order to
be considered beautiful. It's actually quite sad. I think what
we're seeing here.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I think the unrealistic standards for t rexes is a
shame because I think that they are beautiful even when
they aren't wearing false eyelashes, and like, you know, I
think that there should be a whole revamp of the
whole dinosaur Instagram culture.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, yeah, I will say, you know, looking at these photos,
it's interesting that they have lips. But it's like something
I would have never really thought about, Like I would
just assume the area around their their mouth where it
opens is their lips. Yeah, So is like what different
differentiates that sort of I guess lip area from the
(06:25):
rest of their I guess exoskeleton, if you will, Like
what made them be like no, No, they are lips.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's a really good question. I mean, lips are sort
of a they like. The interesting thing with lips, right,
is that it is something that in humans and some
other animals are malleable, right, Like, our lips have this
fine muscle control and we can move them in this way.
(06:57):
But that doesn't have to be the case. There are
plenty of animal that have lips but do not have
that kind of fine muscle control over them. I think
that the sort of general definition of lips is just
like a fleshy projection that covers the teeth. I don't
know if it needs to be much more than that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
The way that researchers determined that t Rex may have
had these lips covering their teeth is that they actually
took a tooth from a close relative of the t rex,
this Plotosaurus, another giant frightening predator that looks very similar
to the t rex, and they bisected the tooth and
(07:40):
examined the enamel from the fossil and found that it
had shockingly little wear and tear. So enamel, when exposed
to the elements or to coffee, can dissolve and wear overtime.
And so crocodiles and alligators, the modern day examples of
an animal who don't got lips and have their teeth
all sticky out cope with this by replacing their teeth.
(08:02):
Often they go through thousands of teeth over their lifetime.
And that's a lot of money from the tooth fairy.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, that's a lot of money. And I did not
know they were losing teeth left and right.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
They Yeah, it's it's a lot of teeth that they
go through. But t rex teeth likely took too long
to grow to be so easily replaceable. That, plus the
evidence from the t rex's close relative indicates to scientists
that t rex could have had lips covering their teeth,
which would have served the purpose of protecting their teeth
(08:39):
from the elements. I mean, it's an interesting thing, right,
like why do we have lips? One of the reasons,
perhaps the key reason originally, is that it helped protect
our teeth.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Okay, I thought it was for kissing.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Grow up anna geez or for talking.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Don't lips do progess the tongue as well, But I
guess like lips help enunciate certain words.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
But absolutely they absolutely do. They help us talk. They
help us enunciate kissing, all of these sort of social things,
But we didn't originally evolve lips to talk. Perhaps lips
did help, but like we started to evolve much more
flexible lips in order to be able to have more
(09:26):
unique vocalizations, right like our primate ancestors, But you know,
using our lips to really shape sound and stuff, that
came quite a bit later in our evolutionary history. Okay,
So yeah, for the t rex that probably the lips
that they had were unlikely to be as poudy and
(09:48):
flexible as human lips are. It was probably just sort
of a tough, sort of fleshy protuberance that as part
of their face, probably quite les that covered their teeth
and protected them from the disintegration of their enamel when
exposed to the elements. So, I looking honestly at the
(10:12):
illustration of te rex with lips versus without lips, I
think with lips it looks like a more serious animal
for some reason. Without lips with its teeth kind of
sticking out to me, now, that looks goofy hmm.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Okay, I feel like the classic look is teeth out.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, but I feel like it looks now that I
see them with the lips on, it looks wrong. Without
the lips it looks silly.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It looks like they don't have teeth like them. That
be like like they lost all their teeth basically, is
what it looks like with.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
The lips on.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, lips on just looks weird.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Huh No for me, like the lips on makes sense
to me, And with the with the teeth sticking out
the teeth it makes me feel It makes me think
this has sort of like an overbite, and I'm just
imagining it with braces on and being kind of silly looking.
But yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know, because like
(11:12):
with the with the lips over it, there's a mystery
to it, right, like how many teeth do you have?
I don't know. It's being coys, it's a it's a
mystery until I'm in that mouth getting eaten. To me,
that's intimidating, Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I you know, personally, I need to see the teeth
before I get scared because I'm like, well, what are
we working with here? You might just be a nice guy, right,
Teeth always is like if you're showing teeth, oh, I'm
out of here. Yeah, I'm not interested in seeing your teeth. Okay,
then I know you mean business.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
This is how we know you wouldn't make a good dentist,
because as soon as someone comes in your office and
they show you their teeth, it's like, well, I don't want.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
To see your teeth. I'm out of there. You're out of.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
There, right, So Anna, earlier, we were talking about how
lips are not just used for protecting teeth. They can
also be flexible and used to shape sounds. And so
(12:18):
I want to talk about the beluga whales. So are
you familiar with belugas?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Uh? Yes, I am.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Uh you sound very like it sounds like your best
friend is like a beluga.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
You were You can't. I mean, they're they're just they're
very viral animals. I've come across a beluga in my day.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
You know you've dealt with a beluga, believe me.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I mean, like they're out here. People will be like,
look at this beluga whale playing soccer and you're like, whoa,
you know, they got like the perfect little head. That's
like I'm here to play.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, sound like fun guys.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
They are fun guys. They're actually very interesting because they
are of the whales, sort of the most expressive and
like human like whale. One reason is that their neck
can turn, so they can turn their neck and actually
look at you in a way that is unusual, Yeah,
unusual for whales. They also have highly flexible lips, so
(13:17):
their facial expressions I think are a little more like
uncannily maybe not exactly human, but they are more human likes.
So they actually have that curve, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
That little sort of like lip curve that makes them
being like, oh.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Why, Yeah, they definitely really yeah, they definitely have the
why kind of look. They are very cute, very kind
of goofy looking, but quite intelligent. So they use those
highly flexible lips on their face to suck in prey,
which is unlike both to the whales. So they kind
(13:53):
of use their lips as a vacuum, which is really interesting.
Oh really like yep, yep, they can suck and suck
their prayer write in h just like they're eating spaghetti. H.
They also use their lips in social ways. So we
were earlier we were talking about kissing. Uh, they will
make mouth to mouth contact with other Belugas in a
(14:14):
friendly gesture. Now this doesn't necessarily connote any kind of
like romantic intention. It is just sort of a friendly
like almost like a handshake, but with.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Lips, right, they're kind of like, oh.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Exactly, they're they're very European tree European, you know, like hello,
and just like greeting you with little little kiss, which,
trust me, is taking me a little bit to get
used to.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
H So with all that kissing you're doing over there,
with all.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
The belugas, I have to kiss in Europe so many so.
But one of the reasons I wanted to talk about
belugas is they have a secret set of lips. They
have phonics located below their blowhole in their air passage,
so you cannot really see these from the outside. These
(15:08):
lips are located next to the beluga's flexible melon. So
the melon is this fatty ball in their forehead that
the beluga can change the shape of using muscles, which
can change the shape of sounds that the beluga makes.
So you know how that beluga has that kind of
like lumpy, fatty forehead. It looks cute, it looks squishy,
(15:31):
It is cute and squishy, and then these phonic lips
that are in its air passage way can kind of
work similar to human lips and shape the sound that
the beluga makes, and in fact, it is so good
at doing this that it can somewhat mimic human sound.
(15:54):
And it is so there is this really wild story
from the seventies about a beluga whil that seemed to
be able to mimic human speech. Kay, as most animal
stories start off, it happened with a Navy kidnapping. So
(16:15):
in the nineteen seventies, the Navies, the Navy kidnapped Belugas
from the Arctic. Uh. Some were so young that they
spent most of their life in the Navy's care, which
was the case for a calf named Knock. So the
Navy had this whole like pipe dream where they were
training Belugas for surveillance. So they kidnapped a.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Bit I do recall this.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, so they like kidnapped a bunch of like baby
Belugas and then we're training them for military purposes. I
think Belugas are still used by various countries for military usage,
which for me is like yeah, yeah exactly for me
as a pacifist and someone who cares for belugas, not
(17:02):
a big fan, but Knock spent so much time with
trainers that he may have started to see them as
his family. There is a recording made of Knock seemingly
trying to mimic human speech. So there are no real
words being spoken, just a mimicry of the general sound
(17:24):
and cadence of a human conversation happening. So I'm gonna
play this for you. Okay, here is the sound of
Knock the beluga seemingly mimicking human speech. So why do
(18:06):
you think ana does that sound like a person? Isn't
that crazy? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Crazy?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah? So there's no words there, right, but his cadence,
frequency and patterns seem to match human speech. And they
actually sort of tried to break it down and like
break down the timing of it and make sure that
it's not just that we kind of think it sounds
like human speech, but that it's the frequency, these patterns
that it has certain like vocal patterns that are very
(18:35):
similar to human speech. So obviously it's really hard with
like a sample size of one traumatized beluga to like
really do a study of like is this bluca actually
trying to mimic human sounds? It's it's hard to know,
but yeah, I mean it's such a it is a
(18:57):
really strange sound. I don't know how we could study
this without being highly unethical, because then you would what
would you do, like kidnap ar baby whales, Like I
wouldn't want that to happen, So.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Then put them in a room together and be like talk.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah. And so it seems like the Navy gave this beluga.
I mean, if this is really the beluga trying to
mimic human speech, maybe this beluga basically had like Stockholm syndrome,
identified with its captors, loved its human captors. In fact,
there's evidence of this. Uh Knock was once released from
(19:36):
captivity by animal rights activists and he swam outside for
a bit, but then just of his own volition like
returned to his captors because he just, you know, it's
like his human family. He's never known anything else. He's
never like gotten the experience of living with other belugas.
So the I don't know, the fact that he may
(19:58):
have been trying to mimic the sound of his captors
is like, this is a really disturbing story to me
because it's like he's trying to communicate with people who
he can never really communicate with No, and.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
He's trying to be like, eh, can I go? They
didn't mind if I get out of here? Yeah, no
big deal, I'll stay. I'll stay. But I just yeah,
I'm a family of friends. Yeah, they're like shut up, bluga, but.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah, Like imagine if you were kidnapped by aliens and
they are making sounds, right, like weird sounds, and so
you try to like mimic the sounds that the aliens
are making to try to communicate with them, and they're
just like, wow, look at that cute human. I'm sure
that they don't crave other human interaction anyways.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I mean I have like no, I mean, it's just
so sad when it's what it's put trade and like
a lie where you're like the Beluca's like alp elp,
Like it's just so sad.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
I know, I know it's sad, and it's like haunting
kind of. It's like seems like he's like desperate to
bridge this communication.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yes, but he's yeah, it's like why is he Why
is he trying to talk to us? Probably because he's
trying to be like, get me the heck out of here.
I'm not who you think I am.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I mean, I almost think it's something almost sadder, like,
I don't think he can even imagine a life outside
of captivity. I think he's just desperate for communication, because
Blucas can communicate with each other and understand each other,
right like. They it's not it's a you know, it's
not like a human language, right like where words have
(21:47):
specific meanings. But Wales often have like calls that kind
of identify themselves, and they can certainly like they can
understand sort of the calls and the meaning of these calls.
And so for this very intelligent creature to be in
this situation where it's like all it's ever known is humans.
(22:07):
And sure there were other Belugas, like maybe one other
beluga that it would interact with, but it's another captive Belugas.
So neither of them have any experience with Beluga culture.
Because I feel like animals do have culture. They can
teach and pass on knowledge to each other, and so
it's it's a form of culture, and so they don't
(22:28):
have any of that. And so with Knok, he's just
trying to communicate to the only family that he's ever known.
But he can never he can never fully make himself
understood or understand what the people are saying. It's really tragic.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
That's so sad.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
It's really sad. Well boy, Okay, so a little upper
here is talking about camels getting lip fillers, So.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Okay, go on, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So camels camel lips are really interesting. They have three
lips sort of, so they have this flexible lower lip
and a cleft upper lip. So I don't know, I
feel like it's it's kind of a technicality of them
having sort of three lips. But yeah, they have the
lower lip this upper lip, and they're highly flexible. But
they are also very thick and strong, and they use
(23:24):
this to eat anything from thorny bushes to cactuses, Like
camel can literally chow down on a cactus like it's
no problem.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I feel like I have a very clear vision
of camel's chewing their live Yes, m I'm sorry for
all the people who have mesophonia, this is not the
episode for you now.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I also am sorry that nobody got to see you
doing the camel chew because it was.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Isn't it like that?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
It is very much like that, and there's there's some
like side to side job motion to.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Like yeah, ah, wow wow, and you're like, wow, it
is that camel is chewing?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yes, yes, And if you don't have misophonia, the sort
of high displeasure at hearing mouth sounds, you can check
out videos of camels eating cactuses and it's not gory
or anything because they're fine. Inside the camel mouth, they have,
uh these conical papillis, so papilla are these rigid bumps, uh,
(24:32):
And these bumps actually protect their mouth from thorns by
redirecting the thorns so that they're pointing down in parallel
to the camel's uh esophagus. So like uh, like if
you have imagine you have like a bunch of like
you know, thorns or sticks or something, and if you
(24:52):
just like sort of push them on a smooth surface,
they can go in various directions. But if you push
them on a grooved surface, there going to go in
the direction of the grooves. And that's how the camel's
mouth works and so that it can swallow these thorns
and have them go down safely down their esophagus. I
don't recommend trying this as a human. It's not gonna
(25:15):
work out for you. In fact, camel lips are so
important for their ability to eat that thick lips are
a sign of good breeding, like good health and a
camel in domesticated camels, which is so important that some
camel breeders will inject their camel's lips with botox to
(25:35):
make their lips look bigger. So injecting botox relaxes the
muscles compressing the lips, and so it makes their lips
much powdier. And so this is the huge juicing scandal
in camel contests. You're injecting your camel's lips with botox
when you're doing like show camels. It's a big scandal
(25:56):
if someone's found to be doing bowts into their camel's
lips to make their camel lips seem bigger.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Wow, I'm looking at photos of inside a camel's mouth. Weird,
I'm I'm gonna say about that. Weird, an odd thing
to look at.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, yeah, it's you know, camels are really interesting. We
have a whole episode actually on camels that we did.
But like, uh, they when you get up close to
the camel though more and more strange they seem, I
think is but like the inside of the mouth is weird.
The teeth are big and strange, the chewing, the heavy eyelids,
(26:39):
they are just, I mean, honestly, runway ready animals.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
That's interesting you say it that way, runway ready. Uh,
I don't I don't know if I like, I mean,
I'm glad they could eat anything, but like, I don't know,
I don't know about any of this.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
You don't know about the whole cactus chewing thing. It
is It is an unpl like I'll put it this way.
It's a bit of an unpleasant experience to watch them
eating a cactus, just because it looks like it should
be painful. Yeah, it does not look like a good situation. Uh,
and so yeah, I mean, but they're fine, which blows
(27:21):
my mind. It does not look like something you should
be able to chew and eat with ease. Like obviously
you can eat cactus right like in like people eat cactus,
but we get rid of the thorns. We take the
thorns off. That's a very important part of eating the cactus. Like,
but eating the cactus with thorns and the sound it's
(27:43):
making as these thorns are getting crunched and swallowed is
it's something. It's a type of ASMR.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I guess, I get literally, I guess because I have
no idea, but yeah, just see it seems so rough.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's but they're fine with it. I think
they're probably less fine with getting botox injections into their lips.
You know. Again, we were talking earlier about unrealistic beauty
standards for dinosaurs, and I feel like camels are now
suffering from sort of the Instagram culture of like, hey,
(28:22):
everyone's got to have certain type of lips, certain type
of look. Just leave those camels alone.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, unless you know what, I don't want to
judge them.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
You know, if the camels themselves wanted to get botox injections,
I'd be fine with that. It's the fact that camel
breeders are giving them the botox injections. If a camel,
if a self empowered camel walks into like the plastic
surgeon's office, it's like, give me an extra hump and
(28:53):
some lip pillars, like a hump hump modification. I'm cool
with that. If camels want to do whatever they want
with their bodies. But but it's the camel breeders that
are doing or like telling the camels like, hey, your
lips aren't good enough. We gotta we gotta do some
work on you. That's what bothers me.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
That is incredibly sad.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I just I don't know. I'm there's always a new
at like a new sort of like very specific controversy
based on a very specific sort of hobbyist thing like
camel competitions that I I love learning about incredible controversies
for a type of competition that I didn't even really understand.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Before camel competitions.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, well, you know, I mean it makes sense. I
think that we sort of show off and compete every
animal we've domesticated, right, Like I think there are cats shows,
right like you know there's dog shows, but I think
there's also like catch, which I can't imagine. The cats
are very compliant with being shown at a cat show.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
No, I feel like a cat show is like the
most highly trained cats you'll ever see her.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Because what I had a cat named Metts, and if
I tried to take her to a cat show, everyone
would be missing at least one layer of skin shredded.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
If I took my cat to a cat show, I
don't think i'd have a cat anymore. I think he'd
run away.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yeah, I don't think you'd have a face anymore.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
No, So now we are going to talk about another
animal with fantastic lips. This is the tubelipped nectar bat.
It is a bat found in Ecuador with an incredible
(30:55):
pair of lips and a tongue that just goes on
for days. So this is a small bat which has
the longest tongue to body ratio of any mammal, with
a three inch or eight point five centimeters tongue that
is one and a half times the length of its body.
So where do you think you put a tongue this
(31:17):
long in an animal? Right? Like cause like its head,
it's pretty small. Like where does this tongue go? Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Boy, that is a good question. Where is there like
a like a sort of like almost like a fruit
roll up Like it just goes, you know, like it
just rolls back up and then come like it almost
unrolls when I eat it.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I love that. I wish that were the case.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It is actually located in its thorax, so the tongue
recoils all the way back into its thorax to accommodate
its length. It'd be like if our tongue started in
our chest. Uh, and then we could sort of use
there's this hyoid bone that it uses to be able
to eject the tongue out of its out of its
(32:11):
chest up it's esavagus, and then finally out of its mouth.
There might be some sort of tongue compression that's happening.
It's not exactly like a fruit roll up, but there
might be some sort of tongue compression happening inside of
its body. But yeah, it's because it's it has the
tongue that starts like in its chest, which is you
(32:31):
know that it's that's a quite quite a French kisser.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I gotta say, wow, I don't even understand.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna think too much about
what i just said. But yeah, so it uh eats
pullen and insects, but it also uses this incredible tongue
to sip nectar. So the tongue has these long papillae.
We talked about papillae earlier. So papilla are just like
(33:02):
any kind of like bump fleshy protrusion, and it has
these long papillo that act as a mop for the nectar.
So uh, the the these papillai will like dip into
the nectar and kind of help using sort of the
liquid tension and stuff in a surface area will help
(33:22):
sop up the water. So the reason I'm talking about
this bat on a lip themed podcast is that the
or lip themed episode We're not always going to talk
about lips on this podcast, is that the lower jaw
has lips that extend far past it, thus giving it
the name the tube lipped nectar bat. Like, if you
(33:43):
look at an image of this guy, it's got these
lower lips that just jet way out.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Okay, yuh weird, that's a weird one he's got.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
You know, like the thing that car tunes do where
they like uh strum their lower lip with their finger
or something to make that like noise. This guy could
do that so good.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
He this is an underbite if I've ever seen one.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
It's an underlip, which is something I've never seen before,
because like it's jaws in the right place, but its
lip goes right. It's just it's like the lip is
trying to leave the bat.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Or I can't I can't even explain why I'm looking
at He's just just like, hey, yeah, he does guy
feel like that's how he would talk, because well, you'd
be like.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
A little bit of a he's got a little bit
of a what.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, it's got like a Marlin. Yes, is sort of
like a Marlin. What's going on? Like I assume he
would talk like that, like you'd be like.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Me, let me get this real quick, and then this
very long tongue. Yeah. No, he's definitely a Marlon Brando bat. Uh.
And so that's lower this if you did a side
by side right saying, I'm gonna google marw.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
You gotta google Marlon Brando. Godfather though, because Godfather he
does actually have That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
He does like when he's young, he does have quite
plump lips. Actually Father Godfather. Yeah no, he's the lower
lip of the Godfather. Like look what they Look what
they've done my boy? Maybe by Yeah, there's a yeah.
(35:44):
So this bat definitely Marlon Brando vibes. And that lower
lip that is sort of this tube like projection helps
catch the nectar as the tongue SOPs it up and retracts.
So it's got this of like the tongue comes in
and there's basically this lip that's acting like a cup
(36:06):
to help catch the nectar, and then it is able
to drink this nectar, and it is able to pollinate
highly specialized flowers with very deep pitchers containing nectar. So
only this bat with its really long tongue and weird
lip can reach the nectar and soap it up, can
(36:27):
reach the nectar and drink it up. And so as
it's doing this, the pollen of the flower dusts its
head and will allow it to go and pollinate other
flowers of the same species. So it's this really interesting
example of coevolution of this bat and this flower where
only this bat can reach the nectar of the flower,
(36:47):
and the flower has evolved for that to happen so
that this bat becomes the personal corrier of the flowers
pollen and takes that to other flower species. So it's
kind of like a I don't know, what would you
call someone who like facilitates romance between two people, Like a.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Matchmaker, Yeah, a matchmaker.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
But then you're but it's a match maker, a romance,
a romance. Heer, I like that I made that up.
It's a good word though, but it's sort of more
like if you had to go between for someone to
like collect someone's reproductive genetic material and then bring it
to you. So, I don't know what you'd call that person.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
A romance heer, a thief, a thief if he's stealing
genetic material, I don't know, a romance her, or like
a sperm corrier, yeah, like a yeah, I don't know,
like a genetic I gotta think of.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
A genetic genes. Well, uh yeah, there's surprisingly another animal
called a tubelip, but this is the tubelipped rass. So
the tubelipped rass is a small, oblong, purple and yellow
fish that has a set of glossy, well hydrated, luscious lips.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, this fish, they are this fish has had Here's
the thing. This fish has had injectables.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Okay, I mean, look, I I'm not gonna say it hasn't,
like because I just learned that camels get lip injections,
so why not a fish. So this is found in.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
This fish is pouting at me.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
It's pouting. It's it's a pout. It's like a it's
what I mean, maybe it's still popular. But what used
to be very popular to do in photos where you
stick your lips out, sort of the duck face kind
of thing. But this fish is doing it. It's back
in two thousand and six doing serious duckface. So it
(38:54):
is found in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. And
the tube blipped rass uses its powdy lips to eat
dangerous stinging coral. So the coral they eat is covered
in stinging cells. So the tublip rass uses these instagrammable
lips that are covered in mucus with layered membranes, and
(39:18):
they press their lips against the coral in a kiss
and then suck the flesh of the coral up. So
you know, they're also good kissers, these fish.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, I see that.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
It's just I mean, come on, So researchers believe that
the unique structure of the lips and the high amount
of mucus helps protect the fish from the coral stinging cells. So,
you know, just these glossy, mucusy lips that they press
onto the coral and then suck the flesh off of
(39:53):
the coral. I don't know what to tell you. These
fish are sort of flirtatious with this coral while also
eating it.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
There is such a pout going on here. Yes, I
don't even know what to think.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I mean, it's overdoing it a little. But you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Sure, I mean, I guess are you coming for this
poor fish?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
I'm just I'm just saying I'm not like these other
fish that pout to get whatever they want from stinging coral.
Is all I'm saying. I'm not like the other fish.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Wow, m you've changed.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I've become so judgmental of fish's lifestyle choices.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I'm seeing that now.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Well, Anna, before we go, we gotta play a little
game called the Mystery Animal Sound game. Guess who's squawking?
Every week I play a mystery animal sound and you,
the listener, and you the guests, try to guess who
is making that sound. Last week's mystery animal sound. Hint,
if you've got happy feet, this is not a sound
(41:01):
you want to hear. So Anna, can you guess he
was making that sound? Again? The hint is, if you've
got happy feet, this is not a sound you want
to hear.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Is that an orca?
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Oh that's a really interesting guess, very very close. Congratulations
to Will p, Anti Bee and Joey p who all
gets correctly. This is actually the leopard seal, a very
deadly predator of penguins. So like the orca. It is
a serial killer. The leopard seal grows up to around
(41:40):
eleven feet or three point five meters and with loads
of sharp teeth. The leopard seal is no joke. It
is a very, I would say, quite a scary, intimidating
looking seal. They will happily eat anything from penguins, seabirds, fish,
smaller species of seal, and even krill that they can
(42:01):
filter through their interlocking teeth. So the vocalizations are often
used by males in the breeding season to attract a mate,
and they will hang upside down in the water and
make this call in the hopes of attracting a female.
H But if I saw one of these things, just
(42:22):
like this eleven foot seal, with this mouthful of teeth,
these beaty predator eyes, hanging upside down and making this call,
I would assume it is calling for the devil to
come and take my soul. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
I don't like that. It was when it sounds like
it could be like talking to space.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Don't like that.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Yeah no, yeah, I like that. It's a good rule
in general. If it sounds like it's talking to space,
get out of there.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yeah, no, thanks.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
No, thank you, onto this week's mystery animal sound. The
hint don't call this great animal a peasant, so Anna,
do you have any guesses?
Speaker 2 (43:15):
What was the clue?
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Again? Don't call this great animal a peasant.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
So it's not a peasant.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Huh, it's a little bit obscure. It's a bit of
a tough one. Can you guess sort of the type
of animal that it is?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Well, I mean a bird. I'm a type of bird.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Interesting, I will actually give you that. Yes, it is
a type of bird. So that's an extra hint for y'all.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Love. I'm going based off the sort of peasant clue
and it's in that sort of family. But like he
doesn't like to be confused for a peasant.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Interesting, very interesting guesses. Well, if you out there, sorry,
did you have another?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
No?
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Let? Well, if you out there think you know who
is making that sound, you can write to me at
Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com. You can also write
any questions you have, any cute animal pictures, whatever you
want or like topic suggestions kinda. Thank you so much
for joining me today on this very liptacular episode where
(44:21):
can people find you?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Well, first, thank you so much for having me I
always enjoy coming and learning the most obscure random stuff
that I would never think about ever unless it was
for you, So thank you. You can follow me at
Anna host me on Twitter. I have an Instagram that's
at Selling the host Nia it's just selling, and then
my last name that's where I sell myself to you.
(44:44):
And then yeah, I have a podcast Ethnically Ambiguous that
you can check out. I have a bunch of stuff
going on, a bunch of shows I produce here at iHeart.
Check all those out if you follow me on social media.
I post about them all the time so you'll figure
it out. And then oh, I have a substack now
called selling posner dot subsack dot com. I just write
(45:06):
a bunch about a bunch of random pop culture stuff
that like engages anything that I like randomly become obsessed with.
I write about it nice though. That's fantastic. Subscribe to
that if you're interested in my musing.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
You're amusing amusing musings wonderful. Yes, definitely check those things
out and thank you guys so much for listening. If
you're enjoying the show, and you'll leave a rating or
a review, I deeply appreciate it and I read every
single review. Thanks to the Space Cossics for their super
awesome song. Ex Solumina. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.
(45:44):
For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what. Wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday.
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show Lips the lovely luscious lips
of living and extinct animals. Who has the best pout
the most perfect kissable lips, from smoochable dinosaurs to some
of the toughest lips on the planet, or letting these
(00:29):
critters get lippy with us? Discover this more as we
answer the angel question, if you have a real long tongue,
where do you keep it? Joining me today to rate
these lips is producer at iHeartRadio and friend of the show,
co host of Ethnically Ambiguous, Anna Huseby.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome, Hi, thank you for having me Always always fun.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I am so so excited for this one because there's
big news. Anna. I don't know if you've heard about this.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
The t Rex.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You can kiss t Rex. It's it's canon now scientifically, Cannon.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm gonna need you to convince me on this one.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm not saying you won't die. I'm just saying that
they have all okay, all right, conced the most dangerous kiss,
so our understanding of how dinosaurs look like has changed
over the years. We once thought they were scaly, brown
or green, kind of gaunt creatures. They are sometimes scaly.
(01:32):
We still think that a lot of them were sort
of had tough, leathery skin, but we also think that
they may have been feathery or colorful and maybe not
as gaunt as they were once depicted. This habit of
reconstructing an animal from fossil records and not including enough fat, muscle,
(01:53):
or other soft tissue mass is called shrink wrapping, like
you've seen you've seen Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, that's where most of my dinosaur knowledge comes from.
Really that in Land Before Time.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, both very scientifically accurate movies. Land Before Time. You
know what, Actually I feel like in Land Before Time,
the dinosaurs are They've got a certain heft to them
and a certain chubbiness that I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
They're like children. They're like young kids who haven't lost
their baby weight yet exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
They are cute and I like that. I mean, I
do think that it is an interesting depiction of dinosaurs
visually now, of course, like they probably couldn't talk, they
probably couldn't go on adventures together, among many different species.
I would love if that were the case. But yeah,
they might have been more plump than we sort of
(02:45):
envisioned them. Like in Jurassic Park, t Rex is sort
of this like very angular, very gaunt creature, very scary looking,
and its teeth kind of jet out of it, Like
even when its mouth is closed, you can still see
it's teeth jetting out of it. And of course there's
not a feather to be seen in any of the
(03:05):
Jurassic parks. I don't believe so, right, I haven't actually
seen the most recent Jurassic parks, but they didn't put
any feathers in there, did they?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I don't think so. I mean I've seen them all,
even the ones that get like the very bad ratings
from the most recent franchises, and yeah, no, no feathers.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
No feathers. That probably would have made them better. I
think it would have been very important plot points. You know,
Feathery dinosaurs could have been a thing. You could have
been bold and done feathery dinosaurs. But they didn't, and
that's why they missed out on an oscar.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, that's what I always say, as well. More feathers, Yeah,
more feathers.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I mean, think about it like recent Oscar winners. What
do they all have in common? Feathers? So yeah, often
t rex is depicted with these menacing teeth, similar to
like the crocodile, where you know, when the crocodile's mouth
is closed, you can still see its teeth jutting out.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Wow, t rexes are kind of ugly. It almost looks
like they have hair on them, but I think that's
just texture, right, I think that's just texture.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I don't know about the evidence for t rexes having
like it wouldn't be hair, it would be like fine
feathery down. Potentially there may have been some species of
t rex like dinosaurs, large dinosaurs that had some sort
of like basically feathery coating, maybe for warmth, and certainly
(04:35):
perhaps their offspring had some downy fluff on them as well.
Maybe when they're younger, when they have less body fat,
that might have been useful. But yeah, I don't know
if it is a really settled thing about whether adult
t rexes had any kind of feathers or not. But
they do think that they had lips, which means that
(04:59):
technically they could wear lipstick, which I think you know,
you said they're ugly, but I feel like you put
a little bit of lipstick on a little bit of highlighter,
and you know that's a little bit of rouge. Maybe
some falsies. Then you're you know, look you're working with sulting. Yeah,
(05:21):
high cheek bones. They've got the bone structure, yeah they do.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
But it's also unfortunate they have to, you know, sort
of succumb to like societal beauty standards in order to
be considered beautiful. It's actually quite sad. I think what
we're seeing here.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I think the unrealistic standards for t rexes is a
shame because I think that they are beautiful even when
they aren't wearing false eyelashes, and like, you know, I
think that there should be a whole revamp of the
whole dinosaur Instagram culture.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, yeah, I will say, you know, looking at these photos,
it's interesting that they have lips. But it's like something
I would have never really thought about, Like I would
just assume the area around their their mouth where it
opens is their lips. Yeah, So is like what different
differentiates that sort of I guess lip area from the
(06:25):
rest of their I guess exoskeleton, if you will, Like
what made them be like no, No, they are lips.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's a really good question. I mean, lips are sort
of a they like. The interesting thing with lips, right,
is that it is something that in humans and some
other animals are malleable, right, Like, our lips have this
fine muscle control and we can move them in this way.
(06:57):
But that doesn't have to be the case. There are
plenty of animal that have lips but do not have
that kind of fine muscle control over them. I think
that the sort of general definition of lips is just
like a fleshy projection that covers the teeth. I don't
know if it needs to be much more than that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
The way that researchers determined that t Rex may have
had these lips covering their teeth is that they actually
took a tooth from a close relative of the t rex,
this Plotosaurus, another giant frightening predator that looks very similar
to the t rex, and they bisected the tooth and
(07:40):
examined the enamel from the fossil and found that it
had shockingly little wear and tear. So enamel, when exposed
to the elements or to coffee, can dissolve and wear overtime.
And so crocodiles and alligators, the modern day examples of
an animal who don't got lips and have their teeth
all sticky out cope with this by replacing their teeth.
(08:02):
Often they go through thousands of teeth over their lifetime.
And that's a lot of money from the tooth fairy.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, that's a lot of money. And I did not
know they were losing teeth left and right.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
They Yeah, it's it's a lot of teeth that they
go through. But t rex teeth likely took too long
to grow to be so easily replaceable. That, plus the
evidence from the t rex's close relative indicates to scientists
that t rex could have had lips covering their teeth,
which would have served the purpose of protecting their teeth
(08:39):
from the elements. I mean, it's an interesting thing, right,
like why do we have lips? One of the reasons,
perhaps the key reason originally, is that it helped protect
our teeth.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Okay, I thought it was for kissing.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Grow up anna geez or for talking.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Don't lips do progess the tongue as well, But I
guess like lips help enunciate certain words.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
But absolutely they absolutely do. They help us talk. They
help us enunciate kissing, all of these sort of social things,
But we didn't originally evolve lips to talk. Perhaps lips
did help, but like we started to evolve much more
flexible lips in order to be able to have more
(09:26):
unique vocalizations, right like our primate ancestors, But you know,
using our lips to really shape sound and stuff, that
came quite a bit later in our evolutionary history. Okay,
So yeah, for the t rex that probably the lips
that they had were unlikely to be as poudy and
(09:48):
flexible as human lips are. It was probably just sort
of a tough, sort of fleshy protuberance that as part
of their face, probably quite les that covered their teeth
and protected them from the disintegration of their enamel when
exposed to the elements. So, I looking honestly at the
(10:12):
illustration of te rex with lips versus without lips, I
think with lips it looks like a more serious animal
for some reason. Without lips with its teeth kind of
sticking out to me, now, that looks goofy hmm.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Okay, I feel like the classic look is teeth out.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, but I feel like it looks now that I
see them with the lips on, it looks wrong. Without
the lips it looks silly.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It looks like they don't have teeth like them. That
be like like they lost all their teeth basically, is
what it looks like with.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
The lips on.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, lips on just looks weird.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Huh No for me, like the lips on makes sense
to me, And with the with the teeth sticking out
the teeth it makes me feel It makes me think
this has sort of like an overbite, and I'm just
imagining it with braces on and being kind of silly looking.
But yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know, because like
(11:12):
with the with the lips over it, there's a mystery
to it, right, like how many teeth do you have?
I don't know. It's being coys, it's a it's a
mystery until I'm in that mouth getting eaten. To me,
that's intimidating, Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I you know, personally, I need to see the teeth
before I get scared because I'm like, well, what are
we working with here? You might just be a nice guy, right,
Teeth always is like if you're showing teeth, oh, I'm
out of here. Yeah, I'm not interested in seeing your teeth. Okay,
then I know you mean business.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
This is how we know you wouldn't make a good dentist,
because as soon as someone comes in your office and
they show you their teeth, it's like, well, I don't want.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
To see your teeth. I'm out of there. You're out of.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
There, right, So Anna, earlier, we were talking about how
lips are not just used for protecting teeth. They can
also be flexible and used to shape sounds. And so
(12:18):
I want to talk about the beluga whales. So are
you familiar with belugas?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Uh? Yes, I am.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Uh you sound very like it sounds like your best
friend is like a beluga.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
You were You can't. I mean, they're they're just they're
very viral animals. I've come across a beluga in my day.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
You know you've dealt with a beluga, believe me.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I mean, like they're out here. People will be like,
look at this beluga whale playing soccer and you're like, whoa,
you know, they got like the perfect little head. That's
like I'm here to play.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, sound like fun guys.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
They are fun guys. They're actually very interesting because they
are of the whales, sort of the most expressive and
like human like whale. One reason is that their neck
can turn, so they can turn their neck and actually
look at you in a way that is unusual, Yeah,
unusual for whales. They also have highly flexible lips, so
(13:17):
their facial expressions I think are a little more like
uncannily maybe not exactly human, but they are more human likes.
So they actually have that curve, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
That little sort of like lip curve that makes them
being like, oh.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Why, Yeah, they definitely really yeah, they definitely have the
why kind of look. They are very cute, very kind
of goofy looking, but quite intelligent. So they use those
highly flexible lips on their face to suck in prey,
which is unlike both to the whales. So they kind
(13:53):
of use their lips as a vacuum, which is really interesting.
Oh really like yep, yep, they can suck and suck
their prayer write in h just like they're eating spaghetti. H.
They also use their lips in social ways. So we
were earlier we were talking about kissing. Uh, they will
make mouth to mouth contact with other Belugas in a
(14:14):
friendly gesture. Now this doesn't necessarily connote any kind of
like romantic intention. It is just sort of a friendly
like almost like a handshake, but with.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Lips, right, they're kind of like, oh.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Exactly, they're they're very European tree European, you know, like hello,
and just like greeting you with little little kiss, which,
trust me, is taking me a little bit to get
used to.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
H So with all that kissing you're doing over there,
with all.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
The belugas, I have to kiss in Europe so many so.
But one of the reasons I wanted to talk about
belugas is they have a secret set of lips. They
have phonics located below their blowhole in their air passage,
so you cannot really see these from the outside. These
(15:08):
lips are located next to the beluga's flexible melon. So
the melon is this fatty ball in their forehead that
the beluga can change the shape of using muscles, which
can change the shape of sounds that the beluga makes.
So you know how that beluga has that kind of
like lumpy, fatty forehead. It looks cute, it looks squishy,
(15:31):
It is cute and squishy, and then these phonic lips
that are in its air passage way can kind of
work similar to human lips and shape the sound that
the beluga makes, and in fact, it is so good
at doing this that it can somewhat mimic human sound.
(15:54):
And it is so there is this really wild story
from the seventies about a beluga whil that seemed to
be able to mimic human speech. Kay, as most animal
stories start off, it happened with a Navy kidnapping. So
(16:15):
in the nineteen seventies, the Navies, the Navy kidnapped Belugas
from the Arctic. Uh. Some were so young that they
spent most of their life in the Navy's care, which
was the case for a calf named Knock. So the
Navy had this whole like pipe dream where they were
training Belugas for surveillance. So they kidnapped a.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Bit I do recall this.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, so they like kidnapped a bunch of like baby
Belugas and then we're training them for military purposes. I
think Belugas are still used by various countries for military usage,
which for me is like yeah, yeah exactly for me
as a pacifist and someone who cares for belugas, not
(17:02):
a big fan, but Knock spent so much time with
trainers that he may have started to see them as
his family. There is a recording made of Knock seemingly
trying to mimic human speech. So there are no real
words being spoken, just a mimicry of the general sound
(17:24):
and cadence of a human conversation happening. So I'm gonna
play this for you. Okay, here is the sound of
Knock the beluga seemingly mimicking human speech. So why do
(18:06):
you think ana does that sound like a person? Isn't
that crazy? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Crazy?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah? So there's no words there, right, but his cadence,
frequency and patterns seem to match human speech. And they
actually sort of tried to break it down and like
break down the timing of it and make sure that
it's not just that we kind of think it sounds
like human speech, but that it's the frequency, these patterns
that it has certain like vocal patterns that are very
(18:35):
similar to human speech. So obviously it's really hard with
like a sample size of one traumatized beluga to like
really do a study of like is this bluca actually
trying to mimic human sounds? It's it's hard to know,
but yeah, I mean it's such a it is a
(18:57):
really strange sound. I don't know how we could study
this without being highly unethical, because then you would what
would you do, like kidnap ar baby whales, Like I
wouldn't want that to happen, So.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Then put them in a room together and be like talk.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah. And so it seems like the Navy gave this beluga.
I mean, if this is really the beluga trying to
mimic human speech, maybe this beluga basically had like Stockholm syndrome,
identified with its captors, loved its human captors. In fact,
there's evidence of this. Uh Knock was once released from
(19:36):
captivity by animal rights activists and he swam outside for
a bit, but then just of his own volition like
returned to his captors because he just, you know, it's
like his human family. He's never known anything else. He's
never like gotten the experience of living with other belugas.
So the I don't know, the fact that he may
(19:58):
have been trying to mimic the sound of his captors
is like, this is a really disturbing story to me
because it's like he's trying to communicate with people who
he can never really communicate with No, and.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
He's trying to be like, eh, can I go? They
didn't mind if I get out of here? Yeah, no
big deal, I'll stay. I'll stay. But I just yeah,
I'm a family of friends. Yeah, they're like shut up, bluga, but.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah, Like imagine if you were kidnapped by aliens and
they are making sounds, right, like weird sounds, and so
you try to like mimic the sounds that the aliens
are making to try to communicate with them, and they're
just like, wow, look at that cute human. I'm sure
that they don't crave other human interaction anyways.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I mean I have like no, I mean, it's just
so sad when it's what it's put trade and like
a lie where you're like the Beluca's like alp elp,
Like it's just so sad.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
I know, I know it's sad, and it's like haunting
kind of. It's like seems like he's like desperate to
bridge this communication.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yes, but he's yeah, it's like why is he Why
is he trying to talk to us? Probably because he's
trying to be like, get me the heck out of here.
I'm not who you think I am.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I mean, I almost think it's something almost sadder, like,
I don't think he can even imagine a life outside
of captivity. I think he's just desperate for communication, because
Blucas can communicate with each other and understand each other,
right like. They it's not it's a you know, it's
not like a human language, right like where words have
(21:47):
specific meanings. But Wales often have like calls that kind
of identify themselves, and they can certainly like they can
understand sort of the calls and the meaning of these calls.
And so for this very intelligent creature to be in
this situation where it's like all it's ever known is humans.
(22:07):
And sure there were other Belugas, like maybe one other
beluga that it would interact with, but it's another captive Belugas.
So neither of them have any experience with Beluga culture.
Because I feel like animals do have culture. They can
teach and pass on knowledge to each other, and so
it's it's a form of culture, and so they don't
(22:28):
have any of that. And so with Knok, he's just
trying to communicate to the only family that he's ever known.
But he can never he can never fully make himself
understood or understand what the people are saying. It's really tragic.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
That's so sad.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
It's really sad. Well boy, Okay, so a little upper
here is talking about camels getting lip fillers, So.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Okay, go on, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So camels camel lips are really interesting. They have three
lips sort of, so they have this flexible lower lip
and a cleft upper lip. So I don't know, I
feel like it's it's kind of a technicality of them
having sort of three lips. But yeah, they have the
lower lip this upper lip, and they're highly flexible. But
they are also very thick and strong, and they use
(23:24):
this to eat anything from thorny bushes to cactuses, Like
camel can literally chow down on a cactus like it's
no problem.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I feel like I have a very clear vision
of camel's chewing their live Yes, m I'm sorry for
all the people who have mesophonia, this is not the
episode for you now.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I also am sorry that nobody got to see you
doing the camel chew because it was.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Isn't it like that?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
It is very much like that, and there's there's some
like side to side job motion to.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Like yeah, ah, wow wow, and you're like, wow, it
is that camel is chewing?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yes, yes, And if you don't have misophonia, the sort
of high displeasure at hearing mouth sounds, you can check
out videos of camels eating cactuses and it's not gory
or anything because they're fine. Inside the camel mouth, they have,
uh these conical papillis, so papilla are these rigid bumps, uh,
(24:32):
And these bumps actually protect their mouth from thorns by
redirecting the thorns so that they're pointing down in parallel
to the camel's uh esophagus. So like uh, like if
you have imagine you have like a bunch of like
you know, thorns or sticks or something, and if you
(24:52):
just like sort of push them on a smooth surface,
they can go in various directions. But if you push
them on a grooved surface, there going to go in
the direction of the grooves. And that's how the camel's
mouth works and so that it can swallow these thorns
and have them go down safely down their esophagus. I
don't recommend trying this as a human. It's not gonna
(25:15):
work out for you. In fact, camel lips are so
important for their ability to eat that thick lips are
a sign of good breeding, like good health and a
camel in domesticated camels, which is so important that some
camel breeders will inject their camel's lips with botox to
(25:35):
make their lips look bigger. So injecting botox relaxes the
muscles compressing the lips, and so it makes their lips
much powdier. And so this is the huge juicing scandal
in camel contests. You're injecting your camel's lips with botox
when you're doing like show camels. It's a big scandal
(25:56):
if someone's found to be doing bowts into their camel's
lips to make their camel lips seem bigger.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Wow, I'm looking at photos of inside a camel's mouth. Weird,
I'm I'm gonna say about that. Weird, an odd thing
to look at.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, yeah, it's you know, camels are really interesting. We
have a whole episode actually on camels that we did.
But like, uh, they when you get up close to
the camel though more and more strange they seem, I
think is but like the inside of the mouth is weird.
The teeth are big and strange, the chewing, the heavy eyelids,
(26:39):
they are just, I mean, honestly, runway ready animals.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
That's interesting you say it that way, runway ready. Uh,
I don't I don't know if I like, I mean,
I'm glad they could eat anything, but like, I don't know,
I don't know about any of this.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
You don't know about the whole cactus chewing thing. It
is It is an unpl like I'll put it this way.
It's a bit of an unpleasant experience to watch them
eating a cactus, just because it looks like it should
be painful. Yeah, it does not look like a good situation. Uh,
and so yeah, I mean, but they're fine, which blows
(27:21):
my mind. It does not look like something you should
be able to chew and eat with ease. Like obviously
you can eat cactus right like in like people eat cactus,
but we get rid of the thorns. We take the
thorns off. That's a very important part of eating the cactus. Like,
but eating the cactus with thorns and the sound it's
(27:43):
making as these thorns are getting crunched and swallowed is
it's something. It's a type of ASMR.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I guess, I get literally, I guess because I have
no idea, but yeah, just see it seems so rough.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's but they're fine with it. I think
they're probably less fine with getting botox injections into their lips.
You know. Again, we were talking earlier about unrealistic beauty
standards for dinosaurs, and I feel like camels are now
suffering from sort of the Instagram culture of like, hey,
(28:22):
everyone's got to have certain type of lips, certain type
of look. Just leave those camels alone.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, unless you know what, I don't want to
judge them.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
You know, if the camels themselves wanted to get botox injections,
I'd be fine with that. It's the fact that camel
breeders are giving them the botox injections. If a camel,
if a self empowered camel walks into like the plastic
surgeon's office, it's like, give me an extra hump and
(28:53):
some lip pillars, like a hump hump modification. I'm cool
with that. If camels want to do whatever they want
with their bodies. But but it's the camel breeders that
are doing or like telling the camels like, hey, your
lips aren't good enough. We gotta we gotta do some
work on you. That's what bothers me.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
That is incredibly sad.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I just I don't know. I'm there's always a new
at like a new sort of like very specific controversy
based on a very specific sort of hobbyist thing like
camel competitions that I I love learning about incredible controversies
for a type of competition that I didn't even really understand.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Before camel competitions.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, well, you know, I mean it makes sense. I
think that we sort of show off and compete every
animal we've domesticated, right, Like I think there are cats shows,
right like you know there's dog shows, but I think
there's also like catch, which I can't imagine. The cats
are very compliant with being shown at a cat show.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
No, I feel like a cat show is like the
most highly trained cats you'll ever see her.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Because what I had a cat named Metts, and if
I tried to take her to a cat show, everyone
would be missing at least one layer of skin shredded.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
If I took my cat to a cat show, I
don't think i'd have a cat anymore. I think he'd
run away.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yeah, I don't think you'd have a face anymore.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
No, So now we are going to talk about another
animal with fantastic lips. This is the tubelipped nectar bat.
It is a bat found in Ecuador with an incredible
(30:55):
pair of lips and a tongue that just goes on
for days. So this is a small bat which has
the longest tongue to body ratio of any mammal, with
a three inch or eight point five centimeters tongue that
is one and a half times the length of its body.
So where do you think you put a tongue this
(31:17):
long in an animal? Right? Like cause like its head,
it's pretty small. Like where does this tongue go? Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Boy, that is a good question. Where is there like
a like a sort of like almost like a fruit
roll up Like it just goes, you know, like it
just rolls back up and then come like it almost
unrolls when I eat it.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I love that. I wish that were the case.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It is actually located in its thorax, so the tongue
recoils all the way back into its thorax to accommodate
its length. It'd be like if our tongue started in
our chest. Uh, and then we could sort of use
there's this hyoid bone that it uses to be able
to eject the tongue out of its out of its
(32:11):
chest up it's esavagus, and then finally out of its mouth.
There might be some sort of tongue compression that's happening.
It's not exactly like a fruit roll up, but there
might be some sort of tongue compression happening inside of
its body. But yeah, it's because it's it has the
tongue that starts like in its chest, which is you
(32:31):
know that it's that's a quite quite a French kisser.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I gotta say, wow, I don't even understand.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna think too much about
what i just said. But yeah, so it uh eats
pullen and insects, but it also uses this incredible tongue
to sip nectar. So the tongue has these long papillae.
We talked about papillae earlier. So papilla are just like
(33:02):
any kind of like bump fleshy protrusion, and it has
these long papillo that act as a mop for the nectar.
So uh, the the these papillai will like dip into
the nectar and kind of help using sort of the
liquid tension and stuff in a surface area will help
(33:22):
sop up the water. So the reason I'm talking about
this bat on a lip themed podcast is that the
or lip themed episode We're not always going to talk
about lips on this podcast, is that the lower jaw
has lips that extend far past it, thus giving it
the name the tube lipped nectar bat. Like, if you
(33:43):
look at an image of this guy, it's got these
lower lips that just jet way out.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Okay, yuh weird, that's a weird one he's got.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
You know, like the thing that car tunes do where
they like uh strum their lower lip with their finger
or something to make that like noise. This guy could
do that so good.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
He this is an underbite if I've ever seen one.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
It's an underlip, which is something I've never seen before,
because like it's jaws in the right place, but its
lip goes right. It's just it's like the lip is
trying to leave the bat.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Or I can't I can't even explain why I'm looking
at He's just just like, hey, yeah, he does guy
feel like that's how he would talk, because well, you'd
be like.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
A little bit of a he's got a little bit
of a what.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, it's got like a Marlin. Yes, is sort of
like a Marlin. What's going on? Like I assume he
would talk like that, like you'd be like.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Me, let me get this real quick, and then this
very long tongue. Yeah. No, he's definitely a Marlon Brando bat. Uh.
And so that's lower this if you did a side
by side right saying, I'm gonna google marw.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
You gotta google Marlon Brando. Godfather though, because Godfather he
does actually have That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
He does like when he's young, he does have quite
plump lips. Actually Father Godfather. Yeah no, he's the lower
lip of the Godfather. Like look what they Look what
they've done my boy? Maybe by Yeah, there's a yeah.
(35:44):
So this bat definitely Marlon Brando vibes. And that lower
lip that is sort of this tube like projection helps
catch the nectar as the tongue SOPs it up and retracts.
So it's got this of like the tongue comes in
and there's basically this lip that's acting like a cup
(36:06):
to help catch the nectar, and then it is able
to drink this nectar, and it is able to pollinate
highly specialized flowers with very deep pitchers containing nectar. So
only this bat with its really long tongue and weird
lip can reach the nectar and soap it up, can
(36:27):
reach the nectar and drink it up. And so as
it's doing this, the pollen of the flower dusts its
head and will allow it to go and pollinate other
flowers of the same species. So it's this really interesting
example of coevolution of this bat and this flower where
only this bat can reach the nectar of the flower,
(36:47):
and the flower has evolved for that to happen so
that this bat becomes the personal corrier of the flowers
pollen and takes that to other flower species. So it's
kind of like a I don't know, what would you
call someone who like facilitates romance between two people, Like a.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Matchmaker, Yeah, a matchmaker.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
But then you're but it's a match maker, a romance,
a romance. Heer, I like that I made that up.
It's a good word though, but it's sort of more
like if you had to go between for someone to
like collect someone's reproductive genetic material and then bring it
to you. So, I don't know what you'd call that person.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
A romance heer, a thief, a thief if he's stealing
genetic material, I don't know, a romance her, or like
a sperm corrier, yeah, like a yeah, I don't know,
like a genetic I gotta think of.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
A genetic genes. Well, uh yeah, there's surprisingly another animal
called a tubelip, but this is the tubelipped rass. So
the tubelipped rass is a small, oblong, purple and yellow
fish that has a set of glossy, well hydrated, luscious lips.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, this fish, they are this fish has had Here's
the thing. This fish has had injectables.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Okay, I mean, look, I I'm not gonna say it hasn't,
like because I just learned that camels get lip injections,
so why not a fish. So this is found in.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
This fish is pouting at me.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
It's pouting. It's it's a pout. It's like a it's
what I mean, maybe it's still popular. But what used
to be very popular to do in photos where you
stick your lips out, sort of the duck face kind
of thing. But this fish is doing it. It's back
in two thousand and six doing serious duckface. So it
(38:54):
is found in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. And
the tube blipped rass uses its powdy lips to eat
dangerous stinging coral. So the coral they eat is covered
in stinging cells. So the tublip rass uses these instagrammable
lips that are covered in mucus with layered membranes, and
(39:18):
they press their lips against the coral in a kiss
and then suck the flesh of the coral up. So
you know, they're also good kissers, these fish.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, I see that.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
It's just I mean, come on, So researchers believe that
the unique structure of the lips and the high amount
of mucus helps protect the fish from the coral stinging cells. So,
you know, just these glossy, mucusy lips that they press
onto the coral and then suck the flesh off of
(39:53):
the coral. I don't know what to tell you. These
fish are sort of flirtatious with this coral while also
eating it.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
There is such a pout going on here. Yes, I
don't even know what to think.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I mean, it's overdoing it a little. But you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Sure, I mean, I guess are you coming for this
poor fish?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
I'm just I'm just saying I'm not like these other
fish that pout to get whatever they want from stinging coral.
Is all I'm saying. I'm not like the other fish.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Wow, m you've changed.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I've become so judgmental of fish's lifestyle choices.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I'm seeing that now.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Well, Anna, before we go, we gotta play a little
game called the Mystery Animal Sound game. Guess who's squawking?
Every week I play a mystery animal sound and you,
the listener, and you the guests, try to guess who
is making that sound. Last week's mystery animal sound. Hint,
if you've got happy feet, this is not a sound
(41:01):
you want to hear. So Anna, can you guess he
was making that sound? Again? The hint is, if you've
got happy feet, this is not a sound you want
to hear.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Is that an orca?
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Oh that's a really interesting guess, very very close. Congratulations
to Will p, Anti Bee and Joey p who all
gets correctly. This is actually the leopard seal, a very
deadly predator of penguins. So like the orca. It is
a serial killer. The leopard seal grows up to around
(41:40):
eleven feet or three point five meters and with loads
of sharp teeth. The leopard seal is no joke. It
is a very, I would say, quite a scary, intimidating
looking seal. They will happily eat anything from penguins, seabirds, fish,
smaller species of seal, and even krill that they can
(42:01):
filter through their interlocking teeth. So the vocalizations are often
used by males in the breeding season to attract a mate,
and they will hang upside down in the water and
make this call in the hopes of attracting a female.
H But if I saw one of these things, just
(42:22):
like this eleven foot seal, with this mouthful of teeth,
these beaty predator eyes, hanging upside down and making this call,
I would assume it is calling for the devil to
come and take my soul. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
I don't like that. It was when it sounds like
it could be like talking to space.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Don't like that.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Yeah no, yeah, I like that. It's a good rule
in general. If it sounds like it's talking to space,
get out of there.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Yeah, no, thanks.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
No, thank you, onto this week's mystery animal sound. The
hint don't call this great animal a peasant, so Anna,
do you have any guesses?
Speaker 2 (43:15):
What was the clue?
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Again? Don't call this great animal a peasant.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
So it's not a peasant.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Huh, it's a little bit obscure. It's a bit of
a tough one. Can you guess sort of the type
of animal that it is?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Well, I mean a bird. I'm a type of bird.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Interesting, I will actually give you that. Yes, it is
a type of bird. So that's an extra hint for y'all.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Love. I'm going based off the sort of peasant clue
and it's in that sort of family. But like he
doesn't like to be confused for a peasant.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Interesting, very interesting guesses. Well, if you out there, sorry,
did you have another?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
No?
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Let? Well, if you out there think you know who
is making that sound, you can write to me at
Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com. You can also write
any questions you have, any cute animal pictures, whatever you
want or like topic suggestions kinda. Thank you so much
for joining me today on this very liptacular episode where
(44:21):
can people find you?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Well, first, thank you so much for having me I
always enjoy coming and learning the most obscure random stuff
that I would never think about ever unless it was
for you, So thank you. You can follow me at
Anna host me on Twitter. I have an Instagram that's
at Selling the host Nia it's just selling, and then
my last name that's where I sell myself to you.
(44:44):
And then yeah, I have a podcast Ethnically Ambiguous that
you can check out. I have a bunch of stuff
going on, a bunch of shows I produce here at iHeart.
Check all those out if you follow me on social media.
I post about them all the time so you'll figure
it out. And then oh, I have a substack now
called selling posner dot subsack dot com. I just write
(45:06):
a bunch about a bunch of random pop culture stuff
that like engages anything that I like randomly become obsessed with.
I write about it nice though. That's fantastic. Subscribe to
that if you're interested in my musing.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
You're amusing amusing musings wonderful. Yes, definitely check those things
out and thank you guys so much for listening. If
you're enjoying the show, and you'll leave a rating or
a review, I deeply appreciate it and I read every
single review. Thanks to the Space Cossics for their super
awesome song. Ex Solumina. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.
(45:44):
For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what. Wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday.
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
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