Extinct Animal Lost for 6,000 Years Found in West Papua

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-04

[00:00:03][music] >> I love Jesus.

[00:00:05]>> As that started, I was going to tell you to stop cuz there's something wrong with the audio and then I realized it was Peter. He's squirming.

[00:00:12]>> Um all right, so first of all, this is the Wild Times. Welcome to our studio.

[00:00:16]Welcome to our podcast uh known as the greatest podcast not on Earth but in the universe.

[00:00:20]>> Rogan's favorite podcast.

[00:00:22]>> it at least once a week.

[00:00:23]>> me about it actually.

[00:00:24]>> Oh, there you go. Um I'm your host Forrest the Bro-ologist.

[00:00:28]We've got the Bro-ducer and the Bro-fessor here, Peter and Patrick respectively. Kyle behind the scenes doing his thing. Don't know that we've ever added him in the intro before.

[00:00:36]>> Never. First time.

[00:00:37]>> He's just the Bro-switcher or something. I don't know. We'll have to think about that.

[00:00:41]>> He's junior Bro-ducer. This is a good This is going to be a good show.

[00:00:46]This is going to be a good show.

[00:00:46]>> Do you want to explain the very exciting thing that's coming up?

[00:00:49]>> Um we're going to have an We're going to do an interview in a little bit. A guest. With some guests, two guys.

[00:00:55]>> Two guests actually.

[00:00:56]>> Who recently completed something that's in the news. We've not met them yet.

[00:01:01]They went to probably the most unexplored habitat on Earth >> I would agree with that.

[00:01:06]>> and discovered one unknown species.

[00:01:08]>> Yeah.

[00:01:09]Lost for thousands of years only known from fossil records. Huge expedition and we're going to ask them something that nobody's asked them. We're going to ask them if they heard any whisperings of thylacine while they were there. So, that'll give you a clue as to where they went. Uh that's coming up in about 20, 30 minutes, something like that. But until then, hey Kyle, let me ask you a quick question. What's in the news?

[00:01:30]>> What's in the news?

[00:01:32]>> Okay.

[00:01:34]So, news from the underground.

[00:01:36]Thank you for the jingles. I got a a little actual mystery that's in the >> Oh, okay. Hit us.

[00:01:41]>> Um Kyle, pull up a picture of Hampshire.

[00:01:45]United Kingdom.

[00:01:46]>> Hampshire.

[00:01:47]>> Yeah, Hampshire. This is set in Hampshire, United Kingdom. There go all our UK listeners. I don't need the map.

[00:01:54]I need to see what the what the village looks like. So, look at Hampshire.

[00:01:59]>> Oh my god, it looks great.

[00:02:01]>> It's a beautiful little town.

[00:02:03]Yeah, it's a postcard looking British there.

[00:02:07]I'm sure that you can get some crumpets there.

[00:02:10]>> Undeniably.

[00:02:11]>> Yeah, that's like the Shire. That is like a from the Lord of the Rings.

[00:02:15]>> It does look like that.

[00:02:19]>> People that live in Hampshire have seen two, not one but two mysterious creatures traveling the streets together.

[00:02:29]>> Oh.

[00:02:29]>> Walking the sidewalks, people aren't sure what they're looking at.

[00:02:33]>> Is it a weasel and a warthog?

[00:02:35]>> [laughter] >> Yep. Is that a Lion King reference?

[00:02:38]>> Yeah, it was. Um the animals are about, I don't know, 3 ft long.

[00:02:44]>> Okay.

[00:02:45]>> Covered in some sort of hair or fur.

[00:02:48]Mammals People are reporting that they're >> Picturing it. Okay.

[00:02:50]>> that they're like kind of grayish or maybe brown.

[00:02:53]>> Okay. Okay.

[00:02:54]>> And two distinctly different types of animals.

[00:02:57]>> No, no, they seem to be the same. Like they're traveling together.

[00:03:00]>> Oh, interesting.

[00:03:00]>> Good mystery set up.

[00:03:01]>> the streets and sidewalks of Hampshire, >> Okay.

[00:03:04]>> England. What I mean, what are we thinking? A 3-ft long >> only like 10 or 15 >> 15 animals total in the UK, so including insects.

[00:03:13]>> [laughter] >> Um interesting. Okay, I'll take a first crack at this. I'm sure. I'm going to guess just based on the fact that it's the UK and the only creature that I have seen repeatedly when I've been in the UK are foxes. I'm going to guess it's a red fox.

[00:03:27]>> Okay, now let me let me give you some more information here.

[00:03:30]>> Please.

[00:03:31]>> People aren't scared.

[00:03:34]>> How is there a reason you're zooming in on this dog's anus?

[00:03:37]>> This is the This is the animal. It's not.

[00:03:39]>> It's not. Brown [laughter] dog.

[00:03:42]>> Yeah, they're they're saying that the animals are a bit skittish, not not seeming to be aggressive at all.

[00:03:48]>> Okay.

[00:03:49]>> Um and uh some people are describing them as they they appear to be very cute.

[00:03:56]>> Mhm.

[00:03:57]>> Yeah.

[00:03:58]>> I I know what Peter's doing and it's making me angry. He's chat GPT-ing list of animals from the United Kingdom.

[00:04:03]>> what mammals are in the UK dog-sized.

[00:04:07]>> funnier [laughter] when you just say nonsense than when you use the internet.

[00:04:10]>> want to I I I know animals. I just can't think of them on the spot.

[00:04:14]>> By the way, I want to I want to go to Hampshire after looking at all these pictures. Looks great.

[00:04:19]>> Um three-foot long and but Steve, how bad the food is in the United Kingdom.

[00:04:26]>> People are going to be mad about that.

[00:04:27]>> It well, they should be cuz their food's gross.

[00:04:30]Um >> We love you.

[00:04:31]>> I'm going to guess it's a stoat.

[00:04:33]>> All right. You're It is not a stoat. Uh I will give you one more clue.

[00:04:38]>> Can I take a guess?

[00:04:39]>> Yeah.

[00:04:39]>> Like there's only five, literally. Five small mammals in the UK.

[00:04:43]>> I'm sorry, sir.

[00:04:44]>> Uh this would be a badger.

[00:04:48]>> It's a great guess. Thank you, chat GPT.

[00:04:50]>> But >> Now I'm going to give you one more clue.

[00:04:52]And there's no earthly [snorts] way you could possibly guess what it is.

[00:04:56]>> Okay.

[00:04:56]>> Um >> So it escaped?

[00:04:59]>> It escaped from a zoo Okay. Only one day >> Mhm.

[00:05:03]>> after being introduced to the nearby zoo. And the neighborhood that it's prowling around is 3 mi from said zoo.

[00:05:12]>> I love this now. Uh Peter, now your chat GPT is useless.

[00:05:16]>> Worthless.

[00:05:17]>> So >> Doesn't help you so >> Take a Take a crack.

[00:05:19]>> Uh so a small mammal that escaped >> from a zoo.

[00:05:22]>> It's from a zoo, okay.

[00:05:24]>> Uh >> probably not a dog or cat.

[00:05:25]>> Right. An otter.

[00:05:27]>> Ooh, good guess.

[00:05:27]>> Really good guess.

[00:05:28]>> Very good guess. I'm going to guess it's a very cute friendly pair of binturongs.

[00:05:34]>> Two excellent guesses, but alas, >> Kyle, wait. Kyle, do the sound.

[00:05:41]>> He doesn't know how to do it.

[00:05:44]I mean, there's no way you could have really guessed it. Uh two adorable capybaras >> Oh, that's awesome.

[00:05:51]>> are wandering the streets of Hampshire.

[00:05:53]>> Wow.

[00:05:54]>> Good.

[00:05:54]>> Yeah.

[00:05:55]>> Yeah, good. I support this.

[00:05:56]>> Yeah, I I love this. So >> England has four animals. Let's just let the capy [laughter] go.

[00:06:01]>> Yeah, so they brought Samba the capybara to the zoo in near Hampshire with her along with her sister.

[00:06:08]And uh lo and behold, on their first night they somehow escaped and made it out into the city. Then they're just kind of wandering the streets and people are stoked.

[00:06:17]>> Okay.

[00:06:18]>> I mean they got they got them back, but it took a little while.

[00:06:20]>> No, one is on the loose.

[00:06:21]>> Oh, oh, Samba's still on the loose.

[00:06:23]>> Good. Yes. Good. Good. Um >> [laughter] >> So I have a couple things to say here.

[00:06:27]>> Yeah.

[00:06:28]>> I don't know what this zoo is, but I'm going to go ahead and say they're awful because >> [laughter] >> it's >> How did they escape?

[00:06:33]>> going to invite us over, but here's why.

[00:06:36]Do you know how hard it is to have a capybara escape from something?

[00:06:39]>> Yeah.

[00:06:40]>> You could literally just give it three walls and it wouldn't figure out how to get out.

[00:06:43]>> [laughter] >> It would just be like, I don't know.

[00:06:44]There's a wall in front of me. Like >> They're not really great climbers, right?

[00:06:49]>> climb, they can't jump, they barely run fast. They're incredibly simple as an animal.

[00:06:54]>> mystery here is how did it get out?

[00:06:56]>> That's what I'm saying. Like, what is this facility? Did they just decide to put it in a cardboard box for the night and they're like, this will work.

[00:07:03][laughter] >> Yeah. Did Is there any intel, Kyle, on how it escaped?

[00:07:06]>> No. No, it's a mystery.

[00:07:08]>> Yeah, yeah, that's it. You know, when something like that happens it's usually a human being [ __ ] up, right?

[00:07:13]>> Of course.

[00:07:15]>> Door got left on the latch or whatever.

[00:07:17]>> the only logical explanation, but that's insane. Like, I I would list a million animals before I got to capybara making an escape from >> It's It's funny though cuz like think about you know, every day you walk out of your house.

[00:07:30]You know, you might hear some birds.

[00:07:32]>> Yep.

[00:07:32]>> Maybe, you know, you see a little cat that's a street cat.

[00:07:36]>> Yep.

[00:07:36]>> You know, whatever. You kind of like have this set thing of like what you're going to see. Like it would be fun to just be like grabbing the groceries out of the car and you just see like two really cute capybaras just frolicking by.

[00:07:47]>> There's a neighborhood is it Buenos Aires that has the neighborhood that has capybaras everywhere? Like dream come true.

[00:07:53]>> a It's like a housing development.

[00:07:55]>> Yeah. Yeah, and they're just they're just all over. Yeah.

[00:07:57]>> Yeah, they they just live integrated with that town. That was a big news story a year or two ago.

[00:08:02]>> I'm such a fan of this.

[00:08:03]>> It's It's great and they're and they're native to Argentina, right?

[00:08:06]>> Yes, yes, they are, yeah.

[00:08:07]>> And it was a big deal because they're like Yeah, they they just hang out like like pets and they're they're not scared of the humans and they are nice.

[00:08:16]>> So, I saw something um >> Huge rodents.

[00:08:19]>> They're hilarious. I saw something interesting uh on my Instagram yesterday.

[00:08:24]You know, I I have like a sub You know, on Instagram you can save things. Like you can have a folder of saved things.

[00:08:29]>> Yeah. You wouldn't know this. He knows this.

[00:08:31]>> No, I do. I did know this, actually.

[00:08:33]>> I have a a folder of just labeled tools.

[00:08:35]And every time I see a really cool jet board or like a repelling hot tub.

[00:08:40]>> I thought it was going to be like some kid with a broccoli haircut photos.

[00:08:44]>> Tools.

[00:08:45]Um and I save it. So, I get fed on my Instagram reels a lot like unique outdoor tools.

[00:08:51]>> Yeah.

[00:08:52]>> Yesterday, I got fed an ad for a Chinese net gun. Except the net gun was two videos of myself using professional net guns.

[00:09:03]>> [laughter] >> Like they had found videos of me on the internet using net guns.

[00:09:08]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:08]>> And clipped them as though that was their product that they were selling for like $39.99.

[00:09:13]>> Yeah.

[00:09:14]>> And I was like, oh, I know second one.

[00:09:16]Oh, no, no, that's a Tik Tok. That's I probably posted that. You can try that, but that's one of the two clips they used.

[00:09:21]>> Yeah.

[00:09:21]>> Um and uh yeah.

[00:09:23]>> And then there when when >> see if I can find it, Kyle. I might actually have saved it cuz it was so funny.

[00:09:27]>> And then when you get the the one they send you in the mail, it's literally just a picture of a net gun on a postcard.

[00:09:33]>> Yeah, it's just some kind kind utter garbage, for sure.

[00:09:36]>> Dude, I'm I'm done buying stuff off social media, man. I've just I've gotten burned consistently. Like, you know, I told you about the advent calendar that that showed up. It was the size of a [ __ ] postcard.

[00:09:46]>> [laughter] >> Dude, the other thing, man. So, if you Here's a little tip. If Cuz everyone's on Instagram, whatever. I don't know how TikTok Shop works. But, if you get fed an ad Yeah. for something Let's say you're going to buy a shirt or something like that.

[00:10:02]Uh take a screenshot of the shirt and reverse image search it on Google.

[00:10:08]>> Yeah. Yep, cuz it's come from somewhere else, right?

[00:10:10]>> Oh, 100%. Whatever Like, you're being shown this shirt on Instagram and the name of the company is, you know, Dinkies.

[00:10:16]>> Mhm.

[00:10:17]>> Put it in a reverse image search. You'll see 100 other images of that shirt being sold by other companies with different names.

[00:10:26]>> Yeah.

[00:10:26]>> And they're just shipping Like, you'll order like a medium of the shirt that looks cool.

[00:10:32]>> Yeah.

[00:10:32]>> It shows up and it's a nightgown.

[00:10:35]>> Right. Yeah.

[00:10:36]>> [laughter] >> And you're like, "What the [ __ ] is this shit?"

[00:10:37]>> Yeah, it's it's crazy. Like, it's just a scam. Everything seems like it's a scam that's being sold on there.

[00:10:43]>> Yeah, have you guys noticed on on Amazon, you'll see a lot of times that the company name will just be like XYZ viga viga viga Like, like a random nonsense word. Like, all all the time.

[00:10:54]Like, and what happened was that there were so many of these like knock-off kind of brands from China or wherever just coming on and selling this garbage, these counterfeit items. Amazon made it so that to be able to sell, they they enacted a rule that essentially said you had to own the trademark to the name of the brand.

[00:11:15]>> Oh, interesting.

[00:11:16]>> So, what these companies then started doing to get around that, they just like random letters with no vowels as the name of their company. So, there's no possible way it's ever been trademarked.

[00:11:25]And then they just go quickly get a trademark for it. And then now they're selling you the same generic [ __ ] >> Craziness.

[00:11:31]>> Dude, not a sponsor, but you remember uh there was that company that made some of those mushroom like mushroom pouches?

[00:11:39]>> Oh, the Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you want to say their name or not. Yeah.

[00:11:42]>> Yeah, so we were doing those, right? So, I went to order some. So, I was like it's I kind of liked them.

[00:11:47]>> Uh-huh.

[00:11:47]>> They showed up and they're [ __ ] disgusting and they were hurting my mouth and teeth.

[00:11:52]>> Oh, really?

[00:11:52]>> And I was like, "What the [ __ ] is this?"

[00:11:54]And so, I went online.

[00:11:56]>> Yeah.

[00:11:56]>> And everyone's complaining and people thought it was the company that sent us the mushroom pouches.

[00:12:02]>> was Flow, by the way.

[00:12:03]>> Right.

[00:12:03]>> Yeah.

[00:12:04]>> It It's not. I saw I read a thing the owner of that company that was just some dudes trying to do like a nicotine pouch alternative.

[00:12:12]>> Yeah. Healthy alternative.

[00:12:14]>> company came in, took the same name, >> Wow.

[00:12:17]>> flooded the internet with ads for their [ __ ] >> So annoying.

[00:12:21]>> Unbelievable.

[00:12:22]>> their blend is like definitely like terrible for you.

[00:12:25]>> kill you.

[00:12:26]>> Wow, dude.

[00:12:27]>> And I literally got an order of like 12 tins, put one in it like my mouth almost exploded. I was texting you guys and I just had to throw them all out cuz literally someone was just like, "Cool. We're just going to do that."

[00:12:38]>> What is the point of starting a business in today's world? Like a like an e-commerce business?

[00:12:43]>> money grab.

[00:12:44]>> I know, but like imagine so I I talked to those kids at the Flow pouch thing.

[00:12:48]They were young guys, college kids, and they're like, "We're trying to do a healthy alternative, you know, we're going to do mushroom pouches with a flavor."

[00:12:54]>> Yeah.

[00:12:55]>> And then they're like, you know, they probably invested their entire like college savings account into this.

[00:12:59]>> Yeah.

[00:13:00]>> Try and get it up off the ground. And then some Chinese company goes, "Oh, I guess it's a good idea."

[00:13:04]>> Yeah.

[00:13:05]>> And then that's [laughter] it. It's over.

[00:13:07]>> That's great. Leave it in. Do not.

[00:13:09]>> know what Cow's about to say. He's like, "Well, we can't air that."

[00:13:12]>> No, no. You Just bleep it. Bleep it.

[00:13:14]>> It's too late. Theo Von does it.

[00:13:15]>> Does he?

[00:13:16]>> Yeah.

[00:13:16]>> He's constantly doing that when he makes fun of Bobby Lee.

[00:13:18]>> Yeah. Him and I are friends, so it's >> There's nothing wrong with it. Like that is your interpretation of what the guy at the Chinese [laughter] company >> It was more of the South Park guy, the Chinese South Park guy who does the shitty food?

[00:13:28]>> Shitty food or is shitty wok?

[00:13:30]>> Yeah, it was more that guy's voice in my head, but yeah.

[00:13:33]>> All right, so I want to I want [laughter] to throw one out there.

[00:13:35]>> Kyle hated that.

[00:13:36]>> No, he's he's cracking up back there.

[00:13:38]>> Tell us. Tell us, Kyle.

[00:13:39]>> Cuz well, cuz sometimes I think something's awesome cuz of the headline.

[00:13:43]And then you go, "Pah, this sucks."

[00:13:46]>> Yeah.

[00:13:47]>> new.

[00:13:47]>> you an idiot right away.

[00:13:48]>> well, what if I told you that in February >> Mhm.

[00:13:52]>> a new world record was set in the animal kingdom?

[00:13:56]>> Boom.

[00:13:57]>> For the longest snake, wild snake, ever recorded.

[00:14:03]>> Oh, yeah, I was there.

[00:14:04]>> You were in Indonesia?

[00:14:06]>> Yeah, they took the picture when I pulled my pants down.

[00:14:08]>> Got it.

[00:14:09]>> Yeah, how did you not see yourself walking into that trap?

[00:14:12]>> [laughter] >> Kyle hated it.

[00:14:14]>> Is this a big deal?

[00:14:15]>> It is, and I'll explain why. So, it is and it isn't, and I'm not [ __ ] on it at all, and I will [ __ ] on your parade immediately when I can.

[00:14:22]>> Yeah, you do it off camera all the time.

[00:14:23]>> Of course.

[00:14:24]>> Um >> it's it's a big deal because it's official.

[00:14:28]>> Yeah.

[00:14:29]>> There are undeniably 100% bigger snakes out there. There have been bigger snakes out there. We've seen them. This is the first time it's been documented. So, I'm very familiar with the story. These guys went to Indonesia. They looked for a reticulated python, a known one that was called the baron, I think it was called.

[00:14:46]>> Oh, interesting. The baroness.

[00:14:47]>> The baroness, that's it. Yeah. It was so it was a known female retic, and they're like, "This is a really big snake. Let's go find her and measure her." And then they found her, measured her with Guinness World Records there. Like, they brought Guinness with them.

[00:15:00]>> Yeah.

[00:15:00]>> And verified that it was 23 ft and 8 in long.

[00:15:04]>> Okay.

[00:15:04]>> Which, by the way, is [ __ ] huge.

[00:15:07]>> It's huge.

[00:15:07]>> Um Kyle, see if you can find the picture of the guy lying down next to it. And this is not a small human being, by the way. Yeah, look at that.

[00:15:14]>> Wow. That's the same snake?

[00:15:16]>> That's the one.

[00:15:17]>> Yeah, that's >> Holy cow, that is a >> 23 ft 8 in.

[00:15:21]>> And she's not even fully extended there either. She's still curled up a bit.

[00:15:25]>> I mean that's essentially probably not full school bus, but it's getting close.

[00:15:29]>> It's getting close. Now, I'll explain why it's not groundbreaking. It First of all, this is important to back up for a second here.

[00:15:38]By the way, look at Kyle's messages. Do you see those smoke shows sliding into his DMs at the bottom right there?

[00:15:43]>> That's my girlfriend and my mom.

[00:15:45]>> Okay.

[00:15:45]>> [laughter] >> All right, so I stand by everything I just said.

[00:15:50]>> Nice.

[00:15:52]>> leave that in. Um so, okay.

[00:15:56]Everything is always over embellished by people.

[00:15:59]>> Yeah, that's correct.

[00:16:00]>> It it I've seen it time and time again.

[00:16:02]Oh my god, help me. There's a 6-ft rattlesnake in my backyard. And I get there and the rattlesnake's 2 and 1/4 ft.

[00:16:08]>> Right.

[00:16:08]>> And I mean it's every alligator in Florida, there's a 9-footer and you get there it's a 5-footer. Right? So, we're conditioned to think that there are 30-ft long, 50-ft long snakes out there because that's the stories, that's what people talk about. Oh, I saw a 30-ft Anaconda, you know, a 30-ft Burmese python in the Everglades. Like you hear numbers like that thrown out all the time.

[00:16:28]>> Mhm.

[00:16:29]>> Those are over embellishments that have societally become accepted.

[00:16:36]Where we're like, oh, there's 30-ft snakes out there. There aren't, by the way.

[00:16:40]Um and there probably have been historically, but right now there there aren't. Are there 24-ft snakes out there? 2 in 4 in bigger than this? Yes.

[00:16:49]Are there 25-ft snakes out there? Maybe.

[00:16:51]You know what I mean? But why this is substantial is because they officially now have the largest measured snake ever, longest, at 23 ft and 8 in, which is good cuz maybe that, going back to my previous point, that societal nonsense, that convention of I've seen 30-ft is blah blah blah, can actually go away a little bit and we can be a little bit more accurate. It won't. I agree.

[00:17:14]But the other reason it's not as significant is reptiles all grow until the day they die. I think we've talked about that before. Humans, right? You hit 22, 21, whatever, you're done growing. Right.

[00:17:27]Right? Snakes, lizards, crocodiles, they grow until the day they die. That growth rate slows down substantially as they get older, but they grow until the day they die. In captivity, there are people that have bred for much lar- larger animals than this, right? Someone that I know, I don't want to say his name, is accused of doing something called power feeding, which is basically just feeding them so much [ __ ] food all the time.

[00:17:51]>> just eat if you do that?

[00:17:53]>> yeah, because they're have small, simple brains. They're like, "Food is food."

[00:17:56]>> Yeah.

[00:17:57]>> And so, this snake weighed what, Kyle?

[00:17:59]200 lb?

[00:18:00]>> 200 something.

[00:18:01]>> 213 lb.

[00:18:02]>> Right. You can look up what the heaviest snake in or heaviest reticulated python in captivity is. I bet you it's well over 300 lb.

[00:18:09]>> Wow.

[00:18:09]>> You know, and if you look up the longest one, because it's been power fed, meaning it's been fed all the time, it lives in a box, it doesn't do much exercise, >> Yeah.

[00:18:17]>> um you'll see that they're probably 24, 25-ft snakes in captivity.

[00:18:21]>> 350 lb.

[00:18:22]>> There you go.

[00:18:23]>> Damn. Also the Also the longest 25 ft 2 in.

[00:18:26]>> There you go. And this is >> but but who gives a [ __ ] about that? Cuz it's that's human intervention.

[00:18:31]>> That's the problem.

[00:18:32]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:18:32]>> But the the the I I agree with you, but the problem is people go, "Well, there's 25-ft snakes that weigh 300 lb."

[00:18:38]>> Mhm.

[00:18:39]>> Yeah.

[00:18:39]>> There aren't naturally.

[00:18:40]>> There's no nuance to what people are thinking in the ether.

[00:18:43]>> Right.

[00:18:44]>> And I think that the news, going back to the question, is awesome because it's real and it's validated, and that snake has survived through thick and thin since [ __ ] World War II to be that size, you know? But in captivity, we can manipulate something much bigger.

[00:18:57]>> this is in Sulawesi? Is that my understanding?

[00:19:00]>> Sulawesi, yeah. Have you been there?

[00:19:00]>> I have.

[00:19:01]>> Okay. Well, let's let's talk about Sulawesi a little bit. What's that like?

[00:19:05]>> Uh it's one of amazing, one of the islands of Indonesia, very, very beautiful, uh tropical, you know, uh what can I say about it?

[00:19:13]>> still like people that live off the land and stuff there or is it >> Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, once you get out of the major cities, there's there's tribes and there's hunters and gatherers and fishermen and >> So, you know, it's okay cuz it's so easy What's so fascinating to me about this now that you gave the context that they actually brought the Guinness people there.

[00:19:34]So, who were the people that spearheaded this? Some like British researchers or something?

[00:19:38]>> Probably. I mean, I think the guy lying next to the snake is is like a white dude.

[00:19:43]>> Cuz I this just feels like something you would do or that we would do like >> Absolutely.

[00:19:47]>> Clearly they got a tip that there's this giant snake that's that's really, really special.

[00:19:53]And they enough to get someone from Guinness to accompany them on the expedition. They went out. I don't know if it was hard to find or if they just knew exactly where it was.

[00:20:04]Uh, let's see.

[00:20:05]>> of sounds like they they knew what was up because you have to They definitely knew. They got a tip first. You have to schedule the Guinness people to come out with you. So, they knew what they were getting into.

[00:20:15]>> just going to go on a wild goose chase like >> I'm not positive if the Guinness people went with them. Maybe it says, but I can tell you why. Did I tell you about my Guinness World Record thing?

[00:20:24]Oh, this is kind of funny. We should circle back to that. But well, whatever.

[00:20:27]I'll just do it now and we'll come back to this.

[00:20:28]>> World's biggest beaver.

[00:20:29]>> So, I good one, Peter.

[00:20:31]>> Well, no, I thought you didn't Oh, the biggest lobster, not beaver. I'm sorry.

[00:20:35]>> Those are so similar. Um, two summers ago I went and visited a buddy of mine, Greg Witstock, who had the Guinness World Record for underwater bench press. Kyle, didn't you film this?

[00:20:45]>> Wow.

[00:20:46]>> Yeah, Kyle filmed this.

[00:20:47]>> Yeah, you never told us this.

[00:20:48]>> And then he goes he goes >> So random.

[00:20:51]>> Dude, well, wait. He goes, I bet you can't [ __ ] beat my record. I was like, [ __ ] yeah, I can. He's like 58, right?

[00:20:57]>> Uh-huh.

[00:20:57]>> So, I jump in the pool. There it is, the second video. So, I jump in his fish pond and I beat his record.

[00:21:04]But a Russian guy has since beat it.

[00:21:06]Wow. I did this with no training and no warm-up. I just jumped in and hit like 54 reps or something like that.

[00:21:12]>> Okay.

[00:21:13]>> I left there going, "Well, I got to [ __ ] do this." Like, I'm a real you know, I lift I lift weights a lot and I'm a really really good at holding my breath. So, long story short, I got home and contacted Guinness and they they verified and they're like, "Yeah, you know, the the the record is now this number."

[00:21:29]>> the video.

[00:21:30]>> I didn't even send him the video.

[00:21:31]>> No, he was trying to get it so they would come out and he could do it.

[00:21:34]>> I didn't break I didn't break the official record on this one.

[00:21:37]>> All right. So, >> But, I knew I could with literally like a week or two of training.

[00:21:40]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:21:41]>> Um and if any of you are watching this at home, [ __ ] you if you rip this off cuz this is awesome. But, [laughter] um I so, I contacted Guinness and they got back to me pretty much right away and they're like, "Okay, these are the protocols you have to follow. This is the bench press has to be underwater.

[00:21:53]You have to have it filmed, blah blah blah. And if you do all that and send it to us, it will be a verified record."

[00:21:58]>> Okay.

[00:21:59]>> They weren't going to come out to watch me do it.

[00:22:01]>> Interesting. Got it.

[00:22:02]>> Um so, they gave me all these protocols and I was like, "Fuck you, I'm going to do it." And then, I don't have a pool and I never did it.

[00:22:07]>> No, that's Greg. Um >> Yeah, I know back in the day they had to be there, but I guess now they could do it on video. Guys, I Wait, so how many did How many did he get?

[00:22:17]>> Uh what did it just say, Kyle? 47? 50?

[00:22:20]52? Okay, he got 52.

[00:22:22]And then, my first attempt I got less and then my second attempt I got way way more.

[00:22:27]>> So, if you're not watching, it what I'm viewing here is you have to hold your breath.

[00:22:33]>> Yes.

[00:22:33]>> You go about 2 2 and 1/2 ft below the surface.

[00:22:36]>> Yep.

[00:22:36]>> And then, you also have to kind of kick your legs to push your body down onto the bench press >> Exactly.

[00:22:42]>> while you're also benching >> Yep.

[00:22:44]>> and and doing a breath hold.

[00:22:45]>> Yep.

[00:22:46]>> Yeah. I mean, the big thing here is the breath hold.

[00:22:48]>> Like, it's >> Of course.

[00:22:49]>> Cuz you're you're doing a very aerobic activity while holding your breath.

[00:22:53]>> get light-headed at all or anything?

[00:22:55]>> Sorry?

[00:22:55]>> Did you get light-headed or anything while you were doing it?

[00:22:57]>> I mean, I came up gasping for air. I didn't get light-headed, but >> also an alligator snapping turtle roaming around in this water, too.

[00:23:03]>> Go to my second attempt, Kyle.

[00:23:05]>> of Guinness' qualification that you >> [laughter] >> have to have an alligator snapping turtle?

[00:23:08]>> I So, I never even heard of this. Then some random dude did it and got like four. Um I don't know. They made a whole video out of it, clearly. But, go to my second attempt. Is this me, Kyle?

[00:23:17]>> this is you. It looks like you.

[00:23:18]>> That guy's not >> No, that's Greg. That's Greg.

[00:23:21]>> He's got as small legs as you.

[00:23:23]>> That's not me. That's the other guy. Um there was some third dude who hopped in.

[00:23:26]There was I you could see the number of spectators who showed up for this.

[00:23:29]>> This is the most pointless thing.

[00:23:32]>> Oh, yeah. There was Tommy. He got like four.

[00:23:34]Um Tommy who works with us. Here's me.

[00:23:37]Right? Is this me?

[00:23:37]>> I think this is you.

[00:23:38]>> Yeah. So, just go He's going to pass me.

[00:23:40]>> See, but I feel like you're getting a big advantage now with the leg hold.

[00:23:43]>> That was a big That was a big advantage.

[00:23:45]>> round is we all did the leg hold.

[00:23:47]>> Everyone did it. Okay.

[00:23:48]>> Everyone did it. Yeah. So, we did two rounds because he was talking a big game about this Greg, who I love, by the way.

[00:23:53]I'm just talking [ __ ] cuz it's an athletic competition.

[00:23:56]>> Of course.

[00:23:56]>> And uh then I was like, "Yeah, I can [ __ ] smoke it. Give me another shot."

[00:23:59]And the whole thing was everybody was kicking their legs in the air. So, then when we started holding legs, like, "Look, I'm at fit 49 50 51 52 53." You know, I I crushed his record.

[00:24:10]>> you're not expending all that energy trying to keep your with your legs going there.

[00:24:15]>> Look look at all the spectators.

[00:24:17]>> [laughter] >> Where is this?

[00:24:18]>> This was in By the way, [ __ ] pro tip, [ __ ] whatever that Toyota road trip thing we did was go to this place. It is called Pond >> Uh Aqualand.

[00:24:28]>> Aqualand. It's like an hour and a half outside of Chicago, Peter.

[00:24:31]>> Oh, wow.

[00:24:32]>> And it's [ __ ] awesome.

[00:24:34]>> Awesome. Really? What is it?

[00:24:35]>> Uh Kyle, find the video and scrub through it. It's this So, this guy, Greg, my buddy, he built this gigantic company around building recreational ponds for people. He's done Shaq's pond.

[00:24:48]He's done all these celebrities. It's this gigantic company. And this is in [ __ ] Illinois, dude. Look at this place.

[00:24:53]>> Did we meet this guy at the first Animal Con that we went to?

[00:24:55]>> Yes, we did.

[00:24:56]>> Was that him?

[00:24:57]>> Uh I think we met Ed who works with him.

[00:25:00]>> Oh.

[00:25:00]>> Yeah, but that's Greg. Anyway, went to this place, absolutely loved it. Did all this nonsense. Place is amazing. He's got all these gigantic water lilies and huge fish tanks.

[00:25:09]>> I'd love to hear that cuz there's not that many of these type of interesting unique places out in the Midwest. Maybe there are, I just never hear of them.

[00:25:18]>> Well, I thought it was amazing and just real quick and then we'll get back to the news story. Speaking of giant snakes, Kyle gets to where Greg just let my kid jump in a pond with the huge snake. And my son was like four at this point in time.

[00:25:29]>> What kind of snake?

[00:25:30]>> Uh I think it was a retic actually. No, it wasn't. It was a carpet python. Look at this.

[00:25:35]>> My god.

[00:25:36]>> I uh I think Kyle skipped through. Oh no, here we go. I just threw my son in with this snake and he's like swimming around. It was super fun, man. This place is amazing.

[00:25:42]>> Who edits this? Nice.

[00:25:43]>> Uh each of these koi is worth like $25,000 in that bucket.

[00:25:47]>> Really?

[00:25:47]>> Holy cow.

[00:25:49]>> Uh Kyle edited this, I think.

[00:25:50]>> Worth more than you, Tommy. I don't know.

[00:25:51]>> Yeah.

[00:25:52]>> But quick on the cuts there.

[00:25:54]>> [laughter] >> Guys, so I just want to This is for Pat's benefit. Do you guys want to know what the world record Guinness Book of World Record for cat size is? How How much do you think it would weigh?

[00:26:07]>> Are we in a weight?

[00:26:08]>> Weight.

[00:26:09]>> Yeah.

[00:26:09]>> Uh domestic house cat, obviously.

[00:26:11]>> Yes, definitely. And I sent a picture to you, Kyle.

[00:26:14]>> 31.8 lbs.

[00:26:16]>> that. I'm going to say >> More than 30?

[00:26:18]>> I think it's in the 40s. I think it's like 41.

[00:26:21]>> Wow, okay. Can you want to pull it up so we can see the picture? It's >> Yeah.

[00:26:25]>> Oh yeah, this So this So this has been in there since I was a a kid.

[00:26:28]>> That poor poor cat.

[00:26:30]>> Yeah, this is since 1950 and he's an 8-year-old cat named Klaus from San Francisco. He's He's been power fed. The fattest cat and he weighed 39.7 lbs, 18 kg.

[00:26:43]>> Egregious.

[00:26:44]>> Poor little bastard. He looks like a basketball with a head.

[00:26:46]>> [laughter] >> 35.2 in around his belly. And he's he's still alive today.

[00:26:52]>> That is No, he's not. [laughter] He's not. He's not. He's not. That is a lie.

[00:26:56]>> I just I just wanted to know what you think.

[00:26:58]>> is 2 and 1/2 in larger than mine.

[00:27:01]>> He couldn't [laughter] fit into my dungarees.

[00:27:03]>> There's no chance.

[00:27:05]>> That's funny. Yeah.

[00:27:06]>> Poor little bastard. I wanted to give Klaus a little time in the spotlight here for a bit.

[00:27:09]>> It's so funny. I can't get this snake expedition out of my head. So, what do you think happened?

[00:27:15]Just knowing that you don't actually know. What is your guess on How do they get this call? Who do they get the call from? Cuz I'm just picturing it as an episode of a TV show.

[00:27:24]>> I I think >> Where you measure it and then and then I can picture the scene where you realize it's a record and you celebrate.

[00:27:31]>> Yeah. I think it probably went like this. The baron or baroness was known as this huge snake that hung out in this certain part of the jungle and these people would see it, you know, once every three or four weeks, right? It would come out of the jungle, eat a chicken, whatever. And some researcher was like, "Don't kill that snake. That is a special snake based on that size.

[00:27:51]We've never seen a snake that big before."

[00:27:53]Then that got out to somebody who was smart enough to go, "All right, here's what we need to do. We need to get a hold of George Berioni, director of the Wallace Correspondence Project, to help" I'm just making I'm seeing the name right there. To help get Guinness involved and verify if the snake is really as big as you guys are saying. I'm guessing they measured it before all of this.

[00:28:15]>> Mhm.

[00:28:15]>> Do you know what I mean? Cuz they're like, "Oh, no, this is 23 and something feet. Like now we need to make it official."

[00:28:20]>> Got it.

[00:28:20]>> Then they got other people involved, got Guinness involved, went back, found the snake, measured it, and then made it official.

[00:28:25]>> So, it says here that there's two people from Bali.

[00:28:28]>> Okay.

[00:28:29]>> Someone named Diaz Nur Arang Nur Nur Arang, whatever.

[00:28:33]>> Yep.

[00:28:34]>> And Radu Ferentiou. One is a wildlife guide and rescuer snake handler and the other is a natural history history photographer.

[00:28:42]>> Cool.

[00:28:42]>> In Bali, they heard about the snake from the neighboring island of Sulawesi and just decided to go over there and see it for themselves.

[00:28:49]>> I love [ __ ] like that. Just like it's just a snake rumor.

[00:28:52]>> Yeah.

[00:28:53]>> Yeah, snake.

[00:28:53]>> it's like it's fun to be in parts of the world where there are rumors of a giant animal.

[00:28:58]>> Oh, absolutely.

[00:28:58]>> Yeah, totally. You have to go look for it.

[00:29:00]>> Absolutely.

[00:29:01]>> Yeah, it's great.

[00:29:02]>> They say that the snake they didn't want to anesthetize it.

[00:29:05]>> Yeah.

[00:29:06]>> Because I guess if you put the anesthesia in, then the snake goes fully straight.

[00:29:10]>> Oh, interesting.

[00:29:11]>> And so they're saying that it's because they didn't want to do that because of the risks of harming the snake, they had to measure it basically as straight as they could get it.

[00:29:20]>> Yeah, which is what they're saying in that picture there.

[00:29:22]>> Probably about 3 ft longer.

[00:29:23]>> That's what they're saying? 3 ft longer?

[00:29:25]Wow.

[00:29:26]>> saying that it could be up to 26 ft.

[00:29:28]>> Okay, so the official is actually not it fully fully laid out. It's probably measured as where that guy is laying next to it. It's got a couple kinks in the body.

[00:29:36]>> by the way, it's still in the wild. A a local conservationist has volunteered to full-time spend his time protecting the snake to make sure no one comes in and kills it.

[00:29:46]>> That's awesome.

[00:29:46]>> Very nice.

[00:29:47]>> That's awesome.

[00:29:47]>> It's got to be that guy. I'm proud of that guy.

[00:29:49]>> It's got to be. I'm trying to think how you would measure the snake tip to tip without anesthetizing it.

[00:29:54]>> Now now Sulawesi's known for having giant snakes, right? It's where all the people the villagers the grandmas get eaten and that sort of thing.

[00:30:00]>> that's where it is?

[00:30:01]>> Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:02]>> So this It's very possible the snake has eaten a human being.

[00:30:05]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:30:05]>> Wow.

[00:30:06]>> Yeah, I mean, I think earlier this Maybe it was last year, there were two people, not one, but two people eaten by retics in a village in Sulawesi.

[00:30:15]>> Just recently?

[00:30:16]>> Yeah, like within the last 6 months. I remember the story coming out.

[00:30:18]>> Holy [ __ ] >> Little little kids?

[00:30:20]>> two women, I remember that. Um >> Man, that's a shame.

[00:30:23]>> Well, that snake is groundbreaking, but >> maybe not as >> Not as groundbreaking as the two guests we're about to have on the Wild Times. I am incredibly excited to welcome John Hall and Charles Foley, wildlife researchers, the people who literally coined the term mammal watching, have traveled to over 120 countries looking for rare and unusual mammals who just went to West Papua to find not one but two animals that we didn't even know existed from anything outside of the fossil record. So, welcome John and Charles.

[00:30:57]>> Well, Pat, you know how I've been using nicotine pouches for quite some time now. Love them, give me boost of focus, you know.

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[00:32:08]>> Wow. If I want to watch every Yankee >> That's crazy.

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[00:33:33]>> All right, here they are. Welcome, guys.

[00:33:35]Charles and John. So excited to meet you guys. Um so, we just introduced you on the podcast, but can you maybe introduce yourselves for our our listeners?

[00:33:46]>> Sure. Over to Charles.

[00:33:48]>> Thanks, John. Well, my name is Charles Foley, and I I've spent most of my adult life studying elephants in northern Tanzania.

[00:33:58]Um and about 7 years ago, I moved to the US with my family, and I now work for the Lincoln Park Zoo, which is based in Chicago. And I run their Tanzania Conservation Research Program.

[00:34:12]And basically, I'm interested in pretty much all mammals. Yeah, focus on the elephants, but interested in pretty much every single mammal type that there is.

[00:34:22]And mammal watching is something that I've been doing, I guess, since I've been about 7 years old, and continue doing it to this day.

[00:34:31]>> So, yeah, my name's John Hall. I am British and I'm Australian. I'm living in New York. Um and I have also been interested in wildlife since a child, but there my epiphany came when I when I went to live in Zambia for a year after university. I had my first game drive in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, which I guess I guess Forrest knows.

[00:34:50]>> I do.

[00:34:50]>> And um that that life was never the same after that. So, I just became fascinated by wildlife watching and finding animals.

[00:34:59]And everyone I knew back in the UK was a bird watcher and I couldn't figure out why no one was a mammal watcher. So, I started telling people I want to be a mammal watcher. This birding is like this this old news. Um and I've been doing that for 30 years and I started a website 21 years ago. I think I was the only mammal watcher in the world and a whole community has grown up around that with other people who get that this is a it's a really fun hobby and it's doing great stuff for conservation now as well.

[00:35:23]>> Awesome. So, spoiler alert for my co-host and anybody listening, uh you guys went on a very special expedition to Western Papua. And how about you point paint us a picture? I I honestly don't know this. Like why why Western Papua? What was the goal of the expedition? Was it mammal watching? Were you looking for echidnas? Like tell us about what made you go on this trip and then obviously we'll get into this big discovery that you had.

[00:35:48]>> Sure. Well, um you know, as anyone who's interested in mammals knows, Papua, the island of New Guinea, Papua New Guinea, Western Papua, uh are a nirvana of lost to incredible species.

[00:35:59]>> Yeah.

[00:35:59]>> All that sort of stuff that's semi-Australian is there.

[00:36:02]But ever since I got interested in this, everyone who's been there has told me you won't see any mammals. I know professional bird guides who've been there 30 times and have maybe seen one or two mammals each trip.

[00:36:13]>> Wow.

[00:36:13]>> So, it was a bit of a lost cause, you know, I got I'd love to see the stuff there, but you no one ever sees anything.

[00:36:19]A friend of mine who's a professional bird guide was out there, got stuck in stuck in Indonesia during COVID. Um he had no clients and he got interested in mammals, and he got one of these thermal scopes that we all use now. And during COVID, he started going out looking for things on his own and started finding all these incredible mammals >> Mhm.

[00:36:36]>> that I just thought were impossible. And he was saying, you know, as soon as COVID finishes, John, we've got to get a group together. We'll come out here.

[00:36:43]We'll see tree kangaroos. We'll see all this stuff that people think can't be found. Uh, it's going to be fantastic, and we eventually got there in 2023. Um, we had 2 weeks. We went up in the mountains for a week, and we saw two species of tree kangaroos, which on that's exceptional in its own to see those.

[00:36:58]>> Yeah.

[00:36:58]>> And then we ended up in the lowlands looking for this western long-beaked echidna that his buddies in in Western Papua had discovered, you know, they they went around from motor on a motorbike from village to village asking about this animal that hadn't been seen by scientists since the late 1980s, and they said, "There's this place called Kalik in the lowlands, and they tell us they're seeing this animal often in the forest when they're out hunting. So, we should try here and see what we can find." Um, and that's how we ended up in Kalik for just for one night.

[00:37:27]>> Wow. So, Forest, I've known Forest for, you know, 15 years at this point. We've done expeditions all over the world together, and he's always had this uh, obsession with trying to get to West Western Papua.

[00:37:41]>> Oh, absolutely.

[00:37:42]>> And then >> For the very reasons you just mentioned, John. Yeah.

[00:37:45]>> And and, you know, some other explorers we know, um, and wildlife enthusiasts, also it seems like a place that so many people want to go.

[00:37:52]I now have painted this picture in my own head of this just unbelievably wild, somewhat unexplored place. Tell You've been there. You've you know, just paint a picture for us of what it's like. How do you get there, and and what are you seeing as you sort of get off the plane, get off the boat, get out of the car, and start heading into the bush?

[00:38:15]>> Charles, can you take this one?

[00:38:18]>> Yeah. Well, you know, West Papua used to be called Irian And just the name itself is just so evocative. And for many years Westerners could not get into the place.

[00:38:31]And it's so Irian Jaya, West Papua, it's the western half of the island of New Guinea. So the eastern half is Papua New Guinea.

[00:38:40]And I remember talking to some researchers who were working in Papua New Guinea and they said, "Look, that place is so wild that if there's any place on the planet that you are going to find something like a thylacine, that's where it would be."

[00:39:00]>> Questions are coming you boys.

[00:39:01]>> Yeah.

[00:39:02]>> [laughter] >> And and the thing is as as John mentioned, um you people would just not see mammals in that area because these good these guys are hunters, right? So the communities, they get their protein from hunting.

[00:39:18]And so the animals are right there.

[00:39:19]>> correct me if I'm wrong. I don't interrupt you, but they'll kill and eat anything they can get, right? It's it's jungle survival out there, whether it's a tree kangaroo or an echidna or a little bird or a turtle. If they see it, they're killing and eating it. So it it's it's twofold, right? One is the ecology of the area is not conducive to seeing mammals, right? There's they're few and far between and high diversity, low abundance, right? And that's always what happens, the higher your diversity, the lower your abundance. So there's tons of species that are really hard to see. And then you have hunters that are like, "If I see it, I'm killing and eating it." Right? So your likelihood of seeing stuff is just going down. Is that is that accurate, would you say?

[00:39:59]>> Absolutely right. Exactly.

[00:40:01]>> Okay.

[00:40:01]>> But that's what we thought.

[00:40:03]Right? So we we we get to this island.

[00:40:08]So you you fly into Jakarta, Indonesia and then you take another flight and then another flight and then another flight. And eventually you end up this place called Manokwari and then we took a um we we took a vehicle into a mountainous area, the Offat Mountains, and then we walked 8 hours up the mountain.

[00:40:25]And we go out on our very first night.

[00:40:29]This is thick forest, thick jungle.

[00:40:32]And we we step out, we've just had dinner, step out of dinner, and within a minute John already has a mammal in his thermal imager.

[00:40:45]What was it, John? Was it Was it a uh >> a possum glider, like a like a sugar glider.

[00:40:49]>> Cool, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really cool.

[00:40:51]Great. Yeah.

[00:40:53]And it just carried on from there.

[00:40:54]Right. This was This was nirvana.

[00:40:57]So, we were seeing incredible mammal diversity.

[00:41:01]And the reason we were seeing it is because we were going out at night and we were using these thermal imagers. And so, we're picking them up.

[00:41:10]>> Good tip. John, you went in 2023, you said. Then obviously, you guys, Charles, you're talking about having gone what, 2 3 months ago? Is that when you guys were there?

[00:41:20]>> No.

[00:41:20]>> No, that's the same trip.

[00:41:21]>> Oh, sorry, it's the one Sorry, okay, I didn't realize. So, this whole this discovery that's just published is from 2023. Is that correct?

[00:41:27]>> Exactly.

[00:41:28]>> Got you. I didn't realize that.

[00:41:29]Apologies. So, that's And also worth pointing out that that's a lot of the times how this goes in the sciences, right? It's not like, "Okay, we're going to post about on Instagram tomorrow."

[00:41:39]It's like, you know, it's a bit of a process. But, um okay, so you're there, you're on the ground, as Patrick said, unbelievably wild. The expectation is high diversity, low abundance, likelihood of spotting mammals is a couple in a week, right? And instead, you're seeing them every 10 minutes, right? I'm I'm obviously exaggerating, but you're seeing tons of mammals.

[00:41:58]>> much that's about right. Yeah, it was extraordinary.

[00:42:00]>> So, the the takeaway here for our listeners, and the majority of our listeners are incredibly animal motivated, right? That's why they listen to this podcast, is using these tools and technologies, and what you guys did is you took an existing technology, which is thermal imaging, and took it to a place where we thought you couldn't find things, and you put those together, and you had incredible results.

[00:42:21]Take us through >> much.

[00:42:23]>> Take take Patrick, Peter, and I and our listeners through what How long was your expedition in 2023? How was this mammal checklist, this nirvana of wildlife spotting going? And then, most importantly, tell me about these big discoveries that you just published.

[00:42:39]>> Um I'll talk about the first week, and then Charles can maybe get us onto the second.

[00:42:42]>> Okay.

[00:42:42]>> So, the first week, we're up in this mountain called Gunung Mupi. Um there, like Charles said, we we had two species of tree kangaroos up there. We had this enormous cuscus >> Mhm.

[00:42:52]>> called a ground cuscus, which must be the biggest cuscus. All sorts of beautiful possums uh and other things every night. We were going out with the locals from the village. Um it used to be a settlement, and all the all the local people have moved back to the to the coast cuz it's just more convenient. And this >> So, this and it's a bit too far away to go hunting. You're not going to walk 9 hours up a mountain to catch a tree kangaroo.

[00:43:13]>> Right.

[00:43:13]>> animals that were kind of thick on the ground or thick in the trees up there, uh they love being back up there cuz they're all hunters, and they're all you know, they they all love looking for mammals.

[00:43:21]>> They're probably licking their lips the whole time.

[00:43:24]>> [laughter] >> Exactly. So, it was a lot of fun up there. It was pretty tough, I have to say. The food was not the reason to go there. Um but a great adventure. After a week up there, we sort of get get back to the city and collapse, exhausted, muddy, everything else. And we had a night in a hotel to recover.

[00:43:42]And then we headed off to this place called Claret Village in search of the echidna, which you know, that was going to be the major prize for me, at least, coming from Australia. It's The short-beaked echidna is what weighs about 3 kilos, uh 10 lbs or 6 lbs. This one weighs up to 16 kilos, 30 lbs. Hadn't been seen by scientists since the 1980s. Right. In my view, one of the best animals on the planet. Um and just the thought of maybe seeing this was enough to really get us going. and so we get to this place called Clawlic. Um they'd never seen Westerners before.

[00:44:12]>> Wow.

[00:44:12]>> They didn't know what to make of us just as much as we didn't know what was going to happen.

[00:44:15]>> You know what's funny? You know what's funny John? I'm going to interrupt you for 1 second. I have literally identified Clawlic as one of the villages to go in to search for Thylacine if we were going to do that.

[00:44:25]>> Uh so No really?

[00:44:26]>> I believe it or not as crazy as it sounds I don't think I could name a single other town or township or village in Western Papua but I know on a map where Clawlic is.

[00:44:37]>> [laughter] >> Fantastic. So what is >> So so >> Not many people can say that.

[00:44:40]>> I know it's crazy it's so weird when you said that I was like holy [ __ ] but yeah.

[00:44:45]>> Yeah. So what what is your as you're going in there and sort of realizing that the people there don't know what to make of you and that they probably hadn't seen someone who looks like you before. What What is the vibe? Like what is the energy like? Are you Are you worried that it might not go well?

[00:45:00]>> No the people were lovely. I mean everyone's smiling and happy and they had this the welcoming ceremony they put flowers around our necks and we all kind of lined up and they were just really excited by this whole idea that these these crazy pale people have come over to to look for the animals that they live alongside. I think they couldn't didn't know what to make of us but there's just a lot of goodwill. There's no time at all did we feel unsafe.

[00:45:21]>> Oh great. Very cool.

[00:45:23]>> We just didn't know what that night would hold and we didn't know what the food was going to be like or where we'd sleep. Um and that all you know we just have to cross those bridges when you come to them.

[00:45:31]But uh yeah it was pretty exciting that night when we set out.

[00:45:35]Wasn't it Charles?

[00:45:37]>> Yeah. That was so a kid knows they're nocturnal. So we wait till the sun goes down.

[00:45:43]Um and then we we leave we we walk out of the village and we get into this enclosure in uh open area in the forest.

[00:45:54]And all of the adult men and all the kids in the village are standing there and they've all got torches flashlights. And when they see us, they all just go herring off into the forest. And they they were determined to find us an echidna.

[00:46:10]So, we're just plodding along slowly behind and we're just looking for animals.

[00:46:16]We're we're seeing what what we can find and we're using the thermal imagers. So, what you do is you walk along and you're scanning with the imager and then if you come across an animal, it glows red or white in your imager and so you know you've got something. And then >> you guys using, Charles? Were you using ATNs or FLIRs or what what what tech were you guys using?

[00:46:41]>> Uh I think at that time both of us were using Pulsars and these are really old Pulsars, the Pulsar uh the 30s. Um they were they don't they don't make them now. I don't think they've made them now for about 5 years, but they're basically uh Pulsar monoculars is what we were using.

[00:46:58]>> Yeah, I I know them well. Okay, sorry.

[00:47:00]Please continue. Just curious.

[00:47:02]>> Yeah, so we're we're walking along and all of a sudden a one of the uh villagers walks up to us.

[00:47:12]He's got some an animal in his hand and he says, "Guys, I have a squirrel."

[00:47:18]>> [laughter] >> Now, you don't actually get squirrels.

[00:47:20]>> Exactly. Yeah, so you're like, "No, you don't." But yeah.

[00:47:23]>> So, we say, "It's unlikely to be a squirrel, but you know, this is great."

[00:47:27]And so he hands it over to our guide, Carlos Bocos.

[00:47:32]And we look at this thing and it's about squirrel size and it's a beautiful black and white color, big fluffy tail, but the most amazing thing about this animal is that on its front hands the fourth fingers on its front hands were incredibly long.

[00:47:54]>> Oh, cool. Yeah.

[00:47:55]>> super long.

[00:47:56]>> Like eye-eye finger long.

[00:47:58]>> Exactly. Yeah.

[00:47:59]>> Yeah. 100% eye-eye fingers.

[00:48:02]Um and so we take one look at this thing and think amazing. This is a long-fingered trioc.

[00:48:12]So, it's an animal that we've been looking for in the Arfak Mountains, but we didn't see.

[00:48:19]So, we find it, uh we take pictures of it, and these these fingers are amazing. And basically you mentioned the eye-eye, and it's it's exactly like that. They they use their fingers for the same purpose. It's to dig their fingers into uh roots or under bark to get the grubs out.

[00:48:35]>> Yeah.

[00:48:36]>> And and typically and these are areas where you don't get woodpeckers, so typically the woodpeckers would be doing that, but in these areas you've got either the the prosimians um either the eye-eye or over here you've got these possums doing it.

[00:48:48]>> Yeah.

[00:48:49]>> Yeah. So, super cool, um wonderful animal, and we uh let it go, and it uh crawled up a tree and disappeared. What happened was that we had misdiagnosed it.

[00:49:03]We thought it was a long-fingered trioc long-fingered possum. But then what happened was when we get back to camp we we open up the field guide and we look and we say, you know, this is really weird because the the long-fingered trioc is is only found at high elevations.

[00:49:21]And we were pretty much at sea level over here.

[00:49:24]>> Right.

[00:49:24]>> So, that's when we started thinking there is something really unusual about this animal, about this sighting.

[00:49:33]And it wasn't until we got back to uh to the US that John and Carlos they started interacting with a with a couple of people um from the um National History Museum in Australia.

[00:49:53]And they wrote back and said, "Guys, this is not the long-fingered trioc.

[00:50:01]This is an animal that was discovered, it was known from a an archaeology site.

[00:50:10]>> Mhm.

[00:50:10]>> And from an archaeological dig from a fossil that was 6,000 years old.

[00:50:16]And this instead is the pygmy possum.

[00:50:19]Pygmy long-fingered possum.

[00:50:21]>> So, okay. So, all right. This is really interesting.

[00:50:24]And just to to when I've gone on and looked for lost species before, which I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I've done that quite a lot and and it's been some of the greatest times of my entire life.

[00:50:36]I've always had a target and I found, you know, found or not found that target sometimes along the way, like in for instance in Peru, we found a lost worm snake species that I didn't that I never knew of, but I keyed it out and right then and there I was like, "Oh, this is unusual. This is something different."

[00:50:51]Found out that that was a a lost species that we did I didn't even know was lost, had never heard of until we keyed it out. But you went months without knowing what that mammal was. So, did you think it was a new species? Did you know you had something special? Did you have any inkling that you were going to get this data that this animal had been lost the from the fossil record 6,000 years ago?

[00:51:15]Like or how did that news come when you found it?

[00:51:18]>> Well, I mean, West [clears throat] Papua is a place where you just don't know what to expect, I guess. So, when we'd been in the mountains, we'd seen this weird little bouncing mouse that was really distinctive and that we thought that's probably a new species as well or it's a massive range extension. Turns out that probably is a new species, but someone needs to go out there and and do it properly. So, it was already like weird stuff was happening, but no one's been to these places. So, it's exciting, but perhaps not that unexpected. And I'd say in the last 3 years, Charles and I have found about 20 species that either have been lost for 100 years or haven't been photographed before or seem to be brand new to science. And all we can do really is alert scientists.

[00:51:58]>> Right.

[00:51:58]>> So, this thing was more like, well, it's probably a huge extension of range of this animal. And I guess they live at sea level.

[00:52:04]>> Yeah.

[00:52:05]>> Uh this this mountain trioc. So, when we discovered it was this one that was lost for 6,000 years. So, that was a massive >> Pretty exciting.

[00:52:11]>> piece of news. And that was a few minutes later. Yeah, very exciting.

[00:52:14]Um but we wanted to not tell anyone until the scientists had published their research cuz it was kind of their news as well to to share.

[00:52:21]>> I've always said that um you know, I I just between us and I've told Patrick knows about this, but I've um I've pitched going into that region, like I mentioned, a number of times to TV networks and things. And they're always like, well, you know, you're not going to What if you don't find the thylacine? And I've always said I'm probably not going to find the thylacine, but I'll come out of there with so many new discoveries. And that, you know, the the the scale and level that I'm talking about doing, you guys are much more experienced than I am, but I'd go in there with 200 trail cameras and a team of scientists and all these things and set up this camp and be there for months and months. And I've always said to, and maybe I'm taking the wrong approach, but I've always said to Nat Geo and Discovery and all these various places I've spoken to, we'll come out of there with hundreds of new discoveries, new species, new range extensions, all kinds of stuff. And I think you guys are literally confirming that anytime you go into areas like this, that's exactly what happens.

[00:53:16]>> Yeah, no, I think I think you're right in the um you're you're going to find stuff.

[00:53:20]You're going to have great stories to tell. And there is so much left to be discovered in so many places as we're finding now as the world is opening up and we're getting into these areas.

[00:53:28]>> Okay, so this long-fingered possum discovery is absolutely incredible, right? 6,000 years, and you must have been shocked. But John, you're the echidna guy, right? And I I remember when that news came out. So, tell me about that. How was that discovery and when that went down?

[00:53:44]>> Uh Charles, do you want to do this one as well? I feel I've been talking too much.

[00:53:47]>> No, you haven't. You guys are both great.

[00:53:48]>> This is all you.

[00:53:49]>> All right.

[00:53:50]>> [laughter] >> So, I mean the echidna that was part of the reason the tree up didn't prompt more kind of interest as soon as we saw it other than this is weird, we'll look at it later was we were very much fixed on finding this this this western long-beaked echidna, which as I say like the the last scientific record of that was in 1989 and this seemed impossible. And we're walking through the forest, you know, it's we've been out there 4 or 5 hours and it was after midnight and we were I guess, you know, hopes were getting to fall a bit that night.

[00:54:18]And we sat down by this little creek just after midnight and all of a sudden we had this wailing and this yodeling coming from up the hillside and that could only mean one thing, you know, someone had found this echidna. So, we we sprinted the forest sort of tripping over tree roots and we get up to this little little creek on the side of the hill and there is this echidna just sitting there sticking its beak in the soil right in front of us sort of oblivious.

[00:54:41]>> Literally foraging right in front of you. It It wasn't even startled. It was just foraging and minding its business.

[00:54:46]>> This is the problem. They're defenseless and they don't seem to have any idea of their own mortality. So, that's why they're so rare, I guess. It's so easy to catch.

[00:54:55]And it was yeah, just extraordinary.

[00:54:56]This thing was snuffling around as moving between us as we were following it trying to get pictures and keep out of its way and yeah, absolutely you know, you don't get feelings like that much in your life. That was all definitely one of the best moments of I guess I think I speak for Charles here, both of our lives. It was just absolutely such a thrill to see this thing. Shaking with excitement, couldn't believe what we were seeing. This was one of the holy grails.

[00:55:19]>> There There's maybe 10 people in the world you could talk to that understand that feeling around like a nondescript animal as well as I do. Do you know what I mean? And I had feeling when I picked up that Taurus and the glob goes that same thing. It's like your whole body's shaking. I've said this to my wife and she hates me for it, John and Charles.

[00:55:35]It's the best moment of my life, way better than when either of my kids were born. You know what I mean? Like >> that to my kids, too. [laughter] So, it's not just me. They don't like it much, either.

[00:55:43]>> It's about third or fourth on my list, but yeah. Um [laughter and snorts] just take you back to Just to take you back to the the echidna finding. So, when we get up to this echidna, and as John said, we were sprinting up there because we've no idea what do Do echidnas do they run? Do they Do they burrow, etc.?

[00:56:00]And we get there and we see this this big thing, the size of a small dog.

[00:56:04]And the weird thing was that we couldn't actually tell what's the front and what's the back end of it.

[00:56:08]>> Yeah.

[00:56:10]>> What echidnas do is that when they get nervous, bless their souls, they just stick their beak in the soil, they sort of puff themselves up, and they kind of hope the world goes away.

[00:56:20]And the world sort of picks them up, sticks them in a big pot, and eats them, which is why they're so darn rare to start with. Right. Um but again, it As soon as it relaxed, takes its beak out of the soil, it was walking over our feet, stumbling along. Absolutely incredible animal.

[00:56:38]>> Wild.

[00:56:39]>> What was the I mean, you just explained it, that best feeling of your life, but what was the You didn't collect the animal, obviously. You just photographed it, documented it. You know, I'm sure you recorded everything, where you were, the time of day, the blah blah blah blah blah.

[00:56:54]What was that feeling for that 30-minute walk back to your accommodations that night?

[00:57:02]>> Just shaking with excitement. It's It's just the best For me, it's the best feeling in the world. It's just so happy that we've seen it, so kind of shocked that we actually achieved what we were trying to do, but also getting excited about telling the rest of the world about this. Not Not so much for for our own kind of publicity, but because we knew other people are going to start coming to that village to look for this. And what what it can mean for these people who've been so kind and taken us out.

[00:57:28]And that's exactly what happened, you know, within I put that video on my own little Instagram channel and I had like thousands of views and people started getting in touch straight away with Carlos going how can we get out here and see this?

[00:57:39]And now three years later, you know, hundreds or many many people have been to that village. They they've renamed themselves the Echidna Park. They've built a guest house. They've stopped all hunting. So it's a great story for the community. It's a great story for conservation.

[00:57:52]>> So they they've actually stopped all hunting and like they're not just saying that. Like nobody is hunting in the area any longer?

[00:57:59]>> I believe so. There's t-shirts with the Echidna on. They're so proud of this you know, they're so proud of this these animals they live alongside and the fact people want to come and pay quite a lot of money now to see them. It's changed everything in that community for the better for conservation.

[00:58:13]>> How often are they getting a spotting?

[00:58:14]Like if a random, I know I know these are pretty targeted tourists, but if one of these mammal watching tourists goes, are they getting a spotting, you know, now that cuz my guess would be historically they're like if we see a big Echidna we bop it on the head, throw it on the pot and eat it. So we're not really ob- observationally studying its behavior. We're just eating the first one we can get our hands on. Now there's a guy I imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, who goes out every night and he looks for it and he understands its movement patterns and where it's foraging and why it's there and probably where its burrow is and all these things. Are have they advanced their Echidna Park to the point of being like yeah, we'll we'll find them tonight. You know, it's like a nightly thing. And in fact we know where there's six of them or is it still a total dice roll? Like how is that changed sort of the understanding of the animal?

[00:59:00]>> That's a good question. I mean a friend of mine was actually there two nights ago.

[00:59:04]He was he got sick. He thought he wasn't going to make it. He dragged himself out of his bed and actually went just for one night feeling like he was going to die cuz he was so ill, but he actually saw one in the night.

[00:59:15]So it's but it's not guaranteed, you know, some people go for three or four nights and and miss them.

[00:59:19]>> Yeah.

[00:59:20]>> If it was guaranteed it wouldn't be fun.

[00:59:22]It's still a challenge.

[00:59:23]But I think you've got a pretty good shot if If go there for four or five nights, a really good shot. And you'll see this this big mytriarch as well.

[00:59:29]>> Charles, you um when we all first signed on, you brought up the thylacine. Obviously, uh you know, Forrest has, you know, put quite a bit of time searching mainland Australia and and and Tasmania, but you know, I know that he and and some other friends of ours that that are really interested in this believe that this could be the place that it may still have a chance. What what's your Why'd you bring up thylacine?

[00:59:58]What's your thought?

[01:00:01]>> So, the the guy I was speaking to and and he had spent 7 or 8 years working in Papua.

[01:00:06]>> Mhm.

[01:00:07]>> He said that he had through the grapevine heard that there was a place close to the border with Papua New Guinea, so just on the other side of West Papua, where there was an animal that had stripes on it, uh fairly big, and um it was high up in this mountain range.

[01:00:30]And that who knows, it might be a thylacine. Um that's that's all he knew, and he said, "If there's any place on the planet where it still occurs, that's where it'll be, because no one goes in there." Um it's obviously going to be occurring at low densities.

[01:00:47]And if no one's looking, and if no one's looking in the right right places, and no one's looking at the right time of day, etc., you're not going to find it.

[01:00:54]So, that's that's kind of all I know.

[01:00:57]>> But it's that simple, Charles. It's that [ __ ] simple. Excuse the profanity, but like there's all this like it's not, you know, your long-fingered possum is a perfect example. 6,000 years, right? We had thylacine, we know, on mainland Australia 4,000 years ago, right? And Tasmania up until 100 years ago. And so, it's People are not looking in the the way and the right place for an animal that was always cryptic. You know, it's it's it's honestly that simple. Um >> So So, John, when is the expedition for the thylacine?

[01:01:30]>> Yeah, that's a good question.

[01:01:31]>> [laughter] >> I think I'll leave you that for you guys. Um >> I think I think we should team up, you guys.

[01:01:37]>> Absolutely. Yeah, let's do it.

[01:01:38]>> I don't care how many people point at me and go tin foil hat. I don't give a [ __ ] Like I think if you guys had said, Charles and John, correct me if I'm wrong, if you had said, "We are going to find the long-fingered opossum and we're going to Western Papua," everybody would have laughed at you. They would have said you're tin foil hat people, that's been gone for 6,000 years, we know it from a single fossil record 2,000 miles away, and you're a bunch of [ __ ] idiots. That's what people would have said. And then you came back with it.

[01:02:05]You know what I mean? And no offense, cuz I obviously don't think you're idiots, but you know what I mean? That would have been the the tonality. I think we should team up. I think we should go look for this thylacine up there. I've always said there's a there's a right way to do this, which is to take a bunch of photos of different animals from from New Guinea, Western New Guinea, and show it to the local people and say, "Point to the ones that you know we've got." And you can be, you know, you can show things like a giant anteater in South America, and they'll be like, "No, no, we definitely don't have that." And then you can show things like a a tree kangaroo, and they'll be like, "We definitely have that." And then you can show things like a picture of a thylacine, and you'll get your answer, you know? They'll say, "Yes, we have that," or "No, we don't." And it's just an accumulation of that data, right? You show that photo set to the right number of people, and they go, "Well, we don't have that striped dog, but I know they do over there on the border with PNG, you know?" And if you go over there, and then you start showing those same photos, like you're going to narrow in on it. And And something I've been wanting to do, Charles and John, you guys have taken a very different approach, but I wanted to do a big, like I was mentioning earlier in this conversation, a big survey, like 200 cameras, a team of scientists, you know, 3 months on the ground, like really give give a full shot as opposed to me going until I run out of money kind of thing, which would be a few weeks. You know what I mean? And that that's that's the way I've always wanted to do it. So, my question to you and it in stating that is is that the right way to do it or should I go the way you guys are doing and just head in to the village, spend a couple weeks try and get the intel and just go back and forth until we figure it out?

[01:03:36]>> Uh I mean if it was me, I think local knowledge is always the best possible source of information you can have, especially somewhere like this where they know the mammals and they're out in the forest and that.

[01:03:46]They're all hunters essentially.

[01:03:47]>> Yeah.

[01:03:47]>> So, um I would be talking to someone like Carlos and asking him to mobilize his network of friends, which is pretty extensive.

[01:03:54]>> Yeah.

[01:03:55]>> Saying, let's what can you find out about this species? And these guys are going around on motorbikes and they'll start asking questions.

[01:04:00]>> Yeah.

[01:04:00]>> And you'll get some leads. That's what we did with the echidna where he did.

[01:04:03]>> Sure.

[01:04:03]>> And it worked. So, and then you go in with the camera traps and the the scientist maybe or just go in with a few friends and some thermals and walk around for a couple of weeks in the right place and you never know what a finding that would be.

[01:04:14]>> Well, look, this is for those watching and a lot of people know that I have an obsession with this animal, the thylacine in particular. Um this is real time getting one step closer. You know, talking to you guys, understanding that I we're we're obviously in touch now. I may ask you for Carlos's contact details if you're willing to share and you know, this is something that I think we could you know, I don't want to take away from your discovery cuz that's the main point of this. But I it it all your discovery, just like you with the long-beaked echidna, John, what this does for me is further validate my tin foil hatness, further validate the idea that it's very unlikely that we'll find it, but it still could still be there.

[01:04:53]>> The the area, Charles, that that was Carlos that's that mentioned to you, you know, I heard that about this area over by the border.

[01:05:02]>> Someone else, yeah.

[01:05:03]>> Oh, someone else. Um that area, did you did you look at it?

[01:05:08]Like is it is it is there a huge barrier to entry to just to just get there?

[01:05:13]Yeah, what from what you from where you were to there, how difficult was it to get there?

[01:05:18]>> Um, yeah, so I mean back at the time when he was telling me about this, this was probably about 15 years ago. I mean Irian Jaya was closed. I mean Westerners could not get in at all.

[01:05:26]Um, and there are still large areas of the the island where you just you just can't get in. It's it's either too dangerous or you know, it's like how do you get there? There's there's no roads, etc. Um, and so it this is this was several hundred miles away from from the area where we were. But, um, I you know, I'd have to go back and check with him and say, okay, where where was the place that you you had heard that it might be.

[01:05:52]But, one of the things I that I will say is this method of going out at night using thermal images is incredibly powerful.

[01:06:03]And you know, I use camera traps a lot.

[01:06:06]I've been using them for sort of 15, 20 years or so. And camera traps are actually fantastic because they'll take pictures of anything that walks past them, but some animals don't follow paths.

[01:06:14]And camera traps, they typically they're not very good for catching things that maybe slide higher up in trees or in certain habitat types. And but if you marry camera traps with a team of people who really know how to use thermal images, man, you just you just sweep up. It's incredible.

[01:06:32]>> That is good intel.

[01:06:35]>> Yeah, I mean I I we did a trip to I did a trip to Gabon a few years ago. Uh, we saw all sorts of really cool stuff in two weeks, you know, including two giant pangolins and all these amazing things.

[01:06:45]And I sent the report I wrote to uh friend of a friend who's a well-known scientist who's at the Smithsonian and spent three years working in Gabon. And I wanted them to check some of my IDs of some of the smaller stuff. And she wrote back and said, that's a really great report. I saw just about everything you you saw when when you were in Gabon, but it took me three years.

[01:07:04]And that was using traps and all the other methods. And this is the thermal images, couple of people with cameras who kind of can use them. Uh it's really, really powerful, as Charles said.

[01:07:12]>> That's good intel. I have several of them, too. I have the the the FLIR cameras, the binoculars, the ATN ones, the hunting ones that are really high-powered. I I love them. I've used them in Tasmania, but just not in this, you know, it wouldn't have been I would have packed it, of course, but it wouldn't have been my first thought to use those where you guys were going, which further complements your great ability to identify how to find these things. It's amazing.

[01:07:38]>> If um if I said, "Hey guys, I've got uh you know, here's 3 million bucks to fund your next uh you know, big adventure, what what's what's the next thing you want to you guys want to go go find or go see or go endeavor to find?"

[01:07:56]Oof.

[01:07:56]>> [laughter] >> So many places. I mean, there's all >> Well, you can only pick one.

[01:08:00]>> the DRC to get to into. There's so much of Central Africa. There's Papua New Guinea. There's more in West Papua.

[01:08:06]There's the Philippines.

[01:08:08]Uh and all these things are things that we're planning to to get to in the next few years if we can.

[01:08:12]>> Nice.

[01:08:12]>> Um so >> to pick one though. For the purposes of our game, for our listeners, John and Charles, I'm about to take the money and throw it into the fireplace unless you pick one.

[01:08:22]>> That's right.

[01:08:23]>> I saola, I think. Um the saola, the Asian unicorn.

[01:08:28]>> We did a whole show on saola. We know it very well. Yeah.

[01:08:32]>> They still be there. We may still be there. We may still be >> I don't know if you know Bill Robichaud, who's a friend of Patrick and mine, but, you know, we we all share that sentiment, John.

[01:08:42]>> Yeah.

[01:08:42]>> Yeah. What about you, Charles?

[01:08:44]>> For me, you know, it I I'm sorry, but it it it's my holy grail.

[01:08:49]Always has been, the okapi.

[01:08:51]And I know there are, you know, plenty of people who've seen it, and it we know it's still there, etc., but it's this incredible animal uh related to the giraffe with this velvet skin, that's got this purple sheen on it, and uh, you just cannot get into that area. It's just too dangerous. And so, we there's a whole generation of mammal watchers who want to see an okapi. And so, as soon as that area opens up, that's where we will be.

[01:09:20]>> That's awesome.

[01:09:20]>> Nice.

[01:09:21]>> You guys, congratulations on your amazing discovery. I'm really glad that BTG connected us, um, and that we're connected now, and that we can go back and forth. We'll definitely keep in touch. Thank you for jumping on the Wild Times podcast and sharing your absolutely phenomenal, not one, but two discoveries.

[01:09:39]Um, so cool. I know that feeling, and you described it so well of finding that thing, that holy grail of rarity, that gemstone of, you know, the the mammalian kingdom. So, congratulations to you both. I'm really glad we're connected.

[01:09:53]Maybe maybe we'll get to go to Western Papua together and look for something at some point in time. And, uh, you know, congrats again, and thank you for jumping on the pod.

[01:10:02]>> And thank you so much, and I do look forward to seeing a thylacine with you.

[01:10:05]>> Yeah.

[01:10:05]>> Standing next to us, that'll be very exciting.

[01:10:07]>> Let's do it, John. That'll be a whole 'nother Ah, you're going to have to carry me out if we find that. I swear to god. Yeah.

[01:10:13]>> [laughter] >> Thanks, guys. Wonderful being on the podcast.

[01:10:16]>> Well, that was absolutely inspiring. You know, it it to me, those guys, first of all, they inspire me. I've got goosebumps right now, cuz I got so excited about their discovery.

[01:10:26]It's it's It's like what I said to them about, you know, if you had told people you were going to find the long-fingered possum, they would have said you're an idiot and laughed you out of the room, and then they came back with it. And that to me is more rare and more unlikely than a thylacine.

[01:10:39]>> And it's real, dude. Those are some real guys [ __ ] out there.

[01:10:42]>> You're right. Sorry.

[01:10:43]>> [ __ ] sending it, too. Those guys are just [ __ ] going to Western Papua.

[01:10:47]They're just out there doing the work.

[01:10:49]Going, dude. Awesome. Awesome guys.

[01:10:51]Super cool. Hey, I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast. I'm all revved up. I'm going to go do push-ups now in the parking lot.

[01:10:56]>> Oh, hell yeah. Peter, do the thing.

[01:10:58]>> Hey, um real quick. Can I do something?

[01:11:00]>> Yeah.

[01:11:00]>> Hey, we do four podcasts a month that aren't on YouTube. They aren't on Spotify.

[01:11:06]>> That's right.

[01:11:07]>> But you can get them. Just join. Do it.

[01:11:09]How do they join? How do they get the extra four?

[01:11:11]>> Uh wildtimes.club/info [music] for all that information. They actually are on Spotify, but you just got to join our club.

[01:11:20]>> Club.

[01:11:20]>> Join the club.

[01:11:21]>> Yeah.

[01:11:23]Where are you going?

[01:11:24]>> He's going to He's going to do push-ups.

[01:11:25]There you go.

[01:11:26]>> All right. Good deal.

[01:11:27]>> Dude, what a psycho.

[01:11:29]>> [laughter]