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Creature Feature: The Dark Tetrad · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to a show Ridiculous Historians to see what you did.
0:04
Speaker 1: This is what they call the old Ridiculous History bait
0:07
Speaker 1: and switch. It's true. Yes and your no. We've got
0:11
Speaker 1: our super producer, Casey Pegro, and uh, we want to
0:17
Speaker 1: introduce you to a show that we did that we had.
0:20
Speaker 1: We had so much fun doing. It was a lot
0:22
Speaker 1: of fun. It's also not that's not our show. But
0:25
Speaker 1: here's the thing, folks, it's it's a little thing called
0:28
Speaker 1: the holiday season, and we really needed a little something
0:32
Speaker 1: to pat out our fee, to give you guys something
0:34
Speaker 1: juicy to listen to over the holidays. But make it
0:37
Speaker 1: we didn't have to actually record a whole episode of
0:40
Speaker 1: our show, Ridiculous History. So we were asked to be
0:43
Speaker 1: guests on an episode of a wonderful show called Creature
0:47
Speaker 1: feature Um, which is hosted by the wonderfully smart and
0:51
Speaker 1: funny Katie Golden. Yes, and we had such a great
0:56
Speaker 1: time on this show. We don't want to spoil too
1:00
Speaker 1: much of it for you, but we had such a
1:01
Speaker 1: great time on this show that at the end of it,
1:04
Speaker 1: we uh, irascible scoundrels that we are, said, Hey, Katie,
1:09
Speaker 1: is it coal if we publish this episode on our
1:12
Speaker 1: feet as well, so that more of our listeners can
1:15
Speaker 1: find out about Creature Feature and all the neat, strange
1:19
Speaker 1: stuff you dive into. So what is Creature Feature. Well,
1:22
Speaker 1: it's this. It's this brand new podcast from How Stuff
1:26
Speaker 1: Works that takes a quote critters I view to explore
1:30
Speaker 1: how animal behavior parallels human behavior, and we entered into
1:35
Speaker 1: a dark yet paradoxically illuminating exploration of something called the
1:40
Speaker 1: Dark tet trad that's right then, which includes uh, psychopathy,
1:44
Speaker 1: narcissistic personality. That's the original dark triad, but there's a
1:49
Speaker 1: fourth that is added occasionally, which is good old every
1:54
Speaker 1: day say say it is um. That's right, And that
1:57
Speaker 1: was actually my favorite entry in the episode, where we
1:59
Speaker 1: talk about a particularly nasty parasitic wasp that does horrible,
2:04
Speaker 1: horrible things to tarantulas. So check out our appearance on
2:08
Speaker 1: Creature Feature. Thanks again, Katie if you're hearing this for
2:12
Speaker 1: having us over on your show, and if you enjoy
2:15
Speaker 1: this exploration of human behavior, please check out the rest
2:20
Speaker 1: of the fine episodes of Creature Feature that are available
2:23
Speaker 1: today wherever you find your favorite shows. Listen up for
2:26
Speaker 1: a guest spot from Katie herself on this show. Yes,
2:29
Speaker 1: that's true. Can we roll the tape without further ado? Hey, everybody,
2:40
Speaker 1: welcome to Creature Feature, the show where we explore the
2:43
Speaker 1: brains of animals and people. You I got brains on
2:47
Speaker 1: my shirt. Today we'll be talking about evil killers, kidnappers, murderers,
2:53
Speaker 1: and hidden lurkers walking or crawling amongst us. Then we'll
2:57
Speaker 1: answer the age old question, who's the most prolific serial
3:01
Speaker 1: meouter er? Does evil exist? There's not really an entry
3:06
Speaker 1: for evil in the d s M, the Diagnostic and
3:09
Speaker 1: Statistical Manual used by psychologists. General attempts to categorize evil
3:15
Speaker 1: has resulted in the creation of the dark tetrad, a
3:18
Speaker 1: term used for poor personality traits associated with bad behavior, narcissism, sadism, psychopathy,
3:25
Speaker 1: and machiavellianism. These are traits that are often attributes of
3:29
Speaker 1: people with maladaptive, dangerous personalities. So what does it mean
3:37
Speaker 1: to be in the dark tetraad? We all know generally
3:40
Speaker 1: the concept of narcissism, sadism, psychopathy, and mackiavellianism, but what
3:44
Speaker 1: does that actually look like in humans and even animals.
3:48
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at narcissism for example, the d
3:51
Speaker 1: s MS definition for clinical levels of narcissism is someone
3:54
Speaker 1: who has quote a grandiose sense of self importance and
3:58
Speaker 1: shows arrogant how the behaviors or attitudes. I mean, you've
4:02
Speaker 1: almost certainly encountered at least a subclinical narcissist, and no
4:07
Speaker 1: doubt you could name a few celebrities and politicians who
4:09
Speaker 1: fit the bill. But could you find narcissism and animals.
4:13
Speaker 1: Many animals seem like narcissists, but even if you point
4:17
Speaker 1: the finger at a totally self obsessed animals, say a
4:20
Speaker 1: house cat, you could also argue they lack the sense
4:23
Speaker 1: of self to be narcissists. Certainly, all Mintance seems to
4:26
Speaker 1: care about is herself, but she may not fully comprehend
4:30
Speaker 1: that she is a herself, So can she really be
4:33
Speaker 1: a narcissist? This is the problem with trying to assign
4:37
Speaker 1: human traits to animals. We can't get inside the animal's
4:41
Speaker 1: head and know what it's thinking. An act that seems
4:44
Speaker 1: sadistic or manipulative may be simply an instinct that allows
4:48
Speaker 1: the animal to pass on its genes. It's impossible to
4:51
Speaker 1: know what they're really feeling. But hey, this podcast is
4:54
Speaker 1: all about the impossible. So we're going to look at
4:56
Speaker 1: the animals that best symbolize each of the remaining care
5:00
Speaker 1: juristics of the dark ted tread sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
5:05
Speaker 1: We'll compare these masters of evil with their human counterparts,
5:09
Speaker 1: exploring what it means to be a member of the
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Speaker 1: Dark ted Tread and whether we can use modern scientific
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Speaker 1: imaging to actually quantify what it means to be a psychopath.
5:20
Speaker 1: Joining me today on our journey into the dark is
5:22
Speaker 1: Ben Bolen and Noel Brown, hosts of the podcast Ridiculous History.
5:27
Speaker 1: Welcome to guys. Thanks for having us. Katie, Yeah, for sure,
5:30
Speaker 1: thanks so much. I'm already kind of terrified, um, but
5:34
Speaker 1: I'm excited. It's it's a weird feeling. I, for one,
5:37
Speaker 1: m and thrilled, darkly thrilled. One of you were you
5:42
Speaker 1: were mentioning you have a cat. Would you describe your
5:44
Speaker 1: cat as a narcissist? Oh? Sure, I mean he, I
5:48
Speaker 1: don't know, it's weird. He's sort of like flits between
5:50
Speaker 1: narcissism and outright psychopathy. Like I was saying, he kind
5:54
Speaker 1: of leaves me little treats on the front porch where
5:57
Speaker 1: it'll be like almost like splayed out, like some kind
6:00
Speaker 1: of satanic ritual, will be like the head of a
6:02
Speaker 1: squirrel and the body of a rat, and then you know,
6:05
Speaker 1: kind of surrounded by like viscera and like the shape
6:07
Speaker 1: the pentagram. Sometimes it's really pretty scared. But then he
6:10
Speaker 1: snuggles up, you know, like a good little guy. So
6:13
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of them. I do
6:15
Speaker 1: not know what to make of him. I hope, I'm
6:16
Speaker 1: hoping I can learn from this podcast today and kind
6:19
Speaker 1: of get inside his head a little bit more and
6:20
Speaker 1: understand what makes him tick. Yeah. And I mean, even dogs,
6:23
Speaker 1: to me are pretty narcissistic because they, like my own dog,
6:28
Speaker 1: you associate them with being selfless and loving towards humans.
6:31
Speaker 1: But she's a black hole of neediness and desiring affection.
6:37
Speaker 1: So no matter how much I pet her, like, I
6:39
Speaker 1: feel like if I was dying on the floor, her
6:43
Speaker 1: number one priority would be to get another belly robe
6:46
Speaker 1: before I pass out. Yeah, and then, as we all
6:50
Speaker 1: know too, if we if we died alone in our
6:51
Speaker 1: apartments with just our cats are our dogs, they would
6:53
Speaker 1: probably instantly start eating us. But that's any animal would
6:57
Speaker 1: eventually begin eating you. If it were a pain, I know,
6:59
Speaker 1: so was the love real? Ben? That's my question. The
7:02
Speaker 1: love is real. But now we're talking about the nature
7:05
Speaker 1: of the body versus the mind or the soul, which
7:07
Speaker 1: I don't think is quite where we're going with today's Well,
7:10
Speaker 1: you did say what is evil is evil real? So
7:12
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued. Please let's let's dive right in. There's a
7:16
Speaker 1: lot of curiosity around whether animals can be statistic. A
7:20
Speaker 1: caterer dolphin who plays with their hef dead pray seems statistic,
7:24
Speaker 1: but there's actually practicality behind their cruelty. So take this example.
7:29
Speaker 1: Dolphins beat up octopi before eating them, even after they're dead.
7:34
Speaker 1: This may seem overkill, as if the dolphins simply can't
7:37
Speaker 1: stop their murderous frenzy because they're having too much fun,
7:41
Speaker 1: but there's actually a really good reason to play rugby
7:44
Speaker 1: with a dead octopus. Octopi don't have centralized nervous systems,
7:48
Speaker 1: so after they're dead, their tentacles can still move around.
7:52
Speaker 1: If an overeager dolphin gobbles up an octopus who's dead
7:56
Speaker 1: but still wriggling, those tentacles can crawl up ats esophage
8:00
Speaker 1: us and choke the dolphin to death. This is something
8:03
Speaker 1: that's actually been documented before. So the dolphins beat the
8:07
Speaker 1: octopied to a pulp before chowing down, preventing the octopi
8:10
Speaker 1: from getting its refine from beyond its watery grave. So
8:14
Speaker 1: asking whether animals are statistic is a tricky question, I'd
8:18
Speaker 1: wager I guess that yes, more intelligent animals like dolphins
8:21
Speaker 1: are primates, may have fun rereaking doom and destruction, even
8:25
Speaker 1: if there's a good evolutionary reason for it. But instead,
8:29
Speaker 1: I want to look at how evolution itself can create
8:31
Speaker 1: a sadistic monster, void of any emotion at all. To
8:35
Speaker 1: do that, we'll have to take a look at tarantula's
8:38
Speaker 1: and in this case, the tarantulas are the innocent victims
8:41
Speaker 1: of a much more terrifying creature. So you, guys, imagine
8:47
Speaker 1: being captured by a criminal sadist, being paralyzed by him,
8:52
Speaker 1: stuck inside like kill shed totally at his mercy, completely paralyzed, Katie,
8:59
Speaker 1: I think about that all the time. It's like you
9:03
Speaker 1: know those bad dreams where you you're like trying to
9:06
Speaker 1: run away from a bad guy and you can't move
9:10
Speaker 1: your stupid body. For sure, It's like this is really
9:15
Speaker 1: common recurring dream for me. I'm like trying to run,
9:17
Speaker 1: but it just feels like you're stuck in mud, and
9:19
Speaker 1: then you you can't move at all, and you try
9:22
Speaker 1: to scream but you can't scream. What it's like that
9:24
Speaker 1: part of Nightmare on Elm Street where where the where
9:26
Speaker 1: she's running up the stairs and she starts sinking the
9:28
Speaker 1: stairs turned into marshmallows and she just like sinks into it. Oh,
9:31
Speaker 1: I hate that, or like or like the bed sinks
9:34
Speaker 1: under you. The fear of moving slowly in dreams, of
9:40
Speaker 1: trying to run but being unable to is I think
9:44
Speaker 1: slightly more common than the other spooky one, which is
9:47
Speaker 1: the fear of your teeth falling out in your dreams. Yeah. Yeah,
9:52
Speaker 1: that's a common one to the body horror, either teeth, skin,
9:55
Speaker 1: or hair just falling out. I get those ones too.
9:59
Speaker 1: I hate it, like big chunks of skin falling off.
10:02
Speaker 1: It's the worst. I have one question when when we
10:05
Speaker 1: talk about this, this attack of paralysis, right, do the
10:11
Speaker 1: animal victims of this sort of attack do they experience
10:15
Speaker 1: fear as we would understand it, you know, I'm not sure.
10:18
Speaker 1: I mean, so we're talking about Tarantula's being the victims.
10:22
Speaker 1: So they're terrorized by this thing called tarantula hawk. It's
10:28
Speaker 1: a sort of wasp, And I imagine if the tarantula
10:33
Speaker 1: is capable of feeling anything at all, this is going
10:36
Speaker 1: to be the scariest thing that ever happens to it.
10:40
Speaker 1: I feel like tarantulas are probably just a little more
10:43
Speaker 1: advanced than like a roomba in terms of their ability
10:46
Speaker 1: to like sense things. But I feel like there's got
10:51
Speaker 1: to be some kind of very primitive wiring that is
10:55
Speaker 1: able to at least, you know, gets like some demo
11:00
Speaker 1: awareness of being afraid of something so that they can survive.
11:04
Speaker 1: Probably no other real cognition beyond that, but other than like,
11:10
Speaker 1: oh yeah, probably just like an impending death kind of moment,
11:14
Speaker 1: you know, where it's like a funk, it's over, like
11:17
Speaker 1: oh oh no, oh no. But the tarantula hawk is it?
11:21
Speaker 1: Is it actually a hawk? No? No, it's so it's
11:23
Speaker 1: a type of wasp. And if you look into evolutionary biology,
11:29
Speaker 1: you'll find that of asshole behavior is by wasps. Uh. So,
11:37
Speaker 1: what these tarantula hawks do is they wait outside of
11:40
Speaker 1: tarantula's burrow and they pluck at the tarantula's webbing to
11:46
Speaker 1: lure the spider out, because the tranchulas create this this
11:51
Speaker 1: little sort of dormat of webbing so that when an
11:54
Speaker 1: insect crawls across it, they know to pop out and
11:57
Speaker 1: capture the prey. But instead of juicy little worm, it's
12:01
Speaker 1: the transla hawk waiting for them, and it stings the
12:06
Speaker 1: tarantula with a paralyzing venom, and so the transula is
12:10
Speaker 1: frozen but still completely alive, and the wasp drags the
12:16
Speaker 1: trantula back to its burrow, where it places the transula
12:21
Speaker 1: snugly inside and then lays a single egg on top
12:24
Speaker 1: of it. And I feel like, if you're the tarantula,
12:28
Speaker 1: with whatever tarantula consciousness that you have, if you can't
12:33
Speaker 1: move and you see someone laying egg on top of you,
12:36
Speaker 1: this is the point where you're going like, well, this
12:39
Speaker 1: is not going to be cool. Indeed, it's not cool
12:42
Speaker 1: for the tarantula. So the hawk, the wasp, buries the
12:47
Speaker 1: tarantula alive and tamps down the earth. So it's stuck
12:52
Speaker 1: in there, still alive, buried alive, with this little baby
12:57
Speaker 1: hatching on top of it. So the wasp larva will
13:01
Speaker 1: feed on the live flesh of the tarantula for up
13:06
Speaker 1: to a month. That's like the buffalo bill of the
13:09
Speaker 1: animal kingdom right there. And this is this is terrifying.
13:13
Speaker 1: Why is it? Why? Why is this so adapted to
13:15
Speaker 1: do this bizarre thing like that? It seems like such
13:18
Speaker 1: a stretch like how, I mean, how how how did
13:20
Speaker 1: this creature come up with this idea? I mean, that's
13:23
Speaker 1: a silly way of asking it. We'll think about it
13:25
Speaker 1: this way, like when you you know, animals, especially like wasps,
13:30
Speaker 1: they don't have refrigerators, so they can't keep food fresh
13:34
Speaker 1: for their young as it hatches and develops. So by
13:38
Speaker 1: burying their larva, they're keeping it safe from predators. But
13:43
Speaker 1: you know, if you bury it with some dead prey,
13:45
Speaker 1: it can feed off of it for a while, but
13:47
Speaker 1: eventually that's going to go bad and it can't eat
13:50
Speaker 1: it anymore. But by feeding on something that's alive, it
13:55
Speaker 1: will stay fresh. So actually, some species of the tarantula
14:00
Speaker 1: hawks will feed on non vital organs first, so that
14:04
Speaker 1: the tarantula remains alive longer and that gives it more
14:08
Speaker 1: opportunities to feed. Makes sense, makes sense. I have a
14:12
Speaker 1: quick question here, Katie. So you know how serial killers
14:17
Speaker 1: are often known for their specific m o either in
14:21
Speaker 1: the way that they commit murder or in the types
14:24
Speaker 1: of victims they choose. Are different species of tarantula hawk? Uh?
14:30
Speaker 1: Do they operate in a similar way? Do they only
14:32
Speaker 1: prey on specific types of tarantula's or is it any
14:36
Speaker 1: hairy arachnet out there is fair game? Yeah? No, they
14:39
Speaker 1: they are often very specific in terms of the way
14:43
Speaker 1: that they kill and which species of tarantula that they
14:48
Speaker 1: go after, because it's such a specified strategy. Um, because
14:52
Speaker 1: you need a tarantula that is a burrowing type of
14:55
Speaker 1: tarantula um, and so that's not going to be every
14:59
Speaker 1: every spider. It's they're very specific. Strategy isn't gonna work.
15:04
Speaker 1: So it's picked these cute little I mean to me,
15:07
Speaker 1: they're cute, the tarantulas that like hide in their little
15:10
Speaker 1: holes and then as soon as a little prey comes by,
15:13
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, got you. But this time they're the
15:16
Speaker 1: ones who are got so Also, it actually gets more
15:20
Speaker 1: specific because female tarantulas are the ones that are the killers.
15:25
Speaker 1: Males just hang around flowers and try to get laid.
15:29
Speaker 1: So the mother actually will select the gender of the
15:33
Speaker 1: larva based on how big their victim is if they
15:37
Speaker 1: have a big tarantula that they've buried alive, then the
15:41
Speaker 1: mother will fertilize the egg, which creates a female, because
15:44
Speaker 1: the females are the big, tough serial killers and the
15:48
Speaker 1: males are these little, smaller flower drinking dudes. And so
15:54
Speaker 1: if the tarantula is small, you know, it's like the
15:57
Speaker 1: male doesn't require as much nutrition to develop, so the
16:00
Speaker 1: wasp believe the egg unfertilized, and then that creates a
16:04
Speaker 1: male baby. And adults are actually non carnivorous, so it's
16:09
Speaker 1: just the babies that eat the meat. The adults just
16:12
Speaker 1: like to drink flower nectar and then abducted murdered tarantula's
16:16
Speaker 1: well yeah that too. It's sort of like have you
16:20
Speaker 1: guys seen what is it? Um? What's that movie? It's
16:23
Speaker 1: not called? Is it Split? The one with James McAvoy. Yes, yes,
16:28
Speaker 1: he has multiple personalities, yeah yeah, and then one like
16:32
Speaker 1: he has like the mother personality or he's like I've
16:35
Speaker 1: made you a sandwich and like he's stroking her hair
16:39
Speaker 1: and stuff. It makes me think of that these like
16:42
Speaker 1: wasp that like, oh, I like to drink flower nectar anyways,
16:46
Speaker 1: enjoy being paralyzed while my baby eats you. Yeah, So
16:50
Speaker 1: how long does it take to kill the tarantela? Like,
16:53
Speaker 1: how long does this horrible torture porn go on? It
16:57
Speaker 1: can be up to a month, which is crazy to
17:00
Speaker 1: me because like that's such a long time to be
17:02
Speaker 1: slowly eaten. It's like being in a sarlac pit. It's
17:06
Speaker 1: just do they even do they even do them the
17:09
Speaker 1: kindness of reinjecting them with the paralyzing venom or does
17:12
Speaker 1: that eventually just wear off once they're buried and they
17:14
Speaker 1: don't even care anymore. I think it will eventually wear off,
17:18
Speaker 1: but I think they'll most likely die before it does.
17:21
Speaker 1: And also the they're packed in so tight inside the
17:25
Speaker 1: dirt they can't move anyways. It's every nightmare combined into one,
17:29
Speaker 1: like being paralyzed, being eaten alive, being buried alive, and
17:34
Speaker 1: having a baby eating you as the baby part is
17:37
Speaker 1: extra creepy. That's to me, that's the kicker. I don't
17:39
Speaker 1: know why. Something about the baby eating you from the
17:41
Speaker 1: top down is just really really awful because even human
17:45
Speaker 1: murderers don't do that. That's one of the big differences
17:48
Speaker 1: very special kind of evil. There aren't typically baby murderers
17:54
Speaker 1: although there are children who can be murders, but I
17:57
Speaker 1: don't think infants have yet the murder. It's a different show.
18:04
Speaker 1: So good news you guys. Tarantula hawks are found all
18:07
Speaker 1: over the world, including Australia, which duck because Australia is
18:12
Speaker 1: just home to every monster. They're also in Africa, Southeast Asia, India,
18:19
Speaker 1: and also America. They're even in San Diego, California, which
18:23
Speaker 1: is my hometown. So yeah, that's astonishing. Yeah, were you
18:28
Speaker 1: able to find any video of this process going down?
18:31
Speaker 1: I would love slash. Yeah, I could totally send you
18:35
Speaker 1: guys something like that. It's I have seen it. It's
18:38
Speaker 1: pretty gnarly because you see this wasp attached itself to
18:44
Speaker 1: the tarantula and then there's a scuffle and then the
18:46
Speaker 1: tarantulas slowly starts to go very still, and that's when
18:50
Speaker 1: the dread sets in. Yeah, it was it was as
18:53
Speaker 1: as you were walking us through this process. I was
18:56
Speaker 1: watching a video of a child who is watching this
19:02
Speaker 1: intense deathmatch and kidnapping, abduction, burial of a tarantula, and
19:09
Speaker 1: even the kid seems to I think this is this
19:12
Speaker 1: is a little brutal. You can see the tarantula attempt
19:15
Speaker 1: to escape as the paralytic agent is kicking in. But
19:19
Speaker 1: I was surprised by the size because at least in
19:22
Speaker 1: what we're seeing here, the tarantula hawk looks significantly smaller
19:27
Speaker 1: than the creature it's attacking. Yeah, and that's why it's
19:32
Speaker 1: having the ability to paralyze the tarantula is so important
19:36
Speaker 1: because it's using it's smarts. Not really because wasps are done,
19:42
Speaker 1: but in evolutionary terms, like this intelligent strategy over the
19:47
Speaker 1: brawn of the tarantula, that sting is extremely powerful. So
19:53
Speaker 1: there's this entomologist Dr. Justin Schmidt from the Southwestern Biological
19:59
Speaker 1: and Institute, and he created a sting pain index and
20:04
Speaker 1: he says the Transla hawks sting is quote unsurpassed in
20:09
Speaker 1: intensity by any other stinging insect and that a sting
20:13
Speaker 1: feels like a lightning bolt struck the spot. The pain
20:16
Speaker 1: is beyond imagination. And you want to know why he
20:20
Speaker 1: knows this? Did he sting himself? Yep? Oh wow, this
20:27
Speaker 1: crazy bastard like just created the sting pain index by
20:33
Speaker 1: finding a bunch of insects that sting and then having
20:36
Speaker 1: them sting himself and then rating it like, oh yeah,
20:39
Speaker 1: that's Yep, that's a tin. How is that guy? Is
20:43
Speaker 1: he still alive? I don't want to I don't want
20:44
Speaker 1: to sound insensitive. Okay, yeah, I don't think he's killed
20:47
Speaker 1: himself with insects stings, just subjected himself to quote unimaginable
20:54
Speaker 1: pain from if If what I remember is correct, wasp
20:59
Speaker 1: are orious for they're just attacking human beings who happen
21:04
Speaker 1: to be around their general vicinity. Are tarantula hawks that
21:08
Speaker 1: way too? Or do they have to be you know,
21:10
Speaker 1: provoked or prodded? They have to be provoked. So the
21:13
Speaker 1: silver lining is they're actually pretty non aggressive towards anything
21:18
Speaker 1: except for obviously tarantulas. But I mean, if you get
21:22
Speaker 1: one caught like in your sweater, it'll probably sting you
21:25
Speaker 1: out of a fear response. But yeah, they don't go
21:29
Speaker 1: around trying to attack people, which think christ because that
21:34
Speaker 1: would be terrible. But if you're a tarantula, you know,
21:38
Speaker 1: not not such good luck. Wow, And they're so widespread. Yeah,
21:43
Speaker 1: so I guess then one of the big questions keep
21:46
Speaker 1: I keep going back to, is is this evil? Because
21:50
Speaker 1: it sounds like this is while it's horrific for the tarantula,
21:56
Speaker 1: the victim, the incubator. It seems like it's the only
22:00
Speaker 1: way for these uh, these creatures to reproduce. Is that correct?
22:05
Speaker 1: Like there's no alternative, right, and so this is like
22:08
Speaker 1: this is the key question is now. I don't think
22:12
Speaker 1: a wasp is capable of being evil in the sense
22:15
Speaker 1: that we kind of define it because they're so simple.
22:18
Speaker 1: They're basically like robots. So it's like you wouldn't necessarily
22:23
Speaker 1: describe a virus as being evil because it's so simple,
22:28
Speaker 1: and even the wasps are a great deal more complex
22:30
Speaker 1: than virus. I don't think they can have like the
22:34
Speaker 1: intent or the awareness to be evil. But when you
22:39
Speaker 1: look at it, like you kind of take a step
22:41
Speaker 1: back and look at it from like an evolutionary perspective,
22:44
Speaker 1: where it's sort of more of this emergent intelligence from
22:50
Speaker 1: millions of years of evolution, I mean, maybe you can
22:55
Speaker 1: define that as evil. You know, I'm not talking about
22:58
Speaker 1: like intelligent design or some god controlling evolution is talking
23:03
Speaker 1: about like, you know, you have this sort of like
23:07
Speaker 1: guiding force of evolution that is its own sort of
23:11
Speaker 1: like I mean, it is it is a form of
23:13
Speaker 1: intelligence where it's like you have to really zoom out
23:17
Speaker 1: to see it. Where it's just millions and millions of
23:20
Speaker 1: years of these small changes resulting in something that's so
23:23
Speaker 1: so messed up. And maybe that's like a natural form
23:28
Speaker 1: of evil. I don't know. I guess that's a very
23:29
Speaker 1: philosophical question. Well, I think it is. But it's also
23:33
Speaker 1: interesting because so much of psychopathy is almost like reptilian
23:38
Speaker 1: type behavior, or like non feeling, non empathetic type behavior,
23:43
Speaker 1: which is the kind of things that an insect like
23:45
Speaker 1: this would do, Like there's no feeling about it. It's just,
23:49
Speaker 1: you know, I must feed, I must feed my baby,
23:52
Speaker 1: and this is how I'm going to go about doing it.
23:53
Speaker 1: It's very callous, for lack of a better term, you know,
23:56
Speaker 1: But you're right, there's no cognition involved. It's just the
23:59
Speaker 1: thing that makes sense and that it's adapted perfectly to do.
24:02
Speaker 1: But I think we ascribe those kind of things to
24:04
Speaker 1: psychopaths as well, right, because I think with a human
24:08
Speaker 1: were like you should be capable of empathy. But then
24:11
Speaker 1: it it's a really uncomfortable question because it's a little
24:14
Speaker 1: more clear when you're looking at a wasp that okay,
24:18
Speaker 1: of course it doesn't understand what it's doing, but you
24:21
Speaker 1: could also make that argument for humans who can't feel empathy,
24:26
Speaker 1: like they may truly not understand the gravity of what
24:29
Speaker 1: they're doing. And then is that sort of like the
24:32
Speaker 1: wasp where you can't really blame them, or is there
24:36
Speaker 1: something else going on with people where it's like, well
24:38
Speaker 1: you should be smart enough to figure out, like does
24:42
Speaker 1: there even need to be like an intentionality behind evil,
24:45
Speaker 1: because like if it's defined as something where it's like
24:48
Speaker 1: you're incapable of feeling mercy or empathy, then maybe just
24:54
Speaker 1: like evil doesn't need to be like intentionally evil, it's
24:58
Speaker 1: just a force that does have empathy and then causes harm.
25:03
Speaker 1: So then we would be defining evil as not the
25:07
Speaker 1: addition of something nefarious or insidious, but the absence of
25:11
Speaker 1: an alternative, long term evolutionary strategy, because that's what empathy
25:16
Speaker 1: ultimately functions as, right right, right, Yeah, that's really interesting.
25:21
Speaker 1: It's like we have because there are some animals who
25:24
Speaker 1: have evolved a survival strategy that could be seen as
25:28
Speaker 1: like good. So like bees are so social and help
25:33
Speaker 1: each other, so you know a lot of these youth
25:35
Speaker 1: social animals, so like bees and ants and even naked molerets,
25:39
Speaker 1: they all seem to team up and pitch in and
25:42
Speaker 1: help each other and care about each other um as
25:46
Speaker 1: much as like a bee can. But it does seem
25:49
Speaker 1: like a kinder sort of animal in general than a wasp,
25:54
Speaker 1: even though if you take a bee and a wasp individually,
25:58
Speaker 1: they don't really I don't think they can feel kindness,
26:01
Speaker 1: but you look at the whole the group of them,
26:04
Speaker 1: like a bee colony does seem to have empathy for
26:09
Speaker 1: it's like each other in a weird way. So what
26:12
Speaker 1: would a tarantula hawk be in terms of the Dark
26:16
Speaker 1: Triad or Dark tetrad? Would they would they qualify as
26:19
Speaker 1: a sadist? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, Like these very
26:23
Speaker 1: sadistic because like to keep something alive for up to
26:28
Speaker 1: a month and then slowly feed on it. It's just
26:32
Speaker 1: so it seems so unnecessarily cruel, even though as we've
26:38
Speaker 1: talked about it, there is a reason for it. Yeah,
26:42
Speaker 1: I think that checks out. As we've just discussed in
26:47
Speaker 1: the Animal Kingdom, some of the most terrifying examples of
26:50
Speaker 1: sadism are due to reproductive needs in humans. Some of
26:54
Speaker 1: the most dangerous people are those who somehow link sexuality
26:58
Speaker 1: to sadism. This is called a paraphilia. It's a form
27:02
Speaker 1: of sexuality that is atypical or pathological. Now a huge
27:07
Speaker 1: disclaimer here, I'm not talking about the b D s
27:11
Speaker 1: M community. People who engage in b D s M
27:13
Speaker 1: are very different from those with sexual sadism disorder, the
27:17
Speaker 1: key thing being consent in healthy communication. For bed SIM practitioners,
27:23
Speaker 1: consent is extremely important. They may find sadistic acts or
27:27
Speaker 1: masochistic acts to be sexually arousing, but not unless their
27:31
Speaker 1: partner is equally interested. That's why safe words, set in
27:35
Speaker 1: clear boundaries and a lot of discussion is often present
27:38
Speaker 1: in these communities. And it's also why psychologists don't consider
27:42
Speaker 1: b D s M to be a disorder. They aren't
27:44
Speaker 1: causing harm to themselves or others well, I mean psychologically speaking,
27:49
Speaker 1: But sexual sadism disorder is different. People with this disorder
27:54
Speaker 1: are aroused by the suffering of others, and the disorder
27:57
Speaker 1: is either harmful to the individual whom find it disturbing
28:01
Speaker 1: or upsetting, or to others in the case of sex
28:04
Speaker 1: offenders who seek out non consent and victims. What I
28:08
Speaker 1: find interesting is the difference between people with sexual sadian
28:12
Speaker 1: disorder who choose not to act on it and those
28:15
Speaker 1: who do, meaning that there are some who either have
28:18
Speaker 1: empathy or at least a fear of consequences while still
28:22
Speaker 1: feeling these sadistic urges. I had a clinical psychology professor
28:26
Speaker 1: who put it this way. The explosive combination is having
28:30
Speaker 1: both a sadistic paraphilia and a clinical lack of empathy.
28:34
Speaker 1: Those are the ingredients to make most types of serial killers.
28:38
Speaker 1: So after a quick break, that will bring us to
28:41
Speaker 1: our next member of the dark tetrad, the psychopath. So
28:52
Speaker 1: how do you spot a psychopath by the cold look
28:56
Speaker 1: of cruel and difference in their glassy eyes, the pile
28:59
Speaker 1: of bodies in their basements? Well, what about with technology?
29:03
Speaker 1: Psychologists have attempted to quantify psychopathy using brain imaging, which
29:08
Speaker 1: leads us to one of the most interesting stories in
29:11
Speaker 1: brain research. James Fallon is a neuroscientist who was interested
29:15
Speaker 1: in looking at the anatomical characteristics found in the brains
29:19
Speaker 1: of serial killers. He found a pattern of abnormalities and
29:23
Speaker 1: the PET scans of these killers showing structural aberrations in
29:27
Speaker 1: the orbital cortex, the prefrontal cortex, the ventral anterior singulate,
29:32
Speaker 1: and the amygdala. As he was shuffling through piles of
29:35
Speaker 1: brain scans on his desk. He was looking through a
29:38
Speaker 1: file on his family's brain scans taken for another study
29:42
Speaker 1: on Alzheimer's. One of the scans had the clear structural
29:46
Speaker 1: abnormalities consistent with psychopathy. Curious as to who and his
29:50
Speaker 1: family was the psychopath, he looked up the name and
29:53
Speaker 1: was surprised to find it was his own brain scan. Obviously,
29:58
Speaker 1: he wasn't a violent killer, so first he wondered if
30:01
Speaker 1: all his research about the psychopathic brain was just wrong.
30:04
Speaker 1: But when he took genetic tests, he found that he
30:07
Speaker 1: also had alleles associated with people high at risk for
30:11
Speaker 1: exhibiting violent behavior. He did some introspection and decided, instead
30:15
Speaker 1: of it being a fluke, he may very well have
30:18
Speaker 1: a psychopathic brain. But due to his loving upbringing with
30:22
Speaker 1: parents and siblings who were devoted to him, he suspects
30:26
Speaker 1: he was able to avoid the more frightening violent traits
30:29
Speaker 1: of the psychopath. But when nature is left to her
30:32
Speaker 1: own devices, what kinds of deadly killers does she concoct?
30:36
Speaker 1: The deadliest serial killers are often harmless looking. They blend
30:40
Speaker 1: right in allowing them to continue their killing while raising
30:43
Speaker 1: no alarms. As we'll find out. This is true both
30:46
Speaker 1: in human society and the animal kingdom. So speaking of psychopaths,
30:51
Speaker 1: let's talk about cats. Uh So, guys, which wildcat would
30:56
Speaker 1: you guess is the most prolific serial killers of them all? Uh?
31:02
Speaker 1: Wildcats specifically, Let's see, it's probably it's probably smaller than
31:08
Speaker 1: one would imagine because naturally people would think something large,
31:11
Speaker 1: like a tiger or maybe a lion. But I'm going
31:14
Speaker 1: to go with something smaller, maybe a bobcat or a wildcat.
31:19
Speaker 1: That's a really intelligent guess. Yeah, because like you have
31:23
Speaker 1: these huge predator cats, so like lions seem really formidable.
31:28
Speaker 1: I mean, they have a thousand p s i of
31:30
Speaker 1: force for their jaw strength, so just for comparison, we
31:35
Speaker 1: only have about two p s i. So they're so powerful.
31:40
Speaker 1: And you know, there's also like the more sleek ones
31:43
Speaker 1: like cheetahs who can run up to seventy five miles
31:46
Speaker 1: an hour and jaguars who are super like buff and
31:51
Speaker 1: can carry cadavers up a tree. But you're right that
31:55
Speaker 1: even those guys are really terrifying, they're not the most
31:59
Speaker 1: prolific se real killers, and we do have to get smaller.
32:02
Speaker 1: In fact, our most prolific serial killer kitty is one
32:06
Speaker 1: of the smallest species of cats in the world, and
32:09
Speaker 1: that includes domestic cats, so they're smaller than your household kitty.
32:15
Speaker 1: It's this really adorable cat. It's called the black footed cat.
32:19
Speaker 1: They're about three times smaller than your pet house cat,
32:23
Speaker 1: and they weigh in about two to four pounds, so
32:26
Speaker 1: females are around two pounds, males can get up to
32:29
Speaker 1: around four pounds, and they have a sixty kill success rate,
32:35
Speaker 1: which if you've ever seen a nature documentary and you
32:38
Speaker 1: see how many times a lioness will have a goof
32:43
Speaker 1: up and not be able to catch its prey, six
32:46
Speaker 1: is incredible. So they actually look a lot like a
32:51
Speaker 1: house cat, but just like kind of shrunken down. They
32:54
Speaker 1: have big eyes and their tan with dark brown spots
32:58
Speaker 1: and striations. And they're called black footed because their little
33:03
Speaker 1: feets are black. And uh they're also called ant hill
33:07
Speaker 1: tigers because when they're cornered, they'll like, they'll mess you up,
33:11
Speaker 1: they'll cut you. They're very aggressive. You know, I'm looking
33:15
Speaker 1: at I'm looking into a picture of one right now,
33:17
Speaker 1: and I gotta say these cats are adorable. They look
33:20
Speaker 1: even better than my two cats, my two cats are
33:22
Speaker 1: just you know, cat models. Basically they have that like
33:27
Speaker 1: baby schema. The because they have the big eyes and
33:29
Speaker 1: the big foreheads and they're they're really tiny and just
33:33
Speaker 1: super super cute. You would not think these are a
33:35
Speaker 1: big threat. So what kind of what kind of stuff
33:38
Speaker 1: do they hunt? Well, their prey can be pretty small,
33:41
Speaker 1: so rodents, birds, pretty much anything that moves and they
33:46
Speaker 1: can fit in their mouths though, so they'll do insects, lizards, birds,
33:50
Speaker 1: and small rodents are their favorite. They're mostly nocturnal. They'll
33:55
Speaker 1: walk twenty miles a night, so that's the furthest that
33:59
Speaker 1: a small wildcat will walk. And I did a little
34:03
Speaker 1: math and if you scale that up to um human size,
34:07
Speaker 1: that's like walking a thousand miles at night, which you know,
34:11
Speaker 1: it's like it's like the Proclaimer's song, like I will
34:15
Speaker 1: walk five hundred miles. So that does that mean? These
34:18
Speaker 1: little sweet babies hunt for sport just like for kicks?
34:21
Speaker 1: Like why why is such a high kill rate versus
34:25
Speaker 1: lions who to me seem like they hunt more practically
34:28
Speaker 1: and functionally to you know, feed. No, they I mean
34:33
Speaker 1: they just have a rapid metabolism and they for the
34:37
Speaker 1: food that they can't eat on the spot. They store
34:40
Speaker 1: in their burrows, so it's not for fun. It's definitely
34:43
Speaker 1: for nutrition. And these smaller animals will actually have a
34:48
Speaker 1: pretty large nutritional demand because they can't bulk up a
34:53
Speaker 1: lot of calories and then just like sleep it off.
34:56
Speaker 1: They have to be constantly eating. And to be clear,
35:00
Speaker 1: we're talking about the most prolific successful serial killers, not
35:05
Speaker 1: just the most attempts, is that correct. I mean they
35:09
Speaker 1: actually rack up a pretty high kill count, so I
35:12
Speaker 1: would say they are of the big cats. They kill
35:15
Speaker 1: the most per day, so they can take down around
35:19
Speaker 1: fifteen prey items a night, which is a lot, and
35:24
Speaker 1: that includes like birds. So if you there's a really
35:27
Speaker 1: cool video I can show you guys, and I'll put
35:30
Speaker 1: that up on our Twitter where it just like jumps
35:33
Speaker 1: up and catches a bird midair and it's got it
35:37
Speaker 1: like jammed in its mouth and it looks very pleased
35:39
Speaker 1: with itself. Um, but yeah, that's like about a kill
35:43
Speaker 1: an hour, So that's I mean, these are small prey items,
35:48
Speaker 1: but you know, you scale that down to the size
35:51
Speaker 1: of the cow, which is like two pounds of like
35:53
Speaker 1: pure murderous rage, and that's like, you know, it's like
35:57
Speaker 1: taking if a lion could take down a small gazelle
36:01
Speaker 1: like every hour. So they also do it's so cute.
36:07
Speaker 1: They do the little but wiggle, you know that thing
36:09
Speaker 1: like when your cat is getting ready to pounce, and
36:12
Speaker 1: it's like there's a little swigty swooty with its butt
36:18
Speaker 1: like Simba and the lion King sometimes too. Yeah, yeah,
36:22
Speaker 1: they do that. They do the little little but wiggle,
36:25
Speaker 1: and so that's actually not just to look cute. It
36:28
Speaker 1: helps aligne their feet under them so they can pounce
36:32
Speaker 1: with maximum precision and power like a spring. And sometimes
36:38
Speaker 1: they do take down bigger prey though, so they rarely
36:42
Speaker 1: but sometimes kill cape hairs, which way more than them.
36:46
Speaker 1: They are these relatively larger rabbits. So it's just kind
36:51
Speaker 1: of funny because they they're just like so amped up
36:55
Speaker 1: on being murderous they don't even think that, oh maybe
36:59
Speaker 1: this but I can't even carry it because it weighs
37:02
Speaker 1: like twice of me. So is this where the is
37:06
Speaker 1: this where the psychopathy aspect comes in? Yeah, because it's
37:09
Speaker 1: like I feel like they're desire to kill these bigger
37:14
Speaker 1: prey items. Is it's like, clearly you're not going to
37:19
Speaker 1: eat that it's too big. I mean, maybe you know,
37:22
Speaker 1: they do save it for later, but it's kind of funny.
37:25
Speaker 1: I don't even know if they could fit a cape
37:28
Speaker 1: hair in their din. So it's just killing stuff because
37:33
Speaker 1: they are driven to kill. I mean, we've all been there.
37:35
Speaker 1: But that's what my housecat does. That is what my
37:38
Speaker 1: indoor outdoor, sweet snuggly housecat does. But he's not hungry.
37:43
Speaker 1: Betty doesn't have it. Betty doesn't have a six kill
37:46
Speaker 1: rate though, No, absolutely not. But it's like he is
37:49
Speaker 1: clearly toying with these creatures and you know, just like
37:53
Speaker 1: leaving them in the most twisted arrays I've ever seen
37:56
Speaker 1: in my life. Like it's it's like the it haunts
37:59
Speaker 1: my my dreams. It's bizarre that I guess that's why
38:01
Speaker 1: I was asking earlier, like does this creature hunt kind
38:04
Speaker 1: of for sport? So I guess some of that does
38:07
Speaker 1: enter into it. If it's not, it's not even thinking
38:09
Speaker 1: about the fact that it can't actually carry it, you know,
38:11
Speaker 1: the kill away. It just needs to feed the urge,
38:16
Speaker 1: right right, And well, I mean it's really interesting because
38:18
Speaker 1: with house cats, obviously they don't need to kill anything
38:22
Speaker 1: at all because they're getting fed their little kilbls and bits.
38:26
Speaker 1: But I think they have a desire to hunt, so
38:29
Speaker 1: they're driven to hunt by this, and it is a
38:32
Speaker 1: survival instinct to hunt, because you can imagine if a
38:37
Speaker 1: cat didn't have that and just waited around for kibble,
38:41
Speaker 1: if it lived in the wild, it would be done
38:44
Speaker 1: an evolutionary dead end. But yeah, I mean it's we
38:48
Speaker 1: can't talk to a cat and say like, hey, do
38:51
Speaker 1: you really enjoy doing this? But my guess would be
38:55
Speaker 1: that they do get satisfaction from it. And even though
39:00
Speaker 1: it is an evolutionary strategy and even playing with their
39:04
Speaker 1: prey has practical reasons like making sure it's dead and
39:09
Speaker 1: also honing their skills, I mean, they seem to love
39:13
Speaker 1: doing it, and that is kind of psychopathic, isn't it. Yeah,
39:17
Speaker 1: that's a good point, especially when we consider not just cats,
39:20
Speaker 1: but a lot of similar mammals. Their juvenile phase is
39:25
Speaker 1: spent playing, and playing is really just a less fatal
39:29
Speaker 1: version of the hunting that they will instinctively practice later
39:33
Speaker 1: in life. And I can absolutely see from a neurological perspective,
39:39
Speaker 1: I can absolutely see an animal as evolved as a
39:43
Speaker 1: cat or my cats enjoying that kind of thing. It's
39:46
Speaker 1: it's scratching an itch your body and your brain will
39:49
Speaker 1: tell you it's a pleasurable and correct thing to do,
39:52
Speaker 1: right right. I mean, like, we do have video games
39:55
Speaker 1: where we like to kill stuff. So it makes me
39:57
Speaker 1: wonder if we might have something like that deep inside us,
40:01
Speaker 1: where we kind of, you know, maybe have that killing
40:05
Speaker 1: instinct that's just been over many, many hundreds of thousands
40:09
Speaker 1: of the years of cultural and societal evolution has been
40:12
Speaker 1: sort of put inside a little box and um locked away,
40:17
Speaker 1: except in the cases of serial killers. Right well, in
40:21
Speaker 1: the defense of my cats, Dr Bankman and Mr Jackpott
40:25
Speaker 1: have to shout him out here. Yeah, and it's the
40:28
Speaker 1: real names. In defense of my cats, they have at
40:30
Speaker 1: the very least never paralyzed someone buried them alive and
40:35
Speaker 1: put a kitten inside of their bodies to a But
40:40
Speaker 1: when that cute, like would a kitten bursting out of
40:43
Speaker 1: a tarantula be cute or horrible? I can't know. I'm
40:49
Speaker 1: on the fence. I'm honestly on the fence, because if
40:53
Speaker 1: that was backwards, like a tranchula bursting out of a kitten,
40:56
Speaker 1: that would obviously be horrible. But when you do it inverse,
41:00
Speaker 1: it's kind of cute. I mean, I still feel bad
41:02
Speaker 1: for the tarantula, but you know, hey, it's a kid, sure,
41:08
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's pretty crazy. You mentioned fallon the neuroscientist.
41:12
Speaker 1: He's actually in this show that I'm working on called
41:15
Speaker 1: Happy Face. It's like a true crime show about the
41:18
Speaker 1: Happy Face killer, and it's about this guy's daughter and
41:22
Speaker 1: in the show, she goes and gets analyzed by this
41:25
Speaker 1: guy to try to figure out whether she herself has
41:28
Speaker 1: inherited her father's psychopathic tendencies. And it's really interesting because
41:32
Speaker 1: it's like there's a lot of discussion around it, whether
41:35
Speaker 1: it's like is it all nature, is it all nurture?
41:38
Speaker 1: Is it a combination of the two. Can you really
41:40
Speaker 1: figure out just from someone's brain scan whether or not
41:42
Speaker 1: this is true. It seems like a very kind of
41:44
Speaker 1: like surfacing way of of of figuring that stuff out
41:47
Speaker 1: because it's a combination of a lot of factors. But
41:50
Speaker 1: he actually talks a lot about psychopathy in the animal
41:52
Speaker 1: kingdom too, and how it's actually can be a positive trait, like, um,
41:57
Speaker 1: you know, animals that are psychopaths will kind of they'll
42:01
Speaker 1: go places that other animals won't and they will actually
42:04
Speaker 1: breed more successfully and things like that. Um, it's I'm
42:08
Speaker 1: not explaining it super well, but it's yeah, because like psychopaths,
42:13
Speaker 1: one of their characteristics is risk taking and not having
42:17
Speaker 1: a fear of the consequences. So in some cases that
42:20
Speaker 1: could obviously be very bad, but for some animals that
42:25
Speaker 1: will bring you a reward. If you are bolder and
42:29
Speaker 1: take a risk and try something novel, that lack of
42:32
Speaker 1: fear will actually give you a leg up over your competition.
42:37
Speaker 1: That is exactly what he was talking about, you know,
42:40
Speaker 1: so long as they survive to reproduce, that's that's that's
42:44
Speaker 1: the Vegas odds part. Yeah, that's that's really interesting. I've
42:51
Speaker 1: actually listened to some of that podcast. It's so I
42:55
Speaker 1: think that is it's such a personal perspective on the
42:58
Speaker 1: nature versus nurture because she's I mean, from my perspective,
43:02
Speaker 1: she's obviously a very empathetic person to be so worried
43:07
Speaker 1: about that part of her nature, but I can totally
43:10
Speaker 1: imagine how that would be that you're wondering, like, well,
43:13
Speaker 1: any any behavior you feel where it's like maybe you
43:17
Speaker 1: know you have Sean Freud at sometime, or you feel angry.
43:22
Speaker 1: You wonder like, well, is that me or is that
43:24
Speaker 1: like these genes inside me puppeting me? Yeah, and you
43:28
Speaker 1: might not have made it far enough in the series.
43:29
Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil anything, but it does come
43:31
Speaker 1: into play, like the way she's dealt with relationships and
43:35
Speaker 1: kind of her emotional kind of closed offness, and that's
43:38
Speaker 1: a big part of it, and wondering if she can
43:40
Speaker 1: actually feel things the way quote unquote normal people can.
43:44
Speaker 1: So it's something that really like haunts her and bothers her.
43:47
Speaker 1: And at the end of the series she kind of
43:48
Speaker 1: figures out, you know, at least as far as this
43:51
Speaker 1: guy is concerned, what she is. Yeah. The story of
43:57
Speaker 1: the most prolific serial killer in human history is one
44:01
Speaker 1: that's more tragic than gruesome. Harold Friedrich Shipman was a bespectacled,
44:05
Speaker 1: bearded man, very ordinary and meek looking. He was a doctor,
44:09
Speaker 1: married and had four children. Not someone whom you would
44:12
Speaker 1: peg as a cold blooded killer, but he killed two
44:16
Speaker 1: hundred and eighteen people, committing crimes undetected for twenty three years.
44:22
Speaker 1: Shipman was a g P who had his own practice
44:25
Speaker 1: near Manchester, England. He targeted the most vulnerable people as
44:29
Speaker 1: his victims his own geriatric patients. Most of his victims
44:33
Speaker 1: were the elderly women in his care to whom he
44:36
Speaker 1: gave lethal doses of morphine. He had a typical pattern.
44:40
Speaker 1: He would give his victims a lethal dose of diamorphine,
44:43
Speaker 1: signed their death certificates, and then alter their medical records
44:47
Speaker 1: to falsely indicate that their health had been in decline.
44:51
Speaker 1: Shipman was an outlier even amongst serial killers, as there
44:54
Speaker 1: was no clear motive for the crime, except in one case,
44:58
Speaker 1: he altered his victims will to make himself the beneficiary
45:02
Speaker 1: of three hundred and eighty six thousand pounds, something the
45:06
Speaker 1: victim's daughter found to be awfully suspicious. So why did
45:09
Speaker 1: he kill It's hard to know for certain. As a teenager,
45:13
Speaker 1: he witnessed his mother received morphine for a terminal cancer
45:16
Speaker 1: until she died of the disease. Some of the psychiatrists
45:20
Speaker 1: who have looked at his case speculate that he had
45:22
Speaker 1: a deep seated need to control other people, something influenced
45:26
Speaker 1: but certainly not caused in total by his mother's death.
45:29
Speaker 1: Another possibility psychiatrists have proposed is that he felt a
45:33
Speaker 1: sense of relief from stress or pressure by killing his
45:36
Speaker 1: patients as he considered them a nuisance. This is the
45:40
Speaker 1: heart of what a psychopath is. Coldly, flippantly cruel. We
45:46
Speaker 1: need a minute to clean our brains with images of
45:48
Speaker 1: cute cats. Wait, is that a blackfooted cat? And is
45:51
Speaker 1: that a baby burden in its mouth? Oh no, We'll
45:55
Speaker 1: be right back. Machiavellianism through the scope of psychology is
46:07
Speaker 1: defined as a duplicitous manipulation with a disregard for morality,
46:11
Speaker 1: putting personal gain before any feelings of empathy. Think Little
46:15
Speaker 1: Finger from Game of Thrones, someone behind the scenes manipulating
46:19
Speaker 1: and pulling strings, causing destruction for others or their own gain.
46:24
Speaker 1: But fortunately Machiavellians can only manipulate, not mind control their victims. However,
46:31
Speaker 1: the natural world is not so merciful. We're going to
46:35
Speaker 1: discuss a machia Vilian animal that is literally pulling the
46:38
Speaker 1: strings using real life mind control. So mind control and
46:44
Speaker 1: hypnosis is often explored in popular culture. From the Manchurian
46:48
Speaker 1: Candidate to Jessica Jones were fascinated by the idea of
46:51
Speaker 1: thought control. So you know the Purple Man and Jessica Jones.
46:56
Speaker 1: It's such a creepy Villian doctor who of a tenant. Yeah,
47:01
Speaker 1: he's so lovable and doctor who. But then his and
47:05
Speaker 1: he's just I think so he's got he's got a
47:08
Speaker 1: good range. Din't trust him, You don't trust him his
47:10
Speaker 1: doctor who? Was it? After watching Jessica Jones? Do you
47:13
Speaker 1: stop trusting him? Doctor? No? No, I just don't. I
47:16
Speaker 1: don't trust his mouth? Is it because he has a
47:18
Speaker 1: bunch of hearts. He's got like ten hearts or something?
47:23
Speaker 1: But yeah, the the Purple Man for background for Jessica
47:27
Speaker 1: Jones amidst pheromones that force people to obey his suggestions,
47:33
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, it's like he issues a command and
47:38
Speaker 1: then the person has to do it because it's some
47:41
Speaker 1: kind of medic clorians or whatever. I haven't watched the
47:44
Speaker 1: whole show, so I'm not sure, but yeah, that's It's
47:47
Speaker 1: so creepy to me because like like one of the
47:50
Speaker 1: worst possible sci fi horse scenarios where a serial killer
47:56
Speaker 1: mind controls you into digging your own grave or just
47:59
Speaker 1: following him into his like kill basement. But I have
48:04
Speaker 1: bad news for spiders again. This is a very spider
48:09
Speaker 1: unfriendly podcast. Orb Weaver spiders are spend these really neat
48:15
Speaker 1: precise webs they're they're actually very beautiful. The webs the
48:19
Speaker 1: spiders are. I mean, I think they're cool, but people
48:22
Speaker 1: have hang ups about spiders for some reason. Um So,
48:26
Speaker 1: now wasps again come into the picture and just are
48:32
Speaker 1: so mean and are such assholes. So female parasitic wasps
48:38
Speaker 1: lay an egg onto the orb weaver's abdomen, and if
48:42
Speaker 1: you've been listening, you know, once a wasp lays an
48:44
Speaker 1: egg on you, you're in for a bad time. So
48:48
Speaker 1: the orb weaver is still alive, and the spider becomes
48:53
Speaker 1: mind controlled by the wasp larva, and instead of spinning
48:58
Speaker 1: its beautiful lace like web, it dismantles its web and
49:02
Speaker 1: creates a cocoon for the parasitic larva to live in.
49:07
Speaker 1: And then, because wasps again there are such huge assholes,
49:13
Speaker 1: the larva will suck on the spiders juices until the
49:17
Speaker 1: spider dies. And then the larva just checks its carcass
49:20
Speaker 1: away like a soda can, and it makes itself nice
49:24
Speaker 1: and cozy in the cocoon that the spider had woven
49:28
Speaker 1: for it against its will. It's so crazy to me
49:32
Speaker 1: that you can have such a precise method of mind
49:37
Speaker 1: control that the larva not only gets to eat its victim,
49:42
Speaker 1: but makes it spin a little cradle for for it
49:46
Speaker 1: as it develops and so it can stay safe. It's
49:49
Speaker 1: just so creepy. So it's slave labor at that point too, right,
49:54
Speaker 1: a slave that you eat later. Yeah? Yeah, So we
49:59
Speaker 1: h are these wasps as common as the tarantula hawk um,
50:05
Speaker 1: they aren't as widely distributed, So the ones that we're
50:08
Speaker 1: going to be talking about are found in Japan. So
50:12
Speaker 1: researchers in Japan wanted to look into this behavior because
50:16
Speaker 1: it's so crazy how precise that mind control is. And
50:23
Speaker 1: they found that the cocoon that the zombie spider weaves
50:29
Speaker 1: for its parasite is very similar to the molten stage
50:33
Speaker 1: web that the spider, a healthy spider, will weave for itself.
50:38
Speaker 1: It's a protective cocoon designed to keep the spider safe
50:42
Speaker 1: while it molts it's exoskeleton, and it's actually made out
50:47
Speaker 1: of this special ultra violet spider silk so that birds
50:52
Speaker 1: and flying insects will avoid crashing into it. So like normally,
50:56
Speaker 1: when a spider builds its web, it wants insects to
50:58
Speaker 1: run into it so that you can eat them. But
51:01
Speaker 1: if you're in all naked and exposed and don't want
51:05
Speaker 1: something to kill you, you wrap yourself up in like
51:08
Speaker 1: this neon light of like warning naked spider in here.
51:12
Speaker 1: So researchers found that there was higher levels of this
51:18
Speaker 1: substance that's called twenty h ectosoone, and it's the same
51:23
Speaker 1: hormone that controls molting. So in the zombified spiders, they
51:30
Speaker 1: are being mind controlled into thinking that they're going through
51:34
Speaker 1: their molting stage. It's unknown how the wasp is actually
51:39
Speaker 1: manipulating this hormone. But it's not just mind controlling it
51:44
Speaker 1: into thinking it's molting. It's actually a step above that
51:47
Speaker 1: because it's somehow commanding it to go into this like
51:51
Speaker 1: super molting mode where it's building an extra strong cocoon,
51:57
Speaker 1: more reinforced with greater tensile strength than the spider's normal
52:01
Speaker 1: molten cocoon. So it's like it's beyond just like thinking
52:06
Speaker 1: it's molting. It's creating a mega safety bunker for the
52:11
Speaker 1: parasite that's planning on murdering it. So way, wait, so
52:16
Speaker 1: the downside is that you are being mind controlled and
52:22
Speaker 1: then you're going to die, But the upside is that
52:27
Speaker 1: you get super strength. I guess the the equivalent of
52:30
Speaker 1: spider superpowers. Well, your your webbing does. So you're creating
52:35
Speaker 1: um spider silk that has is extra reinforced because the
52:40
Speaker 1: molten spider silk, like a in a healthy orb beaver,
52:43
Speaker 1: that's creating a cocoon for itself to molten side that
52:47
Speaker 1: that webbing will be reinforced and stronger to protect it.
52:52
Speaker 1: But for the parasite, it's like it's bringing out the
52:56
Speaker 1: good stuff. It's bringing out the big guns, the big
52:58
Speaker 1: webbing guns, and creating really really strong webbing to protect
53:03
Speaker 1: the parasite. So, I mean, I would think it's not
53:09
Speaker 1: necessarily clear in the research yet, but I would think
53:11
Speaker 1: that somehow it's just being flooded with these hormones and
53:16
Speaker 1: make like this extra strong signal for it to produce
53:21
Speaker 1: the molting webbing in a way that's like it's over
53:23
Speaker 1: signaling so that the parasite benefits from the super strong cocoon.
53:29
Speaker 1: So this is what's called an ectoparasitoid. It's a parasite
53:34
Speaker 1: who will live externally on its host and eventually kill it.
53:38
Speaker 1: But some parasitic wasps will lay their eggs directly inside
53:43
Speaker 1: the spider and then the larvae eat their way out
53:46
Speaker 1: of the spider like an alien chest burster. It's really disgusting.
53:52
Speaker 1: And just for a safety check here, there are no
53:55
Speaker 1: wasps that do this to people, right nose. They're none
53:58
Speaker 1: big enough to do it yet. Okay, not yet, not
54:03
Speaker 1: that we know of. Whenever, whenever I think about this
54:07
Speaker 1: para parasitic stuff doing things to animals to make them
54:11
Speaker 1: act against their own self interest, I always think of
54:13
Speaker 1: that parasitic fungus like erupts out of ants heads before right, yeah,
54:19
Speaker 1: before it does that, doesn't it also do some kind
54:22
Speaker 1: of crazy mind control that makes them do something that
54:25
Speaker 1: like benefits the fungus itself. But yeah, crawls up a
54:31
Speaker 1: stock like a plant stock, and then it's final. The
54:35
Speaker 1: ants final act is to cling onto the stock with
54:39
Speaker 1: its mandibles, so it it's brain is being so manipulated
54:44
Speaker 1: by the fungus that it's like clinging onto the stock
54:48
Speaker 1: with its mandibles. And then that's really good for the fungus, says,
54:51
Speaker 1: it grows out of its head and then produces spores
54:54
Speaker 1: because it's got a solid anchor down onto the onto
54:57
Speaker 1: the plant or the branch. You know. One that while
55:01
Speaker 1: we're speaking of parasites, one that worries me as a
55:04
Speaker 1: cat owner. Is toxoplasma gandhi. Yeah, we all probably have that,
55:10
Speaker 1: Like that's why we're nice to cats. I don't know,
55:12
Speaker 1: sing So, yeah, you probably if you clean up the
55:16
Speaker 1: cats litter box and you don't obsessively wash your hands
55:19
Speaker 1: every single time, you might have it. And I mean
55:23
Speaker 1: there's actually pretty good chance, like if you've owned cats
55:26
Speaker 1: over a long period of time. It's generally not a
55:29
Speaker 1: problem for humans unless you're pregnant, in which it can
55:32
Speaker 1: cause birth defects or miscarriage. And the other thing it's
55:36
Speaker 1: been linked to is potentially triggering schizophrenia. That's a very
55:42
Speaker 1: very rare almost just like it's not going to happen
55:45
Speaker 1: to you, but it is a documented effect, so they
55:50
Speaker 1: can a cat can literally cause schizophrenia in a person
55:55
Speaker 1: via the T gandhi. I M so, I think we
56:00
Speaker 1: need to talk more about how spiders are terribly mistreated
56:04
Speaker 1: in nature. Uh So, there's another mind controlling machiavellian manipulator
56:11
Speaker 1: called the spider fly, and it's a fly that injects
56:16
Speaker 1: itself into the spider's abdomen, lodging itself near the lung.
56:21
Speaker 1: And here's the crazy thing. It can remain there for
56:25
Speaker 1: years while it completes its development. So once it's finally
56:30
Speaker 1: ready to molt and emerge from the spider, it controls
56:34
Speaker 1: the spider into spinning a protective cocoon, just like we
56:39
Speaker 1: were talking about with the orb weavers. Then it eats
56:42
Speaker 1: the spider from the inside out, which is just the worst,
56:48
Speaker 1: but at least these ones are kind of cute and fuzzy,
56:51
Speaker 1: so unlike the wasps the spider fly, they're sort of
56:56
Speaker 1: like these little bumbling Cuti's uh entomologous f R Cold
57:01
Speaker 1: describes them as having a floating sort of flight, rather
57:06
Speaker 1: undulating and uncertain. It has the habit of buzzing around
57:09
Speaker 1: and circles when it falls over on its back on
57:12
Speaker 1: a smooth surface, often doing this for some time before
57:15
Speaker 1: it can regain its feet. Most of the time it
57:18
Speaker 1: is making a high, thin humming sound, so it's just
57:22
Speaker 1: like it's this dopey, kind of like dorky little fly.
57:27
Speaker 1: But then it's really horrifying and living inside a spider
57:31
Speaker 1: for years before killing it. And this isn't like a
57:35
Speaker 1: marsupial situation, you know how like a joey can enter
57:39
Speaker 1: an exit the pouch of the parent. It's more like
57:41
Speaker 1: a chest burster, like I can't fly back in and out.
57:46
Speaker 1: It's a chest burster situation, but with like a cute
57:49
Speaker 1: little like Elmo esque muppet character, like if an aliens,
57:55
Speaker 1: just like the chest burster birth stands like it's it's
57:58
Speaker 1: all low. I'm kind of sold. It reminds me of
58:03
Speaker 1: this terrifying toy my girlfriend got my daughter for a
58:06
Speaker 1: birthday the other day. It's like a tiny puppy that
58:09
Speaker 1: lives inside a croissant and you turn the croissant inside
58:12
Speaker 1: out and then the tiny puppy emerges. But it's really unclear,
58:15
Speaker 1: like the scale of it, like is it is it
58:17
Speaker 1: meant to be a tiny puppy or a giant croissant.
58:20
Speaker 1: They really don't make that clear. But um, yeah, that's
58:23
Speaker 1: not very science at all. But that's what I'm picturing
58:25
Speaker 1: this whole time. I'm sorry. I don't know why toys
58:27
Speaker 1: have gotten weird. I really have, they really have. You
58:34
Speaker 1: might be comforting yourself with the knowledge that you're not
58:37
Speaker 1: a spider and you're in no danger of a fly
58:40
Speaker 1: hiding out in your lungs, But I want to tell
58:42
Speaker 1: you the story of the human version of a spider Fly,
58:46
Speaker 1: a secret hideaway killer that will have you checking your
58:49
Speaker 1: cross spaces tonight. The Dinverse spider Man doesn't really deserve
58:53
Speaker 1: his name. His real name was Theodore Edward Coney's. He
58:57
Speaker 1: was a drifter who in one decided he'd settled down,
59:02
Speaker 1: but there was a little problem. The home he chose
59:05
Speaker 1: was already occupied. Coney Has found a trap door in
59:08
Speaker 1: a closet that led to a tiny attic houbbyhole. He
59:13
Speaker 1: went undiscovered for five weeks, leaving his Heidi Hoold to
59:16
Speaker 1: occasionally steal food out of the fridge. One day, the homeowner,
59:21
Speaker 1: seventy three year old Philip Peters, discovered Coney's as he
59:24
Speaker 1: was foraging for food. Philip whacked Cony's with his cane,
59:28
Speaker 1: and Coney's responded by brutally murdering Philip, bludgeoning him to
59:33
Speaker 1: death with an iron stove. Stoker. Police investigated the murder,
59:37
Speaker 1: but they found no signs of a break in, and
59:40
Speaker 1: though they found the door to the attic, they didn't
59:42
Speaker 1: explore it. They thought it was too small for any
59:45
Speaker 1: human person to fit through. After the murder, the victim's
59:49
Speaker 1: wife and the housekeeper reported hearing strange noises in the night,
59:53
Speaker 1: and they believed the house was haunted, so they moved
59:57
Speaker 1: out and Coney's presence remained un known. He stayed in
1:00:01
Speaker 1: the vacant house until when police came to make a
1:00:06
Speaker 1: routine check and they heard noises coming from the second floor.
1:00:10
Speaker 1: They followed the noise and saw a pair of legs
1:00:13
Speaker 1: vanishing into the trapdoor. They grabbed them before he could disappear.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: He was tried and convicted for Phillip's murder and spent
1:00:22
Speaker 1: his life in imprisonment, although really was that a punishment.
1:00:26
Speaker 1: His cell probably felt like a sprawling estate compared to
1:00:29
Speaker 1: the tiny nut he hit away in. So do you
1:00:33
Speaker 1: have any crawl spaces in your home? No reason, just
1:00:36
Speaker 1: curious alright, So thank you guys for coming on. This
1:00:42
Speaker 1: is really fun. Do you guys have anything to plug? Yeah,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having a skatie. Yet. You
1:00:48
Speaker 1: can catch Schnol and myself on our show Ridiculous History,
1:00:53
Speaker 1: to come out twice a week. You can find us
1:00:55
Speaker 1: on Instagram, Facebook, All the podcast places is Mainland, Right,
1:01:01
Speaker 1: what's the show? We kind of just go into some
1:01:04
Speaker 1: of the weirder, little off the beaten path kind of
1:01:07
Speaker 1: history nuggets, A very kind of Snack. Double show episodes
1:01:10
Speaker 1: are like thirty to forty minutes, very bingeable. It's a
1:01:13
Speaker 1: lot of fun to do. And um. We also do
1:01:15
Speaker 1: another show called Stuff They Don't Want You to Know,
1:01:17
Speaker 1: where we take a an open minded approach to conspiracy theories,
1:01:21
Speaker 1: and I would say we take a critical thinking approach
1:01:24
Speaker 1: to conspiracy. You're much better and more accurate. So you
1:01:27
Speaker 1: can you can find us on those shows. You can
1:01:30
Speaker 1: find us all over the regular internet places and wherever
1:01:34
Speaker 1: you find your favorite shows. You can also when you
1:01:37
Speaker 1: find us on the social media stuff, just hit us
1:01:40
Speaker 1: up directly. We're we're pretty approachable. Unlike some of the
1:01:43
Speaker 1: animals that we met in today's episode. We don't bite
1:01:47
Speaker 1: you know, you guys aren't or or or yeah, or
1:01:50
Speaker 1: inject you with paralyzing venom. Well that's polite of you guys.
1:01:54
Speaker 1: You know, we try to be affable. That's sort of
1:01:56
Speaker 1: like our that that's our adaptation is it's like the
1:01:59
Speaker 1: super affability. Yeah, my producers are always like ben stop
1:02:03
Speaker 1: injecting people with paralytic agents. That was before my time.
1:02:09
Speaker 1: So you can find me at Katie Golden or at
1:02:12
Speaker 1: pro bird Writes where it's revealed I'm Actually a Bird
1:02:16
Speaker 1: and you can check out the podcast every Wednesday on
1:02:21
Speaker 1: iTunes or the I Heart Radio app or wherever you
1:02:24
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, and just hit us up on Facebook, Twitter,
1:02:29
Speaker 1: and our website is creature feature pod dot com. And
1:02:32
Speaker 1: thanks to the Space Cossacks for letting us use their
1:02:36
Speaker 1: wonderful song Exo Lumina