0:31

Hi there, it's Ellen Weatherford and Christian

0:33

Weatherford. And we're here with Just The Zoo of Us, your favorite

0:36

animal review podcast, where we take your

0:38

favorite animals and rate them out of 10 in

0:40

the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity,

0:43

and aesthetics.

0:43

We are not zoological experts,

0:46

but we try our best to bring the best and most

0:48

accurate information we can. That's right.

0:51

And this week, I'm up first

0:53

in our total weirdo power

0:56

hour.

0:56

We

0:58

got a couple of weird ones lined up for you this week,

1:00

so I hope you like them. Bizarre.

1:03

I was gonna say mine is at least very constantly

1:06

flexing. I like that. So

1:09

is mine, in their own way. This

1:11

week I'm talking about the proboscis monkey.

1:14

Ooh. Scientific name is nasolus

1:16

larvitus.

1:18

Oh, what does that mean? You'll never guess.

1:21

I don't know about the larvitus part, but the nasolus

1:24

is a reference to their nose, which

1:26

they are named for both scientifically and

1:29

their common name, proboscis. Proboscis

1:32

is the name used for any sort of nasal

1:34

structure, like an elephant's trunk

1:36

would be a proboscis. Or even

1:38

like the long, curly mouth

1:41

part that butterflies have, that's

1:42

a proboscis also. Yeah, I guess for

1:44

me it's usually the context of insects that

1:47

I hear the word proboscis, including mosquitoes.

1:50

I can see that, yeah. It's the same

1:52

word. They are so named for their

1:54

nose. This species was submitted to us

1:56

by Allison the dog-loving

1:59

child.

1:59

and Ella, the snake

2:02

loving kid, who sent in one email

2:04

together. I'm assuming they're affiliated in

2:07

some way. Oh okay, I was gonna say, that's weird that two people sent

2:09

in their name with titles like that. No, I think

2:11

that same email.

2:12

I think this is two children

2:15

who love animals. Oh, how nice. Yes,

2:17

so I'm so happy to hear from y'all, and this is a

2:19

fantastic request. Very excited to talk about

2:21

this animal. I'm getting my information

2:24

from Animal Diversity Web from

2:26

Darren Nash, is a paleontologist

2:29

and a science writer, and

2:31

he has a very well-known blog called Tetrapod

2:34

Zoology from November of 2012, and

2:37

some papers that I'll cite along the

2:40

way. I can't say them here, because the

2:42

titles will spoil what I'm gonna say. So if

2:44

you're not familiar with the proboscis

2:46

monkey, this is a furry, reddish

2:49

brown sort of monkey. They have long arms

2:51

and legs, a

2:52

really long tail, and a distinct

2:55

nose. For most other non-human

2:58

primates, for the most part, they don't stick out,

3:00

but proboscis monkeys have really taken

3:02

this to an extreme. They've really leaned

3:04

into it. It is a sexually dimorphic

3:07

trait, so it is much

3:10

more exaggerated in males than

3:12

it is in females, and in males,

3:14

their noses can reach up to four inches

3:17

long. Wow. Pretty big.

3:19

It's like, what, the length of, not

3:21

quite your hand, like half of

3:22

a hand's length?

3:24

Right, and they're also not as big as humans,

3:26

so. No, yeah, this is like a little

3:28

guy with an enormous nose, and

3:31

also the nose just kind of like dangles

3:33

down over

3:35

their mouth, as if they were a Bob's

3:38

Burgers character, I think. It's

3:40

what they look like. Oh. You

3:42

know, in Bob's Burgers, their noses just

3:44

point straight down,

3:46

and they kind of overlap over the mouth

3:48

sometimes. That's kind of how theirs are. They

3:50

hang directly over their mouth, which

3:53

I have to imagine must be annoying. I

3:55

feel like I would get annoyed by that. I don't even

3:57

like my hair being in my face. I would hate

3:59

having a job.

3:59

giant dangly nose. Females

4:02

do also have a large extruding

4:04

nose, but theirs is much

4:05

shorter and it's pointier.

4:07

It's more like the mayor of Whoville,

4:09

I think, is what their

4:10

nose is more like. You

4:12

know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Precisely.

4:14

So they do still have a big nose, it's just not that

4:16

sort of giant dangly nose, the pendulous

4:19

nose that males have. These

4:22

monkeys are endemic to Borneo.

4:25

So endemic means that not only are they native

4:27

there, but they are only found there

4:29

and

4:29

nowhere else in the world,

4:31

other than in zoos and stuff. But in

4:33

the wild, they are only found in Borneo.

4:36

Borneo, if you're not familiar with it, is a large

4:38

island in Southeast Asia. It's the

4:40

third largest island in the world. It

4:42

is politically split between Indonesia,

4:45

which has most of the island's land

4:48

to the south, and then Malaysia

4:51

and Brunei split the

4:52

northern portion of the island. So it's one

4:55

island that is technically within

4:57

the jurisdiction of three different countries. Oh.

5:00

Yeah. Borneo is also home to one of the

5:02

oldest rain forests in the

5:03

world at 140 million years old. Wow.

5:07

And along the coasts of Borneo are these

5:09

mangrove swamps, which is where you will

5:11

find proboscis monkeys. They typically

5:14

are around these mangroves along

5:16

the coasts of Borneo. That's

5:18

where they spend most of their time, and they spend most of their time in

5:20

the treetops, so arboreal

5:23

monkeys. Their taxonomic

5:25

family is Circo pithisidae. These

5:27

are the monkeys that are native to the Western hemisphere,

5:30

so Asia and Africa,

5:32

as opposed to things like spider monkeys

5:34

that you'd find in South America. They're also not

5:37

apes, because they have long tails.

5:39

Would this maybe be the same group

5:42

that the Japanese macaques belong to? Yes.

5:45

OK. But their closest relatives are

5:47

something called the duke langurs

5:50

and snub-nosed monkeys. That's

5:52

kind of an intro to the proboscis monkey. To

5:54

get into my ratings for this creature, starting

5:56

with effectiveness, this is physical adaptations. How

5:59

well is this?

5:59

this animal adapted physically

6:02

to do the things it's trying to do. I'm giving

6:04

the proboscis monkey a nine out of 10. That's

6:06

very good. It's very good. I

6:08

know what you wanna hear about.

6:10

It's the nose, right?

6:11

You wanna

6:11

know why it's like that. Why is his face

6:14

like that? It's a pretty

6:16

unusual trait and very exaggerated.

6:19

So you think what kind of benefit is it providing

6:21

to this animal? So extruding

6:24

noses are, like I mentioned, not

6:26

common in primates. So the

6:28

reason that humans probably have extruding

6:30

noses is because

6:32

humans adapted to

6:35

live in a much wider variety of climates

6:37

than any other primate, right?

6:39

You've got humans living in dry,

6:41

arid, hot, cold,

6:44

all over the planet. You've got humans adapting to

6:46

live in different climates. So

6:48

the extruding noses help warm,

6:51

filter, and humidify air that

6:53

is being breathed in. So for humans

6:55

that are living in a lot of different places, they're

6:58

really benefiting from like, if you live in a cold climate,

7:01

you're benefiting from bringing in air and warming

7:04

it with your nose. If you live in a dry

7:06

climate, you're benefiting from the mucus

7:08

inside of your nasal cavity, like humidifying

7:10

the air that you're breathing in,

7:11

or the hairs inside of your nose are blocking

7:14

dust from getting in and things like that. So

7:16

for humans, that's kind of why we have noses

7:19

the way that we have, but we

7:21

all have big noses, right? Whereas for

7:23

proboscis monkeys, it's just the males

7:25

have these giant noses, which

7:27

tells us that it's not a survival trait, right?

7:30

Truth. Because if they needed it to survive, they'd all have

7:32

it,

7:32

wouldn't they? So it's a sexually

7:34

selected trait. It is something

7:37

that females seek out

7:40

in a mate.

7:41

So you wonder why. Yeah, you. What

7:43

is with that? So

7:46

studies have shown a very strong correlation

7:49

between the size of the monkey's

7:51

nose and other reproductive

7:54

traits, such as their body size.

7:56

So like a bigger nose means a

7:59

larger, stronger.

7:59

or monkey, but also their

8:03

amount of reproductive material is

8:05

how I'll phrase that. A bigger

8:07

nose advertises a more physically

8:10

viable mate. It is basically

8:12

like a badge on their face. Like a health indicator.

8:14

Yes, it's a health bar. We

8:17

saw this with the blue boobies and

8:21

their foot coloring.

8:22

Yes, so a lot of animals that have these

8:24

very attention grabbing traits, it's

8:26

often like a visual indicator of

8:29

the reproductive viability of

8:31

that animal. But it's not

8:33

just in looks. For this monkey,

8:36

the size and shape of the nose acoustically

8:39

changes the vocalizations

8:40

that the monkey makes. Oh,

8:42

I guess so, yeah. Yeah, because they're

8:44

like producing these sort of nasal sounds.

8:47

And so the size and shape of the nose is gonna

8:49

change the sound that comes out. And

8:52

the female proboscis monkeys

8:55

can hear the sounds made

8:57

by these males. They make these long braying

8:59

sounds. The females can hear the sounds

9:02

and

9:03

translate them into, they

9:05

can hear, it changes the louder

9:08

frequencies of their call. They can hear

9:10

the way that that call sounds and know

9:13

how big and healthy that monkey is. So

9:16

it's an interesting, not just visual, but it's also

9:18

an auditory cue. It's like

9:20

blasting your mixtape through a megaphone.

9:23

Being

9:24

like, listen to how fire this is.

9:27

I'm totally a hot guy that

9:29

you should come hook up with. That

9:31

is really helpful because they live in these really

9:33

dense rainforests. Lots

9:35

of obstructions, there's leaves, there's

9:38

branches. You're not always gonna have line of sight

9:41

with

9:41

whoever you're communicating

9:43

with. So if they can communicate

9:45

with these auditory cues, then

9:48

they can communicate over much bigger distances

9:51

with each other and quicker. You don't have to find

9:53

each other and eyeball each other to

9:56

get a good idea

9:56

of whether you wanna mate with this monkey

9:58

or not.

9:59

It's like a literal blind date, right? You

10:02

just, they make these sounds

10:04

out into the rainforest and female

10:06

monkeys around can hear it and be like, oh, that

10:08

sounds like somebody I would wanna mate with.

10:10

But it's not just for finding love, it's also

10:13

for avoiding conflict. There's

10:15

a paper titled, Nasalization by

10:17

Nasalis Larvatis, Larger Noses, Audio

10:19

Visually Advertise Con Specifics

10:22

in Proboscis Monkeys, and that was by Hiroki

10:24

Kota et al in Science Advances in

10:26

February of 2018. And

10:29

I just wanted to read this quote from the paper because it's interesting.

10:32

The nose to face ratio is

10:34

a robust and reliable signal for

10:37

rapid evaluation of male status

10:39

and quality. Given that the nose

10:41

size of the core male in harem

10:44

groups, so you've got like a harem group that's

10:46

a bunch of females and one male, his

10:48

nose is likely

10:51

to be larger than that of males

10:53

in all male groups, nose

10:55

enlargement would serve as a badge

10:57

of status that may directly deter

11:00

other rival males from attacking or

11:02

gain access to harem groups. The

11:04

interactions between harem groups and between

11:07

harem and all male groups are relatively

11:09

peaceful without any evidence of direct

11:12

fighting in general. So it seems

11:14

like the monkey, even the male monkeys, look

11:17

at each other, assess their nose

11:19

size, and use that to

11:21

decide whether that's someone they feel like they

11:23

could beat up or not. Yeah, like they're sizing

11:25

each other up. Yeah, I feel like

11:27

it's like wearing a WWE belt around. Like,

11:30

it's like. How many gym

11:33

badges you got over there? Yeah.

11:37

It gives them sort of a way

11:39

to assess each other without having to

11:41

physically get in an actual fight with

11:44

each other, and this seems to play out and weigh

11:48

less violence between the monkeys

11:50

because they have this way of being able to suss

11:52

each other out without having to actually

11:55

come in conflict, which I find really

11:57

interesting, and then they can hear their

11:59

calls.

11:59

So like if you can hear someone's call from

12:02

a long distance away, you know where they are and you

12:04

know whether you think that's someone you can fight or

12:06

not. Right, I think we've talked about that

12:09

kind of behavior before. Probably, it's

12:11

just this is a very unusual way of going

12:13

about it I think by like drastically

12:15

altering your nose size. Cool

12:19

stuff, another thing I gave them points for is that

12:22

they're excellent swimmers. That makes

12:24

sense with the mangrove environment. Right, yeah, they're like

12:26

over water, so you would

12:28

hope that they'd be pretty good swimmers. But

12:30

there's also like a common misconception. I think people

12:32

think that like primates other than humans are

12:35

bad swimmers. It's not the case

12:37

really. I've seen that repeated a lot. People

12:39

think that like

12:40

monkeys can't swim. I think for some

12:42

of them it's a density problem. That

12:45

too. Because

12:47

those things are

12:47

solid muscle. But so proboscis monkeys

12:49

do live in swamps, which means that they're

12:52

often directly over water. So if

12:54

a proboscis monkey needs to make a quick escape

12:57

from a predator, such as a clouded leopard, they

12:59

can dive into the water and easily

13:01

swim because they have webbed fingers.

13:03

Oh.

13:04

Right? It's interesting, isn't

13:06

it? Yeah. They will also sometimes just

13:08

do this to like cross bodies of water, right?

13:11

It's not always like an absolute emergency

13:13

situation. Just they are pretty good swimmers.

13:16

In fact, in the tetrapod zoology

13:18

article I was reading about them, this

13:20

is a quote, in a frequently mentioned

13:23

case from 1950, a

13:25

lone male was seen far out in

13:27

the South China Sea. He was misidentified

13:30

by cruise ship passengers as a human

13:33

and a boat was lowered for assistance.

13:34

The monkey climbed aboard

13:36

the boat, rested for a while, but then jumped

13:38

back into the sea and carried on its

13:41

journey, destination unknown.

13:42

Okay. Can

13:45

you imagine being

13:47

out on like a cruise

13:49

and then they're like, oh no, there's

13:51

a whole dude trapped in the water. We gotta go

13:53

save him. He sent a rescue boat

13:55

out and it's a very confused monkey. The

14:00

monkey's just looking at y'all like, thanks I guess.

14:03

What are we doing here? Appreciate the breather I suppose.

14:06

That's true, you'd think the monkey could just ride the boat,

14:08

right? Well, it doesn't know the boat's going

14:10

to where it wants to go. Where is it wanting to go?

14:12

Who knows? That's

14:15

part of the mystery.

14:15

That is part of the mystery. So I think that tells

14:18

a fascinating story about this monkey

14:20

in the middle of the sea that was just on

14:22

his own journey, I guess. But

14:24

unfortunately the water below them may also

14:26

be full of crocodiles. I was gonna say one

14:29

bit. There's a lot of stuff in that water that could also

14:31

be another threat. But it's kinda like the

14:33

enemy you can see is more

14:35

dangerous than the enemy you can't, I guess. Like

14:38

you just have to guess, have to just

14:40

hope that

14:40

there's no crocodiles below you. If you're already

14:42

escaping one predator that you know is there,

14:45

you gotta roll the dice. There's

14:47

a BBC video of this, of proboscis

14:50

monkeys jumping into the water and then having

14:52

to escape from crocodiles, it's very

14:54

intense. But it's very cool if you wanna watch it. You

14:56

can watch how they're jumping from serious

14:58

heights. They're jumping from

15:01

skyscraper levels into the

15:03

water. They have a cool diving form

15:06

too. They're very good at

15:07

it. It's very graceful actually. And

15:09

the last thing I kinda gave them effectiveness points

15:12

for is that being herbivores who eat mostly plant

15:14

matter, so leaves and fruits and

15:16

things like that, they ruminate. Which

15:18

means that they chew cud.

15:19

Yeah. Much

15:22

like how cows do. So

15:24

they will swallow their food,

15:27

partially digest it,

15:29

and then just kind of like gag it back

15:31

up, and then chew it again, and like

15:34

kinda give it another

15:35

go through of the whole

15:36

digestive process. So the idea

15:39

is that this helps them like break down really tough

15:41

fibrous plant material and extract

15:43

more nutrients from it than they would

15:45

if they just swallowed it once. It

15:48

is unusual for primates

15:51

to do this. This is typically really

15:53

only seen in hoofed mammals, but we've also

15:55

seen it in

15:55

one bird, which was the Watson.

15:58

You remember that? I think so.

15:59

like rainforest bird that ate a lot of leaves

16:02

and stuff. It's a foregut fermentation

16:04

thing that involves like a multi-chambered

16:07

stomach that you don't see outside

16:09

of ruminant ungulates that often.

16:12

I wouldn't have thought that just looking at them, but

16:15

they do, they chew cud. So for those of

16:17

you familiar with livestock,

16:18

there's an interesting connection there.

16:20

So moving on to ingenuity, which are behavioral adaptations,

16:23

things the animal does with their

16:25

body to solve problems that they face, I'm

16:27

giving them an eight out of 10. Starting

16:30

off with the fact that they are very social. They live

16:32

in groups that can, like I mentioned earlier,

16:34

they can either be a harem group, which would be one

16:36

male and a bunch of females, or bachelor

16:39

groups of a bunch of males altogether. And

16:41

then at night, all of the groups convene

16:43

together to sleep in

16:45

like bands. It's kind of

16:48

like breakout groups.

16:48

During the day,

16:50

they all break out into small groups, and

16:53

will kind of be in these groups of like, usually like 10 or

16:56

fewer monkeys together. But at

16:58

night, when they're most vulnerable, they

17:00

all converge together and sleep in

17:02

like a much bigger band together. Yeah,

17:04

this is called a fission fusion society,

17:08

because they, you know, do fission

17:10

and break apart during the day, but then

17:12

fuse back together

17:13

at night. That's cool.

17:15

Well, it helps them, you know, look out for predators

17:18

that are nocturnal, because that's when they're most vulnerable.

17:20

And that's when things like cats are going to be out and

17:23

hunting. So it

17:25

is good to find strength in numbers

17:26

during your sort of weakest points.

17:29

They groom and play with each other to bond amongst

17:31

their groups. It's very sweet. Mothers

17:33

care for their babies for up to a year, which

17:36

they do by holding them close to their body and

17:38

carrying them around. It's adorable.

17:40

It's so, this is normal monkey behavior,

17:43

you know, keeping the baby close.

17:45

It's so cute. And their

17:48

social system and loud vocalizations

17:50

help them

17:50

alert each other to danger and escape

17:52

from predators. So I think this is a great way

17:55

to protect yourself, right? Find strength

17:57

in numbers. There's also

17:59

something interesting that I found a 2011 paper

18:03

in the Raffles Bulletin

18:05

of Zoology and it's titled Prabhaskis

18:07

monkeys have unusually high pitched

18:09

vocalizations and that was by Amrita

18:12

Srivatsan and Rudolf Meyer and

18:15

it suggests the Prabhaskis monkeys use unusually

18:18

high pitched vocalizations for

18:20

a primate of their size. Why do you

18:23

think they would do that? There was a suggestion

18:25

by the paper, but I want to know what your first thought is.

18:27

Why would they use high pitched vocalizations?

18:29

To avoid alerting

18:31

predators perhaps. It is. Their

18:35

calls are beyond the

18:37

range of hearing for crocodiles. Okay,

18:40

they can communicate with each other at

18:42

pitches that are too high for crocodiles

18:45

to hear.

18:45

Makes sense. Isn't that cool? Yeah,

18:48

I love that. Finally

18:50

aesthetics for this

18:52

animal. I

18:55

can't lie to y'all. I'm gonna be honest

18:57

for the males for adult males a minimum of

19:00

three

19:00

out of ten. Okay, I can't

19:02

I don't like it. Squidward

19:05

looking. It is Squidward. It

19:07

is exactly Squidward. Into

19:11

the aesthetic at all for adult

19:14

females seven out of ten.

19:16

I think it's kind of cute. I can deal with that nose

19:18

and a ten for the

19:19

babies. The babies are adorable. Like

19:21

when they're babies, they just have this cute little

19:23

upturned button nose. It's just so

19:25

cute. It looks like Jane from Tarzan.

19:28

Oh, like it's so adorable.

19:31

The fur is gorgeous. It is lush and

19:33

red and very very pretty but

19:35

they have a really unflattering like hairstyle

19:38

like

19:38

on their head. It looks like

19:40

somehow it's both a flat top and a middle part.

19:43

I don't know how they pull that off. It's not flattering.

19:45

It doesn't do it for me. The

19:48

nose just looks way too much like an

19:51

external reproductive structure. It's

19:54

just right smack dab in the middle of the face. Your

19:57

eye is drawn to it.

19:59

If it was like some sort of pendulous,

20:03

bulbous appendage anywhere

20:05

else on their body, you could kind of ignore

20:07

it, but it's right there.

20:09

It's the first place you look. So

20:12

I can't process that so great,

20:15

but the babies are really cute. So I will give them

20:17

that. To wrap things up for the

20:19

proboscis monkey, their conservation status

20:21

is endangered.

20:23

They're on the IUCN red list

20:25

as endangered. They are legally protected

20:28

from hunting,

20:29

but the true greatest threat

20:31

to their population is habitat loss. So

20:33

these monkeys do rely on the rainforest

20:36

and the mangroves to survive. So when those forests

20:38

get cleared for logging or settlement,

20:41

whatever, we lose the monkeys,

20:43

but also all of the other amazing,

20:45

quirky, beautiful animals that live

20:48

in the same forest that they do, like pangolins. The

20:50

Sunda pangolin lives in Borneo and

20:52

is also reliant on the

20:55

trees that grow there to survive orangutans.

20:57

There's Bornean

20:58

orangutans that rely on

21:00

these forests to survive. And loss

21:03

of mangroves has a cascading effect.

21:05

Gosh, loss of mangroves. If you clear

21:07

out your coastal mangroves, it

21:10

really puts the entire coastal

21:12

region at huge risk of being

21:14

obliterated by storms and

21:18

storm surges and tsunamis

21:20

and things like that. If you don't have that buffer zone

21:23

between your coastline and the ocean,

21:26

it really puts you at higher risk of receiving

21:29

a lot more damage from natural disasters.

21:32

I wanted to wrap up with something that I found. Polish

21:35

researcher

21:35

Magdalena Lenda

21:38

analyzed the conservation impact

21:40

of memes featuring proboscis

21:43

monkeys.

21:44

In

21:47

a 2020 paper in conservation biology, and

21:49

this was titled, effects of amusing memes

21:52

on concern for unappealing

21:54

species. So we had to

21:56

jab them a little bit in there. And

21:58

this found...

21:59

that funny memes featuring specifically

22:02

proboscis monkeys. This was about proboscis

22:04

monkeys,

22:05

which usually that animal

22:07

receives a lot less attention than like

22:09

stereotypically cute animals like

22:11

pandas or koalas or something like that.

22:15

But the memes using the proboscis

22:17

monkey for humor did

22:20

seem to result in actual conservation

22:22

funding initiatives. People would

22:24

have like Facebook pages where they would post

22:27

like proboscis monkey memes. And these

22:29

were just like random people, right?

22:31

They weren't like affiliated with any sort of like organization

22:33

or effort or something.

22:35

It would just be like random Facebook

22:36

users would have like a proboscis monkey

22:39

meme page or something

22:39

like that. And that they would get a

22:42

lot of likes and like get a lot of shares and get

22:44

really, really popular. And then people that had these meme

22:46

pages would sometimes post fundraisers,

22:48

you know, like actual conservation fundraisers.

22:51

And then people would donate to them. So like

22:53

you seeing this actual turnover into

22:55

like, we can realistically

22:58

acknowledge that proboscis monkeys, I think most

23:00

people would not find them to be cute. So

23:03

they're not going to be winning the

23:05

beauty contest. They're not gonna be getting that turnover

23:07

that cute animals get. Sure. People

23:10

are like, oh, so cute. I'm gonna give money to protect them. So

23:12

you have to kind of go this other way and use them

23:15

for humor. You have to kind of go the funny route

23:17

with them. But it works. It's

23:19

really seemed to work. In an article about

23:22

this paper that was for the wildlife society

23:24

in May of 2020, writer

23:26

Dana Kobolinski said, Linda and

23:29

her colleagues looked at public donation

23:31

events and found the same people who

23:33

started the profiles with proboscis monkey

23:35

memes also began some small

23:38

fundraising actions. The funds were collected

23:40

by completely unknown people with no

23:42

documented connection with nature conservation

23:45

and such actions always aroused some reserve

23:47

and distrust despite the noble purpose,

23:50

she said. Nevertheless, the fact

23:52

that several hundred people have made individual

23:55

decisions to support the conservation

23:57

of proboscis monkeys while they could

23:59

choose.

23:59

another more well-known charity event

24:02

or spend money on a cinema ticket deserves

24:04

attention. Right? So

24:06

like

24:07

this is an interesting way that

24:09

memes that are otherwise

24:12

just goofy things people do for fun and

24:14

to be silly with their friends online is

24:16

resulting in real world action

24:19

that

24:20

these people may have never heard of a proboscis

24:22

monkey

24:22

if they hadn't seen these memes. But they

24:25

see the memes they're like oh that's funny and then that

24:27

kind of like puts the animal in your mind

24:30

and then maybe you might be curious about it maybe you'd

24:32

be like wait why are they like that that's so weird like

24:34

you might want to learn more about it and then when

24:36

you learn more about it you learn that they're endangered

24:38

and then like it's a really interesting way

24:41

of like it's like a different type of

24:43

charisma you know. It'd

24:45

be funny watching the the

24:47

bigger organizations start opening

24:49

up positions for like lead

24:51

meme director or something. Honestly

24:54

like okay so I follow so many

24:56

Twitter accounts and Instagram

24:59

accounts and TikTok accounts that

25:01

are for large organizations, zoos,

25:04

aquariums, stuff like that even

25:06

like government wildlife departments.

25:08

There has been a huge

25:09

shift. Large

25:12

organizations are really starting to like see the

25:15

utility of using memes and using humor

25:18

and approachability to get

25:20

information out there right. Yeah. It's it's

25:22

it works.

25:23

It works so good. We should do that with

25:25

public health. I think they're

25:28

trying. We

25:31

need to increase meme spending. Increase

25:34

meme spending yeah for sure. Well you

25:36

know you started to see this with like I feel like Monterey

25:38

Bay Aquarium is really good at this and the

25:40

uh the who is it the Oklahoma wildlife department

25:43

is extremely good at this and

25:45

like you're seeing that translate into action

25:47

and translate into people caring about this

25:49

stuff. Oh yeah. So I thought that was really

25:52

cool. If you do feel inspired

25:54

to support efforts to protect the

25:56

proboscis monkey and their habitats after

25:59

making some dank.

25:59

memes you should do that. But also

26:02

after that, look into organizations that you

26:05

can donate to like the Borneo Nature

26:07

Foundation, which is doing a lot of work on the ground

26:09

to protect the rainforest and the mangroves

26:11

in Borneo.

26:12

Very good. Yeah, that's the proboscis

26:14

monkey. Thanks, hon. Thank you. Let's

26:17

take a quick break to hear from our friends on the MaxFun

26:19

network and then we'll get to your animal.

26:22

Hi, I'm Travis McElroy. And I'm Teresa

26:24

McElroy. And we're the host of Shmanners. We

26:27

don't believe that etiquette should be used to judge

26:30

other people. No, on Shmanners, we

26:32

see etiquette as a way to navigate

26:34

social situations with confidence.

26:36

So if that sounds like something you're into,

26:38

join us every Friday on Maximum

26:41

Fun wherever you get your podcasts.

26:43

Hey,

26:47

it's John Moe inviting you to listen to depression

26:49

mode with John Moe, where I talk about

26:51

mental health and the lives we live with

26:53

all kinds of people. Famous writers,

26:56

David Sedaris, welcome to depression mode. Thanks

26:58

so much for having me. Movie stars, Jamie

27:01

Lee Curtis, welcome to depression mode.

27:02

I am happy to be here. Musicians.

27:05

I am in St. Paul, Minnesota. I'm talking to

27:08

Amy Mann. Great to talk to you. And

27:10

song exploders. Rishi K. Shairway,

27:12

welcome to depression mode. Thanks so much for having

27:14

me. Everyone's opening up on

27:16

depression mode on Maximum Fun.

27:23

Changing the world with memes. I'm going to float a meme

27:25

resume to NASA. Yeah,

27:28

I wonder if

27:31

they need one right now.

27:33

All right, babe, what animal do you

27:35

have for us this week? Today,

27:37

I'm bringing an animal that has

27:40

some surprising overlapping qualities

27:42

with yours. Oh yeah. Having listened to yours.

27:44

And this is the sarcastic

27:47

fringe head, which is a fish.

27:48

Okay. Thank goodness you said that because

27:51

if I came into this cold, having no idea,

27:53

neither the word sarcastic nor fringe head

27:56

would give me any information

27:57

about what this animal is. Yeah, there are a group of fish

27:59

that are called fringe heads. but it's, you know, not

28:01

a very common fish. So

28:04

there's no big hint words

28:06

in that name. Yeah, this gives me nothing. Yeah. Scientific

28:09

name Neoclinus blancardi,

28:11

and this species was submitted by Alexandra

28:14

Roach and Alyssa.

28:15

Thank you both. Thank you. Excellent suggestion.

28:18

And I'm getting my information from Animal Diversity

28:20

Web, Aquarium of the Pacific, and National

28:23

Geographic. Yay. So first

28:25

of all, the fish is a little on the small

28:27

side. Aww.

28:29

Up to 30 centimeters long, or

28:31

just under a foot, but usually 7.6 to 29 centimeters long,

28:35

or three to eight inches. That is little.

28:37

Yeah. What they look

28:39

like, imagine a long, compressed body,

28:42

and its dorsal and anal fins are

28:45

fairly long and go almost the entire

28:47

length of that body. Oh, wow. Yeah.

28:49

Oh, like a ribbon, sort

28:51

of, like down the length of it. Not quite

28:54

knife-ish level, but

28:57

approaching that. Like a banner that goes down

28:59

their body. Yeah. They're

29:01

brownish gray with red or green patches. They

29:04

have a big mouth, especially when it's

29:06

open, and they have bulging eyes that

29:08

sit high up on the head. It actually kind of

29:10

reminds me of the mud skipper that we talked about

29:12

a while ago. That was kind of the image you were creating in

29:14

my head was a mud skipper. Yes, a little bit.

29:16

Are these freshwater or saltwater fish? These are saltwater

29:19

fish. Okay. They can be found on the Pacific

29:21

coast from San Francisco, California

29:23

to Central Baja, California, Mexico. So

29:26

we wouldn't see them here. We would not.

29:28

Darn. We'll have to go make a trip. Hope

29:31

we see one. I would love that. So

29:35

specifically, these can be found within shells,

29:37

holes, crevices, things like

29:40

that, and unfortunately, human garbage,

29:42

like cans and bottles at the bottom

29:44

of them. It's free real estate. Yeah. I

29:48

mean, we can't give them free

29:50

stuff to nest in and be like, don't nest in

29:52

there. I mean, they won't let you take it

29:54

back. It's

29:56

gone. It's gone.

29:59

They belong to the...

29:59

taxonomic family, kind of ups a day.

30:03

And one thing they're related to is the dwarf

30:05

spiny head Blenny, which is less

30:08

than an inch long.

30:09

So

30:12

they're a type of Blenny then. Yes. Okay.

30:14

I barely know what a Blenny

30:16

is. That's more than I know. I

30:18

know the name. I've heard of them. So

30:22

let me get right into our first category of effectiveness.

30:26

Christian forgot to write his numbers. It's

30:29

the last thing I do and I didn't do it. You forgot

30:31

to do the whole thing our show is about. It's

30:35

better than the inverse problem. Okay. That's

30:38

true. I'd rather you have the information

30:41

and not the numbers than the numbers and no information.

30:43

Cause this would be a really short show. I'm

30:46

going to give, I'll say a seven out

30:48

of 10. That's okay. So first of all, they

30:50

have really big mouths with needle

30:53

like teeth in that mouth. Great.

30:55

Yes. Awesome. So

30:57

in males, the back part of those jaws

31:00

are a bright yellow and you can see that, especially

31:03

when they are open and I'll talk more about why that

31:05

is later. Yes, please. Now

31:07

the female mouths are smaller and not as brightly

31:09

colored. Huh? Yeah.

31:11

It's reminding me of like a frilled lizard. Yes. So

31:14

this is kind of getting into the surprising similarities

31:17

to the proboscis monkey. Interesting.

31:19

The, the cross animal

31:22

kingdom, right? Similarities. I

31:24

love finding common threads in animals

31:26

that you'd think have nothing to do with each other. Exactly.

31:29

Uh, they also have, I like spots or

31:32

Ocelli. Uh, males have these on their dorsal

31:34

fins and they are metallic blue outlined

31:36

by a golden ring.

31:37

So when you say Ocelli, do you mean these are actual

31:40

photo receptors? No, they're more like false eyes.

31:43

Okay. All right. Cause when I hear the word Ocelli,

31:45

you usually hear that to mean like a very simple actual

31:47

like right eye that like receives

31:50

light, but this is more just like decorative.

31:52

Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe not decorative.

31:55

I didn't find a functional purpose of them.

31:57

When I hear about eye spots, it's usually for like.

31:59

the purpose of appearing to be a larger

32:02

animal than you really are, like how moths

32:04

will have eye spots on their wings.

32:06

Yeah, maybe. It doesn't really line up with the other stuff,

32:08

but maybe. They are omnivores and they are opportunistic.

32:11

They sound like a little trash monster. A

32:14

little bit, yeah. It's a little Oscar

32:16

the Grouch, a little creature. And

32:19

they're not great swimmers. It's usually

32:21

in short bursts. Aw.

32:23

You should be a good swimmer if you're a fish, I

32:25

feel like. Well, it starts

32:27

to make more sense because I'm moving on to ingenuity,

32:30

where the chunk of this animal's

32:32

traits belong, I think. Really, all right.

32:35

So I'm giving, I'll give

32:37

an eight out of 10 on ingenuity.

32:39

It's pretty good. Yeah. It's pretty

32:41

good. So first of all, their homes. They defend

32:44

their homes to all ends. Oh,

32:47

really? It's

32:49

because their home is the key to reproduction.

32:52

Oh. Males need to have a den

32:54

in order to reproduce

32:55

because only then will

32:57

the female lay eggs within

32:59

that den. Okay, so he's gotta have a

33:01

nice pad before she will get

33:03

with him. They are aggressive,

33:06

fiercely territorial, and they do

33:09

not care how big the threat is.

33:10

I was gonna say, these are little guys. They

33:13

don't have the size to be acting like that.

33:16

So what they'll do is they'll back into their burrows so

33:19

that only their head is poking out of the burrow.

33:22

So that you can't see how little the rest of their body

33:24

is, all right? I

33:27

don't know if I should be intimidated. How about you come out of there

33:29

a little bit? Now,

33:32

whenever something gets too close, particularly

33:35

another French head, that's when

33:37

they open their mouth as a warning. Love

33:39

it. So it kind of unfolds into this

33:42

almost triangular shape. It's

33:44

like an umbrella. Yeah.

33:47

What it reminds me of is how predators

33:49

in the predator movies are designed a little

33:52

bit. Just instead of, they have more

33:54

of a square shape. This is more of a triangle

33:56

shape.

33:56

Okay. It's reminding me

33:58

of when you take a... tent out

34:00

of the like sleeve that it's in and it just like

34:03

snaps open. Right. Now,

34:06

if that warning fails, they will then attack

34:09

by biting with those neel teeth. So they're backing it

34:11

up with something. Yes. They're all

34:13

bark and all bite. They

34:15

got both. 100% bark, 100% bite.

34:19

Both barrels are ready to go. According

34:21

to a BBC science focus article

34:24

by Helen Pilcher, the sarcastic

34:26

part of its name

34:27

may refer to its closed mouth expression

34:30

or may be derived from the Greek word

34:33

sarcatsin meaning to tear

34:35

flesh.

34:36

It means that. Referring to their

34:38

temperament. But

34:41

we've been using sarcastic this whole time.

34:45

I did a cursory research of how that relates to

34:47

our usage of sarcastic. You also hear like, it can't

34:49

be the same thing. Actually you'll sometimes hear

34:51

something described as using

34:54

cutting words right. Okay.

34:58

Interesting. Yeah.

35:00

I didn't take, I didn't dig too far into

35:02

the linguistic there.

35:03

It's kind of using like the OG definition

35:05

of sarcastic as in will end

35:07

your life. Right. So

35:10

when it is a French head versus French head, here's

35:13

another similarity. It kind of looks like they're

35:15

doing a kiss fight. They

35:20

both open their mouths to maximum size.

35:25

And start comparing them to each other.

35:27

Oh, I see. Yeah.

35:29

So what they're doing there is they're sizing each other up. My

35:31

personal head cannon is that they

35:34

are kissing and the scientists just don't want

35:36

to admit that they're kissing. So like, Oh look,

35:38

they're fighting. These

35:41

roommates are having a

35:44

disagreement. He's very good friends.

35:49

But yeah, what they're doing there is sizing each other up again. Like,

35:52

like you mentioned with the monkeys. Sure.

35:54

Yeah. If one is larger, they don't bother fighting.

35:56

Right. They don't want to lose that battle. Yes. But if they're

35:59

close enough, they're like, all right.

37:40

quite

38:00

a bit. And also it's gonna take a considerable

38:02

amount of something to break that glass. Like

38:04

that glass is probably a lot thicker and stronger

38:06

than like whatever shell

38:08

or rock you can find. And this is

38:10

kind of a hermit crab type situation where

38:12

as they grow they have to move into bigger

38:15

and bigger housings.

38:17

So if you can get your hands on a big gulp, you're

38:19

sitting pretty. Moving

38:22

on to aesthetics. I'll give

38:24

a, I think a seven out

38:27

of 10 on this one.

38:27

Okay, is that mouth open or mouth closed?

38:30

Oh, open. The colors

38:32

are very interesting. So

38:34

parts of the mouth reflect UV

38:36

light.

38:37

Really? Yes, which makes them glow green

38:39

under certain light. They glow.

38:42

That is so cool. Why?

38:46

Why would they need to do that? I didn't find

38:48

a purpose there. You know what? I

38:50

remember this being a thing with the

38:52

peacock mantis shrimp. How they,

38:55

their little flappy bits that they have,

38:58

their little like flags, I guess, would have spots

39:01

on them that were like UV

39:03

colored where their eyes could see

39:05

it,

39:05

but others couldn't. Well, here's

39:07

what's interesting. Because the mouth display

39:10

thing is only for defending territory.

39:12

They don't do that to attract mates. Yeah.

39:15

Oh, so it's only like something to startle

39:17

like a predator or something like that. I mean, maybe

39:20

if it is something that other fringe heads

39:22

could see, maybe that's what they want. Yeah, oh,

39:24

true. Look how cool my spots

39:26

are. Yeah, yeah.

39:27

It's a secret message. It's like when you

39:29

write something in spy pen. Like you remember

39:31

the spy pen things that, I don't know if you

39:34

ever had a spy pen when you were a kid.

39:35

That it would write with this ink that you would like

39:37

shine a spy pen light on and then you could see

39:39

the ink.

39:40

Right. It's like that. Exactly.

39:43

They do have these little eye fringes, which is where the

39:45

fringed part of their name comes from.

39:47

Like eyelashes? It's more like eyebrows

39:50

that stick out both. Oh. I

39:53

got so excited for a second. Yeah, and again.

39:55

Okay, a mild slay. The

39:58

SLE again I'm mentioning. because they look really

40:00

cool. I'm all about that metallic look outlined

40:03

in gold. I'm googling a picture

40:05

of them.

40:06

I've like seen them, but I haven't seen one recently.

40:09

They look horrifying

40:11

when the mouth is

40:12

open. Yes. It's terrible,

40:15

actually. When the mouth is open, it's

40:17

the worst. And I don't think you're really leaning

40:20

hard enough into that, it sucks.

40:23

I thought it was cool. The little needle teeth are

40:26

monstrous. Yeah, and they

40:28

hurt and they bite. I mean, they won't kill you or anything,

40:30

but it'll hurt. And divers have reported

40:32

that they'll tear your wetsuit. Oh

40:34

no, uh-oh. These

40:36

things are mean. Yeah, perhaps not surprisingly,

40:39

their conservation status is least concerned. They're

40:42

fine. They

40:44

have the tenacity. They're surviving

40:47

on sheer audacity.

40:47

Good for them, slay. So

40:53

that is the sarcastic fringe hood.

40:55

When extinction approaches them, they simply

40:58

scare it away. Not today,

41:00

extinction. Call Darwin, but

41:02

not for me.

41:06

What

41:09

a lovely creature, thank you. No

41:11

problem. And thank you, dear listener, for

41:13

spending this time with us today and listening

41:16

to our show. I hope that

41:18

you liked what you heard. And if you did, I'd

41:21

love it if you left a nice review for us on

41:23

your podcast app of choice. I've

41:25

had quite a few people leaving very kind

41:27

reviews for us recently. And so I wanted to say

41:29

thank you. I'm not gonna have time to

41:32

read from all of them. I just want you to know that I did read

41:34

them from Molly Porcupine,

41:36

LHB, and then a bunch of Vs,

41:39

and then B, I'm sorry, I don't know what

41:41

your name means. Is this all one person? No,

41:44

this is Molly Porcupine is

41:46

one person. And then LHB,

41:49

and then a bunch of Vs, and then B, who

41:51

said the show is like the 2023 version of

41:53

reading zoo books, which I find very. Validating

41:57

JT Pav, Yankees

41:59

girl, see.

41:59

321 and EA Homestead. I'm

42:04

sorry if I didn't pronounce any of those

42:06

usernames the way that you intended them

42:08

to be when you wrote them down. I'm just reading

42:10

off of

42:11

our Apple podcast reviews and

42:13

I wanted you all to know that I really appreciated

42:15

the kind things you said about our show.

42:17

That's very sweet. So if you

42:19

have an animal that you want us to talk about

42:22

on the show, send them to me at Ellen at justthezoobest.com.

42:25

We're on social media. I

42:27

will let you know that I have basically stopped using

42:29

Twitter, but I am still pretty active

42:32

in our Facebook group, Instagram,

42:34

Discord, and TikTok. So links to everything

42:36

will be in the episode description

42:38

so that you can click on through. Thank

42:41

you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network

42:43

with the other shows that you heard

42:45

from earlier today. If you wanna

42:47

learn more about the network or the shows on

42:49

it, or learn how you can be a part of supporting

42:52

our show, you can go over to their website at

42:54

maximumfun.org. And

42:56

finally, thank you, Louis Zong

42:58

for our theme

42:59

music. If Louis Zong were to incorporate

43:01

the noise of a proboscis monkey into

43:04

the theme music, I think it would sound a lot

43:06

like that sick saxophone solo from the Tears

43:08

of the Kingdom trailer.

43:10

You'll never guess what's on Ellen's mind.

43:15

I've referenced the saxophone

43:16

solo from the Tears of the Kingdom trailer

43:19

like 40 times this week. We are what, three

43:21

days out from the release? I'm

43:23

chomping at the bit so bad. Oh,

43:25

also, you know what? I remember what I wanted to

43:27

say. Our podcast anniversary

43:30

is coming up on the 14th, which

43:33

is this weekend. So

43:35

happy four years of making Just the Two

43:37

of

43:37

Us. Yay! It's been a lovely four

43:40

years. It's been a great experience.