Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Gila Monsters - What Kind of Monster

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Wes prepped an interesting little episode all about the gila monster, and what makes them a unique and ultimately deadly reptile. Jeff and Mike try really hard to not let him get his thoughts out, but Wes prevails in the end. ~~ 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

Hello, listeners. Welcome back to Tooth and Claw podcast. We have our educated, smart wildlife biologist, Wes Larson with us. All right. Who's also a Dior model. No. Okay. And then we have our master diver, Mike Smith.

Yeah, thank you for the introduction. And then I am a Dior model's younger brother. Educated. Jeff. Also educated. and smart. I'm semi-educated. Okay.

Smart in a really unique way. In a really dumb way. No. Wes is in Utah visiting. We're at our cabin, family cabin. Yep. I think he was a little rude to me today. What I say.

He came over and he's like, so on the couch and I brought him a drink and he just like refused it and laughed at me. Yeah, it was like 11 a.m. And Jeff brought me, you know, when you go to like a baseball game and they give you one those really tall cups. Like in a baseball bat? Yeah. There's never a time of day I'm going to knock on one of us.

Would you drink a beer out of it at 11 a.m? Because that's what he offered me and I didn't want it. How many fluid ounces is that, do you think? One can. And it looked huge. Oh, it's like one of the super long skinny ones. Someone bought it for me at the baseball game just recently. Yeah.

And this old guy sitting next to me is like, how much is that? And I was like, I really don't think it's a lot. When you, that is one can. When I looked at it, though, it looked like it was a guy. gallon. Yeah. They trick you. Yeah.

I don't like beer, so I wouldn't drink it anyways. I mean, you could have just said like, no, thank you. I'm fine. That's what I said. No, you laughed at me. I laughed at me. I laughed and I said I'm good. Thanks. I don't think I was rude. Yeah.

Well, yeah, we are here in Utah. We're in the cabin. Last time we're all here together, we were getting story time. No, actually, I think Lord of the Rings was after that, huh? It must have been. No one knows what you're talking about. Yeah, it's all right. Do you want me to explain it?

I mean, I mean, I feel like people are like, what's West talking about? Yeah, we had a friend and a journalist here from Outside Magazine who recorded us and wrote an article about us. And then after he's done, he read us like a really long story. That he wrote. We were going to watch a movie, but I didn't bring everything I needed to from my projector. Yeah, that's right. So then he wrote that.

He writes a story. Yeah. Which I liked. It was nice. We took little naps. We curled out. It's honestly a story we might cover it. I think we are.

It was about lions. We should have him on our show. Paul. Probably could. If you're out there still, you're probably still alive. He wasn't that. He's probably still out there. He seems to be still listening.

Yeah. Probably better health than us, to be honest. For sure. After Texas, I am in poor health. That's what that place does to you. I know. You gotta unclog those arteries. A lot of food.

Yeah. A lot of cheese, it turns out. Interesting. Oh, yeah. You better not move to Wisconsin like you like that. I know. It's troubling. I had a friend visiting from Korea one

They were hats of cheese. He told me that... It's not real cheese, Jeff. What? To people from Korea, all Americans smell like cheese. Oh. Because we like... A lot of cheese and stuff.

That's no way. That I don't believe. That's what he told me. Someone, like, told him he smelled bad here, so then he's just been telling us that we smell like cheese. There's no way. To him, he said that we all smell like cheese. Listen, I lived in France for a couple of years.

They eat hell of cheese there. Yeah. No one smells like cheese. But we eat a lot of cheese too. Mostly smell like cigarettes. What's your top two cheeses? Oh, wow. Turn that one down a different road real quick.

I'll go with a nice creamy brie. I'm there with you. And mozzarella. Those might be my top two, too. Oh, wow. Look at us. But I would potentially put like a diner American cheese in there too. Because for a burger or a grilled cheese, that's what I want.

Right? Well, if it's just plain cheese. You love that. And I don't want it. On anything else, I don't want it. I had one, a local one that was like lavender hunt. Was it like a cheddar or is it? Leverage.

White. White. It was white cheese. Got it. It was great. I love goat cheese too. I think it's probably a cheddar. I just go pepper jack.

That's why I always. Yeah, you're a pepper jack guy. You know what? Underrated combination, goat cheese and honey. Oh. Goes so well together. Yeah. I feel like that's kind of a secret.

Bree and I'm there too. Yeah. Or just honey. Our last couple. Right out of the, right out of the squeeze bear bottle. It says the bear. That actually. doing this.

One of our biggest hits in our Lord of the Rings marathons recently has been our Breed Crackers and Honey. We eat a lot of that. We do. You mean our biggest hits just with us? Between the three of us and Frank. Yeah. Who didn't join us last week.

Yeah. We don't talk about him anymore. Yeah. He's out. He's out of our lives forever. Yeah. All right. Well, I prepared an episode for this week.

And I'm excited about it. This is one that actually has kind of been in my pipeline for a bit. But then I keep wanting to do kind of more big charismatic animals. And this one isn't that really. I think it's charismatic, but it's not an animal that I think people often think of when they're thinking about animal attacks. But it's one that's really interesting. And I think especially this year, it's interesting. Do you want us to guess?

I think you guys know what it is. It's not a grizzly bear. It's not a grizzly bear. No. No, but we'll get to it. I'm not going to announce what it is just yet because I have a little teaser. Yeah. A little preamble to our men.

main story. Right. So Christopher Ward had something in mind when he was visiting a reptile expo in Denver in October 2023. The tables and shelves around these reptile expos are just packed with different reptiles. If you've ever been to one, it's like tons of little containers just with every reptile you can imagine, every breed and morph and everything. Yeah.

They're like really interesting. I bought a chameleon at one. Yeah. I bought in some reptiles in them as well. Do you know what's funny about those places is I go there for the reptiles. but I always end up spending the most time in the weird little corner with the spiders because they always have like a bug section. It's like, oh, those are so weird.

I thought you're going to say, I go there for the reptiles, but I stay for the women. There is generally some really good people watching it, these things, too. They're interesting. I think there's some interesting ethics around those two where, I don't know. I don't want to get into it, but I do know that sometimes people push back against those because some breeders are better than others. But anyway, Christopher Ward was there. He was looking for, you know, a few different things.

A lot of people there are looking for rare and expensive reptiles. But Christopher was looking for something a little bit different, something that transcended that. And he wanted something that was both... Grizzly bear. It wasn't a grizzly bear. That would have been rare. Extremely rare. He wanted something that was both beautiful and dangerous and ultimately illegal in Colorado.

He was in the market for the only venomous lizard found in the United States, the helo monster. Hila monster. Whoa. Yeah. So Hila monsters are actual real animals. The real animals. Yeah. If you're out there listening right now and you don't know what a Hila monster is,

I recommend just Googling real quick, a quick picture so that you get an idea. Have you seen Godzilla? Actually, this is an interesting question for you guys. When you guys look at a Hilo monster, do you picture it as a black lizard with like pink and yellow splotches on it? Or do you picture it as like a yellow lizard? with black splotches on it. Oh, neither.

Really? I go with the first one. I go black with. Well, they can be orange, pink, or yellow. I think of them orange. I'm asking you if you think the bright color is the base color or if you think the black color is the base color. I would call, yeah. What do you think?

I mean, the base color I would say is black. But I would never call them a black lizard. I would call them orange and black. Yeah. See, it's interesting because for me, people like... Pretty orange. Yeah, they can be three different. colors. They can be orange, pink, or yellow.

So there are, and you'll see Helo Monsters, they are definitely... What color do you think that one was orange? Yeah. What color do you guys think? Because sometimes we argue about that. Yeah. What color do you think candy canes are? Candy canes? Red and white. What's the base color? I say white. Because once you suck on them, they turn white. Yeah, so with a Gila monster, suck on them a little bit. We'll find out. It kind of seems

like they'd turn orange. There's one that's like pink and then its babies are kind of orange. kind of change in my mind on this looking at these pictures. Someone just give one a sock out there all quick and let us know what happens. Don't do that. So as I was reading about it, I actually thought that was interesting because some websites describe them as like an orange lizard with black splotches. And I always saw them as a black lizard with orange splotches or pink or yellow,

whatever color it might be. Anyway, it's like the dress, you know? True. So Christopher found what he was looking for that day. He brought a lizard home, a Gila monster.

He named it Winston. Not long after he purchased a second Hilo monster from a breeder in Arizona, he named that one potato. And they were the pride of his collection. He had also 26 spiders of different species. And also a girlfriend, which she must have been a pretty tolerant, you know, girlfriend to live with that many. Or maybe he was exceptionally handsome.

Or maybe she was. Yeah. Maybe that's why she's dating them. Yeah. You know, sometimes girls like spiders. That's true. Maybe she was like... Or he was a little monsters.

Maybe it brought a certain element of danger, you know? Yeah. Maybe he like walked up to her and was like, hey, who's your favorite NFL quarterback? And she was like, I'm not really interested. And he's like, I have 26 spiders. And she's like, let's go to your place tonight. Yeah. That might have been it.

Huh. Yeah. Good conversationalist. Yeah. Is that how you open? Your favorite NFL quarterback? You got to just like, you got to just go topic after topic. after topic after something hits.

Okay. Interesting. Rapid fire. And you kind of like play defense so they can't get away. Well, they like say, people say that on like small talk either. So I don't ask names or anything. I'm just like, hey, 26 spiders. Yeah, you get right to spiders.

Forget the small talk. This is big talk. All right. Talking quarterbacks. So on the night of February 12th, 2004, so not that long ago, Christopher's girlfriend heard something that didn't sound right. So she entered the room where Winston and Potato were kept. She immediately saw Christopher with Winston biting down on his hand. Christopher was trying to

free his hand from the lizard's grip and after about a four-minute struggle, the lizard finally released its bite and the symptoms almost immediately set in. So again, this is a venomous lizard. Christopher began vomiting, losing consciousness, and experiencing huge amounts of pain. His girlfriend called 911 and when the paramedics arrived, he wasn't breathing on his own. Oh, man. Wow. So they took him to the hospital, they placed him on life support. Doctors did everything they could to help him. He's 34 years old. The next day, law enforcement went to his home where they took the two lizards, sent them to a reptile rescue, and the 26 spiders got rehomed as well. Four days later, Christopher was pronounced brain dead in the hospital, and they like unplugged him. He died.

Wow. An autopsy report listed the helo monster's venom as the primary cause of death, although some underlying heart and liver conditions most likely played a role in his passing. So a lizard killed this guy. That's wild. Which is kind of crazy to think about. And we've done two other lizard stories. We did Ron Huff, who kept monitors in his home. Yeah.

And then something happened where they found him being eaten alive, or not alive, eaten dead by his monitors. Right. And then we've also done Komodo Dragons, which are the biggest lizard in the world. They have teeth like tiger sharks. They can rip a person apart. But this is a small lizard.

Komoto dragons, a couple pounds, tops. Or sorry, Helo Monsters, a couple pounds tops, maybe a foot and a half long. They're not that big, but they are venomous. And they have a really interesting venom. They're really docile. I mean, this has got to be like, what, there's only probably two types of lizards that have killed people. I don't know, maybe. I mean, monitor lizards, maybe three.

There's probably, yeah. But they probably just killed that guy. He probably died after he died. He ate him. But we could, two for sure, maybe three lizards. Yeah, this might be it. And we're going to get into like the hits. history of Gila monsters and people, but this made a lot of news.

This was a big deal that this guy died from a Gila monster bite. So we're going to get into their biology a little bit up front, just so people know a little bit more about the lizard, know why this kind of matters, because this isn't a common thing. First of all, the Gila monster is named for the Gila River in Arizona and New Mexico, and they're still today found throughout the desert southwest of the United States and within northwestern Mexico. The monster part of their name is most likely a result of their venomous bite and some early myths surrounding Gila monsters.

We're going to get to those myths in a bit. It's small for an animal with the moniker of monster. It is small. They had some pretty crazy myths around them, though, that we'll get into. Oh, yeah. We brought up the fact that there are probably a number of lizards that have some venom, like Komodo dragons are one, where they think they might be venomous. Some other monitor lizards are likely venomous, but there are two real lizards that have strong venom.

One is helo monsters, and the other one is the Mexican beaded lizard. And the beaded lizard looks a lot like a helo monster, and they've actually split that into a few different species now. But you can only find them in Mexico and Guatemala. They're very, they look a lot like a helo monster. They have that broadhead with like big jaws. They're really beautiful lizards. They have dark black coloration, vivid splotches of pink, orange, or yellow.

The darkest black Gila monsters are usually found in darker rocks, and their coloration can vary quite a bit between their different populations. There's some beefy boys. Yeah, and girls. They're in the club. Yeah. They're a heavy-bodied lizard. They have a large head and a short fat tail.

Usually lizard's tails are longer than their bodies. This is the rare lizard where its tail is much shorter than its body. It's kind of cute, too. When they walk, they keep their tail up and swing it like side to side. because you would think a big fat tail like that it would drag behind them, but they kind of like swing it. Interesting.

Yeah, and they're going to use it for balance. They can be up to two feet long and way up to five pounds. On average, they're about pound and a half to two pounds, and they're actually the largest native lizard in the United States. Oh. So now we have like green iguanas

and other invasive lizards, but these are the largest native lizard. They have really interesting skin. It's composed of these dorsal osteoderms. So dorsal is their, top side. That's where they have those kind of osteoderms. I'm going to show you guys a photo of what that looks like. But they're pretty much like, nothing. They're like these bumps that have bone under. Is that an osteoed? What an osteoderm is? Yeah. Dorsal. I knew what dorsal meant and that's the

one you explained. Yeah. I was going to get into osteoerms. There are essentially little pearl shape bone protrusions that are covered in scales. Yeah, that's cool. And it's, it's armor. I mean, when people talk about handling helo monsters, they say it feels like you're holding a rock because those osteoderms are so tight. Pretty much if you shot one with a gun, it would ricochet back at you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if, like, you could read them like Braille if you put your finger over the back. I will say, like doing this research and watching a bunch of videos and stuff.

I wonder what they say. Made me really want to hold a Gila monster, but you shouldn't. And we're going to get into that. You would pick one up if you found them. I don't think I would anymore. I really don't. You would lose that sensibility, I feel like. Maybe.

rationality. I will say, before we started the podcast, I kind of had a thing with wanting to handle venomous animals, and now I don't. Yeah. Especially rattlesnakes. I never want to touch another rattlesnake. Yeah.

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Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. They aren't very active lizards. They spend about 90% of their time underground in burrows and crevices. So, Mike, you would probably love being reincarnated as a helo monster. I hope I live a good enough life to earn a row. Yeah.

The most active time of day or the most active time of their lives is typically in late spring before it starts getting really hot. Or sometimes they'll be really active after like a thunderstorm or some kind of cooling event. It's thought that in a pinch they can use cloacal evaporation to reduce their body temperature. So what they do is inside their cloaca, there's like mucus membranes, like their butthole. Yeah. It has some mucus in there. And I think essentially what I think this means, I tried to dig into this. but I don't totally understand it,

is they can expose those mucus membranes to the outside air and the evaporation of water off of those mucus membranes will actually cool their body down a little bit. What? Wow. So it's like... Yeah, let me Google Butthole Mucis real quick, just to double check. I don't think you should do that.

Oh, my God. But when you think about it, like if you have water on your skin and then it evaporates that cools you down. Like that's what's cooling you down. And so if you can expose something that has like liquid on it to the environment and it cools down, like that's why dogs pant and stuff too. Anyways, it was interesting. So if you ever see when these little f***ars with their cloacas out,

it's probably trying to cool off, leave it alone. They got some other really interesting adaptations for desert living, including really slow metabolism. them. They have fat storage in their tails. That's why that tail is so fat. It has a bunch of fat in there. And they have the ability to reabsorb water from their urine. That's internally. It's not like they pee and then drink it back up. I was going to say it. I can do that. Yeah. Or that dude that caught his arm in the rock, Aaron Ralston. He did that until it was like brown sludge. Yeah. Gross. All right. They're slow lizards, but they have really good stamina compared to a lot of other lizards. Their top speeds about 1.5 miles per hour. so you could easily outrun a Gila monster.

Most of us. Most everyone. Jeff's got a bad back. I watched this video of a guy where like a truck was coming at him and he was like running for his life, but is the slowest like he just couldn't run. Was it like Charlie Sterrin and Prometheus? So wait, did you just watch a video of a guy getting run over by a truck? No, it like hit something else and stopped, but he was like running for his life and it was like

literally slower than I can. walk. I was worried you were... Would that surprise you if it was? No, I was just like, I wanted to know if Jeff needed... Dude, Twitter will show you anything that is. You don't know what you're in for. All right. They're most active when they're either hunting or mating. They're least active during brumation. Brumation is essentially a hibernation for ectotherms. So ectotherms is anything that gets its heat from the sun from like outside. You know, we're endotherms. We produce our own heat, but ectotherms get it directly from their environment. Is that just a fancy word for cold-blooded?

Yeah, cold-blooded isn't like a great way to describe it. So that's why they say ectothermic. They start brumation, which again is hibernation for them in October or November, and they'd come out in March or April. They don't eat at all during brumation, but they will wake up to drink water. So it's not the same as hibernation necessarily in mammals. Mating occurs in late spring. The male will use his tongue and his Jacobson's organ in the roof of his mouth to pick up chemical cues left behind by a reproductively viable. female. That's hot. Yeah. So you do see this lizard both when it's hunting, trying to find

mates, whatever, sticking its tongue out a lot. And like with snakes, like we talked about with rattlesnakes, that what they're doing is their tongue picks up chemical cues from the air, takes it into their mouth that hits their Jacobson's organ, and that it has a direct pathway to their brain where it's interpreted into directionality, a bunch of different things. It's a really cool organ. And then they use their Johnson organ when they find the female. They do. Yeah. He is good, yeah. They, he then follows the trail to her burrow where he'll do his best to mate with her.

If she's not into it, she'll bite him and chase him away. Oh, geez. But if she's into it, they'll mate. Wait, does their venom, I guess they can kind of control. I doubt it affects another heel monster. Because that'd be in exit. Well, maybe not. If he's, if he's forcing himself on her, she has every right to bite him.

Yeah, venomously. Some couples. might get confused by biting, think that's like flirty. Yeah, we've talked about that a lot recently. With these, though, there's no confusion. No, if she bites them hard, he knows that she's like, I got to get out of here. And I think the females are bigger, but I'm not sure.

Mating can be as short as 15 minutes, which seems long to me. Short. But can go up to two hours. You did say they have good stamina. Exactly. They do have good stamina. Two hours. Yeah.

That's wild. The female will lay about six. and they'll hatch in the fall. I'll bet you their backs are after. They just get a hernia. Peek behind Jeff's curtains. And immediate hernia. Then the baby Gila monsters.

So they're born in the fall, so they pretty much go straight into brumation, which is interesting. Because I feel like with like bears, they're born at the end of hibernation or toward the tail end of it and they come out. These guys are born like right at the beginning of hibernation, go straight into it, which I thought was pretty interesting. They are venomous from birth. This isn't something like, like you think about a poison arrow frog, which is poisonous,

will need to like exist in its environment a bit to become poisonous. With venom, it's part of their anatomy. So venomous animals are typically born venomous. Yeah. Well, sometimes with venom, too, it comes from outer space and then it links on to either Tom Hardy or the, Tofer Grace. Yeah, this is different. But then it can spread to other stuff to deal of monsters, apparently.

No, so that's a comic book thing. Yeah, it's different. Venom three, I think that might clear up some of your questions. Yeah, it's coming out later this year. Turns into a horse. There's a venom horse. Yeah, it's up. Yeah.

Holy cow. Pretty cool. That, yeah, that's dangerous. So horses are venomous. Yeah. All right. When two competing males are trying to mate with the same female, they'll sometimes wrestle each other.

Nice. The two lizards will arch their bodies against each other and twist around trying to get into a dominant position. Oh, cool. The dominant lizard will lie on top of the subordinate lizard and pin it with his front and rear limbs. I wonder if sometimes he gives them a little kiss, too. Right.

Anyway, because of their slow metabolism, they really don't have to eat much. And there's some studies that show that three to four big meals in the spring could be enough to sustain a Gila monster throughout the entire season. So again, their season would just be when they're not. awake when they're not hibernating. You had to do that to date Jesse, right? Do what? Pin her down?

No, you wrestled that guy and you both arched your backs until you pinned him down. Yeah. No, I don't think so. I don't even know a guy we're talking about. Sure. You had to wrestle a guy because you both were trying to get Jesse. This is true. And you would arch your backs until one of you submitted.

I think you're just thinking of what I just taught you about heel monsters. No, I remember that happening. All right, sure. Yeah. And then I gave them a little kiss. That's why you thought that. So three to four big meals in the spring could be enough for them to survive on throughout their entire year. But they are opportunistic and they'll take advantage of food when it's nearby.

Three to four meals is all they need? Big meals, yeah. They do, like, really well on the loan. They would. Yeah, they'd do great. They'd be like that guy that just drank a bunch of olive oil and then just, like, fasted the entire time. I don't remember that. It'd be tough if you were like a restaurateur, heal a monster.

You're like, you really need to have a monopoly otherwise. Yeah. Like, people just aren't eating enough. No, they'd only eat three or four times and then they're done. Can they, if one's like doing really well, can they eat once a week? Like it would eat more if it could. If they get constant food, they'll eat it. So their main prey include bird eggs.

So they are great at finding bird eggs. Small mammals like rodents and rabbits, like baby rabbits. other reptiles like other lizards snakes invertebrates like centipede spiders or insects they can also kill small birds and sometimes they'll even eat dead meat so carry in yeah because they aren't particularly fast they need to sneak up slowly on prey so that's why they like stuff like eggs or dead meat or whatever and they'll kill with the powerful bite and they have really sharp conical teeth similar to teeth that you'd see on a monitor lizard like pretty big sharp teeth they don't chew their prey, they just crush it and swallow it whole.

Sometimes it's still alive. Oh, wow. Yeah. But they do have venom too. And the venom is mostly thought to be for defense against predators, not necessarily for killing prey. That's also why we probably think that's probably why they're so brightly colored is it is kind of camouflagey with like desert sand that looks orange.

So it could be for camouflage, but it could also be telling predators, hey, I'm, I'm dangerous. Yeah. And it's definitely like not bright colored. animals are venomous, but I do feel like a lot of times that is a sign of venom. It's like a brightly colored animal. There's a term for that. It starts with A.

I can't remember what it's called, but it's essentially when an animal. No, it's not anamorph. It's when an animal is so brightly colored that it doesn't make sense for its survival, but it's to warn other animals that it's either poisonous or venomous. Mike. Yeah. Difference between poison and venom. Poison is something you ingest.

Venom is something that is injected. Right. And that is simplifying it a bit because poison can also be like absorbed. Like poison ivy? Yeah. But venom is always injected through a sting, a barb, teeth, something else. And Helo monsters have really interesting venom delivery. So snakes like rattlesnakes have venom glands behind their eyes.

And they deliver the venom through fangs that are hollow and essentially act like hypodermic needles. So when a rattlesnake delivers venom, there's like some pressure behind it. and it kind of like squirts into its victim or its predator or whatever. Hilo monsters have their venom glands in their lower jaw, and the venom is pushed into grooves on their teeth. So their teeth have two grooves on them, and capillary action just pushes that venom along the tooth. So capillary action is when you put water on something and it flows along it.

So if there's like a groove and you put water on it, the water goes into that groove and flows. That's what's happening with these guys. Essentially the venom just oozes up into their teeth, And then it flows out of these... Like a little water slides? Yeah. These little water slides on their teeth.

And then they just chew it into whatever they're biting. That's cool. Wow. So, yeah, so it's not being injected really quick. So when a Helo Monster bites down onto a potential predator, it just kind of continues chewing in order to pump more and more venom. Like it's got to get to the bloodstream. No, it immediately gets in the bloodstream,

but for it to pump a lot in, it has to continue chewing. Yeah, it seems more efficient to have. have like things that just like it is essentially needles yeah pumping venom in this is a much more kind of prehistoric way of delivering venom and people think that like the fossil record of this family of lizards can go all the way back to the cretaceous area area they're dinosaurs which is when t rex existed oh man so they existed probably ate a helen monster probably ate an ancestor of what we see is our current Gila monster. Probably didn't eat it actually.

But maybe. Who knows? I'm just realizing how lucky we are that we use water on water slides and not venom. Yeah. That would suck if it was venom. It wouldn't probably hurt us unless we, like, drink some. True. All it would do if you drink it is give you a stomach ache.

It's not lucky. But yeah, I don't think it's lucky. It's intentional. I think lucky is the wrong word for that. Well. It's our choice. Every time I'd go to a water. I'm just going to count my lucky stars.

When you're up at the top of the slide and you're like, there's the guys there telling you when to go. Ask. And then when he says it's water, like give him a hug. Right. And grab them by the shoulders and say, do you understand how lucky ones? No, I'm telling you, you know those water slides that have like the big water jugs at the top? Oh, I love those. It's kind of like venom in a snake that like kind of injects itself behind you.

Or a Gila monster. Yeah. Yeah. Just saying it. It makes you think. I've been trying to express gratitude more lately. That seems. Yeah.

Yeah, that's some deep stuff. You should go on Joe Rogan. I mean, it wouldn't matter if it is venom. Well, Wes was trying to... Because it needs to get injected into you. Right, but if you have like an open wound or something. You shouldn't be at the water park. No, that's all right.

The venom is somewhat similar in potency to that of a Western Diamondback rattlesnake, but they don't deliver nearly as much venom in a bite as a snake does. Even if it's really chewing on you, it's not giving you the amount of venom that a snake is. So that brings us to their relationship with humans. We'll make one thing very clear here. Everybody that gets bit by a Gila monster is someone that is handling or harassing a Yel monster. They do not attack us aggressively, only defensively.

So people that have been bitten describe the bite as 24 hours of smashing a hot nail into your hand with a hammer. Whoa. Or as lava coursing through your veins. What did Coyote Peterson say about it? Lava coursing through your veins. He got bid by one? We're getting there.

Wow. Bites do happen somewhat frequently considering the general rarity of this lizard, and a lot of those bites happen from people they're keeping them in private collections. In fact, I watched a YouTube interview with a really well-known reptile collector. Our guy. And he mentioned, this isn't coyote yet, but he mentioned that he won't even keep Helo Monsters because people that have them as pets almost always get complacent around them. It's because they are really slow moving and they're really docile almost all of the time.

So when you're just holding a lizard that's not moving at all and it's just kind of like a lump in your hand, you kind of just start to get real casual. Yeah. And you hope a dope. Yeah, your fingers get too close to its mouth. There's this researcher I was. I bet you that guy doesn't have a girlfriend though. I don't know. True.

I'll take that bet. Anyway, like I watched this other guy who was talking as he was holding one and he said that in, in a demonstration, he used to pull back its lips to show people their teeth. And one finally bid him when he was doing that. And he was like, it was the worst thing I've ever experienced. I'll never do that again. If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift

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And it's lips back. Speaking of asking for it on the extreme. Yeah. Another very well-known YouTuber that we just brought up. Tooth and claw follower? Tooth and claw follower. After your bear video. Yeah.

He triggers animals for a living, ended up getting bit by a Gila monster when he got too close. He described the pain. Yeah, the animals are snowflakes, just getting triggered all over the place. We're talking about Coyote Peterson, and he described the pain as the worst pain he's ever experienced from a bite.

Really? Yeah. Does that include stings? Yes. He said it's the worst pain he's ever had. Because bite, it's like you normally get and stuck. I think he was saying stings, too. I wonder how bad.

it hurts when he gets kind of roasted by podcasters. You think that hurts pretty bad? It's got a sting. I bet you it stings. He did say bite, so I do wonder now if he meant bite. But he, what happened in his video. Because you'd think you'd say, like, the worst pain I ever had. Right.

I did, I read some other accounts of people, though, saying that it's supposedly worse than any wasp, any spider, anything out there. Okay. And what happened in his video, I'm just going to sum it up for you guys. Maybe we'll play a little audio clip from it too. But he was filming one of his adventures. Sure. And they were trying to get B-roll of a G-Longster that was just laying on the sand.

So you guys know what B-roll is? Yeah. It's kind of when you're filming a story and they splice just to like footage of that animal. Like panoramic, vistas and stuff. That's B-roll. So he and the cameraman were, they found this Gila monster. It was really docile. It was just laying there not moving.

And so they're getting really close to it. And in the video, there's a video of him getting bit, but it's like he takes his GoPro and puts it a millimeter away from its nose. And his fingers are curled around the front of the GoPro, and it bites him. Wow. So I was thinking it was like he did it as a test, but it was on accident. No, it was on accident. But he was way too close to its mouth.

And I get it. Like this is a docile lizard. It's a lizard that he's handled a bunch of times previous to this. so he just felt complacent. And the other cameraman doesn't get it. So you see the Gila monster like hit his GoPro and it falls out of his hands. And then he pulls his hand away from it really quickly. So it didn't have the chance to really munch on him and pump in a bunch of venom.

But it shredded his thumb. Shredded. I'm putting that in exclamation marks. Sure. Because then later it showed it. Quotation marks. Shredded. Yeah, quotation marks.

Sorry. Exclamation. Shredded. Shred it. Anyway. So he goes into how painful it was, like 24 hours of pain and says that it was absolutely terrible and that he's going to give him. Lava in his veins. Yeah, lava in his veins.

He's going to give it a much wider birth from there on out. I hope you're okay, Coyote. Me too. I hope he's listening. Do you know what I think Coyote's thing is? It's his hat. You can't wear a hat like that. The leather hat?

And not start feeling a little overconfident. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to find one like it for Wes. I won't wear it. the little. I did. He's doing something with bears right now with some people I know. Yeah. And I noticed he had like leather tassels on his pants and stuff too.

Ooh. I was like, whoa, wow. That's leveling up. All right. I'm not making, I'm honestly, he just started following us. I know,

I'm not making fun of it. Go listen to our King's Thing episode too here on subscription. Oh, all right. You know, good for him. He's educated a lot of people about a lot of animals. He's inspired a lot of people to learn.

Now I know. Don't get bit by a heel monster. Yeah. Lava in the veins. Vendum? Wow. You know, like, even though I wouldn't ever admit this, probably a little tiny bit of it comes from jealousy that, like, sure.

He's made a lot of money. And he's got a cooler hat. He's got a much cooler hat than me. Tassels. All right. So a lot of the stuff that I read said that Christopher Ward was the first person to die from a Gila monster bite in like a hundred years, which made me think there had to be some other story out there of someone dying from one of these lizards. So I dug into it and I found Dr. Henry

Yarrow, who was the first curator of herpetology, study of reptiles and amphibians for the Smithsonian Institute, forced Gila Monsters to bite a lot of chickens and a lot of rabbits, and then he concluded that they weren't capable of killing a human. He had read stories of people being killed in Arizona, and he said, the deaths of those men is but another proof of the killing qualities of Arizona whiskey. So he just thought they got drunk, got very drunk and then maybe like forced a Hilo Monster to bite them or something. Okay.

Died something out. Well, that is not a totally, it's a crazy conclusion to reach maybe. But I mean, the guy even in our first story had some underlying health issues. It sounded like too. So it wasn't like purely because of the HILA monster. And there was another one that I think happened in the 1930s that I couldn't find a record of, but they think that the person had some pretty serious underlying health conditions, too. It was funny.

I also read this paper that had all these case studies, and there was one where it was like a police report, and they couldn't go in to help the person because they were so antagonized because they're super drunk. So I think it was a person who just got really drunk and then let their Hila Monster bite him. Wow. And then he was still just like acting crazy. Yeah, like wouldn't let them in, but was like vomiting and stuff too.

Do you think so the blood alcohol level, you blow into the little thing, I wonder if something else popped up and it was like, what is this? And it's a human monster then? I think it's still slowly because of the heel monster, even if he had some health. Like, if some guy has heart problems but a bear bites his head off, it's like the bear still killed it. That's true.

That's not exactly comparable. I do see where you're getting at. I'm seeing if I can find that. Like, if the Gila monster bit this guy's head off. Sure. Like, if he didn't get bit, he wouldn't have died. Yeah. I can't find where that one was.

But anyway, there was, like, a few papers that had just lots of little bite reports. But they were all kind of the same thing where it was just like a person that either had one as a pet or was picking one up out in the desert, got bit, had a hard time prying it off, got really sick immediately, and then called poison control. And we're going to talk about that a little bit more. But there's also a famous story of a well-known rancher in Arizona in 1890 that captured a Gila monster and thought he had killed it. So he tied it to his saddle. And then as he started to ride, the Gila monster bit his middle finger and wouldn't release it. So a ranch hand pried the lizard's mouth open with a pocket knife and then cut his finger to stimulate bleeding, which we know doesn't, don't do that. Yeah.

If you're bit by a venom's animal, it's already in your blood. That's not going to help. Suck. Don't suck. Yeah. The rancher went to Tucson for treatment, but experienced pain, and then he had swollen and bleeding glands in his throat for a while afterward, I think, for like weeks. What's a bleeding gland in your throat? I think, like, you know when your glands get swollen up when you're really sick in your throat?

His were bleeding, too. So you, like, spit out blood? Yeah. Paching! Yeah, spatoon. All of this gave the Helo monster quite the reputation among early colonists and settlers in the, the western United States, and people started attributing some pretty wild characteristics to the lizard.

One common belief, and one that still kind of lingers to this day, is that the Gila monster actually has venomous breath, and that it's simply breathing on a person can kill them. Oh, that would be cool. Wow. It'd be a good superpower, venom, breath. Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, it would not be. It would miss my top ten, I'll just say that.

Yeah, I don't think I like that one. You just love any kind of breath. Yeah. I do remember as a kid, like, checking out a book that had Gila monsters in it, and that being a fact in it, that they had venomous breath. Really? Yeah. So this is one that stuck around for a while.

Other myths were that they can spit venom, like a spitting cobra, that they can leap several feet in the air to attack, that they don't have an anus and expelled waste from their mouth. Well, we know they do now. And that's why they have such bad breath. Because apparently their venom in their mouth does have like a really, intense smell. Like a poo smell?

No, I don't think so. Okay, whatever. Yeah, it's kind of a weird one. Yeah, just a foul smell. Yeah, some Native American tribes had some really interesting thoughts about them as well. Had a really different reputation among some of the different tribes in the Southwest. The Apache believed its breath could kill a man. The Tihono Odohohom, sorry if I mispronounced that.

And the Pima believed that it possessed a spiritual power that could cause sickness. The Seri and the Yeraham. Yaki believed that the Gila monsters hide had healing properties, and the Navajo or the Dene, which I believe is the Navajo word for Navajo, believed that the Gila monster was the first medicine man. So a lot of different kind of varied beliefs, but pretty much all of these tribes held them in some sort of regard. The second tribe had it the most correct, I feel like, that it make you sick. Yeah. A really surprising tale comes from Mormon pioneers.

Huh. So you know those Mormons were interested in these lizards. LDS. Yeah, they love lizards. They believed that Gila Monster oil taken from their fatty flesh had supernatural powers. And I shouldn't say this is among all LDS or Mormon pioneers. This is a small group of them that were in like St. George got really into Hila monsters. Really?

So they were licking them probably like I was talking about there. No, it's more interesting than that. What? So an account from June 16th, 1881, the tombstone epitaph talks about how pioneers would send dead helo monsters to St. George, where they'd be processed in a huge boiler for three days, and then they would skim the oil off the top of the boiler. And then this is a quote from the tombstone epitaph, Mormon stricken with remorse congregate from different parts of Utah territory to St. George Temple during the conference. Then may be seen the oil, this is the helo monster oil, which is religiously preserved, Catholic,

onto the water by the officiating bishop, while poor diluted men and women avail themselves of its efficiency, as they imagine, by entering this tank and bathing in it, thus believing by doing so they're entitled to a corner in heaven. So if this actually happened, they were putting oil into like a baptismal font, this helo monster oil, taking baths in it and believing that that would give them a spot in heaven.

I mean, it probably like impacted their mind a little bit to have maybe venom or something in the tub? No. Nothing? No. It was all. No. That's just like, okay.

Just religious fervor. But, you know, I think like a lot of religions, when, when Mormons like split up into Utah, I'm sure some of the people that, like, wound up in St. George were a little wilder than some of the other ones. Yeah. That's crazy. So even though they probably won't get you into heaven, they might help you with type two diabetes. But is it, is it worth taking the chance, though? Getting some oil? Yeah.

I'll do it. No, I don't want to kill one, though. No wonder. That's hardly any less. Yeah. Researchers studied their venom and have used their venom to create a treatment for type two diabetes. Hmm. And part of that is because their venom really brings your blood pressure down.

And that's something that will help with people that have type two diabetes. Interesting. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Ronda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer Gina Carano in the main event. Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best heavy weight in the world, Frances Ngano versus Felipe Lenz. Watch Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carrano, live only on Netflix.

Saturday, May 16th at 9 p.m. Eastern Center time, 6 p.m. Pacific time. All right, so how many people actually... To like avoid the medical fees, you should just go get bit by one. No. You shouldn't. It doesn't work like that. It's kind of like anti-edoners right now. You don't want us to get bit one by a healing monster. I would actually like you guys too just so I can know how bad it actually hurts. I don't have diabetes.

I don't need to. Yeah. Because I feel like when people explain how these things feel, they always use things that we just can't, like, comprehend. Yeah. Like if you tell me it feels like hot lava coursing through your veins, I guess I can kind of imagine that. Yeah.

But it's like, it's still pretty hard. Or like, oh, smashing a red hot nail. into your hand for 24 hours. It's like, oh, yeah, I know how that feels, sure. You think those like yellow-bellied lizards and holes are kind of based off heel of monsters a little bit? Probably. Yeah, I forgot about it.

Yeah. They're more dangerous. Yeah, that's a movie, though, just so you know. They are more dangerous, just so you know. Okay. They'll kill you. One bite. They kill everyone.

Yeah, except for holes, they don't kill him. Well, they didn't bite him. Or Stanley. What's his name? They don't bite him. Stanley Hole. Stanley holes. Because he'd been.

eaten onions. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. They don't bite him. Right. They would have killed him if they bit him.

If he ate any onions. Yeah. Do you know what's crazy is like, so you get bit on the foot by one of these Heel monsters. Yeah. And it still just feels like a nail in your hand. Well, I think fair enough. Almost everyone that gets bitten by one of these things gets bit on their hand.

Because almost everyone else is handling. It'll feel like lava in the blood. I mean, they're not handling them with their feet. There was one story that I read, and again, it was just a tiny little blurb, where the guy got bit on his hand and then his shoulder. And I was trying to figure out what happened. I think he, like, freed, was trying so hard to free his hand that he, like, put the, the Helo Monster, like, hit his shoulder when he finally freed it. Yeah. And then it bit his shoulder.

So, so I don't, I don't, like, keep derailing you. No, de-rail. I wanted to talk about the collared lizard. We caught in Lake Path at once. I was going to go into that, actually. Oh, do you want me to wait? No, we'll do it right now. Okay.

So, heel monsters have crazy jaw muscles that allow them to clamp down and not let go. And I was going to turn this over to you. Jeff, you got bit by a colored lizard, which is a much smaller lizard with not nearly the jaw muscles that a helo monster has. And like, and how easy was it to pry it off? Yeah, no venom. Way less. Yeah. How easy, how hard was it?

Yeah. So is at Lake Powell, and first of all, like credit to where. probably one of the cooler things I've ever seen him do, just like move slower than I've ever seen anyone move except for that Twitter video or the guy who's going to get hit by a truck. That's right. But he was moving so slow and he told me just to stand at this one spot because we saw this collared lizard up on a rock

and it was like staring at me and he like sneaks behind it and then has his hand just really slowly moving up behind it. and then just like a rattlesnake strike just like snaps his hand down on top of it and catches it Yeah, but then he's like really soft when he slaps it down too. It's really skillful, but he catches it and doesn't get bitten or anything. He's just holding it. Oh, yeah. And then I'm like, I want to hold it. I helped you catch it. Exactly like that. And then he's like, okay, here you go and hands it to me. And I like held it lower. So it just immediately reaches its head. around and bites my thumb. And it latched on so hard that, like, I didn't want to hurt it, and I just could not get it off of my thumb. Like, I couldn't get it off. And it really hurt. So then, like, I was like, okay, I'm just going to stick it under the water until it lets go.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So I hold it under the water, and it just keeps biting harder and harder and harder. And then it's been, like, a minute. I'm like, I don't want to kill it. So I, like, have to bring it back up. and then I think you ended up getting like something to like literally like pry its mouth open. Like we couldn't do it with our finger strength. We're going to talk about that when we get to. And like they're, like you're saying, they're a lot smaller than a helo monster. So I'm sure like with a helo monster, I'm sure it's impossible to get a monster. Not only they're smaller, but when you look at a helo monster, it's not impossible.

But when you look at a helo monster, you can see its jaw muscles. They have massive jaw muscles. So they are, they're really, they have really good closing power in their mouths. What's it called? Like John Sina, you can see his jaw muscles. You can. What's that thing called mewing now that, like, kids are doing to, like, strengthen their jaw? Have you heard about that?

No. I don't even know what it is. What are you, like, two on, like, a cube? Something. I got Instagram ads. Yeah. I'll do it. I need to strengthen my job.

If you want a better, better jaw line, I guess, figure out what these Gila monsters are doing. Kids are doing, they're gooning. They're gooning. They are gooning. All right. Okay. Stop. Look it up, dude.

How many people actually get bit by Gila monsters? Arizona is definitely the state with the most wild heliom monsters. There's a study. I'm still on butthole of mucus. What? He looked at his phone. Went back to Google. So there's a study between 2000 and 2011 that looked at all of the calls nationwide to poison control

concerning Gila monsters, and then they also kind of broke down the Arizona ones. That's not going to work. But here's the national study. You got to get venom control on the line. Yeah, people call poison control for venom, though. Yeah. But thank you. In this study, so this is between 2000 and 2011, there's 319 total calls.

105 of those calls concerned humans. The rest were dogs and cats. With hila monsters? Yeah. Just like a dog messing with one. And it was the humans. I got, like, part of that equation got mixed up. I was like the humans are smelling the eel monsters?

Well, I was like thinking of like the dog handling them. Or calling poison control. No, Gila monsters are calling poison control. So of 105 of those humans that called poison control, 71 of them were told to go to a hospital. 17 of those people were actually admitted to the hospital. And most, I believe, was like 70% of those 17 people went to intensive care. So if you get a serious helo monster bite, it's a big deal.

It can, like your airway can shut down, your blood pressure goes way down, you vomit, you get nauseous. There's a lot of different crazy things that happen to your body. And everyone just describes the bite as being incredibly painful. Yeah. So it is a very serious thing when it happens. There's also a study that looked at case studies like I brought up of Gila Monster bites. almost all of them were people that were trying to handle a Gila monster. So I did find this quote from an old-timey dude that I really liked.

This is what we're going to end this part of the episode with. This is from Dr. Ward, who was some sort of doctor in the late 1800s in Arizona. And he said, I have never been called to attend a case of a Gila Monster bite, and I don't want to be. I think a man who was fool enough to get bitten by a Gila monster ought to die. The creature is so sluggish and slow of movement, that the victim of its bite is compelled to help largely in order to get bitten. I don't think, like, I'm definitely not saying about this guy that just died,

but I do think if you get bit by a helo monster, it's kind of because you're asking for it. Like, you're handling. What were you wearing? Right. Not what were you wearing? No, absolutely not. Anyway, I mean, if you're not wearing gloves.

Or like a suit of armor. I do think it's tragic that this guy died. I think though, like part of the appeal of owning a venomous animal is that you might get bitten. You know, I think that's like why you wanted it in the first time. The danger of it, you know? And obviously, I'm sure if he were still with us, he would regret having a helo monster if he had survived that encounter. And it's crazy that this happened because there are a lot of people that own these lizards that get bit by him. And I think this guy just happened to have the right cocktail of other stuff going on in his body.

Maybe you are right. That this was enough. So really tragic. It is something, though, that made the news and that I wanted to talk about at some point. So that's what we're doing. Yeah. All right. So let's do outchies.

But let's not, since he passed away, let's not do it for him. Let's do it for Coyote. Coyote Peterson. So how many ouchies do you think Coyote Peterson felt? It's so hard to say. On his scale. 10 out of 10. It's always 10 for him.

Yeah. I mean. I would, I'm going to give it in seven because I think he could still get bit by like great white shark, tiger shark, rattlesnake, grizzly bear, yeah, polar bear, you know, there's some more bites out there that he hasn't taken. Fair enough. There was someone, I did forget this, there was someone that I read that had been bitten by a Western Diamondback and a Helo monster and said they would take the Diamond back any day.

Wow. As far as pain is considered. Yeah. Holy cow. I'm giving it 10. He said it was his worst bite. I'm believing it. 10 out 10 out of cheese.

It sounds like, plus his finger got shredded. It got shredded. That's a key detail. But in reality, it did seem like he was a minor bite. Yeah. And it feels like, oh, I guess I haven't seen that video. For a Heel Monster, it was. Yeah.

I'm going to go with six. Okay. I feel like he would have really milked this for all that's worth if it was, like, actually that bad and made, like, some follow-up videos. Has he done that? No. Let me- Well, I think part of it is, like, it's kind of stupid that he got bit by one.

That's true. It wasn't, like, with, like, the other ones, it's like he was trying to get stung or something. With this one is, like, Yeah, dude, you shouldn't get bit by a Hugh Monster. Yeah. Let me show you his figure. But it does sound like for Venom, it is like not cool. Yeah, it's not cool.

It's well put. Let me show you how shredded his finger got so you guys can like, accurately. You guys are probably going to want to bump it up to 10. Okay. I'm saying these are orange and black animals that maybe sometimes are other colors. Oh, wow. Holy cow.

Shred it. Yeah. It looks like a cheese grater brushed his thumb, but like a cheese grater for squirrels. Like a real small one. Welcome to the podcast, Coyote. We actually sometimes do like your stuff. Okay. So we're going to go into our categories.

First of all, what's your favorite pop culture heel monster? Jeff, why don't you go first? Yeah. I had a really hard time thinking of anything. So I decided to go with that one Instagram account that you told me about, where it's every reptile in California. Oh, yeah. And I'm just waiting until he finds a

human monster and that's my favorite. Okay. The one that will occur in the future? Yeah. I don't think he's found one yet. No. Okay. I love that account.

Yeah. That's a good pick because like now it's just up to our imagination how cool it's going to be. Yeah. I know. So I didn't, I couldn't find one. I did see a movie called the giant or the great heli monster from 1959.

They used to use them as monsters and like monster movies. Yeah. I'm going to, I guess I'll just. pick that and I'll have to watch the movie and report back at a later date. I'm going to go with Rango. I actually just recently rewatched Rango. So I think it's like such a good movie.

And your guy, Johnny, your fellow Dior model. Yeah. There's a lizard in there. He's not my guy. There's a lizard in there and I was like, I think that's a Hilo monster. And it has a British accent. I was like, I think that's Ray Winstone. And I was right on both accounts.

Wow. That would be my choice. But I was saving it for you. I don't like they chose a Brit to voice them though because they're like an American. I like it. So it was like, you know how there's some British ruffians in the Old West sometimes? That's true. He was kind of playing.

Gotcha. All right. Yeah. British people can live in the Marry. That's true. Yeah, I shouldn't be quite so xenophobic. Yeah. They have a harder time finding spotted dick over here.

Okay. Just call them over to your house. Yeah. Blood pudding. They have the worst names for desserts. Right. I don't know what you're talking about. Both of those are desserts.

Yeah. Which one? Yeah. I don't know, whatever. I'm taking the dick if I'm spotted dick. If they're both. Spot a dick sounds like it's like diseased. We know you are, dude.

All right. Bud pudding sounds really gross, though, too. It does. Not sound appealing. All right. So I also wanted you guys to say your favorite pop culture monster? Favorite three, actually. We went top three. And I put some guidelines around this, some goalposts,

because Mike immediately told me his top three and they were all aliens. And I said, no aliens, no ghosts. What? That's unfair. Yeah. I'll go last because I got to workshop my third one. Okay, well, let's go round Robin. Okay, I'm going to start with Gremlin's.

Oh, really classic-looking monster. They're fun. They're also scary. The hot one. Wait, but yeah, choose a gremlin. The chick. If I have to pick one, I'd pick Spike from the first Gremlin's movie. Sure.

Is that his name? Spike? Or Stripe. Stripe. Stripe. Because he has that stripe on it. Yeah. I like the bat one.

Turns into bats. A perfect silhouette of a bat when he flies through the window. What about the one that flashes in the first movie? No, I don't think that behaviors. I don't want to support that. Who's next? Who wants to do a monster? I'll go.

Mine's Randall Boggs. Yeah, from Monsters Inc. Oh, nice job. I thought you'd be like, who's that? He's the bad monster and Monster Zing. It's kind of like a lizard-looking monster. He's a good villain. I thought he was the coolest looking one in Monster Zink.

and Monsters Inc. was like, I liked that movie for a really long time. Yeah. That's when they're at the top of their game. So once aliens were taken off the board, my mind immediately went to Cabin in the Woods because I was like, oh, there's a million monsters in that movie. And I had a hard time narrowing it down until I remembered the very last scene is just the huge monster that pops out of the ground. Yeah. Like ends the world.

The God Monster. I think that's cool. I'm going to pick that one. That's your favorite one in that movie? Yeah, I think so. It's like such, I was just not expecting that moment at the very, The first time I saw it. The huge cobra was my favorite.

It was pretty cool. Let's just put a massive cobra in this. I like the Mermann. The Merm. Yeah, the Mermann's a great pick. The blowhole with the blood. All right. My number two was the ballrog from Lord of the Rings.

Too smart to be a monster. It's a monster. What's the threshold? He's just trying to sleep and they bang and... No, Morgoth created those ballrogs to do evil. Wait, hold on. I want to investigate this. What's like, what's the IQ threshold for like, you pass this, you're no longer able to be a smart monsters.

Like if it's got like human intelligence. Well, you're not going to like my third pick then. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. I'll concede that that's not true. Okay. The ballrog. I think it's like probably the part in those movies that I look forward to the most.

Isn't the ballrog like a god, my art type? It's my arm. Yeah. But they can, I mean, your gods can be monsters. First pick was a god too. True. Yeah. Holy cow.

You turn that around on me quick. You got me. I'm going to go with the Cracken from the second Pirates of the Caribbean. I think it was a really cool monster. That was like that guy on Twitter to Jeff. How quick I turned that around. Dunked on him. Dude.

Jeff was just hanging his head today. He was going to send me a box of tissues because I... You were crying. You had to delete Twitter. It's just trying to talk about Taylor Swift's football fandom and he wouldn't let me. But yeah, I think it's cool, too, that Seattle, New Hockey Team is the Cracken. It's a great name.

I think they could workshop their, like, look a little bit better, but it's a good monster. You know, Clash of the Titans. Yeah, that movie, when he says release the Cracken,

everyone's like, oh, fuck. It's so cool. Yeah. The troubling thing about it, that kills Jack Sparrow. Yeah, it takes up to, like, the upside-down.

We're talking about different movies. The weird thing, though, Clash of the Titans, ostensibly Greek mythology, you know, Crackin is Norse. Oh, interesting. How do you?

We won't worry about it too much. How do you reconcile that? So they messed up the movie? Yeah, I know. We got to go tell... Clash of the Titans? I have no idea. The one with Sam Worthington?

Isn't it released the Cracken is Pirates of the Caribbean? No. It's Liam Neeson and he goes, Release the Crackin. Yeah, Clash of the Titans. You're right. Shoot. He's playing Zeus.

Right. Oh, I guess that just adds to. I'll go with Pyramidhead. Good old pyramid head from Silent Hill, too. Okay. It's a big old pyramid on his head. It's got a big scary. He's got like a big sight or something to or sword.

Yeah, man. I'll just say that when I played that one, I was a but a wee lad. It got me. Got me good. That was too dark for me that game. It was very dark. Yeah, very, very dark. All right.

My all-time favorite monster, Dracula. Oh, really? Yeah. I think the all-time favorite. What? Yeah. I just always had a thing for vampires, and I think Dracula has the coolest mythology behind him.

He's got, he's like sexy. What's your favorite representation of him? Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Francis Ford Coppola one. Where, what's his name? Gary Oldman. Gary, yeah. I don't get tired of that movie.

I watch it every year and I just love it. So I think he's my favorite monster and he's like a classic movie monster. Nospheratu. Looking forward to it, Eggers. I think it shows how great of an actor he is more than any movie too. Yeah. Because like I love Keanu Reeves, but he doesn't bring his best performance. It's just kind of like if you had Michael Jordan.

playing in high school or something. I wonder, you gotta wonder if, like, if Francis was telling Gary Oldman, like, you got to bring it down a little bit when we're in Keanu scenes. Camp it up a little bit or something. This is maybe a little too of a, too big of a gap here. Jeff, what's number three, or no, who's on, whose turns it?

You. It is me, yeah. I don't know, I don't, I'm trying to think of one. So I can't do venom. You can't do venom. He's an alien. All the monsters are. Like, how long do they have to live on Earth to be?

I'm a monster. If it has come into Earth through our atmosphere, it's an alien. So predators out. Predators out. Yeah. The thing is out. What about alien is an alien? Aliens and alien?

The xenomorph. That's not what they're called. If they apply for citizenship, it takes a while. There's so many monsters out there. We'll name a few. You know what's a really good monster? Have you ever seen the movie The Ritual? I'll take that one.

That monster in that movie is really good. Do you know what he's talking about? You've never seen it. No, I've seen it. How about the descent monsters? Yeah, they're good. Oh, that's Frankenstein. Frank?

I actually think the monsters from A Quiet Place were really good. You know which ones were good, too? Is that Chris Pratt movie that kind of sucked? Yeah, that's cool monsters. The monsters were cool. They were aliens, though. Oh, shit. I was going to choose that.

Didn't you just choose Frankenstein? I said, I mentioned Frankenstein. I think Frankenstein would be the closest to a Gila monster, Because like slow-moving, powerful. Is there a good lizard monster you can think of? Or like praying mantis one? Yeah, the lizard from Spider-Man. Who?

The guy who turns into a huge lizard. Do you think he's a monster? Yeah, sure. Nah. How's that not a monster? Well, that's just not who I want. Maybe the girl gremlin. Sure.

The girl will pick. All right. I'm going Godzilla. Yeah, that's perfect. It's a habit. Kind of a lizard. I'll take King Cop. True.

Is my third. I'm a conghead. You are a conghead. All right, let's go to what would Mike and Jeff do. You are bitten by a human monster. Yeah. What are you doing? I'm hammering a nail into my hand.

Your other hand until you don't think of that. Yeah, so I balance it out. Okay. A white hot nail. No, hold on. Give me a sec here. It doesn't have. Well, it's going to be hard to get it off.

My hand. I can't suck. Don't hold it underwater. It's hard to get it off. Probably like pry it, try it off. Yeah. With a stick, get it off my hand. Step one.

Step two, I'll put it in a Tupperware so I can take the hospital. You don't need to do that. And I can be like, this is what bit me. That's actually, I'm glad you said that because that brings up something I meant to say. There's no anti-venom for heel monsters. They are currently, currently there's scientists working on a universal anti-venom that can be used for any snake or venomous animal. And if that comes to pass, then it would probably work for heel monsters. the monsters, but there's nothing they can really do aside from like,

stabilize you and hope you come out of it. So I just put my feet up on the couch and put ice pack on my head. Yeah. They get like for the main, not sure. The main thing that they worry about is the low blood pressure. So maybe they would like, I don't know what they do to help with that.

Maybe it's like that crank movie. You got to just keep your adrenaline up. Just got to go. Yeah. All right. So what you actually should do, Jeff was kind of getting to it. I was.

You should first get it to release its grip. So Coyote pulled his thumb out of its mouth. That's why his thumb got absolutely shredded. Shredded to bids. But that was smart of him because had it been able to clamp down and pump more venom in, he would have been in worse shape. So if you need to pry open its mouth with like a knife with a stick, whatever, do it.

You can dunk it in water and hopefully it releases. There's a lot of things you can try, but you do want to get it to stop biting you however you can. Then you want to call poison. So it's kind of like our rattlesnake where the most important thing, what are they? Keys. Keys and phone. Those are the two things that you want.

Call poison control, get to help. And if you're like a bystandard. Standard. Standard. Don't like put your fingers in to pry its mouth open because you could give it. You could get bit. Yeah. Um, pry it with something else.

Like a crowbar. There are like, for example. Like a tiny crowbar. Yeah. Tiny little crowbar. There are examples like Coyote Peterson is one of these where he didn't have to go get medical attention because he knew the animal well enough and knew that he probably wasn't going to, he probably just had to like tough it out and he didn't get bit very long. So you don't necessarily need to go to the hospital. I'm not sure this is an animal where I'd call the ambulance because you might be facing a huge bill then.

Tooth and claw advice should probably be though like go to a hospital. Call poison control. For sure. Because they're going to tell you how bad it is and if you should go to the hospital. Yeah. Because even that study I looked at, they didn't tell everyone to go to the hospital, just a good percentage of them.

I think we need to add something to the two most important things. You got your phone. Yeah. You got your keys. You're going to need a car to go with those keys. That's true. That's a good point. Other things are optional.

Like clothes. Like you'd like to have those, but you know, that's true. All right. Yeah. Breath. Yeah. Blood. I just,

I just want to be as clear as possible. So people bring your physical body as well. All right. Cage match. Good attitude. How do you want to have a good attitude? You want to have a candu attitude. All right.

So this is a new animal. So we'll do our cage match. I will just bring up their natural predators are coyotes, foxes, bobcats, owls, hawks, eagles. Coyote Peterson's. Yeah, coyote petersons. These aren't, people are their main predator. They're killed by people. They're collected by people.

Baptize. Yeah, their oil is boiled harvested. So I think, I don't know, I think this is an animal that could probably kill our rattlesnake because I think, I doubt rattlesnake venom works on them and it is more powerful than the rattlesnake. It would probably kill all of our spiders for sure. I think rattlesnakes are a lot more scary to me. Yeah. Just because they can, like, strike your leg.

A heel monster's not going to be able to really bite you. They're much scarier. Rockings are much scarier. Like, again, the only way you get bit by a helen monster is if you are messing with it. Yeah. It's like even if you stepped on one, I doubt it would be able to buy you. Yeah, I think really it's just our spiders, our snakes, our little are snakes. And...

What if you made it all of our animals 200 pounds? Then this one's doing pretty well. It's pretty good contender. It's got good armor. It's got good venom. Sharp teeth. Like, this is a good predator if you even everything up. Yeah, it's not fast.

But it can bone for like two hours. Yeah. That gives it like the mental edge. It's like an hour and 58 minutes longer than any of us. It's got stamina. Yeah, stamina. Yeah, it does. Stamina, yeah.

Do you say it right? No, but it's all right. It was cute. I don't even know how to. Stamina. You just mix the N and the M. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Our next category, would you rather have hot lava in your veins, but it doesn't kill you? Or hammer a hot nail into your hand for 24 hours. A hot nail. I think I've wanted to do hot lava. Why? It doesn't kill you. And that way you'd be able to tell people you had hot lava in your veins.

Oh, so it goes away eventually. Yeah. 24 hours? Yeah. No, just in your veins. I didn't say 24 hours. Well, you didn't say how much either. Was it like a molecule of hot lava?

That's good point. There's some good, for getting semantic. So were you all picking a hot lava? No. You're hammering a hot nail in your hand. Yeah. Well, you didn't say how big the nail was. That's true.

I would want the lava to kill me because it would hurt so bad if it doesn't kill you. A hot nail hammering into your hands would hurt as bad, I feel like. As your entire bloodstream being hot lava? I didn't say your entire bloodstream, just said your veins. Like I think coyote was just feeling it when he said that like his arm would hurt. I'm not taking coyote at his word on this one. Forgive me. I'm picking the lava.

Okay. Would we survive? I'm not even sure what we're picking between anymore. Lava and your veins would be the most painful thing you could ever experience. Seems like how to me. Yeah. Hammering a hot nail. Yeah, you're probably right.

Okay. Would we survive? This is a new category that we teased before. Would we survive if the speed bus was a helo monster? No. Dude, these things are slow as heck. But it would never get up past 50 or 50. I always fall for it.

Is it 55? What is the question? Would we survive if the speed bus was a Gila monster? I understand. Like, remember we talked about this category once? Like, if this animal was the speed bus, would it flow up. Right. And it wouldn't because it would never get past 55.

So it's a yes or no question. Unless you, like, threw it really fast. Or, like, fell off a cliff. It only goes a mile and a half. It got on the bus. Per hour. The only animals that were dying if they, the speed bus, is an animal that can get faster.

It could get on a bus. Yeah. That's true. The only animal we're dying if it's the speed bus is one that can go faster than 55 miles per hour and then slow down. It's the bus from speed? That's just how I made this question. Yeah.

No, it's a good question. Yeah. Like, you know how, you've seen my neighbor Totero, right, with a cat bus? Yeah. I haven't. Okay. Imagine the bus is a helo monster. It has the properties of a helo monster.

Yeah, but it also has a bomb on it that will detonate if it goes over 55 miles per hour. You're pretty safe. That's the question. You're going to make it to work. Unless someone chucks it. Slowly. Yeah. I don't think I could throw a Gila monster 50 miles an hour.

It's a pound and a half. How much does a baseball weigh? Probably like a third of a pound. But baseball is like better for going through air, right? That's true. I bet you. Yeah, you're right. You probably go.

I don't know. I'm having a hard time. All right. Maybe a baby. Yeah. That was a good question, Wes. Thanks. Listener questions.

Jeff, you got listener questions? Are you going to do a subscription once first? I am. I got some patron questions first. This one, I'm just going to do them all from one person. This is from Clayton and Ellie. Ellie is a seven-year-old listener, and Ellie had a birthday in May. So happy birthday, Ellie.

Ellie has some different questions. Happy birthday, Ellie. And Ellie wanted, there's one for each of us. So we're just going to do these three questions. Let's go. Wes, what do you think about Yellowstone Bear World in Rexburg, Idaho, and have you been there? We used to go there a lot, and the workers said they were all problem bears. Is that true? Yeah, I'm sure all of those bears came there because they had issues.

I personally think in a lot of those bear worlds, they don't take the best care of their animals. I think they feed them really high-fat food. They don't kind of get the exercise or opportunities they'd get in a normal zoo. So I'm not the biggest fan, to be honest. Do you think it's like better or worse than the summer camps for problem kids? Uh, worse. The bear's worse? Yeah.

Then like the Yellowstone bear world. Like Anasazi or like Amisazi and like, I'd say the kids ones are worse. I'd rather be in Bear World. Just like sitting in a cage kind of like a little island for the rest of your life. I guess. Maybe it's hard. I'd rather go on a hike. All right.

This one's for Jeff. Jeff, I know you shouldn't, but what shark or? Or sea animal, would you ride next if you could? I would ride a hammerhead shark. What would you want to ride? Ride next. I think they're referring to the whale shark. So for people who don't know the story,

just so, you know, it surfaced while I was snorkeling above it. He didn't do it on purpose. And I ended up laying on it. So then I just stood up. Yeah. He took advantage of an opportunity, you know. You should have never touched him in the wild. But, yeah, I would ride probably, I mean, the coolest would be.

like two dolphins as like water skis. Oh, that would be cool. Or holding onto both their dorsal fins if you could breathe underwater. And they love it. They're always smiling when people are riding on them and sea world and stuff. I know this question wasn't toward me, but I think I'd want to ride an orca and be on its fin when it jumps way out of the water. That'd be sweet.

Yeah. And then have it like flip me with its tail and I do a bunch of flips. That's good. You got anything? Yeah, we're going to, uh, blue whale, blowhole. Nice. And how do you mean? When it comes up and I just want to get blasted like a cannon.

All right. Mike, you actually do have a question from Ellie. You have to make a functional Jurassic Park. How would you fix it? I would just fill it with parasolophilophis because they're my favorite dinosaur. But would that fix it? Are those dangerous dynos? They're big, but I don't think they'd be that dangerous.

They're herbivores. Well, so they tried doing it with all females the first time. I'm going all dudes this time. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It seems like you got to change something fundamentally. They'd either all bond and be like the best bros or they would hate each other.

Oh, dude, if it was just only guys' world would be so much better. It's not true. It's far from true. All right. Okay, thanks Clayton and Ellen. Girls cause all the problems in the world. That it's not true. We don't think that at all.

No, we don't. Jeff, you have some listener questions from Instagram. All right. ERFL asks. What's your favorite shirt that you have? Right now it's my fat-toed farm shirt that Jesse made. I love that shirt. Yeah.

We got some new merch coming out real soon just so everyone knows to you. So that would be mine when it gets here. Our new merch. Mike is your new waffle shirt, your favorite shirt? No. It is kind of nice. Mike has a new shirt that's made out of waffle towel. It's waffles.

No, it's real waffles. Yeah. And butter it up. Yeah. I like it. It's a good shirt. I found an old vintage Crono Trigger t-shirt at Savers a couple months ago. Yeah.

I love it. It was like, wow, what do you know? Chrono Trigger. Yeah. An old SNS-JRP with Ila for life. She's my video game crush. I feel like you keep talking like we're going to know what you're talking about. You never going to understand.

You'll only understand last the more I talk. You know, I'm going to go with an old one that doesn't fit me anymore. I used to have this like denim blue shirt with like little gray. collar and like sleeve things and it's just like a blue denim shirt that I loved so I'll go with that one my favorite shirt of yours is that Vans one that you bought the striped one there is a good stretch where it's kind of boring though every other time I saw you you had the Walmart shirt on oh your Walmart shirt is good it was like one dollar at a Walmart I loved it's a good shirt I guess I still have that one but it's good I'd like in Kuala Lumpur when we went to Borneo I

got this Airbnb and it had a washer dryer but the dryer took like honestly my clothes were in there for 30 hours and they didn't get dry really and it changed all the colors of and that Walmart shirt was in there I never put my clothes in foreign dryers I like even like FaceTime the guy I was like what's going on? He was just like you know you're doing it right didn't make any sense that's great um all right kate 8-07 wants to know if we're going to fan X in September. Nah. You think we're famous enough for that yet? I don't think so. It'd just be like Caitlin who's like, hey! We can go to fan Z, maybe. A little lower the alphabet.

Wholesome content wants to know what Mike's the most mad at this week. That's not very awesome, but no, it's not. You were mad to be here when you should. showed up. I was real mad. I quit the podcast for a second, actually. I never rescinded that, actually. Quitting. Yeah. I'm back. Well, speaking to that. So the guy who you hired to help you edit episode. Bill. Yeah. Bill Braxton. Bill Paxton. So Braxton Martin 87. Am I currently fired or hired? I've lost track. Have you been like firing him and hiring him? He's fired. After every time he and finalizes an episode and sends it back to us,

I fire him immediately. I don't just like to get, reduce the payroll a little bit. You know. And then you rehire it. But every time I need help, he helps edit subscriber episodes. So I rehire him whenever I need his help again.

Is there like a better way he could figure out if he's hired or fired than like the listener question inbox? No. It sounds like if he's working, he doesn't have a direct life. Otherwise he's fired. Well, that could communicate with you to figure that stuff.

I just, it's professional courtesy after you get fired. You don't like keep talking to your old. Yeah. He's doing pretty good. I think we should keep him on. But if you feel like it saves us money to keep firing him. Yeah.

I think it's, I think it's helpful. Plus, I don't know. This just in my experience, people always talk about how hard it is to fire someone. Like, oh man,

it's really, it's been pretty easy for me. Yeah. It's like, I just send him a quick little message. You should be like the new apprentice guy. Do you think he goes to New Dawn? Do you think he goes home to his wife like three times a week and is like, I'm fired?

That's very presumptuous to assume that he has a wife. Maybe if he had a spider collection, you could get a girlfriend. He has an unbelievably annoying dog who maybe he tells. His dog's so disappointed. And then the next day he's like, I'm hired. And I get all happy. Have sex. Right.

All right. Fired, Bill. You're fired. That's good, I think. Okay. Our final thing is claws, our claw rating for the heel monster. I'll go last. Hmm.

Last. Yeah. This is one I feel like I'm going to just go like off the cuff, but I need to think about it longer. I think it's one, I think this is like a prime example of if I see it in the wild. It's going to skyrocket my rankings. But there's other lizards. I like more. I'm going to rank it.

I'm going to give it six. and I'm going to rank it 974. Okay. I'm also going six for how interesting of a lizard it seems to be like on paper. I spend virtually zero percent of my life thinking about them.

I just never think about them. Every once in a while like a Komodo dragon will pop into my brain or like an iguana or in a chameleon. They just, they don't have much of like a footprint on my life. I do really love like an orange and black one. Yeah. They are really cool.

We're the opposite in that regard. I spent a lot of time thinking about Gila monsters. They're a nine for me. If I, I think they're probably my number one bucket list reptile for the U.S. Like I think of all the reptiles I haven't seen in the wild, I think Gila monsters are number one. Interesting.

So if I could see one, I'd be thrilled. You'd probably stick your GoPro even closer. I wouldn't. I don't want lob in my veins, but I'll pick it over that nail. I just think they're beautiful, they're interesting, they're really neat, they're like a symbol of the Southwest. Yeah, I would love to see one.

The episode made me like them more. I think I already feel like I ranked them too low. All right, you can change it if you want. I'll wait. Okay. All right. Well, thanks, guys. That's it for Hilo Monsters.

How's the conservation on them? Oh, yeah. I do have that still. They are IUCN vulnerable, or sorry, near threatened by IUCN. And that's mostly because of habitat loss. Mormon. A lot of developing in the desert southwest. Some of that Mormon developments, I guess.

Sure. What happens sometimes, too, is when they're developing and they see a Gila monster, they'll try and relocate it. But this is an animal that will travel back to where it was taken from. And it uses a lot of energy doing that. It exposes it to predators. So what they're trying to do is convince people to do more of a, like, tolerate your, interesting neighbor thing in these developments. Like if there's a Gila monster that lives nearby,

let's just have a Gila monster in the neighborhood. You know, it's kind of cool. They do need, though, desert habitat to survive. So there's plenty of desert out there for them. They're doing okay. Are they only Northern America? Yeah, so it's only the U.S. and northwestern Mexico. Okay.

And they're illegal to kill, but people do still kill them. And they're illegal to collect from the wild, but people do still collect them from the wild. So that's the other main threat. Okay. Well, great. Yeah. And as always, if you're looking for more content, check out our Patreon.

I was just thinking the other day that I think when we started our Patreon, we kind of were like, uh, $10, you know, is that okay? And now $10 seems pretty cheap for a subscription or a prescription. So, and we're not going to change it. We're happy with it being that cost. It's $10 a month for our bonus episodes and you get a lot of extra content. Here's what I do. I'd subscribe for a month, just marathon.

the hell out of all our stuff. And cancel and never look back. How about that? Yeah. Then it's really not a lot of money. I know. It's like 10 cents an episode. Or you can keep it because we're constantly adding to it.

True. Yeah. We have a fun community on there. I'm going to hire Bill again pretty soon because another episode's coming out. Just think about Bill. If you want him to have a job. Maybe get fired half as much. Yeah.

I should say that we're never going to change it, but we definitely don't have plans to change it any time soon. Nope. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, guys. Thank you. Thanks. Bye.

Love you guys. See ya. Love you.