Pod Insights Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks Amazing Mothers of the Animal Kingdom - Mother's Day Special 2025 About this episode T&C is joined by Cindy, the Larson family matriarch, to once again impart all of the wisdom the guys would allow her to as Wes covers some of the more dedicated animal moms out there in the wild.
Thanks for listening, especially all you moms! Thanks for all that you have done, are doing, and will continue to do for us all.
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Transcript 19,898 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:02 Jeff Larson? Hey everyone. Before the episode, I just wanted to let you know we bleep Cindy out a few times as a joke. She doesn't actually swear. So mom, we're just playing around and everyone get a good laugh out of it. Alright, enjoy the episode.
0:31 Jeff Larson? Hello everyone. Welcome back to Tooth and Claw Podcast and this is the Mother's Day episode everyone looks forward to all year round.
0:42 Speaker 01 One person in particular.
0:43 Jeff Larson? One person.
0:44 Speaker 01 Me.
0:46 Jeff Larson? Yeah, but we have our beloved mother Cindy Larson here with us and Cindy, who are we?
0:52 Speaker 01 We're Tooth and Claw.
0:53 Jeff Larson? And who are we? Who's on Tooth and Claw?
0:57 Speaker 01 Oh.
0:58 Jeff Larson? Introduce us.
0:59 Speaker 01 Introduce us. Okay, okay. So we've got Jeff Larson. He gets to go first this time.
1:05 Jeff Larson? Thank you.
1:05 Speaker 01 And he's the youngest Larson boy and lots of talents, too many to name.
1:11 Jeff Larson? Yep, can't even name one.
1:14 Speaker 01 So many talents. We've got. She's spilling out. You didn't go over this.
1:21 Speaker 01 Who's next?
1:21 Jeff Larson? What do the rest do?
1:23 Speaker 01 We got Michael Smith, my probably, I don't know if Wes's friends listen to this, one of my favorite friends of Wes and Jeff. I saw that wink. Probably their best friend. Yeah, I would say so. And actually, one of our best people to be at the house because we don't even notice that we have anyone that's not a Larson. Yeah. Alright. Oh, and he's very good at tech and he. Has a very good vocabulary for the podcast.
1:56 Wes Larson? Uh oh.
1:57 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:57 Wes Larson? Pressure's on now. I gotta start using.
1:59 Speaker 01 Yes, it is. And then we have Wesley Larson, and he is a wildlife.
2:03 Jeff Larson? Best for last.
2:04 Speaker 01 Wildlife biologist, got a masters. I've seen it.
2:09 Wes Larson? She has seen it. She had it.
2:10 Jeff Larson? You know he didn't make it though.
2:12 Speaker 01 He's loved animals all his life, and so we're gonna listen to him.
2:17 Wes Larson? Okay.
2:17 Speaker 01 Okay.
2:18 Jeff Larson? All right.
2:19 Wes Larson? Thanks, Mom.
2:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:20 Jeff Larson? Yeah. We're really excited to have you on, Mom Cindy Larson. Thanks for joining us again. We really appreciate you giving us your time and being on our podcast. So thank you for that. And.
2:33 Wes Larson? Thanks for calling me Wesley. You're the only one that gets to do that. But thanks for doing it.
2:37 Jeff Larson? Last year, when you came on, the listeners won't know this, we had to cut out a lot of what you said because you were swearing so much.
2:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, right.
2:49 Speaker 01 Swear word.
2:53 Wes Larson? Stop swearing.
2:57 Speaker 01 When people write in and I'm the one answering, and they've written a swear word a lot, and they don't know I'm the one answering.
3:04 Wes Larson? Yeah.
3:04 Speaker 01 Then I tell them I'm answering, and I answer, and then they write back and they say, oh, I'm so sorry that I swore.
3:14 Speaker 01 It's very nice. Very nice.
3:15 Jeff Larson? Well, we're gonna put in a really long beep right in there.
3:19 Speaker 01 You better not. This will be the last message.
3:23 Wes Larson? I'm gonna challenge our listeners to see who can swear the most in a message to my mom.
3:30 Wes Larson? Jeff, I want to talk about something.
3:32 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
3:32 Wes Larson? So, we're all in Missoula together. It's really fun. Jeff came here straight from San Diego.
3:37 Jeff Larson? I did.
3:38 Wes Larson? You were hanging out with Danielle from National Park After Dark.
3:40 Jeff Larson? I was, yeah.
3:41 Wes Larson? And.
3:42 Jeff Larson? Great time.
3:43 Wes Larson? You just like pretty much forgot everything in San Diego, right?
3:47 Jeff Larson? I forgot the most important things.
3:48 Wes Larson? What did you forget?
3:49 Jeff Larson? I forgot all of my credit cards and debit cards, my driver's license, my global entry, and my car keys, and my sunglasses.
4:01 Jeff Larson? Just left him there. It's her responsibility to get him back to me.
4:05 Wes Larson? Wasn't she like, how did you get home?
4:07 Jeff Larson? Yeah, Danielle was like, how did you even get home? I did have my passport in my backpack, so.
4:13 Wes Larson? Oh, that's nice.
4:14 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I was still like, we'll get home. And you know what? That's kind of what a day in my life's like. You just gotta figure things out on the fly.
4:24 Wes Larson? I love that we're up in the ante on stuff you're leaving behind on trips.
4:29 Speaker 01 And then Wes also just gave me some of those gooder sunglasses.
4:33 Wes Larson? Yeah.
4:33 Speaker 01 And he took them back.
4:35 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah. They look great on him. Yeah, there's a free shout out for goodness.
4:39 Jeff Larson? I was like, hey, Mom, can I use those sunglasses I gave you that you haven't opened out of the box for the next like three days?
4:48 Wes Larson? They look good on you. I think you should take them back officially.
4:51 Jeff Larson? You know, if Mom wants to give them to me, that's her decision.
4:54 Wes Larson? Yeah.
4:55 Jeff Larson? I'm not gonna ask.
4:56 Wes Larson? All right. They're sunglasses for her son.
4:59 Speaker 01 True.
5:01 Wes Larson? Hey, now that's funny.
5:03 Jeff Larson? Good ad chat.
5:04 Wes Larson? Yeah. Every year, a lot of thought goes into this episode particularly because we want to make sure it's a really fun one. And our first couple of Mother's Day episodes were about attacks where mothers saved their kids from attacks. So we've done at least two of those. We did a mountain lion one. We did a yellow jacket one. And then we did another one that was all about animals saving people because you wanted a more feel-good episode that year. And this year was another year where you wanted a more feel-good episode.
5:32 Jeff Larson? You remember that?
5:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's been a lot of hard episodes lately.
5:36 Wes Larson? There have. We've done some, some pretty intense ones.
5:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:39 Wes Larson? So we're, we're gonna do one that doesn't even involve any attacks. It's gonna be a feel-good episode, but it's gonna be really fun. And I think what we're gonna do is talk about some of the best mothers in the animal kingdom.
5:50 Jeff Larson? Hmm. You remember the, that mountain lion that ate that mom?
5:55 Wes Larson? Yeah.
5:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was, yeah, her name was Cindy.
5:58 Jeff Larson? Crazy story.
5:58 Wes Larson? Yeah, Cindy Perrilyn.
6:00 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
6:00 Wes Larson? Yeah. So go back to our first Mother's Day episode if you don't want a feel-good one.
6:06 Wes Larson? Jeff's trying his best to bring the mood down.
6:09 Speaker 01 I actually sent the link to some of my friends the other day. One of my friends said, "I can't believe you sent me that link. That was the worst story." And I was like, "Oops." I just like stories like that.
6:20 Wes Larson? Yeah. She fought it off for like an hour.
6:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:23 Wes Larson? Which was crazy. But we're going to talk about the best mothers in the animal kingdom. I'm going to go over six of them. Then we're going to do a little vote. We're going to tell our top three and then we're going to let the listeners decide which they think is the number one best animal mother of the three that we pick as our top three. All right? It's going to be a little complicated.
6:42 Jeff Larson? Yeah, no, I don't get it. I'm sleepy. We should have done this yesterday.
6:46 Wes Larson? Yeah.
6:47 Speaker 01 You should have taken a nap.
6:49 Jeff Larson? I did. That's why I'm so sleepy.
6:52 Wes Larson? Uh, so we're going to vote on animal moms. We'll also talk about our mom. So mine and Jeff's mom and Mike's mom, and we'll vote which of them was better too. But you've got a bit of a lead here, mom, because his, you're still alive. So you've got to lead there. The people haven't heard much really at all from my mom. In fact, they have not heard a single word from her. Yeah. A little unfair, but I'll see what I can do. We're not going to do that actually, but all right. Well, let's, are we ready then? Should we get into it? Do our first animal mom?
7:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:20 Wes Larson? Yeah. Okay. Well, our first one is one that you guys are, you're for sure, you've heard of this animal before. You're very aware of it. Uh, Granolodony boripacifica. You guys know that one, right?
7:31 Jeff Larson? I haven't heard of that.
7:32 Wes Larson? That's a top five animal for me. It's a type of octopus.
7:35 Jeff Larson? Hmm. I've heard of that.
7:37 Wes Larson? Might actually kind of be a top five animal. Yeah, that's true. Mike loves octopuses. Uh, it's a deep sea octopus that's found in both the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. We actually don't know a lot about this octopus because they do live in such deep water. But we do know that it's a great mom. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a really good research team. And for the past 25 years, every few months, they do deep sea submersible dives to survey and document the deep sea life in nearby Monterey Canyon. In May 2007, they noticed a female octopus clinging to a ledge just below the floor of the canyon, about 1,400 meters or 4,600 feet deep. So pretty deep. It's pretty deep. How tall is that Kuala Lumpur tower? I don't know.
8:22 Speaker 01 How many buses would that be?
8:24 Wes Larson? Yeah, forty six hundred feet. That would be like a hundred buses, forty six. I don't, are they forty six feet? I don't. That probably sounds about right, actually. Yeah. Good job, Wes. Be about that. Yeah, we're not gonna fact check you at all.
8:38 Wes Larson? Anyway, this research team had never seen an octopus that deep before, so they made a note of her. Well, they would continue to see this exact same octopus in the exact same spot for eighteen dives over the next four years. So during this four years, she never moved. Wow. She didn't hunt any of the crabs that were around her. They noticed her getting thinner and thinner and paler and paler. Her skin was getting looser, and they also saw a clutch of octopus eggs that she was on getting bigger and bigger. And toward the end, they could even see little octopus pusses through these translucent eggs. Yeah, cool. So in October two thousand one, the octopus was finally gone. And in her normal spot, the researchers found the remains of roughly a hundred and sixty egg capsules.
9:23 Wes Larson? She had spent four years in one place, not eating, not really moving, just providing constant cover and protection for her brood while they slowly grew inside of these eggs. Hmm. Jeff, you- She's just sitting there brooding. Just brooding her brood. I know. You were a little hangry yesterday. Yeah. Can you imagine four years- I made mom upset. She made mom cry. You were so angry. I'm sorry. I just needed food. Yeah.
9:51 Wes Larson? Can you imagine going four years without eating? Uh, how long did Jesus go? Like forty days, right? Forty days? Mom, you know this one. He did like the most, right? Bible reference. He has the Guinness Book of World Records, probably. We need to, we need to come up with a little sound clip of like, ahhhh. And every time we reference the Bible. So no, I can't imagine that. Yeah, it's a long time. Mom? She should have ate. You're always eating little mints and stuff all the time. Well, okay. Would that the octopus is
10:22 Speaker 01 That she never ate? She must have eaten something. She would have died. She would have died.
10:27 Wes Larson? This actually sounds like a bad mom to me. A lot of these photos of her that they took on these expeditions, there was crabs right next to her. And these are crab eating animals.
10:36 Speaker 01 So are you saying octopi take four years to have young?
10:40 Wes Larson? So we're gonna get into that. But an interesting documentary out there, which has kind of shaky science in it. But my octopus teacher, this guy falls in love with this octopus that he's in the water with a lot. And, you know, and he falls in love in like, uh, yeah. I think I've seen some Japanese cartoons where they fun with octopus. The boys? Yeah. But then when his octopus finally gives birth, it stops eating and it dies after it gives birth. And that's because they really, we'll get into it. But she had spent four years in one place, giving constant protection to her eggs. And while other octopuses do the same strategy, this where they don't eat and they just sit on their eggs. They don't spend nearly as long and the young are typically not hatched in a fully developed state.
11:25 Wes Larson? But she spent so long on her eggs that it gave her young a really big head start. And when they emerge, they're essentially small adults. They're really like prepared for the world because she gave them so much. I disagree. It's the, okay, it's the longest. I agree. Yeah, you're the only one that agrees with me on this. It's the longest brooding time of any animal in the entire animal kingdom. Wow. And because of this long brooding time, this species of octopus is thought to be the longest lived cephalopod. So when we're talking about cephalopods, we're talking about octopus, squid, those animals. Right after her young are born, the mother dies. The longest live, what does that mean? Longest, like that's their lifespan is like the longest.
12:08 Speaker 01 So they always die after they give birth?
12:11 Wes Larson? Yeah. Sounds like bad parenting to me. Um, because she literally puts all of her energy and everything into giving birth. Runaway mom. So it's very likely that this species of octopus pretty much spends all of her adult life, ensuring that her young have clean oxygen. Seawater and protection from predators. So it's kind of the ultimate sacrifice for her babies.
12:33 Mike Smith? Yeah, that is really cool.
12:34 Wes Larson? Yeah, it's a good mom.
12:35 Jeff Larson? All jokes aside.
12:36 Mike Smith? All jokes aside, great mom. It is a little bit like a helicopter parent.
12:40 Wes Larson? Yeah.
12:40 Mike Smith? It's like, it's like having a child and letting him live in your basement till he's forty and being like, you're ready.
12:46 Wes Larson? Yeah, and then just dying.
12:50 Wes Larson? It's exactly what I had to do.
12:52 Mike Smith? And look how I turned out. Kids don't grow up to be like me.
12:55 Wes Larson? All right, so that's our first mom.
12:57 Jeff Larson? How deep was it?
12:58 Wes Larson? This octopus, forty six hundred feet, so four thousand six hundred.
13:01 Jeff Larson? Oh, yeah.
13:02 Wes Larson? About forty six buses.
13:03 Jeff Larson? Was two thousand seven hundred feet.
13:06 Wes Larson? So it's like pretty much two of them.
13:07 Mike Smith? Two Kuala Lumpur.
13:08 Jeff Larson? Yeah, the Burj Khalifa.
13:10 Wes Larson? Very deep.
13:11 Jeff Larson? Oh.
13:12 Wes Larson? And and because of that, we don't know much about, no, the Burj Khalifa is in Dubai.
13:16 Jeff Larson? Dubai, yeah, wait.
13:17 Wes Larson? The Petronas Towers is the one.
13:19 Jeff Larson? Yeah, it's two thousand two hundred feet.
13:22 Wes Larson? Okay. The, because it's so deep, we really don't know much about this octopus. So this was the first time they learned about. This is like a sample size of one, essentially is what I'm saying. So hopefully we learn more about it because I think it's really interesting.
13:36 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
13:37 Wes Larson? All right.
13:38 Mike Smith? That's like ten Kuala Lumpur towers because I don't count the antenna. That's so fake.
13:43 Jeff Larson? They need it for lightning.
13:45 Wes Larson? Mom, when you think about good wildlife moms, what animals does your me, your mind immediately go to?
13:51 Speaker 01 I'm not sure why, but I think of elephants.
13:55 Wes Larson? Okay, we're not going to talk about elephants.
13:56 Jeff Larson? Okay, elephants is a pretty good choice.
13:58 Wes Larson? It is, yeah. A lot of, so a lot of like the things I read about good wildlife moms had elephants. But a big part of it is because in their societies, multiple mothers will raise one baby. It's kind of like a shared thing.
14:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's what I was thinking of.
14:13 Wes Larson? Which is really cool.
14:13 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
14:14 Wes Larson? But they're going to be an honorable mention.
14:16 Speaker 01 I kind of believe in that where
14:18 Wes Larson? Yeah.
14:18 Speaker 01 People help each other with the kids.
14:21 Wes Larson? Yeah.
14:22 Speaker 01 So then the kids have other people in their lives.
14:25 Jeff Larson? I was sort of like elephant moms let elephant babies kind of get in some trouble.
14:30 Wes Larson? Yeah, they let them kind of.
14:31 Jeff Larson? You can get stuck in a mud pit and
14:33 Wes Larson? I'll pull you out.
14:34 Jeff Larson? I'll pull you up. I'm going to make you try for a while.
14:36 Wes Larson? Yeah, you got to learn your lesson first. Yeah. It's like how I had to do Little League. You know?
14:42 Jeff Larson? You had to.
14:43 Wes Larson? I was going to sit there and look at bugs, but mom was going to make me do Little League.
14:46 Jeff Larson? She'll let you quit, but not right away.
14:48 Wes Larson? Not right away. After I got beaned twice, they let me quit.
14:52 Jeff Larson? Good eye.
14:54 Wes Larson? The two that I always think of are bears and cats. I think like people generally associate them with being really good moms. Mama bear is like a common phrase, but big cats too. I think all the big cats that we've seen together, they tend to be really close to their cubs. They're good moms. So our next animal is a cat and you two are going to be real happy about the cat that I picked.
15:15 Jeff Larson? A cheetah?
15:15 Wes Larson? A cheetah.
15:16 Jeff Larson? Yes.
15:16 Wes Larson? Yes. Cheetah.
15:18 Speaker 01 Why are you happy?
15:19 Wes Larson? Cause they love.
15:20 Jeff Larson? That's our big cat.
15:22 Speaker 01 Wait.
15:23 Wes Larson? Freaking love cheetahs.
15:24 Speaker 01 No, your big cat was tiger.
15:26 Wes Larson? I can have more than one big cat that I like. No, no, no. We saw cheetah last year. These two simply will not stop talking.
15:33 Jeff Larson? Cheetah or tiger, Mike?
15:35 Wes Larson? Tiger.
15:35 Speaker 01 Okay.
15:36 Wes Larson? Cheetah is second place.
15:37 Jeff Larson? I spoke, I spoke for Mike.
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19:19 Wes Larson? and enter code TOOTH to get 60% off your first box. Alright, I picked the cheetahs the big cat representative because as far as larger predators go on the African plains, cheetahs really aren't super high on the dominance ladder. Nah. They have to be wary about lions, hyenas, wild dogs, leopards, even rock pythons. They can't even outrun everything. No. Because they get tired. They get tired real quick. Yeah. So they have a lot of potential threats and that means that mother cheetahs have to constantly be on their guard. Mom, do you know what they call baby cheetahs?
19:53 Speaker 01 I don't.
19:55 Wes Larson? Cheetos. Is that true? Yeah. I've never heard that before.
20:00 Wes Larson? Is this the truth and flaw? I don't know if like many cheetah biologists call them that, but maybe. They could mean a bunch of different people. That's true. Yeah. The voice is in Jeff's head. The little monkey playing the symbol in there. Cheetos is a good name for baby cheetahs. It's great. I like it.
20:16 Speaker 01 I like it a lot.
20:17 Wes Larson? They're able to breed throughout the year and females start becoming reproductively viable at about two and a half years of age. Females that start breeding earlier in life generally die quicker. So the best cheetah moms literally give up a good portion of their life in order to be moms sooner. Wow. She'll have anywhere from one to eight cubs, three to four is typical. And when those cubs are born, they can't really even walk for a couple of weeks. So they don't, like cheetahs don't really climb. They don't really like get out of the way of danger. So she really just has to find a really safe bush to lay in for two weeks with those cubs and defend them as much as she can when they're completely immobile, which in Africa is no easy task. Yeah. There's predators everywhere.
20:59 Speaker 01 Wait, so three to eight each batch?
21:02 Wes Larson? Yeah, one to eight, three to four is typical.
21:05 Speaker 01 Okay.
21:05 Wes Larson? Yeah. But if you look online, you'll see pictures of cheetah moms with like seven or eight cubs. Oh, too much. Yeah. Uh huh. Once they're up and walking, she knows the importance of not staying in one place too long. Cause the longer they stay in one place, the more their scent gets all over that area and the more it's going to be broadcast to local predators. Hmm. So she'll move the cubs around about every four days, doing her best to pick safe locations for them. During those first two months, she's only Only gonna be nursing the cubs and she'll hardly eat anything herself. She just focuses on being hidden and quiet.
21:39 Jeff Larson? Two weeks?
21:40 Wes Larson? Two months.
21:41 Jeff Larson? Oh, I couldn't do that.
21:43 Wes Larson? Yeah.
21:44 Mike Smith? Do you think there's a connection between, because they seem to always be grooming, licking their young?
21:49 Wes Larson? Yeah.
21:50 Mike Smith? Is that partly to get rid of their scent, maybe?
21:52 Wes Larson? It could be. Yeah, I don't know, but it's likely.
21:54 Mike Smith? Do you ever lick your cubs, Cindy?
21:56 Speaker 01 No, I kiss them.
21:58 Mike Smith? It's kind of similar.
21:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:59 Wes Larson? Yeah.
22:00 Jeff Larson? After, after like one month of not eating, maybe it just tastes good to be licking something.
22:07 Wes Larson? And she's, during those two months, it's not that she's not eating, but she's not like going out and actively hunting nearly as much as she typically would. So she's pretty hungry and in places like the Serengeti where there's lots of natural predators, only about seventeen percent of cheetah cubs survive to adulthood.
22:24 Jeff Larson? We gotta boost those numbers.
22:26 Wes Larson? Yeah, you know, they're trying to do that in the Masai Mara. Remember how they like?
22:30 Jeff Larson? They had like their own.
22:31 Wes Larson? Gave them like their own escorts. Yeah. Once the cubs are fully weaned at about three to four months, it's her responsibility to find food for them. And for about sixteen months, she'll need to hunt and kill prey for herself and her cubs, all while still protecting them from predators. She also has to teach them how to hunt and will sometimes even release live prey in front of them to help them learn hunting techniques.
22:54 Jeff Larson? Oh, cool.
22:55 Wes Larson? And sometimes those animals get away.
22:57 Jeff Larson? What?
22:57 Wes Larson? Which is hard, you know? So while a solo cheetah only needs to make a kill every few days, a female with cubs needs to try and make a kill every single day. Her cubs won't be hunting on their own until around fifteen months. They stay with her for a total of about eighteen to twenty months. And I think of all the big cats, cheetah moms have to work the hardest.
23:16 Jeff Larson? Hmm.
23:17 Wes Larson? Great moms.
23:18 Mike Smith? Yeah, interesting.
23:19 Jeff Larson? Makes me like them even more.
23:20 Wes Larson? All right. You love a good mom.
23:22 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
23:23 Wes Larson? Not as much as Mike.
23:25 Mike Smith? Oh, you know, I'm, I'm all about those moms.
23:28 Wes Larson? Yeah. All right. So we mentioned bears.
23:30 Mike Smith? Mils, if you will.
23:32 Wes Larson? Bears are also famous for being good moms. I think one of the reasons they're so famous is because female bears. Well, why don't you guys tell me actually, why do you think bears are often seen as like being really good moms?
23:45 Jeff Larson? I think it's one of the best. I think it sounds the best if you put mama in front of it.
23:50 Wes Larson? Mama bear?
23:50 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
23:51 Mike Smith? Good branding.
23:51 Wes Larson? Mama cheetah doesn't have a-
23:52 Jeff Larson? They got good branding.
23:53 Mike Smith? Good branding.
23:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, they sure do.
23:55 Mike Smith? A lot of attacks are caused by people or other animals getting in between them and their young.
24:01 Wes Larson? Yeah, not just a lot. Forty-seven percent of worldwide brown bear attacks are started because someone surprises a female with cubs.
24:09 Mike Smith? That sounds like a lot.
24:10 Wes Larson? Yeah, I said not just a lot. It's forty-seven percent. It's a ton.
24:14 Speaker 01 And tell me again-
24:14 Jeff Larson? More than a lot.
24:15 Wes Larson? Yeah.
24:16 Speaker 01 Tell me again the distinction between the black and the grizzly.
24:19 Wes Larson? What?
24:20 Speaker 01 Did you say black bears aren't as, aren't as concerned about their young?
24:23 Wes Larson? Black bears don't really cub defend the same way that, that grizzly bears do because they let their cubs run up a tree and they just trust them to do that.
24:30 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
24:31 Wes Larson? And they almost always do.
24:32 Speaker 01 Okay.
24:32 Wes Larson? But where grizzly bears, they can climb as cubs, but they're not nearly as good at it.
24:37 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
24:37 Wes Larson? They're much more defensive.
24:38 Jeff Larson? Are we focusing on grizzly bears for this?
24:40 Wes Larson? We are not.
24:41 Jeff Larson? Oh, wow.
24:43 Wes Larson? But we hit on what I was trying to get at, which I think one of the reasons they are so well-known for being bear, like for being good moms, is because they're so defensive. But we're actually gonna pick a polar bear for our bear mom.
24:57 Jeff Larson? Hmm, that is my third guess.
24:59 Wes Larson? Okay. I almost did sloth bears.
25:01 Jeff Larson? That was my second guess.
25:02 Wes Larson? They have that cute little patch on their back for their cubs, but we're gonna do a sloth bear episode soon, so I didn't really wanna spoil any of that information. But I just did.
25:10 Jeff Larson? Polar bears though is like, their cubs already are kinda, nothing's gonna kill their cubs besides a human.
25:18 Wes Larson? You're wrong. You're wrong, my dog. Uh, mom, what's your favorite bear?
25:22 Mike Smith? Lightning.
25:23 Speaker 01 Grizzly bear.
25:24 Wes Larson? Grizzly bear?
25:25 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
25:25 Jeff Larson? If it has the tower.
25:27 Wes Larson? That's true.
25:28 Mike Smith? Why don't polar bears just move the coal on poor-
25:30 Wes Larson? We'll answer this right now.
25:31 Mike Smith? That's my question.
25:32 Wes Larson? They, polar bears, mother polar bears constantly have to be on the lookout for other polar bears. Male, male polar bears kill a lot of cubs.
25:41 Jeff Larson? That's messed up.
25:42 Wes Larson? The thought there is to put mom back in estrus to eliminate future competition and also just to get a meal.
25:49 Jeff Larson? They just wanna be dads to all the bears.
25:51 Wes Larson? They, it, yeah. No one really knows exactly why they do it. They could just be hungry, but they do kill a lot of cubs.
25:57 Jeff Larson? But they don't really eat them a lot of the time, right?
25:58 Wes Larson? They do, yeah. Alright, so like a lot of a bears, polar bear moms have delayed implantation. Their cubs are born in dens during the winter. However, in polar bears, those dens are very different in that they absolutely cannot leave the den until their cubs are fully ready to leave the den. So they dig a den in a snow drift and then the blowing and falling snow covers the entrance to the den. And the mom is essentially locked inside a closed den of snow and ice. So it helps keep the den warmer and more secure. It's harder to find for other predators, but a lot of other bears have the ability to like leave their den if they wanted. Like say a bear picks a bad location for a den. There's a lot of noise or there's another bear nearby.
26:42 Wes Larson? They can leave and go find a secondary den. Polar bears can't do that. If she dug her den and she's having her, you know, she's in there and something happens, she's not going to be able to dig another den in time. So they really have to commit to the den they dig. She'll give birth to her cubs in January. She'll nurse them in the den with milk that's about thirty-two percent fat. The cubs will get larger in the den, but they're not allowed to leave until late March or April, which can be a little annoying for her to be stuck in the den with these cubs. When they do leave, it's still very cold in the Arctic. I worked on polar bear dens. I was up there this time of year. It's very cold. She has to keep them warm, continue feeding them, protect them from male bears until they get strong enough to go out on the ice.
27:25 Jeff Larson? That's crazy. Mom.
27:26 Speaker 01 So, yeah.
27:27 Jeff Larson? Wes like won't even drink two percent milk.
27:30 Speaker 01 I know.
27:31 Jeff Larson? So how much percent did you nurse him with?
27:34 Speaker 01 I.
27:35 Wes Larson? I can't remember.
27:35 Speaker 01 I don't, Wes was the one that always spit up the very most.
27:39 Jeff Larson? He didn't like it.
27:40 Speaker 01 I, yeah, so I actually put him on a real weak milk mixture as soon as I stopped nursing.
27:47 Jeff Larson? Interesting.
27:48 Wes Larson? This is some Wes lore. Human, yeah, human milk is about three to five percent fat.
27:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:53 Jeff Larson? And you didn't like that even as a baby.
27:55 Speaker 01 So a question for you, Wes.
27:56 Wes Larson? Yeah.
27:56 Speaker 01 So do the males try to find the, the dens?
28:00 Wes Larson? Yeah.
28:01 Speaker 01 They do. So sometimes they go in and kill the cubs in the dens.
28:04 Wes Larson? Yeah, like our project, there was a den where they found just remains.
28:10 Speaker 01 Okay.
28:10 Wes Larson? Of the, the female and the cubs.
28:12 Speaker 01 Yeah. One of my favorite pictures that you ever took was. The polar bear den, because I never pictured it, but it was like a big ice room. Like it was just blue and it was like this room below the snow where no one would even know it was there.
28:27 Wes Larson? It would just look like a snowdrift to anyone. Yeah, it's pretty neat.
28:30 Mike Smith? That's cool.
28:31 Wes Larson? Yeah. So after a few weeks, when they're large enough to travel, she heads out onto the sea ice. It's where she teaches them how to swim, how to hunt, how to fend for themselves in one of the hardest environments on earth. And climate change has led to much longer swims for adult females. And more and more cubs are being lost as they're forced to do these longer and longer swims. She nurses the cubs for about 20 months, which is pretty long for a bear species. While she's also teaching them to hunt seals and avoid males. And it's just a lot. Polar bears are doing a lot to keep their cubs alive. Less than half of polar bear cubs are thought to make it through to adulthood. Because of male bears and these drowning from swimming. So my personal feeling, I want to talk about this one a little bit.
29:14 Wes Larson? I did seven years on a study where we were working with denning female polar bears. And I really grew to love them. When I do this bear presentation that you guys have seen a number of times. I show these videos that we took of a female polar bear coming out of the den for the first time with their brand new cub. It always makes me emotional every single time. Because it's just thinking about what she has to go through just to bring that one or two cubs to adulthood. Is just, it's a huge sacrifice. I think they're amazing moms.
29:42 Speaker 01 So I have a question too. So you, when, when we were looking at grizzly, a grizzly mom in Yellowstone. You told me that she wasn't the greatest mom.
29:53 Wes Larson? Yeah.
29:54 Speaker 01 Um, and her cubs had both died. But is that the same as polar bears? Are there some better moms than others?
30:00 Wes Larson? There are. Yeah, it's not. So the thing in Yellowstone, people have gotten so. There are people watching the bears every single day.
30:08 Speaker 01 And they know.
30:09 Wes Larson? They get to know their life histories really, really well.
30:12 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
30:13 Wes Larson? And so that's, I knew that bear. I didn't watch her every day, but I knew people that did. And she like often lost her cubs in the river and stuff when they would cross. She just wasn't good at keeping her cubs alive. I don't know if people know polar bears that well.
30:26 Speaker 01 Okay.
30:27 Wes Larson? To where they like.
30:28 Speaker 01 So you don't really know.
30:28 Wes Larson? See them on a daily basis.
30:30 Speaker 01 That makes sense.
30:30 Wes Larson? Yeah.
30:31 Mike Smith? Do polar bears, and maybe bears in general, you can answer this.
30:35 Wes Larson? And it might be a little bit in danger of anthropomorphizing them, but are they affectionate mothers? Is there like a lot of physical contact? It seems like it. Yeah. They really, they do seem pretty affectionate. Hmm. Yeah, that's nice. Cute. Yeah, it is very cute. All right, we're gonna go back to the ocean for our next mom.
30:52 Speaker 01 Oh, wait, I'm gonna ask a listener question because you said I couldn't, we don't have time for this, but it's a bear. So this is from Hannah.
31:02 Wes Larson? Turns out we did have to.
31:03 Speaker 01 Yeah. Do baby bears have bad breath like adult bears?
31:07 Wes Larson? No. All right, we're gonna go back to the ocean for our next animal.
31:14 Wes Larson? Okay. Mom.
31:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:19 Wes Larson? I got a question for you now.
31:20 Speaker 01 Okay.
31:21 Wes Larson? Did you ever have to take a long road trip with any of us right after we were born?
31:28 Wes Larson? We'll say like within six months of us being born.
31:30 Speaker 01 Yes, definitely.
31:31 Wes Larson? Was that easy?
31:32 Speaker 01 No. No. Yeah.
31:35 Wes Larson? Okay.
31:35 Speaker 01 Yeah. It's hard to keep you in the car seat.
31:38 Wes Larson? Yeah. Well, gray whales have to do one of the largest migrations on earth with their babies not long after they're born. In fact, one of the only reasons for this migration is for them to be able to give birth to their calves in a warm and relatively safe place.
31:54 Jeff Larson? You think the other whales get annoyed with gray whales then? Traveling with their babies everywhere?
32:00 Wes Larson? Shut that baby.
32:03 Speaker 01 Sitting by them and playing.
32:08 Wes Larson? A baby whale cry is probably so much more annoying than a human too. Yeah. It just takes like 10 minutes to cry once.
32:18 Wes Larson? So some of the best feeding grounds for gray whales are in the ultra-rich and productive waters around Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. However, those waters are cold and home to the number one predator of gray whales.
32:31 Jeff Larson? Uh, hammerheads.
32:32 Wes Larson? Not hammerheads. Oil slicks. Not oil slicks. Mom, what kills gray whales? You know this. I do know this. Number one predator on Earth.
32:40 Jeff Larson? Orcas.
32:41 Wes Larson? Orcas. Exactly. Oh, I do know that. Thanks, mom. Thank you, Jeff.
32:46 Jeff Larson? Sorry.
32:47 Wes Larson? So in order to give birth to calves that don't have the blubber to keep them warm in really cold water, and to be able to do in a safe place free from orcas, gray whales migrate thousands of miles to Baja California to both breed and give birth to their young. The shallow lagoons, Pacific Baja, give them relative protection from predatory orcas that prefer to cruise deeper coastal waters. So females gestate for 11 to 13 months, longer than humans, and they give birth in January or February in these lagoons, which, Jeff, we've visited these places before.
33:18 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
33:19 Wes Larson? You want to talk about them really quick?
33:21 Jeff Larson? They're pretty cool. I like them. You go out in a little boat, and you just see whales spouting everywhere.
33:30 Wes Larson? Yeah.
33:30 Jeff Larson? Which is really cool, just like, you hear it, you're around it, and they're just everywhere in these little bays. And then gray whales are especially fun to whale watch because, like, the babies and the moms will get really friendly with boats. They like boats.
33:47 Wes Larson? Just in these lagoons.
33:48 Jeff Larson? So they'll come up to boats for whatever reason, and they like want you to like pet them and just give them a little, "Hey there, good luck on your journey. Sorry about orcas."
34:01 Wes Larson? Yeah, it's kind of weird that it's like almost a cultural thing for those gray whales that in these lagoons, they've learned to like get scratches on boats and stuff. It's pretty neat. It's one of the only places in the world where you're allowed to interact with whales that way.
34:14 Jeff Larson? You know the movie A Bug's Life?
34:16 Wes Larson? Yeah, love that movie.
34:17 Jeff Larson? Where all the ants are like, "If we team up, we can beat these grasshoppers."
34:22 Wes Larson? Yeah.
34:22 Jeff Larson? Think gray whales could have that?
34:24 Wes Larson? With what? Orcas? With orcas. Probably not. I think there's probably more orcas. I think the whole thing with the ants was there's a lot more of them than the grasshoppers.
34:33 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
34:34 Wes Larson? So it's kind of like a class consciousness kind of message.
34:37 Jeff Larson? An uprising.
34:38 Wes Larson? Yeah.
34:38 Jeff Larson? Okay.
34:38 Wes Larson? But, um, I don't think that's the case with these two animals. All right, shoot. So I'm in a five-star hotel right now in Thailand. I'm sitting on the bed. It's a great bed. It's amazing. I'm still dreaming of my bed back home. And that's because it's a Brooklyn Bedding bed. I have the Sedona Elite from Brooklyn Bedding. I absolutely love it. Every night I look forward to just climbing into bed and going to sleep because it's such a good mattress. And that's because Brooklyn Bedding has been assembling top-tier mattresses for over 30 years in their Arizona factory. There's no middlemen, there's no gimmicks, just top-tier quality, honest pricing, and real American craftsmanship for a better night's sleep. Brooklyn Bedding knows that sleep isn't one size fits all.
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39:40 Wes Larson? to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com/tooth. Thank you Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. Their calves are born tail-first. They're about 15 feet long at birth and they weigh about 1,800 pounds to 2,000 pounds at birth.
39:59 Jeff Larson? Wow.
40:00 Wes Larson? They also almost immediately need to breathe air. So the female has to push them to the surface right as they're born to take their first breaths. Sometimes another female will push that mom to the surface as she gives birth, so her calf can be born right at the surface and immediately be able to breathe.
40:18 Jeff Larson? Wow.
40:18 Wes Larson? Yeah, it's really cool.
40:20 Mike Smith? That's awesome.
40:21 Jeff Larson? Where's the husband and all that?
40:22 Wes Larson? He's off, just trying to bang a new whale, Jeff, you know?
40:27 Jeff Larson? Difficult.
40:27 Wes Larson? Yeah.
40:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, but actually, baby humans, that's what, baby humans, that's the first thing they have to do.
40:34 Wes Larson? Is breathe?
40:34 Speaker 01 Is like, they start them breathing.
40:36 Wes Larson? Yeah, breathing is pretty important for all babies.
40:39 Jeff Larson? Especially those live births or whatever they're called, where they do it in a bathtub. You gotta make sure to get them out of water once they come out.
40:49 Wes Larson? Yeah.
40:49 Mike Smith? Do you think, Jeff, if you're giving birth, would you, do you think it's the right strategy to go tail-first? Or would you want to go head-first? I think there's upsides to both.
40:58 Speaker 01 For the baby?
40:59 Jeff Larson? I think with a tail, you can kind of grab the tail, pull it out a little.
41:03 Mike Smith? That's a good point.
41:03 Wes Larson? I'm pretty sure doctors always want the head to come out first, right?
41:07 Mike Smith? Well, that's, I'm just asking the questions.
41:09 Speaker 01 Cause one leg can get stuck in the other leg. Like, the legs don't, the legs are a problem. If you had a tail, it might work.
41:17 Wes Larson? Yeah. The nice thing about the head too is once the head's through, then like the rest of the baby just squirts out.
41:22 Speaker 01 Yeah. And they can breathe.
41:24 Wes Larson? Yeah.
41:24 Speaker 01 If they need to.
41:25 Wes Larson? Have you guys seen The Pit? The show The Pit?
41:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:27 Wes Larson? No. There's a birth scene in it.
41:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, a real birth scene.
41:30 Wes Larson? It's pretty gnarly.
41:31 Speaker 01 Showed everything.
41:32 Wes Larson? Yeah. I'm glad you watched that, Mom. That was a good show. All right. Uh, the mother will nurse for the first six months. Her milk is about fifty-three percent fat. What? Which is really. That's not even milk anymore. It's like butter. I know. Which is really energetically taxing for her. Babies also don't suck, so the mother needs to actually pump the milk into their mouths.
41:51 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
41:52 Wes Larson? Yeah. Which uses even more energy, and she'll lose about a third of her body weight while she's nursing. Meanwhile, the calf puts on about.
41:59 Speaker 01 That would be nice.
42:00 Wes Larson? Yeah. The calf puts on about sixty to seventy pounds a day, as it takes up to fifty gallons of milk each day. So, pretty crazy. That's insane. It needs to put on a lot of blubber during those first couple of months to be able to survive in those cold waters near Alaska. That's gotta be a world record. It probably is. Well, I bet blue whales do even more. Blue whales just set all sorts of records because they're the biggest animals. That kinda sucks. Once the calf is big enough and strong enough to travel, the mother will swim next to the calf for the five thousand mile journey north, still nursing the baby the entire journey. Whoa. If orcas are around, the mother will sometimes put the calf on her back and push it to the surface,
42:41 Wes Larson? protecting it with her own body, and sometimes even sacrificing herself in order to protect the calf. Sometimes they even roll over on their backs, put their calf on their stomach, and cover it with their flippers on the surface. Where, what's your source? Uh, the internet. I, I, so, just so you know, when I looked that up, there was a bunch of articles saying that was like their tactic. Yeah. And I was like, I don't believe that. Yeah. Their tactic is to protect them with their body, but it's been documented like one or two whales doing that. Okay. Yeah. So, that's not like, that's why I said sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. I was careful with that one.
43:18 Speaker 01 But.
43:18 Wes Larson? That's what you were.
43:19 Speaker 01 If the mother dies, does the baby die?
43:22 Wes Larson? Uh, not necessarily. They're with a group. It's, it's likely though.
43:26 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
43:26 Wes Larson? But usually orcas don't attack the, uh, won't attack a full grown gray whale.
43:30 Speaker 01 Okay.
43:31 Wes Larson? Um, they do sometimes though.
43:32 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
43:33 Wes Larson? Yeah. Orcas are, they're pretty naughty.
43:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, but not to humans. It's so nice.
43:39 Wes Larson? Yeah, they're great animals. They're a top animal. All right, the journey is long and difficult, but completely necessary for the survival of the calf. The calf will spend about a year total with their mom, but some calves spend up to three years with their mom. Pretty crazy. Wow. All right, our next mom is one I didn't really know was such a great mom until last year when we went to Borneo. And it's also. Tans? What? Tans? Tans? Orangutans? Yeah. It's the one on this list that we're the most closely related to, the orangutan. Uh, or mom, you'd probably say orangutan, right?
44:13 Speaker 01 Why? Why did they change it?
44:15 Wes Larson? It wasn't changed. It was just, that's just the American pronunciation of orangutan.
44:20 Speaker 01 Wow.
44:20 Wes Larson? You're probably the most closely related to them of anyone. Why's that?
44:25 Speaker 01 Why would you say that?
44:26 Wes Larson? Because you're, we're a generation removed from you. We're slightly different, more different than you are from orangutans. That's how evolution works. You just got a lot of.
44:36 Speaker 01 I don't really believe that.
44:37 Wes Larson? Tendencies, I think.
44:39 Speaker 01 We'll see.
44:39 Wes Larson? It's because she's a good mom and they're good moms. Yeah, exactly. Orangutans nurse.
44:45 Wes Larson? It's because she nursed you until she was eight, like until you were eight.
44:49 Speaker 01 Let's just put a pin in.
44:52 Wes Larson? All right. When you were a kid, you always climbed trees?
44:55 Speaker 01 I wasn't, yeah.
44:56 Wes Larson? You were a little tree climber.
44:58 Speaker 01 I was, yeah.
44:59 Wes Larson? Okay.
45:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:00 Wes Larson? See?
45:01 Speaker 01 I love trees.
45:02 Wes Larson? So. All right, so where, where am I wrong? We're getting there. Did you build nests every night? Did you nurse one of your kids until they were eight?
45:09 Speaker 01 No.
45:09 Wes Larson? Okay.
45:10 Speaker 01 No.
45:10 Wes Larson? Well, orangutans nurse for a longer period than any other mammal, sometimes up to eight years. That's like the top, but like five or six years is more typical. Which requires the mom to provide a pretty remarkable level of care for her baby. And she spends a lot of time directly caring for it. It also means that orangutans don't have many offspring in their lifetimes. Because they usually go about nine years in between giving birth, which is a really long stretch for any mammal or really any animal. It's pretty crazy. The first four months of a baby orangutan's life, it pretty much lives on its mother. They have nearly consistent physical touch. It's really only after it's one and a half that the baby starts climbing more on its own, leaves its mom for short periods of time.
45:54 Wes Larson? Even after they are separated, once the baby's fully weaned and off on its own. Orangutans sometimes make contact with their mothers into their teenage years, especially. Female orangutans with their mothers, which is kind of midlife for an orangutan. If you're like a teenager, you're pretty much halfway through your life.
46:11 Speaker 01 The girls always go home.
46:12 Wes Larson? But yeah, they live to be about forty in the wild. So it means that orangutans spend about a fifth of their lives with their moms, which is quite a bit. Another pretty crazy thing about them, and we did talk about a lot of this in Jeff's subscriber orangutan episode about a year ago, check that out. But each night, every orangutan makes a new nest to sleep in and babies will learn that skill from their mothers. So not only is she raising her baby by herself for eight to 10 years, she also makes them a new house every single night to sleep in, which is really cool.
46:45 Speaker 01 So does that mean they don't have any other offspring that eight years?
46:49 Wes Larson? No, so they only have a baby like every nine to 10 years.
46:51 Speaker 01 Wow.
46:52 Wes Larson? Yeah, so an orangutan mother will probably only have two or three kids her whole life. Which is a big reason why they're not thriving. There's not a lot of them.
47:01 Speaker 01 Do they ever have twins?
47:03 Wes Larson? Very, very, very rarely.
47:04 Speaker 01 Okay.
47:05 Wes Larson? Yeah.
47:05 Mike Smith? Do they have any natural predators?
47:07 Wes Larson? Uh, they do.
47:09 Mike Smith? They do.
47:09 Wes Larson? But nothing that's like, clouded leopards are probably their big one.
47:16 Wes Larson? Clouded leopards, saltwater crocodiles, if one were to like fall into the water.
47:20 Mike Smith? Sure.
47:20 Wes Larson? But really, I mean, their biggest threat by far is humans.
47:26 Mike Smith? I think we ought to start an adult initiative for climbing trees again. I think there's something still in us that still wants to be up in trees sometimes, just sometimes.
47:34 Speaker 01 There's professional tree climbers.
47:36 Wes Larson? Yeah.
47:37 Speaker 01 And it's like a thing, like rock climbing.
47:39 Mike Smith? I'm thinking, I'm thinking more of like an amateur circuit. I don't want to have to train and be really good at it.
47:44 Speaker 01 I think there is some out there.
47:46 Mike Smith? Okay, I'll go try it after we're done recording and I'll report.
47:50 Wes Larson? Okay, we got, we got one more animal mom to talk about and I'm excited about this one. I really liked learning about this one.
47:57 Speaker 01 Oh, I have one too.
47:58 Jeff Larson? What?
47:59 Speaker 01 I have one too.
47:59 Wes Larson? Okay, great. Surprise one. We've got two more to talk about. Uh, does anyone want to guess what type of animal is this last mom? You're not gonna get it.
48:07 Jeff Larson? I guess I am.
48:08 Wes Larson? Tyrannosaurus Rex is your guess?
48:10 Speaker 01 Is it a bird mom?
48:11 Wes Larson? It's not a bird.
48:12 Speaker 01 Okay.
48:12 Wes Larson? Mike? Is it terrestrial? It is terrestrial. I'm gonna go. Ooh, that's a good question, actually. You could say that it exists in both water and land. Which would be amphibious. Neat? Close. It's a frog. We're gonna talk about the strawberry poison dart frog.
48:30 Jeff Larson? Why do you give that noise?
48:31 Speaker 01 Because they don't have, they don't have emotions.
48:34 Wes Larson? Just wait. How can you say that? Alright.
48:38 Jeff Larson? Have you looked at one?
48:39 Wes Larson? Yeah.
48:40 Jeff Larson? I could, there's that one, remember the cutest adult animal I just did?
48:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:45 Jeff Larson? Or like we just did, I'm sorry.
48:47 Wes Larson? On two o'clock. We weren't even there, I guess.
48:50 Jeff Larson? You told me the frog looked cute because it was smiling.
48:53 Speaker 01 But it was, yeah.
48:55 Wes Larson? Okay.
48:55 Speaker 01 Not if you're holding it, it wasn't cute.
48:57 Wes Larson? Well, we're gonna put some photos up of these animals so people can tell us if they think they're cute or if they have emotions or not. This tiny frog is found from Nicaragua to Panama. And like the rest of the poison dart frogs, it lives in tropical forest ecosystems. And its diet is what causes its skin to become toxic. So this is really a quick aside. It's a good example where we get to mention poison versus venom. We're almost always talking about venom on our podcast. Because venom is injected, poison is ingested or absorbed. So this is a poisonous animal, not a venomous one. This is one that excretes toxins through its skin. So if you rub those toxins on a mucus membrane, you could potentially get very, very sick or even die, or if you ate one of these frogs.
49:42 Wes Larson? The thing that really sets it apart from the other poison dart frogs is that female strawberry poison dart frogs are really good moms. After mating, the female lays a small number of eggs on a bromeliad plant, which bromeliads kind of picture what the top of a pineapple looks like.
49:59 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
49:59 Wes Larson? That's kind of what a bromeliad is. She'll lay her eggs on it. The male actually keeps them wet for about 10 days by expelling water from his cloaca.
50:07 Jeff Larson? Hey, good job, guys.
50:08 Wes Larson? Yeah, he does a little bit, actually.
50:09 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
50:10 Wes Larson? After these eggs hatched into tiny tadpoles, the mom springs into action. One by one, she carries these tiny tadpoles on her back and she'll find perfect little reservoirs of water in between bromeliad leaves, knots and trees. How does a frog put a little ball on its back? They're like, these tadpoles are just on a leaf at the time and she just kinda like wiggles them onto her back. Because of that surface tension of like her wet back and the tadpole, it just kinda sticks to her. That's interesting. Yeah. And she'll carry them one by one to these little reservoirs of water, usually in between leaves of a bromeliad plant. And she'll deposit each tadpole in its own little pool. And then every day she makes the rounds and visits each of these pools. Oh.
50:53 Wes Larson? And when she does that, she lays unfertilized eggs into the water that serve as food for these tadpoles. Ah. Which is energetically really costly for her, but it's the only way to guarantee good food for her babies. She does that pretty much every day for one to two months, visiting each of her tadpoles and depositing eggs. Which is pretty amazing to me, because she's able to remember where she left each of these individual tadpoles to go give them eggs. After they metamorphize into small froglets, they climb out of the pool, they absorb their own tails, they move off to start life on their own. Alright, so that's it. Those are our six animals. You guys remember them? Yeah, but mom's got one. Oh yeah. Mom, what's your animal?
51:34 Speaker 01 Oh, so I just wanted to talk about the mother animal that we've been watching.
51:39 Wes Larson? Okay.
51:39 Speaker 01 Um.
51:40 Wes Larson? Oh, the kildare.
51:40 Speaker 01 It's the kildare, yeah. And she's come back, this is the third year in a row. Last year was very unfortunate because we were roofing. And what she does is she, they don't really have a nest, but they just dig a little hole in the rocks and bark.
51:55 Wes Larson? It's a bird, for people that are familiar with kildares.
51:57 Speaker 01 Yeah. And, um, and then lays, lays her egg. And so last year we were roofing and Gil took the survey tape and surveyed taped all around her, but her.
52:08 Wes Larson? Gil is a man, by the way.
52:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:10 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's our dad.
52:11 Speaker 01 Um, but her babies didn't survive. And we also put off all our landscaping and then we ended up not doing it because we were gonna just re-landscape that whole front area. So this year, Gilbert said.
52:25 Speaker 01 Oh, the mother bird's back. She dug a hole and I went out there and I buried the hole. I was like, no, not this year. Um, this year we're gonna do, I know, I wanted to landscape. I was just like tired of, well, the babies didn't survive last year either. And I was like, not another month because it's thirty two days. And then he locks, Gilbert locks the door, tells everybody to go through the garage. It's just a pain, but I do love her.
52:52 Wes Larson? Okay.
52:52 Speaker 01 And so anyways, sorry. Okay. Anyways, I, I buried the hole. The next morning I woke up, there she was, sitting on an egg in a new hole.
53:04 Wes Larson? A new hole, yeah.
53:05 Speaker 01 And so she's out there, but I do really, I mean, I go out there and we communicate. I sit on the steps. I talk to her.
53:12 Wes Larson? So she has emotions?
53:13 Speaker 01 She did, I, I'm not, I talk to her, tell her my mother problems and give her a lot of sympathy. And then the dad bird is around because she acts like she has a bro.
53:24 Jeff Larson? And she tells you, she's like, someone covered my hole.
53:27 Speaker 01 Yes. I tell her.
53:28 Jeff Larson? Make a new, and you're like, oh, that's crazy.
53:30 Speaker 01 Well, no, I keep telling her, if you dug it somewhere else, the babies might have lived last year. So, um, yeah, anyways, the, um, the male, the male bird is right there all the time. And if you walk by them, they both act like they have broken wings and they try to, um,
53:47 Wes Larson? Distract you.
53:48 Speaker 01 Distract you from the nest.
53:49 Mike Smith? They want you to chase them instead of going after the birds.
53:52 Speaker 01 It's really awesome.
53:52 Mike Smith? Yeah, it's a cute and brave mom.
53:54 Speaker 01 Yeah. And when we did have babies, they were, they were the most adorable things.
53:58 Jeff Larson? We did.
53:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. So that's my mother bird story.
54:01 Wes Larson? Despite your best efforts. We'll add her to the list. We have seven animals. We've got the octopus, the cheetah, the polar bear, the gray whale, orangutan, dart frog, and killdeer. Why don't, to make this easier, why don't we each pick one?
54:18 Speaker 01 Okay.
54:18 Wes Larson? And those are going to be our top four, and then the listeners are going to vote on those four, which is the best animal mom.
54:24 Speaker 01 Okay.
54:25 Wes Larson? So we'll each pick one of those animals. Once it's been picked, no one else can pick it.
54:29 Speaker 01 For the, for what we talk?
54:31 Wes Larson? For our favorite.
54:33 Speaker 01 Whale, I choose whale.
54:34 Wes Larson? The gray whale. Okay, gray whale passes through. We'll say we each have one veto too. No, that's too much.
54:40 Speaker 01 Yeah. Invisibility cloaks.
54:43 Wes Larson? Gray whale, gray whale passes through.
54:45 Jeff Larson? You go next.
54:46 Wes Larson? Okay. Um, I'm gonna pick.
54:50 Wes Larson? I'm gonna pick polar bears.
54:51 Jeff Larson? Okay, Mike?
54:52 Wes Larson? I'm gonna go orangutan.
54:54 Jeff Larson? Nice, I wanted one or two. Uh, I'll go, I'll take the cheetah.
54:58 Wes Larson? Okay, alright, so we're dropping, oh, I really wanted that octopus.
55:02 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
55:03 Wes Larson? I'm switching to the octopus.
55:04 Speaker 01 I have a theory about her, though.
55:06 Wes Larson? What?
55:06 Speaker 01 Maybe she just couldn't die. Maybe it wasn't, she wanted to go live for four years.
55:11 Wes Larson? I don't think so.
55:12 Speaker 01 Maybe she just was like, oh, take me away.
55:15 Wes Larson? They wrote a whole paper on it.
55:16 Jeff Larson? Wes vetoed himself.
55:17 Wes Larson? I'm gonna pick the octopus. It's hard for me not to pick the polar bear, but the octopus was so interesting to me that I'm gonna pick her.
55:24 Jeff Larson? Okay, so you're using your one veto on yourself?
55:26 Wes Larson? Yeah. Vetoing myself. So, octopus, gray whale.
55:30 Mike Smith? I'm gonna veto you as well.
55:31 Wes Larson? Cheetah and orangutan. Alright.
55:32 Mike Smith? You gotta pick something else.
55:34 Wes Larson? No, nope. I veto your veto of my veto.
55:37 Jeff Larson? Oh, that's fair.
55:37 Mike Smith? That's a good move.
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56:10 Jeff Larson? Tooth and Claw is brought to you by Rocket Money. When it comes to my spending, it's definitely an out of sight, out of mind situation. I don't really do a great job of keeping track of what I'm spending money on, and that's why I love Rocket Money so much, because it is really important to know what you're spending money on. Especially nowadays where everything's getting more expensive, you gotta be careful about where you're spending your money, and Rocket Money's here to help. It shows you in a really organized way where you're spending your money, and it categorizes it. It's helped me save a lot of money, look into things I probably don't need to buy, and now I'm able to afford more candy each month.
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57:18 Wes Larson? Alright, so we have our four animal mothers that we're gonna post. And we want you all in the comments to vote on which one's your favorite. Maybe we'll do a little poll on Instagram as well. But I really enjoyed learning about these moms. I'm glad you pushed us to do-
57:33 Jeff Larson? Yeah, this was a good episode.
57:34 Wes Larson? A feel-good, fun one. Cause sometimes learning about humans being attacked all the times does get a little depressing. So it is fun to do this. So thanks, mom.
57:44 Jeff Larson? And thanks for bringing your own animal.
57:46 Speaker 01 Oh, sure.
57:48 Wes Larson? Uh, let's get into our categories then.
57:50 Speaker 01 Okay.
57:50 Wes Larson? Our first one is if you could pick one animal species as your mom, which would you pick? Any animal out there?
57:57 Jeff Larson? I'd pick the octopus.
57:58 Wes Larson? That one octopus?
57:59 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Just let me eat it and then I'm on my own.
58:04 Wes Larson? Yeah. You're just gonna be in an egg for four years and then you're hatched and on your own.
58:09 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
58:09 Wes Larson? Alright.
58:10 Mike Smith? I'm gonna pick the frog. I like that.
58:12 Wes Larson? It doesn't have to be one of our animals, just any animal.
58:14 Mike Smith? No, I genuinely think it's like a really-
58:16 Jeff Larson? Strawberry frog?
58:17 Wes Larson? Yeah.
58:17 Mike Smith? Yeah.
58:18 Wes Larson? Okay. Strawberry poisoned dart frog. Mom?
58:21 Speaker 01 I think maybe the orang- the orangutan.
58:24 Jeff Larson? We're all picking our-
58:25 Wes Larson? One of our animals, okay. Alright.
58:27 Jeff Larson? You wanna be with your mom as long as possible.
58:29 Speaker 01 She's gonna just carry me around the first two years. Be nice.
58:33 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
58:34 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then we touch, we're still friends when I'm a like adult.
58:38 Jeff Larson? I like that answer.
58:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:39 Wes Larson? I'm gonna pick a golden eagle. It's another species I got to work with a bit. And they tend to build their nests in just like really beautiful places. They overlook just like big valleys.
58:50 Jeff Larson? You always held against mom and dad that we didn't have a better view growing up.
58:55 Wes Larson? That's it. No, we had a great view. I just like the idea of being born in a like nest that overlooks something beautiful. Your parents come back, your mom and dad are feeding you. And as soon, like you leave, you leave home because you can fly. That's pretty cool.
59:12 Mike Smith? Sure. Very symbolic.
59:13 Wes Larson? Yeah.
59:14 Mike Smith? I don't think living in a nest where you can like fall to your death at any given moment, that's gonna be pretty tough.
59:21 Jeff Larson? You're picking like what animal you wanna be the most.
59:24 Wes Larson? Yeah, sure. I also, yeah, that's-
59:27 Mike Smith? I guess that's part of the equation.
59:28 Wes Larson? It wasn't so much the mom, was it? I did a bad job. Uh, that's my pick, I guess, though. Yeah, we actually had an eagle mom that on our trail camera that we set up like accidentally pushed her egg out of the nest.
59:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a good story.
59:43 Wes Larson? And you, we kind of like looked at her. We watched her just kind of look over and she was like, oh, and then just like walked back.
59:50 Jeff Larson? So you want your, you would want your mom to kill me bird feed you?
59:53 Wes Larson? Uh, I picked a bad.
59:55 Jeff Larson? Mom to throw up in your mouth?
59:57 Wes Larson? Pick the bad answer, Jeff.
1:00:00 Wes Larson? You were right. I picked what I wanted to be. All right, we're gonna go to our next category. A mom from a sitcom on TV that you want to talk about.
1:00:09 Jeff Larson? We had to look up her name.
1:00:11 Wes Larson? I got it. I gotta go Marge Simpson. Okay. Yeah. Speak on her, Wes. I think, you know, we grew up in a house that didn't watch a ton of TV and mom, you remember how much TV you would let me watch?
1:00:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, three hours.
1:00:24 Wes Larson? Three hours.
1:00:24 Speaker 01 Three hours maximum.
1:00:25 Wes Larson? And I, one of my hours. A week, right? Like a per day?
1:00:28 Speaker 01 No, a day.
1:00:29 Wes Larson? That's not a lot. It's not like a ton, like some families just constantly have the TV on.
1:00:32 Speaker 01 And that includes gaming.
1:00:34 Wes Larson? Yeah. It was three hours of screen time isn't like a ton. Okay.
1:00:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:38 Wes Larson? That also like I had an hour of Discovery Channel I watched every night. So I usually used half of my budget to watch The Simpsons.
1:00:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:46 Wes Larson? And there was an hour and a half of Simpsons on every day and I loved that. It was like my kind of nighttime ritual was watching The Simpsons. And I, it was during the time when it was coming out of the nineties where I think there was a lot of pushback for The Simpsons and people thought they were like crude and bad. And I think initially my, my parents, my mom especially kind of thought that, but you had, you gave me freedom to watch it. But then over time you started watching it with us.
1:01:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, we all, we all watched it.
1:01:10 Wes Larson? And then it became like a family show and we all loved it. And a big part of that, I think, was because Marge is like the grounding presence of The Simpsons, I think. She's like a very understated character, but I do think in a real way, the good parts of The Simpsons revolve around Marge. She's the heart. She is. The heart of the show, for sure. She is. Marge and Lisa for sure. So I think, yeah, she was kind of like my TV mom, you know? Yeah, she's probably the best, right? I don't know. What's your?
1:01:38 Jeff Larson? She has blue hair.
1:01:39 Wes Larson? I'm gonna go with more.
1:01:41 Mike Smith? Tisha Adams. I think Goth mommy, one of the OG Goth mommies. And yeah, I have a particular taste. The Adams family.
1:01:49 Jeff Larson? Okay.
1:01:49 Mike Smith? She's, I think she's a really special character because she is a good mom, but in, in something that I learned from my parents growing up is Gomez and Morticia Tish. Uh, affectionately referred to as, to, as Tish by Gomez, but they were so loving towards each other. And I think that's such an under appreciated part of parenting.
1:02:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:02:09 Mike Smith? Because children, they learn how to express and show love from their parents, I think, by and large. And I'm not an expert on this matter, so maybe we'll have listeners telling me I'm wrong, but in my experience, that's how I learned to like, express and show love. And I think Morticia and Gomez were like, kind of so sweetly and saccharinly in love with each other.
1:02:30 Speaker 01 Yeah. When I think of that show, that's what I think of.
1:02:33 Mike Smith? Yeah, they're special. I think they're so fun.
1:02:36 Wes Larson? I, that makes sense to me because I feel like whenever you talk about your mom and dad, like you always say they were like very in love with each other.
1:02:42 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:02:43 Wes Larson? And like very affectionate and just like very sweet to each other.
1:02:47 Mike Smith? It was, it was really hard to consider my dad as like an individual person when my mom died because it was just like, it's mom and dad. It's, it's like one entity almost.
1:02:57 Wes Larson? A true partnership.
1:02:57 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:02:58 Wes Larson? Cool.
1:02:59 Jeff Larson? I did one kind of based off of you too, mom. Or just our growing up in the Larson family.
1:03:06 Wes Larson? Ooh, I know.
1:03:07 Jeff Larson? And I went with Lois.
1:03:09 Wes Larson? Oh, nevermind.
1:03:10 Jeff Larson? Uh, what were you gonna guess?
1:03:12 Mike Smith? I was gonna guess, well, I guess it wouldn't have been a sitcom. So no, I was gonna say Swiss Family Robinson.
1:03:16 Jeff Larson? No, I went with Lois from Malcolm in the Middle.
1:03:19 Speaker 01 Oh, so I didn't ever watch that.
1:03:20 Jeff Larson? Yeah, it's like four boys, but they're all very wild. And then the dad in the show, acts like a child is, or like acts like one of the boys.
1:03:30 Wes Larson? He's pretty goofy.
1:03:31 Jeff Larson? Yeah, he's very goofy. So the mom is like, I mean, it's dramatic. I'm not saying this part is necessarily you, but the mom's very like chaotic. And like yells at him a lot, but then she also is like. I'm saying that's not you. She's the glue. But then she's the one that brings everyone together. She's the one that gets things done, gets the kids to like their appointments when everything's going crazy. She's the one that figures out where everyone needs to be all the time. And she's the one that really sticks up for the family. If it's ever, if anyone ever comes at them, like she's the one you gotta be most worried about, you know? So she's a good, she's a good mom. Great mom.
1:04:15 Wes Larson? Mom?
1:04:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, I actually like Claire Dunphy in Modern Family.
1:04:19 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:04:19 Speaker 01 Um, I never watched it for so many years and then just in my later years, I started watching it when we were on vacation. And now I just, I just love her and I'm not really like her.
1:04:32 Wes Larson? Hot mom too.
1:04:33 Speaker 01 Yes, I'm not really like her, but I'm not the A type personality, but I just love how she's not perfect. And um, but she, you know, she cares about everything and she cares about everyone.
1:04:46 Wes Larson? Yeah, alright. Our next uh, category is gonna be a surrogate mom in your lives that maybe said something to you or did something to you.
1:04:55 Jeff Larson? Cindy came up with this one.
1:04:56 Wes Larson? Yeah, that you appreciate. So like some, some person that is a woman or a mom in your life that isn't your mom, that did something meaningful for you.
1:05:07 Jeff Larson? I'll go with Jordan Johns. She is just a girl, the year younger than me in high school. But one time that we were gonna have a test and I told her I wasn't gonna write any notes because we could use notes for the test. And then the next day she had written two sets of notes and given me one to use on the test and it helped a lot.
1:05:29 Speaker 01 So nice.
1:05:30 Wes Larson? That is very nice.
1:05:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:05:32 Wes Larson? Uh, I've got one, if you guys need more time to think. I um, when Bryce, when Bryce's health was failing, we had a vet friend that was very, very helpful. Uh, her name's Patty and she was just like a constant person that we could reach out to and talk to. And I think I, I think of her because she's a little bit older than us and just like so good and helpful. And like when we finally made the decision. With Bryce, she came over and did it and was very sweet and left us a nice card and it's just been really good to Jessie especially because she feels the same way about pets as Jessie does. So, um, just like very, very sweet and nice and kind. So I think a nice surrogate mom
1:06:16 Wes Larson? that we needed during a hard time.
1:06:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it's important to just remember things like that.
1:06:21 Wes Larson? Yeah. Yeah, we'll never forget.
1:06:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:24 Mike Smith? My best friend's mom, Debbie Simpson, uh, when we were living in Reno, Nevada.
1:06:30 Wes Larson? You're what?
1:06:34 Mike Smith? Anyway, it was the kind of household I could go in without even calling ahead of time. I could just walk in whether my best friend was there or not and she'd be there and she'd have, it's a weird thing. She always had chocolate soda and she'd always offer me chocolate soda. It's disgusting, but it's very nice. She always had a bunch of chocolate soda and popcorn because she knew I loved popcorn. Um, and she'd just be like, she'd hang out with me, you know? And she became like as much a friend as my friend was to me. Do you think once you-
1:07:03 Jeff Larson? You did that with some of my friends. They like to hang out, to hang out with you.
1:07:08 Wes Larson? Do you think once you told her like, I like chocolate and soda and she just heard chocolate soda and just started buying it for you?
1:07:14 Mike Smith? Could be. I've never encountered it again for the rest of my time on this earth.
1:07:19 Speaker 01 Chocolate ice cream with just soda water?
1:07:21 Wes Larson? Yeah. With soda water?
1:07:25 Wes Larson? I was about to agree with that.
1:07:27 Jeff Larson? You'd like put it in a bowl?
1:07:28 Speaker 01 Or in a cup.
1:07:29 Mike Smith? So like a root beer float, but without root?
1:07:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's really good. Jeannie has it all the time.
1:07:33 Wes Larson? No.
1:07:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:07:36 Mike Smith? We should try that.
1:07:37 Jeff Larson? I'll try it.
1:07:37 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:07:37 Wes Larson? Sure.
1:07:38 Speaker 01 Um, my, I had a lot of aunts that I was really close to.
1:07:42 Wes Larson? Yeah, like little aunts, baby aunts?
1:07:44 Speaker 01 No, my, my aunts, I had a couple in town and then my other aunts were just always so nice to me. But then again, my friends' moms, um, they all just took us under their wings and let us, you know, just come. And then there was just one more, Elaine Robb, and she wasn't, you know, she was my mom's, like my, my parents' best friend. And she was just, I just loved just walking in their house and hanging out.
1:08:10 Wes Larson? Right.
1:08:10 Mike Smith? Is that still a thing people do, you think? Or are we kind of a little too safe for the society?
1:08:16 Wes Larson? There are some people that do that still.
1:08:17 Mike Smith? I'm sure there are, yeah.
1:08:18 Jeff Larson? Especially other countries.
1:08:20 Speaker 01 I think, uh, I think different areas too. I think in California, they do it more than-
1:08:25 Wes Larson? Yeah, in Brazil, they did that all the time. Yeah.
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1:10:31 Wes Larson? All right. Our next category is kind of a more open-ended one that we might take a little time with, but it's going to be a tooth and claw year in review where our mom Cindy is going to kind of just tell us what she thinks of the last year.
1:10:44 Jeff Larson? Since you've last been on, just give us some feedback and talk about what you want to talk about.
1:10:50 Speaker 01 Okay, well.
1:10:52 Jeff Larson? Oh, here we go. We got notes. So people, so people know we have printed out paper, lab, open laptop, a magazine.
1:11:04 Speaker 01 No, the magazine's just for my.
1:11:07 Jeff Larson? And then about.
1:11:08 Wes Larson? Two notebooks and a phone.
1:11:10 Jeff Larson? And some loose papers.
1:11:12 Wes Larson? And some notes.
1:11:12 Jeff Larson? And a notepad.
1:11:16 Speaker 01 Okay, so.
1:11:17 Jeff Larson? I know where I get it from now.
1:11:21 Wes Larson? A Lands' End catalog.
1:11:24 Jeff Larson? All my cards.
1:11:25 Speaker 01 I will say the language hasn't improved much, but I do like it when you do beep it, but you don't beep everything. Braxton, I'd really appreciate a little more of that.
1:11:38 Wes Larson? Jeff, will you say the words that we beep?
1:11:39 Speaker 01 No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, anyways.
1:11:43 Wes Larson? I think Cindy should just say them so we know what not to say.
1:11:46 Mike Smith? Yeah, what words don't you want us to say?
1:11:47 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:11:55 Speaker 01 Let's move on. Anyways, I was listening. I was listening to old episodes. I wasn't prompted on this question, but I was listening to old, old episodes just to get me ready. And I listened to the New Year's resolutions. So I just wanted to check up. I just wanted to check up on you guys. Jeff, you had, don't set too many goals.
1:12:21 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I'm doing great.
1:12:23 Speaker 01 Get pain free.
1:12:24 Jeff Larson? Uh, you know, it's improving a lot. I do the.
1:12:28 Speaker 01 But then you just add some in different areas.
1:12:30 Jeff Larson? Or sorry, butt surgery. Butt surgery was a setback on that resolution.
1:12:37 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:12:39 Speaker 01 And no nukes.
1:12:40 Jeff Larson? No nuclear, yeah.
1:12:43 Speaker 01 I don't.
1:12:43 Jeff Larson? You know.
1:12:44 Wes Larson? Okay. So far, so good.
1:12:45 Speaker 01 So far, so good.
1:12:46 Jeff Larson? So good, I think, yeah.
1:12:46 Speaker 01 Okay. Mike, yours was writing your journal every day. How's that going?
1:12:52 Wes Larson? Yeah, I haven't missed a day.
1:12:53 Speaker 01 And I wrote down your quote, Mike, because I, I loved it so much. The less you do, the less you have to write. How's, how's that coming?
1:13:03 Mike Smith? That's wisdom. That's going great.
1:13:05 Wes Larson? Are there just days where you write nothing?
1:13:09 Speaker 01 No, you've done too many trips. You can't just say that.
1:13:12 Wes Larson? Is that why you hate trips?
1:13:14 Mike Smith? Next, my next New Year's resolution is gonna be no more trips.
1:13:20 Speaker 01 Uh, trying to swim more?
1:13:21 Wes Larson? I haven't been doing good with that.
1:13:22 Speaker 01 Guess what? I picked that up for you.
1:13:24 Wes Larson? I need to do that more.
1:13:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, I've started swimming.
1:13:27 Wes Larson? Time to refocus.
1:13:27 Mike Smith? Good job, mom.
1:13:28 Speaker 01 Thanks. And then, um, leaving your phone?
1:13:32 Wes Larson? I have been doing it a lot better at that.
1:13:33 Speaker 01 Oh, really?
1:13:34 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:13:34 Speaker 01 Where do you leave it?
1:13:35 Wes Larson? Uh, I leave it in my car sometimes when I go into grocery stores or any other store, or movies sometimes, but I haven't been doing perfect. Movies we saw this week, I took it in, but I do it more than I used to. And I actually came up with another resolution that I'd been doing really good at.
1:13:52 Speaker 01 Let's hear it.
1:13:53 Wes Larson? And that was, I'm not killing anything that doesn't bite or attack me first. So like even like flies, spiders, anything in my house. It has to like, try and bite me for me to kill it. And so I've been doing really good at that.
1:14:08 Speaker 01 Which reminds me of a listener question.
1:14:10 Wes Larson? Okay.
1:14:10 Speaker 01 Um, Sarah, I think her name's Evil Sarah, but, um, she wondered if someone told her, you know how you said you didn't kill spiders, but you put them outside? Someone told her then, those spiders just go back inside then?
1:14:25 Wes Larson? Sometimes, yeah. I, I like having spiders inside. They, the other little bugs.
1:14:29 Speaker 01 She, she and I both kill the spiders.
1:14:31 Wes Larson? I've been really testing myself because one of our plants has this infestation of tiny little flies, like little fruit flies, and they're all over. And I don't kill them.
1:14:41 Speaker 01 Oh, my gosh. That's, that's wrong.
1:14:43 Jeff Larson? That's wrong, what?
1:14:45 Speaker 01 Jeff, do you kill them?
1:14:46 Jeff Larson? Uh, wait, I was gonna say, what was I gonna say? Oh, yeah. What if one of the horses bit you?
1:14:52 Wes Larson? I wouldn't kill it. It's not that if it bites me, I don't have to kill it. I'm not forced to kill it.
1:14:57 Jeff Larson? What were you asking?
1:14:58 Wes Larson? But I'd be well within my rights.
1:15:00 Jeff Larson? Uh, I'll kill, yeah, I'll kill insects. Spiders I like more than most insects.
1:15:05 Wes Larson? Spiders aren't insects though.
1:15:07 Speaker 01 If you have a spider in your-
1:15:08 Jeff Larson? What's, what you want?
1:15:09 Speaker 01 Jeff, if you find a spider in your room-
1:15:11 Wes Larson? Invertebrates.
1:15:12 Jeff Larson? I'm not gonna say that.
1:15:13 Speaker 01 If you find a spider in your room, do you kill it?
1:15:16 Jeff Larson? In my room?
1:15:17 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
1:15:18 Jeff Larson? Depends, like if it, like there was, what was it? I was, what was our last trip?
1:15:25 Wes Larson? Uh, Glaucoma.
1:15:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:15:26 Jeff Larson? Yeah. There was like some bug, this was a beetle though, and it was on my leg. And I swatted it off my leg and hit it into the wall to kinda like hurt it, but not kill it. But then, like half an hour later, it was back on my leg. So then it's like, yeah, you're dead.
1:15:45 Wes Larson? It's asking for it.
1:15:46 Jeff Larson? You know?
1:15:46 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:15:47 Speaker 01 Mike, do you-
1:15:47 Wes Larson? That's a victim.
1:15:48 Speaker 01 Do you kill spiders if they're in your room?
1:15:50 Wes Larson? I don't. In fact, I, one of the saddest moments of this past year, a plumber came over and told me that he saw a black widow in our little closet downstairs. And he said, but don't worry about it. I killed it. And I was so devastated. I was like, oh.
1:16:02 Speaker 01 Seriously? What's wrong with you guys?
1:16:05 Wes Larson? Yeah, I would just remove it.
1:16:06 Speaker 01 Oh my gosh.
1:16:06 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:16:07 Speaker 01 Wes, what about the fleas?
1:16:08 Wes Larson? Fleas? Uh, they're hard to catch and kill.
1:16:11 Speaker 01 Would you kill them?
1:16:12 Wes Larson? Yeah, cuz they're biting me.
1:16:13 Speaker 01 They're bugs.
1:16:14 Wes Larson? But they're biting me.
1:16:15 Speaker 01 Okay, alright. Um, anyways, that's the, that's the part about, uh, your-
1:16:21 Wes Larson? Resolutions.
1:16:21 Speaker 01 Resolutions.
1:16:22 Wes Larson? Okay.
1:16:22 Speaker 01 So, I've been answering a lot, or I've been responding to a lot of the messages.
1:16:28 Wes Larson? Yeah, Patreon.
1:16:29 Speaker 01 The Patreon messages.
1:16:30 Jeff Larson? Past year's been responding to a lot of people.
1:16:33 Wes Larson? It's really helped us.
1:16:34 Speaker 01 And then, in the email, the, the mailbag, Jeff didn't tell me he did the advice thing, so I was telling people-
1:16:42 Jeff Larson? To a lot of people.
1:16:43 Speaker 01 I was telling him, this is the wrong place. Jeff's like, oh, sorry, my mom got it wrong, but this is the right place. I'm like, that's, anyways, okay.
1:16:54 Jeff Larson? I think you paraphrased a little bit.
1:16:56 Wes Larson? I would say too, like, just so everyone knows, we get a lot of messages from a lot of different sources. Instagram, email.
1:17:04 Jeff Larson? Part of that's our fault for not having a better place for you to write us.
1:17:08 Wes Larson? And the three of us just aren't great at answering. So, we have prioritized our subscriber messages. And my mom, our mom, has been doing a great job helping us with those, cuz those have even become- A little unmanageable for us. So, thank you, Mom.
1:17:22 Speaker 01 You're welcome. So, I actually wanted to give you guys a few compliments, like since we're summing up the year.
1:17:27 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:17:28 Speaker 01 Of what the, some of the people have said about the podcast.
1:17:32 Wes Larson? Okay.
1:17:32 Speaker 01 Okay. And Wes said, they don't really like pats on the back that much, but I said, I'll try to just make it so it's not bad.
1:17:42 Speaker 01 I sincerely, I want to sincerely thank you guys for the podcast. Not only have I gained a ton of knowledge from listening, but listening to Wes talk about his field work inspired me to go back to school because I knew there were actually jobs in which I could work hand on with wildlife in a meaningful way. And actually, several people have written in that very kind of same thing. And it doesn't even have to be-
1:18:07 Jeff Larson? Shout out their name?
1:18:08 Speaker 01 This one, nope.
1:18:09 Wes Larson? Just a first name.
1:18:10 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. I think this one is, this one's Christine. No, this is Yash.
1:18:15 Jeff Larson? All right. Okay.
1:18:16 Speaker 01 No, maybe not. I don't think I have anyone's. I do have one for Yash, though. I appreciate how you guys have thousands of fans and still manage to involve them all.
1:18:25 Wes Larson? We do our best.
1:18:26 Speaker 01 So, that was nice. You have kept me so deeply inspired. And today, I was just accepted into a graduate biology program. I'm chasing my dreams and making them come true. And I'm so thankful for the knowledge and insight you share about animals and the natural world, Christine.
1:18:41 Wes Larson? That's great. You know, a lot of-
1:18:42 Jeff Larson? You said that as a yeah.
1:18:43 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's all right.
1:18:44 Speaker 01 No, the other one was Yash.
1:18:47 Jeff Larson? You said Christine at the end.
1:18:49 Speaker 01 Sorry.
1:18:49 Jeff Larson? No, you're fine.
1:18:50 Speaker 01 They know what they wrote.
1:18:51 Jeff Larson? I'm getting, okay, I'm getting all crossed up.
1:18:54 Speaker 01 Okay, here's another one. I think this is, I'm sorry. I didn't keep the name straight. Oh, this is Stu Dog. Okay.
1:19:01 Jeff Larson? Stu Dog.
1:19:02 Speaker 01 Stu Dog. I also want to thank you guys. Early in March, I went to the hospital to get a routine EKG. And about 10 seconds into the scan, the tech said to me, oh, okay, I'm going to suggest I take you over to the ER immediately. Long story short, I spent the next eight hours in the ER while they tried to get my heart rate down. I went in and my heart rate was pushing 200 bpm.
1:19:25 Wes Larson? Whoa.
1:19:26 Speaker 01 I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and have had an anxious month of tests and scans, trying to figure out the next course of treatment. I have OCD and anxiety and being shuffled into the ER and having a bunch of monitors was, you know, bad for, anyways, blah, blah, blah.
1:19:45 Speaker 01 But I did, oh, his wife was gone. And so he said, I was all alone, but I did have my earbuds. You guys kept me company whilst I was laying in the ER room. And Michael, it says whilst with the S. Yes, you say that sometimes, I think.
1:20:03 Mike Smith? Do I? I should stop.
1:20:04 Speaker 01 And no, it's a good word.
1:20:06 Mike Smith? It is, no.
1:20:07 Speaker 01 And listening to Tooth and Claw helped to distract me from what I was going through and ease my anxiety of the situation. I just wanted you guys to know that your podcast is more than entertain and inform. It helps people in ways you probably haven't thought about. I work in a long-term care facility as a healthcare assistant and I'm returning to school to finish the nursing program. I've played your YouTube videos for a number of my residents. So this is the health, the care facility. And they thoroughly enjoy the videos. So you should know you do have a 98-year-old toothy out here in Vancouver Island.
1:20:43 Mike Smith? Wow.
1:20:44 Speaker 01 Stu Dog.
1:20:45 Jeff Larson? Yeah. So we saved Stu Dog's life.
1:20:47 Speaker 01 Okay, there's just, I think there's just one more. I wanted you guys to know how important, especially you are to listeners. I have a hard time switching on a different podcast because it's not you guys. You're a part of my everyday life and honestly feel like family members. I want to make sure to check in with some, in some way each day. It's hard to word without sounding creepy, but your voices and humor is such a comfort and really do help many people cope.
1:21:13 Mike Smith? That's all the subliminal, subliminal message, messages we slip into our content for the Tooth and Cult. Only listen to us. Right. You can't escape. We are your family. We're the only ones you can listen to.
1:21:26 Speaker 01 I did, I forgot to write her, it was before I was taking these down, but another woman wrote in.
1:21:32 Jeff Larson? Did you have a name for that last one?
1:21:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, Megan. Ma- Megan. M A E G A N. And then this one I don't have a name for. I think she moved to Ireland. But she said that the last time she had
1:21:46 Jeff Larson? Irish voice?
1:21:46 Speaker 01 No, I can't.
1:21:47 Wes Larson? Do the whole one.
1:21:48 Speaker 01 She said the last time she had her a baby that she listened to all three episodes of the
1:21:56 Wes Larson? Night of the Grizzlies.
1:21:57 Speaker 01 Night of the Grizzlies. And then she was asking if you she's gonna have another baby in the fall. So she was wondering if maybe you guys wanted to do another like three part episode. So that she could go through labor again.
1:22:09 Wes Larson? Sure.
1:22:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, I like that one, too.
1:22:12 Wes Larson? Well, thank you. That's very nice.
1:22:13 Speaker 01 Okay, just one more, one more, one more.
1:22:15 Wes Larson? Oh, okay.
1:22:15 Speaker 01 Okay, I have a note for each of you. Mike, I learn new words every episode because of you. Wow. Thank you for making me use make use of my dictionary. Jeff, are you still single? Asking for a friend. That friend is me.
1:22:29 Jeff Larson? That's a good question.
1:22:32 Speaker 01 Wes, Jesse is really cool and you're very smart. Also, thank you for normalizing bear spray.
1:22:37 Wes Larson? Thank you.
1:22:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:22:38 Wes Larson? Okay, thanks, everyone. That's really nice.
1:22:41 Speaker 01 So that's really nice.
1:22:42 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:22:42 Speaker 01 I just love those and I didn't even read the ones they wrote to me.
1:22:46 Wes Larson? Yeah, I'm sure you get a lot of nice things said about you.
1:22:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:22:51 Wes Larson? Anything else from your since last year, Mom?
1:22:54 Speaker 01 Since last year?
1:22:55 Jeff Larson? Yeah, do you want to give us any feedback? Not from the listeners, from you?
1:23:00 Speaker 01 From me?
1:23:00 Jeff Larson? Yeah, what do you think? How did we do last year?
1:23:02 Wes Larson? What should we do better? What can we?
1:23:04 Jeff Larson? What did you think of Chimp Crazy?
1:23:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm not. Chimp Crazy? Oh, I thought you guys did an excellent job.
1:23:09 Jeff Larson? Do you think Tanya does an excellent job?
1:23:12 Speaker 01 No, I felt sorry for her, but I I felt sorry for those people. I mean, it was too bad.
1:23:18 Wes Larson? She's a mom to those chimps, to Tanya.
1:23:21 Speaker 01 It was too bad. I mean, the show was good, but I thought you guys did it. I was listening for I was doing it for you. And you guys did an excellent job on that.
1:23:31 Wes Larson? Thanks.
1:23:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think you've done really well. I think it's it's been good.
1:23:36 Wes Larson? Are you good?
1:23:37 Speaker 01 I think we're good.
1:23:38 Wes Larson? Okay, we're gonna move on to our next category, which is one that's very topical that we need to talk about quickly.
1:23:44 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:23:44 Wes Larson? Which is our cage match category.
1:23:46 Jeff Larson? Mm hmm.
1:23:47 Wes Larson? And lately, on Twitter especially, and in a lot of other places.
1:23:51 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:23:51 Wes Larson? People have been talking about this question that someone posed of who would win between 100 men or a gorilla. So.
1:23:59 Jeff Larson? 100 men versus one gorilla.
1:24:01 Wes Larson? Yeah, versus one big male silverback gorilla.
1:24:04 Mike Smith? Who's winning that?
1:24:06 Jeff Larson? Out in the 100 men fighter at the same time.
1:24:08 Speaker 01 I'd go for the men. They have the bigger brains.
1:24:12 Jeff Larson? I think pretty, I think 50 men.
1:24:14 Mike Smith? Me too.
1:24:14 Wes Larson? I that's I so I was asked this by some friends and I think 30 to 40 men could probably do it. And I think the the assumption we're making is that both both parties, the 100 men and the gorilla are like amped up and fighting like a cage match thing, I think.
1:24:29 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:24:30 Wes Larson? And so if that's the case, I think just the physical weight of all the men pouring onto the gorilla is enough to like stop it. We also have much better stamina than gorillas. Gorillas run out of energy a lot quicker than we do. And so I think where there's going to be some fatalities. That gorilla is going to kill a handful of people.
1:24:49 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:24:49 Wes Larson? But I think if the men are able to like pile on to it, hold it down.
1:24:53 Jeff Larson? Yeah, like maybe like two men's job is just to like have their hands down there and just like throw people up in the air at the gorilla.
1:25:04 Wes Larson? Sure to pile driver.
1:25:05 Jeff Larson? I think if I was in there, I could do a lot of help.
1:25:09 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:25:09 Jeff Larson? Getting that gorilla.
1:25:10 Mike Smith? If you could hand pick the men fighting this gorilla, how many men do you think it would take?
1:25:15 Jeff Larson? I think it'd take like 10.
1:25:17 Mike Smith? Really? Who would be your like first overall pick?
1:25:19 Jeff Larson? John Jones, the UFC fighter. He's like the best UFC fighter.
1:25:23 Wes Larson? He'd get disqualified though, because he'd be like abusing some steroids.
1:25:27 Jeff Larson? Is steroids allowed?
1:25:29 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah, sure.
1:25:30 Mike Smith? Is cocaine allowed?
1:25:31 Wes Larson? I think the one thing that's.
1:25:32 Mike Smith? Can the gorilla take cocaine?
1:25:33 Wes Larson? Take cocaine, sure. The one thing that's not allowed is weapons.
1:25:37 Speaker 01 Because I think that men have the bigger, the smarter brains.
1:25:41 Wes Larson? Yeah, sure.
1:25:42 Speaker 01 So the gorilla doesn't get to just be fed the cocaine. He has to choose that that's what he wants.
1:25:47 Jeff Larson? Actually.
1:25:48 Wes Larson? Fair enough.
1:25:49 Mike Smith? It's a good point.
1:25:49 Jeff Larson? I might choose like people I don't like. Just as a gorilla, it's like get like Zuckerberg thinks he can fight, they'll put him in there.
1:26:00 Wes Larson? Yeah, let's throw all the billionaires in against it. They're the first wave too.
1:26:04 Speaker 01 Oh, blah, blah, blah.
1:26:05 Wes Larson? It's an interesting, it's an interesting conversation.
1:26:09 Jeff Larson? Sorry, mom, we know, we know you like billionaires.
1:26:12 Wes Larson? Oh, she loves them. I don't blame her. I want to be with one. It's an interesting conversation. People have been talking about a lot. I do think people tend to think that primates, apes especially, are much more powerful than they actually are. We were actually guilty of that until we did the chimp crazy episodes. One of us was guilty of that. And
1:26:35 Jeff Larson? Who?
1:26:36 Wes Larson? Me especially, I think, honestly. I think Jeff had a better read on it. Jeff's the one that thought he could beat him. That's what I'm saying.
1:26:43 Jeff Larson? I'm saying, I think they have the, oh, you're
1:26:46 Wes Larson? I'm saying Jeff had it right.
1:26:47 Jeff Larson? I thought you
1:26:48 Wes Larson? He didn't have it right, but he was closer to right than I thought.
1:26:50 Jeff Larson? I said I have a 3% chance. That's pretty
1:26:53 Wes Larson? Three?
1:26:54 Jeff Larson? Three out of 100.
1:26:55 Wes Larson? Against a chimpanzee. Yeah, so I still don't think that's true, but I think like you were closer than I thought. Um, I thought it was like a total zero and the primatologist that we talked to said, you know, they're not quite as crazy powerful as people think they are. So 30 to 40 men, I think could probably do it.
1:27:16 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I'm not quite as crazy powerful as our listeners think I am either.
1:27:20 Wes Larson? That's true.
1:27:21 Jeff Larson? Because
1:27:21 Wes Larson? Once you said 200 pounds.
1:27:23 Jeff Larson? Pounds, but that was a while ago and I haven't done it again.
1:27:26 Wes Larson? Yeah. All right. So for our final big category, we're going to do listener questions and Jeff on Instagram prompted our listeners.
1:27:33 Jeff Larson? Tooth and clawed it.
1:27:34 Wes Larson? No, tooth and claw, excuse me. Uh, on Instagram prompted our listeners to do Mother's Day or Cindy Larson related questions. So Jeff, did we get some good ones?
1:27:43 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:27:44 Wes Larson? All right.
1:27:44 Jeff Larson? Gavin F96, 96, that's a funny number.
1:27:48 Wes Larson? That is so close. No, it's the opposite. That's funny.
1:27:50 Jeff Larson? Well, you lay like back to back, head to toe.
1:27:53 Wes Larson? Yeah, sure.
1:27:54 Jeff Larson? That's funny. All right. Mom, this is for you.
1:27:57 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:27:58 Jeff Larson? What did you honestly think when your son said that they were starting a podcast? And what do you think now that it's become a massive success?
1:28:06 Speaker 01 So I honestly thought it was a great idea because it was COVID. And Wes had just lost his dream job of um of actually being on a show.
1:28:17 Jeff Larson? Check it out.
1:28:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:18 Jeff Larson? Great big story. Mission Wild.
1:28:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:20 Jeff Larson? Hard to find these days.
1:28:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, and they started, they actually came home for a month, two months for COVID. So they did it in my basement. So that was a lot of fun for me.
1:28:30 Jeff Larson? Podcast.
1:28:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, I would just, I would just sit on the stairs and listen to them. And it was, it was just a lot of fun. So I.
1:28:37 Jeff Larson? Say, Mom, you better not be listening up there.
1:28:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:40 Jeff Larson? And then we'd hear.
1:28:41 Speaker 01 I'm not shocked. I'm not shocked that it became big. I'm, I am a little shocked that it became this big. But I just thought like Wes, for a while Wes.
1:28:51 Jeff Larson? Bigger.
1:28:51 Speaker 01 Yeah. For a while Wes, he wrote a blog and lots of people followed his blog because it was super funny. He.
1:28:58 Jeff Larson? What was the blog called?
1:28:59 Speaker 01 Wes actually used to be.
1:29:01 Jeff Larson? Your mom.
1:29:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, Wes actually used to be the funny one, but um. But, and he still can be, but he had to get, he wanted to be taken seriously.
1:29:12 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:29:12 Speaker 01 He wanted to be taken seriously as a wildlife biologist.
1:29:15 Jeff Larson? He's still the fun.
1:29:16 Speaker 01 So he, yeah.
1:29:16 Jeff Larson? No, it is a good point though.
1:29:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:29:18 Jeff Larson? Wes is actually funnier than me and I'm actually smarter than Wes. But we just kind of fell into these roles.
1:29:26 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:29:28 Jeff Larson? I'm rapidly trying to find if my blog is still out there so I can delete it.
1:29:34 Jeff Larson? Rebecca Paulson, you love Rebecca Paulson.
1:29:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, I do. I do.
1:29:40 Jeff Larson? You knew her when she was a little girl.
1:29:41 Speaker 01 Watched her grow up.
1:29:42 Jeff Larson? Yep. If Cindy could be any animal, what would she be?
1:29:46 Speaker 01 Um, I think right now I would be a hawk.
1:29:50 Jeff Larson? Nice. I like that answer.
1:29:51 Speaker 01 I want to fly like them and then they have the sharp beak, so they can't, no one has to just give them. They can, they can defend themselves and they can just kill fish.
1:30:02 Jeff Larson? We'll bleep that word out. No one can give them what? C R A P? Mom.
1:30:08 Speaker 01 No one can give them. Is that a better one?
1:30:11 Jeff Larson? Rot?
1:30:12 Speaker 01 Rot.
1:30:12 Jeff Larson? Sure.
1:30:13 Speaker 01 It's a slang word.
1:30:14 Jeff Larson? We'll start using that.
1:30:15 Speaker 01 It's a slang. I'm starting.
1:30:16 Jeff Larson? Bleep that one too, Bill, just in case. Lindsay Adam Glenn's ass.
1:30:22 Jeff Larson? What's the most surprising thing about motherhood?
1:30:25 Speaker 01 I think the most surprising thing was the bond that came like right at birth. And it was crazy.
1:30:33 Jeff Larson? Especially with Wes's eyes, how could you not?
1:30:35 Speaker 01 Well, no, I mean Cyrus was the first child, but it was crazy because I didn't think that would happen. I didn't just love babies and then he was born.
1:30:46 Jeff Larson? Did you think they were cute?
1:30:49 Speaker 01 I didn't. I said, well, all babies are ugly. My baby will be ugly until it gets older. And then I saw him and I thought he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. And that was just weird to me because it was, it was like, you know.
1:31:01 Wes Larson? My whole life, all she did was talk about how cute a baby Cyrus was. And then I would always be like, was I cute? And she'd be like, yeah.
1:31:11 Speaker 01 Well, you're the ones they wanted for commercials, so.
1:31:14 Wes Larson? Oh, okay.
1:31:15 Jeff Larson? Uh, Hunt4bucks asks, if you had a fourth son, what would you name him?
1:31:21 Speaker 01 I would have named it Garrett because that's my maiden name. Yeah.
1:31:25 Wes Larson? For a while though, what was the name you really wanted to name one of us?
1:31:28 Speaker 01 What?
1:31:29 Wes Larson? Tyrone.
1:31:30 Speaker 01 Oh, we already covered the Tyrone thing. Okay, go ahead.
1:31:33 Jeff Larson? Ava Escha asks, did you always want to be a mom? And what piece of advice for first time moms?
1:31:39 Speaker 01 I did always want to be a mom. I always loved children, children, children. But not always just babies, but I, I wanted to be a mom. My advice would be to listen to yourself and trust your instincts. Because you are that mother. I, um, you're the child's mother. And other people will give you advice and you can just sift through it and decide what is best for your child. And you always do what's best of your child's interest. I mean, not that you put your own needs away, but if you have to juggle something, you think what is best for my child with discipline, with love, everything, what is best for my child?
1:32:22 Wes Larson? It's gotta be hard for moms these days with all the information out there for them. Like to know what's good and what's bad.
1:32:27 Jeff Larson? Basically, don't listen to that advice. Listen to your own advice.
1:32:32 Speaker 01 Listen to your, that's what I'm saying. Yeah.
1:32:34 Jeff Larson? Kayla Rabos asks, what's, what, Kyle, Kayla?
1:32:39 Wes Larson? Isn't that Kyla from our trip?
1:32:40 Jeff Larson? It could be. Kyla. Hi Kyla, if it is you.
1:32:44 Speaker 01 Hi Kyla.
1:32:45 Jeff Larson? How's it going? This wind is crazy.
1:32:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:32:48 Jeff Larson? We've got hurricane right now, but.
1:32:50 Speaker 01 Close that door if we need to.
1:32:52 Jeff Larson? What has been Cindy's favorite wildlife encounter ever? It is from Kyla. Hi Kyla.
1:32:59 Speaker 01 Okay, so I have, I have two that I'll just go over real quick. The first one, um, I think one of you named in your, um, podcast before. It's when we saw the orcas and we were whale watching and the orcas just, Wes just looked out and he said, there's orcas and the guide was like, no, we don't have orcas over here. No one sees orcas and then there were. I'm pretty sure I saw orcas. Of course, it was Wes that saw them too. And they just came and they just played around the boat. And it was just one of the best days of my life, actually. It was just so, and it was funny because the boys had just jumped in and peed, all the guys in the boat and so, and they swam around the boat and stuff. And then they got in and then all of a sudden the orcas appeared.
1:33:44 Speaker 01 And I'm just like, oh my gosh.
1:33:46 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:33:46 Speaker 01 But, um, yeah, so that was a really great day and we saw all those dolphins too. And the whales, but, um, the great, no, it was a blue whale. The other one is I was hiking in Glacier. I was done with the hike, the Grinnell Glacier hike. I was almost done and my feet hurt so bad and it is so hard for me to do that hike. I was just dying and I just needed to get back. And so I was going fast and Gilbert was way behind me because he wasn't, he wasn't going fast. And.
1:34:19 Jeff Larson? You're in a lot better shape than you.
1:34:20 Speaker 01 No, I wasn't, but anyways, he kept saying Cindy, Cindy. And I just kept going and finally he goes Cindy bear. And there was a grizzly bear coming down the hill right to the trail.
1:34:34 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:34:34 Speaker 01 And then it actually came onto the trail. It's only two bus, bus lengths away from me. Yeah. And it just kind of looked at me and I looked at him. But I had actually seen a grizzly way up on the mountain. And so I was holding my bear spray and the safety was actually off. And so I just thought.
1:34:54 Jeff Larson? You felt comfortable?
1:34:55 Speaker 01 I I did. I wasn't scared. I just thought, well, maybe this is it. Maybe this is my encounter. And then I slowly backed up and Gil, I backed up to where Gilbert was and then he's like, okay, I'll cover you. You can get out your phone and take a picture. And I hadn't even thought about it.
1:35:12 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:35:12 Speaker 01 But so I didn't get a very good picture, but it was still pretty cool. And then it just lumbered down the trail to a pool of water and it swam in the water and we just stayed there for like 20 minutes and watched it. I wanted to watch it till it left. Gil's like, okay, should we go? Like, well, there's still a grizzly bear right there.
1:35:31 Jeff Larson? Wes would have watched it for.
1:35:32 Speaker 01 I know. I know. I should have just said no. But my feet were killing me anyway. So that was my other one.
1:35:39 Jeff Larson? All right. Great one.
1:35:41 Speaker 01 Thanks.
1:35:41 Jeff Larson? Great answers. Yeah.
1:35:42 Speaker 01 Thanks.
1:35:43 Jeff Larson? Harpo Barks asks, hi Cindy, can we hear a little? I like that name.
1:35:47 Speaker 01 Oh, you want to hear animal sound?
1:35:49 Jeff Larson? A little bit about your mom. Was she an animal lover too? Any notable wild wildlife tales from her?
1:35:56 Speaker 01 Um, I don't know that my mom was actually a wildlife wildlife lover. They took us camping all the time and we loved the outdoors and they would point out animals, but she didn't really care about interactions with them. And we, she was more, yeah, she wasn't really an animal person.
1:36:17 Jeff Larson? She's very sweet. Did you have a favorite flower?
1:36:19 Speaker 01 She loved roses. Yeah. Um, and she was, she was very nice. She read to me. She just, she was a really good mom. I, it wasn't like we were the best, you know, I had two sisters. It wasn't like we were all just super best friends with our mom. Like, we just kind of all.
1:36:38 Jeff Larson? Brother too.
1:36:38 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah. And she just kind of took care of us and we just kind of did our own things and it was nice. She didn't like water, but she still took us to a pool like every day in the summer. We went to lakes everywhere. We went to the ocean all the time and water is my favorite thing. So.
1:36:56 Jeff Larson? We were about to get an animal noise out of mom there.
1:36:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:37:01 Jeff Larson? Give us a bark?
1:37:02 Speaker 01 But I did say, I.
1:37:03 Jeff Larson? A horse?
1:37:04 Speaker 01 With, no, but with this question.
1:37:06 Jeff Larson? Give us a horse.
1:37:06 Speaker 01 With this question, a listener when on Patreon, when we were, when we were writing and he found out it was me. He, he kinda told me a couple of things. He told me that his kids do not listen to it. Well, he's only five because he doesn't want him to um be sitting for the poop thing.
1:37:25 Mike Smith? Oh, yes.
1:37:26 Speaker 01 No, he's like maybe later when he's older.
1:37:28 Mike Smith? For any kids either.
1:37:29 Speaker 01 Okay, but he did want to tell me about his mom, which I thought was super sweet. He's like, let me tell you about my mom. She loves wildlife too. We have an endless stream of pets growing up. My parents live out in the country where we grew up and over the years have given my mom a bunch. We've given my mom a bunch of trail cameras that she sets up all around our property. She sends us picture of deer, coyotes, bobcats, turkeys, quail, and all the time. Whenever me and the boys are exploring on their property, we always do a photo bomb on the trail cams if we spot one. She also sends pictures of cool rocks, clouds, and any cool things she finds out in nature. They live near a big lake too, so when we were kids, she would wait till the water was really low. Then take us to hunt for treasures in all the places that are normally covered by water. I could see me doing that.
1:38:14 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:38:15 Speaker 01 And after hearing you and your boys talk about Al's and the family, I checked it out from the library to read to my boys. I told my mom about it and she immediately went and checked it out too. She's just a really sweet lady and a fun mom. And you, Wes and Jeff and Mike remind us. Um, and this is from, oh, Meet McCubby, but he kinda wanted Mike to say his name.
1:38:38 Mike Smith? Meet McCubby?
1:38:39 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
1:38:39 Mike Smith? There you go. Yeah, tell me if I did that wrong.
1:38:43 Jeff Larson? Mom, will you make a horse noise? Wait, so.
1:38:45 Speaker 01 No.
1:38:48 Jeff Larson? Okay. Thank you.
1:38:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, okay. But I really liked that one. I just thought it was so nice. He wanted to talk about his mom.
1:38:57 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:38:57 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:38:58 Jeff Larson? Can I, do you want me to keep going?
1:39:00 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:39:00 Jeff Larson? All right. Journey and Joss and I Carpenter. Uh, so Journey and Joss says, when they were little, did you have any ideas on what they should be when they grew up? And I Carpenter said, if you could have picked your kids professions, what would they have been?
1:39:16 Speaker 01 Well, I knew Wes would be happiest working with animals. I didn't know. I also knew that he would like money, because he likes nice things.
1:39:25 Jeff Larson? Lots of money in bears.
1:39:26 Speaker 01 Um, he's very frugal, though. So I, I wasn't sure what he should do. I didn't think vet was really the thing, because he got allergic to animals. So I wasn't really sure. I didn't really want him working with sharks all that much. That was kind of scary to me. So, but I figured he would work with animals and be happy. And then Jeff, Jeff, I would have loved for him to be a professional basketball player, because that's what he wanted.
1:39:53 Jeff Larson? That's what you pushed me for.
1:39:54 Speaker 01 No, I didn't. I didn't think he would. I thought Jeff might do really good with, um, driving tractors. And, um, and actually, I think, I feel a little bad, because for a while, he wanted to drive helicopters, fly helicopters. Fly helicopters. And I didn't.
1:40:13 Jeff Larson? Spaceship pilot.
1:40:14 Speaker 01 I, I was afraid of flying for a while, so I didn't encourage that, but I think he would have loved that. So that would have been a good one, too. I thought Jeff wanted, Jeff wanted to be active. I think Jeff needed a job where he could, he could do something.
1:40:28 Jeff Larson? What about Cyrus?
1:40:28 Speaker 01 Cyrus, I thought he would be an engineer like his dad.
1:40:32 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:40:33 Speaker 01 Or I did think, um, I did think he could be a dentist, because we have, like, five dentists in the family.
1:40:39 Jeff Larson? Okay, a couple more real quick. YK Chata asks, should father seahorses be celebrated this day since they gave birth to the babies? I don't think so. Was it for mom? Okay.
1:40:52 Speaker 01 Oh, crazy. I didn't even know that.
1:40:54 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:40:55 Speaker 01 Um, no, I don't think so.
1:40:56 Jeff Larson? Why not?
1:40:57 Speaker 01 Because they're male.
1:40:58 Jeff Larson? Alright. Yeah, I would agree with that.
1:41:01 Jeff Larson? Frantastic asks, has Jeff always had a baby voice?
1:41:06 Speaker 01 I don't think Jeff has a baby voice, so I like his voice, and I think he has the best laugh in the world.
1:41:12 Jeff Larson? He does have the best laugh. We had, I had to go to a lot of speech classes, though.
1:41:17 Speaker 01 Well, Wes went to more.
1:41:19 Jeff Larson? I went to a lot.
1:41:20 Speaker 01 Oh, Wes was.
1:41:21 Jeff Larson? I went to so many.
1:41:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41:23 Jeff Larson? The tiger. So Wes is.
1:41:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, the tiger.
1:41:26 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Okay, yeah.
1:41:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41:28 Jeff Larson? Uh, Forget Burbs asks, for your top five favorite animals, please?
1:41:34 Speaker 01 Please?
1:41:35 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:41:35 Speaker 01 Okay, I'd do dog, horse, tiger.
1:41:39 Wes Larson? A bear is certainly in there, right?
1:41:41 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, bear.
1:41:42 Wes Larson? Which kind, grizzly?
1:41:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41:44 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:41:44 Jeff Larson? Yeah, what type of dog?
1:41:45 Speaker 01 Grizzly bear, black bear, polar bear.
1:41:48 Wes Larson? Those, okay.
1:41:49 Speaker 01 So I like all of those, yeah.
1:41:51 Jeff Larson? Okay.
1:41:51 Wes Larson? All right, well, thank you, everyone, for your questions for our mom. We love having her on the show. It's really fun to hear you answer people's questions. It's fun to have you participate. And it's been great having you help us out more this year. It's really been fun to have our listeners connect with you. So thanks for doing that.
1:42:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:42:08 Jeff Larson? Thanks, mom.
1:42:09 Speaker 01 They're great people. They're great people and they really do like you.
1:42:12 Jeff Larson? Say that as a blanket statement.
1:42:14 Wes Larson? Yeah, most of them are pretty great.
1:42:15 Jeff Larson? I think most, all of them are great people.
1:42:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:42:18 Jeff Larson? We probably have a couple of bad people.
1:42:19 Wes Larson? We probably have, I mean statistically, we have at least one murderer.
1:42:22 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:42:23 Speaker 01 Really?
1:42:24 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:42:24 Jeff Larson? You think that murderer is a great person?
1:42:26 Speaker 01 No, I don't.
1:42:27 Wes Larson? Write in murderer, yeah, let us know. Who do you want to murder?
1:42:31 Jeff Larson? Maybe they had a good reason.
1:42:32 Wes Larson? All right. Well, thank you.
1:42:34 Jeff Larson? Luigi.
1:42:35 Wes Larson? Anyone else have anything else they want to say?
1:42:37 Jeff Larson? Luigi's listening.
1:42:38 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:42:38 Speaker 01 Oh, I have one more, I have one more thing to ask you, Wes.
1:42:41 Wes Larson? Okay.
1:42:42 Speaker 01 Okay. Dear Wes, Mike and Jeff, my name is Hazel and I'm seven years old. I'm in second grade. I want to help save endangered animals really bad. I want to ask you something I saw in the zoo. When me and my family were in the Smithsonian National Zoo, we saw a gorilla pee in its hand and lick its hand. Why did it do that?
1:42:59 Wes Larson? I have no idea.
1:43:00 Speaker 01 You don't?
1:43:01 Wes Larson? No.
1:43:01 Speaker 01 Okay. We also saw a rhinotan eat something and then throw up and then eat the throw up and then throw up again and eats it, throw up again. Why did it do that?
1:43:10 Wes Larson? I also don't know.
1:43:11 Speaker 01 It's not a behavior they do?
1:43:13 Wes Larson? I, it is, obviously, but it probably they do it in the wild, too.
1:43:17 Speaker 01 Well, it's a zoo.
1:43:18 Jeff Larson? I mean, for pee, a lot of animals lick pee because it gives them salt.
1:43:23 Wes Larson? Yeah, I don't think that's, it could be, though. I don't know. I should, I think.
1:43:27 Jeff Larson? I'll just say, like, the bighorn sheep at Glacier will go to, like, parking lots and lick it up for salt and they'll lick people's pee.
1:43:34 Wes Larson? But I'm guessing great apes in the zoo get plenty of salt from their food. I think great hips are just weird. They just do weird stuff sometimes that's really gross.
1:43:42 Jeff Larson? I mean, a human has probably done that before.
1:43:45 Mike Smith? Yeah, I forget who it was, but there was a baseball player who used to pee all over his hands before every game.
1:43:50 Speaker 01 Ew.
1:43:51 Mike Smith? Cause he, he thought it made him like tougher. You know, like his hands were like more leathery and tough to.
1:43:56 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:43:56 Wes Larson? You probably licked his hand a little bit.
1:43:58 Mike Smith? Yeah, for sure.
1:43:59 Jeff Larson? Yeah. So humans do that too.
1:44:02 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:44:02 Jeff Larson? Maybe it's a primate thing.
1:44:03 Mike Smith? Why do they do that, Wes? I just, I guess I explained it for baseball.
1:44:07 Wes Larson? I got a video for you. There's some stuff you guys can watch.
1:44:10 Speaker 01 Jeff, her favorite animal fact is, her favorite animal is a clouded leopard. I have two facts about them for you. They are closest living relatives to the saber-toothed tigers, and they are not actually leopards.
1:44:24 Jeff Larson? Okay.
1:44:25 Speaker 01 This is Hazel.
1:44:26 Jeff Larson? That's interesting.
1:44:27 Speaker 01 So I just wanted to put that one in since, since her mom helped her. And I'm not sure about her listening to the tacks, but okay.
1:44:36 Jeff Larson? All right.
1:44:37 Speaker 01 That's her mom's choice.
1:44:38 Mike Smith? Okay.
1:44:39 Jeff Larson? Don't miss any of your advice.
1:44:41 Wes Larson? Anything else before we wrap this up?
1:44:44 Mike Smith? Shout out moms.
1:44:45 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:44:45 Mike Smith? Biological moms, step moms, adoptive moms.
1:44:48 Jeff Larson? Hot moms.
1:44:49 Mike Smith? Hot moms, especially the hot moms. Geez.
1:44:52 Jeff Larson? Happy Mother's Day.
1:44:53 Wes Larson? Happy Mother's Day, everyone. Thanks mom for being on it. We love you.
1:44:57 Speaker 01 Thanks.
1:44:57 Jeff Larson? And we'll see you later. We'll see you later. Love you.
1:45:00 Speaker 01 Bye.
1:45:01 Mike Smith? See ya.
1:45:01 Jeff Larson? Love your moms.
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