Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Komodo Dragon Attack - A Dragon Shows its Basic Instinct

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

Wes shares a couple of really gruesome komodo dragon attack stories, one involving Sharon Stone's at-the-time husband and a trip that they took to the zoo that took a nasty turn. The guys then talk about their favorite dragons and then finish things off with a rousing round of listener questions. ~~ 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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And because you're a listener, you get 20% off your first order. Just head to mood.com. That's M-O-O-D.com to get started. Hello, everybody. This is Tooth and Claw Podcast. How we do it? I'm good. Wes is a wildlife biologist.

And he found his degree. I proved it. For, yeah. Yeah, what? What is there? We haven't verified. We haven't verified it. I'd like to get my hands on it.

Fine. All right. Next time I see you guys, I'll let you touch it. I had a listener right in asking, have you seen it in person? All right. And it got me thinking. Well, I'll let you guys see to person next time. I guess this doesn't count, but okay.

It counts. All right. I'm just saying. There's still a bit of doubtless. It's pretty much definitive now that you're a wildlife biologist. Go ahead. You know, another way you could verify that is go to Google Scholar. Type in Wesley Larson Bears.

And a couple peer-reviewed publications are going to come up. And that's another way you'll know. Mike, how can we verify that you are who we always say you are? Producer. Producer? Are you a producer? You can try Googling Mike Smith and get a lot. get a lot of different results, but I'm probably somewhere in there.

And your middle name's like Dave or something too, right? Dude, you can't give that. That kind of information? Mike Dave Smith. People are going to show up at my front door step now. So I just inherited a bunch of fly tying stuff from my grandpa, who's been passed for me and Wes's grandpa, obviously, who's been passed for a few years now. And I was digging through it today.

and it's just like 10,000 types of bird feathers. It's like so overwhelming. And he has like six total flies that he ever made. And it got me thinking, fly fishing, I feel like it's the ultimate. Someone just buys all the equipment and just keeps buying equipment, but like doesn't fly fish much. Yeah, I would agree. Did I say ultimate right? Mike's in my mind now for ultimate.

You kind of, you did pretty good there. Sometimes you say ultimate, but you did, yeah, you did pretty good there. Ultimate. What's the ad? Is it one of the ads I have to say it as like the last word? For AG1, it's always ultimate. It should be a good name for like a little chocolate confectionery. Yeah.

Or just like the strongest type of mint. Ultimint. Ultimint. Yeah, that's a good, yeah. Agee one should come out with like an ultimat flavor that's just for our podcast. Yeah. Hey, you guys make any resolutions? Last year we told everyone and then they like, everyone remembered and we constantly had

people saying, how are you guys doing on your resolutions? So I kind of, at some point, want to make mine public again so that people can keep track of them for me. Did you guys come up with them yet? I'm going like easy ones. All right. Do you have them or should we wait until next episode to tell them? Just like get in better shape.

Yeah. Just for sure. But I'm like not in great shape, so it'll be kind of easy. Yeah. Make more podcasts. Okay. Like different shows or more episodes? No.

Just of this. Just keep doing what we're doing. All right. Yeah, I think that's a good call. Catch a fish. Mike, did you come up with any? Shoot, now I'm on the spot. I'll come up with an easy one.

Maybe like a world record handstand. All right. That's pretty good for that. Brush your teeth once a week. Hey, I'm on pace. I'm with Jeff. I want to get in better shape. But my specific goal for that is me and Jeff do a little competition where we do 100 pushups,

100 sit-ups and 50 squats four times a week. And if one of us doesn't do it, the other one has to pay him 20 bucks. And I want to continue that the entire year. I want to do that every week for the whole year. And then my other one that is kind of unique to this year is the other. the other day, I can't remember who I was with, but one of my friends said something that I knew that they were wrong, and it had no, like, pertinence to anything, and it didn't matter. It was, it was like a fact about some stupid movie that they got wrong, and I went to correct them, and then I caught myself, and I was like, why do I feel the need to do this? It's just going to make them feel worse. It's just going to make me look kind of like an asshole. And my really specific goal this year is, and this doesn't really pertain to the podcast, because I want to make sure we get everything right on here. but in like normal conversations with people not to ever correct someone unless it's absolutely necessary because I just don't think it ever like really improves things I think that's

kind of a bad one I don't know I was thinking about it too someone saying something completely wrong it's not bad to correct them I don't know the answer I don't know I just need to do it the right way I just think it makes you like oh I think that was John Hamm actually I think sometimes you're right, but like I don't want to do it when it's completely unnecessary. I was thinking about it too because sometimes like when someone says they like a movie and you come in and say, I didn't really like that movie, there's no reason to do that because it just kind of ruins that person's experience. So I'm just working.

I'm not saying I'm not going to do that stuff, but I'm saying I'm going to try and be more positive overall. Okay. Mike does love ruining things that I like anyone loves. It's my favorite thing. Trying to ruin Nathan Fielder for me for years. Terrible person. I think it's different, too, with people that are really close friends.

But I don't know. Sometimes I just feel like we're all too negative in general. Not us three, but just people. Make a fake Twitter account and just take it all out on Twitter. I'm telling you. Yeah. All right. Okay.

Anyway, if we come up with some more resolutions, we can share them too. And all you listeners can keep us honest. Keep us honest with our... Keep us the donist. Dawnist. Dawnist. All right. I was going to ask, though, bringing it all the way back to what I said at the start.

Is there any other thing, like, above fly fishing for just, like, a rich guy thing that they can spend money on, but, like, they don't actually do? Photography. Oh, really? Yeah, that's a good one. I know a lot of, like, photographers that have really expensive equipment or, like, travelers that do, but they, like, don't know how to use it, and they never use it. and they never really use it. So that's one. Maybe like vintage car collecting, like Jay Leno.

But me, I don't know, maybe he gets out and drives all those different cars all the time. He doesn't right now because he blew himself up. Oh, did he, did he? Is he dead? No, but he like lit on fire. Like he's in, he's like in bad shape. Oh, is he? I think he had like some pretty serious burns.

I hadn't heard about that. Wow. It wasn't as bad as Paul Walker's. No. It's hard to be as bad as his. Speaking of things that you shouldn't light on fire. Explosions. Today we're going to talk about Komoto dragons.

Your segways are amazing. You could have gone, you could have said, speaking of fire, we're going to talk about dragons. Oh, that's what you should have gone. I should have, but I didn't. I missed it. Yeah, that's why I should be taken over this. You always do the segways usually. You're much better at them than I am.

So we're going to talk about Komoto dragons. This is an animal. I have a notes on my phone. where I put down animals that I want to do still and stories that I want to do. This one's the first entry on my notes because it has just been on my list since we started the podcast. It's been an animal I've wanted to do, but I kind of was saving and saving and saving. And finally I just felt like I was really in the right mood to do it. Last year there was a really viral video, this little boy who there's this YouTube account called Rhesis

therapy where they talk to little kids and they talked to this little kid about Komodo Dragons. and he just gave like the most adorable answers about Komodo dragons ever. But I know that Komodo dragons eat people. Wait, what? They eat people. What? This special animal eats people. Are you afraid of them?

No. Not at all? Definitely not. They can eat people, which is so special. Do you want to see an animal eat of people? Actually, definitely yeah. Anyway, because of that YouTube video, I've been thinking about him a lot lately, and I finally kind of want to exercise it, do Komodo

Dragons. And I found some pretty good stories, so I'm really excited. You had me and Mike watched that clip, and the whole time, I'm not even sure this is true, but the whole time I was just thinking, like, Mike probably hates this. Is that true, Mike? No, why would you think that? He's so cute. That kid's so cute.

He reminds me of me when I was a kid. You hate little kids more than most people. Okay. Hold on. And especially when they're like trying to be funny, you'd get so mad. I don't feel like that kid was trying that hard to be funny. I feel like that was his. No, I didn't think he was trying at all.

But when precociousness in a child comes naturally, I am a really big fan of it, actually. So that kid, I want to meet that little guy. Anyway, that kid, his age range, that's about the age I was when Komodo dragons were by far my favorite animal. I remember doing a report on them in like second grade. They were just it for me. I loved Komodo dragons. I was absolutely obsessed with them. So they have been an animal that's just been one that I've wanted to do for a while.

So we're going to talk about a few different stories. And we're going to go into some really interesting facts too. This is, I think, one of the more interesting animals we've talked about for a few different reasons. We'll go in more depth or we'll go in two more depth on this later. But what makes you like them so much? I mean, for me, when I was a kid, I think it's because they reminded me of dinosaurs, and they were so big. They're the world's biggest lizard. And I knew they were dangerous, and I just loved dangerous animals.

I was obsessed with lizards, though. So the world's biggest lizard to me was especially intriguing. Plus, it has dragon in the name, which is sweet. Yeah. It's the coolest thing. I wish my name was like Mike Dragon instead of Smith. I wish it was, too. Yeah.

Let's see how many other. name, especially Dragon instead of Dave. Yeah. Mike, Dragon, Dragon, both middle name and last name or dragon. All right. So in 2007, there's an eight-year-old boy who's playing with his friends near a rural village on the island of Komodo. He had grown up in the area.

He and his friends... There's an island called Komodo? Yeah, we'll get into that. But yes, there is an island called Komoto. That's where they get their names from. He had grown up in the area with his friends. They were familiar with all the different potential dangerous. that lived on Komodo, everything from wild boars to water buffalo could pose a risk for an 8-year-old.

But the most prevalent natural threat, the one that had brought a lot of international fame to the island chain into that island specifically is the Komodo dragon. And as that little boy played that day, he didn't realize that a large Komoto dragon, the island's largest terrestrial predator, was observing the children not far away from the safety of some nearby scrub brush. And it was just outright bad luck in terrible timing that this kid needed a bathroom break during their game, and he decided to use the same bushes where the 10-foot-long lizard was hiding. When the small boy squatted down in the bushes, the Komodo dragon lunge forward, grabbed him by the waist, and started violently shaking him back and forth.

His friends ran to tell their parents to get help, and a local fisherman who happened to be his uncle, heard the commotion and he ran toward the brush to investigate, and he was really horrified at what he found, which was that the huge lizard was holding this now limb, body and shaking it back and forth from the midsection. Oh, man. So he picked up some rocks and started throwing him at the dragon,

and it finally released the boy, and it ran off into the brush. But he, from some reports of people that saw this happen, had been almost completely cut in half by this Komodo dragon. And he died from blood loss not long after. Jeez. Yeah, so pretty bad. It was the first death by a Komoto dragon on the island of Komoto in 33 years, but it wouldn't be long before there were others.

All right. So that's our kind of opener story. It's a pretty gnarly one. It shows just how powerful these lizards can be. Before we get to the other stories, and one of them, a little, not a spoiler, but a teaser for people that want to stick in for this whole episode. One of them involves a very famous celebrity

and a pretty infamous animal attack that happened to her husband. So just so, you know, hang on to that. That's kind of the marquee story of this. episode. But we're going to do some biology now just so people can understand a little bit more about Komoto dragons. I think with some of our more well-known animals, we don't do biology till a bit later because people already kind of have a pretty good visual image of it. But Komoto dragons, a lot of people might not know much about. So I do want to talk a bit about their biology. Yeah. As I mentioned, they're the largest lizards in the world. They can reach lengths

of 10 feet and they can weigh up to 300 pounds. Females generally are smaller than males. They top out about 150 pounds. The largest individual on record was 366 pounds, which is the size of like a pretty average grizzly bear in Montana. Ten feet, half of that's tail, right? It is. Yeah. So it's not like they're a dinosaur, you know, but they're a big lizard. They couldn't dunk a basketball. They couldn't dunk basketball. No. Or I don't know if they could probably hit a baseball really far with their tail though. That's true. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump.

At Ralph's, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards. Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years, savings may vary by state. Fuel restrictions apply. See site for details. All right. So they're generally kind of like a stone color, like a grayish brown, but they range from black to yellow gray. Their bodies are covered in these scales that contain small bones called osteoderms, like alligators and crocodiles have those as well. Those scales provide an impressive amount of protection. It essentially functions like chain mail for them.

So they're really well protected by their scales. When you see videos of Komodo dragons fighting each other, you can hear their nails going down their scales, and it sounds almost like chain mail. It sounds very durable, very tough. They have strong stocky legs with really long, sharp, curved claws. They use those in fights with other dragons and for subduing prey. They're found on five islands in the lesser Sunda islands of Indonesia. The island of Komodo, Flores, Rinka, Gili Montag, and Gilly Dasami.

Of those islands, the only one that isn't part of Komodo National Park is Flores. Of those islands, the only name I remember is Komodo. Kumoto. That's fine. They are found in lowland places on those islands, and they're generally found in habitats like open grassland, savannah, beaches, and tropical forests. Typically, you won't find them on the more mountainous parts of those islands. They dig shallow burrows to rest in during chilly nights and hot days, and they tend to do a lot of their walking and hunting and whatnot in the mornings and afternoons when it isn't

quite as hot. So they're somewhat crepuscular. They are the terrestrial apex predators. on those islands. So where they're found, they're able to kill just about everything else on those islands. What other kind of large animals or animals in general would you find, are there deer or like things as big as that that they'll take down? Yeah. So there's a species of deer that's considered kind of their main food source. That's what they're most commonly killing. At least historically, that's what they most commonly killed. Now a lot of wild pigs and goats and whatnot have been introduced to those islands. And those are a very common place. for them now.

But they eat everything from little invertebrates up to water buffalo. So they can kill a wide variety of animals. They're pretty impressive in what they can kill. Yeah. So younger Komodo dragons tend to focus on small prey. They eat a lot of geckos, eggs, invertebrates. Adult Komodo dragons focus on large mammals, deer being historically their most prevalent prey item.

Because adult Komodo dragons will often kill younger Komodo dragons, they'll really small babies will live in trees for their first couple years, and then when they're big enough to kind of fend for themselves, they come down and start spending more time on the ground. An interesting fact about those baby Komodo dragons is when a big animal is killed, a lot of times lots of dragons will come in to scavenge from it. And when the babies do it, they'll go straight to the undigested plant material and poop of the animal that was killed, and they roll around in it. And that's so when a bigger dragon comes in, it doesn't smell them, and it actually smells something that it's evolved to avoid. So it doesn't detect them.

Poop? Yeah. Yeah. Because they don't want to eat poop. Yeah, they don't want to eat poop. Yeah. If I ever know I'm going to get into a fight with someone, I think I'll do that. Just rolling poop.

Honestly, Jeff, pretty effective. Jeff and I have that boxing match that we've always talked about getting into with each other. I think probably I'll roll around in some dump, some poo before we do it. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't want to hit you more if you smell like poop. Would you want to hit him at all? I don't know if I'd want to less. Maybe, probably. If you like really smelled bad, I just wouldn't want to be close to it.

I do a lot of, I do a lot of clinching. Clinching? Of what? You know, when the box is clinch, they get in and bring me in. Yeah. All right. It's a good strategy. Adult Komoto dragons have been known to both defensively attack and predate on humans.

Between 1974 and 2012, there were 24 reported attacks on humans, with five of them being fatal. They hunt mostly by scent. They do have really good eyesight that specialized to detect a movement, but they use their really specialized olfaction, so they're sent, to pick up on prey scent and follow animals for miles. So we've talked about reptiles and how this works and some different reptiles, but I do want to go over it with Komodo Dragons because they really use it a lot. they have a really pronounced big yellow fork tongue.

And what they do is they swing their heads back and forth as they're walking and they're sticking out that tongue. And the tongue will grab molecules that are in the air and different chemicals and whatnot. And then it brings those molecules into their mouth where they make contact with their Jacobson's organ. Mike, what are you laughing about? Just grabbing molecules with your tongue. I bet that's what Jeff does when he goes into the bathroom. Everyone does. I'm not bringing up that argument for the second time in two weeks, I think.

Anyway, they're bringing those molecules into their Jacobson's organ, and that organ pretty much identifies what those molecules are and even gives them a direction of where they would be. So basically, let's just say there's a Komodo dragon, it's out walking around, it crosses the path of a deer that had just walked through that area. Those deer molecules hit its tongue, go into its mouth, hit the Jacobson's organ, and then it tells that dragon that there is a deer there and what direction it went.

The way they get the direction is that as they turn their head, if the concentration of molecules is higher in one direction, that's the way it knows to go. So it's almost like it's like using GPS tracking. Like it's like a telemetry thing almost. It's pretty interesting. Yeah. Well, and I'm thinking like they're so low to the ground all the time too

that like they're probably always getting sense off of the ground because their face is just like right next to it. Totally. And so just think like they're bombarded by all these different scents. The fact that their Jacobson's organ can like pull all that apart and get a deer and be like, oh, there's a deer and it's that direction. And they can pick it up from up to 2.5 miles away, which is just crazy to me. That's amazing. Yeah.

So once they find their prey, they'll usually stalk within close distance and then they lunge forward to bite. So they're actually not crazy. They lunge? Yeah, they're not crazy fast. They only run at like 12 to 15 miles per hour, so pretty much the speed of some of the, like a somewhat fast human. So they're not, they can't really run down a deer and they only run fast for short bursts of speed.

So they'll actually sneak up on a deer. They'll get as close as possible or they'll just wait in like an obscured location until the deer crosses in front of them. And then they lunge forward and bite into it. So they have mouths that are lined with sharp serrated teeth. and their bite force isn't anything especially impressive, but they're really good at latching on and then pulling, and they use those sharp teeth to pull, rip, and shred soft tissue.

And then when they eat, they can eat up to 80% of their body weight in a single sitting, and they have some crazy adaptations for doing that. 80%? 80%. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. They have stomachs that actually expand to get bigger to take in all that food. They have articulating jaws and flexible.

skulls. Yeah, but it's it. Our stomachs like can expand a little bit, but you generally don't see someone's stomach expand. They might get a little bloated or something. With these guys, it's like a very visible difference. Their stomach expand very noticeably. Yeah, adding that much.

Yeah. They have articulating jaws. So their jaw kind of unhinges a bit. And then they have flexible skulls that allow them to eat really big chunks of meat. So their teeth are for ripping and shredding. They're not for like chewing. And they swallow chunks. of meat whole and sometimes they'll even get a big chunk of meat and then they ram their head against a tree with that meat inside their mouth and it just like pushes it down their throat into their golet and they've even been known to knock over trees while they're doing that because they're just hitting it so hard so they like this huge chunks of meat choke on something i don't think so and they'll sometimes when they're really huge like that and they've eaten that much food it's hard for them to move quickly so if they have some sort of threat or some other problem they'll puke up all that food so

so they can get away quicker. Oh, wow. After eating, they'll rest for long periods of time, slowly digesting whatever they ate. It's given them the reputation of being really lazy among a lot of the local people that live in those islands. And if necessary, a Komodo Dragon can survive on just one large meal a month,

which means technically they only need to feed 12 times a year to survive. Now, that's bottom kind of rung of that ladder. They will eat a lot more often if they can, but they technically could survive just feeding once a month. Okay, a lot of times when you see photos of Komodo dragons, you'll see a lot of drool coming down in saliva, and sometimes that saliva is red and really bloody, and it makes for some really cool photos of these lizards,

but what it actually is is they have a lot of gum tissue in their mouth. When you see one's teeth, the tops are just barely poking out of their gums, and those gums are torn up while they're feeding and fighting and whatnot, and it leads to a lot of. blood and their saliva. And they produce a ton of saliva and that bloody saliva actually acts as a lubricant to help their food go down their throat as they're eating because they're eating those big chunks of food. So they use all that saliva and blood to lubricate their food as they're eating. Why don't they just chew a little more instead of like ramming a tree? Yeah. Their teeth just aren't

built for it. They're like a shark. They have serrated teeth. They don't have their teeth are all the same. They have 60 teeth. They're all pretty much identical. They're not. like us where you have teeth for cutting, teeth for chewing. They're just, they're like a shark. So that saliva thing, it led to one of the most common misconceptions about Komodo dragons. So when I bring up Komodo dragons, what's something that you guys think of? I've always heard that they have, like, a toxic kind of saliva that'll infect whatever they bite. Right. Do you have anything you want to add to that as far as, like, their strategy for hunting?

Well, yeah. So, like, I've always heard that they just, they'll, bite something once and then they wait for that thing to die. But I assume you're about to, well, actually, me. Jeff, have you heard that too? Yes. Well, actually, that is a really common myth. It's something that I believed up until recently. And then I believe something else that's kind of a myth, which we're going to get into, too.

I learned a lot in this episode, or in this episode doing the research. This idea, though, of them having so much crazy bacteria in their mouth that they just can bite an animal and wait for it to die, was originally coined by this American biologist named Walter Offenberg. He lived in Indonesia for a few years in the 60s and 70s, and in 1981 he published a book that laid out the hypothesis that Komodo dragons will kill large prey with a single bite in this bacterial infection. And this stemmed from a few observations that he had, where they would bite a water buffalo, and then the water buffalo would die days later from infections on those bites.

But was more likely is that water buffalo, when they're feeling threatened or anything, they'll retreat to areas with water. And a lot of times those areas that they go to are these ponds or kind of almost like wallows that are just full of fecal matter. And because they have these open wounds, that fecal matter gets into their wounds and they died of infections from just being in really dirty water after being bit by a Komodo dragon. Komodo dragons do have a lot of bacteria in their saliva, but it's not more than you would expect to find in the saliva of any large predator that feeds on carry

and dead stuff. And a lot of the bacteria that they have is bacteria that naturally exists on their prey items already. So biting a deer with bacteria that it's already used to isn't really going to kill it necessarily. Interesting. So it's not a good, yeah, it's not a good tactic to bring down prey. And it's one that never always, never always, it didn't always make sense to me.

Because energy. Unless the prey is like, just. surrounded by feces for miles. Yeah, then it would work. But the thing that doesn't make a lot of sense to me is that energetically, it would be pretty costly to bite an animal and then track it for days until it dies. You're spending a lot of time then just following an animal and hoping that it dies. So it doesn't...

It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not a great strategy. Giving me more ideas for our boxing match, though. Just surrounding yourself with feces. Yeah, I'm going to bite you and then... You just need to draw blood once. So in the 2000s, Komodo Dragon researchers and other Varanid researchers, so like the whole group of monitor lizards,

they discovered glands in the Komodo dragons and other monitors' mouths that produce proteins similar to those found in venom of other animals. So in the late 2000s, they started thinking, okay, maybe Komodo dragons actually have venom. And I'm pretty sure in our Nile Monitor episode, I brought that up. that it's likely they have some kind of venom. And that venom is mostly responsible for stopping blood clotting,

lowering blood pressure, causing some muscle paralysis, and even inducting hypothermia, which can lead to shock and loss of consciousness. The main thing being that it stops blood from clotting. So if you get bit by an animal that completely shreds your flesh, and then its venom also stops your blood from clotting, you're probably going to bleed out. And that's kind of the idea behind that.

But that hypothesis was put forward that they use venom to do that. But there's not really any data to support it. There's just this detection of proteins. I was like, that's a cool little fact. It is. And it could be true that they use that venom for subduing prey. But there's no proof. They're all interesting theories.

But what the research... Can't we just like get one and test it? They have done that. A lot of people have done that. I don't think we should do it. Why don't we know if they have venom that does that? They do know that they have those proteins and possibly venom that does it, but they can't prove that. Why possibly?

Because while the venom's there, they can't prove that that's what's killing the prey. But they do have that venom. It's very complicated. Like they have it, but they don't necessarily have it in the amounts that it would have an effect on anything. But it is there. The proteins that build that are the building blocks of. that venom are there. Okay.

Yeah. And they have the glands. So there's evidence that they have that venom, but there's not necessarily enough to where they can make that, like they can say this is a venomous animal, if that makes sense. I think so, yeah. Okay. That's like the answer I got the last time I asked the girl if we were boyfriend and girlfriend. Exactly.

Just like, really, I was like way more confused afterwards. It's confusing. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Mike. I was just going to say, maybe it's. It's kind of like pre-diabetes. Kind of.

You're getting close, but, or nearly headless nick? Yeah, sure. Anatomy is complicated, especially when it comes to things like venom or proteins or anything like that. It's hard to prove, it's not hard to say, okay, these proteins are present. It's hard to prove their function. And that's kind of what the big debate is now in Komodo Dragons. But the reason that none of this matters is because all of the studies and all of the research

shows that the way that Komodo dragons almost always kill their prey is just by delivering a lot of really devastating bites and just hitting them with a really violent attack. And that's what... We don't need to complicate it. They're just biting an animal until it dies. Right. And they have shark teeth that just completely rip apart its soft tissue and the animals die of blood loss and shock.

And they can kill full-sized deer that way. So they don't necessarily need venom or bacteria or anything like that. they deliver devastating powerful bites that kill an animal very quickly. I read this paper that was a medical paper that discussed wounds that a zookeeper sustained after she was bitten by a Komodo dragon on her forearm and leg, and the photos in this paper are gnarly. They look like shark attack wounds. In fact, I should show you guys these photos.

All right, so here are some of the wounds to her leg. As you can see. I mean, it looks like a shark attack. It's not her. That is. That's just hamburger. You can see, like, her skin, her fat tissue, her flesh all the way down to the bone was just ripped apart by this Komoto dragon.

That's so bad. They're crazy. Like, they're some of the worst ones I've seen. Yeah, that's awful. Yeah, it looks like she was bitten by a shark. So their teeth, how long of a bite would that be? Not long. Like, how much time?

Within seconds. Because what they do is they latch on, and then, and they pull. So they just rip through it immediately. It's not like it's like... Chewing. Latched on. It's just grabbing it and pulling and cutting.

They're pretty gnarly. We're going to share some of those photos. That's a good strategy for like if I ever need to bite someone. Yep. Just grab and pull. Like I never thought, like I always thought to kind of go towards them when I'm biting them. But if I just bite them and pull back as hard as I can. Right.

So now when you see those, though, you realize this isn't an animal that needs venom. or bacteria, it's got what it needs. It has the tools it needs to kill large prey. And so all that venom and bacteria stuff is kind of clickbaity. Don't believe it. Okay. Well, venom, we're going to put a pin in, but the bacteria thing, I think, has been mostly disproven.

So they are solitary animals. They only come together to breed or eat. As always, I find their reproduction stuff to be some of the most interesting stuff about them, particular one thing that we're going to get to in a minute. But breeding takes place in May and August. Their eggs are laid typically in September. Males will violently compete for access to females.

Mating itself is violent. The male is often physically restraining the female to mate with her. That happens a lot in nature. It's always kind of hard to see, but it is something that happens. Eggs are incubated for roughly seven to eight months before they hatch. A final really interesting fact about Komodo dragons. They can sometimes exhibit parthenogenesis. So parthenogenesis is birth without insemination by the opposite sex.

It's not a very easy thing to understand. It's essentially a miraculous virgin birth. But I'm going to give you guys a real basic explanation. I had to look into this because I didn't fully understand it either. But a female Komoto dragon has a WZ sex chromosome. So like we have XY chromosomes. They have a W's or sorry, we have XX, right? Or Y, Y.

I can't remember. It's like X, X, X, and X, Y. What's Kyle X-Y? He's an alien. Oh. He doesn't have something. I did never expect to be brought up on the podcast, but yeah, you're right. I've never seen it, so I'm not positive.

At some point, we're going to bring up everything. I'm pretty sure he's an alien. Okay. Female Komoto dragons have a WZ sex chromosome, and when they create an egg cell in their bodies, a duplicate cell is created, and that cell is called a polar body. So they create this egg cell, and when they create it, there's this duplicate. Generally, polar bodies shrivel up and die, but in Komodo dragons and other animals that can do parthenogenesis, the polar body can be viable, and it can actually act as sperm and fertilize

the egg cell. So when she creates her egg cell, she kind of creates this other cell that can turn into sperm and fertilize her egg. And that turns her ova into an embryo. And because that polar body is a copy of the original cell, it has to have the same chromosome combination, or the same chromosome. So if her original cell is like a W or a Z, that fertilized egg is going to be WW or ZZ. And in Komodo Dragons, W.W. isn't anything, and so that cell dies, but if it's a ZZ, it produces a male offspring. So Komoto Dragons, the DuParthenogenesis, can only produce male offspring. That fact was like crazy, but I feel like it would have blown my mind way more if it wasn't so similar to Jurassic Park in the frogs DNA.

Yeah. There are, of all vertebrate animals, it's like 0.1% that can do parthenogenesis. It's very uncommon. It's not something that happens very often. And it's still like way more successful if the male has sex with a female, right? Yeah, it's better because it promotes genetic diversity. The only reason this happens is say you have a single female Komodo dragon on an island or something and she's just not that hot the only one no i'm saying she's the only

lizard there she could produce male offspring and then when they grow to adulthood they could mate with her and then those lizards could then have both female and males and they could mate but when you have family members mating there's not the same kind of genetic diversity that you would want in a wild population so they can do this but they don't really right since they have males and females on most the islands. The places where it's happened a few times is mostly in zoos. When zoos have a solitary female or a female that won't mate with a male, every once in a while they just suddenly have eggs and the zookeepers are just like WTF, like where did these eggs come from? You know? Yeah. Yeah. So, you should have watched Jurassic Park. They'd know. Yeah, exactly. So does that basically mean that

these offspring are genetically identical to their mother? I would assume so. Yeah. Because they're not getting genetic information from another parent. They're just, they are, but the difference is that they're a different sex. That's so weird. Because she's a WZ. It's like giving birth to your own twin. Yeah, but a different sex. Bizar. Okay. That's so cool. All right. So it's pretty crazy. It's happened a few times in zoos. It's essentially kind of like a fail-safe survival tactic if they were ever needed it in the wild. So this eight-year-old boy was killed in 2007. As I mentioned, it was the first fatal attack on that island in 33 years. The next fatal attack would come just two years later, once again on Komodo Island.

Can they, like, communicate very well? They do some, like, grunting and hissing. What are you trying to say? I'm just wondering, like, you said it was, like, 33 years until, like, the first fatal attack, or, like, between fatal attacks on Komoto Island. So I'm wondering if it went back and, like, bragged about it to all the other dragons. Like, hey, I... And then they were like, I got to get one of these humans.

Yeah, I don't think they communicate at that level. Or they had like a whiteboard with like they had to go back to zero days without incident kind of thing. Zero days without killing a human. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that happened either. Because it just kind of snowballed it. You never know.

Yeah. So I got that story from a lot of popular articles like CNN, Guardian, a few different places. But then I was reading in some literature and they said someone was killed. 97, but I'm pretty sure that was on a different island. So I think when they say it had been 33 years, that's for the island of Komodo, but there had been other deaths on different islands. That's where I think Komodo ones talk to each other. Yeah, you might be right.

Sure. All right. So, in 2009, Muhammad Anwar was an Indonesian fisherman who entered a protected area of Komoto, and he went in there to get some sugar apples from a local orchard, which sugar apples sound delicious to me. I want to try a sugar apple. I don't blame him for doing this. That's interesting.

Are they just really sweet apples? I don't know, but I'd like to try one. If anyone out there has been in Indonesia and knows what sugar apples tastes like, tell us. He's used to climbing trees. He's 31 years old. On this particular day, he's climbing, he's getting apples from a tree that lay within a protected area, commonly used by Komodo Dragons. The resident lizards likely noticed this uncommon intruder.

They approached the tree to investigate what could possibly be a potential meal. And then it's unclear whether that he panicked because he saw the lizards underneath the tree or if he just simply stepped on the wrong branch or something but he slipped and fell out of the tree and they immediately attacked him. Within seconds they ripped him apart. They opened large lacerations to his hands, legs, body, and neck.

And after seeing those photos, imagine what that would look like on your neck. It's pretty bad. I don't want to actually, Wes. Yeah. So he's able to... Now I am. You need us.

Yeah. He's able to escape the lizards, but he dies of blood loss en route to a clinic on nearby Flores Island. He had too much venom in my bet. That's not what happened. Nope. All right. So, why this spade of attack in the 2000s? There had been some particularly dry years that led to both dragons and humans congregating in these areas that had water.

And then there was also likely less prey for the dragons in the wild. So those things might have been a contributing factor. And then another factor is just that the formation of Komodo National Park did some things that made Komodo dragons come into more contact with people. And I found a scientific paper on this that I found really interesting. And I want to read just a little bit from this paper about what happened once they formed this national park. Because you think like, oh, a national park was formed. That's best for everyone. It kind of does all this great stuff.

And it did. But it also made Komodo dragons start attacking people. more frequently, and I want to say why. So this paper is called Komodo Dragon Attacks, The Changing of Human and Environmental Relations by Dian Lintang Sudiboyu, from the Department of Anthropology, Universitist, Gajamata, Indonesia. It sounded like I read that. Yeah, that's a hard one.

Basically what this paper says is that when Komodo National Park was established, they put some strict protections in place for the wildlife in the area, and the most significant of those were limitations to hunting, farming, and dog ownership. Hunting used to be common, and what happened is when these hunters would go out and kill a deer or something, they would leave the head and gut piles and all this stuff out in the forest, and that was a major source of food for the Komodo dragons. And so all the Komodo dragons would hang out in the forest and just kind of look for wild prey as well as these gut piles, and they had no reason to come into the villages.

So this hunting kind of supported Komodo dragons staying in the forest. And then another thing that happened is they didn't allow dogs anymore because dogs were getting feral and they were overrunning the island. So they killed all the feral dogs and they wouldn't let islanders have dogs anymore. And dogs actually served as an early warning system for Komodo dragons when they would come into the village. And that removed that early warning system because they wouldn't see or smell the dragons as quickly as dogs would, so people would get attacked because they didn't have any kind of warning when a dragon came into the village.

You mean people wouldn't smell them before the dogs? No, dogs smell them first. That's what you just said, though. Yeah, people wouldn't smell the dragons before the dogs. Okay. I agree. Okay. Yeah.

Thanks for fact-checking me on that one. I see. I was just making sure I heard you, right? Yep, dogs smell better than people. All right, so the area was first protected in the early 1900s, Dutch colonialists discovered the lizards. I'm doing quotation marks because it was like Western discovery. And they wanted to protect the lizards.

So they put in all these rules. And then later the park was established after colonial rule. And a lot of those rules stuck around. And it has led to increase conflict between lizards and people. But it has also protected the ecosystem. So it's kind of just like a negative thing that's happened because they're protecting all this wildlife. It's an interesting case study, though. Yeah, that seems paradoxical, but it also kind of makes sense at the same time.

It does. I do think if I were a villager that had lived there my whole life and suddenly had to deal with 10-foot lizards coming into my home, I'd be a little peeved. But it has brought a lot of tourism and a whole different industry to the islands as well. So there were a number of other attack stories that I found that were pretty interesting. It might be an animal that we come back to. For the sake of time, I'm going to skip them. I'm going to go straight to the most famous Komodo Dragon Attack of all time, which occurred at the LA Zoo in 2001 in June.

It involved Phil Bronstein, who's an investigative reporter and the then editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, and his wife at the time, famous actress Sharon Stone. No way. Yeah. Phil Bronstein. Whoa. Good for you, dude.

Yeah, he's like the Pete Davidson before social media. He's a handsome dude. He was like a war reporter and like an adventurer. I kind of get it. Oh, yeah. All right. So I got a lot of the... Did she start in movies?

She did. And she was a big deal in 2001 still. And she still is now. I shouldn't say still. It's way more impressive than reporting in a war zone. Okay. Fair enough. He kind of looks like Bruce Campbell.

Just to give you guys an image. Bruce Campbell. The guy from Evil Dead. What does he look like? He's got kind of like heavy darted eyebrows. Give me another person who Bruce Campbell looks like. Oh, geez. So Phil Bronstine, also maybe like John Hamm a little bit, back to John Ham.

Okay. Yeah. I know the evil table and I just wanted, I just wanted a few different. Sometimes I do like sometimes when actors or actresses date people outside of their profession. I just think it's kind of refreshing, you know? Does you hope? No, it's more just like, I don't know. I just feel like all those actor weddings and marriages are just doomed to fail.

Anyway, so not that this one lasted because it didn't. Spoiler alert. All right. Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them, that's bullspend. And marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions. I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't. Cut the bowl spend.

LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign, terms of conditions apply. In 2001, Sharon Stone and Phil Bronstein were looking for an intimate wildlife experience, and they called the L.A. Zoo to see what could be arranged. The zoo was really happy to oblige. They wanted to welcome them to have a special look at their animals.

and Phil was uniquely interested in reptiles and especially in Komodo dragons. To him they seemed like the closest thing you could get to a living dinosaur, even though birds are much closer. And when Sharon spoke with the zoo... Alligators. Yeah, good point. Alligators and crocodiles. They are dinosaurs.

They are. When Sharon spoke to the zoo, she mentioned that he was particularly intrigued by Komodo dragons. So the tour starts innocently enough. They had this kindly zookeeper that they described as being like Mr. Rogers. His name was Jay Kilgore, and he introduced the couple to a number of their more charismatic reptiles, like large green iguanas, Aldabra tortoises, which are some of the really big tortoises that are found on islands off of Africa. They're having a really great time. What was it?

What was his name? J. Kilgore. Probably a lot less of those than Mike Smiths. Yeah, definitely. I think, yeah, not many Jay Kilgores compared to Mike Smith. All right. So they're having a great time, and they round a corner and there's this big exhibit in front of them, which is their Komodo dragon exhibit. And Phil, this seems like it was kind of a surprise for him. He was elated. He was really excited that he was going to get to see a Komoto dragon. They were the animal he was most interested in.

Is the zoo like closed down except for Sharon Stone? So that's a fascinating part of this story is it is not closed. This is like a private tour, but there are other people at the zoo. It's a great zoo. It is. I love the LA Zoo. And we know people that work there. it's really cool.

According to Sharon Stone, Jay said that the Komodo dragon on exhibit was a really mild mannered individual and that if they wanted to, they could enter the exhibit and touch and interact with the 7-foot-long 55-pound dragon. He even said that a lot of kids had been able to go in and pet the dragon and that they had nothing to worry about. So Sharon Stone doesn't want to go into the enclosure. In the interview, she said, like, I'm into bunnies, not dragons. But Phil was into dragons.

so he wanted to go to the enclosure. So they enter Phil and Jay, and an interesting detail that Jeff just asked is that this wasn't a private thing. Sharon Stone said there was 10 kids there and four adults, and all their faces are pressed up against the glasses this little tour is going on. So they approach...

It reminds me that Lindsay Bull. Yeah, the alligator thing. Yeah. It's very similar to that. They approach the Komodo dragon. They begin petting it, and it starts to show a lot of interest in Jay's, shoes. Its tongues going out. It's kind of looking at them. It's really focused on his shoes. And he's

wearing these white shoes. And Jay says, hey, those look. Dragon leather. Yeah. It's like, that's my brother. No, Jay says, hey, those actually look a lot like the white rats that we sometimes feed to this dragon, dead white rats. And he's like, you should take off your shoes just so it's not so focused on him. So Phil takes off his shoes and his socks and he gives him to Sharon. and they go back and they're touching this dragon and they pose for a photo. And while they're petting it, Jay thinks that Sharon could get a better photo if Phil moves a little bit to his side. And he tells Phil to move and when he does, the Komodo dragon lunges forward and latches its jaws around the top half of his bare foot. Both Sharon and Jay are paralyzed in shock and horror.

And they hear a large crunching noise come from Phil's foot and Phil starts screaming at the top of his lungs. The dragon then began shaking and pulling its head, and its teeth slice into Phil's foot, shredding his flesh, his connective tissue, and his tendons. Rather than try and rip his entire foot away, and it's funny because when I first heard this story, I was like, how bad could it be? And then I saw those photos, and I was like, oh, this is bad. This isn't good to have your foot in one of these things's mouths. Rather than try and rip his foot away, and this is pretty impressive that he had the control to do this, his heel was still exposed. It had like the top part of his foot and his heel was free. He kind of pivoted his foot so that it pinned the dragon's head down with his heel.

And that caused it to flail around and try and get away. But he kind of had it pin so that it couldn't keep biting him. Or it was still biting him, but it couldn't adjust its grip and bite him again. And then according to Sharon Stone, Phil reached his hands down, grabbed the Komoto dragon by its jaws, and pried its jaws apart, releasing his foot. Oh, nice job Phil. Now I say according to her, because according to the zoo, what happened was Jay, the zookeeper, grabbed the Komodo dragon by the neck and squeezed really hard. And that's what caused the Komodo dragon to release its grip.

So who knows which of those is true. It's not mutually exclusive, right? Well, they said it kind of was. Like, only one of those happened. Who do you believe? Who said that? The zoo. The zoo said that.

I feel like he wouldn't say he pried its mouth off. if he didn't put his hands in his mouth. I don't know. I also feel like he... I'm saying I believe them both. Okay. I feel like regardless of who caused what to happen, Phil was probably trying to pry the dragon's jaws off his foot, right?

So maybe he just believes that that's what did it. Because I can't believe he was just going to let it do that, right? But whatever. Maybe if you're the zoo and you just like let this famous person get attacked by one of your animals and you like let him in there. Yeah. But that's just like... That's the reason why I tend to believe the zoo story because it's like what do they have to gain by refuting the story.

Maybe some kind of legal repercussions. Their lawyers just demand. I don't know because they actually weren't sued. No one pressed charges. Oh, wow. So I don't, I kind of think the zoo, I tend to believe them, but I'm not going to pick sides. I kind of did, I guess, already. But whatever.

All right. I'll pick the other side to bounce it out. So I want to read a direct quote. Sharon Stone did an interview with Time Magazine. and that's where a lot of this comes from. Here's a direct quote about what happened after he got his foot freed from the mouth of the Komodo dragon. He screamed

out, then he reached down and opened the jaws of off his foot and through this thing. Then he started to try to get back out the way he got in, which was the feeding door, which was about three and a half feet high and probably 20 inches wide. So he's coming out foot first, and I'm trying to pull him out. I see that his foot

is completely mangled, and we're trying to pull him out, and now the animal has gone completely crazy. The poor zookeeper was just horrified, was paralyzed in shock when it happened, and was now trying to keep this thing away. And now it has the taste of blood from Phil and is continuing to try and attack him. It's slamming against Phil's back and clawing him, as I'm trying to pull his upper body through the hole in the cage. The dragon's tongue is literally coming between the cage door and his shoulder. The zookeeper who's still in the cage is screaming, get him out, get him out, get him out, get him out, get him out,

I got to get out of here. I got to get out of here. Get him out of here. Get him out. And I'm pulling him as fast as I can through this door, but it's still attacking Phil. The zookeeper is trying to kick this thing off and it's going crazy. Phil had scratches on his thigh from it clawing him on the way out. I pulled him out and laid him down on the floor in front of the door. I turned his sock inside out and made a tourniquet and put his foot and put his foot. And put his foot on my shoulder because he was bleeding so severely. I'm impressed with her first aid. That's pretty impressive that she made a tourniquet and elevated his foot. I wonder what movie she learned that from. Yeah, serious. I'm very busy doing it, and when I'm doing it, not realizing that we're two feet away from the cage door where the zookeeper's trying to get out, and the animal's still trying to attack Phil. It's shoving its claws and its paws through the iron grill on the cage door.

The zookeeper gets out and locks it, and this dragon continues to slam its body against the door to try and get out to continue to attack him. Its underbellies slamming against this metal grill about two feet from Phil's head. Man. So that's her account. It then seems like she kind of launches into a full-blown panic. She can't get a cell signal and she's like screaming at her cell phone

and yelling at everyone that he has a heart condition and that he needs an ambulance. So some zoo medics arrive and she's pissed off about that. And then a fire truck arrives and she's still pissed off because she wants an ambulance. She pounds on the side of the fire truck. You got to imagine these firemen are like, holy shit, is that Sharon Stone pounding on our fire truck? and they tell her that they're in charge. Because no one will call an ambulance.

And they say that they're in charge and they'll call an ambulance if he needs one. But she says, oh, hell no, I'm in charge. He has a heart condition and he needs an ambulance. The fire truck would be useful for washing out his wound. Yeah. That's pretty good. I think the idea is that firemen are. Mike's talking about the host.

Yeah, I know what he's saying. But I'm just not really acknowledging it. That's fair. Firemen are typically trained paramedics, so I think that's the reason it was a fire truck. 30 or 40 minutes later, she gets an ambulance. Phil gets taken to the hospital. Do you think he's kind of like shared and like tone it down and I don't know. It doesn't seem like it, but I think the zookeeper kind of was.

He seemed like he was a little flabbergasted by how big of a reaction she was having. But she describes his wounds. She said he had a four inch by one and a half inch strip of flesh removed from the top of his foot. So essentially the entire top half of his foot was missing. The main tendon to his big toe and the next toe was severed. The jaws of the dragon had also crushed some of the bones that connected big toe to the main part of the foot. Doctors reattached the tendons. They use grafts to repair his foot as best as possible, but he would have to go through months of rehab to be able to walk normally again.

They didn't press charges against the zoo, but they demanded that the dragon be placed in quarantine, which the zoo didn't do. The zoo actually, like, made a display and did a fundraiser based off of this attack because it was bringing them so much press. Yeah. Which really piss Sharon Stone off. But I got to give them credit that they didn't sue the zoo. Like, that's pretty impressive that they didn't do it. Yeah. Yeah.

They ended up if it's kind of like a PR thing too, where it's like, you'll look kind of bad if you're suing zoos. Yeah. Everyone in L.A. loves the zoo. Yeah. There was a lot of media about the attack. She wasn't totally thrilled. about that. A kind of funny thing that happened. Well, anyway, they separated in 2004. That's not the funny thing. But in 2018, she's at home in her house in Beverly Hills and a large monitor lizard

starts walking down the middle of her street. And she tweeted, she must have had some PTSD because she tweets that a 10-foot-long Komodo dragon was loose in Beverly Hills and kind of had a bit of a meltdown on Twitter. Turns out it was like a four or five-foot Nile monitor named Stefan that belong to a local resident that it escaped its enclosure. So I had a mythology minute that I think I'm going to skip. We'll do it next time we do Komodo Dragons. So I think that's going to be it for Komodo Dragons. Let's do our ouchies for the Sharon Stone story and skip the two fatalities.

Who wants to go first? I was thinking two, but I'm going to go three. Well, no, I'll go four because that rehab would suck too. And he probably got a headache from Sharon Stone. Screaming. Sounds like she was just screaming for half an hour. He got his heartbroken three years later too. Oh, yeah, that's good.

That's like a five if we're going to extending it to that. All right. I'm going to give it a five, not because of the heartbreak. I think feet, like foot injury is always really hurt. When you break a toe or something, it hurts for so long. And it broke one of its, you know, it broke some of those bones. It severed tendons. It ripped the top half of his foot off.

It sounds like it was a long recovery for him to learn how to walk. There's certain parts of your body that if you get hurt, you can kind of, you don't have to put pressure on them for a long time, but your foot isn't one of those unless you want to be in a wheelchair. It took me like four months to be able to walk again when I had to reconstruct my knee. Yeah. So what? So like I would never put my ouchies on the same level as our other attacks. You wouldn't give yourself a five?

For a tooth and claw? Yeah. Not my knee injuries. All right. Three or four. Well, I'm giving him a five based on everything that happened to him. Yeah, I'll go with a four with the severed tendons and connective tissue, especially with like the big toe and what you call it, the next toe.

Is that what it's called? No, I just didn't know the pointer toe. Of that next toe. Yeah. I'm going to go down to a three, actually. This sounds awful, but it seems like the damage was kept to one very smallish part of the body. It doesn't seem like this would have been so debilitating, at least on our scale. Again, we're dealing with, like, animal fatalities on this show.

So, like, this sucks. This would really, really be a terrible thing to have happened. But I don't think I can go any higher than a three, maybe a four. I guess, yeah, giving them a five. There's still, like, six, seven, eight for me that is in between someone getting really badly. I don't know. Sure. So I'm going to stick with five.

All right. Yeah, you do it. It feels right. You guys got any questions about Komodo dragons before we move on to categories? Yeah, what's your mythology on? I mean, I can do it if you want. It's kind of interesting. Yeah, or we can save it.

All right, I'll do it, sure. Let's go for it. So this comes from that same scientific paper that I quoted earlier, but there was a mythology thing in here that I thought was kind of cool, and it talks about folklore about dragon human relations, and belief holds that people in Komodo dragons have a blood. relationship called Cebe, which is brother, and that their ancestor and dragon's ancestor were born from the same womb. And this comes from the tale of Putri Naga of Komodo Island. And this,

the legend is that there's this princess who married a man and that they gave birth to twins. And unfortunately, one of the twins was to have the shape of a lizard. And the other twin was named Gerong, and then the lizard twin was named Ora. And because ORA didn't look like a human, this princess took him and left him in the forest, meaning that this other son, Jirang, wouldn't know about his twin brother. I mean, what would you do if your kid looked like a lizard? Just put it in a tank. Put him in some of those little lights on it or whatever.

Years pass. Jirang reaches adolescence, and one day he's out hunting deer in the forest. And at one point, he spots a deer, he hits it, he brings the animal down with some arrows. And as he's approaching this deer, he was shocked with the appearance of a giant lizard, which was also trying to take the... dying animal. Unwilling to lose his deer, Gerong prepares to spear this lizard and kill it, but when he attempts to attack it, his mother suddenly appears and tries to hold him back. And she explains to his boy.

She's just waiting in the bushes the whole time. I guess. I guess. But she explains to him that the lizard is his own twin brother, which would be pretty shocking. And she hopes that Geron will treat the lizard like his own brother and be willing to share food with it. People say that after the incident, Komodo Island inhabitants widely regarded the lizard as a brother, leading to traditional hunting and sharing those remains for Komodo dragons, like we talked about earlier. Cool.

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting story. I really liked it. It's fun to read about those kind of mythology things. I'm imagining the two brothers just having like a picnic outdoors and his brother's just like ramming his head against a tree on a sandwich that he made for him. Just like, dude, just like take a small bite. Just his jaw, he ate 80% of his body weight. Cut the sandwich into like eights for you and you ate the whole thing at once and slammed it against a tree.

I should say that I'm pretty sure that this story is more like folklore than it is theology. Just to make that clear. Okay. Well, let's go into categories. So I asked Mike and Jeff to get their favorite dragon from pop culture. And Jeff reminded me that we've probably done this category before. Almost certainly have done this category before.

So I had forgotten that. But I think we're going to do it again. We're just going to do it again. We're running it back. We're doing it live. So I'll go first. I think if we did do this before, I said the dragon glowerung from the Silmarillion, which is my favorite dragon.

To hedge my bets, I'm going to say my second favorite, which is kind of a basic answer, but it's Drogon from Game of Thrones. I just was very emotionally invested in those dragons, really didn't want Drogon to die. Think some of the scenes with Drogon were like some of the coolest scenes ever in a TV show. So that's my second choice after Glaurong.

Are they involved at all? I'm assuming that's from the Game of Thrones show and not House of Dragon. Are those same dragons back in play in House of the Dragon? I don't really know how House of the Dragon takes place 400 years before Game Thrones. Gotcha. Okay. One day, one day I'll get to covering up that blind spot.

Yeah, it's all right. All right, what are you guys' favorite dragons or second favorite? I'll go. The one that came to mind is Rand, Al Thor, from the Wheel of Time. I know that this first season was kind of a travesty in a lot of ways. I'm holding out hope that maybe it was just because of, like, the pandemic, hurt production and all that. But that was a book series that I'd been reading since, like, I can kind of remember.

And seeing his story all the way through to the end was pretty special. So got to be the Dragon Reborn. Rand, your boy, Rand, Althor. All right. Very energetic shout out. Hold on. I'm pivoting. Uh-oh.

I'll let you pivot while I give you guys a quick, honorable mention that isn't going to overlap with you, Jeff. I promise. When I was a kid, there was this book in our middle school library called Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen. And it had this really cute lizard-looking dragons standing up fighting a boy on the cover. And there was this girl that had fallen down on the ground. And I think it was the first time that I ever felt like very strong romantic attraction for a girl was the girl on the cover of this book. She just had like dark black hair and blue eyes and I thought she was so pretty. So the girl wasn't a dragon. No, but I used to always like just go pick up the cover and look at it and just stare at it.

And I only remembered that a few years ago. Anyway, that's my honorable mention. My favorite dragon is Vesirian. Okay. And that's one of Deneerius's three dragons. But unlike the other two, Veserian's actually way better because he gets ice powers. which are better. Everyone knows they're better than fire powers.

Does he get ice powers, though, or does he just get, like, blue fire? I mean, you get ice cold enough, it becomes hot, right? Okay. Burn jie. So all dragons have ice powers. He becomes an ice guy. What are the ice people's names? White Walker.

White Walker, they freeze him. Okay. He's frozen. He's got ice powers. There you go. That's how. His fire was red, and now it's blue. I'm already breaking my resolution.

I'm breaking my resolution already. Never mind. He gets ice powers. Hold on. Hold on. His fire was red, right? Or orange. Yeah.

And it turns blue. What's your explanation? That he died and was brought back to life as a zombie. But why is the fire blue? I don't know, because their eyes are blue. My theory is ice powers until proven otherwise. I want to shout out smog. Yeah, good shout out.

Smog. But from the books. From the books especially just, like, do such a good job building up. I like him in the movies quite a bit, too. Such a cool dragon. All right. That's a good shout-out. I prefer the books for him.

Me too. Just a quick shout-out for me, too. Man, I had a whole list here. I really, my nerd neuron started really firing with this one. Yeah. I'll go with only one. Shenron from Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z. because you know whenever he showed up you know something big was happening.

The live action? Yeah, Dragon Ball, what was it, evolution? Evolution. Jeff made a girl watch that with him on a date once. Just the best thing. She ended up liking my roommate more than me. So now we're going to do our favorite Sharon Stone performance. You know, I was bouncing between two, so I'm going to let you guys go first

just in case one of you pick the ones that I can't decide between. Okay. Yeah, I'm going to, like, I'm going to go the quick and the dead. Okay, that was one of mine. Yeah. I love that movie so much. Yeah, Sam Ramey, great movie. Such a good, like, villain.

Who's the villain? He's the super. It's, um, isn't it? Gene Hackman. Yeah. But, like, making her shoot her own dad and then he hangs. Spoiler. Like that.

It's an old movie. Well, we're talking about the movie. It is an old movie. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great movie. movie fast-paced great acting it's got young russell crow really young leo yeah Leonardo decaprio that is not the ninja turtle that's like that's probably the first time i saw it when i was young for like a little bit

that was my favorite movie yeah it's great oh wow mike what's your pick i'm going so i just so i'm not a hundred percent disingenuous i have to at least shout out basic instinct yeah because that came It's her most famous role. Yeah, we are all developing young men. Yeah. But I think my favorite performance of hers is Ginger McKenna in Casino. That's my pick, too. Gosh, so, she perfectly plays, not like a femme fatal character, but like a girl that you know is just no good to get involved with.

But no one in a million years would pass up the chance, even though they know it's going to end in disaster. She's just so good in that movie. Yeah. I kind of, I want to rewatch that, too, because I, I remember her being pretty poorly treated, too. So I wonder now with, like, fresher eyes watching it if... I used to just, like, think she was the worst character, and I kind of wonder how I'd feel now.

But that was my pick, too. I was between Quick and the Dead and Casino, but Casino's my favorite Scorsese movie. I really thought you were going to go above the law. I've never heard of that. Oh, really? Yeah. It's with Steven Seagal.

Oh, yeah. It's definitely not my pick. Your guy. He's not my guy. I thought you were going to go with Total Recall, Jeff. That's what I would have done before. I've never even finished that movie. Oh, okay.

Then that makes sense why you know. I'll watch above the law, didn't he did? So this is. The old Stephen Seagall movies are so funny. Yeah. I feel like he's, he's kind of an idiot now, right? He's always been an idiot, it turns out. Yeah, he's like pro-Russia, pro-Putting.

Yeah. His newest movies, like, he can't have it like, a gun, right? He can barely stand up. He just, like, sits the whole time. It's pretty incredible stuff. Still beating up, like, some total badass in the movie, but he, like, can hardly move. All right.

So we're going to, this is a new animal for us, so we're going to do our cage match. Oh, yeah. Mike, do you want to explain really quickly what our cage match category is for new listeners? Yeah, it's been a while, at least since I've done an intro for it. But basically what we do is we take the animal we're talking about this episode. and put it in a hypothetical fight with all of the other animals that we've talked on the podcast up until now. So like a 1 v1 and we've started splitting it up into weight classes. Is that what we want to do here too?

I kind of think the way that I like to do it nowadays and we can change this. I think if we want to get real organized, we could have a list of all the animals in front of us and just go down them quickly and give them like. But the way that I kind of like to do it is pull out the animals that I think are going to be their best closest match. and talk about those. Before you had talked about the water buffalo, I would say between like a mountain lion and a wolf. Yeah.

The water buffalo, though, when they kill them, they have usually died from like blood loss or infection as a result of their wounds. That's not one where they're physically overpowered. How do you feel with a wolf? Wolf is a great pick. Mountain lion is a great pick. Chimpanzee is a great pick for these guys.

Oh, that'd be an interesting one. Coyote, I think they beat. but those were the three animals that I thought of right off the bat that are going to be a really good fight. Diodies are wild. They are. If they have an anvil, that would work. Yeah, well, no, it wouldn't. They're not good with those.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true they'd miss. Here's a question for just about Komodo dragons. Like, what do they use their tails for? They use them mostly in fights with other Komodo. I mean, they use them for balance, like on a daily basis, but then they'll slap other Komodo dragons with them and stuff when they're fighting and they use them defensively. So they do use their tails and fights and they're pretty powerful.

So like if it's fighting a wolf, it could probably keep hitting it with its tail to like keep the wolf away. It's pretty impressive. It has armor. There's videos of them doing that, like slapping their tails. And they outweigh wolves. I would kind of, I'm kind of talking myself into the dragon here. I tend to agree.

I think the dragon beats, I think the fact. of those. I think the fact that it would be really hard for the wolf and the mountain lion to get their teeth through its armor even. I just think I almost tend to go with the Komodo dragon for the winner of all of those. Oh, wow. Maybe like the first animal that beats it, maybe I would say like a jaguar. Yeah.

Black bears probably beat them. Moose? Moose. Yeah. I don't know. That's an interesting one. Moose are way too high up there and they could just trample. I just, yeah, Moose probably wins.

But yeah, it's an interesting one. I think this is one that puts up a pretty good fight among some of our mid-sized animals. So I'm glad. Yeah, that's a fun one. Glad to see them in the ring, you know? All right. Like the first animal that, like, I'm sure beats them that's like size-wise, it's like once you get to like a lion. It's like, okay, lions.

Lions, tigers, jaguars, grizzly bears. They're all beating them. Jaguars, I still feel like there's a little question. I think the bite force that a jaguar has is getting it through that armor. If they can kill a Cayman. Yeah. Yeah. We should do a bonus episode where we just power rank, give a definitive ranking to all of

our cage match participants. Yeah, let's do that. I like that. We'll do it. This is my favorite cage match in a while to like consider. Yeah, it's a good one to think about. Yeah. All right.

So we're going to do what would Mike and Jeff do? And let's do the, which you guys can pick, which of those. scenarios do you want to pick for your what would Mike and Jeff do? I'll just say none of the above. I'm just going to say if I have one trying to attack me, what would I do? And I would throw, I think I can run faster than him, but I'm going to throw up just in case so that I can for sure. Oh, that's a good. And then I'll run out, just run away.

Just like they do. Yeah, it seems like, I don't see why like Olympians don't throw up. before their races. They might. I think probably a lot of them do, right? I don't know. I don't think so. Before you get all nervous, you throw out before a race.

All right, Mike, what are you doing? I'm going to go to the bathroom in my own house and not in the Komodo Dragon's house, I think. That seems to be where that boy went wrong. Yeah. Or maybe like in you guys ever play Mario 64, where you grab Bowser and you like hammer toss them, you spin them around by the tail and throw them into bombs. at the edge of the platforms. If you could get it out of the air and you're holding its tail and you're just spinning him?

Yeah. Yeah, I'd do that. So I looked up some information. And when you look up what to do in a Komodo dragon attack, there's this really kind of annoying video that pops up that just seems very based on nothing as far as science goes. So I had to do quite a bit of digging to actually figure out what to do. And I watched some videos of just guides on Komoto interacting with Komodo dragons to learn a bit more about it. And what I could kind of piece together is that really important is traveling in groups.

They really don't like a lot of predators attacking groups of people. When you're in those places on one of those five islands, you want to stick to the marked pathways and trails. You want to keep your distance from dragons, so you don't want to get closer. You definitely don't want to get close enough to where it could lunge out and grab you. And then you want to be with a guide that's trained in their behavior. A couple other tips are avoiding strong smelling scents that might trigger their curiosity. They can't run fast for very long, so you actually can outrun this animal.

So, Jeff, you're not far off. If you're within a distance where... I can run faster than what you listed them at. Yeah, but if you're within a distance where it might catch you, another good thing to do is to have a large stick or a pole that you can kind of just use to push them away. And there's lots of videos... Pull vault over them. Yeah, you would be good at that.

They're like Gimli. Great for short distances, but not long. range runners. That's the exact quote. And they're not really that great for short distances. So if you actually, yeah, if you actually get bit and you want to fight back as hard as you can and get help from other people if possible, do whatever you can to prevent the lizard from ripping and tearing your flesh. So if you're bitten the doom guy. Rip and tear. It's kind of like his signature quote. I don't remember that. Yeah. If you are bitten, you want to apply pressure to the wound, to use a tourniquet, do whatever you can to stop the bleeding, because that's how you're going to die.

Get to a medical center, make sure they clean the wounds because they do, like any predator, have a lot of bacteria in their mouths. Some of the stuff I saw that I don't think is necessarily true. They were saying to run in zigzag patterns, which is a common thing they say for alligators and stuff too. That's not true. If you're running in zigzags, you're not running as fast away from the animal as you could be. You just want to get away from it as quickly as possible. Don't worry about doing zigzacks.

Just get away. I was just listening to the big picture from the ringer, the podcast. Yeah. And Amanda Davenz just like interrupted Sean to tell him. If you're being chased by it, they're talking about the movie Crawl. Yeah. And she's like, you know if an alligator's chasing you, just run in zigzags. Yeah, it's not true.

So if she's listening, she's wrong. Amanda, if you're out there, stop saying that on your podcast, please. All right. So our next category is if you could have a photo for. any of these attacks that you could then post Instagram or wherever else, what would you want? Our Instagram moment. Our Instagram moment. What do you guys think?

I'm going to put, I think this is like a good moment. If you're Jay, if you can get a picture of Phil getting bitten with like all the kids and Sharon Stone right in the middle. Yeah. At the glass staring at him getting bitten. Yeah. That would be a sweet picture. Definitely would have been in Time magazine. So, yeah.

Yeah, or mine would probably be him stuck halfway between the door while the lizards, like, still attacking him and clawing him and stuff. You gotta get Sharon Stone in. Yeah, she's in there too, for sure. Yeah, I was just going to say, like, a headshot from the interview that she gave. She's a beautiful woman. Just want to see a picture of Sharon. There's plenty online, Mike.

There can never be too many. All right. Your Instagram moment's just a picture of. Sharon, if you're listening, shooting my shot right now. Like before the attack, just hurt the zoo. Exactly. All right.

So our next category is going to be our truth and a lie, if you guys prepared for this. We did. All right. So this category, one of them is going to say a true fact about an animal. The other one's going to say made up fact. And I have to try and tease out which is which. And do I have to pay a penalty if I don't get it right?

Yeah. You can't be on the next episode. All right. Okay. Perfect. I'm going to get this one wrong on purpose. Oh, shoot. You're really helpful, so I hope you get this one right.

All right. Wes is good at this. Okay. You choose who goes first. Mike, you go first. Okay. Although usually I'm more... Tell which one you have.

Oh, yeah. I've got... So I'm doing a lie, Wes. All right. Okay. You got it? Yep. Or am I?

I'm doing the lie. All right. Let's hear it. Oh, we're in his head now. He'll never get this one. Okay. Although usually a more golden brown color, Arctic fox eyeballs turn blue in winter

to help them see at lower light levels. No other mammals are known to undergo this change. All right. You ready for mine? I'm ready. Orchid manuses can only eat food if their heads are upside down. Okay. This is a harder one.

I'm trying to think. Arctic fox eyeballs. I have been around a lot of Arctic foxes. I'm trying to think of the photos I've taken. I've taken photos of Arctic Fox in the winter and they had, they had yellow eyes. I'm going with Jeff's. Jeff's is true. Mike's is false.

Mike? What? I messed up. I know. They're both lies. They're both untrue. I don't know why. I looked up a true one and then I just switched it to a lie at the last thing.

I had no idea about yours. I was just saying yours. Mine's supposed to be Flamian. So we got it. We got you, Wes. No, I was saying yours was true because I knew Mike's was false. So I'm giving myself that one. Flamingos can only with their heads upside down.

You know what? In a similar vein. He would have guessed mine anyway. My fact also is true, but for reindeer in our Arctic fox. So reindeer eyeballs do change color in the winter. That's why it threw me off because I felt like I had heard that for something. But then I was thinking about all the Arctic fox I've seen. I was like none of them had blue eyes.

So, all right, I'm giving myself that one. Okay, well, that's fair. By default, he wins out. My bad. All right. Should we do some listener questions? Yeah, sure. Okay, so this one is from Owen.

What is the most remote place you have ever been, and how did you respond to the isolation? For me, it's the Arctic, like the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska on winter solstice, not having any sunlight. being out there essentially alone, just like with one other person, was really very isolating. And I think I responded pretty well to it. For me, it was like such an adventure that I did pretty well with it. But I also really enjoy alone time and being alone and being in really isolated places. I feel like the deep sea by yourself is like the only place you could get more isolated than the Arctic. Yeah, probably.

The Mariana Trench. How about you guys? I found myself, so this is like, I'll just, I'll say it and you guys can tell me if it counts, because it kind of doesn't. But the most isolated I have ever felt, even though I wasn't truly isolated, I was in this weird little corner of the Bangkok airport. And I truly felt like, bad start. Well, it was like there was not a single person, there were no attendance, there was no one working at any of the counters or anything. And I, for whatever reason, I felt like I was truly. alone in a completely abandoned building.

Interesting. And I loved it. It was like the coolest feeling I'd ever had because it was like, it felt like a last man on earth kind of scenario where like everyone just kind of all the sudden disappeared. And if I had wanted to, I could have just like run through the airport and like eating all the snacks off the shelves and all that stuff. I didn't. But it was just like.

Why was there no one in the airport? I don't know. It was so weird. Like it was this terminal that was completely empty. And weird. It was just a really surreal moment. I actually had that once, too, in the Detroit airport right at the start of the COVID pandemic. So, like, no one was flying.

So it's just like I was the only one there. It's crazy. Yeah, like you said, it felt like Walking Dead. Yeah. I don't really have a moment that sticks out to me, but I just think when I'm out in the woods and it's snowing and I'm by myself, everything goes quiet and I just feel like a real sense. of isolation. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah. Cool. Next question. This one's from Nora. How do you get out or into pants or shirts slash sweatshirts that are inside out or when you're exhausted? Do you rassel it or fold it or pull it out neatly or do you have a dance to get out of it? Please do tell.

So I actually fold mine up, but I don't put them away. I kind of like make sure my pants are all folded in straight and nice and I just drape it over my desk chair for easy access the next day. So like it's kind of like a cleanly chaos if that makes any sense. But yeah, when I'm exhausted, they get folded, but they don't get put away. I don't fold or put them away. When I'm exhausted, they are just staying on the floor. I'll deal with them later.

Inside out on the floor. Yeah. Okay. I normally just like slip right out of my pants. But my new Viorey pants that we got last year, like around the ankles is pretty tight so I'm like habit I tried to slip out of them and then it never works and then I have to like inch it past my heel and kind of like walk backwards to get out of them and then my socks always end up getting stuck in them oh man and then that's how I get out of those good thing they're not a sponsor

anymore why I like I love this yeah I like them too it's a high price to pay though do you ever like trip like one of the Star Wars AT-A-Ts with your ankles all stuck in them. It's probably how I'm going to like break my next bow. You'll have to report how many ouches that counts as. Okay, next question. This is from Raphael. I was just wondering what the weirdest bear slash animal dream you've ever had is. For me, I have a really hard time remembering dreams unless I have them over and over and over again.

I'll remember them in the morning, but then I don't remember them later. but I do a weird one that I had a lot as a kid, like once a month, and probably a few times as an adult, was I'm like walking in this wooded pathway, and all of a sudden this door appears, and I go into the door, and then I'm just in the most wonderful pet store that I've ever been in my life with just all these really interesting reptiles,

and I just loved that dream, and I had it all the time. And so that's the one I'm going to say, because that's the only one I can remember. You said you have like bear dreams every week. I do. I just don't remember them. I can't remember him.

Even right now, I like, I know I have this recurring one where I'm in Alaska and I'm seeing polar bears, but I can't remember enough details to like say it on the podcast. I remember him in the morning for like maybe a half an hour and then I forget him. Yeah. Yeah. Mike told me once that he like keeps a dream journal where he like would wake up and write in a journal and then that helped him like remember his dreams. longer. So I was like, oh, I should start doing that. And then I just like never have dreams that I remember ever. So then I was like, I guess I can't even get started. I talked about this on an earlier episode, but when I prepared the panglin bonus episode, it's the only animal attack

dream I've ever had. And it was of a panglin attacking me. It was the most realistic dream I've ever had. I like, I think I even said, I like reached up really quick to like push it off of my shoulder when I was awake and I accidentally like hit myself in the face and gave myself a bloody nose. But when I was little, I used to have a lot of dreams of Woody the Woodpecker. I just thought he was the coolest character. I don't, I'm not even sure if he's supposed to be cool or funny or what. I feel like he's annoying. All right.

But my dream I'd just be looking out of my bedroom window and he'd be just in his little tree hole looking out. Yeah. Not really doing anything, but. All right. So that's weird. Jeff, do you have a couple from Instagram? Yeah.

from Chaya Kevedo. Sorry about that one, listener. Which herbivore scares you the most? For me, it's moose. I've just had some, I've been charged by moose, I've had some run-ins with them. They're pretty unpredictable and huge. So for me, it's moose. How about you guys?

For me, it's either, it's probably a hippo. But I don't know, I do love hippo. I'm not really scared of any herbivores, to be honest. Yeah. It'd probably be a bronosaurus. Okay, that's a good pick. All right. Mike?

Any herbivores? Oh, penguins aren't herbivores. No. They're what? Bug ofores. Yeah. I'll just go with, I don't know, like an elephant. If I were to get close enough to one, it would frighten me, I'm sure.

I just never have. So we'll say undetermined, but pending confirmation elephant. Coalas don't ski? No. I posted a video darting. Instagram of a koala attacking a kid. I would never have sex with a koala. You're not afraid to get syphilis?

All right. Chlamydia. Sean Van 3,000 wants to know. Do animals ever attack because they get horny? Yeah, they do. I don't think they're attacking. It's because they're like in the rut. Like elk in the rut will attack people because they're just like horny and pissed off and

competing for. So I think it's more that the aggression comes as a result of the horse. horniness. So it's more testosterone probably. Yeah, there's just lots of hormones pumping and they're just pissed because they're horny and trying to mate. So yeah, they for sure do. That's a common thing.

Camels do it. We've talked about dolphins too. And that's, I don't know, that's like kind of a different category of attack. Then it's not an attack. I guess it is an attack, but it's more of an animal trying to mate with something. Right. But it's not necessarily trying to injure or hurt that thing. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, from Johnny Boy T2. Wonder if he's a Terminator. What prey animal would be scariest to be, and what's an advantage you'd give yourself? I would mainly like the first part of this one, though. Like, what prey animal would you be most scared to be? I always think rabbits, because just everything eats rabbits.

Birds eat them. They are, like, pretty quick, at least, though. Yeah, but you're just... Otherwise, like, a freaking turtle. It's just like, I guess I can't get out of your way. Yeah. There's just not that much that eats turtles, though, and they can tuck into their shells and stuff. For me, a rabbit, it's just like, they have no defense aside from speed, and everything eats them.

Are sloths the prey animal? Yeah, they are. Like, harpy eagles eat them, cats eat them. I'd be most scared if I was a sloth. Okay. Because it's just like, if anything ever comes for me, I got nothing. You toast. Yeah.

It's a good pick. Yeah, I like that. I think being a bunny wouldn't be too bad because at least while you're alive, you're pretty cute and that's nice. Sloss are cute too, though. If you're, yeah, that's true. But if you're like a krill and you just have like existential crises every day all day long for like the whale coming up and just swallowing you, you never know when it's going to happen.

You're pretty powerless to stop it. And you're not very cute, in my opinion. Here's my, it's a good point. Here's my problem with that answer is you kind of have like a, false sense of security because you have so many other krill around you all the time. That's a good thought. That it's kind of like, this is where I'm supposed to be. No way this huge whale can eat all of us, right?

Yeah. That's a good. Okay. I think those are all good answers, though. I like all those answers. I don't know. I just really critiquing. I think I just, I think I just demolishing Mike's answer to be honest with you.

That's embarrassing. I think we've shown. Just end them with that. Yeah, let's end it there. That's a great answer to finish on. Okay. I mean, we can't have Mike keep talking after I just did that to him. Yeah, Mike, you're done with the podcast.

I'm turn my nice off right now. Well, we got to know how much you like Komodos first, though. We also need to know a little bit about their conservation. They are IUCN endangered. They're listed on the IUCN red list. They're an animal that are uniquely threatened by climate change of almost I think I read one statistic that of any predator in the world, they have the smallest home range. They really don't exist in many places, and those places are small islands, and climate change could quickly impact the habitat on those islands and make them almost unlivable for Komodo dragons, especially the lowland areas that would be flooded with sea level rise.

So they're very vulnerable to climactic changes from climate change. The other threats include volcanic activity. They live in a very volcanically active part of the world. Fire, irresponsible tourism, which leads to direct encounters with humans, poaching of prey and direct poaching of Komoto dragons. A wild-caught Komoto dragon can go for as much as $35,000 on the black market, and they are an attractive target for wildlife smugglers. Yeah.

So their numbers have decreased from around up to 8,000 in the late 90s to as low as 30,000. 1,300 today. That's the lowest number I found. Some people say that there's many more than that, but the lowest estimate was 1,300, and they are definitely decreasing in numbers. So they're an animal that's in some trouble. All right. So how much do we like Komodo dragons? If you ask me this when I was 10, I would have said they are a 10 out of 10 gold star 10 kly animal for me. I think now I'm going to say they're in 9. I still absolutely love them. World's biggest lizard, just so cool how they move and everything. Them constantly drooling and stuff is where I think they get docked a point for me. But aside from that, I think they're a 10. They're not the most

beautiful lizards either. But I just think they're amazing. And like a big bucket list item for me is to go to Komoto to see Komodo dragons. So they're nine. Ride one. Check that off your list. I'm not going to ride one. I'm giving them an eight. No. Kind of for like in a similar line of thought that, I've just kind of progressively been less and less impressed by an animal that has the word dragon in its name. It just keeps like not living up to how cool I would. Even now, huh? Yeah. It's a cool lizard.

Lizards are all cool and it's huge and that's sweet, but top marks is tough to give him. Okay. That's my issue too is like, I don't know. I almost feel like a smaller lizard should have the name dragon with them. Like the bascom, there are some. There are ones that can. Bascalis. Bascalis that can, like, run on water.

If they were called, like, dragons, like, that'd be the coolest animal ever. That's a good thought. Like, what if it was just called the Komodo lizard? What if it didn't have dragon in its name? I think I might even go lower, to be honest. Right. Yeah. What if you saw one just running into a tree with a goat in its mouth, though?

I would give that specific one a 10. This is an interesting one where, like, I've, learned some really interesting facts about them that, like, I think are cool facts that don't make me like them more. Okay. And I've never loved them. I'm going, I'm putting them at even 200. Huh.

And put in them at a six. All right. Well, I guess I won't go to Komodo with either of you. I'll just go with someone else. Uh, yeah. Sure. I mean, maybe though, if I, I'm sure if I go there and see one, they'll be in my top 50 after that.

Okay. So they got some of the... But I guess your resolution's not that. That's a good reason for you to change people's minds. I'm not trying to change anyone's minds. All right. Well, we're probably at like two hours on this one. So thanks everyone.

A failure of a resolution. For, yeah. Thanks for listening. Thanks for hearing us talk about Komodo Dragons. You know, we're looking forward to what this new year has to bring for this little podcast. So thanks for being along on this ride. We sure love you. I sure love you guys.

Oh, love you too, Wes. You say love me and Mike twice there? No, I meant I was talking to the listeners first. Oh, I thought you were talking to us both times. Yeah. No, there's other people besides us that are going to be hearing us. No, I know. It just, to me, it came off like he loves, like you, Mike, and you, Jeff.

I'll take it if that's what you meant. Double love. All right, love you guys. Bye. We'll see it.