Listener Mail: A Bird of Courage

Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Listener mail.
My name is Joe McCormick. My regular co host Robert
Lamb is out today, so I'm going to be recording
this episode solo. But don't worry. Rob will be back
on Mike with me next time. It's Monday, the day
of each week that we read back messages from the
Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you would

(00:32):
like to get in touch, you can write us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever
you want to send us fine. We appreciate feedback to
recent episodes, especially if you have something interesting to add
to something we have talked about. Okay, I'm going to
start off today with a response to an older series

(00:53):
of episodes we did on throwing behavior in non human animals,
and one of the big examples we talked about in
that series was a paper about octopuses doing something that
looked like deliberate targeted throwing of inanimate objects like shells
and clumps of sediment at each other and I think

(01:13):
occasionally at fish, but mostly at each other for getting
in one another's personal space and I do recall there
was some ambiguity about whether that was the right interpretation
of the behavior or not. Was it actually targeted throwing
or just something that kind of looked that way because
they were kicking up dust or sediment for some other reason.

(01:34):
And continuing the theme of octopuses and animal throwing, Nathan writes, Hi, Robert,
Joe and Carney a shout out to the mailbot. I
just finished listening to your episodes on animals throwing things
when I saw an interesting article on the CBC. There

(01:54):
had been video caught of a sea lion and octopus
fighting off the cost of Nanaimo, British Columbia, which is
definitely not typical octopus stomping grounds. In the video, the
sea lion picks up the octopus and throws it across
the surface of the water with surprising force at least twice.

(02:14):
In the article, Andrew Trites, director of the Marine Mammal
Research Unit at the University of British Columbia, says that
sea lions will bite down hard on one tentacle, then
fling the octopus in an effort to tear the arm off.
This is apparently the safest way for them to pray
on octopus, as otherwise the octopus can suffocate the sea

(02:35):
lion with its many tentacles. Thanks for all your great work,
and though behind currently, my wife Olivia and I never
miss an episode. Thanks Nathan. Well, Nathan, thank you for
sending this in. So I went and looked up the
CBC article you referenced. It's from November seventeenth, twenty twenty
three by Andrew Kurjada. If you want to look this up, folks,

(02:56):
it is called Swimmer witnesses Surprise Fight between between octopus
and Sea Lion, and the video is attached with the article.
The video is pretty cool, so you can see this
marine mammal repeatedly breaching the water's surface, seeming to kind
of gasp and struggle at something, and then a couple
of times it does suddenly whip its head around and

(03:17):
fling something from its jaws, and it looks to me
like immediately after it does that, especially in at least
one instance, but maybe in a couple of them, the
sea lion is working its jaws, maybe like it's chewing
on something. And according to this researcher that Nathan mentioned,
Andrew Tritz, who is the marine biologist quoted in the
article the sea lion in the video was a stellar

(03:39):
sea lion, and that's a species name spelled ste ll
e Er, one of the two species found in these waters,
along with the California sea lion. I'll read a direct
quote from Trites explaining this behavior in the article quote.
The challenge for a sea lion is to swallow an
octopus without the octopus using it eight arms to grab

(04:01):
onto the sea lion's head while it is being swallowed whole,
the sea lion would suffocate. The sea lion's solution is
to bite down onto one arm at a time and
fling the octopus's body with all its force to rip
off an arm to swallow hole. They do it at
the surface because they can get more torque in the
air than they can underwater. I missed that detail about

(04:25):
I'm swallowing the octopus armhole, so maybe it's not chewing.
I don't know. The jaw working could be something else,
but anyway, this would explain why the sea lion was
poking its head up above the water to do this.
That is trying to get more torque when it flings
its you know, whips its neck around to throw the
octopus and try to rip the arm off. Another consideration

(04:47):
mentioned in the CBC article is that the octopus not
only threatens to suffocate the sea lion that is preying
on it, it can also wrap itself around a predatory
mammal's head like a sort of kill monster mask and
bite with its beak. Also worth considering that octopuses are venomous,
So yeah, it makes sense that the sea lion is

(05:10):
really eager to get the octopus away from its face,
even while trying to eat part of the octopus's body. Now,
this behavior brings me back to an issue we talked
about in that series on animal throwing behavior, which was
the cognitive distinction between throwing behavior that seems to be
for the purpose of affecting the projectile versus throwing that's

(05:34):
designed to affect the target. So, for example, throwing a
nut against a rock to crack the nut versus throwing
a rock at a target animal to make it, I
don't know, leave you to hurt the animal, or to
make it go away and leave you alone. There is
implicitly different cognition involved. In one case, you already have

(05:54):
the object you want to affect in your possession, and
you throw it in order to change something about it,
maybe to damage it, or just to get it away
from you to change its location. In the other case,
the target you want to influence is at a distance
from your body, and the projectile is a third party
tool you're using to cause that effect at distance. In

(06:16):
this case, I think it's pretty clear that the throwing
is to affect the projectile, not a target, and it's
in two ways. The goal is number one, to rip
part of the octopus's body off so that it can
be eaten, but then also just to get the other
arms and the beak away from the sea lion's face.
So anyway, many thanks, Nathan Okay onto another message leading

(06:39):
to some interesting facts about animal behavior. So Troy wrote
to us in response to a previous listener mail after
our Weird House Cinema episode on Critters. Critters is a
mainline Gromlin's movie series about little monster hedgehogs from space
that love to eat. The movie we covered was the
original film from nineteen eighty six, but a previous listener

(07:02):
brought up the fact that in the sequel from nineteen
eighty eight, which is Critters to the main course, the
crits at one point glom onto one another to form
a gigantic ball that rolls around, smashing people and generating mayhem.
And the question came up whether there are real world

(07:23):
examples of animals that agglomerate together to serve a collective
destructive purpose like this? Are there animals that will form
giant balls out of their bodies? And the answer is yes.
The one answer I could think of on the spot
when we read this first male was the bivouac formed
by colonies of army ants. I think driver ants too.

(07:45):
The bivouac is essentially a mobile protective nest made by
the ants out of their own bodies, by ants out
of ants, living ants. So the colony will form this
kind of cyclopean mass made out of hundreds of thousands
of worker ants that gather around the queen and her
larvae to protect them when the foraging column comes to rest.

(08:08):
And of course they have to do this because they
can't form a permanent nest structure, say like with tunnels
in the ground or a mound like some other types
of ants or usocial insects, because the colony it forges
so much that it always has to keep moving to
find new feeding sources, so they have to take their
nest with them. So the nest is made out of

(08:29):
the colony, out of the ant's own bodies. So the
worker ants grip each other's legs to form this cohesive
structure around the queen for the resting period, and then
when it's time to move again, the bivouac dissolves and
the ants go on their way. Now, Troy writes to
us with another example of stunningly weird agglomeration behavior in animals,

(08:52):
and it might not be a surprise that it's also
from the order of Hymenoptera. So he brings up the
behavior known as bee bawling or sometimes heat balling in honeybees.
This is a really interesting defensive strategy that has been
documented in the Asian honeybee. I was reading about it

(09:12):
in paper specifically on the Japanese honeybee, which is APIs
serana japonica, and it works to protect the bees colonies
against attacks by predatory hornets such as the Asian giant
hornet Vespa mandarinia. And it seems like this is actually
a pretty complex interspecies relationship. Just one example. I was

(09:33):
reading about that there is some evidence of information exchange
between bees and hornets that can sometimes avert failed predation
attempts that would be costly for both parties. So maybe
bees can do behaviors that let the hornets know that
the bees see the hornets and thus are preparing their defenses,

(09:56):
and thus the hornets can just avoid attacking them in
the first place because probably won't be successful and it
will just hurt both sides. But if a hornet does
decide to attack a hive of Asian honeybees, the main
lethal defensive strategy available to the bees is to surround
the hornet in a tight cluster and then violently vibrate

(10:18):
their flight muscles. So this tight ball of vibrating bees
quickly increases in temperature. It gets hot, and the structure
of the beat of the bee ball traps the heat,
and it also traps carbon dioxide inside. And this combination
of heat and CO two density kills the hornet but

(10:38):
allows most of the bees to survive. And interestingly, though,
of course Japanese honeybees can sting, I've read that they
rarely use their stingers against predatory hornets. The ball is
all you need. Also, I just wanted to mention while
I was reading about this, I came across a related
fact concerning another defensive strategy used by Asian honeybee colonies

(11:01):
against hornet attacks. And this was in a paper by
Matila at All published in Plus one in twenty twenty.
The paper is called honeybees APIs serrana use animal feces
as a tool to defend colonies against group attack by
giant hornets Vespas sorore And yeah, so you heard it

(11:22):
there in the title. This paper documented Asian honeybees responding
to threats from predatory hornets by foraging for animal feces
such as water buffalo dung, bringing that animal dung back
to the hive, and smearing it around the entrance to
the hive. To read from the abstract here quote Fecal

(11:43):
spotting increased after colonies were exposed, either to naturally occurring
attacks or to chemicals that scout hornets use to target
colonies for mass attack. Spotting continued for days after attack ceased,
and occurred in response to Vesper sorore, which frequently landed
at and chewed on entrances to breach nests, but not

(12:06):
Vespa velutina, a smaller hornet that rarely landed at entrances.
Moderate to heavy fecal spotting suppressed attempts by vsrore to
penetrate nests by lowering the incidents of multiple hornet attacks
and substantially reducing the likelihood of them approaching and chewing
on entrances. We argue that APIs Serrana forages for animal

(12:29):
feces because it has properties that repel this deadly predator
from nest entrances, providing the first report of tool use
by honeybees and the first evidence that they forage for
solids that are not derived from plants. So what are
these properties of animal dung that would work to keep
the hornets away? The authors say they do not know yet. Also,

(12:52):
just to note that if you dig into the paper,
they do qualify the claim that this is the first
documentation of tool use in honey because as usual with
studies about tool use in animals, there is disagreement about
what the criteria are, and there have been other observations
that could qualify as tool use and bees depending on
your criteria. All right, this next message comes from Chuck

(13:22):
and it is a response to our series of episodes
on the invention of the crossbow. Specifically, this is Chuck
from San Diego. Chuck from San Diego says Dear Robert,
Joe and JJ, thanks again for your interesting, thoughtful, and
informative content. I think, like many of your listeners, I
don't normally have a reason in my daily life to
ponder many of the topics you discuss in depth, but

(13:44):
I'm glad you do it for me. Often your discussion
reminds me to consider topics in new ways or simply
unlock cherished memories. That's a long winded way of saying,
you guys enrich my life. Case in point crossbows. Oh,
thank you, Chuck. That means a lot about crossbows. Chuck says,
I personally found the discussion of crossbows as a quote
evil weapon fascinating, considering two formative memories that I have

(14:08):
that counter that notion. The first is from the nineteen
eighty movie Hawk the Slayer. This sword and sorcery film,
a good selection for weird house cinema, actually stars Jack
Palance as the evil Voltan and John Terry as the
titular Hawk. Hawk must gather a ragtag band of heroes
to defeat Voltan and restore order and goodness to the Land.

(14:32):
The film is not good, but it does have its moments,
especially in some of the character and action choices. One
of the heroes, played by William Morgan Shepherd is Ranulf,
who loses a hand and replaces it with a repeating
crossbow fed by a clip of bolts with an insane
rate of fire. To eight year old me watching it

(14:53):
for the first time in nineteen eighty, this was the
coolest weapon ever. Of course, because of Ranulf, repeat eating
crossbows ended up in later D and D campaigns. I
guess Chuck means his own D and D campaigns. I'm
not sure, or Chuck, do you mean that this like
inspired the creators of the D and D players guides
to well, I don't know, yeah, right in clarify if

(15:15):
you want, Chuck goes on. The second memory is from
the nineteen eighty three Atari Arcade light gun game Crossbow.
This cabinet had a near life sized version of a
crossbow that players had to use to defend their adventuring
allies as they slowly moved from left to right across
hazard filled screens. Eventually, the players had to find and

(15:38):
shoot the Master of Darkness to win the game, as
your life meter, your adventuring allies on screen were essentially
useless think endless escort quest. So it was up to
only you and your trusty crossbow to save the land
from darkness. Thanks again for all you do, and my
very best wishes to you and your families this holiday season, Sincerely,

(16:00):
Chuck from San Diego. Well, thank you so much, Chuck,
and saying back to you and yours. So I have
never seen Hawk the Slayer, but I just looked up
the poster before recording here, and I guess this is
supposed to be John Terry as Hawk here, but it's
just Han Solo. The costume is exactly the same, folks.
Look this up Hawk the Slayer. Am I wrong? There's

(16:22):
like the deep v neck off white shirt with the
long sleeves, black vest, dark pants, tall boots. So yeah,
it's just Han Solo from the first Star Wars movie.
And I looked up shots from the actual movie of
Hawk the Slayer and his costume's a little different on screen,
but that poster is Come on, shameless dudes. Also, Jack

(16:43):
Palance as the villain has an interesting costume feature. He
wears a metal helmet that only reveals one eye. The
other eye gap in the helmet is covered with a
steel plate, so I guess it's taking the villain with
an eye patch principle to the next level. All right,
next message is about Weird House Cinema. This is from Steph.

(17:07):
Steph says, hello, gentlemen. I listened to your Weird House
Cinema episode on the Butterfly Murders and, as always, really
enjoyed it and wished I could see the movie myself.
After hearing how rare a copy of this movie was,
I pretty much gave up hope for ever seeing it
and relegated myself to checking out the trailer on YouTube.
I fired up my laptop and found the trailer easily,

(17:28):
but as often happens, things got busy. Dinner had to
be made and cleaned up, homework had to be finished,
and kids needed baths and tucking in, so I left
it until this morning. I sat down with my coffee
to watch what I thought was about to be a
was about a four minute trailer. Guys, it's the whole movie.
I am absolutely stoked at this turn of events. I

(17:49):
only wish it wasn't Monday morning, before I had to
leave for work. I plan on revisiting this when I
get home and watching the heck out of this movie.
Thanks for all you do. You keep me entertained with
thought provoking, deep die on the most bonkers in the
best way subjects and wonderful so bad they're good movie recaps.
I appreciate you too, Sincerely, Steph. Oh, thank you, Steph.

(18:09):
Thank you for the for the nice comments, and I
hope you enjoy the movie. I would I would like
to once again issue a call to somebody out there
who I don't know owns the rights to this or
whatever put out a high quality restoration disc of The
Butterfly Murders. I am I am ready to give you
my money, and Steph, you'll have to let us know
what you think of the movie. I hope we didn't
build it up too much, but yeah, I hope you

(18:31):
enjoyed as much as we did. Okay, one last message
in response to our series on the legends of headless Ghosts, gods,
and monsters. This message comes from Taylor and it describes
as strange and uncanny personal experience. So I'll leave you
with a with a little spooky story. At the end
of today's episode, Taylor says, Hello, Robin, Joe, I just

(18:59):
finished your two part series on headless beings and felt
inclined to share a spooky personal anecdote in the stuff
to Blow your mind tradition of the Halloween hangover. Who
I guess we're getting a little deep in November for that,
But you know what, that's all right, Taylor says. On
a chilly autumn evening in my mid teens, I was
cycling home from a friend's house when I spotted a

(19:20):
strange mass of gore and feathers on the side of
the road. The amorphous thing was centered in a pool
of light cast by a corner street lamp. Ever curious
and unsure what I beheld, I dismounted my bike to
get a closer look. As I approached, in horrified fascination,
the thing rose up and turned to regard me with

(19:42):
the gory stump of its neck. I realized that the
previously indistinguishable mass of bloody feathers was a decapitated chicken.
For a long moment, I stared into that next stump,
and the stump seemed to stare back at me. Then,
with seeming serenity, the chicken settled back into a resting position,

(20:03):
and I went on my way. I generally have a
poor memory of my personal history, but this moment was
so chilling and bizarre that it is burned into my mind.
I grew up in a semi rural area, and I
was aware that a chicken's body could go about without
its head for some hours. But who had dispatched this
chicken without collecting it? How had the body wandered into

(20:24):
the street, Why was it sitting right beneath a lamp
as it as if composed to frighten me? And most importantly,
how did it seem to see me without a head?
As an adult and a science educator, this memory serves
as an example against the false horse and rider dichotomy
we tend to draw between body and head. Perhaps the
chicken was under the street lamp because it was a

(20:46):
relatively warm location in its immediate environment. Perhaps it felt
the vibrations of my approaching footfalls through its feet and
thus rose to regard me. And perhaps all of those
stimuli were parsed and processed by an avan body bar
reft of its head. I hope you and my fellow
listeners enjoyed this spooky little memory. As ever, thank you
for sharing your thoughtful meditations with all of us. I

(21:08):
hope you and yours enjoy happy holidays. Taylor, Well, thank you, Taylor.
That is truly a creepy story. I don't know what
the best explanation of all that would be. I mean,
I know there are these stories of famously Mike the
headless chicken, which after being decapitated by a farmer, went
on to live for something like eighteen months or something,

(21:30):
and the explanation in that case was that the farmer
had severed its head near like the base of the skull,
but still most of its brain stem was intact and
was able to keep regulating body function for a while.
But even in other cases, I know, you know, as
you say, chickens do sometimes move around for a little
bit after getting their heads chopped off. But in this case, yeah,

(21:53):
I don't know how to explain what you saw. Actually,
the creepiest part for me is not really the fact
that it was a and still sort of alive and
moving around without a head, but that question you raised
about how it got that way and why it was
sitting there by itself, Like if a human or a
predator removed its head, where'd they go? I don't know. Creepy.

(22:15):
All right, that's going to close things out for today,
but Rob and I will be back tomorrow with all
new stuff for you to enjoy. We read listener mail
every Monday on the show. Tuesdays and Thursdays are our
core Stuff to Blow your Mind episodes about science and culture.
Wednesdays we run short form episodes called the Artifact or
the Monster Fact. On Fridays we take a break from

(22:36):
our regular subject matter to do a show we call
Weird House Cinema, where each week we watch and discuss
a weird movie. It can be great or terrible, well
known or obscure. The only real criterion is that it
is weird. And then on Saturdays we feature an older
episode of the show from the vault Huge thanks, as
always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway'd like to

(23:00):
get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
or just to say hello, you can email us at
contact at stuffdo Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
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