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are subject to change and

1:00

certain restrictions may apply. Welcome

1:07

to Creature Feature, production of iHeartRadio.

1:09

I'm your host of Mini

1:11

Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology

1:13

and evolutionary biology, and today

1:15

on the show, we're talking about

1:17

animals who ride on top

1:19

of other animals, like a poodle

1:22

on a horse at a

1:24

rodeo, except, you know, Not messed

1:26

up. Let's explore the exploits

1:28

of octopuses, the tiniest and the

1:30

largest passengers, and we'll answer

1:32

the age -old question, are oxpeckers

1:34

jerks? Joining me today is comedian,

1:36

writer, and journalist who has done work

1:38

for Some More News, as well

1:40

as Teen Vogue, Ella Yerman. Welcome! Hi,

1:43

Katie! Hey, it's good to

1:45

see you! Thanks for having me.

1:47

Of course, I'm super excited. I...

1:51

The whole reason I picked this topic

1:53

was I saw a very serious article

1:55

in the New York Times about an

1:57

octopus riding a shark like a pony. And,

2:00

you know, it's

2:02

just one of those beautiful

2:04

moments where our world is so

2:07

messed up right now, but

2:09

out there in the ocean, there's

2:11

a little orange octopus riding

2:13

a shark, and everything's copacetic and

2:15

wonderful. That's really beautiful. Yeah, the octopus

2:17

doesn't know anything about Donald Trump. No.

2:20

or anything that's going on in

2:23

the world. Despite being orange, knows

2:25

nothing being orange. Yeah,

2:27

so quote -unquote researchers, otherwise known

2:29

as perverts, were stalking an

2:31

innocent Mako shark off the coast

2:33

of New Zealand when they

2:35

spotted an orange blobby hat that

2:37

the shark was wearing. It

2:40

turns out the hat was a

2:42

Maori octopus. These are large

2:44

octopuses that grow over six feet,

2:46

so that's nearly two meters

2:48

in European. And they can

2:50

weigh almost 30 pounds, which

2:52

is around 13 to 14 kilograms.

2:54

So they're not tiny octopodes.

2:56

That's not what you call them.

2:59

They're not tiny octopuses. Octopodes?

3:03

I don't know. Actually,

3:06

the plural of octopuses is octopuses.

3:08

It's not octopi. It's not

3:10

octopi because it's Greek and not

3:12

Latin. It's something like that.

3:14

right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something

3:16

like that. Something like that.

3:18

I used to know how that

3:20

worked. Yeah, I do

3:22

my best to know as little

3:24

about grammar as I possibly can

3:26

and still function. But yeah, so

3:29

it is an octopus that seemed

3:31

to be cool with riding on

3:33

the shark. Like neither the shark

3:35

nor the octopus seemed to be

3:37

in distress, which is interesting, right?

3:39

It didn't seem like the octopus

3:41

was like... crap, I need to

3:43

stay very still, otherwise this shark

3:45

is going to notice me. In

3:48

fact, researchers think that the shark

3:50

was probably aware of the octopus,

3:52

given that it has sensory organs

3:54

along its body that can sense

3:56

pressure changes and vibrations. So it's

3:58

not like the shark didn't know

4:00

it was there because it can't

4:02

see it. Also, the shark could

4:04

very easily knock the octopus off

4:07

of its body just by swimming

4:09

a little faster. So...

4:11

Researchers are saying, like, it kind

4:13

of seems like the shark's okay

4:15

with the octopus on it. And

4:17

the octopus seems to intentionally be,

4:19

like, riding on the shark. So

4:21

that is the observation that was

4:23

made. That's awesome.

4:25

It's like the opposite of

4:27

the scorpion and the toad

4:29

story. Right. Which ends sad. This

4:32

is like if the scorpion and the

4:34

toad actually shook hands and decided to cross

4:36

the river together. Right. They cross the

4:38

river together. Everything's fine. They shake

4:40

Everything's fine. And then the frog's like,

4:42

oh, crap, wait a minute. And the

4:44

scorpion's like, oh, dang, dude, why did

4:46

you just shake? And it's his tail.

4:48

And, you know, anyways. Yeah,

4:51

no, I mean, this is,

4:53

it is unusual. It's also

4:55

unusual given that these are

4:57

not like. These species don't interact

4:59

very often. So the maco

5:01

shark kind of usually dwells

5:03

closer to the surface of

5:05

the water, whereas the octopus spends

5:07

most of its time near

5:09

the seafloor. So they're neither

5:12

sort of natural predator prey.

5:14

They're also not natural buddies. They

5:16

don't spend a lot of

5:18

time. It's not sort of

5:20

like... Little Mermaid thing where

5:22

the shark's playing the octopus like

5:24

a guitar or something, right?

5:26

Like they don't hang out

5:28

a lot. So the fact

5:30

that they have this really strange

5:33

interaction where the octopus is

5:35

just hanging out on them

5:37

like a surfboard is super

5:39

weird. It's also very weird that

5:41

we happen to see it

5:43

because it's really hard to

5:45

observe stuff in the ocean. Right.

5:48

The ocean is so big. It's

5:50

so big and we can't. I

5:52

mean, it's very wet, so we can't

5:54

be there a lot because we got

5:57

to breathe and we can't just like

5:59

hang out in the middle of the

6:01

ocean indefinitely. And so a

6:03

lot of live animal behavior in the

6:05

ocean is hard to observe. Like

6:07

you'd think we'd know everything about sharks

6:09

and whales because they're so big. But

6:12

we actually don't because

6:14

they are so difficult to

6:16

observe. If you

6:19

like, even if you put a boat out

6:21

there, right, and have a bunch of

6:23

people sitting on the boat, researchers as these

6:25

were, right? Like these are researchers out

6:27

on a boat doing research, probably not anything

6:29

related to sharks and octopuses, but they're

6:31

out there and they happen to see some

6:34

behavior. It's just going to be a

6:36

tiny fraction of the total behavior that you

6:38

see because. Right. Maybe this happens all

6:40

the time. Right. We don't know. Like maybe

6:42

there's a whole sort of a shark

6:44

octopus. Uber system

6:46

that we're unaware of. The

6:51

octopuses are treating the sharks

6:53

like an Uber and the sharks

6:55

are treating the octopuses like

6:57

a new fashion trend. It's very

6:59

hip and cool if you

7:01

have an octopus hat. It's sort

7:03

of a symbiosis of the

7:05

octopus getting transportation and the shark

7:07

getting sort of... high fashion

7:09

high fashion high fashion yeah only

7:11

the most popular sharks how

7:13

to to wear octopuses right exactly

7:15

well it's funny that makes

7:17

sense that you say like it's

7:19

really rare that we see

7:21

stuff in the ocean because i

7:23

was i'm like scrolling through

7:25

this relatively short new york times

7:27

article and it does sort

7:29

of feel like the whole article

7:31

is like isn't this cool

7:33

that this happened and i was

7:36

thinking like it's funny that

7:38

this even qualifies as New

7:40

York Times -worthy news.

7:42

They are desperate to

7:44

find something that'll make

7:46

anyone smile. Sure. Right.

7:48

Like, look, a cool

7:50

octopus. Octopus on a

7:52

shark, guys. Everyone calm down. All

7:55

the markets need to calm down. We're

7:57

all going to be okay. There's an octopus

7:59

riding a shark. Maybe this

8:01

is why the tariffs are...

8:03

Oh, no, the timeline doesn't

8:06

line up. Maybe this is

8:08

why the tariffs went back.

8:10

The dead cat bounces because

8:12

of the octopus on a

8:14

shark bounce. I don't know

8:16

literally anything about investment. Me

8:18

neither. It's illegal

8:20

to give advice, but I can't do

8:23

it either because I am not good

8:25

at it. And no one should listen

8:27

to me. I can't even quite make

8:29

jokes about it because I don't know

8:31

enough of the right words. Yeah,

8:33

I'm like, ha ha, line goes up,

8:35

line goes down. It's

8:38

funny, isn't it? Right. Funny how that

8:40

is. It's how I felt when the

8:43

GameStop stuff was happening in the news,

8:45

too. It's like, I'm sure this is

8:47

really funny if you understand it, but

8:49

I don't. Right. You know,

8:51

I'm like, yeah, stocks,

8:53

right? Just those bulls and

8:55

those bears. Right. You

8:58

know, does a

9:00

bear poop in the woods? Stock

9:02

market. I don't know how to do it.

9:04

Exactly. Yeah, I don't know to do it. But

9:06

I do feel like this is a good

9:08

omen. This

9:10

has to be somewhere.

9:12

If you go back

9:14

to Nostradamus and his

9:16

writings on the stock

9:19

market, he must have

9:21

had something in there

9:23

about if an animal

9:25

of eight legs rides

9:27

upon the sharp -toothed non

9:29

-dolphin of the sea,

9:31

then the stocks... better

9:34

will be i don't know i i'm just

9:36

i'm just saying maybe it's a good sign

9:38

i do think the world would be in

9:40

a better place if we went back to

9:42

making our decisions based on like omens and

9:44

cool things that we saw in the world

9:46

like yeah hundreds of years ago if someone

9:48

had seen this they would have said this

9:51

i have to change my entire life like

9:53

this is this is the god speaking to

9:55

me and i i have to i have

9:57

to make a big change and and now

9:59

now we get a new york times article

10:01

about it and maybe we should go back

10:03

to to basing all of our personal and

10:05

geopolitical decisions on the whims of the animals.

10:08

Agree, like very much agree. Like imagine if

10:10

Alan Greenspan, God rest his soul. Wait, I

10:12

assume he's dead. I don't know actually if

10:14

he is. But,

10:16

you know, just like made

10:18

prognostications based on like the chirps

10:20

of crickets or something. I

10:22

feel like we would be a

10:24

lot better off because honestly,

10:26

that seems more stable than our

10:28

current situation. That dude is

10:30

99 years old and alive. Wow.

10:33

Well, you know what? It's all

10:35

those. It's

10:37

all that, you know, math.

10:39

Math is good for you.

10:42

That's what they say. Right. Being

10:46

a Republican, I think, is also

10:48

good for your lifespan, it seems.

10:50

Those guys live forever. Yeah. You

10:52

know, it's I think it's something

10:54

to do with sort of like

10:56

when you eat enough. McDonald's

10:59

and I'm not saying only

11:01

Republicans eat McDonald's I know

11:03

libertarians do as well but

11:05

it's like enough McDonald's that

11:07

it forms like sort of

11:09

like a protective line you

11:11

know like how old pipes

11:13

like there's like kind of

11:15

a weird lead coating but

11:17

then it gets so covered

11:19

in Another coating

11:21

of minerals that the lead actually the lead

11:23

is no problem. Right, exactly. I think it's

11:25

like that, but with Big Macs. The problem

11:27

with Super Size Me is that he didn't

11:29

go far. If he had just kept eating

11:31

McDonald's, it would have circled all the way

11:34

back around to being good for him. So

11:36

that's two things you shouldn't listen to me

11:38

about on this podcast. Finances

11:41

or eating food.

11:43

Eating. Food

11:45

habits. So,

11:48

Ella, the... that we've observed

11:51

in this octopus is technically

11:53

called phoresis, which sounds kind

11:55

of gross, but all it

11:57

means is when one organism

11:59

attaches itself to another for

12:02

travel. So this is a

12:04

type of symbiosis. Usually

12:07

it is commensalistic, which just means

12:09

that it doesn't hurt the host,

12:11

but it doesn't help the host

12:13

either. It's just kind of like...

12:15

Like with this octopus riding the

12:17

shark, it doesn't seem like the

12:19

octopus is doing the shark any

12:21

harm, but it might not be

12:23

benefiting the shark in any way

12:25

unless the shark is lonely. We

12:27

don't know. Interesting.

12:29

Yeah. So this is

12:31

most common among insects.

12:35

There are many species of insects

12:37

who will do this. We'll

12:39

talk about that a bit later.

12:42

But the sort of... More

12:44

famous example when it

12:46

comes to sharks is not

12:48

octopuses, which we don't

12:50

know if this is a

12:52

trend. This could be

12:55

just one weird little octopus

12:57

pervert who is into

12:59

this. We don't know. But

13:01

we do know about

13:03

remoras, also known as suckerfish,

13:05

who will attach themselves

13:07

to sharks. They also attach

13:10

themselves to whales, dolphins,

13:12

even... sea turtles so uh

13:14

even a ray fin like um

13:16

manta rays and there are many

13:18

different species of remoras and there's

13:20

are those are those little kind

13:22

of like flat looking fish that

13:24

you'll often see kind of like

13:26

attached to a shark um and

13:28

it's seen as this kind of

13:31

like interesting thing of like whoa

13:33

the shark's really scary and dangerous

13:35

but here's this little fish that's

13:37

just like kind of attached you're

13:39

saying I always assumed

13:41

they were doing something for the

13:43

shark. There was a reason

13:45

the sharks were putting up with

13:48

them. But no. It's a

13:50

really good question, actually, because the

13:52

answer to that is complicated

13:54

and the summary is we don't

13:56

really know exactly what's going

13:58

on. So there's different

14:00

species of remoras with different

14:03

preferred hosts from whales to

14:05

turtles. The first thing is

14:07

they don't actually suck onto the

14:09

shark. with their mouths. Like I

14:11

think that there's a, there might

14:13

be a misconception that they're sort

14:15

of like attached by their mouth.

14:17

They don't suck the shark's blood

14:19

at all or anything like that.

14:21

It's actually the tops of their

14:23

heads. So their dorsal fin is

14:25

modified into a sucker shape. And

14:27

they, it's almost like if you

14:30

put like a plunger on top of

14:32

your head, sort of like, but

14:34

inverted. So you could sort of hang

14:36

on to. a wall from

14:38

your head. Wait, that's

14:40

awesome. Yeah. So that's how they work.

14:42

So it's like a hat with

14:44

a plunger on it that they can

14:46

use to stick onto a shark.

14:48

And then they just like ride on

14:50

the shark. And what

14:52

they're actually doing there

14:55

is up for a little

14:57

bit of debate. There's

14:59

a few behaviors that researchers

15:01

have seen. Some

15:03

speculate that they're eating Bits of

15:05

food that are left over from

15:07

the shark feeding, right? That's a

15:09

simple enough thing, right? So like

15:11

they have transportation, but they also

15:13

get a little bit of food.

15:15

Other observations include them eating shark

15:17

poop, which, you know, it happens.

15:20

Sometimes animals eat other animals' poop.

15:23

We can all be adults about

15:25

it. But it's not like

15:27

the observations have been consistent enough

15:29

for that to be established

15:31

as the true meaning of... I

15:33

was about to say Christmas.

15:35

The true meaning of the remoras

15:37

attaching themselves to sharks. And

15:40

there's also some theories about

15:42

how they might be able

15:44

to maybe loosen parasites from

15:46

their skin. So maybe the

15:48

remora's presence on the shark

15:50

skin somehow helps reduce the

15:53

amount of parasites on their

15:55

skin. But that also isn't

15:57

very well known. And

15:59

there's even some theories

16:01

that the remoras might be

16:03

harmful by reducing the

16:05

shark's speed. Certainly in

16:08

the case of dolphins, there's an

16:10

idea that the presence of

16:12

the remoras, because dolphins like to

16:14

travel pretty quickly in their

16:16

pods like that, the remoras might

16:18

be introducing a lot of

16:20

drag to the dolphin. And

16:23

the dolphin doesn't like this. And

16:25

there's even an idea that one

16:27

of the reasons dolphins jump out

16:29

of the water so much is

16:31

to get rid of those those

16:34

damn fish. Yeah, exactly. As well

16:36

as any other parasites that they

16:38

might have on their bodies. But

16:40

again, these are all kind of

16:42

speculations. It's not like there's one

16:45

kind of there's not one theory

16:47

in terms of. whether they are

16:49

good or bad for sharks or

16:51

neutral right neutral is a totally

16:53

valid option where it could just

16:55

be they're not hurting the sharks

16:58

but they're also not helping the

17:00

sharks and the sharks are just

17:02

like i got other problems i

17:04

don't need to spend a lot

17:06

of time uh trying to remove

17:08

them although there are sharks that

17:11

sometimes will sort of like lunge

17:13

out of the water and like

17:15

one of the theories is like

17:17

maybe they're trying to loosen remoras

17:19

uh once in a while when

17:22

there's too many of them on

17:24

there so Yeah, it's a kind

17:26

of unsatisfying answer because it's a

17:28

lot of cases where there's a

17:30

symbiotic relationship between two animals. It

17:32

can actually be really hard to

17:35

determine at what point is this

17:37

harmful or helpful. And is an

17:39

animal tolerating it because they have

17:41

no other choice or is the

17:43

symbiote actually helping them? At what

17:46

point does a symbiote become a

17:48

parasite? Or are they subcategories of

17:50

the other? Yes. So that's a

17:52

very, very good question. Symbiosis just

17:54

means a long and sustained relationship

17:56

between two organisms, two species. And

17:59

it can be

18:01

parasitic, mutualistic, or commensalistic.

18:03

Oh, right. You

18:06

said that already. Well,

18:08

but it bears

18:10

repeating because parasites actively

18:12

harm their host

18:14

for their own benefit.

18:17

In mutualistic relationships, they both

18:19

get something. And

18:22

in commensalistic relationships, the

18:25

symbiote, the one that is attaching

18:27

itself to the host or involved with

18:29

the host may get something, but

18:31

it's not hurting and it's not helping

18:33

the host. So there's three options. And

18:37

it would be really nice

18:39

if animals always just fell into

18:41

one little category and made

18:43

things easier for us, but they

18:45

don't. And it can be

18:47

really difficult to actually tell the

18:49

difference between like, hey, is this

18:51

symbiotic relationship parasitic or is it

18:53

mutualistic? It can be genuinely

18:55

difficult to know what's going on.

18:57

Yeah. Well, it's interesting that it

18:59

seems like so much of what

19:01

we're talking about today is the advantages

19:04

like migration or like travel. Because

19:06

I feel like we see that a

19:08

lot in plants. Like plants are

19:10

always using animals to move around. And

19:12

we don't think of that as

19:14

weird because plants can't really move by

19:16

themselves. So it's just interesting to

19:18

see it in like a fish that

19:20

can probably, that probably can swim

19:22

on its own, but like not nearly

19:24

as far as this shark. Yeah,

19:27

so that's a really,

19:29

really good observation. You're absolutely

19:31

correct. Actually, plants that

19:33

attach themselves to animals, say like

19:35

a plant that lets its

19:37

seed burrs attach to your dog's

19:40

fur, and then it has

19:42

all these little burrs on it.

19:44

Yeah, all the time, actually.

19:46

Yeah, that is actually an example

19:48

of phoresis, where it is

19:50

a plant using the animal as

19:53

a type of transportation. So

19:55

plants can also be in parasitic

19:57

or symbiotic relationships. with

19:59

either animals or other plants and

20:01

so the use like riding attaching

20:03

themselves onto a dog's coat is

20:05

an example of symbiosis either I

20:07

would say that's probably example of

20:10

a commensalistic relationship because I don't

20:12

think not sure the dog is

20:14

getting much out of it it's

20:16

not getting anything out of it

20:18

but it's also not really hurting

20:20

the dog sometimes the burrs go

20:22

in his paws and then it

20:25

hurts him so baby Oh,

20:27

that that then in that case,

20:29

that plant is being a big jerk.

20:33

Yeah, thank you. And thank you for

20:35

saying that. Not enough people have

20:37

been standing up against against that jerk

20:39

plant. Right. I know I'm

20:41

very compassionate towards life on

20:43

Earth. I'm a I'm a huge

20:45

hippie when it comes to

20:47

like, oh, a little spider. I

20:49

will help you outdoors rather

20:51

than crush you beneath my feet

20:53

when there's like a. any

20:55

kind of like parasite on my

20:58

dog i turn into like

21:00

jigsaw from absolutely from uh from

21:02

saw and i'm like you're

21:04

going into this tube of alcohol

21:06

and i will watch you

21:08

die yeah no ticks that are

21:10

attached to my dog or

21:12

to me to be honest right

21:14

it's i'm going to i'm

21:16

going to To drown

21:18

you in rubbing alcohol. I'm way more

21:20

tolerant of ticks that attach themselves to

21:22

me because I'm like, well, I have

21:24

a fighting chance because I got fingies

21:27

You got fingers. You got medicine for

21:29

Lyme disease. When they attach themselves to

21:31

my dog, I'm like, she's just a

21:33

little baby. She's a little baby. She

21:35

doesn't know about ticks. No, she can't

21:37

do anything. She doesn't have fingies and

21:39

she's a little baby. So I get

21:41

so angry. Anyways. Your

21:45

other question about the

21:47

Remoras, why do they attach

21:49

themselves to sharks? It

21:52

really is about being

21:54

able to travel over long

21:56

distances without having to

21:58

go to the energy. I

22:00

mean, it's the same

22:02

reason we ride in cars

22:04

or bicycles or not

22:06

GoPros. That's not a vehicle.

22:08

Go -karts? Go -karts. That's

22:11

a vehicle. Yeah. hover

22:14

scooters, whatever we've got going

22:16

on out there these days. So

22:18

they are actually, there's another

22:21

aspect, which is that it

22:23

helps them breathe. They

22:25

are ram ventilators. So ram

22:27

ventilators are a type of

22:29

fish that breathes by moving

22:31

through the water. And as

22:33

they move through the water,

22:36

the water enters through gill

22:38

slits, runs over their gills.

22:40

And then that, Their

22:43

gills allow for the transfer

22:45

of oxygen from the water into

22:47

their bloodstream. They

22:49

are not obligate RAM ventilators. It

22:51

sounds like I'm getting into

22:53

weird engineering, but this is... No,

22:55

I'm fascinated. I'm about to

22:58

sell you an HVAC system for

23:00

your house. Right. Do you

23:02

want an obligate RAM ventilator? you

23:05

want to... I'll put an

23:07

obligate RAM ventilator in there for

23:09

you, ma 'am. But no, this

23:11

is... Obligate ram ventilators are

23:13

fish, usually sharks. There's just a

23:15

few species like this where

23:17

they have to keep moving. Like

23:19

this is the only way

23:21

that they can breathe. So that's

23:23

where that sort of myth

23:25

that sharks have to keep moving

23:27

or they'll die. It's not

23:29

all sharks. A lot of

23:32

sharks. Hashtag not all sharks. Not all

23:34

sharks. Hashtag. And some

23:36

of them actually do have

23:38

a different method of

23:40

breathing. It's the

23:42

same thing as remoras, actually.

23:44

So remoras can do ram

23:47

ventilation, but they can also

23:49

do essentially active ventilation. So

23:51

doing it manually, pumping the

23:53

water through their gills while

23:55

remaining still. Sort of like

23:57

breathing. Sort of like breathing.

23:59

They don't have lungs, I

24:01

assume, but like some mechanism

24:04

to pull. Exactly. It's

24:06

basically pumping the water over their gills

24:08

rather than letting it passively. uh flow

24:10

over their gills and there are a

24:12

lot of shark species that can do

24:14

this too where they they can they

24:16

can just pump the water over their

24:18

gills there are a few species that

24:20

do essentially need to keep um moving

24:22

because they're obligate ram ventilators but it's

24:24

not like they will die uh as

24:26

soon as they stop moving that part

24:28

is a myth like that's just uh

24:31

you know i've heard that myth and

24:33

i never really like thought to question

24:35

it to be honest i was just

24:37

I don't even know if I associate it with

24:39

breathing in my head. I was like, oh, yeah,

24:41

if a shark stops moving, they will just sink

24:43

to the bottom of the ocean and not be

24:45

able to move it. Like, they won't be able

24:47

to start moving again. Right, right. a momentum thing.

24:49

Yeah, it's like someone just shoves the shark into

24:52

motion and it's like, well, guess I'm going now. Right.

24:54

But, yeah, so breathing underwater

24:57

is a lot harder than breathing

24:59

outside of water, which sounds

25:01

like I'm being kind of stupid

25:03

here, but it is true. transferring

25:06

oxygen from water to your

25:08

lungs is, or for a

25:10

fish, like transferring water, the

25:12

oxygen in the water to

25:14

their bloodstream is really hard

25:16

in comparison to breathing air.

25:18

Like mammals kind of have

25:20

it going on because we

25:22

can like take in a

25:24

breath, get a bunch of

25:26

oxygen really easily. Like breathing

25:29

is not that big of

25:31

a deal for us, for

25:33

fish, for sharks. for

25:35

other marine animals like transferring

25:37

oxygen to their bloodstream it

25:39

takes energy more so than

25:41

us it's less efficient that's one

25:43

of the reasons actually whales

25:45

are so op in terms

25:47

of being ginormous is they

25:50

breathe air they don't have

25:52

to deal with the transferring of

25:54

oxygen from water into their

25:56

lungs they just take a

25:58

huge breath of air and

26:00

they store it in their

26:02

massive massive collection

26:04

of blood that they have and then

26:06

they have a bunch of like

26:08

richly oxygenated blood that can last for

26:10

hours it's wild well that's why

26:12

we that's why animals used to be

26:14

bigger right there used to be

26:16

more oxygen in the atmosphere is that

26:18

true or did i make that

26:20

up you're it's it's one factor for

26:22

why insects may have been bigger

26:24

is that there was more oxygen uh

26:26

there were a lot of other

26:28

factors though that makes it a little

26:30

bit difficult to separate it out

26:32

because For insects, they

26:34

breathe through spiracles, which are these little

26:36

holes that kind of run through their

26:38

bodies. So having more oxygen in

26:40

the atmosphere definitely makes it easier for

26:43

them to breathe. But the other factor

26:45

was that we didn't have birds around.

26:47

Literally, that was it. Like once birds

26:50

got on the scene, it was

26:52

like, oh, damn, like these giant dragonflies

26:54

could not compete with the... With

26:56

birds. With the power of birds. So

26:58

birds really messed things up for

27:00

insects, outcompeted them, kind of

27:02

took over the niche that the

27:04

insects were inhabiting. But the huge

27:06

amounts of oxygen definitely helped. So

27:08

for these remoras, because getting

27:11

oxygen from underwater can be kind

27:13

of a drag, they, no

27:15

pun intended, physics drag with the,

27:17

anyways. So like if they

27:19

are attached to a shark, Basically,

27:21

the shark is breathing for

27:23

them by moving through the water.

27:25

The water flows over the

27:27

remora's gills, and the remora doesn't

27:29

have to do anything. So

27:31

they've got it going on. Someone's

27:33

breathing for them. Someone's moving

27:35

them around. Possibly they're getting

27:38

food from sort of the

27:40

shark's leavings or from their

27:42

poop. They have worked

27:44

out a wonderful system

27:46

of just passively living on

27:48

a shark. That's

27:51

beautiful. It is. I

27:54

mean, that's something I sort of

27:56

aspire to, I think, is

27:58

figuring out a system of passively

28:00

living next to a larger organism. If

28:02

someone could breathe for me, if

28:05

I didn't have to think about it,

28:07

and would just move my eyelids

28:09

to blink for me as well, that

28:11

would be super cool. Right. If

28:13

I could figure out a weekend at

28:15

Bernie's situation where I could be

28:17

Bernie, but I don't have to... I

28:19

can just sort of lie there.

28:21

Exactly. You know exactly what I'm

28:24

talking about. Like being sort of

28:26

a living puppet where the puppeteers

28:28

are doing what I want them

28:30

to do. Right. Right. But I

28:32

don't have to think or exert

28:34

any energy. Right. Like I'm I'm

28:36

a Kermit, but with a mind

28:39

of my own. And so the

28:41

puppeteers are sort of doing my

28:43

my bidding. Right. And

28:45

just sort of. I sort of what I'm

28:47

saying is I want to be a

28:49

Roman emperor and sort of carry around on

28:51

a palate all day. Right. And then

28:53

like and then also have people move my

28:55

hands for me while I eat grapes

28:57

and drink wine and stuff. No, exactly. That's

29:01

that. That sounds great. We're going

29:03

to take a quick break because.

29:06

I want to eat some grapes.

29:08

And then when we get back,

29:10

we're going to talk about some

29:12

of the smallest forants and largest

29:14

forants, which is a great word.

29:16

Super cool sounding. Forant. Forant. All

29:19

right. So there's nothing

29:21

like sinking into luxury.

29:23

Anabay sofas combine ultimate comfort

29:25

and design at an affordable

29:27

price. I'm

30:20

in terms of life. It's the Breakfast

30:23

Club. The world's most dangerous

30:25

morning show. Hey! Angela E. is

30:27

kind of like the big sister that

30:29

always picks in the boy. That's not

30:31

how it goes. That's not how anything

30:33

goes. Yeah, me's really like a... What

30:43

is wrong with you? Listen to The Breakfast

30:45

Club weekday mornings from 6 to 10 on

30:47

106 .7 The Beat. Columbus is real hip -hop

30:49

and R &B. Just as

30:51

a reminder, a phoront

30:53

is an animal or plant

30:55

or organism that engages

30:57

in phoresis, which is the

30:59

act of using another

31:01

animal or plant as a

31:04

form of transportation. And

31:06

it happens a lot

31:08

in insects, particularly in some

31:10

of the smallest insects,

31:12

which are mites. You've probably

31:15

seen mites before. Itty

31:18

bitty little things. They kind of

31:20

look like they're related to. And

31:22

they sort of look like, say,

31:24

a tick. But they're not a

31:26

tick. But they're just like these

31:28

little tiny little dots. And they

31:31

move around. And there's the, I

31:33

forgot the poem. But it's like

31:35

something like little bugs have littler

31:37

bugs to bite them. Yeah. You

31:40

know, this is kind of

31:43

the thing. Mites will often

31:45

be on top of. other

31:47

bugs, other insects, other arthropods.

31:51

Mites are a type of arthropod,

31:53

and there's many, many, many different

31:55

species of them. And some

31:57

of them are just straight -up

31:59

parasites. They'll be on another

32:01

insect and kind of be feeding

32:04

on them. But some of

32:06

them are a little more benign.

32:08

They are just there basically

32:10

to hang out and have

32:12

free transportation, public mite transportation. So

32:15

one example of this

32:17

is a big word coming

32:19

up. Pocylokyrus

32:23

mites. Pocylokyrus mites.

32:25

I don't know if that's no

32:27

one's here to fact check me on

32:29

that. It looks right. And you

32:31

did it with enough confidence that I

32:33

believe you. Yes, you know, of

32:35

course, the Pocylokyrus mites. Of course. Of

32:37

course. Everyone knows about the Pocylokyrus

32:39

mites. Exactly. Oh, you said that good.

32:41

I'm impressed. Well, you did it

32:43

three times first, so I got to

32:45

listen. I'm going to call them

32:47

P -mites from now on. So these

32:50

are tiny orange little dots, less than

32:52

a millimeter big. They're so

32:54

tiny, a bunch of them can fit on the back

32:56

of a beetle. And indeed,

32:58

they do like to ride beetles,

33:00

not, you know, the car. beetles,

33:02

but, you know, actual insect, specifically

33:05

carrion beetles. So carrion beetles

33:07

locate and bury small dead animals

33:09

and lay their eggs on

33:11

them so that their larva can

33:13

grow with a, you know,

33:15

not entirely fresh supply of

33:18

meat, but a supply of meat

33:20

nonetheless. This is a beautiful

33:22

example of parental care in insects

33:24

that is really rare, like

33:26

usually. Insects just kind of like,

33:29

ah, you're an egg on

33:31

a leaf somewhere. Good luck. But

33:33

carrion beetles take care of

33:35

their larva by providing them

33:37

with this carefully prepared larder of

33:39

like a dead mouse or

33:42

a dead vole. And

33:44

mites take advantage of this

33:46

situation by riding on the

33:48

carrion beetle like a bus

33:50

that takes them directly to

33:52

dead rodent buffets. So again,

33:54

just. They've really got it

33:56

worked out. It's just like

33:58

a bunch of people from

34:00

the retirement home loading onto

34:03

the shuttle to go to

34:05

Golden Corral or something, except

34:07

Golden Corral is a dead

34:09

mouse. Do

34:12

the mites also eat the

34:14

carrion like the beetles do?

34:16

Yes, exactly. So they are

34:18

not there to harm the

34:21

carrion beetles' larva or anything

34:23

like that. the

34:26

uh the the carrion so

34:28

when an animal this is

34:30

where it gets kind of

34:32

complex of like are they

34:34

hurting or helping the beetle

34:36

technically an animal that steals

34:38

another animal's food is called

34:40

a kleptoparasite so it is

34:42

awesome word yeah it's such

34:45

a good it's a easily

34:47

applied in so many human

34:49

situationships. That's exactly what I

34:51

was thinking. said situationships. I

34:53

meant situations, but I guess

34:55

situationships too. I'm right either

34:57

way. Who among

34:59

us hasn't been in

35:01

a kleptoparasitic situationship? Exactly

35:04

right. We've all

35:06

been through it. So the

35:08

kleptoparasite will steal food from

35:10

another animal. A classic example

35:12

is seagulls. Those are jerks.

35:14

They'll like steal fish right

35:16

from another animal. You may

35:18

have even been a victim

35:20

of a seagull stealing your

35:22

chips or your sandwich or

35:24

your hot dog. And they

35:26

do it in the wild

35:28

too. So they'll like steal

35:30

fish from other seabirds, from

35:32

other animals. So they are

35:34

kleptoparasites. So you could say

35:37

that this mite could be

35:39

a kleptoparasite. Where it gets

35:41

kind of tricky is... Does

35:43

the presence of the mite

35:45

actually reduce the amount of

35:47

food that the carrion larva

35:49

need? That's not very clear.

35:51

The other problem is that

35:53

the mites might be able

35:55

to help the larva by

35:57

protecting the beetle larva from

35:59

other kinds of like... microarthropods

36:02

that might actually be parasites. So

36:04

by kind of being there on

36:06

the meat and competing with any

36:08

other kind of mites that might

36:10

want to directly feed on the

36:12

larva, the pea mites

36:15

might be, I know I'm

36:17

saying mite a lot. I'm

36:19

saying mite like a lot.

36:21

A lot. But, you know,

36:23

they could possibly could be

36:25

protecting the... larva. Got to

36:27

whip out my thesaurus for

36:30

some other word than mite.

36:33

So it's not really known

36:35

if these are parasites,

36:37

if they're mutualists, or if

36:39

they're commensalistic. Again, these

36:41

relationships are really hard to

36:43

definitively determine because there's

36:45

so many potential countervailing issues

36:47

that are happening that

36:49

say the mites... There's some

36:51

studies that try... look

36:53

at this relationship between carrion

36:55

beetles and the pea

36:57

mites. And it was kind

36:59

of a mixed bag.

37:01

On one hand, it seemed

37:04

like they did disrupt

37:06

some of the presence of

37:08

maybe more predatory microarthropods. But

37:10

another aspect was that it didn't

37:12

seem like they were actually increasing

37:14

the number of larva that would

37:17

reach adulthood. So it's still kind

37:19

of a question mark. Another way,

37:21

I'm looking at this picture. There

37:23

are so many mites on this

37:25

one beetle. Like, does it not

37:27

bother the beetle or like weigh

37:29

them down? It could if there's

37:31

enough of them. Right. Like that

37:34

could start to hinder the beetle's

37:36

movement. So it can vary from

37:38

having just like, you know, five

37:40

of them on there to what

37:42

I showed you in this picture,

37:44

which is like, I don't even

37:46

know how many there are. Maybe

37:48

a hundred. Yeah. Like an

37:50

upsetting amount of mites. Yeah. It's like

37:53

this is not for. people to look

37:55

at if you have, what is it?

37:57

Trypophobia where you don't like to see

37:59

things. Um, I try to

38:01

look at, do you have that? Like

38:03

this looks like one of those like

38:05

gross things on YouTube where I'm trying

38:07

to look for ASMR or relaxing sleep,

38:09

sleepy time videos. And then they're like,

38:11

would you like to see a face

38:13

with a bunch of like worms on

38:15

it? And I don't, Oh my God.

38:17

Yeah. Okay. Does that happen to you?

38:19

I'm right. You're looking for like the

38:21

opposite of that. And it, Right.

38:24

And I was wondering, like, is it

38:26

like, does YouTube think I'm a freak? Like,

38:28

did I do something? Did I mess

38:30

up my algorithm somehow for them to think

38:32

that this is what I want to

38:34

see? But I just think it's I think

38:36

it's what the it's all of the

38:38

algorithms, to be honest. Like, yeah, they

38:41

seem to push those weird thumbnails because

38:43

I turned off all the cookies. I

38:45

did like private browsing to like try

38:47

to get away from that. Not for

38:49

anything gross. Don't worry. But like it

38:51

was it. It kept showing up and

38:53

it's like I guess people are looking

38:55

like is this just they're very popular

38:57

videos to see like maybe the shock

38:59

factor I don't really know I bet

39:01

the clickbait does really well. I don't

39:04

know what the thought I don't that's

39:06

interesting Yeah. I don't know.

39:08

Anyways, YouTube is really scary. And looking

39:10

at these beetles, it makes me think

39:12

of those weird videos that get pumped

39:14

up by the algorithm. But it

39:16

depends. So in some cases, yes, they

39:18

can get laden down with enough of these

39:20

mites that it could hinder their movement.

39:22

And in that case, it is harmful. That

39:24

would be a parasitic relationship. Sometimes it's

39:26

just a few of them. And another interesting

39:28

thing is that when it is just

39:30

a few of them, I couldn't find any

39:33

research that would confirm this behavior. But

39:35

like the mites are sort

39:37

of this orange color and

39:39

the carrion beetles have these

39:41

orange bands. And when they

39:43

arrange themselves over the orange

39:45

bands, they blend in really

39:47

well, which makes me wonder

39:49

if their color is meant

39:51

to be sort of a

39:54

form of camouflage where they

39:56

can sit on this beetle's

39:58

back without being seen by.

40:00

potential predators but i couldn't

40:02

find any confirmation about that

40:04

that might not be true

40:06

at all but again it's

40:08

just there's so much about

40:10

these you think again that's

40:12

like hey we would know

40:14

everything about this relationship there's

40:16

so much going on so

40:18

much going on it's a

40:20

whole situation ship exactly so

40:22

another example of mites um

40:24

are mites that are on

40:26

bumblebees so bumblebees are My

40:29

favorite little doofus,

40:31

just fuzzy, clumsy, the

40:33

adorable airplanes of

40:35

the mite world. I

40:38

think because bumblebees have

40:40

all that nice sort of

40:42

fuzz, they're kind of

40:44

big, and they're a little

40:46

doofier. They've got their

40:48

life a little less together

40:50

than, say, honeybees. Wasps.

40:53

So bumblebees are a little

40:55

more. Certainly wasps. Yeah. Bumblebees

40:58

are kind of bimbos a

41:00

little bit. Hembos and bimbos.

41:02

So I think that mites

41:04

take advantage of this to

41:06

use bumblebees as a free

41:08

taxi service. And the mites

41:10

will actually hang out on

41:12

these flowers like they're airports

41:14

and go off and on

41:16

bumblebees and travel around. And

41:18

then they'll go to a

41:20

bumblebee. nests, because there

41:23

are bumblebees that live in sort

41:25

of collective living where there's

41:27

like a queen bumblebee, sort of

41:29

like a honeybee colony, but

41:31

usually quite a bit smaller. Sure.

41:35

Sort of like a polycule situation.

41:37

Yeah, something like that, exactly. A

41:41

polycule honeycomb

41:43

situation. And

41:46

so the... Depending

41:49

on the species and also

41:51

depending on the life stage, which

41:53

is wild. So like mites

41:55

will go through different life stages

41:57

from sort of nymphs to

41:59

adults. And depending on their life

42:01

stage, some life stages, they're

42:03

more kleptoparasitic. So they actually like

42:05

steal pollen from the bumblebees.

42:08

Sometimes they're more neutral or even

42:10

helpful. Like in their adult

42:12

stages, they might actually be helpful

42:14

because like, for example, there's

42:16

a parasitalis. which

42:19

sounds really bad, but actually

42:21

this little brown mite will

42:23

eat the eggs of other

42:25

microarthropods in the bumblebee nest.

42:27

So basically it's helpful to

42:29

the bumblebees to have in

42:31

their nests. But then in

42:33

other life stages, it might

42:36

do more harm where it's

42:38

like eating pollen, so stealing

42:40

food. So it's just very

42:42

strange because sometimes there's like...

42:44

a species that might be

42:46

helpful to the bumblebees, or

42:48

it's only helpful once it's

42:51

at a certain stage of

42:53

its life. Very strange situation.

42:57

Bumblebees were the animals I

42:59

was thinking of first

43:01

when we were talking about

43:03

the way plants are

43:05

symbiotic with the way that

43:07

pollen gets spread around

43:09

to pollinate flowers. It's

43:12

good to know that bees are just sort

43:14

of the Oh,

43:19

it's so true. It really is. They're

43:22

the town bicycles. Right,

43:24

exactly. Everybody

43:27

wants a ride. And

43:29

that's okay. I'm not judging.

43:32

No, we're not shaming the bees.

43:34

We're saying,

43:37

heck yeah, bees. You get your

43:39

freak on with all those

43:42

flowers. So,

43:45

Ella, can you guess what the largest

43:47

forant is? Because we've talked about

43:49

the tiny forants, the mites. Like, what

43:51

do you think is the largest

43:54

forant, meaning the largest sort of symbiote

43:56

that uses another animal as transport? Is

43:59

it when I pick my cat

44:01

up and put her around my

44:03

neck like a scarf? She doesn't

44:05

like it, but she'll stay there

44:07

for a little bit. You know,

44:09

that's definitely giving the sort of

44:11

shark wearing the octopus as a

44:13

hat. You know,

44:15

you're close because it does

44:18

involve humans. This is

44:20

one of those stupid answers where

44:22

it's like, humans, it is man. It's

44:25

man. The true monster was

44:27

man all along. The

44:29

true, the largest forant. The largest

44:31

forant was man. All

44:33

along, twas us. Twas

44:35

us that was the

44:37

real beast. Anyways. Who

44:40

are we riding a top of?

44:43

Horses. Oh, duh. Of

44:47

course. Yes. Cars. From

44:49

the movie Cars. The parasites

44:51

in the cars. Right.

44:53

We're like the herpes of

44:55

the Pixar car universe. Right. And

44:58

Cars is actually set in

45:00

a world where they've cured their

45:02

parasites. Right. Right.

45:04

But like humans are still

45:06

like sort of an

45:08

STD where you can catch

45:11

humans from another car.

45:13

Please, please check out my

45:15

entire series of Pixar's

45:17

car fan fiction. It's very

45:19

PG -13 R rated. Yeah,

45:21

it sounds incredibly titillating.

45:24

It's nasty. So actually, humans

45:26

are considered forants because

45:28

we ride on horses and

45:30

we're the largest forant

45:32

in the world. We may

45:34

have actually started riding

45:37

horses 5 ,000 years ago.

45:39

which is according to new

45:41

evidence found in the

45:43

skeletons of ancient Yamnaya people

45:45

in Eurasia who essentially

45:47

like archaeologists do kind of

45:50

bone magic where they're

45:52

like, oh, I can tell

45:54

based on stress of

45:56

the bones that the skeleton.

45:59

rode a horse. I mean, like

46:01

the, sorry, it's not, the skeleton

46:03

wasn't riding the horse like a

46:05

spooky, spooky Halloween ghost. That'd be

46:07

cool, though. That would be cool. But

46:10

it was you could just like, it

46:12

f***ed up their bones to ride a

46:14

horse. Exactly, exactly. So you could see

46:16

like, hey, this has horseman syndrome, which

46:19

also sounds like some

46:21

of my fan fiction. But

46:23

anyways, the. The

46:25

bones had like certain stress patterns caused

46:27

by stress like on the muscle tissue

46:30

that would then be reflected in these

46:32

marks on the bones. It's

46:34

like how when they find my bones,

46:36

they're going to be able to tell

46:38

I spent 12 hours a day on

46:40

my laptop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're going

46:42

to be like, ah, they have the

46:45

classic podcaster syndrome. You can see from

46:47

the curvature of the spine and the

46:49

stress impact on the butt. That this

46:51

person was not mobile for most of

46:53

the day. Yeah, exactly. But

46:55

yes, horses themselves were wild

46:58

before they were domesticated. So

47:00

now there's only one wild

47:02

horse species that's still living.

47:04

It's called the tacky. For

47:07

a second, I thought you were going to

47:09

tell me there was only one wild horse. There's

47:11

only one horse. Guys, there's only one horse

47:13

left. I don't know if you know, like if

47:15

people have been paying attention to horses. huge

47:17

problem. But we've like literally lost all the horses.

47:20

There's only one horse left. one horse. He's

47:22

the most special horse there is. And we have

47:24

to take care of him. And he's so

47:26

tired. But yeah,

47:28

no, there's one extant, meaning

47:30

living species of wild horse.

47:32

called the tacky. So I

47:34

have to clarify between, there's

47:36

a lot of feral horses.

47:38

So there's a difference between

47:41

wild horse species and feral

47:43

horses. So feral horses used

47:45

to be domesticated and then

47:47

were like, I'm tired of

47:49

people. And then they peaced

47:51

out and rewilded themselves by.

47:53

going back out into nature,

47:55

and then creating a feral

47:58

population. So there's a ton

48:00

of feral horses all over

48:02

the world, which were like

48:04

they used to be domesticated,

48:06

but for hundreds or even

48:08

thousands of years, they've now

48:10

been rewilded. So they're wild

48:12

horses now, but they're still

48:15

considered like feral horses because

48:17

they used to be domesticated.

48:19

Whereas the Takis, the Mongolian

48:21

wild horses, have never... been

48:23

domesticated, some of them might

48:25

have been tamed, right? So

48:27

there's a difference between domestication

48:30

and taming. So like you

48:32

tame a wolf and we've

48:34

domesticated dogs. So the Taki

48:36

species of horses have not

48:38

been domesticated because they have

48:40

not been selectively bred. to

48:42

be more amenable to us

48:44

using them as transportation. But

48:47

yeah, they look interesting because,

48:49

so these are, the Takis

48:51

are not, I keep saying

48:53

Takis and it's making me

48:55

hungry. So the Takis are

48:57

not the ancestor of modern

48:59

domesticated horses, but they're a

49:01

close relative and they share

49:04

a common ancestor. We don't

49:06

actually know exactly what the,

49:08

ancestor is to domesticated horses.

49:10

We don't have the exact

49:12

fossil record of it. What

49:15

do we know? It seems like we don't

49:17

know shit. We don't

49:19

know a whole lot, honestly.

49:23

We as a species walk

49:26

around with a lot of

49:28

confidence for how little we

49:30

know. We do know, based

49:32

on cave drawings, actually, that

49:34

the original horses that

49:37

we probably started domesticating were probably

49:39

very similar to the Taki

49:41

horses, the Mongolian wild horse, at

49:43

least in appearance. Based on

49:45

genetic information, we don't think that

49:48

these are like the direct

49:50

ancestors, but that they're like a

49:52

later relative because of, you

49:54

know, genetic shenanigans in terms of

49:56

like branching off at a

49:58

certain point. But yeah, we think

50:01

they're very similar to the

50:03

OG horse. in terms of

50:05

they're like these tan. They're

50:07

kind of like, they're like sort

50:09

of chunkier. They have short

50:12

manes and they have more like

50:14

mule -like faces, more rounded faces.

50:16

They're rounder. They're kind of

50:18

cute. I think I like them

50:20

a lot. They're very cute

50:22

looking. And so that's like

50:25

what horses used to be before we

50:27

messed with them. That

50:30

makes sense. Are

50:33

we, like what

50:35

type of, what category of

50:37

symbiote are we with horses?

50:39

That's a super good question.

50:41

It's hard to answer. I

50:43

would say, you

50:46

know, it's complicated

50:48

because we've actually

50:50

created a new

50:52

species of horse,

50:54

which is the

50:56

domesticated horse. And

50:58

I would... Yeah,

51:01

I mean, I think

51:03

it kind of depends on

51:05

your perspective because in

51:07

some sense, because we've created

51:09

domesticated horses, we've facilitated

51:11

this new species of horse

51:13

to spread across the

51:15

globe. And in that sense,

51:17

I would say it's

51:20

like a symbiotic relationship that

51:22

is mutualistic because we

51:24

help the horses reproduce. We

51:26

take care of them.

51:28

We've increased their numbers. And

51:30

ultimately, like the horses that

51:32

we have bred have become,

51:35

you know, this like dominant

51:37

species of horse. And so

51:39

in that sense, we've kind

51:41

of, it's a mixture of

51:43

co -evolving and one where

51:46

I think that it is,

51:48

I wouldn't, I don't think

51:50

I would describe it as

51:52

a parasitic relationship because we

51:54

do ultimately facilitate the horse

51:56

species, their survival. This

51:59

is not like a moral

52:02

sort of judgment or something in

52:04

terms of saying like, so

52:06

it's good that we've done this

52:08

to horses or something. The

52:10

ethical conversation about it is completely

52:12

separate. This is

52:14

sort of just from the

52:16

evolutionary biology perspective of we,

52:19

by using horses, we made

52:21

more horses. But also, if

52:23

you're like shifting the perspective

52:25

to our relationship to the

52:27

og wild horse you could view

52:29

us as a parasite because right

52:31

we sort of bred them out

52:33

of existence exactly so it kind

52:35

of depends on how you view

52:37

that and how you view sort

52:39

of the connectivity of species like

52:41

if you breed them out of

52:43

existence but the new horse that

52:46

you've created then is way more

52:48

successful than the original horse is

52:50

that a you know it's sort

52:52

of like saying like well human

52:54

beings bred out

52:57

of existence are ancestors.

53:00

Does that really, does that

53:02

count as us like killing

53:04

off our ancestors because we're

53:06

slightly different from them and

53:08

we outbred? I would say

53:10

probably no. that

53:12

classic philosophical question, the horse of

53:15

Theseus. The horse of Theseus, where

53:17

you keep ripping apart a horse

53:19

and replacing its horse parts. One

53:21

leg's a zebra, and then one

53:23

leg's a donkey, and then by the

53:26

time you're done with it, you

53:28

actually get donkey from Shrek, and you're

53:30

like, is this still the same

53:32

horse that I started out with? And

53:34

then Eddie Murphy says, Yes,

53:36

but he sounds like Eddie Murphy.

53:38

He's like, yeah, we're constantly dying

53:40

and living in the context of

53:42

the new Shrek movie. Oh,

53:45

God. I would love to

53:47

see Shrek 5 be an

53:49

existentialist horror film, but I

53:51

don't think DreamWorks is quite

53:53

brave enough. They're cowards.

53:55

They won't give us a Shrek

53:57

where we see Shrek sort of

54:00

his son like Saturn, and

54:02

I'm sad about it. Man,

54:05

that would be awesome. Yeah, can

54:07

you imagine? Anyways, we're going

54:09

to take a quick break and come

54:11

up with a better Shrek. And then

54:13

when we come back, we're going

54:15

to talk about a couple of examples

54:17

of animals that you might think these

54:19

seem like they would count as forants,

54:21

as examples of phoresis, but it's

54:23

a little more complicated than that. All

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55:29

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forget you can listen to us online

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on the iHeartRadio app. For the last

55:58

two animals we're going to talk about,

56:00

or two types of animals we're going

56:02

to talk about, these are, I think,

56:04

if we think about animals that use

56:06

other animals, it's transportations. these would come

56:08

to mind immediately. But the question is,

56:10

do they count as forants or not

56:13

in terms of is their relationship really

56:15

primarily about transportation? So

56:17

barnacles are a really

56:19

interesting example because I've

56:21

seen a mix of

56:23

references to them as

56:25

either it being phoresis

56:27

or not. And it

56:29

kind of I mean, part

56:31

of the problem is these categories,

56:33

again, are not super rigid.

56:36

But I've seen a lot of

56:38

sources saying like, no, they

56:40

don't count because barnacles are permanently

56:42

attached to their host. And

56:44

also they use their host for

56:46

basically it's not just about

56:48

travel. It's about a substrate like

56:50

a home. So once it

56:52

becomes like this is my home

56:54

now, it's not really about

56:56

travel. It's like. This is my

56:58

apartment. This whale's

57:01

butt is my apartment. So

57:04

they don't, it's, but,

57:06

you know, I've also seen it

57:08

described as, well, yeah, but they

57:11

are, the reason that they settle

57:13

on a whale's butt and not

57:15

just like other substrate is for

57:17

being able to travel around and

57:19

get access to like different spots

57:21

where there's maybe more filter feeding

57:23

opportunities. Right, for the, The

57:26

barnacle, it's like truly about the journey,

57:28

not the destination. Yeah. They're

57:33

not trying to go anywhere. They're just

57:35

trying to go. You know what? It's such

57:37

a healthy life philosophy. Like if we

57:39

were all just less thinking about where we

57:41

want to be and who we want

57:43

to be, we could all be a little

57:45

more like the humble barnacle. The humble

57:47

barnacle. The humble barnacle. I got

57:49

it. This is a little bit of a

57:51

tangent, but it's just too weird not to

57:54

share. A lot of

57:56

different types of barnacles. They're

57:58

actually crustaceans. They're related

58:00

to crabs. There's a

58:02

bunch of different species. They're

58:04

not all sort of the

58:07

little just like bumpy wart -like

58:09

things that we see, like

58:11

whale acne. There's also long

58:13

ones. There's, God,

58:15

okay, I'm going to

58:17

say this word

58:20

real good. It's Xenobalinus

58:22

globotipus. I

58:25

did not nail

58:27

the landing there.

58:30

Xenobalinus globic

58:32

pictus. Yes.

58:37

Globic... Globic pictus. Okay, there

58:39

we go. Yeah. Anyways. There's

58:41

a lot of letters in

58:43

there. I'm going to call

58:45

them unholy cannolis because that's

58:47

what they look like. They

58:49

look like weird little squash

58:51

blossoms. They're kind of long

58:53

and tubular and they attach

58:55

to whales. And then

58:57

there's also species of barnacles called

58:59

gooseneck barnacles that have like

59:01

a long stalk and they're like

59:03

tipped in calcium plates. They

59:05

look like super weird aliens. And

59:09

the weirdest thing about

59:11

them is actually our misconception

59:13

of them back in

59:15

medieval times, which is that

59:17

because they have this

59:19

like long neck like a

59:21

goose and because they're

59:23

kind of like black and

59:25

white, they're the same

59:27

coloration as a actual goose,

59:29

a bird called the

59:31

barnacle goose, which is black

59:33

and white, had this

59:35

long neck. But medieval people

59:37

like in Europe didn't

59:39

have a concept about geese

59:41

migrating. So they would

59:43

see these barnacle geese like

59:45

the bird and not

59:47

see any evidence of a

59:49

nest or eggs, but

59:51

they would see gooseneck barnacles.

59:53

So the crustacean, this

59:55

like long, weird, inanimate looking

59:57

thing. And because they had

59:59

long neck, because they had the

1:00:01

black and white coloration, medieval

1:00:04

people thought that the

1:00:06

geese spontaneously generated

1:00:08

from the barnacles. And

1:00:10

because they like just couldn't find

1:00:13

any eggs and they couldn't fathom that

1:00:15

maybe the geese flew there rather

1:00:17

than born there. That's

1:00:19

so funny. Yeah. And then I

1:00:21

presumably we named the geese after

1:00:23

the barnacles and we didn't choose

1:00:25

the word barnacle after the geese.

1:00:27

That would be that would be

1:00:29

a much crazier etymology. I don't

1:00:31

think so. I think barnacle I'll

1:00:33

do first. I believe

1:00:36

so because barnacle

1:00:38

etymology. I

1:00:40

believe it has

1:00:42

a... Huh. Okay,

1:00:44

maybe it does have something to do

1:00:47

with the goose. Oh, my God. That's

1:00:49

nuts. Wait, hang on. Burnick. Oh.

1:00:54

Huh. You know what?

1:00:56

Actually, Burnack, which

1:00:59

is like Anglo -Latin, Burnacky.

1:01:03

There's no way that's right.

1:01:05

Early 13th century species

1:01:07

of northern European wild goose.

1:01:10

No way. So we named...

1:01:12

The meaning the type

1:01:14

of shellfish found on clusters

1:01:16

on submerged wood is

1:01:18

attested by 1580s. It

1:01:20

is of unknown origin despite

1:01:22

intense speculation. The earliest

1:01:24

form looks like bare neck.

1:01:28

So barnacle might

1:01:30

have actually first

1:01:32

been... The goose.

1:01:34

The goose. Wait, that's

1:01:36

amazing. And like the

1:01:38

goose. Yeah, so the goose nests

1:01:40

in the Arctic and then returns

1:01:42

to Europe in the winter. So

1:01:44

Europeans, those silly goats, like

1:01:47

never see any of the eggs

1:01:49

that the geese lay. So they're

1:01:51

like, where are these geese coming

1:01:53

from? Surely they're hatching

1:01:55

from the barnacles. Surely they're hatching

1:01:57

from the barnacles. So it was

1:01:59

like they thought that they would

1:02:01

develop from the barnacle shell. And

1:02:04

like also, yeah, I guess.

1:02:06

So this etymology has even more

1:02:08

information. Like they thought that

1:02:10

like the stalks of the crustaceans

1:02:13

having this like texture that

1:02:15

resembled goose feathers, which is wild.

1:02:17

So they thought that like.

1:02:19

the barnacles would grow on trees

1:02:21

and then fall into the

1:02:23

ocean, and then, like, that would

1:02:26

cause them to turn into

1:02:28

geese. They were so bored back

1:02:30

then. Like, can you imagine?

1:02:32

They didn't have anything to were

1:02:34

just, like, making shit up.

1:02:36

They're just eating potatoes for the,

1:02:39

you know, billionth night

1:02:41

in a row. Just, like,

1:02:43

making up stories about geese. They see a

1:02:45

goose, and they're like, where the hell did

1:02:47

that goose come from? That

1:02:50

goose looks a lot like

1:02:52

that weird rock I saw in

1:02:54

the ocean. Right, exactly. That

1:02:56

thing was black and white and

1:02:58

long, and this thing is

1:03:01

black and white and long. Goose

1:03:03

comes from barnacle, obviously. Yet

1:03:06

again, another famous expression,

1:03:08

which came first, the

1:03:10

goose or the barnacle. Exactly, yes. Now

1:03:12

we know where that famous expression is

1:03:14

about. The gooser the barnacle comes from.

1:03:16

Wonderful. My only point of reference for

1:03:18

barnacles for a long time was that

1:03:21

I used to be really into pirates

1:03:23

and keel hauling is a method of

1:03:25

torture where pirates would attach you to

1:03:27

a rope and then run you under

1:03:29

the boat so that you would get

1:03:31

like ripped up by the barnacles on

1:03:33

the bottom of the know that. They

1:03:36

would like drop you in front of

1:03:38

the boat and then you would like,

1:03:40

the boat would keep going and you'd

1:03:42

get like yoinked under it and then

1:03:44

they'd pull you back up. Oh, damn.

1:03:46

That's really horrible. That's like getting cheese

1:03:48

grated by barnacles. Oh, that doesn't sound

1:03:51

very good. Do barnacles do

1:03:53

barnacles think boats are just like terrible

1:03:55

whales? Is that what's happening there? I

1:03:57

mean, they will also they would also

1:03:59

like sort of go on, say, like

1:04:01

pieces of wood that would fall into

1:04:03

the water. So it wouldn't just be

1:04:05

boats. But yeah, I mean, it's just

1:04:07

like there's a boat. It's like I'm

1:04:09

on this boat now. It's like, whoa,

1:04:11

we're moving. Right. Yeah.

1:04:13

So, yeah, just like really awful,

1:04:16

stinky whales probably is. I

1:04:18

mean, barnacles don't have a lot

1:04:20

going on in terms of

1:04:22

neural activity. Right. They can't really

1:04:24

be choosers. Exactly. So

1:04:27

the last one I want

1:04:29

to talk about is something that

1:04:31

maybe people think of when

1:04:33

we think about an animal riding

1:04:35

a horse. And those are.

1:04:37

ox packers. So ox packers are

1:04:39

one of the most famous

1:04:42

examples of like animals riding on

1:04:44

another animals because they sit

1:04:46

on the backs of a ton

1:04:48

of ungulates, hooved animals found

1:04:50

in African savannas. So zebras, rhinos,

1:04:52

kudus, which is sort of

1:04:54

an antelope -like animal, wildebeest, buffalo,

1:04:57

impala, giraffes, etc. All sorts of

1:04:59

these megafauna found in African

1:05:01

savannas. have often

1:05:03

been observed with oxpeckers on

1:05:05

them as a passenger. And

1:05:08

oxpeckers, like these other examples,

1:05:10

are really interesting because they blur

1:05:12

the line between mutualism and

1:05:14

parasitism. Now, the one thing about

1:05:16

them that seems pretty definitive

1:05:19

is they are not really considered

1:05:21

forants. So they don't actually

1:05:23

ride on the backs of these

1:05:25

animals as transportation. They do

1:05:27

it for the snacks. Mostly like

1:05:30

there's a lot of snacks

1:05:32

to be had on the backs

1:05:34

of, say, a zebra in

1:05:36

the form of ticks in the

1:05:38

form of bot flies, which

1:05:41

don't look that up. I beg

1:05:43

you. Do not Google that.

1:05:45

It's gross. I

1:05:47

would never. I would never Google that.

1:05:50

Just so you know, bot flies

1:05:52

lay their larva under the skin

1:05:54

and then they, you know, develop

1:05:56

under the skin and form sort

1:05:58

of this bolus and then hatch.

1:06:00

It's gross. But the yakspecker will

1:06:02

eat these things. eat the ticks.

1:06:04

And it's just, it's like a

1:06:06

feast. It's sort of like if,

1:06:08

I don't know. The first time

1:06:11

I've ever seen this is in

1:06:13

Italy, but I'm sure this exists

1:06:15

elsewhere, which is like a dining

1:06:17

trolley where it's like a tram

1:06:19

and you're on it and they

1:06:21

serve you dinner on it. But

1:06:23

you're not really riding the tram

1:06:25

to get anywhere. You're just riding

1:06:27

it to eat dinner, which. Honestly,

1:06:29

to me, sounds awful. I'm like

1:06:31

eating dinner and I'm moving on

1:06:33

a tram and it's like rumbling.

1:06:35

The silverware is kind of jingling.

1:06:37

And then I can't imagine the

1:06:39

bathroom is very good. So

1:06:42

I'm starting to feel nauseated

1:06:44

because like I'm in a small

1:06:46

tram eating dinner. Doesn't sound

1:06:48

great, but some people like to

1:06:50

do it. But that's essentially

1:06:52

what the Oxpeckers are doing. It's

1:06:54

like a dining. experience

1:06:56

they don't actually really need to get

1:06:58

from point a to point b that

1:07:00

makes sense and actually before before this

1:07:02

podcast that's sort of what i thought

1:07:04

all of the like i assumed that

1:07:06

most of the animals riding on other

1:07:08

animals were it was more about food

1:07:11

than transport i think of like those

1:07:13

little birds that sit on alligators are

1:07:15

those oxpeckers or are those something different

1:07:17

those you know it could be i

1:07:19

think if so like the little birds

1:07:21

that like sit on I

1:07:24

don't know. I don't think they

1:07:26

would be. They might be oxpeckers, but

1:07:28

I think in general oxpeckers stick

1:07:30

to more like terrestrial animals, but it

1:07:33

could be. makes sense. There's also

1:07:35

like there are little birds. I'm trying

1:07:37

to think of the species that

1:07:39

do hang out around alligators. Let me

1:07:41

just look that up really quickly

1:07:43

because there's like an idea of them

1:07:46

sort of picking in the alligator's

1:07:48

teeth and that was maybe observed once

1:07:50

and hasn't really been established as

1:07:52

a routine. But

1:07:55

it certainly, it really embedded itself in my

1:07:57

mind because that is what I was thinking

1:07:59

of. The bird and the alligators. I feel

1:08:01

like there's a whole, I will not remember

1:08:03

the name of it, but there's a children's

1:08:05

book where an alligator uses like a bird

1:08:07

as a toothbrush. Like they,

1:08:09

that imagery has really embedded

1:08:11

itself in my mind. I

1:08:14

think I remember that as

1:08:16

well. So, but it's like,

1:08:18

and that, okay, so

1:08:20

that comes from,

1:08:22

And a plover bird.

1:08:24

So these are

1:08:26

little aquatic birds that

1:08:29

will sit on

1:08:31

a crocodile. And

1:08:34

sometimes they can be

1:08:36

seen like maybe near

1:08:39

their mouth. But I

1:08:41

don't think that there's

1:08:43

any really good... evidence

1:08:46

that plovers actually do dental care

1:08:48

for crocodiles consistently but i see

1:08:50

that repeated as like an established

1:08:52

fact but that's not but it's

1:08:54

not i don't think that's actually

1:08:56

an established fact another example of

1:08:59

a bird but this is not

1:09:01

like a little bird like egrets

1:09:03

will sometimes sit, I

1:09:05

believe, on alligators, not on crocodiles.

1:09:07

Egrets are big, right? Yeah, egrets

1:09:09

are big, though. They're not the

1:09:11

little tiny birds. So the plovers

1:09:13

are the little ones that I

1:09:15

think have been mythologized into crocodile

1:09:18

dentists, and egrets are sort of

1:09:20

the big white birds with the

1:09:22

long necks, and those are the

1:09:24

ones that will hang out on

1:09:26

alligators and kind of sit on

1:09:28

them as like... And actually, you

1:09:30

know what? I think that might

1:09:32

count as... of a um forant

1:09:34

because they're just like hanging out

1:09:36

on them like they're a boat

1:09:39

or a uh not necessarily for

1:09:41

transportation though but maybe for like

1:09:43

a place to rest on yeah

1:09:45

for the vibe like also like

1:09:47

you know like a perch for

1:09:49

them well it's sort of like

1:09:51

a vanity car right like a

1:09:53

lot of sports cars aren't super

1:09:55

practical but they look cool so

1:09:58

that's true like if it's like

1:10:00

this egret is picking up Egret

1:10:02

chicks, which has a different connotation

1:10:04

now that I think about it.

1:10:06

Egret females by cruising around. Egret

1:10:08

babes. The babes, exactly. That's what

1:10:10

birds call them, babes. Yeah. So

1:10:14

the oxpeckers actually, because they're

1:10:16

feeding on parasites on top

1:10:18

of the animals, you'd think

1:10:21

like, okay, so this is

1:10:23

an example of a mutualistic

1:10:25

relationship. They're both benefiting. But

1:10:28

they also can't help but... of

1:10:30

be jerks sometimes. So like they

1:10:32

will, if say like the buffalo

1:10:34

or the zebra that they're sitting

1:10:36

on has like a little wound

1:10:38

or something, maybe even front, like

1:10:40

maybe they pick a parasite out,

1:10:42

but then they have like a

1:10:44

wound left behind. They'll drink blood

1:10:46

from that wound. And sometimes they've

1:10:48

even been observed like opening up

1:10:50

the wound more because it's like,

1:10:52

ooh, you know, delicious

1:10:54

zebra juice. And then they like

1:10:56

drink it, right? So they're not

1:10:58

so... And whether

1:11:01

or not they're beneficial, again,

1:11:03

it's one of those things that

1:11:05

is really hard to tell because

1:11:07

it's not very clear whether or

1:11:09

not they're actually hurting them more

1:11:12

than they're helping. There have been

1:11:14

studies to try to look at

1:11:16

whether they're actually reducing the amount

1:11:18

of ticks on them. And it

1:11:20

seems like sometimes they're just eating

1:11:22

the ticks that have already had

1:11:24

blood meals. So it's hard to

1:11:27

tell whether that's beneficial. So,

1:11:29

yeah, again, I feel like this

1:11:31

episode, more than any other episode, has

1:11:33

really been about how we don't,

1:11:35

like you mentioned, we don't know We

1:11:37

don't really know shit. don't really

1:11:39

know anything. Just like,

1:11:41

you know, sometimes

1:11:43

it's on a zebra. That

1:11:46

happens, yeah. Yeah, and it's

1:11:48

weird. But there is one

1:11:50

actually really cool observation that

1:11:52

has been backed up by

1:11:54

research where it is definitely

1:11:56

a... relationship, and that's

1:11:58

between oxpeckers and rhinos. Because oxpeckers

1:12:00

will more or less do

1:12:02

the same thing with rhinos that

1:12:04

they do with other species,

1:12:06

picking off parasites, maybe even sort

1:12:08

of like eating their earwax

1:12:10

a little bit and their dandruff.

1:12:12

You know, because, hey, why

1:12:14

not? That actually sounds pretty like

1:12:16

they're getting a little bird

1:12:18

spa there. But the thing that

1:12:20

really helps the rhino is

1:12:23

that the oxpeckers have better vision

1:12:25

than the rhinos. And they

1:12:27

are more sensitive to seeing potential

1:12:29

predators from far away. And

1:12:31

they can see humans. And when

1:12:33

they see humans, they will

1:12:35

issue this alarm call. And for

1:12:37

the rhino, that's really useful

1:12:39

because the rhino has good hearing.

1:12:41

It has a pretty good

1:12:43

sense of smell. But it doesn't

1:12:45

have great vision. So the

1:12:47

bird is actually going to spot,

1:12:49

like, say, a human approaching

1:12:51

faster than the rhino will. And

1:12:53

that's really important for the

1:12:55

rhino to avoid being poached by

1:12:57

a human. Because humans are

1:12:59

going to be the most dangerous

1:13:01

predator for the rhino. There

1:13:05

have been studies that saw that

1:13:07

the presence of oxpeckers on rhinos

1:13:09

helped the rhinos spot and avoid

1:13:11

humans faster than rhinos that didn't

1:13:14

have the oxpeckers on them. So

1:13:16

in this specific case of the

1:13:18

rhino and the oxpecker, I would

1:13:20

say this counts as a mutualistic

1:13:22

relationship where they both gain a

1:13:24

benefit. That's awesome. That's so

1:13:26

cool that we know that and

1:13:29

also kind of depressing that we can

1:13:31

make that observation. help

1:13:34

rhinos not get murdered by us and

1:13:36

but we're still like we know that

1:13:38

but we're still doing the murdering yeah

1:13:40

i'm sure it's not the same humans

1:13:42

it's not the same people for sure

1:13:44

it's not like the poachers submitting a

1:13:46

paper to nature but like wow when

1:13:48

when i try to kill this rhino

1:13:50

the birds warn it and it goes

1:13:52

really interesting i mean that's like that's

1:13:54

kind of how like we used to

1:13:57

conduct a lot of our sort of

1:13:59

uh you know, natural research

1:14:01

where it's like, oh, you know, like

1:14:03

I ate a bunch of turtles and in

1:14:05

the process of eating a bunch of

1:14:07

turtles, I noticed that. I noticed that the

1:14:09

turtles do not like being eaten. They

1:14:11

don't like it, even though they come in

1:14:13

a bowl. Like, why would they come

1:14:15

in a bowl if they don't want me

1:14:17

to eat them? Oh,

1:14:19

that makes that so sad.

1:14:21

Oh, no. I hate

1:14:24

to. I hate to tell people

1:14:26

about how Charles Darwin snacked on

1:14:28

so many of the animals he

1:14:30

discovered. I believe it.

1:14:32

He's the grandfather of evolutionary

1:14:34

science, or one of them.

1:14:38

He just went to town.

1:14:40

He tried Galapagos tortoise. I'm

1:14:43

pretty sure he ate a

1:14:45

bunch of animals that he

1:14:47

found on the Galapagos. These

1:14:49

are new animals. I'm going to

1:14:51

nibble on them a little bit. I

1:14:53

want to taste them, you know? Just

1:14:56

a little taste. You know,

1:14:59

I hear Punnett was eating

1:15:01

the peas too, so it

1:15:03

goes all the way down.

1:15:05

Right, right. Mendel.

1:15:11

That monster. Anyways, before we go,

1:15:14

we got to play a

1:15:16

little game called Guess Who's Squawk

1:15:18

and the Mystery Animal Sound

1:15:20

Game. This is where you, the

1:15:22

guest, and you, the listener,

1:15:24

try to guess who is making

1:15:26

this sound. And so

1:15:28

the hint for last week

1:15:30

was this little rock dweller

1:15:33

is just saying hi. Another

1:15:36

hint is this

1:15:38

is related to

1:15:40

the elephant. There

1:15:46

we go. That lovely

1:15:48

little sound. Let's hear it

1:15:50

again. All

1:15:56

right, Elle, you got any guesses? Well,

1:15:58

I'm thinking it's a bird. I

1:16:02

did say it's related to the elephant,

1:16:04

so do you want to adjust your guess?

1:16:06

Maybe not say it's a bird. It's

1:16:08

related to the elephant. You're right, you're right,

1:16:10

you're right, you're right. Seems

1:16:12

unlikely. It's related

1:16:14

to the elephant. I

1:16:18

didn't know elephants had relatives that

1:16:20

were living. I know about the

1:16:22

mammoth, but those guys... Aren't around

1:16:24

at the weird, right? It's very

1:16:26

strange. Related to

1:16:28

the elephant. Can

1:16:31

I hear it one more time? Yes. Alright.

1:16:36

Wow. Related

1:16:39

to the elephant. I

1:16:43

have no idea. I want to

1:16:45

say, like... something like rhinoceros related, but

1:16:48

that's mostly just because we were

1:16:50

talking about rhinos just now. were just

1:16:52

talking about rhinos, so I kind

1:16:54

of primed the pump for rhinos. This

1:16:56

is actually something called a rock

1:16:58

hyrax. They are found.

1:17:01

I would not have gotten that. I'm

1:17:03

going to be honest with you,

1:17:05

Katie. This is a Pokemon that I'm

1:17:08

randomly throwing out there. No, they're

1:17:10

found in the Middle East and in

1:17:12

Africa, and they're actually related to

1:17:14

elephants, despite the fact that they're only

1:17:16

around 11 pounds, which is about

1:17:18

five kilograms of pure, adorable fluff. They're

1:17:21

super cute. They look like a

1:17:23

little prairie dog that has this

1:17:25

pair of tiny tusks. And

1:17:28

they eat vegetables, vegetation and

1:17:30

grubs. And they are super chill

1:17:32

animals. They're actually more Timon

1:17:34

and Pumbaa than like the species

1:17:36

like meerkat and warthog that

1:17:38

Timon and Pumbaa are based on

1:17:40

because rock hyroxes have a

1:17:42

very kumbaya egalitarian society where they

1:17:44

like form groups of friends

1:17:46

where it's like the friend of

1:17:49

my friend is my friend.

1:17:51

And they trust each other and

1:17:53

they don't. establish a hierarchy

1:17:55

there's not like a dominant one

1:17:57

uh they all seem to

1:17:59

like have this kind of like

1:18:01

commune and the reason that

1:18:03

helps them is that they have

1:18:05

such a spread out territory

1:18:07

and then they also face predators

1:18:09

that if one starts to

1:18:12

send off an alarm call that'll

1:18:14

also spread to its buddies

1:18:16

who like from kind of a

1:18:18

distance will be like oh

1:18:20

uh you know like uh uh

1:18:22

jenny just told me that

1:18:24

like there's a leopard around. So

1:18:26

I'm going to send out

1:18:28

an alarm call of my own.

1:18:30

And so that's, then it

1:18:32

forms this like cool community of

1:18:35

little kitties. That's amazing. And

1:18:37

you're saying they're related to elephants?

1:18:39

That's why they have the

1:18:41

little teeth? Their teeth are very

1:18:43

similar. Yeah, they're tiny and

1:18:45

they're adorable. But yes, they are

1:18:47

related to elephants. They're one

1:18:49

of the few living relatives of

1:18:51

elephants. That's so beautiful.

1:18:53

They're so small. they

1:18:56

know about their large cousins?

1:18:58

I feel like someone should tell

1:19:00

them and they should all

1:19:02

be friends. I think so too.

1:19:06

Can you imagine these little guys

1:19:08

riding on top of an elephant

1:19:10

just being like I'm imagining

1:19:12

it right now and it's making me

1:19:14

emotional. Wow.

1:19:17

Yeah, they're super cute. I also just

1:19:19

love to hear about like... People are

1:19:21

always like, oh, well, you know, it's

1:19:23

only natural to have like, you know,

1:19:25

messed up societies where we have hierarchies

1:19:28

where we're all mean to each other.

1:19:30

And then the rock hierarchies are out

1:19:32

there being like, we're all buddies and

1:19:34

we're all friends. This

1:19:36

is really important. Wow. Thank you.

1:19:38

You're very welcome. For showing

1:19:40

me this animal. So

1:19:43

on to this week's mystery

1:19:45

animal sound. The hint is

1:19:47

this. Don't try to

1:19:49

cut into this guy for breakfast. I

1:19:54

feel like this one's

1:19:56

kind of tough, so

1:19:58

I'm also going to

1:20:00

give a country. It

1:20:02

is from New Zealand.

1:20:06

New Zealand. New Zealand.

1:20:08

New Zealand. Zealand. New

1:20:10

Zealand. Is it Taika

1:20:12

Waititi? I

1:20:15

wouldn't cut into him for breakfast. Doesn't

1:20:18

sound like he wants. He doesn't seem

1:20:20

to want. No. Don't

1:20:25

cut into this guy for breakfast.

1:20:28

What do people eat for breakfast? Like

1:20:30

eggs? And also

1:20:32

fish sometimes? Cheerios.

1:20:38

Cheerios? Which we eat with a fork and a

1:20:40

knife. Which we eat with a fork and

1:20:42

a knife. Wow,

1:20:45

that was such a horrifying

1:20:48

sound. New Zealand is adjacent to

1:20:50

Australia, which is where all

1:20:52

of the scariest animals live.

1:20:54

But I didn't know that New

1:20:56

Zealand also has such horrors.

1:20:58

I mean, it has a

1:21:00

few horrors, but it definitely does

1:21:03

feel like New Zealand is

1:21:05

sort of like a more fun

1:21:07

version of Australia or a

1:21:09

friendlier version of Australia. when

1:21:11

it comes to animals. But there

1:21:13

are a few stinkers. This

1:21:16

one's actually not... I'll give another

1:21:18

hint. This one is surprisingly

1:21:20

not as scary as you

1:21:22

would think. Not scary. Don't

1:21:24

cut into him for breakfast, which means

1:21:26

he sort of seems like something you

1:21:28

might eat for breakfast. Yes. Maybe.

1:21:30

But you don't want... You probably

1:21:33

don't to. But I wouldn't want to.

1:21:35

No, you probably wouldn't want to.

1:21:37

Oh, man. I have no idea again.

1:21:39

Well... Should

1:21:41

I? Like,

1:21:44

is it a mammal? I'm

1:21:46

going to guess mammal of some

1:21:49

kind. Well, we will find

1:21:51

out if you are correct or

1:21:53

close next week on Creature

1:21:55

Feature, major cliffhanger. Ella, thank

1:21:57

you so much for joining me today.

1:21:59

Where can people find you and all

1:22:01

the cool stuff that you do? Thank

1:22:03

you for having me. It's been so

1:22:05

much fun. I'm

1:22:08

on all the social medias.

1:22:10

I'm Ella .Yerman on Instagram

1:22:12

and Ella Yerman on Blue

1:22:14

Sky and X the Everything

1:22:16

app. My writing is... Eggs

1:22:18

the Everything app. Eggs the

1:22:21

Everything app. My

1:22:23

writing is all around the internet.

1:22:25

I wrote this profile of Vivian

1:22:27

Wilson for Teen Vogue. Yes, yes.

1:22:29

Super good. I read it. It's

1:22:31

amazing. I mean, probably everyone's

1:22:34

heard of it. Yeah,

1:22:36

it's been all over lately. Fantastic

1:22:40

profile. Thank you.

1:22:42

And then, yeah, I write for

1:22:44

some more news on YouTube.

1:22:46

And then I also host and

1:22:48

self -produce another political comedy news

1:22:50

show called Going Down with

1:22:52

Ella Yerman, also on YouTube and

1:22:54

Instagram. X the Everything

1:22:56

app. I can't imagine. Monthly. That

1:22:58

just sounds so pessimistic, which seems

1:23:00

so out of step with, like,

1:23:02

where we're at, you know? Like,

1:23:04

going down, you know? Everything

1:23:07

in politics is so good and

1:23:09

cheery right now. It's so cheerful,

1:23:11

and I just don't understand why

1:23:14

it's like, there's nowhere but up

1:23:16

from here. There's nowhere but up

1:23:18

from here. No,

1:23:20

I'm joking. It's a...

1:23:23

You should definitely check

1:23:25

these things out. She

1:23:28

is an incredible writer

1:23:30

and a great article,

1:23:32

great somewhere news, great

1:23:34

YouTube projects. Thank

1:23:36

you. Thank you. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I think

1:23:38

that's it. That's where you can find me. And,

1:23:41

yeah, if you guys want to

1:23:43

write to me because you think you

1:23:45

know who the Mystery Animal Sound

1:23:48

is, if you have a question, a

1:23:50

picture of your guinea pig in

1:23:52

a cowboy hat. You can

1:23:54

write to me at

1:23:56

creaturefeaturepod at gmail.com. And

1:23:58

if you're enjoying the show and

1:24:01

you leave a rating or review,

1:24:03

I super appreciate that. That really

1:24:05

tangibly helps, and I love seeing

1:24:07

feedback. And thanks to the Space

1:24:09

Cossacks for their super awesome song,

1:24:11

Exolumina. Creature Features, a production of

1:24:13

iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the

1:24:15

one you just heard, Visit the

1:24:17

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, where I

1:24:20

guess what? Where have you listed

1:24:22

your favorite show? I don't judge

1:24:24

you. Whatever you want to do,

1:24:26

baby. It's like, let's all be

1:24:28

Rock Hieraxes and just be friends

1:24:30

and not judge each other for

1:24:32

podcasting platforms. And I'll

1:24:34

see you next Wednesday. Time

1:24:38

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