Brain Soda Podcast - Episode 34 - Alien Antarctic Megafauna!

Episode Date: September 23, 2023

This week's episode will be covering the hard rock band Gwar and the Megafauna of the Ice Age!

A bunch of failed art students and foam rubber suits. Brain soda. It's the Brain Soda Podcast. I, as always, am your host Kyle, joined by my co-host and cohort, Brad. How's it going? Today, we're going to be talking about Ice Age Megafana, but first, Brad, from the depths of Antarctica and ourica. Yes, there is a larger than life mutant monstrosity coming from outer space, but the reality of the situation is that in 1984, in an abandoned milk bottling plant, a bunch of art students

failed or not, and a bunch of punk rockers made this band slash art collective that went on to be Beavison Butthead's favorite band but is still going to this day. Was it really? Canonically that is Beavison Butthead's favorite band and like although the group in and of itself is kind of a little too hot for TV, maybe even this podcast. Today, I'm really happy and excited to bring you, Gwar. Yes. Now, if it wasn't for you, Kyle, I guarantee I would never have heard of this band because... I think that's a lot of people when it comes to my periphery of friends

and the other people, Bo Habs, is their fan or call, I guess. Sure. But yeah, I've never really heard any of their music. Well, I've heard their music, but like I don't rock any of the music, should I say? I was going to say you used to always bring up them in the game you played a mobile like guitar hero. Yeah. They had let us play. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, I remember that. That's the thing, like,, I think I know you're talking about yeah, I remember that And that's the thing like because like I don't know I do like they are in things like they're a popular hard rock band Right, but I like to you like get it though how they are but they're very unique and I've seen them in things too other than just like you know the mobile apps and whatnot empire records Feeville a bam the film SFW which I don't think we've ever watched, but no, yeah, I mean, for a band that talks about things that this band talks about as often as it does, and in the way that it does. I find it interesting though that between all of that, there's these instances, these little moments in time where

war shows up all of a sudden. You know what I mean? And aside from just that, I want to say that like, for a band to have existed and been making records at least since 88 right like the band we're gonna talk about being formed starts in some form or fashion in 84 but to be around for as long as it has and it's and then to be as like prolific as it is with its own produced material is a really cool interesting story that we're going to get into right now. So like I was saying before, they started in like this abandoned melt bottling plant and they would make these foam suits, they would come out and play these shows like once a month originally and eventually these

kind of I mean they really are kind of like barbarian ask it looks like the evil Flintstones and the original stuff. I guess yeah, they almost remind me of like like gothic Not one I want to say steampunk, but it's not one, I wanna say steam punk, but it's not steam punk at all. No, it's like, it's like, it's like ancient, it's like ancient,

like, ancient, ancient, ancient, Emilio punk is that, like, I don't know the words, yeah, there's probably, it's not a thing, oh god, there's not a thing, but you're right, yeah, it's like, no, I would say like, ancient, like, Germanic, Golic, Goth, or something, like, original, Gothic, what, you know, Goth, or something like original Gothic,

what, you know, like the Goths, you know. The Bissegoth, or whatever. Yeah, exactly, the Oster Goths, the Bissegoth, like from what the pictures I've seen of them, you know, they wear like, you know, like the first skin and stuff, but the black and stuff, right? Or, yeah. Yeah, and the old original stuff

that is definitely what it was, that I believe is all predating hello, the first record from war, and that releases an 88. And again, they were just kind of doing monthly shows. They weren't touring the country or doing things like this or that. And then that stage show expands the band roster. And I'm talking when you say band roster, we're not just talking hears who's playing bass or keyboard. And yeah, because how many people are up? Dude, so as a stage show, typically, you have the members of the band themselves. And that is how many people? The five.

Okay. Bass drum guitar sing. Yeah, like you got your normal like band. Standard rock band layout, right. But then you have like the fire dancer, Slymon Strahaman. Then you have multiple different characters that appear on stage, whether they're political or pop culture references. What do you mean by political?

They behead every president that is existed as a part of their stage. That's existed during the time of Gory. He comes out as a decap suit, so it's a foam head molded onto and placed on somebody's shoulders. They come out wearing clothes that kind of all uniformly makes a caricature of whoever. And then they will knock the head off. And the stump neck will hang out over the crowd and just jettison blood out on top of everybody. This is crazy, because like, all right, you're explaining this and this sounds like

so gory and nasty. It is. Everything, you know. But in the same vein, like, man, I'm reading a book about Rome right now and like, they did things like that. Like that was like, you know, like, that's what they did in Roman times.

We're like, people they didn't like and stuff they make effigies of them, you know, and like, prayed them to the street and like, you know, people throw things at them or like they'd be at them or pay them on crosses and they do it in real life too. You know, they would actually do that with people. But like, it's crazy because like,

it's an art form, like art, it's kind of things like that have evolved and it's an expression of what they feel about society. No, absolutely, yes, you're dead on because this is the thing I was gonna get into is that while there was controversies with war, there is a debate to be made about the level of like where is shock rock Acceptable, where is very low brow kind of toilet humor acceptable and And the same token

You have a guy like Mirla Manson who they've ripped apart and made bleed all over on film. Why do they just like kill people like? ripped apart and made bleed all over on film. War? Do they just like kill people? A character of him, yeah. Like character, that's like their thing is they kill people. Because again, I haven't seen much of them. We kill everything, yes. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Um, and that is the name of a war album, we kill everything. But that was, that was the point I was trying to get at. You look at a guy like Marilyn Manson, and where he was in our stage of pop culture while we were coming up by the age of Columbine, but like, we were like, what? We were like 10 max. Exactly, yeah.

Dylan and Eric were not fans of Marilyn, right? But Marilyn Manson was a scapegoat for Columbine. I mean, that would have been a shock. A band like War because it's so tongue and cheek, even songs that are like realistically that are way too dirty to like, entail you the plot of here on this episode. They come from a different place.

Does that make sense? Like, while the appeal to the masses is to shock and awe, I don't feel like it's meant to do anything other than make a statement about certain things, but look at it from like the black mirror perspective, the cracked mirror perspective. I agree with you on that. Like, I mean, I think it is meant to offend.

It's meant to offend the people that don't agree with that type of stuff, but like, it's meant to offend purposely in like, the kind of, you attitude, you know, they're the anti-culture, you know, they're the anarchy essentially. Yeah. I don't know if they're like anarchist, like or not,

but like, you know, they're kind of the anarchy ofarchy of like the norm, you know, kind of going back to like yeah they're like a modern diogenes if you think about it. A little bit. Yeah. One of the things that I did for my research was watch this video from AP Alternative Press and it was a oral history. So it's Mike Bishop and the various other long-term members of Gwar talking about it from its inception and their early days till present. And one of the things that their lead art director was talking about was he had been in art school for like two or three years, but he'd been like a satellite member around war, you know,

learning how to make stuff and helping out with different parts of stage shows and things like that. And eventually like really wanted to get into the ground level and be a main from for this stage show, live act, band over on in general, right? Right, because their concert's not just like, let me see, it's like a whole production. It is, and it's something that I've experienced. You've been to a concert? Yeah, I went to a Gora Show in high school. That's awesome.

That is great. Yeah. He said, and you can see this around the time of Beavis and Butthead, they were frequently featured on MTV. They had appearances on Jerry Springer and stuff like that, but just a little bit before that, they were making independent comic books. They had made a tabletop role-playing game. Like, they've really skirmish game.

Yeah, it was kind of like warhammer or 40k. So you're like you're like paint there. They're the mini figurines. There's a point system that goes in and then like you make your scum dogs. You make your war-esque characters. If you don't take pre-selected ones and you buy out points for their stats and abilities, and then it's all based on movements and stuff like that. Again, like 40k. I mean, now that you say that, that's it. They're Warhammer. They're Warhammer personified into a band. Right, yeah, kind of. I would agree with that. My point to bring that up was that Kinda, I would agree with that. My point to bring that up was that

they were aiming to be the punk rock Disney. And when I heard that line, I literally stopped the video and it was like, what? Like what? The punk rock, like were they gonna make like a Gwarland or? They actively were making comic books.

They actively were making role playing games, which in that time, like you got to think, this is around the time of second and third editions, like kind of switch over, wizards of the coast and magic the gathering was like just starting as an idea, I'm sure. The elements of counter culture that kind of coalesce so yeah at that time they could have they could have grabbed hold Because they're well. Yeah, there was a bunch of stuff at that time They could have been the magic gathering here's what you're saying essentially well I mean just more along the lines of like comic books are really big look at the image revolution thing that we're talking about

This is a couple of years nine couple records in in. Yeah, this is early 90s. Very early 90s. So around this time, you have the image boom and the darker kind of period of comics coming together. You have role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons still going strong and like people playing third edition, people playing magic gathering and things like that. And like these guys were all like we could be a magic card too. You know what I mean? Like we could have this, we could have that. And went out and kind of did it. And to be fair, they're being aired on MTV. They're playing across the country. They want a Grammy for their 1992 long-form film, Fallison Wonderland, which happened shortly after the North Carolina arrest of the late great Dave Brocky,

who is the personal slave of Overseas Urungus, lead singer of war. Okay, like in like Mr. Garrison, Mrs. Klai. He is who played. Okay. No, he is who played him. Well, arguably that too, yes. Okay. He is who played him.

He is the main formation of this end, right? But Dave Brocky as a guy when he appeared on television the litany of times that he has is 99.9% appearing as odorous urengas you know what I mean like almost oh what you see okay they early on were adopting all these different things and like this is also previous to a big shift for Gour musically that came more along the times of when I went and saw them when you probably got exposed them and they became more of like a straight-out metal band because one of the principles of that hello record and the beginning kind of elements of Gour is they're kind of like punk rock kids dunking on metal kids right like I can see it right now that like a bunch of

punk rock kids and art students and stuff like that sitting there talking and they're like yeah no you gotta be like the most hardcore cool band in the world like we're not even just like a band from LA bro we're a band from outer space who came down article, ripped the head off the president and do you know what I mean right? And like it turned into that, IRL and they like toured the country and became Bison Butthead's favorite band and whatever else and like, God man, I gotta say too, although I love my metal music. I love the early noise rock, the early punk and metal vibes because it wasn't always Dave Brocky singing. Was it likely Dave

Brocky singing? Yeah, but my bishop would have songs, sky would have songs. Every record every record came out with this feature length B movie that they would do kind of across the theme of the album because every album back then is like in large part a concept album. America must be destroyed the album that goes along with Fallowson Wonderland. Yeah like Rocks were different back then. No, every Gwar album for like 15 years is a concept record. What do you mean by concept that goes along and tells a narrative story? Oh yes, I see what you're saying now. It's like more of like a tale than just like just different songs. That man, that's cool. I'm not a man. I ain't gonna look at some of this stuff. Yeah. But anyway, so the grahamming that they won

was for Fallis and Wonderland. And that record in film is inspired by a North Carolina arrest by Dave Brocky because he has this long fish monster looking cod piece that he was the cuddle fish of Cthulhu. And it's a Fallace, you know what I mean, but he was arrested for obscenity in North Carolina because of it. They compensated it. And during a concert. Yeah, of course. And like, so they arrest Brocky and he gets out

and think about that. Number one is like, you get arrested for obscenity in North Carolina. This is a ban from Richmond, Virginia, by the way too. Really? Yeah. I wouldn't not expect that. No, me neither. I would have expected like California or something. Or Midwest, because Midwesters, man, we are so, we are a bunch.

Well, I agree with that. Yeah. I made a key example of that but no I I always kind of thought it was a Los Angeles or New York thing right like you have to be exactly it seems like that yeah exactly you'd have to be in a certain like click of social climate yeah no man it's like key it's Texas, baby. Keep it weird because like these guys You know rich ones kind of a bigger city and again like the whole punk rock Disney thing really Didn't make sense to me in the moment, but like seeing it now and all the different merchandising kind of stuff They did then that creative DIY

Element kept it so punk rock. Merch is where it's at, man. Like from artists. It is. But that's really where the merchant touring is like where they make their money at. You know, it's funny too, because like the quote that we have from the open is Jellobriafra

acting as this like corporate suit, trying to like co-opt gore and use their appeal to the basses air quotes you know for his own plots and schemes but like that whole element of that film is about like oh you can have the gore babies and like you can do this and that. And it's like, but you guys kind of are doing that right now, aren't you? Yeah. Like, you're a rock band that came out with a tabletop game and comic books and stuff like that. That is cool, though. I mean, absolutely is, right? Yeah. Like they they became more of like a

cultural thing or not even yeah, I guess like a cultural thing then like a band themselves you know that's where like they take their name they're spreading it out that's yeah no absolutely and I think just because you make a card game and you're a podcast or you make t-shirts or not t-shirts but you know what I mean like just just because you dip your toe into something else and merchandising maybe the main driving factor in that, it doesn't compromise what you're doing. War was not compromised from that at all. I'm not making that point.

So, War kind of dips down later in the 90s as far as like a well household name if you wanna ever call Gwar that. And unfortunately, they've lost some members aside from just the satellite members that have came and went from Gwar, or like a lot of metal bands have a rotating lineup of just this person leaves and another person jumps in.

But Corey Smute died and then years later, Dave Brocky died. And Mike Bishop came back to the band and picked up his place and they've been going ever since. And Gwarr is coming up on its 40th year and I think it's really cool. And I really think it's something that if you're interested, you should check out.

What I think is crazy though, is that they came from Man-Arra, come in. Because like, not many things are alive down in like cold climates and all that you know. No, I mean it looked at the scum dogs of the universe for a reason. They are some of the only people who could survive Antarctica right. I mean I know they're aliens but like I mean they would have done fine in the ice age which is like the place to see which I would like to talk about if you don't mind hearing about some of these animals. No that's that's figure amount because some of them probably could have been a guar costume

and so maybe they're a part of a guar costume. They probably would be honestly. You're right. Kyle, what do you know about the ice age? Or let me call it the place of seed. I'm only gonna call that a couple times because I don't want to say the place of steam. Yes, the ice age. You know, man, I always just think of it as what happens after the impact that killed the dinosaurs. Like, would you? Yeah. Yeah, I know that's totally not accurate, right?

Yeah. Like, I mean, you're kind of summarizing up a lot of history there. Right. I think when you really get introduced to that as a concept, you're learning it in two places. You're learning it from media that talks about it in a really quick summation to get you to understand conceptually that thing or you learn it in school. And when I learned it at the school, it was like, I have to know these things for this test.

That's true. I didn't even think of that because like yeah it's like the dinosaurs and then they talk about early mammals you know they go from the dinosaurs to the ice. Yeah. Like immediately and it's way this weren't it separated almost like it's pretty much separated from now to the dinosaurs. The place to see Epoch was two and a half million years ago to 11,700 years ago. What? Okay. So this was somewhat recently. This is when humans evolved. The place to see them was when humans evolved and everything.

400,000 years ago, give or take, was when modern humans became a thing. So this is the age of the Neanderthal, right? Yeah. Like, this is the point in which the missing link would have been to. Yeah, this is your caveman time. Yeah. These are your caveman times, right? This is when humans, you know, traveled over from Asia to America and all that.

Like, when you think of that, like, and actually that was later. So we do definitively know there are humanoids around this time. There are actual... Oh yeah, no, like, tons. Yeah, there's actual human civilizations that are traveling and we figured out that migration, things like that. So there's a well bit more than I thought was known about this time. Okay. Yes, oh, a ton, a ton, not about this time. This was the time before agriculture, essentially. Like, think of it like that.

Like the time right before civilization. Okay. Now what about Pangaea? Pangaea's... Pangaea's been way gone, yeah. This, okay, this time period, like it's pretty much the same map. This is what we see today.

See, and I would figure that this would be the point in which continental drift would have happened. Because to me, and maybe that's part of it too, is like when you think of the Ice Age, you imagine everything as like this tundra landscape. You think of stuff changing and all that? Right, exactly. And that's why... One stuff does change. You've probably heard of this because we live in Michigan.

Michigan was formed from the ice age. You know, that was like the glaciers and all that. You've heard of that. So like, that's the thing. Like, we've been exposed to that. And that might be why you were thinking it's ancient, but it's really actually pretty recent that that happened. You know, like Michigan is a recent, like, the lakes and all that,

the great lakes and all that. Yeah. Yeah. So like, it's pretty recent, you know, and this is, the great lakes and all that. Yeah. Yeah. So like it's pretty recent, you know, and this is when like, we're gonna get into it in a minute. Oh, I wanted to talk about a few of the animals of some of the bigger animals.

Right. For some reason there was like a lot of bigger animals. And then I think it was because of the cooler temperatures, typically in cooler temperatures, animals get bigger. They're more efficient at that size. Right. They need the body at that size. Right. They need the body fat. Yeah.

Exactly. Like, they get polar bears, right? Yeah. They were bigger, which like, are all the Guar people bigger, by the way? I think they actually would probably look bigger because of the costumes. Like Dave Brocky's probably a regular like six foot dude, but once he's in the order of stuff, he's six. That's probably right.

Six. Exactly because they're on Antarctica. Like, before we get into these animals, let's, I order-est stuff, he's- That's probably right. He likes the right area. He's got the pizarroin and arca. Like before we get into these animals, let's, I mean, I wanted to talk a little bit about the pizarroin, because like, it's really recent when you think about it, but like, people think of the ice age as like this distant past, you know, but like, humans were around.

Yeah. The pizarroin, the ice age, again, was like right before agriculture. Essentially, you know, agriculture came around probably around 10,000 years ago. Right. And this was up until like 11,000 years ago, you know? So, yeah.

Well, and something that we've talked about before too, is like, I feel like when your knowledge base really goes into like the things that you learn in history classes. What your grandparents and stuff like that experienced in life and then your life experience to sit there and go 2 million years ago this happened. You're like, you know what I mean? Well yeah, because like to put millions of years into perspective, it really is crazy

to think like the dinosaur for so, so long ago. Yeah, right. 65 million years ago is insanely long ago. But these weren't too long ago, right? Right. The first one I'm going to talk about is the giant beaver. Also known as the castor royalties, I think that's how you pronounce it. This was a bear-sized beaver that lived in North America. What? Oh, by the way, sorry. Yes, all these animals lived in North America. I mean, there is other animals that lived in other parts,

but you know, we live in Michigan. But for now, we're gonna stay on the home front. Exactly. Yeah. Well, in the Americas, sorry. So this giant beaver, it lived around 1.9 million to 75,000 years ago. So it probably encountered humans and maybe we might have made it go extinct.

This is going to come up a couple times. I don't know if we're the cause of a lot of extinctions. I'm not going to talk about mammoths and mastadons because that's obviously a megafauna. The most obvious megafauna of the ice age, that actually deserves its own episode. I don't know. We probably were a contributing factor to it. Let's just put it at that. Well, I mean, and at that time, when you are trying to survive through the ice age, what

are you going to eat for dinner tonight? Exactly. You know, fishin' and gatherin' berries probably, probably get you through the night. Exactly. You know what I mean? Like, but 80 you, with some spears better go get something tomorrow, or we're all. Yeah, I mean, that was a big thing, definitely. But I mean, like, and actually, you're right, because like, there was one that was around in the colder regions. You know, there's two species of these giant beavers. See Delopidus and see Ohio Enzus. So Ohio Enzus, obviously, was around there.

Yeah. The Delopidus was in the south-eastern US, so in Florida and that area. But Ohio Enzus was in the rest of the US. So like, they inhabited most of this area. You know, just imagine these giant beavers. Look, a bearer is pretty big, you know. Bro, a beaver is pretty big.

A beaver is too, yeah. It's like size of a mid-sized dog. Sure, but imagine one that six and a half feet long, right? Imagine a six and a half feet or one and a half meter long. Or one point nine meter, great to do. Yeah. Or, you know, they can grow up to like seven and a half feet long. Or two point two meters.

Yeah. Like, they did weigh, they weighed like 190 to 275 pounds. So like, these are like big things, 90 to 125 kilograms. Yeah. Like, they're high in things, 90 to 125 kilograms. Yeah. Like, they're high in feet, you know, where they were longer than modern beavers, but like, their legs were shorter. So they were like, think of like, you know, like longer like flappers, essentially, or fins, right?

Yeah. And their feet, but their skulls were smaller, so like, relative to their size. So they probably had, like, not as much intelligence. I mean, that's not the only way to determine intelligence, but like relative to modern beavers, you know, they're probably a little less advanced. So they may not have done the damning and all that. Beavers, I want to do an upside of the beavers in general, like they're insane. They are literally like the architects of the of nature. Yeah. But they're interesting. Skull of the beaver suggested it like spent more time

underwater and whatnot. And that leads to believe that like maybe it led, like it led its life in like deeper habitats and whatnot. Right. Yeah, but yeah, to continue on to the next one is the glyptodon, which was like this giant armadillo. Oh yeah, that sounds dope too. Armadillos we don't have around us. Obviously, they're like a southwestadillo. Yeah, that sounds dope too. Armadillos we don't have around us.

Obviously, they're like a south-western thing. But these guys, like they lived for around 3.2 million to 11,000 years ago and they're around South America obviously or you know, South and Central America. They're first found in 1814. It was actually one of the earliest fossils found because like when you look at it, like you can kind of tell like this is obviously an armadillo, you know, like the carapace of it, which is what the outer shell of it is called, is pretty recognizable, right? Yeah, yeah.

And what that is though, it's like it's made of hundreds of these things called osteo-derms and it's a bone actually. It's a bone-like material. Really? Okay. Okay. Yeah, looking at this thing, it reminds me of like, they're not spying it. What are the dinosaurs that have that big shell with like a spike ground edge?

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. It has like a club tail or whatnot. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, he reminds me of that looking at my boy here. It is, it is a lot like that. But like, just think about giant armadillo, right? Yeah. He reached up like again, 6.6 feet tall or two meters

and weighed 880 pounds or 400 kilograms. He's like a death hero, dude. Yeah, like, it's an amazing thing about like, all these like just giant size animals that like we see nowadays. They're little tiny things. Yeah, because an armadillo now is probably a little bit bigger than a beaver, right? I would assume.

Yeah, it's like a cat size, maybe. Cat? Really? Okay, yeah. I saw the skull of this thing, though, was really weird looking. It had no holes. It was just really like full. it's just all bone essentially and had these it has long teeth and the teeth it grows in ammo all the way up through its

gum line and because of that I can like you know chew a lot of stuff I guess yeah protects it from wear that armor though like it's again it's bone so it protects it itself right a lot predators, but there was one that probably you know and everybody knows the saber-tooth tiger. Also called the Smilodon. Oh, wow, what a... Poor name. Who Smilodon, everybody? Look at him!

Oh my god! Yeah. Yeah. The Earth Smilodon SMILODon. Look at him. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. The earth smell. Oh, don't know. It's no. No. No. We're calling that. The spider. I'm calling this. I agree with that. Which is pretty family, the, you know, the cat family. Right. But, uh, Macario. That means Macario.

Macarie means scuffle. And, uh, dot means two. Right. So, like, scuffle tooth. Right. Oh, wow. Because there is, like, there's more saber-juth tigers. Or, you know, cats, saber-juth, like, tigers.

Yes. Exactly. Yeah. And, like, obviously, this is one of the most famous ones, right? Yeah. Just this obviously this is one of the most famous ones. Yeah. Just this picture of the skull, I feel like I've seen a couple of thousand times.

Exactly, yeah. And it lived from like two and a half million to from, you know, the beginning of the place to scene two, essentially the end of the place to scene 10,000 years ago. Like almost past the place to see, almost. And it varied in size though. There was like, you know, smaller ones,

there were like 120 to 220 pounds, but up to like, four to 85 to 961 pounds or 220 to four to 36 kilograms. Like the huge, you know, like almost a thousand pound. Like they were talking like big tiger size, you know. Yeah, and even when you think about like mountain lions, tigers, jaguars, things that like can survive if you were to like transplant them and make them an invasion of species in part of America, like bro could you imagine if they just had like a bunch of small

patches of like oh yeah if you go down to West Mississippi, you might get mulled by a tiger. Yeah, well that's kind of what you're gonna say. Like imagine how it's a thousand pound tiger and they just pull all about wherever the fuck they want because you ain't stopping it. You know, like, like it's so, like I think,

like at least with these humans probably contributed big to it. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, because like, I think at least with these, humans probably contributed big to it. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. Because like, big predators like that, we've been trying to get rid of big predators. It was included in the megafauna, but I really wanted to call it a megafauna because it was the size of modern wolves, but the dire wolf was one. That one that went extinct probably because we killed it.

But, I don't know. I mean, we weren't the only Contribute factors, but I bet we were a big contributing factor to the San Francisco Tigers and like the weird thing though is that they're not Related to like the modern Phillin A or pantherin A Families like what the panther, you know, like the Panthers was like lies and all that or like felines they're like their own separate branch and they all went extinct so like I mean they were obviously related to them right right a common ancestor right the Macaradons that was completely separate from the other ones you know though they were like more distant related to a common ancestor

okay it's kind of crazy to think that though like that's a whole group of cats that went away, you know, that is crazy. Yeah, and like I think if I'm not mistaken, the Philaenae and the pantherinay, like the one way you can separate them is puri. Like the Philaenae purrs and the pantherinay don't, like they roar, you know, whereas they were as a feeling a mal and purr and cheetahs are part of the feeling a if Not mistaken, they purr so to move on though the giant ground sloth is probably one of the biggest ones Like that people have heard of as a herbivore. Oh, okay It was also called a mecha therium You may have heard of it as that or the great beast is what that means Yeah, and it lived in South America because it really was though or the great beast is what that means. Wow. Yeah. And it lived in South America because it really was.

So 20 foot long. It's pretty crazy. It's pretty, yeah. Yes, from head to tail, it was 20 feet long. But I mean, head to tail, right? The tail was long. So it was like six and it was almost seven feet tall. Okay.

So still though, like with the giant tail though like I mean yeah yeah this was a giant sloth though it lived to it lived from like 5 million to 12 thousand years ago and like it was a size of an elephant think of an elephant but a small think of a sloth as an elephant I don't know if they movie as slow as mother to sloth but that would be hilarious if they did. I mean you would think so. No, no. A big lumbering thing like that. I mean elephants move fast as hell, man. If you've seen our standing in, yeah, man. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But they wait up to four tons, right? And like I said, have a or 800 or 8800 pounds and had a height of like seven feet or 2.1 meters and Man, these things were just huge man. Like I can't even imagine how big like a slot like I mean

I kind of imagine right a slot like think of like a I mean, I kind of imagined, right? A sloth like, think of like a, seven feet tall, like that's like a basketball player, right? A big basketball player. Yeah, this giant thing. And like, but the thing with this giant sloth though was that it was one of the first things that was discovered in the Americas,

or like ancient things, right? Right. In 1788, it was founded in Argentina. And it was shipped back to Spain where this guy named Jorge Cuvier I think probably not how you have a pronounce it Sound that sounds pretty good. He was able to determine that was a slot just from like the way it looked it out Like obviously was a sloth like it has very many key distinct

Structural features as a sloth, right? Yeah, yes, but it died out like as a sloth. Right, yeah. Yes, but it died out like around the end of the ice age. And one crazy thing is that one of its big sources of food was avocados. Wow, good taste. Yeah, I mean avocados are delicious, obviously. Right. And they would like that, you know, they would eat it, they're giant, so they would eat it, and they would poop it it out and the seeds would go through their digestive system and spread around. Well, these giant sloths died out. So there was nothing to eat. These big old fruits with these giant seeds, right?

Like, you know how big of avocado seed looks like. Like, there's not very many animals that be able to eat that and then poop out that seed at all, right at all Let alone Yeah, but humans came around and we were like, hey, this is some tasty fruit and we didn't you know We didn't eat the seed and poop it out, but you know We propagated it though and we did our thing with agriculture

Right, so it's kind of crazy our thing with agriculture. Exactly. So it's kind of crazy. Avocado's would have went extinct if not for here. Yeah, that's right. Baby saving the day for the avocado. Remember that next time you order yourself. All you millennials with your avocado toast and yeah. That's right. Think of that. Think of that next time. When you're not buying a house, instead instead of they're always not gonna be able to tell you house Yeah, this right at this rate, but yes, I know we just had to bring it in had to bring it One last one though, and just quick one because I'm not gonna say much about this one But it's the short face bear also known as the

arctinus lived around like 2.5 million to 12 thousand years ago and it was probably the largest a mammalian carnivore ever like this thing was insanely tall. 13 feet or 4 meters tall and weighed up to 1800 pounds 800 kilograms. This a huge thing. Like imagine a polar bear, twice the size of a polar bear. Just this insane huge bear. And there's lots of different big bears. Like the short face bear was just one of the biggest ones, yeah. Yeah, imagine this thing

seeing a grizzly bear or a black bear now and being like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you know, like not giving to. A grizzly bear would be like a baby for it. It's insane. Dude, he would knock the f- God of that thing. And the thing is though is that like these things are recent. Yeah.

Like that means that humans encountered these things for thousands of years. Thousands of years. Again, modern humans, 400,000 years. That's right. These things, we're talking up to like 10,000 years. So we're talking longer than like modern civilization has been around. Humans have dealt with these things.

But now they're gone. Right. No wonder we've tried to kill off these things, right? I mean, I'm not saying it's great. But I'm like, no wonder there's a mass extinction going on. Almost all the megafauna in the world is going on. No, absolutely. Yeah, no. Megafana like

Megafana and by that I mean like things over that way over let's say 800 pounds Most of that is yeah, is other than the ocean and even that is endangered You know your nails and sharks and stuff. Yeah, you know, but like rhinos elephants Girass drass. Maybe doing all right, you, even your cats, some most cats are doing bad. Hippos, all that stuff. Those are the modern megafauna and they're doing really bad, mostly because of human civilization, almost all because of human civilization. But that's another episode.

Climate change and not because of humans was probably the biggest cause of them dying off like really okay able to survive the the warmer climate right once all that the ice age yet remember down past Michigan to Ohio almost was ice like a glacier right we're talking like Arctic conditions Tundra is right in Ohio right yeah like Arctic Tundra's right. In Ohio. Yeah, like Arctic Tundra's. So like, once that went away, like a lot of species are like, we don't know. We can't use it.

Oh, I gotta do this. What's going to happen with climate change when it's traffic up in the Ohio and Michigan and all that. The new Miami baby Detroit will be the new Miami baby here. Which again, it's another episode, which we talked about going back to climate change. So 15. 15 yes. I don't know why I said it like that. But anyways yes. But that's some that was just some big animals I wanted to talk about. So yeah. Call you want to do this out. And with that, we'd love to thank you for joining us here each and every week.

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