Creature Feature: The Dark Tetrad

Join the guys as they make an appearance on Creature Feature, the podcast that takes a critter’s eye view to explore how animal behavior parallels the behavior of humans. In this episode, Katie Goldin and the guys explore the dark tetrad in the animal world, ultimately answering the age old question: Who's the most prolific serial meow-derer?

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to a show Ridiculous Historians to see what you did.
This is what they call the old Ridiculous History bait
and switch. It's true. Yes and your no. We've got
our super producer, Casey Pegro, and uh, we want to
introduce you to a show that we did that we had.
We had so much fun doing. It was a lot

(00:22):
of fun. It's also not that's not our show. But
here's the thing, folks, it's it's a little thing called
the holiday season, and we really needed a little something
to pat out our fee, to give you guys something
juicy to listen to over the holidays. But make it
we didn't have to actually record a whole episode of
our show, Ridiculous History. So we were asked to be

(00:43):
guests on an episode of a wonderful show called Creature
feature Um, which is hosted by the wonderfully smart and
funny Katie Golden. Yes, and we had such a great
time on this show. We don't want to spoil too
much of it for you, but we had such a
great time on this show that at the end of it,

(01:04):
we uh, irascible scoundrels that we are, said, Hey, Katie,
is it coal if we publish this episode on our
feet as well, so that more of our listeners can
find out about Creature Feature and all the neat, strange
stuff you dive into. So what is Creature Feature. Well,
it's this. It's this brand new podcast from How Stuff

(01:26):
Works that takes a quote critters I view to explore
how animal behavior parallels human behavior, and we entered into
a dark yet paradoxically illuminating exploration of something called the
Dark tet trad that's right then, which includes uh, psychopathy,
narcissistic personality. That's the original dark triad, but there's a

(01:49):
fourth that is added occasionally, which is good old every
day say say it is um. That's right, And that
was actually my favorite entry in the episode, where we
talk about a particularly nasty parasitic wasp that does horrible,
horrible things to tarantulas. So check out our appearance on
Creature Feature. Thanks again, Katie if you're hearing this for

(02:12):
having us over on your show, and if you enjoy
this exploration of human behavior, please check out the rest
of the fine episodes of Creature Feature that are available
today wherever you find your favorite shows. Listen up for
a guest spot from Katie herself on this show. Yes,
that's true. Can we roll the tape without further ado? Hey, everybody,

(02:40):
welcome to Creature Feature, the show where we explore the
brains of animals and people. You I got brains on
my shirt. Today we'll be talking about evil killers, kidnappers, murderers,
and hidden lurkers walking or crawling amongst us. Then we'll
answer the age old question, who's the most prolific serial

(03:01):
meouter er? Does evil exist? There's not really an entry
for evil in the d s M, the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual used by psychologists. General attempts to categorize evil
has resulted in the creation of the dark tetrad, a
term used for poor personality traits associated with bad behavior, narcissism, sadism, psychopathy,

(03:25):
and machiavellianism. These are traits that are often attributes of
people with maladaptive, dangerous personalities. So what does it mean
to be in the dark tetraad? We all know generally
the concept of narcissism, sadism, psychopathy, and mackiavellianism, but what
does that actually look like in humans and even animals.

(03:48):
Let's take a look at narcissism for example, the d
s MS definition for clinical levels of narcissism is someone
who has quote a grandiose sense of self importance and
shows arrogant how the behaviors or attitudes. I mean, you've
almost certainly encountered at least a subclinical narcissist, and no
doubt you could name a few celebrities and politicians who

(04:09):
fit the bill. But could you find narcissism and animals.
Many animals seem like narcissists, but even if you point
the finger at a totally self obsessed animals, say a
house cat, you could also argue they lack the sense
of self to be narcissists. Certainly, all Mintance seems to
care about is herself, but she may not fully comprehend

(04:30):
that she is a herself, So can she really be
a narcissist? This is the problem with trying to assign
human traits to animals. We can't get inside the animal's
head and know what it's thinking. An act that seems
sadistic or manipulative may be simply an instinct that allows
the animal to pass on its genes. It's impossible to

(04:51):
know what they're really feeling. But hey, this podcast is
all about the impossible. So we're going to look at
the animals that best symbolize each of the remaining care
juristics of the dark ted tread sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
We'll compare these masters of evil with their human counterparts,
exploring what it means to be a member of the

(05:12):
Dark ted Tread and whether we can use modern scientific
imaging to actually quantify what it means to be a psychopath.
Joining me today on our journey into the dark is
Ben Bolen and Noel Brown, hosts of the podcast Ridiculous History.
Welcome to guys. Thanks for having us. Katie, Yeah, for sure,
thanks so much. I'm already kind of terrified, um, but

(05:34):
I'm excited. It's it's a weird feeling. I, for one,
m and thrilled, darkly thrilled. One of you were you
were mentioning you have a cat. Would you describe your
cat as a narcissist? Oh? Sure, I mean he, I
don't know, it's weird. He's sort of like flits between
narcissism and outright psychopathy. Like I was saying, he kind
of leaves me little treats on the front porch where

(05:57):
it'll be like almost like splayed out, like some kind
of satanic ritual, will be like the head of a
squirrel and the body of a rat, and then you know,
kind of surrounded by like viscera and like the shape
the pentagram. Sometimes it's really pretty scared. But then he
snuggles up, you know, like a good little guy. So
I don't know what to make of them. I do
not know what to make of him. I hope, I'm
hoping I can learn from this podcast today and kind

(06:19):
of get inside his head a little bit more and
understand what makes him tick. Yeah. And I mean, even dogs,
to me are pretty narcissistic because they, like my own dog,
you associate them with being selfless and loving towards humans.
But she's a black hole of neediness and desiring affection.
So no matter how much I pet her, like, I

(06:39):
feel like if I was dying on the floor, her
number one priority would be to get another belly robe
before I pass out. Yeah, and then, as we all
know too, if we if we died alone in our
apartments with just our cats are our dogs, they would
probably instantly start eating us. But that's any animal would
eventually begin eating you. If it were a pain, I know,

(06:59):
so was the love real? Ben? That's my question. The
love is real. But now we're talking about the nature
of the body versus the mind or the soul, which
I don't think is quite where we're going with today's Well,
you did say what is evil is evil real? So
I'm intrigued. Please let's let's dive right in. There's a
lot of curiosity around whether animals can be statistic. A

(07:20):
caterer dolphin who plays with their hef dead pray seems statistic,
but there's actually practicality behind their cruelty. So take this example.
Dolphins beat up octopi before eating them, even after they're dead.
This may seem overkill, as if the dolphins simply can't
stop their murderous frenzy because they're having too much fun,

(07:41):
but there's actually a really good reason to play rugby
with a dead octopus. Octopi don't have centralized nervous systems,
so after they're dead, their tentacles can still move around.
If an overeager dolphin gobbles up an octopus who's dead
but still wriggling, those tentacles can crawl up ats esophage
us and choke the dolphin to death. This is something

(08:03):
that's actually been documented before. So the dolphins beat the
octopied to a pulp before chowing down, preventing the octopi
from getting its refine from beyond its watery grave. So
asking whether animals are statistic is a tricky question, I'd
wager I guess that yes, more intelligent animals like dolphins
are primates, may have fun rereaking doom and destruction, even

(08:25):
if there's a good evolutionary reason for it. But instead,
I want to look at how evolution itself can create
a sadistic monster, void of any emotion at all. To
do that, we'll have to take a look at tarantula's
and in this case, the tarantulas are the innocent victims
of a much more terrifying creature. So you, guys, imagine

(08:47):
being captured by a criminal sadist, being paralyzed by him,
stuck inside like kill shed totally at his mercy, completely paralyzed, Katie,
I think about that all the time. It's like you
know those bad dreams where you you're like trying to
run away from a bad guy and you can't move

(09:10):
your stupid body. For sure, It's like this is really
common recurring dream for me. I'm like trying to run,
but it just feels like you're stuck in mud, and
then you you can't move at all, and you try
to scream but you can't scream. What it's like that
part of Nightmare on Elm Street where where the where
she's running up the stairs and she starts sinking the
stairs turned into marshmallows and she just like sinks into it. Oh,

(09:31):
I hate that, or like or like the bed sinks
under you. The fear of moving slowly in dreams, of
trying to run but being unable to is I think
slightly more common than the other spooky one, which is
the fear of your teeth falling out in your dreams. Yeah. Yeah,

(09:52):
that's a common one to the body horror, either teeth, skin,
or hair just falling out. I get those ones too.
I hate it, like big chunks of skin falling off.
It's the worst. I have one question when when we
talk about this, this attack of paralysis, right, do the
animal victims of this sort of attack do they experience

(10:15):
fear as we would understand it, you know, I'm not sure.
I mean, so we're talking about Tarantula's being the victims.
So they're terrorized by this thing called tarantula hawk. It's
a sort of wasp, And I imagine if the tarantula
is capable of feeling anything at all, this is going

(10:36):
to be the scariest thing that ever happens to it.
I feel like tarantulas are probably just a little more
advanced than like a roomba in terms of their ability
to like sense things. But I feel like there's got
to be some kind of very primitive wiring that is
able to at least, you know, gets like some demo

(11:00):
awareness of being afraid of something so that they can survive.
Probably no other real cognition beyond that, but other than like,
oh yeah, probably just like an impending death kind of moment,
you know, where it's like a funk, it's over, like
oh oh no, oh no. But the tarantula hawk is it?

(11:21):
Is it actually a hawk? No? No, it's so it's
a type of wasp. And if you look into evolutionary biology,
you'll find that of asshole behavior is by wasps. Uh. So,
what these tarantula hawks do is they wait outside of
tarantula's burrow and they pluck at the tarantula's webbing to

(11:46):
lure the spider out, because the tranchulas create this this
little sort of dormat of webbing so that when an
insect crawls across it, they know to pop out and
capture the prey. But instead of juicy little worm, it's
the transla hawk waiting for them, and it stings the
tarantula with a paralyzing venom, and so the transula is

(12:10):
frozen but still completely alive, and the wasp drags the
trantula back to its burrow, where it places the transula
snugly inside and then lays a single egg on top
of it. And I feel like, if you're the tarantula,
with whatever tarantula consciousness that you have, if you can't

(12:33):
move and you see someone laying egg on top of you,
this is the point where you're going like, well, this
is not going to be cool. Indeed, it's not cool
for the tarantula. So the hawk, the wasp, buries the
tarantula alive and tamps down the earth. So it's stuck
in there, still alive, buried alive, with this little baby

(12:57):
hatching on top of it. So the wasp larva will
feed on the live flesh of the tarantula for up
to a month. That's like the buffalo bill of the
animal kingdom right there. And this is this is terrifying.
Why is it? Why? Why is this so adapted to
do this bizarre thing like that? It seems like such

(13:18):
a stretch like how, I mean, how how how did
this creature come up with this idea? I mean, that's
a silly way of asking it. We'll think about it
this way, like when you you know, animals, especially like wasps,
they don't have refrigerators, so they can't keep food fresh
for their young as it hatches and develops. So by

(13:38):
burying their larva, they're keeping it safe from predators. But
you know, if you bury it with some dead prey,
it can feed off of it for a while, but
eventually that's going to go bad and it can't eat
it anymore. But by feeding on something that's alive, it
will stay fresh. So actually, some species of the tarantula

(14:00):
hawks will feed on non vital organs first, so that
the tarantula remains alive longer and that gives it more
opportunities to feed. Makes sense, makes sense. I have a
quick question here, Katie. So you know how serial killers
are often known for their specific m o either in

(14:21):
the way that they commit murder or in the types
of victims they choose. Are different species of tarantula hawk? Uh?
Do they operate in a similar way? Do they only
prey on specific types of tarantula's or is it any
hairy arachnet out there is fair game? Yeah? No, they
they are often very specific in terms of the way

(14:43):
that they kill and which species of tarantula that they
go after, because it's such a specified strategy. Um, because
you need a tarantula that is a burrowing type of
tarantula um, and so that's not going to be every
every spider. It's they're very specific. Strategy isn't gonna work.

(15:04):
So it's picked these cute little I mean to me,
they're cute, the tarantulas that like hide in their little
holes and then as soon as a little prey comes by,
they're like, oh, got you. But this time they're the
ones who are got so Also, it actually gets more
specific because female tarantulas are the ones that are the killers.

(15:25):
Males just hang around flowers and try to get laid.
So the mother actually will select the gender of the
larva based on how big their victim is if they
have a big tarantula that they've buried alive, then the
mother will fertilize the egg, which creates a female, because
the females are the big, tough serial killers and the

(15:48):
males are these little, smaller flower drinking dudes. And so
if the tarantula is small, you know, it's like the
male doesn't require as much nutrition to develop, so the
wasp believe the egg unfertilized, and then that creates a
male baby. And adults are actually non carnivorous, so it's

(16:09):
just the babies that eat the meat. The adults just
like to drink flower nectar and then abducted murdered tarantula's
well yeah that too. It's sort of like have you
guys seen what is it? Um? What's that movie? It's
not called? Is it Split? The one with James McAvoy. Yes, yes,
he has multiple personalities, yeah yeah, and then one like

(16:32):
he has like the mother personality or he's like I've
made you a sandwich and like he's stroking her hair
and stuff. It makes me think of that these like
wasp that like, oh, I like to drink flower nectar anyways,
enjoy being paralyzed while my baby eats you. Yeah, So
how long does it take to kill the tarantela? Like,

(16:53):
how long does this horrible torture porn go on? It
can be up to a month, which is crazy to
me because like that's such a long time to be
slowly eaten. It's like being in a sarlac pit. It's
just do they even do they even do them the
kindness of reinjecting them with the paralyzing venom or does
that eventually just wear off once they're buried and they

(17:14):
don't even care anymore. I think it will eventually wear off,
but I think they'll most likely die before it does.
And also the they're packed in so tight inside the
dirt they can't move anyways. It's every nightmare combined into one,
like being paralyzed, being eaten alive, being buried alive, and
having a baby eating you as the baby part is

(17:37):
extra creepy. That's to me, that's the kicker. I don't
know why. Something about the baby eating you from the
top down is just really really awful because even human
murderers don't do that. That's one of the big differences
very special kind of evil. There aren't typically baby murderers
although there are children who can be murders, but I

(17:57):
don't think infants have yet the murder. It's a different show.
So good news you guys. Tarantula hawks are found all
over the world, including Australia, which duck because Australia is
just home to every monster. They're also in Africa, Southeast Asia, India,

(18:19):
and also America. They're even in San Diego, California, which
is my hometown. So yeah, that's astonishing. Yeah, were you
able to find any video of this process going down?
I would love slash. Yeah, I could totally send you
guys something like that. It's I have seen it. It's
pretty gnarly because you see this wasp attached itself to

(18:44):
the tarantula and then there's a scuffle and then the
tarantulas slowly starts to go very still, and that's when
the dread sets in. Yeah, it was it was as
as you were walking us through this process. I was
watching a video of a child who is watching this
intense deathmatch and kidnapping, abduction, burial of a tarantula, and

(19:09):
even the kid seems to I think this is this
is a little brutal. You can see the tarantula attempt
to escape as the paralytic agent is kicking in. But
I was surprised by the size because at least in
what we're seeing here, the tarantula hawk looks significantly smaller
than the creature it's attacking. Yeah, and that's why it's

(19:32):
having the ability to paralyze the tarantula is so important
because it's using it's smarts. Not really because wasps are done,
but in evolutionary terms, like this intelligent strategy over the
brawn of the tarantula, that sting is extremely powerful. So

(19:53):
there's this entomologist Dr. Justin Schmidt from the Southwestern Biological
and Institute, and he created a sting pain index and
he says the Transla hawks sting is quote unsurpassed in
intensity by any other stinging insect and that a sting
feels like a lightning bolt struck the spot. The pain

(20:16):
is beyond imagination. And you want to know why he
knows this? Did he sting himself? Yep? Oh wow, this
crazy bastard like just created the sting pain index by
finding a bunch of insects that sting and then having
them sting himself and then rating it like, oh yeah,

(20:39):
that's Yep, that's a tin. How is that guy? Is
he still alive? I don't want to I don't want
to sound insensitive. Okay, yeah, I don't think he's killed
himself with insects stings, just subjected himself to quote unimaginable
pain from if If what I remember is correct, wasp
are orious for they're just attacking human beings who happen

(21:04):
to be around their general vicinity. Are tarantula hawks that
way too? Or do they have to be you know,
provoked or prodded? They have to be provoked. So the
silver lining is they're actually pretty non aggressive towards anything
except for obviously tarantulas. But I mean, if you get
one caught like in your sweater, it'll probably sting you

(21:25):
out of a fear response. But yeah, they don't go
around trying to attack people, which think christ because that
would be terrible. But if you're a tarantula, you know,
not not such good luck. Wow, And they're so widespread. Yeah,
so I guess then one of the big questions keep

(21:46):
I keep going back to, is is this evil? Because
it sounds like this is while it's horrific for the tarantula,
the victim, the incubator. It seems like it's the only
way for these uh, these creatures to reproduce. Is that correct?
Like there's no alternative, right, and so this is like

(22:08):
this is the key question is now. I don't think
a wasp is capable of being evil in the sense
that we kind of define it because they're so simple.
They're basically like robots. So it's like you wouldn't necessarily
describe a virus as being evil because it's so simple,
and even the wasps are a great deal more complex

(22:30):
than virus. I don't think they can have like the
intent or the awareness to be evil. But when you
look at it, like you kind of take a step
back and look at it from like an evolutionary perspective,
where it's sort of more of this emergent intelligence from
millions of years of evolution, I mean, maybe you can

(22:55):
define that as evil. You know, I'm not talking about
like intelligent design or some god controlling evolution is talking
about like, you know, you have this sort of like
guiding force of evolution that is its own sort of
like I mean, it is it is a form of
intelligence where it's like you have to really zoom out

(23:17):
to see it. Where it's just millions and millions of
years of these small changes resulting in something that's so
so messed up. And maybe that's like a natural form
of evil. I don't know. I guess that's a very
philosophical question. Well, I think it is. But it's also
interesting because so much of psychopathy is almost like reptilian

(23:38):
type behavior, or like non feeling, non empathetic type behavior,
which is the kind of things that an insect like
this would do, Like there's no feeling about it. It's just,
you know, I must feed, I must feed my baby,
and this is how I'm going to go about doing it.
It's very callous, for lack of a better term, you know,
But you're right, there's no cognition involved. It's just the

(23:59):
thing that makes sense and that it's adapted perfectly to do.
But I think we ascribe those kind of things to
psychopaths as well, right, because I think with a human
were like you should be capable of empathy. But then
it it's a really uncomfortable question because it's a little
more clear when you're looking at a wasp that okay,
of course it doesn't understand what it's doing, but you

(24:21):
could also make that argument for humans who can't feel empathy,
like they may truly not understand the gravity of what
they're doing. And then is that sort of like the
wasp where you can't really blame them, or is there
something else going on with people where it's like, well
you should be smart enough to figure out, like does

(24:42):
there even need to be like an intentionality behind evil,
because like if it's defined as something where it's like
you're incapable of feeling mercy or empathy, then maybe just
like evil doesn't need to be like intentionally evil, it's
just a force that does have empathy and then causes harm.

(25:03):
So then we would be defining evil as not the
addition of something nefarious or insidious, but the absence of
an alternative, long term evolutionary strategy, because that's what empathy
ultimately functions as, right right, right, Yeah, that's really interesting.
It's like we have because there are some animals who

(25:24):
have evolved a survival strategy that could be seen as
like good. So like bees are so social and help
each other, so you know a lot of these youth
social animals, so like bees and ants and even naked molerets,
they all seem to team up and pitch in and
help each other and care about each other um as

(25:46):
much as like a bee can. But it does seem
like a kinder sort of animal in general than a wasp,
even though if you take a bee and a wasp individually,
they don't really I don't think they can feel kindness,
but you look at the whole the group of them,
like a bee colony does seem to have empathy for

(26:09):
it's like each other in a weird way. So what
would a tarantula hawk be in terms of the Dark
Triad or Dark tetrad? Would they would they qualify as
a sadist? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, Like these very
sadistic because like to keep something alive for up to
a month and then slowly feed on it. It's just

(26:32):
so it seems so unnecessarily cruel, even though as we've
talked about it, there is a reason for it. Yeah,
I think that checks out. As we've just discussed in
the Animal Kingdom, some of the most terrifying examples of
sadism are due to reproductive needs in humans. Some of

(26:54):
the most dangerous people are those who somehow link sexuality
to sadism. This is called a paraphilia. It's a form
of sexuality that is atypical or pathological. Now a huge
disclaimer here, I'm not talking about the b D s
M community. People who engage in b D s M
are very different from those with sexual sadism disorder, the

(27:17):
key thing being consent in healthy communication. For bed SIM practitioners,
consent is extremely important. They may find sadistic acts or
masochistic acts to be sexually arousing, but not unless their
partner is equally interested. That's why safe words, set in
clear boundaries and a lot of discussion is often present

(27:38):
in these communities. And it's also why psychologists don't consider
b D s M to be a disorder. They aren't
causing harm to themselves or others well, I mean psychologically speaking,
But sexual sadism disorder is different. People with this disorder
are aroused by the suffering of others, and the disorder
is either harmful to the individual whom find it disturbing

(28:01):
or upsetting, or to others in the case of sex
offenders who seek out non consent and victims. What I
find interesting is the difference between people with sexual sadian
disorder who choose not to act on it and those
who do, meaning that there are some who either have
empathy or at least a fear of consequences while still

(28:22):
feeling these sadistic urges. I had a clinical psychology professor
who put it this way. The explosive combination is having
both a sadistic paraphilia and a clinical lack of empathy.
Those are the ingredients to make most types of serial killers.
So after a quick break, that will bring us to
our next member of the dark tetrad, the psychopath. So

(28:52):
how do you spot a psychopath by the cold look
of cruel and difference in their glassy eyes, the pile
of bodies in their basements? Well, what about with technology?
Psychologists have attempted to quantify psychopathy using brain imaging, which
leads us to one of the most interesting stories in
brain research. James Fallon is a neuroscientist who was interested

(29:15):
in looking at the anatomical characteristics found in the brains
of serial killers. He found a pattern of abnormalities and
the PET scans of these killers showing structural aberrations in
the orbital cortex, the prefrontal cortex, the ventral anterior singulate,
and the amygdala. As he was shuffling through piles of

(29:35):
brain scans on his desk. He was looking through a
file on his family's brain scans taken for another study
on Alzheimer's. One of the scans had the clear structural
abnormalities consistent with psychopathy. Curious as to who and his
family was the psychopath, he looked up the name and
was surprised to find it was his own brain scan. Obviously,

(29:58):
he wasn't a violent killer, so first he wondered if
all his research about the psychopathic brain was just wrong.
But when he took genetic tests, he found that he
also had alleles associated with people high at risk for
exhibiting violent behavior. He did some introspection and decided, instead
of it being a fluke, he may very well have

(30:18):
a psychopathic brain. But due to his loving upbringing with
parents and siblings who were devoted to him, he suspects
he was able to avoid the more frightening violent traits
of the psychopath. But when nature is left to her
own devices, what kinds of deadly killers does she concoct?
The deadliest serial killers are often harmless looking. They blend

(30:40):
right in allowing them to continue their killing while raising
no alarms. As we'll find out. This is true both
in human society and the animal kingdom. So speaking of psychopaths,
let's talk about cats. Uh So, guys, which wildcat would
you guess is the most prolific serial killers of them all? Uh?

(31:02):
Wildcats specifically, Let's see, it's probably it's probably smaller than
one would imagine because naturally people would think something large,
like a tiger or maybe a lion. But I'm going
to go with something smaller, maybe a bobcat or a wildcat.
That's a really intelligent guess. Yeah, because like you have

(31:23):
these huge predator cats, so like lions seem really formidable.
I mean, they have a thousand p s i of
force for their jaw strength, so just for comparison, we
only have about two p s i. So they're so powerful.
And you know, there's also like the more sleek ones

(31:43):
like cheetahs who can run up to seventy five miles
an hour and jaguars who are super like buff and
can carry cadavers up a tree. But you're right that
even those guys are really terrifying, they're not the most
prolific se real killers, and we do have to get smaller.
In fact, our most prolific serial killer kitty is one

(32:06):
of the smallest species of cats in the world, and
that includes domestic cats, so they're smaller than your household kitty.
It's this really adorable cat. It's called the black footed cat.
They're about three times smaller than your pet house cat,
and they weigh in about two to four pounds, so
females are around two pounds, males can get up to

(32:29):
around four pounds, and they have a sixty kill success rate,
which if you've ever seen a nature documentary and you
see how many times a lioness will have a goof
up and not be able to catch its prey, six
is incredible. So they actually look a lot like a

(32:51):
house cat, but just like kind of shrunken down. They
have big eyes and their tan with dark brown spots
and striations. And they're called black footed because their little
feets are black. And uh they're also called ant hill
tigers because when they're cornered, they'll like, they'll mess you up,
they'll cut you. They're very aggressive. You know, I'm looking

(33:15):
at I'm looking into a picture of one right now,
and I gotta say these cats are adorable. They look
even better than my two cats, my two cats are
just you know, cat models. Basically they have that like
baby schema. The because they have the big eyes and
the big foreheads and they're they're really tiny and just
super super cute. You would not think these are a

(33:35):
big threat. So what kind of what kind of stuff
do they hunt? Well, their prey can be pretty small,
so rodents, birds, pretty much anything that moves and they
can fit in their mouths though, so they'll do insects, lizards, birds,
and small rodents are their favorite. They're mostly nocturnal. They'll
walk twenty miles a night, so that's the furthest that

(33:59):
a small wildcat will walk. And I did a little
math and if you scale that up to um human size,
that's like walking a thousand miles at night, which you know,
it's like it's like the Proclaimer's song, like I will
walk five hundred miles. So that does that mean? These
little sweet babies hunt for sport just like for kicks?

(34:21):
Like why why is such a high kill rate versus
lions who to me seem like they hunt more practically
and functionally to you know, feed. No, they I mean
they just have a rapid metabolism and they for the
food that they can't eat on the spot. They store
in their burrows, so it's not for fun. It's definitely

(34:43):
for nutrition. And these smaller animals will actually have a
pretty large nutritional demand because they can't bulk up a
lot of calories and then just like sleep it off.
They have to be constantly eating. And to be clear,
we're talking about the most prolific successful serial killers, not

(35:05):
just the most attempts, is that correct. I mean they
actually rack up a pretty high kill count, so I
would say they are of the big cats. They kill
the most per day, so they can take down around
fifteen prey items a night, which is a lot, and
that includes like birds. So if you there's a really

(35:27):
cool video I can show you guys, and I'll put
that up on our Twitter where it just like jumps
up and catches a bird midair and it's got it
like jammed in its mouth and it looks very pleased
with itself. Um, but yeah, that's like about a kill
an hour, So that's I mean, these are small prey items,

(35:48):
but you know, you scale that down to the size
of the cow, which is like two pounds of like
pure murderous rage, and that's like, you know, it's like
taking if a lion could take down a small gazelle
like every hour. So they also do it's so cute.
They do the little but wiggle, you know that thing

(36:09):
like when your cat is getting ready to pounce, and
it's like there's a little swigty swooty with its butt
like Simba and the lion King sometimes too. Yeah, yeah,
they do that. They do the little little but wiggle,
and so that's actually not just to look cute. It
helps aligne their feet under them so they can pounce

(36:32):
with maximum precision and power like a spring. And sometimes
they do take down bigger prey though, so they rarely
but sometimes kill cape hairs, which way more than them.
They are these relatively larger rabbits. So it's just kind
of funny because they they're just like so amped up

(36:55):
on being murderous they don't even think that, oh maybe
this but I can't even carry it because it weighs
like twice of me. So is this where the is
this where the psychopathy aspect comes in? Yeah, because it's
like I feel like they're desire to kill these bigger
prey items. Is it's like, clearly you're not going to

(37:19):
eat that it's too big. I mean, maybe you know,
they do save it for later, but it's kind of funny.
I don't even know if they could fit a cape
hair in their din. So it's just killing stuff because
they are driven to kill. I mean, we've all been there.
But that's what my housecat does. That is what my
indoor outdoor, sweet snuggly housecat does. But he's not hungry.

(37:43):
Betty doesn't have it. Betty doesn't have a six kill
rate though, No, absolutely not. But it's like he is
clearly toying with these creatures and you know, just like
leaving them in the most twisted arrays I've ever seen
in my life. Like it's it's like the it haunts
my my dreams. It's bizarre that I guess that's why
I was asking earlier, like does this creature hunt kind

(38:04):
of for sport? So I guess some of that does
enter into it. If it's not, it's not even thinking
about the fact that it can't actually carry it, you know,
the kill away. It just needs to feed the urge,
right right, And well, I mean it's really interesting because
with house cats, obviously they don't need to kill anything
at all because they're getting fed their little kilbls and bits.

(38:26):
But I think they have a desire to hunt, so
they're driven to hunt by this, and it is a
survival instinct to hunt, because you can imagine if a
cat didn't have that and just waited around for kibble,
if it lived in the wild, it would be done
an evolutionary dead end. But yeah, I mean it's we

(38:48):
can't talk to a cat and say like, hey, do
you really enjoy doing this? But my guess would be
that they do get satisfaction from it. And even though
it is an evolutionary strategy and even playing with their
prey has practical reasons like making sure it's dead and

(39:09):
also honing their skills, I mean, they seem to love
doing it, and that is kind of psychopathic, isn't it. Yeah,
that's a good point, especially when we consider not just cats,
but a lot of similar mammals. Their juvenile phase is
spent playing, and playing is really just a less fatal

(39:29):
version of the hunting that they will instinctively practice later
in life. And I can absolutely see from a neurological perspective,
I can absolutely see an animal as evolved as a
cat or my cats enjoying that kind of thing. It's
it's scratching an itch your body and your brain will
tell you it's a pleasurable and correct thing to do,

(39:52):
right right. I mean, like, we do have video games
where we like to kill stuff. So it makes me
wonder if we might have something like that deep inside us,
where we kind of, you know, maybe have that killing
instinct that's just been over many, many hundreds of thousands
of the years of cultural and societal evolution has been

(40:12):
sort of put inside a little box and um locked away,
except in the cases of serial killers. Right well, in
the defense of my cats, Dr Bankman and Mr Jackpott
have to shout him out here. Yeah, and it's the
real names. In defense of my cats, they have at
the very least never paralyzed someone buried them alive and

(40:35):
put a kitten inside of their bodies to a But
when that cute, like would a kitten bursting out of
a tarantula be cute or horrible? I can't know. I'm
on the fence. I'm honestly on the fence, because if
that was backwards, like a tranchula bursting out of a kitten,

(40:56):
that would obviously be horrible. But when you do it inverse,
it's kind of cute. I mean, I still feel bad
for the tarantula, but you know, hey, it's a kid, sure,
so it's it's it's pretty crazy. You mentioned fallon the neuroscientist.
He's actually in this show that I'm working on called
Happy Face. It's like a true crime show about the

(41:18):
Happy Face killer, and it's about this guy's daughter and
in the show, she goes and gets analyzed by this
guy to try to figure out whether she herself has
inherited her father's psychopathic tendencies. And it's really interesting because
it's like there's a lot of discussion around it, whether
it's like is it all nature, is it all nurture?

(41:38):
Is it a combination of the two. Can you really
figure out just from someone's brain scan whether or not
this is true. It seems like a very kind of
like surfacing way of of of figuring that stuff out
because it's a combination of a lot of factors. But
he actually talks a lot about psychopathy in the animal
kingdom too, and how it's actually can be a positive trait, like, um,
you know, animals that are psychopaths will kind of they'll

(42:01):
go places that other animals won't and they will actually
breed more successfully and things like that. Um, it's I'm
not explaining it super well, but it's yeah, because like psychopaths,
one of their characteristics is risk taking and not having
a fear of the consequences. So in some cases that
could obviously be very bad, but for some animals that

(42:25):
will bring you a reward. If you are bolder and
take a risk and try something novel, that lack of
fear will actually give you a leg up over your competition.
That is exactly what he was talking about, you know,
so long as they survive to reproduce, that's that's that's
the Vegas odds part. Yeah, that's that's really interesting. I've

(42:51):
actually listened to some of that podcast. It's so I
think that is it's such a personal perspective on the
nature versus nurture because she's I mean, from my perspective,
she's obviously a very empathetic person to be so worried
about that part of her nature, but I can totally
imagine how that would be that you're wondering, like, well,

(43:13):
any any behavior you feel where it's like maybe you
know you have Sean Freud at sometime, or you feel angry.
You wonder like, well, is that me or is that
like these genes inside me puppeting me? Yeah, and you
might not have made it far enough in the series.
I don't want to spoil anything, but it does come
into play, like the way she's dealt with relationships and

(43:35):
kind of her emotional kind of closed offness, and that's
a big part of it, and wondering if she can
actually feel things the way quote unquote normal people can.
So it's something that really like haunts her and bothers her.
And at the end of the series she kind of
figures out, you know, at least as far as this
guy is concerned, what she is. Yeah. The story of

(43:57):
the most prolific serial killer in human history is one
that's more tragic than gruesome. Harold Friedrich Shipman was a bespectacled,
bearded man, very ordinary and meek looking. He was a doctor,
married and had four children. Not someone whom you would
peg as a cold blooded killer, but he killed two
hundred and eighteen people, committing crimes undetected for twenty three years.

(44:22):
Shipman was a g P who had his own practice
near Manchester, England. He targeted the most vulnerable people as
his victims his own geriatric patients. Most of his victims
were the elderly women in his care to whom he
gave lethal doses of morphine. He had a typical pattern.
He would give his victims a lethal dose of diamorphine,

(44:43):
signed their death certificates, and then alter their medical records
to falsely indicate that their health had been in decline.
Shipman was an outlier even amongst serial killers, as there
was no clear motive for the crime, except in one case,
he altered his victims will to make himself the beneficiary
of three hundred and eighty six thousand pounds, something the

(45:06):
victim's daughter found to be awfully suspicious. So why did
he kill It's hard to know for certain. As a teenager,
he witnessed his mother received morphine for a terminal cancer
until she died of the disease. Some of the psychiatrists
who have looked at his case speculate that he had
a deep seated need to control other people, something influenced

(45:26):
but certainly not caused in total by his mother's death.
Another possibility psychiatrists have proposed is that he felt a
sense of relief from stress or pressure by killing his
patients as he considered them a nuisance. This is the
heart of what a psychopath is. Coldly, flippantly cruel. We
need a minute to clean our brains with images of

(45:48):
cute cats. Wait, is that a blackfooted cat? And is
that a baby burden in its mouth? Oh no, We'll
be right back. Machiavellianism through the scope of psychology is
defined as a duplicitous manipulation with a disregard for morality,

(46:11):
putting personal gain before any feelings of empathy. Think Little
Finger from Game of Thrones, someone behind the scenes manipulating
and pulling strings, causing destruction for others or their own gain.
But fortunately Machiavellians can only manipulate, not mind control their victims. However,
the natural world is not so merciful. We're going to

(46:35):
discuss a machia Vilian animal that is literally pulling the
strings using real life mind control. So mind control and
hypnosis is often explored in popular culture. From the Manchurian
Candidate to Jessica Jones were fascinated by the idea of
thought control. So you know the Purple Man and Jessica Jones.

(46:56):
It's such a creepy Villian doctor who of a tenant. Yeah,
he's so lovable and doctor who. But then his and
he's just I think so he's got he's got a
good range. Din't trust him, You don't trust him his
doctor who? Was it? After watching Jessica Jones? Do you
stop trusting him? Doctor? No? No, I just don't. I

(47:16):
don't trust his mouth? Is it because he has a
bunch of hearts. He's got like ten hearts or something?
But yeah, the the Purple Man for background for Jessica
Jones amidst pheromones that force people to obey his suggestions,
right right, Yeah, it's like he issues a command and

(47:38):
then the person has to do it because it's some
kind of medic clorians or whatever. I haven't watched the
whole show, so I'm not sure, but yeah, that's It's
so creepy to me because like like one of the
worst possible sci fi horse scenarios where a serial killer
mind controls you into digging your own grave or just

(47:59):
following him into his like kill basement. But I have
bad news for spiders again. This is a very spider
unfriendly podcast. Orb Weaver spiders are spend these really neat
precise webs they're they're actually very beautiful. The webs the

(48:19):
spiders are. I mean, I think they're cool, but people
have hang ups about spiders for some reason. Um So,
now wasps again come into the picture and just are
so mean and are such assholes. So female parasitic wasps
lay an egg onto the orb weaver's abdomen, and if

(48:42):
you've been listening, you know, once a wasp lays an
egg on you, you're in for a bad time. So
the orb weaver is still alive, and the spider becomes
mind controlled by the wasp larva, and instead of spinning
its beautiful lace like web, it dismantles its web and

(49:02):
creates a cocoon for the parasitic larva to live in.
And then, because wasps again there are such huge assholes,
the larva will suck on the spiders juices until the
spider dies. And then the larva just checks its carcass
away like a soda can, and it makes itself nice

(49:24):
and cozy in the cocoon that the spider had woven
for it against its will. It's so crazy to me
that you can have such a precise method of mind
control that the larva not only gets to eat its victim,
but makes it spin a little cradle for for it

(49:46):
as it develops and so it can stay safe. It's
just so creepy. So it's slave labor at that point too, right,
a slave that you eat later. Yeah? Yeah, So we
h are these wasps as common as the tarantula hawk um,
they aren't as widely distributed, So the ones that we're

(50:08):
going to be talking about are found in Japan. So
researchers in Japan wanted to look into this behavior because
it's so crazy how precise that mind control is. And
they found that the cocoon that the zombie spider weaves

(50:29):
for its parasite is very similar to the molten stage
web that the spider, a healthy spider, will weave for itself.
It's a protective cocoon designed to keep the spider safe
while it molts it's exoskeleton, and it's actually made out
of this special ultra violet spider silk so that birds

(50:52):
and flying insects will avoid crashing into it. So like normally,
when a spider builds its web, it wants insects to
run into it so that you can eat them. But
if you're in all naked and exposed and don't want
something to kill you, you wrap yourself up in like
this neon light of like warning naked spider in here.

(51:12):
So researchers found that there was higher levels of this
substance that's called twenty h ectosoone, and it's the same
hormone that controls molting. So in the zombified spiders, they
are being mind controlled into thinking that they're going through

(51:34):
their molting stage. It's unknown how the wasp is actually
manipulating this hormone. But it's not just mind controlling it
into thinking it's molting. It's actually a step above that
because it's somehow commanding it to go into this like
super molting mode where it's building an extra strong cocoon,

(51:57):
more reinforced with greater tensile strength than the spider's normal
molten cocoon. So it's like it's beyond just like thinking
it's molting. It's creating a mega safety bunker for the
parasite that's planning on murdering it. So way, wait, so
the downside is that you are being mind controlled and

(52:22):
then you're going to die, But the upside is that
you get super strength. I guess the the equivalent of
spider superpowers. Well, your your webbing does. So you're creating
um spider silk that has is extra reinforced because the
molten spider silk, like a in a healthy orb beaver,

(52:43):
that's creating a cocoon for itself to molten side that
that webbing will be reinforced and stronger to protect it.
But for the parasite, it's like it's bringing out the
good stuff. It's bringing out the big guns, the big
webbing guns, and creating really really strong webbing to protect

(53:03):
the parasite. So, I mean, I would think it's not
necessarily clear in the research yet, but I would think
that somehow it's just being flooded with these hormones and
make like this extra strong signal for it to produce
the molting webbing in a way that's like it's over
signaling so that the parasite benefits from the super strong cocoon.

(53:29):
So this is what's called an ectoparasitoid. It's a parasite
who will live externally on its host and eventually kill it.
But some parasitic wasps will lay their eggs directly inside
the spider and then the larvae eat their way out
of the spider like an alien chest burster. It's really disgusting.

(53:52):
And just for a safety check here, there are no
wasps that do this to people, right nose. They're none
big enough to do it yet. Okay, not yet, not
that we know of. Whenever, whenever I think about this
para parasitic stuff doing things to animals to make them
act against their own self interest, I always think of

(54:13):
that parasitic fungus like erupts out of ants heads before right, yeah,
before it does that, doesn't it also do some kind
of crazy mind control that makes them do something that
like benefits the fungus itself. But yeah, crawls up a
stock like a plant stock, and then it's final. The

(54:35):
ants final act is to cling onto the stock with
its mandibles, so it it's brain is being so manipulated
by the fungus that it's like clinging onto the stock
with its mandibles. And then that's really good for the fungus, says,
it grows out of its head and then produces spores
because it's got a solid anchor down onto the onto

(54:57):
the plant or the branch. You know. One that while
we're speaking of parasites, one that worries me as a
cat owner. Is toxoplasma gandhi. Yeah, we all probably have that,
Like that's why we're nice to cats. I don't know,
sing So, yeah, you probably if you clean up the
cats litter box and you don't obsessively wash your hands

(55:19):
every single time, you might have it. And I mean
there's actually pretty good chance, like if you've owned cats
over a long period of time. It's generally not a
problem for humans unless you're pregnant, in which it can
cause birth defects or miscarriage. And the other thing it's
been linked to is potentially triggering schizophrenia. That's a very

(55:42):
very rare almost just like it's not going to happen
to you, but it is a documented effect, so they
can a cat can literally cause schizophrenia in a person
via the T gandhi. I M so, I think we
need to talk more about how spiders are terribly mistreated

(56:04):
in nature. Uh So, there's another mind controlling machiavellian manipulator
called the spider fly, and it's a fly that injects
itself into the spider's abdomen, lodging itself near the lung.
And here's the crazy thing. It can remain there for

(56:25):
years while it completes its development. So once it's finally
ready to molt and emerge from the spider, it controls
the spider into spinning a protective cocoon, just like we
were talking about with the orb weavers. Then it eats
the spider from the inside out, which is just the worst,

(56:48):
but at least these ones are kind of cute and fuzzy,
so unlike the wasps the spider fly, they're sort of
like these little bumbling Cuti's uh entomologous f R Cold
describes them as having a floating sort of flight, rather
undulating and uncertain. It has the habit of buzzing around

(57:09):
and circles when it falls over on its back on
a smooth surface, often doing this for some time before
it can regain its feet. Most of the time it
is making a high, thin humming sound, so it's just
like it's this dopey, kind of like dorky little fly.
But then it's really horrifying and living inside a spider

(57:31):
for years before killing it. And this isn't like a
marsupial situation, you know how like a joey can enter
an exit the pouch of the parent. It's more like
a chest burster, like I can't fly back in and out.
It's a chest burster situation, but with like a cute
little like Elmo esque muppet character, like if an aliens,

(57:55):
just like the chest burster birth stands like it's it's
all low. I'm kind of sold. It reminds me of
this terrifying toy my girlfriend got my daughter for a
birthday the other day. It's like a tiny puppy that
lives inside a croissant and you turn the croissant inside
out and then the tiny puppy emerges. But it's really unclear,

(58:15):
like the scale of it, like is it is it
meant to be a tiny puppy or a giant croissant.
They really don't make that clear. But um, yeah, that's
not very science at all. But that's what I'm picturing
this whole time. I'm sorry. I don't know why toys
have gotten weird. I really have, they really have. You
might be comforting yourself with the knowledge that you're not

(58:37):
a spider and you're in no danger of a fly
hiding out in your lungs, But I want to tell
you the story of the human version of a spider Fly,
a secret hideaway killer that will have you checking your
cross spaces tonight. The Dinverse spider Man doesn't really deserve
his name. His real name was Theodore Edward Coney's. He

(58:57):
was a drifter who in one decided he'd settled down,
but there was a little problem. The home he chose
was already occupied. Coney Has found a trap door in
a closet that led to a tiny attic houbbyhole. He
went undiscovered for five weeks, leaving his Heidi Hoold to
occasionally steal food out of the fridge. One day, the homeowner,

(59:21):
seventy three year old Philip Peters, discovered Coney's as he
was foraging for food. Philip whacked Cony's with his cane,
and Coney's responded by brutally murdering Philip, bludgeoning him to
death with an iron stove. Stoker. Police investigated the murder,
but they found no signs of a break in, and
though they found the door to the attic, they didn't

(59:42):
explore it. They thought it was too small for any
human person to fit through. After the murder, the victim's
wife and the housekeeper reported hearing strange noises in the night,
and they believed the house was haunted, so they moved
out and Coney's presence remained un known. He stayed in
the vacant house until when police came to make a

(01:00:06):
routine check and they heard noises coming from the second floor.
They followed the noise and saw a pair of legs
vanishing into the trapdoor. They grabbed them before he could disappear.
He was tried and convicted for Phillip's murder and spent
his life in imprisonment, although really was that a punishment.

(01:00:26):
His cell probably felt like a sprawling estate compared to
the tiny nut he hit away in. So do you
have any crawl spaces in your home? No reason, just
curious alright, So thank you guys for coming on. This
is really fun. Do you guys have anything to plug? Yeah,
thank you so much for having a skatie. Yet. You

(01:00:48):
can catch Schnol and myself on our show Ridiculous History,
to come out twice a week. You can find us
on Instagram, Facebook, All the podcast places is Mainland, Right,
what's the show? We kind of just go into some
of the weirder, little off the beaten path kind of
history nuggets, A very kind of Snack. Double show episodes

(01:01:10):
are like thirty to forty minutes, very bingeable. It's a
lot of fun to do. And um. We also do
another show called Stuff They Don't Want You to Know,
where we take a an open minded approach to conspiracy theories,
and I would say we take a critical thinking approach
to conspiracy. You're much better and more accurate. So you
can you can find us on those shows. You can
find us all over the regular internet places and wherever

(01:01:34):
you find your favorite shows. You can also when you
find us on the social media stuff, just hit us
up directly. We're we're pretty approachable. Unlike some of the
animals that we met in today's episode. We don't bite
you know, you guys aren't or or or yeah, or
inject you with paralyzing venom. Well that's polite of you guys.

(01:01:54):
You know, we try to be affable. That's sort of
like our that that's our adaptation is it's like the
super affability. Yeah, my producers are always like ben stop
injecting people with paralytic agents. That was before my time.
So you can find me at Katie Golden or at
pro bird Writes where it's revealed I'm Actually a Bird

(01:02:16):
and you can check out the podcast every Wednesday on
iTunes or the I Heart Radio app or wherever you
get your podcasts, and just hit us up on Facebook, Twitter,
and our website is creature feature pod dot com. And
thanks to the Space Cossacks for letting us use their
wonderful song Exo Lumina