That's a Moray - Eels and the Damage They Can Do

Turns out its not just sharks that have a set of chompers that can d-eel some serious damage underwater. Watch us on YouTube here: ~ ~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social: Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Jeff Larson?

  Hello everyone and welcome to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We are a wildlife podcast and we stick up for animals. We have a bear biologist who knows everything that's ever been known about animals. I'm his brother Jeff Larson and then we have our producer, Mike Smith.

• 0:32Wes Larson?

  You saying it that way makes me feel like we're protecting animals from bullies.

• 0:37Jeff Larson?

  Oh yeah. Um, I, I went to Salem the other day. You guys ever been out there?

• 0:43Mike Smith?

  Did you burn any witches?

• 0:44Jeff Larson?

  You know, even the Salem witch trials kinda like, you know, gets overshadowed by a man to me.

• 0:52Wes Larson?

  Why is that?

• 0:53Jeff Larson?

  Because the worst death was the guy that stuck up for all the witches and they slowly crushed him to death with rocks.

• 1:01Mike Smith?

  Whoa.

• 1:02Wes Larson?

  That is a bad way to go.

• 1:03Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. And then all the witches got like hung.

• 1:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06Jeff Larson?

  Or that, the way they'd be like, if she's a witch, she won't sink. And then they just sink them.

• 1:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:13Mike Smith?

  Whoops.

• 1:15Jeff Larson?

  We stayed in the hotel where like the sheriff who would strangle people and wanna kill all the witches lived there.

• 1:23Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Was he there? Did you see him?

• 1:26Jeff Larson?

  I heard a lot, bunch of stuff going on in there.

• 1:29Mike Smith?

  I don't understand burning witches. If I met a witch, I would wanna ingratiate myself to her so she would cast good spells for me, right?

• 1:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah. It seems like a great ally, not necessarily a good enemy.

• 1:42Mike Smith?

  Any witches out there, hit me up.

• 1:44Wes Larson?

  Hit us up. Pray for us. Do some of those spells for us.

• 1:48Jeff Larson?

  There's a lot of witches walking around in Salem. They could've just been like pretending, but a lot of witches. From the outside, it looked like there's a lot of witches.

• 1:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 2:05Wes Larson?

  If anyone out there wants to play sheriff.

• 2:07Jeff Larson?

  Danielle has this new thing where she'll be like, we're going on this one historic tour. And I'll be like, alright, that sounds cool. And it's like a pirate tour in Salem, you know? So we went on a pirate tour and she'll always be like, don't worry, it's not very long and it just is never ending. This one went for like three and a half hours. I was just like, this isn't, like we ended at a pirate museum. And then this guy who was on the tour with us was like, oh, I actually work for the museum. Let me give you a tour of it. And we had a whole nother tour.

• 2:41Mike Smith?

  No.

• 2:42Jeff Larson?

  Right after.

• 2:44Wes Larson?

  Luckily you've got such a robust attention span.

• 2:47Jeff Larson?

  I know. It's really fun for the first hour and then I'm just like, oh my God.

• 2:54Wes Larson?

  I feel that way about those kinda tours too. Like, like over an hour, it's kinda like this.

• 2:59Jeff Larson?

  And it's always like, the one thing I'm most interested in and it's like the only thing they don't know anything about. Like there's these old pirate grenades. There's just like a lead ball with a piece of wood in it. I was like, oh, so what? Did they just fill these with gunpowder? And it's like an original grenade? And the guy's like, oh yeah, I don't really know. And they told us about every other thing in the museum.

• 3:25Wes Larson?

  Today we're gonna talk about something long and slippery.

• 3:29Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Um, here's a little song lyric I came up with. When the diving is grand, but an eel bites your hand, that's a moray.

• 3:40Wes Larson?

  So.

• 3:42Wes Larson?

  I'd say.

• 3:43Mike Smith?

  You came up with that?

• 3:44Wes Larson?

  I got, I got a second one. When the jaws open wide and there's more jaws inside, that's a moray.

• 3:51Mike Smith?

  That's a xenomorph more like.

• 3:53Wes Larson?

  Well, you'll see, that's also a moray. Okay. So we're all pretty into diving, right? It's pretty safe to say that all three of us have gotten pretty into diving. Isn't that true?

• 4:04Jeff Larson?

  Hard to push back on that.

• 4:05Wes Larson?

  Yeah. We just couldn't let Mike have something for himself, could we Jeff? We just had to do it too. Yeah. We're all advanced divers now too, dive masters. We're not dive masters, master divers. Anyway, Mike, you do still have the most experience out of the three of us and I wanted to ask you a question. What would you consider the top three dangers associated with diving?

• 4:30Mike Smith?

  Ooh, underwater mines.

• 4:33Wes Larson?

  Unexploded underwater mines.

• 4:37Mike Smith?

  Tsunamis, tsunami waves. Actually, that might be the first, like the best place to be.

• 4:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah. You're not even gonna really feel it.

• 4:43Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Oh, I doubt that. A tsunami, I think you're getting carried away.

• 4:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Best place would probably be like on top.

• 4:51Mike Smith?

  No way dude. It'll take you right back on the land, which is like.

• 4:56Mike Smith?

  Put you on top of a mountain or whatever.

• 4:58Wes Larson?

  Alright, so mines, tsunamis, what's number three?

• 5:02Mike Smith?

  Puffer fish.

• 5:03Wes Larson?

  Puffer fish. Alright.

• 5:04Mike Smith?

  You want it'll poison you today.

• 5:06Jeff Larson?

  It just goes down your throat like a bug.

• 5:09Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 5:10Wes Larson?

  So the actual answer to that, um, is more like conditions. So for when you learn how to dive, the things that they teach you about that are the biggest dangers are like gas levels, nitrogen, all these different things that you're doing to your body, uh, currents. There's, it's mostly what you're doing to your body just by diving in the first place. And then ocean conditions that you have to watch out for.

• 5:34Jeff Larson?

  For me, it's damaging the coral reef.

• 5:38Wes Larson?

  That's also something you definitely don't wanna do, but it's not necessarily dangerous for us.

• 5:41Jeff Larson?

  Cause I just can't live with myself. So it is dangerous actually for me.

• 5:46Wes Larson?

  So usually it's like diver air pressure things, but really they don't often say that it's like, you know, animal life. You do go on certain dives where they talk about potentially dangerous animal life, but it always kinda feels like a footnote. You know, they'll bring up potentially sharks or scorpion fish or whatever else you could maybe run into. And there is one animal that they often say on dives when you're, especially if you're gonna be like holding on to the reef like we had to do in Galapagos, that they do tell you to watch out for. And you guys probably know what that animal is since you've read the title of this episode. But Jeff, go ahead and tell our listeners what that is.

• 6:26Jeff Larson?

  So like those bombs that sink down the depth charges?

• 6:30Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Jeff Larson?

  Were you thinking of those, Mike, or not?

• 6:33Mike Smith?

  That's, no, that's four. That's just outside the top three.

• 6:37Jeff Larson?

  Uh, moray eels.

• 6:38Wes Larson?

  Moray eels. Yep.

• 6:40Jeff Larson?

  That's a moray.

• 6:42Wes Larson?

  That's a moray. Exactly.

• 6:44Mike Smith?

  Catching on, you catching on Jeff?

• 6:45Wes Larson?

  So yeah, I think when it comes to dangerous undersea life, the things that we generally think about are things like sharks, these big macro predators like tiger sharks, bull sharks, uh, especially around reefs. Those are the sharks you might think about. And then you also could potentially run into things like box jellies. There's stonefish. There are a number of potentially dangerous critters down there. But the one that can pose a risk to humans, that's really common in coral reefs is the moray eel. And there are certain places that we go diving where these eels are something you really just expect to see on just about every dive. And I'm kinda curious to hear from you two, like what is the danger level you feel when you see a large moray eel when you're diving or snorkeling?

• 7:30Jeff Larson?

  Uh, zero.

• 7:32Wes Larson?

  Zero.

• 7:33Mike Smith?

  Very low.

• 7:34Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. I honestly think it might change after this episode because I didn't even really clock them as a threat.

• 7:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I think mine was a little bit higher. Um, I think I see them a little bit differently and it might be due to my first encounter I ever had with a large green moray eel. And this was in Belize in 2009. Uh, I was snorkeling with our friend Rob. And we saw a big green moray eel that actually left the reef and it was traveling on the bottom of the ocean, you know, swimming. It was really beautiful. It was my first big moray eel I'd seen in the wild. So I got really excited. I dove down, I was snorkeling, I dove down to get a better look. And I was really surprised to see that eel stop swimming, turn toward me and then shoot up through the water toward me with its mouth open. And it stopped a few feet away from my face. I backed away quickly in the water.

• 8:27Wes Larson?

  And I think for me, that being my first experience with a big moray eel, I've kind of had a healthy respect for just how fast they can be and how intimidating they can be. And I don't ever push the free swimming ones, especially when I'm in the water.

• 8:41Jeff Larson?

  How did you back away?

• 8:43Wes Larson?

  Uh, just like this.

• 8:46Jeff Larson?

  Couple. Yeah.

• 8:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Couple backstrokes.

• 8:49Jeff Larson?

  Okay.

• 8:49Wes Larson?

  So I do, you know, on some of our dives, our dive masters have said, you know, be careful where you put your hand. Don't harass them. But today I do have a couple of stories of divers that found out the hard way that moray eels can be pretty intense, that their bites can be pretty gnarly and that they definitely deserve our respect.

• 9:06Jeff Larson?

  Hmm.

• 9:07Wes Larson?

  First story comes from a country that we're gonna be visiting soon. And it's also from a storyteller that we have featured several times on this podcast, Mr. Jeremy Wade of River Monsters fame. In season eight of River Monsters, Jeremy must've ran out of dangerous river critters to talk about because he was looking into myths around sea serpents and what real life critters might be behind those myths.

• 9:32Jeff Larson?

  We would never.

• 9:34Wes Larson?

  No, no, we'd just quit. If we run out of teeth and claws, we're done.

• 9:39Jeff Larson?

  We'd never do like a Lorena Bobbitt episode or anything like that.

• 9:46Wes Larson?

  Oh, man. All right. So, one of the animals, as he's looking into sea serpent myths, of course, he decides to talk about moray eels. And as he's looking into moray eels, it doesn't take him long to find this guy named Matt Butcher, who was a British guy. Yeah. He was a British diving instructor, living in Phuket, Thailand, who knew firsthand how dangerous moray eels can be.

• 10:13Mike Smith?

  That's funny. Because butchers use their hands.

• 10:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And divers use their hands. And Matt, you'll see why.

• 10:21Mike Smith?

  And eels don't have hands.

• 10:23Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 10:26Wes Larson?

  In 2005, Matt is working as a dive master in the nearby Similan Islands, so these are some islands right off the coast of Phuket, Thailand. He's on a liveaboard. He spent about 18 months in this area. And during that time, he'd gotten to know where some of the undersea creatures could reliably be found. I think, you know, dive masters that spend the same, the amount, like, a lot of time in the same area over and over and over again, they tend to learn, like, oh, that reef has a moray eel. This reef often has reef sharks, you know, and that's kind of how he had gotten to know his reef. And one of the most reliable attractions for the divers that he would take out was a roughly six-foot-long giant moray eel that lived under some table coral about 60 feet

• 11:09Wes Larson?

  below the surface. So this is the actual species name, giant moray eel. This is the big morays that you often see in, like, the Indo-Pacific.

• 11:21Wes Larson?

  All right. So when divers would approach this table coral, which is just a coral that has a big, flat top on it, this giant moray would swim out and would approach the divers. And that's because it was looking for scraps of food that these divers often offered up to this moray eel. And she became so well-known that they named this moray eel Emma, and a lot of the local boats knew her and would feed her. And it was kind of like a routine stop for them on their diving trips.

• 11:50Wes Larson?

  So on April 18, 2005, Matt is diving with some friends, and he decides he's going to take them to see Emma. And as they approached this table coral, again, about 60 feet below the surface, sure enough, this big moray eel swims out and immediately begins to swim all around Matt and his friends. And he actually has a GoPro. This is 2000, or it wasn't a GoPro, some other kind of underwater camera. So it was very early-stage underwater camera in 2005. And they start recording. And you can see this video, this eel is just kind of swimming all over, and he's running his hand down its body, he's scratching its head. You can tell it's very food-conditioned, very used to having divers around. Yeah.

• 12:30Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 12:31Wes Larson?

  Swimming in and out of their legs. And it's searching for food. You can see it kind of probing and looking for food. And Matt had brought a bag that had some pieces of sausage in it.

• 12:43Wes Larson?

  So he pulls this bag of sausage out of a pocket on his BCD, which is the inflatable vest that you wear when you're diving. And Emma swims behind him and shoots forward trying to bite the sausage. But he hadn't untied the bag yet, this bag. So he's like fumbling, trying to pull out the sausage, trying to get it away from this moray eel as it's snapping at the bag. And in the process, his left thumb gets in the way. And Emma bites into his thumb, her long, needle-like teeth, just sliding into the flesh and through the joint of his thumb, where it meets his hand. And moray eels kind of have teeth that are somewhat similar to what you'd see in, like, a python or a large constrictor snake,

• 13:25Wes Larson?

  where they're really thin, but they're kind of backwards pointing, too. So that lets them, you know, really get a hold of you, and it's hard to pull away because they're pointing backwards.

• 13:35Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 13:36Wes Larson?

  So Matt immediately begins to try and get his hand free, but she just shakes back and forth. He can't get his hand free from this eel. And then he reaches out with his other hand to try and pry her mouth open. But this causes her to shake even harder. And then Matt hears a pop underwater, and he watches as Emma swims away.

• 13:56Wes Larson?

  And then, a cloud of dark, greenish-gray water starts forming around him, and he looks down at his hand, and he can see the white of his knuckle, where his thumb had previously been attached to his hand.

• 14:08Mike Smith?

  Holy mackerel.

• 14:10Wes Larson?

  Mike, why was this cloud?

• 14:12Mike Smith?

  Because we're underwater, Jeff.

• 14:16Wes Larson?

  That's actually the answer to my question, too.

• 14:19Mike Smith?

  What, what would you say if this happened to you?

• 14:22Wes Larson?

  I would say, holy mackerel. And I would know this cloud of blood is greenish-gray because what can't you see at 60 feet below the surface?

• 14:30Mike Smith?

  The color red.

• 14:32Wes Larson?

  The color red all but disappears. It's one of the first colors in the visible spectrum that you don't see when you start descending that deep. So Matt knows that he's seeing a cloud of his own blood. His thumb is gone. He makes his way to the surface. And when the boat that he was on sees that he's in distress and surrounded by a cloud of blood, they immediately call the Thai Navy. The Navy personnel bandages up his hand.

• 14:55Mike Smith?

  They got the Navy involved.

• 14:57Wes Larson?

  The Navy comes, yeah. They bandage him up, and they evacuate him to a hospital on mainland Thailand. So you'd think in this interview with Jeremy Wade, Matt would show him his hand, and it would be thumbless. Right, Jeff? He probably doesn't have a thumb because a moray eel bit it off.

• 15:12Jeff Larson?

  That's, he would have had half a thumb, maybe.

• 15:15Wes Larson?

  Well, it bit it off at the knuckle, right at his hand. So you'd think, oh, this guy doesn't have a thumb.

• 15:20Jeff Larson?

  Well, and the moray eel kept it, right?

• 15:23Wes Larson?

  Yeah. You're wrong again, Jeff.

• 15:26Jeff Larson?

  How?

• 15:26Wes Larson?

  Because he did have a left thumb. Albeit.

• 15:29Jeff Larson?

  Oh, it's his right hand.

• 15:31Wes Larson?

  Nope.

• 15:35Mike Smith?

  Trick question.

• 15:35Wes Larson?

  But in the video, I noticed, like, oh, that's a weird-looking thumb. It's really long and skinny, and it has this kind of strange, square ending to it. It kind of looked like a bush baby, you know, like, those bush babies that have that kind of weird, long thumb.

• 15:51Wes Larson?

  That's because he went to a doctor in Bangkok that cut off his second toe on his left foot and grafted it onto his hand. And that's why he has, like, a thumb, a toe thumb now on his left.

• 16:05Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 16:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 16:07Mike Smith?

  Wait a minute.

• 16:09Wes Larson?

  You can do that.

• 16:11Mike Smith?

  Is that a fair trade, do you think? Would you do that?

• 16:13Wes Larson?

  I think so. Because your thumb is very important, and your second toe isn't that important.

• 16:18Jeff Larson?

  Digit. Yeah.

• 16:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 16:20Mike Smith?

  I just watched this movie, Chocolate. It's like a 2008 martial arts film. And they make losing a big toe just seem like one of the most debilitating things that can happen.

• 16:29Wes Larson?

  I think, I think your big toe and your little toe provide a lot more balance. But I think your second toe isn't as important. But I'm not sure about that.

• 16:38Mike Smith?

  Oh, second toe. Okay.

• 16:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 16:39Mike Smith?

  I missed that. Okay, I'd do that in a heartbeat, then, for sure.

• 16:43Wes Larson?

  But I mean, if you look at your second toe, like, it's long and skinny, you know, that's like.

• 16:47Jeff Larson?

  Mine's longer than my big toes.

• 16:49Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So it kind of looks like a weird thumb, but he was really happy he did it. I do have to say, it's incredibly brave. If, if someone were like, hey, I know a guy in Bangkok that can cut off your toe and graft it to your thumb, I'd be like, no, dude, I'm good, you know?

• 17:03Jeff Larson?

  Right.

• 17:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 17:04Jeff Larson?

  Well, in The Hangover 2, they're in Bangkok, and one of them cuts off his finger for fun.

• 17:10Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah. I forgot all about that movie.

• 17:12Jeff Larson?

  And they didn't put their toe on there. I like it.

• 17:15Wes Larson?

  Okay. All right. We're gonna do a little biology. And to start, let's play a game.

• 17:23Jeff Larson?

  It's a, I don't think our doctors would offer that here, right?

• 17:27Wes Larson?

  I think they would. But I think in 2005, it was like, kind of cutting edge. But I'm not sure. Yeah. Remember that guy that got his, I think it was his nose ripped off by a bear, and they put his nose on his forearm, and like, removed on his forearm? Doctors are doing all sorts of.

• 17:44Mike Smith?

  That's so crazy.

• 17:46Wes Larson?

  You guys know I love Element, but something that you might not know is that the lemonade iced tea flavor is my new favorite flavor. I think it's delicious. I love how it tastes. And I love that it gives me a little bit of extra energy. And something you might know is that your body produces energy through a process that runs on electrolytes, not caffeine. If you're depleted, no amount of coffee is going to fix that. You're just going to mask it. You'll get that little bump. It hits hard, but then it drops fast because there's nothing in it to smooth the curve. And that's isolated caffeine. That's the stuff you're going to find in coffee, energy drinks. But tea works differently. The caffeine comes bundled with L-theanine and polyphenols. And the way it exists in

• 18:26Wes Larson?

  the plant, it gives you a noticeably steadier feeling. Less spike, less drop. Element Lemonade Iced Tea uses a full black tea extract, not isolated caffeine, plus a meaningful dose of electrolytes that are free of sugar, artificial colors, or other dodgy ingredients. It's built on the same formula as Element's core drink mix, sodium, potassium, and magnesium, all at levels shown to support optimal hydration. So you get a noticeably steadier feeling. Less spike, less drop, without the crash that comes from most caffeinated drinks. Not to mention, it tastes really good. All of their lemonade flavors have just been an absolute hit for me. So you can get a free eight-count sample pack of Element's most

• 19:07Wes Larson?

  popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinklmnt.com/tooth. That's drinklmnt.com/tooth. You can find your favorite flavor, or you can share with a friend.

• 19:21Wes Larson?

  All right. Let's play a little game. I've called this game Pizza Pie or a Moray?

• 19:28Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 19:29Jeff Larson?

  Okay.

• 19:29Mike Smith?

  Jeff should be good at this one.

• 19:31Wes Larson?

  Dean Martin's song. If the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a moray.

• 19:36Jeff Larson?

  Why am I going to be better than you at this?

• 19:38Wes Larson?

  Because you know a lot about pizza.

• 19:40Mike Smith?

  And love.

• 19:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I'm going to tell you guys some facts. And you need to tell me if I'm talking about a pizza pie or a moray eel. Because I know it's really hard to get those two straight. Okay? All right. First fact, there are over 200 recognized varieties.

• 20:03Jeff Larson?

  Well, there's pizza for sure. Pizza too.

• 20:07Wes Larson?

  Both.

• 20:09Jeff Larson?

  Dessert pizzas. There's so many vegetables and meat combinations.

• 20:15Wes Larson?

  I didn't think that through.

• 20:20Wes Larson?

  That's a more a.

• 20:21Mike Smith?

  Hey.

• 20:22Wes Larson?

  There are over 200 species of moray eel. You are right, Jeff. There are definitely over 200 types of pizza as well. I should have thought of that one. Okay, uh, there are over 200 different described species of moray eel worldwide. They're typically found in tropical and temperate waters. Okay, the Spago variety is often a pinkish red.

• 20:45Jeff Larson?

  Pizza pie. Oh, that's a thing.

• 20:48Wes Larson?

  That's the question.

• 20:50Jeff Larson?

  That's a more a.

• 20:52Wes Larson?

  That's a pizza pie. Uh, Spago is a pizza restaurant in California created by Wolfgang Puck and it's famous for its pizza that's topped with smoked salmon, making it a pinkish red hue. The Romans considered it a delicacy.

• 21:08Mike Smith?

  That's a more a?

• 21:10Jeff Larson?

  The, yeah, that's a more a.

• 21:13Wes Larson?

  That's a more a. Wealthy Roman dignitaries sometimes would build complex grottos with pools and tunnels and channels that connected to the ocean to house captive moray eels, which they then ate as a delicacy, which is kind of surprising because they actually can be quite toxic if you don't prepare them right.

• 21:31Mike Smith?

  Hmm.

• 21:32Wes Larson?

  In some parts of the Roman Empire, caring for moray eels became so popular that it almost became cult like. And there's this island named Ponza and there they had like big moray eel uh, captive areas. And there's this thought, and I don't think this is confirmed, that sometimes the locals would feed moray eels different things. And then they kind of used whether or not the moray eels accepted or rejected the food as a way to predict the future.

• 22:03Mike Smith?

  Oh.

• 22:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I couldn't find a lot on this. We're gonna take that with a grain of salt. It's also thought that Pontius Pilate went to that island and uh, kind of got really into moray eels after he killed Jesus.

• 22:16Mike Smith?

  That'd be a good road trip snack.

• 22:18Wes Larson?

  Moray eel?

• 22:19Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's just kind of like a huge fruit by the foot.

• 22:25Wes Larson?

  All right, that was a very long time ago. And in slightly more recent times, this is the next one, specifically 18th century Naples. It was often considered a cheap street food given to peasants.

• 22:38Jeff Larson?

  A pizza pie.

• 22:39Mike Smith?

  That sounds like pizza to me.

• 22:41Wes Larson?

  That's a pizza pie. You guys are good. You're nailing this. In 18th century Naples, pizza was sold, pizza was sold by street vendors and considered a cheap, humble meal for the working class. It wasn't until Queen Margarita visited in 1889 that pizza began gaining popularity among the upper class. And there was a chef that made a pie with her red tomatoes, white mozzarella and green basil and named it after the queen, Margarita.

• 23:09Jeff Larson?

  Ooh, what was it called?

• 23:14Wes Larson?

  In 2001, one went to space.

• 23:19Mike Smith?

  A pizza went to space is what I'm gonna say.

• 23:22Jeff Larson?

  I'm gonna say that's a more a.

• 23:24Wes Larson?

  That's a pizza pie.

• 23:26Mike Smith?

  Took a pizza to space?

• 23:28Wes Larson?

  What? 2001 Pizza Hut paid about a million dollars to send a vacuum sealed pizza to the International Space Station on a Russian resupply rocket.

• 23:39Mike Smith?

  Hey.

• 23:39Wes Larson?

  It's the first pizza delivered in space.

• 23:41Jeff Larson?

  Dogs?

• 23:42Wes Larson?

  Uh, no, for the humans.

• 23:44Mike Smith?

  Are we still sending dogs up there?

• 23:47Wes Larson?

  Probably. We're gonna, I'm gonna do an episode on the first bear they put in a rocket at some point. It's a very sad story. All right, the dragon variety is mostly white and orange.

• 24:00Mike Smith?

  Uh, more a.

• 24:01Jeff Larson?

  The dragon variety is, yeah, that's a more a.

• 24:05Wes Larson?

  That's a more a. Turns out this game isn't that hard.

• 24:09Jeff Larson?

  I went on a stretch for the, the rocket one. I was like, that's a trick question. Pizza seems obvious.

• 24:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna put the moon in it too, as an, as an option, but it just got a little too complicated. All right.

• 24:24Jeff Larson?

  Dragon moray eels. Came up with for you too.

• 24:27Wes Larson?

  Okay, once I'm done, you can do yours. Dragon moray eels are found throughout the Indo-Pacific. They're also known as leopard or tiger morays. They're mostly white, orange and brown. The biggest one ever recorded was 6,333 feet long.

• 24:45Mike Smith?

  That's one big pizza.

• 24:49Wes Larson?

  That's a pizza pie. Uh, made over a period of 54 hours by a team of more than a hundred people in Fontana, California. The 6,333 foot long pizza weighed over seven tons.

• 25:01Mike Smith?

  How did they bake that? That, I don't believe this.

• 25:04Wes Larson?

  I don't know.

• 25:05Mike Smith?

  I don't think it was.

• 25:06Jeff Larson?

  Did they consume it? Floppy bottom.

• 25:09Wes Larson?

  It probably had a soggy bottom. Yeah. What's your, what's yours, Jeff?

• 25:15Jeff Larson?

  Oh, my thing that came up with?

• 25:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Jeff Larson?

  Okay, um, sometimes this comes with uh, little sausages.

• 25:27Wes Larson?

  That can be either. We just learned it. Yeah. All right, that's a good one. Okay, here's some more facts. Almost all moray eels are found in marine environments. Although there are a few species that prefer brackish or fresh water. Most of them are found in tropical or subtropical water, but there are a few that are found in temperate waters as well. You most often find moray eels in either coral reefs or jumbles of undersea rocks.

• 25:55Jeff Larson?

  What eat them?

• 25:56Wes Larson?

  There are a few different fish that eat them, but they're kind of considered almost like an apex predator. There's really not a lot that eats them.

• 26:05Jeff Larson?

  It just feels like a shark or an orca. It'd be satisfying to eat a.

• 26:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 26:10Jeff Larson?

  You just slurp it up.

• 26:12Wes Larson?

  Be really tasty. There's like a lot of meat there. Uh, groupers, barracudas, sea snakes are their few known predators, but I'm sure there are other things that occasionally eat them. Some, some moray eels can be quite small. We'll talk about that in a second. They have this long dorsal fin that extends the length of their body, but they generally don't have any pectoral or pelvic fins. So there's no fins coming off the side. And that's how you can often tell them apart from other eels is most other eels will have, will have some sort of other fins. They don't have scales like other fish, but rather they're coated in mucus for their own protection. They come in a huge array of colors and sizes, everything from pale brown

• 26:53Wes Larson?

  to neon blue and yellow. That uh, that ribbon eel that Ian saw in Komodo, that really beautiful ribbon eel. That's a type of moray eel. That's a more a.

• 27:02Mike Smith?

  Holy cow.

• 27:03Wes Larson?

  Um, while many more.

• 27:09Wes Larson?

  Mike, you love undersea animals. You should be excited about this.

• 27:13Mike Smith?

  Uh, yeah, I am.

• 27:14Jeff Larson?

  Holy mackerel.

• 27:17Wes Larson?

  That's, yeah, all right. Anyway, while many moray eels, moray eel species are relatively small uh, and are gonna be like, there's some that are about a foot or less than a foot long even. The longest species is the slender giant moray eel and it can grow to almost 13 feet long.

• 27:34Mike Smith?

  Like Wemby, slender giant?

• 27:36Wes Larson?

  Yep, it is. Yeah, they should have called it the Wemby eel.

• 27:39Jeff Larson?

  Eel is a kind of a good nickname.

• 27:42Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:43Mike Smith?

  That is a good one. Yeah. I like it better than, what do we call them? Like the alien? Anyway. Let's not derail ourselves too much here. It's not rail ourselves at all.

• 27:52Wes Larson?

  They have gill openings behind their heads and they have to actively pump water through those openings. So with moray eels, it's kind of just like a hole rather than a big bony plate like most fish have. And because that hole is so small and they have to actively move water, you often see moray eels with their mouths open and that's because they are actively moving water through their gills and that's how they're breathing.

• 28:16Jeff Larson?

  Hmm. Oh, is that they're trying to bite me?

• 28:20Wes Larson?

  No, sometimes if you have sausages.

• 28:22Jeff Larson?

  It does look like they have, they do always have their mouths open.

• 28:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah. They have slender mouths with jaws that are lined with needle like teeth that point slightly backward. But maybe the coolest thing about them, in my opinion, is that a lot of moray eel species also have a second set of jaws in their throats. So the reason for that is most fish that you see underwater have rounded heads. And the way that their heads and their mouths are shaped allow them to suck in a bunch of water when they open their mouths to bite something. And that creates negative pressure and it essentially sucks their prey right into their mouths and makes it so the prey can't swim away.

• 29:05Jeff Larson?

  Kirby.

• 29:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's like Kirby. Exactly. And that holds the prey in their mouth too. That negative pressure like keeps it in their mouth long enough for them to bite down and kill the prey. But with the slender head that moray eels have, they can't create that negative pressure. It's actually the opposite that it would, if they didn't have their specific kind of adaptations, they would make pressure as they went for things and it would scare things away. So when they bite something, those jaws in their throat, which are called uh, pharyngeal jaws, spring forward into their mouths and latch onto the prey and they serve as a secondary anchor so it can't get away. Um, and they're really the only known vertebrate that has pharyngeal jaws that like this, um, besides xenomorph.

• 29:51Mike Smith?

  Xenomorphs, yeah.

• 29:52Wes Larson?

  Which is.

• 29:53Mike Smith?

  That's extra scary because you'd need two oxygen tanks to lodge in their mouths before you can blow them up.

• 30:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like if it should be called jaws.

• 30:06Mike Smith?

  Yeah, with an extra S on the end.

• 30:08Jeff Larson?

  I think it's scary, but honestly, like your second mouth is smaller. It's like the first mouth is kind of scary.

• 30:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 30:17Jeff Larson?

  You know?

• 30:18Wes Larson?

  But like an alien, that second mouth like could explode your head. It's got a lot of power behind it. That's not the case with mora eels. It's kind of just a second anchor for them. They eat a lot of different animals. Their main prey includes fish, crabs.

• 30:32Mike Smith?

  What happens when Kirby gets sucked in? What power do you get from that?

• 30:37Wes Larson?

  If you suck in Kirby?

• 30:39Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 30:40Jeff Larson?

  You don't gain.

• 30:41Wes Larson?

  In Smash Brothers, you get his rock and stuff. Oh, you would already be Kirby, huh?

• 30:45Jeff Larson?

  Right.

• 30:46Wes Larson?

  I think you do. Yeah, you don't get any special.

• 30:49Jeff Larson?

  I think you get his items.

• 30:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 30:52Mike Smith?

  That's too bad.

• 30:53Wes Larson?

  That's my guy.

• 30:54Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 30:55Mike Smith?

  It is your guy.

• 30:55Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 30:56Mike Smith?

  You're always one for sucking.

• 30:58Wes Larson?

  Speaking of sucking, when it comes to reproduction, they're mostly kind of a spray it, don't lay it animal. Uh, which means like the males and the females are both just spraying their eggs and sperm in the same spot and letting fertilization happen in the water. So let's make a hat that says spray it, don't lay it and sell it.

• 31:20Jeff Larson?

  The best is to suck in Sam Sampson, Sam Samus.

• 31:27Wes Larson?

  Samus.

• 31:27Jeff Larson?

  Because they have that charge up gun and then you can just do that.

• 31:31Wes Larson?

  And just sit on the other side of the arena and just do that over and over and over again. If you're Brent.

• 31:38Wes Larson?

  All right. These eggs, once they're fertilized, they develop into these tiny ribbon like transparent larva. Uh, and those larvae are generally pelagic. Do you guys remember what the word pelagic means?

• 31:50Mike Smith?

  Deep, like just ocean.

• 31:52Wes Larson?

  Open ocean. Yep, open ocean. So they're out in the open ocean, these tiny eel larvae, they're feeding on plankton in this larval stage. And because they're out in the open ocean, this really helps them distribute far and wide. And when they turn into juveniles, they start taking on the physical, the physical characteristics that we associate with mora eels. And they find reefs and rocks and whatnot to hide in. Here's a cool fact. I really like this one. You don't see a lot of cooperative hunting in the animal world between different species. A really famous example are coyotes and badgers. Or coyotes and badgers will go out and hunt together because they kind of benefit each other while they're hunting. But mora eels actually do cooperative hunting with another species.

• 32:38Wes Larson?

  Coral groupers, which is a big fish, will sometimes actively recruit mora eels to hunt with them. And what they do is they swim up to where a mora eel is and the coral grouper will shake its head back and forth at the moray to kind of signal it that it wants to go hunting. And then the moray leaves its hiding spot to patrol the reef. And what happens is that moray eel, as it's going through the reef and all these little holes and stuff, it's scaring fish up into the water. And that's where the coral grouper eats those fish.

• 33:09Jeff Larson?

  Oh, wow.

• 33:10Wes Larson?

  And meanwhile, the coral grouper is going like above the reef and it's scaring fish down into the holes. And that's where the mora eel can catch them.

• 33:18Mike Smith?

  Wow, that's.

• 33:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So they do this cooperative hunting with each other, which I think is just like an incredible fact. I just think that's so cool to think about. I don't think this happens often, but it has been documented to happen.

• 33:31Mike Smith?

  I like that because it's not just a thing that is a byproduct of like natural. I mean, it is a natural behavior, but it's not just like two species taking advantage of what the others are doing independent.

• 33:43Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 33:43Mike Smith?

  Of each other. They go and like they shake their head at each other and like signal a hunt. That's so crazy.

• 33:49Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like it's actual cooperation. It's not just like, yeah, them taking advantage of something. All right. I found a pretty crazy medical paper that details a really extreme moray eel bite in Cuba in the early 2000s. There's a photo and it's worse than what you're imagining. And I am going to show it to you. But basically what happened was there's a group of divers. They're exploring the reefs near the island of Varadaro. And among them is a 37 year old school teacher who's wearing a shorty wetsuit. Mike, can you explain to our listeners what a shorty is?

• 34:25Mike Smith?

  Yeah, so regular wetsuits, you're going to have all of your appendages fully covered. Uh, wrist down to ankle. With shorties, it's more kind of like the capri version where it's cut off at the knees and elbows.

• 34:37Wes Larson?

  Exactly. So your forearms and your calves are exposed.

• 34:40Jeff Larson?

  Suits.

• 34:41Wes Larson?

  Yep, that.

• 34:43Mike Smith?

  You should have asked Jeff.

• 34:44Wes Larson?

  No, you gave a perfect answer.

• 34:47Jeff Larson?

  Guy, the vice.

• 34:49Wes Larson?

  In front of my window right now. All right.

• 34:55Mike Smith?

  I wonder if they make shorty motorcycle leathers.

• 35:01Jeff Larson?

  They should.

• 35:02Wes Larson?

  Uh, all right. So they're about to jump in the water and as they're about to get in, the instructor briefs them on the site and mentions that there's a well-known five foot green moray eel. It was almost always present. It's very friendly and very inquisitive, likely because it was often fed. And I mentioned the giant moray eel in the Indo-Pacific. The green moray eel is probably the most iconic moray eel. It's just a big, bright green one. It's kind of what people picture when they picture a moray eel.

• 35:32Jeff Larson?

  Looks like a dragon if they're big enough.

• 35:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's found throughout the tropical parts of the Atlantic. Sure enough, when they descend about 30 meters or 90 feet, the eel swims out and starts inspecting the group. And it's hard to say exactly what attracted it to the school teacher, but it's likely that it could have been the pale color of his exposed forearms in the shorty webs, in the shorty wetsuit. The eel starts swimming around him excitedly. I think it's probably looking for some sort of handout. And when it doesn't get it, it bites down hard into his forearm and refuses to let go. It's thrashing back and forth and he's panicking, trying to get the attention of the rest of his group. But no one notices them. I think he's kind of at the back of the group, so he's panicking. He has this big moray eel latched onto his forearm.

• 36:19Jeff Larson?

  That's such a weird situation.

• 36:22Wes Larson?

  Mm hmm. He's 90 feet down, so it's pretty far.

• 36:24Jeff Larson?

  Oh, wow, yeah.

• 36:25Wes Larson?

  And so when notice, no one notices him. What he decides to do is fully inflate his BCD and make a rushed, uncontrolled descent to the surface.

• 36:34Jeff Larson?

  Oh, man.

• 36:35Wes Larson?

  Along the way, the eel does decide to disengage and swim away. And as far as I know, I don't think he got any nitrogen sickness or whatever, the bends, anything like that. But when he gets to the surface, the boat picks him up. They do their best to stem the bleeding and get him to the hospital where doctors have to perform hours of surgery on his forearm. And he was really lucky that the veins and arteries stayed intact. But it's kind of crazy what this eel did to his forearm. It looks like he was bit by a shark and I'm going to show you guys. It's pretty, pretty nuts.

• 37:11Mike Smith?

  Pretty nuts?

• 37:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 37:13Mike Smith?

  I think the prettiest nut is Brazil nut personally.

• 37:16Wes Larson?

  I think I would agree with that.

• 37:18Mike Smith?

  Whoa.

• 37:19Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 37:19Mike Smith?

  Holy moly.

• 37:21Jeff Larson?

  That's.

• 37:21Wes Larson?

  So that's his forearm.

• 37:22Jeff Larson?

  Bad.

• 37:23Wes Larson?

  It's real bad.

• 37:24Jeff Larson?

  Oh.

• 37:26Wes Larson?

  Wow. So I think that picture alone really made me think, oh, when I'm diving, I need to be a little bit more careful with mora eels. You know, they, they're not a nothing to me anymore. Well, they were, I mean, I told you my story. I've always had a certain respect, but I think I have even more now.

• 37:46Mike Smith?

  Stop diving with sausages probably from now on.

• 37:49Wes Larson?

  I got one more story.

• 37:51Jeff Larson?

  Just don't tie the bag shut.

• 37:54Wes Larson?

  Yeah, just have those sausages ready to go. But actually, our last story is going to kind of poke some holes in that as well.

• 38:00Jeff Larson?

  Hmm.

• 38:03Jeff Larson?

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• 38:49Jeff Larson?

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• 39:29Wes Larson?

  So honestly, almost all of the stories I could find about serious moray eel bites, like bites that send people to the hospital and were really intense, involved eels that had been fed and got confused. There was a story about a woman who was on a floaty in Oahu and a eel just like swam up and bit her foot and she had to get some stitches and a few other kind of unprovoked bites that I could find, but almost all of the serious ones were food conditioned eels.

• 39:59Jeff Larson?

  Mike, your like deepest episode, that one was pretty unprovoked when it bit a guy's face.

• 40:07Mike Smith?

  Yeah, there was very little information about it, but it didn't seem like he was doing anything to provoke that attack. Yeah.

• 40:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And there are videos that I found of people having them kind of do what the one in Belize did to me where it's just aggravated and it swims out at them really fast. And even a couple of those videos where the people did end up getting bit. But most of the stories I found did revolve around eels that were food conditioned, including this last one, which is one of the better known stories I found. It was on the DAN website, which is the Diver Alert Network. It's like a dive insurance company and it involves a well-known figure in the diving world who's down in the Florida Keys. It's this guy named Spencer Slate. And Spencer had been diving in this area for the better part of his life. He leads groups down there. He would do fish feeds where each day they would go to a different part of the reef and they would feed different fish, everything

• 40:58Wes Larson?

  from sharks to groupers to moray eels. And I'm not really going to get into the ethics of underwater feeding in this episode. I do think we tend to really, especially in North America, we tend to have this visceral reaction visceral reaction visceral reaction to animals being fed. And it's because we hear about like bears and, and all these other animals that causes serious problems. But underwater, it does tend to be a bit murkier. I didn't mean to say that.

• 41:32Mike Smith?

  Oh, boy.

• 41:34Wes Larson?

  But it is, it's kind of a, a little bit more of a gray area where there's not always a ton of research to support or reject the fact that it creates, you know, problems. But I do think when it comes to moray eels.

• 41:50Jeff Larson?

  Feeding like land animals to fish.

• 41:54Wes Larson?

  Feeding land animals to fish?

• 41:55Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's just like a moray eel should never know what a pig tastes like, in my opinion.

• 42:00Mike Smith?

  You think?

• 42:01Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:02Wes Larson?

  Well, then we probably should never know what all the fish that we eat tastes like.

• 42:06Jeff Larson?

  Well, we're, we're adaptable. A moray eel can get its own pig. I'm fine with it.

• 42:13Mike Smith?

  That's fair. I actually do think that's a good rule of thumb.

• 42:16Wes Larson?

  I get that. Sure.

• 42:18Mike Smith?

  What, you know, we did a Bible episode recently. Shout out Patreon. Remember when Legion or someone got chased off in a bunch of pigs? They like chafed off a cliff into the water?

• 42:28Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:29Mike Smith?

  You'd think some morays probably got those pigs.

• 42:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, probably. I take it all back.

• 42:34Mike Smith?

  There you go.

• 42:34Wes Larson?

  When the Romans had all those pools full of moray eels, maybe it fell in one of those.

• 42:38Mike Smith?

  Pig fell in one of those.

• 42:40Wes Larson?

  Legion's so dumb to go into those pigs and just get scared. It's not much of a demon, is it?

• 42:47Mike Smith?

  Demons.

• 42:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause there are many.

• 42:51Mike Smith?

  We are.

• 42:52Wes Larson?

  Check out our Bible episode. By the way, I think it was fun. We talked about attacks, animal attacks from the Bible. We finally got our, her Bible wiggles out.

• 43:01Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 43:02Jeff Larson?

  It's great.

• 43:03Wes Larson?

  All right. In May of 2022, Spencer had a new helper on his boat and this helper didn't have a ton of experience working with Spencer. And on that day, she had grabbed the bucket that they used to feed nurse sharks rather than the bucket that they used for the moray eels, which was their target that day, the moray eels. The normal moray eel bucket was spring loaded and it helped Spencer control the pace of the feeding. I don't totally understand how that works, but the main point is that this helper had grabbed the wrong bucket and it was a pretty big mistake. Spencer only noticed when they got to where they were diving, which is a reef called Pleasure Reef and was the eel dive site. They had 21 guests with them. So he just

• 43:46Wes Larson?

  decided he was going to keep going and make it work, but it wasn't going to be a very pleasureable experience for him.

• 43:57Wes Larson?

  I practiced that. I still got it wrong.

• 43:59Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I was wondering if that.

• 44:01Wes Larson?

  Pleasureable.

• 44:02Jeff Larson?

  I think you got it.

• 44:04Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 44:05Mike Smith?

  Is there a reason you're saying it like that?

• 44:07Wes Larson?

  Eel. I put eel in there, Mike.

• 44:09Mike Smith?

  I'm such a moron. Can I leave?

• 44:14Wes Larson?

  There's too many eel puns. I really just like struggled this episode trying to think of them. But all right. So they dive down to the reef and the large green moray eels are already gathered in the sand. They're waiting for their feeding and pretty much the second Spencer gets down to the sand, the lid on this bucket pops off and a bunch of the food scraps float out and the eels rush this bucket.

• 44:37Jeff Larson?

  Oh, that's not good.

• 44:39Wes Larson?

  Simultaneously, this bucket was full of like fish chum and the cloud of blood from the chum bucket blocks his vision and he can't really see that one of the eels was now fully inside of the bucket. And he reaches down to try and clear out all the fish scraps and just kind of give the eels what they want and, you know, kind of control the chaos. And rather than clear out these fish chunks, he puts his hand right in front of a feeding eel and it bites down hard right on his wrist and starts shaking. These teeth are cutting effortlessly through his flesh, his tendons, his veins, his arteries, and he says it almost severed his hand completely. But then the eel releases, his friend grabs

• 45:23Wes Larson?

  him and takes him to the surface where he makes a makeshift tourniquet out of a GoPro strap.

• 45:29Jeff Larson?

  That'd be sweet to make the tourniquet out of the eel.

• 45:33Mike Smith?

  Oh dude, that'd be quick thinking.

• 45:39Wes Larson?

  That's a good point. Yeah.

• 45:41Mike Smith?

  Eels could be their own tourniquet if a human ever bit one back.

• 45:44Wes Larson?

  Ooh.

• 45:51Wes Larson?

  All right. Onboard the ship, another diver who was a medic used the first aid kit to further, to further stabilize and dress his wounds. But one of his arteries was ruptured and he's losing blood really fast. So they call the coast guard, they mobilize a boat to come and get him and the boat's going 65 miles per hour back to the shore.

• 46:10Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 46:11Wes Larson?

  And like weaving in and out of boats in the marina. They get to the marina and then a life flight helicopter takes him to a hospital in Miami.

• 46:18Jeff Larson?

  That reminds me of the movie Miami Vice where she's like on a first date and they're like, let's go to Cuba and they just speedboat to get. My dies in Cuba.

• 46:33Mike Smith?

  They were going like 250 miles for hours, for hours on a first date. That would be insane.

• 46:41Wes Larson?

  Oh, it's a great movie. All right.

• 46:44Mike Smith?

  Notes from that.

• 46:44Wes Larson?

  This, I like, it's not an exaggeration to say this was an eel bite that came close to killing this guy.

• 46:50Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 46:51Wes Larson?

  He goes to Kendall Regional Hospital and they reattach his hand. Like it wasn't fully disconnected, but it was almost gone.

• 46:58Jeff Larson?

  They put his foot on his hand?

• 47:04Wes Larson?

  They attach, they reattach all the veins, all the arteries. The operation lasts more than 10 hours. He stays in an intensive care unit for 31 days. And every other day he said he had either a skin graft or another surgery to try and restore blood flow to a couple of his fingers. But ultimately he wasn't able to save his little finger and his index finger and both of them had to be amputated.

• 47:28Mike Smith?

  Those are bad ones.

• 47:29Wes Larson?

  Those are bad ones.

• 47:30Mike Smith?

  Can't go to rock concerts anymore.

• 47:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah, unless you got his toes on there. He needs to go to Bangkok. It took seven months of physical therapy before he was able to dive again, but he is out diving. He doesn't blame the eel. He knows that it was just a bad situation.

• 47:46Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 47:47Wes Larson?

  All right. Uh, I'm curious if either of you have any like experiences with moray eels you want to share before we move on to our.

• 47:54Jeff Larson?

  No, I feel like I need to start feeding them or something because I never can get that close.

• 48:00Mike Smith?

  Or get them out?

• 48:01Jeff Larson?

  I just remember when me and Mike did a night dive in Cozumel and I didn't realize moray eels could get that big. I was just like.

• 48:11Wes Larson?

  There's some big ones in Cozumel.

• 48:12Jeff Larson?

  This is crazy.

• 48:14Mike Smith?

  They're so sweet. I love, I love seeing them under the water.

• 48:17Wes Larson?

  Me too. I think, I think they're one of those animals that I don't get tired of. Like in Galapagos, we saw a ton of moray eels and every time I was pretty excited to see them.

• 48:27Mike Smith?

  Do you know what would be really satisfying? Eels don't lay down when they sleep, I assume, but it seems like they'd be perfect for side sleeping. Seems to be really satisfying just to have like.

• 48:38Wes Larson?

  Really flat on that side. And yeah, that does seem nice, doesn't it?

• 48:42Mike Smith?

  Probably not back sleepers.

• 48:44Wes Larson?

  No, because they got that dorsal fin.

• 48:47Mike Smith?

  Do underwater animals snore? Do you think? Do they, does anyone have like a, a chunky little like?

• 48:53Jeff Larson?

  Shanks will, Shanks will like sleep on his, Shanks will sleep on his tail. I wonder if they do like a circle, sleep on their tails.

• 49:04Mike Smith?

  Sleeps on?

• 49:05Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, you'd like rest his head on his tail.

• 49:08Mike Smith?

  Oh, that's kind of nice.

• 49:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 49:11Mike Smith?

  You don't, ah, whatever. I don't even care anymore.

• 49:16Wes Larson?

  What don't you care about anymore?

• 49:18Mike Smith?

  Well, it just seems like probably some fish out there have like not the best respiratory gill system going on. Maybe there's like a little bit of a snore.

• 49:27Jeff Larson?

  Snoring. Yeah. I mean, if, if I'm picking what under the ocean snores, that's not a mammal, eel would be pretty high up there.

• 49:38Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 49:39Jeff Larson?

  Like something I think snores.

• 49:41Wes Larson?

  Maybe one got like punched in the face and it has a deviated septum and now it snores.

• 49:46Jeff Larson?

  You know what it is? Is their mouth is always open.

• 49:49Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 49:50Jeff Larson?

  That's where you snore is when you get your mouth open.

• 49:53Mike Smith?

  That's a good point. Sleeping on your back with your mouth open.

• 49:56Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, I guess we'll never know.

• 49:58Jeff Larson?

  There we have it. They snore.

• 50:03Jeff Larson?

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• 50:46Jeff Larson?

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• 51:32Mike Smith?

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• 52:17Mike Smith?

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• 53:01Wes Larson?

  All right, let's move on to our categories. Uh, I want to hear your favorite eel from pop culture and you get extra points if it is a more eel.

• 53:10Mike Smith?

  Whatever.

• 53:15Jeff Larson?

  I just like all the Krusty Krab customers uh that are eels. They're always funny and SpongeBob. There's the one that always says like, ow, my leg.

• 53:27Mike Smith?

  The leg.

• 53:28Jeff Larson?

  I think his name is Frank.

• 53:29Mike Smith?

  Are Flotsam and Jetsam more eels?

• 53:31Wes Larson?

  They are.

• 53:32Mike Smith?

  Morey. Morey. So that's double plus double points. So I got four points, I think, right?

• 53:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they are. They're good ones. I, I think they're kind of the perfect Disney henchmen. In that they're kind of scary, but also just great characters. When was the last time you guys watched Little Mermaid, the original?

• 53:55Mike Smith?

  I can't even.

• 53:57Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 53:58Mike Smith?

  30 years?

• 53:59Wes Larson?

  That was one that me and Jesse maybe watched like four or five years ago. And we're kind of blown away by how good it was and like how great the animation is and like the voice acting. It's just, both of us afterward were like, man, we really lost something with like this style of animation and voice acting going away.

• 54:19Jeff Larson?

  Well, you boycotted the live action because of who they cast.

• 54:23Mike Smith?

  Guess you hated their casting.

• 54:27Wes Larson?

  Actually not true at all.

• 54:30Wes Larson?

  Cause it's reductive bullshit, like those, those re- those remakes.

• 54:35Jeff Larson?

  The underwater.

• 54:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 54:37Jeff Larson?

  It has like the whole Aquaman underwater look.

• 54:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I did not.

• 54:42Jeff Larson?

  Their hair is just, yeah.

• 54:43Wes Larson?

  There's cash grabs.

• 54:45Mike Smith?

  Do Flotsam and Jetsam speak? Do they have speaking roles?

• 54:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I think, yeah, they do. It's kind of like hissy and like they're, they have like really good fun voices.

• 54:55Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna watch the, you've convinced me.

• 54:57Jeff Larson?

  I said all the Krusty Krab customers. So I think I get more bonus points still than you.

• 55:03Mike Smith?

  You might be at like 30 points. Yeah.

• 55:06Wes Larson?

  I was a pretty, I was a pretty morbid kid and I remember at one point, like being in a bookstore with my mom and I found a copy of the book Hannibal, like the Richard Harris book, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs. And there's this, I just happened to like open it to this chapter and started reading it when I was probably eight or nine years old. That's probably like 10 or 11. And there's a part in that book where you guys remember Gary Oldman's character in the movie? He's like all disfigured and he wants to kill Hannibal Lecter. That character in the book is killed by someone stuffing a moray eel down his throat and it bites his tongue off and he like drowns in his own blood. And I read that as a kid and I was like, whoa.

• 55:50Jeff Larson?

  Like, how do they do that?

• 55:52Wes Larson?

  He has a pet moray eel and he loves it. And I think it's his daughter or someone grabs it and stuffs it down his throat. And then it bites his tongue and kills him.

• 56:02Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 56:02Wes Larson?

  And like suffocates him. Yeah.

• 56:04Mike Smith?

  That wasn't in the movie.

• 56:06Wes Larson?

  No, in the movie he gets eaten by pigs.

• 56:09Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's right. Which moray eels also eat. Comes full circle.

• 56:15Wes Larson?

  Only if they have demons in them.

• 56:16Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 56:18Wes Larson?

  All right. Uh, your favorite scene from the Alien franchise?

• 56:23Mike Smith?

  Oh, boy. Um, you know, an alien versus predator? Predator grabs him by the foot and like swings him around and throws him down the hallway. That's mine.

• 56:35Mike Smith?

  So stupid. If in real, in reality though, maybe Dallas in the, the air ducts.

• 56:41Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 56:41Mike Smith?

  Uh, hunting. Yeah.

• 56:43Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 56:43Mike Smith?

  It's just a very tense, amazing movie. Man, that movie. Holy cow.

• 56:47Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I like when she gets in that robot suit thing because you're always like, that'd be cool. But then I also said from Alien 3, where she makes the over the head basketball shot? When she's like showing the, the guys like who's boss? Because but the behind the scenes is she made that on the first take.

• 57:12Wes Larson?

  Really?

• 57:12Jeff Larson?

  Ripley, yeah, the actor, Sigourney Weaver, just like drained a half court shot first try with everyone watching.

• 57:20Mike Smith?

  So sweet. That was right around the time Escape from LA happened too. And Kurt Russell also hit the crazy basketball shot.

• 57:29Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:30Mike Smith?

  I don't think that was first take though, but it's just kind of crazy that that's like a thing that's happened multiple times.

• 57:36Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 57:37Wes Larson?

  Full method.

• 57:40Wes Larson?

  I have to pick the, the chessbuster scene in the first movie.

• 57:44Mike Smith?

  Like, how would you method act that though? Like a behind the head basketball shot? Like what is the method you are employing outside of the camera?

• 57:52Jeff Larson?

  The Chicago Bulls mascot?

• 58:01Wes Larson?

  The second I said that, I was like, that makes no sense.

• 58:07Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm picking the chessbuster scene in the first Alien movie. It's just like, I don't know if there's ever been a scene that ratchets up the tension and horror in a movie quicker than that one. And it's just like such a pleasant, nice kind of, you feel like it's just this scene where they're kind of, you're building camaraderie with the crew and and then all of a sudden it just turns into like full blown horror. And I think the way they all react to it is how people would actually react to it. It's just really well done. Good job Ridley.

• 58:36Mike Smith?

  Good job Ridley.

• 58:37Wes Larson?

  Man, sometimes you really got the sauce, my guy. Sometimes you don't.

• 58:43Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 58:44Mike Smith?

  House of Gucci had the sauce.

• 58:46Jeff Larson?

  What's his most recent movie? Didn't he have one this year?

• 58:50Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it was.

• 58:53Mike Smith?

  Gladiator 2?

• 58:54Wes Larson?

  That was not a great movie in my opinion.

• 58:57Jeff Larson?

  The worst.

• 58:58Mike Smith?

  Dude, some people are kind of riding for that these days I've seen. I don't get it.

• 59:02Wes Larson?

  Huh. Yeah, I don't, you know, I think Gladiator 2 is his last like big movie. He's done a bunch of TV since then.

• 59:09Jeff Larson?

  Oh, that's what I was thinking.

• 59:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And then he has some upcoming stuff, The Dog Stars, that one that's about to come out.

• 59:15Mike Smith?

  That's right. That is him.

• 59:17Wes Larson?

  That's our guy. Hey, go watch The Last Duel, everyone. That movie rocks.

• 59:22Mike Smith?

  So freaking good.

• 59:24Wes Larson?

  All right. Let's do a quick cage match with the moray eel.

• 59:28Mike Smith?

  Oh.

• 59:30Wes Larson?

  Cause this is a new animal. I think um, when it comes to our undersea animals, they can probably eat anything that's smaller than them. So Mike, Mike just did like a scorpion fish episode. I think they could probably eat a scorpion fish. We've done uh, some like jellyfish episodes. I'm pretty sure they can eat jellyfish. Uh squid, I think, I don't know, like the Humboldt squid.

• 59:54Mike Smith?

  The Humboldt squid?

• 59:55Wes Larson?

  I think would be maybe a pretty interesting fight, but I think I'd probably put my money on the squid.

• 1:00:01Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I'd rather fight a eel than the squid.

• 1:00:04Wes Larson?

  But yeah, I think overall, all of our sharks that we've talked about can probably kill moray eels in a, in a cage match. So. This is a mid-tier underwater animal for a good match.

• 1:00:15Jeff Larson?

  Seems like they have a really good bite though. Like their bite would be up there with their bites a little bigger than their bark.

• 1:00:24Wes Larson?

  That's their only thing though, you know, that's all they can do.

• 1:00:30Mike Smith?

  That's funny right there. I don't care who you are.

• 1:00:32Wes Larson?

  Okay, if you, here's another question for you. Since they have a second set of jaws, if you could have a second body part or double of any body parts that you already have, so you can pick like arms, you can double your arms, or you could just have a second of any other body part, what would it be and why?

• 1:00:49Mike Smith?

  I don't care who you are. I'm taking another brain.

• 1:00:53Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:00:55Mike Smith?

  Yeah, smart, intelligent.

• 1:00:57Wes Larson?

  Big old head.

• 1:00:58Mike Smith?

  Huge head. I don't want two heads, just one giant head. Two head, two brains. Well, maybe two heads, like the Bill and Ted song, two heads are better than one.

• 1:01:06Wes Larson?

  I don't think you can pick head as your second body part.

• 1:01:10Mike Smith?

  Okay, so just brain then.

• 1:01:11Wes Larson?

  Brain. Okay.

• 1:01:12Jeff Larson?

  I said hands and doubling my hands. So now I have twenty fingers and I can just type so fast.

• 1:01:20Mike Smith?

  Play the piano like a Rachmaninoff piece?

• 1:01:22Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:01:25Wes Larson?

  I think I, I picked arms. Uh, I want to be like Goro in.

• 1:01:29Jeff Larson?

  Do you get twenty fingers now?

• 1:01:33Wes Larson?

  Do I get twenty fingers if I have arms?

• 1:01:35Mike Smith?

  I think so.

• 1:01:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Jeff Larson?

  Ah, shoot, that's better than mine probably.

• 1:01:41Mike Smith?

  I also think having more fingers would make me worse at typing.

• 1:01:44Jeff Larson?

  Well, I can't get too much. I was always the worst at school, so.

• 1:01:49Mike Smith?

  I just.

• 1:01:49Wes Larson?

  I'll take any help I can get.

• 1:01:51Mike Smith?

  Stuff at the wall. You'd be like that one CSI scene where they're hacking on the same keyboard.

• 1:01:57Jeff Larson?

  What, there's like twenty-six letters, right? So I can almost put a finger on each letter.

• 1:02:03Mike Smith?

  Oh, that's a good point, actually. Maybe you would be really good. Oh, two, four thumbs. Thumbs aren't like, basically you just use your thumb for the spacebar.

• 1:02:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I, I feel like I learned to type poorly because I don't do it the way I'm supposed to. My downfall is I look at the keyboard sometimes still. I can't just go like no look, so.

• 1:02:24Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I'll feel, I'll be like feeling myself typing.

• 1:02:28Wes Larson?

  With your extra fingers? Is that why you want them?

• 1:02:31Jeff Larson?

  And I'll just be like, I'm not gonna look, I'm just gonna type. And I'll be like, oh, I just nailed that paragraph and then I'll read it and it's just

• 1:02:43Jeff Larson?

  maybe four out of five words are just not words.

• 1:02:49Mike Smith?

  Oh, if you had twenty fingers, you could type with one hand. And speaking of feeling yourself.

• 1:02:54Jeff Larson?

  Oh.

• 1:02:55Mike Smith?

  Your other hand could be doing whatever you want it to be doing.

• 1:02:57Wes Larson?

  Smoking twenty cigarettes or ten. You probably need two fingers for each one. All right, uh, let's do a, let's argue with a question mark because I don't know if this is gonna make an argument or not.

• 1:03:12Mike Smith?

  Dipping dots again, right?

• 1:03:13Wes Larson?

  Uh huh. What's sexier, eels or snakes?

• 1:03:18Mike Smith?

  Hmm, I'm going snakes still.

• 1:03:21Wes Larson?

  Jeff, do you want to argue with Mike about that?

• 1:03:24Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I think it's, I do think it's eels. I think you just gotta think of like the more colorful eels though.

• 1:03:32Wes Larson?

  I'm snakes too. Like the dry feeling of a snake slithering through your hand, I think is a lot sexier than like a mucousy eel. But some people think that like mucousy slippery eel is gonna be sexier.

• 1:03:44Mike Smith?

  Sure. But like if eels were sexier, that Britney Spears would have had one of those.

• 1:03:49Jeff Larson?

  That's what I was gonna say. I think it would have been more iconic with a eel.

• 1:03:54Mike Smith?

  I think it would have just been gross.

• 1:03:55Wes Larson?

  Just like mucus dripping down her body.

• 1:04:00Wes Larson?

  I do think there's a lot of people out there that expect snakes to feel like what an eel feels like. Like they think snakes are gonna be like goopy and mucousy. But yeah, I'm, I'm all, I'm team snake on sexiness, in my opinion.

• 1:04:13Jeff Larson?

  To me sexy is like, you can't, you can't touch it. It's like sexy that it's something unattainable, you know?

• 1:04:22Mike Smith?

  Okay, that's a pretty good counterpoint.

• 1:04:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

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• 1:05:53Mike Smith?

  Eels don't really choke you the way sn- snakes do though.

• 1:05:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:57Mike Smith?

  Which is a little sexy.

• 1:05:58Wes Larson?

  That's a good point.

• 1:05:59Jeff Larson?

  They can shock you though.

• 1:06:01Wes Larson?

  Oh, that's sexy.

• 1:06:04Mike Smith?

  I'm coming around. I still think I'm team snakes, but I would not say no if my partner was like, hey, I've got something I'd like to

• 1:06:14Mike Smith?

  experiment with tonight.

• 1:06:16Wes Larson?

  Let's get into conservation. So it's kind of a hard one because there are so many different species of moray eel. But I do, from what I could find, overall, I think they're doing pretty well. I think their biggest threats are habitat loss and that is directly from coral reefs, from us losing coral reefs at a, at a really fast rate. So I think this is an animal that there are a lot of still, but it's kind of like a polar bear situation where uh, polar bear numbers are okay right now, but they are rapidly losing their habitat and there's gonna be a huge drop off at some point. And I could see something similar happening with moray eels as they lose more and more coral reef.

• 1:07:00Wes Larson?

  But I think it'll take a lot longer than it would like what we're gonna see with polar bears.

• 1:07:05Mike Smith?

  We need like a Jason Statham, but instead of a beekeeper, an eel keeper.

• 1:07:10Wes Larson?

  Keeper. Yeah.

• 1:07:11Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I kind of feel like the worse polar bears do, the better eels will do.

• 1:07:17Wes Larson?

  Uh, that's not necessarily true.

• 1:07:18Jeff Larson?

  The ocean, there'll be more ocean.

• 1:07:21Wes Larson?

  There will be more ocean, but it'll be dead ocean. It's not gonna be coral reefs. So. Uh, coral reef is notoriously hard to, to kind of recreate, even though there's all these projects where people are trying to kind of do like reef seeding and whatnot. It's not easy. One thing though, that I did want to talk about is bleaching, coral reef bleaching often gets a lot of, of press and it is possible for some bleached reefs to come back. That's like a defense strategy of those reefs is they are surrounding themselves with like, I think it's calcium, I can't remember exactly, but that's actually a defense strategy of the reef to try and protect itself. And if conditions do get better for those reefs, they can come back. So

• 1:08:06Wes Larson?

  it's not a lost cause is what I'm trying to say, but sometimes this climate stuff does feel pretty insurmountable.

• 1:08:13Jeff Larson?

  It didn't work out for Michael Jackson.

• 1:08:16Wes Larson?

  Bleaching?

• 1:08:17Jeff Larson?

  Yep.

• 1:08:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Guess. I don't think that was really the thing that got him.

• 1:08:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to point to one thing.

• 1:08:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Mike Smith?

  Maybe it's not.

• 1:08:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I don't know. I'm just gonna stay away from that one. Uh, let's go ahead and go into our claw ranking.

• 1:08:38Mike Smith?

  I should put global warming on the list of things that make me say bruh. That's three items long now.

• 1:08:47Wes Larson?

  All right, claw ranking. Let's give moray eels a, a claw ranking on one to ten claws.

• 1:08:52Mike Smith?

  I'm going big time here. I'm gonna give them eight, eight claws, I think. Uh, again, not the most uncommon thing. Like if you go diving down in Mexico, really, really good chance you're gonna see one. But it doesn't stop me from being just jacked, you know, I'm hyped.

• 1:09:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07Mike Smith?

  I get hyped.

• 1:09:08Wes Larson?

  Sign again for them? Is it this?

• 1:09:09Mike Smith?

  I don't care dude, I'm just looking at them. I get hyped. Anyone making signs at me? I'm not gonna look at the people mate. I'm looking at the eel Wes. Eight.

• 1:09:21Jeff Larson?

  When that, when the uh, guy at the back of the group was getting bit, the second story.

• 1:09:33Mike Smith?

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:09:35Wes Larson?

  If you had four hands, they probably would have noticed.

• 1:09:38Jeff Larson?

  I think I'm gonna go with a six. I like them a little more than your average animal for sure. And I think it has room to grow because I haven't seen that many types yet. I wanna see like some more colorful. I wanna see that ribbon one.

• 1:09:54Wes Larson?

  That's the number one one I wanna see.

• 1:09:56Jeff Larson?

  But yeah, maybe like a six, seven category.

• 1:10:00Mike Smith?

  Oh dude, let's do it.

• 1:10:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that sweet spot right in between you guys and go a seven. I, I really think they're really cool. The first ones I saw were like, you know, the coolest thing I saw that day. I do think I've seen so many now that they've lost a little bit of their luster, but I agree with Jeff. There's some really incredible species out there that I still really wanna see. So I'm gonna go with the seven.

• 1:10:25Mike Smith?

  Six, seven?

• 1:10:27Wes Larson?

  Six, seven. I just bumped my desk, so whoever's editing this one, I'm sorry.

• 1:10:31Mike Smith?

  That's me. That's fine. Don't worry about it.

• 1:10:33Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, that's all I got. Uh, that's two sea creatures in a row. So our next one won't be a sea creature, but um, thanks guys. Thanks for being here.

• 1:10:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you're welcome. That was great. Man, I learned some things I am happy to have learned today.

• 1:10:48Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:49Mike Smith?

  And that's on you Wes. That's all you bud. Ten claws for Wes.

• 1:10:53Jeff Larson?

  That second photo was very extreme and then what was that one thing we learned that was real cool, Mike?

• 1:11:01Mike Smith?

  The symbiotic hunting relationship.

• 1:11:03Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, that was cool.

• 1:11:05Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:06Mike Smith?

  I'm hyped. Wes, hype.

• 1:11:08Wes Larson?

  All right, Mike, go, go try and calm down. All right, we'll, we'll see you guys later. Love ya.

• 1:11:14Jeff Larson?

  Love ya.

• 1:11:15Mike Smith?

  See ya.