Morbid Mondays - Episode 28 - Snake Island

Today we talk about Ilha de Queimada Grande or, as it's commonly known, Snake Island. The tiny island home of the golden lancehead viper.

Join our ko-fi! Your money will now be given to the imp that rattles the chains at the start of this show. It's hard work and he appreciates your kindness. https://ko-fi.com/morbidmondays

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Greetings. Hello. Welcome to or welcome back to Mormon Monday. You're uninchors for what the fuck moments throughout history, where we will take turns giving you your weekly tour of all the gross, gory, and downright odd moments in all of history and current events sometimes. We are your hosts.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I'm Katie. Why the fuck do you trip me up like that?

SPEAKER_06 0:28

I just switched it just for the hell of it.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Why?

SPEAKER_06 0:30

Now let's get into it.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Fuck.

SPEAKER_06 0:33

Buttonate the button is what you do.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Buttonate the motherfucking button.

SPEAKER_06 0:36

That's great. Um, so today I I definitely am gonna start with trigger warnings.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

I was about to say, because I've I have I have not done it the last couple of times, and we I need to get better at that.

SPEAKER_06 0:47

So then this one specifically will need it. Uh, because trigger warnings snakes. Ooh, people have feelings about hearing about snakes. So like something.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Tired of these motherfucking snakes on these on this motherfucking plane.

SPEAKER_06 0:58

Yeah, we're gonna be tired of these snakes on this motherfucking island.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Ooh.

SPEAKER_06 1:03

Hold up. Crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

I may have a vague notion of what this is about.

SPEAKER_06 1:08

Yeah. Alright, you ready?

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11

Now that we have that all over the way, very little of anything else other than snakes. That's my only real warning. Um twenty-eight miles off the Brazilian coast of Sao Paulo, roughly 11,000 years ago, the seas began to rise, cutting the island off of the mainland. This is the end, this is a consequence of the end of the ice age. Waters, sea levels are rise.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

I was about to crack a joke about Pangea. I'm so glad.

SPEAKER_06 1:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

This bitch don't know about Pangea. Pangea.

SPEAKER_06 1:40

I have met that bitch that doesn't know about Pangea. What? Uh-huh. We'll talk about that. Greetings.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Hello.

SPEAKER_06 1:49

Welcome to welcome back to Mormon Mondays. You're unintorse for what the fuck moments throughout history, where we will take turns giving you your weekly tour of all the gross, gory, and downright odd moments in all of history and current events sometimes. We are your hosts.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

I'm Katie. I'm Brian.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Why the fuck you stripped me up like that?

SPEAKER_06 2:15

I just switched it just for the hell of it.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Why?

SPEAKER_06 2:17

Now let's get into it.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Fuck.

SPEAKER_06 2:20

Buttonate the button is what you do.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Buttonate the motherfucking button.

SPEAKER_06 2:23

That's great. Um, so today I I definitely am gonna start with trigger warnings.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

I was about to say, because I've I have I have not done it the last couple of times, and we I need to get better at that.

SPEAKER_06 2:34

So then this one specifically will need it. Uh, because trigger warnings snakes. Ooh, people have feelings about hearing about snakes. So like something.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Tired of these motherfucking snakes on these on this motherfucking plane.

SPEAKER_06 2:46

Yeah, we're gonna be tired of these snakes on this motherfucking island.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Ooh.

SPEAKER_06 2:50

Hold up. Crazy.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

I may have a vague notion of what this is about.

SPEAKER_06 2:55

Yeah. Alright, you ready?

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:58

Now that we have that all over the way, very little of anything else other than snakes. That's my only real uh twenty-eight miles off the Brazilian coast of Sao Paulo, roughly eleven thousand years ago, the seas began to rise, cutting the island off of the mainland. This is the end, this is a consequence of the end of the ice age. Waters, sea levels are rose.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

I was about to crack a joke about Pangea. I'm so glad.

SPEAKER_06 3:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

This bitch don't know about Pangea.

SPEAKER_06 3:27

I have met that bitch that doesn't know about Pangea. What? Uh-huh. We'll talk about it. Put a pin in that later. So uh, so because that's what so this is a tiny um what would have been a little like isthmus out into the ocean. Um, much like, let's say, or or small island with narrow uh with with shallow water, say like Miami, the ocean levels are rising, it has now been cut off, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:55

Uh it permanently grounded.

SPEAKER_06 3:57

Permanently grounded. Evolutionary, isolated evolutionary uh environments lead to very interesting life forms.

SPEAKER_05 4:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 4:04

Such as the Venus pod, if y'all have ever seen that, which is a giant seed of a tree that looks kind of like a vagina a little bit, which is why they call it that. It doesn't at all. It looks like a heart. It looks like a giant heart.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's also how we got dodos, right?

SPEAKER_06 4:21

Yes. Yeah, yeah, they are another like um you get a lot of things that are called like island dwarfism, where you get smaller versions of other animals.

SPEAKER_04 4:29

Or you get the really big versions.

SPEAKER_06 4:31

Yeah, which is for whatever reason, island gigantism. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 4:34

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 4:34

I could not like it's sometimes it's because animals have to get bigger in order to leave said island, right? So you sometimes you get birds that are huge, or eat. Or eat.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Which is how we got like how we got dinosaurs, that word, you know. Giganto huge.

SPEAKER_06 4:50

Yeah, and and like that's that's a weird thing. Evolution and evolution has no plan. So it just does weird shit.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Vibes. No plan, only vibes.

SPEAKER_06 4:59

In 1532, it was mentioned during the expedition of Portuguese military leader Martim Afonso de Sousa. Although I'm sure indigenous people in the area definitely knew of the existence of all the islands that they lived in. And like that was said many times in the internet. He was like, he discovered it. It was like the whole ass empires there already, but okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

Uh shit drives me crazy.

SPEAKER_06 5:23

Yeah, I was just like, sure, man. Uh, I mean, there was like three kingdoms in the area that were But he discovered it. Yeah. Um it's cool. Yeah. So um but due to the nature, uh so according to local legend, let's start with that. One day a man made his way to the island in search of bananas. As you do. As you do. A few days.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

Recently learned that there are blue bananas. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_06 5:49

Right?

SPEAKER_04 5:49

Anyway, continue.

SPEAKER_06 5:50

A few days later, he was found on the shore in a pool of his own blood, still in the boat that he had traveled there to.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

Uh-oh. Water snake got him.

SPEAKER_06 6:00

Covered in snake bites. According to uh sorry, due to the nature of sea levels uh and sea travel in Brazil, uh, the Brazilian Navy decided to build a lighthouse in 1909. This is of course many, many years later. A lot of shit happened in between the 1500s and the 1900s. The thing is, there's not a lot outside, there's not a lot of anything about this little island. Because whenever people go to the island, they have a tendency not to come back. That's crazy. So, like, it it starts to become like a local lore of like, hey, don't go there. You'll wind up in a pool of your own blood inside of your boat, covered with puncture wounds. But so that it's a little island in and off of it's about, you know, like I said, about 28 miles off the coast of Brazil. So a lighthouse needed to be put there so that people can sail around, right? 1909, a lighthouse was built on the island. There was one problem, however. Again, snakes. According to legend, when the lighthouse was being built, snakes would pour into places. So what they started to do is set the island on fire to clear all the brush, right? Because the the snakes are in the brush, you see them coming. Let's light this bitch up. As you do, yeah, clear the vegetation off. Some things say that this was done in order to banana farm. I don't believe those things. And the reason why is because if you're gonna clear cut to plant bananas, it's not gonna be on a remote, isolated island.

SPEAKER_05 7:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:37

That doesn't really make a lot of sense. You're just like, you would just go further inland. Right? Like that's how that would work. So according to according to records about this lighthouse, and mostly local legend, very little is available on this. They start building this lighthouse, and the lighthouse keepers that are there, like they finally get it set up, right? It's all set up, it's all fine, half the fucking island's been burnt down. They got this lighthouse up, and the last family that is there is found dead. The man, the woman, the children, and according to local legend, snakes poured in through the windows inside of the home and and killed everyone. And that this is not the only legend about this. People who are building it say the snakes would come after them. There's a lot of stuff about you would be dead in six hours. These snakes just come at you.

SPEAKER_04 8:32

That's crazy. Well, I okay, so like I I guess from a scientific perspective, they they may very well not have had any sort of predator on that island.

SPEAKER_06 8:45

So that is a thing.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

So they wouldn't have the fear response of that's bigger than me.

SPEAKER_06 8:50

Well, so that is a thing. That is definitely a thing. Part of it is that they were so isolated without predators, is why they turn out to be the way they are. But I've got really good news for you. We'll get into later. Uh the Isla de Cuemada Grande, uh, which is in Portuguese, which is why it's slightly different. It sounds kind of stran uh like like it it's not quite said right. Um not in Spanish, but Portuguese, uh, which means large burn, which is the Quemada Grande part.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

Well, yeah, consider they set the island on fire multiple times.

SPEAKER_06 9:24

Multiple times. Is a 43 hectare or 106 acre of dense island canopy on a little island outside of Sao Paulo. I've got good news and bad news. So the bad news is that it did not work. Burning the island, controlling the vegetation did not stop the snakes.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

I would imagine not, because most snakes have the capability to burrow. Right. And or like travel overseas. Snakes can swim, by the way. Most of them are very, very good at it and can hold their breath for up to an hour.

SPEAKER_06 9:57

You're gonna be really glad that these ones don't.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

Oh.

SPEAKER_06 10:00

So, like, thankfully, thankfully, because of how they eat, they don't really go anywhere. Okay, cool. So this island, uh, by then by 1920, the lighthouse was completely automated. They didn't want to put any more people there.

SPEAKER_04 10:13

Can't imagine why.

SPEAKER_06 10:14

Right, because people, the true part about this, thankfully, that thing about the family, total myth. Okay, there's no verification on this whatsoever. However, people do die a lot on this island. And so, like, no real numbers. Because again, we're talking about like 1800s fishermen, right? People aren't recording. There's just a lot of colloquial like legends about guy went there and nobody comes back. People don't go on that island, you don't live. The legend is that pirates put snakes there a long time ago to guard their treasure, and so if you go there, you might be able to find it.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

I fucking love legends like that.

SPEAKER_06 10:53

Isn't that great?

SPEAKER_03 10:54

I love it.

SPEAKER_06 10:55

I mentioned the thing of before about the the waters rising uh 11,000 years ago. Uh more or less to answer that. So Snake Island, as this place is largely called in English, although if you Google Snake Island, it will largely point to places in off the coast of Mexico and also in China, because there's an island with like cobras on it called Snake Island. Not that Snake Island. This one is off of Brazil. It is called the Island of Large Burn. Snake Island has between 2,000 and 4,000 golden lance head vipers. If you Google this, fancy. Yeah, and they are dope looking. Okay, do you see them? If you Google this, it will tell you, and the common thing that you will hear everywhere is about one per square meter in some densely forested areas. I'm putting, I put exclamation points in my notes about this because when you look it up on the internet, that is an angry-looking noodle. Is yeah, bright gold.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:59

It is a viper viper, right? Like it looks, it looks like a viper. Like you look at it and go, oh, you're dangerous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Yeah. Oh, okay. That one looks that one looks like a soft little noodle.

SPEAKER_06 12:09

But is it a baby?

SPEAKER_04 12:10

Like Oh no, it's just it's just all coil coiled up so you can't see the arrow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:16

Uh they are called lance head vipers because their head, when, when uh angered, is in the shape of a lance point.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

They do, they do have a very angular head.

SPEAKER_06 12:25

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

And they will puff up, apparently.

SPEAKER_06 12:28

Very much so.

SPEAKER_04 12:29

Like their scales are are pointed and they'll Yeah, they become like jagged. Yeah. That's cool.

SPEAKER_06 12:36

They're pretty dope looking, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Sorry, for those that don't know, I like snakes.

SPEAKER_06 12:40

Yeah. So here's the thing the internet does math wrong a lot, especially when you You're telling me I just had to like translate micro curies to bananas. Yes, that whole thing. And then like when you look up specifically, when you learn what a micro curie is, and then you look up, well, like, well, how many does it take to produce a micro curie? It's like, boom, gives you an answer.

SPEAKER_05 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:04

Right? Somebody's done them, somebody's done a one-to-one or whatever. But if you try to do it yourself, because you get so much variation in what people say, it's not necessarily the math is like crazy, it's that everyone says something different. And so you trust me, I know. Yeah. So here's the thing that I I came up over and over and over again. Um, they will tell you flat out that there's one per square meter. If people know what this island is and you mention to them, they'll be like, oh yeah, that's that crazy place where there's a snake for every like for every yard. But that's not true, right? They will tell you like flat out there's one per square meter on a 445,000 square foot island. And here's the square meter island. So here's the here's the actual breakdown of the amount of snakes that we're dealing with, right?

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Because that's that like even for me, that's that's too damn many snakes.

SPEAKER_06 13:58

I'm gonna I'm going to to give us a stagnant number because there's like 10 different numbers on the sides of this island. 44.5 hectares is 445,000 square meters. Divide that by 4,000 snakes, which is at the upper end, uh, and you will get approximately 111.25. So that would require you to have for for one every meter, it would require you to have 445,000 snakes, which we do not have.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

You you you wouldn't be walking on land, you would be walking on snake.

SPEAKER_06 14:31

Right. They would be literally everywhere you went. Every three feet or so, another snake, right? Like that's not really possible.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

First of all, snakes are territorial.

SPEAKER_06 14:39

Yes, so that's not kill each other.

SPEAKER_04 14:41

That's not gonna happen simply by nature of the the viper itself. Right. Snakes are solitary, they don't like other snakes.

SPEAKER_06 14:47

So here's how this actually happens, right? They don't like uh snakes don't often occupy clearings or coastlines because they're vulnerable. They don't have arms and claws.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

They are noodles. Yes, they got teeth.

SPEAKER_06 15:02

They also don't, right? Yeah. Um, or they have teeth, but they don't have like fangs. So they feed on nesting migratory birds, and maybe, maybe invertebrates when they're young, when they're when they're small hatchlings, migratory birds are caught by the snake hides in the tree. This is how they survived. So when when the ocean levels rise, I'm talking with my hands in case he's following my hands.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

When when the ocean Hey, look, I've got a visual aid. Y'all can just suffer.

SPEAKER_06 15:32

Yeah, when the ocean levels are rising, these snakes get trapped on the island and they evolve in order to catch snake to catch birds as their migrant as their migratory path comes down, right? So they don't evolve as sea snakes, although sea snakes are on this island.

SPEAKER_05 15:48

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:49

There are other snakes on this island. We're just talking about the lance head, the golden lance head. How they eat is they get up in a tree, and when the birds come by in their nesting season and land in the tree, they pop them. This means that the guys that don't have very strong poison, they don't get to eat because the bird flies off and dies elsewhere. But the guys that have poison that is so strong it paralyzes you instantaneously, they get to eat. So evolutionary force has taken place a thousand uh eleven thousand years.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

That is that is the most venomous.

SPEAKER_06 16:24

These things are crazy dangerous. So, to explain why the one square meter thing happens in specific areas more, pockets of the island are densely forested areas, so they have more tree cover, which means more snakes hanging out in trees, right? And more safety where they food. Yeah, you don't want to be in a tree in the middle of a field because now all the other birds can see you.

SPEAKER_05 16:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:47

And some of those birds eat snakes. So, like, so there's you know, there's that, right? It's a real mongoose cobra type scenario when you're dealing with raptors. So you you want dense forest. The island is not all dense forests, a rocky outcrop.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

Also beaches.

SPEAKER_06 17:04

Yeah. And also when you have a bunch of snakes and they breed, they often come together in like tight groups, right? So there are portions of the island, especially at some points in the year, where you do have a snake like every foot.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

And the occasional like tangled knot of them.

SPEAKER_06 17:24

Yeah, and they're all crazy dangerous. But the discrepancy in two to four thousand is A, they're hard to find, and B, babies don't always live in the wild. True. So at this the end of your egg laying season, when you have a bunch of like little ones hatching, you have more snakes.

SPEAKER_04 17:43

Isn't is this one of the cases where the little ones are are as venomous, if not more venomous, than the large ones?

SPEAKER_06 17:49

Typically speaking, that's the case with any kind of viper.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

And the reason I thought so, but it wasn't sure.

SPEAKER_06 17:54

The reason why is because they don't have control. When they bite something, they let all of their venom out in one pop. Whereas a older snake would keep the the bites are painful if they have venom in them, right? So they they don't always do that. They usually release a a a portion of their venom when they get older. This is the case with rattlesnakes, anyways. Baby rattlesnakes will inject the fuck out of you.

SPEAKER_04 18:19

Um cotton mouths too.

SPEAKER_06 18:21

Yeah. Whereas the uh Texas snakes. Right, yeah. Shit we know about timber rattlers and all that stuff. Very small snakes are usually like deadly, they're just a lot of them are just deadly. The coral snake, right? It doesn't really matter what age you get them, they pop you. That's some serious potency. Where am I at with these damn things? Oh, so you mentioned before um about the predators not having any predators.

SPEAKER_05 18:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:46

That is 100% true with these. Yeah, they have their own. Right. There's almost no um there's there's no ground predators to speak of on the island outside of like toads and lizards. So when they're a baby, they might be in danger. As a full grown snake, nothing's touching this fucking thing.

SPEAKER_04 19:03

Yeah, so they're just they're just gonna come at anything coming on that island.

SPEAKER_06 19:07

Right. They have they they don't encounter humans very often. They are they do hide. As a snake, they hide for birds, right? So they're they're not likely to come at you like all these legends.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:18

Well, but they are a snake that hides. So if you say pull up your little banana boat, literally, and and you're on the island, when you get back to your boat, the cover that you've put on your boat, there might be a lot of snakes under that cover, right? This is what happens. We live in Texas, right? If you throw a bunch of like old timber in your backyard, like like fence posts and stuff, fence fence boards, you have to be careful in the summer when you go up to that fence board.

SPEAKER_04 19:44

Or when you leave your boots outside.

SPEAKER_06 19:45

Yeah, because there could be a snake in there. Snake or spider or a spider, yeah, because they get into things, right? That's probably what's actually going on here is that they're like escaping rain, or they're escaping uh uh another predator, or they're just looking for a place to den in. And then you wind up stepping on them or or near them or whatever, right? Um, but they do have they do have some parasites, they have ticks, uh, and they are known in their like little mouth tube that you see. A lot of snakes have that like little you know venom injector thing that they got going. Not through their teeth, but like that little hollow tube under their usually their tongue. Yeah. There's they have they get flukeworms, which is super gross. But like they get flukeworms in those. Um it doesn't seem to be killing them though, they're just they have a parasite every once in a while. Fingers are real useful. You know what I mean? Like animals that don't have hands, they get a lot of stuff like this. The Hararaka, I hope I'm saying that right, is a highly venomous pit vip pit viper native to South America. These snakes are solitary and nocturnal, hiding under leaves, logs, rocks during the day. Juveniles primarily feed on frogs and anthropods, while adults mainly consume rodents, making up about 80% of their diet. Hararakas are known for their accurate and aggressive strikes with very low failure rate when hunting. That's from facts.net. This species is thought to have been stranded on the island 11,000 years ago. And after about 11,000 years of uh evolution, selective evolution. Yeah, and this also happens on the mainland because 90% of snake bites in Brazil come from lance head snakes. A close cousin of the golden lance head. They like convergent evolution, they both start with the same snake over the course of time. They're both all of these snakes are considered lance head snakes. But the fertilance is a a cousin as well. And if you if you have watched a lot of like survival shows, you will know that the fertilance kills people all the time. It's a very it's like all around the Caribbean and Amazon is. It's a very feared snake. It gets into stuff. It bites you. It seems to want to bite you. And uh in 1985, the Brazilian government declares the island a federal conservation unit protecting its unique ecosystem.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Don't go here.

SPEAKER_06 22:15

Don't go here. Straight up no-go zone. When you look at like Rio, like some of the the there's there's a uh information site for Rio de Janeiro, it just says it's an NG zone. That's what it says. No go.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

Literally no go.

SPEAKER_06 22:29

And I was like, that's so crazy. But it it seeks to protect the very unique ecosystem of the of the island, which is a migratory bird stop, and also home to this very unique snake.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

This snake that says, fuck you.

SPEAKER_06 22:43

Yeah, if I bite you, you will pay. So, and here's here's what I found about that. All right, so their bites, 7% of people who get bit do not survive. Okay 3%, like of that seven, like if you get treated, 3% live, 3% don't. So accounting for a 1% margin of error, the anti-venom is only 50% effective. It's painful. It's a massive hemotoxin. Oh it blisters on contact. People like because there are no nobody's been bitten by one of these.

SPEAKER_04 23:21

Like in in modern recording, outside of like scientists who immediately make sense too, because these snakes have evolved to hunt fucking birds.

SPEAKER_06 23:30

Right. And they have to die quickly. Yeah. Right? So they have to they have to bleed out immediately.

SPEAKER_04 23:36

And most snakes, like most snakes that aren't constrictors, don't have mouths made to lock. The more you know. Thanks, Hunter.

SPEAKER_06 23:45

Yeah. Right. Like, especially here in Texas, our rattlesnakes, right, have break-off fangs.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:50

They don't they they will let you run. Like they they are designed to snap, deliver the bite, and if you rip off their fangs in the process, they have like a secondary pair that will fall in.

SPEAKER_05 24:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:02

Yeah. They they've they've evolved these great defensive mechanisms for hunting. And this guy, if it bites you, it's painful immediately. Uh in some some people claim, because I I say some people claim because outside of scientists that have gone to the island, there's not a lot of human contact that's recorded. So what we have is lab tests with like rats, right? So what's because they gotta feed them, right? Like so that so they they give them like mice and shit. Or birds or whatever. When they bite, the the the sight blisters immediately. Some sometimes like people record that the flesh milts off of you. Wow. Because it's right, blood cells and skin cells are still just cells. Yeah. And it starts like that's what happens, is that you just start bleeding. So remember that guy found in his boat. Puddle of blood. Covered in a puddle of blood, yeah. And sometimes the myths are pretty accurate to real life.

SPEAKER_05 25:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:04

So especially if you got puffed multiple times. Why, if it's so dangerous? And some sources say, by the way, if you get hit, you have about an hour to live.

SPEAKER_04 25:13

What's the snake that they called? The two-step.

SPEAKER_06 25:16

The what now?

SPEAKER_04 25:17

There, there, there is a snake. Like, and I I this knowledge is this knowledge is old. Let me let me let me preface this real quick. This knowledge is from like the Darwin days of like the animal planet. And it came along the same time as I I learned about like red and yellow, kill a f fellow red and black.

SPEAKER_07 25:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:36

Um, but there is a snake that there's a venomous snake that like according to I I guess the lore around said snake is like if you get hit and that met bite is venomous, you take two steps and you're dead.

SPEAKER_06 25:52

I don't know of anyone that's that poisonous, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 25:56

I remember it being a sea snake, but that's really all I remember about it anymore.

SPEAKER_06 26:00

Because they have to kill things on one strike, right? And then leave.

SPEAKER_04 26:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:04

I mean, this one's not giving you better. It's not giving you much better.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

You got like an hour to I was gonna say, because like given given the nature of its venom, like the way that it like attacks and essentially like melts the cells, like it dismantles you from the inside. Yeah, and considering how quick how fast the human circulatory system is, like even damaged.

SPEAKER_06 26:24

The longest thing that I heard about this of like how fast you can die from it, is that some sits this is again internet, fucking sometimes there weren't a lot of because there's there's no ethical testing on a human body, right? Yeah, you can't. So there's not there's not a lot of places if if no one's ever recorded a person dying from being bitten, there's not a lot you can tell. And so some places said six hours, some places said as little as one. My guess is if a guy gets bit and they're trying to deal with it, it might take up to like twelve. But if you get bit and then you're running through the forest as fast as you can, it might kill you quite quickly, or if you're literally a child.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

Yeah, I would I would imagine like because one of the big things, especially with snake venom, is that they tell you to try to stay calm.

SPEAKER_06 27:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:11

Like tourniquet the area and try to stay calm.

SPEAKER_06 27:14

Because the faster your heart beats, the faster it spreads.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:17

And especially with hemotoxin, right?

SPEAKER_05 27:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:21

So that that was my take on it, anyways, was that like the discrepancy probably has to do with the size of the adult, how fast they move, all that, you know, how fast their heart rate is. Because we're talking about like trying to approximate birds and rats to human beings. Which is famously difficult.

SPEAKER_04 27:39

Yeah, like the the closest analog that you could get for an animal testing to a human would be a pig.

SPEAKER_06 27:44

Yes. And and that there's nothing ethical or moral about letting a pig slowly die from golden lance head viper.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

That is no thank you.

SPEAKER_06 27:54

So here's the here's some crazy stuff about this. Crazy shit about this. So poachers. Oh, oh, before I go into that, if they're so deadly, why is it only like 7%, right? For those of y'all not in the know about this, most snake bites are what are called dry bites. Yes. Because they don't want to eat you. You're not a bird.

SPEAKER_04 28:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:16

So they're popping people and there's no venom.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

And it takes it takes them time to for their bodies to generate said venom.

SPEAKER_06 28:23

Right.

SPEAKER_04 28:23

And occasionally it's it has been speculated that a venomous bite also hurts the snake.

SPEAKER_06 28:29

Yeah. Yeah, because they're they all of their glands like compress real fast, forces through their teeth. Sometimes they lose their teeth.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

Kind of like that frog that's uh that's defense mechanism is to like squirt blood from its eyes. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:42

Yeah. So like that's you know, and that's not uncommon in evolution. I mean, like, our defensive mechanism to danger is adrenaline.

SPEAKER_04 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:50

It makes us run real fast.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

I was about to say, we're also a species that was designed to run.

SPEAKER_06 28:54

Yeah. So we get, and if if you've ever experienced uh being a true adrenaline crash where you're like on edge for like 24 hours and then stop, you just sleep, man.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

Yeah, you you drop like a rock. Having experienced that, yeah, dude. Everything hurts the next day. You are so groggy, and like I'm not kidding when I say this, you will in fact sleep for 12 hours.

SPEAKER_06 29:18

Yeah. You you it costs, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:22

And so, like you can do Herculean things.

SPEAKER_06 29:25

Yeah. But ripping your muscles to pieces. Yeah. And that there's some amount of that probably in here, right? They don't want to expend the calories and the energy and the pain of biting something they don't intend to eat.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

Yeah, or something that they can't eat because like they're the sheer size difference.

SPEAKER_06 29:41

Like it's it's why like rattlesnakes do it and why they have a rattle to begin with.

SPEAKER_05 29:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:46

Is to, you know, they evolved in a place with herd animals like bison and deer. They don't want you to step on them and they don't want to expend the energy biting you because they're really just after rats and birds.

SPEAKER_04 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:58

And frogs and shit, right?

SPEAKER_04 30:01

Snakes I don't understand. The little like hog-nosed noodles that like chew on their on their on their owners or their handlers like fingers. Yeah. Buddy, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_08 30:11

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

What are you doing, little guy? You gonna let go?

SPEAKER_06 30:16

Yeah. And not even hard. That's the crazy thing. Yeah, they're just like they have the ability to generate enough crushing force to for you to bleed from it. Yeah, and then they just don't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:27

Like I understand that that snakes are not pack animals. They don't have the cognitive thing to be attached to a person.

SPEAKER_06 30:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

But it's instances like that where I am convinced that a snake will play.

SPEAKER_06 30:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

And that is that is exactly what's happening.

SPEAKER_06 30:43

Probably.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

I am chewing on you.

SPEAKER_06 30:45

Yeah. I mean, some some snakes wrestle.

SPEAKER_04 30:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:50

That's how the a lot of cobra breeds do vi for dominance. They don't kill each other, they wrestle. And they'll the one tries to push the other one's head down is like a show of strength. And that that that's how they take over their like breeding territory.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

I think this is the first time we've ever had a conversation about snakes.

SPEAKER_06 31:06

Yeah. By the way. I think so.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

Welcome to my niche knowledge about snakes.

SPEAKER_06 31:09

It's so fucking crazy. We've known each other for like 15 years. I don't think we ever have talked about it.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

No. I typically keep like my reptile talk with Hunter because I the snakes are one of those things that people are are either you're okay with or you're not okay with.

SPEAKER_08 31:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:25

And I I have known enough people that are not okay with it that I keep it to myself unless I know like this person is also chill with it.

SPEAKER_06 31:34

I I like them. I don't ever want to own one.

SPEAKER_04 31:38

Same.

SPEAKER_06 31:39

I especially specifically constricting snakes. Uh because anything else, like non-venomous um things like a king snake or a rat snake, I think are super cool. I don't have to worry about them hurting me.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

Yeah. Well, and they also will stay small.

SPEAKER_06 31:54

Yeah. Yeah. King snake, like some of them, rat snakes get real big, but like they're thin, right? They're they're like rope-like. Yeah. Noodles. Yeah. You don't really have to worry about what's going on there, you know? Not that yeah. Sorry. Quick middle image of a of a ball python crushing my throat in my sleep.

SPEAKER_05 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:14

Which like never happens, but also I have a rule about that. I don't like owning animals that I think might be able to kill me.

SPEAKER_04 32:21

Well. So like chances of your cat trying to kill you are low, but never zero.

SPEAKER_06 32:26

But never zero. So here's so here's a crazy thing. I've told you all about how fucking dangerous these snakes are.

SPEAKER_04 32:35

Please tell me there are not, there isn't a black market for people trying to make these things pets.

SPEAKER_06 32:40

A massive one. Uh no. Poachers uh of Golden Lance Head Vipers to private collectors and researchers. Uh they can sell these snakes for 10,000 to 30,000 per snake.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Fuck that.

SPEAKER_06 32:57

So yeah, if you so if you get a couple of them, I mean you and your buddies can make a year of worth of income in like one day.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

Yeah, but still, you have a you have a you're you are going onto an island that has a highly specialized and evolved viper. Like let me let me just let me let me let me just swap the terminology here. We we're moving away from snake and calling it a viper because that is its classification. It is a predatory snake that has evolved with a with a venom meant to incapacitate and kill very quickly.

SPEAKER_06 33:29

Now, granted, birds, but still, yeah, it is that just means it'll kill you slower and more painfully.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

This this this this is a viper that has a a specialization to kill quickly and effectively to survive. Not only that, it is a tree-dwelling snake, which means this hoe will drop on your head, pop you in the neck, and then just sit and wait.

SPEAKER_06 33:56

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 33:58

And why? Why like I understand to some point the idiocy that goes with it's a status, it's the world's most venomous snake. Whatever, it's probably not. But like for for the rich folk trying to just have exotic things, you are in danger.

SPEAKER_06 34:16

Yeah, super in danger. If it if it pops you in the hand.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

If it is not a dry bite, if that if that snake is feeling truly threatened and it is not a dry bite, what are you gonna do with it?

SPEAKER_06 34:29

Like if you have one in your home, do you own the anti-venom?

SPEAKER_04 34:33

That is you still only have a 7% chance of survival.

SPEAKER_06 34:36

Oh no, it's it's flipped. It's flipped. Oh, okay, okay. So most of these things don't. Um I was not super clear about that earlier. I'm sorry. Um, so seven percent uh of the people die from them.

SPEAKER_04 34:47

Okay. Because I gotta get snakes. I misunderstood. No, no, my apologies.

SPEAKER_06 34:52

Snakes in in real life, like in in movies, they're always super deadly, but most snakes you will not die from if you're bitten.

SPEAKER_05 35:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:01

Right? Like otherwise, humanity would have had a much harder time. Um, in this area in Texas, especially.

SPEAKER_04 35:08

Oh, yeah, we're a wetland. We're a swamp.

SPEAKER_06 35:10

Yeah, because moccasins exist, and water moccasins will in fact chase you, have been chased.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

Um, there's yeah, lucky enough to have never encountered one. They are rattlesnakes, on the other hand.

SPEAKER_06 35:21

They are fast.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Most snakes are actually. Like with like I've seen I've I my buddy Hunter had a menagerie of reptiles, including snakes, and he had a couple of them that were pretty docile, pretty chill snakes. Like they were well fed, they had no reason to be hostile ever.

SPEAKER_08 35:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

I I I in fact never saw any of his snakes give any sort of behavioral indication of a man. Like, but uh during feeding time, like, like not just not just the kitchen tongs, but the barbecue tongs.

SPEAKER_06 35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:58

And that is that is for those that don't know, that is a special classification of tongs here in Texas.

SPEAKER_06 36:05

Longer and stronger, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:07

And like, like he would hand over that mouse, and I have never fucking seen a snake that big book it that fast.

SPEAKER_06 36:15

They're they're quick and they're very fast. And so, like, so you have a 7% chance of of being killed. You have a 3% chance of being killed even with the anti-venom. Here's the issue, right? Because I'm gonna go, I'm gonna expound further into that.

SPEAKER_04 36:28

Please. Because like, I still don't see a reason to own the snake.

SPEAKER_06 36:33

It and and you you shouldn't ever like it's pretty.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

I'll give you that. Like, it is a cool looking snake. Um, there's there there is a there is a a leaf constrictor that is that you can get in a color very similar to that, with the same like shaped head and body.

SPEAKER_06 36:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:51

That that cannot envenimate you to death.

SPEAKER_06 36:54

And here's like it has teeth though. So that statistic, because remember, I told you there was no real confirmed snake bite statistics. There aren't enough because its mainland cousin, the lance head viper, uh, is that poisonous.

SPEAKER_04 37:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 37:11

Here's the problem.

SPEAKER_04 37:12

Hmm.

SPEAKER_06 37:13

The golden lance head is thought to be five times as venomous. And people are buying this. We don't know how venomous these things are. Not really, right? We don't have the data to know how fucking deadly they are.

SPEAKER_04 37:27

Because there's no ethical way to gather said data.

SPEAKER_06 37:29

Yes, you just have to wait till somebody gets bit and then try to find out.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

The people that are getting bit are either criminals or or rich folk who have their own private doctors who are never never ever ever ever ever going to give that data away to anyone.

SPEAKER_06 37:45

And and or the like, right, because if you're a research scientist and and research scientists go to this island, you are wearing snake gear. Yeah. You're probably not getting bit.

SPEAKER_04 37:55

And I don't think our reach a research scientist who is scientist scientisting a a a snake that is this venomous is going to be like, yeah, okay, for the data.

SPEAKER_06 38:06

Right. They don't and I saw a photo of a guy just in kind of like shorts, like like not shorts, but in a just fishing shirt, right, with gloves. But he's got snake-proof pants. He also has a very large hat and net over his face. There's a lot of stuff that would keep him protective. He's also a snake expert. Yeah. So the chances are that he gets bit, period, are pretty low. Right? You remember like the those interviews with Steve Irwin. Yeah. He handled poisonous snakes all the time. He had only ever been bitten like twice.

SPEAKER_04 38:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:34

Like he was people who are good at that.

SPEAKER_04 38:36

And then there's that mook in Florida who's been bitten so many times, his blood is just kind of a catch-all anti-venom.

SPEAKER_06 38:42

Yeah. And that's like rattlesnakes mostly, right? And and other things that are significant.

SPEAKER_04 38:48

Is he in Florida? I want to say he's in Florida because the wild stuff happens in Florida.

SPEAKER_06 38:51

A lot of shit. So here's here's what's going on here.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

Poachers and scientists.

SPEAKER_06 38:57

Yeah, poachers and scientists. So I think there's actually a Mr. Beast video where he goes here.

SPEAKER_04 39:02

Ew. Okay, first of all, I don't like Mr. Beast.

SPEAKER_06 39:05

Yeah. But he goes to the island or to the lighthouse or something.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

For fucking what?

SPEAKER_06 39:10

The only people who go to this island are researchers, people with special permits, or the navy to fix the lighthouse, and then they leave. Right? So it's isolated.

SPEAKER_05 39:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:20

The internet sucks. AI fucking blows. And I say that because in doing research, I keep coming up with problems like this. If you uh the the the golden lance head thing, right? The how much they cost, ten to thirty thousand dollars per snake. If you look up how much Lance Head Vipers, how much the Golden Lance Head costs and its poison, I just mentioned that it gives you the poison of the regular Lancehead Viper. That is also true of the price. If you if you search, can you buy a Golden Lancehead Viper? It will give you a Lance Head Viper, the regular mainland version, which is a lot less poisonous. And on undergroundreptiles.com, you can buy one for $349.99. Now that snake is a lot less rare and five times less poisonous.

SPEAKER_04 40:12

Yeah. So like also, do they look the same?

SPEAKER_06 40:15

No. They are jungle-toned. They're not golden like that. So they they're like brown and black and all that kind of stuff, right?

SPEAKER_04 40:22

A golden lance head, a lance head.

SPEAKER_06 40:24

On Rio, uh Rio and Learn.com, the island is also home to the Hararaka Dormidera or the Dipsis Micani is the scientific term.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Don't you love those Latin names?

SPEAKER_06 40:39

Yeah. A fascinating non-venomous snake. In English, it is called the Micken's tree snake, or sometimes referred to as the sleeping tree snake. It poses no threat to humans whatsoever, uh, because it it's non-venomous and doesn't really bite a lot. However, it plays an important ecological role in feeding on slugs and snails, contributed to the island's biodiversity. So, like the golden lance head is not the only snake on this island. There are also the white-black striped sea snake that a lot of us are used to. Um that I've actually seen one in person. Um very rare in our part of the world, but they do sometimes happen. They get those as well in that part of the world, hunting for fish mostly. Um lot of migratory birds. It's their natural habitat. It's the other snakes largely feed on toads and all that kind of stuff. And it's suggested kind of without, you know, if you didn't have the lance, the golden lance head there, the migratory birds would do very, very well. However, they would probably eat a lot of the other snakes and toads. Because there's nothing like regulating them. You know, like that's the issue with like you you fuck up the entire ecology of the of the space, and you you end up losing other species. So according to the modern data on this, about 50% of the island is no longer habitable for the Golden Lanted because of those burns we talked about earlier. And also like around building the lighthouse, and also just climate change, and like because that storms come through, right? And destroy stuff. It's a lot of the uh natural environment of the snake has been destroyed, about 50%, like I said. Um, and they're considered endangered right now. So these poachers are very much destroying the environment of the snake, which sucks because they're really cool looking, and I'm glad they are really cool looking snakes. They're super unique, and some people might be wondering well, why would I care about that if they're so goddamn dangerous? And that's a valid question.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

What happens to an animal when its ecosystem, when its home is being destroyed? Yeah, they move.

SPEAKER_06 42:54

Sometimes they move. Uh also uh, because that's true, sometimes they move, right? And if they made their way into mainland, that's bad. They would be a lot of places. Now, granted, there's also ground predators in mainland South America that they're not used to, so they probably wouldn't be able to make it that far.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

Or at least not very quickly.

SPEAKER_06 43:12

Here's my concern about this venom is a new and exciting thing in medical science. Hemotoxins specifically might hold the key to ending cardiac disease. Because when you have plaque buildup in your heart, hemotoxins destroy that.

SPEAKER_04 43:32

They destroy a pipe cleaner in your veins.

SPEAKER_06 43:34

Yeah, because they destroy old, they they destroy blood cells and old carotid, like old, old dried up and and macrophaged blood cells driven to the side of your arteries, doubly so. They have no defense, right? So so the idea is that some of these snakes also have anticoagulant stuff in their venom, which causes the venom to move faster, just like mosquitoes.

SPEAKER_04 43:58

Because it prevents clotting.

SPEAKER_06 43:59

Because it prevents clotting. Clotting.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

For those that don't know what anticoagulant means.

SPEAKER_06 44:02

Yeah, leeches have this, right? That's why when you pull pull them off, you start bleeding like crazy. It's not that they put a big hole in you, they don't. They have very, very small mouths.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

It's just that their saliva, like that they secrete, has a property in it that does not let your blood clot, clump together, and clot.

SPEAKER_06 44:17

Right. And so one of the reasons you might really care about protecting the species is that they might be invaluable to future medical research. Um they they might also allow us to develop other chemicals that we just can't even think of right now. For instance, Velcro, this is a very bad example, but how we got that is that a sticker burr held onto someone's sock and they wondered why. Micro burrs. Yeah. And when you look at the surface of Velcro, it closely resembles those little balls that get stuck to your socks. Um, that is one example of an entire field of material science that we look at nature and we go, well, how? Right? How do modern day quad quadcopter drones fly? Well, we looked at animals that do this. The V-Bomber, the big like giant V, I think it's uh the flying V-shaped bomber. The the inspiration for that came from a kind of seed pod which drops from a tree and glides down and it's shaped like that. So like we just don't know in the future, like this might be very important.

SPEAKER_04 45:31

It's already in the category of things that like scientists are going, maybe. Yeah, we we are in the fuck around portion of find out.

SPEAKER_06 45:38

Right. And it might, for instance, be here's another issue that you have with like the modern study of venom. Sometimes in the process of creating anti-venom, you discover a new chemical, a new chemical compound that could do a number of things. You just don't know. Yeah, you know, like you never know what you're gonna learn because we get wild shit. I mean, like in very much in opposite, sometimes things that we think are very, very valuable end up being like toys. Silly putty, for instance, was used for a chemical reason for some point, and like it wasn't Plato originally like made to clean soot off walls. Some some crap like that. I mean, like some Or is that an urban legend? I can't that might be that might be silly putty because silly putty is still like back, is very useful for that.

SPEAKER_04 46:26

Uh slime was was developed to clean keyboards.

SPEAKER_06 46:30

Yes, yeah, yeah. The super that the the really dense held together, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:35

It it works excellent because it does super glue was originally used as uh liquid sutures.

SPEAKER_06 46:40

Yeah. The tampon was developed to close bullet holes. Yep. At least that's the urban legend I heard of, but it does make sense. It has an insert applicator, it closes, stops the flow of fluid. And I imagine that would be so painful. Yeah, but that's I mean, hemophiliac medication is now being used to do that same thing to stop bleeding from wounds. Because like the modern version of medicine is is harm reduction, right? Like, so like normally you would not use it for that. It would make you know, it would clot your blood.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

Yeah, with that with that, it would induce a heart attack.

SPEAKER_06 47:18

Yeah, but if you're like bleeding, yeah, you take the risk. You're right, like you take the risk.

SPEAKER_04 47:23

If you're already dying, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 47:25

And uh, so that's my thing on this great island of golden lions head vipers. Um, just for fascination, if you think snakes and spiders and and cool screepy crawlies are are really awesome, undergroundreptiles.com has a list of things. I do believe they you have to have a lab license to get a venomous animal. Uh, they tell you flat out this might be illegal in your country.

SPEAKER_04 47:50

Civilians, you don't need a venomous critter.

SPEAKER_06 47:53

No.

SPEAKER_04 47:54

You don't need it?

SPEAKER_06 47:55

The the list of non-venomous critters in there is miles long.

SPEAKER_05 47:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 47:59

And you don't need a venomous critter. They're very dangerous, and if they get out, you will put yourself and your children or pets or just neighbors.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

Your general ecosystem where you are in danger because lots of these animals are very pervasive. Case in point invasive, not pervasive. Well, some of them can be pervasive.

SPEAKER_06 48:19

Yeah, it was like some you brought up an excellent thing about Florida, which now has a python issue.

SPEAKER_05 48:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:25

Because people kept letting their goddamn pets out, and now we have a snake that is perfectly adapted for a jungled environment, is in the Florida Everglades, and has almost no natural predators.

SPEAKER_05 48:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:38

Like outside of giant hogs, there and and maybe croc like alligators, there's not a lot in the Everglades that can deal with a 10-foot python.

SPEAKER_04 48:47

Yeah. I so like that's I have a whole set of issues about like bringing animals into a climate or zone, a place that they don't belong in.

SPEAKER_08 49:04

Right.

SPEAKER_04 49:05

Like, first of all, I've I've got a whole vendetta against owning exotic animals. Like, and don't get me wrong, I'll be the first one, the first one to look at an ocelot and go, I want that.

SPEAKER_08 49:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

I will never own that because that is a predator.

SPEAKER_06 49:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:21

That is a big that that it's very small, but it's a big cat.

SPEAKER_06 49:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It will fuck up your cats. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 49:28

I mean, one of my cats is a fucking dump truck, but like I'm not, I'm not gonna leave my cat in alone in a room with, you know, a cat that's five times her size.

SPEAKER_06 49:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

Like these people that own big cats in general.

SPEAKER_06 49:44

Especially when it's like when you look at the big cat market, the ones that people gravitate to are not, they don't have family relationships, right? Like it's always lions and tigers, but it's like, I want a male lion.

SPEAKER_03 49:58

No.

SPEAKER_06 49:59

Why they don't play well with others. I want a tiger, they play well with exactly one person that's their mate, and that's it.

SPEAKER_04 50:08

And even then, only sometimes. But like I I don't, I don't, I've never let me start myself over here. I've never looked into the reptile thing because yes, I think they're very, very cool. Like, I if if there if there is a handler there that has a great big giant fuck off snake and you are allowed to like pet or hold or experience said it said said animal, hell yes. First in line. I've held a crocodile. Did you know?

SPEAKER_08 50:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

Um iguanas, so cool. Yeah. Chameleons, awesome. Snakes, yes, please. Will I ever own one? Absolutely not, because I have never gone into in-depth care and instructional anything on these animals because I I don't I don't want to be responsible for something like that.

SPEAKER_06 50:54

Yeah. Like UK, like we have friends that do that have lizards, and they're very like, they've built them habitats, they know how they feed, they know their temperaments, and they're okay with that.

SPEAKER_04 51:04

Yeah, and I'm cool with that. I've never I've never looked into the reptile anything because I don't I don't necessarily want that responsibility. I think they're super cool. And I I have a blast with my friends that do own them. But you anyone that is outside of a scientific and or a medical study practice profession, you don't need to do, you don't need anything to do with a venomous anything.

SPEAKER_06 51:32

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

You know, there is no reason you should have that unless you are providing this animal's venom or research on this animal to a medical anything, yeah, or a scientific anything.

SPEAKER_06 51:48

And that's a job. You can go get a license to handle that is a job.

SPEAKER_04 51:52

That is not recreational, that is not for fun, just for shits and giggles. I have a water moccasin, he hates everyone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 52:00

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:01

His name is Steve. Why do you own Steve?

SPEAKER_06 52:04

Yeah. Why? Right. The only thing that I can even think of of buying a venomous snake that would be any kind of beneficial to me is if I, let's say I own a small farm and I've got a rodent problem, and that snake is indigenous to the area I live in. So I'm gonna go get a rattlesnake, and there's gonna be a rattlesnake near me to kill, or a rat snake, or a king snake, or whatever, right? Those other two you don't barn. Yeah, any kind of thing that will go kill these fucking rats that is already there, and even then I have options that are non-venomous. See, and I think rat snakes are not dangerous to me.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

Yeah. I I have the same problem with the uh with bugs, the bug trade. Yeah, the bug people.

SPEAKER_06 52:50

Oh, if yeah, if if your cage breaks open and it looses a bunch of fucking like very niche, you know, arthropods into the local environment, like how easily are you gonna be able to remove them?

SPEAKER_04 53:02

Yeah. And like, like specifically, I I thought about the people that have venomous spiders spiders.

SPEAKER_06 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:08

Why? Why? Why? If you need a spider, go make friends with a wolf spider, bro.

SPEAKER_06 53:15

Yeah, you which you can get at undergroundpets.

SPEAKER_04 53:19

Fuck that. I will go to my garden and make friends with the wolf spark spiders there. I told you I did that last summer, right?

SPEAKER_06 53:24

Yeah, there are tons of actually pretty like spiders are intelligent, we now know. And there are tons of like for me, for whenever I want to see a spider, because I live in South Texas, I wait for the spring. I go walking in the woods a lot. Yeah. And I go look at the beautiful golden orb weaver matrons up in the trees. One of the the banana spider, one of the only spiders that doesn't routinely eat all of their mates. And uh, golden orb weavers are gorgeous, and I can go and like look at all their beautiful color and variety and never have to move them. Yeah. They just they are where they are. I just need to find a forested path that doesn't have a lot of open sky.

SPEAKER_04 54:02

So I I used to have a problem with spiders. I don't anymore, thanks to the internet.

SPEAKER_06 54:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:06

And thanks to content creators that that have pages dedicated to said spiders. I like literally this last summer, like the summer that I went whole hog on like making myself a fucking garden. Um, I I literally made friends with like two or three different wolf spiders in my garden. Like I would I would be out there pruning or pulling weeds, and then like you can you you we think of spiders as very, very small and creepy crawly. I have never been politely tapped by a spider before.

SPEAKER_06 54:42

Yeah, I know what you mean. Like they do that, because they they do warning legs, yeah, but like the the little garden type variety wolf spiders will like or or come up to you because they eat aphids and shit. Yeah so they come up to you and they just kind of watch you. That's so fun to me. I'm just like because they have like personality, which is very strange.

SPEAKER_04 55:03

But I I and you can tell them apart, they have distinct markings. Yeah. Like, especially when like it I recognize that most of us go, ah, spider, smash.

SPEAKER_06 55:15

There are some versions of I forget what they're called, but they're a brown spider, and and they get mistaken for the garden spiders a lot because of their general shape, but they're like the size of my hand.

SPEAKER_04 55:28

Oh yeah, those big bastards?

SPEAKER_06 55:30

Yeah, those will freak me out because I know of when they they carry staff real bad. Yeah, so like I don't necessarily want to get bit by one of those guys, but they're also big enough to do real harm. Um, that being said, they also like run for open doors whenever I so like I'm like, here you go.

SPEAKER_04 55:46

Daddy long leg spiders creep me out a little bit just because they're shaped a little weird. But I I don't know. I I you don't need a venomous creature. If you want a creepy crawly, go go to your garden. Yeah, go chill in the grass for a bit. You'll meet a grass snake.

SPEAKER_06 56:05

One of my one of my favorite things, though, obviously, in the insect market that is kind of fun is like rhinoceros beetles. You know what I mean? Beetles and ants and stuff like that are not you don't have to be as careful with them. Ants maybe a little more so because they can become very, very invasive. Um not so much with beetles, you know what I mean? Like like big beetles, like like dung beetles, rhino beetles, that kind of stuff. They're so big, stag beetles, that like you're not gonna lose them.

SPEAKER_05 56:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 56:34

And also they don't move very fast. So like, um, but they're neat. Uh they are neat to watch, and uh and again they have a little more like personality, personality to them, right?

SPEAKER_04 56:46

Like, but I brought spiders up, or specifically the jumping spider, the wolf spider up, because they will come home if they get out.

SPEAKER_08 56:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:54

Like that it the spiders are intelligent and also like it. I am no I am no professional in this. I am not an expert. I am some some chick that that got on the internet one day and said, I'm tired of being afraid of spiders. I live in South Texas, I'm surrounded by them all the time. I'm tired of jumping at shadows or any like fleeting feeling that feels like something is crawling on me, and it's my hair 90% of the time. So I'm gonna I'm gonna make myself not afraid of spiders, and that is how I got unafraid of spiders because I used to have a real problem with them. So I I I I I have taken in media and educational things that have that have informed me that spiders specifically.

SPEAKER_06 57:42

Yeah. Yeah. Of all of the things that like bite and attack humans, ticks are way more dangerous. Ticks are awful. Ticks are more dangerous than snakes. Ticks are more like the mosquito is the deadliest thing on earth. Like, yeah, the the stuff that we're afraid of is never the stuff. Like, we're t everybody's terrified of sharks. Shark bites are so rare.

SPEAKER_05 58:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:04

Like, unless you live in a mangrove swamp in Thailand, not likely to happen, right? Like, if you shore fish a lot in southern Florida, yeah, you might have encountered a bull shark.

SPEAKER_04 58:15

And even then, pop them on the nose.

SPEAKER_06 58:17

Yeah, they're they're not, typically speaking, they're on the younger side when you encounter them. They're not very big. You have to be out there to get to the big ones. Um, and that's more likely actually to happen here because the water's so murky.

SPEAKER_04 58:30

Um, they're not after our beaches are brown.

SPEAKER_06 58:33

Yeah, yeah. We have we have river silt water, it's not clear at all.

SPEAKER_04 58:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:36

Um, which is great for fish. Yep. And that's why they're here. So, like, there's uh, you know, all that wonderful stuff. The snake thing, I I don't like when when encountering this, right? I've heard of snake islands before. There's plenty of islands all over the world that have that are that are nesting grounds for snakes. Um I've never heard of one that was so specific to this of just being like, it sits in a tree. And I mentioned that that non-venomous version. So like if you encounter a snake in a tree, this may be also where part of this like one one snake per square meter comes from, is that there are other snakes. Yeah. And so some of the snakes in that in this very forest don't do anything. They sit against a tree and sleep until like a big frog comes by and pops the frog, um, or a slug or whatever, and they're significantly smaller. These guys are like a couple feet long, and they are pretty big.

SPEAKER_04 59:37

Bright yellow guys. Yeah, you can you bright yellow. Like they are they are richer, more richer toned than a banana.

SPEAKER_06 59:46

Yeah. Yeah, they are. They're like a really pretty gold. And but so if you're ever if you're ever in the Brazilian coastline of Sao Paulo, uh, don't.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

Don't don't.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:00

Don't. Don't. Just don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:02

If you're if you are if you are rich and want exclusive things, don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

Yeah. Don't.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:09

For real.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

There's no reason for that. There is no reason you need something that dangerous in your house.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:16

No.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:17

Ever.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:17

I just like you there is no reason you need something that dangerous in your house that does not like you, will not like you, will never like you.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:27

No. They are only concerned that you are too big to swallow.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:30

That's it.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:31

That's pretty much it. And then, like, this snake is more dangerous than a furlance. It's more dance dangerous than a lance head viper. Yeah. It's more dangerous than a water moccasin by a leap. Because water moccasins don't kill most of the people. And that's true. Like, if untreated, if untreated, you have a little better than a one in ten chance of surviving. And here's the part that I did not mention, and this is probably a good place to close out. This is true of many hemotoxic snakes. Right? If we're talking about the Taipan, if we're talking about the Russell's Viper, if we're talking about the Golden Lance Head Viper, if it bites you, there's a strong possibility that years down the road you'll experience renal failure.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:15

Because it does so much damage to your body when it's inside of you.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:19

So like the venom, not the snake.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:21

Yeah, not the snake. If that's what you're into. Geez, instant death. Um but yeah, the the the these these kind of like um hemotoxic venoms, sometimes they make your your your blood thick. Those heavy like they cause chronic issues, but even like bleeding hemotoxic venoms usually cause like kidney and liver damage that then later becomes a problem later on in your life. This is the case with Russell's vipers. If you look at the the deaths attributed to them, it's very small. If you look at the deaths of the complications of them, it's much higher. So when people are like, why should you be uh so like not wanting to handle a golden lance head viper? It's because they're pretty sure even if it doesn't kill you, it'll get you in the end. It still gets you. Yeah, like and you're like, damn man, that sucks.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:13

Yeah, there is no fucking reason. Um, so I am all for conservation of species. Like, hands down, no question. Absolutely rope that island off. Yes. Make it make it the the no-flyest of the no-fly zones. Uh airdrop some trees.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:34

Leave it the fuck alone.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:35

Yeah, just leave it alone. It's it's it is one of those places, like that's what when I was looking for morbid Mondays things, I found a lot of just dumb shit that's like not, doesn't matter to anything. And when I when I stumbled onto this one, I was like, oh, this is like one of those places, like that underground crystal cave that they pump all the water out of every once in a while to go explore. This is one of those places that you as a human being should never be.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:05

Yeah, like there's no you were not meant to be here. This is a good thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:09

The island does not want you.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:10

Yeah, it's time to leave, right? The only human feature is the lighthouse.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:16

That's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:19

It's nuts. But yeah, that's my that's my topic for today.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

That was awesome. Thank you. That was that was great.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:27

To learn about the pseudo history of the Lance Head Viper. They did think they thought that pirates put him there to protect the gold. That was the legend.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:35

Honestly, it's not a bad idea.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:38

You just you need you need you you would need to start with at least like six breeding pairs.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:44

Yeah. And then there was another legend that was like uh But then, like, how do you sex a snake in 1532? You don't, yeah. And then they they have uh there's a legend that like they migrated over, and then there was some legend about a curse. There's always a legend about a curse. Uh, but they've been there the whole time, they were there long before human beings.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:07

Sorry, I had a mummy moment. So yeah, that's fantastic, and like huzzah, urban legends. Um, I fucking love that shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:16

Unfortunately, I could not find anything from the original Explorer that talked about the snakes.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:23

Really?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:23

Yeah, because like it was hard enough just like getting his name is easy. Getting the stuff about him that isn't in Portuguese. Oof. Because that's the thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:32

Like, if you look up a and Portuguese is is difficult on those tr on those auto-translators.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:37

It does, it wants to think it's Spanish the entire time.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:40

And like you have to specifically, like, unless you have the dialect.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:44

And then also it's in the 1500s. So given a couple of months, I probably could find a bunch of sources of his exploration, but I don't think he actually explored the island. I think that's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

Can you blame him?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:59

No, I think they like hit it and they went, look, small island, and they might have gone on shore to see if there was any kind of like food. But the thing is, the island is not really that big. And like when you look at aerial photos of it, it's mostly rocky outcrop.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:13

And I would imagine that like there would not be a whole lot of like edible vegetation, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:20

Other than maybe looking literally for bananas, right? Which is what that story about the guy in the boat was. Fishing would be way more common. You're in the middle of the ocean, you can do that, right? You're you're in the shallows off of Sao Paulo.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:34

So that's prime like netting territory, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:36

So like there's that, right? And then also, if you're a Portuguese explorer in this time period, you're coming from the Caribbean, right? You just left a resupply station. Yeah, you have material, right? You've got water, you've got this point.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:50

You still have sugar, too.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:51

Right. So there's no reason you are more concerned with the inland, the flats of the inland, and like Like sad to say, the slave labor of the area and the plantations. What you're looking for is just you're mapping the area. Yeah. You're not really concerned with finding things.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:12

So but boy howdy, would you find something though?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:15

Yeah, you would find the wrong thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:17

You would find a hemorrhaging death.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:19

And I think for a lot of these guys, they would take a quick look around, they would go, what's around snakes, and then they would leave because they don't have medic medicine to stop this, to do anything about it. And also a quick look around and not seeing like fruit. Because remember, this is a bird migratory island. Yeah. There's not a lot of food just hanging around. No. Right. So um outside of what's on the beach, you might find like, you know, co literally coconuts.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:49

So outside of that, you're probably not going into the interior of the island that much. So there's nothing written that I can find about it, and that sucked because I wanted a story of a fucking Portuguese, you know, explorer, conquistador, colonizer type getting fucking zapped by landfats.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:11

And instead, all I kept finding was like, oh, and they just enslaved people and made them do it. And so I was like, well, I don't, yeah, that sucks, and I don't like that. But there's no like human colonization of this island. It yeah. So that's not even likely to happen there. So damn, dude. Uh, in the the indigenous kingdoms that existed before, wouldn't have largely written down very specific knowledge about Golden Lance head vipers.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:38

Can you imagine if they did though?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:39

They yeah, I mean, like when you get into like Mayan, Inca and Aztec territory, they write a lot about a lot of stuff, and we've got plenty of knowledge on them, but like um but not in like the the crazy specifics of like this exact snake. You know, like you you need to talk to like a person that's categorized medicine of the area and and even then probably it was it was more likely passed down verbally. Yes, yeah, yeah. We're we're lucky that in places like you know, in places like South America, Mesoamerica, we have things like the Pope of Uh, and like we have writing, like a lot of stories and creation stories and daily life stories and stuff that that tell us and they leave plenty of art around, which I love.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:24

Phone is just going off.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:26

Yeah. But yeah, so don't with the snakes.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:31

Yeah, do not do not the snake.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:32

Do not the snake.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:33

Do not the snake.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:34

If you're tired of these snakes, get off that motherfucking island. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:40

That is their island.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:41

Yeah, Samuel L. Jackson. It's not this one's not for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:45

Sorry, Master Windu. The answer is no.

unknown 1:08:49

All right.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:51

Oh, oh, I forgot to mention it all. I've mentioned we apparently have fans in Asia, in Africa, and Europe, and everywhere else now.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:00

Well, hi guys.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:01

Yeah. How because we talked about this on the phone before, I completely forgot to mention it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:05

Oh, yeah, we did talk about it on Monday.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:07

Yeah, we're the hello. Also all to all the Apple users that I don't know how to see who you are and otherwise would acknowledge you, but can't. Because I don't have an iPhone, I don't even have an Apple account, I will work on that.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:22

That's so cool. We've we've broken international waters.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:25

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:26

That's pretty dope.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:27

Yay. Well, enjoy enjoy morbid history facts that may be in your region of the world.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:36

Hi.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:38

If you know anything, uh myths about this island that you maybe live in South America around Brazil, and you are aware of the history of the Golden Lance Head, I guess leave it in the comments. Like that would be so fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:54

Yeah. Also, that is that is a standing invitation to uh to to converse in the comments. Like, please.