The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Beaver Skull Obsession, Aussie Widowmakers, Koalas Eating $#!%

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

WELCOME TO SEASON 10! Jess hosts the show solo while Rachel is on maternity leave, but brings on a pair of her creator friends to chat about how beavers keep wildfires at bay, koalas eating their moms' poop (kind of), and exploding Australian trees. Follow rickypeacock: https://www.twitch.tv/rickypeacock Follow MattyisTalking: https://www.twitch.tv/mattyistalking The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thanks to our Sponsors: Buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at https://cargurus.com Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at https://MASTERCLASS.com/WEIRDEST To get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Go to https://Quince.com/weirdest Plans start at $15/month at https://MintMobile.com/WEIRDEST Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while a lot of the fun facts we stumble across make it into our articles, there are lots of other weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not sure those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors at Popular Science. I'm Jess. I'm Maddie. And I'm Ricky. Woo!

Yeah. Welcome to the show. Yeah. Are you guys excited? Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yes. It sounded like such a, it sounded like such a, like a canned video game celebration.

I didn't want to interrupt it. Yeah. Woo. All right. Yeah. Woo. Uh-huh. Well, okay, tell us about who you are and the stuff you make.

Um, my name is Maddie. Maddie is talking on everything. I kind of almost exactly like Jess, podcast producer, video essay maker, fan of information. Yeah, I've done a lot of stuff. I do a lot of things. But yeah, I think that's it. That sounds like you. Ricky, what about you?

I'm Ricky. Ricky Peacock. It's my real name and it's also my name on everything. I also much like Jess Went to the same school Went to the same middle school as her Went to the same high school as her Hung out with her mom a lot

Growing up And you have to explain that You have to explain that You can't just say that Well I mean She's a teacher and she taught Okay Thank you thank you

She's a teacher and she taught me And Jess's mom was my teacher growing up And inspired and instilled In a show all about learning things. True. She instilled a love of learning things in me.

And so you, and I'm kind of helping you flesh out your sort of bona fides as the host of this show, eight years in. Oh, I suppose you're correct. Just so you know, Jess has a mom who loves to teach people to like learning things. And also I'm a Twitch streamer. I'm a Twitch

streamer. That's the other thing. I stream on on Twitch. Twitch.com. Anyway. Yeah. And all the links will all be in the description as, as usual. And click everyone. Click everyone. Yeah, click, click them. And okay, so you might notice Rachel is absent,

and that is because she is still on her maternity leave taking care of a human child. So you'll know that if- Congratulations, Rachel. Yeah, it's really exciting. But yeah, if you got the end of last season, you'll know. She gave the full spiel, but I'll be holding down the fort for the next couple episodes,

next couple months. But she'll be back. and we'll be sprinkling in some of me and Rachel's favorite retro episodes too to pass the time from seasons like one and two because we're we're now in season 10 this is season 10 episode one man which is insane we're kicking off episode 10 that's crazy yeah wow wow we got to do so one of the one of our one of the beloved characters needs to have a big life changing moment oh wait it's it's happening the the host is having a baby This is such season 10 behavior.

It really is. So yeah, everything's fine. Everything's good. You'll still get your biweekly dose of weird facts. I'm freaking out personally. Whenever anybody goes, everything's fine. It's very calming. I'm constantly telling myself that everything's fine and it works out.

So, you know, everything is fine. Jess, you're kind of like the duck paddling on water. What is this? So cool. You seem so cool and collected. But underneath a lot of effort. A flurry of action. Somebody on the British traders just made that analogy and I thought she invented it. Are you kidding? No. I was like, that's the smartest thing I've ever heard somebody say. And now you know it's not. Now I know she's just repeating some. She heard it for me on this episode. That can't be possible. Season 10 is really starting crazy. There's a time travel arc.

Just regretting this. I should have asked some of us. Is this good? Are we doing good? Oh, brother. Okay. Let's get into the facts. So this is the normal thing Rachel says, which is, on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a factor story.

about something that we learned over the course of reading, writing YouTube videos, gaming, I edited this, having too many tabs open, just being on the computer, et cetera, and then deciding which one of us goes first. Then after we all have a chance to spin our little science yarns, we decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. And that's what Rachel says when she hosts, but we don't decide that there is a winner anymore. And we haven't done that for seasons at this point, but we're too stubborn to change the intro. I love that because we all win.

Exactly. We all get a participation trophy. Typical. And knowledge is the greatest trophy there is. I would say that. This is a trio of millennials. There's a lot of them crawling around these days, man. Like it or not, you know?

Millennial trios that have podcaster setups are a virus. This is technically a strong. streaming center. Technically. Technically. So to start, we can each, as I just mentioned, give a little overview, one sentence tease about each where a facts. I'll go first.

My tease is, I'm going to talk about the tree that is actually a bomb. Whoa. Yeah. Scary. Yep. Maddie, what are you going to talk about? Beavers are essentially combating every bad climate thing. humans are doing and

I think it's fascinating actually climate heroes actually beavers are actually climate heroes you're welcome this beaver is actually a climate

hero humans hate this beaver for this one trick Ricky what's your teeth I haven't presented a okay my tease this is the

the dumbest animal on planet earth. I don't know if that's true or not. I should maybe not make such paint with such broad strokes. I think if you believe it, you should stand by. That's how this show works. Oh, okay. Okay. I think I want to hear about the climate,

the beaver superhero. The beavers are climate heroes? Erm what? Yeah, absolutely. I'd happily talk about beavers. They're one of my favorite animals and honestly a lot of this information that I learned. I've learned in the last two weeks

because I have always loved them and appreciated them and in the back of my mind I've always had this fact that second to humans, beavers affect their environment more than any other creature. Right? That's a fact. And that's like from the dams and stuff. That makes sense.

I don't want to spoil it, but yeah. Okay, sorry. Really putting the law before the horse. And wait a second. I thought you said you bleep cuss words. Oh. Thank you. I wanted to get in there before someone else.

Oh, the guests are fighting back. No, I found them so fascinating. And so what happened was I was like the rest of the world, apparently, according to box office numbers, I saw Zootopia too. And without spoiling anything other than the thing I'm about the spoil, it has beavers in it. Uh-huh. Which I thought was great. What would you rate it out of 10? The movie?

I don't do ratings anymore. What do you mean you don't do writings anymore? I get scared. I don't want like, I don't want to run. I don't want to, you know what? When I was a kid, when I was a kid, I saw the movie Hugo. I saw the movie Hugo at the River East of 21 in Chicago, Illinois. And I gave Hugo, it was like a preview screening and I gave Hugo four stars.

And I was sitting right behind Thelma Shoemaker, a shoemaker, I don't know. Put in the comments. That's called Engagement for me. And I rated it four out of five stars. It's directed by Martin Scorsese. Yeah. As the theater was filling or like, what's the opposite of filling out? Emptying.

Emptying out. Filling in. Filling in. I was pulled to the side and someone said, hey, any of you give the movie four stars? And I said, uh, yeah. And they were like, that's great. Our

our client really wants to speak to someone who gave it four starts. What? And so I start chewing gum because I'm like, I'm about to tell Martin Scorsese what I thought was wrong with this movie. And the anxiety almost popped my head like a grape. And I really regretted giving it four stars or at least telling anybody. But there was a reprieve because they said, actually he's got to go.

And they left. They just threatened you. Never again do I want to face someone in their hardware? And it just takes so it takes so much effort to get anything made. I just don't like rating things. Anyway, Zootopia 5 out of 10 in my opinion. It's fine. It's fine.

I've never really a big Zootopia guy. Anyway, this one was great because of the beaver. They put beavers in it. there's a lot of fun the movies are not made for me they're made for kids I do like the animal puns in the first one you like the animal

excuse me the puns like the sloths being slow at the DMV yes that's Zootopia that is funny that's Zootopia or Zootropolis

in the rest of the world yeah there was a couple funny jokes there was a really weird joke where like a lizard was in because they go to like a lizard water world and now I am spoiling something. Lizard Waterworld.

The lizards are not allowed in Zootopia. All right, man, I can't. Is it a classist story? It is a classist story. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, I guess in Zutopia 1, there are no reptiles. But also beavers. So there's kind of this area where it's like beavers and water mammals live with lizards

in like some sort of swamp bayou area. And so the beavers are there. And I was really, I just kind of locked in on the fact that they obviously animate the big two front teeth or the big forefront teeth, but you really only see the two because they're kind of outside. You know, the larger ones are on the top and the show of the small ones on the bottom. Those are called incisors, right? And then it got me really fixated on the teeth. of the beaver and I was like huh and I it's nothing against the movie but I could not think about anything but oh wait I didn't I didn't say my this is all over the place

sorry this is me but there's a joke this is me I'm drowning take it or leaving I'm doing great I did 110 episodes of podcast where this was essentially this this there's a joke about one of the lizards drop its tail and then someone freaks out and they go and then the lizard goes you can keep it which I got a real laugh at me that's awesome I saw a video of a guy

in their garage this was on Instagram reels you guys should check it out sometime a lot of good stuff on there it was an Instagram reel of two guys in a garage and on the shelves there was like a iguana or some sort of lizard or something that had made its way into these people's garages, into these people's garage with on the shelves or whatever.

And the one guy goes, look, he's right there. Get him. And the other guy walks up and grabs the tail and they have a little bit of a scuffle for a second. And then the lizard pops his little tail off and scurries away. And the guys are freaking out because the, he throws the, he throws the tail and it lands on the the hood of the car where the hood and the windshield meet. And it's just kind of flopping around next to the windshield wipers. And they're freaking out and guys like, oh my God, oh my God, my God. And then in the comments, somebody commented, I read about this in books, but I never seen it happen before.

And I was like, wow, you know? Me either, I guess. But so it was kind of an educational video as well. It's a really, it's a real thing. I don't know if he guan, I mean, I assume iguana grow their tail back. They really need the tail. They must. My wife had some crested geckos.

Oh. No. But that would be her business, not yours. And Mattie janked it off and it never grew back. But the crested geckos lose their tails, but they don't grow back. Oh. And they call them frog butts. Oh.

I didn't know there were lizards that didn't grow up. There are. Huh. Yeah. And that might be the weirdest thing you find out this week, but that's not. What am I? That's, I mean, that's got to be so much anxiety. Talk about, like, getting anxiety about when they use your consumables, you know?

It's like, is this the one time I'm going to pop my tail off? Or should I save it for an even more dangerous predator, you know? It's like your master ball. Yeah. I guess they don't inherently know that the tail's going to grow back, but they just do it out of fear and then it does grow back. Interesting. I had never even considered the fact that the iguana maybe doesn't even know that his tail is not going to grow back. back. A crazy thought. But it is, it's actually like almost electronic the way that the tail comes

off in like, right. It's like more mechanical than anything. Yeah, because you can kind of see the port for the tail versus the, the like, literally the male part of the tail and the female part of the, you know, hind hand where the tail goes in. So, or comes out. It's really fascinating. But yeah, I think if I lost my tail the first time I'd be so stressed out and then when it grew back I'd be like oh thank god and then the second time I did it I'd be a little bit less stressed out and the third time probably the same as the fourth fifth six I'm like whatever this thing's coming back anyway we're not here to talk about lizard tails not even here to talk about beaver tails that's not even in my stuff but it's a fascinating element sorry spoiler alert no beaver tail tongue

but anyway um so I'm watching zoo Putting you back in the line. Oh, my God. We're still getting the framework. I haven't even got, I still have six pages of this stuff. Oh, God. I don't. It's not that much.

But I'm watching Zootopia. I'm thinking about the beaver teeth, the incisors. I'm going, what's going on in the back? They have the big two, four front teeth. What goes on in the bag? Do you all know? I know that you've had, some of you have had rodents before. My guess is nothing.

That was my guess. Is it like molar kind of stuff back there? It's molar kind of stuff back there is what I have right now. Yeah, they just have normal regular molar teeth back there and then the big front incisors. I thought that was fascinating. So I leave Zootopia. In the middle of Zootopia, I go to the restroom and I Google Beaver Skull. And I am just looking at photos of Beaver Skull.

Some Craven Pervert in the bathroom of the movie theater gets out of Zootopia and immediately Googling beaver skull. I was just consumed by curiosity and I found it incredible. And so obviously the teeth are prominently

depicted in the film. That's the thing you know about them. They chew wood, take down trees and then you have the big teeth. Anyway, but yes, they have the molars in the background

that grind up vegetation because they're vegetarians or that's not what you call animals. Herbivores. Herbivores. or herbivores. But anyway, and I remember about the two front teeth that they grow forever.

That, did you know that? I had heard that. They grow forever. And I remember very distinctly an episode of the Angry Beaver television show on Nickelodeon. Where, um, I loves beavers. Or cartoons. Cartoons. This guy loves cartooned.

All of his animal knowledge comes from cartoons. But you know what's funny is that they're pretty good about it. I was going to say. say honestly not a bad not a bad jumping off point yes exactly and there's a in an episode of the angry beavers I think there's Dag and Norbert

Dagg DAG sees a PSA about how the beaver incisors can grow forever if they're not worn down by chewing on trees and if they do grow forever they can and this is real grow in back

into the skull of of the of the of the beaver, which happens a lot with like ram horns as well. They can, they got to like bang it on something to wear it down. That's right. That's right. Because yeah, then they'll go into their head. Yeah. And there have been documented cases of beavers like they're, whether they're like they can't use the teeth or something for some other reason, but the teeth growing back in like a loop-de-loop.

That's got to be so stressful to just literally have a thing that if you don't take. care like I have a chore each day that if you don't care of it, it's going to pierce your brain. I cannot imagine the anxiety. They probably don't think about it. But they got to be like, well, this tooth is getting a little close to my eyeball. Yeah. Anyway, I have a confession to make. What?

I guess it's more of a question, but it's, it is, it feels deeply embarrassing. Okay. Did they eat the wood? That's a good question. They eat the wood. It's a really good question. Or did they just chew the wood for their house? They just chew the wood for their house.

They don't eat the woods. So what do they eat? Vegetation. So there's plants and vegetables? Non-no-wood-y vegetation. Non-wood vegetation? You're telling me they don't, you're telling me they eat it, they chew it, and they don't even get a little bit in there? I mean, I'm sure they're eating a little bit of wood.

It's like seasoning. So they're eating a little bit of the wood, but not all of it. They're not intentionally eating the wood. Okay, okay. May I move on? Sure. Okay. Sorry, I thought this was a show about curiosity.

I don't have any more information than they don't eat the wood. Your curious spirit died when you Googled beaver skull. I don't have enough information on whether they eat the wood or not. It's giving me anxiety. So just accept the fact that they don't eat the wood. I'm not an expert. I'm just fascinated by this. Okay.

Okay. Fine. It is a fact that human. Second to humans, beavers change their habitat more than any other creature. They obviously cut down trees, but they can create wetlands and they can change the direction of rivers. Now, that is fascinating. That's like a... Wouldn't you agree?

I would agree. Because of this, they have been dubbed ecosystem engineers and are called a Keystone Species, which is also a thing I learned, which is a species that have a disproportionately profound impact on their environment relative to their numbers. Now, I would posit, not a scientist, but I would posit that they are not second to humans in the disproportionate changing of their climate. Oh, sure, because there's so many of us. Because, yeah, there's only like 60 million of them or something like that. Max.

So we have, what are we at, 8 billion? I mean, yes, we're doing a number on the Earth. Yeah, I think we could do way more environmental destruction. I think we need to get those numbers up. They're pathetic compared to the Beavers. I'm sure that we are working on it, unfortunately. But, okay, so this would then become no surprise that they are also. climate allies because everything they do is natural unlike humans which is mostly unnatural stuff right

right we're so unnatural um when you think of the beaver you think of what you've already mentioned it damn the damn gland anal gland okay okay they do i didn't actually have anything about the anal glands in my research. I did think about it, but I thought... That was one of the first facts on this show in like season one. Whoa, I'm a bit of a historian

of this show. Oh yeah, you're a real expert. Beaver dams are also incredibly cool, which I didn't know this about beaver dams that they... So they knock down all the trees. They chew on the trees.

They fall and then they drag them to make the dam, which makes these little ponds. Now this is all stuff we know. I'm not teaching anybody anything here. But I could stop right there because I think that's fascinating enough. But more interesting is what happens after they make the ponds. The dams create big, deep pools of cold water. In this, they build the beaver den. And the dens are basically beaver-made islands in the middle of the ponds or sometimes along the banks that are only accessible via underground tunnels you must not be an actual angry beavers fan because that's what their house was in the show i didn't

watch it oh i haven't watched it like 20 years that explains why you didn't know that his name was dagget instead of dag which you so embarrassingly embarrassingly called him anyway that's really awesome mattie i can't wait for you to And you're no research. I'm going to go crazy. Here's the fact that I, speaking of media properties about beavers, here's a fact that I learned from the, from the film hundreds of beavers, they're really susceptible to Looney Tune style traps.

You can make a whole different, you can make a bunch of different kinds of traps and that various beavers will, you can have one that throws them, you'll put him in a can, shoot them out of a cannon. But actually some of the beavers are really smart where they actually didn't get caught by the traps and they had the guy get caught in the trap that he tried to build for the beaver. So I guess that I guess beavers contain multitudes is what I'm learning. This film has been recommended to me by a lot of friends. You got to see it. You would love it.

Is it, I would love it. As a guy who appreciates the, as a guy who appreciate it who just said how hard it is to make something, you would watch this and go, damn. Does it have violence against animals? Does it have... No. Well, if you include the guy like... Cartoon peril. He like, you know, shoots a gun and a big...

It says like, bam, and then a big smoke, and then a guy in a beaver costume falls over, you know? It's like, it's... Oh, okay. It's as stupid as it can possibly be, but it's very good. I'll give it a... What is it called again? It's called hundreds of beavers made by a Chicago native, in fact. And he has another movie called something to the effect of like the Lake Michigan Monster or something.

thing that I really want to watch as well. It's really, really good. It's like a live action Looney Tunes that doesn't, it like, it's like conforming the real world into Looney Tunes logic, rather than what happens in like Space Jam where they're conforming Looney Tunes

into real world logic, you know? I like that. Yes. It's really good. Also, another cartoon Beaver, Maddie, have you seen the, or Maddie or Jess? Have you seen the wild robot? No, but I've heard Okay. I didn't watch the wild robot for the same reason I didn't watch Flow. It's because animals in peril really. I don't like animals in peril either. Flow

made me a little sad a little bit too frequently. But the wild robot, yeah. The wild robot is pretty good because it is in my opinion mostly emotionless and mostly feels like it was made by chat GPT. So you don't have to worry about feeling too strongly about it. But there is a beaver in that movie. And in, you know, the robot is in this. community of animals. The robot like gets sent by some big company and then gets abandoned in the woods and then becomes friends with all the animals, right? And in this animal community, the Fox, by the way, voiced by Pedro Pascal, who is, who's Zaddy. Am I right, guys? There's a beaver in this community and he's like a old, he's like the wily old coot, you know, as they tend to be. Can you say wily old coot on this show? Is that fine? Well, you've done it twice now. his whole thing is he is trying to cut down this tree that's like the size of a skyscraper

and like it's like it's like a mile wide okay probably not a mile but it's like hundreds of feet wide and when we meet him he's like chewing through this tree and everybody's like oh you're still trying to chew through that big tree and he's like you'll see you'll all see uh and then at the end of the movie he chews to the tree that not the huge spoiler you kind of figure it's kind of Chekhov's tree, you know, when they set it up in the first act. He chews to the tree. And then all of the animals are like, yeah, they're all celebrating. And that was genuinely the most, I almost cried.

That was the most emotional part of the whole movie was him. He did it. It was his life's work. He tried to chew through the whole tree and he chewed through the whole tree. And then all of his friends who doubted him the whole time, by the way, they all celebrated for him, which is like, I hope you guys never switch up on me like that. If you're fucking doubting me, like, I hope I can at least trust you to be there by my side when I'm like, you know, going on a life-changing undertaking, you know.

Basically, if you, you know, you love me at my worst, you take me in my best, et cetera. So, Jess, what do you got going on? I looked up a picture of Paddler and now I kind of want to watch the film. Is that the guy? I think so. Boise by Matt Barry. Beaver. Is he voiced voiced by Matt Barry?

Yes, he is. I'm going to chop this train out. the street. He does, I mean, he really does just sound like that. And it works for a movie.

I shouldn't, I shouldn't have said the chat GPT thing. It was pretty good. He takes it back. I redact my statement. Following spoilers for the wild robot.

So the interesting thing about the dam that I did not know. I thought they were just making houses, right? But the dam in turn, completely alters the ecosystem around them. Obviously, if you think about it one step further, they're stopping water flow, right?

So it can cause floods that make the dry land around them wet, of course. And the cold water is great for the salmon populations that otherwise get either washed down the stream and out to sea or just simply die in waters that are too warm. And it offers salmon, baby salmon places to hide from predators. So they're kind of like best buds in that way. That's sick. Which is very sweet.

That's really awesome. Yeah. Any question, sorry, not any questions. I don't have the answers. So any guesses on how long the largest beaver dam in the world is? Like length? Sure. And I think it's length in circumference as well.

Oh. Take a stab at it. A hundred yards. Yeah. Football field. The largest beaver dam was discovered in 2007 via satellite images. Whoa. On Google Earth and is 2,790 feet long. That's about 850 meters and is seven times longer than the Hoover Dam.

Damn. Oh my God. I did it again. You did it again. Damn. The wet vegetation that grows as a result of the dams also acts as natural wildfire breaks, which prevent the spread of wildfires, obviously. This has actually been able to attribute lower wildfires in areas to the work of beavers.

So if there are beavers around, wildfires are harder to be found. That's sick. I think I just made that up. Not the fact, but the rhyme. The limerick, yeah. The limerick. Here's a little bit of actual. They call me limerick.

Sorry. I really sometimes wonder if Jess is regretting this or not. I'm just sitting here letting you two just go to town. Alexa Whipple. Restoration. That was laughing at me trying to get back on track. And not the name. Wipple.

Alexa Whipple, a restoration ecologist with the Methau Beaver Project, also found that following a wildfire, the areas with more beavers had more regular pH levels in the years following fires. Alexa attributed this to beaver dams and resulting vegetation, trapping and settling sediment and ash quicker than the areas without. Obviously, the wetter the area, the faster ash will settle. and the less it's floating all over the place. So they're essentially,

every bad thing that we're doing as people in destroying the climate, they are completely undoing. And that's kind of why, and I think as chronicled in hundreds of beavers, men and beaver have often been at odds. Beavours used to be everywhere. And the fur trade,

along with the perception of beavers being nuisances who cut down desired trees and cause unwanted flooding has resulted in them being hunted to near extinction in the 1800s. It's not right. It's not right. But don't freak out. Because with conservation efforts,

they are not only at the numbers they once were, but have bounced back significantly and are not endangered, and on the conservation concern list, they are marked as the least concern. So beavers are back in a big way. Good. Yeah. Thank God.

Yes. And there may even be more hope is what I have to say about this in a sentence that I wrote and have read before. Obviously, as humans have done nearly everything they can to kill the earth, they are now realizing how valuable the beaver is, especially in drought times. An animal that just wants to make dry lands wet? Yes, please. I wrote that part. Another little bonus fact about the beavers is that they tend to form monogamous relationships and mate for life. Aww.

I know, isn't that sweet? Yeah. And form strong familial bonds. A beaver family can be a mixture of two or three generations of parents or kits. That's cute. That's not the main fact. I'm past the main facts. These are all bonuses.

I like the bonuses. Thank you. Just thank you so much. Yeah. Did you need that little crumb of validation? Not really. But I appreciated you. giving it. I'm happy to offer it, yes.

I'm just ignoring Ricky. And they are so close with the other beavers that thankfully conservationists have realized this. And if a beaver family is encroaching on like a farmer's property or becoming a nuisance, the entire family will be removed and relocated. And they are kept in holding facilities until they can catch all of the others in the family. Oh, man. So that they are then reunited and moved together like it's the witness protection program. That's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. You got to hope they're not making the holding facilities out of wood. That's a little, that's a beaver joke for you. That's a really great point. And it was truly, Ricky, was one of those so funny. I didn't forget to laugh, but I just respected it so much. I didn't feel that funny.

I'll be honest. I appreciate the props. Um, and that's my, that's my, and thank you for coming to my TED talk about beavers. That was awesome. They seem to exist in direct competition with humans who want to seemingly destroy the earth. That's the rest, the last thing I wrote. Maybe beavers are the only thing keeping the earth alive, you know? Honestly, beavers and bees go off.

Yeah. Go off. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with more facts. Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federal? legal THC right to your door. I'm talking about mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies and a lot more. And you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code weirdest. I'm not a smoker myself, but I do love the occasional weed gummy to, you know, help me go off to Dreamland. And I can't have one right now because I have a new kid. And, you know,

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The be you start to freak out. Sorry. All of our facts are kind of like interconnected this week, actually. That's exciting. Yeah, we're all aligned. But as you two know, as the listeners probably don't know, I've been in Australia for the last month or so. Ricky was also here semi recently. I was. And the thing I was most excited about coming here was like all of the new plants and animals that I had never seen before.

Because like, shit is wildly different here. Like there is stuff here that is not anywhere else. Like I found one statistic that says 7 to 10% of all species on earth are native to Australia, just across like every, every order. So it's very diverse. And then of that 7 to 10% of all species being native to here, of that diversity, 80% of all plants and mammals here are not found anywhere else. That's crazy. Yeah. There's just like a lot of stuff here that doesn't leave.

and it's because it's so isolated. And I've seen a lot of that stuff. Like I went to the zoo and I saw like platypuses and echidnas and bilbis and wombats and kangaroos and emus. And I saw like cuckoburas, those birds up in the trees. They live in the old gum trees. Yep, yep. Which is the topic of conversation actually. The gum tree?

Perhaps yes. Whoa. Indeed. So, uh, speak. Speaking of, I think the biggest spectacle of Australian wilderness that I've seen is when I went to the Blue Mountains, which is this huge, huge, huge, huge mountain range, like two hours west of Sydney. And huge is in like, it's wider than the Grand Canyon. So it's like 4,400 square miles of mountain. And they're 470 million years old.

So that's 10 times older than the Grand Canyon as well. So kind of a grander canyon. but you know just saying really firing a broadside shot at the grand canyon that's kind of all we've got in america you know that right listen i'm in australia for three weeks some things have changed okay you know if you come back the grand canyon's gonna be ready to rock is that a pun sure and so when i went in these in the grander canyon uh there were a lot of like like weird plants and animals that were really cool. I saw like big ass colorful birds. I saw like a little reptile skink lizard. Cocatoos were everywhere. They were super loud and weird and are they just

making noise like is it just always noise? Yes. Wow. Yes. That sounds nice. It was it the cockatoos are like like, like they are like not nice chirping. I owned a cockatoo when I was a kid. You did. Might have been a cockatiel, I don't know. The cockatoos are like the really, like, big. Commenters, tell me which one I own more than like in the mid-Atlantic region when I was... He's a damn professional. Oh, this man.

This man. But I think the, you know, the most notable thing about the Blue Mountains as far as Flora and Fonago are the expansive eucalyptus forests. because the vast majority of the blue mountains, which are made of sandstone, by the way, all of all of these mountains are pretty much like all covered in trees. And for the most part, those trees are eucalyptus trees. And we did like walk by one and grab the leaves and like smell the leaves. And it's eucalyptus.

And the eucalyptus forests, what did you say? It's confirmed. Yep, that's eucalyptus. Yes, confirmed. So the eucalyptus forests are why the blue mountains are blue. Because if you look off in the distance at the mountains, they have like a blue haze. And that's obviously why they're called that. And it's because there are like these oil droplets, the eucalyptus oil droplets that are kind of like emitted from the trees.

And so the sunlight like scatters differently through those droplets and like through dust. other stuff in the air and it makes it look blue. And that's like not dissimilar to why our sky is blue. Basically like the shorter blue wavelengths of light are scattered more easily through all that junk in the air in the sky and then also like in the blue mountain haze. So and like longer red orange wavelengths are not scattered. So kind of neat. I didn't know that.

That's really fast. I learned that while I was there and that's extremely cool. It's a really cool thing. Yeah. Save you all a trip if you haven't been to Australia. Now you know. Don't go to the Blue Mountains. You don't have to go learn.

Blue mountains are blue. Next. And the smog is why the sunsets are afraid. It's a little L.A. joke for you. L.A. is in my fact as well, actually. I can't wait. Stay tuned. So yeah, as we were like Googling all this Blue Mountain stuff,

me and my partner were Googling this over a delicious bowl of and drinking of Vietnamese coffee. Because day one we got there, it was like 100 degrees hot. Day two, 50 degrees and foggy. Insane. It was crazy. I'm glad we did our hike the first day because you couldn't see shit on day two. So yeah, we got soup on day two.

We were Googling stuff. And that's how we learned about the blue haze and the eucalyptus. And my partner goes, didn't Americans try to plant a bunch of eucalyptus trees in America back in the day? And it all went to shit. And the branches fell off randomly. exploded. And I was like, huh?

Whoa. Are you going to tell us that did happen? And I, I, I, I Googled it, and he is correct. Wow. Yeah, yeah, my partner is Australian. So he apparently just learned about the stupid Americans planting their Australian trees. And, you know, yeah. So back in the mid-1800s, California, California, here comes, was facing a

timber shortage and they wanted to build. Okay. Yep. They wanted to build like railroads and stuff, right? And they didn't have enough trees to like, and forests to like farm lumber. So they heard about the giant strong eucalyptus trees in Australia. It was being colonized at the time.

They were like, yo, let's, let's get some of those. So they planted the first seed in California in 1853. By the 1870s, there was eucalyptus craze. People were like upset. with planting eucalyptus trees. They were convinced it was the solution to their problems. There were these people called forest tycoons that were like trying to make their fortune by planting forests and farming them for lumber.

So yeah. And they were great. The trees were great because they would grow in really dry soil that was previously unable, unable to like hold onto any vegetation. So instead of like dry grasses, all of a sudden people had like 20, 30, 50 foot trees. with like shade and shelter and windbreaks and stuff like that. And that goes a long way when you have a hot Californian summer. And aside from that, too, like their strong root systems improved soil quality for other

kinds of like farms and stuff. And they drained swampy areas too. So like less stagnant water, malaria rates dropped because fewer mosquitoes, stuff like that. Wow. And because eucalyptus didn't naturally grow in the U.S., they had no natural pests or diseases. So it was like everything coming up eucalyptus. Yeah. And that's where it ends.

And it worked out. Yep. And the credits roll. And everyone lived happily ever after. And I'm looking at a eucalyptus tree right now outside my apartment. Yep. But then. But then they tried to start cutting on the trees and using them for railroad cable ties.

And when they would try to dry the wood. It wouldn't dry all perfect and nice like it did in Australia. It would twist and warp. And then it would get really dense and hard. So you couldn't, it was like impossible to even nail a spike through it, like a railroad spike. And it did the same thing when they would like try to use for framing and fence posts and everything. And why? It's because they were trying to do things the American way and fast track it.

Classic. Yep. And eucalyptus doesn't really become usable as a temperamental. it's like really, really, really old, like hundreds of years old, basically. So it's not like worth using as like a farmable timber. But it was already everywhere and they had already planted a bazillion eucalyne eucalyptus trees. And oops. And yeah, sure, there were like some positive benefits like the ones I mentioned.

But there's still kind of an invasive species. And sure, there are still many eucalyptus trees in California everywhere and they look and smell delightful. But they do randomly drop their branches seemingly out of nowhere. And it's kind of, it's very funny. It's like an emotional response. Like they do it if they're stressed from heat. Like lizards. Or whatever.

Yeah, it is like lizards. It's straight up is like lizards. Or they'll do it if like they're aging and they like just want to drop a branch. And these are huge trees. Yeah, I just looked them up because I was like, have I ever seen one of these before? I don't know. You must have. Sure.

You must have. They're all over LA. I'm sure if you know what to look for, you'll see them. And so in Australia, these trees are known as widow makers because the falling branches have killed people. Dang. Like even just last year and the year before, like a handful of people were killed by lying branches. Oh, I had not. That's, hey, that's a badass name for a tree, man.

I don't know if they get more badass than that. That kind of sounds a lot like. I mean, it must have been the same exact time because California is very young as a place in terms of. of like, you know, people kind of building them out as cities. But they also did the same thing with palm trees. And like, yeah, they're not native here. Yes. You know, they seem like they offer less than you love this trees, to be quite honest. Yes. So, but like that's, that's part of it, right? It's like they have these two invasive trees that are also very flammable, like very, very easy to light on fire. And that is like perhaps the most troubling thing about at least eucalyptus.

I don't really know much about the palms and how they were introduced. Well, the palms are also, in a very, very similar way, they're just not from here. They planted them here because they like the look of them. They don't offer any shade because they're like 100 feet tall and they have like four leaves. And the leaves are massive. And they do also, much like you let this fall in the street. Right. I don't think they're making widows, but they're certainly causing car accidents.

Yes. at least in conveniencing people. Yes, exactly. So, so yeah, the eucalyptus similar and also saturated with that very flammable eucalyptus oil. The stuff that makes the Blue Mountains blue, it also fuels forest fires in Australia and in the U.S. For instance, the 1991, quote unquote, Oakland firestorm. That's what they literally, they literally call. all that burned for five days, largely fueled by eucalyptus trees. So killed, killed 25 people,

injured 250, destroyed 1,500 acres of land, which included 2,843 single family homes, 437 apartments. And in today's money, it's an economic loss of over $3 billion. Holy smokes. That was another fun. That one was in bad taste. That was completely unintentional. I almost. Really stepping on. I almost didn't catch it. It's not intentional, I promise. And one of the people who lost their house in this disaster was Will Wright, the guy who made the Sims.

Oh, I was, I literally was like, are you talking about the Sims Spore guy? Are you talking about spore? Yes. He lost his, how, the spore. Aren't there spores on the eucalyptus tree? Or no. I was trying to make a connection. Well, there is a connection.

There's a connection because when he made SimCity 2000, he added a scenario about like the city's recovery from the fire. Wow. Look at that. Yep. And obviously this does like bring to mind the L.A. fires from a year ago. Which were not mainly kicked off by or like even mainly fueled by eucalyptus. But they did undoubtedly play a part.

You know, like they're everywhere. They probably burned in some. capacity. Some legislators have pushed for cutting down eucalyptus and flammable trees that like, you know, fuel fires like this. But that's not really a full solution either. Like a full landscape of native plants wouldn't have stopped the fires in their tracks. You know what I mean?

It's more about building fire safe buildings, establishing better fire and water protocols. Having beavers. Bevers. Perhaps having beavers. Bevers. We were all getting there at the exact same moment. we want the lever. Yeah.

And, you know, like clearing out brush and stuff like that. So it's not like a one, one-stop shop solution. But anyway, a shout out to Australia's Blue Mountains and its ecliptous trees. Without which we wouldn't have a random city fire recovery scenario in some city 2000 or something, you know. Wow. Look at that. And thank you for that. Yep.

All right. We're going to take one more quick break and then we'll be back with more facts. You said this place was steps for. from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes.

At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Okay, we're back. Ricky, tell us about the animal. You're not going to believe this. You're not going to freaking believe this. Okay, okay. But you decide, you are, your facts were all about the eucalyptus tree.

Guess what? My fact, my big thing is all about the dang koala. koala, the guy himself. Basically, the animal that you could potentially consider to be in a symbiotic, well, maybe even parasitic relationship

with the eucalyptus tree. They have formed a sort of bond with each other in many ways. The koala, potentially the dumbest animal on earth. I mean, obviously, how do you quantify that?

You've amended your statement to potentially. Potentially. I don't want to paint, you know, I don't want to make any sort of broad claims that I can't back up with the hard science like Maddie had of I watched a movie. I did watch a movie though. I watched a documentary about koala. There was a life of a koala. It was really good. I had never seen a koala running at full speed until this documentary.

And man, I don't think I've seen that. It looks so funny. Okay, so there's all, I didn't have really one fact about a koala, but like just in just, general, they are so interesting. First of all, they're totally useless. I mean, everybody kind of, if there's, they're completely useless, right? They sleep for like 20 hours a day. Most people know that. The reason they sleep for 20 hours a day, why, of course, it's because they refuse to eat anything but eucalyptus leaves. And those leaves provide them with essentially zero nutrition. The other thing about the koala is they spend.

the majority of their life up in a eucalyptus tree. They basically, they pick a tree. First of all, another thing, there's like 700 different varieties of eucalyptus tree. The average koala will prefer less than 50, around 30 of them. So not only do they only eat eucalyptus trees, they're also picky eaters when it comes to eucalyptus trees. And you're asking yourself, well, Ricky, how do they, how do they, how do they, they determine which eucalyptus trees they like. Well, it's about to get a little yucky, folks.

As we all know, koalas are marsupials. They are born after, I think, like, seven weeks. They're the size of a jelly bean. And then I heard the statistic that I think that they used on the documentary I watched was that a koala goes from its jelly bean size to 25,000, it grows 25,000 times. its size from the course of the moment of its birth to adulthood. So they're about 25,000 jelly beans

big. Like Smurfs. Like Smurfs. So they come out of the They come out of the birth canal. They're three apples taller or two apples. Oh, I'm not up on my smurf floor. Yeah, Maddie knows all the smurf.

He's the smurf floor guy of the group. Every first thing they say. It's one of the first things they say. So these little seven week old jelly beans crawl out of the birth canal. Weird to think about this. It's got no eyes and stuff like that. Yes, they literally, it's just a little jelly bean that uses its four limbs to crawl out

of the birth canal and it crawls up into the pouch of the koala, which does open downward, I learned, which seems like why would you evolve to have your pouch open downward when you spend your whole life in a tree? I don't know. Yeah. The koala climbs in, right? And it latches onto the nipple inside of the pocket. Okay.

And then it drinks the milk of the mom for a long time and it grows big and strong, right? But you're thinking to yourself, okay, it goes from drinking milk to just eating leaves. No, no, no. There's kind of an intermediary dietary plan that they get put on, which is they eat a byproduct of their mother's digestive process called fecal pap, which is more or less what it sounds like. It's just kind of a, it's kind of an advanced version of of Duky, basically. But, and essentially what this does is that it, it sort of trains the baby's digestive tract to be able to eat these eucalyptus leaves, right? Because as we, as we, you might know, as I don't know if you actually discussed this

or not, but the eucalyptus leaves are poisonous. Yeah. To almost, I don't think I said this. To almost every animal in the world, these eucalyptus leaves are poisonous. There's a few animals that eat them very few. The koalas are the only ones where they exclusively eat eucalyptus leaf. They have a special part of that digestive tract that's basically like the appendix that lets them ferment the eucalyptus leaves inside of their body and neutralize the toxins.

Okay. So basically these koalas, they have these limited varieties of eucalyptus trees that they have eaten ever since they were sucking on their mama's ducy. Um, that's got to be a first for a weirdest thing I learned, right? Listen, we get pretty gross on here. I can only imagine. So, so that's, you know, they have these varietals imprinted in their, in their, like, you know, right down to their core, you know. And they, they, they find a tree that they like.

They crawl up it and they just sit there every day. They just, they, they basically, you know, it's like, that's like their house. They're just like, this is where I live now. If there's already a koala in said tree, they'll move on. It is literally, I kind of had the realization because I've also been in a big Lord of the Rings mood lately. But they're kind of like the hobbits of the animal kingdom. They don't do a whole lot. They love a leaf substance that gets some mildly f***ed up.

They love to chill in the house, you know. They don't really want to go on any big adventures, you know. They're kind of the home values of the animal kingdom, which I really, like about them. What else? What else? Oh, and then the reason why they are so dumb, as, you know, is often touted that the more wrinkles you have on your brain, the smarter you are. A koala's brain is completely smooth. It looks like a, it looks like a big apple made out of meat, basically. It's, it's really crazy. They are very stupid. But if there's one thing that they have done

correct over their long evolutionary, you know, lifespans. Oh, going back, you know, millions and millions of years. They have evolved to be the most adorable by human standards. And I think that's a really valuable trait to have if you're an animal. They've got big fluffy ears, huge honkable nose. They're about toddler-sized. You can pick them up and they kind of just grab onto you like a toddler. And they don't, they don't move really quick, you know.

I think when an animal moves too fast, we get too scared, you know? We like somebody that's moving, like, at a really reasonable pace. But, yeah, they're really interesting. I think it's such, like, they're similar to pandas in that they have evolved to completely rely on a diet that barely keeps them alive. And I find that to be so interesting. It is. What's with that? That is, yeah.

I don't know. What do they even do for anybody? They don't do anything for anybody. They don't even do anything for the eucalyptus trees that. they, that they, you know, rely on. They don't really give much back to them. They just eat the leaves. And then once there's not many leaves left in the tree, they move on to a new tree.

And that's basically it. Yeah, it's not even like they're like spreading like seeds or anything for them because a lot of eucalyptus trees like reproduced by fire. Like they need fire. Yeah. To release their. Yes. And koalas famously do very poorly in the fire seasons, unfortunately.

They really do not know how to handle it because, again, they've got their little neighborhoods, you know, they've got their little four. that they live in and they basically stay there their whole lives. So when the forest burns, a kangaroo, for example, will move on to a new place. But the koalas, they don't really know how to move that. You know, they don't have the capability to move that far. So there's lots of organizations that help koalas relocate. Unlike the beavers, they don't have any familial ties.

They're, koalas are a society of single mothers. They raise their baby for almost exactly 12 months, almost exactly a year. And then as soon as the mom is ready to mate again, She basically says, all right, kid, you're on your own. It's time to have another baby. And the cycle begins again. Oh, wow. I didn't realize that.

Yeah, they're really special creatures. I, over the course of watching this documentary that I found on YouTube, I learned to love them even more. But, you know, they're pretty much helpless and completely stupid. The only reason that they exist is because they have essentially no natural predators that can get up the tree that they're in. Which, frankly, you know, that's a pretty good evolutionary adaptation to just climb the tree, you know? Yes. Yeah, they're just up there. They're just up there.

And, you know, a Komodo dragon or whatever can't catch them or a monitor lizard or whatever's out there on the epic. I thought we had Paul Hogan in here. Anyway, I don't know if I have much more on koalas. Other than that, it's, it's, there's just a lot of interesting eccentricities about koalas, the more you dive in, you're like, huh, really? And you guys are still around? Damn, okay. Oh, my last, my last fact about koalas, and this is maybe less of a fact, and this is more editorializing. If there's one thing that a koala can be known for, besides all the crap that I just said, that they're cute, right? You know, giraffe got a long neck. Horses got weird knees. Cowalas,

they're cute. That's like they're one trait. Yeah. However, I don't, are they not the one? knees. Well, that's neither here nor there. We're not talking about horses. We're talking about koalas. Yes, Maddie? Are they the ones, or is it sloths that are connected to chlamydia? That's what I was going to bring up. So that's the, there is also the chlamydia thing.

The koalas do get chlamydia. There's a scene in the documentary I watched, I think of it was, they were implying that... In Zootopia 2. No, no, no. No, no. That was in Zootopia 2.5. You got to get the bonus features. There was a scene in the documentary I watched where they were implying that they were showing a koala who was dying of chlamydia at the foot of a tree,

and it was insanely depressing, if you really must know. But yes, for some reason, koalas are susceptible to getting chlamydia as well. That's interesting. My fun fact that it's more of an opinion, the koala, potentially the number one animal on earth known for being cute, the babies are less cute than the adults. I was going, so I looked them up while you were talking about this, because one of the things that I didn't mention about the beavers is that the beaver kits are probably one of the cutest things I've ever seen. They're like they're like less filled out beavers but the yeah you do koalas are one of the distinguishing like the just like distinguished for the fact that

the adults are way cuter than the babies. I think sometimes there I think it's more of like the toddlers look a little strange what it is is that they don't get their big round faces. Yeah, the babies have like a little bit of a weird like horse jaw. at some point in their life, or their head kind of looks like, they look top heavy. But, you know, when they get all, when they get sort of filled out

with their fur, they obviously are extremely cute. I mean, they're cute no matter what. I'm really, you know, I'm splitting hairs here, but I'm just saying, you know, the guys are all cute, but the babies, you know,

they got some weird cranial stuff going on. Ricky hates baby animals. Oh, no, I love them. Anyway, that's it. That's my- I kind of went on a hit piece about koalans. I would encourage everybody to look up beaver kits at some point during their day. They are very cute because they're extremely adorable.

Yeah, that's fascinating. I was going to mention, now that you've brought it up a second time, a movie, if you were talking about the most depressing movie in terms of animals I've ever seen, was a documentary called Tardis de Soledad, Adventures of Solitude, which is an incredible, like, electric magnetic documentary that follows a, bullfighter over the course of several fights. There's no narration. It's just footage.

It's incredible to watch the first 30 minutes shows one bullfight and I turned it off and cry. Oh my God. Sounds like a huge bummer. It really was. It really was. And I don't know why. Ricky and I often talk about how we were kind of little babies when it comes to animal

peril. I'm the same way. It's difficult. It's awful to watch. And I don't know what. what made me do it, but I did, I tried and, uh, I would, I still recommended it. It's a fascinating documentary. I mean, I, you know, yeah.

I think everybody should be. Yeah. I, I, I, the non-mediator in me was watching it and I was like, I shouldn't have to watch this. This is for me. But, uh, that's my shout as we get down at the end of the episode. Good shout. Good shout. Zootopia 2, the sad bullfighting documentary.

Tardis de Soledadad, yes. Zutropolis, too. And the Looney Tunes Beaver. Hundreds of beavers. Really good. What a trio. I've learned so much. I really have.

I'm so glad. Me too. They should do more seasons of this show. It's succeeding. You know, they should. I agree. It's really fascinating stuff here. Well, thanks for coming on both of you.

Remind the listeners, who you are, what you make, where people can find your stuff, et cetera. Yes, yes. My name is Matt Riel. Mattie is talking on everything. I also Twitch stream, much like the two other people in the call here. I work for a company called Watcher. We just wrapped up 110 episodes of the podcast, Get Scared.

And I guess I can say we're working on another one. Oh, sneak peek. We're working on another one. that should be coming soon. So that's exciting. Whoa. That's cool. My name's, I'm Ricky.

Twitch.tv. Slash Ricky Peacock. It's my damn real name, if you can believe it. I'm working on playing some video games over there. I like to do a lot of things. I like to think of myself as a patron of the arts. I'm really,

I'm leading, I've got two feet in the door of this sentence that I'm trying to get through and I'm really ready to back out. Never mind. Just follow my Twitch channel if that's the kind of thing that you'd like to be watching. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Thing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos.