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Wonderful Waters · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
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  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: We don't really think about it, but our planet might
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  Speaker 1: as well be a universe all its own. There are
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  Speaker 1: still parts of Earth that have yet to be seen
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  Speaker 1: with human eyes. For example, much of the ocean still
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  Speaker 1: hasn't been explored, and there are even islands where no
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  Speaker 1: man has stepped foot. And in those areas are flora
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  Speaker 1: and fauna we cannot comprehend. Louis Deloyes thought he'd found
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  Speaker 1: such a place in South America in nineteen twenty. What
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  Speaker 1: he discovered was more than he bargained for. The Lace
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  Speaker 1: was a Swiss geologist, and in nineteen seventeen he started
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  Speaker 1: traveling through South America as part of an oil survey.
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  Speaker 1: He'd been joined by a crew of twenty men, but
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  Speaker 1: that number had dwindled since the starts of their journey.
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  Speaker 1: They had faced a number of hardships, including run ins
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  Speaker 1: with hostile indigenous peoples and devastating diseases. Several members had
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  Speaker 1: even disappeared in the mountains. By nineteen twenty, there were
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  Speaker 1: only four men left. The group had set up camp
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  Speaker 1: one night by Columbia's Tara River when they noticed something
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  Speaker 1: along the banks. Two creatures had emerged nearby, and they
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  Speaker 1: were getting closer. They were almost five feet tall and
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  Speaker 1: covered in red fur, and they looked like large apes,
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  Speaker 1: only they were walking upright on two legs like a human.
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  Speaker 1: One was a male, the other was a female. As
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  Speaker 1: the pair inch toward the camp, it was clear they
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  Speaker 1: had not come in peace. The creatures started making loud
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  Speaker 1: noises and throwing their feces at the crew. Scared and angry,
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  Speaker 1: the men kicked up their guns and fired. Both apes
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  Speaker 1: were hit, but only the female died. The male ran
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  Speaker 1: back into the woods to nurse his wounds and was
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  Speaker 1: never seen again. Deloys examined the creature that lay at
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  Speaker 1: his feet. It didn't look like any ape he had
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  Speaker 1: seen before. While on the surface, it had features like
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  Speaker 1: a spider monkey's, but it was much larger and had
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  Speaker 1: no tail, and while most monkeys only have thirty two
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  Speaker 1: teeth in their mouths. This one had thirty six. Deloys
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  Speaker 1: and the other men propped the animal up on a
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  Speaker 1: crate in a seated position. They wedged a long stick
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  Speaker 1: under its chin to keep it from falling over, and
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  Speaker 1: then photos were taken before the creature was skinned and
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  Speaker 1: its skull was removed. Any scientist would have been excited
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  Speaker 1: to share this discovery with the world. A brand new
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  Speaker 1: species of ape had been found along the coast of
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  Speaker 1: South America, and Louis de Loys was about to be famous.
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  Speaker 1: Except he wasn't. Not at first. He sat on the
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  Speaker 1: news for a number of years, refusing to tell a
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  Speaker 1: soul about what he'd seen. Plus, much of his evidence
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  Speaker 1: had been lost before or he'd made it back home.
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  Speaker 1: All that remained was a single photograph of the ape.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't until nineteen twenty eight when his friend George
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  Speaker 1: Montendan found what had nearly been forgotten. He was a
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  Speaker 1: professor of anthropology and was paging through Deloys's notebook when
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  Speaker 1: he came across a photo tucked inside. He'd seen plenty
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  Speaker 1: of apes and monkeys throughout his career, but this one
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  Speaker 1: was much different than the others, and he knew it
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  Speaker 1: needed to be seen, it looked like Deloys had discovered
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  Speaker 1: what other scientists had only theorized about the missing link.
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  Speaker 1: The two men worked together and had stories about the
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  Speaker 1: eight published in several newspapers. Montandan also submitted a paper
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  Speaker 1: to the French Academy of Sciences, dubbing the creature the
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  Speaker 1: ameranthropoid's loisi. It was the biggest scientific discovery of the day,
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  Speaker 1: at least it was supposed to be. As soon as
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  Speaker 1: other scientists and naturalists got a look at the animal
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  Speaker 1: in the photo, they started asking questions, how big was
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  Speaker 1: it really, where did its tale go? Why did it
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  Speaker 1: look so much like a spider monkey. Eventually the answers
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  Speaker 1: weren't good enough, when both Deloy's and Montendan were labeled frauds.
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  Speaker 1: The final nail in the coffin, though, came in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty two. That year, doctor Enrique Tahara sent a letter
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  Speaker 1: to the editor of a Spanish language magazine, a letter
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  Speaker 1: that wasn't published until nineteen ninety nine. In it, he
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  Speaker 1: explained how he knew Deloy's ape was a hoax, writing
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  Speaker 1: mister Montendan said that the monkey had no tail, that
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  Speaker 1: is for sure, but he forgot to mention something. It
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  Speaker 1: has no tail because it was cut off. I can
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  Speaker 1: assure you this, gentlemen, because I saw the amputation. Deloyz
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  Speaker 1: died of syphilis in nineteen thirty five. He was barely
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  Speaker 1: forty two and left behind a legacy of deception. Montandan
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  Speaker 1: didn't fare much better. When he wasn't fabricating hoaxes. He
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  Speaker 1: was pushing eugenics ideas and working with the Nazis. He
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  Speaker 1: was executed in nineteen forty four for betraying his country.
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  Speaker 1: It seems that the French resistance didn't tolerate monkey business
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  Speaker 1: of any kind. The world is full of natural wonders.
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  Speaker 1: We actually have a list of seven of the most
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  Speaker 1: impressive ones, which was compiled by CNN in nineteen ninety seven.
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  Speaker 1: They are the Northern Lights, the Grand Canyon, the Great
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  Speaker 1: Barrier Reef, Mount Everest, the Harbor of Rio de Janio
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  Speaker 1: in Brazil, Zimbabwe's Victoria Falls, and Perkutin, a volcano in Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: These are bucket list level phenomena places that people travel
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  Speaker 1: thousands of miles to see. But there's another lesser known
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  Speaker 1: location that's just as mysterious and breathtaking. It's called Mosquito Bay,
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  Speaker 1: which I know is not a particularly enticing name. It
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  Speaker 1: is not named after the blood sucking insects that we
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  Speaker 1: all know and hate. It's named after a pirate ship
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  Speaker 1: that once sailed through the area. Mosquito Bay is located
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  Speaker 1: on the southeast edge of Viakis, which is a tiny
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  Speaker 1: island about seven miles off the coast of Puerto Rico.
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  Speaker 1: By day, the waters there look perfectly normal, but when
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  Speaker 1: the sun sets, things get curious. The water glows neon
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  Speaker 1: blue in the darkness. There's an entire tourism industry around
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  Speaker 1: the glowing bay. However, there are also a lot of
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  Speaker 1: rules that visitors have to follow. For example, tour guides
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  Speaker 1: can't use motor boats to take people out on the water.
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  Speaker 1: They can only use kayaks. Plus, tourists can't swim in
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  Speaker 1: the bay. The closest they can get is just dipping
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  Speaker 1: a hand in. And despite being called Mosquito Bay, there
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  Speaker 1: is absolutely no bug spray allowed, at least not the
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  Speaker 1: kind that contains a chemical called deet. If you're wondering
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  Speaker 1: why all these restrictions exist, it's because the bay's neon
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  Speaker 1: blue light depends on it. You see, Mosquito Bay glows
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  Speaker 1: because the water is home to billions of microscopic, single
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  Speaker 1: celled organisms called dinoflagelets, which just happen to be bioluminescent now.
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  Speaker 1: Bioluminescence occurs when a living organism's body gives off lights
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  Speaker 1: as the result of an internal chemical reaction. The most
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  Speaker 1: common example of this is fireflies. Everyone knows them, but
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  Speaker 1: there are all kinds of species that glow, including certain
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  Speaker 1: types of bacteria, worms, starfish, jellyfish, and even sharks, so
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  Speaker 1: bioluminescence isn't actually that rare. However, Mosquito Bay is unique
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  Speaker 1: because of the sheer number of glowing organisms it contains.
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  Speaker 1: For every gallon of water, there's an estimated seven hundred
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  Speaker 1: thousand dinoflagelets. Over time, they've gotten trapped inside the bay
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  Speaker 1: and become the accustomed to feeding off nutrients from the
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  Speaker 1: surrounding mangrove trees. Still, these tiny glowing creatures are very
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  Speaker 1: sensitive to changes in their environment. Other bioluminescent bays have
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  Speaker 1: been destroyed by humans in the past, hence all the
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  Speaker 1: rules visitors have to follow. The fast movement and fuel
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  Speaker 1: exhaust from motor boats can kill them. Swimmers aren't allowed
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  Speaker 1: in the water because human sweat saliva and urine can
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  Speaker 1: throw off the marine ecosystem, and bug spray containing deep
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  Speaker 1: is the biggest problem of all. It could actually wipe
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  Speaker 1: out the microorganism that makes the bay so beautiful. Thanks
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  Speaker 1: to these conservation efforts, people have been able to experience
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  Speaker 1: this natural wonder without hurting it. In two thousand and six,
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  Speaker 1: Guinness World Records named Mosquito Bay the brightest bioluminescent bay
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  Speaker 1: on Earth. But a decade later, in twenty seventeen, disaster
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  Speaker 1: struck and it wasn't anyone's fault. Hurricane Maria decimated large
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  Speaker 1: portions of Puerto Rico, including Viacus and Mosquito Bay. For
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  Speaker 1: the first time in recent memory, the glowing bay went dark,
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  Speaker 1: and people feared that the dioflagelets had all been killed
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  Speaker 1: or would it return. But then eighteen months later, the
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  Speaker 1: bay's signature glow slowly began to come back. It seemed
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  Speaker 1: the microorganisms were recovering, and soon the water actually glowed
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  Speaker 1: brighter than it ever had before. These days, the bioluminescent
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  Speaker 1: creatures are alive and well, and people who visit the
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  Speaker 1: bay say it's one of the most magical places they
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  Speaker 1: have ever seen. In twenty twenty, Conde Nast named Mosquito
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  Speaker 1: Bay as one of its seven Wonders of the World.
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  Speaker 1: So who knows, Maybe one day the glowing water will
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  Speaker 1: earn a spot on CNN's official list. Until then, Mosquito
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  Speaker 1: Bay remains a uniquely bright spot on Earth. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.