The Blindboy Podcast - St Annes Handstand

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

Collie Ennis is an expert in insects and frogs, we discuss how their decline indicates climate change, and what can be done about it Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boys and girls Put on a new suede waistcoat What's the crack you droopy Julians My microphone's being a a small bit of a bastard, hold on I am back in my proper

limerick studio and I don't know if ye can hear it but I can hear the slight difference in audio fidelity it's a little bit more warm there's certainly no echo and I am fucking glad

to be back in Limerick I was away in London for six weeks I was in Dublin for five days last week and it feels fucking great being home for six weeks I was in Dublin for five days last week and it feels fucking great being home and having access to my regular routine

and being able to play a little bit of Red Dead Redemption and make as many cups of tea as I like being able to go for gentle runs down by the Plassey River keeping an eye out for Yorty O'Hearn

the otter he hasn't gone away well he's a bit quiet recently now because it's winter I haven't seen much of him you know and

yeah that's the thing I haven't spoken about Yorty O'Hearn by the way is if you're new to the podcast, he's an otter that lives in a river in Limerick and he's the patron saint of this podcast. And if you're a new listener,

just go back to the very, very start, of course. There's no point starting now on episode 70. But I haven't seen Yorty in months. Now, I'm not alarmed by this fact. It's just, chances are if you're going to get a crack of an otter, it'll be in the afternoon. It'll be just, I've seen Yorty a couple of times. It's always when the sun is going down. That's when he comes out for a frolic.

And there's one or two places where i know i will get a little a sneaky squint at yorkty if i position myself quietly and hide in a bush i can see the limerick otter but yeah if i'm like i when it's when it's winter time I usually go out in the mornings, you know. I don't, I tend not to go jogging at dusk in winter because it's just a bit nippy, it's a bit cold. That noise there, it's not the sound of a creaking ship. I'm not secretly broadcasting from a boat. I'm pretending I'm in Limerick.

It's, I have a rebellious pop shield listen to him which is it's a thing that goes in front of the microphone to prevent unpleasant noises if I use a word that has P in it if I say P

like that the pop shield prevents that P from that the pop shield prevents that P from causing the microphone to peak but the wire attached to it is being a bit

of a ruffian and I think it needs to go to Barstool needs to be sent off to Barstool I'm going to get a new one but yeah back in Limerick. Happy as Larry.

I mentioned last week I was going to have a crack at a plant-based diet in the interest of the planet. I spoke last week about climate change and my concern around it for the first time. And one of the things I want to do is to reduce the amount of meat in my diet by 90% so I'm going to be eating a plant-based diet for five days a week

and it's brilliant it's not difficult at all I've been getting on fantastically with it um the only thing I miss is because I cut out dairy as well you know because it's like I want to not have anything that comes from animals whatsoever the dairy industry isn't very good on the environment either I do miss cow's milk in my tea I've tried coconut milk

I've tried oat milk and soya soya is the best but it tastes a small bit like liquid cardboard and not the delicious creamy sunshine that comes from a cow's tits you know so we'll see how i get on we'll see how I get on if tea is a very important part of my day

very very important part of my day it brings me intense pleasure and joy and I might have to switch back to a bit of milk

at the very least like I'm not I have like two big tubs of whey protein that I need to get through as well anyway so I'm not 100% plant based

I'm taking two scoops of whey protein a day just because I don't want to waste them I don't want to throw them away I already have them purchased I know you can buy vegan protein but if I can get along well with the soya and I don't miss it

after about a week or two, I don't miss the cow's milk then I'll stick it with the soya but like I said liquid cardboard lads and that's the best of the bunch coconut milk on it's own is yummy oat milk oat milk's a bit weird

feel a bit cheated by oat milk you know I have a feeling if you got a bunch of porridge oats and put them in some water you'd very quickly get some oat milk without having to spend three quid on it you know em it was world cancer day this week check your testicles

check your breasts ok em become familiar with these things do you know check your relevant equipment lads em regularly because things, do you know, check, check your relevant equipment, lads, regularly, because we tend

not to, because it's scary, like who the fuck wants to do that, who wants to go into the shower and go, better check my balls for cancer, no one wants to do that, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna touch my testicles in a way which is unconventional and uncomfortable, so that I can find some cancer, like, that's not a particularly enamoring proposition, you know, coupled with the fact that testicles have several natural lumps in them anyway. And you're like. Which ones are the normal ones? But.

Having said that. Conquer the fucking anxiety of it. Do it once a week. Alright. Whatever part of your body you want to explore for lumps. If you can. Do you know. Those full body health screenings get one of them once a year right if you look it up online there's usually free ones in your area they'll have like a full health screening clinic right that you can go to if if you can't afford it and then if you can't afford it you go to your doctor and say

give me a health screening so there's no excuse there either and the reason i say it the reason i'm saying it on the podcast is i tweeted on world cancer day i tweeted you know check yourself keep an eye on these things look after yourself that's what i tweeted something along those lines and i was just fucking shocked with how many people responded underneath saying yeah i had cancer last year yes um mine was worse because i didn't fucking get early detection loads of people like a lot of people and it really hit home to me it's like oh fuck okay this is important fucking get early detection. Loads of people, like a lot of people. And it really hit home to me.

It's like, oh fuck, okay, this is important. Conquer the anxiety of it, is what I'm saying. It's not pleasant to be going into the shower looking for lumps. I'd much rather be singing songs or thinking about my day, but I most definitely am going to be having a crack at that once a week. but I most definitely am going to be having a crack at that once a week.

So, I was in Dublin because I was doing four live podcasts in the Sugar Club, and they were fantastic. They were a serious amount of crack. The audiences were lovely. The guests were brilliant. There were four serious amount of crack. The audiences were lovely. The guests were brilliant. There were four very engaging gigs. Four very different topics with very different energies. I had Ellie Kizionbe, who is a person who's been living in direct provision

for over a decade. She is now running as a politician with the social democrats she's the first ever person in direct provision to be running um as a politician that was incredible uh it was wonderful to just to be able to the privilege of being able to provide the platform for someone who has the lived experience of direct provision to go this is what it's like, this is what's happening please listen

so I'll be putting that one out at some point over the coming months then I had Dr Billy McGlynn who is a folklorist he was talking about ancient Irish

folklore, mythology things like that, early Irish history pre-Christian Ireland I had Grace Dyess, Rachel Kyo and Lloyd Cooney, all three of them are involved in a play called Heroin

which takes real world experience of the drug heroin and offers a social history of it so that was an entire night where it was a discussion about addiction and Ireland and drug policy three crackers but the first night, the Friday

I interviewed a chap called Collie Ennis who is a researcher in Trinity College. And he's a researcher in zoology, and he is an expert in insects and frogs and small animals that aren't mammals, basically. And what makes Collie so interesting is he's working in the zoology department, you know, this is the coalface of professional fucking zoology. But he himself fully believes in democratising this information. That there's no point speaking about zoology or insects or animals if the way you're speaking about it is going to exclude the lay person. So Collie goes around to schools and everything with spiders and insects and all this crack. Also, importantly, Collie's main thing is conservationism.

His primary concern at the moment is looking at the frogs and insects of Ireland and watching how their populations are decimating as an indicator of global warming and he is at the front of the battle lines trying to save the small insects and frogs and whatever of Ireland he is leading the avant-garde so this week's podcast i'm going to i'm going to play the live the interview i did with collie ennis about insects and about the environment and it's a cracker and it's hugely hugely informative about what's actually happening in ireland with the environment and with populations of certain animals. And it gives you information.

Like, that's the thing. Yes, at times it's sad, but Collie provides real answers on what you can actually do in Ireland to try and improve things if you want to. So before we get into that, we will have our musical pause for an advert to be inserted. Usually it's the ocarina pause. We didn't have an ocarina pause last week because I didn't know what it was. This week, the ocarina is somewhere in my luggage and I don't fancy looking for it. So we're going to have a musical pause this week whereby I've got a packet of chewing gums you know

those petrol station chewing gums that are inside in a little container and I'm going to shake them but in a gentle fashion in a circular motion around the microphone so that it is aesthetically pleasing I do this because Acast might possibly insert a digital advert into this podcast I have been told again that the British Army are advertising on my podcast after I requested

that the British Army are no longer allowed on this podcast okay so no thank you British Army I'm going to do what i usually do before the british army advertise on this podcast i will list out one or two war crimes of the british army to counter that to counteract any possible indoctrination that may occur upon your brain in 1900 thereabouts during the second boer war the british had actual concentration camps in south africa um they captured the men that were captured were mostly sent overseas but the concentration camps that the British ran, it was mostly for women and children. 26,000 women and children

died in British concentration camps in South Africa in 1900. In Kenya, 1952 to 1960, the British Army interned who they believed to be rebels, you know, without trial. There was no trial to anyone of a suspected rebel. They hung 2,000 and tortured Barack Obama's grandfather. He was tortured by the British Army because he was suspected of being a rebel in Kenya in the 1950s. So we're going to go into the pause now the

chewing gum pause for a digital advert to be inserted and if the British Army advertise well I've done a little bit of counter intelligence ye pricks oh yeah listen to that pricks. Oh yeah, listen to that.

On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother.

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em Patreon Patreon are in the news recently now and it's a little bit worrying they're saying that their model isn't financially sustainable for the shareholders who own Patreon now basically what it is, it's just greedy investors

it's greedy investors going because ultimately what it is, it's just greedy investors. It's greedy investors going... Because ultimately what Patreon is, it's just a way to manage donations. It's a way to manage patronage. Like, you lads give me the price of a pint once a month and then Patreon give me that money and they take a cut out of it

so they're managing a payment system and the shareholders of Patreon are going well that's not incredibly that's not very fucking profitable is it well it's not you knew it wasn't going to be when you invested so that gave me

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be able to say it's it's I get to create and I get to have meaning in my life and do the things that I enjoy and know where my money is coming from as opposed to before where I might get paid once every three months or something you know or once every four months and have zero certainty about my future. So thank you to fucking everyone who is a patron of this podcast. Thank you so much. And it's the price of a pint, price of a cup of coffee once a month. But if you can't afford it, if you're someone listening to this podcast and you don't have that cash, then you don't have to to you're still going to get the same podcast that everyone else gets

okay um i only i only want to take money off people who have disposable income who can afford it and the understanding is as well is that when someone subscribes to the patreon they're also paying for someone else who can't afford it who still listens to the Patreon. They're also paying for someone else. Who can't afford it. Who still listens to the podcast. You know. It's a model kind of based on soundness. And it works brilliantly.

So. Hopefully Patreon will keep fucking going. And. And not do something mad. Like Facebook. Facebook who've. Destroyed themselves over the past year. And made their model. absolutely unworkable. So let's get ready for the live podcast. One thing I'm going to say is I've

been putting huge effort recently into how I record the live podcast to record it in a way that it still has a sense of intimacy that it doesn't feel like it's in a big live venue full of people there's going to be a little bit of crowd noise but it's not overwhelming it's still it's getting close to the podcast hug territory

know what I mean I love this interview Collie was fantastic he was really fucking interesting and it's broaching subjects we haven't gone near on this podcast before, I've never spoken about animals or insects or

frogs and I haven't really spoken about climate change either so here we have a fucking expert, thank you very much applause applause applause applause and you also have a

podcast, I do, what's the name of your podcast, it's called the Critter Shed the Critter Shed, yeah very accessible, it is very I listen to it, It's absolutely fantastic. So, yeah, I said to the audience, we're going to talk about insects for ages. Yeah.

And it's going to be loads of crack. It is. And the arachnophobes out there. I will get you over that today. You offered to bring a couple of things with you. I did. But I had a screaming, roaring hangover this morning, and I just said...

Like, I'm not too bad with insects, but, like, you've got these cockroaches and stuff. Giant Madagascan hissing cockroaches. Yes, so I don't think a hissing cockroach would go well at my hangover. No. Try feeding them when you're drunk. Your honour. No. Try feeding them when you're drunk. Your honour.

Yeah. That's my Saturday night. Tell me about feeding the hissing cockroaches. Well, feeding everything. So I might go out and have a few quiet ones. You have a shed

in the back garden full of... Yeah, yeah. So, obviously, the wife doesn't want them in the house. So I was... I invested wisely and I have a pretty large collection

out the back garden. So you have a few quiet ones of a Saturday afternoon, but you still have to have your detalling mice out on the counter and your bag of vegetables chopped up and your dog food, and you go out and feed all the animals. Where do you get your mice? Who gives you mice? I breed my own mice or

I buy them in bulk. Wow. No vegans out there, is there? Tell us how you got started. You're now a researcher in Trinity College. I am.

You're a rather unorthodox start to ending up in that position. Yeah, I, like a lot of kids, I loved Bugs and Creepy Crawlies, but I never grew out of it. My mate Bob Bourne is a great artist for 2000AD Comics, and people always ask him, when did you start drawing? And he says, when did you stop? Yeah. And I think that him, when did you start drawing? And he says, when did you stop? Yeah. And I think that's the same with me

because I always had frogs and insects and tadpoles and all sorts of crap. My mum was great. Even though I grew up in Crumlin, it was still a bit wild. Like the gardens were open. So you'd have hedgehogs

and foxes and all running through your garden. Now all the gardens are walled. So you don't get that biodiversity being able to move around. Yeah. So it was a proper wild place when you're out there digging around in the mud. And I was allowed to keep whatever I wanted.

And then I picked up an animal called a fire-bellied newt in Georgia Street Arcade in the old pet shop there in Dublin City Centre. And what age were you? Eight. And then I was like, right, this is for me. So I started getting books

and reading and I'd get, then I got tarantulas. Then I learned how to make tarantulas have sex. And I got loads of tarantulas. And this is pre-internet? Pre-internet. Just reading. Bit of candlelight barry white cd bang game on so when did like the natural childlike because it's interesting you said there as well about your buddy saying you know when did you stop drawing because i speak on the podcast a lot about, for mental health, right?

All of us played with crayons. All of us messed around with in the mud, did things like this. And then we stop at a certain age, usually because the adults say, grow up. You know, stop playing with crayons or you'll get your clothes dirty. But the psychologist, Carl Jung young like up until his death he used to make an hour every day just to go down on the ground and play with sticks like he did when he was four and five because he's like play is such an important part of mythology and understanding yourself and and flow as well um there's nothing better than being a

kid and playing around with mud and just losing yourself and I imagine like the imagination and things you would have been thinking about it when you were messing around with a woodlouse yeah you're learning about it and it's I still get that calmness believe it or not when I'm playing with a giant boa

pun intended but if I'm playing around with a snake or I'm working with when I'm working with when I'm working with animals I get in that zone and I get a great sense of peace holding scorpions it's ridiculous

but it works for me and it really does it really is that childhood fascination it just kicks straight back into it and what age were you when you went from like physically being interested in these things to then going I need need to know more about this, I need to pick up a book?

The day I got that new. I remember I... And what were you doing pre-internet? Like, I mean, I grew up pre-internet as well, but I had one set of encyclopedias and that was it. Yeah, those things we used to call books. Yeah. I have loads and I still get books. Yeah, those things we used to call books.

Yeah. I have loads and I still get books. You know, I find that, like, just... The internet's very good for small things, but with a book, I tend to absorb it better. Yeah. I don't know why. And also, it's great for references and it makes you look very clever.

When your mates come around, you're like, let me just check. So, yeah. And, like, a lot of my books would need pictures as well because I'm stupid and because I hate that though pictures are demonised

but like I need them to identify spiders pictures are brilliant I love books with pictures yeah pictures of spiders penises so

actually here's a question not about spiders Mickey's but I know that, like, are proper wildlife books really expensive because the colour on them has to be absolutely perfect if you're identifying spiders.

I know mushroom books. If you get a book about mushrooms, it's like 100 quid. Yep. It is because... I feel your pain. The photographs have to be absolutely perfect because if the printing is any way bad, you're up in the woods and all of a sudden

you're eating a mushroom, so you need to have them perfect. Is it the same with... Yeah, you're eating the wrong... For Christmas, I got a tarantula book and I know it set me, Mrs. Backabay, 200 euro. Because it's very specific. And when I'm out in the woods or the jungles collecting tarantulas,

I don't want to pick up the wrong one. There you go. Or I'm brown bread. You go to Africa. Yeah, I do a lot of field work. I've been all over the world kind of collecting, flipping rocks and looking at different things. Can you tell us about that?

Because you were in Africa about six months ago, but Trinity was this. Yeah, so Trinity, for the final year, there's biology students that bring the whole, anyone who wants to go to Africa and we do kind of an ecology tour, which basically introduces them to the real Africa.

So you don't see the lovely pretty pictures that you'll see on the wildlife documentaries. You'll see lions, zebra, ballymun flats right beside them. And that's the harsh reality of it. And this is what, if you're a zoologist or you're going to get into conservation,

you have to know these things. You have to see it. And Trinity are brilliant for doing that. And a lot of other colleges now are following suit because it's grand learning books or learning stuff from the books and doing practical stuff in the labs, but you need to get your hands dirty and get out there.

And I think it's a really good thing that the college does to give a sense of reality and a sense of how difficult it can be out there when you're talking about animal-human conflict and you're talking about trying to clean up environments where people are dirt poor. And who are we to be lecturing people who are dirt poor about how they should look after their wildlife when we can't look after our own wildlife? And what's the biggest kind of conservation issue that you were seeing in Africa

too many people with too little money it's the same all over the world and how does that impact animals because the richer an economy tends to be the more it's conscious of environmentally friendly stuff

when you're poor and you're slopping out on the side economy tends to be, the more it's conscious of environmentally friendly stuff. When you're poor and you're slopping out on the side of the road, you don't really care. Your kid is suffering. You don't care about the gazelles and the cheetah. And that's totally understandable. And I didn't get that until I went

there. And that's the reality of the situation. So it's the simple proximity of humans to animal populations is detrimental for animals it is the pollution is a major factor and yeah and plastic pollution is incredible worldwide then you have greedy corporations coming in and like malaysia i flew into malaysia and i nearly was crying on the plane going in and it's not because of the palm oil all you see for miles and miles around, even up over the mountains,

they've gone over the mountains, it's just rows and rows of palm oil. Can you tell us about palm oil, what it is? Well, palm oil is a monoculture. So instead of having these beautiful, pristine rainforests that would have like massively complex food webs

that have been there for eons. Food webs? Food webs is like you start at the bottom with plants and the insects that eat the plants and the birds that eat the insects and it all goes in and everything's tied in. They're all feeding off each other

and then you chop all that down and you put one type of plant for 400 miles each direction and everything goes and all you get in there is rats and some kind of snakes. That's it. Yeah. It just wrecks the place.

And it's heartbreaking to see. Because, yeah, we were speaking backstage about, if we say Gillette and Procter & Gamble. And Procter & Gamble are accused of being responsible for the execution of, not the execution, the extinction. Well, no, but you know what? That's a meaningful Freudian slip.

They're personally responsible for an orangutan going extinct. So I hear. Yeah, because of palm oil and what they want. And also, the other thing with palm oil is slavery, human slavery. There's massive, massive amounts of human slavery used in extracting palm oil. And it's all because of poverty. Lots of poor people over there have no choice. And lots of people get duped into selling their

land, indigenous people, to put in palm or to put in cattle. Like, Brazil is going to be a major mess in the next couple of years now with that dope down there. So he's going to have McDonald's cows all over the place

and it will be the big corporations are going to go to him shake hands with him and go get rid of all that rain and tell us to cut down on our waste and don't drink out plastic straws and it's like it gets on my nerves sometimes but there you go

yeah I can see it's a bit of a an emotional subject for you it is yeah it is i um i'd like to leave this world in the same state that we received it for our kids and our grandkids yeah and we definitely aren't doing that so you know it's and it's it's people on the cold front like I'm very fortunate like the way I fell into this gig that I get to work with incredible scientists, incredible students PhD students

and incredible lecturers in the college and the conservation workers I go out in the field with and everybody who's at the coal face knows this is happening sometimes you feel like you're screaming in the dark you know i mean and but but there is a lot of positive news out there as well so yeah you have to he said that because i said i'll give you the shit if you say global

warming stuff can you say something positive at the end please and his positive thing was well there's loads of positive things out there too Monarch Butterflies bounced back 114% today so that's cool that's fucking play to them man but that's it royal families tend to live very long don't they yeah

but tell me about like i follow you on twitter a very very interesting man to follow on twitter because you'll be there at nine in the morning and you're poking a scorpion yeah and it's just interesting because i'm going wow look at how he's starting his day um but i saw you chatting about, you were very concerned recently, this winter in particular, certain behaviour patterns you were seeing with native

Irish animals. Yeah, I was moaning because it wasn't too cold. I've changed my mind today. But yeah. Tell us about that. Yeah, tell us about weird things. Yeah, we are going through noticeable climate fluctuations. You've all noticed it. It was snowing in March last year.

Yeah, and it's roasting now in December. So you've got animals who should be asleep who aren't. Hedgehogs, frogs, newts, all that kind of stuff that need to be asleep. Now I specialise in amphibians and reptiles in Ireland.

So you'd have your frogs and your newts and they need to get a kip, right? Because when they wake up, they are going at it. It's loving season, so they need to get some. So is their hibernation disturbed essentially? Their hibernation doesn't begin. And what

happens is it doesn't begin because they don't get into that lower, the three degrees or below where they'll go right and disappear underground or go into some refuge and have a rest. So, like, how does a frog hibernate? Well, they'll either go into a pile of leaves, basically, or some rocks or go into the bottom of a pond, into the mud in the bottom of a pond and just wait it out.

And they're fine to do that. If they don't to do that if they don't do that which they haven't been they're around doing what they normally do at night on a wet night they'll be out looking for slugs and snails and bugs which is fine during the summer because there's a lot around during the winter time during the darker months there's no bugs around so all i have been spotting lately is these like emaciated frogs going around going and i'm very fond of frogs. They're little cute little things, and they're just like, ah!

So, it's, um, yeah, that's crap to see. But we got the cold snap, so hopefully it won't be too bad. And, yeah, do you think, like, getting a blast of cold now, and it'll probably be cold in February, does that help? Like, can a frog just go...

So, they're going to wake up for the ride in April. Yep. Operating on two hours of sleep. Amphibian orgies. They won't know what's going on. Did you hear the eels in the Thames have loads of coke in them now as well? I heard that, yeah.

So I think I'm just going to throw a load of coke in the ponds to keep them going. What's happening to the... Someone said that to me there in London, yeah. There's so much coke in the Thames that... It's getting absorbed by the eels, who are already screwed as well, so they're just going around going...

And how are the eels getting on with that coke? They're talking too much. They're being a bit of an arsehole. But getting back to the frogs, what happened last year, we had a similar situation last year. They woke up, the frog orgy happened, everybody was happy,

but then we had that big snow. So all their spawn got... Abgalax. So you're... And that's what I'm knowledgeable about. There's other people out there who will tell you about all sorts of different animals that are getting hit, hit, hit. I was saying to you earlier on, do you remember when you were kids and you'd go for a drive in the country? And you'd come back and your car would have all bugs all over the windshield. Do any of you remember that?

Maybe you were too young. Well, that used to be a common thing. Now you never see it. And that's a sign of a food web in distress. Insects are disappearing. Insects run the shop. If we disappeared, everything would be fine. The insects go...

The whole thing collapses. It's that game. You know? Yeah. Who were you most pissed off with regarding all of this stuff? No, I think... Brexit. I think there's so many factors,

but I think this generation knows what the crack is now. Our parents maybe didn't know so much we know and we have to we have the ability to change that everybody in here can do small little things to change that and i think rather than being pissed off let's be proactive yeah let's get out there and you know make small changes make make it a more friendly environment for the creatures we share the planet with. And it's easy to do. And it's not about, you know what I mean, the straws and the plastic.

That's all important, but there's other stuff you can do. Voluntary organisations that need people like you to get out there and help. Like actually on the ground, helping frogs, helping hedgehogs. Digging ponds. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Planting seeds, planting flowers. Tell me about some of the stuff that you would do to help frogs so the herpetological society of Ireland are a group of

herpetologists which do the study of reptiles and is there a relation between harp and harpies yes

things that crawl so frogs because frogs give you warts they don't like but everyone does it's the Latin for herpes and herpetology. The Latin is, I think it's herpes or something.

But that means things that crawl. So the herpes crawls across your face. And the lizards and the snakes crawl across the ground. Herpetological studies. Right, okay. There you go. So what do you do? Let's say, you know, you get a phone call.

The frogs in Manahan are fucked. I get in the frog mobile. Yeah, what are you going to do? How does it start? What do you do? We'll go out and assess the situation. For example, about four years ago, we had a phone call from a teacher in Kildare who was walking past a breeding pond that she knew of.

She was a biology teacher, so she had her eye in. But she noticed that there were frogs dying all around the pond, so we went down to Frogmobile and assessed the situation. And we taught initially, long story short, we taught initially when we got out of the car that there was a major pollution event that was happening because, say, to the back of the exit there, that's where the pond was. As we got out of the car that there was a major pollution event that happened because say to the back of the exit there that's where the pond was as we got out of the car here there was just dead frogs everywhere yeah we counted like three or four hundred it was crazy and they were half dead and dying and male frogs when they're breeding they're so randy they'll even if they have their bodies missing they'll still try and hump you yeah yeah mad it was It was mad, it was. So I'm like, oh, he's suffering. But,

he's so horny and dying. But, what it was, was, we set out camera traps, we tested the water, the water was fine, everything.

Then we discovered it was, more than likely, an escaped ferret pet that had gone on a rampage. What? Yes. So we sent that.

A cat or a dog or...? No, a ferret. A ferret? Oh, they're pricks. Yeah. All mammals are pricks. But a ferret... Like, if a ferret gets into a chicken coop,

it would kill all of them. Yeah, it gets into a rampage. Otters and foxes can do that too as well. It's just, it's like... They don't know what to do at all. So that was good news. But that's an example of how we go out and assess the situation. And we've monitored that pond.

Well, yeah, it is good news. It's like, it's just one prick of a ferret. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, this shit happens. Actually, we're writing the paper up on that, so I will call it one prick of a ferret. Yeah, too. But my dad used to hunt rabbits with ferrets.

Now, not in a... This is how he earned money, not in the way they do it in Wicklow for fun. But he used to hunt rabbits with ferrets. He'd shine motorcycle torches into the rabbits faces, dazzle

them or else he'd send ferrets down the burrow. But he used to say that they then had to have a dog that would have to go down the burrow after the ferret to get the ferret out because if you sent the ferret into the burrow. But he used to say that they then had to have a dog that would have to go down the burrow after the ferret to get the ferret out because if you sent the ferret into the burrow, the ferret would suck the blood out of all the rabbits and leave them down there

because they're greedy boys. They are. Have you any fondness for mammals? I don't really do mammals. There you go. But, like, come on. You had some strong words. That sounds so strange.

You had a few strong words about cats there backstage, man. No, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so people say to me, do you not get worried? Because I would keep some weird animals, and they'd say, what if they got out into the environment? What would they do?

And I'd go, what pet do you have? And they'd say a cat. And I'd be like, shut up. Because cats are the most dangerous animal out there for native wildlife. They're out in every country eating everything. Just for the crack of it. And if they can't eat it,

they'll scrub it and the animal will probably get an infection and die. Y'all have cats out there, anyone? Y'all get little mice and voles and all sorts chopped on the step every so often? No? Your cats are crap. They're doing it. They're doing it. Trust me. Is there an argument to be made for

excessively spoiling your cats so that they don't destroy the environment? No, there's an argument to be made for keeping your cat indoors where it should be. Okay, yeah. Yep. It should be kept indoors and it should be spayed. Yeah.

Sorry. I feel guilty now because I've taken it upon myself to become the leader of a colony of feral cats up in that garden. But that, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just, sometimes when you say

the actual thing that you have to do to be environmentally conscious it's not very palpable. Well, yeah, that's it, yeah. What about poor old dogs? Have you anything mean to say about them? Dogs don't do half the damage or quarter the damage that cats will do. Yeah. I mean, dogs are just...

Yeah. We all love dogs. Talk us through your shed. There's a fucking question. Imagine someone who didn't know what this was just walks in. A lot of people here. Talk us through your shed, sir.

Yeah, so I got a... Is it a regular shed? It's a regular garden shed on the outside. Yeah, insulated. It's kitted out with thermostats that control microclimates within each individual enclosure. And then I have racks of different animals all the way up to the roof

and all the way down to the end, and that's it. And a decent CD player in there as well to play the music to play a bit of Slayer good man tell us about some cool animals that are in your shade

well I keep a lot of scorpions is that just your own thing you enjoy I specialise in scorpions and spiders yeah and frogs

that's my tree that's I know a lot about them and I specialise in them do you have camel spiders scorpions and spiders and frogs. That's my tree. I know a lot about them. Do you have camel spiders? I had a camel spider but they don't do well in captivity. Do they not? No. They're desert species and even if you put a big heat lamp over them they're just... Did you hear the... Do you know about camel spiders?

They first came when the US invaded Afghanistan. That's when the US soldiers were all posting photographs of these terrifying... They're not spiders, they're... They're arachnids. Arachnids, yeah. But the memes went around around 2004

that they would chase you and they would scream like children and they could run... They were very quick. They're very fast. There's a reason why they chase you. It's the shadow. Yes, very good. Yeah were very fast. There's a reason why they chase you. It's the shadow. Yes. Very good.

Yeah. So the yanks were out in the desert. They are kind of scary looking. They've got huge fucking jaws, and they could take a bite out of you the size of a euro. Is that correct? Yes.

And, but they're not that interested in you, but the yanks were in the middle of a desert. Desert's got nothing. Their jeeps and stuff were disturbing the camel spiders who were trying to sleep during the day. Camel spider comes out of the burrow, is like, fuck it, the sun. I want to be somewhere dark. So chase

is any type of shadow. So you had these marines looking for the fucking Taliban screaming with their M16s getting chased by these spiders. And I don't know, where did they get the opinion that the spiders were screaming at them? Because they were probably listening to their mates screaming in the background. Do they make noise?

They rub the chelicerae which is their jaws together but they don't make a noise that would scream like a baby. Okay. Definitely not. But they do chase shadows. Dramatic yanks. Dramatic yanks. Why don't they do well in captivity? They're a desert species and they need roasting hot.

Variation between hot and cold. And it's very hard to replicate that yeah but you know i have i have a very cool spider called a six-eyed sand spider which is rumored to be the most venomous spider on the planet and that's why do you say rumored um okay so how do you test it on people you know what i mean wow you test out on rabbits? You know what I mean? Wow. You test that on rabbits, and we know it's the equivalent of a stroke, Ebola, and a heart attack all at the same time. Fucking hell.

So, you know, and then if you go into where they live... Where do they live? All the deserts, because they originated on the island of Pangaea back in the dickity, you know, back eons ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you evolved on Pangaea, you have to have a lot of stones, you know, back eons ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you evolved on Pangaea, you have to have a lot of stones,

you know what I mean? Are you serious? Well, I mean, it was... Is that why Australia is full of mad bastards? Yeah, well, we can talk about that. But why is Australia full of the, like, really terrifying animals? It's a harsh environment,

and it's a desert environment, especially when you have around desert environments, what tends to happen, especially with venomous animals, they tend to get funkier venom, you know, because you don't want to get eaten and you want to make damn sure if you hit something, you're going to eat it. Yeah. Because you're going to come across food

very rarely. And to be honest with you, Australia claims to have a lot more dangerous animals than it is. It's a tourist sport. Bullshit. Go to the Amazon and say to one of them, they'd laugh at you, they would. They'd be like, what? You know?

My kid just got eaten by an anaconda the other day. You know? And I'm not... You know, it regularly happens down there. So, I mean, a brown snake in your kitchen. Oh, my God. You know what I mean? It's a big difference.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, harden up, Australia, you know? What about all the Irish lads that go over getting jobs as brickies in Australia and then they go on to bidding sites and go, sure, I don't need any gloves. But lads

getting bitten by redback spiders. Tell me about redbacks. Well, they're one of the widow family. Yeah. The widows. I mean, dredgestries the widows but I mean it's like our false widows here we were their kind of cousins

they don't bite you unless you squeeze them there was a scientific study done by a woman in in America, a scientist over there and she put pressure on the regular black widow spiders. Yeah.

Like, squeezed them within an inch of their life. And only at the very end, when they're about to pop, did they bite you. So you're talking about putting on your jacket, and you're putting on your jacket, and the spider's about to get... Okay, yeah.

Or you're reaching around the back of a brick. Well, what I was told by my buddies there, it's the lads picking up cinder blocks. Yes. Because they'd be... But then it's... Like, get to the hospital in a half an hour you're dead oh yeah because the poor man will beat you to death there hasn't been a recorded fatality from him since like 1919 or something i think it was a kid like they have a bad rep they don't they don't deserve the rep they

have um and on that subject, because it's something you really wanted to speak about on this podcast, and it's something you're very passionate about, who's familiar with the false widow spider? Yeah, which... I've only started seeing... Like, I... I used to live in Dublin about four or five years ago.

I lived up in Donabate. And... Which isn't really Dublin. I thought it was, coming from Limerick. Oh, I can't wait to move to Dublin. Out in Donabate. So when I was there, for some reason, I was in a house and it was just fucking false widows all over the gaff.

Scared the living shit out of me. I nearly put myself in physical danger a number of times trying to avoid them. Tell us about the false widow and should I be as frightened as I am? And should I sometimes in the summer not sleep with any bedclothes on because I'm scared there's one in there? So, there's a venom lab

up in Galway, run by a friend of mine. Sounds like a decent bedclub. The venom lab, yeah. But Dr. Michel Dom Lab, yeah. Dr. Michel Dugon, a very sexy French man up there, has taken it over into the university and he's done a full study of the false widows and the effect of their venom.

And I got involved and I helped out with a paper that we wrote on a while ago. And if you get bitten by one of them, you're going to have a little bit of pain, a bit of an itch and probably a lump. And that's it. What about when the Daily Mail have the lad with his arm hanging off? Yeah.

What that fella needs to do is have a wash because he has MRSA or septus or something like that. Okay, so that's exactly what it is. A small wound went bad. Went bad. But a cat could scratch you and the same thing could happen. Exactly.

You could get bitten by a pair of hamsters. More chance of you getting it that way. It's just sensationalist papers making up shit to make everybody afraid. And then you have L1s falling down stairs because of Daddy Longlegs runs in front of them. I get calls from people who are... I get calls from people saying, I need you to come out and talk to this person because they won't leave their house because they're afraid a false widow is going to jump out at them.

Like genuine cases of people getting freaked and there's no need for it. It's a bee sting or a wasp sting. Won't kill you. No recorded fatalities, no recorded even really bad side effects. It's just a nasty little sting. And to get stung by them, you'd have to go out of your way to do it.

Yeah. In the lab to get them to fight. Licking their heads. Yeah, exactly. To hassle them. Yeah. So, I mean, like, just... Why, though?

Why, like, they've been in Ireland about 150 years. They've been in Ireland about 150 years. They've been in England for 150 years. And then only... Caribbean lads, aren't they? Yeah. They're from the Canary Islands. And they've been in England

because they came in in the banana boats and then they were first recorded in Ireland. They're probably here a lot longer but they were first recorded here in the 90s by an arachnologist,

Miles Nolan. And why is there loads of them now? Or is it just that... They're very successful. It's like if someone told me, my friend has a yellow car and all I see is yellow cars now when I'm on the road. Is it like that?

Partially, partially. No, they're very successful. They're invasive, so they're not... Our ecosystem isn't used to them. Yeah. They live longer than our native spiders who would only generally live for to them. Yeah. They live longer than our native spiders who would only generally live for a year. Yeah.

So these guys live for six years. The females do. Okay. And they have multiple egg sacs. And then they go out and they'll eat and attack a lot of different things. Yeah. We even had a record of them last year

eating a native lizard, which was really kill. Yes, that's the first time that happened. That was the first recorded vertebrate being eaten by a spider in here. So a little lizard, which was really kill. Yes, that's the first time that happened. That was the first recorded vertebrate being eaten by a spider in here. So a little lizard wandered into a spider's web out in Killiney, in some woman's gaff,

and the spider ate it. And we found it afterwards. And it was very interesting. Like, exciting as you're a scientist, but like, pretty crap if you're a lizard. Yeah. Have any of you ever actually come across an Irish lizard in real life?

Once. One in Limerick. Little dragons. We started a study. Tell us about them. We have one lizard on this island. Yeah, the common lizard. So it's a live bearing lizard. It doesn't lay eggs, but it's like the ones you'd see on holidays, you know, when you go away. Dark brown was the fella there.

Can they change? They can change to match up. But it's not like a chameleon but it they will blend in they're very cryptic very hard to see if you live in dublin along hoth head is a great spot during the sunny days or they're on bull island as well so we've started doing studying them in bull island about seven or eight years ago and we're going to continue on doing a long-term study to see how the numbers are affected by climate change and people interfering with their habitat and stuff. And do we not see them because they're really good at hiding?

Yeah, very cryptic. And they don't like to be out because boars will eat them and foxes will eat them and everything. So the first year I was studying them, I didn't see them for six months. Did they bask? Did they need to bask? They weren't basking when I was looking for them.

I hadn't got my eye in, and my mate who I'm doing this study with was in Madagascar working with crocodiles, real sexy research. I'm out in Bull Island in the rain, walking along, and I can't find these fecking lizards. And I'm ringing him on his mobile phone over in Madagascar, and I'm like, these don't exist, these are unicorns. They're not real.

Whoever reported seeing them here is lying. But then I saw my first one and I was so happy. Actually, I saw my first one and the first one we caught to take photographs of, my daughter was with me. And that was magic. And it was a little magic moment because she's at that age now, like I was saying, and you

could just see the hooks went in. She's going to be the next generation of conservationists now. So that was a magic moment, that was. But I love those little lizards. They're great. How did you catch it? We have a methodology where we use felt mats to draw them in,

where they'll bask. Yeah. And then you just get your skill set together. So you create a basking area? Yes. It's very cool. And we take photographs of their underbellies. Each lizard has a different

unique underbelly like a fingerprint and then we put into a database and we use a program that the cops used to use for recognizing faces but you can use it for lizards as well and we can say that's larry from four years ago and he's doing well or you know wow so and it really gives you a good idea of the population and what we're doing. Can you tell me about slow worms? Slow worms are an introduced reptile that look like a snake but are actually a lizard. So they're a legless lizard. Do they have eyelids or don't have eyelids? They do have eyelids.

Yeah. And they don't have the forked one. Yeah. They have a very kind of bony rib cage. And they're down in the burn. And there's a rumour. We don't know where it started. And a lot of people are doubting burn. And there's a rumour, we don't know where it started and a lot of people are doubting it,

but there was a rumour that they came over with the hippies in the 70s who were running around the burn in the nip doing magic and... From where, like? From England. Are their slow arms English? English, yeah. Well, we don't know.

So the hippies did a reverse St Patrick on us? Yeah. We need to get some genetics done on it English, yeah. Well, we don't know. So the fucking hippies did a reverse St. Patrick on us. Yeah. We need to get some genetics done on it to see exactly where they're from. But that's the legend. Tell us about some interesting bites that you've gotten. Because sometimes on Twitter I see you actually trying to get bitten.

You were forcing your hand into a spider's jaws. Yeah, you got that a little bit wrong. That was a molt, and I was stretching out the fangs just to show how sharp they were. But I wouldn't do that with the live spider, because that would... Oh, that wasn't a real spider. It was the real spider's molt.

It was its jacket. Yes, spider jacket, exactly. Because that's of a pokey. It's its jacket. Yes. Spider jacket. Exactly. Because that's off a pokey. It's an Indian ornamental spider and if that bites you, you're going to have a little trip to the hospital. So you have spiders in your shed that

if you got bitten by them, you'd be in a lot of trouble. Yeah, well, the six-eyed sand spider, as I told you, the Ebola, heart attack, brain hemorrhage, all at the same time, that wouldn't be good. But he's in a lockbox, so he lives in that box and he's happy as Larry. And he only gets fed every so often.

You're very careful. And you'd never handle? Never. Not a chance. There's no point. And it's not a handleable spider anyway? No. No, not at all. I have a great story. There's these spiders spiders baboon spiders from Africa

called orange baboon tarantulas right and we call them OBTs or orange bitey things because they're nuts I call them facehuggers

when you walk past the cage you go dook onto the side of the glass like the aliens so I have some mates

in England who do this thing there's a guy from Glasgow Scottish guy and he got tagged on the tip of his finger and he was in so much pain he rang me I have some mates in England who do this thing. There's a guy from Glasgow, Scottish guy, and he got tagged on the tip of his finger, and he was in so much pain, he rang me, and he just started screaming on the phone,

burn them all, colleague! Screaming at the top of his lungs, this accent. And I was like, what are you talking about, man? But yeah, so he was just like, get rid of them. He got bitten, did he? He got tagged, a little tick. What do you mean, got tagged? Tagged as getting bitten. Is it a warning?

Yeah, yeah. So you get a dry bite or you can get a full-on venom, envenomation, you know? And how did they decide whether to, the dry bite or the venom? To the spider or to snake or whatever's stinging you at the time. And so, like, have you ever ended up in hospital? Yeah.

Most recently with my eye, with the tarantulas. So tarantulas, from America right down to South America, north to South America, any tarantula species along there, to defend itself before it bites you, it will flick hairs. And they have hairs on their arse. Yeah. And they'll flick them on their abdomen. And each one of those hairs is like a barbed hook like microscopically

barbed yeah some of them are worse than others depending on the species but the biggest spider species on the planet is called the goliath board ear yeah okay and that has hairs that are so bad that if even if you're cleaning their cage a month after they've been moved to another cage you'll start itching and scratching and flaring up and I opened my mate's pet one when he was away I was looking after for him and I opened it and he went and squirted me right in the eye like what he shoves his arse in the air and just

he just went and I went bollocks and instant pain you start retching trying to get sick because of the actual pain you get a hot needle in your eye and instant pain. You start retching, trying to get sick. What? Why? Because of the actual pain? You get a hot needle in your eye. That's what it feels like.

And every time you blink then, they get pushed further in and you're like, oh my God. So straight down to the eye and ear hospital. And when you're there, I'm guessing you're the expert telling the doctors what the story is. This is the funny part of the story. So I'm there and bubbles are coming out of my nose

and I'm like, oh, just in bits, like the worst case. And I went up to the desk where you have to fill out all those forms and I couldn't even see because my eye was hanging out of my head. And I'm trying to write and she's like, what happened to you? And I said, well... It's a cancer that spayed me in the eye. And there was literally about 80 people in the waiting room, like, who'd been there for hours.

The sheet went back to the doctor. Two seconds later, a doctor comes running out. Mr. Ennis, Mr. Ennis. Because he was like, this is deadly. Oh, my God, no. Straight into a chair, right?

Clockwork orange. You know that clockwork orange thing? Yeah, eye open. And I'm like this sitting in a chair going, oh my God. And they gave me an opioid drop from my eye and it was orgasmic. It was like, oh!

The pain just went. Instant, yeah. Instant relief. But then he proceeds to call every medical student in Ireland who arrive up with their phones, right? They attach this thing to the Clockwork Orange thing that I'm in so they could take photographs on their phones

of my eyeballs with the thing sticking out of them. And I'm sitting there for like hours going oh my god, like it felt like hours. Just please, do you mind if we bring five more people in? Explain to them what's going on. And then eventually they got around to taking him out and the weirdest thing ever was,

there was five of them, it turned out, that were in my eyeball. And every time he put one out, the whole world went, blunk. It went in and out of focus. So it was mad. And when he pulled them out

and shoved them onto a tissue, are they large? No, they are microscopic. You'd need them. They're so small, but you feel them. When he pulled them out and shoved them onto a tissue, are they large? No, they are microscopic. They're so small, but you feel them. And why does the tarantula do that? Is that if it's been attacked? If you are a bird or a mammal or anything that's gone down a tarantula's burrow to attack it,

because most terrestrial tarantulas are terrestrial, means they live on the ground, they'll all be burrowers. So female tarantulas disperse from their mother, and the males do too. Males will live one year, females can live up to 30 years. The males only live a year or two, because as soon as they get down and nasty with the girls, she makes a meal out of them. Because she gets impregnated, or fertil fertilised and she's just thinking straight away right, I need protein.

You'll do, Larry. Bang. And that's what happens, you know. So as they're living in that burrow, anything that comes down the burrow which happens to be my head in that cage, they'll just stick their bum up and go

so it goes down the throat, in the eyes, in the ears, everywhere, the sensitive animal gets freaked out, goes away, and leaves the tarantula alone. Jesus Christ, that's an ordeal, man. It wasn't fun. And it was even less fun trying to explain to my wife what was after happening. But, yeah, there you go.

Does she ever just say to you sometimes, would you cop on to yourself? More than you'll ever know. Yeah, she's just, I think she's just, it was a package deal, so I suppose she's used to it at this stage, but yeah. Is it true that like with scorpions, the smarter the scorpion is,

the more likely it is to be poisonous? Indiana Jones said it. Yes, there is a certain degree of truth to that. with scorpions, the smaller the scorpion is, the more likely it is to be poisonous. Indiana Jones said it. Yes. There is a certain degree of truth to that. Most small scorpions with small pincers on the front, you know their pincers? If they have small ones of them, they

probably have a lot of venom in the back. If they have big pincers, they probably don't have as big a load of venom or as big a potency of venom. And what it is, is it's an evolutionary trade-off. If you've got big arms, you don't need to carry a knife. You know what I mean? And that's exactly what it is.

The smaller ones will need venom to protect themselves. Now, that's very simplified. There are exceptions, of course, and different spiders or different scorpions in different areas will have different vents. But the general rule is if you have a smaller scorpion with small pincers, it's going to be a lot nastier. And have you ever been pinced? Yes. What's that like?

Like a crab. So not that bad? Not too bad at all. It's grand. I'd rather be pinced than poked. Have you been poked by a scorpion? Yeah. So I breed the scorpions

and the mothers are very protective of their young. They carry them on their back. They have a nine muncher station and they carry them on their back when they're all white in the fences and feed them and look after them. But in nature, when they mature they can disperse and get away from mammy. You get

me? If they're in a cage where I'm breeding them or an enclosure, they can't disperse and get away from mammy you get me if they're in a cage where i'm breeding them or an enclosure they can't disperse forward or far away from her and as soon as they get off her back her parental switch goes off so then they're a food item so i have to slip in a little early and take them off and mammy doesn't be very happy so i tend to be watching mammy all the time what i wasn't watching out for was, as I was taking the babies off and putting them in little tubs, one of them ran around the back of my workbench,

and I sat in it, and it stung me, and had an arse like Beyonce for about two weeks. Because my whole backside swelled up. So that was less than pleasant as well. And was that a trip to the hospital? No. Why not? They don't have anti-venom for Asian forest scorpions

in Tala Hospital. Here's another thing. Do you ever... It's an antihistamine job. It's a bee sting, you know? OK. Yeah. Do you...

Like, hospitals need anti-venoms do you do any of that like where do anti-venoms come from London School of Tropical Medicine do a lot of John Dunbar who worked over there he works up in the venom lab in Ewan Galway

it's very insular our crew of people who work in these kind of fields but yeah he was over there and they have a large selection of venomous snakes It's very insular, our crew of people who work in these kind of fields. But yeah, he was over there, and they have a large selection of venomous snakes. They milk them, and they use the venom then to make anti-venom. Snake bite has been recognized this year by the World Health Organization as one of the biggest threats on the planet, because so many people die. We're fortunate. This is what annoys me about the papers going on

about giant fecund spiders trying to kill our dogs. We're very fortunate over here. We don't have dangerous animals that come into our houses. In India, you do. You're very poor. And if you get tagged over there by a very dangerous animal, especially a venomous snake, you're going to lose a leg or an arm

if you're not rushed off to hospital. And then if you get to the hospital, they might be all out of the anti-venom because it's so expensive to make. So there's a big push now to try and get more herpetologists involved and collecting more venom to make more anti-venom and to make it affordable for poor people, which is a really cool thing.

Someone asked a question like is it okay or ethical to be keeping snakes, fucking spiders, scorpions as pets? What do you think about that? What's your opinion on that? I think it's species specific.

It's grand keeping a corn snake in an appropriate enclosure, especially if it's multi-generational and down the line. You wouldn't say, oh, it's wrong to keep a pug and then throw it out in the wilderness where the wolves live. You know what I mean? These animals have been bred as pets, so a lot of them, that's exactly what they are.

It's different keeping a crocodile in a sink or in your bathtub. Do you understand me? Species-specific. Tell us about some of the shit you've seen because you you've you get some calls to people who are quite just in the last month i've had five snakes dropped off to my house because people get bored with them yeah snakes it was big snakes that should be that thick or like half the size or half the weight they should have been and the guy is like oh it's not eating and as soon as you put something in front of it, it's snapping at it because it hasn't been fed

because he just doesn't care because it's bought as a fashion accessory. Yeah. You know? That annoys me. Yeah. Is it common? In saying that, they are brilliant pets.

The ones that are small and can be kept healthy and happy and reasonably sized and closure given the proper care do your homework just do your homework get everything right and correct

and then it's all good what would you recommend as a pet now spider scorpion I'm always selling spiders because they're brilliant I mean like

do you make money actually breeding and selling spiders I could if I wanted to you don't though I'm too busy to be honest with you that would be a full time gig there's a lot of people they're brilliant. Do you make money actually breeding and selling spiders? I could if I wanted to. You don't though? I'm too busy to be honest with you. That would be a full-time gig.

There's a lot of people out there who do. And I'll breed certain things that I'm interested in. But no, I'm not doing it for a business thing. But if you wanted, you'd have a cage that'd be a foot by a foot. You put a bit of dirt in it, a pot of water and a little hide and have your spider in there. And all you'd have to do is open it once a week, pop in a cricket and there's your pet for 30 years. Low maintenance, happy as Larry, having the life of Riley.

And it doesn't have to worry about anything trying to eat or kill it. So, I mean, that's a genuinely good pet. Better than keeping a dog locked up in a backyard tied to a rope, you know? eat or kill it. So, I mean, that's a genuinely good pet. Better than keeping a dog locked up in a backyard tied to a rope, you know? Like, if you had, like, a Goliath tarantula, would you leave it out

and leave it walking around the house? No. It's a poor art. Because people do that. Yeah. On the internet. Yeah. There's a lot of stupid people.

So that is wrong, to take your tarantula out and show your friends and... Well, I have tarantulas that... I have tarantulas that I would specifically use for school talks. But I'd have five tarantulas over, what, four or five talks I'd do in a year. Okay, for stress. And I would only take them out very briefly to make sure.

And if they're not in the mood, they stay in the box. And it's very well done. I don't, like... You know, I wouldn't agree with the likes of snakes being brought into nightclubs. Yeah, that's the thing. What about snakes, people using them as part of their dancing act and stuff? I don't know.

It's not... Having to listen to Tiesto. I don't think it... Yeah. Imagine somebody... Just put it in this terms, right? Imagine somebody walked in with a German shepherd around their head

doing sexy dancing in a nightclub. You'd say, what are you playing at? We'd very quickly go... You'd be like, why have you got a kitten there? You know what I mean? Yeah. It's ridiculous. It's just because they're not charismatic to the masses.

Yeah. So they're like, oh, that's very exciting. Now, is it stressful for the animal? I'm not going to... There's a lot of people out there who do it and will say that it's not. I personally wouldn't do it. That's just my own thing.

Do you measure stress in, like, insects or scorpions? I can tell. Yeah. I can tell. I can tell by the way an animal moves, if it's stressed out. But when you're saying... Like, a spider can look at me in a certain way and move in a certain way

and he's telling me to fuck off and I'm just like, right, that's grand, you know. Not today, you know. But is that why you won't bring a spider to a school all the time? Yes, exactly. The stress on the animal.

If I went to take one of them out and it was just kind of give me the fangs which they do they rear up and they show you their fangs and it's just like that's fine we'll go we'll go with a toad instead you know did they get to know you did they get to know you and no they tolerate you they don't they tolerate you yeah personalities are skinks are um they're lizardly yeah yeah but they get a bit that. But they're like bald cats. They're really

affectionate and friendly. We have tortoises that live around the house, just walk around the house like pet rocks. Mad jokes. My kids are like, the tortoise tripped me up again. And they are quite clever as well. There's a lot of it.

There's a kind of mindset that reptiles are very stupid, dull, slow animals. Yeah. And I couldn't be further from the truth for a lot of them. They're very, very clever. Been around a lot longer than us. And they'll probably be around a lot longer after us. Yeah.

You know? So, yeah. Some of them are very charming and some of them are a bit stupid and just do what they do someone said I don't like spiders because they eat flies and other more annoying insects but does putting a spider outside in the

no I don't like killing spiders ok he doesn't like he doesn't like killing spiders but would choose to put them outside which is what I would do. I generally now have started to become comfortable with leaving spiders live in my house and go, do you know what, I'm alright with you.

Except when they're so big that I can hear them walking. Alright, so Do you know those ones you get at the start of the winter? What are they called? They're called giant European house spiders. You know them? You find them mostly

in your bath and your sink? Yeah. So the ones you find in your bath and your sink are randy males. Yeah. So in the autumn time the males they become mature. They make a thing called a sperm web. All spiders make

sperm webs because they don't have penises in the way mammals would so they have these things two things on their front called palps and they're basically like syringes so they jizz on the web they stick their palps in there and suck it all up and then they're like i'm ready to rock and that's when you hear them wandering around your house now they're the males, going... So if they were a human lad, a lad would have to... Yeah. ..wank onto his pillow...

LAUGHTER ..then go like this, head out to the nightclub... Yeah, and walk around going... LAUGHTER And then instead of going... And then if you did get lucky... Your girlfriend eats you. Yeah.

Fucking hell. But ethically, like, is it... Like, I don't... I hate squishing spiders. I hate hurting them. I hate killing them. I just don't like doing it. I put them outside. Am I putting them at risk?

What's the best thing to do? Well, the first thing is, it's just a spider. I always say that to people as well. Yeah. I don't want to be a weirdo. No, you can't kill a spider. It's just a spider.

It's not the end of the world. The correct thing to do is put a cup over it and a piece of paper and just pop it in the garden. Yeah. And it will find somewhere warm and it will survive.

Or it won't. If it doesn't, it's going to feed a blackbird, and the circle of life continues. Do you understand? But if you want it out of your house, put it out of your house. If they're in your house, and they're making noises and all that, all they're doing is looking for their rocks.

That's all it is. They're just out on the town, and that's it. Apart from that, the ladies that are in the house that the males are looking for are behind your fridge or your washing machine, sitting there chilling out. They're never going to move. They're not stupid. It's only the stupid males that go out, you know? All male spiders are essentially genetic couriers.

Genetic couriers? Yep. And that's why they don't live as long? They just are there to pass on genes, and that's their game, though. How do you feel about the people that go onto YouTube and they get their spiders to fight their scorpions to the death

Look it is what it is it's just to get hits it's the same as writing papers about silverfish eating your face Oh that's a new thing you said you saw on the newspaper yeah So the false widow thing is losing traction a little bit in the papers.

And I saw a headline the other day that giant insects are invading our homes to eat our skin. Skin-eating insects, giant skin-eating insects are invading our home. And what they're talking about are silverfish. We all have silverfish in our house. They're about that size. They've been around for like hundreds of millions of years. They're one of the first animals that ever came out of the sea. And they do eat skin in the form of dust on the ground.

That's why they're so successful in houses. They don't crawl on your face or anything. But the way it was written in the paper, I'm convinced certain, I won't name any names, but certain pest control companies have little seeds they plant in the papers just to get in there

and get a job. Because I'm sure people are being called out to houses to get rid of false widows. London closed five schools for weeks last year. Not only did they close the schools, they sprayed the whole place with insecticide, pesticides, right?

Because of false widow spiders that have lived in London for 150 years. How stupid is that? And that shows you the power of the press. Those animals have always been there. Always. Like, for as long as we've been around. Like, you know what I mean?

Well, 150 years is a long time. And then all of a sudden, some articles come out, they sensationalise it, everybody gets afraid, get people afraid, and then you get the pest control companies moving in and spraying the school, and everybody's off school for two weeks, people at work. It's a ridiculous carrying on.

I heard an interesting story. It was in America, a sensationalist thing flew around about bats carrying rabies right and it's really overblown like one bat had rabies or something but bats don't give people rabies so anyway this fella who had a giant farm had a cave on his land and there was a lot of bats in there he starts freaking out about rabies so he got all the bats killed all burnt dead right and then his entire farm collapsed the bats had been eating all the flies the moths yeah you know what i mean the caterpillars came back yeah yeah everything has a uh a place in that food web we

were talking about earlier on yeah and it's like candy crush candy crush saga though you know that game they all play that game you can hit one of those squares or kaplunk you can pull out all the the sticks and nothing seems to be moving and then you just hit one and it all goes that's a food web it's the same thing what happens with the bats there so it just means that you might knock a few animals off and they might disappear and everything seems to be going fine, but you'll hit one, like a keystone species, and that will cause a cascade. What are examples of keystone species? Mid-range animals.

I'll tell you, a great indicator species is our frog. Our frogs and amphibians, because they absorb water through their skin, they're the ones that if they start disappearing, you know that the ecosystem is getting into trouble because there's a lot of pollution. There's probably not enough insects around for them to eat. All the things we were talking about

earlier on. When's the last time any of you saw a frog spawn? You know? So that's the kind of stuff you look for as an ecologist. You caused a lot of shit in Phoenix Park there last year. Yeah.

Frogs. Yeah, the government dug up the main frog breeding area right in the middle of breeding season and killed all the adults. And they were the main Dublin frogs. They were like... He got a little cheer there at the back. But, yeah, well, I mean, like,

Phoenix Park is a very wild area in the centre of the city. So anything that lives in there is quite it's been there for a long time and it's an important part of the ecosystem. Like Michael D? Yes. But yeah, tell us. Yeah, so we kind of

sent him a couple of emails and the people in charge and nobody got back to us so I went to the press good man and he got back to us very quickly and now we have frogs

back there breeding again but that's active yeah but did you have to introduce frogs what we had to do was mitigation. So all the plants and all that they dug up, I got a group of volunteers from Trinity Zoology

and myself and Rob went down there and we got all the plants and all the important stuff that frogs and newts need to lay their eggs on and put it back in there in the freezing cold. It was just as the snow hit last year so we were getting covered and putting this stuff in but it worked and it's you know that's that's the sort of conservation stuff i was telling you about earlier on that's what we do and that's the stuff that you say needs volunteers if everybody yeah um i'm gonna ask the

audience questions in a bit right but i'm gonna'm going to ask you one last question. Can you talk a little bit about the podcast that you do? Yeah, so I'm doing a podcast called The Critter Shed and I want to make natural history more accessible to everybody and a little bit more fun because it tends to be very people talking about the breeding habits underneath. And I like going down to the pub and having to crack my mates and having

conversations like this about how important it is or what interesting stuff is. So that's the goal of the podcast and hopefully if you just give it a listen you might enjoy it. And it's very well recorded. Yeah, I was shocked at the audio fidelity of this. That's Colette Kinsler.

Pretty fucking brilliant. She's my producer. She's brilliant. She's really... And she was the one who has been to driving force behind it. So fair play to Colette. So there's a microphone that's going to be flying around the room. So you can ask a question about fucking anything. It doesn't even have

to have anything to do with this gentleman here in the Levi's jumper. So I have two questions. One for Collie. You were saying earlier that in insects that if they go we go. So is there like one small step that each of us

would be able to do to help insects? And the other question is, blind boy, would you sign my book? Yes. So what you can do, whether you live in an apartment or you're renting a gaff or anything like that, the first thing to do is try and set up some wild areas. You can go out and buy a pack of wild seed, plant seeds, flowers, put them in your long pots.

You can buy it. It costs you about 20 quid, the whole setup. Stick it on your windowsill. You're providing some food for some flying insects. Another thing you can do, even if you're renting a house, you can put in a temporary water source, a temporary pond.

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ride and punch your ticket to rock city at torontorock.com put it on the ground put some gravel in the bottom and put a bin liner on it and fill it with water you'll get all sorts of bugs landing there you might even get dragonflies it's crazy what will show up if you give it a chance you ever you ever lift your bins in the morning and everything's just alive under there? Because we've concreted everything. We've put concrete everywhere. So the animals are just looking for places to hide moist

green areas. Do that. That's the small things all you guys can do. I bought an insect house in Hornbase. It's just like a little wooden house and it has a pine cone in it and some wood shavings. Yeah.

Are they any good? Yeah, they are. Everything helps. They are good. They're even better around water. And you'll get things like solitary bees going in and making a home there. And you'll definitely get spiders in there because they know the bees are arriving. Okay. They're clever. I'll sign your book

after, is that alright? God bless you, sir. Any other questions? Hello? Hello, sir. Hello. I have a slight concern that seagulls should be born in June. I have a slight concern that seagulls should be born in June. I live in Smithfield and I have a lot of baby seagulls. Is there a reason? Can you give me an answer?

Well, when a mammy and daddy seagull love each other very much... It's just their breeding season and that's the time. No, but it should be June. Well, everything's messed up. Yeah, I agree with you. Everything's messed up. Do you see what I'm saying?

I'm saying that there must be... There is a concern. And also they're coming back in further and further inland because no fish. No fish. And our seaboard numbers are going through the floor. Isn't it bizarre that it's five months early?

That's what we were talking about earlier on? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it is. And it's very noticeable, you know? Yeah. You sound like you should be presenting a very interesting documentary. What's up with the fucking all the houses

when I come in in Houston all the fake hawks yeah what is that for seagulls some genius came up with the idea that if you put a

shape of a board on a kind of a kite yeah that the pigeons will stay away because they think it's a creditor. I literally thought it was some new type of Dublin satin like this. No, no, that's it. And the gas thing is, the pigeons

are like two weeks later going, fuck off. They're all back. It's brilliant. They're not stupid. I just want to know, has light pollution impacted on insects lately as well? Has what, sorry? Light pollution. Oh, yes.

And our birds and all our wildlife. So, but again, that was a small problem. It's not as big as the problems of habitat fragmentation and pesticides. Because we'd always have lots of, again, when I was a boy, you'd have lots of moths and bugs bouncing off lamps. And you'd see it all during the summer. Don't see it so much again.

It's just this slow decrease. It's hard to tell, because as well as you naturally get older, it's the white dog shit phenomenon. Yes. Do you know what I mean? You don't see healthy eating dogs anymore, yeah. Well, I heard that the reason white dog shit went away

was because of the EU. Well, there you go. You all remember white dog shit, yeah? Yeah. And you'd often wonder, is it just because I'm not a kid and I don't hang around the grass anymore? But it turns out the EU brought in laws

about what could be in dog food, so that's why it doesn't exist anymore. So under Brexit... ..the people of Britain can rightfully see a return to white dog shit. And that's what... Fair play to them. Brilliant. Blue passports and white dog shit. Passports and white dog shit.

It's fine and funny until it massively impacts us. Any other questions? Yeah. You may have already answered it earlier on, but I just want to make sure, is there any actual dangerous, or should I say poisonous spiders in Ireland? Every spider carries venom.

Every one of them. The reactions that people have to it are different. But to answer your question, no. 110%. There is nothing in this country in the arachnid family that will give you any harm. So don't be worried about that shit. Straight up, guys. I mean it.

And as well, the point that you make too, the biggest danger of these spiders is people putting themselves... People falling down stairs. Falling down stairs and jumping out windows. Crazy, because if you open a page of The Sun and you see a man whose arm is melted off... Yeah.

Of course you're going to jump out a window if you see one of those things, you know? It's just not the truth. Have you any theories about how we evolved arachnophobia okay there's two schools of thought on the fear of snakes uh rats uh spiders all that stuff one is the learned fear because you see mammy or daddy jumping up on the couch when he sees a spider come across you're gonna go jesus christ you know what i mean uh the other is a genetic fear because if our great great great

great grandparents weren't scared of these animals they'd be eaten by them or killed yeah so it's that's the two schools of thought and it's probably a combination of both like a lot of things you know so yeah that's it. And some people, like, I have to... I was terrified of spiders when I was a kid. Until I started getting into them. Then they became fascinating for me, you know what I mean?

I'd like to know whether people were scared of spiders in Ireland in the 1820s. There was bigger things to worry about. But you know what I mean? I wonder, growing up in a country where you don't necessarily have media, you're not going to turn on EastEnders and see someone getting bitten by a tarantula.

I don't watch EastEnders, obviously. I meant Home and Away or something. But do you think maybe in the 1820s, it's like, because Ireland didn't have dangerous spiders, people were just like, it's grand. There's a disconnect from nature, a digital disconnect nowadays, but there has been a disconnect slowly over the years,

and a lot of people just don't know how to deal with shit that happens in the natural world or animals that occur in the natural world. They're freaking out. Oh, my God. There's a bird killing a pigeon outside. Yeah, it's a hawk. It's doing what it's supposed to do. You know what I mean? People are freaking out.

And, you know, as I said... Well, it's like the thing's gone viral. What did you see last week? You saw a sealie... The seal was eating the swan down in Cork, yeah. People are going, Janey Mac, that's crazy. I'm a seal going along and I'm at Carnivore and I see a big juicy arse there.

Of course I'm going to eat it. Yeah. You know? I just don't associate swans with a big juicy arse at all. No comment. Any other questions? that don't objectify swans sorry

blind boy I was listening to your podcast your latest one this morning and it's the first time you spoke about climate change I hope you speak about it more I think it's so important and I suppose you were talking about how you've kind of avoided talking about how you you've kind of avoided talking about it because you're in denial and i feel the same that it's just the

overwhelming fear of the future yeah and i suppose just listen to collie tonight if we can do something about it so i just want to know more about the organizations that we could maybe volunteer with to make a change the herpetpetological Society of Ireland, the HSI for short, it's easier to say. We're online. Boardwalk Ireland, the Irish Wildlife Trust. Just banging Conservation Ireland into any search engine.

People out there need your help. There's a lot of us struggling with time. We all have families and jobs and all the rest. The more help we get to make a little dent in it, and that's active

conservation. It's like Blind Boy was saying earlier on. Don't get too caught up in worrying about your diet and your use of plastic and all. It is important, but get active. Get out there and do something. Physically do something.

Put even board seat out for it. You know, it sounds stupid, but it's the small little things. And if everybody does a small little thing, it really turns into a tsunami of helping the creatures we live beside. You know, and it's like, we talk about Africa and Asia and all the beautiful animals, and we want to protect the tigers worry about your badgers and okay worry about your badgers i mean it worry about your your local wildlife the animals that live locally to you know what i mean and then that can turn into a very dangerous argument. Yeah. But do you get me? You know what I mean?

So it starts at home and then we walk from there. And as well, what Collie was saying there about, like, throwing birdseed out and stuff like that, you can incorporate that into your mental health regime because that act... If you get up in the morning, right, and you say to yourself, you make the connection with yourself, I'm going to put out some birdseed because I'm looking at those birds across the way and I'm thinking about them and I'm using empathy to imagine that these birds are hungry, this little thing

up on a tree. That's the shit that builds your mental health and self-esteem. Those are the genuine, that's the opposite of waking up, opening Twitter and then feeling furiously angry and not remembering your cornflakes. So there's definitely a mental health. It's incredible. To get out and get your hands dirty and get out in nature and help another sentient being,

or even if it's not sentient, even if it's a woodlouse or whatever, you're doing something good. Yeah. You're not sitting there going, that's terrible, that's shocking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?

You're out there and you feel great. Yeah, exactly. And I bet you, after a good old day of dealing with slugs, when you go on Twitter, you would find yourself not getting too annoyed by it. I tend not to care about most things. I'm just grand, you know what I mean?

Go home and relax. You said backstage as well that you do a bit of kickboxing and stuff like that. Yeah. You use exercise to help your mental health. I do. Do you find that your interaction with critters is a mental health thing? A hundred percent. Yeah.

A hundred percent. It really is. As I said, going out to my shed gives me a lot of... I forget about all my worries. Going out for a walk, putting the board seat out, if I'm doing some conservation work. I'll be knee-deep in pond juice now in a while. That sounds weird.

We're going out surveying for a newt soon and we'll be in the muddy waters and I'll feel great. Do you wear galoshes or anything when you're doing that? What? Oh, yeah, the whole thing. I look like a human frog. But, yeah, it's good. Did we speak about your cockroaches?

You have mulching cockroaches. Oh, yeah, mulching cockroaches. Yeah, I'm thinking of trying to maybe go somewhere with that. It'd be interesting. What do you mean, go somewhere? Well, I think it'd be nice if everybody had it. A one-man play. Fucking Samuel Beckett-style play

with 20 loud cockroaches up on stage. Where are you going to go with the cockroaches, man? I was thinking that it'd be nice to maybe have one in everybody's kitchen where they could just have a little bucket where they could throw all their food in there. Because people do that with tiger worms, don't they? They do. Loads of worms and loads of insects. These things can't climb up plastic walls,

so they're always there. Their poo is brilliant fertiliser, so I get lovely tomatoes and strawberries out of insects. And these things can't climb up plastic walls, so they're always there. Their poo is brilliant fertilizer, so I get lovely tomatoes and strawberries out of it. Is this your, like, your kitchen waste goes into this? Yeah, all our kitchen waste

goes into a bucket of cockroaches. But the noise of the thing, like, there was like a, what were they called? They're Haitian death's head cockroaches. And they're like that size? Yeah, about that size.

And you can hear them scuttling, but they break down. They break down everything, turn it into this lovely guano. And then you put it on the vegetables and everybody goes, my god, this is juicy tomato, what's your secret? And I go, ho ho ho! Any other question?

How do we get involved in the cockroaches? Was that the question? How do we get involved in the cockroaches? Actually, yeah. Yeah. If I want to, does that arrive as a block? Yeah. Because sometimes you buy insects and they arrive like,

do you know when you buy a microwave popcorn and you open it up? Don't insects arrive like that? You buy them in small plastic packs from cockroach dealers. Not up a laneway now, they'll post it out to you. But like, yeah, you basically get them in the post in a little starter pack and it's called a starter colony

and then you grow them on and then you get them up to a certain point that there's enough numbers there you can just start throwing in your food. And who are they for? Is it for people who are involved in cockroach mulching? No, they are called feeder roaches. So they're for snakes? They're for snakes.

No, not snakes, but anything that eats, mainly tarantulas and stuff like that. But if you're in countries like China and mainly through Asia down to Thailand, they would be eating the mulch, but then they'd end up on your plate because they love eating them over there. You know?

And I think that's going to be... What do you think about the ethical argument for using insects as a form of protein? 100% behind it. Yeah? 100%. You know, that's a huge thing. People are saying that they want worms and cockroaches and grubs to create a form of protein. 100% behind it. Yeah? 100%. You know, that's a huge thing. People are saying that they want worms and cockroaches and grubs

to create a type of protein that we eat that's not harmful to the planet. So the footprint that these farms would leave would be immeasurably less than cows and beef and all that. And when you mash it up into a lovely burger, you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Or if you're very adventurous, you can cook them up and just eat them and they're very crunchy and they're very nice. We eat white pudding. White pudding is

mostly pig's arsehole. Yes. Do you know what I mean? I know it's disgusting to think of the insects and stuff, but yeah, I mean, it's just culturally we'd be adverse to that, you know. But I can see the swing coming.

Have you ever dined on roach? I've dined on insects, yeah, I have. What style of insect? Roaches. I had a scorpion. Did you do it yourself? I have, yeah. So you're at home cooking a cockroach? Yeah.

How? What? To talk us through it. Just put them in a wok. You can put them in a wok with a bit of oil. You have to starve them for about three days. Like, why? My wife is going to kill me when she hears this.

Right, so... You starve them for a few days so any waste goes right through them. Yeah. And then there's no toxins in them. And then you just throw them in a little oil in the pan and they go... And then you put your rice in and your soy sauce and everything else and

you wouldn't know it was any difference from anything else and were you doing this as to prove something to yourself? No my mate got me a book Christmas Before Last about eating insects and I was like right I'll give that a go but like fair play

well I can't be lecturing people and going no we must be eating more insects and then somebody turned around to me which i've done to other people say how many insects have you eaten you know so i suppose yeah yeah it'd be a bit of a hit or it's a slow descent into becoming a very unhinged man you could argue that's happened already any other questions? Where's the microphone? I was just wondering, obviously we've talked a lot about conservationism and all of that kind of thing, and I was just wondering

when you think about snakes, how do you feel about St. Patrick and the fact that he just ran all of those snakes out of Ireland? Yes, let's talk about snakes in Ireland. Yeah, so the St. Patrick thing didn't happen. So the Catholic Church was lying yet again.

The legend of him driving all the snakes out of Ireland is nonsense. So the reason why we have very poor amounts of reptiles and amphibians in the country is because of the ice age. So we were buried under a shitload of ice back in the day and as that ice retreated through Europe the warm

loving reptiles made their way back up. But just before they got to Ireland, the Irish Sea formed. Do you understand? So they're in England. They got right the way up to England but most of them never made it to Ireland. Because there is one or two adders in England.

They'd give you a serious bite, wouldn't they? Yeah. Not serious. People let on another problem. I'm going over to a conference in England now and they have serious issues with their adders because people are just beating them to death. Where they used to live with them, no problem. Why are they beating them to death? The Daily Mail.

Yes. And I heard a fucking mad fact about the Daily Mail recently. During World War I, when the Germans started using gas, you know, the Brits got terrified that the Germans were going to gas London. So the Daily Mail

invented a type of gas mask and put the template for going to gas London. So the Daily Mail invented a type of gas mask and put the template for how to make it in the Daily Mail, like out of a coal sack and a few different things, and something like 4,000 people died trying to make the Daily Mail gas mask. And the Germans didn't go near London with any gas. Suffocated? Yeah.

Shame. Yeah. Shame. Yeah. So, any other questions? Where's the microphone? We'll keep it around the back. Hi, Coddy, I'm just wondering where you went to secondary school. I'm blind boy. I'd love to talk to you about mental health.

I'm employed in DCU as an expert by experience for my experience in mental ill health. So, Coddy, where did you go to secondary school? Drimna. Yeah. I went to secondary school in Drimna Castle. In primary,

if anybody went there, it's a fairly big kind of green area and they have a moat around the castle. and it used to be full of frogs so that was like my lunch time was Is it now sans frog? It was until I went back

and I started a program to reintroduce them so now it's back there and it's really cool because I'm working with the students Fucking brilliant That's

In the frog mobile That's a fucking Tinder bio, man. I reintroduced frogs to Drimna. Any other questions? Yeah, hello. Hey, Connolly, what's up? How are you? You were talking about the funkier venoms

in the desert there. Can you give us a bit of an insight into the scale of funkiness you have in your back shed? Like I said... Venom-wise. On a scale of funk, you know.

Well, as I said to you, the six-eyed sand spider is a prime example of that because it evolved in Pangaea and it has this massive amounts of venom. Why is it called six-eyed? Six-eyed, because it has six eyes. And is that exceptional for a spider? I know that.

Very scientific. No, most spiders would have eight eyes. And what is he doing with six? He's like, I'm so venomous, I can do without the other two. Yeah, he's just getting along fine without the other two, so he's like, yeah, whatever. What's it like on the inside of a spider's mind to have eight eyes?

The reason you have the eight eyes is because the two eyes in front actually look a colour and they can see in ultraviolet. And the ones around the side are basically like watch-out eyes. They kind of go, if you were to smack it from the side it'd be able to move quickly and disappear faster

so they're like sketch eyes and the ones in the front they're like they show you what the colours are and there's ones called lateral eyes

that are just beside them and they look at the prey so yeah and can they see parts of the colour spectrum that we can't see yes so there's a

spider called Portia which is like a tiny little jumping spider. And it's... They've compared it to cats because it's able to... It kills other spiders. It doesn't have a web. So it crawls around on the ground and it looks for

a web. And it will figure out, well, there she is there. But she's bigger than me and she has a massive venom. So I'll go over here to the side of our web and I'll flick the web and make it seem like there's a fly caught in it. Do you understand me? So a big spider goes down here, parses it in the meantime, legs it up onto a branch that it's already seen.

This is problem solving in an arachnid half the size of your tongue. It's on the side of the branch. It waits until the deuterospider reposition itself and it jumps on its back and envenomates it and eats it. Problem solving. Complex problem solving.

Going, I'm going to get that to go to there so I can go up there and jack it. So it's really, really clever, you know? Tell us about the, I don't know what they are now,

but there's insects that can control other insects' minds. Do you know what they go on to them and they become their heads and they can steer them? Parasites, yeah. My colleague in Trinity, Maureen Williams, is an amazing...

If you ever get a chance to look up... If you want to hear cool facts about parasites, she's on YouTube and everything. Maureen Williams is amazing. But yeah, she's just telling me about these mind-control parasites that will get into fish and then make the fish want to come out of the water, out into the open where a boar will eat it, and then becomes part of the boar's life cycle, goes back into the water.

It's very complex, but it's not my field, so I'm not going to pretend I know more. But is that what the parasite wants? So the parasite gets to the fish, the fish gets eaten by the bird, and then the parasite gets shat out by the bird. Back in. It's part of the life cycle. It goes into the liver of the bird. Because there's a parasite as well that makes ants walk up the stalks of grass, so the cow will eat it. There's all

sorts of different mind control ones. There's one that causes frogs to be born with multiple legs. Yeah, that's right. be born with multiple legs. Yeah, that's right. Pollution does that too. So the frogs, they get eaten by a star. Yes.

Yeah. Nah, that's true. Yeah. But you want to talk to her about the parasites. It's not my... See, that's when you get an academic and they're afraid to go outside of their feed. Give us some hot takes on parasites. I just don't want to make a mistake

because I'll get latched over tomorrow. I want some wild sweeping opinions on parasites, please, Carly. Do you know what cool parasite that there is that I do know about? There's a little arthropod that lives in the sea and it latches onto fish's tongues, eats the tongue, and then becomes a tongue. Oh, my God. And it looks like a giant woodlouse.

And what's the benefit of that becoming the fish's tongue? Anything the fish eats, it eats. Oh, man. So it's just there going... But we were talking about earlier, like, the argument that we humans are parasites. Yeah, you could think that. If you look at, like, the planet as a living thing, we're just a flu that's really good at killing it.

Yeah. And then hopefully we can give it to Mars. Yeah. And then we parasitise each other. Like in the West we're living off the backs of all

the poor people in less fortunate countries. And we can't even help it. No matter how ethically you try to live you're still going to be stepping on someone's. I saw something recently

about water pollution in Ireland being reduced and how it was great and that's why we were seeing more whales and what not on the Irish coast and I was just wondering if somebody on the ground is that actually true or are we being better at our pollution we're definitely cleaning up

because we're becoming more well off like the Arklow River for example it was dead, it's coming back problem is though we're over fishing so we know we have nice clean waters with no fishing and the boards are all starving so we have to get all our ducks in a row do you know what I mean so it's it's everything to do with conservation it needs bodies on the ground on it needs them it needs a multi-pointed attack and i guess do one thing and then just go well we're grand now you know one thing i

admire about what you do as well as you go for the animals that's like cuteness should not be a part of no conservation so like i'm all about saving fucking ospreys and eagles because they're beautiful and free, but I never spare too much time for the toad. Yes. And I think I should. Yeah. It's the uncharismatic fauna, that's what we kind of try to look out for.

They have as much right to be on this planet as the beautiful deer and the eagle and the little fox and the eagle and the little fox and all the other cute animals. Pine Martins, man. They have as much right to be around, and they need to be looked after,

and they're very good indicators of how good our environment's doing. So get out there and get your paws dirty. Thank you, Collie Ennis for that interview it was riveting I hope you enjoyed it I very much enjoyed doing it I'll be back next week with some hot takes

look after yourself be sound to the people that are close to you get up in the morning and remind yourself it might be your fucking last do you know what I mean? not in a negative way, but in just like get out of bed and go

I don't know what's gonna fucking happen at the end of the day so I'm gonna I'm gonna live my life, I'm gonna live my life on my own terms yart I'm going to live my life. I'm going to live my life on my own terms. Yart. Thank you. you