Hank: Hello and welcome to the SciShow talk show, where it's SciShow and we talk. Today we are joined in the studio by Emily Graslie, the host of The Brain Scoop.  She is going to attempt to stump me with some bones that she brought from the Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum and then we're gonna visit with an animal.

So, you're gonna start out trying to stump me?

Emily: Yep.

Hank: Okay, show me thing.

Emily: You ready?

Hank: Show me thing.

Emily: Okay.  And I left the label on it but I don't think it has much information that can- you can get wrong.

Hank: It's small and -- Is it an otter?

Emily: Close.  That is the closest you have been so far on the first guess.

Hank: It looks like a little otter head.  It's, I guess, uh not necessarily. Is that -- That's pretty carnivore-y and it's got these, the same- I don't know, what are these teeth called? The dog like teeth, where you have the little incisors and the big canines.

Emily: Yeah, incisors and canines.  They're just-

Hank: But, like, this configuration seems very common to me.

Emily: It's a characteristic that you'll find in carnivorous animals, omnivorous animals as well.

Hank: So this is probably- I'm guessing this is an omnivore.

Emily: Yep.

Hank: Does it live in the water?

Emily: No. Opposite.

Hank: Opposite! Of the water?!

Emily: Yeah.

Hank: But you said otter was close!

Emily: Well, similar in the taxonomic scheme of things.

Hank: Right. Is it a cat?

Emily: No.

Hank: No, it's too long.  I like to look where the brains go.  Do you have to get all the brains out through that little hole?

Emily: Yeah, yep.  Well, that's why the brain scoop is so small.  So you put the brain scoop into the back of it and then swirl it around and then shake it like a shaker and then it all comes out in the sink.  I can guarantee you've seen a video of this animal on Youtube.

Hank: Is it a honey badger?

Emily: Yes! Yes, it is! I just, I had to! I had to bring it in.

Hank: You have a honey badger skull?

Emily: We have a honey badger skull!

Hank: The jaw connects in this very specific way.  This hinge is extremely tight.

Emily: Yes, yes, it locks together and it's very hard to remove it and get it back on.

Hank: Yeah, I've taken it off and now I can't get it back on.

Emily: No worries but yeah, I mean it just locks in place. They're so fierce and you might have noticed its teeth are totally busted up.

Hank: Yeah, from being a honey badger.

Emily: From being a honey badger.  They will actually chase off lions from a kill.  They'll try to take down bison, African buffalo.  They will attack humans and cars.

Hank: I hear they go for the nuts too.

Emily: Well I wouldn't -- That wouldn't concern me, but I would not be surprised.

Hank: No, but that's what I've heard, that honey badgers are somehow aware of our vulnerabilities.

Emily: Honey badgers don't care.  They don't care.

When they're injured they will continuously secrete their anal glands as a way of warding off, being like, "Hey, you might be able to get me today but-"

Hank: But I've glanded all over myself. But I'm covered in secretions so you might not be super interested.

Emily: One of the most interesting about them is that they have a mutual relationship with a bird called the honey guide, which its scientific name is my favorite in the animal kingdom, it's Indicator indicator.  So, the honey guide will flap its tail feathers to get the attention of a larger carnivore or a larger animal and then the animal, like the honey badger, will follow the honey guide to like a beehive that it's not strong enough to break into and get the honey, so then the honey badger will break into it; the honey guide can have the honey and they live harmoniously to an extent.

Hank: So it's a guide for a honey badger, or another animal, to the honey.

Emily: Mhm, yeah.

Hank: Awesome. And now we will see an animal.

Jessi from Animal Wonders has brought us a lizard.

Jessi: This is Lokita, the Chinese water dragon.

Hank: Okay, I'm glad I didn't say iguana because it's not an iguana.

Jessi: Not an iguana, no. This is as big as she's going to get. But you can see she has a pretty substantial tail, pretty amazing tail there. They use this tail for two reasons: one, to help them swim very very fast-

Hank: Because you are a water dragon.

Jessi: Yes.

Hank: Very very fast. How fast is very very fast?

Jessi: She's gonna be hanging out and she's gonna be, basically, pretty deep sleep and then a bird of prey is gonna fly over and there's gonna be a shadow that goes across her.  Now she can wake up like that, even though from a deep sleep because she has something pretty cool, she has a parietal eye.

Hank: You have an eye on your head!

Emily: What?

Jessi: She does! Let me show it. You see it?

Emily: What the- Yes.

Jessi: White, little spot

Hank: Just a little sensor there

Jessi: That little white dot

Hank: A little white sensor

Emily: That's amazing!

Jessi: If you want to see what that third eye sees like, you're gonna look at a light, close your eyes, and you're gonna wave your hand slowly in front of your eyes. And you see that shadow?

Emily: Yeah

Jessi: That's what that eye sees. So, it will wake her up right away.  And the first thing she's gonna do is she's gonna run, big long legs, toes here to grab.  She's gonna run down her branch and dive off into the water. She can hold her breath for 25 minutes underwater and that's what this tail is for. She's gonna use it to propel herself downstream or across the lake and try and get away.

Hank: Wow!

Emily: That's about the most amazing thing I've ever heard in my life.

Hank: You have a third eye.

Jessi: She does.

Emily: That's incredible.

Hank: But you're not afraid of it right now.

Jessi: Nah, her other eyes are open so-

Hank: No, she's like, "I'm aware of the situation"

Jessi: "You are not a bird."

Hank: "That's your hand, dude."

Jessi: "Duh."

Hank: So, it's like what were the beginnings of eyeballs? Oh, they're-

Jessi: Little things

Emily: Sensors

Jessi: Dots that just sense

Hank: Little white sensors.

Jessi: Yeah. Now if she weren't able to run down and get away from that predator she could use this tail to whip them.

Hank: Oh. So that's not a fall-y off-y tail?

Jessi: No, she cannot -- Oh, she can lose the tail but she cannot grow it back and she doesn't -- She can't let go of her tail. I'd have to be bit off, basically. So, no, you can feel it, it's a very hard tail. And see how hard it gets at the very tip there? So, it's gonna be like a whip.

Hank: It's almost inorganic down there.

Jessi: It feels like plastic almost.

Emily: I wouldn't want that on my face.

Jessi: No, it would hurt. It would leave a nice welt

Hank: Like a switch

Jessi: if it happened, yeah.  Would you like to hold Lokita?

Hank: Okay.

Jessi: You can feel how strong her nails are. So, she's gonna have very sharp nails to be able to hold onto those trees and climb a lot.

Hank: She's grabbing my hand.

Jessi: See how she's holding on with her feet there? She's made to hang on -- You're not really holding onto her, she's holding onto you.

Emily: I'd half expect her to have wings.  What with the third eye and-

Hank: Expecting a little bit of dragon.

Jessi: She feels like leather, soft on there and if you pet her under her chin it's gonna be more smooth.

Emily: All of her little scales are like individually colored; you can see all of them. It looks like pixels on a computer or something.

Jessi: Yeah! She's pixelated. She is. Well, let's see if she wants to eat something.

Hank: Okay.

Emily: Ah, yeah! Snack time!

Jessi: Come here Lokita. She would eat mostly meat, so insects, every once and a while she'll eat vegetation, but she's not really into vegetation. She doesn't like her vegetables. Today we're gonna see if she wants to eat a super mealworm.

Emily: Ew! I don't like that.

Hank: "What's that?!"

Emily: I don't like that thing.  Yeah, eat it.

Hank: "I do want to eat that!"

Jessi: Yum!

Emily: Nom, nom, nom.

Hank: "Turns out I wanted to eat that."

Jessi: Looked delicious, huh Lokita? Want to try another one?

Hank: 'Kay. Got that tongue out.

Emily: You can hear it crunching.  Does she have, like, teeth?

Jessi: Yeah, she has teeth, little ones.

Emily: Little nubbin teeth.

Hank: Where are they hiding? "What's that?! It's food!" Nom, nom, nom, nom.

Emily: I mean they -- Those did look pretty tasty.

Hank: Uh-huh, that's, yeah.

Jessi: Pretty girl.

Hank: You giving her a little scratch?

Jessi: Yeah.

Hank: You like that?

Jessi: Yeah, does that feel good?

Hank: I don't care

Emily: She's like, uh, "indifferent."  Lizard.

Hank: "I'm indifferent to everything except mealworms."

Jessi: Yeah.

Hank: "And shadows while sleeping."

Jessi: Yes, yep.

Hank: Lokita, thank you for coming on SciShow.

Thank you for watching this episode of the SciShow Talk Show.  Thanks to Jessi of Animal Wonders for helping us out and thank you to Emily for co-hosting.

Emily: Yay!

Hank: We'll see you next time.