Teeny Tinies Tootin Around

Guest: Pallavi Gunalan 

Summary: Life is tough on these teeny tinies, so they need creative solutions to get around the world without being immediately destroyed! From the world's itty bittiest snail, to dastardly little fish, to the world's lil'est cowboys doing a giddy-up in the sea, we're looking at some cuties who are sometimes surprisingly devious. 

Footnotes: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c02vaTXLPLd0eMjrwGuxgtjHN70uK_iQakMHN-LhhaA/edit?usp=sharing

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, how do
you get around the world when you're just a little dude?
Life is tough on these teeny tiny's and so they
need creative solutions to be able to get around without

(00:27):
being immediately destroyed. From the world's idious videous snail to
dastardly little fish to the littlest cowboys getting up in
the sea. We're looking at some cuties who are sometimes
surprisingly devious. Discover the some more as we answer the
age old question. Maybe she's born with it, Maybe it's
poops on spikes. Joining me today is front of the

(00:48):
show brilliant comedian with a background in biotech, Pulo Viganalen, welcome, alright, Hi,
I'm happy to be here again. So we're just talking
about little time, little tie guys, little little teeny tiny's, uh,
and you know it can be it can be rough
on a little teeny tiny trying to navigate the world
that is so much bigger. Being a voice for the

(01:11):
voiceless right now, exactly the voice for the teeniest and
tiniest of snails, which when you take them all together
as like a voting block, you know, pretty significant. So
have you heard the news that they discovered a new
tiniest snail. I have not kept up on my snail news.
I'm so sorry. I mean, I have subscribed to Snails

(01:35):
Galore bi weekly. So I'm up to come through snail mail.
I'm done. Good bye, You're done, banned from comedy forever.
So yeah, I know, the smallest land snail in all
the land, I guess has been discovered. So these are

(01:58):
snails that are so teeny tiny. The adults are literally
the size of a grain of sand. You can fit
more than one of them on the tip of a
ballpoint pin. So these are called Augusta pilla salmion and
they were found in northern Vietnam. They are point six

(02:18):
millimeters in diameter and uh, For some reason, researchers thought
the best way to illustrate how small they were would
be to take a picture of a bunch of the
little snails inside a clear pill capsule, which just makes
me think of some kind of weird snail medicine made
out of just like swallowing a bunch of snails. Yeah,

(02:41):
it definitely isn't an appealing visual. Now, I'm like, what
if we just can't see their snails in our medicine?
Now you always think like is it just inside this pill?
Is it just a bunch of little snails? Is this
a secret doctors don't want us to find out about?
This is gonna be when it Faltra is so close

(03:02):
to selling this right now, it's gonna be on It's
gonna be on Joe Rogan Show. He's in a lot
of hot water right now, rightfully, so, so he's probably
take it out on these snails, gonna take it down
these snails. He's gonna try to sell it like as
a coronavirus. Here, just pillful of snails? Why not? Why not?

(03:23):
So one of the issues with being this tiny when
you're a snail is how you move around without dying? So,
oh my god, yeah, because snails are notoriously slow. And
then when you're living on the tip of a ballpoint pen,
how do you get down the pen? Wow? Incredible exactly.

(03:46):
So you don't get down from a pen, you get
down from a duck. That's snail humor. It actually it
actually works. It hits really well with an audience of
these tiny snails just just so you know, I'm just
imagining them like the the Little Aliens and Toy story,
just like stuck in this pill. So terrestrial snails have

(04:11):
to leave the cozy moisteness of their shells and expose
their fleshy parts which is a lovely sentence that I
just said out loud, in order to travel along surfaces,
but this actually exposes them to being dried out. So
snails will use a trail of sticky slime to help

(04:32):
them adhere to surfaces, which is one use of their moisture,
and that slime trail is actually really interesting because it
allows them to stick to a surface, but it also
allows them to glide along a surface because when they
adhere pressure to that slime, it actually condenses into more
of a fluid state rather than a sticky adhesive state,

(04:53):
and they can kind of glide along the surface. And
the snail's body, in order to move and also to
stay alive, needs a lot of moisture, needs moisture inside
of its mantle cavity in order to facilitate gas exchange
that it needs for breathing. So snail basically it's gott

(05:14):
it's gotta it's gotta be damp. It's a little a
little slip and slide. So what you're saying to me
right now? Ye, do do one of them like? Since
there's so many, I don't know. I guess that they
don't live very close to each other probably right, or
I guess maybe in order to reproduce they do. Yeah,

(05:37):
I was wondering do they like do they because I
always always see snails by themselves, but that doesn't make sense.
But do they like make their little slip and slide
and then other snails can use their slip and slide?
Does happen? That's a really good question, you know what.
I'm not actually sure. I think it probably depends on
how recent the slime trail is. If it's really I

(06:00):
bet you that they can and if it's you know if,
but if it's kind of dried out longer, maybe they can't.
But that's a really good question. And now you've got
me wondering if snails ever used that strategy to like
follow up the nails for mating. Now I'm imagining little
c s I snails like like this was recent, someone

(06:21):
was here, this this trail is still wet. That would
be a really easy murder to solve if it was
done by snails. Yeah, well there's a slime trail leading
right over here to you know, Jeff's apartment. But he's like,
you know, two feet away because he's so slow. He's
like hasn't left the door yet. Exactly's like, oh, you

(06:43):
got me, now you gotta come arrest me. But the
police snails they have like little sirens that they've been
put onto their their shells and then they start their chase.
Sounds like a funeral. So, uh, these little ta tiny snails. Uh,

(07:09):
their problem is when you're small, it's really hard to
retain moisture. A lot of insects or other arthropods that
are small they have a hard cuticle so they don't
dry out. So like a tiny ant, it has this
hard cuticle what what is basically its skin that keeps

(07:31):
it from drying out. If you want to kill ants
because you're a monster, or you want to protect your food,
there's a way to do it without using like ant spray.
You can actually use diet Tomacious Earth, which is this
I'm always talking about diet as always, you joke, but

(07:52):
whenever someone complains about ants. I'm like, well, have you
heard about dietomaceous earth. It's made out of billions and
billions of dead diet tom and their skeletons are so
dry it absorbs all the moisture and it instantly kills
the ant. Well not instantly, they stye a slow and
painful death. But yeah, so it is something I like
to talk about parties how you can kill ants with

(08:13):
dietemacious earth, because, like I said, you can lay out
this this dietomacious earth. It's a powdery substance, highly highly absorbent,
and it will just suck all the moisture out of
the snail or sorry, suck all the moisture out of
the ant, which kills it. And so it can be

(08:34):
used to kind of prevent ants from invading your home.
But the point of that is, like the ant normally
doesn't just like have all the moisture evaporate out of it.
It has that hard cuticle that protects it. But these
little snails do not have a hard cuticle. They have
their shell. They also have a little door to the shell.

(08:56):
It's called an operculum. It's like that little you know
when a snail like close it up. They have sort
of that little trapdoor that can close over their shell.
That's what that is. So how do these teeny tiny
snails survive without drying out? Skincare a lot of moisturizing
acial products. Listen, they've been in Hollywood. They know this

(09:19):
is just an advertisement for like Lourel, those Korean masks. Yeah, yeah,
you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I do you
know how many snails had to die to make the Yeah? No,
they have made those masks out of snail slime, right
like that they have, Yes, yes, there are I'm fully joking.
I had no idea. Yeah, yeah, there's snail slime lotion.

(09:44):
Uh and like snail slime masks, it's supposed to be
highly moisturizing. Oh my god, what did we do to
the snails? Melt them? That's gross, So sad for the snails.
It is really ease. And can you imagine the smell
because I can't. God, I didn't even think about that.

(10:04):
Does snail slime smell? Snail slime doesn't smell that much.
But I remember when I was a kid and I
would collect snails and sometimes like just have a big
pile of an in my hand. There was a distinct
odor and it wasn't pleasant, so so um so. Basically,

(10:24):
one way that these these tiny grain of sand sized
snails don't die is that they are only found in
dank human caves, so they live inside the sediment inside
these caves. If they were in somewhere more dry or
more exposed to the sun, it's likely that they would
die because they would dry out. But another strategy is

(10:49):
actually employed by another snail which is similarly sized, and
it may give us some hints into this other snail's behavior.
It's just very slightly larger. But and when I say larger,
like by point something of a millimeter. And this snail
is called a copra logos and it is the second

(11:11):
smallest snail UH found in Louth. The copra logos have
this very weird feature to their shell. They have these
little spikes covered in what looked like beads, And what
researchers have found is that beads are feces. It's a
string of fecal beads, so little feces in sort of

(11:34):
necklace form worn around these snails. It's you know, it's fashion.
I gotta says fashion. Also my defense when I walk
home at night. You know, Yeah, I also wear fegal beads,
so no one bothers me. I prefer the these sort
of morning star of my dog's poop bag. You know,

(11:57):
when you get clean up after your dog have got
a big turd in the plastic bag and you can
kind of swing it around like a maze. Yeah, watch out,
you're gonna you're gonna get into a lot of time,
exactly exactly. So the reason for this like poop jewelry.

(12:19):
It's kind of like a Gothic poop jewelry because it's
all these spikes covered in these little poop beads is
they think that the dung pearls may actually, first of all,
help attract mates, because how could it not. I mean, okay,
so we're using the opposite right right with so maybe

(12:41):
biochemical signaling to attract mates. And another proposed reason is
it may help the snail from drawing out with the moisturizing,
revitalizing power of tiny dung pearls. So again, Lourel, think
about it. No, there's no like and Paltrow is not
already on top of this. I feel like she this

(13:04):
is a side note, but I feel like she has
like a humiliation thing where she loves watching women right right.
She she gets off on other women being humiliated just
what she can tell them. She's like, put this in
your in your vagina and wear these poop beads and
they're like yeah, and she's like, perfect, no, wear this

(13:25):
snail poop on your face. Did you do it? Oh
my god, you actually did it? So hot? So polo V.
I feel like we've all become a little more sedentary

(13:47):
in the world, wouldn't you say, just on average? Yeah,
I know that. You know, I'm trying. I'm trying to
kind of escape, escape the my cozy life style. But
it's hard. It's hard one to your sort of It's
like when you are encouraged to stay indoors for your health,

(14:08):
then it's like, all right, uh, but you've been indoors
for too long, so now get out stop being sentary.
It's like, yeah, but I got used to feeling smug
about being lazy, so it's kind of hard to make
that change. Yes, it's all of the incentives have reversed themselves.
How are you how are you expected to move? You know, right? Right,

(14:32):
remember when we were told you know, it's like you're
helping other people and yourself by staying home. And so
now it's like, well, you should maybe go on a
run or go get some exercises. Like, can't I still
feel like a hero for sitting on my couch because
that would be nice? Yeah, I mean you still can

(14:55):
you like you could treat yourself every time. That's true,
I'm the real hero, I say, sitting on my couch
is like nurses are actually doing things. Yeah, but you know,
it's actually that sedentary lifestyle does have its advantages in
the natural world. You don't have to expend energy moving

(15:17):
and if you're armored, you can kind of hunker down
in a fortress. And this is the strategy that muscles use.
Those little bivalve dudes that a lot of people like
to eat, which I don't like to eat because when
I try to eat them, I throw up. So, uh, well,
that's a self defense mechanism. They didn't know they had

(15:40):
specifically making me throw up, Right, so they've at least
taken care of one predator. So muscles are a group
of bivalves that have oblog shells, and there are many
different species of muscles. So while muscles are known for
being sedentary, they can actually move like other bivalves until

(16:04):
they settle on the surface. You're saying bivalves, like, we
all know what that means. But it's a bi valves,
so that means two valves whatever. So it's basically clams
like what you know. Clams are a specific bivalve, but
it's any clam like creature that opens and closes like

(16:24):
a book. It's got two valves and input valve in
an output valve. That's why it's called a bi valve.
It's got a foot that fleshy part it can stick
out to kind of dig into the sand and move around.
I'm looking at the names for them, and it's bi valvea,
which I'm pretty sure that's a sexual organ you know,

(16:47):
like I don't. I was named incorrectly. Okay, okay, so
we got these, we got these bi valves. So, clams, oysters, uh, geo, ducks,
uh uh, muscles, they're all bi valves. Wow, it actually

(17:10):
is more more difficult for me to name all the
bivalves that I thought it would be. But hey, there
you go. So oh scallops forgot scallops. So muscles are
a type of bi valve and they can move like
bi valves. Even though they don't seem like they should
be able to move around, they can. They've got that foot.

(17:30):
They can dig in the sand. They can even kind
of swim with sort of a butterfly motion. But muscles
tend to like to stick in one place when they can,
so they can actually excrete a sticky glue like substance
called bistle threads. So that's like if you've ever seen

(17:50):
a muscle on the beach and it's stuck to a
rock and try to pull it off. You can pull
it off, it's not impossible, but it kind of it resists.
It's sort of stuck to the rock, and so it
is stuck to the rock by these bistle threads. Oh yeah,
it's got that's like the fuzzy white stuff that's like

(18:11):
underneath them exactly. Yes. So I feel like when I
was a kid, I would I would pull off a
muscle just out of curiosity, and then it kind of
just messing with these snails and muscles. I was out
there collecting empty shells. Maybe this is why, maybe this

(18:32):
is why I throw up now when I try to
eat muscles. It's like it's your origin story, like the
retribution the muscles revenge. It's a dish best served taught.
It's stok the muscles revenge. So h yeah, So the
ability to stick to one place has its benefits. So

(18:53):
they can stick somewhere and despite strong currents, they can
just peacefully filter fee rather than moving around in a
location that's maybe not as ideal. Those bustle threads can
actually also be used in self defense in sort of
a Spider Man spider Man. Yeah, yeah, Spider Man, just

(19:15):
sort of in slow motion, really slow spider Man. So
if they are secreted over slow moving predators like a
dog welts, which are a carnivorous type of c snail,
the muscle can trap the predator and protect itself. So
it's like Spider Man, but in really really slow motion.
That's amazing. They're gonna somehow incorporate that into a new

(19:38):
Spider Man movie. It's a multiverse Spider Man movie. They're
going to figure out a way to get these muscles
in there. Yeah, like that would be muscle Man, but
instead of being muscular, he's half half muscle bi valve.
Now we're jumping into SpongeBob territory. Okay, I'm trying to

(19:59):
think of the sort of by physiology of a muscleman,
and it's a little gross, you know, yeah, we know,
we can. We know we're not to design the we're
the ideas people. Okay, it's the comic designer to design them, clearly.

(20:19):
I like, I imagine the muscleman having like a bikini situation,
like an aerial situation where the bikini is made out
of muscles. But then since he's part muscle, is that
like cannibalism? Yeah? Yeah, also didn't aerial? Did she like
kill because like all the sea life is sentient and

(20:40):
her subjects, so she did she kill one of her
subjects for a bra Is that a thing? I would
like to think that they died and we're like, this
is my last dying wish. It's it's will, and its
will that yeah accepted. You know, it happened right at
the time when she started. I see, I leave, I
leave my my wealth to my grandchildren, and I leave

(21:05):
my body to that breastmid cover breast. That's that's how
that's how grand dying wish is to not is to
lock up that nipple. That's weird. That's weird. I mean,
a cartoon clam can dream, so Now, we mostly associate

(21:29):
muscles with the sea, but there are actually a variety
of fresh water muscles as well. Fresh Water muscles typically
use their foot that fleshy projection. I love saying fleshy projection,
But that fleshy projection that bivalves can use for locomotion,
but freshwater muscles typically use it to dig into the

(21:51):
substrate of the river or stream to root itself so
it doesn't have to move around. That's gotta be like,
that's gotta be a lot of strain on that part
of your body if you're just like holding on all
the time. For me, it's I imagine like just sticking
my foot in a ball pit and kind of you know,

(22:11):
still like when you you really get your foot rooted
and wedged down in that ballpit, and then all the
children trying to knock you over, stay there for a
really long time. Why are the children? Why are you
fighting children in a ball pick case? Listen, My life
is my life, all right. So one issue with being sessile,

(22:32):
that that is being rooted in one place, is how
do you make sure your offspring can be distributed elsewhere
so your population isn't all concentrated in one area campaigning
for the same territory nutrition. It's like if all your
kids never move out, always raid the fridge. It's a problem.
So before I discuss anything further, I'm gonna show you

(22:57):
some pictures of some fish and some some weird sea life.
So there's a picture here of a little spotted fish,
you see that, m h, And like a little sort
of a weird invertebrate dude. And a couple of worms.
How are those worms look like fish too? Yeah, that

(23:19):
kind of fish, like a little fish, like a little
like eyes and mouth. Yeah, but they have they have eyes,
they have mouths. You know, they've got one of them's
got fins. So you know you've got You've got some
fish and some sort of like weird little sea life. Um,
it's all lies. It's it's lies. You're lying to me.

(23:42):
I'm lying to you. Well, nature is lying to you too,
so we're both we're both lying to you. Uh. There's
this amazing Twitter thread that I recommend you guys. I'll
check out by Fairish Gibber, where you can see a
number of videos of tiny fish through sushing around against
a rock. So you'll see this larger fish come up

(24:04):
to it and chomp down. But as it bites, it's
like this powder keg explodes with this white, powdery substance
spraying everywhere. So Pulo, check out that that link, uh
of that the video of fish, that fish munching on
that little fish. Oh my god, Oh whoa, it just deflated.

(24:32):
Mm hmm, the little fish just diflated. What a decoy. Yeah,
so that little wriggling fish is not a fish at all.
It is part of a muscle's dastardly planned to reproduce.
So in that video, that fish is actually a flap

(24:53):
of tissue disguised as a fish. It's hard for me
to wrap my mind head. It looks like a fish. Yeah,
I know, crazy. It looks not at all like the
rest of the muscle. No, it doesn't. Wait and so
then inside of it is like eggs and stuff. Yeah.
So this is what happens is when the unsuspecting real

(25:14):
fish bites down on what it thinks is this little
tasty fish snack, the muscle releases a bunch of larvae.
So these little muscle larvae or these little teeny tiny
babies called glow kidia, and they look like these little
zooplankton sized muscles, and they are so tiny that it

(25:38):
would be hard for them to move around on their own.
They're easy food for anything that eats like these little
tiny larva. And upsettingly, it has these hooks on its mantle,
So the mantle is like the fleshy inner part of
the muscle, and it uses these hooks to lash onto

(26:00):
the inside of the fishes gills, where it will absorb
nutrients and spend a few weeks and this fun little
playhouse before detaching and settling into substrates somewhere else. That
is so weird. That's like when people are like, oh,
I hear something in my ear. I feel like it's

(26:21):
a bug or whatever. But it's like these fish that
are flying around underwater with things and their gills and
they're like, I don't know, I feel sick Herman. And
then and then it's like you'll be fine, Gerald, You're
always you're always thinking you're sick. And Gerald's like, no,
I really feel like there's something inside of me and
it's these little guys. Yeah. Yeah. And typically this doesn't

(26:43):
kill the fish, but if there's enough of them, they
can actually clogg the fishes gills and so it can
be harmful if there are too many of them. But yeah,
that is it's just like, hey, I got got some
other creatures babies in my eating holes. That's not it's
not a great feeling. I don't think that's insane because

(27:05):
they look so much like like real fish. Yeah, those
lures are absolutely crazy because yeah, and there are different types.
So there are lures that look like as one type
of fish, there's a lure that looks like a different
type of fish, like a minnow, and then there's a
lure that even looks like a prawn or something doesn't

(27:26):
even look like a fish. It looks more like a crayfish. Right,
So there's this de depending on where they are and
what the best prey is. Yeah, so it depends on
the species of muscles, and yeah, whatever lure is the
most effective for the larger fish in their area. And
some muscles aren't even happy enough with just luring them close.

(27:49):
They actually like to clamp down on the fish's head
after luring it in and then just jet sprays larva
into the fish's gills. So gross, I know. So yeah,
so it when it when it reacts this way and
the puff of white stuff is shooting out that's like

(28:11):
from inside the muscle, right, It's just like the outer
layer is the fish, and then inside the mussel, it's
just like as soon as they clamp down, it goes
exactly exactly. Yeah, so that that lure. The thing that
looks like a fish but is actually part of the
muscle is basically like this flap of flesh that it
dangles outside of its body. And yeah, it just because

(28:33):
when you look at it, it looks like a little
fish kind of thrashing around like right on the tip
of a muscle. It doesn't look like it's part of
the muscle. Is that part of what it constantly has
or does it only develop that like when it's ready
to spray? No, it constantly has that, So it's it's
just part of it's just part of the muscle um.

(28:54):
But it'll move it. It can move it around, and
it's sort of like extrudes it and twitch is it
around when it wants to, uh, you know, forcibly force
a fish to become a babysitter in the worst way.
That's like a horror movie babysitter. Yeah, I mean it's

(29:16):
already a horror movie just to be a forced babysitter.
But then add on top of that that's sort of
like indo parasite thing terrible, always asking if their games
on your phone. So there are actually other muscles that
developed a different technique, so they produce packets that contain

(29:39):
their larva. So it's like it's just this packwood package
full of muscle larva, and so they need the fish
to want to uh open up this package though, so
they actually disguise these packages as things like fly larva
or invertebrates with fake ice spots and scales. Remember those

(30:01):
pictures I showed you of the little worm wormy fish
looking things and that other weird thing that looks like
some kind of invertebrate or maybe even like a little
like catfish larva or something. Those are not eyes, those
are not mouths. Those are just clever coloration on these packets,
just disguised as some bigger creature. And then when the

(30:25):
fish bites into it, it breaks open like a parasite pinata,
and all of these muscle babies infect the fishes gills.
Some of them are like an attachment in the muscles
still spring it, and others are like little packets exactly
exactly little Trojan horses, except full of parasites Trojan babies,

(30:47):
Trojan babies, which is not good marketing for that condom company. No, No,
kind of the opposite thing that you're trying to trying
to market for. Yeah, but it also sounds a little
bit like Muppet babies. Muppet b babies. Yeah, Trojan parasite
babies get fun. That'd be a fun show. Yeah, looking

(31:12):
for They're always looking for reboots, so why not do
a reboot? But Kermit is like teeny tiny and there's
like hundreds of them. Any gets inside your lungs and
then you just explode with piggies lungs and she's happy
with it. Oh, miss Piggy. It would be fun to

(31:33):
like for there to be Alien recreated. But with Miss Piggy, yeah,
I feel like I feel like I've seen her like
blown up in something before and stomping around right, Yeah,
I mean that would make sense. I think she was
in Pigs and Space or something, but like I want
to see her as uh, you know who's the main
protagonist in Alien? No, I can't remember, Lady mctough galurand no, no,

(32:01):
it's isn't it um No, it's not Susan Surandon and
it's not activity a yogurt lady, it's the other one. Yes, no,
Jamie Lee Curtis is the activity activityal yogurt lady. No, no no, no,
it's the other person. God, why have we not? Don't
this episode? We're watching alien Sigourney Weaver. There is the story.

(32:27):
I can't even say our names, Sigourney Weaver and Jamie
Lee Curtis or who I mixing? Why are we talking about?
I think we're pitching this to the Jim Henson Company.
So it's good that we're practicing or walkthrough of it,
Hollywood baby, Okay, all right, so we've talked about tiny spiky,

(32:57):
poop covered snails and parasite Hignada's okay, stop turning me on, right.
I thought we'd have an even an even more heartwarming
story to end with. So what do you do when
you're just a little guy who needs a ride around
the great big ocean? So lots of oceanic creatures, even

(33:21):
ones who grow into a formidable size, will start off
teeny teeny mean seat, So consider the sunfish. Take the
sun flish, God, take the sunfish please? I really see
this is why, this is why you do the stand
up and I don't know. This is why I do
the sit down. You didn't stand up, and I sit

(33:44):
down and and talk from here from my comfortable seat.
So the sunfish, uh, the sunfish is larva, start off
only a couple millimeters wide, and they grow into the
biggest bony fish in the ocean. Yeah, I was gonna
say the sunfish is like huge, very massive. Yeah, so

(34:07):
they're not they're not the biggest fish in the ocean
because that are those are sharks. But the sharks are
made out of cartilage. There are bony fish rather than
cartilyginous fish, and the biggest bony fish is the sunfish,
and they grew up to over two thousand pounds or
one thousand kilograms. But they start off as just this

(34:28):
little tiny pea. Oh my gosh, I'm looking at them.
I'm looking at them in like someone's hand, and they
look so cute and so frightened. And then they're like
giant next to this like grown person. Yeah. Yeah, it
looks so ridiculous. It looks so silly. What a life, Right,
You start off as a little spiky pea and then

(34:50):
you just grow into a giant, angry pancake. Yeah, I
feel like that they're like chill though they look too
silly to be angry. That's true. That's true. Maybe when
they're the little tiny spiky p that's when they're angry
because they got a chip on their shoulder and they're
just a little, a little tiny spike ball against the world.
But then when they're a giant pancake, it's like whatever, man,

(35:11):
that's crazy. Can you imagine? Like I feel like people
would be easily duped into buying the little spiky peas
and thinking that they're like mini sunfish, and then they
grow up and they were like, yeah, you gotta keep
these big so you can get some sea monkeys, and
then they just grow to the size of like your
entire room. Yeah, it's so crazy, they're so big. But yes,

(35:34):
they're so big and silly looking. Yeah, they're just the
they're just and just the fact they're so flat and
then they've got these huge eyes. I don't know, I
love it. There's their mouths are like like circular, so
it's like they look like they're constantly like out of breath.
There was that video of that Bostonian guy freaking out

(35:56):
about the sunfish. Do you remember that, No, I don't.
I'm gonna play just a little clip from it to avoid,
you know, copyright problems. But let me see if I
can find it. That thing is big, Jay? What is
that thing? It looks hurt. That thing looks hurt, Jake, Jay,

(36:18):
that thing is hurt. Bro, Holy look at this thing?
Oh my god? What is that? Bro? Jerry? What then?
Is that? We gotta call the aquarium a shothing? We
gotta we gotta call aquarium of something? Dude, a well

(36:40):
meaning Bostonian guy was a recipe for a viral video. Now,
what he's concerned about for the fish's safety is that
sunfish do you tend to sort of lie in a
horizontal fashion. They like near the surface. But they're fine.
Don't worry about it that they just like to do that.

(37:01):
They're actually so. My point in bringing up the sunfish,
other than to share with you that wonderful uh concerned
citizen Bostonian, is that in the ocean, even big animals
or medium sized animals can start off really tiny, and

(37:22):
their chances of survival when they're really tiny are typically
pretty low. So there's a ton of them. Usually there
there will be like a ton of offspring. That's the
case with the sunfish. They like have thousands and thousands
of offspring at once, and so just statistically speaking, some
of them have to survive. In fact, in the ocean,

(37:42):
the largest mass migration happens every day. So from the
depths of the ocean to the uppermost layer of the ocean.
All of these little tiny animal babies, including like zooplank
things that stay small and things that start off small,
will make this big migration from the twilight zone, which

(38:03):
is a real area in the ocean where it's it's
basically because only a little bit of light gets that
deep into the ocean. Oh, that's what it's called. Yes,
And then in the less fun name is the mesopleagic zone. Um,
but the TV show you have entered the mesoplatic zone. Yeah,

(38:31):
it was a hard sell for Rod Sterling before he
discovered there was another name that he could use. Uh So,
but yeah, at night they will move to the uppermost
layer of the ocean because even though they like to
stay in that twilight zone during the day, because even
though that area is less nutrient dense than the upper
layers of the ocean, it's safer during the day because

(38:53):
of the lack of light makes the tiny zooplankton less
detectable by predators. So that's just to get you acquainted
with how there are these animals in the ocean that
they start off life really tiny and they need to
figure out creative ways to get around. So I think
it's great that they have so many children, like my

(39:15):
parents had to hoping one would not disappoint them, and
it worked. Listen, you're you're your five thousand other brothers
and sisters are are they went to grad school. They
went to grad school some you know, like and you
other five thousand wanted to be an artist artist. Yeah,

(39:39):
that that does put sibling rivalries into the perspective because
then at least you don't have to like do better
in karate against like ten thousand other siblings. Yeah, that
seems like a lot fight to the death. Oh that's
why they called it squid gay Oh god, terrifying. So basically,

(40:02):
when you're a little tiny dude in the ocean, you
gotta get around somehow, and you gotta get around without
being eaten, and you also got to get around being
able to find food. Um, well, there is a little
critter that has found a way to yeehaw. It's way
around by riding a jellyfish. So the jellyfish rider is

(40:26):
this tiny, transparent arthropod that will someday grow into the
smooth fan lobster. So everything on this show is always lies.
Never trust me when I call anything anything, because even
though this is a type of slipper lobster, it is
not a true lobster. They're not that closely related to

(40:48):
like our familiar friend the lobster, which I feel like
it's it's funny to me when they're like, this is
not a true lobster, because it's like, um, actually that's
the no true Scotsman fallacy. Who are you to say
that's not a true lobster? Um? But yeah, so they
are a crustacean decapod related to rock lobsters. So rock

(41:09):
lobsters are not true lobsters. Uh, they're just that they
are the most catchy one. Yeah. Yeah, they're in that
that like B fifty two song. Yeah yeah that was
what what what species representation from the incredible incredible job.
I didn't get it when I was a kid. I

(41:31):
thought it was like they were saying, like, this is
a lobster who rocks, yeah, or is that what they're saying.
I think that is. I think it can be both things,
double meaning. It's such a deep song truly, it wasn't
a rock it was a rock lobster. Ah, it makes
you think, So this one does look like a slipper lobster,

(41:54):
like very aptly name. Yeah, it's like kind of flat.
It kind of looks like could wear it as a slipper.
I don't recommend it. That'd be the like when you
go scuba diving, the little flippers you wear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
it should be called the flipper lobster. The slipper lobster
who's not a lobster includes a variety of species, the

(42:16):
largest of which can grow up to almost two ft
or fifty centimeters long. So they're formidable, and like you said,
they kind of look like a weird flipper. They're kind
of like a lobster, but they're flatter, more triangular shaped.
They don't really have large front claws. They just have
these weird flat antenna. It's like so messed up that

(42:40):
we name them for things that we could use them as.
We're like, what is this? What what article of clothing
for humans? Does this look like? Right, it's just like
who were the sailors who were so I guess like
just scourged with scurvy that they're like, I'm gonna put

(43:01):
the lobster on my feet. Um. So the larva of
these slipper lobsters are much tinier on the order of millimeters,
so they have figured out a pretty great way of
getting around. So they hit your ride on a jellyfish.
So you can see these little dudes sitting on jellyfish

(43:25):
having the having the time in their lives. That's that's
got to be like a really fun ride just because
of how a jellyfish moves, the motion of them, of
their trajectory. And then also like everybody's scared of like
all people are like I don't want to get caught
up in all these jelly things, Like I don't want
to get stung by jellyfish. And these dudes are like

(43:47):
ratitude eng them from the not actually, but like they're
just like on top of them, just chilling fully avoiding
the stings. I mean speaking of ratitui and stings. Uh,
these jellyfish are Gormond's and essentially they eat their ride.
So it'd be like if ratitui was eating the dude

(44:10):
in the movie. In addition to Ratitui two. Uh, if
you can't stand the heat, get in them out of
the kitchen because I'm going to eat you. It needs work.
It does need to work. Admit it needs workshopping. I
think we have at least four solid pitches for Hollywood

(44:31):
from this podcast. We do. We have, uh, parasite Pinonta babies.
We got, we got you know, Rattatui two. Um gets
who's gets Who's dinner? And because who is dinner? Because
I'm gonna eat you. That's that's the name of it.
That's that's the kind of like sort of like incisive

(44:54):
witty humor that Picks are. Really. That's what I literally
was going to say. We're like, we're like bizarro Pixar
because we're like we're still like humanizing all of these
like animal type creatures, but in like a really messed
up way, in a more realistic way. Yeah, I would
love a Pixar movie that's just you know, the same

(45:17):
fun rendering, but just straight up you know, disturbed disturbs
like a finding Nemo or Nemo just gets completely eaten
by a bob at worm. Oh my god, So these
little these little jellyfish riders will sit on the back
of a jellyfish and ride it around the ocean and
they will get an in flight meal made out of

(45:40):
the very jellyfish that they are riding. So the slipper
lobster larva will uh nibble on the venomous tentacles of
the lobster, which of the jellyfish of the jellyfish. Yes, sorry,
they will nibble on the venomous tentacles of the jellyfish.
So it doesn't it doesn't hurt them, Yeah, it doesn't.

(46:03):
And this is really weird. So researchers have looked into
why this doesn't hurt them, and they've found that, first
of all, they have First of all, they have this
very fastidious grooming that they do between eating. So they
have these tiny comb like projections on their legs and
they can use telling me, these lobsters are wearing bibs. Now,

(46:28):
it's not exactly bibbs. It's like if you had like
brush is attached to your hands, so every time you
get crumbs on you, you just kind of like brush
them off, But the crumbs are toxic stinging crumbs, right, Yeah,
that makes sense, right, but you maybe, yeah, like like
when you want to eat your stinging spaghetti, you gotta

(46:51):
have hand brushes to clean clean it off. Wow. Yeah,
I hope this. I hope people are getting it from
it from these analogies some kind of yeah, some kind
of I need a cooking show for these little lobsters.
Little little baby is just like, now you know you

(47:12):
want you want, you want those us And then jellyfish
tentacles al dente And then does it is a jellyfish
surviving still? It's yeah, it's probably not great for it,
but they can survive the loss of a couple of
tentacles because after all, like it's still getting transportation from
this jellyfish. So and then oh yes, they don't want

(47:35):
to kill it right away. And then, um, there's one
on this jellyfish. Is it like one per jellyfish or
they're multiple? Typically it's one one per jellyfish. I'm sure
there are cases where there's more than one per jellyfish,
but yeah, all the ones I've seen have been one
per jellyfish. So no, like real energy efficient public transportation

(47:58):
for these jellyfish or for these slipper lobsters. Also, when
they eat the stinging tentacles, you may wander like, Hey,
how does that not like kill them from the inside out. Well, uh,
there is a membrane inside the slipper lobster gut that
coats the stinging cells which protects them from internal damage.

(48:21):
So that's like how we have acid in our stomach,
that we have epithelia in lining our stomachs, so that
like you know, we don't eat have our stomach acid,
eat our own That's right, that's right. I mean, if
you've ever wondered why doesn't our own digestive juices digest ourselves,
it's exactly what Polvi just said. And then of course

(48:42):
when there are problems with that system, we get gastro
intestinal issues. Yep. I will include in the show notes
a video of one of these little dudes riding around
on a jellyfish for you to enjoy. It's set to
some real just happy music, real wonderful. I cannot play

(49:02):
it or I will get sued, but pull if you
want to watch it for a minute, I'll give you
time to do that. Oh incredible music. Oh my god,
this is like weird. They're like way bigger than I thought. Well,
this is an old so this is an older one.
It's a it's a more developed one. It's getting bigger,
and they start out really tiny and then they get

(49:23):
bigger because they grow into their adult forms. So as
they could be so freaking annoyed if this thing was
on my head, just like eating my parts. It's it
looks so big and then it's got little like the
little brushes or whatever are just like constantly moving. I'd
be like, you better give me a massage while you're
up there. Are you kidding me? Like I don't want

(49:45):
to like victim blame the jellyfish. But it does look
like spaghetti, right, like you know you can they're they're
they're sentience spaghetti. Come on, spaghetti, barely sentience spaghetti. Sentient
is a little it is, So that's true. So this
is wild though it looks like it's it's like and

(50:07):
it's you know, it went to a bar and it
it got it's trying to impress a lady and it's
like riding a mechanical bowl. Do you think like these
these little guys like compete go to sort of like
a competition where they rev their jellyfish and ride them
around drag raising their jelly face. See there's another Pixar idea.

(50:28):
There we go. Yeah, we gotta we gotta get paid
for this. No more free free idea. Yeah, that's right,
we're you know, if you want access to more of
our wonderful Pixar ideas, do you get you know? Where's
our money? Yeah? Where is our money? Where is it?
Another idea? Taking of money, bringing us to commert No

(50:50):
speaking of money. Spicy spice spaghetti where this? This podcast
is sponsored by Stinging Spaghetti Box. Spice spice spaghetti sounds
like something from June Spice spaghetti? Spice spaghetti? He Who's he?

(51:10):
Who makes the spice spaghetti? Al Dente? Makes the universe?
Al Dente? Anyways, I'm going to stop before I hurt myself. Um,
but before we go, we have to answer a very
important question. That's that's who's squawking? Who was squawking? Last week?

(51:31):
Every week we play a mry animal sound and I
ask you, Hey, who's squawking? And then you guys right
into me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com
who you think is squawking? And you find out the
subsequent week who it was and guess what it's the
subsequent week. So here we go. The hint I gave

(51:52):
last week was what's a dick? Dick so alarmed about?
Maybe this critter at least once he's grown up. So,
just for some frame of reference, addictic is a little,
tiny antelope with a much more insidious name than it
actually deserves. Um, it's adorable. And so yes, here is

(52:12):
the sound. What so, pelo vi, what do you think
is making that sound? Wait? So you said, like, how
is it related to the dicktic? Okay, so the hint was,

(52:35):
what's addictic so alarmed about? Maybe this critter at least
once he's grown up? Okay, So what would hunt? An
antelope like creature? Tiny antelope? A tiny a tiny antelope
like creature that sounds like like a gym teacher, mad um,

(52:58):
sounds like a whistle going up a little bit. Um.
Is it like some sort of cat, some sort of
wild cat warmer, very warm, like a like a bobcat
type creature, very very close. Yeah, Mountain, let's say yes,

(53:19):
Let's say yes, says the Well, it's not a bobcat,
but it is the carackle. So the carackle is at
least it's a coracle kitten. So this is a wildcat
native to Africa. The Middle East, Pakistan, India in Central Asia.
It has a reddish buff colored coat, a white belly,

(53:40):
and most notably, two very tall ears with dark tufts
of I maybe you didn't know the name, but I
was picturing this cat, but I was picturing the ears
with the thing on top. Oh, I'm so good at animals, Katie.
It is kind of it is very similar to a
bob cat, right, with those tufted ears, and it's taller.

(54:04):
It's and it is also a medium sized big cats,
so it's not one of the biggest cats, but it's
a little it's got more of a sleek build. It's
kind of got these tallerly gorgeous. They are absolutely and
the little tops on top of the ears are just
so cute. It's they They have completely sold me on

(54:24):
this design for a cat. Like the fact that they
have what looks like little feathers on the tops of
their ears, and their eyes are so big when their
mouths are closed, they look so innocent. They look like
a little puss in boots. They really do. And although
they're not like, they're very bad, very bad pets. People

(54:46):
try to keep them as pets. It's a terrible idea,
not just for the cat, but for the humans. Yeah, people,
why would you keep this predator as a pet, Like,
let it go be free and tufted. We can't ever
see something good in nature without wanting to like possess
the kittens. Yeah, the kittens are so cute. Yeah, it's true.

(55:09):
They also have like little eyebrows that they do grow
out of mostly as adults, but as kittens they have
these like dark spots above their eyes that look like
a you know, like a Marx Brothers you know, the
ground show marks eyebrows or or Eugene Levy eyebrows. Yeah,

(55:32):
it's there. It's it's the vertical. Yeah. They're the perfect
the perfect cat, the optimized and they're redheads. So you know,
I feel, yeah, I feel kindred spirit with with these
crackles and so that that weird like trill is basically

(55:54):
the carackles mew So there now comes with a vibrato
and um they yeah, like that kitten wants to be fed,
so you know you'll have a cat mew at you
for food. This kitten is doing this amazing trill basically

(56:15):
basically to complain, and adults do the same thing. It's
just a little bit of a deeper, deeper sound. Wait,
so for me ows? I thought that domesticated cats like
developed the ability to mew in order to communicate with humans,
but like wildcats also have like their own version of yelling,

(56:38):
but for each other. Yeah, so, so these mews are
for generally for kittens to communicate with their parents, like, hey,
look at me, I'm here, don't forget about me, don't
leave me behind the meal you're hearing. I don't know
how much wild crackles like mew, but the one that
you were hearing was from one that was in captivity,

(57:01):
So it may may it may have learned to do
this to provoke a response from its caretaker. Interest. Yes,
but they may all they may do it in the
wild if they're communicating with another carocle. But yeah, so,
but it's just such a weird like it sounds auto tuned,
you know what I mean? It reminds me of how

(57:22):
like how the way foxes sound is not at all
like what you would think that you know, No, it
sounds like a leprecron being murdered. Mm hmm yep. And
and and don't ask how me and Katie know that
we'll we'll never like we just happened to know after

(57:46):
me called coins here me you shut up. I feel
like you're allowed to say that because you're a redhead.
I am, I mean, I am, and I have, like
you know, I've got I've got that Irish, I've got
that Irish in me, So I'm allowed. I'm allowed to
burner Apricans. Oh my god, evil, we've underth Listen, you

(58:10):
don't know Apricaans, but yeah, so onto this week's mystery animal.
Sound here is the hint. Damn what a weird baby? Alright,

(58:33):
So who do you think is talking there? I don't know,
but I want to protect it. Like, I'm like, that
is that is a perfect baby cry. It's everything maternal
in me is screaming right now. I want to say,
it's like some sort of non human primate. We're like,
I don't know, because I was like, this is too

(58:56):
visceral response to my body's experienced something something you want
to love and protect. I will do one spoiler so
people don't like just start sobbing in the middle of
the day when they're listening to this. It is fine.
In fact, it's happy, it's it's it's having a good
time right now, Okay, yeah. I was definitely like, I

(59:17):
need to say this baby. Yeah, yeah, these are these
are happy noises that it's making. Um, so do not worry.
This is it's a happy baby, but it's it is
definitely a weird baby. So if you think you know
the answer to this round of guests, who squawk and
write them to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail

(59:39):
dot com. Paula V. Thank you so much for joining
me today. This was blessed. Thanks for having me. I
always learned like the coolest stuff. The last time I
was here, I learned about how non human primates don't
have the whites of their eyes, right, Yeah, that's right.
And then I've been literally bringing it up every time
I can to everyone I can. People up the street, Hey, listen,

(01:00:01):
did you feel like the reason that Japanese guerrilla is attractive?
And they're like, and I'm like, just go with me.
It's a hot gorilla. Okay, listen, I'm not where No
people are saying it's hot. People are saying people are
saying it. Have you heard about this? Have you seen
those people are saying this? Yeah? No that that was

(01:00:22):
a great episode. Uh yeah, and so it's been great
to have you back on and where can people find you?
I am everywhere at Paula Vignal and p A L
l A v I g U n A l A
n UM. I've been pretty active on Twitter and Instagram.
I'm also on TikTok and Clubhouse. Um. We are running
our shows again starting in March, hopefully infection rates continue

(01:00:47):
to fall down over here in Los Angeles and I
run a show called Funnelingus and another show called Facial
Recognition Comedy with my co producers. And funnel Lingus is
the first time of the month at Hotel Cafe at
a PM, and a Facial Recognition Comedy is usually the
second Thursday of the month. I think March we might

(01:01:08):
we might move it. Um, but yeah, in April we
should be back. Um. But yeah, come come find me,
come see us perform. Please do that. I highly recommend it,
and thank you guys so much for joining me. If
you're enjoying the show, if you leave a rating in
a review, I am maternally grateful. I read all the
reviews and I really appreciate it all the feedback, both

(01:01:32):
constructive and kind. And yeah, and what else am I
going to say about this outro? I just completely blanked.
I wonder if I could ever just in this show
just saying like goodbye. But I to break people out bye.
No uh no, I have I have to say other

(01:01:53):
stuff too. So thanks to the Space Costics for their
super awesome song Exo Alumina. Creature features a production of
Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast sorr. Hey,
guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows?
See you next Wednesday. Now I say bye bye bye