Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Oh No, Snakes!
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
- 0:04Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
- 0:13Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry the
- 0:17Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know, the Snake Edition, Snake Bliskin Edition,
- 0:23Speaker 1: oh Man, good character, especially if you know, like it
- 0:28Speaker 1: had to have been something of a joke to selected
- 0:30Speaker 1: Kurt Russell because he was I guess I don't know
- 0:34Speaker 1: whether that came before after the thing, do you. I
- 0:36Speaker 1: think the thing was first? Okay, so I guess it
- 0:38Speaker 1: wasn't quite a big of a joke. But think earlier
- 0:41Speaker 1: in his career, like Kurt Russell didn't even have friends.
- 0:44Speaker 1: He was like such a squeaky clean Walt Disney movie kid,
- 0:48Speaker 1: like all the all the normal kids hated him. Said yeah,
- 0:53Speaker 1: like he was just known as like this just can't
- 0:55Speaker 1: do anything wrong, like like squeaky clean kid. Well, that
- 0:59Speaker 1: was my first R rated movie. Was Escaped from New York. Yeah, yeah,
- 1:04Speaker 1: can you dig it? No? That was The Warriors. Yeah, no,
- 1:08Speaker 1: I remember I called what it was on, like HBO
- 1:11Speaker 1: or something. It wasn't even in the theater, and I
- 1:12Speaker 1: called my mom to ask her if it was that's
- 1:16Speaker 1: how good of a boy that I was. You're like
- 1:19Speaker 1: Kurt Russell. Yeah, sure, I know you're by yourself because
- 1:22Speaker 1: you don't have any friends. Go ahead and watch that's funny. Yeah,
- 1:26Speaker 1: man alive. That's a good snake story. You know that
- 1:29Speaker 1: has nothing to do with snakes per se. Oh I've
- 1:31Speaker 1: got a good snake story for later. Oh well, I
- 1:33Speaker 1: was gonna say lay it on est, but we'll wait. Yeah,
- 1:36Speaker 1: I'm teasing that one. We'll wait patiently. All of you
- 1:39Speaker 1: who suffer from a little something called, oh video phobia,
- 1:45Speaker 1: you can go ahead and skip this one because it's
- 1:47Speaker 1: gonna creep you out. I'm not afraid of snakes, and
- 1:50Speaker 1: I'm still creeped out by some parts of this because
- 1:53Speaker 1: we're gonna get like down and dirty with snakes. Well,
- 1:56Speaker 1: here's my deal, and I think we should say this
- 1:58Speaker 1: as a public service. I get reaped out by snakes initially,
- 2:01Speaker 1: and then I'm like, Okay, it's just a snake. But um,
- 2:04Speaker 1: snakes are vilified and killed when they shouldn't be killed. Yeah,
- 2:08Speaker 1: because people are scared of them and that ain't cool.
- 2:10Speaker 1: Years and years ago and the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader,
- 2:13Speaker 1: where I learned ninety percent of the stuff that I know. Um,
- 2:16Speaker 1: I read about a study of the snakes, like people
- 2:21Speaker 1: took a fake snake and put it in the road
- 2:23Speaker 1: and then like hid behind some bushes and that's what
- 2:25Speaker 1: people did. And allegedly people would run over the snake
- 2:29Speaker 1: and then back up and run over it again. And yeah,
- 2:32Speaker 1: according to the well according to Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
- 2:36Speaker 1: But um yeah, I think people go out of their
- 2:39Speaker 1: way to kill snakes. Yeah. I know camps on campers
- 2:42Speaker 1: who like that they're hiking will kill a snake if
- 2:44Speaker 1: they see it. Um bad campers. Yeah, that's not good,
- 2:49Speaker 1: especially considering only like five percent of snake species are
- 2:52Speaker 1: venomous and um, so it's pretty rare to come across
- 2:56Speaker 1: a venomous snake. Uh. There are some out there that
- 3:00Speaker 1: will hurt you pretty bad, and we'll talk about those. Um.
- 3:04Speaker 1: But for the most part, most snakes either kill their
- 3:08Speaker 1: prey by constricting or swallowing you whole while you're alive.
- 3:14Speaker 1: You're too big for most snakes to really take on,
- 3:17Speaker 1: so they're not gonna mess with you. Sure, but it
- 3:20Speaker 1: is there is a You can't really fault people necessarily,
- 3:25Speaker 1: although you and I both do for just killing snakes.
- 3:29Speaker 1: Wantonly and indiscriminately. Um, because the study after study has
- 3:34Speaker 1: found that we are really, there's no other explanation, evolutionarily
- 3:39Speaker 1: primed to fear and notice snakes in our environment. Yeah,
- 3:44Speaker 1: you found that cool article. And I've seen this before
- 3:48Speaker 1: that um is unpopular science. Yeah, they've done studies that
- 3:51Speaker 1: showed that people are more apt because of we evolve
- 3:55Speaker 1: to not want to get killed by snakes, to see
- 3:58Speaker 1: snakes and like our peripheral visi and than almost anything else. Yeah,
- 4:02Speaker 1: even spiders, which people are creeped out by. Yeah. Well,
- 4:05Speaker 1: and also spiders are deadly too, so it would make
- 4:08Speaker 1: sense that over time, the people who were best at
- 4:11Speaker 1: recognizing spiders and getting away from them would live longer
- 4:15Speaker 1: to pass on their genes, and so through natural selection,
- 4:18Speaker 1: that would be the case supposedly. Um, the same thing
- 4:21Speaker 1: happened with snakes. But we are even better at recognizing
- 4:24Speaker 1: snakes than spiders snake detection theory. Yeah. Pretty good band
- 4:28Speaker 1: name it is. It's been a while since we had
- 4:31Speaker 1: a good band name. It's definitely one of them. I
- 4:33Speaker 1: just saw that on T shirt and a marquee simultaneously.
- 4:38Speaker 1: That means that's a good band name. So if you
- 4:40Speaker 1: want to know more about that whole study. You can
- 4:42Speaker 1: read about I think it was in the Lantern in
- 4:45Speaker 1: two thousand and ten. Or basically, it's like, yes, we
- 4:48Speaker 1: can find a snake just about anywhere, even in our
- 4:50Speaker 1: peripheral vision, and we are scared of snakes, and rightfully so, Yeah,
- 4:54Speaker 1: I know, I feel like I'm primed when I'm camping
- 4:56Speaker 1: and hiking, just I'm just always sort of on the lookout.
- 5:00Speaker 1: I'm never just like daydreaming and walking. I'm always looking
- 5:02Speaker 1: at the ground. And that's smart, man, because they will
- 5:05Speaker 1: lay right across the trail and that they they're not
- 5:07Speaker 1: looking out for you, so you stumble upon them, and
- 5:10Speaker 1: that's when an accident might happen. Yeah, the problem is
- 5:13Speaker 1: with snakes, you're looking at the ground. You better be
- 5:16Speaker 1: looking up to Like, if you're in the Amazon, a
- 5:19Speaker 1: lot of boa constrictors dangle from trees and then like
- 5:22Speaker 1: drop themselves down onto their prey, which includes monkeys, of
- 5:26Speaker 1: which you, my friend, are one's right, you know, So
- 5:29Speaker 1: if you had a boa constrictor that was feeling kind
- 5:32Speaker 1: of froggy, they might come at you. Or those flying
- 5:34Speaker 1: snakes that obviously cannot fly, but they glide down quite
- 5:40Speaker 1: a way is in Sri Lanka, right, Yeah, if you've
- 5:42Speaker 1: seen these videos, Um, they leap from a tree and
- 5:46Speaker 1: start squiggling, and then they flatten their body out and
- 5:49Speaker 1: they can go a long way from where they started,
- 5:53Speaker 1: and it's not straight down, you know what I'm saying.
- 5:55Speaker 1: So let's just re read, rephrase all this, let's restay it.
- 6:01Speaker 1: You and I disagree with killing snakes indiscriminately. It's just wrong.
- 6:05Speaker 1: But there is a healthy and understandable preternatural human fear
- 6:12Speaker 1: of snakes, actually just natural human fear. Yea. Even Darwin
- 6:17Speaker 1: wrote about it. Oh yeah, he tried to do that test. Remember, like,
- 6:21Speaker 1: I'm not gonna jump when the snake jumps at me,
- 6:23Speaker 1: and he's like, keep jumping, and he's basically like it's
- 6:27Speaker 1: human instinct. Alright. So shall we start with snakes in
- 6:31Speaker 1: general in earnest if they've been around a lot longer
- 6:33Speaker 1: than we have. Yeah, there are twenty seven hundred known
- 6:37Speaker 1: species of this reptile, and um, one thing you'll find
- 6:42Speaker 1: in common with all of them is they all have
- 6:44Speaker 1: no limbs. That's something they can't wear a vest. I
- 6:48Speaker 1: can't wear vests because there's nowhere to put their thumbs right,
- 6:51Speaker 1: or there's no thumbs to put in the vest. No arms.
- 6:55Speaker 1: Oh but I thought you meant just like you gotta
- 6:57Speaker 1: have the thumbs in the vest too. Well, sure you gotta,
- 7:00Speaker 1: but I mean you have arms for to have the thumbs.
- 7:04Speaker 1: That's from pe big adventure. Oh see, I just trampled
- 7:08Speaker 1: all over that thing. Um. They are carnivores means they
- 7:12Speaker 1: meet they eat meat. Um yeah, well, which includes you,
- 7:16Speaker 1: It includes meets. I'm just a big monkey. And they're
- 7:19Speaker 1: cold blooded. They're ectothermic, which means their inner temperature varies, uh,
- 7:24Speaker 1: along with where they are. It fluctuates depending on how
- 7:27Speaker 1: hotter cold it is. And that's all snakes. And apparently
- 7:31Speaker 1: they tend to thrive. Um, well, all ectothermic animals tend
- 7:35Speaker 1: to thrive and get bigger in warm or climates too. Yeah, yeah,
- 7:39Speaker 1: that makes sense, which is why the biggest snakes you're
- 7:41Speaker 1: gonna find are in the tropics near the equator. Uh.
- 7:45Speaker 1: If you think they look like legless lizards, it's because
- 7:49Speaker 1: they sort of are there from the same order, which
- 7:52Speaker 1: is Squamata, And then there are a couple of sub
- 7:55Speaker 1: orders sorry for lizards and Serpentus for snakes or phidia,
- 8:00Speaker 1: which is where the phobia comes from, pobia, which is
- 8:05Speaker 1: the fear of snakes like serpentus better yes, orpentaphobias. Ways,
- 8:10Speaker 1: it just makes sense. Sure. Um. If you look at
- 8:14Speaker 1: a picture of a snake, which we have on this article,
- 8:16Speaker 1: there are some pretty good graphics. Uh. If you look
- 8:19Speaker 1: at their body, it's pretty neat because even though they
- 8:22Speaker 1: look funny, they are not so different from us. They
- 8:26Speaker 1: have bones, and they have organs, and they have a
- 8:28Speaker 1: skull and a brain and their vertebrates. Yeah, it's all
- 8:31Speaker 1: just sort of squished in that long body such that
- 8:34Speaker 1: it all sort of fits next to each other. Right.
- 8:36Speaker 1: The thing is, although they have like some the same
- 8:40Speaker 1: senses that we have. I noticed I'm making sounds more
- 8:44Speaker 1: than usual unconsciously in this episode, but subconscious exactly. They
- 8:50Speaker 1: have the same senses that we have in much the
- 8:53Speaker 1: same way, but they're um adjusted slightly differently like snakes.
- 8:57Speaker 1: They don't have ears. Anybody who's ever looked at a
- 8:59Speaker 1: snake would flip out if you saw one with ears. Um,
- 9:05Speaker 1: But they do have the ability to hear. They just
- 9:07Speaker 1: have um. The sides of their skull have little um
- 9:11Speaker 1: specialized bones that the skin covers sound vibrations hit the skin,
- 9:15Speaker 1: it's transferred to the bone and that transfers to uh
- 9:18Speaker 1: an auditory nerve where the brain processes it and says
- 9:22Speaker 1: it's jack rabbit and I'm hungry, exactly going that way. Um.
- 9:26Speaker 1: Site they do not see in color, and depending on
- 9:29Speaker 1: the snake's environment and where they how they live their life, basically, um,
- 9:34Speaker 1: their eyes are going to be quite different. Um. There
- 9:37Speaker 1: are rods that have a low light uh distinguishing It's
- 9:40Speaker 1: like I sort of get the sense that it's like
- 9:43Speaker 1: the fuzzy, fuzzy looking shapes and things not super crystal clear. Yeah. Like, Um,
- 9:48Speaker 1: that that camera trick they always use when somebody's coming
- 9:51Speaker 1: out of anesthesia in the hospital blinks that. That is
- 9:56Speaker 1: probably one of the types of site the cones produced
- 9:59Speaker 1: the clear images. And Um, if a snake like lives
- 10:02Speaker 1: in a cave in the dark for most of its life,
- 10:04Speaker 1: it's not gonna need that awesome vision, It's gonna just
- 10:07Speaker 1: have like that light and dark sense. If a snake
- 10:10Speaker 1: lives above ground does all of its hunting above ground,
- 10:14Speaker 1: they have a really good vision and great depth perception. Yeah,
- 10:17Speaker 1: and can actually like adjust the focus from you know,
- 10:21Speaker 1: far away to near very easily, and they actually can
- 10:25Speaker 1: see some color really just not like anything in the
- 10:29Speaker 1: range that we can see, but they do have the
- 10:32Speaker 1: spectacular extra vision, yes, and for red stuff. Yeah. So basically,
- 10:38Speaker 1: if you seem predator snakes see you like that. Some
- 10:41Speaker 1: snakes do. Snake species, especially ones that live above ground,
- 10:46Speaker 1: because they are frequently nocturnal and they hunt warm blooded animals,
- 10:52Speaker 1: So they have basically little thermal imaging cameras that are
- 10:58Speaker 1: on top of their normal vision. Yeah, and I think
- 11:00Speaker 1: that helps their periphery a little bit as well, Like
- 11:04Speaker 1: they'll just see like something hot next to me, what
- 11:08Speaker 1: snake is eating that monkey? You know? They make that
- 11:13Speaker 1: noise too, That was a great noise. Uh. And then
- 11:15Speaker 1: we'll round out the senses with smell um. They have
- 11:20Speaker 1: little nasal openings and they have little olfactory chamber to
- 11:23Speaker 1: process that stuff. And they also have tongues which are
- 11:26Speaker 1: not there to taste because they don't have a sense
- 11:28Speaker 1: of taste, which is yeah, they're just there to eat,
- 11:34Speaker 1: not to enjoy it. Yeah, so they'll like swallow a
- 11:36Speaker 1: pick hoole and just be like, how was that. I
- 11:38Speaker 1: don't know, I don't have a sense of taste. I'm full,
- 11:41Speaker 1: But they do. They do flick their tongue, as anybody knows,
- 11:44Speaker 1: and it's one of the defining characteristics of snakes. But
- 11:47Speaker 1: what they're doing is gathering odorance out of the air
- 11:51Speaker 1: and delivering them to these little scent glands or scent
- 11:54Speaker 1: organs called Jacobson's glands Jacobson's organs and um. The thing
- 12:00Speaker 1: is basically hooked up to a secondary old factory nerve
- 12:03Speaker 1: that further interprets the air. Yes, sent, so I get
- 12:08Speaker 1: the feeling that smell. They're pretty pretty good at smelling. Yeah,
- 12:10Speaker 1: two times over. That's um. Then they have their digestive tract,
- 12:14Speaker 1: which is going to run all along the length of
- 12:16Speaker 1: the body. Um, I'm telling you, look at this graphic.
- 12:19Speaker 1: It's really kind of spells it out. Everything is just elongated.
- 12:22Speaker 1: It's a good died in the wool how stuff works.
- 12:25Speaker 1: Illustration Agreed. So you've got these, uh you know, you've
- 12:29Speaker 1: got your mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, small and large intestines.
- 12:33Speaker 1: You've got an anus, it's all stretched along the whole
- 12:37Speaker 1: length of the body, right exactly. You've got a trachea.
- 12:41Speaker 1: You've got lungs, at least one lung some snakes up two.
- 12:44Speaker 1: Some even have a third. Yeah, and that's weird because um,
- 12:47Speaker 1: I mean it makes sense if they would have three.
- 12:49Speaker 1: If they just have one, that's odd to me. The
- 12:51Speaker 1: reason it's odd is because when snakes are digesting their food,
- 12:55Speaker 1: their metabolic rate increases because they're often eating things that
- 13:00Speaker 1: can be fifty of their body weights. And when you're
- 13:06Speaker 1: eating something that large and swallowing a whole, you're metabolic
- 13:10Speaker 1: rate goes into high gear. And you also need to
- 13:13Speaker 1: produce a lot more digestive fluids than you normally would,
- 13:16Speaker 1: so their oxygen consumption can increase by up to like
- 13:19Speaker 1: a hundred times. So you would think that they would
- 13:21Speaker 1: have like fifteen lungs, but apparently some of them just
- 13:24Speaker 1: have the one. But what is even more interesting, Chuck,
- 13:29Speaker 1: is when you have a like a whole rabbit just
- 13:32Speaker 1: in your mouth is completely full of a rabbit, you
- 13:35Speaker 1: still need to breathe, so they the snakes can actually
- 13:39Speaker 1: extend their tricky and they're breathing tube out of their
- 13:42Speaker 1: mouth from underneath their prey. Basically like um, one of
- 13:47Speaker 1: those like wildly coyote cartoons where I don't know if
- 13:52Speaker 1: he ever did, but bugs bunny definitely. Did you just
- 13:55Speaker 1: grab like a reed and use it as a straw
- 13:57Speaker 1: from underwater? We'll imagine that if bugs anywhere in the
- 14:00Speaker 1: snake's mouth, and that read was coming out from underneath them.
- 14:04Speaker 1: That's the analogy I was going for. Uh. They also
- 14:07Speaker 1: don't have a dire frame, which is pretty interesting. They
- 14:10Speaker 1: breathed by widening and narrowing their rib cage, literally creating
- 14:15Speaker 1: a vacuum, pushing air in and sucking air, pushing her
- 14:18Speaker 1: out and sucking air back in, and between each of
- 14:21Speaker 1: these cycles they actually stopped. They have an apnea that
- 14:23Speaker 1: occurs where they don't breathe at all, and sometimes it's
- 14:26Speaker 1: a few seconds, sometimes it's a few minutes. But um,
- 14:30Speaker 1: that's how they breathe. It's crazy and cool. So I'm
- 14:33Speaker 1: I'm pretty much enthralled by now with snakes. I'm not
- 14:37Speaker 1: creeped out yet. We haven't really reached the creepy parts.
- 14:40Speaker 1: We'll get to those starting after we get back from
- 14:43Speaker 1: this break. Chuck. Yes, you have the ability to shed
- 15:06Speaker 1: dead skin cells pretty much constantly. It's always they're always
- 15:10Speaker 1: sloughing off. Yeah, we had a great episode on that
- 15:13Speaker 1: we did what was it a skin right? Yeah, but
- 15:16Speaker 1: also did it come up? And does your body regenerate
- 15:18Speaker 1: itself every seven years or something? You're constantly doing that
- 15:22Speaker 1: with skin cells. Snakes um shed their skin as well,
- 15:26Speaker 1: but they do it in a completely different technique, and
- 15:30Speaker 1: they mold. They actually shed their whole outer layers skin
- 15:34Speaker 1: every once in a while. Yeah. Sometimes you'll see that
- 15:36Speaker 1: in the woods and you'll think, oh, well, there was
- 15:39Speaker 1: a snake and now he's not here, but here's his
- 15:43Speaker 1: hollow body or hollow skin. Um. So what they have
- 15:47Speaker 1: is have an elastic skin that attaches to muscles, and
- 15:50Speaker 1: then the scales are made of keratin, the same thing
- 15:53Speaker 1: that our fingernails are made from. And those actually they
- 15:58Speaker 1: the number of scales have doesn't change or the pattern
- 16:02Speaker 1: as they grow. I guess the scales just get larger. Yeah,
- 16:05Speaker 1: and they they replace themselves over time. Yeah. Pretty interesting. Yeah.
- 16:09Speaker 1: So um, when the outer skin of the snakes starts
- 16:13Speaker 1: to get kind of worn down and banged up, the
- 16:16Speaker 1: snake says it's time for some new ones. So they
- 16:18Speaker 1: start reproducing skin cells. But almost these um specialized skin
- 16:23Speaker 1: cells between their outer skin and their inner skin, and
- 16:27Speaker 1: those things form this layer between the two and they liquefy,
- 16:31Speaker 1: which helps kind of. Well, first it makes the outer
- 16:34Speaker 1: skin a little more um shed doble, softens it up,
- 16:38Speaker 1: but it also like separates it from the snake itself,
- 16:41Speaker 1: so they can eventually slide out of it. And it
- 16:44Speaker 1: gets to a point where it starts like rubbing its
- 16:47Speaker 1: chin against a rock like a kitty cat. Yeah, and
- 16:50Speaker 1: like um and like right and like uh, it ends
- 16:54Speaker 1: up degloving its whole body. Basically, Man, you love that word.
- 16:58Speaker 1: It's a great descript it is. And it turns out
- 17:01Speaker 1: and we'll see this as we progress here. But snakes
- 17:04Speaker 1: use rocks and things a lot because they don't have limbs,
- 17:08Speaker 1: and so they'll rub up against that thing, like you said,
- 17:10Speaker 1: and just peel it off and just keep going until
- 17:12Speaker 1: the skin's all gone. And they're like, I got a
- 17:15Speaker 1: new suit, check it out, check out my bow tie,
- 17:17Speaker 1: and I just have to do this again. How often?
- 17:21Speaker 1: Well it depends, this article said, Um, it can happen
- 17:24Speaker 1: anywhere from it can start again a few days later,
- 17:27Speaker 1: a few months later, a few days later. What a
- 17:30Speaker 1: useless species of snake that must be. Like all they
- 17:33Speaker 1: do is mold the whole time. Yeah, Because it takes
- 17:35Speaker 1: about two weeks to complete the molting process, So that
- 17:39Speaker 1: surprised me. They're consumed by the quest for looking young. Yeah,
- 17:43Speaker 1: maybe that's what it is. Um a few months later
- 17:47Speaker 1: makes a little more sense to me. But and I
- 17:48Speaker 1: think it could have been too on how banged up
- 17:50Speaker 1: they get, Like maybe they're forced the molt a few
- 17:53Speaker 1: days later, because it's something like a Steve McQueen snake
- 17:56Speaker 1: would probably mold a lot um aches. Uh. They grow
- 18:02Speaker 1: their entire life, which is another great fact to me,
- 18:05Speaker 1: maybe the best one of the show, but that they
- 18:07Speaker 1: indeterminate growth. Yeah, they never stopped growing. No, they can
- 18:10Speaker 1: just keep growing and growing. Again, it depends on like
- 18:13Speaker 1: how ample their food supply is, what the ambient temperature
- 18:17Speaker 1: is in their environment. But they can just keep on growing. Yeah,
- 18:20Speaker 1: this slows down, they don't grow at the same rate,
- 18:23Speaker 1: but once they reach maturity, they keep on growing. They
- 18:26Speaker 1: can live anywhere from four to years depending on the species,
- 18:31Speaker 1: and probably more than that or less depending on the
- 18:34Speaker 1: hazards in the area. Yes, like people with machetes exactly.
- 18:39Speaker 1: All right, are we to the part? And this I
- 18:42Speaker 1: think is what creeps people out a little bit. It's
- 18:44Speaker 1: how snakes move that's definitely probably the creepiest part about it.
- 18:48Speaker 1: It's one of them. See, I think it's amazing. It
- 18:50Speaker 1: is slightly disconcerting to see because you're used to things
- 18:53Speaker 1: with legs and arms, but when you see that slithering motion,
- 18:57Speaker 1: it definitely like I think for most people it's just
- 19:00Speaker 1: a little bit of a yeah, you know, but if
- 19:02Speaker 1: you stop and look at it, you're like, wow, they
- 19:04Speaker 1: really have that down path. Yeah, it's a wonder of nature.
- 19:06Speaker 1: And there there. Snakes are able to locomote um. Because
- 19:12Speaker 1: there we said they're vertebrates. Their bodies are made up
- 19:15Speaker 1: of scores and scores and hundreds depending on the size
- 19:19Speaker 1: and type of the snake, of um tiny vertebrae that
- 19:23Speaker 1: are attached to pairs of ribs and it goes all
- 19:26Speaker 1: throughout the snake's body. And basically each of these is
- 19:30Speaker 1: a point at which the snake can contort itself. You've
- 19:33Speaker 1: got a bunch of these working together in tandem. The
- 19:36Speaker 1: snake can propel itself forward using a number of different techniques.
- 19:40Speaker 1: They also have what amounts to on their bellies on
- 19:43Speaker 1: their underside, basically tire tread ventral scales. It's pretty neat
- 19:49Speaker 1: and those are used to just uh, I get the feeling.
- 19:52Speaker 1: They just grip on whatever it can grip on and
- 19:54Speaker 1: help it along. So there's four main ways that a
- 19:57Speaker 1: snake propels itself along. The one that um, I think
- 20:00Speaker 1: most is most popular among snakes these days is the
- 20:04Speaker 1: serpentine motion. The serpentine motion, Yeah, the classic s shape
- 20:09Speaker 1: also known as undulatory locomotion. And basically the net contracts
- 20:14Speaker 1: its muscles and it the body is thrust from side
- 20:17Speaker 1: to side and um, it says I'm going, I'm going,
- 20:21Speaker 1: and the snake just takes off like a rocket. Yeah.
- 20:24Speaker 1: And this can be in on in water or on land.
- 20:26Speaker 1: If you've ever been in a lake and seen a snake, uh,
- 20:31Speaker 1: swimming across the water, that'll get you going quick because
- 20:34Speaker 1: those things move really quick in the water. Um. And
- 20:38Speaker 1: a lot of water snakes are poisonous for sure. Yeah
- 20:41Speaker 1: the water. Yeah, we have those here in Georgia. Of course.
- 20:45Speaker 1: What's the other copper heads will get in the creeks
- 20:47Speaker 1: and rivers. Um. So these are because they have no
- 20:52Speaker 1: resistance points. Obviously in the water they can just slink
- 20:54Speaker 1: along quicker. But on the land they use these rocks
- 20:58Speaker 1: and branches and little divots and dents in the landscape.
- 21:02Speaker 1: To uh just you know, propel itself, Like I'm gonna
- 21:05Speaker 1: put my belly on that rock and shoot myself forward
- 21:07Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, and then whatever is below my belly,
- 21:10Speaker 1: it's gonna be on the rock and just inches itself along.
- 21:14Speaker 1: We'll not inches. These things can move in some cases
- 21:17Speaker 1: right by inches, well by feet, like the black Mamba thirteen. Wow,
- 21:23Speaker 1: that is so scary because that's a pretty poisonous um snake. Yeah.
- 21:28Speaker 1: I think it's number five on the list, which we'll
- 21:30Speaker 1: get to. Um. There's side winding too, which is crazy. Yeah.
- 21:33Speaker 1: Those are creepy looking. It'll get your dog disqualified in
- 21:36Speaker 1: a UM in a dog show. Yeah, well yeah, is
- 21:40Speaker 1: that one of the big strikes against side gating. Yeah,
- 21:42Speaker 1: for sure. We did one on dog shows, right, yeah
- 21:45Speaker 1: we did. Yeah. It's good for UM for snakes though,
- 21:48Speaker 1: especially ones where there aren't those resistant points like rocks
- 21:52Speaker 1: and branches and leaves that a snake can use to
- 21:54Speaker 1: propel itself. Um, say, like along sand in a sandy desert. Yeah,
- 21:58Speaker 1: that's where I've usually seen side winder. That's where the
- 22:00Speaker 1: sidewinding goes on. Yeah, it's the same s shape, but
- 22:04Speaker 1: it's um. The cool thing about sidewinding to me is
- 22:06Speaker 1: if you slow it down and look closely, the major
- 22:10Speaker 1: portions of the snake's body is off the sand when
- 22:13Speaker 1: it's moving. It's like just sort of check it out. Yeah,
- 22:17Speaker 1: like my fronts on and my backs down. Now my
- 22:19Speaker 1: backs down on, my fronts on, and the whole time
- 22:21Speaker 1: the middle is off the ground. Yeah, there's just basically
- 22:24Speaker 1: like the parts that curved down. Everything else is held up.
- 22:28Speaker 1: Those are the only points in contact with the ground
- 22:30Speaker 1: and trying to hop I get the feeling. Yeah, like
- 22:33Speaker 1: I wish I head legs doing my best here, I'm
- 22:35Speaker 1: doing my best. Um. There's the caterpillar, which I haven't
- 22:38Speaker 1: seen much. Um that is the same rectilinear locomotion, but
- 22:43Speaker 1: it's up and down like creates that rippling effect like
- 22:46Speaker 1: you would see a caterpillar. Um, I don't see that
- 22:49Speaker 1: a whole lot. Well. Yeah, rather than side to side,
- 22:51Speaker 1: the curves are up and down. It's like the breakdancing
- 22:54Speaker 1: move the worm. Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. Uh,
- 22:58Speaker 1: they should have called it the snake. Should And then
- 23:01Speaker 1: my favorite the concertina, which is sort of like the
- 23:07Speaker 1: s but I get the feeling. It's like, uh, when
- 23:10Speaker 1: you see the old hand accordion in a cartoon, like
- 23:13Speaker 1: the front moves forward and then stops, and then the
- 23:15Speaker 1: bat catches up, then the front moves forward again. That's
- 23:18Speaker 1: sort of what it looks like. Yeah, and they use
- 23:20Speaker 1: concertin emotion for um climbing stuff like trees usually. Yeah,
- 23:27Speaker 1: there's another disconcerting thing about snakes that they can climb
- 23:30Speaker 1: trees and then jump out of them. Here we are
- 23:34Speaker 1: saying you shouldn't fear snakes, and all we're doing is
- 23:37Speaker 1: make people fear snakes again. Another cool graphic though on
- 23:40Speaker 1: snake movement on the article here at how stuff works.
- 23:44Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk uh, big snakes. Okay, because
- 23:49Speaker 1: the anaconda, I think everyone knows is the largest snake,
- 23:52Speaker 1: and those things are great swimmers that can weigh as
- 23:55Speaker 1: much as five and fifty pounds. About those things. I
- 24:00Speaker 1: actually enjoyed that dumb movie. I never saw it really,
- 24:03Speaker 1: that was terrible, but terribly good. You know, I had
- 24:06Speaker 1: a really good cast for such a bad movie, like
- 24:09Speaker 1: Owen Wilson and John Foyt and ice Cube j Lo.
- 24:13Speaker 1: I don't know. Marlon Brando, Yeah, he was the snake right. Um.
- 24:18Speaker 1: I always I could do a Brando impression so bad
- 24:20Speaker 1: right now? Oh yeah, which a movie would you do?
- 24:23Speaker 1: I would just do him as a snake. The seed
- 24:26Speaker 1: Mine would have to be as like the Vito Corleone
- 24:30Speaker 1: is a snake because I can only do brand Over
- 24:31Speaker 1: through his movies. That's fine, go ahead, no no, no no, no,
- 24:33Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it. Okay, Um make a man offler.
- 24:38Speaker 1: It couldn't refuse. That was definitely worth the weight. They
- 24:44Speaker 1: can be up to twelve inches in diameter. And you're
- 24:46Speaker 1: going to find these dudes in uh rivers in South America,
- 24:51Speaker 1: and they spend their time in the water because they're
- 24:54Speaker 1: so large. Uh that's the best way they can get around, right,
- 24:57Speaker 1: They're they're huge. Yeah, so they're again less resistance in
- 25:01Speaker 1: the water, so they've learned to be pretty good swimmers.
- 25:03Speaker 1: And they are quite the hunter. Um. They their eyes
- 25:07Speaker 1: and their nose are on the tops of their heads,
- 25:09Speaker 1: so very much like an alligator or crocodile. They can
- 25:12Speaker 1: be almost completely submerged but still keep an eye on
- 25:15Speaker 1: their prey. They're tough dudes. They're not poisonous. Their constrictors right, yeah.
- 25:20Speaker 1: I think they're related to BoA's. Yeah, they're related to
- 25:23Speaker 1: boas and they can they can hold their breath for
- 25:26Speaker 1: up to ten minutes if they do go underwater, which
- 25:29Speaker 1: is pretty crazy too. But um, what was the um
- 25:32Speaker 1: I even found that article the UM. It was an
- 25:34Speaker 1: article on smith sony and about the Titana Boa. Yeah,
- 25:37Speaker 1: this ancient Uh, I think it was after the dinosaurs, correct, Yeah,
- 25:41Speaker 1: it wasn't that very heavy salad day time after when
- 25:47Speaker 1: all of the former prey of the dinosaurs were allowed
- 25:50Speaker 1: to get huge. One of the things that got huge
- 25:53Speaker 1: was the Titana Boa. It was about fifty six million
- 25:56Speaker 1: years ago. And there's a um a coal pit and
- 26:00Speaker 1: Columbia that is yielded just a trove of fossils from
- 26:03Speaker 1: this era, including the Titana Boa where it was discovered. Yeah,
- 26:07Speaker 1: and I think the remarkable thing about this one, aside
- 26:10Speaker 1: from its size, was that they were able to find
- 26:14Speaker 1: a snake skull, which is a really rare thing apparently
- 26:19Speaker 1: because when skulls, when snake dies, their skull bones just
- 26:22Speaker 1: sort of go away to the wind because they're in
- 26:25Speaker 1: so many little pieces exactly like a human skull is
- 26:28Speaker 1: basically two pieces your lower jaw and the rest of
- 26:31Speaker 1: your skull. Um with a snake skull and we'll get
- 26:34Speaker 1: into why. But there's a like you say, a bunch
- 26:36Speaker 1: of different pieces to them, and yeah, when when they died,
- 26:39Speaker 1: just disintegrates. There's snakes skull parts, but an intex snake skull.
- 26:45Speaker 1: It's rare, very rare. So then to discover an entirely new,
- 26:48Speaker 1: fifty six million year old species of giant snake with
- 26:52Speaker 1: an intext skull was a big deal. And they found
- 26:55Speaker 1: the Titana boa and they figured out that it grew
- 26:58Speaker 1: to about forty long, weighed about a ton. Wow, so
- 27:03Speaker 1: it was about as long as a school bust and
- 27:05Speaker 1: weighed as much as a rhinoceros does. Crazy, and uh,
- 27:08Speaker 1: it could eat gators, turtles, like everything. It's just it
- 27:13Speaker 1: was the king of this Colombian jungle back back in
- 27:16Speaker 1: the day. Yeah, I imagine it would ever wanted to. Yes,
- 27:19Speaker 1: that is I can't imagine. I mean, an anacon of
- 27:22Speaker 1: these days is impressive, right, but a forty foter that's
- 27:26Speaker 1: something else. I mean, it basically is what they were
- 27:29Speaker 1: predicting in the movie Anaconda unwaitingly just probably about forty
- 27:35Speaker 1: in a ton right in that movie? Yeah, really bad
- 27:37Speaker 1: c G. I Yeah, to make it all happen Uh, well,
- 27:42Speaker 1: let's talk about eating a little bit um. One of
- 27:44Speaker 1: the remarkable things about the snake is that it does
- 27:48Speaker 1: swallow its prey hole. And it can do this. And
- 27:52Speaker 1: everyone's seen the snake when they go to unhinge that jaw,
- 27:55Speaker 1: that is what they're doing. They have a very uh
- 27:58Speaker 1: specialized feature and it's called a quadrate bone. And the
- 28:02Speaker 1: upper jaw connects to the lower jaw with this, and
- 28:04Speaker 1: it can unhinge itself, and the rest of the skull
- 28:07Speaker 1: is connected by like muscle intending, so it's it can
- 28:10Speaker 1: get up to like a hundred and fifty degrees wide open, right,
- 28:13Speaker 1: And it's not just the upper jaw and the lower
- 28:15Speaker 1: jaw that can unhinge and get wider. I think, what
- 28:19Speaker 1: do you say a hundred fifty degrees? It also can
- 28:22Speaker 1: expand side to side. So like the bones that make
- 28:24Speaker 1: up the front of the snake's skull are like you said,
- 28:28Speaker 1: connected by bone or by muscle intending, so they can
- 28:32Speaker 1: stretch apart as well. So not only does it get
- 28:34Speaker 1: bigger vertically this, the whole mouth can get bigger horizontally
- 28:38Speaker 1: as well. And it can again, a snake can need
- 28:42Speaker 1: a whole rabbit. That's right, and how it does that
- 28:44Speaker 1: is and this is um how the article describes it.
- 28:47Speaker 1: It opens its mouth and begins to walk it's lower
- 28:50Speaker 1: jaw over the prey as its backward curving teeth grind
- 28:54Speaker 1: up the animal. You know, it just sort of sucks
- 28:56Speaker 1: it in. Right. It depends on the species of snake
- 28:59Speaker 1: whether it has bad akward curving teeth or or not.
- 29:01Speaker 1: But not venomous snakes do have the backward curving teeth
- 29:06Speaker 1: so that the prey can't get out. They can get in,
- 29:09Speaker 1: but they can't get out to check in, but they
- 29:11Speaker 1: don't check out. All along they are crushing um as
- 29:16Speaker 1: the deeper goes in the digestive digestive track, crushing this
- 29:19Speaker 1: thing down um until eventually it's just broken down in
- 29:24Speaker 1: the nutrients, just like eating a regular meal exactly. And again,
- 29:26Speaker 1: it takes a lot more digestive juices to to make
- 29:31Speaker 1: this happen. So the snakes just producing this stuff over time.
- 29:34Speaker 1: Sometimes it takes venom yeah, you know, to subdue this
- 29:37Speaker 1: animal because of a rabbit. It's gonna be like I
- 29:40Speaker 1: don't want to go in that mouth. No, I'm going
- 29:42Speaker 1: to scratch your soft forets like you might get me.
- 29:45Speaker 1: But I'm gonna take part of you down with me.
- 29:47Speaker 1: So that's why they have these um, wicked little things
- 29:50Speaker 1: called fangs, and um, they're in the upper jaw. And
- 29:54Speaker 1: venomous snakes have the two hallmark hollowed out fangs that
- 29:58Speaker 1: are just basically, uh, a delivery system, a sharp little
- 30:02Speaker 1: delivery system. Uh. And they have glands under each eye
- 30:06Speaker 1: called venom ducks, and that's where the good stuff comes from.
- 30:09Speaker 1: They just squeeze it through uh those little little things, right.
- 30:13Speaker 1: And supposedly the venom passes through other glands where more
- 30:17Speaker 1: chemicals are added to it and it becomes this amazing
- 30:20Speaker 1: specialized brew. Um. And apparently each snake species kind of
- 30:25Speaker 1: has its own signature death cocktail. But there are some
- 30:29Speaker 1: toxins that are found in just about all of them. Um,
- 30:32Speaker 1: there's neurotoxins breakdown your nervous system function, including things like breathing.
- 30:39Speaker 1: So that'll that'll stop your we'll stop your life eventually paralysis, right,
- 30:45Speaker 1: you don't even be able to move, which is why
- 30:47Speaker 1: it's a big one that helps them defeed, you know,
- 30:49Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, rabbits like alive, but you know,
- 30:52Speaker 1: has that look in its eye, yes, like I can't move.
- 30:55Speaker 1: What's going on? The time is near. I hate Tuesdays. Uh.
- 31:00Speaker 1: Cardiotoxins are gonna deteriorate the heart and basically say you're
- 31:04Speaker 1: done beating. UM, and then they have hemotoxins and that
- 31:08Speaker 1: will erupt your blood vessels and you're gonna bleed internally.
- 31:12Speaker 1: You know what else I've found it's pretty neat. So
- 31:13Speaker 1: that's Those are venomous snakes. Remember we talked about like
- 31:16Speaker 1: what's the most poisonous animal or venomous animal in the world.
- 31:20Speaker 1: We had an episode on that. Um, there are some
- 31:24Speaker 1: so venomous snake is something that produces its own poison.
- 31:27Speaker 1: There are some snakes that are technically poisonous because they
- 31:31Speaker 1: eat like poisonous tree frogs or something like that, and
- 31:34Speaker 1: they collect the poison from the frogs and store it
- 31:37Speaker 1: and then they use it to catch Preyora's defense later on.
- 31:41Speaker 1: But they're not physically producing their own poison. They're collecting
- 31:45Speaker 1: it and deploying it. And they wouldn't have fangs either
- 31:49Speaker 1: no or else they wouldn't have fangs with the hollowed
- 31:52Speaker 1: out delivery system. Interesting. Uh. When they they do have fangs,
- 31:56Speaker 1: by the way they are, they fold backwards in the mouth.
- 31:59Speaker 1: Did you already say that. No, there's like pockets though
- 32:02Speaker 1: that like are in their gums, the roof of their mouth.
- 32:05Speaker 1: They're hard palate. Oh it's like a little holster. Okay, yeah,
- 32:10Speaker 1: because it's not. It just go right through the bottom
- 32:13Speaker 1: of their mouth and they look pretty funny. Yeah, they
- 32:16Speaker 1: would fang Holster another band name. I knew this is
- 32:19Speaker 1: gonna have a lot of band names. The venom can
- 32:23Speaker 1: also have UM. If you heard our blood episode, uh a,
- 32:27Speaker 1: glutenants and anticoagulants which are either going to make the
- 32:30Speaker 1: blood clot or thin out. Remember in our blood type
- 32:34Speaker 1: episode there was a glute nation was what happens when
- 32:40Speaker 1: you mix unlike blood not good? No, um, And like again,
- 32:46Speaker 1: like you mentioned, this is just another addition to the cocktail.
- 32:49Speaker 1: Um that's added to the other stuff you know. Um.
- 32:55Speaker 1: And then if you want to die another way, you
- 32:58Speaker 1: could be constricted. Yeah, there are boas and anacondas and
- 33:02Speaker 1: they they wrap around you. Well, first they'll they'll get
- 33:06Speaker 1: you in their mouth so you're not moving. Then they'll
- 33:09Speaker 1: wrap around you and you finally exhale, and then they
- 33:14Speaker 1: say that was your last breath, my friend, So long sucker,
- 33:17Speaker 1: because I'm gonna squeeze you so tight You're not gonna
- 33:19Speaker 1: be able to inhale ever again. Yeah, and it's not
- 33:22Speaker 1: just the lungs that they crushed. They also crushed the heart.
- 33:26Speaker 1: They squeeze so tight that the heart is prevented from
- 33:30Speaker 1: contracting and expanding. You ever had a boa constrictor like
- 33:33Speaker 1: on your arm, like friends bet or whatever? Yeah, I
- 33:35Speaker 1: remember the one that um when we were shooting. Oh yeah, yeah,
- 33:40Speaker 1: did did you pull that one? Yeah? I think yeah,
- 33:45Speaker 1: yeah it did. Once in college, I was at a
- 33:47Speaker 1: party and someone had a snake and I was, um,
- 33:50Speaker 1: had a few drinks. It was like, I'm gonna get
- 33:51Speaker 1: over my fearce snakes, and now is the time. And
- 33:54Speaker 1: he let the snake like you know, crawl around me
- 33:56Speaker 1: and wrap around my arm. And I was like all right,
- 33:58Speaker 1: this is awesome and slightly creeped out, but I was like,
- 34:01Speaker 1: all right, I can I can handle this. It wasn't
- 34:04Speaker 1: like you put a tcharanche along on me. No, I
- 34:08Speaker 1: could not handle that. That would be very freaky. Yeah.
- 34:11Speaker 1: All right, Well, after this message break, we are going
- 34:14Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about snake sex. Alright, you
- 34:36Speaker 1: ready to talk snake sex. I'm ready. Man, this is
- 34:39Speaker 1: the creepiest part to me. Oh no, it's not beautiful.
- 34:43Speaker 1: A female snake is the one who sends out the order. Um, hey,
- 34:47Speaker 1: I'm ready to have some sex, right, So I'm gonna
- 34:50Speaker 1: be a pheromones pheromones, and I'm gonna leave a little
- 34:54Speaker 1: trail of pheromones everywhere I go today because today is
- 34:58Speaker 1: the day, all right. And the male snake picks up
- 35:01Speaker 1: that sent and it's like, I'm gonna follow this trail
- 35:04Speaker 1: until I catch up to this lovely lady at the
- 35:08Speaker 1: end of the trail. And then he finally catches up
- 35:10Speaker 1: to her. Apparently the lady snake is just going about
- 35:13Speaker 1: a normal business, but the male snake is like, well,
- 35:15Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing today and following the trail
- 35:17Speaker 1: every where he goes. Um. And when he does catch
- 35:20Speaker 1: up to her, he says, hey, how's it going, And
- 35:23Speaker 1: he does that by like bumping the back of her
- 35:26Speaker 1: head with his chin basically like hey, I think that's hey, yeah,
- 35:30Speaker 1: hey you yeah, pay attention to me, okay. And then
- 35:34Speaker 1: after that, after he's got her attention, um, he also
- 35:38Speaker 1: is like sliding over like back and forth, just basically
- 35:42Speaker 1: being a pest um. And finally, the lady snake, if
- 35:46Speaker 1: she likes the guy, she likes what she sees, she'll
- 35:50Speaker 1: be like, all right, fine and poop up goes the tail.
- 35:54Speaker 1: I wonder if a snake, female snake, ever sees a lizard,
- 35:57Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, man, if only it didn't have
- 36:00Speaker 1: like those arms and hands, what they could do? You know? Um,
- 36:05Speaker 1: I don't think that's what. Snakes don't think like that,
- 36:07Speaker 1: do they. I don't know. All right, So she lifts
- 36:10Speaker 1: her tail and she said, I like you, I'm willing
- 36:13Speaker 1: and able. Um, let's do this. And so they wrap
- 36:18Speaker 1: their tails around each other and they sort of just
- 36:21Speaker 1: intertwined until their cloacas meet up. And that's where it
- 36:26Speaker 1: all happens, my friend, that's where it all happens. The
- 36:29Speaker 1: male snakes hemy peens, which is his reproductive organ, uh says,
- 36:35Speaker 1: here's some sperm that you got a hemmy, it's funny.
- 36:43Speaker 1: Uh yeah, He delivers sperm through his hemmy peen. Why
- 36:46Speaker 1: is this so awkward? I don't know. So yes, the
- 36:50Speaker 1: hemmy peens delivers the sperm and the female becomes fertilizeday,
- 36:56Speaker 1: and now they can make baby snakes or lay eggs. Yeah,
- 36:59Speaker 1: this is intus like some of them do both. Yeah,
- 37:03Speaker 1: and that that I thought that was unusual. It would
- 37:04Speaker 1: seem like, I don't know, in nature, usually don't have
- 37:07Speaker 1: one or the other, you know, or both. Yeah, I
- 37:10Speaker 1: mean like maybe like this kind of animal, like a
- 37:12Speaker 1: bird lays an egg, but a panda bear lays has
- 37:17Speaker 1: live young. Right, there aren't pan bears that can also
- 37:20Speaker 1: lay eggs or have live young. That just seems a
- 37:23Speaker 1: little too random. Different egg hatch would be about the
- 37:30Speaker 1: cutest thing that would break the internet. If a little
- 37:32Speaker 1: panda bear hatch from an egg it was like two pounds,
- 37:36Speaker 1: that would be pretty cute. Um. So if they have
- 37:39Speaker 1: live young, they can give birth to anywhere from one
- 37:42Speaker 1: to a hundred and fifty snakes, which is uh, you know,
- 37:45Speaker 1: might be some people's nightmare. Yeah. Like remember that part
- 37:48Speaker 1: in Indiana Jones and Tempily Doom not Raiders, No, it
- 37:53Speaker 1: was the they were at the feast at the maharaj
- 37:57Speaker 1: Is people and they bring out that snake and slice
- 37:59Speaker 1: it open all the alive. Oh yeah, yeah, man, they
- 38:03Speaker 1: make good snakes. I forgot because in Raiders the famous
- 38:07Speaker 1: asps um Hey that was a good uh sala was
- 38:13Speaker 1: that his name. I think so right. I don't know, man,
- 38:16Speaker 1: I'm gonna get killed for that one. If it's not UM.
- 38:19Speaker 1: If they lay eggs, they can hatch them internally, hold
- 38:23Speaker 1: them internally until they hatch or give birth to the egg,
- 38:27Speaker 1: and then the egg will hatch UM. And like you said,
- 38:29Speaker 1: that's it's sort of the combination method. If they hold
- 38:32Speaker 1: the eggs internally UM, and they take care of their young,
- 38:37Speaker 1: but not really like forever. Like sometimes they'll even leave
- 38:41Speaker 1: the eggs before they hatch. Sometimes they'll stick around and
- 38:43Speaker 1: protect them for a little while. So it sort of depends.
- 38:48Speaker 1: It depends on the species. I guess the reason why
- 38:52Speaker 1: they would have so many different qualities in the same
- 38:56Speaker 1: like family, UM is that they've been around for like
- 39:00Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty million years. Yeah, and the variety
- 39:03Speaker 1: of their distribution all over the world. Yeah. So speaking
- 39:08Speaker 1: of variety, like we said, just five percent of snakes
- 39:11Speaker 1: and poisonous, but the ones that are poisonous can be
- 39:14Speaker 1: really really poisonous. Yeah, just not just mildly poisonous, but
- 39:20Speaker 1: like really deadly poisonous. Well you mean venomous still are poisonous,
- 39:25Speaker 1: thank you? Yeah, I mean venomous you're absolutely right. Yeah.
- 39:28Speaker 1: I found a list of most venomous snakes um, and
- 39:32Speaker 1: lucky for us here in the US of A, in
- 39:34Speaker 1: Canada and Mexico, we only have the rattlesnake to contend with. Well,
- 39:39Speaker 1: wait a minute, I thought we had like water moccasins
- 39:41Speaker 1: and copperas No, as far as the most venomous, like
- 39:44Speaker 1: a water moccasin bite, you'll be fine. Oh really, I
- 39:46Speaker 1: didn't know that. I thought it was like deadly. No. Well,
- 39:48Speaker 1: I mean if you just like went back and watch TV, maybe,
- 39:52Speaker 1: but you go to the doctor. It's not like I'm
- 39:55Speaker 1: gonna die in thirty minutes, because it's all about what
- 39:58Speaker 1: it comes down to is how eddy the venom is?
- 40:01Speaker 1: Like I got bit by a watermark. But judge duty
- 40:05Speaker 1: is on what am I gonna do? Decisions, decision. I
- 40:09Speaker 1: gotta see this verdict Um, the Eastern diamond back is
- 40:13Speaker 1: the most venomous in North America. And that was the
- 40:16Speaker 1: one that I encountered. My snake story. When I was
- 40:18Speaker 1: a kid, we were looking at property with my parents
- 40:21Speaker 1: in the North Georgia Mountains and my brother and I
- 40:23Speaker 1: were running ahead and there was a rattlesnake, a big, big,
- 40:27Speaker 1: rattlesnake coiled and ready to go, and your brother just
- 40:30Speaker 1: pulled us six shooters shot it once in the head
- 40:32Speaker 1: and like toil is gun and put it back right now.
- 40:34Speaker 1: The old mountain man came in with a stick like
- 40:38Speaker 1: just from nowhere, like running behind us, and one jab
- 40:41Speaker 1: got the head. Geez. Yeah, it was scary man. And
- 40:45Speaker 1: looking back, I'm like, I wish you hadn't killed the snake,
- 40:47Speaker 1: but we were. We were four ft from this thing
- 40:51Speaker 1: and it was completely coiled with his head up like
- 40:53Speaker 1: he was ready to go. Yeah, he could have totally
- 40:56Speaker 1: gotten this. Uh. Number nine is the death adder in
- 40:59Speaker 1: Austra Eliot in New Guinea, and they kill other snakes.
- 41:03Speaker 1: But if you happen upon them, you will notice their
- 41:06Speaker 1: triangular shaped head, which is always a dead giveaway usually
- 41:09Speaker 1: that that's not a good snake or not again a
- 41:12Speaker 1: good snake, but not one you want to like to
- 41:14Speaker 1: play with. And by the way, Chuck, if you had
- 41:17Speaker 1: a um you encountered the four ft rattlesnake, you could
- 41:21Speaker 1: expect a striking distance of two thirds of his body
- 41:25Speaker 1: length is usually the rule of thumb for a rattlesnake.
- 41:28Speaker 1: We were probably close to striking distance then man, Yeah,
- 41:31Speaker 1: that's scary. Uh. We were out in the woods too.
- 41:34Speaker 1: That wouldn't have been a pretty scene, you know. Um,
- 41:37Speaker 1: the old mountain man would have just had to put
- 41:39Speaker 1: you down immediately. Now he was just laid on your face.
- 41:43Speaker 1: He probably would have done the old suck it out
- 41:45Speaker 1: with his mouth and spit, which I think is not
- 41:47Speaker 1: the way to do it from what I understand. UM,
- 41:50Speaker 1: vipers are next number eight. China, India, Southeast Asia, Central Asia,
- 41:56Speaker 1: Middle East, very fast, very ill tempered. The Philippine cobra.
- 42:03Speaker 1: I didn't know this. Cobras generally aren't, um. I mean,
- 42:06Speaker 1: they're venomous, but their venom isn't among the most deadly,
- 42:09Speaker 1: like you could go watch TV for a little while. No,
- 42:12Speaker 1: probably not. But the Philippine cobra is the exception. Um.
- 42:17Speaker 1: They have the most deadly venom of all the cobras,
- 42:20Speaker 1: very narrow, toxic. There's the tiger snake. Yeah, uh, this
- 42:25Speaker 1: one can kill you within thirty minutes. Yeah, supposedly pretty quick.
- 42:30Speaker 1: And before there was such thing as anne vent and
- 42:32Speaker 1: tiger snakes killed at a rate of about six Also
- 42:36Speaker 1: in Australia. By the way, as you'll notice that as
- 42:39Speaker 1: a trend, and when we talked about the most venomous creatures,
- 42:42Speaker 1: Australia was always around. We have our black Mamma which
- 42:46Speaker 1: we talked about in Africa, very aggressive, very fast, and
- 42:50Speaker 1: they can strike up to twelve times in a row
- 42:52Speaker 1: and a single bite is capable of killing anywhere between
- 42:55Speaker 1: ten and twenty five adults, very deadly. It's super deadly.
- 43:00Speaker 1: It's still not the deadliest though, is that Nope, there's
- 43:02Speaker 1: several more. Number four, the taipan Uh, also in Australia,
- 43:08Speaker 1: can kill twelve thousand guinea pigs um with a single bite.
- 43:14Speaker 1: That's like, that's what they compare calories too as well.
- 43:20Speaker 1: It's like eight guinea pigs where the calories um. The
- 43:24Speaker 1: blue k r a i t the blue crate malaysian
- 43:30Speaker 1: um and it is the most deadly of that species
- 43:34Speaker 1: in South Southeast Asian Indonesia. Fifty of the bites even
- 43:38Speaker 1: with anti ven and you will die. That is so scary.
- 43:42Speaker 1: That's super scary. That is a that is a deadly
- 43:45Speaker 1: deadly snake. Number two, the Eastern brown one fourteen thousand
- 43:51Speaker 1: of an ounce is enough to kill an adult human
- 43:55Speaker 1: and um, they live. The scary thing about them is
- 43:58Speaker 1: they live in Australia near a major population center. So
- 44:02Speaker 1: those are the ones I think that you can go
- 44:04Speaker 1: out and find like the second most deadly snake in
- 44:06Speaker 1: the world in your yard or like a bar or
- 44:08Speaker 1: something like that at work. Can you imagine that man?
- 44:14Speaker 1: And number one the inland taipe in or the fierce snake.
- 44:19Speaker 1: And this is another subspecies, but they put it on
- 44:22Speaker 1: the list because they just said it deserves to be there,
- 44:25Speaker 1: and um, it is the most toxic venom in in
- 44:28Speaker 1: the world. Hundred and ten milligrams of venom in one
- 44:32Speaker 1: bite is enough to kill about one human beings or
- 44:36Speaker 1: five million guinea picks. The good thing about this one, though,
- 44:39Speaker 1: is it's not super aggressive and you're not going to
- 44:42Speaker 1: see one very much. It's rare to even encounter one.
- 44:44Speaker 1: For that reason, they don't have any fatalities on record.
- 44:47Speaker 1: Oh really yeah on record? Uh? And what was that
- 44:53Speaker 1: list from? Was that I O nine or was it
- 44:55Speaker 1: a list verse? Let's verse lest verse put it together
- 44:58Speaker 1: for ut Man. Yeah, double check, though I think it's
- 45:01Speaker 1: pretty accurate. I'd say just any of those ten um
- 45:04Speaker 1: avoiding the wild, don't kill him that unless you have to, right,
- 45:08Speaker 1: you know, but always hike with a flamethrower. Chucks, Have
- 45:12Speaker 1: you ever heard there's no snakes in Ireland? No? Is
- 45:15Speaker 1: that a saying? Oh? Yes? St. St Patrick supposedly drove
- 45:18Speaker 1: all the snakes out of Ireland. That's one of the
- 45:20Speaker 1: reasons he got so famous. He did not do that
- 45:23Speaker 1: because there are snakes in Ireland, of course, right, No, oh,
- 45:26Speaker 1: there really aren't. There are in like zoos and and
- 45:28Speaker 1: and in people's homes. But no, there's no snakes in
- 45:30Speaker 1: the wild in Ireland. Seriously, what about England, Scotland and Wales.
- 45:34Speaker 1: I think that there may be, But Ireland, when snakes
- 45:37Speaker 1: were developing, was underwater and snakes never made it over there.
- 45:42Speaker 1: So there really aren't snakes in Ireland as far as
- 45:44Speaker 1: I can tell. But are there in Scotland and England?
- 45:47Speaker 1: I'm guessing yes, surely one has crossed the border. And
- 45:52Speaker 1: I mean like the fact that there are some like
- 45:53Speaker 1: in zoos and people's homes mean that there eventually will
- 45:57Speaker 1: be because you know, like down in Florida, people would
- 46:00Speaker 1: like take pythons that they had as pets and just
- 46:02Speaker 1: release them in the everylades. And now that every lads
- 46:03Speaker 1: have a really large python population, a non named python population.
- 46:09Speaker 1: People are stupid and they didn't realize that that Python
- 46:12Speaker 1: was gonna get large exactly. Yeah, yep, go humans. Uh,
- 46:17Speaker 1: you got anything else? That's it, man, That's snakes. That's
- 46:19Speaker 1: all I got. You got anything else? All right? Well,
- 46:23Speaker 1: since we have nothing else, we want you to go
- 46:26Speaker 1: learn more about snakes. You can type the words snakes
- 46:28Speaker 1: in the search bart how stuff works dot com and
- 46:30Speaker 1: check out our podcast page for this episode with all
- 46:33Speaker 1: sorts of cool extra links. And since I said cool,
- 46:37Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. Hey guys, my name
- 46:42Speaker 1: is Kristen. I'm gonna call this. Hey guys, my name
- 46:45Speaker 1: is Kristen Lupus slash lupus. I want to send an
- 46:49Speaker 1: email thanking both of you, even though my relatively new fan,
- 46:52Speaker 1: I really think you're saving my life. A year and
- 46:55Speaker 1: a half ago, at twenty two, I was diagnosed with lupus,
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- 47:01Speaker 1: six eight months ago I started also struggling with the depression.
- 47:05Speaker 1: My boyfriend Ross tried every trick in the book, and
- 47:07Speaker 1: eventually I was I wasn't even getting out of bed.
- 47:09Speaker 1: I started to have passive suicidal idealization. It's a very
- 47:13Speaker 1: dark time. My family really joined together to get me
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- 47:19Speaker 1: I'm proud to say I am recovering. Uh. YouTube factor
- 47:22Speaker 1: in because my boyfriend recommended I listened to podcast on
- 47:26Speaker 1: panic attacks. He found to be a really helpful tool
- 47:29Speaker 1: when he was trying to figure out how to help
- 47:30Speaker 1: me cope. Uh. I couldn't leave my bed, but I
- 47:33Speaker 1: did have my iPhone, so I listened, and I kept
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- 47:40Speaker 1: and then started looking at the articles related to topics
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- 47:51Speaker 1: listened to the show when I feel like I'm going
- 47:53Speaker 1: to have an episode of panic. It helps me to
- 47:55Speaker 1: breathe and to laugh. Oh that is so cool. It is.
- 47:58Speaker 1: It stimulates my brain and keeps me thinking, wondering, in
- 48:00Speaker 1: and awe of all sorts of awesome things. So thank
- 48:02Speaker 1: you for your help, and please keep up the amazing work.
- 48:05Speaker 1: I still have plenty of content to get through, but
- 48:08Speaker 1: I hope that's two of you keep making the podcast
- 48:11Speaker 1: for plenty time to come. We will. We have no
- 48:14Speaker 1: plans to stop anytime soon. And that is from Christin
- 48:17Speaker 1: Wolf and she's a native Atlanta, but she is in Washington,
- 48:20Speaker 1: d C. So Kristin, he should come out and see
- 48:22Speaker 1: our show in June in Washington, d C. Yeah, talk
- 48:26Speaker 1: about relaxing. Way do you see it alive? Well? Yeah,
- 48:30Speaker 1: but it's also extremely exciting too. Yeah that's true. Um,
- 48:34Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Christen for chuning that. We're glad we
- 48:36Speaker 1: got to help you out. And thanks for Ross the
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