Speaker 1: Do you know what real power is? It's knowing you're
Speaker 1: on the same rate for energy all day, every day
Speaker 1: with a smart all Day plan from board Gosh Energy,
Speaker 1: save up to eight hundred and eighty euro on dual
Speaker 1: fuel plus get a two hundred and thirty five. You're
Speaker 1: a welcome bonus switch today at Boardgosh Energy dot i
Speaker 1: E Board Gosh Energy. Know your power estimation Saniel Biller
Speaker 1: twenty six hundred and twenty nine Your new customers only
Speaker 1: thurch ofcentis kentof Smart All Day Electricity uniates in twenty
Speaker 1: nine percent of GUSS See pocush Energy dot E for fulltiesncs.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, it's the cup of hazelnut flavored truck stop
Speaker 2: coffee you're too ashamed to admit you love. Alie Ward
Speaker 2: back with another episode Homologies Who Tiny chameleons, drooling dragons,
Speaker 2: venomous thick boys, legless lizards, and more. But first, thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you to everyone supporting ologies on Patreon. Thank you
Speaker 2: to everyone who gets ologies merged from ologiesmerge dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks to everyone keeping ologies up in the science charts
Speaker 2: and for telling your friends and family and foes maybe
Speaker 2: those overlap. And thank you for leaving such nice reviews
Speaker 2: that you know that I creep on days when I'm
Speaker 2: wondering do people like this? So to prove it, I
Speaker 2: read a fresh one. For example, Katie Derek says, prepare
Speaker 2: to change your life. This podcast is life changing. Did
Speaker 2: you hear me?
Speaker 3: Life changing?
Speaker 2: All caps? They say, Start with the episode on Fear,
Speaker 2: and then listen to every single other one. And thank
Speaker 2: you to everyone who listens as they do field work
Speaker 2: in Alaska, or do chores, or paint your kids' rooms,
Speaker 2: or do the dishes, or go on road trips. I'm
Speaker 2: honored to be in your pocket. Okay, lizards Sorology, let's
Speaker 2: talk about it. I guess how frickin elated I was
Speaker 2: when one day I was very busy lamenting that my
Speaker 2: wonderful Herpetology episode with doctor David Stein covered too many
Speaker 2: scaly bases, and then I stumbled upon a Wikipedia page
Speaker 2: identifying herpetology subfields. My eyes landed on the most beautiful
Speaker 2: word sorology, some angels saying some clouds parted, just a
Speaker 2: single tear race down my cheek. And I looked at
Speaker 2: a window and I whispered to this guy, fucking love
Speaker 2: lizards man, sorrows and Greek means lizards. I had just
Speaker 2: the rologists to make all of our dreams come true.
Speaker 2: I followed her on Twitter for months and months, and
Speaker 2: on Wednesdays she posts a game called hashtag find that Lizard.
Speaker 2: And these are photos from her field work that you
Speaker 2: swear zooming over all of the pixels. They got to
Speaker 2: be a hoax. There's no lizards in there, but in
Speaker 2: fact there is a lizard. So Find that Lizard made
Speaker 2: me love lizards and Wednesdays even more so. I had
Speaker 2: her over to have a real time find that Lizard
Speaker 2: session among some local grasses and cacti. And also my
Speaker 2: neighbor Donna, who's awesome and wondered why I was in
Speaker 2: my bushes. She's a lizard scientist. We're looking for lizards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is Aaron. Hi. Nice to me.
Speaker 2: She used the pan on me always in my gun.
Speaker 2: Really we were looking.
Speaker 3: It was like carto frocks. Are they I guess.
Speaker 2: They're warming themselves?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So she's like a professional lizard scientist. And I
Speaker 2: see a beer bottle. I don't know what species of
Speaker 2: beer bottle.
Speaker 3: It might be a.
Speaker 2: Genus Budweiser species. Light Every once in a while, I
Speaker 2: think I see something out of the corner of my mind.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, you see it? Yes, Oh my god, I
Speaker 3: thought it was hallucinating.
Speaker 2: Does it ever happen where you? You don't know if
Speaker 2: you saw a lizard or if you hallucinated.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, all the time. Everything is a lizard. That
Speaker 3: bush is a lizert, that rock is a loser, that
Speaker 3: piece of grass is a lizard. I'm just like movement,
Speaker 3: it must be a lizard.
Speaker 2: So we ran with it, and we crouched near a
Speaker 2: cactus to watch for some tiny movements and listened for
Speaker 2: scuttly rustling, and.
Speaker 3: We saw three dag lizards.
Speaker 2: And then we settled into my couch to chat about
Speaker 2: everything from Gecko's anti gravity grip to Komodo dragon mouthed
Speaker 2: to Godzilla, to her wildly popular find that Lizard hashtag
Speaker 2: game on Twitter, to field season, to heal a monster sightings,
Speaker 2: close encounters with lions, balls of snoozy lizards, getting hooga
Speaker 2: as hell in a hybernaculum, to some sound advice on
Speaker 2: social anxiety and how to succeed in literally any field
Speaker 2: or ambition. So spread out on a rock, soak in
Speaker 2: the warmth of this array of Science Sunshine roologist Aaron McGhee.
Speaker 3: Now you are I looked this up.
Speaker 2: You're a zerologist. Yes, did you know that before?
Speaker 3: I did? Not? Really, No, no one really uses that word.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm very happy it exists. It works.
Speaker 3: It works.
Speaker 2: Now when you tell people what you do, like at
Speaker 2: a dinner party, say, or someone's just introducing you, do
Speaker 2: you tell them that you're a lizard scientist?
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Hopefully people are curious enough to ask you like leading
Speaker 2: questions so that you can dive in. And I mean
Speaker 2: I would love to leave a dinner party and know
Speaker 2: more about lizards. Who wouldn't That's true? Now, why lizards?
Speaker 2: Are they your favorite kind of wildlife? Or did you
Speaker 2: just like being out in nature and field work and
Speaker 2: then you found that you started to do a lot
Speaker 2: of researcher.
Speaker 3: So I always knew that I wanted to work with
Speaker 3: animals from like birth to undergrad I was like, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be a veterinarian, and like you know, I
Speaker 3: was like one of those teachers type of kids, but
Speaker 3: like in the second grade, this one time, this lady
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, you can't be a veterinarian. And apparently,
Speaker 3: according to my parents. I told her, off, what did
Speaker 3: you just say to me? Because because I got sent
Speaker 3: to the principal's office, and like in my family, you
Speaker 3: don't get sent to the office. You just don't do that,
Speaker 3: and so like they had to come give me and
Speaker 3: I was like listen. But then I got to undergrad
Speaker 3: and I went and I talked to like some met
Speaker 3: school students and they were like, yeah, we have friends
Speaker 3: in med school and they are miserable. I think that
Speaker 3: the requirements of going through the process of met school
Speaker 3: are just different, where it's a lot more intense because
Speaker 3: you actually have to save these animals lives and treat
Speaker 3: them and you know, give them medicine, and you don't
Speaker 3: want to overdose somebody's pet. So pressure's on. Yeah, So Vets,
Speaker 3: thank you, Vets. I appreciate you guys. Show you my Pukah,
Speaker 3: my dog, his vet is awesome.
Speaker 2: But you were like, maybe maybe not for me, right
Speaker 2: At some point, when did you get to pivot a
Speaker 2: little bit?
Speaker 3: So my freshman year of undergrad, I did this program
Speaker 3: called h COP that's the acronym.
Speaker 2: Aaron went to Howard University in Washington, d C. And
Speaker 2: participated in h COP Health Careers Opportunity Program, and a
Speaker 2: mentor there introduced her to doctor George Minnendorff, a her petologist,
Speaker 2: who became her undergrad advisor.
Speaker 3: And then one of my other friends was like, hey,
Speaker 3: you like animals and you also need money to pay
Speaker 3: for this school. You should apply it to the Environmental
Speaker 3: Biology Scholars program.
Speaker 2: She applied, and she got in and got to poke
Speaker 2: around in some different types of fieldwork to see what
Speaker 2: floated her boat.
Speaker 3: One guy was working with fish, and I was not
Speaker 3: really interested in fish like that, and so then I
Speaker 3: started working with lizards. And then I went out to
Speaker 3: the cher Cow Mountains for the first time the summer
Speaker 3: after my freshman year, and I was like, wow, this
Speaker 3: is perfect. I get to be outside, I get to
Speaker 3: catch lizards, and this is like, you know, doing this
Speaker 3: work is like it's hard, but it's not like vet
Speaker 3: school hard. I was like, this is like the perfect,
Speaker 3: this is perfect everything that means all my criteria.
Speaker 2: Aaron says she realized doing field work that there are
Speaker 2: still so many questions about ecology and animals that were
Speaker 2: never answered, and that really excited her, and she graduated
Speaker 2: from Howard with a bachelor's in biology and then headed
Speaker 2: out to the University of Arizona to get her Masters
Speaker 2: in Wildlife Conservation and Management through the School of Natural
Speaker 2: Resources and the Environment, and she's now working toward her
Speaker 2: PhD in the same field. And speaking of being outstanding
Speaker 2: in the field when you are catching lizards, to walk
Speaker 2: me through what that is like in the field, Like
Speaker 2: how early do you have to get to a field site?
Speaker 3: What is it like?
Speaker 2: Like where do you start?
Speaker 3: All right, So for the projects that I've been doing,
Speaker 3: I've had already I scouted, you know, sites, and so
Speaker 3: we would start about eight in the morning or so,
Speaker 3: because like for the most part, the lizards aren't out
Speaker 3: like super super early. You want it to be warm
Speaker 3: by the time they get out, and normally about eight
Speaker 3: eight thirty ish it's warm enough. I love that these
Speaker 3: lizards are.
Speaker 2: Like to like like eight thirty nine, you know.
Speaker 3: And that's also perfect for me because I am not
Speaker 3: an early bird all so, like birds are out. I
Speaker 3: was just like, listen, you can't do it. I guess
Speaker 3: there's there's no like the early lizard gets the fly.
Speaker 3: You don't hear that. Yeah, So we'll get we'll get up,
Speaker 3: have breakfast, then we go grab all of our stuff.
Speaker 3: We have to make sure that we all have our
Speaker 3: lizard poles, and everybody has to make sure that their
Speaker 3: line is good and then it's not too short. It's
Speaker 3: not too long.
Speaker 2: And by the way, has a very cool piece of
Speaker 2: equipment called a lasso and it's essentially a little knot
Speaker 2: of silk thread and it's on a fishing pole.
Speaker 3: She can extend it out and then she can loop
Speaker 3: it around a lizard. She's got the lizard. So we
Speaker 3: have like a whole fanny pack system. And so like
Speaker 3: the fanny pack has like the notebook that we take
Speaker 3: our and pencils, pins, rollers, scissors, all that kind of
Speaker 3: stuff that we need. And then like we just pass
Speaker 3: off the fanning pack to the people who meet them,
Speaker 3: who meets it at whatever time. And so then when
Speaker 3: you're like you walk through however all far you need
Speaker 3: to get to get into the site, and then once
Speaker 3: you're in the site, pull is in hand. So that
Speaker 3: way when you see a lizard, you're ready to you know,
Speaker 3: go for it. And so then at that point we're
Speaker 3: just walking up and down the site. However, many times
Speaker 3: that we've decided that we're going to walk up and
Speaker 3: down the site, Normally it's just walk up once, walk
Speaker 3: down once, and then leave if there are no lizards,
Speaker 3: and occasionally in some sites that have been no lizards,
Speaker 3: it's pretty quick. And then in sites where there are
Speaker 3: a lot of lizards, you know, we might spend two
Speaker 3: three hours in a site catching lizards.
Speaker 2: This is such a stupid question. But what is a lizard?
Speaker 2: I mean, we're talking a reptile. Yes, we're talking not
Speaker 2: a snake. It has legs, although there are legless lizards. Yeah, correct,
Speaker 2: But what differentiates a lizard from say, a snake, other
Speaker 2: than legs. I feel like somewhere in between a toad
Speaker 2: and a snake lies a lizard, like an a e ven
Speaker 2: diagram of limbs and such.
Speaker 3: But I'm pretty sure it has something to do with
Speaker 3: the bones at their head shapes and at their skulls,
Speaker 3: something to do with how they're back bones and stuff
Speaker 3: that makes it together.
Speaker 2: Turns out that defining a lizard's isn't the easiest because
Speaker 2: there's so much variety in them, y'all. There are lizards
Speaker 2: that have venom, that have third eye organs at the
Speaker 2: top of their heads, They have scary Shakespearean collars. There
Speaker 2: are ones that dive and eat algae in the sea.
Speaker 2: Others that walk on water what like a Jesus, They
Speaker 2: can take down a water buffalo that can clone themselves.
Speaker 2: There are wall crawlers, nights singers, bloodshooters. Also, it's early
Speaker 2: in the episode, but I'll go there. The males have
Speaker 2: two dicks, why not travel with a spear, But don't worry.
Speaker 2: Female lizards are known to have two clitterises and researchers
Speaker 2: don't know what they're for, but you know, maybe they
Speaker 2: should just ask. But the book definition of a lizard
Speaker 2: is any suborder of reptiles distinguished from the snakes by
Speaker 2: a fused, inseparable lower jaw, a single temporal opening that's
Speaker 2: a skull hole. Kiddos, external ears, eyes with movable lids,
Speaker 2: and two pairs total four well differentiated functional limbs, which
Speaker 2: could be lacking though in burrowing forms. So there's your
Speaker 2: definition of a lizard. And also, yes, there are wormy
Speaker 2: looking legless lizards. Also, I just google image searched lizard
Speaker 2: ears because I just needed like a little lose acute
Speaker 2: and somehow a popped a photo of a person who
Speaker 2: had gaged ears with alive a knoll resting in the
Speaker 2: rubbery hammock of this person's lobe flesh. So that's enough
Speaker 2: of that. Also, some lizards like green and knoles and
Speaker 2: monitor lizards and komodo dragons which are monitor lizards, are
Speaker 2: super smart. Researchers say, maybe I on par with some
Speaker 2: bird species. So does Aaron find that when she's out
Speaker 2: catch and releasing them for her data.
Speaker 3: So it depends on a lizard, okay, some lizards are
Speaker 3: smarter than other lizards, okay. And it also depends on
Speaker 3: if they've been caught before really, because then they've learned
Speaker 3: they now know what it is. And so sometimes like
Speaker 3: a lizard will see you and it's just like they're
Speaker 3: not going to bother me, or they don't see me.
Speaker 3: My camouflage is good enough, and then you can just
Speaker 3: walk right on, like right up on them, or like
Speaker 3: sometimes they'll see you and they'll run, and then you
Speaker 3: have to run with them, and you're chasing a lizard,
Speaker 3: and you know, sometimes it takes like there or four
Speaker 3: people to catch one lizard because you're just like.
Speaker 2: Hmm, Aaron told me that to track them, her research team,
Speaker 2: like her petologists all over the world, sometimes has to
Speaker 2: snip off a few toes in a certain order as
Speaker 2: a marker. So toe clipping has its critics, of course,
Speaker 2: but catching and releasing lizards to monitor them, especially with
Speaker 2: climates are changing and water sources drying up, is important
Speaker 2: to the work that herpers are doing. And she says
Speaker 2: she takes just the minimum she needs for identification, and
Speaker 2: I did not ask what she does with the toes.
Speaker 2: I started researching to see if you can buy small
Speaker 2: bags of lizard toes, like maybe she could put them
Speaker 2: to use and sell them to a site for witches.
Speaker 2: And then that landed me on a Wickan page to
Speaker 2: see if they actually do use lizard toes for anything. Honestly,
Speaker 2: they didn't have anything about lizard toes, just some helpful
Speaker 2: info on candles and herbs and crystals. Before I knew it,
Speaker 2: I was on wick and Living reading a really great
Speaker 2: article about gratitude that really made my day. I was like, thanks, witches,
Speaker 2: most of you are probably vegan anyway, So yeah, if
Speaker 2: wild lizards don't respond by name, how else can you
Speaker 2: recognize them?
Speaker 3: Well, I also paint mark them on their back, so
Speaker 3: I'll just go a little number. How long do lizards live?
Speaker 2: Are you seeing the same ones?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Later on in the field season maybe next year.
Speaker 3: So they can live generally a little while. And it
Speaker 3: also depends on the species, but like the lizards that
Speaker 3: I'm looking at normally don't get too too much older
Speaker 3: than five or so. And the wild, Like my undergrad
Speaker 3: advisor was just like he would see this one big
Speaker 3: male lizard year after year, just like displaying for everyone.
Speaker 3: And one day it got swooped up by a bird.
Speaker 3: Oh did he see it? Yeah, he was there for it.
Speaker 2: That's pretty opportune, I'd have to say, like in terms
Speaker 2: of getting some closure on where that lizard went right,
Speaker 2: you know, Oh my god, was he just like so screaming?
Speaker 3: I probably would be like, no, he didn't go until
Speaker 3: all that details. You do see them year after year,
Speaker 3: you're like, hey, what's up to you again, And they
Speaker 3: like to hang out in the same areas for the most.
Speaker 2: Part, so it's not like they're finding a different rock.
Speaker 2: They're like, this is my rock pretty much. You come
Speaker 2: to my rock, shocker, I'm here on this rock again.
Speaker 2: It's not like they're going to move to New Jersey
Speaker 2: out of nowhere.
Speaker 3: And so for the most part, muscle lizards didn't move
Speaker 3: more than five meters and so we would see lizards
Speaker 3: year after year after year in the same places. I
Speaker 3: look back like five years because my undergrad adviser, George,
Speaker 3: he has been going out to the same site for
Speaker 3: you know, like forty years, so he had all this
Speaker 3: historical data that I could look at and grab onto
Speaker 3: and what do lizards usually eat? Are they out there
Speaker 3: eating mostly bugs? So again it depends on the species.
Speaker 3: But like the lizards that I work with, like they
Speaker 3: eat like small insects.
Speaker 2: Do they do the thing where they throw their tongue
Speaker 2: out or no? Is that just chameleons?
Speaker 3: Okay, sure if it's just chamelions.
Speaker 2: Is a chameleon a lizard?
Speaker 3: Oh okay, just one of those where I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's got these foldable toes, you know, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: its toes are like a peda pocket. I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, maybe it's not even a lizard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's totally a lizard. It seems like a.
Speaker 2: Souped up lizard because it's like a curly tail. Yes,
Speaker 2: weird toes, Yes, I change colors, and I have a
Speaker 2: telescopic tongue, Like it's got cone eyes. Why did a
Speaker 2: chameleon get all these features, got lucky, yes man? Okay.
Speaker 2: Side note. I tried to research this and types of
Speaker 2: lizard tongues was turning up relatively little. Then I tried
Speaker 2: to get fancier searching for lingual morphology in lizard species,
Speaker 2: and I found this paper, Evolution and Function of Lingual
Speaker 2: Shape in Lizards with emphasis on elongation, extensibility, and chemical sampling.
Speaker 2: But that was more about sniffing. More on that later,
Speaker 2: So then I went on a chameleon deep dive and
Speaker 2: I had to hold onto my butt for the info
Speaker 2: that came next. So Number one, chameleons tongues can be
Speaker 2: up to twice the length of their bodies, and they're
Speaker 2: made of bone and tendon and elastic tissue, folded like
Speaker 2: an accordion, and then they stretch it back like a
Speaker 2: bow and then they flick that thing out accelerating you
Speaker 2: ready for this car buff people from zero to sixty
Speaker 2: and one to one hundredths of a second. There are
Speaker 2: over two hundred species of chameleons, and there are some
Speaker 2: they're so that they can sit on the tip of
Speaker 2: a match, which I hope they only do for nacchio
Speaker 2: photo ops because imagine sitting on a giant ball of
Speaker 2: highly flammable explosives, just so people could get an idea
Speaker 2: of like how much you weigh nightmares on nightmares? Okay,
Speaker 2: but to summarize, these little buddies are native to Africa, Madagascar,
Speaker 2: Sri Lanka, Southern Europe, and they have prehensile, curly tails
Speaker 2: that can grab stuff. They have swively eyes with cone
Speaker 2: shaped lids that can move independently from each other, and
Speaker 2: they can switch from monocular to binocular vision when they
Speaker 2: need it. They can change their skin color by moving
Speaker 2: the spaces between pigment crystals under their skin. Certain chameleons
Speaker 2: have bones that glow under UV light. And yes, their
Speaker 2: toes face each other and this is called zagodactyl. In
Speaker 2: case you're ever playing scrabble and you have a Z
Speaker 2: and two ys, I thought, damn, these lizards must be
Speaker 2: the newest models on the market. But they've identified species
Speaker 2: around sixty million years old. They may be up to
Speaker 2: one hundred million years old, so they have some special features.
Speaker 2: But how do other lizards eat? Do they just order
Speaker 2: pizzas and keep up on life.
Speaker 3: So a lot of times some lizards they kind of
Speaker 3: like are sitting weight predators, so they'll just like, hmmm,
Speaker 3: I see you run up and then go back to
Speaker 3: where they were preached.
Speaker 2: So they'll just use locomotion to go in and catch
Speaker 2: a fly or whatever. Yeah, and now do you have
Speaker 2: to see if their diets changing year to year, like
Speaker 2: if there's different insects or they're they're hungry, or one
Speaker 2: year and then another.
Speaker 3: So I was looking at if they were eating emerging
Speaker 3: aquatic insects out of streams, because no one has actually
Speaker 3: looked at whether like their food sources are purely terrestrial
Speaker 3: or if they're any aquatic ones. And so because of
Speaker 3: you know, climate change and stream drying and drought and
Speaker 3: all that, I was like, well, if they're eating these
Speaker 3: aquatic insects and they're important, then you know they could
Speaker 3: be negatively impacted when these streams go away.
Speaker 2: So how does she figure out what wild lizards are eating. Well,
Speaker 2: she sequences their poop. They're not using it anymore, Okay,
Speaker 2: she might as well. She figured this is the same
Speaker 2: technique they use with lions and tigers and bears. Oh my,
Speaker 2: So we were in the middle of talking about poop
Speaker 2: and I got distracted by something on my porch. I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry.
Speaker 3: There's a lizard on the pole.
Speaker 2: Okay, see that pole. I swear I didn't hallucinate, but there.
Speaker 3: Was a big western.
Speaker 2: Fence lizard on that pole.
Speaker 3: I believe it went on the other side. I believe you.
Speaker 2: I got so excited and ducked out of you. It
Speaker 2: was there though, it was taunting us. So you figure,
Speaker 2: if you can do it with big.
Speaker 3: Cats, why not People have like the DNA sequences of
Speaker 3: you know, aquatic insects. So if they have it and
Speaker 3: then I have the poop, and then the DNA is
Speaker 3: going to be in the poop boom, only makes sense.
Speaker 2: Do you think you're the first person to analyze lizard poop?
Speaker 2: What's the most beautiful lizard?
Speaker 3: The most beautiful lizard? Well, for me, it's gonna have
Speaker 3: to like slappers share by y'all. Spiny lizard has a
Speaker 3: very special place in my heart really always be, you know,
Speaker 3: my favorite, the most beautiful to me, Yeah, because it
Speaker 3: was just like once that was like the main species
Speaker 3: that I worked with, like during my undergrad and so
Speaker 3: like for me, it's just like a symbol of like
Speaker 3: the world opening mm hmmm, like I did it and
Speaker 3: like that was like my whole new world because I
Speaker 3: was like, I didn't know that this was like a
Speaker 3: thing that I could do, and now I do, and
Speaker 3: you're now my special lizard.
Speaker 2: Quick aside, So the yarrow spiny lizard goes by scaloporous
Speaker 2: euro v informal occasions and it is quite a stunner.
Speaker 2: Their backs can have an orange glow, kind of like
Speaker 2: an edison bulb in a good first date bar, and
Speaker 2: its tail has this gray ombre that fades into this
Speaker 2: brilliant turquoise color. It's so gorgeous. It's the kind of
Speaker 2: blue you would see in pictures of like shallow tropical
Speaker 2: waters in instagram vacation photos of a person that you hate.
Speaker 2: Follow Aaron explains.
Speaker 3: What do they look like? So they are a mediumish
Speaker 3: sized lizard. The males get these nice blue patches on
Speaker 3: their stomachs and on the other side of their stomachs
Speaker 3: and on their throat. They can get like really like
Speaker 3: brilliant like oranges colors on their back and blue and
Speaker 3: like there's they're a little variable, but they're really pretty
Speaker 3: and especially in the sunlight.
Speaker 2: Why do you think they have those blue patches? What
Speaker 2: do you what does that sir, what purpose so mating?
Speaker 3: And to show you know whose boss? Don't come over
Speaker 3: in my territory. I am the big bat male. You
Speaker 3: see how dark this blue is? You see it? You
Speaker 3: see it?
Speaker 2: Go away? Really, you're like, unless you're a female, in
Speaker 2: which case, come closer.
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Is there any truth to the flim flam that if
Speaker 2: you rub a lizard on its stomach it'll get like
Speaker 2: so entranced you can just hang out with it for
Speaker 2: a minute.
Speaker 3: No, I mean once you catch it. It's just I
Speaker 3: mean sometimes they're gonna like try to bite you, and
Speaker 3: then some of them are just like, well this is
Speaker 3: the end. I'm just gonna sit here now.
Speaker 2: They're like you got me, like game over pretty much.
Speaker 2: But really you just mark them and then let them
Speaker 2: go again. Right, Yeah, so it's kind of a happy ending, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're live. Still, they're live. Something. They might be
Speaker 3: missing a couple of toads.
Speaker 2: But and now you have a poodle. You don't have
Speaker 2: any pet lizards? No, okay, what do you think about
Speaker 2: pet lizards?
Speaker 3: As long as you know how to care for them
Speaker 3: and you do so properly, and you are not getting
Speaker 3: any illegal pets or things that are bringing disease because
Speaker 3: you went through a person or a company that is
Speaker 3: just like, well, we're just gonna grab up these lizards
Speaker 3: and send them around. So as long as you do
Speaker 3: it responsible, then I don't see any issue with it.
Speaker 3: So also, don't get like a baby iguana and then
Speaker 3: let it loose in the backyard when it gets ugly, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because like like shelters do take lizards. You have an
Speaker 3: unconventional pet and you don't want it anymore and you're
Speaker 3: worried about getting rid of it, you can take it
Speaker 3: to the shelter. They'll take it. They'll take your middle
Speaker 3: aged scally iguana.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I do feel like everyone gets a
Speaker 2: baby iguana and then they're like, oh right, this thing's
Speaker 2: gonna live here right yeah with me ps Florida, you
Speaker 2: are overrun with iguanas right now. So the green iguana
Speaker 2: in particular has just flourished after folks who got them
Speaker 2: as pets in the eighties bailed and let them loose
Speaker 2: in the bushes. And then more hurricanes that we're having
Speaker 2: recently blew them over from some distant lands, and then
Speaker 2: also global warming just keeping Florida nice and toasty. So
Speaker 2: what is the problem with having eighty feral iguanas in
Speaker 2: your yard. I'm glad you asked. South Florida residents do
Speaker 2: not enjoy swimming pools felled with guana turts, which can
Speaker 2: also carry salmonilla. Also, iguanas can grow to be five
Speaker 2: feet long. They love to eat gardens, and they also
Speaker 2: like to eat power lines, meaning sometimes there are power
Speaker 2: outages because iguanas have eaten the power lines. Sometimes they
Speaker 2: turn up in people's toilets. It sounds like an iguana party,
Speaker 2: but the state's not into it.
Speaker 3: So what is a Florida to do?
Speaker 2: Well? The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission released the directive
Speaker 2: a few months ago that people can and should kill them,
Speaker 2: quote whenever possible. Did this lead to a Florida man
Speaker 2: iguana hunting but shooting his neighbor's pool guy on accident, Yes,
Speaker 2: yes it did, non fatally, but still so the Fish
Speaker 2: Commission had to release another statement just a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: saying kill them humanely. I eat quickly, preferably with a
Speaker 2: bow and arrow or traps or a rock, and try
Speaker 2: not to shoot each other. Essentially, now another option, eat them.
Speaker 2: Locals apparently refer to iguanas as boyoste arbalas or chicken
Speaker 2: of the trees, and historically they're a menu item in
Speaker 2: Western Mexico people eat iguanas all the time, so Sunshine
Speaker 2: Staters are like, why the hell not. Florida Sun Sentinel
Speaker 2: published a helpful video on how to cook and fashion
Speaker 2: these local pests into burritos. The meat is lean, the
Speaker 2: protein contents high, and reports are it has a body
Speaker 2: like a rabbit with a bony, fishy kind of tail,
Speaker 2: but tastes like chicken.
Speaker 3: Is this chicken what I have? Or is this fish?
Speaker 2: What are some flim flammeries about lizards that you feel
Speaker 2: like myths that you would like to bust.
Speaker 3: They're not slimy, for one, and for the most part,
Speaker 3: they're not gonna hurt you. They want to be left alone.
Speaker 3: Like if you see a lizard, there's no need to
Speaker 3: be afraid. They're not scary.
Speaker 2: Are there people who are afraid of lizards?
Speaker 3: There are people, like I counter lots of people who
Speaker 3: are afraid of lizards, and I get it. But then
Speaker 3: it's just like, but it's a lizard. It doesn't want
Speaker 3: to bother you. It just wants to eat the bugs
Speaker 3: mine here.
Speaker 2: That seems like a great thing to have in your house. Like, hey,
Speaker 2: if you find a lizard in your house, should you
Speaker 2: just let it hang out or should you escort it outside?
Speaker 3: You should probably escort it outside because it might not
Speaker 3: be enough bugs in your house for it to lift
Speaker 3: off of and need some water sources. And it probably
Speaker 3: got in there by accident. It probably was hanging out
Speaker 3: on the door and you open the door and it
Speaker 3: got scared, and so like it just went inside by accident.
Speaker 3: It probably wants to go back outside.
Speaker 2: Okay, So don't keep it as your like personal extermination service. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I could see having just like a house gecko that
Speaker 2: you're like, get it, get it.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a mosquito. Get it.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Aaron's viral Twitter game that runs on
Speaker 2: Wednesdays called hashtag Find Lizard. So part of the reason
Speaker 2: we went lizard hunting is that I'm obsessed with fine
Speaker 2: that lizard, and I wanted to experience it with its creator.
Speaker 3: Boy, howdy was it? Damn throw I see im.
Speaker 2: He's just chilling out. I can't believe I didn't bring
Speaker 2: my phone to take a picture. This would be a
Speaker 2: good find that lizard. He's playing with.
Speaker 3: Us I figured it would want to be in something
Speaker 3: like this because it's easy, though half somewhere to hide,
Speaker 3: and it's also pretty decent to get some sun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've made finding a lizard like seeing a celebrity
Speaker 2: in the grocery store, you know what I mean? So
Speaker 2: you have you've taken over my Wednesdays yea with find
Speaker 2: that Lizard? Yeah, hashtag find that lizard. It's my favorite
Speaker 2: thing to do on the internet. You and Kate swift
Speaker 2: Crow or no, It's like Wednesdays of the Best. Oh
Speaker 2: and then who's poop is? This is also another fun game?
Speaker 2: But find that lizard? I like, wait until it's five
Speaker 2: o'clock Central time, it's gonna go up. I know I've
Speaker 2: got a couple hours to find the lizard. Yeah, how
Speaker 2: did you start this? And why is it taken over
Speaker 2: my brain?
Speaker 3: So I just posted a picture one day because I
Speaker 3: was I was upset. Well, I wasn't upset. I was
Speaker 3: just you know, energized, Like I was just you know,
Speaker 3: really hot in the moment because I was I was
Speaker 3: trying to catch this lizard and she was giving me
Speaker 3: like a really good chase, and she almost got away,
Speaker 3: and it's like I was about to give up, and
Speaker 3: then I looked back. I was like, am I really
Speaker 3: going to give up on catching this lizard today? And
Speaker 3: then I saw it. I saw her and she was
Speaker 3: in this tree, and I was like, I almost missed her.
Speaker 3: Her camouflage was so good, but she was a recapture.
Speaker 3: So she had this bright orange five on her back
Speaker 3: because I had already marked her, and so I was like,
Speaker 3: if it wasn't for this five on her back, I
Speaker 3: would have missed her. Look guys. And then people were like,
Speaker 3: I know you said she has a mark, but I
Speaker 3: don't see her, and so I was like really, and
Speaker 3: then they were and then people were just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is fun. I think it gets their competitive nature
Speaker 3: going because they're just like, there's not a lizard in
Speaker 3: this photo, and I'm like, there is, and they're like,
Speaker 3: don't you touch that phone, don't you take.
Speaker 2: I'm still looking. I'm still looking for the lizard. Do
Speaker 2: you have your phone on you? So when you're in
Speaker 2: the field, you see a lizard and before you advance
Speaker 2: on the lizard, you're like, I gotta get a picture this.
Speaker 2: No one's gonna be able to see this lizard. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I totally do that. How many do you have in
Speaker 2: a backlog, because I want to know that, like we're
Speaker 2: covered for a long time with this fifty two, at
Speaker 2: least please.
Speaker 3: You go to week Sometimes sometimes I do, yeah, until
Speaker 3: I make this podcast. Pretty much, it's just like, well
Speaker 3: if I can, if I'm in the space and I
Speaker 3: can get a bunch of pictures, I will like there
Speaker 3: has to be some because like I recently had to
Speaker 3: upgrade my storage with iCloud because they're like, yeah, you
Speaker 3: have too many pictures. Well, I'm not deleting anything right
Speaker 3: now because I don't know if I have any good
Speaker 3: ones in here. But I also probably have thousands of
Speaker 3: pictures with no lizards in them.
Speaker 2: Gosh, is that because you thought you saw a lizard
Speaker 2: or like I.
Speaker 3: Was about to, like I pressed the button, but as
Speaker 3: soon as I press the button, it moves or ran away,
Speaker 3: you know. So like I spend a lot of time
Speaker 3: going through pictures looking for lizards that aren't there.
Speaker 2: But that's what I love about the game is you
Speaker 2: at first glanced, you're like, there's absolutely no way that
Speaker 2: there's a lizard in this, and then when you find
Speaker 2: the lizard, it's such a triumph, and then it makes
Speaker 2: you appreciate the lizard and how much evolution went into
Speaker 2: that kind of camouflage. Yeah. Do you feel like hashtag
Speaker 2: find that lizard has gotten people more stoked about lizards?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like people have told me that it's made them
Speaker 3: like more interested in lizards and made them think that
Speaker 3: it's cool, and I'm just like, yes, it's are cool. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's a cool What.
Speaker 2: Is it about kind of the predator prey relationship where
Speaker 2: they're so hard to spot, but you have to listen
Speaker 2: for the rustle or you have to see this little
Speaker 2: flicker of movement. Like are they pray for a lot
Speaker 2: of animal m Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they pray for pretty much everything bigger than them,
Speaker 3: even like other lizards, like lizards will eat lizards, snakes
Speaker 3: will eat lizards, small mammals will eat lizards, large mammals
Speaker 3: will eat lizards. You're eating the lizards. Everything eats lizards,
Speaker 3: so they have to play for the long game.
Speaker 2: They're kind of the sandwich of the natural world like us.
Speaker 2: You know, everyone's like, you take a lizard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. My undergrad advisor calls baby lizards ecological popcorn
Speaker 3: because everybody just snaps them up, just you know, a
Speaker 3: handful lot of time.
Speaker 2: Now, where are lizards having their babies, because I'm picturing
Speaker 2: the desert and or like rocky ground and are they
Speaker 2: having clutches nests?
Speaker 3: So it depends on species. Okay, so some lizards are
Speaker 3: live bears, so they'll just you know, pick a spot
Speaker 3: and pop them out. And then other lizards they lay
Speaker 3: eggs and so then they're well, the vast majority of
Speaker 3: lizards lay eggs, but some of them give life birth.
Speaker 3: But so they'll squappers frigate us. The strip plateau lizards
Speaker 3: will wait until like it rains and when the ground
Speaker 3: is nice and soft, and they'll go out and they'll dig,
Speaker 3: and then they'll bury their eggs and cover them up
Speaker 3: and then U sometimes when you're walking along the trail
Speaker 3: and you see all these like scratch marks, it's because
Speaker 3: something came by and ate the eggs. They dug them up.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's like ecological jelly beans. I know it's
Speaker 2: going to depend on the species. But do some lizards
Speaker 2: have like two eggs and some are just like, oh,
Speaker 2: I got like fifty babies in here.
Speaker 3: I can only really speak for the ones that I study,
Speaker 3: and like a lot of times they're popping out a
Speaker 3: lot of them. Yeah, because they have to survive the
Speaker 3: numbers game. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Let's stalk big lizards who can regulate temperature more slowly
Speaker 2: because of their massed surface area ratio. And for more
Speaker 2: on that, get all into body heat fun facts with
Speaker 2: a null researcher and thermophysiologist, doctor Shane Campbell Staton in
Speaker 2: the previous Thermopysiology episode, He's amazing, stupidest question. Alligators? They
Speaker 2: are lizards? No, no, thank you for telling me that.
Speaker 2: I just realized. I was like, how big does a
Speaker 2: lizard get? Is an alley? Why isn't an alligator a lizard?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, jo? Is it komodo dragon? Maybe the biggest
Speaker 2: is a kmodo dragon elizard?
Speaker 3: They are the biggest. Yeah, they are lizards.
Speaker 2: And when you see those those videos of them, like
Speaker 2: slow motion eating a deer.
Speaker 3: You're like, what is life?
Speaker 2: Komodo Dragons by the Bye hail from the Indonesian islands
Speaker 2: and can get up to ten feet long and weigh
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty pounds. And we'll touch on them
Speaker 2: a little later. But I don't mean that literally because
Speaker 2: there were none in my backyard, And no, thank you.
Speaker 2: I don't want to lay any hands on any one
Speaker 2: of those. No way, no how. Side note, I just
Speaker 2: looked it up and there is a place in Jakarta where,
Speaker 2: according to trip Advisor user Goldie six from Ohio quote
Speaker 2: the Komodo Dragon building was gorgeous and for a little
Speaker 2: extra you can touch a live, well fed Komodo dragon
Speaker 2: for the thrill of a lifetime. GOLDI sis here from America.
Speaker 2: Isn't life here thrillingly scary enough? Anyway? We're going to
Speaker 2: get to your Patreon questions, but before that, a few
Speaker 2: words about sponsors I like who make it possible each
Speaker 2: week to donate to a cause of the ologists choosing,
Speaker 2: and this week Aaron picked the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars
Speaker 2: Program or DDCSP, which is a highly selective, two year
Speaker 2: undergraduate research program focused on preparing the next generation of
Speaker 2: diverse environmental conservation professionals and it offers immersive experiential learning
Speaker 2: opportunities and access to mentorship opportunities. So for more information
Speaker 2: you can visit Doris Duke Conservation scholars dot org.
Speaker 3: Now, some words.
Speaker 2: About the sponsors who are making that donation possible. Okay,
Speaker 2: back to your questions. I have some Patreon questions may
Speaker 2: I ask you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Some people submitted several questions themselves, like some people, I
Speaker 2: have five questions about lizards, and I'm gonna submit them all.
Speaker 2: Bethany Sispanskey a lot of disease in that.
Speaker 3: Just saying wow took me a minute figure.
Speaker 2: Out how to say that. Okay, says I've read that
Speaker 2: western fence lizard blood reduces the prevalence of lime disease
Speaker 2: and is any research being done to create a vaccine
Speaker 2: based on this? Have you heard about so?
Speaker 3: I have actually recently heard about westernlizards being able to
Speaker 3: help fight lime disease. I know absolutely nothing about it
Speaker 3: besides that that is a real and actual thing. Okay.
Speaker 2: Side note, When lime infected nymph ticks feed on Western
Speaker 2: fence lizards, a certain percentage become lime free as adult tics.
Speaker 2: And this was first discovered in nineteen ninety eight by
Speaker 2: UC Berkeley entomologist Robert Layton, and a certain protein in
Speaker 2: these blessed beautiful blue bellied baby's blood kills the lime
Speaker 2: spier key bacteria. For more on this, you can see
Speaker 2: the Acarology and Disease zse Ecology episodes, which are out
Speaker 2: a few months ago, and by sea I mean here,
Speaker 2: and in no time you're going to be lovingly screaming
Speaker 2: at your loved ones to check their crevices, and you
Speaker 2: should check yours also, So don't need a Western fenciler.
Speaker 2: Let them go out and do their work exactly. Jude
Speaker 2: Kenny wants to know if a lizard loses its tail,
Speaker 2: does it grow back? If so, can this be made
Speaker 2: to happen in other animals by some kind of genetic
Speaker 2: engineering in crystal? Mendoza says, this question, please ask this one.
Speaker 2: So who else wanted to know about lizard tales? Like
Speaker 2: all of you, because it's a good question. But by
Speaker 2: all of you, I mean specifically Andreas, Ari, Richard Gents,
Speaker 2: lizard lover and first time question asker, Jennifer Alvarez, James Irvine, B. Wilson,
Speaker 2: Shannon Snyman, Carolina, and Peter Dupuy Junior.
Speaker 3: So what is it about the tail?
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, okay, I'll make another one.
Speaker 3: I do not know what exact mechanisms that like tell
Speaker 3: the lizard's body to start regenerating a tail, but they
Speaker 3: totally can. The idea is that they have vertebrae along
Speaker 3: the tail and at certain sections it will just break
Speaker 3: and so that way it just it just pops off
Speaker 3: and so that the tail will still be moving and
Speaker 3: hopefully it will distract whatever predator has grabbed the lizard
Speaker 3: and then that the lizard itself can run away. And
Speaker 3: I have no idea if people are looking into like
Speaker 3: using it for other things like for people or whatnot,
Speaker 3: but I would assume that someone at some point has
Speaker 3: actually looked into this.
Speaker 2: I wonder if you could just crisper yourself a tail,
Speaker 2: You're like, you know what I'd like, I'd like to
Speaker 2: just grow a tail today is Danielle Rivera wants to
Speaker 2: know why are parthenogenic lizards so cool? Parentheses? They are
Speaker 2: so cool? So wants to know they I guess can
Speaker 2: they just make more lizards without a mate?
Speaker 3: Yes? You know, sometimes when you don't meet men, it's
Speaker 3: just it's just the cool thing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you want things done and you want it done
Speaker 3: your way, and that means that nobody else is involved,
Speaker 3: but you.
Speaker 2: Maybe their career lizards. Yeah, like, I'm not gonna wait around.
Speaker 3: Are they clones or are they a mash up? They're clones?
Speaker 2: They are? Yeah, my gosh. I wonder if they're all
Speaker 2: named like Sharon, Shana Shara. I knew someone whose family
Speaker 2: was all named like Cheryl and Shannon Shana, Like just
Speaker 2: name them all after you.
Speaker 3: You're like, see, yah, that's cool. Does that happen when.
Speaker 2: Maybe there aren't resources or there aren't males, or does
Speaker 2: that just happen because like time's right now is good?
Speaker 3: So I was looking this up for some whiptail species,
Speaker 3: especially the ones that you can find, and so they're
Speaker 3: in Arizona. And it happens when one closely related species
Speaker 3: mates with another closely related species and then the babies
Speaker 3: they produce ends up being parthenogenic.
Speaker 2: I started reading some research papers on this, but I
Speaker 2: want to give hardcore props to the Wikipedia page titled
Speaker 2: parthenogenesis in Squamata, which sounds like actual gibberish verbal coals law,
Speaker 2: but once you know, parthen genesis means literally virgin birth
Speaker 2: aka all the single ladies, and squamata means snakes and lizards.
Speaker 2: Squata means scale and Latin, so one species of snake,
Speaker 2: but fifty species of lizard roughly undergo obligate parthenogenesis, and
Speaker 2: that means that's the only.
Speaker 3: Way they do it.
Speaker 2: That's how they reproduce, and then there's an unknown number
Speaker 2: that mostly do it when there just aren't dudes around,
Speaker 2: And that's called facultative parthenogenesis. I think that is how
Speaker 2: you say it. Also, apparently busting out children solo can
Speaker 2: benefit reptiles. If they say wash ashore on an island,
Speaker 2: they find themselves dudeless. And while the whiptail lizards are
Speaker 2: all clones of their mothers and no males even exist,
Speaker 2: other virgin lizard birth can happen as full clones of
Speaker 2: the mother or have clones if she mixes up her
Speaker 2: own DNA into different alleles. But what if they are
Speaker 2: of the clone variety.
Speaker 3: Once they have the cloning ability, it's parthenogenic, you know.
Speaker 3: Party a part of the party. Yeah, just all the
Speaker 3: guests look identical, right, I would like to attend that
Speaker 3: lizardly clone party and just be a gawking wallflower. Speaking
Speaker 3: of clinging to walls, this next one about magic lizard
Speaker 3: feet was also asked by Sarah clips.
Speaker 2: Patrick McNeely wants to know how do lizards stick and
Speaker 2: climb on vertical surfaces so easily when they are relatively large?
Speaker 2: So I think these are some vanderwall forces, right, How
Speaker 2: are they climbing things?
Speaker 3: Well, some lizards, you know, if they have their claws,
Speaker 3: they can just you know, get up there with their class.
Speaker 3: But then with things like geckos, but they have like
Speaker 3: these little anybody things that allow them to like grip
Speaker 3: on you know, the little bitty molecules, like we feel
Speaker 3: like the solid wall, whereas they have like, oh, there's
Speaker 3: like these little dents on this solid wall, and I
Speaker 3: can grip on them because I have all these little
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what they are, but I have
Speaker 3: all these little things on the pads.
Speaker 2: That So that's how those intermolecular forces are working. That's vannerwal.
Speaker 3: Oh that's cool.
Speaker 2: I never understood that before. So I did a little digging,
Speaker 2: and apparently gecko's feet are covered in fine hairs called seti,
Speaker 2: and then each of those is freighted at the end
Speaker 2: like an old rope, giving their feets billions of little
Speaker 2: bristles called spatulai. So gecko's feet are just a fuzz factory,
Speaker 2: and the Vanderwall's forces a kind of physical bond via
Speaker 2: electrostatic attraction between those hairs and the little contours, and
Speaker 2: the wall keeps them looking glued to it when the
Speaker 2: surface is super slick or those hairs get covered is
Speaker 2: when their wall walking starts to Weanhe and I read
Speaker 2: that a single gecko crawling on a ceiling could support
Speaker 2: ninety pounds of weight, and one biologist who studied how
Speaker 2: the precise angles of those hairs help the geckos switch
Speaker 2: the forces on and off. Someone named Keller Autumn is
Speaker 2: quoted as saying geckos are vastly over engineered. They're overqualified
Speaker 2: for their wall walking, they're too good at it. And
Speaker 2: somewhere there's a chameleon raising its icones like a bitch
Speaker 2: and muttering yeah, yeah, I guess an invisibility cloak isn't
Speaker 2: enough anymore. Also, I fear a dystopia where robots can
Speaker 2: climb walls and disappear into their surroundings and flick a wet,
Speaker 2: sticky muscle thirty feet to catch things. So for now,
Speaker 2: just make like a happy witch. Appreciate that you were
Speaker 2: born at cricket. Can you imagine that would suck? This
Speaker 2: is a good question. Mark Turner asked, what's the purpose
Speaker 2: of the forked tongue?
Speaker 3: So it is sensory again back to surface area. But
Speaker 3: it's like if you have more space to have more
Speaker 3: of those things to collect scent chemicals on your tongue,
Speaker 3: and then you can bring it back up to like
Speaker 3: there's a little thing right here in the face where
Speaker 3: they can put the tongue and then it analyzes like
Speaker 3: the chemicals and lets them know things about the environment.
Speaker 3: There's a whole name for it, and I learned it
Speaker 3: in class, and I just don't remember. I'm sorry, doctor Korpowski.
Speaker 3: You definitely explained it to me, but I remember what
Speaker 3: you were talking about. This is what asides are for.
Speaker 2: So this organ is called a vomaro nasal organ or
Speaker 2: a Jacobsons organ, which sounds less like vomiting and is
Speaker 2: easier to pronounce. A Jacobsen's organ is there for lizards
Speaker 2: to jam their air samplings into the roof of their
Speaker 2: mouth so that they can figure out what's in the air.
Speaker 2: Don't you wish you had a vomaro nasal organ. Don't worry,
Speaker 2: we do. Scientists just think it's hanging out and we
Speaker 2: don't really use it. But elephants use theirs, and so
Speaker 2: do a bunch of other animals. But we don't care
Speaker 2: about those other animals. We care about lizards. So It's
Speaker 2: kind of like putting a broom out there. Like the
Speaker 2: more bristles you have, the more information you can collect.
Speaker 2: Oh that's cool, Christina Weaver. Want you know what makes
Speaker 2: it komodo dragon's bite so terrible?
Speaker 3: They have a big head with a whole lot of
Speaker 3: sharp teeth, and then they also have venom glands and
Speaker 3: they will inject you with venom and it's nasty stuff.
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, what is that? Is that to kind of
Speaker 2: paralyze prey or to stone it.
Speaker 3: After a while you will start to get paralyzed, but uh,
Speaker 3: it basically starts breaking down your body from the inside.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Yeah, that's effective. What are those big
Speaker 2: old drooly things that they've got? Is that drool or
Speaker 2: do they have sensory organs? You know sometimes you watch
Speaker 2: like a Komodo dragon in slow motion and it's.
Speaker 3: Just like stuff coming down like dingle dangles. Yeah, that's true. Nice.
Speaker 3: Oh that drool is it's stink over whitey, I would assume.
Speaker 3: So hopefully one day I'll get close enough to find out,
Speaker 3: you know, like close enough whereas like a cool thing,
Speaker 3: but not close enough where they're gonna eat my face.
Speaker 3: Maybe a sleepy one a sleeping dragon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean compared to fire breathing dragon venom and drool,
Speaker 2: isn't that bad?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, quick aside on komodo dragon drool. So for
Speaker 2: decades it was thought that the bacteria in their mouths
Speaker 2: acted as a venom and that was what was killing
Speaker 2: their prey, before researchers realized, oh no, it's just actual
Speaker 2: venom they have. They even went so far as to
Speaker 2: swab and culture komodo dragon mouths and found out that
Speaker 2: they're relatively clean for an animal that eats a bunch
Speaker 2: of rotting meat. So their teeth rip apart prey and
Speaker 2: then their venom toxins lower the prey's blood pressure and
Speaker 2: prevent clotting so that their victims bleed out, and then
Speaker 2: they eat their corpses. Now, water buffaloes, when injured, though,
Speaker 2: they'll go hide and usually in a pool of stagnant water.
Speaker 2: So why water buffaloes get such terrible infections from a
Speaker 2: komodo dragon bite. Well, an expert in this Brian Fry
Speaker 2: and Queensland explained thusly, it's the same as if you
Speaker 2: dumped a whole bunch of cow dung in your pool
Speaker 2: during the peak heat of summer shaved your legs with
Speaker 2: a very old razor and then went and stood in
Speaker 2: the water for a day, says Fry, you'd end up
Speaker 2: with some very tasty infections. This just makes me want
Speaker 2: to hang out with more lizard researchers, and I would
Speaker 2: also like to hang out with YouTube uploaders Team Hazard
Speaker 2: Rides again, who filmed a bunch of male Komodo dragons
Speaker 2: mercilessly slapping each other in the face with their huge tails.
Speaker 3: Each lizard is really.
Speaker 2: Like it had just had a skinny margarita tossed in
Speaker 2: its face on a yacht. But please enjoy their wonderful,
Speaker 2: delicate moment in Dad punnery.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, whoa knockdown dragon down fight? He knockdown dragon fight?
Speaker 1: Is that what you were going for?
Speaker 2: Christopher Rujeou wants to know deadliest lizard.
Speaker 3: I guess as far as venom and stuff goes like
Speaker 3: komodo dragons. But it then is also like either the
Speaker 3: Asian monitor or the now Monitor is between one of
Speaker 3: those two who are like the most aggressive. I think
Speaker 3: that those are the ones where they've seen the most
Speaker 3: one of those two that they've seen the most deaths with,
Speaker 3: And that's just like people getting, you know, too close
Speaker 3: and harassing a lot, like, leave the lizard alone? What
Speaker 3: do they want?
Speaker 2: Do they want a selfie with a lizard?
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 2: Can you eat those big lizards?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure you can eat just about everything,
Speaker 3: well that you really wanted to. I would. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: I personally, I mean, you know, well you actually if
Speaker 3: I was stuck in stranded somewhere, I might eat a lizard. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if it's between me and the lizard, I love you,
Speaker 3: but I'm.
Speaker 2: Sorry if you're naked and afraid enough, like anyone will
Speaker 2: eat a lizard. Charlotte Rigue wants to know why do
Speaker 2: lizards insist on having babies in my ivy plants? Are
Speaker 2: they going to eat my plants?
Speaker 3: Probably not. It's probably just a safe space for them
Speaker 3: where they're just like, hmmm, I can get around here,
Speaker 3: and then I can hide from stuff, and like you
Speaker 3: might have some little aphids or something that fits some
Speaker 3: baby lizard's mouths, and they're just like, this is the
Speaker 3: perfect place I have my babies. They can hide and
Speaker 3: they have food.
Speaker 2: So Charlotte, just you should be proud that you're such
Speaker 2: a good host. Yeah, you know, pretty much make yourself
Speaker 2: at home in my ivy just I left some aphids
Speaker 2: out in case you and the kids are hungry. James
Speaker 2: Irvine says, so many questions, many o's, nine o's. Is
Speaker 2: it painful when they drop a tail?
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's painful, like the way that
Speaker 3: we think about pain. I mean, I couldn't even imagine
Speaker 3: what that would feel like if I had the ability
Speaker 3: to just like let one of my limbs go, like
Speaker 3: you know, I would feel like it probably would be sore,
Speaker 3: but I feel like it wouldn't be a whole lot
Speaker 3: of pain. If it's like one of those things where
Speaker 3: it's like, this is what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 2: Right, you know what I mean? Like, if you've evolved
Speaker 2: the ability to drop tail, chances are you've also evolved
Speaker 2: not a whole lot of really raw bir ndings there.
Speaker 3: Maybe exactly one of the main points of it is
Speaker 3: to escape predators and survive. Then it doesn't make that
Speaker 3: much sense to drop the tail, and then to have
Speaker 3: that process costs so much trauma that you know it
Speaker 3: impacts your survival later on. Of course, it's going to
Speaker 3: be negatively impacted by having to heal it, regrow it,
Speaker 3: and then not have like as strong as a tail
Speaker 3: as it did before. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 3: just like it should be not painful, so painful that
Speaker 3: you can't keep on living as a lizard who's dropped
Speaker 3: his tail.
Speaker 2: Good point. Side note, I did some digging and yes,
Speaker 2: all experts seem to agree that it doesn't hurt. But
Speaker 2: can you imagine if you got in a fight with
Speaker 2: someone and as a distraction, you just dropped your butt
Speaker 2: at their feet and then ran and it didn't even hurt.
Speaker 2: Another reason why lizards to serve you stopping and physically
Speaker 2: saluting them when you see them, like me with a
Speaker 2: migraine fight anyone. And also, James, everyone wants to know
Speaker 2: what's with the whole eye blood shooting. Can we talk
Speaker 2: about horned lizards?
Speaker 3: But my undergrad advisor, George Menendorsh was one of the
Speaker 3: people who like did the experiments with them and like
Speaker 3: grow it that up. And so it's basically they're bursting
Speaker 3: an eye vessel, a blood vessel in their eye to
Speaker 3: like shoot the blood and hopefully, you know, get away.
Speaker 2: And that's just to terrify this shit out of whatever
Speaker 2: trying to eat them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my god, might also be like a little nasty,
Speaker 3: super nasty.
Speaker 2: It's so hardcore death metal though, where it's like instad
Speaker 2: just dropping a tail or, I don't know, like having
Speaker 2: a fan behind their head that comes out. They just
Speaker 2: burst their own blood vessels and shoot it at somewhere.
Speaker 2: That's so respectable. I love that so much. Just google
Speaker 2: horned lizard shooting blood from its eyes. If you don't
Speaker 2: believe me, again, Salute the lizards. Jennifer Alvarez wants to
Speaker 2: know do anoles raise their young or stay in past?
Speaker 2: I saw a dad and nol with a much smaller
Speaker 2: kid and all the other day and wondered.
Speaker 3: As far as I know, they don't raise they're young.
Speaker 3: It might have just been that they were occupying the
Speaker 3: same space at the same time, which lizards do sometimes.
Speaker 3: So if it's like a lot of times lizards do
Speaker 3: get pretty aggressive and territorial, but other times you do
Speaker 3: might see a couple right next to each other, especially
Speaker 3: if it's like early in the morning and everybody's just
Speaker 3: waking up and everybody has to warm up and no
Speaker 3: one has the energy to fight just yet, and that
Speaker 3: type of thing.
Speaker 2: Where are these lizards sleeping? Are their bunk beds full
Speaker 2: of lizards, so.
Speaker 3: Yes and no, okay, So like during like the regular season,
Speaker 3: so like you're in the winter, the winter is ending,
Speaker 3: spring is coming out, and like you have a hybernacula,
Speaker 3: and in this hybernacula is like hundreds of lizards see
Speaker 3: and so then like dreams, it starts to get warm,
Speaker 3: and everybody's like we're coming out and we're spreading out,
Speaker 3: and like the big you know, dominant lizards are staying
Speaker 3: in the closest to the hybernacula, and everybody else is
Speaker 3: having to go further and further away in order to
Speaker 3: find their own territories. And then they buy new crevices
Speaker 3: or something to have their own little houses or whatnot.
Speaker 3: And then like friend Knowles stuff that live in trees.
Speaker 3: Then it's just like, well, we got to share this
Speaker 3: tree and this is this is my spot on the tree,
Speaker 3: and you better go to your spot on the tree.
Speaker 2: And are they are they overwintering? Are they hibernating?
Speaker 3: And Knowles, yeah, they do. Do most lizards hybernate? Yes?
Speaker 2: Really, so they start to come out like in the spring,
Speaker 2: then oh my gosh, I.
Speaker 3: Love Like in Tucson, their their period is shorter because
Speaker 3: like it's a shorter period of like really cold weather,
Speaker 3: so like you'll see them all the way up until
Speaker 3: like December, and then they'll go away for a while,
Speaker 3: and then they'll come back out and like the end
Speaker 3: of February, beginning of March.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that when we're in the middle of
Speaker 2: holiday nuttiness and we're having warm cocoa and wearing mittens.
Speaker 2: Just to think of all of these little lizards just
Speaker 2: snoozing right like in a big hybernacula, just a big
Speaker 2: ball a lizard, right pretty much see in a couple
Speaker 2: of months. Brandon Altimos wants to know does parthing genesis
Speaker 2: make a species more susceptible to pathogens and other diseases
Speaker 2: due to reduced genetic variability compared to sexual reproduction.
Speaker 3: Yes, because if everybody is the same and then the
Speaker 3: same thing is killing everybody, then no, there's nothing to
Speaker 3: protect you from.
Speaker 2: Yep, you're all going down with the shit. You're like, thanks, Mom,
Speaker 2: I'm right, and she's like, oh, I know, right, but oh,
Speaker 2: poor girl. Katie Shabaz wants to know which lizards make
Speaker 2: the best pets.
Speaker 3: I have zero knowledge about the pet trait when it
Speaker 3: comes to lizards.
Speaker 2: I'll ask the internet. I love you all, and I
Speaker 2: did not want to leave you gazing out of a
Speaker 2: bus window thinking, but what is the best pet lizard?
Speaker 2: So I asked the internet and one site said that
Speaker 2: the leopard get Go is probably the most popular pet
Speaker 2: reptile in captivity today. They say these small lizards are
Speaker 2: available in a variety of pleasing colors and patterns, their
Speaker 2: care requirements are very simple, and they are generally docile.
Speaker 2: Now where did I get this information about best pet lizards?
Speaker 2: You ask, well at bestpetlizard dot com. So I'm gonna
Speaker 2: reckon they must be either an authority on the matter
Speaker 2: or they are just very crafty, deceitful gecko lobbyists. But
Speaker 2: Katie Shavez another patron Sarah Clips did chime in on
Speaker 2: the question thread and added crested geckos forever with five
Speaker 2: hard eyed emojis. And I think that lends a certain
Speaker 2: impassioned authority to her console, which brings us to a
Speaker 2: semantics Amanda Ringcon wants to know, Hello, what are the
Speaker 2: differences between lizards and geckos? Not all succulents are cacti,
Speaker 2: but all cacti are succulents. Yes, so in this the
Speaker 2: cacti is the gecko kind of like toads or frogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess you have like different families of lizards.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that works.
Speaker 2: It's all under the lizard umbrella. Rinny Coli asked, I
Speaker 2: had a green iguana for a while and she laid
Speaker 2: one clutch of eggs while I had her, but she
Speaker 2: ate them.
Speaker 3: Well, I would off the top of my head. I
Speaker 3: would just assume that she knows that they weren't flirt
Speaker 3: to wise, and so it was like, hm, well, if
Speaker 3: that's energy I put out, I guess there's energy I'm
Speaker 3: putting back in instead of just letting them sit there
Speaker 3: and rot.
Speaker 2: Thank god, women don't have to say that. Once someone right,
Speaker 2: you're like, I made it, I'm gonna use it.
Speaker 3: And yeah.
Speaker 2: Last patron question, Megan McLean says, are there poisonous venomous
Speaker 2: lizards besides the Komodo dragon?
Speaker 3: So there are other venomous lizards. So you have the
Speaker 3: Mexican beat it lizard, and then you have the Helo monster.
Speaker 3: The Helo Monster's venomous. Why do the Helo monster have
Speaker 3: such beady skin?
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 3: I mean to let you know that it's venomous. Don't
Speaker 3: this with me. I am a very like interestingly brightly
Speaker 3: colored thing, and I am so slow moving and I
Speaker 3: don't want to be bothered. But if you bother me,
Speaker 3: you can, you can, you can have the smoke. It's
Speaker 3: all for you if you want it. I'm telling you.
Speaker 3: You don't what happens with their venom So it doesn't
Speaker 3: it's not like that bad for people, like for like
Speaker 3: small mammals and stuff. When they eat it, it's just like, oh,
Speaker 3: I guess I'm dying now. But like for people, it's
Speaker 3: more of like their jaws, because like when they clamp
Speaker 3: down on you, like that's it you. This is a
Speaker 3: if it's on your wrist, this is your new watch.
Speaker 3: So like, don't don't mess with them because they have
Speaker 3: to clamp down and they won't let go.
Speaker 2: How do you get a HeLa monster off of.
Speaker 3: You the hospital? Yeah, yes, you do need a professional
Speaker 3: at that point. And you love HeLa monsters. I want
Speaker 3: to see one in the wild so badly, it just
Speaker 3: has not happened. Where do you go to look? So
Speaker 3: people have been telling me to go to like Beer
Speaker 3: Canyon and Sabino Canyon, and I've been going and like,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen anything yet. Although I might have seen
Speaker 3: a mountain lion, I'm not sure. I might have gotten
Speaker 3: eat it, almost eaten by it. I'm not one hundred
Speaker 3: percent sure. And so like we were walking from the
Speaker 3: parking lot to the trails and we didn't even make
Speaker 3: it to an actual trail yet. And then I was
Speaker 3: just like, hmm, that looks interesting. Hmm are those eyes?
Speaker 3: And they were like like kind of high up and
Speaker 3: like they're forward facing, and I was just like, do
Speaker 3: you see that? And like she was like, nah, the stuff,
Speaker 3: And so like we just turned around and left. At
Speaker 3: that point, we weren't even looking for monsters anymore. We
Speaker 3: were just like, let's just let's just walk around because
Speaker 3: she's never done it before. And I was because like, like,
Speaker 3: I'm the friend who like dragged my friends to go
Speaker 3: do no experiences.
Speaker 2: And what would you do if you saw a heel
Speaker 2: a monster in the wild?
Speaker 3: I probably cry, I'd be so happy, happy tears.
Speaker 2: Where do they hang out in the wild?
Speaker 3: Under rocks, around rocks, underground From the vast majority of
Speaker 3: the year, people have been telling me too, is that
Speaker 3: everybody who's seen them this year has been telling me
Speaker 3: that they've been seeing them on the roads, like just
Speaker 3: crossing the road, and really, I never seen it when
Speaker 3: I'm driving along the road.
Speaker 2: Aaron says that between the two summers she spent as
Speaker 2: an undergrad in Arizona plus three years in grad school,
Speaker 2: she has wanted to see a HeLa monster for five years.
Speaker 3: Five years.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna cross my fingers that there's a HeLa out
Speaker 2: there that you get to spot and you have a
Speaker 2: moment with it that doesn't involve the hospital.
Speaker 3: Same. Yes, you know, have a safe distance with wildlife.
Speaker 3: It's totally cool to go out looking for it and
Speaker 3: finding it. But safe distances, y'all like good and now
Speaker 3: that would be a good and a bad thing. But
Speaker 3: what is the worst thing.
Speaker 2: About your job? What it sucks? Something's gotta suck.
Speaker 3: I guess, like, you know, once you're in the field
Speaker 3: for like four weeks at a time and you still got,
Speaker 3: you know, another two weeks to go, You're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm tired of this. Now, I'm ready to be home.
Speaker 3: Do you travel a lot for field work? So, and
Speaker 3: the chair Cowls are about two and a half three
Speaker 3: hours away from Tucson. So like, once I'm out there,
Speaker 3: I'm out there and I'm not coming back until the
Speaker 3: season is over.
Speaker 2: And when is that season usually, like so it varies
Speaker 2: for lizard people.
Speaker 3: It can be anywhere from like May through September, but
Speaker 3: I'm going in July.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which brings me to another question. Is there such
Speaker 2: a thing as a shape shifting lizard person?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't know, because it changed its shape so that
Speaker 3: it could, you know, conceal itself from me. But I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna say no. You never know.
Speaker 2: You guys don't ever have to do field work with
Speaker 2: the Illuminati to see if there's shape shifting lizard aliands
Speaker 2: like that one.
Speaker 3: Oh, I wish that would be cool.
Speaker 2: What is the best thing about lizards or your job?
Speaker 3: The business thing for me is just being able to
Speaker 3: like handle these animals without causing them like a whole
Speaker 3: lot of stress. And then I'm like, oh, I can
Speaker 3: see you, I can learn more about you. I also
Speaker 3: have like the opportunity to take undergrad students out with
Speaker 3: me through the Doors Duke Program Conservation Scholars Program, and
Speaker 3: so I get to teach them about lizards and they
Speaker 3: get to do their own like mini projects and like
Speaker 3: it's a lot of fun being able to just go
Speaker 3: out with them and you know, learn together and explore together.
Speaker 3: That's pretty fun.
Speaker 2: Any advice for people who want to be Zerologists.
Speaker 3: I would say to, you know, get out there and
Speaker 3: find a mentor. I think that's what's really been good
Speaker 3: for me. I've been lucky enough to have two really
Speaker 3: great mentors, So George for undergrad and Mico Bogan for
Speaker 3: grad school have both been like phenomenal. And once you
Speaker 3: have an interest, just finding those people who would really
Speaker 3: support you, Like I feel like that's key. Like once
Speaker 3: you have those people who will have your back, then
Speaker 3: your set. Of course, you're gonna like run into hardships,
Speaker 3: but they'll help you, you know, get over those obstacles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. I've heard that before that a lot
Speaker 2: of people who are really successful really recommend finding a mentor,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people are too afraid to ask,
Speaker 2: but yeah, they don't realize that mentors do want to help. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sure that you'll you're a mentor to
Speaker 2: other people already and you will probably continue to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean also like I get being too
Speaker 3: afraid to ask, because like I'm definitely one of those
Speaker 3: people where it's like I had to prepare myself for
Speaker 3: like talking to new people and meeting new people and like,
Speaker 3: cause like I have, like you know, that social anxiety.
Speaker 3: I'm just like, oh, what if I'm weird. I'm walking
Speaker 3: weird right now. My telling isn't working quite right. There's spit.
Speaker 3: There's a spit coming down my face home. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: the spit like and so it's like like there's definitely
Speaker 3: like a whole lot of practice there. And then you
Speaker 3: also have to like get over that fear of people
Speaker 3: telling you know, because like you know, if you ask
Speaker 3: enough people, somebody's gonna say yes, and hopefully it's one
Speaker 3: of the people who you actually want. And then you know,
Speaker 3: you'll take good opportunities as they come. You don't have
Speaker 3: to take all opportunities, because you know, not all opportunities
Speaker 3: are good opportunities or like the right ones for you,
Speaker 3: but definitely just like not being afraid to go after
Speaker 3: what you want and then just being like, Okay, this
Speaker 3: is what I want. These are the things I have
Speaker 3: to do to get there. This person told me no,
Speaker 3: but this person over here might say yes. And sometimes
Speaker 3: when people tell you no, it's not because they don't
Speaker 3: like you. Or because they don't believe in you, they
Speaker 3: might not have time, and so then it's just like Okay,
Speaker 3: this person said no, Hey, I know you said no,
Speaker 3: but can you have some other resource? Like can I
Speaker 3: have some other resources from you? Like do you know
Speaker 3: somebody who can put me in contact with? Or you know,
Speaker 3: who should I go talk to next? Or like what
Speaker 3: direction should I go in? And like a lot of
Speaker 3: times people will be like, Okay, well yeah, I said no,
Speaker 3: but here are these other things I got you for that,
Speaker 3: And sometimes people are just mean and you just have
Speaker 3: to write that off.
Speaker 2: Like, but that's good life advice for any job. All
Speaker 2: of that is like such solid life advice you could
Speaker 2: use if you were a clothing designer or you know,
Speaker 2: if you any aspiration you have, that is such solid
Speaker 2: advice that is so good to hear if you just
Speaker 2: have that kind of resilience, which I think science fosters
Speaker 2: a lot of resilience because there's a lot of resilience
Speaker 2: in data and experiments. And now what about parting piece
Speaker 2: of advice? How do you find that lizard if you
Speaker 2: were playing find that lizard any strategies or is it
Speaker 2: just attentiveness?
Speaker 3: So like real life for the game the game the game,
Speaker 3: turn your brightness all the way up, and then have
Speaker 3: like a strategy, like like for me, like when I'm like, hmm,
Speaker 3: I need to find a picture for this game today,
Speaker 3: and I don't know where this lizard is in it,
Speaker 3: and if it's in my phone, there's a fifty percent
Speaker 3: chance that there's no listener to here. So I tell
Speaker 3: my brightness all the way up, and then I start
Speaker 3: at one quarter and I go down, and then I
Speaker 3: go over a little bit, and then I go back up,
Speaker 3: and then I go over a little bit and go
Speaker 3: now and I'm just like scanning the picture and so
Speaker 3: like I find it, and then sometimes I'm just like,
Speaker 3: well maybe next time. I love that. Sometimes you have
Speaker 3: to find the lizard. I definitely do. Is That's how
Speaker 3: I know that there's like always a lizard in the
Speaker 3: photo because I spend a long sometimes I spend a
Speaker 3: long time looking through these photos to make sure that
Speaker 3: there's actually one in there.
Speaker 2: You're like, I'm not only the master of this, I'm
Speaker 2: also a player, yes, And where can people find you?
Speaker 3: So they can find me on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 3: afro Underscore Harper so a f R O underscore h
Speaker 3: E R P E R and yeah, per usual.
Speaker 2: There will be links in the show notes and also
Speaker 2: up on my website at Aliward dot com slash ologies,
Speaker 2: slash Zerology and also get the frick ready for Find
Speaker 2: that Lizard on Wednesdays. And I just found out that
Speaker 2: Aaron has a Patreon setup at patreon dot com slash
Speaker 2: find that Lizard in case we'd like to support these efforts.
Speaker 3: You're gonna have a lot of new players. That's so exciting,
Speaker 3: so I hope you guys like it. Thank you for
Speaker 3: having me. It's been great. It was so much fun.
Speaker 3: I was so nervous and no reason to be nervous
Speaker 3: for the best.
Speaker 2: Rologists literally, so ask smart zorologists stupid questions and salute
Speaker 2: the lizards. Salute the lizards again. More links are up
Speaker 2: at aliward dot com slash sorology, and we are at
Speaker 2: ologies on Instagram and on Twitter. Come say hi there,
Speaker 2: I am at Ali Ward with one L on both ologies.
Speaker 2: Merch is available at ologiesmirch dot com. Thank you Bonnie
Speaker 2: Dutch and Shannon Feltis, who hosts the brand new comedy
Speaker 2: podcast You are that for helping with merch. You can
Speaker 2: post your photos and tagmologies merch so we can repost
Speaker 2: you on Instagram on merch Mondays. And thank you Aaron
Speaker 2: Talbert and Hannah Liippo who admin the ologies podcast Facebook
Speaker 2: group full of nice people, And thanks to whoever started
Speaker 2: the Ology's podcast subreddit to chat about episodes. Thanks to
Speaker 2: Jarrett Sleeper of the mental health podcast Make Good, Bad
Speaker 2: Brain for editing assistance. And also big thanks to the
Speaker 2: mustachio Chameleon of the podcasting World, host of the percast
Speaker 2: and see Jurassic Right, Stephen Ray Morris for editing this
Speaker 2: altogether each week. Could not do it without you. Nick
Speaker 2: Thorburn wrote and performed the theme music. And if you
Speaker 2: listen to the end of the episode each week, you
Speaker 2: want to tell you a secret. I learned the hard
Speaker 2: way that if you get something shipped to you in
Speaker 2: like a big box, you open that outside because sometimes
Speaker 2: there's a thirsty warehouse cockroach waiting in the box, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about it ever, ever, ever,
Speaker 2: ever ever. For my Pacaderman College bobbiology or noo zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, fatology, anthology, seriology, ethnology.
Speaker 3: The lizards are a buck each.
Speaker 2: The parrot is five hundred dollars. That's a hell of
Speaker 2: a good parrot, although I could get five hundred lizards
Speaker 2: for the same price. Girls like swarms of lizards, right,