12: Golden Poison Frog & Tamandua
Christian: Hi everyone, this is Christian Weatherford.
Ellen: And this is Ellen Weatherford.
Christian: And this is Just the Zoo of Us, a podcast where we review your favorite animals by giving them a rating out of 10 in three categories: effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. I like to think we do a good job of it. We are not zoological experts. We do a lot of research and we try our best to make sure we're presenting information from trustworthy sources.
Ellen: We're doing our best out here.
Christian: Alright honey, who's going first this week?
Ellen: Well, baby, last week I went first and so this week it's your turn.
Christian: Excellent.
Ellen: What you got?
Christian: My animal for this week is the golden poison frog.
Ellen: Okay! Interesting!
Christian: A lot of people are aware of the poison dart frogs, which is really just kind of a term for a whole family of frogs that encompasses a bunch of different species, but I'm specifically talking about the golden poison frog, whose scientific name is Phyllobates terribilis. Is it just me or is that name similar to terrible?
Ellen: How do you spell it?
Christian: T-E-R-R-I-B-I-L-I-S.
Ellen: That pretty much just is terrible.
Christian: Uh, there might be a reason for this, but more to come.
Ellen: I hope that doesn't forbode poorly. Like I hope that's not ominous about what it's rating is going to be.
Christian: Oh Non it is amazing. Um, it's for a different actor for which it is terrible. But anyway, my information for this one is coming from nationalgeographic.com, wou.edu, which is the Western Oregon University website, bbc.com and the Crash Course youtube channel. I'll go more in specifics about that when I get to that subject.
Ellen: Okay. We're going to learn today.
Christian: So basic info for our little froggy friend, their average size is one inch long, or two and a half centimeters about.
Ellen: That's no chickens.
Christian: Like the toenail of a chicken? I don't know. That is the length of a paper clip abouts.
Ellen: Like a jumbo paper clip or like a normal paper clip?
Christian: I don't know what the standardized paper clips are. There might be a difference in metric paperclips and imperial paperclips.
Ellen: Yeah. These are in US Paperclips. Sorry.
Christian: Their location, they are found in a small section of rainforest on the Pacific coast of Colombia. A little fun fact: They have a name for a group of these little critters. They are called an army.
Ellen: Nuh uh!
Christian: Yup.
New Speaker: Oh my God.
Christian: Army of golden poison frogs.
New Speaker: Oh my gosh. That's so good.
Christian: I don't know if that name is specific to this species or if that's more generally used for frogs, but I like it.
Ellen: You know, I'm a real sucker for collective names for groups of animals. I'm so into those. This is great. An army of frogs.
Christian: Maybe a good art... A good art.
New Speaker: This is a great art. This is a prompt for our fan artists out there: army of poison frogs.
Christian: Please give me the art.
New Speaker: One art please. I'll take one.
Christian: Uh, the taxonomic family is the Dendrobatidae. Its notable evolutionary relatives are the other poison dart frogs. So they all belong to the same family. Now let's get into the rating: first up, effectiveness.
New Speaker: What does effectiveness mean, babe?
Christian: So, I like to describe it as in how good are they at the things they're meant to do?
New Speaker: Sure. They got a thing they're trying to do. How good are they at it?
Christian: Yeah, so these are physical attributes, that sort. I'm giving the golden poison frog a full 10 out of 10 on effectiveness.
New Speaker: Perfect score.
Christian: So let's talk about it.
New Speaker: Let's hash this out.
Christian: It is considered to be one of the most toxic animals on the planet.
Ellen: Oh my.
Christian: This is why I specifically chose this species over the others among the poison dart frogs.
New Speaker: A real standout frog.
Christian: Yes. So a two inch frog, or five centimeters, has enough poison to kill 10 grown men.
New Speaker: Oh... My.
Christian: Yes. These little guys are thought to get their poison from the insects that they eat, although no one's entirely sure which insects specifically.
New Speaker: Right, because I feel like there's not an insect around there that has that potent of a poison. Right?
Christian: I think the thought process is there are, but it's built up over time.
New Speaker: Oh, it's like concentrated.
Christian: So like they, the insects themselves might not have it, but over time they do get it.
New Speaker: Okay. So this is concentrated like the sea slug that we talked about in an earlier episode, like stores it in its body and makes it more potent.
Christian: Similar. Similar. So these guys store this poison in glands just beneath the skin.
New Speaker: Oh...
Christian: Yeah. Now here's where it gets interesting, is how the poison works.
New Speaker: It was already interesting, but I can't wait to hear about it.
Christian: So the poison is called a batrachotoxin. I'm going to shorten that to BTX so I don't have to try to pronounce that every time. And this is where I'm getting into that YouTube video I mentioned earlier. Again, it was the Crash Course YouTube channel in this one is basically about the nervous system action potential. So to describe how the poison works, let's first talk about how the nervous system works in general on a happy path.
New Speaker: All right, everybody, get out your bio textbooks. It's time. We're going to class.
Christian: So action potential is basically a difference in charge or the movement of electricity over your nervous system cells. So that's how our whole nervous system works, is the transmission of little tiny electrical signals. You know when you want to move your hand, your brain is sending an electrical signal to your hand to contract those muscles and what have you. So, the way cells do that: inside of the nerve cell, they are negatively charged relative to the outside of them or outside their membranes. This is called the resting state. So when some stimulus happens, let's say we have a nerve cell in my leg and I touch my leg. So that stimulus causes mechanical sodium gates to start allowing sodium ions into the membrane. So now I should mention sodium ions are positively charged. So this starts to increase the charge within this, within the cell.
New Speaker: Making it less negatively charged.
Christian: Correct. So I believe the value is at a resting state, it's at a -70 millivolts. So typically you'll hear volts described into just regular volts, but since this is a small, small magnitude, we're talking millivolts.
New Speaker: Itty bitty.
Christian: Yeah. So it starts to let in those, those sodium ions and eventually it reaches a threshold where it starts to trigger the action potential. So when it reaches a particular charge, I believe the video said it was -55 millivolts, so this causes voltage-gated sodium gates to open. So voltage-gated means, you know, these are responding to the relative voltage rather than a mechanical stimulus. So when that voltage reaches that threshold, the sodium gates open, allowing even more sodium ions in.
New Speaker: Oh okay.
Christian: Yeah, so then eventually your charge becomes positive. It spikes. So that's the action potential. So now we went from a polarized state to a depolarized state where we have a positive charge. Now to go back, or to repolarize, the sodium gates close and potassium gates open, potassium is another positively charged ion. So the potassium starts to flow out of the membrane, reducing the charge again.
New Speaker: So the positively charged potassium leaving is extracting positive charge from the cell, making it less positively charged and bringing the charge back down into the negative that it needs to be at.
Christian: Right. So just keep in mind, sodium and potassium are both positively charged ions. When this happens, the potassium gates open, letting out potassium, the sodium gates close, no longer allowing sodium in. Eventually this goes a little bit too negative. So this is called hyperpolarization. So to correct this hyperpolarization, the membrane has these things called sodium potassium pumps. And what these are doing is they're releasing sodium ions and pulling back in potassium ions to balance us back out to the original resting charge.
New Speaker: Back to normal.
Christian: Yeah. So that whole cycle takes less than a millisecond.
New Speaker: That's very fast.
Christian: Yes. And then so what's happening here with your nervous system is, you know, these are happening in rapid succession and one part is kicking off the next until it travels all the way up to where it's going: your brain. Or from your brain to the, I guess, muscle or limb or what have you.
New Speaker: This is like causing a chain reaction all the way up to your brain and back.
Christian: Right. So here's where the poison comes in. What BTX does, it interferes with your body's ability to transmit electrical signals by binding to voltage-gated sodium channels. Those are the gates that are letting in sodium. So it's binding to those voltage gated sodium channels in your muscles and nerve cells. It makes it so the sodium channel stay open.
New Speaker: So they're bringing in a lot more sodium than they need to.
Christian: Right. So, so the channel is just letting in sodium and never closing. So what that does is it throws off that cycle of going from polarization to depolarization and back and forth. So that's either stopping the cycle or slowing it down tremendously. And that effect is irreversible.
New Speaker: Oh, there's no... Cure?
Christian: There's just no way to, once it's open, there's, there's no way to close it.
New Speaker: Oh Geez. That's very permanent.
Christian: Yes. So what this causes is numbness, paralysis, fibrillation, arrhythmia, and heart failure.
New Speaker: None of those are good.
Christian: No.
New Speaker: None of those are what you want.
Christian: So death, basically.
New Speaker: You die, immediately.
Christian: I don't know about immediately, but...
Ellen: Every second that you're not yet dead, you wish you were.
Christian: Well, you won't be able to feel anything is the thing.
New Speaker: Oh, I guess, yeah if you're numb. I guess.. .
Christian: It's probably, I mean, you're still emotionally...
New Speaker: Dead.
Christian: I don't know.
New Speaker: You're dead inside.
Christian: But yeah. That's the batrachotoxin.
New Speaker: Nice.
Christian: Scary stuff, yeah?
New Speaker: If you're going to have a defense mechanism, want that one to be it, Huh?
Christian: Yeah.
New Speaker: That's some intense biochemical warfare.
Christian: Yeah, yeah. And I'm sorry if that was a very wordy description of what was going on, but I thought it was a little interesting.
Ellen: Hey, yeah. Once you get into the inner workings of the body and the really complicated mechanisms that are at work in your cells, it gets just mindblowingly fascinating.
Christian: Yeah. So the frogs themselves are immune to this, to their own poison.
New Speaker: I would hope so!
Christian: And the way they do this is because they've evolved voltage-gated sodium channels that are unaffected by the toxin.
New Speaker: Good idea.
Christian: Yeah. And then my next point for effectiveness is their coloration itself warns predators of the toxicity, and this is pretty common in the animal kingdom. And the phrase that describes this is actually called aposematic coloration. I thought that was pretty interesting.
Ellen: Yeah. Cause at that point if you do eat them and get poisoned and die, it's kind of your fault.
Christian: Although, there are animals that will show these kinds of colorations but not actually have poison or venom to back it up.
New Speaker: Bluff. Bluff move.
Christian: Yeah. So a good example of that in Florida is the difference between the coral snake and the milk snake. Right.
Ellen: That's so shady and sly that they would do that. That's so rude. Honestly, they couldn't be bothered to make their own venom, do they just copied another one. Hey, uh, can I copy your homework?
Christian: Oh, you know what though, this is a good segue to talk about the difference between something that his venomous versus something that is poisonous.
New Speaker: Yes.
Christian: So you would describe something as venomous when they have a toxin that comes along with a delivery system.
New Speaker: It's put in you.
Christian: Yeah. So, this is something that has things that will bite you in deliver that toxin, whereas something that is poisonous, you would have to usually ingest or come into contact with it, like in skin contact. So that's the difference between something that is venomous versus something that is poisonous. So that is the, that is the effectiveness. Again, 10 out of 10. And if you are interested in learning more about how that works at the biological level and you want to hear it described much better than I did, again, that is the Crash Course Youtube channel. Check them out. Next category: Ingenuity. I'm giving them a standard 6 out of 10.
New Speaker: It's just a frog.
Christian: This is a predator....
New Speaker: It's just the little dude- are they a predator?
Christian: I mean they go after insects and stuff.
New Speaker: Oh yeah, that's, yeah. I guess... They're an apex Predator, right? What's coming for 'em?
Christian: Well, I mean, they are in rainforest. So, so one little point I put here is their toxicity is not exactly on purpose, right? I think it just happened. Like, they like to eat these things and like, oh hey! Now I'm dangerous as all get out!
Ellen: Luck of the draw. They got dealt a great hand.
Christian: And they were also immune to the effects because any other animal would be like, "yeah, I love these crickets- uh!" Another point I gave them for ingenuity: they lay their eggs in moist areas and then as they develop into tadpoles, the parents move them into bodies of water.
New Speaker: Ohhh.
Christian: Yeah. That's all I really had for ingenuity. 6 out of 10.
Ellen: That's like a little bit more like maternal instincts than you might expect from an amphibian.
New Speaker: Right?
New Speaker: Although, I have seen some really cool documentaries on like, I don't know if it was on Planet Earth, I think it was on the BBC series Life following the journey of this little rainforest frog, how she's laid her tadpoles up in this tree, this really, really tall tree. But she has to come back to feed them like every single day. So she, but she laid them all in all these different trees so she has to spend her whole day like, climbing up a tree, feeding her baby, climbing back down the tree, going to a different tree, climbing up, feeding her baby, climbing back down and the frog is like, the size of like a penny. So she's like, it takes her all day long to feed all of her babies. There are some surprisingly good frog moms out there.
Christian: How cute. Aesthetics wise, I'm giving it an 8 out of 10.
New Speaker: They're pretty.
Christian: Yeah, they're cute. Very cute. Although with what I know about them, I have to describe them as cute but scary.
Ellen: Yeah, they're cute and endearing in a way that is deceptive. It makes you think, oh, I really want to handle that. Don't do it. You'll die.
Christian: Um, so- oh, you mentioned the color earlier. So of course they can be yellow, but also they can also be orange or pale green.
New Speaker: What!
Christian: Yeah. Kind of depending on where specifically they're found. Oh, cool. They also have these little black accents throughout their body. I've seen pictures of one where it has black accents on its lips where it kind of looks like it's making a kissy face.
Ellen: Oh, my goodness. Too cute. I really like the color combo of yellow and black.
Christian: It's very good.
New Speaker: That's always a, that's always a powerful color combo.
Christian: For sure. So, that is a 10 out of 10 in effectiveness, a 6 out of 10 in ingenuity and an 8 out of 10 in aesthetics, which comes up to an overall 8 out of 10.
Ellen: This is a good frog.
Christian: Good Frog.
New Speaker: This is better than our frogs that we have here.
Christian: Not for eating, though.
New Speaker: Nooo.
Christian: Don't do it.
New Speaker: Specifically don't do that. Although you know what, as a self defense mechanism, poisoning its predator, if it is eaten doesn't really save the frog from being eaten, does it?
Christian: Not really. Yeah.
New Speaker: Like that's really just out of spite. You've already been killed and eaten.
Christian: Yeah. Something about evolution in there somewhere.
New Speaker: You are already dead.
Christian: Conservation status: these little guys are in are endangered.
New Speaker: Oh no...
Christian: So because they're found in a very specific rain forest, and of course, you know rain forests in general are having a very hard time with loss of habitat...
New Speaker: Yeah. Things aren't going great.
Christian: Yeah. A little interesting fact, since their toxicity is derived from their diet in the wild specimens taken from the wild man just kind of fed pet store food or what have you, will eventually lose their toxicity.
New Speaker: Hey, how do you test that?
Christian: Not Confidently.
Ellen: Hey, yeah, um, here's this, um golden poison frog. It's like the most toxic thing in the world and if you touch it, you could die, but we're pretty sure... We've had it in the shop for like a couple months now. I don't know. It's probably fine.
Christian: But what this also means is those born in captivity don't have it to start with.
Ellen: Oh. Well, there you go. That's how you do it.
Christian: Yup. A synthetic version of one of the poison's compounds has been developed that has a promise as being a powerful pain killer.
Ellen: Well, now that's not what you would've thought.
Christian: Yeah. I mean, I guess just they wanted just the numbness part, but none of the death part.
Ellen: Listen, you can't have your cake and eat it too, guys.
Christian: And then lastly, of course, the namesake of a poison dart frogs in general. So for this particular one, they were used by Columbia's Embera tribe. They regularly use the poison to coat third blow darts to hunt with.
New Speaker: Oh, so this is a real thing?
Christian: Yeah. This is a real thing. Not all frogs that are referred to as poison dart frogs have been used this way, but this is one species that has definitely been used that way.
New Speaker: Wow...
Christian: Unfortunately though, to get the poison from the frog, they have to, I'm just going to say induce pain to the frog. I'm not going to go into very much detail there, it's kind of a bummer, but we'll just keep it at that.
New Speaker: No bad vibes.
Christian: Yeah. So they have to stress out the frog so that it is secretes the poison and then they'll coat the dart with it. Yeah. So, that is the golden poison frog.
Ellen: I feel like this frog is way, way, way cuter than the 40,000 frogs we have in our backyard.
Christian: That's true.
New Speaker: Oh, were you inspired to do this animal by the 40,000 frogs we have in our backyard?
Christian: No, I was just kind of perusing our list and kind of caught my eye. But also the Jacksonville Zoo has a couple of, I guess poison dart frogs.
Ellen: I don't think they are the golden ones though. They're little like green and blue and stuff.
Christian: Yeah, yeah. They're really cute though.
New Speaker: Ah, they are cute.
Christian: It's funny, they're in this really big enclosure so you really have to try to find them. Like, looking.
Ellen: Yeah cause they're in there with the... Some type of boa, right? It's like a rainbow...? It's a big snake that's in there, but it is kinda hard trying to find these teeny little frogs in a big old cage.
Christian: Yeah. But when you do, it's a good experience.
New Speaker: It's a nice little treat.
Christian: Yeah. Alright, so what do you have for us this week?
Ellen: This week I have an animal that actually I had never heard the name of until it was brought to my attention. This animal is called the tamandua. The scientific name of this species is to Tamandua tetradactyla. This animal was submitted to us by Miranda Lowery. Miranda has experience working with this animal. So lots of firsthand experience. We had some, some really interesting input from Miranda.
Christian: Oh, exciting!
New Speaker: Yes! So thank you very much Miranda, for your contribution to this episode. Now the rest of the information that I'm getting is from the San Diego Zoo and the Smithsonian National Zoo.
Christian: Very good.
Ellen: Yes. So the tamandua is a small anteater. This is actually a type of anteater. It's related to the giant ant eater. So the tamandua is a small anteater with a long, skinny snout, a chunky body and a long muscular tail. Yup. The digits on their feet are these long, sharp claws and they have very dense fur. The fur is a blonde or a light brown with black markings in the shape of a vest, so black markings that go like around the arms and onto the back. It looks like a vest.
Christian: I'm imagining an animal that likes to hug, for some reason.
New Speaker: So, it would look that way. It does a thing that makes it look like that, but... Don't.
Christian: Oh, is it T-posing?
New Speaker: Kind of, is the thing! I'll get to it, I'll get to it, I'll get to it!
Christian: Okay.
Ellen: The adult size of the tamandua is 2 to 3 feet, that's 53 to 88 centimeters for our metric listeners with an additional one to two feet in the length of the tail. So yeah, a good, a good length tail. You're going to find these in forests and jungles in South America. There's actually two species of tamanduas. There's the northern and the southern. This is the southern one. The taxonomic order of these dudes is Pilosa, this order includes anteaters as well as sloths.
Christian: Okay.
New Speaker: So they're all kind of related. Obviously, they're more-
Christian: It's the toe thing, isn't it?
New Speaker: Yeah, the claw toes? Yeah. Obviously they're more closely related to the anteaters than the sloths, but they're all part of the same order. Yep. So this is, they're a cousin to the giant anteater, which is the one that you're probably more familiar with. It's gray and has the long fluffy tail and it's huge.
Christian: This is a biggun.
Ellen: Yeah, that's a big animal. Much bigger than I always thought they were. The tamandua is like a more... A little one. It's compact. So, I'm using the same rating system. I'm going to get started with effectiveness. I gave it a 7 out of 10.
New Speaker: Okay.
New Speaker: So the tamandua spends most of their time in trees, which is why they have those big powerful claws. Those long claws help them climb and grip branches. So, these big strong claws are really great for climbing trees, busting open termite mounds, they can just kind of, rarr, like dig right into it and bust up the termite mounds to get the termites inside. And they're also good for defending themselves. But unfortunately those big giant claws make walking on the ground really difficult. And it does have to walk on the ground sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes.
Christian: I mean, that's where the termites are right?
New Speaker: Right. So they're like mostly arboreal. I saw a figure that said they spend about 60% of their time in the trees, but they do have to spend a lot of time on the ground so they don't walk so good on the ground.
Christian: Like, I eat... Now I tree.
New Speaker: Yeah, now tree goodbye. So, when they do walk on the ground, since they have those long claws, they have to curl their claws inward, which means they have to walk on the outside edges of their feet so that their claws don't like, mess their paws up. I don't know if you'd call those paws. Hands? That sounds weird.
Christian: Uh, arm... pads.
Ellen: They're um, appendages. This having to walk on the outside edges of their feet makes them really slow and clumsy when they're not in a tree.
Christian: Poor babies.
New Speaker: Yeah, they're slow in general. Like even when they are in the trees, they are in no hurry. You can really kind of see the resemblance to their sloth cousins.
Christian: What a weird motif.
New Speaker: They're just chill. They're very chill. They're on their own time, man.
Christian: I guess...
New Speaker: They got no schedule. So when they are in the trees, they do have the advantage of having a long, muscular prehensile tail.
New Speaker: Okay.
New Speaker: So the tail is hairless along the bottom and at the end of it. It looks like a rat's tail. You know how rat's tail is bald and it has that skin that's like very rough and it looks scaly? That's how the end of a tamandua's tail looks and all along the bottom of it, it has no hair on it. This helps them grip better.
Christian: Puppy kind of looks like that sometimes.
New Speaker: Sometimes when she has allergies, don't make fun of Puppy! You be nice to my dog.
Christian: Love you, Puppy, wherever you are.
New Speaker: So the bald part of their tail looks a lot like a rat's tail, which some people find really gross and unsettling to look at. But I've never had any problem with it. When I used to have pet rats, I didn't mind their tails.
Christian: For me, it's that same thing as a naked cats. I don't know.
Ellen: Now, I do think those are very cute!
Christian: See, it must be a common thing then.
New Speaker: Maybe it's just a weird thing where you don't like to see like bald animals or something.
Christian: Ahh, that's normally covered in hair! Go away.
Ellen: Anyway, so they use their tail for holding onto tree trunks or branches, but they also use it to brace themselves when they stand up on their hind legs. So they use it as kind of a balance. So when they do stand up on their hind legs they can lean back on their tail and it turns them into kind of like a tripod so they can balance better.
Christian: So is standing up on their hind legs something they do often, or?
Ellen: Sometimes, yeah. Yeah. So I'll, I'll get into that in just a second.
Christian: Okay.
New Speaker: They've got that long, long, long snout. Inside of that long, long, long snout is a sticky barbed tongue that is around 16 inches or 40 centimeters long. This is- yeah, that's a lot of tongue.
Christian: That's like half its body.
New Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. It's way up in there. This is perfect for snagging insects cause it's long, it's skinny, it can get into like ant burrows, it can get into like ant hills and termite mounds and stuff. It can get into logs and get way up in there and bugs. Perfect for what they need it for. Right?
Christian: Yeah.
New Speaker: So in the aardwolf episode- I feel kind of bad cause I've talked about like three insectivores in a row, and even you just talked about a frog. So like that's another one. Like we are really just trashing on bugs.
Christian: The world's food thing.
New Speaker: Yeah. Sorry guys. If only there weren't so many of them. Um, so in the aardwolf episode I talked about how the aardwolf has really, really small teeth and it mostly chews anything that it needs to chew using its stomach. So the tamandua takes that idea and leans into the concept and really kind of takes it to its logical conclusion by having no teeth at all. None, not a tooth in their skull. Miranda says, "we always tell guests anything with a mouth can bite. But these guys are an exception." Miranda says, "their mouths are only big enough for their tongue, so about the size of a pencil, and they don't have any teeth." So they can't bite, the can't chew. It's just tongue in there and that's all.
Christian: Probably gross you out pretty quick. Oh, here's this big tongue. Oh No.
New Speaker: Yeah, it makes me think of Lickitung, the Pokemon. So yeah, no teeth. None. But they do have that like muscular stomach that grinds up their food for them. Yeah. So like why do you need, well you don't, you don't need teeth at that point.
Christian: Do they do that thing where they eat rocks where the rocks help them digest or... I guess they can't because, I mean...
Ellen: There's no room! How are you going to get a rock in there? So yeah, while they're eating all of these ants and termites and stuff like that, they have course dense fur that protects their skin from being bitten. They have a little bit of defense there. It looks soft. Whenever I look at pictures of them, they have that very lightly colored fur and it looks like it would be soft and pleasant to touch, but it is not.
Christian: Makes sense.
New Speaker: It's because it's very coarse and wirey. It doesn't look that way, but oh well. It looks inviting to touch. But there's part of my brain that thinks, oh my gosh, it looks so soft, I want to pet it. And there's another part of my brain that has touched actual animals before and it's telling me like it's definitely not soft, do not touch it.
Christian: Disappointment ahead.
New Speaker: So I want to talk about their perceptive abilities a little bit. I took some points off their effectiveness for their very, very poor vision.
Christian: Oh no...
New Speaker: They have very small eyes, their eyes are teeny tiny.
Christian: What are these, eyes for ants?
Ellen: They are! They have teeny tiny eyes and they don't see very well at all. In their defense they are mostly nocturnal and they navigate mostly with their hearing and their sense of smell. So sight isn't really very important to them anyway.
Christian: Okay.
New Speaker: But still, why limit yourself? You know like why do that to yourself? But so yeah, they've kind of neglected their eyesight. However, they do have a really strong sense of smell. So Miranda says, "one time we gave them a log for enrichment just to play with and they attacked it. There were apparently termites inside of it that we had no clue were there, but the tamanduas were able to smell them."
Christian: Oh. So they thought, oh, here's some decoration. But he was like, oh yeah! Snack!
Ellen: Yeah. So it was supposed to be just like a toy, like a, a fun like thing for them to maybe like, roll around and play with a little bit. But surprise! Treats! Yeah. So that, I thought that was pretty neat. They were able to smell the termites inside of the log. So yeah, they, they clearly have very good sense of smell.
Christian: Awesome.
New Speaker: Now I want to wrap up effectiveness by talking about their self defense. They have a pretty unexpected method of self defense...
Christian: Is this the T-pose?
New Speaker: Well that's part of it. But first, another one: when threatened, tamanduas will release an extremely stinky spray from their anal glands.
Christian: Awwwww....
New Speaker: The smell is four to five times as powerful as a skunk's...
Christian: WHY.
New Speaker: And acts as a deterrent to predators.
Christian: Man...
New Speaker: Yeah. So they have a stink bomb spray. That's how they protect themselves. So I mean you thought your golden poison frog had biochemical warfare cornered.
Christian: I might be dead, but I can't smell bad.
New Speaker: Yeah. The tamandua just makes you wish you were dead. So if that doesn't work and they do need to fight, tamanduas will stand up on their hind legs, spread their arms out to make themselves appear larger, and swing their front claws for self defense.
Christian: So they Bey Blade at you.
New Speaker: So if you've been on the Internet for more than like 45 seconds during the last, I dunno, 15 years, you have seen a picture of a tamandua doing this in the Come At Me Bro meme.
Christian: Ohhhh, okay. So that's where my visualization came from. Okay.
Ellen: Yeah. It's the Come At Me Bro, uh, Tamandua. That's what that is.
Christian: I mean, accurate caption.
New Speaker: Yeah. Cause that's what they're doing. Yeah. They're really, they're trying to make themselves look bigger. Right? They're trying to make themselves look more intimidating, but they're also ready to go. They've got their, their claws ready.
Christian: I mean the intimidation thing is a solid strat.
New Speaker: Right.
Christian: And people say to do that with what, mountain lions or something?
New Speaker: Bears, pretty much anything that's trying your life. But the tamandua has like, the actual weaponry to back up.
Christian: Are you saying these guns aren't weapons??
Ellen: Yeah, you can come catch these hands. So yeah, that's my 7 out of 10 for the tamandua, they are just kind of living their life.
Christian: Okay, okay.
Ellen: Now, for ingenuity, I gave them a 6 out of 10 which is lower than I think I typically give mammals. I think mammals usually kind of have a little bit more development in their brain and usually exhibit more like, social tendencies and like tool use and, and interaction and communication with each other and have like other little intellectual behavioral adaptations that they've made. And the tamandua is just kind of doing... It's not, not really a whole lot going on up in there. Really. Not a lot going on intellectually.
Christian: They go for food...
Ellen: They eat the food, end of list.
Christian: No more log.
Ellen: Yeah. Really, I thought there was going to be more, there's not. I gave them a 6 out of 10 cause they don't seem particularly stupid, but they just don't really seem too bright either.
Christian: Gonna eat ants and then fart all over you. That's their bio.
Ellen: Now I will tell, I will say that since they are nocturnal, who knows? Maybe like, maybe in the dark, in the nighttime, maybe they're, I don't know, doing rocket science or something. Maybe they're like, secret geniuses under the cover of night, but I don't really have anything to back that up so I gave them a just kind of a 6 out of 10.
Christian: Okay. That's fair.
Ellen: Yeah, I mean that's the best I could give them. All right. That brings us to aesthetics. My personal favorite category, 8 out of 10.
Christian: Now, hold on.
Ellen: So, solid animal- what? You think more or less?
Christian: I was thinking less. Doesn't-
Ellen: What?!
Christian: The, I don't know. Does the fart bomb thing count as aesthetic?
Ellen: Well, no! You can't- you can't... When you're looking at a picture of these dudes, you cannot see how bad they smell.
Christian: Not yet.
Ellen: I don't think that should count against them. You don't see a stink cloud following them around in the picture.
Christian: You tell that to the Peanuts.
Ellen: You don't see little wavy lines coming off of their bodies. They look cute!
Christian: Alright.
Ellen: So, long boi, first of all. Long boi. Something really cute about them that I think is great is that their ears, they have big, surprisingly large ears and their ears stick straight out to the sides of their head... like Shrek's ears, like stick straight out.
Christian: You can't invoke that name.
Ellen: So yeah, it's very- I really like their ears. I like their face. They have the long sort of curved looking face. I would give them the best dressed award. You're bringing a black vest to the table? Like, that's good.
Christian: Oh, it's a black tie event, hmm- *fart sounds*
Ellen: I wish I hadn't told you about the fart bombs
Christian: My opinion of them has changed forever.
Ellen: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Ellen: I mean they're cute. Look at a picture of 'em. He's a cute little dude.
Christian: Yes, I will concede that.
Ellen: Yeah. So 7 out of 10 for effectiveness, 6 out of 10 for ingenuity, and 8 out of 10 for aesthetics brings us to a 7 out of 10 for the tamandua.
Christian: Very good.
Ellen: Yes. I like this animal. Their conservation status is of least concern.
Christian: Really?
Ellen: That's not to say that they're common. They're still pretty rare, but their population isn't like,3 in a sort of dangerous state or anything. Their population is, is not...
Christian: Well, I guess part of their rarity comes from being nocturnal and probably in rain forests.
Ellen: You're not going to see them like, around super often or anything, but their population trends aren't currently any cause for concern. Now some people who live in the Amazon region will keep tamanduas around as pest control.
Christian: I would too.
Ellen: So just let 'em like chill- Now, you say you would...
Christian: Oh. Yeah.
Ellen: But consider for a moment, letting one into your home.
Christian: Nah.
Ellen: You're not getting that security deposit back. I'm so sorry. That house is going to need to be torn down and rebuilt.
Christian: That is an outside tamandua.
Ellen: Yes, that is an outside friend. You're not going to be letting that one on your couch.
Christian: But, if it starts clawing at the side of your house though, then you're- then you know what's up.
Ellen: Yeah, that's true. It's a little termite detection. You know how like, around here we have like pest control agencies that have like a little beagle for their mascot and they like walk a little beagle around and the beagle will like, I dunno, do something to indicate that there's termites there? You can have that with the tamandua that like suddenly start digging at the ground. That'd be pretty cute. So yeah, some people keep them around to control their bug populations, which I think is pretty cool. But unfortunately, they are sometimes hunted by humans or killed by humans. So, for a couple of reasons: First of all, there is an incorrect belief by some people in the area that tamanduas kill dogs.
Christian: Really?
Ellen: Yes. Some people think they kill dogs. They obviously do not. They pose no threat to dogs. They don't really pose a threat to anybody for any reason.
Christian: Unless you're an ant.
Ellen: Unless you're an ant, then this is public enemy number one. But so yeah, if you're a dog, you're fine. But so sometimes people will kill them thinking they're protecting their dogs even though they don't pose a threat. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where that idea came from, but also in the tamandua's tail, they have these tendons, these really, really strong tendons that people will use to make rope.
Christian: Huh.
Ellen: Yeah. That's a weird one, right? You can just, I guess you can tie them together and make rope with it.
Christian: That's weird...
Ellen: Yes. It's very weird.
Christian: I really want strong shoelaces.
Ellen: Yeah. But people will a hunt tamanduas, I guess for the tendons in their tails.
Christian: Alright then...
Ellen: Yeah. So I mean, that is to say, you know, people will sometimes pose a threat to them, but for the most part tamanduas are secretive and hard to find enough that that's not usually that much of a problem. Just don't do that.
Christian: Yeah.
Ellen: Don't do that. Come on guys, be cool for like a second. So I'll wrap up the tamandua with a closing quote from Miranda. Miranda says, "They were one of my favorite animals to work with. Cleaning up after them was awful because they smell so bad and they're bright orange urine stains, everything. But they're super sweet and fun."
Christian: Oh No...
Ellen: I didn't know where else to put the bright orange urine, so I just put it in the closing remarks! I didn't think that really factored positively or negatively into anything, but I just wanted you to know about it. I really wanted to make sure that you knew about the bright orange urine.
Christian: Why is this meme lord the way it is?
Ellen: Yeah, so, that's the tamandua.
Christian: Well thank you. Mostly.
Ellen: We had a couple of unsettling uh, kind of disturbing animals?
Christian: Rainforest is scary.
Ellen: Oh yeah. This, these were a couple of rainforest terrors, huh?
Christian: Mmhmm. We should probably just leave the rainforest alone.
Ellen: Sorry for the, um, challenging content that we've given you in this episode.
Christian: Crazy.
Ellen: All right. That wraps things up for us this week. Thank you so much for joining us. If you liked what you heard today, you can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all those good things by searching the title of the show. That should bring you right to us.
Christian: Yeah.
Ellen: If you have an animal species you want to hear us review, you can submit those to us either via Facebook message. You can tweet at us, get at us on social media, you can-
Christian: Stop us on the street.
Ellen: Stop us on the street. Best of luck finding- Yeah. Good luck trying to catch me walking down the street. In Florida? In the summer? I don't think so.
Christian: I mean, just stop anyone you find talking about animals, it's probably us.
Ellen: Stop any man with red beard that you find, or woman with dark hair and glasses. It's definitely us. Um, yeah, so don't do that. But if you can also submit your animal species to us at thezooofus@gmail.com that's our email address. Christian hates it.
Christian: I hate it so much.
Ellen: I'm sorry.
Christian: We're gonna get our own domain name.
Ellen: A transcript of this episode will be made available at justthezooofus.home.blog. So if you are deaf or hard of hearing or have sensory processing needs or you, maybe English is not your first language and you prefer to read along, if for whatever reason you find transcripts helpful, they will be made available on our blog. And the last thing I want to say is I want to thank Louie Zong for the use of his song "Adventuring" off of his album Bee Sides.
Christian: So good, I was jamming out to it the other day.
Ellen: We sure were, we were listening to it and made some really good dinner music.
Christian: Yes.
Ellen: Yeah. Alright darling, another wonderful episode.
Christian: We did it!
Ellen: We did it. Did Great. Great job, sweetie.
Christian: Until the next animals.
Ellen: ...What?
Christian: Like, until next time, but...
Ellen: Yeah, but that sounded weird.
Christian: OKAY BYE