Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - The Humboldt Squid - A Dance with El Diablo Rojo

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

To kick off the scariest month of the year, Wes thought it appropriate to bring some tentacles into the equation. This intrigued Jeff. ~~ Smalls: For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to http://smalls.com/TOOTH Hims: To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit http://hims.com/tooth Cornbread Hemp: Get 30% off at ⁠http://cornbreadhemp.com/tooth⁠ and use code TOOTH LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack with any purchase at ⁠⁠⁠http://drinklmnt.com/tooth⁠⁠⁠ Graza Olive Oil: Take your food to the next level with Graza Olive Oil. Visit⁠ https://graza.co and stock up during our sitewide sale, running October 1st through October 21st! ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone, welcome to Tooth and Claw podcast. We have our wildlife biologist, bear biologist, and CNN regular Wes Larson with us. That's me. Fat bear correspondent. Wes, you think it's beautiful when grizzly bears kill each other, huh? That's kind of what I said in front of an audience of millions of people. I'll be honest. I really like it when news companies contact me to be.

be a bear expert for them. If there's one aspect of bears that I don't love talking about on those kind of shows, it's Fat Bear Week. It's like No one thing. Yeah, I just, I really like Fat Bear Week. I think it's great. It's just like, it's fluff, you know? And it kind of, I just kind of get tired of talking about it.

I don't know. But I was glad they reached out to me. All right. We won't bring it up anymore then. No. Were they glad they reached out to you, though? I don't know. they might be because the producer that reached out said they might want to have me back on to talk about the winner

but yeah it didn't seem like they loved my answers to some of their questions so I was a little surprised that she said yeah they're like look how cute bears can be and you're like yeah they kill each other sometimes babies and I think that's beautiful uh yeah and then we have me I'm west's little brother Jeff Larson. I'm a bit of a bear biologist myself. And then we have Mike Smith, our sound guy. 2% bear biologist, Jeff. I got a little.

I got a little bit in me. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Welcome to the episode, everyone. Today we're talking about a weird critter. We're going to talk about something weird.

Yeah. Well, this is the first of our October episodes. And Jeff, you may remember this. We like to get a little spooky around here during the month of October. You don't remember much, do you? Mm-mm. Okay. Mike, do you remember that?

I do, yeah. I think it's a pretty natural human response. The leaves start falling down. You're like, I want to start talking about dead things. Yeah, it gets a little spookier outside. It's darker. The leaves fall off. Things are dying.

And we just start getting a little spooky. Right. This is when I like talking about sex. Because, like, deer and elk and moose are all rut in season. And you like, spooky sex. Sure. Yeah.

Who are you talking to about it? Because it's not me. Yeah. And you don't have anyone else to talk to. Reddit. Yeah. Right. You just anonymous online forums.

Hey, anyone else here? R slash elk sex? I'm one of those comments. You're so beautiful. Under the girls who post on there. The rut community on Reddit. Any chance you'd ever go out with a guy like me, that's kind of what I said. They're cow.

elk that your pictures of cowlop. I'm going to look right now if they're, is there a R slash rut. Rutt. Rudding, probably. Probably hunters. I'll keep researching that and get back to you guys. Anyway, uh, we like to do some spookier episodes this month. Last year we did one, like one on werewolves.

I think we did some creepy crawlies. We had Sammy from Too Scary Didn't Watch. We'll probably have Sammy back on this month too. Is that short for Sam wise? I have to assume so What else would it be short for her Yeah I would trust

Maybe it's long for Sam Like her own Her name is only Sam That's true Sometimes people do Lankham them yeah Yeah I'll text her after this

And ask her Both of those questions What was I about to say About Sammy Sam wise Gamgy Yeah Yeah I don't know

Gay We like her Probably it Yeah Great guest We love having her on So we'll probably have her on But

This first episode is one It was kind of unexpected. I'm not holding back this year with her. Okay. What are you going to say? Oh, man. You'll just have to find out. All right.

You bring a weird energy so far on this episode, a little creepy. Spending too much on R slash rut. All right, but this is kind of a, it's good that he has that creepy energy, Mike, because this is kind of a creepy animal to a lot of people. And it was one that I've been wanting to cover for a long time. And then this week I was like, maybe we should finally do them. And then I was like, you know what? This is perfect because it's October.

And these guys are kind of, they look like space aliens. They look like a creepy space alien, which. Are you sure about that? Yeah. Do you think aliens are part of horror? Yeah, I'm sure. That's what they look like. Positive.

Wait, what? You don't think it's possible we just base space aliens off a strange looking animal that lives on Earth. I mean, it's possible. That does make more sense. But I'm pretty sure these guys look like aliens. Or like elder gods. So do you guys, when you guys watch like horror movies, do you count space horror?

Like, is sci-fi horror in your horror back pocket? I do. For sure. Okay. Like, event horizon. That's a horror movie to me. Yeah. Like sci-fi horror.

I don't know. Yeah, but that one like involves like demons and stuff too. Yeah. It's sweet. Yeah. I think aliens for sure. Yeah. I only ask, because when I lived in Salt Lake, there was this, it was called an

October evening and they did it in the Masonic, the Masonic Temple. And am I saying that weird? Masonic. Okay. I don't know. Like the Mason Temple. It's kind of like, anyway. Malady, but for Sonic the hedgehog.

Masonic. When I'm spreading my coat out over a puddle for Sonic. That's got to be the worst move. You put your whole coat just in a puddle and you do that. She still get her feet wet. I know. And then your coats just soaked. Yeah, it's a terrible move.

I would, it's like such a silly. Givalry had gone way too far. It's such a silly move that I kind of want to try it. I just do it with like a really nice coat. She would just be like, what are you doing? Yeah. It just wouldn't even register to like anyone with common sense. They'd refuse to even walk on it.

I could just take like one step to the right and go around it. Maybe that's the better move. No, they can't. You need to sacrifice your coat. Anyway, they would do this Halloween horror night. It was always really fun. They had really cool presentations. They'd show short films by local filmmakers.

I look forward to it every year. And then one year it was all sci-fi themed and it was like just aliens and it really sucked the energy out of it like big time. So since then I've kind of. I have wondered if aliens count as like an October scary thing, but today they do. Okay. Because we're talking about Humboldt, Squid. You don't think that movie, Paul, is a horror movie?

No, I don't at all. But Alien, I think, is a horror movie. Or when The Blob comes from outer space. But I think that's only the original one. That's spoilers for 1957 The Blob. Don't you think demons are kind of aliens? Don't they come from, like, other dimensions? Yeah.

They come from hell, though. Yeah, I don't know. I guess the lions get a... Is hell in Earth, you think? I mean, the movie, the core, they didn't see any aliens. I think they missed it. They didn't see any demons, I mean. Yeah.

All right, I think we're getting a little off the rails here. But another way that we can tie this to Halloween is that in a lot of the countries where this squid is found, they call them the red devil, especially in Mexico. El Diablo Rojo. So, what do you guys think is the creepiest bodily feature? that an animal can have. Ooh. Like, what gives you the willies on an animal more than anything? To me, it's like a mouth that looks like a smile with a bunch of teeth.

Like a shark. Yeah. Okay. I thought you don't like eyes with lions in them, like a snake's eyes. Ooh, yeah. What about that? Snakes scare me. Mike, what do you say?

Like a proboscis, any kind of, like, weird, long nose gives me the willies, I think. Yeah. Or, yeah, like a mosquito needle. If I really think about that, I'm starting to willy out. Yeah. I think for me, it's the more legs they have generally kind of the creepier they get. And tentacles for me. I think it's more snake mouths for me.

Okay. They're mouths. You must be really afraid of Jeff with his three legs. He's got three legs. Oh, was that a... Never mind. All right. Where do tentacles rank?

Thank you. Yeah, sure. I got you, bro. Where do tentacles rank for you guys on creepy bodily features? They don't really get me. Like they do some people. Yeah. I mean,

they're obviously something I don't want to come into contact with. But yeah, they're not super high on my list either. See, I would disagree with that. I kind of want them to suck me on my skin a little bit. All right. So you kind of get,

Jeff, you really on a roll. All right. Well, our animal today may be one of the only tentacles. to animals in the world that poses any real danger to humans without using venom. And we're going to start with the story. You guys ready?

Yes. All right. On an October night in the late 1980s, a lone Mexican fisherman took a small panga, though little boats, passed the small waves of the Sea of Cortez and out into the inky blackness of the open sea. The stars were stretching out almost endlessly overhead. The October air finally had a chilly bite to it after months of stifling heat. You guys have been to the sea.

See of Cortez. It gets pretty hot in the summer. It's got to be a relief when fall comes around. Yeah. Does he even clue off that much? I think it does. Yeah. It does. As this fisherman navigated over deeper water, he slows the boat and coasts to a stop. He unspools a long length of handline and fastens a shiny oblong jig, covered in hooks to the end, and drops it into the water. He then points a night.

It's a night. Wow. He then points a bright light down into the depth so that the jig would light up as he makes it bounce and dance through the water. And it doesn't take long before the line goes tight and he has his first catch. The fisherman wasn't looking for fish though. He was trying to catch El Diablo Rojo, the red devil or the humbled squid. And as he pulls in the first squid, its ink shoots all over the bottom of his boat and he knows that it's going to be a successful night. And he immediately has another squid on the jig after tossing it back in the water.

At one point, the action was so strong that the squid were literally hitting the bottom of his boat as they swirl around in the water and the fisherman has to steady himself not to fall in. He's heard the tales of these red devils and he knows how they've earned their names. About 40 minutes in, he's already pulled in enough squid to completely cover the bottom of the boat and as he's pulling in the last squid of the night,

the tension on the line suddenly increases. He struggles to pull the squid to the surface and when its body finally breaks the surface, he leans over to pull it into the boat. But what he didn't notice was the much larger red devil that was attacking and feeding on the smaller hooked squid. And as he reached down, it wraps his tentacles around him defensively, shoots backward in the water, and pulls him out of the boat and into the water.

No way. The panic fishermen start swimming for the boat, and he had just grabbed onto the side when the squid and other squid grab him from underneath with teeth-lined suckers and bite into them with his razor-sharp beak. The man screams out into the night air and continues, ripping onto the boat with all of his strength, but the squid pulled down once again and the screams are cut off with the gurgle. And all the man left behind was a bloody handprint and some of his fingernails in the wood of the boat. Not long after, another pongo would arrive and they

find the still dying catch of all the squid on the bottom of the boat and the fingernails on the side of the wood. All right. So Scott Castle sat around a fire in San Ignacio, Mexico, and listened to this tale as fishermen told the story of the Diablo Rojo and the night that they found that empty boat. And as he listened to this, he studied their faces, listened to their hushed tones, and realized that they were not exaggerating or lying to him. All right, so quick break. This was a story that this guy heard, just in case you didn't gather that from Mexican fishermen.

We should have had that guy on this podcast instead of you. Yeah. Scott Castle? Yeah. We should have, because pretty much the whole episode. about him and probably would have loved to tell his own story, but he had been diving since he

was 13. He lived a life that was full of adrenaline and risk-taking. When he was 18 in order to escape his alcoholic father, he joined the army and learned how to fly helicopters and he became a special ops medic where he took part in a lot of the shadowy and kind of

covert missions that were happening in Central America during that time. Yeah, in his later life, he actually would never really talk about his years in the military, but he did drop a lot of hints that he saw a lot of gnarly shit during his time in uniform. He was in the shit, Jeff, this guy. He's getting in the mix. There's a lot going on in Central America. There was. We're buying weapons from them and stuff. Yeah. Noriega, freaking Ronald Reagan, stirring up that pot. You know, volcanoes.

Volcanoes. Let's not forget about the volcanoes. Someone, if you bring up volcanoes around Scott Castle, you will shut that conversation. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. I don't know. I've never heard of volcanoes. Don't talk to me about volcanoes. When he left the military in the mid-90s, he was still sporting the military muscles and haircut, but his life turned toward being underwater once again.

He started work as a commercial diver and instructor, as well as an underwriting. underwater filmmaker and security consultant. And it was during this time that he heard this campfire story from the Mexican fisherman. It would be one of many such stories that he would hear from fishermen throughout his years when he's obsessed with Humboldt Squid. After hearing this first one, though, he was immediately intrigued and decided he wanted to dive with Humboldt Squid, which for me seems like a very interesting reaction to that

particular story. Yeah. What part of the story got him like excited? Was it the fingernails embedded into the side of the boat? he's like, oh, yeah, oh, nice. Probably like the tentacles on the guy's skin. Yeah, he's been a little like you, maybe. What's that called in, like, those Japanese books with all the octopuses and stuff?

Oh, yeah, certainly a word for it. Yeah, probably. I don't know if there's a specific word for the. Akentai. There you go. That's got to be it. Akentai. I mean, it's just like hickies.

You guys don't like hickies? Uh, no. I don't. Interesting. I, like, I think, I actually, like, think hikis are kind of rude sometimes, but that's weird. That's kind of a weird take. Like, when you don't, when you don't consent. No, I just feel like you know if you're going to give someone a hickie. Like, you know that, like, that line.

And it's kind of like, oh, now there's, they have to, like, have this mark on them that they're going to be embarrassed about, you know? Sure. Well, then you put it on a spot where, like, they can choose to show it off if they want or to hide it. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I said sometimes. Because I think they can be appropriate. But if it's like on a knack or something, then I think they're kind of a... Well, and they could just say, like, yeah, I was diving and a giant squid came up to me.

Yeah, a humble squid got me. Have you had tentacles on you, Jeff? No. Okay. I was just wondering. Little tiny ones. How was... All right.

Let's make it happen, Jeff. They just felt like little tiny, sticky. I'm sure you thought it was kind of fun. Sure. Yeah. But it didn't do anything for me. I'm not saying sexually. I just think it feels kind of feels that way.

Well, that's your own perverted. Yeah, that's us hearing what we want. That's how you guys. All right. This episode is brought to you by Subaru. Go further in a long-range Subaru hybrid, with up to 581 miles per tank in the Forrester Hybrid, longer range, better fuel efficiency,

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So Scott makes his way to La Paz in Baja Mexico, and he had heard that the Sia Cortez was a hot spot for finding Humboldt squid. And basically what he decided to do was dive under a boat that was fishing for squid. And you know what? He got a little bit more than he bargained for. Oh, really? Yes. But before we get into that, we're actually going to go over the,

their biology. Yeah, I was wondering what size and stuff they are compared to like a giant squid. That's why I wanted to do it early because I feel like this is an animal that a lot of people don't really have a mental image of aside from just like a squid. So I want to talk a little bit about what they're actually capable of. All right. So basically before we get into the sizes and whatnot, I want to lay out a couple terms that we're going to say a few times just so you understand what a squid's body looks like.

The majority of the squid's body is composed of its mantle. So the mantle is kind of that torpedo-shaped part of the squid. It's that oblong part of its body that has the fins on the end of it. Below the mantle, you'll find the siphon, the eyes, and the mouth of the squid. For all intents and purposes, this would be the squid's head, because it's where its mouth and its eyes are and stuff. Below the head are eight arms that are covered in suckers, and then two longer tentacles that are primarily used for feeding,

and they only have suckers on the end of them. We get more in, yeah. So they have ten tentacles? They have ten appendages. Technically, they only have two tentacles and eight arms, but we're going to talk about that in a second. I just want you guys to have a mental image of all these different things. All right, so these humbled squid.

You think I could have just said tentacles there? Ooh. And save time. Yeah. A little more efficient. Oh, you need an explanation if I did. that. I probably would have needed a short explanation. All right. So these guys are often known as jumbo squid, and as far as squid are concerned, they're very big. Their mantle can grow to about

1.5 meters or 5 feet, and at that size, they would weigh about 50 kilograms or 110 pounds. But according to Scott, who at this point is probably the person that has seen the most humbled squid underwater, they can get quite a bit bigger. We're going to talk about that a little bit later. But let's talk a little bit more about their bodies because this is one of those animals that the more I learned about it, the more I was just really amazed that they even exist on the same planet as us. Because they look like aliens, Jeff. They probably think that about you. Okay.

They have eight arms, eight arms and two tentacles. But again, like Jeff said earlier, if you were to call all ten of these appendages tentacles, I wouldn't correct you. I think it'd be kind of silly if someone corrected you because colloquial is. we see tentacles as like long snake-like appendages with suckers on them. Yeah. If it has suckers on them, it's a tentacle. It's a tentacle, sure.

For the common man. Yeah. Each of the arms has between 100 and 200 suckers on it, each of these arms. And each of those suckers has a ring of chittinous teeth on it. So chitin is kind of like, it's similar to keratin or like the stuff that beetle exoskeletons are made out of. And that ring of teeth has up to 36 teeth per sucker. So that means a single squid can have up to 72,000 teeth in its suckers. That's amazing.

That's too many. Or their most... Braces would be so expensive. Oh, the dental bill. Yeah. They're mostly used for gripping, but they can also cause lacerations and cuts. And when you see photos of like sperm whales that eat a lot of giant squid and colossal squid, you'll see just tons of cuts on their noses from the tentacles of these squid

wrapping around their noses. Does that make it sound better or worse for you, Jeff? Do you want a little nibble? I don't like, no, I don't like that too much. You don't want to get a little cut? I don't know. I'll think about it. Okay.

The two tentacles are longer, and they only have suckers on the end, but the teeth on these tentacles are often more pronounced like hooks, and they use these tentacles to lash out and capture prey, bring them in toward the arms and then the mouth. The tentacles are actually quite elastic and they can extend further than they're resting length. They're lightning fast with their tentacles. Are they able to autonomously control the teeth or are they just kind of stationary?

They're just there on the tentacle. I think they are just there, but I'm not sure. They're like the sticky hands you get from a quarter machine. The quarter machines, right. I think the teeth kind of naturally when the sucker flexes. the teeth kind of naturally grab. Oh, yeah, sure. And again, those teeth are mostly just for gripping.

They're not really, like, dismantling anything. To they pull something in. Yeah. Gotcha. The beak is their main weapon. It's large, hard, large and hard. Large and razor sharp. Three legs.

I'm, yet you guys are the ones on one today. That's true. I kind of usurped to that throne from you. There's anecdotal evidence that the Humboldt squid has a really incredibly powerful bite force that could be even stronger than 1,000 PSI. But that evidence from what I've read is like very anecdotal. So I would take that with the grain of salt. Those beaks are what are the most creepy about squid to me.

Yeah. Much more so than the tentacles. It looks like it looks like the beak of a macaw. Like it's a big black beak in the heart. In the middle of all their like fleshy. Yeah. They do like that hydraulic press. social media videos they do, you know, where they crush everything.

Yeah. They should do that with their beaks. Oh, yeah. I just put stuff in there and see if they can crush them. Sure. So a big squid would be able to bite an orange-sized chunk of flesh out of its prey, and Scott Castle says he has seen them bite through the skull of a tuna like it was nothing. Whoa.

They propel themselves through the water with a siphon, which is essentially just a jet that blasts them in the opposite direction that it's facing. That siphon, yeah, the siphon is flexible, so it's not like they can only move backward. They can kind of move the siphon around and move in different directions. And then they have these two small fins on their mantle, and they use those fins to steer and move around in the water. And it doesn't seem like a particularly great way to move around, like jetting, but they're very fast and it allows them to be really explosive and agile. They're actually like really effective at their movement through the water. Like one of the coolest...

The Mario water levels, the bloopers. They like somehow always know where you're going to be. They'll just bloop right at you. They're agile, get pretty realistic, it turns out. Mario. Yeah. One of the coolest things about Humboldt squid is the way they change color and the reasons behind it.

When you watch videos of them, you can see them rapidly changing their whole body color from red to white. It's pretty spectacular. We'll clip in a video of that. They do this through specialized cells called chromatifififes. force. Those cells are found right below the surface of the skin, and picture those cells as kind of like an elastic balloon with a little bit of inky pigment in the middle. And Humboldt Squid, when these cells expand, that red pigment is spread out along the cell, and it becomes brighter,

and when they contract, that cell is essentially transparent, and you can see their white muscle tissue below. So that's why they always kind of look like they're flashing between red and white because they're expressing those chromatophores. They're expanding them and then retracting them. And that's why they look red and white. It's really, really cool. It's amazing to see the videos of. It looks like someone's like flashing one with the strobe, but it's cool when you think, no, that's its actual color that's doing that. Yeah, that's awesome. They flash the colors at different speeds and it's thought that it's used for both communication and camouflage, but we don't totally understand the reasons behind their flashing yet.

They have very large pronounced eyes. Their eyes are similar to ours in the basic construction, but they're much better at light collection, and they have pretty much the same resolution that our eyes have or maybe even better resolution than us. Plus they can regrow their eyes. Whoa. Which I think is crazy. Because for us, it's like, when you lose your eye, you don't get that back.

It's like such a sophisticated piece of like biological. hardware. It seems to be really hard to get that built back just the right way. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. So basically their eyes seem to be better than ours in just about every way, aside from maybe, like, aesthetics. I've always wondered if Elijah Wood or Christina Ricci, what they're seeing, if they're seeing the world a different way with their big old eyeballs. You know, you think they can see like a different color than we can? Cash Patel, the FBI director. The FBI, that guy has got to be seen it night. So many colors. Guys, guess how many eggs these creepy little fuckers lay throughout their lives?

700 trillion. That's a little high. I'm just sick of low-balling these guesses, so I guess. I guess 7,000. Okay, it's a little low. A female squid will mate multiple times during her short life. They only live about a year. And each time she'll lay a big mass of eggs after mating.

Each of these masses can have more than a million eggs, and it's thought that a single female Humboldt squid can lay over 20 million eggs during her life. Wow. Which is more than any other cephalopod. So cephalopods are like octopi, squid, puddle fish. I was, yeah. Yeah. How, they read. I was a little.

You said like 70,000 trillion. $700 trillion. Price is right. I probably lost. Yeah. They reproduced through internal fertilization. You were like these guys. Infinitely closer than I was almost.

You just felt closer, though. I know. Mine sounded maybe a little closer, but. Because that had alien in it. They reproduce through internal fertilization, so they have sex, these squids. Good for them. But it hasn't really been documented, so they think they're doing it in really deep water. They have a developed nervous system.

They're thought to be intelligent critters. especially for cephalopods, and people like Scott that have spent a lot of time around them seem to think that they are much more intelligent than we realize. They can be somewhat social and often travel in shoals in numbers over 1,000, so they can be in really big groups. But those social groups have a dark side, too, yeah. Bullying. They do have a dark side.

Cannibalism is very, very, yeah, bullying, cyberbullying. Cannibalism is very common in Humboldt squid, and there are tons of observations of them attacking each other as they feed on other prey. So what kind of happens is when one squid goes to attack something, the rest of them rush in to maybe try and get that food, they often end up just biting and attacking the other squid. In one study in Chile, they determined that other Humboldt squid was the main food source of the local Humboldt squid population.

So there's like some populations where this is their main thing that they eat are other Humboldt squid. On purpose? Yeah, on purpose. Aside from each other, they eat fish, crustaceans, and other cephalopods. They catch their prey with their lightning fast tentacles, bring it into their arms and beak. Their mantle is composed of their organs, a thin internal shell, and an ink sack. We forgot to talk about these. These little bastards love shooting ink all over the place.

An internal shell. Yeah, there's like a thin internal, it's like a bone in their mantle. That's the only really hard thing they have besides their beaks and those little teeth. Okay. Yeah. I don't really know too much about it. Mainly for like sharks. Yeah, the ink is for a lot of different things.

But if you're fishing for squid, I wouldn't wear that tux you just rented for that big gala because there's a good chance a squid is going to jizz some ink all over it. Yeah. So don't, don't wear your tuxes if you're squid fishing. Good tip. Okay? I won't. All right. All right.

The ink comes out of their siphon. It's pretty crazy, and it's something they do a lot. Like, I think when you hear about these kind of defense systems, like with horn lizards, for example, we've all heard that they can shoot blood out of their eye. It's so rare that they ever do that because it's, like, so energetically costly and they just have to be, like, pushed to such a high level. Squater inking all the time. Like, when you watch videos of them being caught, they are just shooting ink everywhere.

It's something they do quite a bit, and it's used to deter predators, and it can be really effective. That's cool. They got good defense and offense. They do. Yeah, that's true. Is that ink a byproduct of something in their diet, or is it some other process that's making it? It's mucus and melanin are the main two things in it. I don't know how they make it.

Mike, who has the best defense and offense? What? Like in basketball? I don't know. Doesn't have to be. Could be Travis Hunter. Yannis. Travis Hunter, that's a good call.

It's got to be Travis. Two-way player, yeah. Or Otani, pitcher and. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. They're the Tonys of the ocean. Right. And you know, Otani, he likes those tannicles, too.

You have to assume, right? He's Japanese. All right. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't felt. on the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough.

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their biology for hours we're going to get back to our story so scott jumps in the water in his wetsuit and dive equipment and because this boat has been fishing for squid there's already a bunch of squid in the water around the boat when once and like we talked about when one squid finds food or is in distress a lot of the other squid in the shoal are going to follow it and also try to get that food or to cannibalize the squid that's injured. So basically because this boat was already catching the squid, there were a bunch of squid in the water. And when he entered, he was immediately transfixed by them. We talked about those chromatophores, but really it's worth watching a video because it seems like something the animals just shouldn't be able to do.

And Scott was immediately witnessing it firsthand, and it was unlike anything he'd ever seen before. He was so overwhelmed by what he was seeing that he didn't really notice that all of these huge three to five foot squid were swarming all around him. And when he pulled his camera up and started recording, the first squid rushed in, immediately attacked his camera, and wrapped those toothy tentacles around the bulky camera and pulled it toward his razor sharp beak. Whoa. But this isn't a show about animals attacking cameras.

So you better believe the story doesn't end there. The squid that attacked the camera pushed backward and smashed the camera against Scott's face that immediately shocked him out of his days and as he looked around he realizes that he's completely surrounded by squid. Wow. It's a good move when celebrities, a paparazzi guy has the camera in their face and they just shove it right back into their eyeball. I think that should be allowed.

I think there should be no like, not even in the people's public court of opinion. Should we ever feel bad for paparazzi? Shouldn't be allowed. That's what I think, too. Yeah. I think everyone should have. like a four inch buffer zone that if that four inches gets invaded you're allowed to do whatever I don't think that covers it though yeah yeah yeah because the paparazzi will just yell at the

celebrity still yeah another squid rushes in and wraps his head and right arm up in its tentacles ripping his arm backward and dislocating his shoulder a third wraps its tentacles around his body and bites into his chest with its beak easily tearing through his neoprene wetsuit. Oh, wow. So, like, once one squid goes for him, they're all just, like, game on. Yeah, and basically what they're doing is they are just trying to figure out if he's food. Like, they're just rushing in and kind of exploring to figure out if he's food or not.

They weren't mad that he was invading the privacy with his camera. I don't think so. Yeah. At this point, he has three large squid wrapped around him. His shoulder is dislocated. he's bleeding from a bite, and he can feel those sucker teeth ripping at his wetsuit. And to make matters worse, the squid were pulling him deeper and deeper without him really realizing it. But something was about to make him figure out that fact.

He went from 40 to 70 feet so quickly and without equalizing that his right ear drum exploded in his ear. I guess there used to be footage somewhere of this whole thing. I couldn't find anywhere, but you can hear him scream at the moment that his ear drum explodes. Underwater scream. Yeah. Underwater, no one can hear you scream except for the squids. That's the thing. And everyone watching the video. All right.

Yeah. So basically he found himself in the middle of what felt like an underwater dive bar brawl. And he was getting this shit kicked out of him by some of the rowdy locals. But he managed to. 30 arms on him. Yeah. He managed to pry the tentacles off his body, separate himself from the squids. And we pulled them off.

They just floated there and flashed their colors and stared at him. And he realized that the squid were studying him, and he could see the incredible intelligence behind their eyes, like these squid were taking in all the information and kind of strategizing their next move. He's shaken from this attack, and he doesn't really give them the chance to rush in again. He surfaces, climbs back onto the boat, he's injured in a lot of pain, but the main thought running through his head was how beautiful and intense the experience had been, and he was totally hooked on humbled squid. So for all intents and a curious reaction to the events of the day. I mean, it gives a lot of credit to what I've been saying all episode. Yeah, that once you get tentacles on you, you need them again. It's just a cool feeling.

This dude's just a different breed. Like, he really likes adrenaline, you can tell. And now for all intents and purposes, he becomes the expert on filming Humboldt squid underwater. He's been a part of a number of different documentaries that feature red devils. During that time, he upgraded his armor. So he uses, like, molded guards that are made out of Kevlar. He kind of looks like a stormtrooper. Sometimes he dives with full chain mail underneath that Kevlar.

Sweet. And during these years of filming, he's had a lot of other crazy experiences with Squit. Does he have the ink bags? Just to, like, shoot and squirt away. Yeah, he has a little siphon, too. No, he doesn't. That would be a good idea, though. you should dive with him. Another one of his stories I wanted to tell was from the 2000s,

when he decided to descend to 250 feet below the surface to try and film Humboldt Squid as they fed and hunted in the darkness. So he straps on his armor, he rolls into the water with the weight, and he slowly descends deeper and deeper until it's almost too dark to see. As he sank, he's transfixed by the sight of squid swimming in and out of a cloud of plankton, and then as it it's darker and darker, he has to turn on halogen light for illumination, and he looks up and he sees all these bioluminescent jellyfish, and he feels like he's in space from all these jellyfish that look like stars above him. And then something happens in the darkness that really terrifies him. As he's sitting there watching these jellyfish, he sees a huge trail of bubbles in his light, like in the distance,

rising up from the deep, and it's moving toward him. It moves closer and closer until it passes through him, and then continues moving beyond him. So basically, like, he's 250 feet down in the pitch dark, and he knows there's a huge animal somewhere below him that's making this bubble trail, and he can't see it. He has no idea what it is. Oh, man. That would scare me.

Like, there's not a ton that scares me, but if I'm in, like, dark water and I see a massive bubble trail, like, move toward me and go through me, that would freak me out. So I don't blame them for being a little terrified. Bubbles and paranormal activity. That's what it gets west. Yeah. They better not make paranormal activity bubbles. Dude, that would be so bad for you.

I will not watch it. All right. So he's already on edge. He's sitting there waiting for squid. When suddenly he looks up to see about 30 squid approaching him. As he turns in the water to watch them, they all of a sudden shoot away. So he knows something scared. off, his mind immediately turns to whatever deep-sea monster made these bubbles, and he's

bracing himself for an attack from some unseen predator when he realizes that as he was turning in the water, his peripheral vision picked up a big dark shape behind him that he hadn't really registered at the time. Slowly he turns around, and he imagines it being maybe a false killer whale or some other undersea predator, and he's shocked to see the biggest humble squid he's ever seen, simply floating there and watching him. To him, this was the first true Diablo Rojo that he'd seen underwater, and it was the kind of squid the fishermen would tell stories about. He guesses it's like a seven to eight foot squid.

It's floating in the water about 10 feet away, and as they both study each other, Scott's locked in a trance when suddenly it shoots forward and slams into him, knocking the air out of him. The arms wrap around his body and his camera, and he can feel and hear the beak as it bites at his chest plate, and he hears the scraping sound of the thousands of these little teeth as they scrape over his makeshift armor.

Yeah. The squid backs off. I know, just getting a huge hug from like an eight-foot squid at 250 feet of water. Yeah. The squid backs off again, and now behind the big squid, Scott can see dozens of four to five-foot squid hanging out at the edge of his light. and he wonders if maybe he's dealing with like a dominant alpha squid or something. He has no idea.

This big squid is holding all the little ones at bay. Yeah. I know very little about squid, so I'm not going to say like, oh, they don't have alphas or whatever. I have no idea. For all I know, this is a dominant squid. It would make sense at least that the bigger ones really good at getting food and the other ones can like join in when it's feasting or something.

Yeah. Scange or something. So this squid is absolutely mad. It's a mantle, he says, is more than three feet thick. It's too big for him to get his arms around. He guesses it probably weighs about 250 pounds. It's covered in injuries and scars, so Scott names it scar, and they continue staring at each other. And after hundreds of experiences with Humboldt Squid, this is the first time one is stuck around after trying to feed on him, because that first, like, contact was it trying to figure out if he's food. Usually after they do that,

they kind of just take off. So I want to read from his own account what happens next. This is from an article he wrote on a website called Deeper Blue and the article's titled Dancing with Demons. So this is verbatim from Scott. He swims slowly around me in a circle, keeping close enough to touch during the entire circumference. Although his closeness was a bit unnerving,

I find him fascinating. For the first time, a giant Humboldt squid paused to explore me instead of trying to feed on me, then leave. I reached my hand out to him and I could see. see his huge eye focus on it. He stops and slowly turns toward my hand and eases closer to it. He begins color flashing, which was the most intense and dramatic I've ever seen. His color patterns move from tail to arm tips with waves of red and white resembling ripples from a pebble dropped in the water. He reaches out his right outer arm to touch my hand. Inches away, we both

pause, staring at each other. What will the other do? We both seem to be testing the other. My hand is outstretched to a true Diablo Rojo. My heart is pounding. Had this giant ever seen a man before? What does he want to know? Why isn't he attacking me repeatedly like the others? For 12 incredible minutes, we circle, reach out, withdraw, touch, and test each other. His color flashes are never the same twice, and he shows no fear of me. By this time I am being surrounded by up to a hundred very large Humboldt squid, but they all stay away. Scar seems interested in my camera housing, so I show it to him.

He comes up and spreads his arms completely over it and bites the lens. Scar is so huge, his arms engulf the entire camera housing and reach beyond it to lay upon my hands, forearms, and head. Scar tenses his whole body instantly as he detects the difference between the housing and me. A second later he withdraws and stops cold. His eyes stare at my forearm and camera housing as if he realizes the difference for the first time. He flashes the unique pattern I have come to know. He flushes deep red, then blanched bright white, and stays that way for several seconds.

The blanch white pattern has preceded many a retreat after attacks on me. What does this revelation mean to scar? Whatever the reason for his blanch white reaction, his behavior changed, begins a more purposeful series of circling and touching, touching my arms, CCR cover, legs, fins, and finally my face. It occurs to me this might well be the first encountering. counter of its kind for both species. I can only describe it as a dance, dance of peace, curiosity, and discovery. Scar and I have just completed the dance of such beauty that my words fall short of explaining it. Two intelligent beings from entirely different worlds, separated by extremes of

morphology, behavior, space, and time. So basically, this continues, and then Scar looks at him one last time and jets off. It's an insane experience. For me, it must be just about the closest thing a person can feel to making contact with an alien because these look exactly like space aliens. Right. And I don't know. But no, like, truly, I feel like this has to be an other world.

It does sound very alien. It's amazing. Especially if you take him at his word, I do kind of question it a little bit as far like he's saying that it just wanted to learn what he is. And to me it's like, yeah, it did try to like bite you five different times and it's using its tentacles. And he has like this makeshift armor. So to me, part of why it's studying him is just to see if there's any way it can eat him. Yeah.

He's definitely anthropomorphizing. He's definitely like saying that he thinks he understands its thought process, you know. But it still does see kind of beautiful. For sure. And like knowledge. It's probably somewhere in the middle. Yeah. So he's buzzing from this interaction,

but what he doesn't realize is now this big alpha squid is gone, and nothing is stopping the hundred or so other squid from checking to see if he is food or not. Oh, no. Almost instantly he has the air knocked out of him again as he's slammed in the side by a huge squid and feels its tentacles wrap around him. Another wraps up his arm,

and he can feel the beak biting through his armor and into his wrist as he tries hard as he can to pry these squid off of him. And then another grabs his fins and starts tugging him down deeper. Whenever Scott would move to pry off one of the squid, it would open up another spot for another one to latch on to him. And in a matter of seconds, he's in the middle of a writhing massive squid, and the sound of them biting and scraping at his armor, camera, and dive equipment is deafening. It's the only thing you can hear.

That's insane. He tries to shake them off, but as he does it is halogen, light is like flashing all over the place and creating the strobe effect, which just makes the whole thing even more nightmarish. And dozens of attacks are launched. And he realizes he needs to get out of there. And he starts quickly ascending. And luckily, when he gets back to this plankton cloud, the squid stopped their attack.

It's like when Agent Smith just dogpiles on Neo. Yeah. Or all those squid-like monsters from the Matrix that attack that. Oh, yeah. The machines. Sentinels. Yeah. As he nears the boat, he realizes that blood is leaking from his wetsuit, and the bite on his wrist had actually gone all the way through his chain mail and his armor, and the beak had split the tissue on his wrist from the immense pressure of the bite.

Wow. But he considered a worthwhile price for probably the most memorable undersea interaction of his entire life. One of the most probably in history of anyone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was footage of that, you said, at least partially. He has some footage of scar.

Yeah, but I don't know if I saw this exact footage or not. I didn't dig too much. I probably should have. He's logged over 300 dives with Humboldt Squid, and in all of the interviews I've read with him, he states pretty emphatically that he is confident Humboldt Squid definitely have the ability to kill a human, and that he's interviewed dozens of fishermen,

He's heard their campfire stories, and he 100% believes them. Some of them say they firsthand saw people got killed by Humboldt squid or pulled underwater and died. A lot of squid experts are quick to say that from their experience, the squid are merely investigating potential food and wouldn't actually kill a person. But what Scott says to that is that these experts have never dove with the really big Diablo Rojos. And then if you went to Africa and only saw cubs, you probably wouldn't think that lions could kill people either. So that's kind of what he's saying about the squid that they're interacting with are the small ones.

So shots fired squidologists. Yeah. Squid experts. Yeah. Grow a pair and go swim with the big ones. I mean, the bigger lion cubs, I would think, would kill someone. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

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Get more value on the under $3 menu. Limit time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. Okay, so that's the story and the biology, but because it's spooky season and because Squater often featured in some of, I think, mankind. and oldest nightmares. I wanted Mike to do a quick Mike's mythology moment and talk about the most famous squid cryptid,

which is the Crackin. I'm glad you asked me to do this, Wes, because I found some really cool stuff out about them, but I'm just going to stick to the basics and prompt anyone who wants to learn more. Just type Crackin into an internet search engine. Plenty of material out there to read and learn from, you know? Yeah.

It'll probably come up just like right when you, have crack. Right. It'll probably start. You can just go from that. So that's an interesting proposition because that's where exactly where I'm going to start with this. So there's an old Norse word, crack, K-R-A-K-E, meaning a twisted or unhealthy animal,

which likely served as the inspiration for the name of the Cracken. So, Jeff, I hesitate to give you credit for being right, but on a technical level, you were right. So I have to. So the legendary sea monster's origins lay off the coast of Norway and Greenland, where the inhabitants would tell tales of ships and sailors who mysteriously disappeared while at sea. In Norse mythology, in Scandinavian folklore, the Cracken was depicted most often as a giant octopus or squid,

with tentacles that were so big, strong, and long that they could wrap around an entire ship and drag it under the water. One of the earliest written references to the Cracken appears in the 13th century Icelandic Orcar Odor saga, where the Cracken is described as being so large that it could be mistaken for an entire island and sailors who got too close to what looked like landfall would be stunned to see an island rise from the water and reveal itself as a living creature

and then pull the ship down into the depths. This is the one I found super interesting just because of... I'm a big fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the first three even. The first one obviously is the best, but I have a lot of time for two and three. So, a common myth from Scandinavian folklore

You used to ride hard for four, too. Did I? I don't hate it. Yeah, he used to be like, I really like number four. That's the Penelope Cruz one. I don't remember ever being that person. I remember being that for The Matrix 4. Is that what you're doing?

I know that you used to ride for Pirates 4. Okay, I'm just going to let you paint me as a person who really likes that mediocre movie, but sure. So, a common myth from Scandinavian folklore paints the crap. and more as a cunning predator, controlling fish up towards the surface, which in turn would tempt sailors to come closer towards what looked like a fruitful fishing spot. But when their ship was right where the Cracken wanted it, it would create a huge whirlpool right underneath them, which would drag the boats under the sea before anyone had a chance to escape. Just like in Dead Man's Chest, the third Pirates movie, like that big climactic whirlpool, that has its origins in actual folklore and mythology. So, this is something... Well, so unlike Odin and Thor, the Kraken was not revered as a god to these Norse folk,

but instead served as a reminder of the power and the danger of the sea and the relationship between humans and nature. So that's the genesis of the myth of the Cracken. Yeah. It's fascinating. It's really cool. It's really cool stuff. Yeah, I like that. And you can see how a story like that would evolve and turn into what it has. Yeah.

It sucked to like be at sea forever and see an island and then you go up to it and it's just like Crackin. Yeah. Just a huge cracking. Yeah. There is a, so one of the, a book that was written in the 13th century, apparently the narrator in this book, he posits that the cracking is infertile because otherwise we'd see a bunch of them, right?

More crackens. Yeah. More, many more crack. Cracking is. I think it's just a humble squid that got really big. So, I mean, there are giant squid and colossal squid, which are much bigger. than Humboldt squid and we'll talk about them at some point. Not that they attack people, but at some point we'll do another Humboldt squid story.

Are they one of those animals to just keep growing if they don't die? I don't know. We know very little about them. Like only recently have we gotten any footage of living giant colossal squid. That one was as big as an island and they thought it was an island and then ate their whole boat. Sure. Maybe one sailor is just a really dumb one and there's like a kind of, thing in the water and he thinks it looks like an island for some reason.

Yeah. Or their ship was like tiny. Right. Yeah. Maybe that. Maybe the sailor was tiny. Like a baby sailor. The ship handed it.

It's just a little babies. Yeah. Right. Baby Vikings. That's a show that someone should make. All right. Let's get into our categories. The first one is your favorite squid from pop culture.

It's got to be squid. word, right? For me at least, use a... I figured you might take it, so I chose someone different. Maybe.

Maybe it's the same. But I chose handsome Squater. Handsome Squidward. It's important. Or that painting of Squaderich really good, too. So I could do that. What is the... What do they call it bold in something?

That's so funny. You could do the Mario Squids. That was pretty good. good. That's a good pick. Yeah. I never really watched SpongeBob, so I didn't pick Squidward. I was either going to pick the Crackin in Pirates of the Caribbean or like a kind of weird.

I thought of old boy, but that was an octopus, not a squid that he eats. True. The boys, too. Oh, yeah. One that I thought of, though, that's kind of a weird one is, did you guys ever see the Watchman TV series, the one that was on HBO? No. Yeah. I really liked it.

And there's like squid rain that happens in that world. Yeah. Sometimes it would just rain squid on them. And in the Watchman universe, there's like a huge squid that attacked New York in the 80s and killed like three million people. So I just kind of like that. That's cool. This universe that's kind of grounded in reality, there's also just like squid that rain out of the sky. So I don't know.

Do you think one of those squid hit Building 7? People like, why aren't people talking about that? Probably. Makes more sense than this story. they're telling right now. Favorite use of tentacles in a movie. I went with Pirates of Caribbean number two. What is it?

Deadmond chest. Yeah, Davy Jones. Where he has his tentacles play the piano. That's a great scene. That's a good pick. In the first Independence Day movie, the weird scientist at Area 51, he gets the tentacle coiled around his neck, and then the alien is like talking through. Oh, yeah.

The scientist threw the window to Bill Pullman, the president. That's a good one. I love that movie so much. Yeah. So mine, I would say, I pick the mist. Do you guys remember the movie The Mist? Sure. It's probably because I'm in horror movie mode right now.

But there's the part where like, I just think it's a fun part of the movie because no one really knows what's going on yet. And then the tentacle comes under the garage and kills that one kid who's being all cocky. And you see it like touch him and lift off. off a bunch of flesh and stuff from the hooks and the tentacle. Yeah. And I really like that part of the movie because it's still when like some of the people in the store don't believe them, but the other people had seen this tentacle do this.

So it's kind of an interesting part of it. Anyway, it's a great movie. You're right. So the second Pirates is Dead Man's Chest. I think the third one is at World's End. I got that confused earlier. So correct. And the one you like is what's it called again?

Uh-huh. The fourth one. Fourth. Four. It's called four. What is that one called? I don't know. I think they even made a fifth one. I have not seen it. The one with Penelope Cruz is what I call it. Yeah, they did. I've seen them all. The fifth one was really bad with Javier Bardane. All right. Ian McShane was Blackbeard and four though. I know that. Oh, yeah. You're right. You're right. Where does Calamari rank on your appetizers? Like, if you're ordering appetizers, where is it on your list? Jeff and I actually just got an order not too long ago. And that was the first time probably. Probably, I can't even remember it. I rarely ever get it. I do like it, but it's just, I don't like it enough to, yeah, it's pretty low. I liked it when me and Mike got it, but it is honestly just like fried. So it's mainly just the fry that tasted good.

Like it wasn't so much that is calamari. Yeah. Yeah, it's really low on mine. I don't like it at all. You don't eat seafood, which is great. Yeah, but I mean, like, squid are pretty sustainable, but I've kind of just lost my taste for seafood because I haven't. I'd been eating it for so long. I want to issue another correction corner real quick.

So in the subscriber episode I did, we just recorded yesterday. I erroneously called an island a flaccid donut when in reality was closer to a calamari ring. So that's, I apologize. You guys called me out and I can't blame you for doing that. I can't blame me for just seeing donuts and everything. Donuts are delicious. Yeah, I'm glad we could meet somewhere in the middle on this one because I really felt like I was being attacked and I deserve to be is where I landed, you know?

All right. This category is called I'm just squiddin. Or I'm just squitting around. Would you rather uncontrollably shoot a bunch of ink out of your butt whenever you even get slightly scared? And I'm talking like a bunch of ink. Like you have to go change your pants and there's ink everywhere. Yeah, this second option is going to have to be real bad.

Would you rather have your body start flashing red and white really bright, like very noticeable whenever you're even slightly turned on. Oh, I'm going option two, for sure. You'd rather just announce to the entire everyone you're around that you're turned on. I spend most of my time out of the eyesight of everyone else in the world anyway. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. It would make for kind of like some awkward video conference calls when we're recording

podcasts remotely. You guys would be like, why? We're talking about bear attacks right now. Why are you horny? Yeah. I think the key to this is do you get scared more often or get horny more often? And, you know, right? Definitely scared a lot.

Or I'm sorry, definitely get horny a lot more often. So what? We're just J.S. in here? Yeah, what's J.S. And just squitting around? Just squitting around. Yeah. Which one you pick?

I think, yeah, so I don't get scared too often. And if I do get scared, I think it would actually be something I want. Because I only get scared for good reason, so then it might help me at. So you want to square. Pull my pants down real quick and ink them. Now we're squid. Okay. You know?

Yeah. I think I would do the flashing red and white. Are we talking? Is startled the same thing is scared? Because I don't get scared very often either. Yeah. But I do kind of get startled a lot. Even slightly scared is what I said.

So I'd say startled counts. I'm going the horny one. I think so too. But it's a hard pick. All right. The next category is called Squid Pro Quo. And the phrase. Great work, Wes.

Quid pro quo. We did a really good work here. Quid pro quo means something for something, essentially. Like you are trading something for something. So squid pro quo in this one means you have to trade two body parts with a squid for four daylight hours each day. Which body parts are you picking and during what hours? Wait, say it. Sorry, I don't understand.

You have to trade two body parts with the squid for four daylight hours. each days. You can't just say like I'll do it at night. And then what happens? You just have, you have those squid parts for four hours. Can I just not make the exchange? I'm going to not make the exchange at all. Every day you have to do this exchange. Can I just keep the parts?

No, they trade back and they're functional. You can use those parts as like a squid would use them. So which body parts are you picking and during which hours? Do technical, do like the arms and tentacles count as, All of them or one? You could trade like one arm, one human arm for one squid arm. Not all of their squid arms for one human arm. No.

One for one, squid pro quo. Take their two best squid arms for my... The tentacles? Two arms. Yeah. Okay. All right. I like that.

What hours of the day are you going to do it? Uh, I think it's better. So I'll go peak hours. Let's go noon to four. Okay. So wait. You go to the gym and do some really cool stuff. You only get four hours.

Four hours. How many body parts? Two body parts. Oh, that's his me up a little. I won't go to a gym. I'll go to the gym with my arms. I'm going to go from six to ten because that's when I'm going to be watching the most movies. And I'm going to take one tentacle and the beak so I can really munch down on some treats.

Like with pistachios, I wouldn't even really need to shell them. I just crunch them all up. Oh, I kind of want one of their eyes. Yeah. So I picked the eye in the sight. And the eye just because I want to experience what it feels like to see out of a squid's eyeball and just have like improved eyesight. And then the siphon so I can just swim really, really fast. And I would do it peak day as well because that's when I like to swim the most.

Do your arms go on the squid? Yeah. So you trade them. Oh, I'll switch mine then. Okay. I want to switch my brain. so that my brain is in the squid for four hours. I got full squid for four hours.

I like that. All right. Okay. The next category is what would Mike and Jeff do? Let's say you jump in the water, you're suddenly attacked by multiple squid. They're latching on to you. What are you doing? Barrel.

Barrel roll? Okay. For sure, barrel. To get all the tentacles off. You want the tentacles off now. I'm not wearing the chain mail. Yeah. That's why I'm not wearing the chain mail.

Okay. Yeah, I think I just keep spinning so they can't keep latched on to me. You're just barrel rolling the whole time. I like it. Yeah. Okay. Mike, what are you doing? I'm going to throw scuba tanks into all their beaks and shoot them like Brody does enjoy.

Smile, you son of a bitch. Yeah. They're going to be like little mini tubes, though, they can fit in their beasts. Like bear spray. Like little bear sprays. That's it. So what Scott Castle says you actually should do, and I do think, he's probably the leading authority on this is just act the least like prey possible,

which what he says is really just kind of staying as still as possible. You can peel them off of you if you need to, but what you don't want to do is like thrash through the water because then they kind of feel like they're attacking prey. So you don't want to thrash around a lot. It's the main thing. Early Metallica would not survive. No, you would not survive if you were also at a Metallica concert. at the same time.

Right. Okay, a couple listener questions. I got a few from Patreon here. This one's from Sky. Sky says squid-related question. Giant squids have the biggest eyes in the animal kingdom. What do you think are the prettiest eyes in the animal kingdom? And which would you want if you had to replace your own?

It's Wes's. Wes's eyes are the prettiest. Oh, thanks. You guys seen? Oh, my gosh. Transfixing. Holy mackerel. All right, now you're just scaring us.

What do you guys think are the prettiest eyes? Mike, you already answered. Jeff, what do you think? Man, probably a type of cat, like a jaguar, leopard, or lion. Like some hazel, big hazel eyes. Yeah. I like the dark kind of gray of a snow leopard's eyes. That might be my favorites.

I think frogs have really beautiful eyes, too, though. The red eye, the red-eyed tree frog? Not the red-eyed ones as much, but those are cool. I even think that when they go, like, all black, I think that's pretty. It's just really cool. Pretty look. I think if I had to trade with an animal, though, would probably be a snow leopard. Do you count the black marking around their eyes?

No. Never mind. Just the eyes. Yeah. All right. If you guys, this is from Ravioli, if you guys can make a hybrid of any two bear species, what would it be and what would you name it? I'm a big fan of this listener's work.

Yeah. I would combine a polar bear and a black bear, and I'd name it a panda bear. Okay. Not very enlightened there, but I like it. I'd combine a panda bear and another panda bear, because they got to be having more sex, in my opinion. Oh, yeah. Then you'd just have one white bear and one black bear.

You think that's what would happen? Or like a really spotted black. Sure. Oh, I misunderstood the question, I think. I'm not changing my answer, though. I think I would combine a sloth bear and a polar bear, because I just would want to see what that looks like. and I would name it a slurler or a

Poth bear I'd name it a Poth bear Would you have a huge sloth bear or a hairy polar bear? I think you'd have a big old hairy polar bear that's kind of like gray That'd be cool All right one more from Yash Yash says thoughts on the movie Parenthormon Big fan

I love Parenthormon I love all the like animation movies I think it's my favorite out of them I think, I think, uh, Kubo and the two strings is my favorite. Kubo's good. What do you mean favorite out of them? From that studio. Yeah. I forgot what it?

Lockai. Lockheye. Yeah. Yeah. Laca or whatever. They did Coraline, Paranorman, Kubo, missing link, box trolls. I think that's it. Um, what's your favorite of those, Jeff?

What, that one strong guy in Paranorman is gay, right? Yeah. I think he's gay. Like he starts out not gay. gay and then at the end he's gay. That's funny. Yeah. It was funny.

Is he not gay at the start? I thought the joke was just like she keeps trying to hit on him, but the whole time he's just like not interesting. Yeah, I think he's gay. She just doesn't know that he's gay. Maybe I, the audience doesn't know. Yeah. Death to the author, you know.

Jeff, you could interpret it however you want and it's valid. Yeah. I think you're probably right. Okay. All right. I think that's it for Patreon questions. Jeff, did you get any of the sur ones? Sure enough, dude.

Okay. From Dizzy Konski, can animals choke? Yeah. But I think we choke more than they do, but they can choke. Like a lion eating a huge chunk of meat can choke on it? Yeah. Like Greg Norman at the end of a golf tournament. Can they do that?

Like they're so close to, they can probably choke. Yeah, they can choke. They're probably a jihad. That jaguarer's on. Finally chases a gazelle down and then misses its jump. or something. Yeah, right. That jaguar we saw in Brazil that moved its foot a tiny bit and they came and got away.

Joke. Joke. Jek yelled out, choke! Kai Dirt, Claude asked, can a rattlesnake slither and rattle at the same time? Yes. Or they have to be coiled up. No, they can slither and rattle. Yeah.

But it's more common they do it when they're coiled. Mike, you can answer this one too. Aaron M. 58. Wes, you can too, if you want. Okay. Uh, Kobe or LeBron? LeBron for me. Like, who do I like more or who do I think is better?

Just says Kobe or LeBron, question mark. LeBron. Period. Yeah. Do you like him more? I think I do. Yeah. I think I, I think both.

I like him more, and I think he's better. Yeah. I don't know. Kobe, Kobe got five. Yeah, five rings. Kobe went out at, like, he died like a good time, you know? Good public sentiment. That's a bad.

It's a bad time to say. It's bad to say that, but I feel like his legacy was cemented, you know, and LeBron's been in the league for so long now that it's kind of hard not to think about like old LeBron when you think about his whole career. You think LeBron needs a helicopter crash. Yeah. If LeBron were to die right now, we would all think he's the greatest of all time, like without a doubt. Yeah. Tibbitt's 13S, a place you have vacationed or visited that pleasantly surprised you in the lower 48. I had my answer and then you threw in that lower 48. Lower 48, huh? Yeah. I had a great time when I went to Santa Fe last year. Oh, Santa Fe is. That is surprising. Yeah, randomly it was in June, so there was this huge pride parade going on and they shut down this. Yeah. I was thinking about saying New Mexico as well. All right. Well, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean interrupt you. No, you go ahead. Say New Mexico and then we can move on. No, I want to hear the rest of your story. That was about it. They just had a sweet parade that I just had. happened to be in town for was it zezobra was it the little red-headed demon that they worship in santa fe i didn't catch that particular detail but maybe in your head is it just like santa fe every single day has

huge gay pride parade because the one time you went there they had one like this is how every day is out here amazing great food too i had some amazing mexican food there i think north carolina's mine I never, I had kind of slept on North Carolina. And then when I went there, I was like, it is beautiful here. Just like gorgeous. The towns, I think, are really quaint and beautiful. The food was good. I really like North Carolina.

I'm going to go with Pittsburgh. Yeah. Now, granted, it was one of the first bigger cities I'd ever visited. So I was probably influenced by that. But I thought it had a lot of like old charm to it. Yeah, a really distinct feel. I feel like whenever a movie is filmed in Pittsburgh, I immediately can tell that it's filmed in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh. Matt Dono Huey asked, what's the deadliest animal of all time? Don't say humans, though. That's dumb. I mean, it's mosquitoes then. It'd be either mosquitoes or rats, probably. Oh, the rat, black plague? Do like a predator.

What's the most deadly predator of all time? Yeah, probably crocodiles. Yeah. And like a saltwater crocodile. Yeah, and then like venomous snakes are more than anything. What if crocodiles had malaria and they could pass that on like mosquitoes? Double whammy. You get killed and get malaria?

That sucks. A lot of listeners wanted our thoughts on the new Anaconda trailer. I'm not interested at all. I watched the trailer and it made me honest. I like I hardly could make it through the trailer. I know I sound like a cramudgeon. It just felt like schlocked to me. It didn't seem fun.

The Anaconda was like 80 feet long. like a dragon and then I I'm just kind of tired of Jack Black to be honest. I've kind of had my fill you know did you see did you even see Minecraft no chicken jokey I don't think you I don't know if you could pay me enough to see Minecraft yeah that's crazy easily could I'd see that it wouldn't even be that much no I so that was my knee-jerk reaction to it was like oh my gosh how could we like we're defiling sacred ground here and then I remember we're not exactly talking about high art here with the original so go

for it if it ends up being great awesome then for me it has nothing to do with the fact that it's like anaconda and they're ruining anaconda it just looks stupid to me it just doesn't look good yeah I think if we could though look through Virgin Eyes at that original movie's trailer

we'd probably have a similar yeah you can't complain about how the snakes look because it's not like they ever looked good but they're like five times bigger in this new movie and I just don't know why they need to do that. Yeah, it's so cool. Well, did you see the video of all the snakes and the Amazon that was viral like six

months ago? No. There's like the snakes were as big as the river. Yeah, that was, that was AI. That was for real? Yeah, you got, you got AI'd. Yeah. You got crossed up by AI.

Last, last quick. Okay. Kobe. I'm all crossed. XX, ass, what's one thing you'll never do again? Brisbane golf. I will never. I don't think I could ever work a sales job again.

Like if something happened to our current situation and like I had to get a different type of job, I don't think I could ever do another sales job. I hate sales. You know, more power to the people that can do it. But for me, I just can't. Yeah. In a literal sense, I did, one time I did a drive, a 32-hour straight drive from San Diego or Louisiana. Yeah, San Diego to New Orleans. I just think I literally couldn't.

Yeah. Like, I got lost a little bit and had to make it. It was longer than it needed to be by about five hours. And I was just like, I can make it. No problem. I just had like a mountain dew and was good for 12 hours at a time. But I think my body just couldn't do that anymore. I don't think I could do that either.

Jeff, what's your answer? I don't know. Okay. All right. Jeff couldn't come up with an answer to a listener question ever again. One thing you never do again is this question. I'm the only one that had it beforehand. Yeah, that's amazing.

All right. I do maybe you scared me a lot of like when I would go to Hawaii doing like evening swims in the ocean. But I think I might do it again. Okay. All right. We're going to move on. Conservation Corner.

Never fall in love. again. As far as Humboldt Squid are concerned, they're data deficient when it comes to their IUCN listing. Oh, that sounds good. But there are likely a lot of Humboldt squid in the world. Probably many, many more than there actually even should be. That sounds bad, Mike. Yeah. Data deficient. Deficient connotes a ton of them that do really well. Well, Wes is now saying there's too many, so I don't know how to feel. There's probably too many because we've removed a lot of their predators from the ocean. stuff like sharks, dolphins, Marlin, large tuna, things that are caught in our nets. With Marlon Wayans. So their populations are probably higher than ever, and they're spreading into places

where historically they weren't found. And that's because as currents change and as the oceans warm, we see them move north and into waters where they typically didn't frequent. And when they show up in new places, they actually can be really devastating to the local fish populations. I read an article about a Humboldt squid explosion, a population explosion, in California. I was going to say. I knew I had to catch myself there.

Now, that sounded bad. And in California, when they showed up, the salmon fishery had an almost 80% reduction in salmon, essentially overnight. And the squid there... Salmon fisheries are bad. Not necessarily. Not if they're managed well. And the squid contributed to the collapse of a $1.4 billion fishery. So when they show up in new places, they can wreak a lot of havoc.

So they seem like they're doing just fine. Okay. All right, let's give them our claw ratings. New animal. Claws. I'm going to give them seven. I think I would really like to dive with Humboldt squid. It sounds like a real experience.

And I think that they're flashing and all that stuff they do is really cool. So I didn't think I would ever give a squid this high of a ranking, but I think they're a pretty solid seven for me. That's where my brain went. Do you think they're the best squid? I think they're the squid I would most want to see besides like a giant or a colossal squid. So no. Top three? No, that's not bad.

But I think the giant and colossal, it's more just that they're so rare that I'd want to see. I think squid generally are really interesting. I think I'll give them a six. Yeah. I agree. I'll go seven. Six is good. Even the small ones, well, I guess we're talking about Humboldt.

But like Jeff and I saw a couple of squid when we were diving down. That's cool. It's freaking sweet. Yeah. Yeah. I saw some in the Great Barrier Reef. I saw them in Bon Air. When you see them, they are really cool.

How they kind of just like hover in the water and then shoot off. Yeah. They're really neat. All right. We all like squid here. We're pro squid. All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening.

It was a fun episode to put together. And as always, we teased it already in this episode. But if you want more content, check out our Patreon. Mike just did an episode on Amelia Earhart and how she may have. have died a very terrible death by animals. It was very interesting. We've had some really fun episodes on there lately. So check out our Patreon.

It's $10 a month. And you get access to an absolutely massive catalog of bonus episodes of subscriber episodes. And some really fun extra content. And if you want it just to show right up in your Apple feed, do our Apple Gris Club instead. Same price. Super convenient. Exactly same content. No one gets anything else.

The other doesn't. Well, at least as far as audio content. episodes yeah yeah yeah all right all right thanks guys we'll see you love you gray wolves are the biggest uh canine species in the world i don't think that's true i guess they're the heaviest and tallest yeah they're not the tallest but they're the biggest okay yeah because main wolves are the tallest okay sure like bigger than main wolves nice one tough yeah because bigger is like weight and height okay all right love you bye see you