Endangered Species - Earth Day Theme

In keeping with our Earth Day theme for the month, we're looking critically at endangered species in this episode. Quizmaster Tanner corralled four facts about four animal species that are in danger of going extinct. But one of his facts is not true! So put on your safari hat and join hosts Andi and Sups in tracking down which fact is a lie! 

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Transcript

Sups 0:01

No, I've watched like so many documentaries. I've never

Andi 0:05

seen them They're like gentle giants of

Sups 0:07

of the

Andi 0:09

my goodness.

Sups 0:10

is it possible that all your facts are wrong?

Andi 0:15

these are two really big islands. So like it would still give them a large habitat, but literally they only need to live on one other island.

Sups 0:22

insects are fine, but why do you have to go about eating monkeys there?

Andi 0:27

hello and welcome to this episode of the I Should Have Known podcast, the trivia podcast that can't be trusted. Each week our Quizmaster presents you with four big facts on a topic, but one of those facts is a lie, and we are celebrating the earth for this month, and our quizmaster this week is Tanner. And he's going to be presenting us for hopefully not depressing facts about endangered species. So each of his facts will be about a different endangered species. They're all endangered, but one of his facts is still a lie. So join me, Andy, and our other host soups in trying to figure out which one it is.

Tanner 1:04

Yeah. Don't worry. They're not like depressing facts

Andi 1:07

Well, it's just depressing that they're endangered.

Tanner 1:08

Yeah, But we can celebrate that they're still around. All right, so we'll start with a low-hanging fruit. What is the only species of great ape that is not endangered?

Andi 1:19

Oh no, I think I know this. Yeah, it's us. It's humans. It's humans. Oh no. five,

Tanner 1:28

So there's gorillas, chimpanzees, bonna, Bowes, orangutans, and humans. And actually, two of my facts are about two of those species.

Sups 1:37

Oh,

Andi 1:38

Talking about our

Tanner 1:38

cousins. Yeah. So let's start with fact number one. Orangutans live on only two islands, Borneo and Sumatra.

Andi 1:47

Okay. I feel like I've heard this isn't one named like the Sumatran Oran and Yes. Yeah. Aren't they named like that? There's aian and the,

Tanner 1:56

Exactly. there's three species. Mm-hmm. The bornan, the sumatran, and the recently discovered tap Nuk.

Andi 2:03

Is that a different island? No. Okay.

Tanner 2:07

So the scientific name is Pgo Pys pym.

Andi 2:10

Okay.

Tanner 2:11

And I think the islands themselves are very interesting cuz Borneo is split up between three different

Andi 2:17

Yeah. And it's huge.

Tanner 2:19

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's split up between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunai. Mm-hmm. And then Sumatra is Indonesia. And so There's fewer than 70,000 Bornan. 14,000 sumatran and 800 tap nui.

Andi 2:35

Oh no. I'm guessing that all of their, habitat is getting destroyed. Exactly.

Tanner 2:41

Okay. Mostly palm oil?

Sups 2:43

Mm, yes.

Andi 2:43

Oh. Is that why we're not supposed to use palm oil? Yeah. I never really got Why that's like no palm oil. I'm like, great. I don't know why we don't want palm oil, but Sure.

Sups 2:52

Yeah.

Andi 2:52

So they clear the forest

Tanner 2:54

Exactly. deforestation, in order to harvest palm oil leads to habitat loss And They cannot live without trees. So when they cut down these trees, they have nowhere to.

Andi 3:03

They can't live on the ground. Oh they're

Tanner 3:07

Yeah.

Andi 3:08

live in

Tanner 3:08

Yeah. Yeah. They live in trees all day.

Andi 3:12

Oh. Like monkeys, but they're

Tanner 3:14

apes. Exactly.

Andi 3:15

So let's talk about the fact, the whole thing about them being native to islands is not super surprising because of what we know about islands. Yeah. Right. And these are two really big islands. So like it would still give them a large habitat, but literally they only need to live on one other island. Mm-hmm. And like Malaysia and Indonesia are, thousands of islands. So like literally they just need to be on one. So it seems kind of suspicious. Yeah, I but I don't know how far apart these islands

Sups 3:44

dog. No, they're very close to each other.

Andi 3:46

So I mean, it's quite unbelievable because. There's a lot of islands over there.

Sups 3:51

Hmm.

Andi 3:52

okay. I'm gonna have to hear more.

Tanner 3:54

All right, Fact number two. Gorillas are carnivores.

Andi 3:59

Okay. wait. We talked about carnivores before. it doesn't mean that they never eat plants. It means that they eat a certain percentage of their diet. Is meat, So you're saying gorillas technically qualify as carnivores? Yes. But they definitely eat plants. Okay.

Tanner 4:19

Because 85% of their diet is meat.

Andi 4:21

85%. Really? I thought they were just munch and leaves eating. What are they eating?

Tanner 4:30

So they eat larvae, snails, ants, rodents. eggs, turtles, and even baby warthogs. Monkeys and baboons.

Sups 4:39

monkeys. they

Andi 4:41

eat monkeys.

Sups 4:42

No, I've watched like so many documentaries. I've never

Andi 4:46

seen them They're like gentle giants of

Sups 4:48

of the

Andi 4:50

my goodness.

Sups 4:51

is it possible that all your facts are wrong?

Tanner 4:55

it's a trick.

Andi 4:57

okay. No, I definitely was. They're like, no, they eat leaves. They're like gentle giants. So you're telling me like Planet of the Apes just became way scarier because they might actually start coming after you, It's this terrifying. but at the same time, like, I guess humans had to get carnivores ish from somewhere. Right? all the apes can't just be fruit eaters, like orangutans. I guess some, somebody's gotta

Sups 5:23

I mean, insects are fine, but why do you have to go about eating monkeys there? what

Andi 5:28

monkeys ever do to you gorillas? I remember watching a documentary, but it was a chimp. I watched a chimp eat another chimp and like Planet Earth or something.

Tanner 5:38

Chimps are

Sups 5:39

Yeah.

Tanner 5:39

Yes.

Sups 5:40

Mm. I mean, to me the most surprising part of this fact is that 85% of the right. Yeah. I mean 50 50 I would still take it. Right, But 85%. It's too much. It's

Andi 5:52

high. Yeah.

Sups 5:53

Yeah. they don't go out

Tanner 5:54

No, not so much. it's mostly things that they can ambush

Andi 5:57

like a little rat comes into their clearing and they're like mine and

Sups 6:01

eating. Okay. because

Andi 6:02

that makes gorillas scary. Also, the western lowland gorillas. Scientific name is Gorilla. Gorilla. Gorilla. And I love it.

Tanner 6:12

the Eastern and Western gorillas are both critically endangered, but there's over 95,000 Western ones, the eastern ones. There's only like 6,800.

Sups 6:20

Oh,

Tanner 6:21

And there's also a subspecies called the mountain Gorilla. There's like a thousand of them.

Andi 6:25

And they're the carnivores?

Tanner 6:26

Yeah. Specifically we're talking about the mountain gorillas. Yeah.

Andi 6:29

Oh, so they're like the lesser known ones.

Sups 6:33

come to think of it, mountain gorillas kind of makes

Andi 6:36

Like they don't have as many trees to eat maybe. They gotta go for bugs and, rats okay, well dang, this is even less believable as the first one. And I mean, I'm a hundred percent falling into that trap of like, I don't want it to be true. So that's my only reasoning. But let's hear the other two before I really decide.

Tanner 6:56

Alright, fact number three, Kamodo dragons can reproduce. Asexually.

Andi 7:02

Whoa. What? See? Yeah. Are you doing a reverse episode. where all your facts are lies except one. Okay.

Sups 7:12

of them are lies.

Andi 7:13

all lies.

Tanner 7:15

dragons, or vara? Nu Komodo Ensis. They live on the island of Kamodo, of course, which is in Indonesia. They actually live on multiple Indonesian

Andi 7:24

islands. Do they ever interact with Aang, attend?

Sups 7:27

They're not on the same

Andi 7:28

island. Well see, I want him to say that I want, I wanted him to lie to me. I wanted him to have to look at me and lie and say like, sorry. Nope. They never interact. So

Sups 7:38

So

Andi 7:39

Dang. I thought we could, you know. Yeah. If it's in Indonesia, like, okay,

Tanner 7:42

There's only about 1400 kamodo dragons left.

Sups 7:45

Oh, no.

Andi 7:46

kamodo dragons are horrifying. Yeah, they are so scary.

Tanner 7:51

Yeah. so Kamodo dragons have both male and female sex chromosomes. So if a female can't find any males, She can just reproduce asexually in a process called parthenogenesis.

Andi 8:03

But then why are they so extinct? Yeah. Make more

Tanner 8:07

beef. That's

Sups 8:07

a great question.

Tanner 8:08

The problem is she can only make sons.

Sups 8:11

Oh wow. What a catch. I

Andi 8:14

love But does she get pregnant by her own

Tanner 8:15

sons? That is, unfortunately, yes. often they inbreed

Andi 8:19

Okay. So that's the problem is there aren't enough of them and they're all related to each

Sups 8:24

I can't think about a comodo dragon, a mother and the son. Oh, no. she can only produce females when she has like normal sex with the males. Mm-hmm. So if she has sex with her son so they could produce a

Tanner 8:38

Mm-hmm.

Sups 8:38

Okay.

Andi 8:38

Right.

Sups 8:39

but they all look the same. How do you understand that? Hey, no, you're not my son, so I could actually sleep with you.

Tanner 8:49

Yes. Mm-hmm. What

Andi 8:51

big is the island of Kimodo? But I've wondered this for a.

Tanner 8:54

390 square kilometers or 150 square miles.

Andi 8:58

not very big. They can reproduce. Is that a lizard thing?

Tanner 9:03

I know some sharks can.

Andi 9:05

well,

Sups 9:06

wait. Actually now I believe it. Because I feel like I have read in my middle school biology. that there are some types of lizards that do have a sexual reproduction. I just went deep back into my memory because it made me realize from the point when you mentioned, is Comodo Dragon the only type of lizard that can do it? My answer would be no. Maybe there are some other species,

Andi 9:33

Okay. if you feel fairly confident that some types of lizards do this, then it's not so weird if kimono

Sups 9:39

Yeah. You're also

Andi 9:40

like that. that's your line of thinking. I had never heard of such a thing, so this is new to me.

Sups 9:46

I mean,

Andi 9:46

Very strange.

Sups 9:47

different,

Andi 9:48

Hmm.

Tanner 9:50

All right. Fact number four. Asian elephants have the longest pregnancy among mammals.

Sups 9:56

Okay. And their pregnancy last 16 months. Oh, okay.

Tanner 10:02

And whales are between 10 and 18.

Andi 10:06

See, I don't believe this either for a second, because there's no way an, an elephant has longer a pregnancy than a.

Tanner 10:13

Asian elephants, Elias Maximos, indicus, and their African cousins are pregnant for up to 22 months.

Sups 10:21

I mean, it kind of makes sense because look at the size of that animal. Like, I mean,

Andi 10:25

to

Sups 10:25

another similar size.

Andi 10:27

I mean, I know that that's usually the rule, and that's what I'm saying though, is that like whale are way bigger. Mm-hmm. Way bigger.

Sups 10:34

I dunno. I mean like they're chilling in the

Andi 10:37

You think it has to do with gravity that has to do with that they're on land?

Tanner 10:42

So when elephants give birth after these 22 months, their babies are up to 200 pounds.

Sups 10:49

So imagine that it takes a while. I mean, I know elephants are heavy, but 200 pounds is not gonna happen in five months or 10 months.

Andi 10:58

or nine, is that, is that, what's at the comparison you were making?

Sups 11:02

Yeah. Wow.

Andi 11:03

That's very big baby. Yeah,

Tanner 11:05

So there are about 50,000 Asian elephants left. Okay. African elephants are not endangered.

Andi 11:11

Oh. Really

Tanner 11:12

elephants are

Andi 11:13

awesome. Even though they get hunted for their

Tanner 11:14

tusks. There's 400,000 African. ones.

Sups 11:19

I mean, to me the simple solution is just transport a few African ones and let the Asian and the African ones meet.

Tanner 11:25

I don't

Andi 11:26

But I think they, they like look entirely different though too. Yeah.

Tanner 11:29

They're different

Sups 11:29

different, but it's still elephants.

Andi 11:31

Well, you know, gorillas are still

Sups 11:33

eating.

Andi 11:33

you trying to hit one?

Sups 11:36

No, I've evolved now. I'm more sophisticated now. Yeah,

Andi 11:42

Okay. Asian elephants. Yeah. Yeah, They have different ears. That's like the big thing. Smaller. They're smaller, they have spots. white people wash them in Thailand.

Sups 11:52

yes.

Andi 11:52

so, yes.

Tanner 11:54

Yeah. This is kind of bad because the way you get an elephant to be a tourist attraction is you have to basically capture it and then break it and raise it in captivity because they're not domesticated. No, we don't, breed. because elephants take so long to have babies, we can't

Andi 12:11

that. Humans lose their attention span. They're like, nah, I can't, I

Sups 12:14

pay

Andi 12:14

to you for 22

Tanner 12:15

months. Yeah. no.

Sups 12:16

You know what? The investment,

Tanner 12:17

Yeah. the biggest problem for Asian elephants, it's mostly deforestation again. Okay. It's habitat

Sups 12:24

Mm-hmm.

Andi 12:25

And they're big animals, I imagine They need a lot of

Tanner 12:27

of Mm-hmm.

Andi 12:28

Okay. So they have the longest pregnancy of mammals, though I don't find this believable when whales exist. You know, The bigger the animal should take longer, right?

Sups 12:37

but I think it's the environment

Andi 12:39

Hmm. Could be. Could be. Wow. Well those were all very unbelievable I think. that truth is endangered in this episode. But we're gonna need you to repeat those four before we decide which one is actually a lie.

Tanner 12:55

Okay? Fact number one, orangutans live on only two islands, Borneo and Sumatra. True Fact number two, gorillas are carnivores. Fact number three, Kamodo Dragons can reproduce asexually. In fact, number four, Asian elephants have the longest pregnancy among mammals.

Andi 13:27

Hmm. I'm thinking. Two. I don't think gorillas or carnivores, I think they're gentle giants. They eat a bunch of leaves and that's like, the shocking thing about them is they're like these giant creatures you know, if you, if you had like animal street fighter gorillas would definitely be up there on animals you would take, but like they just eat leaves.

Sups 13:53

I refuse to believe gorillas eat monkey. I just won't. No. Hard stop. Hard stop. No. Then everything I know about animals just like falls. Is wrong. Is wrong. reevaluate Yeah, I know. The other ones are also unbelievable. unbelievable. But

Andi 14:10

this

Sups 14:10

one is like too

Andi 14:12

Right? Exactly. Like the only thing is that because this one is so much more unbelievable. The other ones look more believable, but they really are like, shocking facts. I think that it's either gonna be like a different ape or like that's humans or something like that. I think that 80 per 5% of their diet is greens. I think it's

Sups 14:33

the yeah, just, my heart just wouldn't agree to, I'm sorry. I just cannot, like, I will also have to pick number two for this.

Andi 14:42

but I think they're gentle giants.

Tanner 14:44

Okay, so you both say number two?

Andi 14:46

Yeah.

Tanner 14:47

Well,

Andi 14:48

You're both correct. Okay. Yay. Yay. Gorillas.

Sups 14:52

you. Faith in Life restored.

Tanner 14:55

Yes. I'm sorry,

Sups 14:56

sorry, girls, I

Tanner 14:57

Ed. you really

Sups 14:59

did.

Tanner 15:00

They are gentle giants. 85% of their diet is. Made of leaves, shoots and

Sups 15:05

Yeah.

Andi 15:06

Okay. Yeah. They're vegetarians

Tanner 15:08

So the other 15% is wood roots, ants, snails, and larvae.

Sups 15:14

Sure. monkeys

Andi 15:15

They don't need monkeys though. Chips, snakes,

Tanner 15:17

All that part was chimps. chimps Yeah.

Sups 15:21

They're the dangerous ones.

Tanner 15:22

Yeah.

Andi 15:22

Yeah. because there's so much more like us. They're the more human ones.

Tanner 15:28

So Eastern, Western Mountain, all types of gorillas. They're very scary, but they do not eat meat.

Sups 15:34

Yeah.

Andi 15:35

Oh, okay. They are gentle giants. I don't know why they need to get so large. How big?

Tanner 15:40

Full grown male gorilla. Like 200 kilos.

Andi 15:43

Yeah, So they're 2 4 50 pounds. Can you imagine having to eat 200 kilos worth of calories from

Sups 15:50

Yeah, that's a lot of green leafy vegetables, like, you know, to maintain.

Andi 15:55

they need to be, so large? It seems so silly. So orangutans really only live on two

Tanner 16:01

Yes. So they used to like thousands of years ago, live across China and Southeast Asia.

Andi 16:07

Oh you mean, okay. So today they only naturally in the wild, remain

Tanner 16:12

on two islands. Exactly. And Whales babies weigh hundreds of pounds, but they make them in like 12

Sups 16:19

Okay.

Andi 16:20

It must be gravity. Yeah. wow. Gorillas,

Tanner 16:24

Yeah. See, I told you it wouldn't be sad facts. It's nice.

Andi 16:29

Well it was,

Sups 16:30

Let's put a pin on that.

Andi 16:32

let's not talk about fact number three. Okay. There was nothing nice about that

Sups 16:36

Yeah.

Andi 16:37

So I should have known.

Sups 16:38

I should have known

Tanner 16:39

I should have known.

Andi 16:40

Thanks for listening to this episode of the I Should Have Known podcast. We'll be continuing our exploration of Mother Earth for the rest of this month, and as always, thanks.

Tanner 16:52

I did not look up Kimodo dragon penises.