February 21, 2024 • 53 mins
Today we're talking about animals that look like they jumped off of a page from Lisa Frank's notebook! Pink dolphins, rainbow squirrels, surprisingly fabulous pigeons, and the most beautiful butts in the world.
Guest: Joelle Monique
Footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12uHLiRYjc0_-rKv_fCFSpkTMN8f4ysX9do1j_uLC0r4/edit?usp=sharing
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Mini Putt. I'm your host of Many Parasites. Katie Golden.
I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on this show,
we are looking at animals that are peeled right off
of the page of a Lisa Frank notebook. These are
(00:26):
animals that you would not expect to be so vibrantly
rainbow colored hued, and yet they are so. We will
talk about pink dolphins, multi colored primates, even a squirrel
and a pigeon which you would not expect to be
so very Lisa Frank. Discover this in more as we
(00:50):
answer the age old question why is it important to
have a rainbow But joining me today is friend of
the podcast, also friend of meet Katie and all around
awesome person producer at iHeartRadio. You know her, you love her? Joe. Well, welcome, Hey.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
How's it going.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I'm so excited to talk Lisa Frank.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Were you a big Lisa Frank fan back in the day?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, okay, so the way Lisa Frank folders, binders, trapper
keepers were a premium right like, they were not cheap.
So my mom would let me get like two Lisa
Frank things. So she was like, you gotta get these
regular ninety nine cent folders, but if you want one
Lisa Frank.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Folder and a Trapper keeper or two weeks.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Of Frank folder, like, you could have two things maximum.
And I coveted them so bad. I typically went with
a dolphin or a snow leopard as they were topics
and yeah, so super cute to look at, but yeah,
I mean adorable animals, cute psychedelic backgrounds. Very my lane
as a child, and you know, to be fair to today,
(02:02):
still love me alas a Frank.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
They are very cool kid. I never actually bought this
stuff so much. I don't know why. I think, I
just it never occurred to me that I could do
such a thing. But I would passively stare at other
kids binders that had the least Frank designs on them.
I might have gotten like one or two things over
(02:28):
the years. I don't really remember, but I remember just
kind of like the making me hungry because everything looks
like it was made out of candy or something.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It was just so, it was.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So it was so they were just so glossy and
edible looking. I also just I thought I think I
found it very strange as a kid, this idea of
like mammals being brightly colored, because you know, you're used
to like maybe fish and even birds being colored, but
like mammals, it was a It was a weird concept
(03:03):
for there to be a rainbow colored like a leopard
or dolphin.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It was not, as you might say, logical.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
It's very illogical, yeah, coloring, But I think that's sort
of what I loved about it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
There's a.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Like hyperrealism, fantasy sort of element happening where why not
a taied die cheetah Here unicorns are very real and
they're gorgeous. I like that her unicorns were white, but
it was their tails and their mains that were tied.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Ie super bright colors.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I just think it's fun to look at and pretend
you're in a world where there are mega waterfalls and
aliens driving like what do you call those punch buggies.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Everything about Lisa S.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Frank's world was just gorgeous and peaceful and exuberantly vibrant,
and I appreciate that to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah, I think it's a really lovely art style. I
think when I was a kid back in the nineties,
I feel like girls in terms of sort of being
classified into like animal obsessives, were either super into horses
or super into dolphins. I don't know why that happened,
(04:20):
but that like when I was a kid, it was
you were either in horse camp or dolphin camp.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I personally would had.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
No you had to either be a horse girl or
a dolphin girl. I was like into cats because I
had a cat, but I felt like horses and dolphins
were like the thing, right, Like if you had a Barbie,
you could get her a horse or you could get
her a dolphin. For some reason, I don't know why
Barfi Barbie could have a dolphin. Maybe it was Skipper
who had a dolphin's.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I think it had something to do with all of
us wanting to be marine biologists. I don't know who
planted this idea in children's heads, but for a while,
it was like, you be a horse girl lover and
you wanted to sort of like work on a ranch
and like live in the wild West and tame wild horses.
Black Beauty was obviously a staple for many of us
in our youth, whether it was the classic black Beauty
(05:14):
film or you're reading the novel. I think it really
cemented this idea of running away and racing horses. And
then or you were a marine biology camp and you're like,
I will swim under the ocean sort of be a mermaid,
but not really also super smart scientist, and there'll be
very cute dolphins who make the best little sounds and
do tricks. This was before we knew see world was
(05:37):
a terrible place.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We were children and dolphins were doing dope tricks and
you could be their trainer and they would high five
you if you fed them a fish. And it was
really we were living in a dream world. And I
really think that's what separated and divided the camps, is
like you were either into the rune biology of it,
or you were prepared to live.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
On a farm.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I didn't like the smell of horses. At first I
thought I might be a horse girl. But then I
went to ride horse, says I said, it smells awful.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I hate it.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Also, they were really tall and I was scared to heights,
so horses were hard for me. My mom's a horse girl,
she was disappointed. But I came a dolphin girl very early.
And then Lisa Frank can introduce me to the snow leopard,
And I said, is there a more beautiful creature on
God's Earth?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
There isn't so.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Fussy. Yeah, if I had to be in either horse
girl or dolphin girl camp, and probably be dolphin girl
as well, because horses intimidate me. I'm thoroughly intimidated by horses.
I can see the like they're so muscular, and then
they have really hard nails for feet, and so they
(06:41):
can just they could like hit you and permanently cave
in your head. I do not find that peaceful. I
find that intimidating. Whereas dolphins, I don't know. I guess
a dolphin could drown you, but I don't think they
typically do.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I know that we don't see that in our culture
a lot, and in our dolphin me Typically dolphins are
very kind, loving, sweet creatures, whereas horses are temperamental creatures
in a lot of our media, like there, you're like, oh,
you gotta be careful because they're wild spirits. They might
buck you off. You know, you got you gotta be
careful with a horse. My mom got kicked in the
(07:16):
shin by a horse. Oh no, teenager, so she has
a permanent horseshoe imprint on her shin. She likes to
think it's lucky. I said, you were kicked by a
horse in the shin.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I hate it when stuff happens to the shin because
it's like one of the bones where it's like right there,
there's nothing. There's like a thin layer of skin and
tissue covering it, but there's no cushion. It's just a
bone there. And I hate it. I hate but I'm
shaving my legs. I hate shaving over it because I'm like,
that's there's a bone right there, Like it's not that
(07:49):
far delicate bone, so like I do have a horse
kicking right I want to throw up. Anyways, it's horrible.
It's a lot that's horrible. It's so funny because I
have like such a tall I have such a tolerance
and love for a weird, disgusting animal, spiders, snakes, everything.
And then you're like, it's like with horses, I'm just like,
(08:10):
I don't know about horses. Man. I like them. I
like looking at them. I respect them. That's the thing
is like I don't fantasize about, like you know, being
buddies with a horse because I respect them too much
for that. They are thoroughly to me. They are intimidating
enough that I want to give them like a wide berth.
(08:32):
But yeah, dolphins are not as everyone knows like, They're
not the sweet, peaceful creatures in terms of like other
sea life. They're predators and so they like to play
around with their food. They like to hunt, and but
you know, in terms of their relationships with humans, they
generally do not pose any threat to humans. They actually
(08:53):
can be quite curious about humans, and they can be
quite friendly. But the reason I bring up dolphins is
I remember there were always these beautiful multi colored dolphins,
sometimes like these pink dolphins that Lisa Frank would draw.
And it turns out that Lisa Frank was not making
this up. There indeed are pink dolphins. These are the
(09:14):
Amazon River dolphins found in where else but the Amazon River.
We have talked about these on the show before, but
I mean, I think it's worth repeating information about pink
dolphins as much as possible.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I mean, look at how cute they are. Yes, they're
so adorable. I think popular media has really let us
down by not featuring more of these pink dolphins.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
You know, we see a.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Ton of I don't want to call them regular bottle
nose dolphins. I feel like, are maybe the ones.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
We see, yeah, the most your.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Typical blue, white bellied looking thing, and they're cute. Listen,
there's no dolphin shaming here. I'm just saying out in
the world, there's a light pink dolphin who constantly looks
like it's smiling and a little bit high. Its eyes
are very small, and who it's precious. I would protect it.
It should be a mascot for several different teams. People
(10:11):
should be fighting over the rights to be like, no,
we're the pink dolphins. Look at how perfect they are.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's away.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
It's so funny. It's so funny because we think of
pink as this soft, cute color, right, Like something that's
pink is sweet and cute, and of course with our culture,
something like in modern sort of like Western culture, pink
is like a girly color. I'm not saying it is, right.
I don't put that kind of baggage on colors because
(10:40):
I think pink is everyone's color. Anyone can like. I don't.
I think it's weird to like limit what colors people
can use. That's strange. But you know, our culture is like,
you know, girls, pink, girls, pink. The thing is this
pink for these Amazon river dolphins also known as the
(11:02):
Boto river dolphins are a male characteristic. So the pink
is a male characteristic because it is actually scar tissue
as a result of fighting with other dolphins or with
other creatures, and it's attractive to females because the more
(11:22):
pink that they are from just this like frequent abrasion,
because their tissue scar is very easily. This is an
evolutionary trait and it will turn pink from all of
this scarring. And so the brighter the pink from this
skin irritation essentially from fights and shoving and rough housing
is attractive to females. So this pink, basically, the pinker
(11:46):
you are, the more like tough and aggressive you are,
and the more rough and tough from anywhere from like
just serious fighting to just kind of rough housing with
other dolphins.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So I was right, they are the perfect mascot. Yes,
that's a bright neon pink dolphin mascot to be like, hey,
we're ferocious, we'd be fighting all the time and the
ladies love us.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
What about it?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Like, my god, if I was starting a sports team tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
This will be my mascot. Imagine the imagine the mascot
super It's.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Perfect, man, I am actually imagining it, and it's it's
really funny because like these are these all dolphins alf
have also have really fat foreheads and long snouts, so
it's just they already are very goofy looking, so in
mascot form with a human sort of awkwardly inside this
(12:45):
like dolphin suit with the legs sticking out, perfect, just perfect.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I am obsessed with this little guy. He's so cool.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
They also love.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
That his pinkness comes from fights.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
They are also drummers, so they will actually hold branches
or pieces of vegetation in their mouths and then beat
the water with that to impress the females. And like
I mentioned before, dolphins are not known for their kindness
to other creatures. They will sometimes lift live turtles up
(13:23):
as a courtship as a courtship display, just because they're
they're kind of jerks, but in a pretty cute way.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Continuing on my mascot theme, imagine everybody gets a like
leaf shaped tube. So in somebody's if it's basketball, someone's
going to make a free throw. This is how we
use our distraction. We're just mimicking the dolphins drumming style
as a form of intimidation. Don't let us all whip
out a turtle. It means it's over for you. It really,
it truly means death, or we're about to enter recording ritual.
(13:57):
Either way, very very dangerous time to be around us
and dolphins.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I'm seeing if anyone uses this dolphin as a mascot,
I don't see. I don't see any like sports teams
that do.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I mean, like I'm trademarking it right now, and Hollywood WNBA,
give me a team.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I mean, Indigenous communities do appreciate these dolphins. I wouldn't
say it's like a mascot, but there's a lot of
folklore about them. So like Native Amazonian folklore has stories
about these dolphins transforming into a human and coming out
of the water with like a hat on their head
to disguise the blowhole. I just love that. It's like
(14:44):
it's like a transformation mermaid story. But like they keep
the blowhole, Like they turn from a dolphin into a human,
but there's no way for them to also get rid
of that blowhole.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
All good magical tales have consequences. You can never fully
hide true state of being.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yes, it's kind of like with AI. Now, like if
they start making AI human clones, you just look at
the number of fingers that they have or the number
of teeth that they have to find it out. Also,
they believe that they could turn into a beautiful woman
who could seduce a married man. Uh, and then after
(15:25):
having sex with him, turns him into a baby and
then puts him inside his own wife's womb, so.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
You know, diabolically.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, well, you know, I think that is It's an
interesting concept. It actually sounds like the plot of Being
John Malkovich.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Right, I never understood the plot for Being John Malcovich.
I'm going to take her word.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I think it's Yeah. I think it's a river Dolphin
place by Catherine Zeta Jones, who, uh, you're right, like
and then she impregnates Uh.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Yes, this is I haven't seen this movie in so long.
Wait a minute, Okay, So here's the thing. Popular culture
has given me a dolphin, and it gave it to
me in the weirdest possible way. What I have to
go back and watch it.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
John Malkovich doesn't actually have an Amazon river dolphin, but
it does have Catherine Zeta Jones and gosh who's the
other actress. They fall in love, but then one of
them gets pregnant with their own ex boyfriend kind of
or the ex boyfriend gets trapped inside their own baby
(16:47):
but is not in control of the baby. It's weird,
it's very it's a it's a weird movie. I highly
recommend it. But essentially it's the same story indias. It's
the same story as it's a folklore about this river dolphin,
which in a kind of in a certain sense, it's
the same story. But anyways, but yeah, they they really
(17:11):
in real life. These dolphins pose no threat to humans.
They can't transform you into a baby, but they don't
do well in captivity and they can't be trained. They
are fiercely independent pink battle dolphins.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
They saw what happened to their cousins and they were like,
can't catch us.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
No, thank you?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Who am not conformed?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Weird human ways?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, free Willie, how about screw you? All Right, Well,
we are going to take a quick break and then
when we get back, we are going to talk about
bright multi colored squirrels. So I want to talk about
(17:57):
the Indian giant squirrel which has a beautiful coat. I
have mentioned this before on other episodes, but again it's
a giant, multicolored squirrel. I have to give it another
shout out during the Lisa Frank episode. So this is
a They live in tropical forests in the Indian subcontinent
(18:21):
and they eat a lot of fruits nuts. They are,
you know, your typical squirrel, but they are about a
foot long from their nose to their butt, and then
an extra foot for their tail, so they're about sixty
centimeters total in length, which is about two feet, and
(18:46):
they are they are a beautiful color combination. Joel, can
you describe this squirrel to the listeners?
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Sure, it sort of looks like an outphant Meganus stallium
would wear. It's like a very dark navy blue on
top and bottom, and then in the middle it's like
a beautiful mauve purple. It's not quite tigh eye, but
more like ombre switching from one color to the other
and then back to the original. I also really appreciate
(19:16):
the coloring on its face. If you're into the tie
dye makeups, definitely inspired by this creature.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I'm talking like purple eye shadow.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Also purple lips, but like pink maybe around the ears.
Beautiful creature, gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, it's color coordination is really on point. It's kind
of like jewel tones mixed with a few earth tones,
which is very very cool. I didn't realize is there
there's a tie dye makeup trend?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, so there's if you're into maximalism, which I really am,
A lot of folks are doing some very fun things
with both, like their lips and their eyes.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Whoa who You're putting on.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
A bunch of colors like around the eye or on
the lips, sometimes both, and then blending it out to
get like a tie dye effect.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Oh my god, I'm looking at a picture of this.
This is incredible. I like, this isn't fantastic. I feel
blessed when I can do a wing that doesn't look
like I just dragged a sharpie across my face, so
I could never accomplish this, But this is that's amazing. Yeah,
(20:27):
like just it's it looks like because it looks like
they did the rainbow colors and then sort of like
sort of dragged some kind of smudging tool to get
that like tied eye swirl effect that's really cool.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
My favorite effect is sometimes they'll tape a piece of
string and like wind it up and make kind of
loop whoe and then tape it to the other side,
and so then they'll do the makeup over the string
and then just remove the string, so you get skin
color as sort of the white tied eye line. Sometimes
people will use a white Uh. If you did not
(21:01):
come for the show for makeup, I'm so sorry, But
here we are. He's like a white eyeliner to sort
of highlight and make some cool color swishiness amongst all
the colors.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
This show is all about how animals and humans aren't
so different and the fact that we love to put
color on our face. Animals also are these beautiful colors. Look,
it's just I think it's super creative and super awesome
what people do with makeup.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 3 (21:30):
This coloring is so bold and unique, and I know
it lives in the India subcontinent and there are very
bold and beautiful colors in the forest there. But this
guy sticks out like you would see him if he
was running around.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
There's no bunding in for this little dude.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Is this specifically for mating is because it can't be
for hiding.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Well, that's what's interesting is that sometimes coloration to our
eyes will look like something that stands out that could
not possibly camouflage them, but then to their predators, because
they have a different different types of vision, like they
don't have the kind of color vision that we have.
Something like this, like this blocky, patchy coloration with a
(22:13):
lighter under belly and a darker thought might actually be
harder to spot because like if you have a light
belly and a dark top, Like if you have light
coming in from a top source, say like you're in
a rainforest, right and light is coming filtering through the
leaves above, and so when you look up, things are lighter,
and when you look down kind of like things are
(22:35):
patchier and more like the shadow lights up on them.
So something that has a light belly but then sort
of a blocky, darker top might actually be harder to spot,
especially if your vision does not process the same range
of colors as human vision. But it can also be
(22:56):
for mate selection, right, like having a lot of colors
like you have this sort of you have two needs
that can be in conflict with each other. The need
to not be eaten by a predator, but also the
need to stand out and be noticed by a mate.
So having coloration that attracts conspecifics like members of your
(23:19):
own species that you want to make that you want
to mate with, can be advantageous, but it's balanced with
not wanting to be spotted by predators. So sometimes you
have animals who are brightly colored in certain ways, but
also maybe their coloration is in certain sort of like
(23:39):
blocky patches, so that it does somewhat break up the
pattern of what shape they're supposed to be. Or they
are really colorful and really conspicuous, but they have other
methods of escape, such as being able to fly away
or speed away very quickly, or they're really big and
so they don't have to worry about predators.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Is that I think, Okay, I'm having a vague memory,
so maybe I'm wrong or conflating things, but like that's
why zebras are colored the way they are, right Like
when tigers see them, it's like all green to them.
Is that I kind of blend in with the grass
with they're black and white.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
So yeah, it's so it's disruptive coloration. So for zebras,
they would mostly be concerned about lions, and for zebras,
they're going to be in herds where they are, you know,
kind of blending in with each other. So the idea
is it's difficult for a lion or even something like
(24:38):
a mosquito to differentiate a individual and to be able
to tell which direction they're going in. It's there's something
called a barber shop or barber shop poll illusion. It's
like when you have the lines of the barber shop
spinning around, sometimes you could interpret it as it going
down or going up, just ending on kind of how
(25:00):
you went or think about it. And that could be
the case with zebras, where you have all these stripes,
and so it makes it not only difficult to know
where one individual starts and another one ends, but which
direction the herd is moving or which in each individual
and the herd is moving. And then so for like,
that's one of the questions about why if tigers are
(25:26):
so brightly colored right there, orange and black, so to
us they just pop right out. We can see them
really easily, or even like a leopard right like, they're
so brightly colored. Wouldn't in their ambush predators, wouldn't their
prey see them. Well, that has to do with the
the way that the vision of most of their prey is,
(25:48):
which is they they won't see so much the difference
between oranges and greens, and so that orange and black
striped coloration or that orange and black kind of dotted
coloration will look like sort of a dappled light coming
in in the in the jungle or in the forest
and sort of like just light dappled greenery essentially, so
(26:12):
they blend in really well, but not to us humans,
which is good for us.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
We can tell the difference between orange and green. We
can see it clear off. Yes, Okay, I definitely was
conflating multiple stories in there.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
But they're all very interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you
were thinking that is correct, that that is the same
thing that I'm talking about. But yeah, speaking of sort
of brightly colored little little forest animals, this is technically
a bird, so it's not unusual for birds to be
(26:48):
brightly colored. But the reason I'm bringing this one up
is it's a pigeon, which we're so used to the drab,
boring pigeons of our cities. I actually love them, but
a lot of people find them, you know, they're gray
so they're not usually that interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
But these arts of the sky we used to call
them in college.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yes, the flying rats. I actually quite love pigeons, but
they are I wouldn't call them the most beautiful of birds.
We do actually get a lot of color variations here
because most city pigeons are actually descendants of domesticated pigeons,
and so you actually do get like brown and white
(27:30):
and you know, black, sort of like pigeons that have
been bred specifically for their colors and then they're released
into the wild and now are released out into the city,
and now you have this feral pigeon population that has
all these interesting colors. But this one looks like it's
a Lisa Frank pigeon. If Lisa Frank ever drew a pigeon,
(27:51):
which I don't think she did, but had she, it
would look like this. It is like, it's a pigeon
that looks like it's made out of sorbet. It's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It does, it does, guys. It has bright, hot pink feet.
It does so its shoe game is on point. Also,
so many colors neck one color like front, breast area,
different color head, different multi colored wings and tail, vibrant sunning.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Send it to New York Fashion Week. It's ready for
its close up.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
So these pigeons are related to our city pigeons. They
are found in Southeast Asia, and both males and females
are colorful, but more so the males, because females are
more just kind of variations of greens and yellows, whereas
males are a variety of color. Their faces are powder blue,
(28:43):
their neck is a lavender color, their chest is orange,
their belly is green, their back is olive green. Their
wings have these yellow stripes, and then under their tail
is orange and their feet are hot pink. They are incredible.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Truly a stunning bird.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
And there's a lot of competition for stunning birds, as
we just discussed with the regular pigeons. You know, they
look fine, Let's be real, they look fine. But when
we're talking about freaking peacocks, and yeah, I don't know
that whatever that one dancing bird in the Amazon is
a competition is stiff. This guy a class of his own,
truly unique. Have never seen a bird that looks anything
(29:26):
like this just from a color perspective, and it's strange,
I think, because it does just like a pigeon. I
has like, what kind of bird this is? I would
guess pigeon. It looks like a pigeon, but just like
a pigeon with incredible fashion sense.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
It's very pigeon coded because it is one hundred percent
pigeon shaped, which is what's kind of interesting when you
look at the whole dove family, because pigeons and doves
are the same thing. Any you look at any dove,
you look at any pigeon, rock, dove, roe, you know, pigeons, everything,
They all are essentially the same shape. Just that shape.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Does just have a better PR team.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Doves just have a better PR team. They're like, oh,
look at this pretty white dove. It's a symbol of peace.
And then get away from me, you dirty pigeon. You
can't have my fries. But yeah, this one is, this
one is so so pretty. It lives in mangrove forests
or in regular forests. But they are similar to pigeons
(30:30):
found in like the US, and I mean all throughout
America and then also in Europe because they are really
good at adapting to urban environments, so like in sort
of farms or human settlements or cities near where they live,
they can exploit these, and they can find food on
(30:51):
farms and in people's gardens. They're frug of wars, so
they eat mostly fruit and most of their diet is
just figs. They love figs and they're really good for Okay,
who doesn't love a fig? Well, actually a lot of
people don't.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I was gonna say, can't blame them. Those people are incorrect.
They are not to be judgmental.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
But yeah, when I was a kid, I didn't like
figs almost literally, but I changed my mind.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
They're an adult taste for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
It's acquired taste.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Get somebody who didn't grow up with figs. Like, when
you first come across them, you're like, it's like a
brown fruit that looks kind of wrinkled and shriveled up,
and you're like, oh, maybe that. Typically the foods I
have had experience eating don't look like this, and so
it was definitely like a learning curve.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
But once you.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Start mowing on them, oh my god, they're very so sweet,
so tasty, so getting so many different things.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
They're also I remember learning when I was young that
like sometimes wasps would like go inside of figs and
completely their life cycle inside figs. So I was like
kind of scared of eating them because I thought I
was just gonna find a giant wasp. I got older,
I learned that while this is true, there are wasps
that you know, lay their larva inside figs. They're tiny,
(32:08):
They're teeny tiny, itty bitty bitty bitty wasps, not scary
at all. So even even if the figs, it's just
free protein and they're like they're like ant sized or
even smaller. So like, once you get to that size
of an insect, if I eat it, I'm like, mmmm,
it's garnish. So yeah, So these birds love figs and
(32:33):
they're beautiful, and they're also very adaptable in situations such
as volcanic eruptions. They have survived their populations, maybe not
specific individuals have survived the eruption of Krakatoa in eighteen
eighty three. They were one of the only fruit eating
animals to quickly return and adapt to the post eruption islands. Essentially,
(32:59):
as long as there's some figs somewhere, they can They're fine,
like figs or some fruit there, they will go there
and they will make it work.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
I know pigeons for such good flyers, Like obviously I
don't fly or whatever escaping a volcanos and the like
the loan survivors. That's some pretty serious slapping, which I
would not have thought could happen in a pigeon.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
I mean it's like, I don't know how well a
pigeon could outfly like pyroclastic flow. Probably not well, but
enough of them are gonna survive at eruption, right, like
get out of there in time that they are able
(33:44):
to re establish their population. But yeah, they are. They
are good flyers. They don't actually migrate so much, but
they're flying is used for locating figs and zeroing in
on those figs and then eating those figs.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
I don't know, it's gonna be such a big heavy episode,
but now I'm craving figs.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I know, right, I've kind of tucked myself into wanting figs,
you know, like you know how the inside of figs are,
like they have all those little nodules, like the little
I don't like just like it's a weird texture. It's
kind of like it's like a flower that's folded in
on itself, you know, like how like a daisy has
those little little nodules. I'm bad at plant biology, so
(34:30):
I forget what they're called, but it's like essentially like
that part of the daisy, that center part that's all
bumpy but folded in on itself, and it's a very
specific kind of fruit development, which is actually why wasps
use figs to do their reproduction, because there's like actually
these little nooks and crannies that these tiny wasps can
(34:53):
lay their larva in. So it's it's a you know,
figs are cool. Figs are very interesting, and the list.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
They're rich in anti inflammatory and antioxidants, which I know
is not a real thing, but who cares. It's a
great excuse to eat more figs. They are so tasty
and sweet, y'all. If you have figs on a pizza, oh,
next level.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
It's a I mean, those things are real. It's just
like you're not. There's not I don't really believe in
like the superfood kind of thing where it's like if
you just eat figs, you will never get cancer. That's
just not how it works. But they're healthy, right, Like
a fig is gonna be better for you than maybe
(35:36):
like a dorrito.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I bet they're beating the hell out of doritos.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, not to single out dorito's. There's nothing wrong with
having a dorito. I'm just saying, if you could choose
between you think it's a bad food, it's well, it's
probably not the healthiest food of dorito. I don't know.
I don't know what damn it dorito causes exactly to
(36:03):
the body, but I would say a fig is probably
on average better for you than a dorito. Food science
is wild, though, Like it's so it's very I have
a lot of problems with like food science studies because
they're all over the place. Man, You'll get like a
(36:24):
study that's like, man, you should be drinking wine all
the time, and it turns out it's because like France
has a lower death rate, like lower cardiovascular death rate. Yeah,
well they drink a lot of wine, so maybe that's it.
It's like, guys, that's not that's not like, that's not
good to say science.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
I just want y'all to know there are probably many
contributing factors. Yeah, I appreciate the excuse to drink wine.
What was the craziest when I saw yesterday, Oh they
were saying that staring at a woman's chest is how
fier than like drinking.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
A bunch of water or something. I was like, that
cannot be true. That just.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Sometimes like what does it even mean? As it was
a German study, so maybe.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
There there you go. No, I don't know. I'm joking.
I'm up, but no, I mean it doesn't that doesn't
make any like obviously you can't just stare at a
woman's chest and not drink water for the rest of
your life. You will die. I don't understand what they're
trying to say, Like it like it's stick like maybe
it like helps you in the moment or something like
(37:34):
maybe it increases your heart rate in the moment if
you like boobs, which, let's be honest, you.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Does see what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah, but like you're pretty great. They're they're they're good,
like you know, but like if I'm dying of thirst
and you're like, would you like to see the best
boobs in the.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
World versus a glass of.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Water, I'm still gonna have the glass of water.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I don't understand these things. Fell
always something, but I.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Will Fellas is it? Uh is do you guys think
that you could not drink water? I shouldn't say just
fellas anyone of the sexual orientation to whom boobs is important?
Would you not drink water versus looking at boobs? Write
(38:32):
to me, don't write to me about that. I'm joking.
I don't actually want to hear about this.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I will say I do save these studies when it's
like helpful to me, when they're like, drinking coffee can
save your life. Yeah, I'll keep that in my back pocket.
So anytime someone's like, are you sure you want a
third cup of coffee? I can be like, listen this study.
I don't care where it's from or if it's real
or not, but it says that I should be drinking
as much coffee as I can.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
So I'm gonna do it. I who am I to
a if.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
It makes you feel good? That's I read something at
some point that said that dark chocolate's good for you,
And then like whenever it's like, oh, did you know
those studies are actually rad I don't want to hear it.
Dark chocolate good for you?
Speaker 2 (39:13):
That study said it.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Study said it. Yeah, no, I know. I read the
most unhelpful like article the other day that was just like,
coffee could either save your life or kill you. I'm like,
that's literally everything. That's literally anything.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
We should definitely figure out which one of those is
the final answer. Right, that's not even a good hypothesis,
like a great scientist would be like, you need to
go back to the jar.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Water could either save your life or kill you. Man.
It's this the state of health report, health nutrition reporting
is we need we need help. Anyways, we're going to
take a quick break and when we come back, we're
going to quickly shift the topic to mandrill butts. Oh
(40:03):
all right, so we're back in Joelle. We are talking
about man drill butts, which does sound like a pornographic title,
but it's it's this is it's animals. It's animals.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
It's just okaynocent, not human males, no, no drills involved,
but lots of butts.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, it's not man drill butts, but mandrill butts. All right,
So man drills are these amazing primates found in rainforests
in west central Africa. They are the largest monkey in
the world. They're not apes. They are monkeys, even though
they have like a stubby tail. They're a short tailed monkey.
(40:45):
Uh and they weigh over seventy pounds, so they're they're big.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
They are big boy.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think they are uh, you know on
Lion King the guy refec Yeah, it's rafiki.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
This is definitely rafiki. Blue and red nose, colorful.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Blue yes, and so are. They're all very striking, and
females are striking too. They have yellow beards, pink noses
in this kind of subtle blue blush along the grooves
in their face. But the males are the true beauty queens.
They have bright red noses, bright blue ridges along their
(41:30):
cheeks and noses. They have yellow beards and rainbow butts.
So females also have pink and blue coloration around their
butts and genitals, but the males just have really really
vibrant butts with pinks and blues and even like lavenders.
It's quite quite beautiful and stunning.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
So okay, again, I was taught all color on animals
has some meeting or drive or purpose. This to my
human eyes looks like a target. But we've already discussed
animals c with the human eye view scope, So but
why a colorful ass.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
In this case? You are correct that this is more
or less a target. There's a few functions for these
bright butts, social and practical. So socially, these bright colors
communicate things. They can even become more vibrant when the
individual is excited or agitated. It is attractive to females.
(42:36):
Females find a really vibrant butt on a male to
be attractive. It can also signal dominance, both in their
faces and their butts. The higher contrast between sort of
the red and the blue hues, the more respected, the
more attractive typically goes along with being more dominant, getting
(42:57):
more mates, and having a higher place on the social higherarchy.
But the practical reason that they have these bright butts
is that when they are walking in these sort of
dark dense forests, these butts will stand out to the
members of the troop behind them, so it's easier for
them to follow each other. And so it's kind of
(43:19):
like you know, when you're like on a tour guide
and the tour guide has like the flag that they're
waving and it's kind of a unique flag, so you
can see it and it's bright. It's like that but
a butt, but a butt a mandrel.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
But okay, I'm not mad at it.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
The butts good. It's giving psychedelic fair coat, which, as
we've already talked about, Lisa Frank. We love so psychedelics.
Lisa Frank should have done a mandrel.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
But yes, the color scheme is very on brand for her.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Monkeys can be cute and sort of you know, visious
like a dolphin, but still a door Lisa Frank, if
you're out here looking for new ideas, the mandrel butt,
it's right there for you.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Like your audiences, all adults, now, we can handle a
mandrel butt. You know.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
You've already tackled crocs, the ugliest thing known to man.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Mandrel butts will be Wait, there's there's Lisa Frank CrOx
like the shoe.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yes, okay, So friend of this podcast, Jamie loftis over
the holidays, so I went uh to be a part
of it.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
And she came in with.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Platform crocs that were Lisa Frank branded, colorful leopard spots
all over them and they are fabulous.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Okay, I just found them online. Incredible. I'm speechless.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Yeah, there's huge platform shoes.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
They're like almost like high heels, except even across the
bright huge early to thousands chunky shoe.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Huge pink platform that also looks functional right like, it
looks like it's got a lot of grip, so I
could be like, I could be using those in sort
of a wet, slippery situation, but it's a hot pink
And then on top of that, it's got this sort
of like classic croc thing but in those bright rainbow
(45:24):
Lisa Frank leopard spots and it looks like it's bejeweled
as well.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Crocs has these little chochkey things that you can write
in the holes that I can't remember was the lot,
but yes, and they come with little animals, so you
can get the classic leopard, which we love. I think
they also have the panda. And if you don't have
a dolphin, they should because least Frank dolphins. It's synonymous
with one another.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I mean, it's this is incredible. I just the human ingenuity, right,
but this is like, looks we did. We did not
evolve from mandrels. In fact, we're not very close relatives
to them. However, we are all primates and so you
can't tell me that these bright Lisa Frank crocs don't
(46:13):
serve a similar purpose to the mandril. But of establishing
social dominance.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
I listen, and who would no one would dare call
Jamie loftus anything but dominate Okay, uh, you can get
a Lisa Frank five pack of gibbets. Is what the
little charms are called, gibbets. That's that's their choice. Yes,
they do have a dolphin.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
I knew it.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
They also had the Lisa Frank logo and the alien
in the punch buggy car, and a unicorn jumping over
a rainbow, and a shooting star and kitties.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Little kiddies. Oh man, these are so cute. I have
a problem. I don't even own these, but I'm considering
buying these gibbets.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Oh god, man.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
You know, permanently establish my social dominance.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
I just learned today what gibbets are. And to make
room in my brain, I've forgotten like another year of
high school math to make room for this new concept
of gibbets.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
You'll never use it. This is much more valuable to you.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
No, gibbets I think are gonna be. It's gonna probably
like if society collapses, we'll start using gibbets as currency.
Perfect well, Joel, Before we go, we got to play
the Mystery Animal sound game. Now we have this is
like the first Mystery Animal sound game of the year
(47:48):
because we came back from winter break and then we
had some listener questions episodes and we had an interview.
So like, this is the first like og style episode
since since December, so we are this is the first
(48:10):
mister Animal sound game of twenty twenty four. If you
guys remember the old Mystery animal sound from last year,
the hint was this, these are the best friends to
have in a gorilla style snowball site.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
What are the little monkeys that live in the snow
and like, I want to say, japan Gee, it sounds
like when my dog was a puppy, and it's making
me very nostalgic. It's such a cube little sound. I
don't know what it is, but I already love it.
(48:56):
Please be somewhere between.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
It's somewhere between a dog in a snow monkey. Well
that is closer to the truth than you may have realized,
because this is actually an Arctic fox. Uh kind of
making this little this little like weird laughing sound as
a way to communicate congratulations to Danielle be forguessing correctly.
(49:22):
This is actually one I believe that was rescued. So
it is it lives with humans, and so when it's
human caretaker laughs. This little Arctic fox laughs as well,
but the laughter is more of a case of not
as much a case of the giggles as it is
(49:44):
a form of communication. But yeah, arctic fox's coats change.
So in the winter they have this beautiful white coat
that helps them blend in with the snow so that
they can ambush their prey and high from predators. So
you would never see them coming in a snowball fight.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
What a good little fox. I would recruit them to
my team immediately.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
So cute.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Also, they are adorable, adorable us.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
The most fluffy little snow grimlins out there, and I
love that when they so they have an incredible sense
of hearings, so they can listen for like little little
mice and voles and mammals that are deep under the snow.
So you'll see them kind of on the surface of
the snow listening, sniffing around, and once they've located some
(50:38):
little mammal in their burrow, they'll hop up and then
jump and like basically just face plant directly into the snow,
like dive right in so that they can start digging
and digging up their prey. It is so cute. It's
the cutest form of carnivore predation that I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
I really appreciate that they are that dedicated to getting
their meal. They said, we could hunt above ground, we
could stay in our burrows and just attack them as
the house. They said, no, We're gonna wait to watch
them go in and then just die like after them.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
I mean, it's it's tough in the winter because either
a lot some predators will go into hibernation right and
sort of try to try to go into a state
where they're not using as much energy so that they
don't have to face this problem. But these guys have
developed an ability to hunt even in winter. Uh, and
(51:36):
so it is quite amazing. Alrighty, So now onto the
next mystery animal sound. The hint is this, these Canadians
think you're a hoser.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Okay, interesting, Well.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Alrighty, do you have any guesses?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Oh? Again, two very disparate guesses.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
But first I was like, oh, it kind of sounds
like a Canadian goose. But then is like, I hear
like a lot of shuffling on the ground that sounds
like sticks and stowed. I'm like, is it like a
deer of some kind?
Speaker 2 (52:29):
I know these are very far apart animals. I don't know.
I don't know all right? Well is it?
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Is it a deer or somewhere in between. We'll find
out on next Creature Feature Joel, thank you so much
for joining me today. Where can people find you?
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Thanks so much for having me back, Katie, This is
always a blast. I really appreciate you indulging my Lisa
Frank Love. Y'all can find me all over the internet
at tue money that's j O E l E mn.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
IQ And thank you guys so much for listening. If
you think you know who is making the Mystery Animals sound,
you can write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail
dot com. You can also write to me your questions.
I do answer listener questions uh. And I also appreciate
(53:20):
photos of your pets. Do not email me about that
question about whether you can stare at boobs instead of
drinking water. I don't want to know. I don't want
to know. Uh. And thank you to the Space Classics
for their super awesome song XO Lumina. Creature features a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you
(53:40):
just heard, visit iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Hey guess what,
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I don't know,
I don't care, and I don't judge you. See you
next Wednesday. Alrighty
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Mini Putt. I'm your host of Many Parasites. Katie Golden.
I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on this show,
we are looking at animals that are peeled right off
of the page of a Lisa Frank notebook. These are
(00:26):
animals that you would not expect to be so vibrantly
rainbow colored hued, and yet they are so. We will
talk about pink dolphins, multi colored primates, even a squirrel
and a pigeon which you would not expect to be
so very Lisa Frank. Discover this in more as we
(00:50):
answer the age old question why is it important to
have a rainbow But joining me today is friend of
the podcast, also friend of meet Katie and all around
awesome person producer at iHeartRadio. You know her, you love her? Joe. Well, welcome, Hey.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
How's it going.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I'm so excited to talk Lisa Frank.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Were you a big Lisa Frank fan back in the day?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, okay, so the way Lisa Frank folders, binders, trapper
keepers were a premium right like, they were not cheap.
So my mom would let me get like two Lisa
Frank things. So she was like, you gotta get these
regular ninety nine cent folders, but if you want one
Lisa Frank.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Folder and a Trapper keeper or two weeks.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Of Frank folder, like, you could have two things maximum.
And I coveted them so bad. I typically went with
a dolphin or a snow leopard as they were topics
and yeah, so super cute to look at, but yeah,
I mean adorable animals, cute psychedelic backgrounds. Very my lane
as a child, and you know, to be fair to today,
(02:02):
still love me alas a Frank.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
They are very cool kid. I never actually bought this
stuff so much. I don't know why. I think, I
just it never occurred to me that I could do
such a thing. But I would passively stare at other
kids binders that had the least Frank designs on them.
I might have gotten like one or two things over
(02:28):
the years. I don't really remember, but I remember just
kind of like the making me hungry because everything looks
like it was made out of candy or something.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It was just so, it was.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So it was so they were just so glossy and
edible looking. I also just I thought I think I
found it very strange as a kid, this idea of
like mammals being brightly colored, because you know, you're used
to like maybe fish and even birds being colored, but
like mammals, it was a It was a weird concept
(03:03):
for there to be a rainbow colored like a leopard
or dolphin.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It was not, as you might say, logical.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
It's very illogical, yeah, coloring, But I think that's sort
of what I loved about it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
There's a.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Like hyperrealism, fantasy sort of element happening where why not
a taied die cheetah Here unicorns are very real and
they're gorgeous. I like that her unicorns were white, but
it was their tails and their mains that were tied.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Ie super bright colors.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I just think it's fun to look at and pretend
you're in a world where there are mega waterfalls and
aliens driving like what do you call those punch buggies.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Everything about Lisa S.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Frank's world was just gorgeous and peaceful and exuberantly vibrant,
and I appreciate that to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah, I think it's a really lovely art style. I
think when I was a kid back in the nineties,
I feel like girls in terms of sort of being
classified into like animal obsessives, were either super into horses
or super into dolphins. I don't know why that happened,
(04:20):
but that like when I was a kid, it was
you were either in horse camp or dolphin camp.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I personally would had.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
No you had to either be a horse girl or
a dolphin girl. I was like into cats because I
had a cat, but I felt like horses and dolphins
were like the thing, right, Like if you had a Barbie,
you could get her a horse or you could get
her a dolphin. For some reason, I don't know why
Barfi Barbie could have a dolphin. Maybe it was Skipper
who had a dolphin's.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I think it had something to do with all of
us wanting to be marine biologists. I don't know who
planted this idea in children's heads, but for a while,
it was like, you be a horse girl lover and
you wanted to sort of like work on a ranch
and like live in the wild West and tame wild horses.
Black Beauty was obviously a staple for many of us
in our youth, whether it was the classic black Beauty
(05:14):
film or you're reading the novel. I think it really
cemented this idea of running away and racing horses. And
then or you were a marine biology camp and you're like,
I will swim under the ocean sort of be a mermaid,
but not really also super smart scientist, and there'll be
very cute dolphins who make the best little sounds and
do tricks. This was before we knew see world was
(05:37):
a terrible place.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We were children and dolphins were doing dope tricks and
you could be their trainer and they would high five
you if you fed them a fish. And it was
really we were living in a dream world. And I
really think that's what separated and divided the camps, is
like you were either into the rune biology of it,
or you were prepared to live.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
On a farm.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I didn't like the smell of horses. At first I
thought I might be a horse girl. But then I
went to ride horse, says I said, it smells awful.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I hate it.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Also, they were really tall and I was scared to heights,
so horses were hard for me. My mom's a horse girl,
she was disappointed. But I came a dolphin girl very early.
And then Lisa Frank can introduce me to the snow leopard,
And I said, is there a more beautiful creature on
God's Earth?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
There isn't so.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Fussy. Yeah, if I had to be in either horse
girl or dolphin girl camp, and probably be dolphin girl
as well, because horses intimidate me. I'm thoroughly intimidated by horses.
I can see the like they're so muscular, and then
they have really hard nails for feet, and so they
(06:41):
can just they could like hit you and permanently cave
in your head. I do not find that peaceful. I
find that intimidating. Whereas dolphins, I don't know. I guess
a dolphin could drown you, but I don't think they
typically do.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I know that we don't see that in our culture
a lot, and in our dolphin me Typically dolphins are
very kind, loving, sweet creatures, whereas horses are temperamental creatures
in a lot of our media, like there, you're like, oh,
you gotta be careful because they're wild spirits. They might
buck you off. You know, you got you gotta be
careful with a horse. My mom got kicked in the
(07:16):
shin by a horse. Oh no, teenager, so she has
a permanent horseshoe imprint on her shin. She likes to
think it's lucky. I said, you were kicked by a
horse in the shin.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I hate it when stuff happens to the shin because
it's like one of the bones where it's like right there,
there's nothing. There's like a thin layer of skin and
tissue covering it, but there's no cushion. It's just a
bone there. And I hate it. I hate but I'm
shaving my legs. I hate shaving over it because I'm like,
that's there's a bone right there, Like it's not that
(07:49):
far delicate bone, so like I do have a horse
kicking right I want to throw up. Anyways, it's horrible.
It's a lot that's horrible. It's so funny because I
have like such a tall I have such a tolerance
and love for a weird, disgusting animal, spiders, snakes, everything.
And then you're like, it's like with horses, I'm just like,
(08:10):
I don't know about horses. Man. I like them. I
like looking at them. I respect them. That's the thing
is like I don't fantasize about, like you know, being
buddies with a horse because I respect them too much
for that. They are thoroughly to me. They are intimidating
enough that I want to give them like a wide berth.
(08:32):
But yeah, dolphins are not as everyone knows like, They're
not the sweet, peaceful creatures in terms of like other
sea life. They're predators and so they like to play
around with their food. They like to hunt, and but
you know, in terms of their relationships with humans, they
generally do not pose any threat to humans. They actually
(08:53):
can be quite curious about humans, and they can be
quite friendly. But the reason I bring up dolphins is
I remember there were always these beautiful multi colored dolphins,
sometimes like these pink dolphins that Lisa Frank would draw.
And it turns out that Lisa Frank was not making
this up. There indeed are pink dolphins. These are the
(09:14):
Amazon River dolphins found in where else but the Amazon River.
We have talked about these on the show before, but
I mean, I think it's worth repeating information about pink
dolphins as much as possible.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I mean, look at how cute they are. Yes, they're
so adorable. I think popular media has really let us
down by not featuring more of these pink dolphins.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
You know, we see a.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Ton of I don't want to call them regular bottle
nose dolphins. I feel like, are maybe the ones.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
We see, yeah, the most your.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Typical blue, white bellied looking thing, and they're cute. Listen,
there's no dolphin shaming here. I'm just saying out in
the world, there's a light pink dolphin who constantly looks
like it's smiling and a little bit high. Its eyes
are very small, and who it's precious. I would protect it.
It should be a mascot for several different teams. People
(10:11):
should be fighting over the rights to be like, no,
we're the pink dolphins. Look at how perfect they are.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's away.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
It's so funny. It's so funny because we think of
pink as this soft, cute color, right, Like something that's
pink is sweet and cute, and of course with our culture,
something like in modern sort of like Western culture, pink
is like a girly color. I'm not saying it is, right.
I don't put that kind of baggage on colors because
(10:40):
I think pink is everyone's color. Anyone can like. I don't.
I think it's weird to like limit what colors people
can use. That's strange. But you know, our culture is like,
you know, girls, pink, girls, pink. The thing is this
pink for these Amazon river dolphins also known as the
(11:02):
Boto river dolphins are a male characteristic. So the pink
is a male characteristic because it is actually scar tissue
as a result of fighting with other dolphins or with
other creatures, and it's attractive to females because the more
(11:22):
pink that they are from just this like frequent abrasion,
because their tissue scar is very easily. This is an
evolutionary trait and it will turn pink from all of
this scarring. And so the brighter the pink from this
skin irritation essentially from fights and shoving and rough housing
is attractive to females. So this pink, basically, the pinker
(11:46):
you are, the more like tough and aggressive you are,
and the more rough and tough from anywhere from like
just serious fighting to just kind of rough housing with
other dolphins.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So I was right, they are the perfect mascot. Yes,
that's a bright neon pink dolphin mascot to be like, hey,
we're ferocious, we'd be fighting all the time and the
ladies love us.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
What about it?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Like, my god, if I was starting a sports team tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
This will be my mascot. Imagine the imagine the mascot
super It's.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Perfect, man, I am actually imagining it, and it's it's
really funny because like these are these all dolphins alf
have also have really fat foreheads and long snouts, so
it's just they already are very goofy looking, so in
mascot form with a human sort of awkwardly inside this
(12:45):
like dolphin suit with the legs sticking out, perfect, just perfect.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I am obsessed with this little guy. He's so cool.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
They also love.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
That his pinkness comes from fights.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
They are also drummers, so they will actually hold branches
or pieces of vegetation in their mouths and then beat
the water with that to impress the females. And like
I mentioned before, dolphins are not known for their kindness
to other creatures. They will sometimes lift live turtles up
(13:23):
as a courtship as a courtship display, just because they're
they're kind of jerks, but in a pretty cute way.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Continuing on my mascot theme, imagine everybody gets a like
leaf shaped tube. So in somebody's if it's basketball, someone's
going to make a free throw. This is how we
use our distraction. We're just mimicking the dolphins drumming style
as a form of intimidation. Don't let us all whip
out a turtle. It means it's over for you. It really,
it truly means death, or we're about to enter recording ritual.
(13:57):
Either way, very very dangerous time to be around us
and dolphins.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I'm seeing if anyone uses this dolphin as a mascot,
I don't see. I don't see any like sports teams
that do.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I mean, like I'm trademarking it right now, and Hollywood WNBA,
give me a team.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I mean, Indigenous communities do appreciate these dolphins. I wouldn't
say it's like a mascot, but there's a lot of
folklore about them. So like Native Amazonian folklore has stories
about these dolphins transforming into a human and coming out
of the water with like a hat on their head
to disguise the blowhole. I just love that. It's like
(14:44):
it's like a transformation mermaid story. But like they keep
the blowhole, Like they turn from a dolphin into a human,
but there's no way for them to also get rid
of that blowhole.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
All good magical tales have consequences. You can never fully
hide true state of being.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yes, it's kind of like with AI. Now, like if
they start making AI human clones, you just look at
the number of fingers that they have or the number
of teeth that they have to find it out. Also,
they believe that they could turn into a beautiful woman
who could seduce a married man. Uh, and then after
(15:25):
having sex with him, turns him into a baby and
then puts him inside his own wife's womb, so.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
You know, diabolically.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, well, you know, I think that is It's an
interesting concept. It actually sounds like the plot of Being
John Malkovich.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Right, I never understood the plot for Being John Malcovich.
I'm going to take her word.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I think it's Yeah. I think it's a river Dolphin
place by Catherine Zeta Jones, who, uh, you're right, like
and then she impregnates Uh.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Yes, this is I haven't seen this movie in so long.
Wait a minute, Okay, So here's the thing. Popular culture
has given me a dolphin, and it gave it to
me in the weirdest possible way. What I have to
go back and watch it.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
John Malkovich doesn't actually have an Amazon river dolphin, but
it does have Catherine Zeta Jones and gosh who's the
other actress. They fall in love, but then one of
them gets pregnant with their own ex boyfriend kind of
or the ex boyfriend gets trapped inside their own baby
(16:47):
but is not in control of the baby. It's weird,
it's very it's a it's a weird movie. I highly
recommend it. But essentially it's the same story indias. It's
the same story as it's a folklore about this river dolphin,
which in a kind of in a certain sense, it's
the same story. But anyways, but yeah, they they really
(17:11):
in real life. These dolphins pose no threat to humans.
They can't transform you into a baby, but they don't
do well in captivity and they can't be trained. They
are fiercely independent pink battle dolphins.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
They saw what happened to their cousins and they were like,
can't catch us.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
No, thank you?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Who am not conformed?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Weird human ways?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, free Willie, how about screw you? All Right, Well,
we are going to take a quick break and then
when we get back, we are going to talk about
bright multi colored squirrels. So I want to talk about
(17:57):
the Indian giant squirrel which has a beautiful coat. I
have mentioned this before on other episodes, but again it's
a giant, multicolored squirrel. I have to give it another
shout out during the Lisa Frank episode. So this is
a They live in tropical forests in the Indian subcontinent
(18:21):
and they eat a lot of fruits nuts. They are,
you know, your typical squirrel, but they are about a
foot long from their nose to their butt, and then
an extra foot for their tail, so they're about sixty
centimeters total in length, which is about two feet, and
(18:46):
they are they are a beautiful color combination. Joel, can
you describe this squirrel to the listeners?
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Sure, it sort of looks like an outphant Meganus stallium
would wear. It's like a very dark navy blue on
top and bottom, and then in the middle it's like
a beautiful mauve purple. It's not quite tigh eye, but
more like ombre switching from one color to the other
and then back to the original. I also really appreciate
(19:16):
the coloring on its face. If you're into the tie
dye makeups, definitely inspired by this creature.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I'm talking like purple eye shadow.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Also purple lips, but like pink maybe around the ears.
Beautiful creature, gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, it's color coordination is really on point. It's kind
of like jewel tones mixed with a few earth tones,
which is very very cool. I didn't realize is there
there's a tie dye makeup trend?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, so there's if you're into maximalism, which I really am,
A lot of folks are doing some very fun things
with both, like their lips and their eyes.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Whoa who You're putting on.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
A bunch of colors like around the eye or on
the lips, sometimes both, and then blending it out to
get like a tie dye effect.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Oh my god, I'm looking at a picture of this.
This is incredible. I like, this isn't fantastic. I feel
blessed when I can do a wing that doesn't look
like I just dragged a sharpie across my face, so
I could never accomplish this, But this is that's amazing. Yeah,
(20:27):
like just it's it looks like because it looks like
they did the rainbow colors and then sort of like
sort of dragged some kind of smudging tool to get
that like tied eye swirl effect that's really cool.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
My favorite effect is sometimes they'll tape a piece of
string and like wind it up and make kind of
loop whoe and then tape it to the other side,
and so then they'll do the makeup over the string
and then just remove the string, so you get skin
color as sort of the white tied eye line. Sometimes
people will use a white Uh. If you did not
(21:01):
come for the show for makeup, I'm so sorry, But
here we are. He's like a white eyeliner to sort
of highlight and make some cool color swishiness amongst all
the colors.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
This show is all about how animals and humans aren't
so different and the fact that we love to put
color on our face. Animals also are these beautiful colors. Look,
it's just I think it's super creative and super awesome
what people do with makeup.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 3 (21:30):
This coloring is so bold and unique, and I know
it lives in the India subcontinent and there are very
bold and beautiful colors in the forest there. But this
guy sticks out like you would see him if he
was running around.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
There's no bunding in for this little dude.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Is this specifically for mating is because it can't be
for hiding.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Well, that's what's interesting is that sometimes coloration to our
eyes will look like something that stands out that could
not possibly camouflage them, but then to their predators, because
they have a different different types of vision, like they
don't have the kind of color vision that we have.
Something like this, like this blocky, patchy coloration with a
(22:13):
lighter under belly and a darker thought might actually be
harder to spot because like if you have a light
belly and a dark top, Like if you have light
coming in from a top source, say like you're in
a rainforest, right and light is coming filtering through the
leaves above, and so when you look up, things are lighter,
and when you look down kind of like things are
(22:35):
patchier and more like the shadow lights up on them.
So something that has a light belly but then sort
of a blocky, darker top might actually be harder to spot,
especially if your vision does not process the same range
of colors as human vision. But it can also be
(22:56):
for mate selection, right, like having a lot of colors
like you have this sort of you have two needs
that can be in conflict with each other. The need
to not be eaten by a predator, but also the
need to stand out and be noticed by a mate.
So having coloration that attracts conspecifics like members of your
(23:19):
own species that you want to make that you want
to mate with, can be advantageous, but it's balanced with
not wanting to be spotted by predators. So sometimes you
have animals who are brightly colored in certain ways, but
also maybe their coloration is in certain sort of like
(23:39):
blocky patches, so that it does somewhat break up the
pattern of what shape they're supposed to be. Or they
are really colorful and really conspicuous, but they have other
methods of escape, such as being able to fly away
or speed away very quickly, or they're really big and
so they don't have to worry about predators.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Is that I think, Okay, I'm having a vague memory,
so maybe I'm wrong or conflating things, but like that's
why zebras are colored the way they are, right Like
when tigers see them, it's like all green to them.
Is that I kind of blend in with the grass
with they're black and white.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
So yeah, it's so it's disruptive coloration. So for zebras,
they would mostly be concerned about lions, and for zebras,
they're going to be in herds where they are, you know,
kind of blending in with each other. So the idea
is it's difficult for a lion or even something like
(24:38):
a mosquito to differentiate a individual and to be able
to tell which direction they're going in. It's there's something
called a barber shop or barber shop poll illusion. It's
like when you have the lines of the barber shop
spinning around, sometimes you could interpret it as it going
down or going up, just ending on kind of how
(25:00):
you went or think about it. And that could be
the case with zebras, where you have all these stripes,
and so it makes it not only difficult to know
where one individual starts and another one ends, but which
direction the herd is moving or which in each individual
and the herd is moving. And then so for like,
that's one of the questions about why if tigers are
(25:26):
so brightly colored right there, orange and black, so to
us they just pop right out. We can see them
really easily, or even like a leopard right like, they're
so brightly colored. Wouldn't in their ambush predators, wouldn't their
prey see them. Well, that has to do with the
the way that the vision of most of their prey is,
(25:48):
which is they they won't see so much the difference
between oranges and greens, and so that orange and black
striped coloration or that orange and black kind of dotted
coloration will look like sort of a dappled light coming
in in the in the jungle or in the forest
and sort of like just light dappled greenery essentially, so
(26:12):
they blend in really well, but not to us humans,
which is good for us.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
We can tell the difference between orange and green. We
can see it clear off. Yes, Okay, I definitely was
conflating multiple stories in there.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
But they're all very interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you
were thinking that is correct, that that is the same
thing that I'm talking about. But yeah, speaking of sort
of brightly colored little little forest animals, this is technically
a bird, so it's not unusual for birds to be
(26:48):
brightly colored. But the reason I'm bringing this one up
is it's a pigeon, which we're so used to the drab,
boring pigeons of our cities. I actually love them, but
a lot of people find them, you know, they're gray
so they're not usually that interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
But these arts of the sky we used to call
them in college.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yes, the flying rats. I actually quite love pigeons, but
they are I wouldn't call them the most beautiful of birds.
We do actually get a lot of color variations here
because most city pigeons are actually descendants of domesticated pigeons,
and so you actually do get like brown and white
(27:30):
and you know, black, sort of like pigeons that have
been bred specifically for their colors and then they're released
into the wild and now are released out into the city,
and now you have this feral pigeon population that has
all these interesting colors. But this one looks like it's
a Lisa Frank pigeon. If Lisa Frank ever drew a pigeon,
(27:51):
which I don't think she did, but had she, it
would look like this. It is like, it's a pigeon
that looks like it's made out of sorbet. It's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It does, it does, guys. It has bright, hot pink feet.
It does so its shoe game is on point. Also,
so many colors neck one color like front, breast area,
different color head, different multi colored wings and tail, vibrant sunning.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Send it to New York Fashion Week. It's ready for
its close up.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
So these pigeons are related to our city pigeons. They
are found in Southeast Asia, and both males and females
are colorful, but more so the males, because females are
more just kind of variations of greens and yellows, whereas
males are a variety of color. Their faces are powder blue,
(28:43):
their neck is a lavender color, their chest is orange,
their belly is green, their back is olive green. Their
wings have these yellow stripes, and then under their tail
is orange and their feet are hot pink. They are incredible.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Truly a stunning bird.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
And there's a lot of competition for stunning birds, as
we just discussed with the regular pigeons. You know, they
look fine, Let's be real, they look fine. But when
we're talking about freaking peacocks, and yeah, I don't know
that whatever that one dancing bird in the Amazon is
a competition is stiff. This guy a class of his own,
truly unique. Have never seen a bird that looks anything
(29:26):
like this just from a color perspective, and it's strange,
I think, because it does just like a pigeon. I
has like, what kind of bird this is? I would
guess pigeon. It looks like a pigeon, but just like
a pigeon with incredible fashion sense.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
It's very pigeon coded because it is one hundred percent
pigeon shaped, which is what's kind of interesting when you
look at the whole dove family, because pigeons and doves
are the same thing. Any you look at any dove,
you look at any pigeon, rock, dove, roe, you know, pigeons, everything,
They all are essentially the same shape. Just that shape.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Does just have a better PR team.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Doves just have a better PR team. They're like, oh,
look at this pretty white dove. It's a symbol of peace.
And then get away from me, you dirty pigeon. You
can't have my fries. But yeah, this one is, this
one is so so pretty. It lives in mangrove forests
or in regular forests. But they are similar to pigeons
(30:30):
found in like the US, and I mean all throughout
America and then also in Europe because they are really
good at adapting to urban environments, so like in sort
of farms or human settlements or cities near where they live,
they can exploit these, and they can find food on
(30:51):
farms and in people's gardens. They're frug of wars, so
they eat mostly fruit and most of their diet is
just figs. They love figs and they're really good for Okay,
who doesn't love a fig? Well, actually a lot of
people don't.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I was gonna say, can't blame them. Those people are incorrect.
They are not to be judgmental.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
But yeah, when I was a kid, I didn't like
figs almost literally, but I changed my mind.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
They're an adult taste for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
It's acquired taste.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Get somebody who didn't grow up with figs. Like, when
you first come across them, you're like, it's like a
brown fruit that looks kind of wrinkled and shriveled up,
and you're like, oh, maybe that. Typically the foods I
have had experience eating don't look like this, and so
it was definitely like a learning curve.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
But once you.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Start mowing on them, oh my god, they're very so sweet,
so tasty, so getting so many different things.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
They're also I remember learning when I was young that
like sometimes wasps would like go inside of figs and
completely their life cycle inside figs. So I was like
kind of scared of eating them because I thought I
was just gonna find a giant wasp. I got older,
I learned that while this is true, there are wasps
that you know, lay their larva inside figs. They're tiny,
(32:08):
They're teeny tiny, itty bitty bitty bitty wasps, not scary
at all. So even even if the figs, it's just
free protein and they're like they're like ant sized or
even smaller. So like, once you get to that size
of an insect, if I eat it, I'm like, mmmm,
it's garnish. So yeah, So these birds love figs and
(32:33):
they're beautiful, and they're also very adaptable in situations such
as volcanic eruptions. They have survived their populations, maybe not
specific individuals have survived the eruption of Krakatoa in eighteen
eighty three. They were one of the only fruit eating
animals to quickly return and adapt to the post eruption islands. Essentially,
(32:59):
as long as there's some figs somewhere, they can They're fine,
like figs or some fruit there, they will go there
and they will make it work.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
I know pigeons for such good flyers, Like obviously I
don't fly or whatever escaping a volcanos and the like
the loan survivors. That's some pretty serious slapping, which I
would not have thought could happen in a pigeon.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
I mean it's like, I don't know how well a
pigeon could outfly like pyroclastic flow. Probably not well, but
enough of them are gonna survive at eruption, right, like
get out of there in time that they are able
(33:44):
to re establish their population. But yeah, they are. They
are good flyers. They don't actually migrate so much, but
they're flying is used for locating figs and zeroing in
on those figs and then eating those figs.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
I don't know, it's gonna be such a big heavy episode,
but now I'm craving figs.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I know, right, I've kind of tucked myself into wanting figs,
you know, like you know how the inside of figs are,
like they have all those little nodules, like the little
I don't like just like it's a weird texture. It's
kind of like it's like a flower that's folded in
on itself, you know, like how like a daisy has
those little little nodules. I'm bad at plant biology, so
(34:30):
I forget what they're called, but it's like essentially like
that part of the daisy, that center part that's all
bumpy but folded in on itself, and it's a very
specific kind of fruit development, which is actually why wasps
use figs to do their reproduction, because there's like actually
these little nooks and crannies that these tiny wasps can
(34:53):
lay their larva in. So it's it's a you know,
figs are cool. Figs are very interesting, and the list.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
They're rich in anti inflammatory and antioxidants, which I know
is not a real thing, but who cares. It's a
great excuse to eat more figs. They are so tasty
and sweet, y'all. If you have figs on a pizza, oh,
next level.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
It's a I mean, those things are real. It's just
like you're not. There's not I don't really believe in
like the superfood kind of thing where it's like if
you just eat figs, you will never get cancer. That's
just not how it works. But they're healthy, right, Like
a fig is gonna be better for you than maybe
(35:36):
like a dorrito.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I bet they're beating the hell out of doritos.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, not to single out dorito's. There's nothing wrong with
having a dorito. I'm just saying, if you could choose
between you think it's a bad food, it's well, it's
probably not the healthiest food of dorito. I don't know.
I don't know what damn it dorito causes exactly to
(36:03):
the body, but I would say a fig is probably
on average better for you than a dorito. Food science
is wild, though, Like it's so it's very I have
a lot of problems with like food science studies because
they're all over the place. Man, You'll get like a
(36:24):
study that's like, man, you should be drinking wine all
the time, and it turns out it's because like France
has a lower death rate, like lower cardiovascular death rate. Yeah,
well they drink a lot of wine, so maybe that's it.
It's like, guys, that's not that's not like, that's not
good to say science.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
I just want y'all to know there are probably many
contributing factors. Yeah, I appreciate the excuse to drink wine.
What was the craziest when I saw yesterday, Oh they
were saying that staring at a woman's chest is how
fier than like drinking.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
A bunch of water or something. I was like, that
cannot be true. That just.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Sometimes like what does it even mean? As it was
a German study, so maybe.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
There there you go. No, I don't know. I'm joking.
I'm up, but no, I mean it doesn't that doesn't
make any like obviously you can't just stare at a
woman's chest and not drink water for the rest of
your life. You will die. I don't understand what they're
trying to say, Like it like it's stick like maybe
it like helps you in the moment or something like
(37:34):
maybe it increases your heart rate in the moment if
you like boobs, which, let's be honest, you.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Does see what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah, but like you're pretty great. They're they're they're good,
like you know, but like if I'm dying of thirst
and you're like, would you like to see the best
boobs in the.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
World versus a glass of.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Water, I'm still gonna have the glass of water.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I don't understand these things. Fell
always something, but I.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Will Fellas is it? Uh is do you guys think
that you could not drink water? I shouldn't say just
fellas anyone of the sexual orientation to whom boobs is important?
Would you not drink water versus looking at boobs? Write
(38:32):
to me, don't write to me about that. I'm joking.
I don't actually want to hear about this.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I will say I do save these studies when it's
like helpful to me, when they're like, drinking coffee can
save your life. Yeah, I'll keep that in my back pocket.
So anytime someone's like, are you sure you want a
third cup of coffee? I can be like, listen this study.
I don't care where it's from or if it's real
or not, but it says that I should be drinking
as much coffee as I can.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
So I'm gonna do it. I who am I to
a if.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
It makes you feel good? That's I read something at
some point that said that dark chocolate's good for you,
And then like whenever it's like, oh, did you know
those studies are actually rad I don't want to hear it.
Dark chocolate good for you?
Speaker 2 (39:13):
That study said it.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Study said it. Yeah, no, I know. I read the
most unhelpful like article the other day that was just like,
coffee could either save your life or kill you. I'm like,
that's literally everything. That's literally anything.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
We should definitely figure out which one of those is
the final answer. Right, that's not even a good hypothesis,
like a great scientist would be like, you need to
go back to the jar.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Water could either save your life or kill you. Man.
It's this the state of health report, health nutrition reporting
is we need we need help. Anyways, we're going to
take a quick break and when we come back, we're
going to quickly shift the topic to mandrill butts. Oh
(40:03):
all right, so we're back in Joelle. We are talking
about man drill butts, which does sound like a pornographic title,
but it's it's this is it's animals. It's animals.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
It's just okaynocent, not human males, no, no drills involved,
but lots of butts.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, it's not man drill butts, but mandrill butts. All right,
So man drills are these amazing primates found in rainforests
in west central Africa. They are the largest monkey in
the world. They're not apes. They are monkeys, even though
they have like a stubby tail. They're a short tailed monkey.
(40:45):
Uh and they weigh over seventy pounds, so they're they're big.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
They are big boy.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think they are uh, you know on
Lion King the guy refec Yeah, it's rafiki.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
This is definitely rafiki. Blue and red nose, colorful.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Blue yes, and so are. They're all very striking, and
females are striking too. They have yellow beards, pink noses
in this kind of subtle blue blush along the grooves
in their face. But the males are the true beauty queens.
They have bright red noses, bright blue ridges along their
(41:30):
cheeks and noses. They have yellow beards and rainbow butts.
So females also have pink and blue coloration around their
butts and genitals, but the males just have really really
vibrant butts with pinks and blues and even like lavenders.
It's quite quite beautiful and stunning.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
So okay, again, I was taught all color on animals
has some meeting or drive or purpose. This to my
human eyes looks like a target. But we've already discussed
animals c with the human eye view scope, So but
why a colorful ass.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
In this case? You are correct that this is more
or less a target. There's a few functions for these
bright butts, social and practical. So socially, these bright colors
communicate things. They can even become more vibrant when the
individual is excited or agitated. It is attractive to females.
(42:36):
Females find a really vibrant butt on a male to
be attractive. It can also signal dominance, both in their
faces and their butts. The higher contrast between sort of
the red and the blue hues, the more respected, the
more attractive typically goes along with being more dominant, getting
(42:57):
more mates, and having a higher place on the social higherarchy.
But the practical reason that they have these bright butts
is that when they are walking in these sort of
dark dense forests, these butts will stand out to the
members of the troop behind them, so it's easier for
them to follow each other. And so it's kind of
(43:19):
like you know, when you're like on a tour guide
and the tour guide has like the flag that they're
waving and it's kind of a unique flag, so you
can see it and it's bright. It's like that but
a butt, but a butt a mandrel.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
But okay, I'm not mad at it.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
The butts good. It's giving psychedelic fair coat, which, as
we've already talked about, Lisa Frank. We love so psychedelics.
Lisa Frank should have done a mandrel.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
But yes, the color scheme is very on brand for her.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Monkeys can be cute and sort of you know, visious
like a dolphin, but still a door Lisa Frank, if
you're out here looking for new ideas, the mandrel butt,
it's right there for you.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Like your audiences, all adults, now, we can handle a
mandrel butt. You know.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
You've already tackled crocs, the ugliest thing known to man.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Mandrel butts will be Wait, there's there's Lisa Frank CrOx
like the shoe.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yes, okay, So friend of this podcast, Jamie loftis over
the holidays, so I went uh to be a part
of it.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
And she came in with.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Platform crocs that were Lisa Frank branded, colorful leopard spots
all over them and they are fabulous.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Okay, I just found them online. Incredible. I'm speechless.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Yeah, there's huge platform shoes.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
They're like almost like high heels, except even across the
bright huge early to thousands chunky shoe.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Huge pink platform that also looks functional right like, it
looks like it's got a lot of grip, so I
could be like, I could be using those in sort
of a wet, slippery situation, but it's a hot pink
And then on top of that, it's got this sort
of like classic croc thing but in those bright rainbow
(45:24):
Lisa Frank leopard spots and it looks like it's bejeweled
as well.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Crocs has these little chochkey things that you can write
in the holes that I can't remember was the lot,
but yes, and they come with little animals, so you
can get the classic leopard, which we love. I think
they also have the panda. And if you don't have
a dolphin, they should because least Frank dolphins. It's synonymous
with one another.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I mean, it's this is incredible. I just the human ingenuity, right,
but this is like, looks we did. We did not
evolve from mandrels. In fact, we're not very close relatives
to them. However, we are all primates and so you
can't tell me that these bright Lisa Frank crocs don't
(46:13):
serve a similar purpose to the mandril. But of establishing
social dominance.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
I listen, and who would no one would dare call
Jamie loftus anything but dominate Okay, uh, you can get
a Lisa Frank five pack of gibbets. Is what the
little charms are called, gibbets. That's that's their choice. Yes,
they do have a dolphin.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
I knew it.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
They also had the Lisa Frank logo and the alien
in the punch buggy car, and a unicorn jumping over
a rainbow, and a shooting star and kitties.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Little kiddies. Oh man, these are so cute. I have
a problem. I don't even own these, but I'm considering
buying these gibbets.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Oh god, man.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
You know, permanently establish my social dominance.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
I just learned today what gibbets are. And to make
room in my brain, I've forgotten like another year of
high school math to make room for this new concept
of gibbets.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
You'll never use it. This is much more valuable to you.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
No, gibbets I think are gonna be. It's gonna probably
like if society collapses, we'll start using gibbets as currency.
Perfect well, Joel, Before we go, we got to play
the Mystery Animal sound game. Now we have this is
like the first Mystery Animal sound game of the year
(47:48):
because we came back from winter break and then we
had some listener questions episodes and we had an interview.
So like, this is the first like og style episode
since since December, so we are this is the first
(48:10):
mister Animal sound game of twenty twenty four. If you
guys remember the old Mystery animal sound from last year,
the hint was this, these are the best friends to
have in a gorilla style snowball site.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
What are the little monkeys that live in the snow
and like, I want to say, japan Gee, it sounds
like when my dog was a puppy, and it's making
me very nostalgic. It's such a cube little sound. I
don't know what it is, but I already love it.
(48:56):
Please be somewhere between.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
It's somewhere between a dog in a snow monkey. Well
that is closer to the truth than you may have realized,
because this is actually an Arctic fox. Uh kind of
making this little this little like weird laughing sound as
a way to communicate congratulations to Danielle be forguessing correctly.
(49:22):
This is actually one I believe that was rescued. So
it is it lives with humans, and so when it's
human caretaker laughs. This little Arctic fox laughs as well,
but the laughter is more of a case of not
as much a case of the giggles as it is
(49:44):
a form of communication. But yeah, arctic fox's coats change.
So in the winter they have this beautiful white coat
that helps them blend in with the snow so that
they can ambush their prey and high from predators. So
you would never see them coming in a snowball fight.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
What a good little fox. I would recruit them to
my team immediately.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
So cute.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Also, they are adorable, adorable us.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
The most fluffy little snow grimlins out there, and I
love that when they so they have an incredible sense
of hearings, so they can listen for like little little
mice and voles and mammals that are deep under the snow.
So you'll see them kind of on the surface of
the snow listening, sniffing around, and once they've located some
(50:38):
little mammal in their burrow, they'll hop up and then
jump and like basically just face plant directly into the snow,
like dive right in so that they can start digging
and digging up their prey. It is so cute. It's
the cutest form of carnivore predation that I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
I really appreciate that they are that dedicated to getting
their meal. They said, we could hunt above ground, we
could stay in our burrows and just attack them as
the house. They said, no, We're gonna wait to watch
them go in and then just die like after them.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
I mean, it's it's tough in the winter because either
a lot some predators will go into hibernation right and
sort of try to try to go into a state
where they're not using as much energy so that they
don't have to face this problem. But these guys have
developed an ability to hunt even in winter. Uh, and
(51:36):
so it is quite amazing. Alrighty, So now onto the
next mystery animal sound. The hint is this, these Canadians
think you're a hoser.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Okay, interesting, Well.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Alrighty, do you have any guesses?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Oh? Again, two very disparate guesses.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
But first I was like, oh, it kind of sounds
like a Canadian goose. But then is like, I hear
like a lot of shuffling on the ground that sounds
like sticks and stowed. I'm like, is it like a
deer of some kind?
Speaker 2 (52:29):
I know these are very far apart animals. I don't know.
I don't know all right? Well is it?
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Is it a deer or somewhere in between. We'll find
out on next Creature Feature Joel, thank you so much
for joining me today. Where can people find you?
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Thanks so much for having me back, Katie, This is
always a blast. I really appreciate you indulging my Lisa
Frank Love. Y'all can find me all over the internet
at tue money that's j O E l E mn.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
IQ And thank you guys so much for listening. If
you think you know who is making the Mystery Animals sound,
you can write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail
dot com. You can also write to me your questions.
I do answer listener questions uh. And I also appreciate
(53:20):
photos of your pets. Do not email me about that
question about whether you can stare at boobs instead of
drinking water. I don't want to know. I don't want
to know. Uh. And thank you to the Space Classics
for their super awesome song XO Lumina. Creature features a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you
(53:40):
just heard, visit iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Hey guess what,
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I don't know,
I don't care, and I don't judge you. See you
next Wednesday. Alrighty
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
Show Links
RSSAbout Creature FeatureTheme SongPopular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.