Pod Insights Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks Fire Ant Attack - Joan Goes Skydiving About this episode Hey everyone! Here's another subscriber episode we thought would be fun to release to the world at large to give everyone a little taste-test of what they can expect if they join either our Patreon or Apple Griz Club. In this one, Jeff shares an unlikely story involving a skydiver and some fire ants, Wes gets fussy about the liberal usage of time travel, and Mike is worried about everyone else's marsh mellows.
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Transcript 10,380 words · 3 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Mike Smith? Hey everyone, welcome back to Tooth and Claw. Here's another subscriber episode that we thought it would be fun to release to the world at large to give everyone just a little taste test of what they can expect if they join us either over at our Patreon or on the Apple Griz Club. In this one, Jeff talks about fire ants. It's actually a pretty extraordinary story. We're excited for everyone to hear it, but a little bit more about the subscription feeds. I'm realizing how shameless of a plug this is right now as I'm speaking, but anyway, we have 100-plus hours of content, 100 episodes and more and counting every other week. I didn't say that very clearly, but so I said to say, we have a lot of subscriber exclusive content over there if you want to subscribe either for just a month or longer. And also, we just found out that Patreon enabled gifting subscriptions.
0:45 Mike Smith? So if you have anyone in your life you think would enjoy a little bit more Tooth and Claw, it's pretty cheap. It's like $10 for one month. They can binge all of our stuff. You can unsubscribe, send them the gift of Tooth and Claw for Christmas, maybe. I don't know. Most recently, Wes put out some more thoughts about his experiences while working with Bear399. A lot of people are really enjoying that. We've started branching out a little bit, doing some other kinds of content just here and there, but again, mostly focused on some of like the weirder animals like fire ants, for example, that maybe just wouldn't get the coverage on our main feed like we usually do. Anyway, I've been talking too much. We hope you enjoy it. We're grateful for all the support that you've shown us these past few years. We really could not be doing this without you. So, thank you. All right, let's get to the episode.
1:30 Mike Smith? Let's go.
1:44 Jeff Larson? Okay, Tooth and Claw Patreon episode.
1:48 Mike Smith? That was a good mix, a good mix of patron and Patreon.
1:52 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I kinda nailed that because I'm always trying to decide which one to go with.
1:57 Mike Smith? Yeah, the end of it, it sounded like the end of when you say the word onion is like Patreon.
2:01 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
2:02 Mike Smith? That was kinda what it was. Yeah.
2:04 Jeff Larson? The nice thing about Patreon episodes is we don't really need to introduce ourselves. If this is your first ever episode, like, what are you doing?
2:13 Mike Smith? Yeah, if you just stumbled on us on Patreon, congrats.
2:18 Jeff Larson? I want to do a little sports corner.
2:20 Mike Smith? Oh, sports corner.
2:22 Jeff Larson? Animal involved, so. The Ravens mascot got a season ending injury in the preseason.
2:32 Wes Larson? Poe?
2:32 Jeff Larson? Blew out his AIDS. Yeah, Poe the Poe the Raven.
2:35 Wes Larson? Oh, no.
2:36 Jeff Larson? Team.
2:37 Wes Larson? Uh huh.
2:37 Jeff Larson? Blew out his ACL and like a scrimmage with little kids and that little kid tackled him.
2:43 Wes Larson? That sucks.
2:44 Jeff Larson? But it is so funny because he left his big old Raven mascot head on and like got carted off the field and like the full Raven outfit.
2:54 Wes Larson? Oh, this reminds me of something I was gonna tell you. So in Missoula, Monty the bear is the mascot for the University of Montana. He's very well known around Missoula. It's like a grizzly bear in a jersey with like a bandana. So I was driving to Yellowstone this week and I was like in Bonner outside of Missoula. And suddenly I see a car pulled over on the side of the road, just one car, like an old beat down like Camry or something. And Monty's like helping them put a tire on.
3:27 Jeff Larson? Like in the whole outfit?
3:29 Wes Larson? Yeah, the entire outfit and it's for sure like the official Monty.
3:34 Jeff Larson? I mean, that's gotta be for like a promo video.
3:37 Wes Larson? It has to be, right?
3:39 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
3:39 Wes Larson? I don't know, but there was no one there filming. It was just the two people. It was like one person with a broke down car and Monty there with like a tire iron. And I was just like, what the hell is going on?
3:51 Jeff Larson? Oh, man.
3:52 Wes Larson? Yeah, it was weird. So I hazed him. I beanbagged him.
3:56 Mike Smith? Good, good, good call.
3:57 Jeff Larson? The one from when I was growing up became the Chicago Bulls mascot.
4:03 Wes Larson? Huh.
4:03 Jeff Larson? Benny the Bull.
4:04 Wes Larson? Neat.
4:05 Jeff Larson? Have you guys seen the video of the Denver mascot like rappelling from the ceiling, the basketball one? But he's like completely unconscious. Yeah, people are like screaming and they just like, it's really funny. You should look up like Denver mascot rappelling.
4:23 Wes Larson? Geez.
4:24 Jeff Larson? And then other sports corner, did you guys see our guy Donovan Mitchell got traded?
4:29 Wes Larson? He's out of there.
4:31 Mike Smith? Yeah.
4:31 Wes Larson? Yep. Good for him.
4:32 Jeff Larson? Sure. Going to Cleveland.
4:33 Wes Larson? Yeah.
4:34 Jeff Larson? I know like NBA players don't love playing in Salt Lake.
4:38 Wes Larson? Yeah.
4:38 Jeff Larson? But like, I wouldn't want to live in the state that killed Harambe, you know? Any listeners in Ohio, like, what are you doing? They killed Harambe in your state, you know?
4:49 Wes Larson? Right. So I guess if you live in Ohio, Jeff needs you to move.
4:54 Mike Smith? Get out.
4:54 Wes Larson? Yeah, yeah. The entire state, not just Cincinnati.
4:59 Mike Smith? Worked your whole life to make it to the NBA. But, you know, there's a line, you gotta draw that line somewhere. Do birds have ACLs, Wes? I'm still thinking about Poe.
5:09 Wes Larson? I don't think so, but that's a really good question.
5:12 Mike Smith? Yeah, it's crazy that he was able to tear it.
5:16 Wes Larson? Yeah.
5:16 Mike Smith? In that case.
5:16 Wes Larson? Yeah, I don't think, I don't think he's a real bird.
5:18 Jeff Larson? Dinosaurs were birds and they probably had them.
5:21 Wes Larson? I don't know why you think that.
5:23 Jeff Larson? The dinosaurs were birds?
5:24 Wes Larson? That they had, no, that they had ACLs.
5:27 Jeff Larson? Dinosaurs?
5:28 Wes Larson? I don't know. Does everything have an ACL?
5:30 Mike Smith? Do birds have knees?
5:31 Wes Larson? I don't know. There's an artist I really like called Bird Knees.
5:34 Jeff Larson? Kinda need knees to have ACL.
5:36 Wes Larson? Yeah, I don't think.
5:37 Jeff Larson? I feel like most animals with knees would have ACL.
5:40 Wes Larson? I don't know.
5:41 Mike Smith? Hmm.
5:42 Wes Larson? I could make up an answer, but I'm not going to.
5:45 Mike Smith? Yeah, it's responsible.
5:45 Jeff Larson? Thoughts and prayers to Poe.
5:47 Wes Larson? Yeah.
5:47 Jeff Larson? Back up Poe, this is your moment to shine. You get a whole season ahead of you.
5:53 Wes Larson? Yeah.
5:54 Jeff Larson? Alright, you guys got any others? Oh yeah, I got one more sports thing.
5:58 Wes Larson? Oh, wow.
5:59 Jeff Larson? I'm in another listener-led fantasy football.
6:04 Wes Larson? Oh, gosh. Let's see if you can break up this friend group, too.
6:07 Jeff Larson? Yeah, so hopefully Derek, I'm still sorry that I ruined your league and hopefully, or wait, I don't know if his name is Derek.
6:16 Wes Larson? You can't even remember his name. You ruined his life and you don't even remember his name.
6:21 Jeff Larson? But, yeah, I'm looking forward to.
6:22 Mike Smith? In the Street Fighter movie.
6:24 Wes Larson? Yeah.
6:24 Jeff Larson? Burning this league down as, as it goes as well, so.
6:28 Mike Smith? Well, we're excited to have a full season of updates ahead of us.
6:32 Wes Larson? Can I tell you guys one more thing?
6:34 Jeff Larson? Yeah, sports?
6:35 Wes Larson? No. So the, the Lord of the Rings show comes out today. And I've just been looking forward to it all day. I feel like a little kid at Christmas. And this is like, you know how sometimes when you wake up at like too early at Christmas and your parents are like, you gotta wait a little bit before you open your presents?
6:53 Mike Smith? Yep.
6:53 Wes Larson? That's how I feel right now, recording this episode, just so you know.
6:57 Jeff Larson? You just, you just not even gonna be paying attention.
6:59 Wes Larson? No, I am. But I'm in a good mood because I'm excited.
7:02 Mike Smith? From here.
7:03 Wes Larson? Alright, see ya.
7:06 Wes Larson? Bye, guys. Bye, patrons.
7:08 Jeff Larson? Okay, patrons, so we're going to time travel.
7:14 Jeff Larson? To nineteen fifty five ish. I can't remember exactly. I didn't write that one down.
7:19 Wes Larson? Will you insert some, um, oh, I have one of them. Some theremin music right here.
7:24 Mike Smith? Okay.
7:27 Wes Larson? Yeah.
7:28 Jeff Larson? Sure. Like the time travel?
7:29 Wes Larson? Theremin music. Yeah.
7:31 Jeff Larson? What's that for?
7:32 Wes Larson? The, it's the theremin's that one musical instrument goes.
7:36 Jeff Larson? Yeah, time travel.
7:37 Wes Larson? Okay.
7:38 Mike Smith? The time travel instrument. Yeah.
7:40 Wes Larson? All right.
7:40 Jeff Larson? So we're talking about, I'm not sure. I think it's Joan, but it could be Joanne, but I'm going to go with Joan. Um, Joan Murray, and she was born in Moose Jaw, Canada.
7:54 Wes Larson? How's it spelled?
7:55 Jeff Larson? J O A N.
7:57 Wes Larson? Yep, that's Joan.
7:59 Jeff Larson? Yeah. So she's born in Moose Jaw, Canada, right?
8:03 Wes Larson? Cool.
8:03 Jeff Larson? She has a couple of brothers and sisters. She goes out in the woods and I didn't really look up her childhood too much. So we're just gonna, I made some of that up probably. So we're just gonna fast forward.
8:15 Wes Larson? Okay.
8:16 Jeff Larson? To where she's forty. We're tra- time traveling.
8:19 Mike Smith? You don't know the year we're in. You don't know how to pronounce her name and you may have made up stuff you already didn't know about.
8:26 Jeff Larson? I pronounced her name right.
8:27 Mike Smith? Okay, cool. Just, I want to make sure we're all on the same page.
8:29 Wes Larson? So we're time traveling. What year are we in now?
8:32 Jeff Larson? Cue the sound effect.
8:33 Wes Larson? Oh, we're going again. Okay.
8:34 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
8:37 Jeff Larson? So we're, she's now forty seven years old and we're in nineteen ninety nine.
8:42 Wes Larson? Okay, good year.
8:43 Jeff Larson? Yeah. What, what were you guys thinking about September nineteen ninety nine?
8:48 Wes Larson? I just watched the movie Fight Club and I was like, wow, that's a good Pixies song. I gotta get that on Napster. I hope, I hope the internet is around next year.
8:58 Jeff Larson? Yeah. I was like, I'm worried about Y two K, but I'm really hoping I can get that millennium beanie baby.
9:06 Wes Larson? Yeah.
9:06 Jeff Larson? Because that's gonna be worth a lot of money once I'm older.
9:09 Wes Larson? Yeah, you're probably crying.
9:10 Jeff Larson? And I think it might be worth like four thousand dollars right now, sitting right in front of me.
9:15 Wes Larson? Yeah.
9:15 Mike Smith? Yeah, you should, you should wrap that up.
9:19 Jeff Larson? That's millennium. That's a, that's a hard bear to find.
9:21 Wes Larson? Pretty bear. I was playing Tony Hawk. I think ninety nine was the first Tony Hawk game. And that's probably all I did that whole year. Playstation one. I had it on sixty four. Nice.
9:34 Jeff Larson? So Joan was the mother of two twin, well, sorry. She's the mother of twins is all you gotta say with twins.
9:41 Wes Larson? Yeah.
9:42 Jeff Larson? And she worked at a bank during the day. Now, working at a bank, it's a good job. A lot of people do it, you know? But I think it can get a little boring, right? So if you guys, if that was like your whole day job, like Monday through Friday, what do you think you'd do outside of work to kind of spice your life, life up a little?
10:03 Wes Larson? Um, bear management.
10:07 Jeff Larson? Outside of working at the bank, you'd be a bear manager.
10:10 Wes Larson? I think I'd get really into robbing banks. You'd probably have some good inside knowledge, you know?
10:16 Jeff Larson? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I would try to drive home with my eyes closed the whole way.
10:21 Wes Larson? You do that a lot. So Jeff has definitely, Jeff has gone the furthest I've ever gone in a car with his eyes closed.
10:29 Jeff Larson? What are you talking about?
10:30 Wes Larson? You, you used to do this. You would like go on a long stretch and just see how long you could close your eyes.
10:36 Jeff Larson? Why would?
10:37 Wes Larson? Yes, you did. I remember it and it was terrifying. And then you also do that game where you grab.
10:42 Jeff Larson? I did bring it up, so maybe.
10:43 Wes Larson? Well, and then remember how we would always do that game where you sit behind the person and you put your hands over their eyes and you say, guess who?
10:50 Jeff Larson? If I'm sitting behind you while you're driving, I'll cover your eyes.
10:53 Wes Larson? But then once I did it to you and you were like, um, hmm.
11:01 Jeff Larson? I wait till you get too nervous.
11:03 Wes Larson? Yeah, and then I finally took my hands off.
11:07 Jeff Larson? You know, when you don't care about life, that's how you live.
11:10 Wes Larson? You remember when Brent, your cousin Brent, he equated, what was it, skydiving? Like the thrill of skydiving is no different than the thrill of driving with your eyes closed?
11:20 Jeff Larson? Funny you say that, but no, he said, he said, I don't see why anyone would want to go rappelling. Why don't you just drive with your eyes closed?
11:32 Wes Larson? That's a really weird.
11:33 Jeff Larson? You can get the same excitement.
11:35 Wes Larson? Yeah.
11:36 Jeff Larson? Oh, man. So Joan lives in North Carolina. You guys fans of North Carolina?
11:42 Wes Larson? Yeah, I love North Carolina.
11:43 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
11:44 Mike Smith? Yeah.
11:44 Wes Larson? Great food.
11:45 Jeff Larson? It's nice, nice state.
11:46 Mike Smith? Underrated food state.
11:48 Jeff Larson? And she's about to do what Mike just mentioned. She's about to go on a solo skydive for thirty sixth dive. You think at like thirty six, you're still a novice?
11:58 Wes Larson? No.
11:59 Jeff Larson? I don't either, but the article I was reading was like, still novice.
12:03 Wes Larson? No, nope.
12:04 Jeff Larson? That's a lot of skydives.
12:06 Mike Smith? Don't you have to have like a crazy amount before you can just go do it solo, though?
12:10 Wes Larson? I don't think so, because I went, I've gone twice and I feel like they were like, couple more and you can go on your own.
12:16 Jeff Larson? Yeah, you gotta go like four times.
12:17 Mike Smith? I've never done it.
12:18 Jeff Larson? You haven't?
12:19 Mike Smith? Yeah, no, I've been wanting to for long. The problem is.
12:22 Jeff Larson? Let's do it. I'll go with you.
12:23 Mike Smith? I want to go somewhere that's like really cool, though. I don't want to just go over.
12:26 Wes Larson? Let's do it in, let's do it in Mexico. Let's do it in Mexico.
12:28 Jeff Larson? The desert in Utah, sweet.
12:30 Mike Smith? What are you talking about? It's just like a brown, flat thing. You're just like falling down.
12:34 Wes Larson? We went in Moab.
12:35 Jeff Larson? And you love brown.
12:36 Wes Larson? And it was fun. You do love brown.
12:38 Mike Smith? Yeah.
12:40 Wes Larson? All right.
12:41 Jeff Larson? Um.
12:42 Wes Larson? I want to do it in like a volcano or something. So, so thirty six dive.
12:46 Jeff Larson? Thirty six like shots with a basketball. That's a novice basketball player. Thirty six skydives. You're not novice.
12:54 Wes Larson? No, that's a lot.
12:55 Jeff Larson? So she prepares her gear like normal, gets in the plane like normal. Everything's going normal, jumps out of the plane, waits till the plane gets to fourteen thousand five hundred feet, which I don't know how high you get, but I'm sure that's normal, you know? And then you think you could survive that high without a parachute?
13:14 Wes Larson? Uh, I would say no, but I have read the whole Wikipedia article on people that have survived really far falls from planes.
13:22 Mike Smith? I could do it.
13:22 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
13:23 Wes Larson? Yeah.
13:23 Jeff Larson? You think you could, Mike?
13:25 Mike Smith? Yeah.
13:25 Jeff Larson? Okay. Where, where would you most want to land?
13:29 Wes Larson? Snow, a snowbank.
13:31 Jeff Larson? Snowbank?
13:31 Wes Larson? Yeah, that most of the people that survived landed in snow.
13:35 Jeff Larson? Not too much snow. So she traveled to South Carolina for this.
13:39 Wes Larson? No.
13:39 Jeff Larson? Not too much snow there in September.
13:42 Mike Smith? How many marshmallows do you think they've got?
13:44 Wes Larson? Who? In South Carolina?
13:46 Mike Smith? Oh, we're in South Carolina. Did we time travel?
13:48 Wes Larson? She traveled. Jeff just told us.
13:49 Mike Smith? She drove there. Oh geez. Okay. Yeah, South Carolina then. Does that change your answer?
13:54 Wes Larson? I think there's a lot of marshmallows.
13:55 Jeff Larson? Like the whole, so what are you saying? You would want everyone to bring their marshmallows where you land?
14:01 Mike Smith? I sure, if that's what it takes.
14:03 Jeff Larson? That's where you want to land?
14:05 Mike Smith? Yeah, ideally, I wouldn't.
14:06 Jeff Larson? So Mike wants to land on everybody in South Carolina's.
14:10 Mike Smith? I mean, I don't want to mess up other people's marshmallows, but if there's like a pit of marshmallows to land in, that would be ideal.
14:16 Wes Larson? In the Batman movie, the first, like the one from the sixties, he lands on a mattress factory and survives a fall from a plane.
14:23 Jeff Larson? Oh, really?
14:23 Wes Larson? Now we're thinking.
14:24 Jeff Larson? In The Dark Knight, he like saves what's-her-face and.
14:29 Wes Larson? Lands on a car.
14:30 Jeff Larson? Rachel, and they just like land on a car and they find.
14:33 Wes Larson? Cars are the softest.
14:35 Mike Smith? I guess I just pick a car then.
14:37 Wes Larson? You could possibly land on. It's like a pillow.
14:40 Mike Smith? A three mile skydive right onto a car. I think that's what I pick.
14:43 Wes Larson? If we believe movies, then the car is by far the best thing you can land on.
14:48 Jeff Larson? Preferably moving like Fast and the Furious. When they're moving, it really.
14:53 Wes Larson? Doesn't really matter though. If you hit a car, you're safe.
14:56 Jeff Larson? Alright, so she's free falling, right now. She's like having fun. And then it's like, alright, probably time to pull my cord. Starts yanking on the cord. Nothing happens.
15:08 Wes Larson? Hmm.
15:09 Jeff Larson? So you got a problem then. Do you guys know like what you're supposed to do if you're parachuting and your.
15:14 Wes Larson? Your backup chute.
15:15 Jeff Larson? Shoot won't deploy. Yeah, but first you kind of have to get the first chute out of the way. Sometimes when they deploy, you have to cut the chute. So that the other chute can open up. I heard like different reports on this where like someone said she had to cut it, but I don't think that's the case because I don't think it ever deployed.
15:34 Wes Larson? Okay.
15:35 Jeff Larson? But whatever the situation is, she's like having to contort her body a lot more than normal now. To get the second parachute released.
15:45 Wes Larson? Okay.
15:46 Jeff Larson? So she's like struggling to get it, the second chute released. She finally like gets it out, the chute opens up, fills up, stops her from falling like a parachute should. But then like she doesn't have any control of her body. So she's like spinning and starts getting these cords all tangled up. And that causes the parachute to get tangled up and deflate. And she's 700 feet above the ground when the second parachute now becomes useless.
16:20 Wes Larson? That's too high. That's too high.
16:22 Jeff Larson? And she's been in the air for like 45 seconds. She's falling 80 miles per hour towards the ground.
16:29 Wes Larson? Too fast. That's too fast.
16:30 Mike Smith? So furious.
16:32 Jeff Larson? You're falling, your parachute's not working. Where would you least want to land?
16:36 Wes Larson? Uh, in a pit of alligators.
16:38 Jeff Larson? Pit of alligators. Yeah. Maybe like a volcano, active volcano.
16:42 Wes Larson? Mount Doom. Yeah.
16:44 Mike Smith? Bomb. Land on a bomb would be bad.
16:46 Jeff Larson? So Joan falls onto a gigantic fire ant mound.
16:50 Wes Larson? Ooh.
16:51 Mike Smith? What? No way.
16:53 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
16:54 Wes Larson? Oh, Joan.
16:56 Jeff Larson? So she falls straight onto a fire ant mound.
16:59 Wes Larson? Did Joan like kick a baby over the day before or something? What did she do to deserve this?
17:05 Jeff Larson? What happens when you fall out of a plane onto a mound of fire ants?
17:09 Mike Smith? I mean, if you're like, you probably die. I would say most, like the ants have
17:14 Wes Larson? Dumb question.
17:15 Mike Smith? Very little bearing on most of these cases, probably.
17:19 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
17:19 Mike Smith? But if you've managed to survive, you're in for a real bad time.
17:23 Jeff Larson? But like alive or dead, like what do you think these ants are gonna do?
17:27 Wes Larson? They're gonna start munching. I love these. I love this, this new tradition in our Patreon episodes where you guys just ask each other the dumbest questions possible.
17:36 Mike Smith? It's a good question.
17:38 Jeff Larson? I don't know what you're talking about. So Joan starts getting stung and she gets stung 200 times before paramedics arrive.
17:46 Wes Larson? So she survived the fall. I feel like we kind of skipped that.
17:50 Jeff Larson? Well, I mean, I'm not skipping anything. You're skipping ahead.
17:54 Wes Larson? Okay, alright, sorry.
17:56 Jeff Larson? Alright, so how high do you guys, I want you both to guess whoever whoever gets closest, I'm gonna Venmo five dollars.
18:05 Mike Smith? Oh, I need this.
18:06 Jeff Larson? So how high does a human have a 50 50 chance of surviving the fall in feet?
18:12 Wes Larson? In feet?
18:13 Jeff Larson? Like, how many feet up does a human have a 50 50 chance of surviving that fall?
18:19 Wes Larson? I'm gonna say, oh, I want Mike to go first. I'll just say 65 feet. I'm gonna say 320 feet.
18:28 Jeff Larson? You have a 50 50 chance?
18:32 Wes Larson? You went second too. Wow, Wes. Wow.
18:35 Jeff Larson? So Mike wins. You have, so from 48 feet high, you have a 50 50 chance of surviving that high of a fall?
18:44 Wes Larson? I don't know. She fell from 700 feet. So that's why I was getting, I like split the difference.
18:49 Jeff Larson? Most people would survive that?
18:51 Wes Larson? No, but she survived.
18:53 Jeff Larson? I'm saying 50 50% chance of anyone.
18:58 Wes Larson? Are we taking like babies into account? How, what was the control group in this study?
19:03 Jeff Larson? I see where your head's at though, because you're assuming she survives.
19:07 Wes Larson? Right.
19:08 Jeff Larson? So 80 feet is pretty much 100% death. Like if you fall from 80 feet, you're most likely for sure gonna die.
19:17 Wes Larson? Okay.
19:18 Jeff Larson? There are some outliers to that, like possibly 700 feet. Okay? So that's how far far she free falls. She lands on this mound of fire ants. She's unable to breathe or move, but she's conscious.
19:35 Mike Smith? Wow, no.
19:37 Jeff Larson? But I don't know if you guys know this, but breathing is essential for living.
19:42 Wes Larson? Yeah.
19:43 Jeff Larson? And she's not able to do that.
19:44 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's a problem.
19:45 Jeff Larson? You ever been like punched in the stomach?
19:47 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah.
19:48 Jeff Larson? Yeah, so imagine that.
19:50 Wes Larson? Yeah, okay. Jesse punched me in the stomach like two days ago and knocked the wind out of me.
19:55 Jeff Larson? Yeah, so that's how she feels right now. So she starts feeling pain from the ant stings now. And like the pain becomes worse and worse until she eventually passes out.
20:08 Jeff Larson? Then the paramedics come, they get there, they find her unconscious, covered in fire ants, but she has a pulse. So she gets rushed to the hospital with extensive damage to the right side of her body. And I'm wondering if like, they bring her in the hospital and they like, have her labeled as an ant bite.
20:29 Jeff Larson? Yeah, like this person's been bit by ants.
20:31 Wes Larson? They're like, all her bones are broken. How did these ants do this? These are some strong ants.
20:37 Jeff Larson? No, but they rush her into emergency surgery. She's like, put into a two week coma. Um, and then
20:46 Wes Larson? Two week coma. Mario talking.
20:51 Jeff Larson? This is like, all the medical facts I have written down, which like, I didn't really dive into a ton. So we're just gonna go for it here.
20:59 Wes Larson? Okay.
21:00 Jeff Larson? So she had, uh, cumminated, cumminated. Shoot, I can't even read my name. She had a cumminated pelvic fracture, a cumminated femur fracture, several teeth knocked out of her skull, no major organ or brain damage though. And then she had to go, she had to do to go. She had to go through twenty reconstructive surgeries.
21:27 Wes Larson? Oh, my gosh.
21:28 Jeff Larson? She had to have seventeen blood transfusions.
21:31 Wes Larson? Geez.
21:32 Jeff Larson? So then she has to get a metal rod placed in her femur and then plates put into her pelvis. And I was looking up a coma. So you have a seven percent chance of surviving a three day coma and then two percent chance after fourteen days.
21:47 Wes Larson? You keep saying that. Why do you keep saying a coma?
21:50 Jeff Larson? What am I supposed to say? Coma?
21:51 Wes Larson? Yeah, it's just coma.
21:53 Mike Smith? A coma.
21:54 Wes Larson? Yeah, a coma.
21:55 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I know it's two words. I always say coma.
21:57 Wes Larson? All right. No, it's fine. It's fascinating. Yeah.
22:01 Jeff Larson? Okay. So you just say coma. All right. Let's do that. I've always just said a coma.
22:06 Wes Larson? Yeah. So that's not how you do it.
22:08 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah.
22:09 Jeff Larson? All right.
22:09 Wes Larson? It's all right.
22:10 Mike Smith? No, we all learn things every day.
22:12 Jeff Larson? I thought you were like doubting the facts.
22:14 Wes Larson? No, no, no, no, no.
22:16 Jeff Larson? Comas.
22:16 Wes Larson? We're just laughing at the way you say coma.
22:18 Jeff Larson? I'm not completely sure how accurate those are. I just Googled survival rates for comas.
22:25 Wes Larson? Yeah.
22:26 Jeff Larson? And these were, these were the first results I saw. So just covering my bases there. I went in deep on some things. That one I didn't go too deep.
22:35 Wes Larson? Yeah.
22:36 Jeff Larson? So all of this is crazy, right?
22:38 Wes Larson? Right.
22:39 Jeff Larson? So how did she survive?
22:40 Wes Larson? I don't know.
22:41 Mike Smith? That ant hills.
22:42 Wes Larson? Do you think all the ants caught her at once?
22:44 Mike Smith? They're strong.
22:45 Wes Larson? Do you think they were all like ready and they just caught her?
22:48 Jeff Larson? It's stupid, but that's not like completely off. Um, fi- it's because she landed on the ants.
22:55 Wes Larson? Okay.
22:56 Jeff Larson? Because fire ant mounds are softer than normal ground. That's like half of it.
23:00 Wes Larson? Yeah.
23:01 Jeff Larson? So like, why do you think that would be that their mounds are soft?
23:04 Wes Larson? Well, because they've got a intricate lace work of, of tunnels and everything in there. So there's like a lot of air that could be compressed by hitting that.
23:12 Jeff Larson? Exactly.
23:13 Wes Larson? Yeah.
23:13 Jeff Larson? So like, if you hit the ground with the fire ants, there's all these tunnels that will be compressed. That softens the landing a bit for you.
23:21 Wes Larson? Yeah.
23:21 Jeff Larson? But now, another thing to consider, she wasn't able to breathe in the, it's not like the paramedics were like, they're waiting for her. So like, how does she survive that?
23:31 Wes Larson? The ants.
23:32 Jeff Larson? The fire ants started biting her. The venom stimulated her nervous system and that kept her heart beating.
23:40 Wes Larson? Huh. But what about her breathing?
23:42 Jeff Larson? So like, she didn't need to breathe because her heart kept beating from these ants bites.
23:47 Wes Larson? Interesting.
23:48 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Because like your system will shut down when you don't breathe type of thing.
23:52 Wes Larson? Right.
23:52 Jeff Larson? But because of the ant bites, her nervous system like kept pumping her heart.
23:57 Wes Larson? Oh.
23:57 Jeff Larson? And that kept her alive, even though she wasn't breathing. And doctors say that the ant bites kept her alive.
24:04 Wes Larson? Interesting.
24:04 Mike Smith? So cool. That was like double clutch on the ants part.
24:08 Wes Larson? Yeah.
24:08 Jeff Larson? Yeah. So like fire ant bites, they hurt pretty bad, right?
24:12 Wes Larson? They're terrible.
24:13 Jeff Larson? How bad do you think they hurt?
24:15 Wes Larson? I've been bit by them. Oh, sorry.
24:17 Jeff Larson? Let's go back to Schmidt. Schmidt's got him on his pain index.
24:22 Wes Larson? Good. I like Schmidt.
24:23 Mike Smith? We gotta bring Schmidt back into this.
24:25 Jeff Larson? So remember it's a scale one to four, four being the worst, four was like Bull Dance, but he didn't do like a couple that Coyote Peterson and Jack's World of Wildlife did that were fours too.
24:38 Wes Larson? Right.
24:39 Jeff Larson? Very controversial episode of Tooth and Claw when we did our sting index.
24:44 Wes Larson? Yeah.
24:44 Jeff Larson? Okay, Schmidt, he says, um, when describing a fire ant bite, one point two, sharp, sudden, mildly alarming, like walking across shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.
24:59 Wes Larson? Interesting.
24:59 Jeff Larson? Oh.
25:02 Jeff Larson? I guess.
25:02 Mike Smith? That's a really.
25:03 Wes Larson? Schmidt's too tough.
25:04 Jeff Larson? I would say it's a lot worse than that.
25:06 Wes Larson? I got, I got a fire ant sting once and it hurt so bad. Like it felt like a bee sting. Like I remember just being like, this is terrible.
25:14 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I have it in a side note. Coyote Peterson would have him as a four, I think.
25:19 Wes Larson? Okay.
25:20 Jeff Larson? He can't handle this thing, dude. So hospital notes continued. Her whole right side of her body is like super messed up. And like the key was to get like the insides of her stabilized. So they had to stabilize her pelvis to limit hemorrhaging. And then that stops her hemorrhopathic shock or something like that. Hemorrhage.
25:45 Wes Larson? Something shock.
25:46 Jeff Larson? Hemorrhagic shock. That's what it is. And that's to avoid going into DIC, which is decimated intravascular choropathy. Choralopathy. Choralopathy.
26:00 Wes Larson? Okay, sure. That sounded good.
26:02 Jeff Larson? Whatever. Whoever knows what I'm talking about, you can get mad at me. But basically what they're trying to do is stabilize, they're trying to stabilize unstable organs. And that allows your blood to keep clotting, which like keeps you from bleeding out.
26:19 Jeff Larson? And then a note that I brought up that I just want to go back to is she had to have seventeen blood transfusions.
26:26 Wes Larson? Yeah.
26:26 Jeff Larson? That's like four and a half liters, which is like about as much blood as a body has.
26:32 Wes Larson? Oh, wow.
26:33 Jeff Larson? So like she basically like refilled eventually like it wasn't all at once.
26:38 Wes Larson? Right.
26:38 Jeff Larson? But like she eventually like pretty much just refilled her whole body.
26:42 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's cool. We learned in our, um, I think it was Todd Endros was his name, that shark attack guy that died in a car accident later. He lost like half of his blood and the doctors were like, if you had lost any more blood, that's like as much as that's as much as a human being can lose at once and like survive. So she must have lost it like over some time. Gradually, yeah. Yeah.
27:05 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
27:06 Wes Larson? Internal bleeding.
27:07 Jeff Larson? Um.
27:07 Wes Larson? Type stuff.
27:08 Jeff Larson? Yeah. It definitely wasn't like she needed all seventeen at once. It was like the two week coma where she's gained surgeries and all that jazz.
27:18 Wes Larson? That would be kind of cool to just get like a new. New set of blood. Completely replace the old, you know, like an oil change kind of thing. I'd want like a little, I'd want like little kid blood. I'd want like the fresh stuff, you know? I think that's illegal.
27:33 Jeff Larson? Yeah. How old can you be till you like when you're allowed to donate blood?
27:37 Wes Larson? It's a good.
27:38 Jeff Larson? Not, not young enough for what?
27:40 Wes Larson? Yeah, I want that. I want that young blood.
27:43 Jeff Larson? Uh, so then Joan has to do two years of rehab to like be able to like function as an adult woman again.
27:56 Jeff Larson? I don't know. Just to do two years of rehab is like my main note. So I just expounded on that.
28:02 Wes Larson? Yeah, thanks.
28:02 Jeff Larson? Um, when I ruptured my patellar tendon, it took me about, I'm, it was about three months of going to like physical rehab to like be able to bend my knee again, to be able to walk again. So like two years, pretty rough.
28:19 Wes Larson? I just, I just got out of a surgery and I can't bend my wrist and it made me think like I had just watched the Revenant and how torn up he got and like all the healing he had to do in the Revenant from the bear attack. And it made me think like, wow, healing really is painful and you are just like really sore and stiff and things really hurt. And so I can't imagine a two year recovery. Like I would just, I don't know. I just probably take pain pills all the time.
28:45 Jeff Larson? Yeah, which is the benefit of it.
28:47 Wes Larson? Yeah.
28:48 Mike Smith? How do you?
28:49 Jeff Larson? Can be pretty nice.
28:50 Mike Smith? Yeah, with your wrist all messed up, Wes, how do you, uh, how do you like?
28:55 Wes Larson? Ah, that's wrong, wrong hand.
28:58 Mike Smith? Oh, it's your other hand. Okay.
28:59 Wes Larson? Unless I'm doing this.
29:00 Jeff Larson? Lie on your belly.
29:01 Wes Larson? Yeah.
29:05 Mike Smith? We're moving on.
29:06 Wes Larson? Yeah, okay.
29:07 Jeff Larson? Uh, after two years, she goes back to the bank, right?
29:11 Wes Larson? Right.
29:12 Jeff Larson? Starts working at the bank again.
29:13 Wes Larson? Wow.
29:14 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
29:14 Wes Larson? That's amazing.
29:15 Jeff Larson? She could have gotten, um, disability, but she's like, you know what? I wanna, I just like banks. Might rob one, one day. I gotta get, they might have changed the locks by now. I gotta get working in the bank again.
29:29 Wes Larson? Yeah.
29:30 Jeff Larson? She never skydived again.
29:33 Wes Larson? Yeah, I don't blame her.
29:34 Jeff Larson? Until two years later in two thousand one.
29:39 Jeff Larson? And then she went for a thirty seventh jump.
29:42 Mike Smith? Wait a minute. It took her two years just to recover, right?
29:46 Wes Larson? And then she's immediately skydiving again.
29:48 Jeff Larson? She's like, I wanna get up there.
29:49 Mike Smith? That, good for you, Joan. That's cool.
29:51 Jeff Larson? Jump out of a plane.
29:52 Wes Larson? Joan is cool.
29:53 Jeff Larson? And then just a little side note, she died in May twenty twenty this year.
30:00 Wes Larson? Yeah.
30:00 Jeff Larson? So like, uh.
30:01 Wes Larson? Glad you didn't say she died on her thirty seventh skydiving.
30:04 Jeff Larson? Yeah, so she, she lived a long life, uh, but died this year of cancer.
30:09 Wes Larson? All right.
30:10 Jeff Larson? So, yep. But yeah, you know, she got a lot more life out of it. Hung out, got to meet her grandkid because she survived all this. And then liked going to Costco, was it in her obituary?
30:22 Mike Smith? Who doesn't? Free samples?
30:25 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
30:26 Wes Larson? I hope she likes ants.
30:27 Jeff Larson? Uh, hopefully you guys don't have any questions because I read every single note I wrote down. But do you guys have any questions?
30:35 Wes Larson? No, are we not? I guess we're probably not talking about ant biology then at all right now.
30:40 Jeff Larson? I got some ant facts.
30:42 Wes Larson? Okay, cool. That's what I want to hear.
30:44 Jeff Larson? Mike?
30:45 Mike Smith? Uh, I just, I want to see this done. It sounds like something that filmmakers really could take advantage of. Like the bad guys drug a super agent spy guy and like dump him off in the desert. And he gets away by like letting ants bite him and that's how he escapes. That'd make a good scene in like a B movie, Jason Bourne movie.
31:05 Wes Larson? All of a sudden, like his heart starts beating and you hear the little ants go.
31:09 Jeff Larson? Clear. It's like the stuff in movies where you're like, okay, this movie's stupid. Possible.
31:15 Wes Larson? Yeah.
31:16 Jeff Larson? Except for Wes, who thinks he has a fifty fifty chance of surviving off like the.
31:21 Wes Larson? I didn't actually think that. I was just going way too hard on that question. All right. So Jeff, I do have a question for you.
31:28 Jeff Larson? Is it about decimated intravascular colagopathy?
31:32 Wes Larson? No. It's about. Why I was, the whole story I was waiting for us to like, for you doing the time jump back to Moose Jaw, Canada. For that to matter. Was that truly just to tell us where she was born?
31:49 Jeff Larson? Yeah, it didn't matter.
31:52 Wes Larson? I'm glad we know that though.
31:53 Jeff Larson? It's just giving you a little more background on a little Joan.
31:56 Wes Larson? Seems like a wasted time travel to me, but whatever.
32:00 Mike Smith? Yeah, we only have five of those, I guess.
32:02 Jeff Larson? If I, if we could time travel, I wouldn't. Yeah, that's just like.
32:08 Wes Larson? All right.
32:09 Jeff Larson? Oh, never mind. I, I.
32:12 Mike Smith? I mean, why not? Is it like it's unlimited use, right?
32:15 Jeff Larson? Unlimited. You're not gonna just invent a time machine where you can only use it five times.
32:20 Wes Larson? Okay, but like if we're going, if we're going back into Moose Jaw, what if one of us like accidentally does something and it sets off the butterfly effect? It's just risky. That's a risky time jump just to like establish a character.
32:33 Jeff Larson? I, I said like one sentence about Moose Jaw and like half of that sentence, I wasn't sure if I was completely right about it.
32:41 Wes Larson? So you don't even know about it and we're time jumping for no reason.
32:44 Jeff Larson? She did have brothers and sisters, but.
32:46 Mike Smith? You know what? My problem with when people say.
32:48 Jeff Larson? I'm just saying she had a family and like grew up in Canada.
32:52 Mike Smith? When people bring up tie like butterfly effect and time travel, it's like, I don't know, we couldn't do much worse than we're doing now. I'd as well just see if we can.
33:00 Wes Larson? We might make things a lot better.
33:01 Mike Smith? Maybe it'll be better, you know?
33:03 Jeff Larson? I think it could be a little worse than it is now. We haven't had like outright nuclear war yet.
33:09 Wes Larson? Chthulhu.
33:10 Mike Smith? Nah, maybe not. Yeah.
33:11 Jeff Larson? Fingers crossed. Knock on wood. All right. I got Jeff's five ant facts for Mike.
33:18 Wes Larson? Yes, I'll just, I'll just shut up then.
33:23 Jeff Larson? So Mike, they're strong.
33:24 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah.
33:25 Jeff Larson? That's number one. Number two, they're fast. Number three, they live a lot of places. Number four, no ears. Number five, three thousand seven hundred mile wide nest found in Argentina with thirty three ant populations.
33:42 Wes Larson? Yeah, I mean, that is a fact. So it just doesn't seem like that.
33:46 Jeff Larson? That's the biggest con.
33:48 Wes Larson? Yeah, I get.
33:49 Jeff Larson? I I didn't know how to make that one short.
33:52 Wes Larson? Yeah.
33:52 Jeff Larson? Um, all right. So number one, they're strong. They can carry up to fifty times their body weight.
33:58 Wes Larson? What kind of are we just talking ants in general here?
34:01 Jeff Larson? Yeah, this is ant facts.
34:02 Wes Larson? Okay.
34:04 Jeff Larson? So think the movie Hobbs and Shaw, where the rock pulls the helicopter down. That's gotta be about fifty times stronger than like he is.
34:15 Wes Larson? Yeah.
34:15 Jeff Larson? So that's pretty much an ant strength.
34:17 Wes Larson? Yeah, thanks for putting in terms I can wrap my head around.
34:20 Jeff Larson? So this one said like, the trapjaw ant has the fastest movement of any animal. I'm not sure how true that is. So what it says is that it can close its jaws at a hundred forty miles per hour.
34:36 Wes Larson? Wow.
34:36 Jeff Larson? So we know like a peregrine falcon can go faster than that.
34:40 Wes Larson? Yeah.
34:40 Jeff Larson? But like, I think it's just like the fastest singular movement that like an animal can make.
34:46 Wes Larson? I think pistol shrimp are a lot faster than that.
34:49 Jeff Larson? Yeah. But like this one at least is way up there. So don't take that as.
34:54 Wes Larson? They like heat the water to the temperature of the sun when they snap their little things out. So no, they seriously do.
35:02 Jeff Larson? Crazy. I know. That's just like, doesn't make sense though. That's how they make nuclear bombs probably is the shrimp.
35:09 Wes Larson? Yeah.
35:09 Jeff Larson? shrimp bombs. So they have no ears. So they listen for vibrations using their feet. So like, when Joan fell on their ant mound, I'm guessing that was like, when someone at a rock concert has like, everything turned all the way up and then they like do like a check and.
35:29 Wes Larson? Sound check.
35:30 Jeff Larson? Just breaks everyone's ears. That's probably how that vibration felt to all those ants. That my source was National Geographic for kids.
35:40 Wes Larson? Okay.
35:42 Jeff Larson? But moving on, Wes, you got a little disappointed. I got Jeff's eight fire ant facts for Wes.
35:50 Wes Larson? Okay, wait, what about the Argentine ants? Do we not do those?
35:54 Jeff Larson? That is my whole fact.
35:55 Wes Larson? Okay.
35:56 Jeff Larson? Yeah, three thousand seven hundred mile wide nest was found in Argentina, which is insane. And it's like all these connected ant col- like colonies and there's like thirty three different types of ant populations.
36:10 Wes Larson? I think it was just one species, though, is Argentine ants.
36:14 Jeff Larson? There's thirty three different populations that were one.
36:17 Wes Larson? Yeah, cuz Argentine ants are like known for doing, making huge colonies.
36:21 Jeff Larson? Yeah, so if I'm falling out of a plane, I want it to be in Argentina.
36:25 Wes Larson? Yeah, alright.
36:27 Jeff Larson? Alright, so eight fire ant facts for Wes. Number one, they're not native to the US. So that means someone brought them here, they're invasive.
36:37 Wes Larson? Yep.
36:38 Jeff Larson? Number two, there's two hundred thousand members of a fire ant colony, like that's how big the colonies get.
36:46 Wes Larson? That's as big as they get, but they're not always like two hundred thousand.
36:49 Jeff Larson? No, yeah, I should phrase that different.
36:51 Wes Larson? Yeah, okay.
36:52 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
36:52 Wes Larson? That'd be cool. The biggest ones get that big.
36:55 Jeff Larson? Yes, so they form mounds and tunnels. And the tunnels go up to twenty five feet long. So like they get to, they get up to twenty five feet long.
37:07 Wes Larson? Mm hmm.
37:07 Jeff Larson? I guess they should, I should just say not up. Tunnels get twenty five feet long. So that's about the size of a bus.
37:15 Wes Larson? Yeah.
37:16 Jeff Larson? Um, yeah, so that that makes them actually really hard to kill too.
37:20 Wes Larson? A short bus.
37:22 Jeff Larson? People will kill like the entire mound of ants.
37:24 Wes Larson? Yeah.
37:25 Jeff Larson? But that'll end up being like sixty percent of the colony. And like all the important ants are like at the very bottom with the queen. So they can just repopulate real quick.
37:35 Wes Larson? Okay.
37:35 Jeff Larson? They can sting and they can also bite. So their bites actually don't really hurt that much. It's the stings that hurt.
37:42 Wes Larson? Right.
37:43 Jeff Larson? They only have one predator, which I found interesting.
37:46 Wes Larson? I don't know if I believe that one.
37:48 Jeff Larson? Okay, it says they only have one predator, the forid fly.
37:54 Wes Larson? Huh.
37:54 Jeff Larson? And this fly will lay eggs in the ants thorax. And when the eggs become larva, it'll push into the ants head, killing.
38:03 Wes Larson? Oh, what the heck? That's.
38:05 Jeff Larson? Insane. It's like popping the ants heads off with its larva.
38:10 Wes Larson? Have you ever seen that? Um, I think it was in one of the planet Earth or something where there was like a fungus? That kills ants and then it like turns them into zombie ants and like controls their bodies.
38:21 Jeff Larson? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:21 Mike Smith? Parasites.
38:22 Wes Larson? Pretty cool.
38:23 Jeff Larson? Can you imagine if something like laid its eggs in us and popped our heads off?
38:27 Wes Larson? Uh, yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be crazy.
38:30 Jeff Larson? Good movie idea.
38:32 Wes Larson? I will say like, I think when you say they only have one predator, that might be like the only predator. That the only thing it kills is fire ants. But there's plenty of other things that would eat fire ants, like lizards will eat fire ants. Lots of stuff will eat fire ants, but that might be one that's like fire ants is its only prey.
38:53 Jeff Larson? My source was saying this is the only thing that goes after. And I was thinking maybe because like the other ants will team up on everything.
39:02 Wes Larson? Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure there's other animals that eat fire ants. Like I'm, I'm a hundred percent sure. Yeah.
39:08 Jeff Larson? Um, they're omnivores, which is unique to ants. They they'll kind of eat.
39:12 Wes Larson? Oh, weird.
39:12 Jeff Larson? Bit of everything. Yeah. They would, you know, they probably will eat Joan if no one came and got her.
39:19 Wes Larson? Yeah.
39:20 Jeff Larson? Most fire ants are females. The male's main job is just to stay down and breed with the queen and the females are most of the workers. They're just like. Infertile females.
39:32 Wes Larson? Yeah.
39:32 Jeff Larson? And then number eight. They can form a chain and float whenever there's floods. So when you see like those ants that like chain up and float on water, those are normally fire ants.
39:43 Wes Larson? Yeah, nice.
39:45 Jeff Larson? Yeah, so those are my ant facts. You got anything you want to add?
39:48 Wes Larson? Yeah, just a real quick search, like, uh, some other things that do eat them are armadillos, ant lions, spiders, birds, horned lizards, snakes. Um, so kind of the normal, the normal, the normal characters that eat little things like that.
40:02 Jeff Larson? Okay, good to know. I don't know why it said that.
40:05 Wes Larson? It probably, it's probably again, it's like that, that bug is like, it's like one niche is fire ants. So it's like.
40:12 Jeff Larson? And it's probably that because that's like the way it seems it reproduces to lay its eggs.
40:17 Wes Larson? Exactly. So it's like a really unique predator.
40:20 Jeff Larson? Got it. Okay. Um, thanks for clearing that up. Correction corner in the same episode.
40:26 Wes Larson? Yeah.
40:26 Mike Smith? It's pretty nice.
40:27 Wes Larson? Efficient.
40:28 Jeff Larson? So do we got any more ant stuff we want to go over?
40:31 Wes Larson? I don't think so.
40:33 Jeff Larson? All right.
40:33 Wes Larson? Ants, I think we're, we're gonna do a full length and episode at some point.
40:37 Jeff Larson? Hmm.
40:38 Wes Larson? I guess I said, sorry, I said, I don't think so. Ants are fascinating, like, kind of like our bee episode where there's all sorts of crazy little things that they do to communicate. Ants also have that, like, like they have a, like some weird pheromones and stuff that they use. Uh, there's a lot to talk about with ants. So at some point we are gonna have like a full length.
40:59 Jeff Larson? That's why I kept it pretty brief for my facts.
41:02 Wes Larson? Yeah, those are great. Those are great.
41:04 Jeff Larson? I just looked them up and didn't check any of them.
41:07 Wes Larson? Yeah.
41:07 Jeff Larson? Just Google.
41:08 Wes Larson? Sounds about right.
41:08 Mike Smith? Yep.
41:09 Wes Larson? Yeah.
41:09 Mike Smith? People come to tooth and claw for.
41:11 Wes Larson? That's why I'm here.
41:12 Jeff Larson? That's why Wes is here. All right. So we're gonna move to categories.
41:16 Wes Larson? Okay.
41:17 Mike Smith? Let's do it.
41:18 Jeff Larson? All right. First category is ouchies.
41:20 Wes Larson? All right.
41:21 Jeff Larson? I think this is a contender for the worst one.
41:24 Wes Larson? Ten ouchies. Yeah.
41:25 Jeff Larson? The only factor that it's missing is like tear, like there's tear in it, but like, it, I feel like it doesn't stay with her. It's not like she walks out the door and is outside and is afraid of falling out of a plane.
41:39 Wes Larson? Right.
41:40 Jeff Larson? Like sometimes with like some of the attacks like feel like you're like constantly worried about a bear.
41:46 Wes Larson? Some PTSD.
41:47 Jeff Larson? Chimpanzee or something.
41:49 Wes Larson? Yeah.
41:49 Jeff Larson? That's the only thing missing from this story, but like the long recovery time, the near death, the like suffering, the like being conscious after she lands.
42:00 Wes Larson? Yeah, not being able to breathe.
42:02 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
42:03 Wes Larson? Yeah.
42:03 Jeff Larson? Yeah. So like I'm, I'm giving it a 10. The only thing it could have had was like some like overriding like fear the rest of her life.
42:12 Wes Larson? Right. Yeah, I'll give her a 10. Sure. Yeah.
42:15 Jeff Larson? Do you think there's any stories that beat this one from what we've done?
42:19 Wes Larson? Yeah, for me, the one that always pops into my head is Cynthia Dussel Bacon that got her arms chewed off by the bear. I don't know. That one for me always just seems worse.
42:30 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
42:30 Wes Larson? I mean, barring death, this is the one I would least want to have happen to me. I think, I don't know. It's hard to say I'd rather get like eaten by a bear. But I mean, a two-year recovery time. I don't know. This just sounds like the worst. But she recovered. Dying. You know? Yeah, so did Bacon. She just didn't have an arm or whatever. Yeah, I, I still think we've had a couple that were worse for me.
42:55 Jeff Larson? You could have some pretty funny jokes without your arms.
42:58 Wes Larson? Yeah, it's true, but yeah.
43:00 Jeff Larson? You could be like a stand-up where your whole thing is like.
43:04 Wes Larson? Hey, someone give me a hand? For me, yeah, for me, this doesn't take the cake, but it is a 10.
43:10 Jeff Larson? We hear you.
43:11 Wes Larson? Yeah.
43:12 Jeff Larson? All right. So moving to the next category, favorite pop culture anteater, since Mike some reason chose ants or his anteater.
43:22 Wes Larson? I threw you guys off. You never saw it coming.
43:26 Jeff Larson? I was, I was joking. My real one is favorite pop culture skydiving moment.
43:31 Mike Smith? Okay, I think me and you are gonna pick the same one.
43:35 Jeff Larson? Yeah, let's let Mike, Mike, you wanna go first?
43:39 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah, this one is the best by far. It's in the movie Lockout. So he skydives from outer space. He's in literal outer space, skydiving down to planet Earth. And somehow he lands in the exact city that he like needed to land in to complete the mission. It's incredible.
43:59 Jeff Larson? But on top of that, somehow after skydiving from outer space, he lands right where the police are waiting to arrest.
44:09 Mike Smith? Yeah, they're waiting for him right there on the interstate. It's incredible stuff, man. I love that movie so much.
44:16 Jeff Larson? All right, let's go for it.
44:18 Mike Smith? I think you should go for it cuz I have a backup answer.
44:20 Jeff Larson? Okay, so it's point break.
44:22 Mike Smith? Yeah.
44:23 Jeff Larson? The hard thing about this one is there's actually two skydiving scenes. And I think it's a pretty good debate because I love both of them.
44:31 Mike Smith? It is.
44:32 Jeff Larson? So the first one is over Lake Powell, which is like one of my favorite places on Earth. It's so beautiful. The shot is like amazing. And I feel like they really did it. Like, it looks like super real. And then I love like the little alpha battle between Bodhi and Johnny Utah. Where like you pull the chute first. No, you do it first. And they like keep arguing and they do like the in air handshake thing. And then Bodhi ends up like pulling his chute for Johnny Utah.
45:07 Mike Smith? Right. That's the real alpha move.
45:09 Jeff Larson? The next one, you get him like tell, they rob a bank, right? And then they go in a plane and like this one dude gets shot and he's dying and Johnny Utah's all like, you feel cold because the blood's rushing out of your body and you're about to die. And then. They throw the money out of the plane and then like they take Johnny Utah's parachute. And like Bodie and the dude dying both go out. And then like Johnny Utah, his only way to like get his girlfriend and like catch these bank robbers. Is to like jump out of this plane, but he doesn't have a parachute. So he just jumps out with no parachute and it's like the craziest thing ever.
45:51 Jeff Larson? And I actually think like this is like the most unbelievable thing. That's actually physically possible that I've seen in a movie. Where he jumps out of the plane and like grabs Bodie and does the whole thing. So that's my choice.
46:08 Wes Larson? Okay. Yeah, I my first pick, the first thing I thought of was Point Break. Um, anytime someone brings up something where I can pick Point Break is my movie I'm going to. But I had a backup, which is a YouTube video. I really like, and I think it fits well because it involves some animals too. It's this guy in Australia, and I've probably brought this up on the podcast before. And he's, he's like parachuting down and you just see him like at the end of his jump and he's got his parachute out and he's like coming in for his landing. And you see these kangaroos come skipping up. And he even goes like, oi skip. And um, and then like, yeah, right as he lands, these kangaroos attack him and like start kicking him and stuff.
46:51 Wes Larson? And he like gets away and then he's like, oh, fucking ruse. But it's, it's like a pretty funny video and that's, that's my favorite one.
47:00 Jeff Larson? I want to give, wait, first, which parachute scene in Point Break do you get both like?
47:04 Wes Larson? The second, I like the second one. Yeah.
47:06 Jeff Larson? Okay.
47:07 Wes Larson? They're both amazing.
47:08 Jeff Larson? And then I want to give two honorable mentions. The newest Mission Impossible had a really good one.
47:15 Wes Larson? Yeah.
47:15 Jeff Larson? Where like, that's right. He like pulls his oxygen thing out and then like. What's it? What's the other actor's name?
47:22 Wes Larson? Henry Cavill.
47:22 Jeff Larson? Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill. He like passes out and Tom Cruise saves them. But then he doesn't even realize that Tom Cruise saved him.
47:30 Wes Larson? Yeah. Probably when he watched the movie, he was like, oh my gosh, you saved me during that part.
47:37 Jeff Larson? Hold on, what was the other one?
47:39 Mike Smith? Operation Dumbo Drop?
47:41 Jeff Larson? Dude, I had a bunch of notes on that in case we like didn't get like in case I went too quick. But yeah, that's a crazy story. Maybe another time.
47:51 Mike Smith? Yeah.
47:52 Jeff Larson? Um, well, actually I can't remember my second one, so we'll just move on. So next, what would Mike and Wes do?
48:00 Mike Smith? Huh? I mean,
48:03 Mike Smith? uh, I mean, what can you do? It doesn't seem like she had any like agency throughout this whole thing, you know?
48:10 Wes Larson? Yeah, I would aim for water instead of ants, but who knows?
48:16 Mike Smith? Saved her.
48:17 Wes Larson? Yeah.
48:18 Mike Smith? Twice.
48:18 Wes Larson? Maybe only jump thirty five times, like just be like, hey, I've pushed my luck long enough.
48:25 Jeff Larson? So the only thing it seemed like to me was like she probably like, I don't think she had a lot of time left, but she probably should have tried to get better control of her body before releasing the second shoot.
48:36 Wes Larson? Yeah, okay.
48:38 Jeff Larson? Cause like, I think that was really hard. Once the cords were out, but like she could have done it before releasing it.
48:43 Wes Larson? Got it. Sure.
48:45 Jeff Larson? Instagram moment. What, what moment would you put on your Instagram?
48:50 Wes Larson? Um, right when I hit the ground, like my, my moment of impact and I want a video like, I want a video of that.
48:58 Mike Smith? Yeah. When a bunch of ants are just all over my mangled body. I think that'd make for a cool creepy picture. They'll always be able to look back in fondness on. And like, I remember when that, that was fun.
49:11 Jeff Larson? Like on Wes's line, but like, I'm just gonna do ten pictures because that's your limit. From like forty feet above the ground up until like I'm hitting the ground.
49:22 Wes Larson? Okay, so they can scroll through them real quick and they can see you like dropping down.
49:26 Jeff Larson? A little less brutal for people to see, you know?
49:29 Wes Larson? Yeah, yeah.
49:30 Jeff Larson? And then Mike, do you got some listener questions for us?
49:33 Wes Larson? I do. I got, I got a whole handful. Just tell me when to stop because I'll keep going otherwise.
49:38 Jeff Larson? Okay.
49:38 Wes Larson? I'm unstoppable. Like that one train movie.
49:42 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
49:42 Mike Smith? Great movie.
49:43 Jeff Larson? There's a good, there's a good skydive scene in Fast Seven.
49:48 Mike Smith? I don't know.
49:48 Jeff Larson? Where they like go out in the cars and
49:50 Mike Smith? That's right.
49:51 Jeff Larson? Cars all parachute.
49:52 Mike Smith? Yeah.
49:52 Jeff Larson? That wasn't the one I was thinking of. That's, I'll get that one in there.
49:56 Mike Smith? Uh, from Leona, you, we are assuming the role of the Hogwarts sorting hat. Which houses would the following animals be in? So first one is Black Bear.
50:08 Jeff Larson? Hufflepuff.
50:09 Mike Smith? Really?
50:10 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
50:10 Mike Smith? They're like, just kinda like doing their thing and kinda like just getting into trouble sometimes and sleeping a lot. Yeah, they're Hufflepuff. Gotcha. Jeff?
50:19 Jeff Larson? Yeah. I'm going Ravenclaw.
50:22 Mike Smith? Alright, just because they're black.
50:23 Jeff Larson? What?
50:24 Mike Smith? Just because they're black and so are ravens?
50:25 Jeff Larson? Why is that?
50:26 Mike Smith? Oh.
50:30 Jeff Larson? No, because they seem kinda smart. They don't seem that social is why I wouldn't put them in Hufflepuff.
50:37 Mike Smith? Okay.
50:37 Jeff Larson? Um, they like kinda avoid people.
50:40 Mike Smith? Yeah.
50:40 Jeff Larson? And they're really good at climbing trees. And I don't know why, but I just feel like if I, there's a tree climbing competition, I'm taking Ravenclaw.
50:48 Mike Smith? Alright. That's a solid line of thinking. Next animal is mountain lion. Gryffindor.
50:55 Jeff Larson? Tree climbing thing is biting me in the butt here.
50:59 Jeff Larson? I guess I'll just go Ravenclaw.
51:02 Mike Smith? Jeff has to do that for all.
51:03 Jeff Larson? Actually, let's, let's put them in Slytherin.
51:06 Mike Smith? Okay.
51:08 Jeff Larson? They're just never trying to help anything, you know? They're always trying to just.
51:11 Mike Smith? They're noble though. They're like noble animals.
51:13 Jeff Larson? Stuff. That one Slytherin person ever.
51:17 Mike Smith? Uh, is that anthropomorphization Wes? I feel like you're, you're doing exactly what you're always getting mad at us for.
51:24 Jeff Larson? Oh, he burned you.
51:25 Mike Smith? Okay, next animal is Western Lowland Gorilla. Ravenclaw.
51:30 Jeff Larson? I'll go with Gryffindor.
51:32 Mike Smith? Great. Saltwater Crocodile. Slytherin.
51:36 Jeff Larson? Hufflepuff.
51:38 Mike Smith? I can't think of an animal I would like less think to associate with Slytherin. Except for maybe snakes in general.
51:45 Jeff Larson? What you mean?
51:46 Mike Smith? Crocodiles seem like very Slytherin.
51:48 Jeff Larson? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:49 Mike Smith? Yeah.
51:49 Jeff Larson? I they're like always hanging out in big old groups. So that's why I like Cufflepuff.
51:54 Mike Smith? Okay, yeah, you I'm forgetting about Harry Potter stuff, apparently. Okay, next question. Julia asks, if you had to have any animal wake you up using only the sound they make as your alarm clock every day, what would it be?
52:10 Jeff Larson? Hmm. Um. Like a whale?
52:14 Mike Smith? That's what I was gonna say.
52:15 Wes Larson? That's a good pick. I was gonna say a lyrebird because they can like replicate any noise. So I would just have them replicate something really beautiful. But yeah, I think a whale is a good pick. I'll go with whale.
52:27 Mike Smith? Okay.
52:27 Jeff Larson? Maybe dolphin. I need something.
52:31 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I need something a little bit more annoying to like get me up. If it's like too soothing, I won't get up.
52:38 Mike Smith? What's what kind of sound do those pistol shrimp make? Is it just like a gunshot?
52:42 Wes Larson? It sounds like a gunshot.
52:43 Mike Smith? That'd be pretty effective, I think. I'd pick that. Okay. Uh, next question is Anderson. They ask, what did you all study in college? Just curious. Do you recommend getting your masters, Wes? I am a wildlife management student. Yeah. So I was an English student. I emphasized in creative writing and that's the end of that story.
53:04 Wes Larson? Jeff, you want to go?
53:06 Jeff Larson? No, this is for you.
53:07 Wes Larson? Well, they they asked what we all studied.
53:09 Mike Smith? Yeah, they want to know what all of us. So I'll go last.
53:11 Jeff Larson? I studied is like a hybrid, like recreation management, business management. Um, major called experience management.
53:19 Mike Smith? And I did. So my undergrad was in biology. Because I thought I might go like a medical route and then I got my masters in wildlife conservation with the emphasis on polar bear and black bear conservation.
53:32 Wes Larson? We should just put you in charge of planning our first like tooth and claw festival, Jeff.
53:36 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
53:37 Wes Larson? You did management.
53:38 Mike Smith? Yeah.
53:39 Jeff Larson? Listen, I'm going to be honest. The last question I was just trying so hard to think of the honorable mention skydive.
53:46 Mike Smith? Yeah, we'll give you some more time. We got a couple more questions. Uh, this one's easy. You don't have to think too hard about this one. Gracie asks, would you rather be a fish or a tree?
53:57 Wes Larson? A fish.
53:58 Jeff Larson? Um, hmm, I think tree.
54:02 Wes Larson? Me too.
54:02 Jeff Larson? Depends. I mean, fish is too broad. Like if I could be a shark or something, maybe.
54:07 Wes Larson? I'm picking fish. I'd be like the giving tree story, except for I wouldn't do anything for that little kid. I just like keep all my stuff.
54:18 Jeff Larson? I'd be like a fruit tree. I'm a little fruity.
54:22 Wes Larson? Be a fish.
54:23 Jeff Larson? Why would you want to be a fish so bad?
54:25 Wes Larson? Because I've a tree like you don't know if you have any consciousness and if they do, they're stuck. And then also like.
54:31 Jeff Larson? They don't. They're just peaceful.
54:33 Wes Larson? Then you have to live like thousands of years. I if I'm not, if I don't have a higher level of consciousness, I want my life to be short. And a fish has a short life.
54:42 Jeff Larson? Fish, you're just scared of everything.
54:44 Wes Larson? I love being underwater, though. I love being underwater. It's one of my favorite places in the world.
54:48 Jeff Larson? Some trees that don't live that long.
54:50 Wes Larson? Scared of forest fires? What if you're just sitting there watching a forest fire roar toward you and you can't do anything? That sounds terrible.
54:58 Jeff Larson? Yeah, whatever.
54:59 Wes Larson? Or you got woodpeckers pecking holes in you all the time and you can't even move?
55:02 Jeff Larson? All the water's gonna dry up soon.
55:04 Wes Larson? Yeah, what's that like swim to where there's water?
55:07 Mike Smith? What's that needle therapy called? Uh, acupuncture?
55:10 Jeff Larson? Acupuncture?
55:11 Mike Smith? Yeah, that's like, that's like having a woodpecker getting, getting to your bark.
55:15 Jeff Larson? Yeah, you're gonna be one of those fish that like eat people's feet skin.
55:19 Wes Larson? Dude, I love feet. Give it to me. All right, next question.
55:24 Mike Smith? Okay, Laura, this is the last question, Jeff, so you're gonna have to hurry up and think about that reference.
55:29 Jeff Larson? I'm not gonna get it, it's fine.
55:30 Mike Smith? So this is Laura. They ask if you were to take polar bears and grizzly bears and place them in each other's habitats, who would fare better?
55:40 Wes Larson? So that actually is happening. As climate change, you know, gets more and more intense, we're seeing more grizzly bears go further north. And polar bears are spending more time on land, so that's they're spending more time around each other. They actually hybridize sometimes. They can mate and have either you can call them griller bears or pizzly bears. But typically grizzly bears are a bit more aggressive than polar bears. So even on like whale kills. And stuff often grizzly bears will run polar bears off even though polar bears are a lot bigger than grizzly bears. Just because they are so much more aggressive. So yeah, that's kind of what's happening and they do spend a decent amount of time together. You should look. If you're curious to learn more about it, look at like photos and videos from Barrow, Alaska.
56:24 Wes Larson? Or Cactovic, Alaska. Those are two places where there's been a lot of mingling of those two species.
56:29 Jeff Larson? Cool.
56:30 Wes Larson? Yeah.
56:30 Jeff Larson? And it's actually not that cool.
56:32 Wes Larson? It's pretty cool. Ice cold, if you ask me. Well, it's they did. They've always shared that space, but it's just happening more now. And yeah, I agree that it's not cool that that's happening, but it's kind of a neat. Thing that's going on, you know?
56:45 Jeff Larson? It's too bad, like. Polar bears and black bears won't intermix to make like new pandas.
56:51 Wes Larson? Panda, yeah. Yeah. So cool. Do you think that they would get panda coloration or would they just like be gray? I don't know. I think they'd probably just be gray would be my guess. But I'm not sure. I'm glad they don't do that bears. Okay, that's it for listener questions.
57:08 Jeff Larson? Bears ever parachuted?
57:09 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah, for sure. Probably, I don't know. So what do we have left?
57:16 Jeff Larson? Yeah. So how much do y'all like fire ants?
57:21 Wes Larson? There, this is like a three claw for me. Yeah, I would actually even say like two claws. I I have some history with fire ants. I don't love them. Um, but you made me like them a little bit more after today. They can be like really useful in life and death situations. It turns out.
57:39 Jeff Larson? If you're skydiving, you love them.
57:42 Wes Larson? Yeah.
57:43 Jeff Larson? If your parachute doesn't work, you fall on them.
57:45 Wes Larson? The first time I go skydiving, I'm just gonna bring like a pocket full of them. I like ants, but fire ants are pretty low on my on my list of ants that I like. So I'm doing like two claws.
57:56 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I'm going two claws. I feel like. A lot of insects, when you get like a super close picture of them, they're pretty cute. I don't get that from ants too much. Like more spiders, you know?
58:08 Wes Larson? Do you like fire ants or your aunt Susan more? My aunt. Okay.
58:18 Wes Larson? All right.
58:19 Jeff Larson? Um, I give them two claws and I'm ranking them 1,673 overall.
58:27 Wes Larson? Wow, four digits.
58:29 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
58:30 Wes Larson? Tough, tough beat.
58:31 Jeff Larson? I think that's my highest one yet.
58:32 Wes Larson? Yeah. Do you want me to check?
58:34 Jeff Larson? Yeah, that definitely is. Probably should be higher, honestly, but I don't know. I don't know how many animals there are.
58:40 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's what I was just looking up, how many species there are.
58:44 Mike Smith? Nope, you have goonch at 6,710, Jeff, so.
58:50 Jeff Larson? Wow.
58:50 Wes Larson? There's a lot of species, so you, you got plenty of leeway still.
58:54 Jeff Larson? All right.
58:55 Wes Larson? Well, thanks, Jeff, that was great.
58:56 Jeff Larson? Like goonch is better than fire and stuff.
59:03 Wes Larson? I've never seen a goonch save a skydiver, but whatever.
59:06 Jeff Larson? I wonder if they could.
59:09 Wes Larson? Maybe if they just open their mouth and they just fell right in.
59:11 Jeff Larson? Cushion the fall a lot.
59:13 Wes Larson? Right in their mouth, yeah. Thanks, Jeff, that was fun.
59:16 Mike Smith? Yeah, I was great.
59:17 Jeff Larson? Love you guys.
59:18 Wes Larson? Love you guys, see ya.
59:19 Jeff Larson? Bye. See ya.
Next Bears Being Framed - Two Stories of Bears Being Blamed for Crimes They Obviously Did Not Do, Peanut the Squirrel, a Macaque Prison Break, and More Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated