It was cool, incredibly cool to see the Tardigrade download numbers and that everybody is still interested. So, I'm really glad to be back, and I just want to get straight into this episode. So thank you, Eric, and the animals for playing me in. And now, without

further ado, I present to you the Gibbon.

Gibbons are among the most impressive athletes on Earth. But you'd never guess it, because they're also one of the silliest looking creatures in the animal kingdom. The things this animal does make all the physical feats of humans and most other animals look somehow achievable by comparison. And at the same time, their body looks ridiculous, frankly. This animal has the shaggy, fluffy hair of a Pomeranian, legs shorter than their torso, and arms so long they can touch their toes while standing perfectly upright. Today's species of Gibbon, the Siamang, fits the description I've just described but is specifically identifiable by some of the following features. First, their second and third toes are fused by skin, hence their name, Simflangas Sindactalus, with Sindactal being the condition of having fused digits. Second, they've got Jet Black Fur, the darkest of any Gibbon, and it has a remarkably shiny quality. They look like they've got conditioner in 24-7. Third, their hair tends to fall in a center part from the top of their head, and they pair this with a perfect pencil mustache over their top lip. The hair mustache combo has a very upscale European vibe. And for what it's worth, the Siamang is from the lush forests of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. Look up videos of this animal moving, and tell me they don't look manipulated. Watching this animal, doing what they do in the wild on video, my brain tells me I'm seeing CGI. If a superhero movie had a hero who could move like a Gibbon, it would take you out of the film, because it would just be too jarring, too unrealistic. It would test the laws of physics too intensely. Seriously, the way Spider-Man swings around New York actually looks more realistic than what Gibbons actually do in real life. Gibbons travel as if the goal of locomotion is to show off. They either swing from arm to arm through the trees, or they run across the tops of branches bipedal as if doing a high-speed tightrope walk. Gibbons are lesser apes, as I like to remember it, less closely related to us than all the other apes, chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans, but more closely related to us than monkeys.