Wild Times: Wildlife Education - Methane Eating Shrimp, Sharkano, and Why do we Dream?

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Forrest pisses off a bunch of his colleagues... And Why do we dream? All that and more in this episode of The Wild Times podcast! More at https://thewildtimespodcast.com

And once again, we are back with the Wild Times podcast. Wild Times. Well, that's the thing, is all I need is an hour of safe. I quickly check in with myself at each dimension, and then I'm back at it, man. Yeah, baby, I love it. Oh, I'll feed you, baby birds. I'll feed you. I'm joined today, like every day, by Mr. Peter, spelled backwards, who is Retep.

What's up, Peter? Oh, hey, man, you introduced me first this time. I feel special. Your head is giant. What's up? Tight shirt. Big head. Why?

Why? Head giant, shut up. And as always, Mr. Patrick DeLucah, executive producer, what's up, Pat? Hey, Forrest, I think you have a perfectly normal-sized head, and your shirt is reasonably fitting. It's true. I'll tell you what, I'm in a very muggy, Ithaca, New York right now, and this shirt's coming off in less than five minutes. I am sweating profusely. I'm guessing that the reason you're wearing hats all the time now is because your hair has gotten to a point that you're embarrassed about it.

100%. Are you balding? No, it's quite, I wish I was balding. I'm at the awkward phase, and I've read a lot about it. When you're growing your hair out, there's this one phase where you just can't do shit with it because you can't tuck it behind the ears. It doesn't look good when you do something else with it. So it's, I look like Ellen DeGeneres right now, basically.

Didn't you used to have long hair in your past life of being a comedian slash rock star? Didn't you have long hair? I did something that involves wearing a long brown wig. that was down to my ass. And then in high school, I had a long bowl cut. No way. What is a long ball cut? It literally was just like the barber essentially puts a bowl on your head,

cuts around it and leaves that part long. Tapers it down towards the back? There was no tapering whatsoever. It was bad. Yeah, it looked terrible. Let's hear about your drive, man. You just did 40 hours across the country. What's up with that?

Yeah, how bad you? I got to say, man, it was legit enjoyable. Like, there was no time where, It was grim or I got bummed out. You know, there was a lot of protests going on. So as we would approach, we kind of took like the southern route. So, you know, as we'd approach each city, would just do a quick Google just to, you know, see what was going on. The only place we ran into anything was in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I was driving late at night and came up. And there were some protests that I guess had turned violent there. And there was just a wall of cop cars blocking the highway. Oh, wow. And what they didn't seem to enjoy was me asking them for directions on where to go. Yeah. But luckily, Ways took over and found another route quickly. But the drive was fucking great.

Really far. You're telling me that the men and women who are putting their lives on the line for our safety have something better to do than give Patrick DeLuca a direction. Yeah, they seemed preoccupied. It was very surprising. And then the rest of them are texting. Did you do this while having a smartphone, smart device in your hand? So you literally could have just turned to your phone? Well, the problem is Ways and Google Maps, they will, they don't know how to account for a riot, right?

So they'll just get you off and try to get you back onto the same freeway at the next exit, which, you know, we could tell by the smoke that was up ahead that there was, that was not going to work. So, wow. But no, great drive. The dog was great in the car. Yeah, real nice. What about the cat? Decided to leave the cat with my neighbor. Oh, wow.

Yeah, that's a bad idea. Cat in a car sounds just fucking terrible. I mean, cats are terrible to begin with. I don't know why you have one. Oh, boy. There we go. Between you and Forrest, this is just brutal. The lakehouse.

The lakehouse is incredible. Incredible. Going to take the boat for a spin tomorrow. So we'll never see you again in L.A. then I take it, right? this is it. This is what we're doing for the rest of the time now. Sadly, it's not my house and I'm sure I will be asked to leave at some point. You should tell Peter slash our listeners, like, unless your fiancee is listening, the underlying motive as to why you took her out east to see some small

towns. Well, I mean, the whole point is to poison her on the idea of living in L.A. by showing how relaxing and wonderful it is to live in. So basically the way this house is, is you turn off the main road, you go down about, probably a quarter to a third of a mile, the driveway, which is just winding through forest. Great. And then up to the lake, there are deer everywhere. It is just peaceful, just ducks. So I'm just trying to get her sort of prepared for when we move to Wilmington.

There we go. There it is. Big Willie. Call out. Well, here's the idea for us. So we're going to be here for a bit. We've got to go do this shoot. where you're going to swim around in very cold water.

And then I think a Wilmington trip could be in order. Yeah, yeah, I think it has to happen. I've got a real estate agent over there. I'm starting to know people. I think it's got to happen. Yeah, let's do it. Excellent. All right, guys, what's going on this week?

Anything intriguing in the world of wildlife? I saw something. Have you guys seen that the paddlefish is potentially extinct? The Chinese paddlefish? Well, I don't know. Yeah, I'm assuming. Is there more than one paddlefish? There are Midwestern guy who's from where the other paddlefish are from.

Yes, shirts optional deluca. All right, here we go. Oh, God, the shirt. There we go. Man, I feel good now. Excellent. Look great. Yeah, the Chinese paddlefish.

So, funny story about that. First of all, you're about four months too late. Actually, six months. It was the first, it was the first fish to be declared, or first animal to be declared extinct in 2020, really early. I think it was like January 2nd thing. They gave it the official extinction logo. But Patrick, you'll remember this. Funny story about the Chinese paddlefish.

So it's this incredible fish, right? Grows to like 12 feet long, has this crazy spoon-looking appendage coming off the front of its face, and it lives in the Yanksy River. The same place that the Yanksi River dolphin or the Baji and the Yanksy Giant Softshell all used to occur in the same basin. So there's three of these megafauna, huge incredible animals that lived in one region. So in season one, Patrick and I were planning and we're like, hey, why don't, Like, where can we go that'll give us a great chance of success at getting an extinct animal? I was like, well, we got to go to the Yanksy River.

There's three of these enormous creatures that haven't been seen in 10, 20, 30, whatever it is years. Maybe we can get one of them and get lucky. And Patrick was like, yeah, I'm all for it. Let's do that. Yeah. So we started planning, right? And we got, just like with everything, we got to do a lot of paperwork, a lot of permitting. Oh, boy.

You too, huh, Peter? Huh? Peter, you are a shade of red. We thought Forrest was red last week. What happened, sir? Sorry, I didn't mean to derail the podcast. You did. Yeah, sorry, how white is.

My teeth is what he said. Look at how white my teeth is. All right, well, I screenshot that. Oh, God. Now that you've destroyed my story, I'm going to continue it nonetheless. Just as China destroyed the paddlefish. That's right. Well, like with all expeditions, we have to do a ton of paperwork.

have to get, you know, government backing. So with China being a communist government, we had to send in a letter of intent. Like, what is your plan with regards to filming? Are you going to, you know, film the political situation, blah, blah, blah. And we're like, no, of course not. And on my proposal, I wrote down, you know, due to pollution, we, the, these three animals have gone extinct, and we intend to, like, try and recover one. And this will be a big deal for you guys. And we just got back, there is no pollution in China. This is, that is not accurate. This is false information. you're disparaging the Chinese government, you are not allowed to come here. So that's where that ended.

Oh, God. So they wouldn't let you do it at all because they're insane with any kind of negative press whatsoever, obviously, right? Yep, exactly right, because we said that there was pollution in China. And that's a big no-no. Of course, we made that up. Thanks, China. Yeah, that's Peter's catchphrase for new listeners. He'll say it once per episode, if not twice.

their letter, I remember, involved not only saying, you know, hey, we don't have much pollution, but I think they said something about the animals not being extinct or not being close to extinction as well. There was all kinds of stuff. It was just so falsified where it was just like, you are wrong. All these animals are here. They are very happy. China is perfect. There is no pollution. We're not working on a virus in a lab. You can't trust a thing that comes from the CCP. The whole COVID thing even is just like, it just so happened to come out of a place where there's a lab where they were testing these coronaviruses and bats. I mean, I'm not, I don't think that that's that far fetch that they fucking, this thing got out of there or fucking somebody, a bad actor, let it loose.

I mean, it's just too coincidental. Maybe it was the same monkeys that stole that pile that broke into the lap. It probably was. It almost certainly was. They're just fucking throwing vials of coronavirus blood all over. over to fucking streets everywhere, dude. But on the topic of extinct animals, we all know how that's something I get giddy over.

I saw a piece of good news to play on the flip side for a change. So the critically endangered Saharan Cheetah, of which there's only 37 left in the wild, period. 37 is the estimated number, was filmed for the first time in over a decade in Algeria. So in other words, in the Hogar Mountains in this region in Algeria, these animals have actually been branching out.

And, you know, maybe that's because of COVID they're moving. Maybe not. I don't think it's a particularly developed area. But just the fact that these incredibly gorgeous Saharan cheetahs are cheaters, yeah, are in Algeria for the first time in a decade, I think is just phenomenal. And hell yeah. There's only 37 of them, but maybe, you know, with this with this range expansion, they're going to get more comfortable. They might be some more breeding going on. Maybe Algeria will put some sanctions in place. I mean, it's, it's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, so this is a subspecies of cheetah that lives in the Sahara desert. How, what's different about it? What's cool about it? How is it evolved to be better suited to living in the Sahara desert? Yeah, well, I mean, obviously,

you know, so things are tougher up there, right? So this is sort of a, if you will, it's a hardier cheetah that has adapted for these incredibly tough conditions. And one of the main ways they've done that, you know, cheetahs in sub-Saharan Africa spend a lot of their time eating big game, right? They hunt gazelle and antelope and things of that nature. These cheetahs, because of how harsh the environment is, the environment doesn't support a ton of big game. So instead, they're hunting rabbits and mice, and they're acting more like a serval cat, really, than like your typical cheetah. They look a tiny bit different, not a lot different. A little bit haunchier, I guess.

You know, a little bit more fur on the nape of the neck. But overall, you could... Yeah, that's how I describe Pat when I tell people about him. Haunchy. I'm pretty haunchy. I'm pretty haunchy. I mean, I know nothing about this animal for us, but just reading about it quickly, it says that they don't, their faces don't have spots or the stripes that other

cheetahs have. Why would that be an advantage in the desert? Yeah, that's an interesting question. So you're right, that they do have those marking differences. I don't know the answer definitively. I'm guessing no one does. My guess would be if you're living in the plains of Southern Africa, right? Even if you're a zebra or an eel and a leopard, those spots, those resets, those stripes, they blend into the environment.

Right. But as you begin to live in the Saharan desert where it's very, very barren and vast and expansive, the less markings, the more you're likely to blend in would be my opinion. And especially when an animal like a cheetah, that's going to stay relatively low and pop its head up out of the long grass or pop its head up over a sand dune to look out. If it has a lot of markings on its face, it's probably going to stand out more. So I would guess that it's kind of some selective breeding over generational time that's led to this look. That reminds me of something that I've wanted to ask you about.

So I don't know if you've ever seen a polar bear hunt like a wild hair or an Arctic hair or an Arctic fox. Polar bears are white. Makes sense. They live in ice and snow. When they are hunting, I've seen videos where the polar bear takes its adorable paw and covers its little black nose. Oh, interesting. They use its paw to cover the nose so that whatever its hunting doesn't see this spot of black in the snow and ice. So here's my question.

This polar bear is perfectly adapted to its environment. You know, before, you know, everything started melting. It was just the king of the ice. why didn't it lose the black nose? That's a good question. No, why didn't you get rid of the black nose for us? I wish I knew the answer to that. I've never heard this rumor before, this rumor.

I've never heard this theory or this behavior that they cover their nose. It totally makes sense. You know, all, so the nose for a lot of big mammals, like with your dog, right? If your dog's sick, you feel its nose. And if it's dry and warm, you know it's sick. if it's cold and wet, you know, it's healthy. So I'm wondering if there's something to do with the fact that the nose is such a key organ for these animals that, you know, they need that little bit of sun warmth on it to help to help kind of get the scent glands activate and get things going and that little bit of black makes a difference. That's a theory.

It's probably not right, but it's interesting. I love how you just own the fact that you don't know shit. I'm just kidding. Well, see, I mean, for the listeners, you know, we do, our producers, Will does put together a quick show doc. My polar bear question was not on it, but also Forrest, you have been just running around like, I guess I would say a chicken with its head cut off, but even worse than that this week. What's going on with you?

Dude, it's been, it's been a hectic week. Just had a lot of work, you know, as, and I think this is something that will interest our listeners. You know, Patrick, I don't need to tell you how much work goes into preparation for an expedition. Right. And, you know, we're only two weeks away from our next expedition, which we can't say too much, obviously, but we can say is it's up into the Arctic and it's going to be very, very cold. And there's a lot of gear that comes with that and a lot of tools and a lot of pieces and making sure things aren't going to freeze over.

So just been testing gear, getting a bunch of stuff together for that. In order to do that, I went out to the Channel Islands in California here to dive for a day, test some of the aquatic gear and, of course, turn that into a spearfishing trip with my buddies, which was a great way to spend a Thursday. Shot a couple beautiful Yellow Tail. Nice. But, you know, that was essentially taking a day off and then came back to just calamity.

One of the pipe bursts at my house had to repair that. You just got to move. Don't even repair it. Just get out of there. Yeah. Yeah. Up to what, North Carolina? Do you thinking? It's too much.

It's just been hectic. I mean, I'm just making excuses at this point, but it's been a cluster fuck of a week. And I'm glad that it's over and that you two gentlemen don't have shirts on and that Peter's nipples are so small and pink and bizarre looking. They're now in the camera angle. They're not bizarre looking, dude.

These are perfect human male nipples. Speaking of human nipples, have you guys, and it's related to the big cat shit, but did you guys see that a judge ordered Carol Baskin wins Joe Exotic Zoo? Bullshit. I swear to God. But here's the caveat. Doesn't get the animals, just the fucking, like, zoo, the property. She gets the property.

Interesting. Yeah, I mean, she had lawsuits going against those guys. Yeah. Joe doesn't own the zoo anymore. Okay, so she won a lawsuit against Jeff Lowe. Jeff Lowe is the current owner. So now he's basically got to figure out something. Yeah, no, he's terrible. The worst one. What do you think a guy as terrible as him is going to do with 200 animals? Like, what is he going to do? He's just going to be the biggest asshole. He's just going to either release them or he's running a for profit business. To him, it would be no different if he was running a tiger exhibition or a company that was writing code for an online, you know, shoe warehouse. Right, right.

Just the money. To him, it's all about profit. So, you know, yeah. My best guess, he wasn't going to go out of his way to help those. My best guess is that he's making bestiality porn. I cannot think of another thing that he could be doing. He just seems like the type. I'll tell you what.

I'm kind of sweet on his wife. What about his nanny? Ooh. I did see the nanny, but the wife's, like, like, I don't know. cute and it's weird because he's a dick to her and he's gross and everything about him's awful he's know what she's thinking he's a vile fucking human i think the takeaway there is that we all need to wear more bandanas with baseball caps over him yeah and order some true religion jeans a yeah that's what's important pat uh i had a quick question for you uh did you listen better be

quick did you listen to the last podcast on your 40 hour road trip sure did in the car sure did How specifically, what happened when I dropped the line about fucking your fiancé and you didn't know that I had said it? Well, it was interesting. Sure. I didn't know you had said it because I'd gotten up for a minute. And I remember. So I was just mortified that you included that for a couple reasons. She didn't care.

But I was like, we must have no female listeners. There was so much potty talk in that episode. Do you think we lost a bunch of female listeners? Should I clean it up? This one? We don't have any. We started with 10 and we're down to zero. There's no female listeners. They're only watching for us because they want to look at his big dopey head and his goofy smile. What is it with my head today? Why are you being so weird?

Your body has gotten so lean. You're really coming after a. Your body has gotten so lean that your head is no longer proportionate to it. I'll take that. I will take that backhand compliment. I will allow such things to happen. All right. So I want to pitch you guys some. Tell me what you think. Stay with me now. You guys, you're familiar with Shark Nato, yes? Of course.

Wonderful. How about Sharkano? Sharkano. Haven't seen it. Oh. Or is this something you're writing? Is this an actual thing? Oh, I'll feed you, baby birds.

I'll feed you. Sharkano is a real thing, and that's what's so incredible. So inside an underwater volcano, the Kavachi, the Kavachi Crater, there's an active submarine volcano, which is off the coast of Solomon Islands, and researchers from Queensland in Australia were able to send an ROV down there and observe an amazing display of adaption by sleeper sharks and hammerheads, two species that shouldn't be coexisting, by the way. It's not that they shouldn't be coexisting, but they shouldn't be, certainly shouldn't be inside a volcano together, but they shouldn't be in the same range pretty much at all.

And these sharks have adapted to be able to thrive in this crazy hot, acidic, active volcano water that's literally so hot that it's bubbling up out of the surface and would kill a diver instantly if they went into it. And here are these crazy two species of sharks, one which is like a benthic bottom shark. It's one of the oldest living animals in the world. The other which is like a transient pinnacle finding sharks living together inside of sharkano. So I read that the water that they're in is so hot that when bubbles bring it to the surface, there was actually in 2015 a diver whose skin melted off his body from the water coming up from where these sharks are living. How is that possible? Isn't that insane?

How does that fucking work? So is their skin just made of something that obviously doesn't look at all like our skin, but is it like an entirely different kind of? It's dinosaur skin, man. It's made out of fucking rubber or something. thick, thick rubber. Scientists, why don't you explain that? Because I sound like a fucking morrow. It's mind-blowing to think that it could melt a human skin off and they're in it 24 hours a day.

I can't even dip my toe in a hot tub that's over 101. Yeah, because then you fall out the side of it and pass out and can't get up and leave the next day. Sorry, throw back to a previous episode. Oh, you're good. What do they think's happening here for us? Yeah, so, I mean, look, I think there's a lot of things about a lot of different animals that we do not understand their adaption. in this case with sharks, the fact that they can adapt to this much pH,

so much carbon dioxide, these crazy temperature fluctuations, this acidity. First of all, if you've ever rubbed your hand against a shark, it feels like sandpaper. They have crazy porous, rough skin, which is amazing to touch. In fact, like I,

thinking back to some days of doing some shark tagging work in Florida, one of my very first days, I pulled a black tip up onto the boat, and it started to like thrash around like crazy. so I like basically bear hug tackled it to hold it down so that didn't bite anybody on the leg and when I got up I had road rash all down my forearms and on my chest of not wearing a shirt because that's just how like abrasive their skin is but my point is just that these animals um their skin morphologies nothing like ours of course but they have this incredible adaptability that we don't give them credit for you know that we're talking bull sharks can live in marine and saltwater environments that's like the same as if we could breathe it air and breathe in out of space. You know what I mean? It's two incredibly different systems. And the fact that these two species of sharks, sleepers and hammerheads, and who

knows what other species, have adapted to live within this volcano without melting or shredding or dissolving, which is exactly what would happen to our frail little human skin, is unbelievably cool. So to be, to clarify for people out there who aren't nerds, when you said they could live in saltwater and marine environments, you meant saltwater and freshwater, right? did, got very excited and misspoke. I also noticed you said out of space. Is that a term or is it outer space? Fuck, Peter, just don't say anything else.

It's a thing about forests that I love and I don't want him to change it. He says out of space instead of outer space. He also says zebra. I mean, that may be the real way. I don't know. Hey, how about this guy? I'm from where zebras are from. Don't tell me how to say it, all right?

I see fucking zebras out here at the zoo. They're from here. And also, Retep, have you been to out of space? Apparently, I took mushrooms. No, no, no. Just quick question. Have you been to outer space? No, I've not been to outer space.

Okay, so that's it. So that's it. What? Out of space? You don't know if it's supposed to be outer space or out of space. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. You have to do the thing to know the semantics of it are.

It's so annoying because Forrest says out of space instead of outer space. And it just makes me like smile a little bit every time he does it. And I'm super annoyed that you corrected him. No, I just keep being who you are, man. It's not a correction. I was just pointing it out because I'm an asshole like that. I didn't know that I did that, by the way, or that I didn't know that it was wrong. Are you crazy?

You didn't know. I can't believe it. You've been on TV. You've probably said it thousands of times in front of millions. Do you know how narrow my focus as a human being is? I know about one thing. I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. Yeah.

No, you know three things. things, dude. You're into wildlife working out in high-fives. That's right. High-five. Well, this is, this makes me think of this theory that I've been developing here, Forrest, and Peter, you might be interested in now. This adaptation is completely insane, right? They're living in essentially a boiling cauldron of lava water. I saw a thing a few years ago about this one type of shrimp that, uh, had adapted to where there's a thermal vent coming out of super, super hot methane that's being released out of the earth. And the shrimp, their entire life is just them clinging to this area where the methane gets released.

And they eat the methane. That's their food, which is methane is a chemical compound of CH4, right? So one carbon molecule, four hydrogen molecules. They eat the carbon and shit out the hydrogen. And that's their life. Yeah. They've adapted to do that. Sounds great.

So what do you think about it? Yeah, it sounds fun. No stress. No stress. Think about all these insane adaptations. animal kingdom and plant kingdom and yet everything sleeps wait do these shrimp are you sure that these shrimp sleep are you positive yeah dude even every plants even sleep right they go into the creb cycle that's where they produce chlorophyll every living thing sleeps nothing's adapted like

there should be a worm or a fruit fly or something that's just awake for 12 hours and dies and doesn't sleep it annoys me that everything sleeps and it really makes me think that my theory about sleep is correct. What's the theory? My theory is that when we sleep, we're going and checking in on ourselves in other dimensions. And that's what dreaming is. I like it. Dude, I'm just going to chime in because I fucking have a torrid relationship with sleep

ever, like for years, decades. Yeah, me too. It's awful. I've talked about this with you before, Pat. I hate the thought of going to bed and trying to lay there and go to sleep, but I love fucking sleep. So it's like, I get real. I get stressed out.

Like if I have to do something in the morning, I'm just, I can't deal with it. It makes me stay up like several extra hours. 100%. And there's days. If I, yeah, if I've got an appointment or some reason I have to get up, it's, I'll just stay away. There's date. I do this probably maybe not so much anymore, but once every couple months, it'll start getting light out and I'll just then be up for the next day.

And I'm like, fuck it. I'm not even to try. Like, I'm just going to go to. bed at nine or something the next day. I haven't taken a nap since I was four. You feel, but like without sleep, you feel fucking awful,

dude, you feel like you're sick. You feel like you have COVID because I have it. I would say Patrick, and having spent a lot of time with Patrick in the field is the most high functioning sleep deprived individual I've ever met in my life. Man, because it's insane.

Like, we, we'll do a 17-hour day. Like, we work 16, 17-hour days constantly. And if you're, If you work on our crew, you didn't hear that. You don't get overtime.

Oh, shit. But, no, seriously, we work these long-ass days constantly. I will be gassed. The whole crew's gassed. Everybody's in bed by 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night, whatever. Patrick's up, like, working on notes, having a beer, hanging out. It's like, hey, you guys want to do something texting us at like 2.40 in the morning. And then the day starts again at 5.

And I'm like, what are you doing? He's not working on notes. He's fucking texting me conspiracy theories about what dreams are. Well, that's the thing is all. need is an hour of sleep. I quickly check in with myself in each dimension and then I'm back at it, man. Yeah, baby. I love it. I do like that theory, though. Really, honestly, I think it's true. There's something, there's, what do you think, biology guy? Well, I think you like the theory because you have nothing but wet dreams, Peter. So you're like, oh, in other dimensions, fucking Retepsa playa.

All right, this is tight. Dude, we're trying to fucking get the ladies to continue listening. We're not trying to have them visualize me having an orgasm while I see. sleep. Forrest, how did they even find that there were sharks living in that environment? Did they send like a, were they in a submarine or something? Well, they actually used an ROV, which is a remotely operated vehicle. And I, I'm actually really excited about this. So I get to talk about it for a second. But I just did a collaboration with this company called Deep Trecker that literally makes the world's best ROB. And these are like, these are the same types of machines

that we send to the moon to walk around on the moon and we can get video of what the surface of the moon looks like. And that's, we're working with them now to go really deep in the ocean the same way as they discovered these, this hydro, this active volcano and these sharks in it. So, I mean, it's just incredible technology. Yeah. That allows them to go down and do this. So you know what's really crazy is like, look, we're all born in the 80s, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Guess when we discovered that life as we know it does not rely entirely on the sun in the atmosphere. 1983.

It was, it was at the, at the beginning of the 80s, at the end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s, was when we were first even figured out that there was life like those shrimp that you're talking about, like these sharks in these von damn vents down in the bottom of the ocean. And until literally like right before the three of us were born, our scientific understanding as we know it, of all life in the universe was 100% reliant on the sun. And then we figured out, oh, look at this. Like, only 30 years ago, 40 years ago, we found out that life doesn't depend on the sun. It can function entirely on thermal vents in the deep sea under millions of pounds of pressure.

I mean, those, we discover things that were wrong about stuff all the time. Every year we discover stuff. Just look back at the last 100 years. Look at what we thought 100 years ago. Try explaining to an academic or a scientist that they're not definitely right. That's impossible. It's on, I mean, I have to do it all the time for work constantly getting into these debates about fact-checking things. Everyone in the fucking field of science except like Forrest and a few other people that I've met.

The other broologists. We got it. You've got to be a broologist to understand. It's just fucking infuriating how much in general academia, they're so self-serving because they've written textbooks. books. They're trying to sell books and they don't want to, they don't want to admit that, oh, shit, this new discovery kind of just fucks up my book that I wrote. Yeah. Science should be an ever-evolving understanding of everything as we know it. It should be 100% collaborative. And I'm going to piss off a bunch of my colleagues right now,

but they probably don't listen to the wild times, so we're probably safe. But if you want to, if you have never met a more close-minded group of people in your life than going to a scientific convention. Like it is, it's, it's infuriating to me. And I think that's why, you know, Extinct Your Alive is so popular and what we do work so well, Patrick. And it's because we flip it on its head. We challenge the notion, right? Extinction is a notion that, that human beings have made up. They've said, oh, it's gone forever, right? Here's our stamp to put it on that. Here's our, here's our modus of control to say that something's extinct. It means we have control by giving it this, by delineating or by assigning it this name. And, you know, we challenge that

on Extincter Live. We go, well, maybe you're wrong. Like, we're going to go out there and look. I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but maybe you are. And people get so infuriated and upset about that. And it's like, not just with extinction, but with all science. Like the fact that you're trying to prove them wrong, which is exactly what science should be. It should be, you know, here's an hypothesis. Here, here we've proven it. Now someone should come along and try and disprove it or prove it. it wrong or further the understanding of it. And when you do that, the person that made the original statement or hypothesis gets furious time and time again.

It's crazy. Well, I mean, a lot of that has to do with just humans being monkey, animal idiots, because it's literally just because they've invested so much time into the way, their path and the structure that they've gone that they've basically lost sight of anything else because they're so focused on that. That's what they believe, you know. Everybody does that with everything, not, you know, not just academia. Like conspiracy theorists do it too.

It's just like human nature, I feel like almost. That brings me to a good point. It's like, you know, conspiracy theorists, you know, that word is designed to label the person who's saying it as a nunting, right? I know. I was one. You call something a conspiracy theory and you've immediately discredit it. And academics and scientists do it all the time.

They call someone a quack. Right. Or they say it's pseudo. They're a pseudo. scientist. Yeah. But it's because they're postulating oftentimes theories that make more fucking sense. Right.

Then the book that this other person wrote. You know, Forrest and I have been to Madagascar together twice. And one of the times we were in the far north, where's Mashwal? It's the north. Northwestern. No. North Western. Sorry.

Wait. Northeast. Yep. Northeastern. I'm awful with maps. And mirrors. I still don't know how to shave. But we were in this really, really remote part of me.

Madagascar and there was a scientist there named Courtney Borgerson who her kids were born there. Her kids had never worn shoes. Her eight-year-old had never worn shoes in her life. But she's a Harvard educated scientist and she said we were the first outsiders that had been there in 10 years. And, you know, she's like, she's doing all this stuff, you know, previously undescribed species. I think Forrest, you were just having a field day when we were there because half the shit you found was undescrowned.

Literally a field day. Yeah. But you take that back to someone who sits at a desk and makes decisions, and they will just tell you, you can't use that. You can't put that in a TV show because we can't prove it because there's no previous source. Right. Totally. It literally makes me want to jump through fucking windows because I do, you know, a lot of the TV networks have essentially fact checkers. Right.

And those are people who sit at desks have never been in the field and dismiss anything that they can't quickly find three. sources on and say, you can't put that in the show. It's like, yeah, this is new. We were there. We spent two weeks getting there. And then we spent two weeks there. And we talked to the people. And you're saying it's not true because you couldn't find it on Google.

We brought the world's leading experts here to do this thing. And you're saying, yeah, it's insanity. I don't think I've seen you this angry in like five years. I mean, it's been, it was my whole day today. My whole day. Were you actually dealing with this with one of the networks today? Oh, yeah, obviously can't say which one, but there's one network that really prides itself on their research department. And those are, you know, people who sit at desks and they think they know everything.

And well, oftentimes, oftentimes they will refute literally like you, you can get the best people in certain fields. Like you can get, if you want an oceanographer, you can get the best oceanographer. They like doing media. Right. Like you can talk to world class scholars and they will still fact check the stuff they say. Right. and say you have to cut that out because they didn't find three other sources because this person hasn't published their book yet. Right. Right. I'm just ranting. This must not be interesting to the

list. No, I think it's an interesting perspective as the layman on the podcast. You know, I find it interesting to know that you watch things on TV. You think that they're like the authority, but to hear it from the people who actually are going out there and, you know, two weeks getting there, doing the investigation, talking to the people, the real people, and the scientists and shit, and then some suit lawyer basically just says no. He can't do it because there's not resources on Google. It's kind of interesting. But to play... Five months later, yeah. But to play devil's advocate to that. And look, Patrick, you and I work in a field of television that is all science and adventure-based and wildlife-based. And obviously we do our homework.

But, you know, if you were making Finding Bigfoot and you went back and said, we found Bigfoot, here's a blurry image, you know, and the network that you were delivering that to went, oh my God, they found Bigfoot. Like, you know, get CNN on the line. Like, this is big. But don't you think they should be able to discern that using their human brains in critical thinking? They should understand from the history. No, I mean, that's, that's, that's, you've clearly never met a network executive, Peter. I don't watch TV anymore anyways, except for Extincter Alive. And your, uh, episode of fucking. make it and afraid on repeat. No, but I look, I totally, I share in Patrick's frustration because I've

been there and bang my head against the same wall. But I also can understand the necessity to have some of these people there in some regard. But you would think common sense would prevail. If you have experts in that topic in the field working on new science, let them have some leeway. If you're making the fucking Kardashians, sure, maybe, maybe fact check a little. Yeah. That said, like, you know, every thriller or murder investigation movie, the cop who's got the hot lead, who's about to solve the crime, always gets told by their boss,

you know, to shut down the investigation, right? There's always someone who's killing it. And it's so goddamn frustrating as a viewer that I can't even watch these fucking movies. But I can't even imagine for a scientist that's on the verge of a breakthrough, how infuriating it must be

to have someone who, you know, you've got numbers and data and statistics, that back up what you're saying. And, you know, you've got a bunch of people who just don't want new science. Well, you can understand it because, and I don't even know if we should really harp on this, but in the Galapagos, when we found Fern, and the amount of frustration that came out of that with the fact that it was like, well, I don't know if you did. Like, I'm holding it in my hands.

I am on FaceTime with you showing you the tortoise. Like, the amount of frustration that came out of that disgusting. before the happiness was insane. But then you guys got a parade thrown for you, so in the end it was all good. He wasn't, Forrest still wasn't even happy at the parade. He only was happy once we were doing karaoke. That's true. Nice.

For what, man? For what? The Battle Royale! God, look at how ridiculous you look with that hat. I love it. All right, here we go. Here's the Battle Royal. Peter's going to be terrible at this because he's not going to know.

If you had the time. technology to recreate Jurassic Park in 2020, knowing there's a distinct possibility that it might go wrong. Which three extinct animals would you put in the park, and it's going to be a snake-style draft. Peter, you go first. So you get to pick three animals. You get to make your own sort of cool Jurassic Park Wildlife Zoo. Any three extinct species, could go wrong, but what are you going to pick? Well, I mean, I'm definitely at a fucking disadvantage.

Thanks again, Will, because I'm not, I didn't make a television show about extinct animals. Just kidding. I actually love Will more than I like either of you, too. Good. Okay. I mean, I guess. So we're doing the snake thing again. I'm going to go.

He's literally Googling extinct animals right now. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not fucking, I'm not doing that. Take the low. I'm going with, I'm going, no, dumb, dumb, I'm going with. I'm going with what I know is definitely extinct, and that is a dodo bird. That's the only reason is because I know that it's extinct, and I know that maybe it'll

look stupid and be funny. So that's my thing. I love the dodo bird. To me, I've multiple times felt sadness that I'll never get to see one because they are so cool looking. It's about a four-foot-tall dopey, cool-looking bird that apparently tasted like poo-poo. Do you know it's a pigeon? It is of the pigeon family.

Yep, the dodo is of the pigeon family. Forrest, do you know when? Because I'm actually curious, do you know when the dodo went extinct? It was in modern times, wasn't it? Yeah, the dodo went extinct in the early, or no, sorry, mid-16, 62, I believe. And like I said, this is a giant member of the pigeon family, completely flightless, native to Mauritius. And a lot of people think they went extinct due to hunting. in part they did. Let's be clear, there are old fables of British sailors, you know, rocking up to

Mauritius and they grabbed their cricket bat and go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go dodo bopping and just walk around and pop a dodo on the head because they were so dumb you could walk right up to them. But they, the main reason they went extinct, and this is something that a lot of, like, you know, a lot of people don't understand. A lot of the literature tends to leave out, I think intentionally, is that they went extinct due to habitat loss, primarily caused by the introduction of pigs. So pigs were brought to the island, super destructive, super invasive, rooted up a ton of the habitats, ate all the dodo's eggs, which are on the ground.

And that, you know, that as well, coupled with the old, the old proper Nigel giving it a head bop is what led to its extinction. Well, I had a British roommate in college, and when he was going out to bars to look for girls, he also referred to it as dodo bop. Right. Forrest, why don't you go ahead? I already know I'm going to win, so why don't you go second? All right.

We all know the one I'm in a lead with. Patrick, you can guess it, guaranteed. What's it going to be, Patrick? What am I going to guess? Is it Madagascar? No. Oh, I don't know then. Definitely leading with the thylacine.

Oh. So recently extinct. Yeah, you really are. Yeah, so recently extinct. My favorite, obsessed with it. We have it. We have it in our Jurassic Park Zoo. Might get out.

If it does, it's going to be a. Chubacabra, we've been over this. If not, you know, then we're going to reintroduce them to Australian Tasmania. Super cool. Want to see one. That's a great pick. I mean, you can't argue with that. It's, you know, Australian tourists are going to be flocking to your zoo. No doubt.

You'll be the new Joe Exotic. Well, I'm going to have all the tourists from New Zealand. And that's because I am picking the giant mullah. That was my next pick, you son of a bitch. Yeah, baby. There's a, there's a good replacement you can pick, but it's going to be a little shorter because mine is the tallest bird that ever lived at 12 feet tall was native to New Zealand.

I was at the museum. I can't remember where I was. I was on a road trip through New Zealand. You texted me. I remember that. Oh, my God. They have a Moa skeleton fully constructed. A 12, just imagine an ostrich that's like almost three times the size. Yep.

Or at least twice the size. They had those in Final Fantasy 7. I forget what they? Ewox. Did they have? EWox? What? I don't think so.

It's a 12-foot tall man. Not a cute teddy bear. Not a teddy bear. You watch from Star Wars. Fuck off. People who are smart and play video games know what I'm talking about. Okay. But anyway, it was a super cool bird.

They, uh, the Moa's main predator was this eagle that would dive bomb from way the fuck up. Correct me if I'm wrong for us. Peck them in the head, make a hole in their head, and then eat this giant 12-foot bird. And then when the Polynesians finally made it to New Zealand, Very, very quickly, I think within a hundred years, the Moa was extinct because they were easy prey. And the Haas Eagle went extinct as well because their main source of food was gone.

Well, one thing, all correct, very well articulated. And one thing that's really fascinating about that is once the Maori Polynesians started hunting out the Moa, the Haasheed Eagles began to prey on Maori. So there are actual accounts of these eagles with these 20-foot wingspan swooping down. and hunting, like, massive, you know, islanders that lived in, like, old-time New Zealand. And then the Maori actually put on a bounty for the Moa. They wanted to get rid of the Moa because this eagle was coming in and eating children, which is just insane. That is insane.

That's what my cryptid should have been back in that episode we did about cryptids. All right, well, I get the next pick since this is a snake draft. I am not going to take the low-hanging fruit of going with a T-Rex or something like that. I don't like surfing. I actually don't love swimming in the ocean that much. I mean, snorkeling's fun.

So I'm going to kind of fuck you over here for us, and I'm going to bring back the Megalodon. I'm going to have this in my zoo, my Jurassic Park. It's hard not to come up to see. But if it goes wrong, a few megalodons make it into the ocean, well, then you're an adjacent statham mood. The megaladon is another cryptid, though, right? Isn't that what the Loch Ness monster is purported to be?

No. You're way on. I thought that's what we discussed in one of the episodes. All right. So describe the goddamn animal then. The Loch Ness Monster is supposed to be aesiosaur. Describe a Megalodon. Jesus Christ.

How do you not know what this is, Peter? Have you not seen the movie? I'm the every man. People who are listening to this podcast need me because you idiots are so brod to together and everything and you know everything the other people know that I need to be explaining. Basically, the Megalodon is a great white shark essentially that is way bigger. So up to 34 feet in length. So basically just take a white shark, double it in size, length, mass, everything. Are they aggressive? You can get a... Oh, yeah. It's like a great white

shark that's five times a size. It's, there's no way it's not aggressive. There is a famous picture of a megalodon jaw that was intact that was found, and five or six nerds from the museum standing on the bottom jaw, and it's bigger than it's way above their heads. That's how big the mouth of the megaladon is. So people are going to come to my zoo, watch the Megalodon show, and then they're going to go play in frolic with the giant Moa. Yeah, that'll be real fun. This is good. I like what you're doing with this. So I'm going to combat it because the only way that my zoo is going to be more popular than Patrick's is if I feel like my animals can beat up Patrick's.

So I am going to bring in the dineosuchus, which was the megalodon of crocodiles. You know me and crocodilians. I'm obsessed with crocodiles. Dinoosucas was 40 feet long, right, weighing up to eight metric tons. They lived 110 million years ago, just this gargantuan crocodile, and arguably the only thing that could ever stand up to a megalodon in the water. So I'm hoping, even though that our zoos are on neighboring Costa Rica Islands, obvi, more people want to come and see my giant swamp lizard than Patrick's shark in a tank. The largest living crocodile today is a crocodile named Cassius, who's 18 feet.

So it's more than double that. You guys are way off base if you're trying to actually create a business that people would like to come and enjoy the animals in because you've done that thing now where you're just creating bigger and meaner animals than one another. Me, the smart one, is going to stick with cute, dumb animals that aren't going to kill you as you view them in the zoo. So I already have the dodo, very cute, could be killed if had to, but I mean, you never would want to. They wouldn't attack you. It's a hunting zone. It would be attacking you. Beside these beautiful dodo birds,

dozens, hundreds of dodo birds, we're going to have woolly mammoths because that's another extinct animal that I actually know. That will be a big, people will be, people will be excited about that. I'm winning so far. For sure, I'm winning so far. Interesting call.

Yeah, buddy. It's okay. It's okay, guys. I'm making up for last week. fucking cloud of nothing that I made. What's your third? Is your last pick? Oh, I got to pick another one.

You've got dodoes. You've got woolly mammoths. What do you got? So I know that there is some kind of fucking, okay, the Tasmanian tiger. No, you idiot. Forrest already picked that, sir. Oh, he did?

Is that the same thing? That is the thylacine. Thylacine. No, fuck off. It's a different name. This is bullshit. I will also have a Tasmanian tiger's the same. Okay. All right. All right. I'm switching it up.

You're frustrating. What are you talking about? It's frustrating that you use the biological name in a game that is meant for fun for people to listen to. All right. So I got to pick another one. I'm going to go with Japanese otters that they're like, they went extinct recently. Japanese River Otter. Yep. Yeah, they're very long. And I love otters. So I'm going with that. It's another. cute animal. People can get in the water just like they do with regular otters, but they're like longer. And I think they suck your dick, if I'm not mistaken. So you're going to, so at your thing, you're going to have, uh, like a, you can get in a hot tub and like swim around with some

otters. That's fun. Yeah. I mean, it's just to be a hot tub. It can be just so, well, I don't want to be in cold water, mate. It's going to be like just regular Atlantic Ocean water in the summer. Interesting. Interesting. Dude, by, I mean, I'm, look, my zoo. he's by far making the most money so far. They're not bad picks, but they're definitely not good picks. That's not even a thing. That's just your opinion, man. Yeah.

So Forrest at your zoo that I would like to visit, Thylacine, alongside a double, triple-sized crock. What are you going to add to that? Ooh, really fun one. A lot of the listeners are not going to know too much about my obsession with this one. It's the only animal, I would say, that I study that borders on being ecliped, as opposed to just a known extinct animal. because the last time that we know one of these was around was around 11,000 years ago.

And before I explain what it is, I'm going to say, I'm going to pose you this. What is the cutest animal that everybody wants a bumper sticker of, that they compare being lazy to, that they talk about, you know, oh my God, that's my spirit animal? Donald Trump. It's the sloth. So I'm going, wow, I'm going with the Megatherium, which was a giant ground sloth that occurred up to around 11,000. thousand years ago, weighed 8,000 pounds and grew 20 feet. Yeah, megatherium. There's a hotel called the Grand Canyon Caverns that's near the Grand Cavern, and they actually have a hotel room that's 400 feet beneath the surface in a part of the cavern. There is a giant ground sloth

that fell through a hole, a full skeleton inside the cavern. What is the name of this hotel? I have to go there. Grand Canyon Caverns. Weirdly enough, I know the owner. And so I, I, I, I, Last time when I went to the Grand Cavern to hike, Grand Canyon to hike, we stopped by and stayed for the night. And we went down into the hotel room because no one had booked it out that night, which is amazing. It's just you have the entire cave to yourself. Oh, that's awesome, dude. And drank until sunrise, and then I went on an eight-hour hike the next day. But yeah, very cool animal.

And just seeing a giant ground sloth, I mean, I'm sure it's, you know, in part of replica, but still, I'm just, oh, my God, yes, I want to go there. Let's do Extincter Alive in that cave. Yeah. All right, so I'm going to close out, and I'm going to essentially win here because the animal I'm going to pick, take a rhinoceros. Oh, boy. I know where he's going. Make it, make it 36 feet tall. So three and a half basketball hoops tall.

I'm going to take an animal known as the Indracotherium, otherwise known as the near horn beast. You pull that for memory or do you look it up? It looks like a rhinoceros. I mean, look at a picture of, you know, they do like replica pictures of like a man standing next to it. It is the size of a dinosaur, but it is a mammal in the rhinoceros family. I am going to take the Indrichothelium. They're peaceful. They're going to just roam around and you can freely frolic with them.

Rome around and be killed by your other violent fucking animals that you have in your zoo. I mean, how are you going to manage this? You're not thinking about logistics. It's ridiculous. I'm going to hire a logistics guy. No. You're not going to make a penny off of this. I'm going to be rich with my cute animals.

With your fucking dodo farm. Sure. You'll turn it into a farm within weeks. Peter, what exists at your extinct animal park? I have the beautiful, dumb dodo by the hundreds, just walking around, like, whatever they do, making their noises. Well, we know your family's going to be there, but what are you in? And aside from that, amongst the dodo. there will be enormous woolly mammoths

walking around peacefully enjoying the sun and the dodoes. Sounds great so far. And finally, after you've had enough of that, you can enter the hot spring, the oversized hot spring, and swim with the extinct Japanese otter. Which you don't know the name of it. Right, which is also just the same size and look as every extant otter. Did you say extant?

Extant? Is that... The opposite of extant? It's a word, Peter. Out of space. Out of space. That's all I have to say. All right. Meanwhile, at Forest Zoo. We have the thylacine, the most iconic Lazarus taxon in the world. Every Australian and Tasmanian is going to flock to Costa Rica, which is where I presume

our offshore Jurassic Islands will be. In a massive holding pen, where goats will be dangled over, like in Jurassic Park. we have the dyniosuchus, a 40-foot-long crocodileian, terrifying, scary. Might as well be a ride. It's so terrifying. And then finally, just to put yourself at ease, you get to cuddle with a 40-foot-toll sloth, the megatherium. Say how adorable it is. It's cute.

It's slow. Can't do any damage. And it's basically one of those carnival-sized teddy bears. That's nice. Yeah, what about you, Pat? What's your shit fucking farm have on it? So to all the listeners, once you spend about a half day each at Forest and Peter Zoo, come on over. We'll, we have six days worth of entertainment.

So we'll start while you frolic in a field with 40 foot tall mammals called the Indrichothelium. They're fun. You're going to enjoy that. Then you'll head inside the aquarium to see the Megalodon show. So, you know, triple-sized great weight. Is that where you feed the Megalodon family members from the audience? Or what do you do? How do they put on a show?

We're working that part out. We'll feed them some sort of live here. I just don't know where they'll come from. And then you can head out to the field full of poppies. It's a poppy field. What a treat. And you can hang out with 12 foot tall giant moas. Well, you get high off heroin.

You can score your own poppies. So if you like our Battle Royale, go on to iTunes. Leave us a comment. Tell us whose zoo you would visit first and foremost And why which animal tickled your fancy Obvi you're going to want to come to my zoo I am the extinct animal guy after all Just wanted to point that out

You're way too busy to even be there Also my zoo has booze yours do not Yeah, forest zoo is a dry zoo yes Very dry so you can come to my dry zoo Peter's Alcoholics Zoo or Patrick's Heroin Zoo Let us know online no matter what, it's going to be fun. We really appreciate all your guys' comments.

We're still getting massive amounts of downloads. We're still really high-ranked in the comedy and wildlife spaces on iTunes. So we appreciate you guys that are listening and leaving comments. It means a world to us, and we love doing them. So we'll keep up with the Battle Royals. You keep telling us who wins. One day, we'll be back in the same fucking room together. Well, not anymore because Pat moved to the East Coast, fortunately.

I'll come back to do the podcast, mate. All right, guys. well, I'm going to go do Ithaca stuff. It's Friday night. Gross. That sounds sexual. Ithaca stuff on a Friday night. Also, Ithaca's a terrible upstate New York shithole.

Sorry. Good night, good night. All right, Forrest, I'll call you tomorrow. Let's talk about, you better figure out how to drive this fucking R.O.V. Because I don't trust Mitch to do it. Yeah, 100%. There's no way. Call me after you do your R.O.V. class tomorrow or whatever it is.

We'll do. Peter, you stay sunburn. All right, man. Please wear a shirt to your ROV class. We don't want you getting hurt. I shan't. I shall not. He would never. Good night.

Love you, listeners. You guys. Good night.