Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Spider Attack - Yorick, The Sydney Funnel-Web Spider

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

Wes has an only-slightly creepy, a little sad, and surprisingly endearing story about a woman, her family, and a spider. Jeff gets inappropriate again, and Mike follows suit.  ~~ 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

Hey everyone, welcome back to Tooth and Claw. On this episode, we're talking about the Sydney Funnel Web Spider. That's right, it's a spooky, creepy crawly special. It's not really a special episode. It's a regular episode with a little bit of creepy crawly thrown in. So be prepared for that. A huge thank you to everyone that's listening right now. We appreciate that you're even here.

If you want to hear even more of us, we have actually a lot of bonus content that's exclusive to everyone that's subscribed to us over on Patreon. We actually just did a pretty fun little tier list episode about a bunch of iconic animal attack movie scenes. So if you want to hear us discuss that, you can go ahead and sign up to be a subscriber over on Patreon. And you can find that at www. www. patreon.com slash tooth and claw podcast. And we put out more mini episodes for our Patreon subscribers every other week. So without any further ado, let's get on with the show.

Hey guys, good morning. Morning. How you doing? I'm doing all right. I'm a little tired. Okay. Yeah. A little sleepy.

How are you feeling, Jeff? I feel good. I'm a little cold. Jeff is a visual right now. Jeff's very tired. And then he's got a blanket draped over his shoulders. Not tired. And he's almost, he's nodding off.

Should we, like, introduce our podcast? Sure. Tooth and Cloud podcast. Got West, Wildlife Biologist. Jeff, Field Tech, Mike, our programmer. Programmer. Producer. I guess it would be a better P word.

No, producer slash co-host. You guys, really? Yeah, of course. That's what you consider me? Yeah. It's like an upgrade from what I thought. Yeah, for those of you who are new to the podcast, we've been around now for a little bit,

telling stories about animal attacks. And, yeah, and we're trying to do our best to tell these stories in a way that helps you appreciate the natural world and realize that these animals are just being animals. They're not vicious, they're not bloodthirsty, they're not all of these things that we ascribe to them or subscribe, whatever, a scribe. Subscribed. No, I think it's ascribe. They're animals being animals and sometimes, or usually in any attack, it's the person that's making some sort of mistake that causes the animal to respond in either a predatory or defensive way.

That's what this podcast is about. We celebrate animals. Animals are... We love animals. With few exceptions, animals are cool. I'd say mosquitoes, maybe like grizzly bears, I wouldn't... Say the one you're really thinking. Hips.

Horses is the way you're really thinking. Yeah. You don't like hippos? Not really. Oh my gosh. I saw a video the other day of like a brand new baby hippo and it was cute. Anyway, we're coming to you live from a senior citizen community where we're recording today. We have a special guest.

Jeff is currently living. Grandpa's ghost? Grandpa's ghost. We're in his old house. So coming at you live is a little disingen. I said live, didn't I? Well, we are live right now. Just no audience before zero audience members.

I guess we are. Yeah, but right now we are live. Yeah. Today's episode is a creepy episode. We're doing a creepy crawly. And, you know, last week and the week before, we did the Lions of Savo, which I would, you know, there's a strong argument for lions being the most regal animal that exists. And so I think we're taking a big, we're taking a big right turn here,

and we're doing a very creepy little animal that a lot of people probably don't like, but we're going to talk about why you should like them, which is a spider. Ooh, cool. We're going to do, we are going to talk about what's widely considered to be the world's most dangerous spider. You know, with what you're saying, I see both sides on that issue, like more than any other animal. Yeah. Where people love spiders. I'm like, oh, I get that.

Yeah. When people hate spiders, I'm like, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I'll say that I'm not a huge spider fan. Yeah. I get a little. It's Spider-Man. I think they're cool. That's what they call themselves.

They're Spider-Man. I get a little, I get a little creeped out by spiders sometimes, but not enough to ever let it stop me from doing anything. Like, I don't have an actual fear, but I, like, I'll crawl into a cave or I'll do, I'll, like, go into the jungle or whatever. But, and, like, if a spider web gets on my face, it. I'm going to be like, oh, gross. It's not going to make me freak out. But if someone was like, hey, do you want to hold this really creepy spider, I'd be like, maybe not.

Unless it's like, I like, I like, tarantulas. But if it was like one of the really fast ones or something, I'd be like, it's okay. Yeah. No, I mean, crawling into it like a spider den would be scarier than a bear den. Yeah, I'd agree. Like Sheelib's layer or whatever. I wouldn't want to mess with Sheelbub. Is that what the story's about?

It is. We're talking about Sheelub, who lives in the past above. Syrith Uncle. And, no. Actually, it's funny you mention that because we're going to talk about the Sydney Funnel Web Spider, which Shilab was modeled after. Oh, really? Yeah.

Cool. Well, there's a New Zealand version of that spider that looks about the exact same that Peter Jackson hates and thinks as like a really creepy-looking spider, and that's who he modeled Shilab after. That's what I read on the internet. Would I be safe to assume these spiders' webs look like for? Funnels. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So as I was saying, this is considered to be one of the world's most dangerous spiders. They live in Australia. We'll talk a little bit more about their range. But they, yeah, a lot of times when you hear about spider bites and kind of gnarly spider attacks, I'm saying that in quotation marks. You can tell because his voice went by the...

Yeah, attacks. It's the universal language for air quotes. Um, it often it's a Sydney Funnelweb spider. There's a few other species. There's Brazilian wandering spiders. There's the famous black widow. There's, um, brown recluses, hobo spiders that people often get bit by. But Sydney Funnel webs are probably the spider that are responsible for the most human deaths that are recorded.

Wow. Yeah. So are you guys ready for the story? Never been readier for anything. Really? Wow. That's a big statement. I'm ready.

Okay. Yeah. I'm not as ready as Mike, but I am ready. Okay, cool. This story takes place at the very end of 2016. It's on Boxing Day when the bite actually happens. Do either of you know what Boxing Day is? I thought that is Canadian.

It's from the UK. So any of like any places that were colonized by the UK tend to celebrate Boxing Day. Well, we like the entire known world almost. It's a good point. I don't know why we don't. But like Australia's celebration. celebrates it, the UK celebrates it. I imagine Canada. I think places that still have that tie. Like Canada still has the tie to the UK. Boxing Day is the day after Christmas. And from what I can

understand, it's just pretty much like second Christmas. Oh, nice. I think it started as like a day to give gifts to the poor, but just like everything else, it became like pretty commercialized. And now it's just essentially like, hey, Christmas Day 2. I think the U.S. Forget about the poor. Yeah. I think the USA got rid of it on the same day that we dumped all the tea into the Boston Harbor, and we're also like, screw Boxing Day too. And that's when the true separations between us. Yeah, that's the foot note to the Boston Tea Party. Also, this was about Boxing Day. Anyway, it's Boxing Day 2016, and we are, our person that we're going to be talking about is 51-year-old Fiona Donna. Her last name, I believe, is pronounced that way. It's D-O-N-A-G-H. And she was enjoying to with her family during the holidays. She's a hardworking teacher. She's a widow and a mother of a 10-year-old

boy. And the holidays were like a really welcome vacation for her because she had this day-to-day grind. She was really hardworking. And this year was extra special because her sister had actually flown in from France and was visiting her and her son. So Christmas had been pretty pleasant for them. Boxing day was like kind of a quieter day where they were just relaxing from Christmas, doing some chores around the house, and just visiting with each other. And as he was a little. And as he was a little bit of. And as he was, these two women caught up, Fiona and her sister. What they didn't know is the tiny little predator on the hunt for a mate and looking for some daytime cover slipped into her freshly washed clothes. So Fiona's sister didn't notice this little stowaway when she picked up this pile of clothes

and put them on her sister's bed. And then as she left the room, she didn't see as the spider scurried out and found a new hiding place in the sheets. That's scary. Yeah. I'm scared. So that night, that night Fiona and her sister, they put Fiona. his son Oscar to bed, and then it was a holiday night, so they stayed up late, drinking a few glasses of champagne and talking. But Fiona's sister was still pretty jet lagged from her flight, and around 11 she decided to go to bed, which made Fiona decide that she would also turn in for the night.

You know, if this story ends with, like, a death, I'm at least happy. It sounds like she had a really nice day. Yeah, she's had, you know, she had a good time catching up with her sister. It was Christmas. Nice. So as Fiona enters her room, she moves this pile of laundry from the top of her bed and crawls into the sheets. But she didn't know it at that point. She wasn't alone in that bed. The spider, right? Spoiler alert. It was the spider.

I mean, I'm a little relieved, honestly, that it wasn't like a person. Yeah, it'd be a lot worse. Unless it was like Oscar. A couple hours into the night, Fiona gets up to go to the bathroom. She drank a little bit before she went to bed. And then she settles back into bed, but it's summer in Australia. Their summer is opposite of ours. And it's pretty hot.

So she's having a hard time falling asleep, and she's tossing and turning in bed when she feels something on her leg. So immediately, she hopes to God that it wasn't a spider. She grew up in Australia, and she knows that Australia is home to a lot of venomous stuff, a lot of stuff that can kill you. And she knew there's a lot of animals you had to avoid. Funnel web spiders being one of them. And then they also have like a red back spider and a few other spiders that if you get bit, you're in a lot of trouble.

And for her, especially spiders incited a different kind of fear. And she actually was a self-diagnosed arachnophobic. So she really doesn't care for spiders. So she feels something on her leg and she's like, that better not be a spider. Do you think arachnophobia is the most widely held phobia? I don't know. Maybe heights? I would say maybe dark.

Death, maybe. Arachnophobia is definitely top 10. It's up there, yeah. You know she has it too when she feels something on her leg and her first thing is like, that better not be a spider. Yeah, which is honestly how I feel when I'm in bed and I feel something crawling on me. My first thought is, I hope it's not a spider. Like, I hope it's a beetle or something else.

It's like always just an itch for me. Was that a spider and it's just like my leg? But then you never know. You spend the rest of the night being like, I think there's a spider nest in my leg. It almost always is an itch or a hair or something, but every once in a while when it actually is a spider, and you feel that first little tingle and you're like, oh, yeah, it's probably just, you know, whatever. And then you feel like run up your leg, you're like, oh, shit.

You know, and you like throw the blankets back and turn on the lights. And like where me and Jeff grew up in Montana, our parents' house always has tons of big hobo spiders in the basement. And they are just constantly running over you. And I used to always sleep on the floor. That was where I always wanted to sleep every night. I just set up like a sleeping bag on the floor. And I had spiders running over me all the time.

All night. And I kind of got used to it, but at the same time, you don't want them on you, you know? Do you think you ate more than that, what is it, like seven spiders a year or whatever? Probably. I would eat like hundreds. Dude, I would come out of my room in the morning and see Wes on the floor, like, wrapped up like Frodo. After his Shilov gets him. And Jeff would be like, oh, not again.

I'd have to cut a moose and wake them up. Anyway, so Fiona's pretty scared because she not only thinks there might be a spider in the bed with her, but she lives in Australia where it's not just like, oh, there might be this little house spider. It's like, oh, there could be a spider in here that could kill me. What she didn't know is that there actually was a spider in bed with her, and it wasn't just any spider. It was the Sydney Funnelwep spider. And they're considered, as I said, to be one of the most dangerous spiders in the world.

and they're really feared throughout eastern Australia. How big are they? We're just going to, I'm going to say that right now. All right. Thank you for the segue. You're welcome. Funnel web spiders are blackish brown. They're medium sized.

They're typically about two inches long. So it's pretty big. I mean, that's like a decent size. Yeah? I guess. And the biggest one ever was like a total of like four inches long. A really big penis. Yeah.

Right. They're relatively hairless spiders. They have two. Oh, man. I think I lost you guys. Keep going. We're good. They're relatively hairless spiders.

They have two large spinnerets on their abdomens. So when you see like the spider's abdomen, it's those two little things that poke off of it. Mike. All right. So they have two large spinnerets, which are the things that actually create the silk that they use. And then males actually have a mating spur halfway down their second leg. So that's how you can tell the males apart from the females.

On their second leg, they have this little spur, and they actually use that. They hook into the females fangs with those spurs while they're mating, which is pretty interesting. They pretty much look like a small hairless tarantula. And as we mentioned earlier, like Shilab was a reference. Like, they used the spiders a reference. So picture Shilob, that's kind of what a funnel spider looks like. When threatened, they actually will rear up on their back legs and they poke their fangs out.

Oh, I like when spiders do that. Yeah. So usually when you see those photos of a spider reared up and it has like kind of a pink mouth with the big fangs and they're black, that's a funnel web spider. Okay, cool. They're pretty intimidating. Their webs are really cool looking. Yeah. So that's the next thing I was going to talk about again.

They spend their time under logs and rocks and they dig these little burrows and then they make these funnel looking webs in that burrow. and they lay a bunch of essentially trap lines out in front of them or trip lines. And so then when any kind of little cricket or beetle or even small lizards or frogs pass in front of that burrow and they trip one of those lines, the spider runs out, grabs it, kills it, brings it back into its burrow and eats it. Wow. So they're pretty cool hunters. And they have a specific type of neurotoxin.

It's called a delta hexatoxin. And it kills humans by essentially, it attacks your nervous system. It's a neurotoxin. But it turns on all your nerves at the same time and they just continually fire. Oh, that sounds awful. Yeah. So in severe cases, it leads to extreme nerve pain, shortness of breath, sweating, numbness, excess salivation, excess lacrimation. Do you guys know what lacrimation is?

No. It's crying. It's just like you just can't stop crying. No, I know what that is. Yeah. Huge muscle spasms, dangerous drops and blood pressure, coma, organ failure, and death. 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.

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That's kind of a rundown on Sydney Funnel Web spiders. So Fiona's in bed and she feels something on her leg. And as we mentioned, like we've all been in this position where you're kind of like, there might be something in here, but it's probably nothing. But suddenly it scurries up her whole leg. And she realizes like, okay, there's something in here for sure. They're small for a tarantula, but like... It's a big spider.

Yeah. If it's a spider, like, that's big. You're going to feel it, you know? Totally. I don't think any of us want any spider bigger than like a jumping spider in our bed. See, I prefer no spider. Yeah. Okay.

I kind of think the little jumping spiders are cute. I don't think it'd bother me at all. I just get a little lonely. All right. Okay. Well, we're the good part of this story, so I'm going to go back to it. Anyway, so she feels it run up her leg and she immediately knows her mind's not playing tricks on her. She's got something big in her bed with her.

And she starts kicking her legs in the air and flailing her arms. And then she feels the spider like in a flash run up to her torso and bite her right underneath her left breast. So she feels a stabbing pain and she knows that she's been bitten. That just sucks. Yeah. And the spider had also bitten her upper left arm, but the pain from the torso bite was immediately so painful. and was spreading so rapidly she didn't even realize that she'd been bitten twice. So she had already been bitten and then that was the second time?

I think it bit her on the torso and then the arm like really quickly. This is a spider that's known for biting multiple times when it bites. In the past, she'd actually been stung by a Portuguese man-in-war jellyfish in the ocean, which I've been stung by one of those two and it hurts. It feels like a bunch of bee stings. And she compared this bite to that. She said that immediately she had pain just radiating through her chest. and it was coming in waves and she felt like her chest was on fire.

Oh, man. Wow. So she jumps out of bed, she turns on the light, and immediately she sees this huge, large black spider on her bed. And her education in Australia taught her that species identification is really important if you're going to get anti-venom or treatment. So she runs into the kitchen and grabs a glass bowl, runs back into a room and traps the spider. I'm so glad I live in a place where that's not part of my regular education. Honestly, though, it's a good thing. It's a good thing to know, even in the U.S.

Like, if you get bit by a spider and you have immediate pain, especially, you should catch it because they're going to want to know what kind it is. Right. Let's give props to her for doing that. Totally. Yeah. Like catching the spider right after. Like, I'd be pretty freaked out.

She's tough. This whole story, I'm like, man, this lady did everything right. So she traps the spider, and then she goes and looks in the mirror and she sees that a rash is already starting to spread out from her bites. She realizes that she has the, the second bite at this point. And she goes to wake up her sister. And she lets her sister know that she'd been bitten by a spider and she may need to go to

the hospital. So I was thinking about that. If I was in bed and Jeff, if you like woke me up and we're like, hey, I got bit by a spider. I need to go to the hospital. I'd be like, no, you don't. Yeah. Go to bed, you know?

In fact, once I was in Mexico camping and we were just sleeping, it was in Bayea where we've all been and like we're sleeping on the beach and my friend got bit by a scorpion. and he woke me up and was like, hey, I think I got stung by a scorpion. He got stung, not bit. And I went to his little tent, and I found it. And it was a little yellow bark scorpion, and they're actually, like, pretty gnarly.

And so what we ended up doing is drawing a circle around it and then seeing if it, like, had spread in the morning. Oh, wow. If it goes beyond the borders of that circle, then we were going to go to the hospital. And it didn't, but he actually had, like, numbness for months after that piece. Oh, my gosh. But he probably didn't love it.

that I was just like, oh, go to bed. It's just a scorpion. Anyway, they know that she's been bit by the spider, and they look at the spider who they named Yorick at this point. They named it. They named it Yorick, which made me just like them even more. It was very endearing that they named the spider Yorick. They go to the internet to try and find out what kind of spider Yorick might be,

and Fiona's in a lot of pain, but she has no other symptoms. At this point, it's just the pain from the bite. And she remembers thinking, okay, if this was a funnel web, I would probably have a lot of other stuff happening. And so she kind of writes off that it's not a funnel web spider. She thinks it's something else. So they're looking on the worldwide web. Yep, they're on the old internet. If it was a funnel web.

Oh, I got it. It's pretty good on the web. It's a good joke. Yeah, it's a great joke. Got it. I'm laughing inside. Thanks. It's a bad joke.

She was a bit reluctant to call emergency services because she'd imagine. that they were going to be really dismissive. Again, they're in Australia. People get bitten by spiders all the time. And she thought they were going to be like, stop wasting our time. It's just a spider. And she didn't feel like she was going to die, but she decided that she would call a hospital and talk to a nurse.

So she calls the hospital. She's on hold for like 15 minutes, and she's continuing to talk herself down this whole time and assuring herself that the spite isn't going to be that serious because their only symptoms so far is this pain. But just a quick aside, If you're bitten by a spider and you have immediate radiating burning pain, you should call a hospital or call 911 or something immediately

because a typical spider bite isn't going to do that. If you have that kind of immediate reaction, you're probably dealing with a spider that's pretty venomous. And honestly, if you get by another spider, I think all spiders have some type of venom, but some of them have much more potent venom. And if it's immediate response, if you have an immediate response in your body, you should take care of it. Okay.

So the nurse comes on the line. It's been about 25 minutes now since she had been bitten. And she tells the nurse she'd been bitten by a large black spider, but that she was pretty confident it wasn't a funnel web. And the nurse is like, hey, none of us hear are spider experts. I'm not a spider expert. You two aren't spider experts. Let's just treat this like it's an emergency. So the nurse actually called emergency services for them.

That's a good nurse. Yeah. At this point, this neurotoxin is working its way through Fiona's body, and it's starting to work its magic on her. And Fiona's lips, tongue, and face start to go numb and get really tingly. And that happens right as the nurse was asking her how she's feeling, and she's like, oh, I feel different now.

Those were her exact words. Yeah. So the average time, as I mentioned, for symptoms to start in cases of severe and Venomation with Sydney Funnel Web Spiders is about 28 minutes. And that's about exactly how long Fiona had been, how long it had been since she had been bitten. So her tingly face was accompanied by extreme sweating and saliva production, shortness of breath, and muscle spasms.

So that all kind of started happening all at once. And then she's like, okay, I'm in, I'm in some trouble here. This is, this is bad. So the ambulance takes about 30 minutes to arrive. Oh, no. And remember, this is a spider that can kill a person. in under an hour. Why is it taking some?

I have no idea. Probably because when they called the ambulance, they were still like, hey, this could just be, you know, whatever. Weird. Yeah, but it took 30 minutes. Maybe it was a boxing day thing. Who knows? And the paramedics actually didn't have any anti-venom with them.

So she remembers, Fiona remembers feeling like she probably wasn't going to make it to the hospital and that she was just a goner and she had this sensation of reality slipping away. And the paramedics put her on oxygen. and they tried to treat her symptoms as they loaded her into the ambulance. But as she was riding in the ambulance ambulance, she was holding one of the paramedics hands, and his name was David. And she remembers this kind of a weird detail from this story.

She remembers feeling like really cold and sick and scared and anxious when she has this vision of a huge golden butterfly, flapping its huge wings and landing on her stomach, and then like moving to her feet and spinning her up with like golden thread. and making her into like a little cocoon. And when that happened, she felt this extreme feeling of warmth and comfort and happiness. And I... Interesting.

That's really weird. They gave her some drugs. And for sure, I want to try whenever they gave her. I kind of want to try one of those spider bites now. Yeah, serious. Is that a byproduct of some venomous bites as like hallucinations and stuff like that? I don't think this was a spider bite. It might be like a combination, though.

I'm pretty sure. they drugged her up because she mentioned that she thinks they'd given her some pretty potent drugs. I bet you it's the drugs reacting with like the venom and everything. Right now there, there's someone like getting a funnel web spider and some morphine. Yeah. Don't like, all right. Let us try it. Let us know how it is. A little cocktail is spider venom and drugs. I have a question about the spider bite. So you said the quickest anyone's died is 15 minutes. Those is a small child. Is it like guaranteed you die if you don't get treated? It's not. It's not. No, and we'll talk about that a little bit.

So, like, what I guess my mind right now is, like, what are her chances of dying? Very, very slim. Okay. And we'll talk about why that is. So Fiona's in her butterfly cocoon. She opens her eyes, and she asks David if she's going to die. And he replies, I've done everything for you, I can at this point. So you need to decide what do you have to live for?

Which is a pretty terrible answer, but also a good answer. Yeah. Because it's like really scary that could definitely bump up your anxiety a lot. But then it also is like, you got to fight at this point. It wakes you up. Yeah. And it did for her. And she thought of her 10-year-old son, Oscar, who had already lost his dad when he was like three months old and would be alone in the world if Fiona died.

So she was thinking of him. She decided she's going to fight. And then she passes out. So she didn't fight very long, I guess. She tried that. So York, the spider, also made the journey to the hospital. They put him in a little urine jar. And how's he doing?

He's rearing back up on his legs and showing his fangs to everyone. And everyone's pretty fascinated with urine. So he probably doesn't need to go to the hospital. No, York's probably okay. He's doing it. Well, so far. Was there urine in the jar or not? No. Okay.

So he's good. And everyone's pretty fascinated with York because these spiders do live in burrows. They're not a spider you typically see out and about. And so a lot of Australians haven't actually even seen a Sydney Funnel Webb spider. So when they actually see one in person, it's fascinating. So they arrive at Boral Hospital, and she's given two doses of antivenom for Sydney funnel web spiders, and her sweating stops immediately. So they realize, okay, we've got the right anti-venom.

This definitely was a funnel web, and then they have York there as well. So they let the doctors know, okay, this is what we should be treating her for. However, when the sweating stops, Fiona still feels really sick, and she's transferred to an intensive care unit in a different hospital. and the doctors there debating what they should do with her. So her memory for the rest of that night is a little hazy, but her sister shows up, and when they get to the ICU,

the sister lets Fiona know that she's in the exact same little hospital stall. They called a cubicle in the story as her husband was in. The night that... So the night that she gave birth to Oscar, her husband who had pretty serious cancer, was also hospitalized that same night. And he was hospitalized in the exact same. cubicle that she is now in, which is pretty crazy. Yeah, that's, I wouldn't want that if I was her.

Yeah, it's, I mean, who knows? Like, that's such a, a wild thing. Also, just for reference, I don't think I mentioned this. Most of these details I got from a news.com.com.a u. article about this story, but there's a bunch of articles about it. I pulled different little tidbits from a lot of different articles. So, the doctors are pretty worried that Fiona's condition isn't really improving. Some of the symptoms have stopped, but she still is feeling pretty sick. And they decide to give her two more doses of anti-venom. They're typically pretty hesitant to do that because anti-venom has some associated side effects, and it can make a person pretty sick because you're essentially just putting venom into that. Why not just do one more dose in? I don't know. It's a good question. Yeah.

She's not getting any better, and they decide to administer these other two vials. Meanwhile, York's pretty unhappy. He's in his tiny jar. Everyone thought he was looking pretty sad. So a nurse takes a needle and decides to poke some holes in the top of the jar for him. And she accidentally lances him and kills poor York. Oh, what? Yeah. So this ends York's journey.

Fiona's actually really disappointed to hear this. She felt pretty bad for York. She knew that he had been swept into kind of this unexpected adventure and that he was just reacting to a threat. And, you know, we mentioned when he ran up her leg, She started kicking and flailing and stuff, and that's when she got bitten. He probably at that point was just trying to get away because she slid into bed with him. He realized, like, he's not in a safe place and is trying to get out. The spider wasn't attacking her.

He wasn't trying to, like, kill her. So she should have just T-Rexed it? What do you mean? Just stay completely still? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what T-Rexed is. Well, yeah, I get that. I know.

It's widely known that. It's not like the T-Rex did stay still though So what kind of body... But do you think if she stayed still, it would have bitter? I think there's a good chance it would have left her alone. But who's going to stay still in that situation? No one. Yeah.

You know? Anyway, so York's dead. Mike, did you have a question? Well, I was just going to ask whether... What kind of body language Yorick had to make everyone think he was sad? That's a good question. Because he, like, curled up in a ball and what fingers. His little...

Yeah. Yeah, that is good. Because it's impossible to tell it with us. Spiders. Spiders just look menacing. Yeah, if there was an animal, if you were to say like, what's the animal that is probably hardest

to read emotions on it, I would probably be like, a spider. Anyway. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd, but too often,

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Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Okay, Fiona, to her credit, feels pretty bad that Yorick loses his life because of this whole incident. But the next day, she's waiting in the hospital. She's starting to recover. She FaceTime with Oscar,

but she's still in the ICU and under observation. and she starts to complain about her asthma acting up and that she's having problems breathing. And rather than simply give her more asthma medication, which a nurse that isn't really paying attention would probably do, her nurse, who is a really great nurse apparently, decided they should put her back on oxygen and perform a few more tests. And when they do, they realize that her lungs are filling with fluid.

And this is complications from both the bite and the extra anti-venom, they think. So they do this. and then they also realized that she's starting to show the signs of heart failure. So they call a cardiologist in, and he realizes that she's having a heart attack. Oh, no. So they take her to an acute ICU ward where she's treated for heart failure, which she ended up having a heart attack. Half of her heart wasn't working.

And she has to stay in the hospital now for a few more days. And then finally, her vitals do come back to normal, and she is able to leave. Fiona actually ended up keeping Yorick. he's totally like dried out now but she has the little jar that he's in and she and all of her neighbors ended up getting pest control for like two meters away from their homes yeah that's a good call yeah so that's the story i thought it was a pretty interesting one yeah and also sure thanks kind of nightmarish because oh it's so scary that's something we all think about and it can just easily happen to anyone yeah like you're just getting in bed i think a bed bite is the scariest for me

because that's supposed to be such a safe, secure place. Like, if I'm out, like, picking up rocks or something and I get bit by a spider, you kind of have it in the back of your head. There might be something under that rock or whatever. But when you crawl into your bed, you don't want there to be anything in there. My scariest one is... Well, I watched a show once where a lady had a black widow in her shoe. Yeah, shoes are bad.

And that one, like, I honestly think about it so much When I, like, have shoes just sitting at. Yeah, when I'm in spidery places, I always shake out my shoes before I put them on. Oh, I don't. Yeah. Wouldn't you just kill that spider pretty easily if you just slip into the shoe? There's, like, like, there's a decent amount of people that have been bitten by Black Widows and even funnel webs by putting their feet in shoes and getting bit. Yeah.

Interesting. And you might kill it, but it might bite you first. So no shoes is the way to go. Don't ever wear shoes. Yeah. So a little bit about. why this may have happened, why funnel web spiders bite humans, and we'll get to Jeff's question too of kind of what you can do and how many people have died from it. I didn't ask that. Well, no,

you asked, you asked like, what are your chances of dying? I am curious about it. Okay, got it. So in the summer, it's the mating season for funnel web spiders. And male funnel web spiders will leave their burrows and they go on a search for females. So a really interesting thing that's happen in their evolution is because males have to go on this little journey, they've evolved to have much, much more toxic venom than females. And it's because they might come into contact with predators while they're journeying to find females. So they've evolved to have a much more potent defense system. So that's why if you get bit by a female funnel web spider, first of all, you're probably asking for it because they really only hang out in their burrows. But it's not going to be bad. It's

going to be like a beasting, but a male can kill you. And it's because they have to be that much more toxic because they go on these journeys looking for females. That makes sense. Unfortunately, this venom has evolved to be especially toxic to primates, and humans are just a big primate. So they don't really seek out confrontation. They're not, they're a very defensive spider. They do that whole display. They'll bite you a lot when they buy you. They'll buy you multiple times they won't let go sometimes like people have literally had to like pull funnel web spiders off of them oh wow but it's not that they're looking for these confrontations it's just that they know that they pack a punch and they're not afraid to use it if you threaten them um so they

they were a pretty big problem before 1981 in 1981 is when anti-venom came around no one's died since then to answer your question oh wow Fiona came pretty close you know she had a heart attack Like a little kid. She was touch and go. No one has died since 1981. And not that many people get bit by these spiders. Heart attacks are crazy. That just at any point your ticker can just stop.

Stop, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, no one's died since 1981. But there are, there's 13 deaths on record from Sydney Funnel Web spiders, which I believe is the highest of any spider for like recorded deaths. But they assume that they're in the world? Yeah. But they assume there might be spiders out there.

there that have killed more people like the Brazilian wandering spider and some others. But as far as like for like maintained good records, I think this is the highest. Because that spider, don't quote me on that. That'll bite you and it'll just wander off and you'll never know. Exactly. Brazilian wandering spiders are creepy because sometimes they show up in like boxes of bananas. So people in like Michigan or something will open a box of bananas and there's a highly venomous, dangerous spider in there. And no more bananas because it ate them all. Yeah. It's enough of it. And so they're pissed. Do we have all, do we even, like, have that anti-venom in, like, Michigan?

It would probably be really hard to get. Yeah. Yeah. A couple more cool facts about them. As males travel to find mates, they sometimes fall into pools, but they can survive several hours underwater because the little hairs on their legs will trap bubbles, and then they just, like, grab those bubbles and breathe with them. Oh, that's really cool.

That's awesome. And that's pretty neat. You think about, like, if we were to fall into a pool and suddenly you have, you're just lined with bubbles and you could just grab them and suck on them. It's pretty neat. Yeah. Also, in 2012, stores of funnel web anti-venom were running really low in Australia. So members of the public were encouraged to go out and catch the spiders and then turn them in

so they could be milked for their venom, which is pretty interesting to be like, hey, go out and catch this really dangerous spider. Yeah. But I guess it takes about 70 milkings to get one dose of anti-venom. Wow. So it's pretty hard to get. But how often can you milk one spider? I would guess every day.

Okay. But I'm not sure. Do you just milk them like a cow? Yeah, you just take their little fangs and just squeeze it out. No, it's like a snake. So when you milk a snake, Mike's giving me a real blank look. So like a cow. There's usually like a jar with a film over the top of it.

And with a snake, you'll take the snake and make it bite the jar. And then you kind of push its fangs down and kind of squeeze the venom out of its venom glands. Interesting. And I imagine with the spiders, it's the same thing. You grab it and just kind of make it bite a little jar and it squirts the venom in. Gotcha. So they're especially active at night.

Flooding will cause them to leave their burrows. The largest one ever caught was over four inches long. And then something I was thinking about is just how cool spiders are in general. The fact that they build webs and that that webbing is the strongest, some of the strongest material on Earth. And the fact that these ones, that they set up a little trap lines. You know, and anything that trips one of those things, they run out and grab it. If you imagined a large animal doing that, we would all think it's the most fascinating

animal in the world. Yeah, totally. And I think we sometimes don't give little tiny insects and arachnids and stuff the credit that they deserve for being so fascinating. Do you remember that one is like it's a nature show that's big? Yeah. It's like Planet Earth, but it's not that one. Okay.

But it was on Netflix and there's like a spider who could shoot its web across like. huge river. And then fly? Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what that one is or remember that? There's a few different spiders that do that. Okay.

And they pretty much just like arc their abdomen up in the air and they spray out enough thread that sooner or later the wind picks it up and like carries them. Oh, that's so cool. And it's really neat. They fly that way. Spiders are one of those animals that the more you learn about them and the more, there's so many species and they have so many cool adaptations and things that they do. the more you learn about it, the more you're just like,

this is a whole world of animals that are just doing the craziest stuff. Yeah. They're really, I mean, spiders are fascinating. I know a lot of people out there are probably scared of spiders and probably aren't going to like hearing about spiders, but they're a really, really, really interesting group of animals. So we're pro-spider podcast. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I'm pro-spider in general. I don't want them in my bed. I don't really want them running over. me in the night, but I think they're really cool animals. Okay. That's fair. Yeah.

Okay. So that's it for the story. Do you guys have any other questions about Fiona's? Fiona's in York State? I have a question for you. So Australia is known for having a lot of poisonous animals. Venomous animals. Venomous animals.

Do you want to just like list a bunch of them that you know? Yeah. Let's touch on something really quick though there that we talked about. Venomous is when it's delivered by fangs. or by some sort of bite. So venom or like a stinger or something like that. So venom is injected. Poison is ingested.

So if an animal's poisonous, it means you eat it and you get sick because it's like frogs and stuff. Yeah, like a toad or something or a poison arrow frog. Okay. Venom is injected. So snakes are poisonous? No, snakes are venomous. Okay.

Snakes are venomous. Hilo monsters are venomous. Spiders, scorpions, venomous. So to answer Jeff's question, some of the, the really venomous or poisonous animals that live in Australia, there's the Sydney Funnel Web Spider, some other species of Funnel Web Spider as well. There's the Redback Spider, which is really similar to our Black Widow. They have a lot of venomous snakes. The most venomous land snake in the world is the inland Tai Pan, and it lives in Australia. They're pretty hesitant to bite people, but they do live

there. They have a few that are much more likely to bite people, like brown snakes and tiger snakes. Yeah. Those are much more common and they do bite. They have blue ringed octopus, which is a really venomous species of octopus. We mentioned they have Portuguese man of war. There's a few species of scorpion. I don't know if they have one that kills people or not.

All right. I got a question, actually. So you were saying that boxing day is kind of like a second Christmas. Kind of. Do you think on boxing day morning, Oscar woke up and he's like, we had one Christmas, yes. But what about second Christmas? Probably. You think he was like that? Yeah. And then he was like, what about 11sies? Yeah. And so on. Yeah. Okay. Speaking of Lord of the Rings, we're going to get into our favorite spiders from pop culture. I might as well just lead with that perfect segue. So my two favorite spiders from pop culture are Shilob and Shilob's mom, Angolient, who famously helped Melkor to destroy the two trees of Valenor, drank the light out of them.

stole the Silmarils, and then almost killed Melkor, who had to call the Balrogs to come help him. And they chased Angolian off. And then Angolian, who had hunger that just couldn't be satiated, ended up eating herself. Oh, geez. Because she was so hungry. But not before she gave birth to Shilab, who we all know from the movies, moved to the past above Sirith Ungel, and was Soron's little cat there that he would feed people to. I hate when that happens.

Yeah, it happens, you know. Sometimes the ballrogs scary off and then you have to eat yourself to death. Yeah. But those are my two favorite spiders. It would be hard to eat yourself. Yeah. But if you're Angolian, if you're a huge spider that is like the biggest thing in middle earth. Isn't that what the guy from 127 hours had to do?

Eat himself? Yeah. Eat himself out of the rock? No, he cut his arm out. There's probably some other movie where someone eats themselves. Who wants to go next? Might go for it. I'll go with She-Lob.

I just did. No, so I'm going with, who am I going with? I was thinking about Miss Spider from James and the Giant Peach. Okay. Oh, okay. Because I kind of like her style. Yeah, a little bit. She seemed like the sweetest of that group.

But I think I'm actually going to go with Goma, who is a recurring boss in the Legend of Zelda series. Okay. Just a big creepy spider. Pretty cool. I like it. Okay, I'll go. I have two runners up. Oh, as always.

Black Widow from the Marvel. movies. Scarlett Johansson. And then the spider in Charlotte's web who like spells words in its web. I just thought that's like a cool way to do it. The sweetest spider ever. That's the only spider that like spiders and pop culture are normally pretty intelligent. Yeah. So the spider in Charlotte's web is Charlotte. Yeah. Oh, you're right. My bad. It's her web. It's cool. Like it's easy to we can just say spider and Charlotte's web. Okay. And then so my My pick is Buzz's Spider and Home Alone. Oh, that's a good picture.

The Kevin places on the dude's face. On Harry's face. Yeah, oh, man. And then you get a real good scream out of it. Yeah, the scream is just iconic. Yeah, that's a good pick. Yeah. That was a tarantula.

Some sort of tarantula species. I had a tarantula for a little bit, and tarantulas do this thing where they can, like, a defensive thing of theirs, where they scrape a bunch of hairs off their abdomen and their legs. Yeah. And those hairs are like fiberglass and they get lodged in your skin. Mm-hmm. And I got one of those hairs in my skin and it hurt for like years.

And I'm like, I'm never having a tarantula ever again. Let's go to our cage match. So this is, I was thinking about doing something new, but this episode's not going to work. I was thinking about doing weight classes from now on. I honestly was thinking about that exact same thing. Okay, well, let's just do it then. Even though spiders probably in a weight class of its own. Well, I think when we're talking about a venomous animal, it creates a whole new kind of thought process to this.

Okay. Because a really small venomous animal can kill a really big animal. Like a black mamba could kill any of our animals. This spider can't. Okay. Well, for formalities sake, I'll just introduce the category and then we can talk about it. Yeah. So the cage match is where we take the animal of the episode, this being the Funnel Web spider.

Yeah, the Sydney Funnel Web spider. Black, Sydney Funnel Web spider. You don't need to throw a black in there. Sydney web funnels. Sydney, yeah, you got it. So the spider versus all of the other animals that we've ever talked about up to this point on the podcast. Yeah. And it would seem like it's at a weight disadvantage, but it being venomous, maybe it could hold its own against a few of the.

I'm going to say. Any animals that would die from its bite. I think the only animal so far that the Sydney funnel web spider could kill is the chimpanzee. I think there's a, they're, they're venom, like a male Sydney Funnel Webb spider's venom, is especially potent in primates. That's right, you said that. And they did a bunch of tests on it, which honestly sounded horrific when I was reading about them, where they would have spiders bite different kinds of monkeys,

and then they would see all the different things that would happen to them, and a lot of them died. So I would think that it could kill a chimpanzee. I think that's our one matchup where if the chimp doesn't kill the spider, quick enough, it could die. I don't think we have anything else that is going to kill or be killed by it. What if we just like made it the same height and like length as the lion? Then it's like our new champ probably.

It's like, it's like our new champ. Yeah, it's probably our new champ. They kill stuff a lot bigger than that. But it doesn't really have any weapons besides its fangs. So it's like kind of hard to bite. They're really good with their fangs though. They're hardy animals.

They have an exoskeleton. And they, like, set trip lines and stuff. If it's as big as a lion, it's the world's new alpha predator. Does the venom scale? So take for example, the, what was her name in the story we just covered? Fiona. Fiona. She got bit twice.

Was that a bigger deal than just having been bit one? So the more venom you get, the worse it is. So like a huge spider, venomous spider bite. It would be very bad. Yeah, immediate. Yeah. A lion-sized spider is, it's such. Suddenly, yeah, that's the...

Its web would really get a lot of stuff. It's web is going to get everything. It's got an exoskeleton. It's got potent venom. It's fast. It's the new alpha predator. I'm still going to put my money on the hippo. I'm not.

I'm 100% putting on the spider. Oh. Spiders are like light for their size. Are they? This spider is like maybe the same size as like a type of frog, right? Or like if you got a frog the same size and weighed them both, I feel like the frog would weigh them both. You're probably right.

Okay. But frogs are pretty dense animals. So are hippos. Okay. I don't think weight matters in this. Okay. I think a lion-sized spider is going to be pretty scary. I'm going to tell frogs you said they were dense.

Yeah. You're going to be pissed. But as far as our other animals with a normal size spider, I think like the Nile Monitor and some of these other smaller animals that we've talked about, I think they still, like, the way they're built and their skin, and everything, I don't think they're going to have a hard time killing this spider, even if they get bit. I think the chimps, the only one that could die.

Okay. Interesting. Yeah, that's my guess. I could be wrong. If there's an arachnologist, arachnologist, I think is what they're called, arachnol, something like that. If there's someone out there that studies spiders that wants to tell me I'm wrong, please do.

But I'm... A spider man? I'm fairly confident, yeah, Spider-Man. And I think you're right when you say, like, their web would be one of the main things that if you get tangled in that at all, you're toast. Yeah. And they're really good at using it. Just imagine like you're walking around and suddenly you get stuck in like a trip line.

Yeah. And then you turn and a huge spider comes out of its burrow. It's nightmarish. It makes me think of... Frodo. No, of Harry Potter, actually. Eragog. Yeah.

When it comes out, you know, when he... Oh, yeah. I was going to give him a mention. Yeah. So, uh... Imagine find an aeragogue in your bed. You just had no idea. idea you were getting into bed with

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sealer at Sephora or at Sephora.com today. All right. So Mike and Jeff, what are you guys going to do? Maybe, like, I think if you guys just come in contact with a spider, I know what both of you would do, which is probably just like stomp on it. If I saw one that cool, I would probably keep it as a pet. Okay. And feed it.

So maybe what I should say is, what are you doing if you're in this situation where you're in bed and you feel a spider on your leg? I'd think of Oscar. Who's Oscar? Oh, Oscar, your son. Yeah. That seemed to help Fiona. Yeah, it worked.

Okay, so Mike's going to think of Oscar. Jeff, what are you going to do? Well, first of all, I'm going to leave all my sheets untucked. Okay. You do that. Because I think tucking in your sheets makes it seem more like a funnel. Spider's going to feel more at home inside of my bed if it's like, you know. So never make you.

your bed. Yeah, don't make your bed. And then, um, yeah, I'm going to just try to, once it's on my leg, I'm going to just T-Rex it. Okay. So by T-Rex it, Jeff means he's going to stay completely still, which is not what the T-Rex does, but it's what people do in the Dressic Park movies. It's supposed to stay still. In the Jurassic Park universe. Okay. Yeah, I think that's probably the way to do it. Probably stay still and try and stay calm. And don't make your bed. Um, and yeah, don't make your bed. So I was more going to talk about kind of, I guess the main thing, the main way you can avoid spider bites is by keeping your home pretty clean, fixing any gaps that you might have below doors or windows and stuff. And then not disturbing areas that might be home to spiders

if you're outside. So not if you're picking up rocks or like moving logs or whatever, there's a good chance there's stuff living under that. And it might feel defensive. So just being careful when you're disturbing habitat. And then in your home, again, just trying to keep a clean home is a really kind of key thing to do. As far as if you are bitten by a spider, if you're bitten by a Sydney Funnel Webb spider,

the things you should do are keep calm. You want to keep as calm as possible because the more excited you get, the faster your blood's pumping, the quicker that venom's moving through your body. You want to cut the bite and then suck the blood out. You don't. Don't listen to that. Don't do that.

You want to wrap that bite site with like a, compression tape or some sort of pressure bandage. So you wrap the bite site and then you wrap up from that and wrap the entire limb. So say you're bitten on your finger, you wrap that finger first and then you wrap all the way up your arm too. And that's what you do with the Sydney Funnelweb spider and then you go straight to the hospital. Yeah.

So you keep calm, wrap it, go straight to the hospital. Now an important note is that doesn't apply to all spiders. There are certain spiders that you don't want to do that pressure wrap. and with those ones, you just go to the hospital. So as a rule of thumb, if you don't feel confident in identifying a spider bite, the things you should do are keep calm, go to the hospital. That's really the key thing here.

There's not much else that is important. So get to the hospital as quick as you can and try and catch the spider if you can do it safely. Yeah, that is a good idea. Yeah. Okay, another category. How are we messing things up for them? So we're not really.

They're doing all right? Yeah, I think so. They're not even evaluated, so we don't really know, but I don't think there's a big problem with them. But a couple things about that that I wanted to bring up. Spiders are really important. They're really important for insect control. They're important for agriculture because they eat a lot of the insects that destroy crops.

They are good at keeping down, like, mosquitoes that can carry a lot of different diseases. I remember when I was living in Brazil, I had a really big problem with ants in my house, and we had also been killing like some of the jumping spiders around stopped killing them and we didn't have an ant problem anymore. So they're really, really good at controlling insects. Spider silk is used in engineering. We've learned a lot from spider silk and they're actually starting to make stuff out of spider silk. And I just really, in general...

Is that thing true where it's like spider silk is like the strongest thing in the world or whatever? When you like when you have a bunch of it put together, yeah, it's in. incredibly strong. I do, I just kind of want to mention, I think it's kind of unfair that we hate them just because the way they look. They are a really scary looking animal, all those legs and fangs and stuff, but they do a lot for the ecosystem. They're really important food source for a lot of animals, and they kill a lot of animals

that we don't want to be more numerous than they are. So I think we, you know, I don't blame anyone for being creeped out by spiders, but you shouldn't hate them if that makes sense. Yeah, I agree. All right, so I did want to do a quick correction corner, a self-correction, a cell phone. In the Lions Asavo, one of the episodes, I said that there's three big cats that roar. And when we are re-listening to it, as like, that's not right, there's four. I miss leopards. So they're all in the genus Pantera. So it's lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars. They're the four roaring cats. Oh, okay. Yeah. Cool. So that was something I messed up on. Yeah, that was really embarrassing. Yeah, I was embarrassed. Do a lot of explaining to

I have a corrections corner too. Oh, okay. For a listener question is T-Money Jackson. Uh-huh. He asked what we should do if a bobcat attacks. Oh, yeah. And we acted pretty nonchalant about it and kind of like that'll never happen. Yeah. And there's a viral video of a bobcat sneaking up on some people. Yeah. They're going in their car. To be fair, they did test that bobcat. and it was rabid. And any animal that's rabid can act very differently than it typically would. Yeah. But yeah, it did make me think of that question and be like, okay, all right.

I still like how we answered it, but I just want to give him a shout out, like a bobcat kind of attack someone. Yeah. Don't approach them. They can attack you. So. Listener questions? Let's get to listener questions.

We're going to start with two Patreon or three Patreon questions. Okay. So first from Allison. This is a question for Wes. We have been arguing about what your favorite bear is. I say it's a grizzly. He says it's a polar bear. What's your favorite bear?

It's such a hard question to answer. It's like asking what your favorite kid is. I like, when I was working with polar bears, I liked polar bears the most. When I see a grizzly bear in Montana or something, I'll be like, that's my favorite bear. But if throughout my life, the one that has been consistently the most, like my favorite, it has been Grizzlies. Okay. So if I had to answer that question, gunned to my head, I'd probably say grizzlies.

Okay, this one's from Bo. Would you rather watch movies with Bruce Willis or Tom Hanks? For me, it's probably Bruce Willis. Yeah, Bruce, easily Bruce Willis. Yeah, Mike's not a big Tom Hanks guy. Yeah. Little down on Tom. That's hard, though.

Yeah, it's kind of, Bruce hasn't aged that well. Like, he hasn't had anything great in a while. Yeah. But, like, his, his best stuff at, well, Tom's hits are hits too. I don't know. It depends on the mood I'm in. Boring hits.

All right. Are there any animals... Apollo 13th is great though. Are there any animals that freak you out or give you the willies? I don't really care for centipedes. Yeah, same. Those, like, weird insects are the ones. Like segmented with lots of moving legs and parts.

Yeah. Snakes. Rattlesnakes. Yeah. At the zoo... I love them too. But at the zoo, I just like, stare at them and I like start to, like, like, start to, like, like feel a little creeped up. Yeah, you get you you kind of have a thing in your head with snakes.

Wes mentioned that milk is a great way to remove bear spray from the eye skin and clothing. We've always used baby shampoo since it has the chemicals need to cut the oils of the spray and can get into your eyes no problem. It's really smart. I think that's a great idea because it really that does cut through the oil and that's what they that's what bear spray mostly is is oil. So it's a good idea. Good tip, Bo. Yeah. If you were killed by an animal, which animal would you choose? And we've had a few of these. Yeah, I would want to be killed probably by a gray white,

just like one bite through the middle of me. Yeah, that'd be kind of cool. That's what I'd want to watch you get killed by the most. A great white? Yeah. It'd be kind of cool just to get stomped by an elephant. That's what I, just an elephant head. Oh, like, that's what I was thinking.

From Derek Nual, create a hybrid of any two animals. What would it be? What do you think? I'm thinking I want a beaver tail. Okay. Interesting. That's not where I thought you'd call with that. And then maybe like a, man, what would be cool with a beaver tail?

Like a duck, a duck bill? You're just talking about a platypus now. Oh, shoot. Platapus. Yeah, that's what I want. Okay. Yeah, let's put like a beaver tail on like a bald eagle. Okay.

Interesting. It's not at all where I thought you'd go with it. that. Where did you think I would go? I don't know, like two really, like a griffin, like an eagle with a lion's body or something. Yeah, I kind of went there. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just going to stick, I'm going to say a beaver with an eagle's body. I just said that. I know, I'm just going with you. It's a good idea. I'd put some really big, I don't know, albatross wings on a Komoto dragon. So we just have like a flying. Yeah, I want a flying like a dragon. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty much just a dragon. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I'd want like a

flying tiger or something like that. Yeah, that'd be cool too. Like a tiger with eagle wings. Jeff's answer is the best though. You gave it a lot of crap. I'm glad you came around. It's not that I think it's like what I would actually want to see, but it's a really... Oh, you just didn't see it coming.

It was out of left field. Yeah. All right, so now to Instagram questions. Okay. Okay, I like this one just because she asked it to me, and I feel like this is a total West question. Yeah. So I'm going to go for it. Oh, I think I saw this one.

This one is. from Marie. So she said, I have a question for Jeff. I live in Germany and we don't get bear spray here, only pepper spray. The package say it's for animal deterrence. We don't have bears, but wolves have come back in the last years, which is awesome. But sadly, we have a few instances where a wolf or a pack of wolves hunt, stock, riders, in my neighborhood.

So would pepper spray work for wolves? Or would they say, neat. My dinner is spicy this time. So it's an interesting question. Yeah. It's a question you know a lot better than me, but I'm going to answer it first. Yeah, let's hear it. So the cool thing with bear spray is just how far it shoots and how wide it is.

Like, the potence is important because it hurts more than pepper spray. But, like, the bigger thing is just how effective it is at, like, you don't need to be, like, a sniper to hit, like, a sniper. to hit like a bear with bear spray. Like it's a cloud. Or you don't need to be really close. So it would just be harder. If it's like the sprays I'm thinking of where it's just like a stream of spray, you'd have to be really close.

And at that point, it's like pretty hard. But like with wolves, they don't really attack people too often anyways. Yeah. So I wouldn't be too worried. But as far as just, we've had a few questions about the concept of will pepper spray work on animals. Right.

And when Jeff says pepper spray, he means, like, the typical pepper spray you'd give for, like, a human deterrent. Yeah. Like, the women carrying their purses and stuff, or the men carrying their purses. I wouldn't ever trust it for an animal. I wouldn't, for a wolf, for a cougar, for a bear, for anything. It's just not, like Jeff was saying, the delivery, there isn't enough of it to wear. It would have to be close enough to where the animal's probably going to make contact

with you no matter what. And you're not delivering enough. at a big enough distance. But what about this person who says they don't have bear spray and this is sold for animal deterrence? They're probably just marketing it for animal deterrence, but it's not tested for animal. Like bear spray is the only capsaicin-based, so pepper spray-based animal deterrent that's been studied to be effective.

Yeah. These people are just saying that it would work. And it might. You know, if like if you're being attacked by a dog or a wolf, it would probably work, but you're probably going to get bid up too. It's not going to stop it from 30 feet away. How is my answer? It was good.

Yeah. You did great. All right. Yeah. From Tom Murray, what's the extinct animal you would most like to see alive, excluding dinosaurs? I was about to say, for sure, it's a T-Rex. I would probably want to see, probably like a saber-tooth cat.

Yeah. Mine's a woolly. Woolly mammoth. Yeah, those things are so big. Those were my two. I don't know. Yeah. There's some really, there's like giant sloths that were just massive or like a cave bear,

which is like much bigger than our bears. I maybe want to see a cave bear. Sabretooth beaver combination would be pretty dope. Yeah. Okay. This listener has written in before. And I think I say her name different every time. But today we're going with native don't.

Okay. Other animal podcast recommendations, I'll always listen to tooth and claws. Oh, thank you. It's very nice. You know what? I have a friend that's another bear biologist that hosts a podcast called The Wild. That's like a very ethereal, beautiful podcast where they talk about different wildlife biology projects. That's a good one. This one isn't necessarily wildlife, but ologies is one that I was recently featured on where they did an episode about bear biologists. And they have a lot of episodes about different wildlife biologists. So those are two that I would recommend. and the wild in ologies. Yeah. Do you have anything, Mike? I've got enough. Just listen to, we're the only animal podcast.

All right. That's it for listening questions. Great. Thanks for the questions, guys. We really appreciate them. Again, if you're a Patreon member, we're going to prioritize those questions, but we do want to get to everyone's questions.

So we'll keep asking for them and keep answering them whenever we can. Sometimes they do get lost in the shuffle, and we're really sorry if we don't get to your question. Okay. So our final. categories, do we like this animal? We're talking specifically about the Sydney Funnel Webb spider. I like it. I think it's cool that they have this reputation of being one of the world's

most dangerous spiders. I think it's cool that the males go on this journey to find the mates, and that's when sometimes trouble happens. And I just think it's one of those things where if you live in Australia, you just have to accept that you're sharing space with a lot of venomous animals, and this is one of them. And I think they're really cool. So I like them. that romantic angle looking for someone to love and yeah I think it's neat they're going on a journey for love yeah now I like them too I like all spiders I don't know much specifically about this one but spiders in general get a two maybe like one and a half thumbs up okay for me we should probably start doing this on like a stars scale okay or something what

or like claws how many claws do we give it I'll give them like four out of five stars we don't have to stick to that measurement. Okay. Just to, you know, I'm going to give them three out of five. Yeah, with the funnel spider, I'm, I don't, I think I like it a lot. Like, I like all animals. I like spiders. Yeah. But like, I could probably find, like, 30, 40 other spiders I like more. Okay. And then I think I could find a lot of other animals I like more than spiders. Yeah. So I'm going to rank it, like, probably 300. 64. Okay.

On our star, on our star, new star thing, what are you going to get out of five stars? 64 stars. Yeah. I'm going to give it three stars. Okay. All right. Well, thanks guys.

Thanks for tuning in once again to our podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcast. It really helps. It helps with the whole algorithm. people can find it. And the thing that could really help us, too, if you're enjoying it, is share on your Instagram about our podcast and feel free to tag Tooth and Claw podcast on there. If there's any way you could, like, physically force someone who hasn't listened to it,

to listen to it. Like on a car ride, just make them listen to it. Wrap them up. Like you're a spider. Yeah. And make them listen to it. Yeah. And then finally, our last little thing that we like to plug is our Patreon, which

there's a lot of bonus content on there. There's some really fun stories. And yeah, and it really helps us out a lot. So if you have the beans and you'd like to subscribe, you can find the link to our Patreon in our Instagram bio, which is Tooth and Claw Podcasts, backslash Patreon, I think. Yeah. No.

What is it? It's patreon.com slash tooth and claw podcast. Okay. Well, we should really consult with Mike on all of the. these technical things. All right. Well, thanks again, and we will see you soon. And we love you. And we love you. All right, it's that time. Let's shout out all you new patrons. Again, thank you for all that you do. You really have made this a project that feels worth working on that people out there actually enjoy what we do. So thank you again. And we hope that you

enjoy all the bonus content that we're making for you guys and all the other perks that come along with it. So here we go. Thank you to Jordan, Garrett. Bo, Suzanne, Christina, Ethan, Nicole, Chandler, Curtis, Alexander, Beenden, Ash, Kat, Stephanie, and Sarah. Oh, one more, Possum. Possum Sonic Burger. I don't feel bad about reading that full name because I feel like I'm not giving away actual personal identifiable information. If your name really is Possum Sonic Burger, I apologize. Let us know and we will take this episode down. Again, you guys are awesome and we thank you for all that you do for us. We will see you in the next one.