Creaturekringletimes: Chill Babies!

Happy Creaturekringletimes everyone! Today on the show I'm joined by Just the Zoo of Us host Ellen Weatherford, and we talk about animals who manage to keep their babies cold despite freezing temperature! Bears, walruses, snowy owls, and penguins, all who make great sacrifices to ensure their babies survive cold weather and don't become pup-sicles. And a personal announcement from me! 

Festive intro/outro music by Aaron Kenny. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Creature future production of High Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology, and today we're talking about chill babies.
We are going to talk about how animal parents keep
their babies warm and safe and fed in pretty cold

(00:29):
environments because it's cringle times, it's winter times. How them
animals keeping those little, tiny, cute, defenseless and sometimes delicious
babies from dying in the cold. This is the theme
of this episode. You know, it's like, how did Bob

(00:50):
cratch It keep Tidy Tim alive by obviously chewing his
food and regurgitating it into his little mouth and script there.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I think no Scrooge learned to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
By the end of it he had the ghost of Christmas.
Uh food regurgitation and uh yeah. So that voice you
hear we have joining us today is host of the
podcasts Just the two of Us, Ellen Weatherford, Welcome, Let's go.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Hello, I'm back, baby back. You were rid of me.
You thought you'd heard the last of me? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:30):
I The last I saw you were you were tumbling
off of a cliff into the mists.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
So I thought that you know at long.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Last, never trust an off screen debt that'll learn you.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
So, yeah, today we're talking about we're talking about animal
parents of babies born in the cold seasons. And if
you can believe it, folks, there's actually a reason that
I picked this topic. You might have noticed this. I
want to say, seven months I have been perhaps less

(02:05):
good at updating the feed with fresh new podcasts and
been doing more listener questions. Episodes you had a little
more rerun sneaking those in a little more. Well, there
is a reason for that, folks, a biological reason.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I am having a kid.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
In h yeah, in in February, so I you.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Know, I am I.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
I It is very it's been very funny to talk
about animal offspring and then think about, you know, my
own experience this these past past months. So yeah, I
wanted to let you guys know that that is happening.

Speaker 4 (02:49):
Yay.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, I'll give you more details on programming notes and
all that later on. But yeah, I'm having a I
am now not just a host to parasites, but to
a human fetus.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
So that is it had to push the other parasites aside,
like room.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Some say some say that like it's being pregnant is
like having a weird parasite.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
It's like biologically speaking, it's not quite the same because
there is actually some uh there's a lot of consideration
actually the fetus makes to the mother because like there's
no there is definitely no advantage to the fetus hurting
the mother. It's very interesting because it is both a

(03:43):
combination of a competition between the fetus and the mother
and then also like a lot of like, uh negotiation because.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
It's a hostage situation really.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, kind of like it's it's a it's something where
you know, both parties are interested in the mutual survival
on both sort of the genetic level and you know,
like on the metal level of like I'm I want
to have a baby, and I'm sure the baby wants

(04:17):
to have a mother.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Wants to be having exactly wants to be having.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
And also that there's like an exchange also that like
in some cases, the like the fetus can actually contribute
stem cells back to the parents' bodies and like in
some ways it can like help your immune system. Yeah,
I'm not like super well versed in that. That's just
something I vaguely heard about.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, Yeah, it's I should probably do a whole episode
on this on like amniotic uh you know, the whole
the whole thing with like amniotic pregnancy in mammals and
amniotic animals where it's like you know, you uh you
kind of like your immune systems are have to work
together in some sense because like you neither want to.

(05:04):
You don't want to like have the mother's immune system
target the baby and destroy it, nor do you want
the babies to weaken the mother's immune systems so much
that she is imperiled.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
So yeah, there's a lot of there's there's a lot of.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Like weird jostling for position when you look at like
all of these sort of systems. The the the reason
we actually like amniotes animals who have the amniotic sec
and give life birth are able to do that is
I think there was like a actually like a viral

(05:40):
transfer of DNA that gave us this like type of
DNA that allowed the fetus to trick the immune system
to not attack it, because otherwise you need the barrier
of like having an egg and laying an egg because
of the like with the the amniotic sect still being

(06:03):
in the mother as your as your immune systems are
both active, right, Like, there could be a lot of
conflict and actually.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
It's like a foreign body in there.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, exactly, you do still see that.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
I think my my husband's mom soe. When my mother
in law was pregnant with my husband, she had that
problem where her immune system was like not recognizing him
and she had to take like immunosuppressants basically to not
like like like her like body was like allergic to
the baby, right, Like, that's not me.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
And that usually happens when there's a difference between blood
type uh so RH positive r RH negative. So whether
you have a negative or positive blood type, and if
that doesn't match with the baby, you can have a
lot of problems. So I actually, so I have a
negative blood type. I think if you have a positive
blood type, it generally doesn't matter, but if you have

(06:56):
a negative that the mother has a negative blood type,
it's more you're more likely to attack the fetus's immune system,
especially if there's like blood crossover for blood crossover event.
But like and then you could like develop Basically if
you have one child and you give birth and you're

(07:19):
you're of a negative blood type, in the child's of
like a positive blood type, and your uh, you develop
antibodies basically against you know this, like, ah, this is
a foreign blood type in my blood.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
I don't like that.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Exactly, And so I got a shot in my butt
of immunoprophylaxis, which is a way to prevent you from
developing these antibodies. And then it's it's less to protect
the current pregnancy, but if you ever it, it does certainly,
but like it's more for future pregnancies that like, if

(08:00):
something happens during this pregnancy where I'm exposed to the
baby's blood during I mean you certainly will be during birth,
but sometimes things can happen before then that I don't
develop that immune response. And then if I decide to
have another kid one day, then I won't my body
won't be like, hey, wait a minute, this is I

(08:22):
remember this alert.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
But yeah, So today we're talking about we're talking about
we're stepping outside of the cellular lever and we're looking
at animals who take care of their young and the cold.
And I wanted to start out with a classic cold
inhabitant inhabitants, the snowy owls. So you know these these guys,

(08:47):
these are large, large owls, white with little black or
dark brown flecks, giant eyes, big fluffy, down covered feet,
perfect forever. They look like kittie cats with wings.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
They're very cute. Their feet look like paws.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
You must call them cute. Yeah, I think they make
the definition of a pall.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah. And they live in the Arctic.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
They they hunt small animals like lemmings, uh, little rodents,
small mammals or even waterfowl.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
They can get a.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Duck if they're if they're feeling ambitious that day.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
And they uh yeah, they they're they're very good hunters.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
And they're good parents, so both the male and the
female take care of the young.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
And you love egalitarianism, yeah, but you can.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
It's interesting because they have they do have a separation
of sort of like tasks that they do.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
There's also a difference in their coloration. So males are
more of a pure white color they have a few
flecks maybe, and females tend to be more have more
of those brown or black flecks. So like if you
see a snowy al that's kind of more pure white,
maybe a few flecks here and there, that's probably a male.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
And then if you see one that's just like covered
in chocolate chips that's like probably a female. There's an
Italian gelato that looks like the snowy owl female called Strachella.
So like you know, yeah, because it's like it's basically
a chocolate chip ice cream, but it's like chocolate mixed in.

(10:28):
It's not they're not chips. It's like they put they
pour in like ribbons chocolate.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's not like cookies and cream.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
No, it's not cookies and cream. It's like it's just
like chocolate mixed in, but it's hard chocolate. So they
like pour in the chocolate like hardens and then they
mix it and so there's like flecks of chocolate allot.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
As someone who's a big fan of magic shell.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, oh you'd love it. You'd love it.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
I would love it.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
But yeah, so you know, you know in those Wizard movies,
how there's the the the the Wizard boy has the
owl headway. So in the Harry Potter movies, Hedwig is
actually played by a male owl.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Uh, Like yeah, because it's.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Supposed to be it's supposed to be a girl owl,
right like in the books.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
It's like I didn't know that, Yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Guess they liked the asthetex of them maale owls better
because they are more pure snowy white. I actually think
the female owls look a little cooler to me because that,
like bart the pattern of like again, they look like
they like like chocolate chip ice cream, very very but
like uh yeah, so Hedwig.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
I just think it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
For no reason at all that in the Harry Potter
movies Uh by a certain Joe Anne uh, the the
owl is uh is played by a male owl and
they repeatedly call a biologically male owl a female and the.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Movies not not so biology? Now are you general?

Speaker 3 (12:12):
And sounds like somebody understands gender presentation?

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Now, yeah, oh, gender dimorphism. You really think you have
a handle on that.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Do you?

Speaker 5 (12:23):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, you can always tell.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, and actually you can't. You can't with owls.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Like once in a while you'll get a get a
male owl who has more of those little sprinkles and
a female owls who has fewer of them. So you know,
even even these owls are like it's not always they
don't always exactly so, but they do take care of
their young together. So the female one of the reasons

(12:50):
she has as markings. Is probably because it's disruptive coloration.
And she will stay on the ground like they nest
on the ground, like on this tundra. And it's not
just like snow, right because then you'd say, like, oh,
they should be pure.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
White, because it's just gonna be pure white snow.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Often it's not always covered in snow, but it's like
you know, rocks and moss and all sort of little pinks. Yeah, exactly,
So like she blends in a little better, you know,
with the ground, and so she has his coloration.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
It's a similar reason.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
For why other birds are like females are often brown
or tawny or something, whereas the males are like a
flamboyant jewel tones. But yeah, so, but the male also
plays a role. He goes out and gets groceries for her,
and by groceries, I mean dead stuff and he brings

(13:48):
them back.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
So he hunts, brings them back.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Shield tear the little creatures that that he has hunted
to shreds, and will.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
He goes grocery shopping at dead got it?

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Sorry, fred Meyer is a grocery store chain.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, Okay, I didn't get it. I was like, I
show this is something.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
I don't know how widespread fred Meyer is, but it's
a grocery store here, so, uh.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
There's a Pacific Northwest thing.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
It might be, I honest to God, have no idea.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, joke, let's go. But yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
So so he's he's feeding both his mate and the chicks,
like bringing it, bringing it home, and then she's like
shredding it and stuffing it in their little mouths. She's
also uh, she's incubating the eggs with her body heat,
and then she'll keep the babies, uh, the newborn hatchlings

(14:45):
and uh up to well we'll talk more about it,
but yeah, she takes good care of them, uses her
body heat. She's very fluffy. Feathers can trap a lot
of heat, just like you know when you have a jacket,
usually it's filled with either down or synthetic dam She
built in puffer. Yeah, and she's got that like where
she's got like the outer shell of the water resistant

(15:07):
feathers and then inside more downy feathers, and then it
creates these air pockets, these hot air pockets that keeps
her warm, and then she can keep the babies warm,
even the little hatchlings that just don't have a lot
on them, but the but they'll soon develop down, which
does help them stay warm. But it's a really interesting

(15:30):
system that she has because she'll lay eggs usually maybe
like maybe one a day, maybe one every other day,
maybe Jesus Christ, Okay, maybe one a day, maybe one
every other day. But they don't all hatch at once,

(15:51):
so they uh they hatch in the order in which
they were laid. Uh so because they're because of this,
like you can have a hatchling that is much younger
than the oldest baby. So like you could have an
hatchling that's just fresh out of the egg, and then

(16:12):
a chick that is three times its size because they
like in like a week or so, they will triple
in size. So they they grow really rapidly. And so
they you'll see like a nest and you can see

(16:33):
like eggs, little white fluff balls the size of I
don't know, like a clementine, and then like these like
big fat gray chicks.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah. So it's so you can have all these.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Chicks in like all sorts of different stages of their
development in one nest being taken care of by the
parents and.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
So, and that's really cute. It's super nice to see.
It's like, you know, you see, like in a sitcom family,
you know, there's always got to be like the angsty
teenage older sibling. Yeah, and then like the mischievous middle sibling,
and then you know the maybe I don't know, shy
and a little more timid like little baby.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
It's full house. I assume I've never watched it.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
So you got it, you nail it.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, So yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
The the only co the only negative consequence of this is,
I mean maybe from our perspective of people who find
these chicks to be very cute, is that the the
older chicks do have more demand for calories, and so
if times are tough and there's not enough food to
go around, the mother will prioritize the older ones. Sorry,

(17:52):
the younger ones really get screwed in this cerea, because
like the babies of the family, the ones that are
the younger or the hatchlings will get neglected in favor
of the older ones if they need all the food.
It's sad, but it's a grim calculation of like, look,
this one is already healthy and big, and putting your

(18:15):
resources into that is a more sure bet than a hatchling,
where you don't know whether or not it's gonna do
well in the coming weeks.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Right, Yeah, the older one has already kind of made
it a little farther, like you know that, like with
every like every day, the chances of survival get a
little higher, exactly, like, well, this one's already made it
this far. It's more likely than the other one to
keep surviving.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
You can always make more.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
You can always make more.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
But you know, despite this kind of grim calculation, they
are very attentive parents that they will take care of
the owlets defend them from predators. Outlets don't fledge like
other birds who may be living in trees, right because
they live in these nests on the ground, so like
they don't have to fly before leaving the nest. They

(19:05):
can wander outside of the nest. They keep this up
for about six to seven weeks. Don't don't even don't
even not gonna.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Thinking about it. I'm thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Think about it.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
You're gonna get so many emails if I don't do
his exab it.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Anyways, they stay close to the nests so that their
mom can protect them until their flight muscles and their
feathers are developed and then they can they can fly,
but even then their parents will continue to help feed
them for about two months, at which point they learn
to hunt and then.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
They can be more independent.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
But yeah, they they're they are not just given a
sort of like really abrupt sind off. They're slowly kind
of weaned off of their parents' care and they're still
given it. Even once they can fly and they can
walk around that the parents will still be like, all right,
but this is how you like catch a mouse, like
like a cat, like a cat teaching her kittens.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
This is cat software on bird hardware exactly. I did
do a Google search for snowy owl chicks and I, mmmm,
it's not what I wanted them to look like. I
wanted them to look way cuter. They're a little scrungly.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
I love the that's the thing though. For me, love
the scrungliness.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
They're still fluffy like, they still have the fluff like.
They're still very like down they are.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
They are haunted, the haunting Victorian children of the animal world.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
I have to I'm gonna send you a link to
the picture I'm looking at so you can see the
sort of PTSD thousand yards stare that this baby snowy
Owl has. It's just that first picture on this article.
It's from the New Quay Zoo. Uh yeah, and he's
just kind of like got the eyes going in either direction.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
Well, I will say front from dead on, Like front
facing is never the most flattering angle for a bird,
so they really kind of did them dirty on this one.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah. I think it's rough.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
I think it's the best. I think this is the
best possible photo you could ever take. Uh.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
There they go from being white when they're hatchlings to
being gray and then once they get their adult plumage
and they'll go back to being white and or chocolate chip.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
It is kind of like a like a soot sprite.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Look.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, it's they're they're a little haunted looking because they
got these like yeah, they they don't quite have the
the adult plumage where they look more catlike, so they
just kind of look like us, like a little uh
little grimlin.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
It's very goblin.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, very goblinoid. But yeah, you.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Can see some very cute pictures of like this beautiful
like snowy owl with her eyes kind of closed and
you know, snowy alls have sort of like this line
of feathers from their beaks that kind of looks like
a little smile.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
It's very cute, very serene.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, and so she looks very peaceful and siren. Then
she's got her a little gremlin uh with her.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Here.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
I can don't talk to me or my son ever
again exactly.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
I sent you the picture of it.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
But she's just like, you know, like she's looking she's
looking moisturized in her lane, thriving in the baby.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Oh, she looks so proud of her awful child. She's
like it might not be perfect, but it's the one
I made.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Love you about it. This is my beautiful child.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
I think every baby snowy owl has an internal dialogue
of Eric Cartman. Yeah, oh god, what a cutie pie.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Well, that is the parenting style of the snowy el Ellen,
you got you got another another cool mom for us.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
I do well, I have a cool dad. I'm gonna
I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Pivot a little bit discriminate.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
I'm gonna pivot a little bit from my original game
plan because I think we would be remiss if we
didn't uh talk about this animal. I feel like it's
like the go to you know, cold weather extreme parent
it's even like a go to like extreme parenting sort
of thing for animals. So I we have to we're
gonna stay in the bird group, We're gonna stay in

(23:44):
the bird family, but go to the opposite pole, so
down to Antarctica. I want to talk about emperor penguins. Yeah,
let's do it, because I feel like you can't talk
about like animal parenting without talking about emperor penguins. They
are wild, and I do feel like, yeah, and there
was a period of time, maybe about what fifteen years ago,

(24:05):
where they were like all the rage, where like everyone
you know, we had March of the Penguins, had happy feet,
like they were very much like front and center in
pop culture. I feel like, but that time has passed,
so I don't know, maybe they've faded from public consciousness.
Maybe there's people out there who don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
There is Pesto. He's a king penguin.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
I think, oh, the giant.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Little baby pasto. Yeah, and then it was kind of
a meme for a while, right.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
An enormous baby, an enormous baby penguin, a king penguin,
which is the second largest penguin. The emperor penguin is
the largest.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Oh, that's right, and he was just like insanely massive.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, that's that's unit right. And he's just because they're
the king penguin. Chicks are brown before their final plume,
so it's like he was even like because I think
he was fluffier than his parents, so it looked he
looked bigger than his parents. I don't know that his
final weight was actually bigger than his parents, but he

(25:12):
just is this hulking, brown, slouching bird next to.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
The He's like elchebaca of a penguin exactly.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
But let's tell tell me about emperor penguins and in
these cool dads.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah, so I feel like we do see this. I
feel like we see it more in birds than in other,
like categories of animals. I guess where the dads are
the ones doing a lot of the childcare. Like, I
feel like we've heard about this with EMUs and stuff.
So emperor penguins, you know, are aquatic birds. They spend
most of their time in the water, but they actually

(25:49):
breed on the ice during the winter, which sounds like
that's not when you want to be doing things. It's
a pretty harsh time of year. But the reason they
do that is because during the winter, the ice is
the thickest, so the biggest, the strongest layer of ice
beneath them, so that the ice is strong enough to
support the weight of the entire colony of penguins. That's

(26:12):
a lot of penguin, and penguins are very heavy, you know,
they don't have to fly, so they don't have those
like hollow bones, so they're very dense and heavy. So
they have to stand on the ice during the harshest
part of the year, during the time when you do
not want to be on the ice, but they're doing anyway.
They're toughing it out up.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
There, so gut, I've seen them.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Yeah, they're all they're chunked up, you know, they're ready
for it. So in order to so, first of all,
the males are staying behind on the ice while the
females go off to the ocean to feed. So the
females actually lay lay their eggs on the ice and
leave them behind with the dads and the females leave.

(26:56):
So the dads stay behind with the eggs and they
have a little like pouch underneath their tummy so that
they can pull the egg up onto their feet. So
they're they're keeping the egg in place on their feet.
They have like a fold of skin that goes over
their belly. I mean, I'm trying not to call it
a pupa, but I mean I'm built in Yeah. Uh So,

(27:21):
they you know, fold it over the egg to keep
the eggnce and incubated and warm. And the males all
huddle together so they get just all i mean, like
touching each other. It is a claustrophobic nightmare.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
These are confident men who are secure in their masculinity.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
They're so cool, they're growing out. This is this is
homie time.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
This is what you just gotta keep your egg and
your fupo with your homies.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
They're they're they're literally chilling with the homies, with the bros.
Uh So, they spend the entire winter huddled together on
the open ice in these crowds of like thousands and
thousands of penguins. So if you've seen March of the Penguins,
or if you've seen Happy Feet, it is I feel
like happy Feet did a really good job. Did you
see happy Feet?

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Like happy Feet did a fantastic job of depicting this. Like, yeah,
I've rewatched that movie recently. That movie was way more
sexually charged that I remembered it being as a kid.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
I was like, oh, the female penguins that are like
shapely somehow.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, they have like an hour glass figure.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, bird, Yeah you don't have memories, so.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
That we're not.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
This does not Yes, yeah, it's weird, weirdly horned up movie.
But so the you know, the just like in Happy Feet,
the males stay behind and warm the eggs during the winter,
and they do this thing while the colony is huddled
where the individuals would kind of rotate into and out
of the center. So they make like a sort of
like hurricane of penguins, so that every penguin kind of

(29:03):
takes turns being on the outside and being like against
the harsher winds. You know. Yeah, it's penguin na though.
So the penguins that are like on the sides facing
the wind, they like shuffle around the outside of the
colony and like around to the opposite side, and the

(29:24):
rest behind them follow in a single file line. So
it makes this sort of like circular spiral shaped procession
that just kind of ensures that like no penguin is
ever on the outside the whole time, and they kind
of like even do that in Happy Feet, like they
talk about like taking turns and like you know, making
sure that everyone gets a turn on the inside. So

(29:45):
it's really really interesting. And like watching video of them
doing this from above is really cool because you can
see how they kind of like I think, like the
way that crowds, not just a penguins, but like of
people too, like begin to like follow fluid dynamics is
really interesting. Yeah, it's really really cool to watch.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, and it's probably like a I mean, it's probably
sort of an unconscious thing where it's like just this
sort of constant shuffle that uh you know, like, oh
it's a little warm over here, I'd like to shuffle
towards that.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, but that it's but they're not like.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Fu I do have to at some point have to
get back to the outside.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Right exactly, So it's not like they are fighting the
others to like, wait a.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Minute, it's really warm here, I want to stay.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting how sort of like understand like
they all kind of like seem to have this sort
of like unspoken under I mean it's unspoken. The're penguins
seem to Yeah, they're not like fighting each other. They're
not trying to push each other out of the way.
It's not like a violent thing. It's just that everyone
kind of is like, Okay, I know I'm gonna have
to have my turn on the outside, but that means

(30:49):
like when I get back around, I'll have a turn
on the inside. And the males are there for months,
for months on end, they are huddled together to incubate
the eggs, and they they cannot eat anything during this time.
They are just straight like toughen it out, hunkering down
because the egg wouldn't survive without the warmth. This is winter,
so it's like at its coldest, it's at its windiest.

(31:11):
It's really really harsh. They cannot let go of the
egg this entire time. They have to stay there. They
can't eat, they can't do anything. So then when the
mothers come back from hunting in the ocean, the mother
and the father then trade off, so she'll take the
egg and then the father can leave. He can go
feed in the ocean, and then he will come back,
and after that point they'll take turns, so it's a

(31:33):
little more egalitarian after the winter. But the father staying
behind with the egg gives the mother the chance to
go bulk up and you know, bring back some food
to regurgitate. And I was reading about how it's so
dedicated are penguin fathers, that there are many cases and
I could only find examples of king penguins doing this,

(31:54):
so I can't like confirm that this happens in emperor
penguins too, but they're like pretty closely related, so I
don't think it would be you know, unexpected if in
penguins do it too. Yeah, they're like the same thing.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
They're a little butlers.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
Yeah, so so dedicated, so locked in our penguin fathers
that in a lot of cases, male penguins would form
couples and adopt abandoned eggs. So like if there is
an egg that has been lost, or like a chick
that like maybe their mom didn't come back or something like,
male penguins just like there their drive to like take
care of eggs and chicks is so strong that they

(32:30):
will like pair up with unpaired males and and adopt
a chick or an egg. And this has happened that
zoo's like all over the world. Probably the most famous
penguin couple is Roy and Silo, who were actually chin
strap penguins, so they were not king or emperor penguins,
but they were chin strap penguins who adopted at the

(32:52):
Odensa's Zoo in Denmark, who adopted a baby chick. Roy
and Silo. They nested together as a couple for six years,
so even though they didn't have any eggs or chicks,
they were nesting together and then eventually they were I
guess they were given a like a chick to raise together. Yeah.
The chick was named Tango, and they inspired a children's book,

(33:13):
uh An Tango Makes Three, which was very a very
popular children's book a few years ago. But this has happened, Like,
that's not the only gay penguin couple. They have happened.
This happens a bunch.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, no, it's it's not like.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Just one.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
There's only two gay penguins.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Somehow there's penguin Yeah, exactly. It happens all the time.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
I was I want to say, I read an article
about a penguin that had made it with a like
a cardboard cutout of an anime girl.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar to me too, for some reason.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Was it hot Sune meku? Okay?

Speaker 1 (33:52):
I think so yeah, that there's a penguin that was
it a penguin or an albatross?

Speaker 3 (33:56):
Okay? So it's His name is grape Kun, a humble
penguin at the Tobu Zoo in Japan.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
And he.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
Was in a romantic relate, a very intense romantic relationship
with a cutout of an anthropomorphic Humboldt penguin character from
the anime series Kimono Friends. So I guess there's like
a a penguin based character in this anime and they
made a cutout of the anime girl and put it

(34:26):
in his enclosure, and he fell in love with it.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, I mean wouldn't though, really, Like, I mean, listen, look,
they just like us. They should have gotten nim a
body pillow.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
The pictures are really cute of him and his cardboard
cutout together. They're adorable. So it is it is funny
to me that, like, you know, penguins just have this
like very strong drive to like couple up and raise
a chick. Yeah, and what hold on? I had one
more thing? Also, Oh yeah, there's also I feel like

(35:01):
I see all over the internet this sort of factoid
floating around that like penguins mate for life. There's this
idea that like penguins like for you know, monogamous couples
for life, which mating for life I think is a
lot more rare in nature than people think it is.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
It's very rare like that.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
There's sometimes like when we talk about monogamy, sometimes it
just means for like a few seasons, right, but I
mean it's it happens, but yes.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
It does. Albatrosses will mate for life, Swans will mate
for life. Like there's some some you know, larger birds
that will actually mate for life as and they only
mate with the same Sandhill cranes will actually mate for
life to the point that if one of their partners die,
they might be done, Like they might not find a
new partner after their partner dies. Not all the time,

(35:53):
but like I think that's what people think of when
they think of like mating for life, which is extremely
rare in nature. So penguins don't. They will mate monogamously,
but like for the season, so like they'll have one
partner that they stay with for the season, and then
if they successfully have a chick and raise that chick.
They're more likely to return to that partner in the
next season, but it's not like they'll stay with one

(36:16):
because they're yeah, because they're like, you know what, we
did this last year and it worked out fine, so
let's just try it again. Why bother going to Yeah,
why bother trying to find a new person when I
know it worked out better with you. I worked out
it worked out fine with you last year. So they
will kind of like return to the same partner in
consecutive breeding seasons. But it's not a for life thing
that I think people like like to romanticize, especially penguins, Right,

(36:38):
they're adorable, they're cute. People want to see themselves reflected,
So I think people will will latch onto this idea
that penguins mate for life, which is a cute idea
but not really.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
And it's like there could be some cases in which
you have a penguin essentially mating for life, but it's
not it is it's not like a hard and fast rule,
And penguins don't have like a sense of morality in
that dimension, right, It's.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Like, right, like it doesn't mean anything to them, Like, yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Mean they might I think it's it's one could imagine
that they grow fond of one another, but like again,
like it's a you know, if you're like you got
you you have a situation where like you're waiting with
this egg and your partner's going off to get fish.
If they never come back, you gotta like you know,

(37:30):
be open to like finding something else, right, Like, So
it's not like I mean they're really dependable and everything
works out like yeah, maybe, but otherwise, you know, might not.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
I know, with like albatrosses, which have a similar like
one parent stays home while the other one is gone
for a long period of time, they have to kind
of like over the because they do mate like together
over consecutive breeding seasons, they will like get to know
each other to the point where like one albatross will
kind of learn how long the other one is usually gone,

(38:02):
and like they they learn how to like adjust and
they might be like, Okay, well last year my mate
was gone for like two weeks, so I know that
I can be gone for two weeks. So like they'll
kind of like adjust their timing based on how like
they know the other one. But I think with penguins,
they it's not as likely that they're going to be
with the same one for like that long. Yeah, and

(38:22):
they'll just be like, you took too long last time,
I'm not coming back to you.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Also, all but trusses have to constantly sort of like
reaffirm their relationships, so like when they like come back,
they'll do these like wild sort of like greetings and
like chest rubbies and vocalization.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Because it's like.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
They have to do that to kind of sort of
like reconnect and strengthen that bond. Otherwise, like you know,
it's not necessarily going to be you know, yeah, I
mean it's just like people, right, Like you got to
keep the love alive by like sort.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Of like screaming at each each other while you're your chest.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Another thing that I feel like happy Feet got really
right also is that the penguins do like identify each
other by their voice, right, because you imagine like when
all these penguins are coming back to the colony, they
have to pick out which male and baby is theirs,
and they are actually really good at like figuring out
which voice belongs to theirs, which I do feel like

(39:24):
is is a very relatable thing because when I am
at like you know, say I'm at chuck E Cheese
or something like that, and there's like a million squealing,
screaming children. I can tell which one is my screaming child.
Like if I hear a scream that, I'm like, that
one's mine. Or if you're out and about somewhere you
hear like a child scream, if it doesn't sound like
your child, you're like, okay, I don't need a panic

(39:46):
about that. That one's not mine. That's that's all I
had on Emperor penguins. I just I felt like we
would be remiss if we didn't talk about probably like
the champion of cold weather parenting, the Emperor pan.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Absolutely absolutely these these these uh pills.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
Oh oh, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
It didn't It didn't sound good when I said it.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
So that was I feel like I could hear the
regret as it was leading.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
Yeah, these penguin daddies also bad.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
None of this. Let's move on.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Let's move on to h Walris walrus moms. Uh So
you know Walruses, you love them. They you you put
maybe like a couple of carrots in your mouth and
you're you're like, hey, look at me, I'm a walrus.
It's highly offensive to Walruses don't do that, so I like.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
It's French fries. I'm sorry the American Washier analogy.

Speaker 4 (40:52):
But.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
We have French fries here.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
So they're these massive blubbery giants found in the Arctic
with their impressive tusks. They're pinnipeds, meaning their members of
the seal clade. Both males and females have tusks, though
the males grow theirs out a bit longer and thicker
for sexual competition, so they can fight each other and
be like, I'm I'm the big I'm the big walrus

(41:20):
on the block. They have relatively long live spans and
are slow to mature. They can reach sexual maturity at
around seven years. The males often only start mating around
fifteen years. Usually this is not because they're not sexually mature,
but because they need to accumulate mass and respect in
order in order to mate with females, and they live

(41:45):
to be about thirty years old in the wild. So interestingly,
so when walrus gets pregnant, she's able to freeze the
development of an embryo between mating and gestation order for
there to be the optimal timing for when the offspring
is born in ideal conditions with enough resources around. The

(42:08):
pregnancy itself is like not enviable. They are pregnant for
up to sixteen months.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
I think, yeah, I'm good.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Also, yeah, crazy, Actually that's more than a year. That's
like almost a year and a half of being pregnant.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, it's it's wild. I mean elephants go even longer.
But yeah, like the general the general thing is like
the bigger, the bigger the baby, the longer it takes
us longer takes to cook.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
And so she will give birth alone on an ice
floe away from the herd, which seems a little counterintuitive,
but apparently like by doing this, when she she's sort
of like out on the flow ice, she's avoiding predators
that might come and like be like, hey, there's a

(43:07):
big group of walruses. I know there's got to be
babies there. I'm going to try to go get some.
So she's kind of like on a on a boat,
an ice boat alone, and then she's yeah, and when
she fasts for a few days while nursing the newborn
pup before returning to the herd, Yeah, just really not

(43:30):
an ideal situation. I would not want to be a
pregnant Walrus.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
No, everything sounds bad.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Actually, yeah, it's pretty bad. So yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
And then also, newborns are absolutely enormous. They're already around
one hundred and fifty pounds when they're born, which is
around up to six up to seventy five kilograms. They
can whim. As newborns, they will rapidly start gaining weight

(44:04):
from very fatty, very protein rich milk from their mother's
and she's gonna be nursing him for anywhere from one
to two years. Uh yeah, so uh yeah, I just

(44:24):
did a Google search for baby walrus.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
Yeah, that's a good Google. It's a good blood.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
They're very they're very they're uh the little faces are
very wrinkly.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Yeah, they're very wrinkly. Like it's like they they they
got it's like they got born with like the amount
of skin that they're gonna need later, but like they
haven't filled it out yet, so they're just like they
look like a basset hound.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
I mean kind of like they do.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
They do gotta grow uh, pretty pretty fast.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
So they looks like their skins too big for their body.
They got it in the wrong size.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
And they've already got that characteristic bristly mustache. So they're
born looking like little old baldmin.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
Like being born with a mustache is a power move,
that's really is.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah. But yeah, they they're born struggling and wrinkly and
needing a ton of milk. Uh, and the mother will
provide and she'll not only nurse them for up to
two years.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
They do look like a little baby grandpa.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah here, baby Grandpa, have some money, grandpa. Yeah. But yeah,
they they'll they'll like stick around their mothers for around
five years. So, like, it's pretty unusual in the wild
for a parent to take care of offspring this long. Like,
there are obviously exceptions where one of them. The amount

(45:52):
of time we take care of our offspring is quite uh,
you know, quite impressive. Elephants are another one. Like, they
will take care of them for quite a long time,
and the females will actually just like stay and continue
to be, you know, in the group with their mothers
and grandmothers and aunts and sisters, et cetera, whereas male

(46:17):
elephants are given the boot like get out. But yeah,
so they really invest a lot in these giant, very
hungry babies, and I do not envy them like, there
are some there are some mothers that I envy in nature,
like kangaroos. I feel like because like I'm not someone

(46:41):
who's like I want to be a snake, lay an
egg and forget about it.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Like, you know, I like babies.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
But the kangaroos like kind of got a nice situation
going where she gives birth to like a little tiny
jelly bean that crawls into her pouch and then then
she just keeps them there in her pouch.

Speaker 5 (47:03):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Yeah, She's like, you finish this on your own time exactly.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
That sounds like a good compromise to me.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
You still get to like carry them with you and
like experience, you know, the cute holding onto the cute joey.
But like you're like, but that's your business, right, it
doesn't have to be I don't have to be involved
in the rest of it.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
I don't have to get like this enormous head somehow
outside of my pelvis that was uh that has evolved
for me to walk up, right, not for a baby
to get through.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
You think that with kangaroos, like the bouncing could help it, Like,
because because I know that a lot of times in
labor they tell you to kind of like bounce on
a yoga ball or something, because like the grabby could help, like.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Doesn't help the kings room probably doesn't need to. It's
just so so tiny like that. It's it's like a bean.
I don't I think it's all pretty. I don't even
know she knows what's going on.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Uh, but yeah, it's one of those like I didn't
know I was pregnant. Yeah, but it's like I didn't
know I had a baby.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
She can also freeze her the development of the embryo
if things are not ideal circumstances and then start that
back up. You know what once she senses like basically
it's like gonna be hormonal cues probably from her diet
and temperature stress, et cetera, that tells her body like, actually,

(48:30):
yeah we can, we can stop this embryo, you know,
without having to redo the whole process.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
You know, in humans we do this.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
But that's like a lot of early miscarriage is basically
the body is sensing that something's not ideal, and most
of the time it's some kind of genetic issue with
the with the embryo.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
It has nothing to do with like the mother's.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Behavior at all, but yeah, like these kinds of things
where like there's like these weird calculations happening in utero
where it's like, do do we proceed with baby? Do
we put the baby on pause, or.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Like you know, eject the embryo?

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Like these are these are things that are just happening
biologically as humans, Like it can be really difficult for
us because we get emotionally invested in it, but it
is a very common kind of thing that just happens
these animals. So it's like, yeah, actually, both, like I said,
both the both the walrus and the kangaroo can sort

(49:33):
of pause the development of embryo.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Which seems like a good idea, Like I'm gonna hold onto.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
This for later, right, save it for later, put it
in the fridge. Right, Do you have any more animal
parents for us?

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Ellen?

Speaker 3 (49:49):
I do. And I actually this was a really good
tie in because I want people to keep in mind
the things we just talked about with both the walrus
and the kangaroo, because I want talk about brown bears.
Brown bears, they are the big ones, the big, chunky,
well not as big as polar bears. Polar bears are
bigger than brown bears. But brown bears, especially grizzly bears,

(50:12):
which are kind of specific to areas in I believe, Alaska,
in Canada where you'll see grizzly bears. Grizzly bears are
like a subset of brown bears. But brown bears are
the very large bears that you'll see up in particularly
the northern parts of the United States in Canada. We
have them here where I live in Washington, not like

(50:32):
here here, but in Washington there are populations of brown
bears in like the Cascade Mountains. There's brown bears I
believe that have been reintroduced to California, though they were
once much more populous in like on the West Coast,
there used to be way more brown bears. Now they've
been largely extirpated. Oh, Yosemite, I know, like Yellowstone and Yosemite.

(50:53):
You'll see wild brown bears out in areas like that.
So these are the big ones. If anyone tuned into
Fat Bear Week in the fall, if you if you're
a Fat Bear Week fan, you know that brown bears
spend the late summer and early fall chunking up to
go into hibernation. So Fat Bear Week is specific to
cat my National Park, which is in Alaska where the

(51:14):
grizzly bears up there. They will like take pictures of
the same bear at like the spring when they emerge
from hibernation, when they're all so much yeah, they're so
like lanky and skinny because they just like starved for
like six months, and then they take a picture of
them at the very end of the of the summer
when they're about to go back into hibernation, so you
can see the dramatic transformation between like they get they

(51:37):
come out all skinny, almost looking like a coyote, you know,
like they come out all yeah, they're all lanky and
skinny and stuff. And then when they're by the end
of the like the summer in the early fall, by
like September ish, they are round, spherical, assume, a perfect

(51:58):
sphere of a bing.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Like I don't understand how their legs are supporting this bulk.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Yeah, they are really really hefty. And I think also
what a lot of people don't know is that when
when when bears go into hibernation, they're not it's not
really like a full hibernation in the sense that the
bear is like a sleep that whole time. It's it's
more of a state called torpor where their metabolism slows

(52:25):
really really slows down, like really really far. They you know,
their heart's not beating very fast. Their heart is usually
beating like less than ten times per minute. They are
conserving er. They're in power saving mode basically like basically
very basic body functions, only they can they can move
around a little bit, but not that much, but they

(52:47):
can like get up and go to the bathroom. They
can do basic body functions, including giving birth. So the
mother bears will give birth in their den during this
period of hibernation, which kind of sounds counterintuitive because most mammals,
especially give birth in the spring when that's when things

(53:07):
are starting. You know, you're getting more food opportunities, things
are coming out of hibernation, like spring, makes the most
sense to have a baby. But bears are usually brown.
Bears are usually giving birth in their dens during like
January and February, which seems like the worst time to
be doing that for me.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
I'm happy about it because I'm probably it's gonna be
January or February for me because I'm I'm definitely more
of a cold weather bear than.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
You can get bundled up. Yeah, you could like, yeah, as
someone who was pregnant in the summer, No that sucks.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Yeah, No, I'm not do not do not envy that
at all.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
So I'm gonna be eating a ton of salmon, putting
a ton of salmon straight from the river and getting
real bulky and then like form a fecal plug or something.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
So the and also like nursing a baby is metabolically expensive.
You're spending a lot of your fats and proteins on
making milk for the baby. So you know, babies usually
are kind of born later in the spring, but brown
bears are giving birth in the dead of winter. And okay,
so what you talked about for the walrus, right, typically,

(54:20):
like the bigger the animal and the bigger the baby,
the longer you're gonna be pregnant with it, the longer
you're gonna have to spend feeding it and stuff. So,
and brown bears are huge. They are up to you know,
four or five six hundred pounds, massive, massive bears, and
you would expect them to have very very large offspring too,
But the cubs are only like a pound when they're born.

(54:43):
And brown bears they're so good little beans and.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
The nub and they're just like kind of like little nubbuns,
like they don't they're so nothing.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Yeah, they're just little little teeny popcorn chicken guys. And
and the bear is only pregnant with them for like
kind of close to a human gestational period. It's like
closer to that sort of thirty to forty week mark,
which is, you know, for a massive animal, that's pretty
unusual that they But what they're basically doing is they're

(55:16):
kind of taking the kangaroo path of instead of letting
the baby develop entirely inside of their body, they're giving
birth to the baby when it's not very well developed,
it's very very early in their development. But they're kind
of using the den as an external womb. So whereas

(55:37):
the kangaroo has a built in pouch that the baby
can can be safe and warm in while they continue
to develop, the bear is kind of using the den
as like an extension of its sort of womb. So
the den is keeping the baby protected and warm, and
I think kind of taking a lot of that, taking
a lot of the demands of pregnancy off of the

(55:58):
mother so that she can continue to use her fat
reserves to both feed her cubs and keep herself alive
because like keep in mind, she also has to go
with no food for like six months while also feeding cubs.
So I think that the using the den to kind
of like offload some of the demands of pregnancy and

(56:18):
you know, having a newborn cub.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
But like keeping it warm, keeping it there regulated it's
not all your body temperature having to do this.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Right, Yeah, So she kind of uses the den to
alleviate some of the strain of pregnancy so that she
can you know, do it during that really harsh time
of year. And then by the time they're ready to
come out in the spring, which is only just like
four or five months later, so you have to move,
like you got to be ready, yea. And the cubs
have grown about ten times their birth weight in about

(56:48):
five months, so they usually will be up to like,
you know, ten to fifteen pounds when they're ready to
leave the nest in there and they're like walking and
ready to follow their mom. They can kind of keep
up with her. So that was just like the.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Most adorable the most adorable baby sort of walk. I
feel like baby bears just the awkwardness of it.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
They have their like feet at a ninety degree angle
and like they haven't quite learned how to bend their
elbows correctly yet, so they're just you know what I
think movie I think captured the baby bear walk so
well was Brother Bear. Yeah, yeah, the Brother Bear gets
baby baby Bear walk down really well.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
It's not like I feel like it's kind of not
a super appreciated Disney movie because it's.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Like it's a deeper cut.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
Yeah, it's like not it's not as much of a
classic as the other one's.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
I liked it, but the.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
Very well animated the bear.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Animation is insane. It was so good.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Actually, the the guy did that I think was his,
and he did a recent one called a snow Bear.
I think you can find it on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
Couldn't get an enough of those bears.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Yeah, Aaron Blaze, you're right, uh and uh yeah, he
once again nails bear animation.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
It's nobody does bears like this.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Nobody does bears like this guy. It's like a short.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
It's like a eleven twelve minute short animated thing, so
you can watch it over breakfast. But yeah, it's it's
it's very good. It's a it's very cute. It's speaking
of speaking of cold cold bears. This I think this
is like these this is a polar bear that he's

(58:33):
he's animating, and it's it's very very cute, very deeply
touching animation. But again, like getting the getting the animation
of the bear movement is uh, you know, I think
they just like watched hours and hours and hours and
hours and hours.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Oh for sure, bears moving for sure.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
Oh what a hard job that must be having to
watch just adorable little bears toddling around. But like, I
feel like how much they fast forward, Like growth is
so impressive by the fact that, like, because I'm imagining,
like if our babies grew by ten times their birth
weight in the first like five or six months, Like
can you imagine you know that?

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Mother, I'm going to law school.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
You know those like pinteresty little like photo shoots that
people do with the little signs that'll be like four
months old, five months old, it's like one of those,
but the child is like fully like eighty pounds and sprinting.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
I require more calories, mother.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
I hunger. I had My first baby was ten pounds
four ounces. Ooh, so I simply can't imagine.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Yeah, my, my, my, I don't know if this is something.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
I feel like I've talked about this before.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
My my husband is enormous in the sort of in
his altitude, and I keep back as the guy to
collogists like like how big is it now? Is it
like normal size?

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Because I'm just like, well, they lied to me, because
when I was pregnant with my first one, they kept
telling me like, oh, yeah, like eight pounds, he'll be
like normal size. And I'm like, I don't think you checked,
like because I was but big babies run on my
run on my side of the family. I was like
a nine pound baby. Uh, there's been you know, ten

(01:00:27):
plus pound babies for multiple generations in her family. And
I asked, and I was I was nineteen when I
was giving birth, and so I was like, can you
guys please check? Can you let me know what I'm getting?
And they didn't really like measure or anything. They would
just kind of like feel my belly and they that
seems like, yeah, very scientific, So you're like, yeah, it

(01:00:47):
could be like eight ish pounds as fine. And then afterwards,
when after giving birth and they actually checked and weighed him,
they were like, oh, he's ten pounds four ounces, and
the doctor because because I was so young, you know,
giving birth. The doctor was like, I'm sorry, if we
had known that was going to happen, we probably would
have recommended a C section. That's actually crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
And you asked many times.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
And I'm like, I did specifically ask.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Yeah, I got so like we got gens going in
both directions because like in my family, we've generally like smaller,
normal sized babies and small, smallish heads, and then on
bread side of the family, big babies with big heads.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
So it's like, you know, it averages out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
That's what I hope.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
That's exactly how jeans work. It's just that you add
them up and you divide them by two and then you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Have it's to mean exactly exactly. Yeah, but like.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
What if what if huge baby tidy head?

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
That would be interesting. I'll go to Tyler rinkis of
a baby?

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
This is very strange, littlemunculous.

Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
Look up, Look up, K Tyler Rincus, real.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Quick, Tylo Rincus. Who what is this?

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
C O t y l O r h y n
c h u s. Look up to K Tyler Recus
real quick.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
It's like a dinosaur.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
It's I think it was a synapsid. I don't think
it was a dinosaur. It was like one of those
early like I shoot offs that later became Man, that's
my boy, that's my beautiful son. You're gonna be the
snowy owl smiling next year.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
I will love my nub headed son with the giant,
the giant reptilian body.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
My barrel shaped, yeah, barrel and tetrapod.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Uh. I mean you may not like to hear this,
but this is peak form. This is this is actually yeah,
this incredible, incredible. It's like a yeah, it's like a turtle,
but everything is flesh, like the shell is flesh. That
everything's flesh. Uh, it's a flesh turtle.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
A turtle that forgot about shells.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
A giant, round barrel chested flesh turtle.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
That's your boy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
That's my boys, that's your that's your that's your little son.
More we go. We do.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Got a play a little game called Guess you squawk
and the Mystery Animal sound game. Last time, the hint
was this, Uh, something is lurking in the cold waters
in the depth and it's adorable.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
All right, Oh you got any guesses?

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
That was the deck of the Star Trek. That was
the USS enterprise. It was the background music that they
play in like Star Trek. Yeah, episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Yeah, space noises.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
Yeah, that was some space noises, some bleeps and bloops,
some spaceship sounds, some onboard computers. You know what. I
think we did an episode maybe like a year or
two ago, on Ross's Seal, and I feel like they
made this exact sound or something very s because I

(01:05:00):
remember it being described as a siren like sound. Some
of that sounded like an ambulance siren. So I'm gonna
say Ross's Seal, That's what it sounds like to me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
You are so agonizingly close. This is a man, it
is a seal.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
This is a wettle seal.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
That was gonna be my next like if it wasn't
the Ross's Seal, if that was gonna be my next thought.
But it was like it sounds so close.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Yeah, it's it's very similar. They are found in Antarctica
and they hunt fish in the water under the ice.
They have a thick layer of blubber so that they
can stay warm, and they make these weird alien sounds.
A lot of the frequencies outside of our hearing range,
and we're not exactly sure why they do this. It

(01:05:46):
could be just communication among them. There's like a theory
that it could be a sort of form of echolocation
where they listen for the echoes off of the ice,
but there's not that. That's never been proven, so we
don't know. Maybe they're just playing aliens.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
It could be like I'm a spaceship whoa we? So
we don't know exactly why.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Probably communication, possibly a form of being able to detect
where the ice is, but again that's like a that
is not that is not proven there. I don't believe
there's been evidence of that other than it seems like
something they would do.

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
Have you because you were talking about Walrus's earlier, have
you heard some of the sounds that Walruses make?

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
I believe so, but I want to know what specifically, because.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
All of the sounds that they make are very strange.
One of the ones that they make that this one
actually reminded me a lot of that. I thought it
may have been early, like early in the clip, is
that they make a bell clanging sound nice like I
don't know how they make it. They make it. It's
in their throat. They're doing something in their throat and
it echoes in the water in such a way that
it really it sounds exactly like like one of those

(01:07:01):
big bronze bells, Like it sounds exactly like a beldar shows.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Yeah, all right, I see e T.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
The walrus practices his vocalizations at Point Defiance Zoo Aquarius.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
That's my zoo. Baby, it's in Tacoma. I was just
there a couple of nights ago.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
Let's let's play the let's play some of this.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Yeah, because this is so This is from the Point
Defiance zooa aquarium.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
They're in Tacoma, Washington.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Represents uh and he's a thirty one year old Pacific walrus. H.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Let's let's hear.

Speaker 4 (01:07:35):
Him for Butter's well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Wow, incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
It's hard to hear when they're out of love.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Yeah, I'll crank it up a little bit so that
you can. You guys can hear it a little better.
But yeah, that is that is wild. Also, just like
watching this video, their eyes are so weird. I don't
think about it that their eyes are so weird. Looking
looks like it anymoment it does.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
They look like pugs. They look awful and the and
their lips are so much fleshier than you think they are.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
It's just they're a nightmare creature. They look like they're
one sneeze away from their face exploding.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
And and and that whistle sound too. When they do
that at the zoo, you can hear it all over
the place, like you can hear it from like the entrance.
And if because I hear them do this whistling a
lot when I'm visiting the zoo, and now that I've
visit did a few times and I've watched them in
person do this whistling sound, I know what they are.
But like if if you have not seen them do

(01:09:07):
this before, if you don't already know that that's what
they say. It sounds like like a train whistle or something,
and nobody knows what. Like everybody's always like, what was that?

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Well, yeah, you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
Wouldn't think it was a walrus train whistle sound.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Well, they're essentially trains, the train of the sea exactly.
All right, onto this week's mister annimill sound. The hint
is this merry creature crankle times, folks.

Speaker 5 (01:09:35):
Ah ah ah ah ah huh.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
So you know one of those like little toys where
you shake it and it goes pop pop pop pop.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
That's a that's a man, that's a grown man. It
sounds like one of those dog toys, like the pig
shaped dog toy that when you squeeze it it makes that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
Kind of like yeah, exactly, wock bong sook uh gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
I mean it sounds like some kind of duck, like
some sort of weird like like a goose or a
duck or something.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
Sounds like you step, like someone stepping repeatedly on a cube.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):
I mean I have to meta game a little bit
and use the clue to think that, Like, if it's
a festively themed animal, my only thought would be like
or something like that. So based on the sound, I
would have to go with some kind of goose or
a or a swan.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
Perhaps, Oh you were you were right with your first guess.
Oh it is that we'll bleep it out with like
I don't know, a festive quack, but but with the
festive goose. Maybe it's maybe it's the Maybe it's the

(01:11:05):
goose that Scrooge asked that boy to you and he's like, boy,
what day is it?

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Why it's Christmas?

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
Suck?

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
And it's like, get a giant goose that makes this.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Sound I know, just the buttons uck. Well, thank you
so much for joining me today. Where can people find you?

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
Yeah, I'm on Just the Zoo of Us, which is
a podcast on the Maximum Fun Network. It is also
family friendly, so if you listen uh with young folks
in the car, this would be a great one for that.
I also have another podcast called Spellbound and Gag that's
about weird and spooky and gross stuff in science and history.
That one is not family friendly, so please uh grown

(01:11:48):
ups only for that one. Family, Yeah, leave your family
and come listen to my podcast. And I believe Katie's
been on both of those pots. I have a rate
entry point either way. Yeah, so that's just the zoo
us dot com. If you want to learn more about
the show, or just look up Spellbound and Gaged. I

(01:12:09):
don't have a website for that one yet.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Yeah, it's you know Internet.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
You just say it, Say it to your say it
to your computer, and they'll.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
Take you there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
Yeah. The the the AI programs that are listening to
us all. Actually, if you just say it out loud
or probably just even me talking about this right now,
you can get a sponsored ad for it. I don't
sponsor any ads. So if you get a sponsored ad,
that would be really weird because I'm not the one
paying for it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
Well, but it's the AI is making money. Yeah on
you cloned you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
Well. Happy holidays you guys, Thank you so much for listening.
I probably will need to uh take uh the holidays off,
might do feel little.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Uh crangled times rerun. Uh we will see. I am.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
I am currently uh sharing my uh nutritive and bodily
functions with another rapidly growing individual, and so that does
sometimes interfere with my release schedule.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
Bro I'm just stating right now, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Just stating, I'm brooding, and I'm just stating, and it's uh,
you know, it's a it's an interesting process, and I
am I am. I'm sort of somewhat at the mercy
of the whims of this uh new homunculus.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
So we'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
But if I don't, if I don't uh uh see uh,
which I do right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
Now, I can see all of you. It's wild. It's
a wild experience.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
She sees you when she's when you're sleeping.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
And I know when you're awake.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Uh, I know, I do like both bad are good
and my I have sort of a rubric very complicated
moral framework for determining badness and goodness.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):
It's a and it is a binary.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Actually it is like you think that like it's a
it's a mathematical formula, and I can determine within two
decimal points like how like that you are just irredeemably
bad or you know, solidly good, and you'll either get
worms or.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Slightly better worms mealworms.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Right, meal worms or you know intestinal parasites.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Uh, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
Guys, naughty children get the intestinal paraces, not.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
Cause children get round worms and mems.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
All right, guys, enjoying the holidays, Thanks for listening. Uh
Happy creature kringled times to you stay warm out there
or cool?

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
I don't know. I can't. I can't tell you what
to do.

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):
Regulate at your pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Thermal regulate to the ideal temperature, find homeostasis. And thanks
to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Alumina.

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Kay guess what?

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
Whoever you listen to your favorite shows.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
I'm not your mother, you know I would know I
think I would know, so I can't tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
What to do, but I can't tell you that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Hey, if you're uh, if you're gonna be old baby,
make sure that your mother does rip up your carrion
into edible shreds, because you know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
No choking.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
You don't want to choke on carrion. Always good to
take small bites of carrion.

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):
Enjoy your regurgitation.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
Enjoy your regurgitation or your egg or your gurgetated eggnog.
Whatever is working out for you. Yes, see you next Wednesday. Guys,
Happy holidays.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
Thanks thanks for having me. Also, Katie, good to talk
to you again.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
Yeah you too. Bye