Camouflaged Animals (with 10 year old Oscar)

What camouflaged animals are making you happy today? And what camouflaged animal has three hearts and blue blood? Hear Laura and Robert choose what camouflaged animals are making them happy, a bouncy song about ghost crabs, awesome animal clues from 10 year old Graham, and an interview with special guest and anime fan, 10 year old Oscar. What animal is making Oscar happy today? Here are some clues: It has feathers, it is blue and it can swim.

The Happiest Animal Show (on Planet Earth) is a comedy podcast for kids and families who love wildlife, with original animal songs, stories, jokes and special guests from comedians to scientists to kids. If you like octopus, crabs and penguins, you might like this episode!

Full Episode Transcript Here (please forgive any typos)

And now for an animal joke. What did the polar bear eat after the dentist fixed its tooth? What did the polar bear eat after the dentist fixed its tooth? The answer is going to be revealed at the end of the episode.

But first, get your ears ready Because it’s the Happiest Animal Show on Planet Earth. The Happiest Animal Show on Planet Earth. You want to be sad? No! Do you want to be glad? No. Wait. Yes. Well, it’s the Happiest Animal Show on Planet Earth. Hello and welcome to the Happiest Animal Show on Planet Earth, the podcast that asks the very important question: . What animal is making you happy today? I'm Laura and I'm Rob, and we are a sister brother pair of zoologists, filmmakers and songwriters.

We are here to explore the wonderful world of wildlife and discover why animals make us happy. Today we have a song about an animal with claws and our very special guest is ten year old Oscar from Oregon. And our apologies to international soccer star Lionel Messi, who was going to be our guest today. But we had to bump him because Oscar was available at the last minute.

Here we go. What animal is making you happy today? I want to know the theme we gave ourselves is camouflaged animals. Animals that are good at hiding. Rob, what animal that uses camouflage is making you happy today? First clue this animal will fit in your hand. Ooh, kind of small. What's next? I have seen it in Hawaii. Okay.

And it lives on land. Whoa! Big twist. I was going to ask you if it was an ocean animal. Lives on land. Can fit in my hand. Does live in the sand. It does live in the sand. Ooh. Does have a family band. Haha. No, no, not that I've heard. Okay. It lives in the sand. Is it a kind of crab?

Oh, man, you nailed it, did I? Yeah. He got to so fast. I thought it would take you a while. Yes, it's a crab. Yeah. What kind of crab is it, a ghost crab? It is a ghost crab. Ghost crab? I think it's called the Pallid Ghost crab. Or if you're in Hawaii, you call it. Oh, Hiki. So

Ohare these ghost crabs that, you know, you think of crabs as ocean animals, but these live just above the water in the sand. They usually come out at night and feed and in the daytime to get out of the sun, get away from predators and all that. And they hide in the holes in the sand. You'd imagine if you're a crab running around on the beach, there's all sorts of birds and things I want to eat you.

So you got to be happy. You got to be good at digging, and you got to be good at hiding. So I was down on the beach one morning. I was looking for sea turtles because they'll haul up on the beach. And I wanted to go photograph and film a sea turtle. And as I was walking along, I noticed ghost crab holes in the sand.

So I laid down and I decided to wait because it was it was really early morning, and I saw these adult ghost crabs coming out, and they would kind of throw the sand out of their home like they were there. They're sleeping there, their front door clean. They would they would come out with armfuls of sand and just yeah, they would throw it and then they would go back in and get some more sand and come out.

And yeah, so it was really fun to watch them. But I noticed right next to me was a baby one and it was the most camouflaged animal I've ever seen in my life. It looked exactly like the sand, all of the different colors in the grains of sand, the white and the brown. There were even, like, little specks of red.

And this little baby ghost crab looked like a pile of sand grains. Oh, the camouflage color was so perfect it was invisible. And the whole, you know, this little baby crab was maybe the size of my thumbnail, maybe smaller. It was so small and it it was perfectly camouflaged. Wow is what is making me happy today. I bet you're so glad you didn't accidentally put your knee down on it or something.

You know? So if you want to see it grown ups, you can go to our Happiest Animal Show Instagram and check out the picture. See if you can spot this perfectly camouflaged crab. Wow! Can you describe what a ghost crab looks like? Yeah, I love ghost crabs. They don't spend their time in the water. They spend all their time on land

They need to keep their gills wet so they can breathe, but otherwise they just spend their whole day on the sand. They're really fun because they have, these two eyes that poke straight up. That's what I think of when I think of ghost crabs as our eyeballs sticking up top out of their bodies. So they could have their eyes, could be looking up over something without you seeing their heads.

Why are they called ghost crabs? Yeah. Good question. I think they're called ghost crabs because they're hard to spot. They they're camouflaged in a way so that, they're hard to find, like a ghost. And also, you know, they come out at night like ghosts. Next Halloween costume, ghost crab. Just throwing it out there for everybody. So Rob's pick was ghost crab or Ohio and Hawaiian great pit crab.

What am I gonna pick? We'll find out right after this. We fit in the palm of your hand. We live life on the land. Digging holes in the sand. We’re the ghost crab family band. We fit in the palm of your hand. We live life on the land. Digging holes in the sand. We’re the ghost crab family band. Crab claw solo!

All right, we're back. Laura, tell me what camouflaged animal is making you happy today? This animal has three hearts. Yeah, yeah. Blue blood. It is related to squid. This animal has brains on its arms and it happens to have eight arms. You must be talking about our old friend, the octopus. I, octopus? You know, Rob and I are pretty good at finding animals in the wild, but we've gone scuba diving with a guide, and I've had a guide on the coral reef point at a specific spot on the coral.

Make a little octopus shape with their hand and wiggle their fingers. So I know there's an octopus there, and I still can't see the octopus until it moves. Octopus are so good at hiding. Yeah, not only do they change their color, but they change their texture. Yeah, they just change. Like the octopus can go from smooth to spiky.

Can you imagine if you could make your skin spiky? Be awesome. And this is bizarre. It's so. It's so bizarre. And this is all to say that I wanted to set you up, Rob, for talking about the time that you were working with that octopus at the Henry Dali Zoo. Yeah, we've spent a lot of time with octopus in different ways, and one of my first encounters with an octopus, I was like, 19 years old, and I was a zookeeper and mailman.

Omaha, Nebraska, at the Henry Dali Zoo. And they had a giant Pacific octopus that weighed maybe about 50 pounds, out of the water. It was my job. I one day to go up on top of the exhibit, and, we had we took this plastic grate off the top. The plastic. Great. Was there to keep the octopus from crawling out and going and, sneaking into other exhibits and eating all the the fish and crabs and the other exhibits.

So, we took this plastic grate off, and then we were going to feed it as me and this other zookeeper, the, the octopus climbed up and slowly reached an arm out at me. And then it touched my hand and I thought, oh, wow, it's touching me. It feels so weird. And then I know that they can taste with their suction cups.

And I thought, wow, I wonder what I taste like. And then it wrapped more of its arm around my arm and I thought, oh, it must really like me. I must taste really good. And then right at that moment I realized, oh no, I've made a poor decision. And the octopus yanked, and I was flying headfirst into this frigid, cold tank.

The other, zookeeper turned around just at that moment and was able to catch me by my belt and yanked me back. And before I went into the water, he said, oh, you got to be smarter than that around these octopus. So lesson learned. Don't mess with the octopus. They are clever. You got outsmarted by an octopus.

Yeah, I, I absolutely got outsmarted by an octopus. We could talk about octopuses for hours. There's so many crazy cool things about octopuses. We've got all sorts of stories about them. But today's episode is specifically about camouflage. Laura, I think you chose the greatest camouflage artist there is. Thank you. The natural world. Good job. Before we chat with our special guest, here is another visit from the Ghost Crab Family Band

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Before we get on with the show, here's a quick message for the grownups. And we are back. It's that time in the show for the Happiest Fanimal. We're a fan like you. Give us clues for what? Animals making them happy. Today's submission is from ten year old Graham from Grayling, Michigan.

Clue number one from Graham. This animal can fly but often crashes into things, especially when landing. Clue number two this animal has a body that looks like a tiny baked potato. Clue number three this animal has six wiry legs and the answer is a junebug. June bugs make Graham happy because they make him laugh. He likes to have junebug parties at night in the summer, gathered around a light waiting to see how many will come crashing into him.

Thank you for your submission, Graham, and to all you listeners out there, what animal is making you happy today? Grown-Ups, if you or your family would like to submit a happiest animal, visit our website at Happiest Animal Show. Com. All right. Our very special guest today is Oscar from Oregon. He's an artist, a fan of Zelda and anime, and currently holds the high score for the Pacer test at his school this year with 86 laps across the gym

Oscar, thank you for joining us today. I'm so excited you're here. Yeah. Welcome to the Happiest Animal Show. So that's that's funny. All right. Oscar, Oscar's currently unable to talk and is just laughing at us.

You guys, you sound so happy. Oh, what are you. I didn't expect you guys to be, like, welcome, Oscar to the happiest animal show. Oh, this surprised by our joyful laughing? Yeah. This isn't the saddest animal show. That's a that's a totally different podcast. Oh, this is the giggliest reaction we've ever had.

Well, on the happiest day on the show, we ask a very important question. And that question is, what animal is making you happy today? Yeah. You want to give us some clues? Yeah. Okay. All right. So it's fluffy. Oh, fluffy okay. Does that mean it has fur. Not necessarily. Okay. So intriguing okay. Next clue. It's found in Australia.

It's found in Australia. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh. Soft. Fluffy. Found in Australia. Does it have a pouch? No. No pouch. Ooh. So it's the. I'm pretty sure it's the only one of its kind that lives in Australia. Is it a bird? Yes it is. It's a bird. Ooh, ooh. Interesting. Okay. Can it fly? No, no, it doesn't fly.

That does not fly. All right, let's think of Australian birds that don't fly. I think it is a type of penguin. Oh, is it a penguin? It is a type of penguin. It is. Whoa. Good guess. Rob. Nice. Is it the little blue penguin? Correct. Yeah. Oh nice little blue penguin. That's a great pick. Little blue penguin.

There are like 17 or 18 different types of penguins. Oh yeah. So why did you pick the little blue penguin is the animal. It's making you happy today. It's just blue. And it. And it lives in Australia. Like when people normally think of penguins, they think, oh, they live in the Antarctic. Yeah. Most people, most people think icebergs.

Yeah. And yeah. Cold cold swimming water and fish. Yeah. Okay. So the little blue penguin is it little and is it blue. Yeah. Do you know where the blue color comes from? Hey. The sun coming off their feathers. Yeah, it's exactly right. So it just is sort of like a shimmer on the feathers, and it's like a refraction of light a little bit.

They're adorable. Yeah. Oh, yeah. How cool is it that there's, a shimmery blue penguin out there? Yeah. That's awesome. You're an artist. You like to draw? Yeah. Have you ever drawn a little blue penguin? No. I should actually try that sometime. I got some cool painting canvases, and I should do a little blue penguin on one. Totally get a little portrait.

A portrait of little blue penguin. My body and its face. I know my face on it. Oh, now you're talking your face on a little blue penguin body with. With a rock and roll penguin head. Yeah. You were telling me one time that like penguins, when they bite, they bite. And so it's like a pinch. And then they twist.

It is. I know this because when I was a zookeeper in college for a for a summer, I worked with little blue penguins. Oh, and they are. They're very small compared to most penguins. Oh, yeah. They had these burrows in the ground. Oh, with their nest boxes where they would lay their eggs. And the moms were very protective.

And because sometimes my job was to go clean the nest boxes, they look kind of like, litter boxes, you know? And, if I reached in, sometimes I would get bitten by a very angry penguin. Oh, it hurt really bad. They're they're very good moms. They're very good at what they do. And this is, so. Yeah.

So here's my story. Oh, no, I I was really getting into it. Yeah, well, my job was to go clean the nest boxes, and they're all full of penguin poop. And I took them inside to the sink, and I was scrubbing the nest boxes, and it the water in the sink just got black with penguin poop. It was so gross.

And it smelled really bad. Very fishy, because that's what they ate. And, and the the water in the sink turned just like black with penguin poop. As I was scrubbing with my scrub brush and my soap. And, it was sloshing around and I sloshed a little too hard, you know, and a huge glob of water shot straight up into my open mouth and right down my throat.

Oh, you got penguin poop water in your mouth, I swallowed, so I have eaten. I have accidentally swallowed little blue penguin poop. And the zookeeper hacks to me. You have the DNA of a penguin. Yeah, probably. That's why. That's probably why I shimmer so beautifully in the sunlight. Okay, the zookeeper next to me looked at me and he went, don't worry, if you work here long enough, you'll swallow lots of different types of poop.

So, like, maybe I don't want to work here, then I, Oh. Wow. Oscar, thank you so much for joining us on The Happiest Animal Show. It has been an absolute delight. And I think your choice of a little blue penguin is perfect. Thank you so much for having me. It's the time we've all been waiting for to find out the answer to our animal joke of the day.

What did the polar bear eat after the dentist fixed its tooth? Do you have a guess? The answer is. The dentist.

And before we go, remember, we live on a beautiful planet. So go out and find what makes you happy today. Hey, Grown-Ups, we know you're busy, but if you like our show, we'd love for you to tell your friends and family about it. It is the best way for our podcast to grow and Grown-Ups.

You can also follow us on our social media accounts at Happiest Animal Show, or check out other fun things on our website like how to submit an animal or how to get merch. Visit Happiestanimalshow.com. The Happiest Animal Show is created by Laura Sams, Robert Sams, and Dave Cain produced by Sisbro Studios, hosted and directed by Laura Sams and Robert Sams, and written by Laura Sams.

Robert Sams with story editor Dave Cain. And with only a little help from our cat walking across the keyboard. Now let’s talk music. Original music is written and performed by zero time Grammy Award winning songwriters Laura Sams and Robert Sams, except for the end credits music which was written by Laura and Rob’s Grandma Max, and the joke answer suspense music was written by David Schultz. The theme song was written and performed by Laura and Rob and mixed by Jason Wells of Audio Wells. Thanks for listening. You are the best.