Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Camel Attack - The Tennessee Camel Rampage

Episode Date: March 20, 2022

We're talking about camels. In light of the recent attack that resulted in the tragic death of two people at a Tennessee petting zoo, Wes put together a little smorgasbord of camel attack stories to explain why a camel might become so aggressive and the dangers they can present if we aren't careful around them.  ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds                          Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We hope you guys enjoy it. Oh, and one quick thing before we launch into the episode in full. The final third of this episode, we have a little bit of a special segment, if you will. We're doing another round of Animal March Madness. So we have a huge bracket stocked full of all kinds of cool different animals, and we see which one we think is the coolest. We also run kind of a little Instagram voting poll. and I think we published our bracket over on our Instagram account,

so you guys can all kind of see that. But just to address something that may or may not be a big deal, I don't know, I like to get out in front of these things sometimes. You might notice that a lot of obvious animal choices might be missing from this bracket, and that's probably because we had those animals in our bracket from last year. So those episodes are archived on our Patreon if you're interested in that. But just so you don't get confused when you don't see like tiger somewhere on the bracket, It's because we talked about it last year, and we just kind of wanted to get a batch of new,

fresh blood. And that's all I've got to say. Let's go. Hey, everyone. We are back. We're tooth and claw podcast. We're Wes, Mike, and Jeff. Wazza!

Wesah! Wazzat! Funny story, for probably 15 years now, whenever me and Jeff call each other on the phone, we do the was-ups, and we just do it until someone find that. it gives up. We've had some long stretches. I've been in the car when that was happening. Yeah. And it got obnoxious, like really fast and went for about 10 times longer than I was expected to. Yeah, it gets really obnoxious and then it gets funny because of how obnoxious. It goes in cycles. We went through about four of those cycles. And it's funny like when you're with

someone else because it's kind of embarrassing to be doing it. Like sometimes I'll be out and Jeff will do it and I'll be like, was up? And then I'll just go ultra hard because I'll recognize that he's somewhere. He doesn't want to do it. Yeah. Anyway, I'm Wes Larson. I'm a wildlife biologist. Hey, I've been working with wildlife for over 10 years now.

Mostly bear species, polar bears, black bears, sloth bears, and now grizzly bears. Quala bears. Jeff got to not koalas. They aren't bears. Jeff got to help me a little bit on my. Black Bear project as a field tech. A lot. Yeah, for a year and a half pretty much, right? Yeah, and the winter's doing denies. Yeah, that's true. And the dens. Yeah, good point. A lot. How many years does it take to get your wildlife biologist merit badge? Ten years seems like

you're probably about there. I haven't gotten it yet. Yeah, I need to put some more hours. And Mike is learning about wildlife on a weekly basis. Are we all Eagle Scouts? I'm an Eagle Scout. Mike? Yeah, I have my little eagle's nest. I have my little card to prove it. Yeah. The little like golden credit card thing. Yeah.

It doesn't have any money on it. I was disappointed to find. Dude, I've gotten so many jobs putting just like my resume. It's just like huge like 40. I feel like I were 40 font bold Eagle Scout. That's the only thing on your resume. I feel like if I was hiring someone in their Eagle Scout, I'd be like, oh, this dork. This guy's going to tell on me the second I do anything. Yeah. So we're tooth and claw

podcast. We tell stories about animal attacks, but we like to do them in a way that's fair to the animals, explains their behavior, teaches people how they can prevent those same kind of circumstances, and teaches people a little bit about the animal's conservation status, and why usually the animal isn't the one at fault in most of these instances. That's a little bit about us. So if you're new to the podcast, welcome. If you're not, thanks for sticking around so long. Yeah. Jeff and I are still around. Yeah, that's nice. It's great. We've made it a lot longer than I thought we would. And we got exciting news coming up too that we'll be able to announce pretty soon. So stay tuned because we're just getting started. Big news coming. Big news. All right. Well, do you guys remember the movie Rain of Fire?

Oh, wow. Oh, man. Are you kidding me? I think about that like daily. It's the best dragon movie, I think. Huh. Yeah, I might agree with you. I like it better than The Hobbit. I don't know about that. I like The Hobbit more. Best Dragon movie.

What's your favorite part of that movie? My favorite part, spoilers, is when Matthew McConaughey, like, runs with the axe off the building to kill the dragon, and it just eats him. Yeah. McConaughey is the best part of that movie. Yeah, he is, without a doubt. Do you know what's amazing about that scene is that basically the entire marketing campaign was based around that clip? of him like jumping off with the axe and swinging it but they don't show the part of him getting eaten you're just like you go into the movie thinking he's gonna do something really cool right then it tricks you so bad because like he's kind of like bigger than life the whole movie too yeah so then you just kind of think like he's gonna bin diesel this dragon right and it's like oh wait that was like a 10,000 pound dragon what was he thinking I remember that movie came out on my birthday and I remember seeing it on my birthday and thinking this movie was made for me this is my

movie anyway Jeff was a little late to our recording session today and I was just like flipping around on the TV and turned on rain of fire and watched the first 20 minutes um all right what we are going to talk about today is camels ooh it's hump day we're recording on a Wednesday it's hump day so that's one of the reasons we're talking about camels hump day the main reason is because there was a camel incident in the news recently that a billion people sent to us. That's an exaggeration. It wasn't a billion, but there's a lot of people. And it seemed worthy of inclusion in our news episode for sure.

But it was such a kind of complex thing. And as I researched it, I learned a lot more about camels. So we just decided to turn into a camel episode. So you're getting a full-length episode on camels instead. So I think we're ready. Are we ready to learn about camels? Oh, yeah. Hold on.

Jeff's not quite ready. I'm pulling up his pants. He's got some camel toe now. Tighten the belt a little. Yeah. All right. Strapped in. So we're going to be talking about dromedary camels.

And I think I'm pronouncing that right. If I'm not, I'm sorry. Are those the ones with the humps on their back? It's got a hump on its back. It's got one hump. Oh, and some have two. Yeah. So there are, there's, what's the other one called?

Shoot, it's, oh, Bactrian. So Bactrian, yeah, Bactrian. Yeah. Bactrian. Camels are the ones that have multiple humps. Dramidary camels have one hump. They're the camel you see most often. They're the ones that have been domesticated for the most part.

There are domesticated bacteria in camels too, but like, dromedaries are the ones you generally see. We're going to start with a quick story. And we're just, today's going to be an episode kind of similar to the Cassowary episode where I've got a bunch of stories. So just kind of be ready for that. Some of them I'm going to be almost like reading them because there's not a ton of detail,

but there's some good stories. Yeah. Just stay on your toes. You're ready to be a little nimble and navigate around these different stories. Yeah, you guys better buckle in. We'll be ready to just kind of like make one up as we go too. Yeah, that's what you generally do, Jeff. So that works perfect.

All right. So in 2016 in Rajasthan, India, a man named Ujuram was entertaining guests in his home on a really sweltering Saturday night. So the temperatures that day had almost reached 50 degrees Celsius, which is about 122 degrees Fahrenheit for all you Americans. And as the night progressed... 122? Yeah, really hot.

It's a really hot part of India. So as the night progressed, Ujuram had a startling realization. He had left his camel tied up outside all day in the heat. Wow, that's messed up. Yeah, and he knew that camels were like built for extreme temperatures, but an animal that's been restrained all day would have a much harder time coping with those really blazing temperatures. So he rushed outside to untie his camel. He's entertaining his friends.

He realizes this. He rushes outside. The camel's acting aggressively because it's been left tied up in the heat all day. And once it was untied, it immediately begins attacking Ujuram. And this attack culminates in the camel biting his head off. What? Yeah, bites his head off. So Thacker-

Like a mini person or something? No. We're going to get into this, guys. It is a huge camel. So Thackerowram was a villager who was nearby when this attack happened, and he described the scene as the camel lifting Ujuron by the neck, throwing him on the ground, severing his head and chewing his body. And it took 25 villagers almost six hours to then restrain this camel and calm him down. So that's a little appetizer for the stories that we're going to talk about today. But because, I think because camel attacks or incidents are so kind of something you don't really expect, I wanted to talk about the biology.

pretty early in this episode just to kind of give people an idea of how this happens, why it happens, and why camels can actually be kind of scary. All right? Yeah. So a little bit about camels. Dramidary camels haven't existed in the wild for about 2,000 years. But when they did, they were found in northern Africa, the Middle East, the Near East, and western and central Asia.

They were first domesticated in the Arabian Peninsula around 4,000 BC. And today, a feral population of about 500,000, so half a million. dromedary camels live in Australia. So Australia has a huge camel problem. They have a ton of feral camels. Did you know that there were camels in Australia, Jeff? I didn't. Yeah.

Did you know that, Mike? No, I did not. I did not. You guys are already learning things. Yeah. Did you know they could bite someone's head off, Mike? Well, I'm looking at a picture right now of a camel in the background of the Zoom call. Yeah.

This camel's mouth is, it's not a real camel. I'm going to show you guys. Clear that up. But his mouth is not very big. I'm going to show you guys just what they're packing as far as their mouths are concerned later. So as domesticated animals, they're used for riding animals, for carrying baggage and equipment, for their dairy. Camel milk is like a pretty common thing in the Middle East and a raven pencil and stuff. For their meat and for their hides and their wool.

Today there's about 15 million dromedary camels in the world. They're large, even-toed ungulates. So again, ungulates are pretty much just like any large hoofed mammals. is an ungulate. They grow to almost seven feet tall like the biggest camels at the shoulder and they can weigh up to 1500 pounds. Wow. They have a long curved neck, a narrow chest and a single hump. Now, there's a lot I could, yeah, one hump jump, exactly. There's a lot that I could go into with camels about like their appearance and their habits and everything. But I really think when it comes to them, the most amazing thing and the thing I want to talk about the most is how they've adapted to

life in such extreme environments and how they haven't just adapted to life in the desert, but they actually thrive in the desert. So first of all, a question for you guys, what do you think is in the camel's hump? We're just going to get this one out of the way first. Water. Mike? I don't know if there's anything in it. I thought that's how you could tell how old they were is how many humps they had.

So you just think it's empty, it's full of air? Like rings on a tree? What's your guess for what's inside of it? Just every year they grow a new hump? Yeah, like a once you're like a 10-year-old camel, you're like a camel limo. There's like 10 people riding on each hump. All right, I'm just going to answer it. It's water, right?

It's got to be water. So that's the common misconception. It's a fat deposit. And the reason they have that hump is it's like a store of energy. So if they're ever having a really hard time. finding food in the desert, they can start to break down that fat in their hump and it gives them more energy and even a little bit of water. But it's not like a water deposit. It's mostly for food. The hump seem pretty like firm though, right? They are. I mean, it's pretty firm fat, but it's

still like kind of squishy. How much control do they have? Is that something that just kind of like starts happening when they need it? Or can they actually like trigger that into it? I guess I don't know. I don't think they can trigger it. I think it's just like our bodies like if you were lost in the desert and you're fat. Sooner later, your body's going to start breaking down fat for energy. Mike thinks they're like meditating to use their fat or something. They reach up with their hoof and just push the hump down. So they have really bushy eyebrows and they have a double row of eyelashes to prevent dust

and sand from getting in their eyes during windstorms. So if you ever get close to a camel, you notice they have like really beautiful eyelashes. And that's just protection from the dust and sand. And then it also helps them shield their eyes from the glare of the sun. They also have a nictitating membrane that sweeps sand out of their eyes when it does get in there. So a nictitating membrane is pretty much just like a third eyelid that goes back and forth over the eye. Cool. So like alligators have those.

Some cats have those. A lot of animals have those. A really cool thing about them, they can consciously close their nostrils in order to prevent sand fermentering and to preserve water. That's a really rare trait among mammals. Not many mammals can consciously close their nostrils. I can close my nose. Try. Do it.

You're not closing it. You're just adjusting. There's no discernible difference. I can close my nostrils. If you're listening, try to close your nose. I guarantee you everyone. Without your fingers, you mean? Your nostrils aren't closing.

I can like squish it down. Yeah, we know that. You should be proud of yourself. Okay, they have a wide, almost snowshoe-like hoof that prevents their feet from sinking into the sand. So their hobs are really wide. And that gives them more surface areas. They're walking. It helps them not to sink in as much.

They have their coats have a really low thermal value. So they actually serve as insulation from the heat, which is kind of counterintuitive. You'd think like this big woolly coat would make them a lot hotter, but it actually helps them cool down. And camels that have been like shaved tend to sweat a lot more than camels that have their whole coat. Interesting. They have leatherly. Because they get really hairy. Yeah, especially bactrian camels.

Like the one Mike has in his photos of bactrian camel. Dramidary camels usually have a pretty lighter. coat. Well, yours is a very altered one with like 10 knobs. All right. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items. Then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes. So you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup. Get free delivery during online deal days plus $30 off your first online order.

Ralph's Fresh for everyone. So they have leathery heat-resistant pads on their feet, knees, elbows, and sternum that allow them to lay down in hot sand. They also don't have a stifle fold. So a stifle fold is the skin that stretches from an animal's abdomen to its thighs. So a lot of times when you see animals walking, there's like kind of a bit of skin in between their stomach and their thighs. And camels are one of the few mammals that don't have one of those.

And the reason they don't have that is because then when they lay down, there's a gap between their stomachs and their thighs and the ground. And that allows air to go underneath their bodies and circulate. And that keeps them cooler. So they're not like making as much contact with the sand. That's really cool. Yeah. Do we have that? We, I don't know if we have a stiflefold.

I don't think so. Check real quick, Jeff. I'm trying. I don't know what to look for. All right. They have a lot of adaptations for preserving water. They have noses that they use like dehumidifiers. So there's mucus membranes in their noses that cool the air as it's expelled.

So that air kind of condenses and it's kept in the nose and in the body. So the air that they're expelling has very little water vapor in it. They're actually like keeping that water vapor. Whereas our air that we expel is pretty much our body temperature. So all the water vapor goes with it. But theirs is cooled down. That's crazy. A crazy thing.

Again, Mike, I don't know if this is something they do on. their own like if it's a conscious decision but they can increase their body temperature as the environmental temperature goes up and decrease it as it goes down and again that kind of sounds counterintuitive but as things get hotter if they also increase their body temperature then they don't sweat and so they won't lose that moisture to the environment so that's like a adaptation to prevent them from sweating more and losing moisture they you know what it makes me think of it makes me think of dune and how they have those um suits the still suits that like just preserve every little bit of moisture.

A camel kind of has like a still suit. Its entire body is designed to prevent moisture loss. That's sweet. They change their breathing rate depending on how dehydrated they are. Their urine is really thick and viscous because they have specialized kidneys that help remove a lot of the water and then cycle up back into the body. Viscuous pee? Yeah.

Is it like how viscous or is it like a jelly? It's not like a sludge, but it's thicker than like. Do you guys remember when, like, the Aaron Ralston story, how he kept peeing, the 127-hour guy, he kept peeing and drinking and peeing and, like, by the end it was, like, brown and thick. Like, that's what camel pee is like, because they've just taken all the water out of it. Anyway, sorry for that image. That's not a great. I think people are curious about thick pee. Yeah.

They can change their breathing rate depending on how dehydrated they are, because as you breathe, you do lose a little bit of moisture, even if you're a camel. Oh, I said that one. Especially if you're like a wild caring. A wild, what? Spitting at the manager. Yeah, true. You're losing a lot of moisture then. They can tolerate, so this is a crazy one.

They can tolerate more than 30% of their total body water loss, which is much more than most animals. So in temperatures of 30 to 40 degrees Celsius, which is about 88 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, they only need to drink every 10 to 15 days. And then in the hottest temperatures they live in, they only need to drink every four to seven days. So they really don't need to drink very much. That's wild. But the crazy thing is when they do drink, they do it really quickly and in huge amounts.

So a camel can drink 100 liters or 30 gallons of water in just 10 minutes. So just imagine putting out like 30 milk jugs, gallon milk jugs full of water. A camel could down all those in 30 minutes or 10 minutes. I want to see that. I've been watching this YouTube channel recently. It's this guy called Badlands Chugs, and he just chugs like two liters of Coke every day. Yeah. I don't know why I keep watching.

It's like weirdly mesmerizing. I'm pretty sure my dad does that. Yeah. He's at like 100 liters of Diet Coke by like 10 a.m. We should have your dad and a camel have like a chug competition. And that Gronkowski. Me and Jesse got on like a competitive eating kick the other week where we watched videos of people competitive eating. I thought you were eating with each other.

I knew you were going to think that. Next time we see you're both just like 400 pounds. No, we were watching like Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi, like the goat. Like a billion big macs or whatever they eat. Yeah. Anyway, it was crazy. So that's what camels do when they drink. With water.

Yeah. Not hamburgers. So they also have oval-shaped red blood cells. That guy's head, kind of. Those oval-shaped red blood cells help to facilitate blood flow during dehydration. I don't really understand the mechanics of that, but apparently they do when having oval-shaped red blood cells is rare. They're also adaptive feeders because where water is really scarce in the desert, so is vegetation.

So they only eat small amounts of each plant that they find so is not to kill the plant so that they can be able to come back to that plant. Humans could learn from that. Yeah, it's true. And they also have specialized mouths and digestive systems that allow them to eat really rough and really thorny plants like acacia. Is that a thing? Sorry, I know I'm interrupting you in the middle of the thought. No, you're good. It seems like mostly animals would kind of just like eat while they eatin's good, kind of.

Is that like a thing for other animals where they like leave a little bit for later? It for sure is, but it's not common. Like what you're saying is more likely where an animal just like eats whatever's there and then moves on and does. doesn't really give much thought to like... Think of the next camel? Yeah, but if you're living in the desert and like there's not much food around, you need to real... Camels need to recognize that if they destroy all of the food,

then there won't be any food next week or whatever. So cool. Yeah. Thanks for, yeah, thanks for articulating my thought better than I did, Wes. Hey, it's all right. That's what I'm here for. So we're going to talk about the rut a little bit. Do you guys know what a rut is in an animal?

The rut isn't... Is that the period of time when they're, like, trying to get it on? Exactly. So it happens in males, and it's during the breeding season. It's a time of the year where pretty much their hormones turn them crazy. It changes a lot of aspects of their behavior to increase their chances of mating. So it happens a lot in ungulates, so, like, elk go into a rut, bison go into a rut. A lot of ungulates going to a rut.

They start, like, strutting a bit more and stuff like that. It's more, yeah, I mean, like, the biggest males are going to get really aggressive at, like, running off smaller males, and it just turns like really pretty docile, calm animals into like really aggressive territorial animals. So with camels, the rut generally occurs during the coldest months of the year, and males that were previously pretty docile and gentle become flooded with androgen, which is a certain hormone, and they become much more aggressive and difficult to manage. They start splashing urine on their tails and their nether regions, and after mating, males will extrude their dula, which is part of their soft palate.

It's something really unique to dromedary camels. That's kinky. It's really gross. So if you're curious what this looks like, look up a video of a camel dula or put in camel soft palette. And it's essentially like, it's this, yeah. Not while you're at work. With a girl. It really, it's pretty gross.

They pretty much like spit out this meat sack that like hangs out of their mouth and it like inflates a little bit instead. stuff, but it's really weird, and it's like, it looks like they're vomiting up their stomach. But it's just, like, hanging out of their mouth. It's just hanging out. And then, like, after they kind of shake it around and stuff, they swallow it back in. It's really gross. It's really weird. It's really weird.

So they do it after made it. It's like, look at the size of my sack. Oh, okay. Yeah. And it's kind of, it is, though, it is like a courtship thing. Like, after they've made it, they do it. And it's kind of like, check me out. After you made it?

I don't totally understand it, dude. Yeah. To prove you lost your virginity kind of? I think it's to keep them around. I'm glad, oh, I see, yeah. I'm pretty happy that humans, part of our mating ritual air quotes, we don't have to, like, pee on ourselves. Yeah, that's pretty nice.

Depends who you. Some people. That's true. It's not king. I shouldn't. Never mind. You know what? Forget I ever said anything.

All right. Anyway, it's a weird thing. Look it up. Males will threaten each other for dominance over the females by trying to stand taller than the other males. They make low noises. They make a series of head movements. including lowering, lifting, bending their necks,

and they try and defeat other males by biting the opponent's legs and taking their head between their jaws. So that's a, like that should ring some bells. Earlier, they have quite the bite. They do. Pretty much when a camel's in rut and it feels threatened by a human, it's going to treat the person the same way that it would treat another camel. And those kind of interactions can be pretty devastating to a person

as we learned in that first story. But Ujuram isn't the only person. to have his head bitten by a camel, although he was the only one that I found that had his head completely severed. I did find a scientific paper that was published. This paper was published in 2015. The author's names were Kane and Aria, and they investigate camel bites on the face and head and said that those bites range from minor lacerations to total loss of soft and hard tissue. So like your soft tissue is your skin and meat and stuff. Your heart tissue is like your bones and your teeth and whatnot. So total loss of heart and soft tissue would be like having your

head bit off. Yeah. The paper looked at 20 different patients that had been bitten by camels and they found that a majority of camel bites involve bites on the head and neck. And that's likely because of accessibility, like your head is really close to the camel's head and the fact that they attack those same areas when they're fighting other camels. So I want to read a couple excerpts from that paper just because I found it really interesting just how violent these bites can be. So this is going to be pretty like medical terms. So you guys are just going to kind of have to try and tease out what it means. But it says, involvement of mandible, maxilla, nasal bone, and zygoma were seen in most of the cases.

That's like your nose, your jaw. I can't remember what zygoma is pretty much your whole face. Deep infected lacerations involving ears and sinus, cheek, chin, and neck regions were presented. Furthermore, the oral mucosa were severely. volst in some cases. Three patients had a total detachment of central segment of mandular bone, so your jawbone, along with dental arch, as well as soft tissue involving floor of the mouth, base of tongue, soft palate, and tonsular pillars. So pretty much ripped off their jaw, as well as their tongue, their soft palate, the top of your mouth, and your tonsils.

Overlying chin skin and part of cheek skin. So those were also ripped off. Associated injuries included limb trauma in three cases. In one cases, the The upper limb was severely crushed, was subjected him to shoulder disarticulation. So his shoulder was, what's that called again when your shoulders? Disarticulated? Disarticulated, exactly. Three cases had a cervical spine injury. So they go on to talk about what usually happens in a camel bite and why they're so destructive.

The head in the face of the victim is the most vulnerable part, which is directly attacked. Due to large jaws size, camel engulfs the head of the victim and crushes it like a nutcracker, resulting in severe soft tissue and skeletal injuries to the face. The severity of injuries caused by camel bite is a tribute to its dentition. So this is the part that I thought was really interesting, because when you see a camel, you typically see those lower teeth sticking out, and you think, oh, this animal has teeth like a horse or like a cow or something where there's probably like the teeth on top probably look the same, you know?

And to me it's like, oh, if I get bit by a horse, there's going to be like a pressure thing, but it's not like getting bit by like a predator or something where they're going to try and like rip my fingers off. So when it comes to camels, the upper incisor of the camel is vertical peg-like, while lower incisors are oblique and smaller than upper. The lower incisors are projected outward, so those are those teeth usually see. The upper canine is well developed in the form of recurving tusk. Canines are the main teeth that inflicts serious injury during bite. Shape of the canine is tusk-like, and is separated by the incanine.

incisors by a space and the lower canine bites into the space between the upper incisor and canine. So there's a lot more of that I could read on. But essentially, now the way I want you to picture camel teeth, it's pretty much looks like a horse skull, but then bear teeth in front. They have big canines and like and then incisors like sharpenedizers too. So I've got a photo here that I can show you guys. So you can see there's like a big canine and there's these sharpensizers and everything.

Kind of like a puzzle piece that they like fit together. Yeah. I mean, they truly have really sharp big canines on top. They look like they have bare teeth on top. It's pretty crazy. If you're driving while listening right now, pull over and look up camel teeth. So their teeth can do a lot of damage, but they do have other weapons too. For now on, whenever like someone says she's going to bite your head off, I'm going to think of a camel.

So they do have other weapons, and they do use those in incidents with humans too. And I want to talk about the story that prompted this episode. And unfortunately, this is one that just recently occurred. It's really tragic. But on March 10th of this year, the Obion County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee received a call that a rampaging camel was attacking people near Shirley Farms in Obion. So two deputies quickly got into a cruiser, and they sped off to the farms, not knowing what to expect. But my guess is they were likely not expecting the worst.

You know, like if you hear that a camel's on the rampage, you're not expecting to find dead bodies. They probably did expect a camel, that's true. So they arrive on scene, and they're shocked to see two unconscious people lying on the ground, and the camel actually comes charging toward their vehicle immediately. Then it peels off, and the two deputies try to rescue the unconscious victims, and the camel charges again, forcing the deputies to shoot it and kill it.

And then when they did respond to the victims, they found that they were both dead on the scene. They were Bobby Matheny, who was 42 years old, and Tommy Gunn, who was 67. Tommy Gun? Tommy Gun. Oh, isn't... From Rocky Five? Tommy Gun.

Like Tommy Gun. Or like the gun. Like the gun. Yeah. I didn't even put that together. Anyway, no one from Shirley Farms has issued a statement yet. They've told press that they're grieving. But in some of these articles that I read about this incident, they interviewed this guy

named Bernard Faye, and he's the chairman of the International Society of Camelid Research and Development, and he commented on the incident and said that camels are generally well-behaved in gentle animals, they have good relationships with people, but that circumstances like stress or the rut can drastically alter their behavior. He said that most camel attacks are caused by rutting males and said that their aggressive behavior is usually limited to kicking with their legs or sometimes biting, but sometimes they run after people and can kill by lying down on people and crushing them under their weight. He said that even a well-behaved male camel can still go mad during the running season and that the animal essentially becomes crazy. And he

says that accidents are not common when the owner can properly manage the animal. So again, this story just happened. It's super tragic. I think where it just happened last week, I don't really want to comment too much on it. I want to give these people's families like time to mourn and grieve their loved ones. But it is an interesting thing that kind of prompted us to talk about camels. How much did you say camels weigh again? So up to 1,500 pounds, it's like a more likely weight range is like females are anywhere from like 600 to I believe 300 and then males are like 800 to 1,500.

So like around 1,000 pounds would be like a good estimation. And that would crush you. Yeah, that's a lot of weight. What was the post-mortem on these two? Like, was it a trampling or no information yet? No, man, that's really sad. No, post-mortem or like cause of death has been released yet. You said this place was steps from the water.

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get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. So a really eerily similar incident happened in Wichita Falls, Texas at this place called Camel Kisses Ranch. This was 2015. Mark Mear, who is 53, was a worker at the ranch. and he entered the camel pen where there was a male dromedary camel and two females being kept. And he'd intended to de-ice the water trough that they were drinking out of. It had frozen over. But when he got in there, the male charged him and the male was in rut and acting really aggressively. So the camel came after Mark and as he climbed out of the enclosure,

the ranch owner whose name was Peggy McNair and she was 72, tried to close the gate, but the camel like bursted through it and then it chased these two people down and trampled them to death. Oh, man. Both of them. Both of them. And so when the sheriff and deputies arrived, they also were given permission to kill the male camel. So pretty crazy.

I'm just going to keep ripping through these. In October 2014, another deadly camel attack happened in Mexico. And this one may have been related to the camel not getting its daily treat, which Jeff would probably kill someone if he didn't get his daily treat, too. I'd be mad for sure. I'd charge him. It was a trample. Headbut him.

Bite their head off. Yeah. A Chicago man who owned a wildlife park in Tulum died after being kicked, bitten, and sat on by a camel. And the authority seized all their private animals. They had monkeys, llamas, a wild boar for an investigation. But a statement posted by the sanctuary on its Facebook page said Richard Moleski, the owner, was 60.

They had to use a rope tied to a pickup to pull the enraged camel off his body. And the camel kicked and bit him practically to do. death and when he was almost dead he sat on him oh man mr conto said ended up killing him did you say that yeah and this guy that they were um that they were interviewing alberto conto he said while it was unclear why the camel attacked mr moleseky mr canto said one version is that he would always give him a coca cola to drink and apparently that day he didn't come on that's my david treat i'm you got to give you camel coca-cola that's your favorite treat jeth yeah that's when I'm like giving up sugar for something.

That's my hardest thing to give it. You do love a Coke. So does Dad. I said Coke weird there. Sure did. All right. So here's my favorite headline I found was looking at camel attacks. Woman Sue's Confederate group says a camel bit her at Jefferson Davis's old house.

So, Mike, do you remember who Jefferson Davis is? Yeah, the president of the Confederate States. Right. During Civil War. Right. When the Civil War happened, the Confederacy elected their own president, and that was Jefferson Davis. So a Florida woman recently, this is like verbatim from the article, a Florida woman... There's some bad Jeffs out there.

There are. Yeah. Bad Jeff. A Florida woman recently filed a lawsuit in Mississippi's Harrison County Circuit Court against the United States of Confederate veterans, claiming the camel named Sir Camelot, attacked her at Beauvoir, the site of Jefferson Davis's home. and presidential library. What? So this Biloxi home was owned by Jefferson Davis, who was, again, the president of the Confederacy from 1879 until his death in 1889.

Bad man. And the home is now owned by the group, sons of Confederate veterans, who have made it a shrine to Davis. So tourists will visit this place to learn about the history of the home, but they also go there to see the goats and the camels that are found on the property. So I guess when Jefferson Davis was the United States Secretary of War, he inaugurated this really weird experiment for the purpose of determining whether camels could be used for transportation purposes in the United States. Okay. And specifically he wanted to see if they could be used by the U.S. Army in the desert southwest.

So he did kind of have a connection to camels. But little did he know that they would also attack people that were interested in learning more about his legacy. Yeah, maybe this camel was like a union sleeper cell or something, waiting for... I'm kind of wondering if he didn't die and become a camel. He might have. You were wondering that, Jeff? I think he might be the camel. He's a camelot?

That situation is likely to you? All right. So the story, Sylvia... Crazier things have happened. Crazier things have not happened. All right. Sylvia June Abbott was visiting the estate on October 20th, 2015, when Sir Camelot reportedly charged her, knocked her to the ground, trampled her, and bit her.

She sustained serious injuries and fractures, not limited to her back and wrist. I should mention that Sir Camelot was named by like a group of, I believe, nine-year-old kids in the... The great name. Yeah. The suit also claims that she experienced physical and mental pain and suffering and has undergone treatment with physicians. So the lawsuit calls Sir Camelot dangerous and says, he has a propensity for attacks, but the people who work at Beauvoir say that the camel is an

asset to the property and a delight and enjoys Dr. Pepper and coffee, which just makes me wonder, why are all these people giving camel soda and caffeine? They probably love it. Yeah, I guess. So kids love the camel. He's a huge draw to the property. But in December 2015, he was removed as well as the goats because the goats had been headbutting vehicles.

But visitation dropped off really quickly. so they brought the animals back in 2016. So it turns out that people would much rather see some animals than the house of an old dead racist. Good tall. Yeah. So a quick disclaimer on this next one. It's our last one.

I was done with stories. And then I was just kind of right before we decided to record was browsing and found this one. And I just couldn't not include it. So I'm going to be reading a bit of this from the internet directly, but it's a really good story. So the headline is, in wild encounter, women bites testicles of tiger truck stop camel to escape, officials say. Wait.

The human woman? Okay. What would Mike and Jeff do bite testes on the list, net? This woman and her husband, who I think went unnamed in the article and like everything, they had been throwing treats to their dog under this camel's fence at a truck stop. So it's one of these truck stops that has a bunch of exotic animals, which to be honest is kind of messed up. I don't agree with those kind of places. They usually don't treat their animals very well.

I don't think this one was any exception. But they had a camel, and they're throwing treats inside the camel's pen to, like, tempt their dog to pretty much go in there and get the treats. Okay, so these guys are asking for it. Yeah, exactly. So the dog goes inside. It begins interacting with the camel, and then the couple crawls in. They crawl in under a barbed wire fence to try and, like, get the dog out. And when they do this, the camel sits on the woman.

and she bites it to get it off of her. And she said, and this is her quote, I bid his balls to get him off of me. I bid his testicles to get him off of me. So she bit this camel right in the balls to try and get it to get off of her. And apparently it worked. She really wanted us to know for sure that it was the ball.

Yeah, she said balls. She specified in two different. Yeah. And this one was interesting to me because it could have killed her. This was probably a good defense strategy because it did work. But they did find that this couple had provoked the camel. The camel did nothing wrong.

The people were being the aggressors in this one. So they actually, I think they got them for like having their dog off leash or something. But the owners of the truck stop said that they had never had any problems with the camel before. But this, like the cop that was investigating this said, why did you throw your doggy treat under the fence? And the guy just, the husband said, I just wasn't thinking. So I thought that was a pretty interesting. story.

Yeah. Being the youngest of three boys. I don't, I'm not saying biting, but like if you're getting squished and like, Wes, I and my dad sometimes would just sit on me and like, I was too little to like get up. Jeff was a ball puncher. Last resort, you go for the balls. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's honestly like they teach that in a lot of self-defense classes too. Going for the balls is a good, a good tactic. And apparently it works with camels too. All right. So that's it for stories. Camel testicles. I don't know. But I do know when they go into the rut, they swell like twice as large as they typically are.

Oh, wow. I did learn that. Okay. So there actually... Why didn't you share that during biology? You know, I didn't feel the need to. I knew that we were already going to talk about balls. He knew we'd get to it eventually.

All roads lead back to Rome for us around here. There's a lot of other camel stories out there, but these are the ones that I cherry-picked for this episode. We'll probably have to do it. another camel episode at some point because I did find them pretty fascinating. Yeah, totally. The decapitation is just so crazy to me. Yeah. Just like that a camel did that.

And like it seems like it didn't take it too long to decapitate the guy. Yeah, I don't know exactly how long it was, but there's a video out there that I've seen on like fail videos and YouTube and whatnot of a guy where a camel like bends in and grabs him by the head and like throws him and like tosses him completely up in the air. like pretty far. And it's crazy just how strong you see it is. And it's like we talked about it pretty much engulfs his whole head and its jaws. They probably get some good like centrifugal power with like their long loopy neck where they

just whip them out. Yeah, exactly. That's what it does in the video. I will say that the decapitation story was it was like the articles I found about it were all the exact same. And I don't think there was like a ton of investigation done. So I do hold a little bit of doubt. that his head was like totally decapitated.

But that's what it was reported as. So that's what we're reporting it as. Yeah. It also just sucks to get like trampled and bit and then like you're still alive. It's sad on. It just sits on death. I thought the same thing. 1500 pounds.

Oh, man. Well, it's also just pretty crazy that they're that self-aware that they know I can just sit on this thing and kill it. Because elephants do that too. Or maybe they're just like, I'm wearing out attacking this. I'm just going to sit down a sec. And they're like, oh, that worked. So that's it for camel's stories and biology.

Do you guys have any questions about dromedary camels? Do they like to smoke cigarettes? I don't know. Joe Camel sure did. He sure liked smoking and talking kids into smoking. I think they just like soda. I've never liked soda. Even when I was really little when I saw the Joe cool, like whatever the tagline,

I forget what it was, smooth experience or whatever. he always looked so lame to me. Even when I was really, I was like, is this supposed to make me want to smoke? And he's like some dork in like a letterman's jacket leaning on his car or something. I don't know. Camels just don't really exude cool, you know. Not even Joe cool? I don't know.

I'm going to look out of Joe cool really quick. We're going to get into that. Do you guys have any questions about the story first? No. Is Camel Pooh viscous too? I don't know. So apparently Camel Pooh is really. dry and you can use it as like fire starters and stuff because it's so dry and there's so little

moisture in it. See now that's good to know. You should have mentioned that. Sorry, I forgot. I was going to mention it. I'm looking at pictures of Joe cool. He seems pretty cool to me. Ah, okay. Anyway. All right. You know, I'll be wrong. If everyone wants to say he's cool, I'll be wrong. This is a good segue into our, um, into our pop culture camels. So did you guys pick your favorite pop culture camel? Yeah. Jeff, do you want to go first? Yeah, so I'm going to give two because one of them I just am not sure people will know. But the first one is eyelash from One Piece. Oh, come on. It's such a funny character. It's got to be. Yeah. It's just such a like arrogant camel that's like, he only lets the girls

ride on him and the rest of the crew like beats him up. Oh man. That was my pick too. So mine is just the movie The Mummy, the Brendan Fraser Mummy. Nice. Because there's a ton of camels in it, and I remember the camels kind of thing. That was my backup. That was your backup. I remember them kind of being like characters. Like he hates camels or something.

I can't remember. But I couldn't think of many good camels. I was going to pick Joe Cool, but then that seemed too, like, low-hanging fruit. And then I was trying to think of cartoon camels. The mummy's a great movie. It is. We all three are big fans. and Fraser fans, right?

Yeah. All right, so we're going to go into what would Mike and Jeff do? So what would Mike and Jeff do if they were attacked by a camel? And I'm just going to let you guys pick whichever these attacks you want. Okay. Yeah, I'll let you go first. Oh, okay. So I guess this applies to any of the attacks,

but maybe just like poke a straw into their hump, like a Capri Sun and suck out all the water. There's no water. turn into a raisin. Really the first thing that we went over. Shoot, yeah, that was forever ago. I forgot. I don't know if I've ever used this one before. I might have.

But it seems like you could Star Wars them pretty good, where you just run around them with a rope a few times until their legs are all together. I think you maybe did that with moose. But it's a good answer. It kind of have the same legs as moose. Yeah. That's why my mind goes there.

It's a good answer. So as far as I could find out, people interact with camels at such a high level. There's so many domestic camels out there and people interacting with them every day that really they're not that dangerous. There would be, I mean, people would constantly be being attacked if they were. Because these are an animal that are key to a lot of different societies. But when they do get really aggressive or when they're like in the rut or whatever, the main thing is just paying attention to those warning signs that we gave earlier.

So if they're like lowering their head or if they're making those low, noises or like putting their ears back or swinging their head back and forth, you know that the camel's aggravated and you know that it's aggravated with you probably. So you want to get out of that area. If a camel actually comes at you, the thing is just to get away from it. So we typically say like don't run from animals. Generally when it's ungulates, the opposite is true and you should run away and just get away from it as fast as you can. Often that's all they're looking for is for something to run away and then they're like, fine, I got rid of it. So you run away. You run away. You're you get in a vehicle, you get in a building,

do whatever you can just to get out of its path. So those are the main things. If you are happening, like, if you happen to have a backpack or something, it's not a bad idea to, like, throw your backpack down and hope that it focuses its anger on that. But really, you're just trying to get away. That's the main thing.

It's a pretty simple. Bear spray? It probably work. Yeah. Offer him a cigarette. Just if you're ever around the camel have bear spray. They can close their nostrils. And they might not work quite as well.

And they have the third eyelid. Yeah. It might be harder to get them with that. Camels are bear-proof. Bear-proof? Bear-proof? They're bear-proof. Basically, yeah.

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who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. So I think we're going to skip our cage match on them, if that's okay with you guys. I mostly just don't want to think about it. But we'll come back to cage match, I promise. Let's go into our, and we're doing a special segment today. So let's do our, let's do our listener questions, and we'll wrap up camels and then we'll go into our special part of our episode today.

So Jeff, do you want to do listener questions? All right. This question's from Josh. And he says, first he says this is the first podcast that him and his partner have listened to as a married couple. Oh, cute. Yeah. And then he asks, if you were building a new animal to dominate the cage match category.

So I'm going to make you do cage match after all this. What three traits would you pick from existing animals? animals and what would you name your new animal? All I can think of is man bear pig. Yeah. I would give it. Give me a sec. 50% man, 50% bear, 50% pig.

There you go. I'd give it wings. So I don't know, like really big crow wings because we've done crows. I can't remember what other birds we've done. Casabaries don't fly, so not cassowary wings. I'll give it really big crow wings so it can fly. I'm giving it a great white shark. mouth and I'm giving it a gorilla's body.

Okay. Yeah. But the gorilla's body, his arms are replaced with wings, or are they all combined? No, he's got arms, but then he also has wings. And then he has a big great white shark mouth. Yeah, that's an unholy abomination. Yeah, and I'm calling it gorberd shark. Wow.

Stuck the landing. Crocodile tail. Yeah? You love a crocodile. I'll tell. Oh, yeah. So we can play baseball? Yep.

And then a spider butt, so you have web capabilities. Okay. You can, like, shoot out webs. So we're saying they can be, like, big, because my wings were big. So your spider butts is huge. Okay. Huge webs. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Like she lob webs. Okay. Got it. But you've got two butts now. Not a tail and a butt. Okay.

All right. Okay. And then I'll go. Take a camel hump so I can store food if it's like a long fight, you know. So what's its face look like? It doesn't matter. They're just going to all die and it's web. Its web's just going to be all over its tail.

Mike. So I'm going to take this in maybe a different direction. I'm going to pick the body to be the Sydney Funnel Web spider so it can be like all small and covert, sneak in and get you. Okay. It'll have the head. Ah, what's the most d-Orca, an orca head with like the orca teeth? But it's tiny. Oh, forget that.

It'll have koala's chlamydia because that's bad. And, oh, man, I guess wings. I'll pick the crow wings. I'll take that from U.S. So it can fly, but it's still really small. All right. You know. Cool.

What are you calling it? What do you call it? I forget what animals I even. I'll just call it Morris. Morris. Yeah. I just watch. to Shang Chi. I like that little flying dog thing. Morris.

Cool. Great question. From David. Hey dudes. Loving the podcast. Question. What's your favorite animal-themed animal main character-led video game? Mine is shoot. It's that one that me and you talked about, Mike, that I loved on, like, on Nintendo You with the little guy. It's not Crash Bandicoot. It's, um, oh, never mind. It's Rayman. He's not. not an animal. Yeah, it's not really. Wes is his Rayman.

Mine's probably Bulbosaur. Battle Toads. Oh, mine's Battle Toads. Battle Toads. Yeah. I'll go with any of the Donkey Kong. I guess I'll specify. Donkey Kong Country 2.

Did he's Kong quest? Oh, that's a good pun. I think Battletoads is the game. Battletoads is the game I had the most fun playing by myself in my entire life. I just can't imagine having fun in any capacity with that. video game. I loved it. I hate it so much. I never beat it though. So maybe the ending really just makes it, okay. Their car like drives off into space. All right. So this one's from Instagram and it's from Kay Lavert and she asked, do you all think Megalog, sorry, do you all think Megalodon could still be

out there? I don't. So I actually, I watched a documentary about it. Don't. And no, you didn't. Jason Statham narrated it. But apparently if, like, the plates in the deep ocean shift, it will allow for the megalodon to come through the, like, with the pressure.

Like, right now it can't because of the oceanic pressure. So you need, like, a tectonic shift. So you're leaving the door open for it to happen. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. So Jeff's seen the movie, the Meg. There's actually, there are documentaries out there that are like just total sensational shark week bullshit that are like, does megaladon still exist?

Megalodon doesn't still exist. Like if megaladon was out there, we would know about it. It's too big of an animal. Even in the ocean to like be around without us. Okay. Only a Sith deals in absolute. I shouldn't say that as an absolute. But all legitimate shark scientists, I believe, agree that there's.

that Megalodong doesn't exist anymore. Okay, I'll balance it out by saying yes, they do. Okay. So we get both sides, you know. All right. Equal representation. Well, that's two for yes. All right.

Case closed. From M. Boudine. Wes, if you had to go back and redo your whole wildlife journey, what would you do? But you can't repeat anything you've already done. I would go back and not start this podcast. Oh, come. on man that's no if i if i could go back in time and i had to redo something i don't know that's a hard question i actually kind of hate those questions because i it's really hard for me to think

that way like just because i i just think you think of all the little tangents that come out of every decision that you make in your life and i'm really happy with where my wildlife journey's led me so far like it's just like asking like what's like what mistake what's a cool animal no Not mistakes. It's just like what's a cool animal you could have studied instead if you went back? Yeah, I don't really know. Like, I don't know if I haven't really had many opportunities that I didn't take. So, like, it's kind of hard for me to answer that.

Like, at the very beginning of my career, I was offered a pronghorn study instead of a polar bear study. And I'm glad I stuck with polar bears. So I, there's definitely, like, there's little things I wish I would have done differently. And this listener question. But there's no. I think it's a good question. I just don't have a good answer for it. You was invested in Bitcoin, got in early?

Yeah. Yeah, I would have taken all the money I've made from wildlife and put in Bitcoin in 2010. There you go. Yeah. Well, that's a good answer. Okay. From CJ Turner 13, what is your favorite animal sound slash call? Do you guys want to answer first?

I really just love the sound of Red Wing Blackbirds. Yeah, that's a good one. It reminds me, like, spring and summer coming up, and I just think it's a nice noise. Yeah. Mike, do you have a favorite? Yeah, so the elephant trumpet, that's pretty sweet. I also really like contextual. This is kind of a contextual answer, but you're out in the middle of nowhere and you hear a wolf howl.

Yeah, like in the middle of the night. Wolf's a good answer. I have a hard time answering this one because there's so many that I like. One that always just like amazes me whenever I hear it is when gaiters bellow. Like when a big male gator does, they do this thing called bellowing where they like pretty much like vibrate their body. I don't know the exact mechanics behind it, but it makes this really low rumbling noise,

and it's a really cool noise. I really like that one. I like a cuckaburro noise. I like, when parrots swear. I like that noise. Yeah, yeah.

There's a lot of good ones, but I think a wolfhow is like pretty hard to beat. I might agree with you on that one. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Thanks for answering. Yeah.

Is that it for questions? Yeah. All right. Okay, so we are going to skip ouchies just because, again, like one of those stories is way too recent for us to get into ouchies. But we will go into conservation really quick. So wild dromedary camels no longer exist.

They haven't existed for thousands of years. The only truly wild camels left anywhere else in the wild are wild bacterian camels that live in northwestern China and southwestern Mongolia. They're double-humped camels. They're critically endangered. There's only about 950 left in the wild. Their main threat is poaching for their meat, and they're often killed by poachers who place mines near the springs where the camels go to drink. Jeez.

Yeah, which is a pretty gnarly way to kill an animal and really just evil, if you ask me. Yeah. They're also disappearing from scarcity of water sources, hybridization with domestic camels, and predation by wolves, which the predation ones, a natural way that they're disappearing. So that's not really the species we talked about, but as far as wild camels, there really aren't. many left unless you count these feral ones in australia and then there's a lot and then let's do our claw rating so our 10 claw rating for camels i'm gonna give them i'm gonna give them a six i think they're interesting i think it's really cool how they like survive in the desert but i just i don't like i can pass a field with camel in it and just kind of like a camel but it's not like a big deal to me so i'm

gonna say is that happen very often yeah i feel like there's a lot of like little roadside a track, like, really? Yeah, like little petting zoos and stuff, and they always have a camel. I won't say never, but. Have you ever been through Cipio, Utah as you're driving down to California? Probably? Yeah, there's that one truck stop in Cipio that has like a catana camels. Yeah, dude, let's go.

They have like a zebra and camels and all sorts of stuff. Anyway. Oh, man. Well, if you like saw one in the mall or something, then would you care? Yeah, I'd care, but it'd still be a six-cloth animal for me. I don't know. What's your guys rating? I'm going seven.

Yeah. And I'm going to rank it. Actually, I'm going to go eight. I'm going to rank it 73. Hmm. Okay. Okay. I came in, before this episode, I was probably at a six.

Yeah. After everything that we learned, I'm at like a really strong high seven. Not quite an eight, but I'm feeling, camels are cool. They are. But to me, though, they're pretty much a domesticated animal to me, and they're just not as fascinating to me as a while. They're like top five animal I'd want to ride on. Like the double humpers get in the middle of the humps.

Oh, you'd get in the middle. See how that feels. What would you do, Mike? I'd just wedge right on to one of them. You'd be on top of a hump. Seems way more fun. Anywhere between six and eight is our final ruling on camels. Cool.

Well, that's it for camels. Why is six or eight to seven? Uh, because seven, eight, nine. So for the last. little bit of this episode. I got to write that one down. Those of you who follow sports, you likely know that it's March Madness

Time. Do you mind if I steal that joke from you, Jeff? No, I have it. You probably work on your brackets out there. And if you've been following the podcast for a while, you know last year we did our own brackets of just

animals that we like, and there's not a lot of rhyme or reason to it. But it's fun. And so Jeff actually has been working hard on putting together brackets for this year. And we didn't repeat any animals. But we had, Jeff, why don't you take it from here? You can kind of lead the conversation on these brackets. Yeah, I'm a big bracket guy.

I just like brackets. You know, any bracket, I want to see who ends up winning. So this is year two of our favorite animal bracket. And this year, I changed it up a little bit. So how March Madness works is there's like 64 teams and there's four sections of 16. So this year, Wes has a section of 16 animals. I have a section. Mike has a section.

And then there's a section of tooth and claw animals that we've told in stories. Right. So we're going to do the first round and then we'll finish it on our next Patreon episode. Right. But yeah, let's do the first round here. And how it's going to work is each person just takes a turn choosing which animal wins. Okay, yeah, that's right. I forgot.

That's how we did it. Okay. Yeah. Are we allowing any kind of like outsider influence? Yeah, like I think I'll, like there's a horse in this years. So I think when, if you're choosing between horse, I'll try to convince you to choose the horse. You're not, it's not going to. Okay.

We'll see how that goes. For the sake of time, I don't think we should do too much outside influence. I was taking a walk. I always walk at lunchtime. and I walk right by this little field with a couple of horses, and there's this horse that stands right next to the fence. It just stands there. And today I was like walking right by it,

and a fly literally landed on its eyeball, like it was sitting on its eyeball, and it flew off, and the horse didn't react in any way. Horses are so stupid. That's pretty cool. That horse is just like mastered. It's totally a Zen master.

Yeah. Stoic. Who wants to start? I'll start. Okay. Okay. We're going to start on your section, Wes. All right.

The one-seed sloth bear up against the 16-seed peacock jumping spider. So peacock jumping spiders are really beautiful, cool little spiders, but I'm picking the sloth bear. Yeah. Picking the sloth bear. Sloth bear. Cool how the cubs hang on to their mom's back. A lot of cool things about them. So it's definitely them.

And I've worked with them. So sloth bear. All right. To Mike. We got eight-seed. Bowhead Whale versus the nine-seed Harpy Eagle. Ooh, that's a tough one. A little info on those two really quick.

Bowhead whales are possibly the longest living species of whales. Like we have no idea how long they live. They live up in the Arctic. Oh, whaley. Harpy Eagles are the biggest eagles by mass. They're like tied with stellar sea eagles. And they have the biggest talents of any eagles. And they live in the jungles and eat monkeys.

So I'm biased to water, like aquatic and amelia. So I'm going bowhead. That was a hard pick. I got the five versus the 12. So Asiatic Black Bear up against a marine iguana. Marine iguana has were really fun in that. Is it Planet Earth 2? Yeah.

What's the documentary where the snakes chase him? Yeah. But I just love bears. So I'm going Asiatic Black Bear. It's a good pick. So Four Seed, West, this is you. Four Seed Mained Wolf up against the 13th. seed lilac breasted roller right so lilac breasted roller is probably the most beautiful bird i've

seen in person but i'm picking the main wolf big statement main wolf just has like really cool long legs oh yeah they're just a really neat animal so i'm picking main wolf your little star wars attack would work on those too jeff fly around their super long legs yeah that's true uh all right mike sunda island Pit Viper versus West, I don't even know how This is 6 versus 11. Yeah. So the 11 is a

liar bird. Okay, so Mike, I'm holding up a photo of a Sunda Island pit viper. Yeah, I'm feeling like that. They're also called on wind. Blue in Solaris Viper. But liar birds, you should watch this clip of David Attenborough with a liar bird. They can replicate

any sound. So he's like by one and it replicates the sound of like a camera shutter clicking and then a chainsaw cutting down logs in the forest and a car alarm it's the craziest animal video i think i've ever seen those would be great for like a that'd be that animal would be really good for like a fart prank yeah so that's your pick that's a tough one i'm going cobra it's the pit viper soon to island pit viper whatever it's snakes they're all the same you really should watch the liar bird clip though i'm gonna send it to you later uh i got an easy one three verse

14 and a more leopard versus muscox. I'm going a more leopard. Those things are dope. Cool. Rarest big cat in the world. Yeah. They have them at the Salt Lake Zoo and it had cubs and they were really cute. Muscox. Muscox are cool to you. Muscox are cool.

I've seen a lot of those. Make a cool coat with one. Both of them. When you're driving by like a little fence with a muscox in it, are you reacting better or worse than if you see a can't? animal better seven verse 10 uh this one's tricky west yeah a gibbon versus spectacled kaman i'm picking the gibbon gibbons are my probably my favorite primates they're like a lesser ape they're the ones with like the big round faces that if you've ever seen the kung fu panda movies the monkey

is a gibbon they like are really good swingers and super acrobatic and really funny so i'm picking the gibbon. Okay. Mike, you got a two versus 15, the great hammerhead shark up against a mandrill. Oh, man. That's actually harder than I would have guessed for this seeding matchup. But I got to go hammerhead. You know what a mandrill is, right?

Mandrill is really pretty, though. All right. So the top seed wins every round in Wes's bracket. No upsets. Just how we like it. Yeah. Who's turn is it? My turn?

Yeah. Okay. Actually, I want, I'm going to go to Mike's. Okay. All right. So the one seed white rhinoceros up against 16 seed Dutch lop racket. I'm going, I don't know what a Dutch lop rabbit is. Then don't pick it.

So I'm going white rhinoceros. Okay. Oh, man. Dutch lop rabbits are like the really cute bunnies with the floppy ears. Man, maybe I should have picked it. I know. I waited until after you picked to give that detail because I knew. 8 verse 9, albatross versus spotted eagle ray.

All right, time to deliver the first upset. I'm going spotted eagle ray over albatross. Nice. Yeah, I've worked with spotted eagle rays of caught them. I've seen them scuba diving. They're beautiful. Oh, man, they're so pretty. Albatross are cool, largest wingspan of any bird, wandering albatross,

but I'm still picking spotted eagle ray. Okay, 5 verse 12, flamingo, and king crab. Mike? Oh, is it me? A king crab or what was the other one? Flamingo. Flamingo. You seeded these.

Did I? Yeah. Shoot. But you can upset your own bracket. I think I might have to. Okay, hold on. Yeah, I'm going to go Flamingo. Okay, that's the five.

Yeah. We got a camel versus a yak, four verse 13. Yack was always one of my favorites to get and go fish. That's true. I remember that. It was mom's favorite. But I'm going to camel. I like camels a little more.

All right. Wes, you got a puffin versus capybara. Yeah. I'm picking capybara. Yeah, good. An upset. Okay, that's 6-11. 11 over 6.

World's largest rodent. They're really cool. I've seen them in the pontoonal and elsewhere in Brazil. I just really like capybara. They're-cappi-bara. Pretty surprisingly big. Yeah, they're huge. Mike, you get kangaroo.

versus the pink fairy armadillo um pink fairy armadillos look like a creature from star wars they're so cool looking i think i'm going to go with the armadillo good pick kangaroo i don't know that i'd see you did the kangaroo way too high but yeah you did um all right seven verse 10 the atlas moth versus california sea lion i love sea lions but i just kind of want the atlas moth to go on i like that yeah all right they're pretty I'll just leave it at that. They are pretty. All right. Wes, you get 2 verse 15 green anaconda

versus 15 dung beetle. Oh, that's tough. That's a hard one. That's a hard one. Just for the sake of making this more fun and picking the dung beetle. Yeah, they got some cool facts. They do.

I'm picking dung beetle. You love poop. They're ecosystem engineers. And you hate anacondas. I like anacondas. A lot. All right. Mike, your pick.

Okay. My 1 verse 16, you got a sloth versus a chipmunk. I don't, I'm not crazy about sloths. I'm not going to lie. Are you crazy about chipmunks? I, you know, I'm nuts about them. Well, pick whatever your heart tells me. No, I, like honestly, it's got to be sloth.

They're really interesting. And, uh, yes. I was a little worried. Yeah. Uh, I got eight and nine. Swamp Lemur versus Satanic Leaf Tail Gecko I'm going Satanic Gecko I think that's a good pick

It's a great name too Those are pretty dope They are They look like they have a leaf on their tails Wes 5 verse 12 Humpback whale Versoer Arabian Sandcat

Humpback whale The little wild cats to me Just look like someone's cat got out I'm not a big fan So I'm picking humpback whale All right Yeah Wes hates cats

I like cats but I'll stop doing that tea every time. All right. Mike, four verse 13, zebra versus titty monkey. What? A zebra. Really? I don't know what a titty monkey is.

It's a cute little monkey, is it? They're pretty cute. And it's got a funny name. All right. A zebra's just a striped horse. No, dude. Have you ever had the zebra chewing gum? Yeah, that's not what we're talking about.

I can't believe you like zebras that much when you hate horses. If you just had stripes on horses, he'd be all in. Mike's on the record, anti-titty. It's not a horse, it's a zebra. Wes. Or no, it's me, right? This is my hardest one yet. Six versus 11, a honey badger versus fenwick fox.

Yeah. Fenwick fox is a really cute. They are. And got big old ears, which I'm a sucker for. I'm taking the fox. I like that pick, because I feel like the honey badger thing got a little blown out of proportion. They're pretty cool. They are.

But I just kind of feel like everyone thinks they're like the most badass animal in the world. And Phantic foxes are cool too. We might actually have a big upset here, Wes. So 3 verse 14, golden snub-nosed monkey. Yeah. Very unique-licking animals versus the green sea turtle. Yeah, I know why you think there might be an upset because I've worked with green sea turtles and I've seen hundreds of them in the wild and they're really cool.

but nothing, the golden snub-nosed monkeys are like some of the coolest-looking animals out there. So I got to pick them. I got to pick the golden-stub-nose monkey. I think they're like one of the animals I'd most want to see in the wild. One of our earliest listener questions, one of my friends, told me to ask, would you rather have a snub-nosed monkey or a snub-nosed shotgun? He thought that was a good question to ask on a podcast. Is it?

Do you know what they look like, Mike? It's a bad question. It's a bad question. Okay, yeah. But do you know what golden snub nose monkeys look like? They're like the coolest looking monkey. Oh, yeah, that's pretty cool. That is cute.

Like the other adult ones are really cool too. Yeah, they're really, really neat. So I'd pick that over a shotgun. Yeah. All right. Seven verse 10, Mike, Hercules beetle or a red winged blackbird? Oh, Hercules beetle. Are you kidding me?

That hurts. That one hurts a little bit. That one's so easy. Hercules beetles are amazing. I love a Red Wing Blackbird. Hercules, they just like flipped stuff over. And then two verse 15. You think they could flip a car over?

Probably if you like got a huge one. Two verse 15, Black Bear versus Magpie. So I'm taking Black Bear. It's my fourth favorite animal. Yeah, that makes sense. Get out of your magpie. All right. So now the tooth and claw section.

We've got some good animals. in here, guys. Yeah, so wake up. If you fall in asleep out there, wake up. One verse 16. Is it, who is it? Wes. I think it's me?

Yeah. Grizzly bear versus turkey. Grizzly bear. Yeah. Easy. Easy. Easy. Easy.

Easy as pick yet. Mike? Yep. I think I know your answer here, but let's see. Eight verse nine, a Svalbard reindeer versus a beaver. Oh, the Svalbard reindeer. I love those little guys. It's got to be that.

Get. That's a good pick. Jeff, five versus 12, spectacled cobra versus coyote. Oh, curious what you pick here. I, yeah, me too. Oh, that's my hardest one now. I'm gonna go coyote. Yeah, I get that.

Just because I've interacted with them a bit more. Yeah, you have a more personal relationship. Yeah. Wes, this one's really hard. Four verse 13, a cheetah versus skunk. This one is hard, actually. Because skunks to me are like a symbol of like summer, and I just really think they're a cool little animal.

You like how they smell. I do like how they smell. And I get really excited when I see a skunk. What big cats do we have right now? We have a more leopard and I feel like we have some other big cats. We have one more coming up. I'm going to pick the skunk. I'm going to throw a curb ball here and pick the skunk.

Wow. Upset of the tournament there. Yeah, I guess. Okay. That's crazy. You're crazy. Cheetahs are sweet. I take it back.

I pick the cheetahs. I want the cheetah All right Yeah You already picked a dung beetle So you might as well Like in your opinion for Yeah

All right Mike You got a bull shark Versa Goonch 611 Is this me? Yeah Bullshark The legend of the goonch

Oh man It persists Yeah Yeah Oh man Wait so what are you picking Mike? The one that isn't the goonch

The bull shark You're picking the bullshack Yeah All right And then I have 3 verse 14 quarter horse versus African honeybee. Mike's going to be so mad horse versus B. You better not. I'm taking the horse.

Are you serious? Why? Horses are sweet, dude. They're not. In what way? A doggo. Shadow facts? Shadow facts?

We don't need to go into this again. Woppo. West, 7 verse 10. A moose versus a mountain lion. Oh, the moose is a seven seed? I'm picking the mountain line. That's an easy pick. Mountain line.

Okay. Yeah. And then Mike, you got two verse 15, Jaguar versus Vampire Bat. Oh, okay. What are we thinking here, fellas? You got pretty sold on the vampire bat. I do like them.

In the episode. Jaguars are just a tier above, though. You know? Yeah. The guy, it's got to be Jaguar. Yeah, you could have got some good revenge on me for the Bina. I'm kind of bummed that those two got pitted against each other because I really liked both of those.

Yeah, you think I should put Moose 15? It's all right. It's fine. Freaking last year the Bison went to like the final four or something. So I figured I'd give Moose a good seed. All right. So, yeah, I feel like we're going to get more people unsuscribing from Patreon than subscribing after listening to all that.

But we're going to finish it off on the next Patreon episode. We're going to go through the round of 32, 16. eight, four, two, one. We'll be quick. And we'll put some stories in there, too. It's going to be a fun episode. I liked ours last year. And then at some point, we'll do these on Instagram, too,

and let everyone vote and take it through. Probably by the time you're listening to this. Yeah, it's going to be pretty quick. So, yeah. Well, probably a little after, because me and Jeff are going to Mexico tomorrow to see gray whales. We are? Yeah.

Wait, what? Oh, sweet. You didn't know about this, Mike? No. No, I do. You told me. And I told you. I said, no way, Jose. You said no. Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for the camel episode slash first round of our animal bracket. Thanks to everyone, as always, for tuning in. Thanks for you. Thanks to you Patreon subscribers, especially you guys really have kept us afloat for so long and have made this really fun because it's nice to have people supporting us in that way. and thanks everyone else and thanks jeff and mike and thanks um camels

we appreciate to everyone who paved the way before us in the podcasting world so that we can be here bye guys bye see you